Event Details

Simona Sharoni is a feminist scholar, researcher and activist. She holds a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and is the author of Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women's Resistance, (Syracuse University Press, 1995). She has taught at Haifa University in Israel, American University in Washington DC, The Evergreen State College and St. Martin's University in Olympia, WA, the University of Oregon In Eugene and SUNY-Plattsburgh. She has written extensively on gender dynamics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the North of Ireland, Middle East politics, the peace and justice movement peace and conflict resolution theory. She has also conducted research on the aftermath of peace agreements, comparing Israel-Palestine to the North of Ireland. Militarization and de-militarization and the relationship between violence against women and the violence of war have been among her primary topics of interest. Sharoni lived much of her life in Israel and served in the Israeli military. Her practical experience includes over two decades of teaching, research, writing, facilitation and community organizing both in Israel and in the United States. In Israel, where she also worked for ten years coordinating and facilitating encounter groups between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. There she a founding member of Women in Black and involved in advocacy work with Israeli women's peace groups, which struggled to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She also contributed to solidarity work with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in North America, with a special emphasis on women's initiatives.