On February 10

On this day in ...
... 1983, governmental officials signed an agreement that permitted the United States to test, in Canada, its military equipment, including cruise missiles, which may carry nuclear warheads. As a result, "protest demonstrations broke out in numerous cities" in Canada, "and a women's peace camp was established near the cruise test range in Cold Lake, Alberta." (map credit)

(Prior February 10 posts are here, here, and here.)

How 'bout a women's legal history trial?

A prince is about to stand trial for murder.

He's Hamlet, fatal assailant of the meddlesome man destined (if Ophelia had her way) to become his father-in-law.

At issue: given the welter of woe in which Shakespeare situated the troubled Dane, is the prince mentally competent to face judgment?

"The Trial of Hamlet" will take place January 31 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. (here for tickets & image credit) Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who created the play, will preside. A jury including celebs like Helen Hunt will decide.

Karen Wada of the Los Angeles Times properly places the staging in a Court tradition, writing that "[i]n 1987, for instance, three high court jurists heard arguments over who really wrote Shakespeare's plays." (On continuing high court furor over the question, see this article by Jess Bravin.)

Blog readers no doubt also are familiar with the many trials of this sort staged by the American Bar Association.

So here's a thought:

How 'bout retrying some signature event of women's legal history? (And see here and here.)

Jumping to mind are 2, both involving IntLawGrrls foremothers:

► The 1873 conviction of Susan B. Anthony (by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice) for the offense of illegal voting.

► Any number of 1917 jailings -- at times brutal -- of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns (left), and their National Woman's Party colleagues for the "direct action campaign" against U.S. entry into World War I. As IntLawGrrls alumna Catherine Lanctot has posted, they took that campaign to "the very doorstep of the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson."

Additional nominations welcome.

On December 11

On this day in ...
... 1920 (90 years ago today), feminist and pacifist writer Olive Schreiner (left) died in South Africa, 65 years after her birth in what is now Lesotho. She was the 9th of 12 children born to a poor missionary family. A voracious reader of social theory, early on she rejected religion, and further

rejected the accepted stereotypical gender roles and espoused an equality of shared labour between men and women.

After working for years as a governess, Schreiner sailed to England, where her semi-autobiographical novel, The Story of an African Farm (1882), was published under a male pseudonym "because of a contemporary prejudice against women authors"; she revealed her identity in the 2d edition 9 years later. (credit for circa 1909 photo) Back in South Africa, she married and gave birth to a daughter, who died within in a day, sending Schreiner into deep depression. During the Boer War, Schreiner lost all her property and was interned for a year on account of her support for the Afrikaner side. Her Women and Labour (1911) is described as a "feminist 'bible' of the early twentieth century"; another late-in-life work argued in favor of rights for blacks in South Africa.

(Prior December 11 posts are here, here, and here.)

On September 5

On this day in ...

... 1915 (95 years ago today), as trench warfare dragged on across Europe, about 40 delegates from 11 countries opened a 6-day meeting, known as the Zimmerwald Conference in recognition of the Swiss municipality where it was held. Among those attending this 1st First International Socialist Conference were the exiled Russians Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. The meeting would end on September 11 with a manifesto that demanded an immediate end to World War I:

[W]orkers within each country should try by any means necessary to convert the current capitalist struggle into a more enlightened one: an international workers’ revolution or civil war 'between the classes' that would spread throughout Europe, and eventually the world.

It further praised certain comrades, among them Rosa Luxemburg (above, near left), Clara Zetkin (far left), and Louise Saumoneau. (credit for 1911 photo)


(Prior September 5 posts are here, here, and here.)

On March 8

On this day in ...
... 1914, French feminist, socialist, and pacifist Louise Saumoneau led the 1st International Women’s Day commemoration in Paris, used to organize for socialism. Some 2,000 women and men marched and listened to speeches by Socialist Party leaders. Born in 1875 and employed from a young age as a seamstress, Saumoneau had founded a women's movement at age 24. Like her German counterpart Clara Zetkin, Saumoneau had little use for what she called "feminist confusionism"; that is, focus on issues like dowry. Instead, Saumoneau concentrated her efforts in building a working women's movement that also paid heed to the situation of working men. By a decades-old resolution of the United Nations, as we've posted here and here, today marks the global International Women's Day.

