By Helene Ritchie…

Women Wage Peace (WWP), an Israeli grassroots peace movement in Israel, is reported to be the largest peace and the largest civil society movement in Israel with some 45,000 members in 2023.

It was founded in 2014 after that Gaza war. Recently, in 2021 it partnered with Women of the Sun (WOS), Palestinian women. Their aim as an Arab-Jewish movement is to promote non-violent, respectful and mutually accepted solutions to the Arab-Palestinian conflict, with the active participation of women from diverse political and religious backgrounds through all stages of negotiations.

WWP’s goal is not to pursue any particular solution, but to pursue a peace agreement and to promote women into leadership and positions as negotiators. The movement has its basis on two main objectives:

  • To encourage peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
  • To urge the enforcement of UN resolution 1325 which “reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts”.

While originally started by Israeli women, including peace activist Vivian Silver, the movement has worked to build connections with Palestinian women, also reaching out to both women and men of many other local regions and religious backgrounds. (Colours white and turquoise a blend of blue and green, to represent both the Israeli and Palestinian flags were chosen to symbolize peace.)

One of its co-founders, Vivian Silver, had an ongoing commitment to Jewish-Arab partnership and peace. She lived in border Kibbutz Be’eri and worked with and helped neighbouring Gazan women,
driving them from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. Sadly, she was murdered in the October 7 2023 massacre.

In 2023 I accepted the nomination to be New Zealand President of ICJW (and more recently vice of the Asia- Pacific region) on condition that through this role, I would do what I could to help ICJW pursue peace, citing some of my past professional roles in conflict resolution and my political roles especially in the peace movement, in Aotearoa/New Zealand. My expressed intention was to seek ICJW’s support for the Women Wage Peace movement.

Since then, in order to progress this, I addressed the ICJW conference in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2024 introducing to the conference, the work of WWP. Then during the year, I discussed further with the World President of ICJW Lilian Grinberg and met with the co-director of WWP in Israel Dr Yael Braudo-Bahat, over zoom.

Mutual Peace goals

In May 2025, at the executive meeting in Paris I introduced the importance of supporting WWP and spoke about our WWP-ICJW mutual peace goal.

I emphasised the need to implement ICJW’s commitments to peace in Israel and with her surrounding neighbours and in the world as stated in the ICJW constitution: “ICJW expresses its support for all efforts and agreements aimed at promoting/establishing peaceful relations between Israel and her neighbours and affirms the benefits that peace and co-operation would bring to the entire region.”

I also emphasised that as the most extensive Jewish women’s organisation in the world, with members in 36 countries ICJW support for WWP would be particularly valuable to WWP.

A unanimous resolution to support Women Wage Peace

As a result, a unanimous resolution was passed by the ICJW Executive meeting in Paris, and the following message has since been conveyed to Dr Yael Braudo-Bahat their co-director:

“We, ICJW, the most extensive Jewish women’s organisation in the world, in 36 countries won unanimous support for Women Wage Peace, which is a very good start. I emphasised before the vote that this was the first step of a dialogue with yourselves.”

Dr Yael Braudo-Bahat wrote back: “Thank you so much for the update and for all your efforts to bring our work into the ICJW conversation. I’m truly encouraged by the unanimous support for Women Wage Peace and by the dialogue that has begun.”

Next steps?

I have now secured an invitation for Dr Yael Braudo-Bahat their co-director to address an ICJW seminar in Haifa, Israel in November 2025.

Here in Aotearoa/New Zealand after my discussions with their president the National Council of Women have promoted ICJW and WWP in their publicity.

Nobel Peace prize Nomination

Dr. Yael Admi (WWP co-founder) and Reem Hajajre, (WOS, a Palestinian peace activist and founder of the Women of the Sun), were honoured in Time Magazine’s 2024 Women of the Year list, highlighting their significant contributions to peace-building.

In the meantime, WWP-WOS along with Guerrières de la Paix, based in Israel, Palestine and France are nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace prize (yet to be decided) in recognition of their efforts in promoting peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, advocating for a more peaceful future, and an alternative to the infernal cycle of violence and war.

Helene Ritchie is the NZ president of the International Council of Jewish Women (ICJW), and vice president of the Asia-Pacific region.
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