Kirjahaku

Blossoms on the Olive Tree is an American woman's account of work that Israeli and Palestinian women are doing to educate themselves and their societies about militarization, human rights, women's rights, and the democratic process. The book highlights women on both sides of the political divide who reach out to each other, engage in bi-national dialogue, and challenge ongoing violence.Blossoms on the Olive Tree is an American woman's account of work that Israeli and Palestinian women are doing to educate themselves and their societies about militarization, human rights, women's rights, and the democratic process. The book highlights women on both sides of the political divide who reach out to each other, engage in bi-national dialogue, and challenge ongoing violence. Despite severe societal restraints in carving out political space for themselves, women in both societies have devised creative opportunities. Powers documents the women's working committees attached to Palestinian political parties and the creativity of Israeli women striving to civil-ize their society. Ironically, it is their marginalization that offers women space to engage in their peace-building efforts. The book ends with a clarion call for the implementation of UN Resolution 1325, which requires the presences of women at the highest levels of peace negotiations. Women, with their commitment to reconciliation and healing, bring a significant vision to the enterprise of peace-building, and Powers suggests that it's high time they be taken seriously.In the course of researching this book, Powers stayed in Jewish homes, Muslim homes, and Christian homes, observing women going about their daily tasks. She shared Shabbat dinners and Christmas dinners, Muslim family celebrations, herbal tea and Arab coffee, benefiting from extraordinary hospitality, and learning that Israeli and Palestinian are more alike than they are different. Like women everywhere, Jewish and Arab women care deeply for their children, put up with anger and abuse from their husbands, and try to negotiate a path between societal expectations and personal convictions. Virtually all of them yearn to live in peace, to raise their families without fear, and to enjoy the small pleasures of life without anxiety for the future. These are their stories, and they impart a measure of humanity to the occupation, the Separation Wall, and living with the fear of suicide bombings that is difficult to glean from nightly news reports. Most important, these remarkable women are succeeding in changing from within the way in which their own societies think about themselves.

Hindu nationalists in the west Indian state of Gujarat repudiate the pluralist vision of Gandhi and Nehru and foment state-sponsored violence and ethnic cleansing against Muslims and Christians. In 2002, the burning to death of 59 rightwing Hindu militants in a train in Gujarat set off waves of state-condoned communal riots in which as many as 2,000 predominantly Muslim Gujaratis were murdered and 200,000 made homeless. In the wake of these atrocities, secular peace-building organizations have redoubled their efforts to heal the rift between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat. A certified mediator, Janet Powers bases her book on interviews with workers in twenty of these peace-building NGOs and grassroots peace organizations, which are locked in struggle with politicized Hindu religious organizations largely funded by money raised in the United States. This is the first book to examine Hindu-Muslim relations in Gujarat in the frame of ongoing peace and conflict resolution efforts. Gujarat is the state of origin of most of the entrepreneurial Indians who own motels, convenience stores, and gas stations in the United States and United Kingdom. Much of the funding for the rightwing Hindu parties that foment extremist violence, ethnic cleansing, and re-conversion campaigns against the Muslim and Christian minorities in Gujarat comes from Gujarati expatriates in the U.S. and UK. Gujarat is the home of Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1948 by an agent of the RSS, a violently anti-Muslim Hindu nationalist organization that flourishes today in Gujarat in virulent association with the ruling BJP and VHP parties. Equally dangerous to the peace of Gujarat are violent Wahhabist organizations based in Pakistan but operating in India. Powers assesses the prospects for long-term healing in Gujarat based on historical precedents, and she applies the lessons of Gujarati grassroots peace-building organizations in Gujarat to zones of state-sponsored religious conflict in other parts of the world.