The
Biblical Four Mothers Group
LEBANON
- Women in Action
The
Retreat of the Israeli Troops from Lebanon
The Four Mothers
Group, an IFLAC The Bridge project,
headed by writer Ada Aharoni,
initiated and eventually succeeded, together with other groups, to bring about
the retreat of the Israeli Troops from Lebanon.
How did we do it?
It started with an Urgent
Call:
LEAVE
LEBANON IN PEACE (1997)
By: IFLAC:
The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace
and THE BRIDGE:
Jewish and Arab/Palestinian Women for Peace in the Middle East.
Minister of Justice then, Dr. Yossi Beilin,
adopted IFLAC – The Bridge's motto:
LLP:"Leave Lebanon in Peace".
The Biblical
Four Mothers’
We applied to
all our members and to all women in Israel to:
Please sign and spread the Petition
below, and send it to the Government, and all the MP's at the Knesset. We should also copy the Petition, and ask all
our friends and acquaintances who agree with it, to sign it and sponsor it, and
to send it to their own friends and neighbors, as well as to the Media.
Letter and Petition with thousands of
signatures were sent to:
1st Draft – 1.1.1998:
{ Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
{ All the Members of the Knesset
{ The Media in Israel and abroad
{ All involved institutions and to the IDF
army
2nd Draft: 1.1.2000
{ To Mr. Ehud
Barak, Prime Minister of Israel
{ To All Members of the Knesset
{ To the Media in Israel and abroad
{ To a All involved institutions and to
the IDF army
Honorable Prime Minister Ehud
Barak,
Members of the Knesset, and the Media,
We, who represent mothers and a large part of the citizens of Israel, call upon you to have our Israeli troops leave Lebanon as soon as possible, and with no preliminary conditions, for the following main reasons:
{ After 20 painful years in Southern
Lebanon, we have nothing to gain from having Israeli soldiers remain there. We
hear about terrible and heart-rending tragic casualties almost daily, when our
young sons are killed, in a land that is not ours. It has also entailed much
suffering to the Lebanese people.
{ The Israeli troops should retreat as
soon as possible to the International Borders in the North of Israel, and guard
our country from our own side of the frontier.
{ The new regime in Iran seems to be less
rigid than the former, and the Ayatullah Hatami has declared that if Israeli troops retreat, they
will not provide arms to the Hizbollah (the Army of
God), and thus, they will not be able to attack Israel anymore.
{
The
Israeli army is strong enough to defend Israel from our own borders. As in John
Lennon’s song, we have “to give peace a chance”.
Please hear our urgent plea, return our
soldier sons home, before we have more sons killed, and “Leave Lebanon and Us
in Peace”.
Signed by: The Biblical Four Mothers
- IFLAC The Bridge, as well as thousands of worried
Israeli Mothers and Fathers.
After intensive lobbying by the Biblical
Four Mothers, and demonstrations all over the country, the Prime Minister of
Israel, Mr. Ehud Barak
finally heard our plea and ordered the Israeli troops to “Leave Lebanon in
Peace!”.
We finally won! The mothers'
voices were louder than the booms of the canons.
The
Biblical Four Mothers’ Hymn
Leaving
Lebanon In Peace
Can
be sung to the music of "Let My People Go!"
When soldier sons were in Lebanon Land,
Let the soldiers go!
They suffered so much they could not stand,
Let the Soldiers go!
Go up Mothers, liberate your
soldier sons,
Biblical Rebecca, Sarah, Leah, Rachel –
Let our sons go!
The soldiers under the cedar trees
Heard the four mothers in joy –
Leave Lebanon, Leave Lebanon
Leave Lebanon in Peace,
They sang and laughed in joy –
Go home soldiers,
Go home to Israel Land
And leave, and leave
Leave Lebanon
in Peace!
LETTER TO
A BEREAVED FATHER
Dear Yehoshua Zamir,
Friends, and Colleagues,
All through the excellent TV program
shown recently on the Israeli TV Channel 1: LETTERS FROM LEBANON, by our
late soldiers, who wrote about their sufferings and sorrow, as well as those of
the Lebanese population in Southern Lebanon, I was with you and your family,
and with the families of all those who have lost the dearest of all – their
sons and daughters… And the question that painfully pinched my heart and brain
all the while was: “How do we stop the
killing of our children and the Lebanese children in Lebanon?”
I consulted with several friends,
colleagues, and members of organizations for peace, and we came to the
conclusion, that the answer is – a wide, powerful and influential umbrella
lobby of all peace organizations: the LLP: LEAVE LEBANON IN
PEACE, and not to leave it only to the
government to get the Israeli troops out of Lebanon. We have started an active
group named THE BIBLICAL FOUR MOTHERS, to help us with this massive lobbying,
and the response has been tremendous. Many people in Israel today think and feel
that we should step back from Lebanon. But thinking and feeling is not enough,
we should also ACT immediately, before more
and more soldiers, children and women, are killed and wounded in the “morass”
of Lebanon.
We have therefore organized ourselves in
a large and powerful lobby around the following Petition, and thousands have
already signed it. On its basis, we can
make the LLP – The LEAVE LEBANON IN PEACE campaign
still more widespread, powerful and influential, and we hope to see its results
as soon as possible, and to welcome our soldier sons safely back home,
defending our Israeli borders, from our own side. This should be achieved as quickly as
possible, so that no more sons and daughters, women and children, are killed in
Lebanon.
In Peace
Ada Aharoni
The Biblical Four Mothers
IFLAC – THE BRIDGE
Dear Ada
and Ami,
Thanks for your beautiful and moving
poems on Lebanon.
I have been visiting your sites and my
heart is filled with hope and gratitude. You, and many
others like you are helping to make a difference. I pray that together we can
help bring peace to the Middle East.
