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Introduction
For almost a century,
Palestinians have been struggling against the colonization of their
land. They have had to contend with loss, exile, occupation and
violence. In response, they have resisted, and armed struggle. But
Palestinian gains and victories, although far from insignificant,
have so far failed to deliver an independent state; as a result,
feelings of inadequacy and resignation have taken root. Although
women have been involved in the liberation struggle and have shared
the objectives of men, on the whole their strategies have differed.
In this paper, I will
argue that resistance, in the Palestinian case, has been strongly
influenced by a sense of appropriate gender roles. This assertion
contains historical, psychological and political dimensions. The
conservative nature of Palestinian society has meant that the
liberation struggle has been unable to distance itself completely
from the Islamic traditional practices, which govern day-to-day
life.
Secondly, in the
patriarchal environment of Palestinian society, men-who bear
responsibility for the honor of the community-tend to regard
themselves as having failed to protect their land, their society
and their women. Now that the struggle appears to be moving towards
some kind of resolution, existence is beginning to fragment. Women
find themselves having to confront not only the oppressive practices
of the occupation but also some of the policies being put in place
by their own government.
Thus, their resistance
strategies are being channeled into new avenues.
In the context of
this paper, “resistance” will be used in the broadest meaning of the
word. To resist means to combat the forces of oppression, wherever
they occur and whatever means. Resistance is defined as “the
power to resist something, an influence that hinders or stops
something, a secret organization resisting the authorities,
especially in a conquered or enemy-occupied country. 1 However, the
notion of resistance “carries not just its common-sense implications
of ‘acting opposition’ but a reflection of the ‘potential for
subversion and contestation in the interstices of established
orders’… there are many forms of gendered resistance and…women’s
collective actions do not axiomatically take the form of opposition
to the exercise of violence by men, whether against other men or
against
women.”2
In the Palestinian
case, resistance is usually understood to mean a struggle for
survival and for preservation of a distinct national identity. But
if we broaden the definition, it can include not simply attempts to
resist colonial domination, but also undesirable practices against
women on the part of the Palestinian regime and in the home. I will
argue that, in all these spheres, Islam plays a central role,
whether women use it as a conscious tool of empowerment or relegate
its influence to private life.
Questions
The specific questions
to be explored here are: firstly, given the perception of the female
in Palestinian nationalist thought, what forms has women’s
resistance taken?
What have been the
objectives of their resistance activities? And how, in the light of
the ongoing debate between nationalism and feminism, have these
changed over time? Finally, how has the Islamic cultural and
social environment, together with shifting male and female
self-perception, influenced, inspired or constrained women’s
participation in the movement for national liberation? In order to
answer these questions, I will begin with a brief history of women’s
participation in the national liberation struggle and then explore
ways in which their resistance evolved and expressed itself as
something other than a support system for men’s nationalist
aspirations.
Theoretical framework
It has been argued that
when conflict “intrudes into the society- as in the case of invasion
of colonialism- it may become very difficult to maintain traditional
social order, and boundaries, such as those of gender may well break
down”. 3 At such times, women may be empowered by assuming hitherto
unfamiliar or non-traditional roles. But there is also a danger of
violence spilling over from the battlefront to the home front.
According to a feminist
perspective on conflict, “women tend to make connections between the
oppression that is the ostensible cause of a conflict (ethnic or
national oppression) in the light of another cross-cutting one: that
of the gender regime. Feminist work tends to represent war as a
continuum of violence from the bedroom to the battlefield,
traversing our bodies and our sense of self. We see that the
‘homeland’ is not, never was, an essentially peaceful unitary
space.”4 There is a risk here of conflict in women’s minds as they
struggle to reconcile the violent chaos taking place on the streets
with the peace and sanctity which are supposed to prevail within the
private sphere. The former pits one’s own people against the enemy,
while violence in the home is harder to deal with.
Massad argues that
Palestinian nationalism conceives of nationalist agency in masculine
terms.
Nationalist masculinity,
he believes, is a new type of masculinity, which has little to do
with “tradition”.
