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Issue: April, 1989

SOME MONTHS REMOVED FROM THE "YEAR OF THE STONES", as we move into the next phase of the Palestinian Intifada, we can now examine some of the sociological and cultural phenomena which were lost, pushed aside or ignored in the initial flurry of excitement over this dramatic and long awaited - revolt. One oft-raised question in progressive discussions of Palestine is a variation of "What about the women?"   A close look at the status of women in Palestinian society immediately presents a dilemma, both practical and ideological: how to determine where "women's" problems end and the collective national problem begins. The danger is in not considering each aspect equally, and for Western feminists that isn't always easy. Any attempt to avoid this dilemma leads either to a feminism that ignores the effects of centuries-long colonial oppression on Palestinian social and family structures, or to sterile nationalism without adequate social content. M.T.

THE CONTEXT
The erosion of the Palestinian economy at the hands of various conquerers means that not only are the immediate conditions unbearable under the current Israeli occupation, but that occupation exacerbates many of the economic weaknesses which have been present for a very long time.

The beginning of the displacement of Palestinians from their land was the influx of Europeans late in the last century (the first aliyah of European and Russian Jews) buying land and displacing its long-time residents, sometimes entire villages. Up to that time, the Ottoman Turks wanted taxes paid on the land, which meant the land remained accessible to those who had taken their living from the land for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years.

As more Europeans arrived to colonize this Arab land, the agrarian economy was re-shaped into what is tragically common to much of the Third World today - an economy marked by total dependence on the intruding Western invader, a wage labor economy with the usual below-subsistence pay scale and stifled development (an in the current case, destruction) of the indigenous economy. Clearly,the root cause of these problems - colonization, and more recently, the Israeli occupation - must be addressed simultaneously with specific issues of women's freedom. For most Palestinian women, the issues of national freedom and their own liberation as women are intertwined, and cannot be teased apart. It is within this context of colonization that we must look at the status of women in Palestine.

The history of the struggle of Palestinian women can be divided into four stages, beginning with the first Zionist settlements in 1882 to the partition of Palestine and creation of the state of Israel in 1947/48. The second stage lasts until the June 1967 war, and the beginning of the Israeli occupation. The third stage, 1968 to 1987 is one of continuous movement leading to the contemporary struggle. The fourth stage, of course, is the Intifada. We'll look today at the first three. The fourth, women in the Intifada, will be discussed in a later column.

THE FIRST STAGE
In the first stage Palestinian women's participation in the national struggle is described by Indian feminist Hamida Kaze as passive, inarticulate and unorganized. Although they participated alongside men in protesting the European Jewish settlements which were gradually displacing Arab families, it was nonetheless a participation severely restricted by a narrow social order under which freedom of movement for women was almost non- existent.

Their participation grew, however after the First World War and the beginning of the British Mandate, and they began to organize themselves. They participated and died in demonstrations against British domination during the 1929 rebellion, organized women's groups to address the problems of the British Mandate and of continued Jewish immigration and the resultant Palestinian displacement. The 1936 Revolt and six-month general strike saw women develop specific supporting roles, delivering supplies to the men, and setting up assistance committees to aid families of men jailed or killed in the revolt.

The horrors of World War II and the unspeakable agony of Jewish experience in Europe fueled the efforts of the World Zionist Organization to complete the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, finishing the struggle begun 70 years before. The people who lived on that land were made to pay the price both for Western greed and racism, and for the WZO's determined policy not to fight anti-Jewish racism any more. The United Nations partitioned their land in 1947, giving more than half to the Jewish immigrants who owned only 7% of the land, for the creation of a Jewish state, and which at the time of partition contained a large number of Palestinians; a situation soon remedied by a bloody war and the determined policy of "cleansing" the land of Arabs (word choice from Israeli policy papers and military diaries). Objecting strenuously to the loss of more than half their land and the social disruption wrought by the sudden appearance of European power and money, women were very active, doing everything but fighting, though a good number did that as well, many losing their lives.

THE SECOND STAGE
The second stage (1948-1967) brought a large-scale retreat from direct struggle, thanks in large part to the fact that men were severely restricted from resisting the new dominating forces, Israel and Jordan. Another reason is the bourgeoise nature of the male leadership at this stage, which wasn't conducive to organizing for resistance. Women at this stage took their lead from the men, and channeled their work into charitable and social activities, many of which eventually took on a rather revolutionary character, or served revolutionary purposes.

Women's activities within what was now Israel were severely limited by the security apparatus of the state, with the social, political and educational institutions which were normal sites of work and discourse for women under constant threat of closure. Israel's policy of "collective ignorance", still in force today, actively discouraged higher education for either Palestinian men or women, but in the West Bank, despite Jordan's brutal repression of expressions of Palestinian self-determination, education was highly valued and actively pursued by women in large numbers.