(Prior March 8 posts are here, here, and here)

On December 11

On this day in ...

... 1849 (160 years ago today), Ellen Key (right) was born in Sweden. An advocate of child-center education, women's suffrage, and feminism, she began writing in her 30s. Her "advanced ideas on sex, love and marriage, and moral conduct had wide influence." Works available in English --on the availability of which The New York Times reported as early as 1913 -- include War, Peace, and the Future: A Consideration of Nationalism and Internationalism, and of the Relation of Women to War (1916). (credit for portrait of Key by Hannah Hirsch-Pauli) Among Key's many notable quotes, here's one exemplifying her views on teaching; another, her views on war:

Education can give you a skill, but a liberal education can give you dignity.

Everything, everything in war is barbaric.... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.

(Prior December 11 posts are here and here.)

How to End Violence?

So much of what we international lawyers do is aimed at preventing, ending, or responding to violence. Wouldn't it be lovely to make that aspect of our jobs obsolete?
Unfortunately, as illustrated by IntLawGrrls' numerous writings on the subject (including Naomi's post earlier today), violence—by states, by groups, by individuals—endures as a pervasive plague in almost every society. International legal organizations, states, and the lawyers who assist them try to prevent or constrain state violence through norms on aggression and the use of force, the conduct of war or armed conflict, human rights violations, or international crimes. But many civilians also experience violence perpetrated by non-state actors (insurgent groups, paramilitary units, terrorists, and family members). Often, they are targeted, at least in part, because of their gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, or other status.

Gender-Based Violence
This week marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (25 November; prior post). Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (on whom we’ve posted here), issued a statement outlining plans for her mandate. Manjoo called for “timely and focused attention” on three themes:

►reparations to women for wrongs committed in contexts of peace, conflict, post-conflict and transitional justice settings;
►prevention strategies including those which promote women’s empowerment and engagement in challenging patriarchal interpretations of norms, values and rights; and
►multiple, intersecting and aggravated forms of discrimination affecting women and leading to increased levels of violence and limitation or denial of their human rights.

Roles of Men
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued parallel statements to mark the day as well. Interestingly, one of his statements focused on the roles of men in ending violence against women. The statement recognizes that men and boys must also be engaged, committed, and involved in efforts to end gender-based violence. Secretary-General Ban announced the launching of a network of male leaders charged with taking proactive steps, in collaboration with existing women’s organizations, to address gender-based violence. The new network is part of the “UNiTE to End Violence Against Women” initiative he launched in 2008.

As I launch this Network, I call on men and boys everywhere to join us. Break the silence. When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence. Violence against women and girls will not be eradicated until all of us – men and boys – refuse to tolerate it….

According to a UN Press release,

he cited positive actions that men are already taking, such as judges whose decisions have paved the way for fighting abuse in the workplace, networks of men who counsel male perpetrators of violence, and national leaders who have publicly committed to leading the movement of men to break the silence.

Such efforts must begin early and locally in homes, schools, religious and community institutions. Educators and community activists must work with young people to build cross-gender and cross-cultural understanding, respect, and non-violent approaches to problem-solving. National governments must prevent the economic, social, and cultural rights violations that intersect with the causes and consequences of violence. And, at the international level, political and military leaders, diplomats, and multinational business leaders also must show that they, too, can learn such lessons. They can do so by promoting and adhering to laws against aggression, the threat or use of weapons of mass destruction, targeting of civilian populations, and the reckless trade in small arms.

(Photo: Leymah Glowee, Liberian peacebuilding activist and a subject of the documentary film, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," about women peace activists. Photo Credit: Robin Holland.)

