Rela Mazali

"This struggle, for me, has branched into almost every part of my life. It has fed and formed both my creative work as a writer and my work as a peace activist, which are in turn interconnected."

New Profile Movement for the Civilization of Israeli Society (NPMfCIS)

Rela Mazali was born in 1948 in the Kibbutz Ma'ayan Baruch. A good part of her childhood was spent in the U.S. due to her father's graduate studies and internship. She received her elementary and high school education in Israel, after which she served the mandatory military duty in the Israeli Defense Force. She got married in 1970. After receiving her BA from Tel-Aviv University, she persuaded her husband and her eldest son to join with her a group that worked on establishing a semi-communal village, Ya’ad, in Western Galilee. They remained members of Ya’ad until 1979. Now she lives with her husband and three children in Herzlia.
Rela writes prose and has published many essays and fiction books as well as academic articles, in both Hebrew and English. She also writes educational materials for children, drawing on her varied teaching experience and writing skills. In addition, fully bi-lingual due to her split American/Israeli childhood, she has worked for seventeen years as a freelance translator and editor of academic books and papers (in both languages), including many items from the field of education.

Since 1980 Rela Mazali has been working with various groups and organizations in Israel in regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Almost all this activity has been on a voluntary basis, except for two years (1992-1994) of salaried research and report writing for Physicians for Human Rights (PfHR) (projects documenting head injuries sustained by Palestinians during the first Intifada (Palestinian Uprising) and monitoring the treatment of cancer patients in the Gaza strip during the same period).
In this capacity she has also organized a conference on “The International Struggle against Torture and the Case of Israel’, which was attended by a large number of international speakers, in addition to some torture survivors from the Occupied Territories.
Rela has initiated and participated in the production of a documentary film, "Testimonies", with Israeli soldiers’ testimonies on atrocities against Palestinians in the first Intifada (1990 – 1993). She was among the pioneering peace activists in Israel to raise the issue of the militarization of Israeli society and culture, of parental complicity in children's recruitment. She gave talks on these issues in Israel and abroad, between 1991 and 1993.

This evolved into a broader agenda, embracing the issue of education and militarization as a whole. At the same time she introduced a new critical discussion on the legitimacy of refusal to serve in the military, including both conscientious objection and other forms of draft avoidance.
As part of her evolving preoccupation with education, Rela participated in the development of a curriculum on gender equality, aimed a pre-school teacher trainees; this curriculum also integrated the topic of militarism. In her numerous publications and appearances, in Israel and abroad, she has persistently been rendering the interconnections between feminism and antimilitarism more visible. Her writings (which include fiction, essays, position papers and academic articles and are published both in Hebrew and in English) are radical, both in form and content: through them she has been evolving structures that offer viable alternatives– textual as well as social and cultural - to traditional hierarchical, sexist, ethnocentric practices. These writings have often formed the basis of various types of public presentations and readings.

Starting in 1996 Rela initiated and then facilitated women's independent study groups with an aim to branch out into activism. By 1998, this project evolved into the foundation of New Profile (NP), a feminist collective dedicated to the analysis and questioning of the role of militarism in Israeli society. Since NP is defined as a feminist collective, practicing as well as promoting anti-hierarchical principles, it has no leader but it is only fair to say that Rela has taken an extremely responsible, guiding and supporting role ever since NP's inception. Her critical feminist thinking and activity has been absolutely crucial to the existence of the group, which to date includes about 40-50 core activist members and over a thousand supporters in Israel and abroad.
The activities of NP, almost wholly run on a voluntary basis, include support and counseling for young people who consider draft resistance – in the broadest sense, both on an individual basis and through a network of youth groups; legal support for imprisoned conscientious objectors; research and documentation concerning issues like militarism in formal Israeli education; women and draft resistance; children's recruitment by the military; small arms proliferation; the environment and militarism; a resource and information center; an email list serve for alternative information; a traveling exhibit plus study materials on militarism in Israeli society.
Rela has been indispensable for NP in terms of her input of time, thought, dedication, coordination, and support. A major characteristic –and one unprecedented on the Israeli activist scene – of her personal work and her work with NP is the strong emphasis on her home turf, i.e. Israeli society, rather than directing her effort across boundaries and societies. The thinking behind this envisions change from within by people whose deep involvement in and familiarity with their particular sphere of action allows them to be most effective. Concurrently with this line of activism, Rela has also been the one to put the issue of the Israeli army's use of Depleted Uranium on the public agenda.

