Political partecipation of Palestianian women
in Israel
Sommary
di Nabilia Espagnioly
Although the role and status of Palestinian women in Israel are to a great extent determined by social political, economic and ideological forces, the family remains a major force in shaping a woman's identity and status. In many Palestinian families depending on class, social and political affiliation, upon marriage women move from the custody of their fathers and brothers to the custody of their husbands and their husband's families. Like their sisters in most of the Arab countries, Palestinian women have long been sujected to different forms of oppression. They face patriarchal and gender oppression within their families, their society, and within the wider system. They face racial and national discrimination, and the majority also face class exploitation. Today Palestinian women are labouring for self-determination on several fronts. They are working for autonomy on the national level; one of the characteristics of Palestinian women's struggle is irs connection to the national liberation movement. But equally important are the multiple fronts of struggle which they have opened up internally as they struggle for gender and class self-determination. In the beginning of the century, and particularly between 1904- 1916, a remarkable change occurred in women's participation in public and political life. Social and political changes combined with fear for their country's future motivated urban Palestinian women, especially of upper and middle classes, to take some form of public action (Rishmawi, 1988). For the first time Palestinian women began to engage in organized social activism, organizing charitable societies in the major cities of Haifa, Akko, Jaffa, Nablus and Jerusalem (Enclyclopedia Palestina, 1990). After years of activism at the local level they gathered on the 26th of October, 1929 in Jerusalem for the first Palestinian Women's Conference (Giacaman and Odeh, 1988); Rishmawi, 1988; Fawzia, 1984). The major characteristics of Palestinian women's organizations during this period are: organized mainly locally; city- based groups; mainly charitable societies; made up of elite women: the wives and relatives of the political leadership at that time (Abdo, 1987; Rishmawi, 1988). The increasing participation of women in public activities was cut short by the events of 1948. The Jewish forces (which by 1948 became the Israeli Army) destroyed the social, political and economic infrastructure of the Palestinian society. More than 480 Palestinian villages were destroyed (out of 573) 75% of the Palestinian population of 750,000 became refugees in the neighbouring Arab countries. Many were forced to leave while others ran away hoping to come back when the war wuold be over. Only 150,000 Palestinians were able to stay within the new state of Israel. 40,000 of these found themeselves refugees in their own land. Altogether the war destroyed the social, political and economic infrastructure. Palestinians in Isreal lived under military government until 1966 undergoing further proletariazation and impoverishment. They experienced what Abdo calls underdevelopment and paralysis (Abdo, 1987). Palestinians in Israel were isolated from neighbouring Arab countries, out off from their families, and segregated from Jews through military laws which controlled every aspect of their daily lives (Peled, 1992). Large scale confiscation left the majority of the Palestinians without the basic means of subsistence. Under such traumatic conditions the feeling of insecurity, especially amongst men, were frequently overwhalming. Having lost control over their land and status for both the present and future, the Palestinians man was left with only one domain over which to exert control: his family, wife and children. The difficulties experienced by Palestinian women were further exacerbated by the hardships suffered under the military government. These included restrictions of personal movement within the country, and of organization (Jirys, 1976). Palestinian women lost the mobility which hard work had earned them in the previous generation. Owing both to societal pressures and military orders, women were forced to stay at home and were not able to participate in family economic production. The role of former peasant women shifted its focus from an agricultural, productive role in society and family, to an exclusively reproductive role within the family. The heritage of the past, under this insecurity, became the most salient source from which Palestinians in Israel could derive pleasure as a comunity and on which they could depend for protection and preservation of their identity (Abdo, 1987). Here again women have had to deal not only with externally imposed objective hardships (such as land confiscation, military laws, etc.), but also with the internal, subjective hardships reflected by old patriarchal tradition which gained nationally sanctioned importance under these conditions. The 1967 war not only solved the economic crisis which existed in Israel, but brought new markets and increasing demands for Israeli products. This opended new employment opportunities for women and increased their participation in the labour market. After the 1967 war there was a growing national awareness among the Palestinians in Israel as a result of the renewed contacts with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. This as well as the increased level of education due to the Israeli obligatory education law and other social-political life of the people. This involvement grew more and more pronounced from the 70s to the 80s and up through the Intifada. Although there is no argument today with the fact that Palestinian women and are still active participants in their national-political- social struggle, we can observe that their participation was limited. This is despite almost a hundred years of organized participation and more hundreds of non-organized participation, however, their activities were limited to: mainly women's organizations; traditional forms of activities; mainly passive participation, with some exceptions Palestinian women in Israel were excluded from political representation and the decision-making levels. In the history of Palestinian women in Israel only one woman has been a mayor (Violet Houry), and only three women were elected as local representatives in the different cities and villages (Samia Hakim, Nahada Shahadi, and Fatana Hana). Today only one woman stands as a member of a city council, Samia Hakim who is acting- member of the Nazareth City Council. Women's participation in political forces is accepted and only if it is limited to passive participation. It is no longer well accepted if we go beyond these bounds to claim our right to active representation. There is no doubt that the history of the Palestinian people in general, and of Palestinian women's organization in particular, illustrates some of the historical obstacles which affected a decline in women's public participation and representation. For years Palestinian women's organizations adopted the two stage theory of priorities for change. This philosophy meant that national liberation took precedence, and only after that would women confront their own liberation as the second stage in the fight for