In Gaza, with a more stringent social system and more depressed economic situation (while Egypt's domination of Gaza was not the destructive military occupation which Israel employs today, neither did it do anything for Gaza), women's participation in the struggle for either national or gender liberation was limited. At this time, Gaza, with the exception of a short and very bloody occupation by Israel in 1956-57, was administered by Egypt and women's work was restricted to agriculture, the base of the Palestinian economy. Education however, was fairly accessible, and many women took advantage of the opportunities which went with it, further facilitating participation in the national struggle.

In Israel women's resistance was confined to the educated middle, or bourgeois class. In the West Bank, most Palestinians became absorbed in the Jordanian system. For the poor in all areas, with far fewer options open to them, economic survival was primary, and large segments of society were transformed into wage laborers. The movement into wage labor provided freedom of movement for women, but not necessarily freedom in decision-making. In addition, wage labor provided only the most meager income, for in Israel, Palestinians are paid far less than Jews for the same job (though for the most part, they do the "dirty work" which Jews do not commonly do - they are almost exclusively service employees and low- paid construction workers). In both Israel and Palestine women receive lower pay than men do for the same work, or are hired for "women's work" and paid at a very low rate.

THE THIRD STAGE
This stage brought a broader level of participation of women in the national struggle, and a higher awareness of their own subjugation as women. It is also a time of the most serious social dislocation and unrelenting litany of personal and societal tragedies since the 1948 expulsion and flight from Israel. It is normally separated into two sub-stages; one from June 1967 to 1972 and 1973 to 1987.

In this first sub-stage, the burgeoning strength of the Palestine Liberation Organization, founded in 1964 and radically re-made into a revolutionary organization in 1968, offered an entirely new arena for resistance. Although the level of women's participation within the organization depends upon the faction to which the woman's family belongs, the continuum runs the expected gamut, from right-wing religious groups within which there is almost no room for women to speak of their own freedom, in the same way that Christian and Jewish fundamentalism stifles that same voice; to Fatah, Yasir Arafat's party with its middle-of-the -road, bourgeois orientation; to the progressive and radical wings, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The Democratic and Popular Fronts provided women with the greatest opportunities to participate in social change, although even within these groups, serious obstacles remain. Patriarchy's roots are, after all, perhaps the most tenacious of all.

Armed struggle was the dominant aspect of the Palestinian movement in this first part of the third stage, and this time woman's participation was not limited to support roles, though inclusion in armed forays was sporadic, at best. The PLO, which articulated a progressive line about the participation of women in the struggle, still channeled much of women's energy into support activities. Nonetheless, many women participated in all phases of military operations and even more were sent to prison for anti-occupation activities.

Describing the beginning of the 2nd sub-stage in the early '70's, Dr. Rita Giacoman, who helped shape the modern face of the Palestinian Women's Movement in the West Bank, says that poverty was the most striking problem the movement faced when women workers and university graduates began to organize women in rural areas. The history of colonization, and the current fact of a particularly brutal military occupation meant there was much now to be overcome. The extremely low level of hygiene and public health services meant more time spent cleaning. Inadequate water and fuel supplies meant more time spent on housework. The dispossession of farmers from their land meant both parents often had to enter the wage labor market in order to feed their children. A long day working for meager pay, then an evening meeting bare survival needs leaves little time to organize, or even think, as an organizer in any desperately poor community knows. The loss of a man as head of household through imprisonment, death or expulsion is a catastrophe, and a common one.

Today, there are more than 50 women's charitable organizations in Palestine, many of them associated with the PLO, some not. These organizations address literacy, child care, health, vocational training. Women's work committees have been established in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and Lebanon. Factionalism is still strong, and is evident in the specific political and social focus of each committee, which reflects the particular tendency to which the committee belongs. Together they are linked to wider pluralist policies which serve the interests of the people in general.

The fact of military occupation, however, creates more constraints than any faced before by the Palestinians. Under Israeli occupation, everything done communally is suspect, and given the nature of Palestinian society, that means every aspect of their lives. Even participation in funerals or herb-gathering can result in a prison sentence. In fact, the occupation has made it increasingly difficult to continue resistance in the face of collective punishments like demolition or sealing of homes, closure of academic and charitable institutions, town curfews, of deportations, house arrests, detentions without charge and long prison sentences. In a dramatic paen to human endurance and determination, resistance continues, nonetheless.

AND WOMEN'S LONGER STRUGGLE. . .
The Palestinian woman, as in other societies the bearer of the culture and bearer of children, now faces a particular dilemma; how to further her own liberation within the struggle for national liberation, and at the same time keep her own culture, indeed her own people, alive. The fact of the Palestinian Diaspora means there are fewer in the homeland to continue the culture. Large families, once needed and prized by an agrarian society, now take on another role - that of preserving a people under threat of annihilation. These large families, while serving as a badly needed form of social security, also have grave implications for women's freedom of choice.

Perhaps Kazi frames the dilemma most clearly. "Women are caught in a trap where they have to find a balance between challenging their subordinate position, and the political exigencies which demand upholding the same cultural values in the interests of national integrity which restrain women from participating in the movement."

(In a later column, "Palestinian Women and the Intifada" -- M. Torres)

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