The Palestinian Women’s Struggle

·       Before 1948

·       1948 – 1967

·       The Palestinian women’s struggle

·       1967- 1976 ( from defeat to revolution)

·       The Palestinian women’s struggle within the PLO.

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·       Before 1948

       Before 1948, the Palestinian society was a traditional one that depended on agriculture. It consisted of a majority of villagers. In the second half of the last century, little changes occurred in the economy and did not allow women to participate in production. In 1922, the ratio of population in the Palestinian villages to the Arab population in Palestine was 71%, while in 1944 the percentage became only 66% out of the Arabian population in Palestine. Such conditions played a remarkable role for new national bourgeoisie and labor forces to be limited and dominated by old religious and family standards.

         The British mandate for Palestine maintained notably the underdeveloped traditional Arab society of Palestine through obstructing the national industrial movement in order to help the Zionist policies invade Palestine. For such sake, the British mandate slackened the operation of modernizing the Palestinian society. For example, the educational system was engaged only to provide the British mandate with the needed officers that could read and write and few workers.

        Thus, education budget allocated by the British mandate was so little that could not found new schools or accept all the applicant students.  In 1935, the British mandate rejected 41% of Arab applicant students from 800 past Palestinian villages. In 1935, there were only 15 girls’ schools and 269 boys’ schools. However, there were only 15 village girl students that reached to the seventh primary stage. Also, 517 Arab villages lacked schools, while all the Arab villages were in lack of secondary schools. Statistics related to education carried out in the period of the British mandate revealed that the efficiency of education in this period was very bad and the biggest portion of the students hardly pursued their studies. These facts prove that the goal of the British mandate policies did not aim at producing an educated generations, nor did it aim at challenging the illiteracy of the Palestinians.

Chart no. (1)

The number of boys and girls in the governmental schools (1944 – 1945):

 Chart (1) shows a decreasing rate in the numbers of the students from the first stages to the secondary stage that did not complete their school studies. It shows also that the number of the students in cities is larger than those in villages.

     These statistics do not only prove the decreasing rate of male and female students in primary schools, but also female students were not given any education opportunity. Comparatively, these opportunities, though, seem to be more available to female students in cities than to those in villages. These results were not only due to a rather developed educational system in cities, but it was due also to the fact that villages were more dominated by customs and traditions than cities. As other Arab societies, the Palestinian society did not easily allow girls to get education as well as boys. And such a condition became harder in villages than it is in cities. Another basic factor was the absent of schools in villages.  It was easier for a family to accept joining their daughter to a school in her village or in another neighboring one than to send her to a school in city; otherwise, they would make her stay home. Thus, the males’ portion of university education was larger than the females’; e.g., from 1946 to 1947, the International College and the American University contained 342 students, 14 of them were female students. In other words, 1.15% of the students were females. In the 1944- 1945 academic year, the students' number was 417, while the number of girl students was 14 (3.24%). Such an underdeveloped educational situation of women did not depend only on a weak agricultural and economic structure, but also on a great heritage of customs and traditions that dominated women.

     In 1931, women did not join any political organizations or parties; however, they participated within special forms of activities related to them such as public conferences, women organizations and leagues known as Leagues of the Arab Ladies. They followed the example of the national leagues founded just before and during the Palestinian 1936 revolution. In 1921, Emily Essakakeany founded with Zeakhah Eshahaby the first Palestinian women union. The union carried out many committees and staged demonstrations against the British mandate and the Zionist colonialism. Afterwards, a committee of Arab ladies was founded just after a conference held in Jerusalem on October 1929 in the presence of 300 Arab women. Then, many committees of Arab women were established in several Palestinian cities such as an Arabian Women’s Committee founded in Jerusalem, an Arabian Women’s Committee founded in Akka, and an Arabian Women’s Committee founded in Java.

             The committees sent protest letters against the British mandate authorities. Besides, some women founded in 1948 a secret women division entitled Zahret Aleqhowan (daisy flower). The division was founded for the sake of an anti British mandate incitement. In addition, the members of Zahret Eleqhowan also stood by the Palestinian rebels, kept company with them, and provided them with weapons and supplies. Juhaina Khurshid and Arabia Khurshid were well known members of the division. Meanwhile, Loulu Abu-Elhuda founded Women Solidarity Association that interested in nursing and first aid.

