Women and Power in the Middle East

For the Common Good? Gender and Social Citizenship in Palestine

For the Common Good? Gender and Social Citizenship in Palestine Rita Giacaman, Islah Jad, and Penny Johnson For over half a century, to be a Palestinian has meant the absence of formal citizenship and the rights and duties it confers . While important elements of citizenship previously resided in membership in the Palestinian community and its institutions, the coming of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza, with its limited powers, patchwork jurisdiction, and dependence on Israeli and international goodwill, opens a new era where the contours of Palestinian citizenship are being shaped and contested. Citizenship in Palestine is still fundamentally at question , with deep implications for women, as well as other social groups and society as a whole. While the draft Basic Law (Article 9) prepared by the Legislative Council affirms that ‘‘Palestinians are equal before the law without discrimination on the basis of disability, sex, religion or political opinion,’’ citizenship itself will be organized by a Nationality Law, which, in the current draft, confers citizenship through an ‘‘Arab father.’’1 On the ground, one emerging conflict with serious implications for women is between individualized and clan-based entitlements, whether in terms of political representation or social allocations. President Arafat’s determined revival of traditional and often discredited forms of clan-based leadership and mediation excludes women from participation, as surely as it undermines political parties and the development of the institutions of civil society.2 Despite political polarization, the Palestinian women’s movement, along with other social and political groups, is GENDER AND SOCIAL CITIZENSHIP IN PALESTINE 127 actively engaged in negotiating claims and rights with the new authority and, to a lesser extent, in the public arena. A main focus has been governmental representation: to date, despite a few high-level appointments (most notably Um Jihad as the Minister of Social Welfare and Hanan Ashrawi as Minister of Higher Education), women are poorly represented in ministries, commissions , and, of great importance, almost all policy-making bodies. The 1996 creation of a gender planning unit in the Ministry of Planning is a positive exception. Four of the 88-member Legislative Council, elected in January 1996 are women, a minority but by no means exceptional showing (neighboring Jordan has one female parliamentarian). If we examine aspects of citizenship other than political representation, we find contradictory terrain. The social contract between citizen and state is still unwritten and unrealized. In the wake of the harsh effects of decades of occupation and underdevelopment on the well-being of the population, and the current severe crisis in unemployment and increasing poverty, core social entitlements, such as social and income security, old age benefits, social services, public housing, unemployment, and occupational welfare, are just beginning to be a subject of analysis, debate or policy-making. The dominant trend that can be detected in recent policy documents, among them the important series of reports by the World Bank entitled ‘‘Developing the Occupied Territories: An Investment in Peace,’’ is to place relatively short-term economic development as the urgent priority, both in response to the serious crisis in (male) employment, and as the most effective means to secure support for the peace process and stability and legitimacy for the new Palestinian authority. Here, economic improvement, primarily through stimulating private investment and creating new sometimes temporary labor markets, primarily for unskilled male labor, is seen as the key to political progress. This strategy has been only partly implemented: the Authority itself has an erratic policy toward private investment, and most notably has greatly expanded public sector jobs through the rapid growth of the police and security services, and through multiple appointments to the ministries as a form of political favoritism. Economic strategies related to jobs and investment that complement the political agenda may well be of great importance. However, such marketoriented strategies are not a universal panacea; they also create new problems and divisions in society and have serious implications for women. Without social support to address those disadvantaged by, or excluded from, the market economy, security and well-being, whether individual, societal, or state, is unlikely to be achieved. This is particularly true of Palestine in the 128 RITA GIACAMAN, ISLAH JAD, AND PENNY JOHNSON present period, as Palestinian society emerges from a prolonged and debilitating period of conflict, occupation, and ‘‘low-intensity warfare,’’ where the population’s political, economic, and social welfare...