Moreover, in 1996-1997 she directed an alternative short story competition (under the joint auspices of Bat Shalom and Forum Femmes Mediterranees). This competition aimed to empower women, for instance by giving them a voice in choosing the winning stories, by conducting an Arabic competition along with a Hebrew/other languages one, by organizing a workshop for all participants, and by ensuring the publication, in an Israeli feminist journal, of some participating stories, in addition to the winning entries. The methods Rela uses in her work uniquely reflect the non-sexist, anti-hierarchical values she has disseminated over the years: she has maintained a scrupulous and inspiring connection between theory and praxis.
One singular aspect of her work – in the context of radical Israeli anti-occupation activism – is its inward directed focus on issues inherent in Israeli society. She has moreover been expanding the discourse of refusal from declared refusal to military service to other forms of social-political resistance by emphasizing the interconnections among occupation, sexism and militarism. Very soon after she started her activism, in 1980, her partner was removed from his top-secret reservist unit in the army. This made it clear that she was under surveillance. Over the years, fellow activists, all working in her general vicinity, were interrogated by the secret police; some underwent serious harassment on leaving the country, others were imprisoned.
Generally, the Israeli context within which Rela is working, and which she is addressing, is characterized by its strongly militarized nature. That is to say: militarism is everywhere, including in the formal education system. Moreover, Israel’s main claim on gender equality is, ironically, that women, too, are recruited for mandatory service.

As to her economic situation: Rela has throughout the years been independently employed as a free-lance translator and writer. She lives with her partner and has three children. Her overwhelmingly unpaid voluntary activism has come largely at the expense of the family. It should also be mentioned that the surrounding society, including her immediate circle of relatives, generally takes a negative view of her activity, which they consider subversive and dangerous.
Rela Mazali's major contributions have been manifested in her efforts to create a widespread national discourse on refusal (military and otherwise); to make visible the interconnections among the militarization of Israeli society and sexism, racism and the occupation; to stimulate and provide tools for critical thinking and activity; to publicly raise the issue of the Israeli army's use of Depleted Uranium; and to create an alternative context supportive of women's and young people's activism. The work of the US-based organization Refusers Solidarity Network (RSN) and of the German Connection is partly oriented by the same principles Rela has been promoting in Israel.

Within Israel, the environmental movement has recently reached out to NP, and to Mazali personally, in order to research and bring to the public's attention the link between environment and militarism – a connection hitherto unmentioned on the local agenda. The Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace has, in part, evolved as a result of NP efforts and conceptualizations, especially in terms of organizational structure and method. In the NP context, it is hard to adequately describe the influence of Rela Mazali’s work and the example, personal and political, that she constantly, and always self-critically, sets. In this sense, her contribution has been especially in terms of consciousness raising and empowerment. Her dedication, persistence and honesty have been a source of inspiration. She has been investing seemingly tireless energy in encouraging other women – as well as some young male members of NP – to find their own voices and make themselves heard. This is an often difficult and sometimes unrewarding task, especially given the current social-political circumstances in Israel.

Rela Mazali has written extensively in both Hebrew and English. She was co-initiator and assistant director of ‘Testimonies’, a documentary film scrutinizing the experience of Israeli soldiers who served in the army during the Palestinian uprising. To date, it is aired on TV networks in Britain, Sweden, Holland, France, Belgium; on cable TV in the USA; at international film festivals, human rights conferences; Israeli cinematheque. She has also conducted several research and human rights work, among which is ‘Private policing, gender and small arms proliferation in Israel’, for ‘Small Arms Survey, Geneva & U.N University in 2003.
She has been consultant to the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding adaptation of an international curriculum for schools on International Humanitarian Law in 2000. Between 1997 and 1998, she has worked as a Consultant to the Ford Foundation on: ‘Educational Jewish-Palestinian Encounter Groups: Development and Effects’. Rela Mazali is a worthy nominee for the 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize due to her unique contribution to building a culture of peace in Israel. Her constant emphasis on the special role of feminism in the struggle toward a demilitarized society is an inspiration to all who work with Rela Mazali. She teaches us through her work, her writings and her political and social involvement.

Rela Mazali is a peace activist, who is networked to some effective peace building groups inside Israel. She is very committed to bringing about peace and tolerance between the Israelis and the Palestinians through mutual understanding and respect. She says, "For the past seven years, I have conducted part of my struggle against militarization with and through a feminist group. We focused on women’s position within the context of Israeli militarization, after which we founded New Profile, a feminist antimilitarist group, working to de-militarize the society in Israel. While a number of serious, committed organizations do very important work 'across the lines' to counteract the hatred between Jews and Palestinians, our orientation is 'inwards'. We aim to change the society in which many of us were born and raised, and to readapt the culture that we all share. Our basic tenet is that the existing culture is actively fostering apartheid and inflaming enmity, not simply defending itself against outside aggression. We see this as a result of the deeply rooted mindsets that in turn blind the majority of Israelis from seeing this simple fact. And so we work to raise consciousness regarding this vicious cycle."
The main channels through which Rela Mazali works to counteract it include challenging the militarization of Israeli education, creating public opportunities for discussing and learning about militarization in Israel, and supporting young people, men and women, who refuse to enlist. There is a growing movement of draft resistance in Israel today, and New Profile is providing the young people who are part of it with information as well as moral and emotional support. Mazali says, "Most draft resisters start out very isolated, and we put them in touch with each other so they can develop a consciousness of being part of a group."

Rela Mazali is an outspoken critic of Israeli militarism and has been working for many years to end torture and to combat human rights violations by Israeli authorities. She works at national and international levels on antimilitarism and feminism, especially with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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