He suggests that
“Palestinian women may have more to say in Palestinian politics in
the…future, but
given their discursive construction in nationalist
thought, they will be able to do so not as
Palestinian women struggling for
Palestinian women’s rights, but as Palestinian women struggling for
discursively
constituted rights,
where Palestinian is always already conceived in the masculine”. 5 I
believe that one must challenge such assumptions, which disregard
the fluidity of the current situation.
Background
From the beginning of
the 20th century, what may be termed “resistance”
activities by Palestinian women have passed through several stages.
They began as charitable and social welfare work by a small group of
upper and middle class ladies. After the First World War, women took
part in demonstrations against British policies. The official
“women’s movement” in Palestine was launched in October 1929; its
inaugural event was the convening in Jerusalem of the Palestine Arab
Women’s Congress, which as attended by more than 200 women from all
over the country.6 Fleischmann argues that, although Palestinian
women’s activity during the British Mandate period has been
described as “politically unaware”, these women “established an
organized and often militant movement that was actively involved in
social, political, and national affairs.”7 She reports that women’s
“frequent participation in demonstrations signified their
willingness to engage in ‘unladylike’ and even violent behavior,
thereby defying cultural norms that prescribed limited public
visibility of women”. 8 In the 1930s, the uprising of Shaykh Izz
al Din al-Qassan, through its use of Islamic symbols and
language, encouraged the
participation of the mass of people in social action; Qassam’s
ideology has been described as “Islamic populism” and was aimed at
all levels of society, 9 including women. It was inspired by a sense
of desperation at the rapidly deteriorating situation and the threat
to the Palestinian national entity. Yet, even though women took some
part in the 1936 Revolt, they tended to be protected from the
general violence and insecurity that was besetting the society.
After the catastrophe
of 1948, when the State of Israel was established and hundred of
thousands of Palestinians forced to flee from their homes and their
land, resistance activities had to assume new patterns. The
Palestinian community, scattered throughout the Middle East and
beyond, was in a state of shock. Women “describe the first decade of
exile in terms that evoke death and a state of mourning.
The loss of country and
home and a refugee status were akin to the loss of a loved one.”10
Losing Palestine, in the words of one exile, “was like losing a
husband or a son.11 In this environment, women became the principal
symbols of what it meant to be Palestinian. As time passed,
organized resistance intensified. The Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964, and under its umbrella in
1965, the General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW). During this
period, the character of the resistance was militantly masculine.
But women were not standing idly by. For example, in the West
Bank, in 1965, the Society for the Resuscitation of the Family,
In’ash el-Usra was founded by Samiha Khalil. The “objective
of this organization was to help women, especially single of
households, to
increase their
income.”12 In the wake of the 1967 war, in which Israel occupied
the West Bank and Gaza Strip and thousands more Palestinians were
displaced, women organized themselves to provide support services to
the population. Women were also actively involved “in resisting
changes imposed by the Israeli military government such as changes
in the school curriculum, and women’s participation in
demonstrations carried out against the demolition of homes”.
13 In addition, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, according
to Cockburn, brought “a more intimate form of oppression as the
occupying forces entered homes and harassed even women and
children”. 14 This, in Mayer’s words, “intensified
Palestinian nationalism
in gendered ways by provoking a politicized response to the invasion
of the
private sphere”. 15
A small number of women
became fighters; for example Leila Khaled, who carried out military
operations as a member
of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the
late 1960’s.
In her autobiography,
she says: “I realized that my historic mission was a warrior in the
inevitable battle between oppressors and oppressed, exploiters
and exploited. I decided to become a revolutionary in order to
liberate my people and myself”. 16 She was, she adds, greatly
inspired by Shaykh al-Qassam, the
leader of the 1930s revolt, “a man who embodied the spirit of
resistance and who organized the first working class and
peasant revolution in the Arab homeland.”17 In the occupied
territories, Palestinian women in the 1970s developed new
organizations, affiliated to the four main political factions. They
departed from the welfare organizations, which were on the whole run
by urban middle class women. The “younger generation of women felt
that welfare organizations did not stress independence and women’s
issues, focusing instead on assistance programs. The women’s work
stressed forming cooperatives for food processing and for
agricultural products… Most importantly, they engaged women and
women’s rights”. 18
With the intifada
in 1987 came unfamiliar-although equally urgent-roles for women.