Mary Church Terrell, transnational foremother

As today's guest blogger at IntLawGrrls, I would like to dedicate my contribution to Mary Church Terrell (left).
Born on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee, Terrell was a women’s rights activist, peace activist, and civil rights leader:

► In the United States she became known, among other things, for her activism and leadership in the suffrage and desegregation movements. She was the 1st president of the National Federation of Colored Women and a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. (photo credit)

► Internationally, Mary Church Terrell became known around the world for raising awareness through her speeches about the situation and achievements of African Americans. She was the vice president of the International Council of Women of the Darker Races, as well as a member of the American delegation to and a speaker at the International Congresses of Women in Berlin, German,y in 1904 and 1919. Mary Church Terrell was also chosen by the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom as a speaker at the 1919 Quinquennial International Peace Conference in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1937, she delivered an address before the International Assembly of the World Fellowship of Faith in London, England.

Terrell was the author of numerous articles and short stories on segregation and the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the United States and, in 1940, she wrote her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World.

She worked consistently for a better future for all. As she said in a speech before the National American Women's Suffrage Association on February 18, 1898:

With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope.

Terrell died at age 90, at her home in Maryland, on July 24, 1954 -- 2 months after the U.S. Supreme Court held racial segregation of schoolchildren unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education.

Go On! Women, peacebuilding & the rule of law

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest) On behalf of WILIG, the Women in International Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law, we are delighted to announce the following program: "Women, Peacebuilding, and Advancing the Rule of Law," to be held 6:30-8:30 p.m. on September 30, 2009, at Tillar House, ASIL's headquarters, at 2223 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Cosponsors along with WILIG are ASIL's Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Interest Group, Vital Voices, the American Bar Association's International Law Section, Africa Committee and the Women's Interest Network, the Institute for Inclusive Security, and Women in International Security.
Women are an important part of the peacebuilding equation. Too often they are excluded or marginalized in the peace process. Limiting or excluding women from the peacebuilding process in a meaningful way not only leaves a critical resource untapped, but hinders a society's recovery. Women can be agents of change, advocates for justice and peace, and leaders in reestablishing rule of law. (credit for 2008 photo by I. Vuni of women at Uganda peace talks in Juba, Sudan)
Program Chair and Moderator is Melanne A. Civic, Senior Rule of Law Advisor at the U.S. Secretary of State's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, who is on detail to the Center for Complex Operations, National Defense University.
The panelists, who will discuss the critical role of women in peacebuilding as well as comment on the July 2009 Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1820 (2008), "Women and Peace and Security," are:
►Melanne Verveer, the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, who is also the cofounder and former CEO of Vital Voices;
►Swanee Hunt, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Austria between 1993 and 1997 and now is Chair of the Institute for Inclusive Security (formerly Women Waging Peace); and
►Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and Director of the Transitional Justice Institute at the University of Ulster in the North of Ireland.
Details and registration here.

On August 2

On this day in ...
... 1939 (70 years ago today), in a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, Albert Einstein (left), wrote that he had learned from scientists that they were near breakthroughs that could lead to an atomic bomb. Einstein urged Roosevelt to take steps to make sure that uranium that could be used for such bombs -- in places like Belgian Congo -- not fall into Nazi hands. He further urged the speeding of U.S. research. According to this website,

Einstein was willing to write to the President. As a life-long pacifist, he opposed the making of weapons, but he could not allow the Nazis sole possession of such destructive power.

(credit for photo by Yousuf Karsh)
... 1991, in Buenos Aires, diplomats signed the Agreement concerning cooperation between the Chilean Carabineros and the Argentine National Gendarmeria. By establishing a division of labor between the police forces of the 2 countries, the agreement helped to mark the end of a border dispute that had been ongoing for decades.

(Prior August 2 posts are here and here.)

On July 23

On this day in ...
... 1920, May Wright Sewall died in Indianapolis, Indiana, 76 years after her birth in Wisconsin, and just a month before women's suffrage -- an issue to which she'd devoted her lifework -- would come into effect in the United States via ratification of the 19th Amendment. She had earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern Female College in Evanston, Illinois, now part of Northwestern University. She taught throughout the Midwest, founding a girls' school in Indianapolis. Elected president of the National Congress of Women in 1891 and of the International Congress of Women (ICW) in 1899, Sewall, like many feminists of the day, combined her work for women's rights with work for peace. Thus she chaired the ICW standing committee on peace and arbitration and a 1915 Organized Conference of Women Workers to Promote Peace, and sailed in 1915 on Henry Ford's Peace Expedition. As we've posted, Sewall, along with IntLawGrrls transnational foremother Susan B. Anthony and others, led a women's rights meeting at which abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave the last speech of his life. (credit for portrait of Sewall on display in Indiana's capital)
... 1962, in Geneva, Switzerland, Laos and more than a dozen other countries signed the International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos, the result of a 2-month conference. They "pledged to respect Laotian neutrality" and "to refrain from interference 'direct or indirect' in the internal affairs" of that country. The agreement would be breached in the course of the Vietnam War.

