Anne-Marie Slaughter and Xanthe Scharff at Project Syndicate: On July 19, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that negotiations on an agreement to release hostages held in Gaza and establish a ceasefire are nearing the finish line. Such an agreement is long overdue and could lay the foundations for a peace settlement. But to build peace, rather than simply declare it, policymakers must engage a wider range of actors, starting with women.
Fortunately, this process is already underway, according to Israeli peace activist Yael Braudo-Bahat, who met with US officials on May 30. As the co-director of Women Wage Peace, a powerful grassroots peace movement in Israel with more than 50,000 members, Braudo-Bahat moves in lockstep with her Palestinian counterpart M.H. (who goes by her initials for security reasons), the co-founder of Women of the Sun, a peace organization with more than 3,000 members in the West Bank and Gaza.
The two organizations are working together to advocate a non-violent resolution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, notably having held a mass demonstration to demand an end to the cycle of bloodshed mere days before October 7. Two of their founders were included in Time magazine’s 2024 women of the year, and their work has earned them a joint nomination for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize and an endorsement from the Pope. Still, the Gaza war had been raging for eight months before US officials invited either organization to give a briefing on their shared Mothers’ Call declaration, which supports a political solution to the conflict and women’s inclusion in peace talks.
These peace activists have built momentum. On May 29, Palestinian organizations that have women in prominent leadership roles convened in Ramallah to join forces in calling for peace. And on July 1, dozens of Israeli organizations, including Women Wage Peace, held a massive peace rally in Tel Aviv, helping end a decade of political division within the movement.
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