They early days of the intifada were, in many ways, an exhilarating
time for women as they participated in fundamentally necessary ways.
It seemed to many that the struggle for women’s rights was
proceeding hand in hand with the national struggle; a few women
began to engage in feminist debate. During this period, suggests
Sharoni, “the large-scale political mobilization of Palestinian
women was not perceived as a challenge to social stability but
rather as a necessary and valuable contribution to the national
struggle.”19 But it was also an exhausting period in which
Israeli repression grew increasingly harsh, and collective
punishment routine.
The Unified National
Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU) “ began organizing demonstrations,
strikes, and other acts of resistance to the occupation…Key in
mobilizing the population were the UNLU-and PLO-issued communiqués
and the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, issued by the PLO
in November 1988 from its Tunis headquarters”. 20 According to
Massad, the UNLU, which issued the intifada communiques, seemed “at
times ambivalent, while at others, fully complicit in continuing the
earlier tradition of conceiving the masculine”. 21 Communique No.
29,for example, congratulates women in their role as mothers. It
salutes “ the mother of the martyr and her celebratory ululations,
for she has ululated twice, the day her son went to fight and
was martyred, and the day the state was declared”. 22
Communique No.5 describe Palestinian women as the soil on which
“manhood, respect
and dignity” grow. On
the other hand, Communique No. 35 of 1989 declared its admiration
for the Palestinian woman “for her heroism in the national
struggle”. 23 Women are also praised, “as detainees of the
occupation authorities, 24 and mourned when they, along with
children and old people, are
killed by
Israelis”. 25
An informal system of
organizations, the Popular Committees, emerged, to which members of
the women's committees contributed their skills and expertise. Women
were involved, for example, in the construction of alternative
educational facilities, as schools were closed down all over the
occupied territories, and they developed methods of food production
to replace Israeli products. Girls and women also took part in
spontaneous confrontations with Israeli troops on the streets of the
West bank and Gaza Strip. By the early 1990s, in the view of
Hamami and Kuttab, two negative trends began to emerge. The first
was the negative social effects on women of the intifada in terms of
control over women’s mobility, constraints on women’s behavior, and
a tendency towards earlier marriage for girls. Secondly,
it was becoming apparent
that the national issue could easily be hijacked “by an ideology
that saw women’s political activism not as a contribution to
national liberation but as threat to it”. Women activists were being
physically attacked by young men in the name of religion and Islamic
dress was being imposed on women.26
In September 1993,
before an astonished world, the Prime Minister of Israel and the
Chairman of the PLO unveiled an agreement which would give
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip limited autonomy and
control over some parts of their land. Many believed that this
represented a decisive move towards the creation of an independent
Palestinian state in the occupied territories. The Palestinian began
to organize their own government. Planning failed, however, to take
into account women’s aspiration for equal rights of citizenship. The
new Palestinian Authority (PA) was almost exclusively male and the
proposed constitution ignored women.
In response, women
began to organize on their own behalf. They produced a Declaration
of principles on Women’s Rights, which stated: “We, the women of
Palestine, from all social categories and the various faiths,
including workers, farmers, housewives, students, professionals, and
politicians, promulgate our determination to proceed without
struggle to abolish all forms of discrimination and inequality
against women, which were propagated by the different forms of
colonialism on our land, ending with the Israeli Occupation, and
which were reinforced by the conglomeration of customs and
traditions prejudiced against women, embodied in a number of
existing laws and legislation.”27
As the conflict has
persisted, there is evidence of an increase in domestic violence
against women,although no figures are available. This has resulted
from the lack of an independent judiciary and-until recently- a
police force, combined with men’s perception of their own
powerlessness, which seeks a release in aggression against weaker
member of the family. Palestinian society, “like patriarchal
societies, discriminates between the sexes, for example, the
upbringing of girls and boys”. 28
Unfortunately, “when a
woman is physically abused by her husband and ask for support and
protection from her relatives, her relatives often force her to
return to her husband under the pretext of the children’s welfare”.