(Prior July 23 posts are here and here.)

Guest Blogger: Gráinne de Búrca

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure today to welcome Gráinne de Búrca (left) as a guest blogger.
Gráinne has been Professor of Law at Fordham Law School since 2006. Before that she was Professor of European Union Law from 1998 to 2005 at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and Lecturer in Law from 1990 to 1998 at Oxford University, England. She has been a Visiting Professor at the law schools of New York University, Columbia, and Harvard.

Gráinne's field of expertise is European Union law, with particular focus on constitutional issues related to European integration, on European human rights law, and on transnational governance. She is the co-editor of the book series Oxford Studies in European Law and the co-author of the textbook EU Law (Oxford University Press 4th ed., 2007).

In her guest post below, Gráinne discusses challenges to European integration by reference to current events and her paper, The Lisbon Treaty No-Vote: An Irish Problem or a European Problem?

Had not Grace O'Malley (in Irish, Gráinne Ni Mháille) not been the very 1st of IntLawGrrls' foremothers, Gráinne would have dedicated her post to that 16th century pirate and transnational nonstate actor. As it is, she's chosen to honor Eva Gore-Booth (below right). Born in County Sligo, Ireland, in 1870, Gore-Booth was a writer-activist involved both in "the Celtic revival that swept over her homeland at the turn of the twentieth century" and the political ferment of the day. (photo credit) Her "poetry, especially such later works as The One and the Many and The Egyptian Pillar," is said to "include themes of social change and sexual liberation." Equally important were her political writings and actions: working with peers like Alice Stopford Green and Esther Roper, Gore-Booth was a pacifist, trade union leader, and equal rights agitator, "one of the first female suffragists to advocate extending the vote to both female property owners and women in the working class." She died from cancer in London in 1926.

Today Gore-Booth joins other Irish-born women -- not only Grace O'Malley, but also Gore-Booth's elder sister, Constance Markievicz, as well as Mary Harris "Mother" Jones -- on the list of IntLawGrrls' transnational foremothers, just below the "visiting from ..." map at right.

Heartfelt welcome!

On May 2

On this day in ...
... 1969 (40 years ago today), crackdowns across the country began to quell student protests launched on May Day. At Columbia University, for example, "200 students calling for educational reforms at Columbia University have given up their sit-in after a supreme court judge issued a warrant for their arrest." Parents whose children were named in the order were divided on the protests. And at Stanford University, a "hundred pacifists have also abandoned their demonstration ... after they were met with an equal number of police officers." (credit for photo of Stanford protests in "1960s and 1970s") Nonetheless, the BBC reported,

[M]any universities remain under siege with both black and white students demanding an end to alleged racial discrimination, on-campus military recruitment and a greater share in college government.

... 1969 (40 years ago today), at Southampton, England, the Cunard ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II embarked on its maiden voyage, bound for New York City. The vessel (right), which in 1982 was requisitioned for service in the Falklands/Malvinas War, "is currently docked permanently in Dubai," in the United Arab Emirates.

(Prior May 2 posts are here and here.)

On April 19

On this day in ...

... 1988, Kwon Ki-ok died at age 86. Born in Pyongyang in the north of Korea in 1901, the 17-year-old Kwon saw a stunt aviation demonstration that inspired her, following imprisonment for political activities at home, to move to China. There she became the 1st Korean woman pilot and, eventually, an officer in the Chinese Air Force. After World War II she helped found the Air Force of South Korea (logo above right) and served in that country's Ministry of Defense.

