Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

Founded in France in 2022, “Guerrières de la Paix” presents itself as a collective of Jewish and Muslim women “for peace, justice, and equality.” Since the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, it has engaged in intense propaganda, employing humanist rhetoric to defend the colonial status quo. Its prominence in mainstream media -particularly in France- contributes to the marginalization of voices denouncing the genocide.

In its discourse, the collective equates the Zionist state and the Palestinian resistance, reducing the colonial reality to a symmetrical “conflict” between two sides. According to its founder Hanna Assouline, “we will have to heal many wounds and be able to forgive. The freedom and security of both peoples are interdependent” (Sud-Ouest Dimanche, 10 November 2024). Such a vision denies the asymmetry between a colonial occupying power and an oppressed people fighting for their survival and dignity. As Israel intensifies its offensive to impose the total occupation of Gaza and continue the colonisation of the West Bank, “Guerrières de la Paix” reduces this structural violence solely to the policies of the Netanyahu government, without questioning Zionism as a genocidal colonial project.

The collective, which claims to embody a nuanced voice, nevertheless puts on the same footing supporters of the massacres committed by Israel and the international solidarity movement standing with the Palestinian people and calling for an end to the genocide.

“Guerrières de la Paix” calls for “women’s responsibility” and their “pragmatic relationship to life and commitment” to put an end to the “conflict”. Sisterhood, upheld as the foundation of the feminist movement, is thus called upon to demand that Israeli and Palestinian women refuse to be assigned to one side or the other and act hand in hand. This narrative is also staged at rallies such as those in Paris and Cannes, where Jewish and Arab women came together behind deliberately vague and consensual humanist slogans that obscure the daily massacres inflicted on the Palestinian people for almost two years by the Israeli occupation army, disproportionately affecting women and children.

Such a discourse also erases the decisive role played by women in national liberation struggles, including in the Palestinian resistance. It continues the instrumentalisation of feminism by the imperialist powers, who use it to legitimise their colonial wars and divide oppressed peoples.
This pacifist feminism embodied by “Guerrières de la Paix”, which is widely echoed in the media and by certain political, economic and cultural elites in the West and in the Arab world, highlights Resolution 1325 adopted by the UN in 2000, which promotes greater participation by women in peace processes, as Hanna Assouline likes to point out. But for the collective, recourse to international law is selective: the rights that the UN recognises for the Palestinian people - self-determination, right of return, legitimacy of armed struggle - are denied, and resistance is equated with terrorism. Moreover, the organisation refuses to speak of genocide despite the findings of the UN and the International Court of Justice, preferring to use watered-down language to describe Israeli barbarity.

In May 2025, the collective joined a delegation of members of the French parliament at the Peace Summit in Jerusalem, organized by Israeli NGOs, at the very moment when several French and European deputies had been denied entry to Israel for criticizing the Netanyahu government and its policies. While Gaza was enduring an acute humanitarian catastrophe, the Summit’s speeches called for peace and recognition of the Palestinian state, though in vague, empty terms. The only concrete positions came from French President Emmanuel Macron (via video message) and from the joint speech of Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister who led the war on Lebanon, and Nasser Al-Kidwa, former Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority: recognition of a Palestinian state but under conditions that, in practice, reduce it to a vassal state.

In August 2025, the collective promoted recent rallies in Beit Jala in the West Bank bringing together Israelis and Palestinians against famine in Gaza. By presenting these rallies as a beacon of hope, the collective is helping to make invisible the fact that Israel had announced, a few months earlier, the development of new settlements in the region of Beit Jala - thus participating in the whitewashing of colonial crimes.

The strategy of these “Women Warriors for Peace” is clear: depoliticising international solidarity to reduce it to its humanitarian dimension and evacuating the central issue, namely the liberation of Palestine. The organisation of the Women’s World Forum for Peace in Essaouira is part of this same logic designed to legitimise Israel and promote normalisation with the Arab regimes, despite the massive rejection of the peoples of the region.

