From Gila Swirsky

Friends,

All sorts of good work is being done is Israel these months, inspired by the misbehavior of our Prime Minister and his government, but I thought I would tell you briefly about one activity on Sunday, 3 days ago (the letter was received on 12/31 EST)

Have you heard about the incidents of 17 Palestinian women in Hebron who have been strip-searched by Israeli police looking for weapons? B'Tselem did excellent work in learning about this, documenting it, and publicizing it.

On Sunday,40 Jewish women went to Hebron for a solidarity visit with two of the Palesinian women who had undergone this. The B'Tselem fieldworker took us to the house of two of the victims and their families, with their prior agreement, of course, and we sat on their large balcony as they describe the event:

Israeli police entered their home, forcing the women to undress completely, doing body searches for weapons. They were policewomen who conducted the searches, although in 2 homes,policemen were also present during the undressing. No weapons were found anywhere, and no men were told to undress.

This was clearly a case of harassment. We expressed our anger and shame to the women, and they were quite amazed that we had come out there just to say these things to them. In the next room, there must have been 15 children, the little ones terrified of all the Israelis in their house, so I spent my time findng ways to get close to them, being playful in my broken Arabic. On the balcony, I heard one of our women take a scarf off her naeck and place it on the woman telling her story and embrace her. Another removed a dove of peace pin and placed it on the other Palestinian woman. The ice broke, and soon the women were exchanging all sorts of talk,and the baby ( who had also been strip searched for weapons!!) was being passed from lap to lap, and we ate tangerines and sipped sweet dark coffee, and tried to dissipate some of the bad feelings. It was good we made the visit. As we were leaving, the children came over to me shyly, one by one, and shook my hand.

This was, I should add, in addition to all the good work done by the B'Tselem human rights organization to document and publicize these incidents, and the work by Bat Shalom to meet with the Minister of "internal security" (which includes the police)- who denied that this this was a police policy (17 cases in 3 months is not policy?) - and the women Knesset members from the left, who lodged forma complaints.

Everyone is keeping up the pressure in all sorts of ways. Do not despair. 1996 was a hard year for people of peace in Israel and Palestine - the five bombings, the elections, the tunnel incident, the balking on the peace process. But there is greater appreciation among the people on both sides for the need for peace. The wall of opposition to a Palestinian state is already seriously eroded. As I write this, 10 minutes before 1997 Israel time, I am convinced that the coming year will bring people into the camp of those who view peace as inevitable. And the leaders, as usual, will be running to keep up.

Best wishes for peace, inside and out, to all of you,

Gila

Gila Svirsky

Gila Svirsky is a member of Women in Black, an Israeli peace group, and has chronicled the history of that group in a book now seeking a publisher.

Previously from Gila Swirsky Hebron is a Town without Pity