... 1971, in Washington, D.C., Vietnam Veterans Against the War began a 5-day demonstration against U.S. involvement in the conflict in Indochina. This website states:

The generally peaceful protest, called Dewey Canyon III in honor of the operation of the same name conducted in Laos, ended on April 23 with about 1,000 veterans throwing their combat ribbons, helmets, and uniforms on the Capitol steps, along with toy weapons. Earlier, they had lobbied with their congressmen, laid wreaths in Arlington National Cemetery, and staged mock 'search and destroy' missions.

The event took on new significance in 2004, on account of a speech that veteran John Kerry gave to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at that time (left). Audio available here. Indeed, 2004 attacks on Kerry, by then a U.S. Senator and the Democratic Presidential candidate, led to a new term for the smearing of a political opponent: "swiftboating."

(Prior April 19 posts are here and here.)

On April 4

On this day in ...

... 1984 (25 years ago today), to make way for road-building, British authorities broke up a peace camp that women had set up 3 years earlier at Greenham Common, Berkshire (left), in protest of plans to store Cruise missiles at a military air base near their homes. (photo credit)

... 1984 (25 years ago today), U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced support for an international ban on chemical weapons. The audio clip of his statement, in which he said that he would send then-Vice President George H.W. Bush to Geneva to take part in multilateral negotiation of a chemical weapons treaty, is here.

(Prior April 4 posts are here and here.)

On March 29

On this day in ...
... 1970, Dr. Anna Louise Strong (right) died in Communist China, where she had moved in 1958, at age 72, and had become "one of few Westerners to gain the admiration of Mao Tse-tung." She had been born in Friend, Nebraska, to "middle-class liberals who were active in missionary work and the Congregational Church." After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago at age 23, she became active in child welfare and labor movements, 1st in Chicago and then in Seattle. She was elected the latter city's only woman school board member in 1916. The same year the New York Post hired her to cover a bloody labor dispute in her home state between the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, and mill owners. She would go on to become a radical writer and pacifist, traveling 1st to the Soviet Union and eventually to the People's Republic of China.
... 1849 (160 years ago today), just over 2 weeks after the Sikh army had surrendered to it, Britain's East India Company "annexed" the Punjab (left) and rendered it a province of British India, by concluding a treaty with the maharajah of Lahore. (credit for 1909 map)

(Prior March 29 posts are here and here.)

On February 9

On this day in ...
... 1934 (75 years ago today) , at Athens, the leaders of Greece, Romania, Turkey, and Yugoslavia entered the Pact of Balkan Entente. The agreement "was formed to guarantee mutually the security of their frontiers and thus was directed largely against Bulgaria."
... 1944 (65 years ago today) , in Eatonton, Georgia, a daughter was born to sharecroppers Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker. This eighth and last child of theirs won a scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta, having earned honors as class valedictorian though blinded in one eye by a shooting accident during her childhood. Alice Walker (left), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple (1982), her epistolary novel, continues to agitate for peace and the rights of women and minorities, and against nuclear weapons and female genital mutilation. IntLawGrrls reviewed 1 of Walker's most recent books here.

On January 11

On this day in ...
... 2007, Molly Ivins (right) published a column entitled Stand Up Against the Surge, in which she urged readers to work to stop the Iraq War (which, in her view, the United States already had lost) by, among other things, taking part in a Washington peace march set for January 27. It would be her last column: the day before that scheduled march, the fiery, Texas-based political commentator, who'd been battling breast cancer since 1999, was admitted to hospital in Austin. She died on January 31, 2007, at age 64.
... 1909 (100 years ago today), in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Elihu Root (then also serving as the 1st President of the American Society of International Law; 3 years later to win the Nobel Peace Prize) and British Ambassador James Bryce signed a treaty establishing mechanisms for pacific settlement of disputes involving waters, and water quantity and quality, at the U.S.-Canada border. The Boundary Waters Treaty is administered by an International Joint Commission, today comprising 5 men and 1 woman -- the latter is Irene B. Brooks (left), U.S. Section Chair.