Presented as an international gathering of Israeli, Palestinian, Iranian, Afghan, Moroccan and other women activists, the forum aims to launch an “international appeal by women for peace”. In reality, it is seeking to impose a “new peace narrative” aimed at neutralising international feminist mobilisation, which is today strongly committed alongside the Palestinian people in an anti-imperialist and internationalist tradition.

As feminists, we strongly denounce the instrumentalisation of our struggles to whitewash the crimes committed by the Israeli colonial state. We say loud and clear: Palestine is a feminist struggle. This is why we reject any rhetoric of peace that is not accompanied by clear and explicit support for the Palestinian people liberation movement.

No peace without justice, and no justice without the liberation of Palestine.

Sign the call : here

First signatures
Activists and public figures

Hana Abbes, Lawyer (Tunisia)
Mariam Abu Daqqa, Leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and feminist political and community activist (Palestine)
Imane Ait Ben Amar, Activist with BDS Morocco - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (Morocco)
Samah Aouadi, Political activist (Tunisia)
Ariella Aicha Azoulay, Writer, researcher, experimental filmmaker, and curator of anti-colonial archives (United States)
Salima Belemkaddem, President of the Association ’Mouvement Maroc Environnement 2050’ (Morocco)
Amira Belhadj Rhouma, Activist (Tunisia)
Meriem Belhiba, Journalist (Tunisia)
Yessa Belkhodja, Decolonial activist, co-founder of the Youth Rights Collective of Mantois ’Collectif de droit des jeunes du Mantois’ (France)
Siham Benchekroun, Writer and founder of the Moroccan Collective ’Blouses Blanches pour la Palestine’ (Morocco)
Kenza Benjelloun, Visual Artist (Morocco)
Dounia Benslimane, Cultural and community activist (Morocco)
Tithi Bhattacharya, Feminist historian and activist (US, India)
Latifa Bouhsini, Academic and Feminist (Morocco)
Oumaima Boukari, Activist with BDS Morocco - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (Morocco)
Chaimaa Boukharsa, Activist and co-founder of Afrocolectiva (Spain)
Houria Bouteldja, Author, decolonial activist (France)
Souad Brahma, President of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights AMDH (Morocco)
Henda Chennaoui, Feminist activist (Tunisia)
Fatiha Cherribi, Human rights activist (Morocco)
Ismahane Chouder, Teacher and trainer, anti-racist feminist activist (France)
Raja Dahmani, Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (Tunisia)
Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, Sociologist, Professor Emeritus at Paris Cité University (France)
Marianne Ebel, Philosopher and activist in the Collective ’Grève Féministe’ and the World March of Women (Switzerland)
Layla El Mossadeq, Feminist activist (Morocco)
Angele Galea, Artist and activist (Malta)
Fanny Gallot, Historian and feminist activist (France)
Natalia Hirtz, Feminist sociologist, researcher at GRESEA (Belgium)
Sarah Kaddoura, Feminist activist, Haki Nasawi channel (Palestine)
Amina Khalid, Feminist activist, former president of the Association of Progressive Women (Morocco)
Tamara Knezevic, Trade unionist and activist with the Collective ’Grève Féministe’ (Switzerland)
Aurore Koechlin, Author, feminist activist (France)
Zohra Koubia, Amazigh feminist activist and human rights defender (Morocco)
Teresa Larraga, Actress and director, activist in the Neuchâtel ’Grève Féministe’ Collective (Switzerland)
Simone Longo de Andrade, Human Rights Activist (Portugal)
Imen Louati, Activist (Tunisia)
Seloua Luste Boulbina, Philosopher and activist (France)
Bahija Lyoubi, Producer (Morocco)
Rania Majdoub, Teacher and anti-colonial activist (France)
Morgane Merteuil, Feminist activist (France)
Agnès Adélaïde Metougou, Program Officer, Platform for Information and Action on Debt, and member of the Coordination of Feminist Struggles of the CADTM-Africa Network (Cameroun)
Vanessa Monney, Activist with the Collective ’Grève Féministe’ and Secretary of the Feminist Commission of the Vaud Public Services Union (Switzerland)
Nabila Mounib, Member of Parliament, Unified Socialist Party (Morocco)
Naima Ouahli, Human rights defender and women’s rights activist (Morocco)
Hajar Raissouni, Journalist and researcher in contemporary history (Morocco)
Geneviève Rail, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Simone De Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University (Canada)
Najat Razi, Feminist activist (Morocco)
Simone Rudolphi, Photographer and educator (Germany)
Jamila Saadoune, Feminist activist (Morocco)
Catherine Samary, Feminist anti-globalization activist, member of the French Jewish Union for Peace UJFP and the Scientific Council of Attac France (France)
Kenza Sefrioui, Publisher (Morocco)
Aicha Sekmasi, Human rights activist, former president of the association The Voice of Moroccan Women (Morocco)
Hadeel Shatara, Feminist and freed Palestinian prisoner (Palestine)
Michèle Sibony, Member of the French Jewish Union for Peace UJFP (France)
Sara Soujar, Lawyer in training and human rights defender (Morocco)
Fatima Tamni, Member of Parliament, Federation of the Democratic Left (Morocco)
Khadija Tnana, President of the Khadjia Tnana Foundation for Culture and the Arts (Morocco)
Korotoumou Traore, Female leader and member of the Coordination of Feminist Struggles of the CADTM-Africa Network (Mali)
Françoise Vergès, Author, decolonial feminist activist (France)
Ivonne Yanez, Feminist and environmental activist (Ecuador)
Najat Zemmouri, Human rights activist and feminist, first vice-president of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (Tunisia)