The women political activity was making its best when Palestine witnessed comprehensive national raisings. The Palestinian women proved their presence during the period between 1922 and 1921, in the political turmoil of 1929, in the rebellion of 1936 and in the war of 1947-1948. Besides, their struggle had variant forms, such as participating in demonstrations and sending anti British mandate protest letters. In addition, they participated narrowly in nursing and first aid operations; yet, the participation was limited to few women whose families allowed them to take part in these activities. Despite of these obstacles, women villagers stood by the rebels transporting supplies and weapons. But their operations were arbitrary and disorganized, they were not been managed by any women authority or organization. Hence, an actual women armed struggle was absent with the exception of little individual cases. In general, women’s rule was to evoke men to fight and defend Palestine.

    Palestinian women held many demonstrations. One of them was in Jerusalem in 1929. It included hundreds of women who went to the British High Commissioner headquarter at Jerusalem and asked him to cancel Balfour’s Promise, to stop the Jewish emigration, and to stop torturing the Arab prisoners and to treat them as well as the Jewish prisoners.

         Another demonstration was in Jerusalem in 1933. It included more than 50 women walking behind men and singing national and enthusiastic songs. In the same year, there was another women demonstration in Java.

           Besides, many protest letters were sent to the British High Commissioner. In 1932, the executive committee of the Arab Women’s Conference sent the British High Commissioner a protest letter complaining the mistreatments that exercised over civil Arab Palestinians. In 1929, the committee sent also a protest letter to the League of Nations in memoriam of Balfour's promise. In addition, the executive committee of the Arabian Women’s Conference published statements to urge people to continue the Palestinian 1936 six months general strike.

           The women activity was not only limited to the Palestinian issue, it concerned with raising awareness about the Palestinian issue among the Arab women. The most distinguished activity related to this field was an orient women conference that was held in 1938 for the sake of supporting Palestine.  The conference was initiated by Palestinian women and different delegations from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon attended it in addition to an Iranian women delegate. In this stage, the political women activity was distinguished for putting national requests consideration more than any issue related to the Palestinian women’s liberty. Accordingly, the statements and decisions of the Palestinian women’s committees excluded any special women request. The exclusion was not due to the absent awareness for women liberty issues among the activist Palestinian women, it was due only to the strength the national issue had in the one hand, and to the fact, on the other hand, that most of the activist women were bourgeois who did not suffer from oppression, illiteracy and underdevelopment like the common women.

     Worth mentioning, the Palestinian political organizations and parties of this period did not give the women’s issue and liberty any consideration except the Arab Executive Committee which praised the women who participated in the Jerusalem 1933 demonstration, and the decision mad by the Arab Economic Conference held in 1923 that encouraged teaching sewing in girls schools; although, the decision was not related to women’s liberty as well as it was related to teaching a traditional custom, the matter that asserted old habits like textile and sewing.

        Despite of her political activity limited by society and men’s political leaderships, the Palestinian woman proved her political attendance in the periods of national raisings. Moreover, she proved her capacity and efficiency in fields available to her, and if she had wider extent, she would prove her efficiency more.

·

·       1948 – 1967

In this stage, the Palestinian women’s situation was influenced by the changes took place in the Arab Palestinian society after establishing the Zionist Israeli state on the largest Palestinian land, displacing most of the Palestinian people. After 1948, 900,000 houseless Palestinians were distributed in Gaza, West Bank, and some neighboring Arab countries. While the rest 160,000 Palestinians who stayed in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 were submitted by an Israeli military government and to racial Israeli policies.

             The Palestinian women were affected by new changes. The socioeconomic structure of the Palestinian society became broken due to displacing the Palestinian villagers from their land. They became unemployed or worked in a temporal marginal work. Moreover, the Palestinian displaced workers were obliged to look for any work in order to get their family sustenance. These conditions resulted in losing land, a means of production, affected strongly on the structure of the society and, damaged the well-built social relationships that had been before the Palestinian 1948 catastrophe.

         After the collapse of materialist principles, other factors that played an important rule in the Palestinian society had appeared:

- Connection among Palestinian communities in Arab societies and countries.

