Thousands of women joined a grassroots organization called Women Wage Peace and marched on the Israeli Knesset today, chanting and carrying signs urging a peace agreement with the Palestinians. They listened to “alternative” speeches that decried the message of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress.
The group, which formed last year after the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, includes Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, secular and religious women alike.
“We’ve suffered through enough wars,” said Irit Keinan in one speech. “Two weeks ahead of the elections, we’ve heard no word on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
One of the rally coordinators, Lily Weisberger, told the Jerusalem Post that the women, who arrived on dozens of chartered buses from as far as Sderot and the Golan Heights, are exasperated by the ongoing conflict.
“We want to bring peace,” she said. “We are tired of war; we are tired of despair.”
Women Wage Peace organizes through a Facebook page that has more than 10,000 likes. (They also host a Page in English)
(WATCH the video below from i24news, or READ the story – scroll down – in the Jerusalem Post)
Photo credit: Women Wage Peace