Thousands of Israeli and Palestinian women marched through a biblical desert landscape, converging on the shores of the Jordan River, in what they declared was “a march for peace.” The women, many of them dressed in white, descended through the arid hills leading to the river, where they erected a “peace tent” named for Sarah and Hagar, scriptural mothers of Ishmael and Isaac, the half-brother patriarchs of Muslims and Jews. Huda Abuarquob, a Palestinian participant of the march and the regional director of the Alliance for Mideast Peace Organization said, “I am one of the Palestinian women who are participating here today, we are supported by the president, Mahmoud Abbas, to spread our voice all over the world with the activity organized by Women Wage Peace. It is an Israeli women organization that was established by women who need it because they refuse war, death, and refuse to neglect the other,” she said, while Vivian Silver who is an Israeli participant of the march and a member of the Women Wage Peace organization said, “We are organizing women from all over the country, from every side of the political spectrum, who are saying: “Enough! Maspik (Hebrew for enough)”, in Arabic it’s Makkafi. Enough. We are no longer willing to do this, we must reach a political agreement, we must change the paradigm that we have been taught for seven decades now, when we were told that only war will bring peace. We don’t believe that anymore, it’s been proven that it’s not true,” she declared
Some 5,000 women participated in the march, which began last month at several locations across Israel and culminated in a rally outside the Jerusalem residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.