29 Workshops organized by the women’s centers help women to deal
with what is happening to them and, as far as possible, to combat
the situation.
-
The
Oxford Paperback Dictionary
-
Jacobson, Ruth, Jacobs, Susie, and Marchbank, Jen, “introduction:
States of Conflict” in Jacobs.
-
Macdonald, Sharon, “Drawing the lines-gender, peace and war: an
introduction”, in Macdonalds,
Sharon, Holden, Pat and Ardener, Shirley, -editors, Images of women
in Peace&Wae: Cross-
Cultural l& Historical Perspectives, London: Macmillan, 1987, p.9
4
Cockburn, Cynthia, The Space
Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict,
London: Zed Books, 1998, p.8.
5
Massad, Joseph, “Conceiving the Masculine: Gender and Palestinian
Nationalism”, The Middle
East Journal, Volume 49, Number 3, Summer 1995, p.483.
6
Fleischmann, Ellen J, “The Emergence of the Palestinian Women’s
Movement, 1929-39”, Journal of
Palestine Studies XXIX, no 3, Spring 2000, p.18.
7
Ibid. p.16.
8
Ibid. p. 24.
9
Johnson, Nels, Islam and the Politics of Meaning in Palestinian
Nationalism, London: KPI, 1982, p.54.
10
Peteet, Julie M, Gender in
Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1991, p.26.
11
Madame Haddad, a middle-aged woman from Jaffa, quoted by Pateet,
ibid.p.26.
12
Sabbagh, Suha, “Palestinian Women and Institution Building”, in
Sabbagh, Suha, editor, Arab Women:
Between Defiance and Restraint, New York: Olive Branch Press, 1996,
p, 108.
13
Ibid. 107.
14
Cockburn, The Space Between Us, op.cit.p.118.
15
Mayer, Tamar, “Heightened Palestinian nationalism: military
occupation, repression, difference
And gender” in Mayer, Tamar, editor, Women and the Israeli
Occupation: The Politics of Change,
London: Routledge, 1994, p. 63.
16
Khaled, Leila, My people shall live: The Autobiography of a
Revolutionary, edited by George Hajjar,
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973, p. 22.
17
Ibid.pp.26-7.
18
Sabbagh, “Palestinian Women and Institution Building”, op.cit.p.109.
19
Sharoni, Simona, “Gendering Conflict and Peace in Israel/Palestine
and the North of Ireland”, Millennium,
Vol
27, No. 4, p. 1064.
20
Massad, “Conceiving the Masculine”, op.cit.p.474.
21
Ibid.pp.474-5.
22
Communique No. 29, “The Call of the Wedding of the Palestinian
Independent State”, quoted by Massad, ibid.
p.474.
23
Ibid.p.476.
24
Communiques No. 17 and 22, Ibid.p.475.
25
Commniques No. 21, Ibid.p.475.
26
Hamami, Rima, and Kuttab, Eileen, “The Palestinian Women’s Movement:
Strategies Towards Freedom &
Democracy”, News From Within, Vol XV, No. 4, April 1999, p.3.
27
“General Union of Palestinian Women, Jerusalem-Palestine: Draft
Document of Principles of Women’s
Rights (Third Draft), in Sabbagh, editor, Arab Women: Between
Defiance and Restraint, op.cit.p.259.
28
Ibid.p.5.
29
Yahya, Mohammad al-Haj, “Violence against women leads to
oppression”, Sparks, April 1992, p.5.
.
Modes of Resistance
Resistance can take many
forms. It can be active, violent, passive, constructive or
subversive. For Palestinian women, resistance has ranged from the
provision of support services to violent confrontation with the
enemy. It was been influenced by models of appropriate female
behaviour, which have changed over time. Yet it has also subverted
conventional expectations. This is a result, on the one hand, of the
desperation of their situation and, on the other, of a determination
to create a “women’s movement”, which is distinct from male coping
mechanisms.