- New Social relations took place in camps, geographic social unities.

Furthermore, a camp concerned more with maintaining its traditional relations and values; it seemed more obvious in the camp’s attitude towards women. A Woman in a camp could not be out of her family’s domination or observation; her common and privet affairs were submitted to her family.

  Another factor was the revolutionary work that widened the social relations. The revolutionary work put an end to customs and traditions’ domination and made the woman share in the national and revolutionary struggle. Moreover, the revolutionary work helped her break the traditional rules and face the society more courageously and somehow self-confidently. Women became affected by the leaderships of the revolutionary work which had no blain attitude towards women liberty.

     The three factors were limitedly effectual during the collapse of the materialist social principle which reflected on the Palestinian family and compelled it to adapt to the new situation. Consequently, daughters and sons of a family were expected to save their family from hunger, poverty and disease.

     The conditions resulted in changing the rules of the family members: the male and female members became responsible of the family economical management; besides, the loose of their land, which was a mean of production, resulted in compelling the family to join its members to schools, which became the only way to avoid the economic crisis of the family. Thus, woman was allowed to work and to study in order to be more qualified and able to gain more money. As a result, there was a remarkable increase in the number of girl students; the gap between the numbers of girl students and boy students narrowed gradually year by year to the extent that in 1960s the numbers became approximate.

     In 1954, the number of the students of the UNRWA primary schools in Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon was 90,748 students, 30,401 (33.5%) of them were girls. While in the UNRWA preparatory and secondary schools, the number was 3841, only 239 (6.22%) of them were girls. This wide gap between the numbers of girl students and boy students was due to the little number of the girls qualified to join preparatory and secondary schools in comparative to the boy students’ number. Nevertheless, the gap became gradually narrower year after year.

           In 1965, the number of the preparatory and secondary students in Gaza, West Bank, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon came to 30,932; 36.77% of the total number were girl students. While in the primary stage, the girl students were 44.85% of the total number. This indicates that the Palestinian girl made a good progress in having equal opportunities to men in education, and the families were no longer preventing their girls to travel to another Arab country and to complete their education. On the contrary, a big rate of families encouraged girls to join universities, for gaining a certificate was the last resort to have a job and a good salary. No doubt, these conditions decreased the woman’s submission of her family and gave her a slight independence to practice participation and work.

      Thus, there was a remarkable increase in the number of the working women in different fields and different places, particularly in the Arab petroleum countries which had room to employ big numbers of educated Palestinian, especially in schools. In 1965, 2,258 Palestinian women worked in Kiewit, most of them were teachers. In comparison with the Palestinian men employees, the Palestinian women employees’ rate in 1966 was 28.91%.

          Opening the way for the Palestinian woman to learn and work resulted in some changes in the social relations within the Palestinian family. Nevertheless, they were not so effectual changes that could be considered radical changes within the Palestinian family or in the Palestinian community. The changes indicated the inability of the family’s old traditions to adapt to the changes. The incapability seemed more obvious in an urban family than it is in a rural or a camp family; that indicated the remarkable continuous traditional trends and the tough attitudes of some Palestinian families towards woman, and the disappearance of such trends and attitudes of the others.

     Being educated and money-bringer, woman did not get rid of the society dominating values and old traditions; though, she hardly released herself from some fetters of her society. On the other hand, women workers enjoyed such a slight liberty better than the other women. That is to say, despite of the changes that reflected on the Arab Palestinian society after the Palestinian catastrophe, and directed the society towards revolutionary trends, the Arab Palestinian society still dominated women according to old traditions and customs.

·       The Palestinian women’s struggle

        The Palestinian woman contributed to different revolutionary activities of the period. Although, women’s revolutionary activity here was much better than it was in the preceding periods; it still did not match the developments and changes took place in the Arab Palestinian society, nor did the society become familiar with women’s participation in the revolutionary work. Women’s revolutionary work was still limited to educated women and to women belonged to families that prevailed by politics, nationalism and revolution. On the other hand, worker women, rural women, camps’ women, and housewives stayed away from exercising political works unless the struggle came to its climax. In such a case, the demonstrations gathered mothers and wives side by side with politician women, educated women and student women. Nevertheless, demonstrations were the only revolutionary work that witnessed the most notable women participation. This fact indicates that a large women’s participation in demonstrations was not employed well: the large participation had to be employed in other revolutionary forms, not only in demonstrations. However, the limitation of women’s participation in other revolutionary works was not due to women themselves as others claimed, it was due more to men who used to treat them as responsible of family honor. Men believed that woman’s arrest or dealing with men defamed her family. 