universal liberation of their people. This lack of insistence on women's rights from the beginning is another of the explanations of the present situation (Espanioly, 1990). Many such women's organizations acted for years as arms of different political parties, functioning as mobilization agents for the mother party amongst women. That the women's arms of the parties were indeed separate arms, overseeing and managing women's activities, afforded the "revolutionary" party members the assumption that they were liberated from any responsability in regards to women's oppression within their society. These women's organizations acted mostly tactically and not strategically. Some of the women's organizations acting among the Palestinian women in Israel acted as preservers of the traditional status of women. One example is the overabundance of cooking classees in Namat and elsewhere. Other political/systematic reasons for women's luck of representation in the public and political realms can be connected with characteristics of the society itself. Palestinian society is a patriarchal society with clear peasant roots. Representation and expecially political representation are considered by the power structure (which is historically male) as a male role. In particular, the elder men of the family are considered to hold the right of representation for the family as a whole. The destruction of the economic infrastructure of the Palestinian society in 1948 did not cause a positive transition toward a democratic consciousness (which should necessarily include both men and women). To the contrary, in many oases the imposed changes led, as explained above, to a backward movement towards more and more traditional values and roles. This reaction of backward-stepping towards more patriarchal gender roles is clear even today in times of crisis. The Israeli state supported this backward movement because it is easier to control a traditional group. Patriarchal system, like any closed system, develops its own control structures. These act to preserve the existing order. They include norms and attitudes and beliefs which must be adhered to in order to participate within the society. Besides official control systems such as the family and religious institutions there exist other control agents. Palestinian women are educated and socialized to act within the patriarchal system as a primary control system which aims to preserve the status quo of the society which is the overriding patriarchal structure. The crisis and the tragedy is found in women who demonstrate abilities or take leadership positions. While many Palestinian women's organizations claim women's rights as their goal, they still replicate the hierarchical system in which these women were educated. Even while they attempt to change the patriarchal society, they themselves become obstacles to leadership and development away from a patriarchal system. Further reasons for the current situation are personal/internal: 1. the division labour (division of gender roles) within the Palestinian society is very rigid. Despite the fact that more Palestinian women are going out of their homes to work, the main responsibility for household upkeep remain on their shoulders. This double work week is another obstacle for womes's participation in the political world. 2. Political activities are voluntary. They demand free time. Free time is a rare commodity amongst working women who generally work two jobs, one inside and one outside the home. Palestinian non-working women are made to believe that they have an important positive active role in preservation of cultural, religious, and national continuity. This culture asks her to accept and internalize as believe system that defines her own status as inferior. In other words, a considerable portion of the cultural value system which Palestinian women have been assigned responsibility for upholding consists of the same values which has discriminated against her and deprived her of status. They reproduce their own subordinate conditions. 3. Within Palestinian society in Israel, a women's identity is formed and (mis-) informed by stereotypes and rigid norms through the patrriarchal control systems of family, religious and social institutions. Women are educated to concentrate on domestic issues rather than public issues. They are educated to conform rather than oppose. Women themselves often internalize a sense of their own inferiority (this is, after all, one of the main control systems for the patriarchal system). Due to this education, women's perception of their selves and their abilities is also an obstacle to their representation and participation. This situation could continue indefinitely bacause realization of one's role as a woman and of the oppression one suffers at the hands of one's own men and one's own society is frequently more painful than awareness of the oppression suffered in common with one's people at the hand of an enemy. Very few Palestinian women in Israel, for example, recognize the contradiction of the "revolutionary" man who speaks day and night about freedom only then to go home to his wife, mother, or sister and begins to act like a "shiek" who needs to be waited on and made to deel he is the boss. 4. Women who internalize their inferiority limit their options and their choices. The educational system, formal and informal, supports this misconception imposed upon women. Women are used to oppress themselves. Society's norms and attitudes concerning women's role are highly represented in our education and socialization process. We as women learn to accept them and even believe in them. Many women truly believe that they are less able than men in general. Furthermore, the educational system and socialization process both teach women to put other people before their own priorities for themselves. With all of this together we begin to see some of the major obstacles to women's movement into positions of leadership and more militant, non-traditional roles. We see the lack of a support system for women. We see a government which is not only interested in changing the situation of women, but actively supports the continuation of existing patriarchal limitations on women because "traditional" societies are easier to control. Women feel pressure from all sides. They are pressured by the fundamentalists and traditionalists to conserve the "tradition" (read that, patriarchal tradition). They are pressured by "revolutionary" male leaders to sacrifice their own freedom for the more crucial independence of the people (which can be read as the male people). Still, the main challenge in from of the Palestinian women today is to realize the relationship between the personal and the political, between public/political/ and internal reasons for the current political-economic and social discrimination against women. Women must understand these relationships and meet the challenge. Women have to face the fact that change cannot be realized without taking part in the decision making process at all levels. Without stepping out and taking this role for ourselves, significant change in women's position will doubtfully be achieved. Abdo, Nahla. Family, Women and Social Change in the Middle East: The Palestinian Case. 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