Honoring Emily Greene Balch

A few words about Emily Greene Balch (left), whom today's guest blogger, Chimène Keitner, has chosen to honor:
Born in 1867, Balch was a member of the 1st class to graduate from Bryn Mawr College; thereafter she studied sociology and economics in Europe and, eventually, back in the United States. She started teaching at Wellesley College in 1896, and became a Professor there 15 years later. During this time she was active in movements for women's suffrage, racial justice, and fair treatment of immigrants.
When World War I broke out in 1914, she found her life's calling; that is, "furthering humanity's effort to rid the world of war." Among many other activities, Balch:
► took part in the 1915 International Congress of Women at The Hague;
► helped to found what's now known as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom;
► collaborated with Jane Addams and others on Women at The Hague: The International Congress of Women and Its Results (1915); and
► participated in the work of the League of Nations that was formed in the wake of World War I.

(credit for photo below right of American delegation to the 1915 Hague Conference; Balch is standing at far left in the 3d row from the front, while Addams is sitting 2d from left in the front row)
By the time that Balch was named a Nobel Peace Prizewinner in 1946, she had altered "her strong pacifistic views" somewhat on account of the "the excesses of nazism." She came "to defend the 'fundamental human rights, sword in hand'" in World War II, even as she "concentrated on generating ideas for the peace, most of them characterized by the common denominator of internationalism." Today Balch, who died in 1961 at the age of 94 years + 1 day, joins Addams -- her friend and a 1931 Peace Prizewinner -- and other distinguished women on IntLawGrrls' transnational foremothers list at right, just below our "visiting from ..." map in our righthand column.

Peace through Pastry

I would like to follow up on Jaya's horror story of Friday with a story of one attempt to "humanize the other". As Jaya points out, making human rights norms applicable to immigration authorities both means and requires humanizing immigrants. In Europe, human rights norms are applicable to immigrants and asylum seekers through the European Convention on Human Rights, though their enforcement often leaves much to be desired. As human rights activists well know, humanizing the other - including immigrants and, as Hope discussed yesterday, persons with disabilities - is a process of education key to developing and enforcing human rights norms. For example, Amnesty International and other such groups publicize individuals' stories to make abstract legal concepts concrete. Humanizing the other is also key to making and maintaining peace, and a group of French Jewish and Muslim women called the Bâtisseuses de Paix (Peace Builders) has taken on the task of humanizing each other and their respective communities (though they don't use this term) in a delectable way--by making pastry.
One thing I've learned about "Islamic" terrorism is that it is fueled or reinforced by the Israelo-Palestinian conflict. In reading about the bâtisseuses, I learned that this conflict also fuels hostility between the Jewish and Muslim populations in France (the largest such communities in Europe), as French Jews identify with Israelis and French Muslims identify with Palestinians. To build solidarity between the two groups, former journalist Annie-Paule Derczansky founded the group in 2002 after a trip to the Middle East during the second intifada revealed that despite the breakdown of political communication, women's mixed Israeli-Palestinian cultural groups remained intact and functioning. Back in Paris, Derczansky created a space where Jewish and Muslim women could share recipes in an attempt to block the transfer to France of the conflict in the Middle East. The problem for detractors of the group's method is that its golden rule is to discuss anything and everything but that conflict: they see only hypocrisy and little to no chance of having any affect on resolving issues between Jews and Muslims, either in France or in the Middle East. Supporters such as Evelyne Berdugo, head of the Jewish women's organization Coopération Feminine, see it as "practical work on the ground....[No] big words [or] speeches, but action with regular people." One participant sees it as separating the Israelo-Palestinian conflict from one's daily life in France so that it doesn't pollute relationships with neighbors, and they all seem to recognize that their work, like their pastry, is for their children. If it helps them grow up without knee-jerk hostility based on a foreign conflict, perhaps they will be able to address that conflict in a spirit of neutrality and solidarity. And maybe given time, even if the group's golden rule doesn't bend, some the participants will take on the "elephant in the room" in another setting. As a staunch supporter of grassroots projects to bridge religious or cultural divides, even with flour and butter, to reduce humans' inhumanity to humans, I say "pass the cornes de gazelle" (image credit).