| Haifa, Israel Gathering
The Gather The Women event at Haifa University on March 8, 2004,
to celebrate Women's International Day, was an inspiring, awesome
and very successful meeting of more than 150 women (and some
men). All the various programs and roundtables were carried
out in the way they were planned, from 9.00 am to 20.00 pm,
in a spirit of dedication, hope and love. Near the end of the
evening, an Israeli - Palestinian women choir sang peace songs,
dedicated to mothers who heal the world. The singers had beautiful
and moving voices and magic words based on poems created by
women poets. Their messages brought hope and joy into the hearts
of all. Shulamit Aloni, former Minister of Education and
Culture in Israel, said: "Let us remember that we women,
are 52 % of the Middle East, and of the world, and if we unite
we can democratically promote peace in our region, and in
our global village." Several resolutions were taken in
this spirit.
Among them, were the following 3 suggestions on how Israeli
and Palestinian women, if united and working all together
, can have a powerful impact on promoting peace, and stopping
the bloodshed between Palestinians and Israelis.
The Three Resolutions were:
1) Women should be knowledgeable in modern
Technology, especially the Internet, and use it to network
for peace. Men can destroy the world today by just pushing
a button, and we women have to create a Middle East and
a world beyond war and violence by pushing all our buttons
for the repairing of our ailing blue planet, with our values
of care, love of humanity, and our deep peace- yearning.
2) Another effective possibility for women
to counteract the Culture of Militarism and the Culture
of Violence, is to join GTW: Gather the Women and to take
part in the 2004 Gather the Women Congress in Dallas, Texas
(October 14-16), as well as to help the WSPN project: The
Women's TV by Satellite Peace Network. A description of
this promising and revolutionary initiative can be found
on the following Homepage: www.ada.up.co.il
3) The meeting resolved to adopt the following
Petition against TERROR and the glorification of suicide
bombings, and to send it to all our acquaintances.
Dear Sisters,
I therefore ask you to please sign the crucial Petition below.
Kindly send it to all your friends and ask them to sign it
and to send them on to their own friends, relatives, colleagues
and list - serves. The more signatures we have the more impact
we can make to stop global terror and suicide bombings.
THE GREAT DANGER OF GLORIFYING SUICIDE BOMBERS
http://www.petitiononline.com/IFLAC100/petition.html
We all came back from the "Voice of Their Own"
GTW Meeting, with strengthened sisterhood ties, and much confidence
that women, actively working in unison,can indeed repair the
world.
With warmest wishes to all,
Ada Aharoni
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