9 December 2020

Meet Rafah Mismar, Palestinian Peace Activist & Journalist, a brave an inspiring woman dedicated to building peace between both sides. Her participation in peace activism spans a decade.

Her primary focus is the protection of the rights of women and children involved in the conflict.

Rafah holds a Masters Degree in Human Rights.

"It’s not easy, you have all this conflict, within yourself, within your families, within the community, but the only way to spread this message is just to believe in what you are doing and I totally agree that Palestine and Israel should be side by side as a neighbour.

We need to have a Palestinian state side by side with the Israeli State and at the same time, we need to have good relations with the neighbours. The Issue is not easy, but it is one of the main goals in my life, that I should do what I am doing because I believe in myself as a Peace Activist. As a Palestinian, I should have the right to live in freedom in my own State and I believe in my friends on the Israeli side who are activists, who are journalists, who are lawyers, who are human rights defenders who believe that Israel should finish and end this occupation and we should have a very special relationship because we share everything here.

We share the land, we share the air, we share the radio waves, the TV waves. We share everything. We share the water, the electricity, so why don’t we have a normal relationship as two states that are neighbours? And I appreciate the role of my friends who are believing in peace in Israel, who are attacked by the Right Wing in Israel because they are asking for ending the occupation. So we are supporting each other because we both need hope, and we need help, so we are doing very tough work, at the same time it is the peace work. As you know working for peace is harder than working for war.” Rafah Mismar, Palestinian Peace Activist & Journalist