Creativity against injustice.
Women in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

1. Political alternatives proposed by Palestinian and Israeli women activists

In the current reality of continuing military occupation on the Palestinian territories, a fair conflict resolution has not yet been achieved. In such a background, by attempting to move on the ethno-national discourse that divides that land into the dichotomy of ‘we’ and ‘other(s)’, and in the peculiarity of the conflict between the ‘occupied’ and the ‘occupier’, women’s activism has continued to represent one of the few political alternatives suggesting viable prospects for a just peace solution. Several women activists and scholars from both sides have supported political proposals that are intended to develop discussions as well as actions which overcome ethno-national divisions, crossing political and geographic borders.

After the failure of the Oslo Accords, the upsurge of the second Intifada and the demise of the historic ‘two states for two peoples’, the majority of women’s grassroots initiatives have suffered political and structural problems. In spite of this, in the most recent years the practice of non-violence along with civil disobedience actions have been reintroduced as feasible tools to reach the end of military occupation. Whilst remaining a rather marginal issue at the international level due to the mainstream focus on the explosion of the so-called ‘Arab revolutions’, the general awareness of their socio-political potential has, however, developed in importance as a strategy which might be deployed both within Israeli-Palestinian joint initiatives and in each of the two societies.

2.   Palestinian women and their non-violent struggle

Palestinian non-violent resistance has a long history that began with the earliest struggles against the British Mandate and culminated with the most recent cases led by the Palestinian Popular Resistance Movement (Bröning, 2011; Qumsiyeh, 2011). Responding to the revolutionary waves spreading in many Middle Eastern and North Africa countries from the beginning of 2011, women’s participation in diverse contexts of popular resistance has increased numerically and their involvement in decision-making as a collective political group has become more significant. Women activists have demonstrated their ability, strength, and determination to succeed in becoming central actors of the struggle, and also in motivating people from different backgrounds and political views to join in such actions. In particular, in the most renowned Palestinian villages in the West Bank, such as Bi’lin, Ni’lin, Budrus, Nabi Saleh, in which non-violent struggle against the construction of the Wall and in opposition to the illegal Israeli settlements has grown up in the last decade, women activists have consolidated their position by staging weekly demonstrations.

Other similar struggles have taken place in the Jerusalem area: Palestinian residents have largely faced up against Israeli Jewish settlers who have occupied Palestinian houses and buildings to increase the Israeli Jewish presence and control over as much of the territory as possible, and against the house demolitions that have caused left thousands of Palestinians without shelter. One of the most controversial symbols of non-violent resistance in East Jerusalem has been represented by the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where several Palestinian families have been evicted in recent years as a result of the decisions of the Israeli court. In opposition to such a plan, Palestinian women from the neighbourhood have organised themselves into the Women’s Forum of Sheikh Jarrah in order to directly face the Israeli evictions, and Israeli women activists have joined in the Solidarity Movement together with international and Palestinian activists.

3. Israeli women’s civil disobedience: struggling from within

Though representing a minority voice, a few Israeli feminist and peace-oriented women have put into question their roles as citizens of the Jewish state (the ‘occupier’) and, especially, their task in supporting Palestinian women (the ‘occupied’) by means of joint activities founded on women’s solidarity principles. In such a perspective, one of the most prominent women’s civil disobedience initiatives started to be acted out in May 2010, when the writer and activist Ilana Hammerman, working along with other Israeli women activists, decided to enable a group of Palestinian women to enter Israel and to enjoy the sea for the first time in their lives. Such Israeli women activists have publicly announced, especially by writing articles and advertisements published in the foremost Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, their choice not to obey an “illegal and immoral law” in relation to their violation of the Law of Entry[1].

The consequential risks related to such illegal trips have impacted on both sides: obviously these risks have been higher for the Palestinian women, who could face severe punishments if discovered inside the Israeli territory without a permit, but also within Israeli society they have produced fierce debates by generating an attitude of intolerance towards civil and human rights activists.

 4.   Conclusion

 Similar civil disobedience and non-violent initiatives, such as one of the biggest joint conferences organised by Palestinian and Israeli women in March 2011 in the town of Beit Ommar in the occupied Palestinian territories, have produced contentious debates throughout the West Bank and inside Israel. By empowering themselves and acting in more creative and rather successful ways, women activists have advanced and refined their own perspectives and forms of resistance. This has emphasised the increasing importance of considering Palestinian and Israeli Jewish women’s grassroots activism both within a theoretical framework based on the feminist critique related to conflict contexts, and also as it relates specifically to their everyday resistance towards the Israeli military occupation.

If it is necessary to bear in mind the structural conditions that have characterised the reality on the ground in Palestine/Israel, it is also important to underline that a gap between theories and practices experienced by women’s organisations has caused the current prolonged impasse to develop within the most progressive examples of non-violent resistance and of civil disobedience. This has continued to be a problematic issue not only in relation to women’s mobilisation, but also in the way it has been concerned with past and current alternative politics to the dominant mainstream, as in general inside leftist peace groups and political parties. Indeed, as we pass through the spring and, subsequently, the autumn of the socio-political mobilisations which began in 2011, the question of what kind of political changes grassroots activists need to achieve to end the military occupation and to produce a new vision of social justice in Palestine/Israel still remains unresolved.

References

Bröning, Michael, 2011. The Politics of Change in Palestine: State-Building and Non-Violent Resistance. London and New York: Pluto Press.

Hammerman, I. (2010), ‘If There Is a Heaven’. Ha’aretz, 7 May.

Qumsiyeh, Mazin B., 2011. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment. London and New York: Pluto Press.