Blossoms on the Olive Tree Israeli and Palestinian Women Working for Peace

Subjects:

• Women's Studies » Women's Studies (General)
• Multicultural Studies » Middle East Studies

Reviews:

• Powers had done extensive research in South Asia before her first trip to the Middle East in 2002. On that trip and later ones, she met Israeli and Palestinian women who were articulate, effective organizers, and committed to building personal and organizational connections to prepare the way for peace. Here she offers a collection of stories and essays describing the women she met and their peaceful responses to the hatred and violence in the region....[t]he book is a humane and moving presentation of women managing to work with courage and optimism for a better world. Libraries will want to make this volume available for readers seeking the human side of the harsh news from the Middle East.
  —Library Journal May 15, 2006
• US scholar Powers recounts recent grassroots efforts by Israeli and Palestinian women to educate themselves and their societies about building peace and solving problems nonviolently in the region. The author bases her study on research in 2002-05 in Israel and the occupied territories, including interviews, participation in demonstrations, and observations of the work of NGOs, feminist organizations, female politicians, and women's wings of political parties. She includes women's life histories and the testimonials of activist women among Israelis and Palestinians, demonstrating the difficulties of life for both sides because of the long-term military occupation of Palestine, human-rights violations, the new separation wall, and the violent political context. However, Powers never forgets the asymmetry of power between Israelis and Palestinians. The author bases her analysis on notions of women's marginalization, the way women are excluded from decision-making processes, and a context now allowing women an opportunity to engage in peace-building efforts. The volume includes photographs of key interviewees. The study's best feature is the way the author includes the human dimensions of the struggle for effective participation in the emerging binational dialogue. Recommended. All academic levels/libraries.
  —Choice February 2007
• Janet Powers....[o]ffers an American academic's account of living and engaging in dialogue with Palestinian and Israeli women who have been pushing for dialogue and peacemaking across the Israeli-Palestinian divide....The result of her time spent in the Middle East is a collection of stories and essays describing how inividual women and NGOs struggle to offer peaceful responses to conflict, violence, and hatred....The book also discusses numerous other gendered and nongendered peace and justice organizations among Palestinians and Israelis.
  —Journal of Palestine Studies Summer 2007
• [A] collection of stories and essays about the work that Israeli and Palestinian women are doing, in spite of societal restraints, to engage in bi-national dialogue. The first section introduces four organizations that work to bridge the divide between Israelis and Palestinians. The second section depicts the daily lives of Israeli and Palestinian women. The third section focuses on some of the peacebuilding organizations formed by women. The book concludes with a compelling argument in favor of including women at the peace table.
  —Middle East Journal Summer 2007
• Powers has gathered the stories of ordinary women on both sides of the Separation Wall and the even deeper political divide between Israelis and Palestinians. Working at the grass roots and primarily amongst other women by societal mandate as well as by preference, the women are engaging in peacemaking while also carving out a political space for themselves as Jews, Muslims and Christians. This is also a personal account of how an American woman perceived women whose experiences were so different, yet in some ways the same, as her own. Powers closes by advocating enforcement of UN Resolution 1325, which requires the presence of women at the highest levels of peace negotiations.
  —Reference & Research Book News August 2006

• Endorsement From Michael True
  International Peace Research Association Foundation
  Emeritus Professor, Assumption College: Many remarkable stories about peacemaking--accounts of nonviolent problem solving and conflict transformation--remain unrecorded, depriving us of examples of ordinary peoples achievements around the world. Because she pays close attention and because she is an experienced peacemaker, Jan Powers recognizes the vibrant and courageous individuals and communities among Israelis and Palestinians who refuse to be enemies. Living among them, she learned how they help to heal a wounded world and to build a civic culture. Powers' informed, readable story about the role of women in a region where high-level peace-building has had a sporadic history at best" deserves a wide reading public.
• Endorsement From Clarence Musgrave
  Minister of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian)
  Jerusalem: It is hearing the stories of real people which brings alive the dryness of statistics and the coldness of official reports. The genius and skill of Janet Powers is to enable us to share in the experiences of women from Israel and Palestine, as they struggle with all the restrictions imposed on them by the political and religious systems within which they live. With clarity and sensitivity she let these women speak, and the honesty with which their stories are recorded will challenge all of us, and the clichés behind which we often take refuge.
• Endorsement From Dr. James J. Zogby
  President
  Arab American Institute: Blossoms is a story worth telling and the women we meet here are worth knowing. As militarized theocratic chauvinism of many stripes gains ground throughout the Middle East, Janet Powers's remarkable women appear all the more heroic. They deserve our understanding and support.

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Extending the Olive Branch
• Israeli and Palestinian Women in Dialogue
• Ruth's Story
• Nazmeih's Story
• Living in a Time of Conflict
• Refugee Camps and Kibbutzim
• A City Divided: Jerusalem, West and East
• Tales of Two Cities: Ramallah and Tel Aviv
• Bethlehem, Haifa, and Hebron
• Defining Political Space
• Rebels in the Knesset and Out
• Patiently Preparing for Statehood
• Running for Office on Both Sides
• Finding Room at the Peace Table
• Works Cited