       Therefore, the Palestinian society with its old habits and traditions prevented women participating in revolution. Even though the society sometimes gloried in women’s revolutionary participation, it did not accept the consequences that resulted from the participation.

         The Palestinian woman was as deeply influenced by the Palestinian 1948 catastrophe as the Palestinian man. She lost her land and house and recognized the sense of belonging to Palestine, her homeland. She realized the necessity of a struggle that returns her home. Her realization was embodied in different scenes. The first one was the scene of a mother who had to look after their children and to teach them the sense of belonging to Palestine and the Palestinian cause. The second one was the scene of the mother watching her sons sacrificing themselves for Palestine.

       The Palestinian woman was a factor that prevented the Palestinian man from participating in the Palestinian revolution. She always reminded him about his family responsibilities, because he was the only breadwinner of the family. Afterwards, the woman’s attitude changed gradually when she got work and shared the family responsibilities with man.

   In addition to society, other negative factors appeared:

1- Geographic distribution of the Palestinian people:

The economic and social situations of the Palestinian communities lived in Arab countries were different. In the light of the political and social challenges they faced, their revolutionary rules were different.

    In Jordan, the Palestinian woman participated in the revolution and left valuable contributions in different fields. Her political experiment in Jordan was more mature than it was in other Arab countries.

     In Gaza strip, women’s participation was little and limited to charitable women organizations that marked by bourgeoisie. It did not match the Palestinian women participation in Jordan or in other Arab countries.

     Palestinians were involved notably in the revolutionary work, In the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948. 

 They struggled tenaciously against the Israeli military rule and the tyrant Zionist policies. Their struggle was for survival and social and national unity. Moreover, the Palestinian showed a strong support to the Palestinian refugees and the Arab freedom issues.

   The beginning of the Palestinian women participation in the revolution was markedly weak. This was due to the traditional structure of the Palestinian society that forbidden them to take place in the struggle. In addition, the Israeli policies did not let any women organization to be founded. Later on, and along with the development of the revolution in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Palestinian women participated widely and effectively in the revolution and in the Palestinian decision making. On the other hand, the geographic distribution of the Palestinian refugees played an effective role in women liberation from traditions and society old standards.        

     The geographical contribution resulted in different struggle tasks practiced by the Palestinian communities in the refugees hosting Arab countries. Accordingly the range of women mobilization for the revolution was different from one country to another. However, such differences were not only reflected on the Palestinian women revolutionary situation, they resulted also in that fact that women became free of some traditional standards.

2- Parties and political factions' frivolous dealing with woman liberalization.

      This period had lacked for a national Palestinian personage who symbolized the national Palestinian struggle till 1967. The absence of such a personage was due to the geographical distribution policies. However, the absence prevented founding any Palestinian organizations in the time. 

     After being founded, the parties had different attitudes towards women liberation. Their dealing with women was limited to a small number of women. Such dealing was only to prove general concepts about the necessity of women equality with men. No party made a plan that concerned with women liberation, nor did they seriously attempt to fulfill any other women requirements. For example, the socialist Jordanian party's attitudes towards women, which supposed to be better than any other national bourgeois parties', were not as well as expected. Considering the traditional standards of its society, the party was unwilling to involve itself in women liberalization. However, it strongly recommended not challenging the social traditions. Accordingly, the women members of the party  used to hold their own meetings and cells apart from men members; furthermore, they rarely participated in unisex cells. Consequently, the women members' function was limited to incitement and communication. Moreover, women membership was limited to girl students and the members' women relatives. Because of these facts, only one woman gained the central committee membership in the life of the Jordanian socialist party.

    Another example is Al-Baa’th (the resurrection) party. The Al-Baa’th party’s attitude towards women was not an exception. Women joint it because of either being relative to the party male members or being involved in nationalism. However, there were not any unisex cell, and most of the women members were students and educated ladies. Their membership did not last long. The women members always left the party after getting married. As in the Jordanian socialist party, the women’s function was limited to incitement and communication.