I am a Lebanese woman, with eight
grandchildren whose family left Beirut and came to Canada years ago. Even though I was born and raised in Canada,
my love for my native land remains strong. It is the land of my ancestors, my
roots, my heritage.
My heart weeps for all the families
whose loved ones have been senselessly killed.
There is no honor in war, and it is a tragic legacy to leave to our
children and grandchildren.
I have a website and a forum, here is where I try to build bridges of communication
between all races and faiths, for in the end, we all stand before the same
God. I would like to know if there is
anything I can do to help in some small way to make a difference. Please let me know if there is.
Salam,
Nancy Tabah-Whynott
http://members.home.net/lotusbud
*************************************************************************************
For the IFLAC PAVE PEACE
“Biblical Four Mothers,” and the Second Lebanon War (July 2006), please google: Ada Aharoni Lebanon
10 LEBANON POEMS DEDICATED TO THE BIBLICAL FOUR
MOTHERS:
Leave Lebanon In Peace Poems
By Ada Aharoni
Inspired from Letters
of Israeli Soldiers
While in Lebanon
I’m
Not Returning Home
I'm so sorry, my love,
I'm not returning home
for I can't return
home
I love you so,
want to be with you so,
but somewhere there –
among Lebanon's majestic cedars
so far from you my love –
I was hit by a murderous
bullet
in the very center of
the fallow of my heart
where I first fell for you –
and fell forever.
I so want to be with you my
love,
so want to hug you
my love, my life –
but cannot return home.
They have uselessly,
pitifully,
spilled my young life, my blood,
under Lebanon's blue sky,
and now I cannot,
just cannot
return home.
The
Hell With War
They announced a cease - fire
But we continued to bomb
The Beirut Airport
And the streets and the houses,
What is it with us?
I loathe killing, I hate destroying,
Horrible, pitiful war!
Why should we allow them
To force us to be here?
And what hence?
And when will it end?
The Hell with War!
Mr. Prime Minister When
Will The Nightmare End?
Mr. Prime Minister, when will the nightmare end?
What absolute misery –
I want to go home!
Instead of home's warmth –
anguished cold in my frozen bones
while watching the dreadful shock of a man
who has just discovered his dead wife's body
under his wrecked home ...
We came back from the nightmare
with horror in our hearts and imploring in our eyes –
Mr. Prime Minister, we were born
for creation, for joy and life - not for destruction!
Please, Mr. Prime Minister, end this nightmare that
really kills –
and not only in nightmares.
Security
Is A Siamese Twin
For our security, our safety –
we will break their teeth,
for our security, our safety,
we will throw tons of bombs
on their heads and on their safety,
on their orchards
and on their vines,
on their houses and on their pride –
all this only for our security.
But where is our security, our safety?
And what about their security, their safety?
In truth, our security and their security
Are Siamese Twins –
In reality, you can't hit one
without the other.
The
Lie That Exploded
That night that big lie exploded
in my heart and in my mind
shattering all my limbs and all my values.
The big lie that violence can stop conflicts
exploded in the very depth of my heart together with the bombs
–
And that explosive night my dreams exploded
With the lie.
When
We Will Go Back Home
When we will go back home
They will not trick us anymore,
When we will return home
We will show them
What peace is
When we will go back home
We will hug our joyful wives and children,
And we will try to forget the sadness
In the eyes of their wives and children,
We will try, we will try very
hard –
But I know we will never
Forget.
Bach
In Beirut
A moment of harmony in Beirut –
We suddenly heard from one of the houses
Bach music beautifully played –
The whole company stopped
to hear the music.
The pianist played beautifully
and the whole company stopped and
listened to the exquisite harmony.
The bombs did not succeed to stop us –
but a sixteen year old girl
playing Bach music
stopped us!
Amputated
Hand
A young boy runs to me
and asks for a sweet,
he spreads his amputated arm
without a hand -
"Who did that to you?"
I ask aghast,
"Entum!" - "You!"
he answers timidly –
his apologetic bashfulness strangles
my shocked shame.
Fear
From A Mosquito
We are forced to be policemen
of a population that hates us –
conflicts between Moslems, Christians and Druze,
thorny, entangled conflicts among them –
yet they all agree on one thing –
they all hate us!
We have entered a muddy morass
in which we are drowning –
Oh God! What a mess!
And in the end
we only found a mosquito –
but its bite kills,
and we shouldn't be here!
Oh God! What a mess,
Four Biblical Mothers, please save us!
A
Mother's Letter
You will not build a nest
dear Gili,
every night you return to me,
and your silent cries
silence my heart,
"Mother,
mother, help me!"
And I cannot
I can only caress the rugged stone
over your bones,
as I used to caress your soft curls
before sleeping ...
Mothers
You Know
Ada Aharoni
"We
can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your
methods but by finding new words and creating new methods".
Virginia Woolf – Three Guineas
Mothers
you know, as the Four Biblical Mothers,
a long time ago,
have been wisely decreed
by diverse human creeds and needs –
goddesses of peace-in- the home,
lavishly giving life, love and healing
through their wombs and life-blood.
And
they have been quite successful
those cozy peace-in-the-home mothers,
closely guarding us with their wisdom,
their tender words and watchful eyes.
Surely
safer than in a Nuclear War
or in a new World War, or just a tiny war –
so what about making mothers
the guardians of peace on earth?
Surely
we wouldn't be so much worse?
And they are
so available, those mothers –
you can even find them in enemy land…
Look
at the terrible mess they have
made of our blue planet, mother,
you are the only one who can save us now,
the only one who really knows
how to protect your fearful children
weeping over their drugged, ailing world,
the only one who can heal it
now, mother, cradling it
in your warm, loving arms.