Organisations

Al Anouar Association (Morocco)
Al-Amal Association for Women’s Development Al Hoceima (Morocco)
Al-Basma Association for the Development of Rural Women and Children (Morocco)
Alliance of Internationalist Feminists (Germany)
Al-Tawama Association for the Training and Qualification of Rural Women (Morocco)
Amal Association Women’s Movement for a Better Life (Morocco)
Assaïda Al Horra Association for Citizenship and Equal Opportunities (Morocco)
Association for Women’s Aspirations (Morocco)
Association ’Mains Libres’ (Morocco)
Association Voices of Moroccan Women AVFM (Morocco)
Association ’Women’s Forum for Equality and Development in Northern Morocco’ (Morocco)
Chaml Association for Family and Women (Morocco)
Chems Association for Development (Morocco)
Coordination of Feminist Struggles of the CADTM-Africa Network (Africa)
Coordination of the World March of Women Ivory Coast MMF MMF
Money Market Funds Mutual investment funds that invest in securities, including money funds. -CI (Côte d’Ivoire)
Du Pain et des Roses (France)
Elwafae Women’s Association for Development AWFD (Morocco)
Initiative for the Protection of Women’s Rights (Morocco)
Kessem Jewish Decolonial Feminists (France)
Khmissa Collective (Morocco)
Maternity Association, Inzeguane (Morocco)
Moroccan Association for Women’s Rights AMDF (Morocco)
Moroccan Association of Progressive Women (Morocco)
Moroccan Women’s Forum - Safi (Morocco)
’Moussawat’ Magazine (Morocco)
Noor Association for Mother and Child Shelter Sidi Benour (Morocco)
The Algerian Feminist Journal Foundation (Algeria)
The Moroccan Observatory on Violence Against Women ’Oyoune Nissaiya’ (Morocco)
Touya Association for Women’s Work (Morocco)
Union of Women in Education in Morocco, affiliated with the National Federation of Education FNE (Morocco)
Union of Women’s Action (Morocco)
Women’s Committee ATTAC CADTM Morocco (Morocco)
Women’s Welfare Association - Essaouira (Morocco)
Young Women for Democracy Group (Morocco)