    The Arab Nationalists Movement was not an exception. The women members of the movement were relatives of the movement’s men members, students or educated women. The movement lacked for unisex cells. Besides, the women structure of the movement was self-existent and its responsible member was not always woman. The best position women had reached in the movement was head of a local committee. This phenomenon occurred once in the life of the movement in Nablus in 1965. The women’s activities in the movement were not different from the other parties. The only exception was the women limited participation in weapon transition and bomb planting, and that rarely happened. 

  The women revolutionary work patterns were as different as women activists’ classes. The activities can be summarized as follows:

-Forming organizations concerned with the Palestinian refugees’ families, baby care, motherhood, and illiteracy. The organizations were charitable and nonpolitical, and their staff members were bourgeois women. Few organizations practiced political works.

- Syndicate works:

      It was so difficult to found syndicates after the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 that many attempts failed to form a Palestinian women union. However, the Jordanian government prevented the Palestinian refugees to found any organization that had a Palestinian title. This case was common in all the Arab countries. The Palestinian women syndicate had not been founded until the foundation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (P.L.O). Sponsored by the PLO, a women conference was held in 1965, and resulted in founding the General Palestinian Women Union. The union was concerned with mobilizing Palestinian women for the sake of the revolution.

- Participating in political parties:

Palestinian women joined Arab political parties to defend their national cause. However, as have been mentioned, the total range of the joined women was very small and most of them were students and educated bourgeois. Thus, the Palestinian woman’s experiment within the Arab parties was barren and did not contribute much to Women Liberalization. The only contribution was building a good number of activist women who played an important role in the preceding period, 1967.     

        In addition to these patterns, Palestinian women took place in the first National Palestinian Conference that located in Jerusalem in 1964 simultaneous with the PLO foundation. They were considered as a representative body of the Palestinian women sectors. Under inspiration of these women, the conference took two important decisions: (1) challenging illiteracy and improving the standard of living; (2) giving the opportunity for women to contribute in the Palestinian struggle with man side by side. This step did not match the Palestinian women's ambition, although, it was a good beginning.

·       1967- 1976 ( from defeat to revolution)

     The Palestinian women's participation in the national straggle became notably improved. In this period, many different new struggle patterns came to existence. And the Palestinian woman took place in most of them. They participated in civil and armed resistance. They were fighters, politicians, instigators, and first-aid women. During the Palestinian struggle, many efficient women came to existence. In the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, Palestinian women did not hesitate to encounter the Zionist occupation. They appeared there as mothers who urged there sons and daughters to fight. They fought the Israeli enemy and transit weapons from a place to another.  However, women became leaders of organized cells. Out of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, Palestinian women participated in different resistance organizations. They contributed to the Palestinian resistance in accordance with the available means. The public work gave them an opportunity to get more experience in struggle and in politics, and enabled them to encounter the standards of society and family as well. It is worth mentioning to say that wherever the revolution situation was strong, women involvement in the struggle was stronger.  So, after the national raising (1967-1970), women in Jordan plunged into the struggle breaking most of the flattering standards. However, the involvement was not limited to a specific class or category as in the two preceding stages; it includes worker women, camps’ women, housewives, and mothers. In Lebanon, women involvement in the struggle was no longer secret, especially before the Lebanese civil war (1975-1976).

The variety of the women struggle patterns did not mean that women situation in the revolution would not be thorny and difficult any longer. This success, however, enabled woman to break her isolation and interact with society regardless the conservative standards. 

            Nowadays, considering the new preceding developments that took place in the revolution after the 1967 war, Palestinian women is still going on with a firm will clearer than it was before to fulfill her commitments toward Palestine and the revolution. The most distinguished development was the revival of the national Palestinian identity and the start of the Palestinian public war.  

The national Palestinian identity:

     The defeat of the 1967 war was very harsh. The Zionist Israeli state occupied the remaining Palestinian territories (Gaza Strip and the West Bank) and displaced thousands of the Palestinians out of their home land. In addition, forty per cent of the Palestinian people were directly under the Zionist occupation. The only matter that alleviated the shadows of the defeat was the Palestinian national raising that preceded the war and accompanied with an agitated armed struggle which became public. Hence, the national Palestinian identity was promoted and devoted in the later stages, considering that the national Palestinian identity was the most important fact to prove within the struggle. 