During the struggle,
women have been active participants “in all sectors of the
Resistance- military,political, and social. They [did] however, have
a more concentrated presence in the social field (mass work,
education, information, and health) and/or in the lower echelons of
the administration, serving as secretaries, clerks, telephone
receptionists, etc. They appear[ed] least in higher-level
political positions and the military. Their participation in the
contemporary national movement dates from the origins of the
movement in the 1960’s.”30
For women-as for
men-the are acceptable modes of resistance. It used to be a matter
of honour that girls and women should be protected from direct
contact with the enemy. This has become increasingly difficult to
sustain. After the initial breaking down of barriers in 1967, women
started to be deliberately targeted by the Israelis, as a way of
humiliating men. Later, as women grew more confident, they chose to
confront the Israeli army, in demonstrations and to protect their
children. Eventually, women began to be arrested and imprisoned;
while in prison, they were sometimes subjected to physical and
psychological torture, including sexual threats or actual abuse.31
The new political
situation, it has been suggested, “needs new strategies and
answers-one of them being new ways in which the women’s movement
links gender liberation to national liberation (both strategically
and ideologically). Central to this new program is the need to
understand democratization as the link concept and strategy between
national liberation issues on the one hand, and the achievement of
women’s social and economic rights on the other”. 32
Role of Islam
For many Palestinian
women, identification with Islam has proved empowering. The Islamic
movement developed “in the context of occupation and resistance,
subjugation and struggle in which the hijab is ideologized and
transformed into a symbol of resistance”. 33 It has been suggested
that this is less true in the Palestinian case, where the women’s
movement evolved along decidedly secular lines.
Nonetheless, a parallel
and equally determined Islamic women’s movement exists alongside
other forms of women’s organization.
There was concern in
the early 1990s that “instead of being one for national liberation
that would end in the founding of a democratic secular state in
which all citizens would be equal…[the Palestinians] were suddenly
struggling towards a theocratic state in which there would be no
room for pluralism, difference of democratically expressed ideas
and one in which women’s needs would be defined by
Islamicists”. 34
One can discern a
degree of ambiguity in the approach taken by the Palestinian
leadership towards Islamic groups. While, on the one hand, such
groups are dismissed as marginal, and even divisive, on the other,
there has a reluctance on the part of the leadership to publicly
condemn the Islamists and thereby create dissension in the
Palestinian ranks. After all, support for the Islamists is estimated
to be as high as 40 per cent in the Gaza Strip and 20-25 per cent in
the West Bank.35
Groups such as Hamas
offer the people of these areas “a vision of an all-Islamic
Palestine, to be realized only through tireless work in spreading
Islamic consciousness all over the Arab and Islamic worlds and
through mobilizing Muslims everywhere to join the ranks of the
fighters for Palestine”. 36 But this highly idealized, and some
might argue unrealistic, vision is balanced by a strong social
programme. “In line with the spirit of Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas
has from the outset supported a network of mosques, schools, social
clubs and other social and educational facilities”. 37
In common with
Islamist movements elsewhere, one of the most striking signs of the
success of Hamas has been its impact on women. According to the
Hamas Charter: “The Muslim woman has a role in the battle for the
liberation which is no less than the role of the man, for she is the
factory of men”. 38
There is no doubt that,
for many women, the current popularity of militant Islam is welcome
since it offers what they regard as the proper environment in which
to lead their lives. For others, though, it is perceived as an
imposition.
The so-called “hijab
campaign “ in the Gaza Strip in the early part of the intifada is an
illuminating example of what many women regard as the removal of
choice. Since the late 1970s, Islamic groups have been seeking to
re-impose some kind of hijab, or head-covering, on women, even
though many Palestinian women had chosen to dispense with this.
Hammami describes it as “fundamentally an instrument of oppression,
a direct disciplining of women’s bodies for political ends”. 39
although a lot of women in Gaza prefer to cover their heads-indeed,
Palestinian women or rural origin have always worn some form of
head-covering, partly as a sign of their status and partly their
socio-economic conditions
did not permit the
adoption of so-called “modern dress”. 40- others do not and, until
the early part of the intifada, “social space continued to exist for
women not wear any form of hijab”. 41 However, by December 1988, it
had become impossible for a woman to appear in the streets of Gaza
without a head-covering.
