Women, Reconciliation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Can opposing narratives be reconciled? Can two different ethno-national identities live next to each other while still maintaining their narratives? Since the politics of recognition and reconciliation is fundamental to peaceful solutions of ethno-national conflicts, a critical consciousness emerging from the most subjugated people have suggested crossing ethno-national boundaries to facilitate the process of recognition and reconciliation with the ‘other’. The book under review, based on feminist literature and field research, attempts to “explore the most prominent instances of women’s political activism in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel” (p. 1) from the inception of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, primarily focusing on the last decade. In this way the main purpose of the book, according to the author, is to pay attention to alternative forms of political activism that are usually ignored and limited by exclusionary socio-political and academic systems. (p. 6) The author is mainly concerned with the effectiveness of the contribution of Israeli Jewish and Palestinian women activists to a viable renewal of the peace process, which faces many difficulties and challenges due to the aggressive military occupation of Palestine by the Israeli forces.