      Women played an important role in the public war, which became known then as the Intefada. Because Palestinian women suffered from the two oppressors, society and occupation, they were the first ones to answer the call of revolution. As in Vietnam, women in Palestine realized the strong connection between Women Liberalization and society freedom. Thus, the Palestinian women participated in the beginnings of the public war.  They were budged into the Palestinian revolution defense battles in Jordan and Lebanon. They helped the fighters and fed and nursed them.  In the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, women took place in the battles as instigators; they threw the Israeli solders Molotov cocktails and stones. Many women died while fighting the occupation, Im Tawfeq AbuSetah and Leana Ennabulsy are good examples. All these revolutionary patterns asserted that woman could be fully functional in revolutions.

·       The Palestinian women’s struggle within the PLO.

      The PLO is a framework that embodies the alliance of all the Palestinian factions. Involved in the Palestinian factions, Palestinian women have engaged in the PLO and participated in its activities. Women enter the First National Palestinian Council which took place in Jerusalem in 15^th May 1964. There were 10 women members, representing the Palestinian women’s organizations in Jordan; and other 10 women members, representing the Palestinian women’s organizations in Gaza and some Arab countries. The total number of the participant members of the Council was 422. However, only one woman member out of 100 participant members participated in the fourth round of the Council, the women member represented the General Union of the Palestinian Women. In the fifth round, there was only one woman participant member out of 105; in the sixth round, tow participant women members out of 112; and in the exceptional ninth round, held in 13^th July 1971, the women participant members were four out of 155; in the tenth exceptional round, three women participant members in behalf of the General Union of the Palestinian Women; in the eleventh and twelfth rounds, one woman participant member in behalf of the General Union of the Palestinian Women. Worth mentioning, Palestinian women have not been chosen for the membership of the PLO’s executive committee.  Women representation in the PLO was as remarkably weak as in the National Council.   

   Women representation rate in the PLO did not match the Palestinian National Council’s decision which made in its first round and call for involving women in the revolution and equaling them to men. The PLO and all the Palestinian factions were male-dominated. Since the beginning of the Palestinian revolution in the 1^st January of 1965, man has been the only one to plan, to decide, and to apply. This matter was not argumentative for the fact that the only target of the revolutionary work was to resist the Zionist movement in Palestine. In comparison to Palestine liberalization, women liberalization and other partial problems were neglected. On the other hand, the Palestinian factions were afraid of countering the society and losing their popularity. However, there were some exceptional cases that contradicted with the traditional standards. Some women did not satisfy the common women revolutionary participation (nursing, instigating, communication…) and practiced more serious meletary actions, such as: Laila Khaled, Mai Saiegh, Jehan ElHelu, Khadeajah AbuAli, Dallal ElMughraby, Fatmah ElBernawy, and Aishah Oudah. In these cases, women have been far from decision making in the factions.

   By the end of 1970s, the women started to found eternal women frames within the factions; although, these frames did not developed to be more than informational cycles to the factions. The women situation did not witnessed any real progress until the Intefada of 1987.

    In the 1990s, the time of establishing the Palestinian National Authority, some Palestinian women activists began to found women centers and organizations specialized in women researches, mass awareness, training, and women social affairs. Although these organizations were limited to the middle governorates of the West Bank (Jerusalem, Ram Allah, Bethlehem); they affected in decision making of some women-related and human rights issues.

   The NGOs leadership, with the exception of women organizations, was male dominated; and women presence was neglected. Worth mentioning, women have never allowed speaking in behalf of the NGOs Net. However, women had hardly any political role in the Palestinian parties, the matter that resulted in the governmental and legislative authorities, which consisted of Palestinian factions, and excluded women participation. According to the Central Palestinian Statistics Department, women representation rate in the central committees of the largest Palestinian left organizations (Fateh, the Public Front Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front liberation of Palestine, the Socialist Party) is greater than any other right organization.          

From Ghazi Elkhalily’s The Palestinian Woman and the Revolution Of 1976.