This was achieved “through a mixture of consent and coercion”. 42
Hammami argues that
the Islamists used the hijab as an instrument of social pressure. It
is clear, she says, that the “intifada hijab” is “not about
modesty, respect, nationalism or the imperatives of activism but
about power of religious groups to impose themselves by attacking
secularism and nationalism at their most vulnerable points: over
issues of women’s liberation”. 43 A climate of fear was created in
Gaza, in which many women dared not to go out of doors without a
head-covering in case they were attacked
religiously-motivated
young men, reminiscent of the “morals squads” in post- revolutionary
Iran. This
form of intimidation
appeared cruelly ironic in the sense that women were forced to fear
not only actions
by Israeli military
personnel but also by the youth of their own community.
One of the most
disturbing aspects of the “hijab campaign” was the initial apparent
disinclination of the
UNLU to act on behalf of
women. Many suspect that “certain element within the Unifies
Leadership
actually supported the
hijab campaign, and that Fatah, in particular, was trying to form an
alliance with religious groups.”44 Others were of the opinion that
the issue was either “too divisive or, even worse…secondary”. 45
Whatever the reasons, it
took the leadership a whole year to issue a statement condemning the
imposition of the head-covering. Hammami attributes the “inability
(or reluctance) of activist men to deal with the hijab campaign [to]
both the weakness of the left and of feminist agendas in the West
Bank and Gaza”. 46
Nonetheless, for some
women, the idea of secular state is unappealing. Some Palestinian
women havebeen influenced by trends elsewhere in the Muslim world,
for example the “Islamic feminist” movement whereby women, believing
that Islam is the best system by which to govern day by day affairs,
seek to reclaim its meanings for themselves. Many Muslim women “have
begun to take an active interest in theological arguments regarding
women. They claim the right to interpret laws and religious
textsthemselves and to learn the skills necessary for such
interpretation; they challenge and rocentric and misogynist
interpretations of texts; and they are determined to find in Islam
justifications for demanding individual freedom and women’s rights.
They have, in other words, joined the political struggle over the
right to make their religion work for them”. 47 It is natural,
suggests one commentator, “that contemporary Muslim feminists, when
they look at the history of their religion, are very skeptical when
assured that Islam,
which initially aimed to remove the disabilities women had suffered
in pre-Islamic Arabia, provides the rationale for keeping women in a
subjugated, inferior status”. 48
Conclusion
To conclude: At the
beginning of the 21st century, the Palestinians continue to seek
peace with justice.
They still do not have a
state of their own; and many remain in exile. Seven years after
Oslo, Palestinian women are still engaged in resistance activities.
They continue to resist the Israeli occupation of part of their land
and the failure of Israel to honor its agreements, and they continue
to struggle towards eventual statehood; but they are also fighting
the Palestinian Authority itself. Perceived as corrupt and
unrepresentative, the PA has failed to reflect the democratic
aspiration of the Palestinian people, women and men, and many feel a
sense of betrayal. Today, according to Hamami and Kuttab, “the main
issue confronting the society remains the occupation (on all levels)
but with the added crisis and complication of the presence of an
undemocratic governing leadership inserted between the mass of the
population and the occupation.”49
However, not only do
women have to resist the occupation and some of the policies of the
PA, they must also tackle the issue of violence within the family,
which is believed to increase during situations of conflict; at such
times, according to feminist literature, there tends to be a
spillover of violence into the home. But it is equally possible that
this kind of violence may intensify once the conflict has been
resolved. In a post-conflict situation in which women begin,
firstly, to learn more about their rights; secondly, to seek to put
those rights into practice; and, thirdly, to benefit from a process
of empowerment, it is not inconceivable that men will take out their
sense of frustration and powerlessness on family members.
In the Palestinian
context, there are several ways of dealing with this. Firstly, as we
have seen, through legal and constitutional channels; secondly, by
resorting to the Islamic model of an ideal society; and, thirdly, by
assuming it is a temporary phase and that things will improve once
the sate is up and running.
In a paper, which
explores the transition from conflict to post-conflict situations,
Sharoni asks whether peace is more conductive to gender equality
than conflict. What happens, she wonders, “to conceptions of
masculinity, grounded in militarism and acceptance of violence is
outlawed”. 50 She concludes that “the meanings assigned to
begin a man or a woman in a particular context are not fixed or
static but
rather changing over
time and in relation to particular political developments”. 51
Therefore, in order to
challenge “the narrow formulations of peace, which inform the Oslo
Accords”, 52
the leadership must come
to terms “with the formation and transformation of gender identities
and roles and with the ability of ordinary men and women to
transform their own identities and act as agents of social and
political change”. 53
Today, there is not a
single “women’s movement”. Rather, a number of trends exist within
the society.
These have been present
for some time and each contains its own mode of resistance. They
also differ in terms of objectives. The danger of fragmentation
among women means that there is little overall consensus about
possible ways forward. One can no longer speak of a conflict between
nationalist and feminist discourse.
As women have become
better educated, they have grown more aware of their rights and have
begun to articulate certain demands and aspirations. A variety of
organizations have been established by and for women in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, including research centers, training
institutes, legal centers,and others. Women are now represented in
most sections of society: they are university lecturers, poets,
doctors, business leaders, and members of the Palestine Legislative
Council (PLC).
It is clear that
women’s resistance activities have changed over time. They have
evolved in response to changing circumstances but also to
ideological currents within the society and in the wider region. Now
women are coming to grips with political exclusion and
marginalization, and with the day-to-day business of survival in a
patriarchal and still dangerous environment. The history of
Palestinian women’s involvement in the resistance movement and their
evident organizational ability gives one confidence that they will
eventually succeed in linking national liberation with gender
liberation.
Maria Holt
3 July 2000
Cambridge
30 Peteet, Gender in
Crisis, op.cit.p.147.
31 See, for example,
Thornhill, Teresa, Making Women Talk: The Interrogation of
Palestinian Women
Detainees by The Israeli
General Security Services, London: Lawyers for Palestinian Human
Rights,
1992.
32 Ibid.pp.4-5.
33 El Guindi. Fadwa,
Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance, Oxford & New York: Berg,
1999, p. 174.
34 Hamami and Kuttab,
“The Palestinian Women’s Movement”, op.cit.p.3.
35 Ozanne, “The shanty
town fundamentalists”, op.cit.
36 Taraki, The Islamic
resistance Movement in the Palestinian Uprising”, op.cit.p.175.
37 “The Challenge of
Hamas”, monitored from the BBC World Service, 19 February 1993,
quoted in
AJME News (Beirut),
February-March 1993.
38 “Charter of the
Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) of Palestine”, Journal of
Palestine Studies,
Volume XXII, No 4,
Summer 1993, pp.127-9
39 Hammami, Rema,
“Women, the Hijab and the Intifada”, Middle East report, May-August
1990, p.25.
40 Moghadam, Modernizing
Women, op.cit.p.163.
41 Hammami “Women, the
Hijab and the Intifada”, op.cit.p.25.
42 Ibid.p.25
43 Ibid.p.28.
44 Ibid.p.28 (? -check
all these footnotes)
45 Ibid.p.28.
46 Ibid.p.28.
47 Afkhami, Muhnaz, and
Friedl, Erika, “Introduction”, in Afkhamia and Friedl, editors,
Muslim Women
and the Politics of
Participation: Implementing the Beijing Platform, Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press,
1997,p.xiii.
48 Mayer, Ann Elizabeth,
Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics, Boulder and San
Francisco:
Westview Press and
London: Pinter Publishers, 1995,p.94.
49 Ibid.pp.3-4.
50 Sharoni,”Gendering
and Peace”, op.cit.p.1062.
51 Ibid. p.1088.
52 Ibid, p.1088.
53 Ibid, p.1089.
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