Palestinian Women and Politics in Israel

2. Between Feminism and Nationalism

2 Between Feminism and Nationalism The Rebirth of Palestinian Women’s Organizations in Israel How could we fight for women’s entry into schools, work, and other fields when we were under military rule and needed permission to move from place to place? Samira Khoury, October 2006 The trendy attitudes of finding excuses for the war [July 2006], and even supporting it, exposed the real face of Israeli feminism. Manal Shalabi, September 2006 Examining the history of international feminism in relation to the rise of nationalism, Gisela Kaplan claims that—with a few exceptions—European feminism was not compatible with nationalism at any point in Western European history (Kaplan 1997: 3–37). In the Arab world, however, women ’s struggle for their rights was strongly connected to the rise of Arab nationalism, anticolonialism, and independence movements. Most Arab women gained a feminist consciousness through their political activism. The connection between feminism, defined by Moghadam as “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests,” and nationalism, defined as “organized activity to promote the advancement of the nation” (Moghadam 1997: 95), has not been sufficiently explored in scholarly literature on Palestinian women in Israel. Indeed, there is a general dearth of exploration of this connection in academic discourse. Palestinian women were activists long before 1948, but their connection to that legacy was shockingly severed after the 1948 war. Palestinian women in Israel, more than any group of Palestinian women outside the borders of Israel, found themselves isolated within their devastated society, subjected to military rule, and disconnected from their native Arab homeland , friends, family, and culture. How did Palestinian women react after 1948? How did they reorganize their activism within the new reality of the 43 Between Feminism and Nationalism Jewish state? What is the relationship between feminism and nationalism for Palestinian women, and how did they view their struggles and agendas? And finally, why is there no Palestinian women’s movement in Israel even now? This chapter explores the rebirth of women’s organizations in Israel, the historical circumstances that delayed their development, and the challenges facing them today. In this chapter I explore the historical development of Palestinian women’s activism in Israel within their political parties and via informal political/social activism, and examine whether the feminist agenda or the national identity agenda has dominated their discourse and motivated their actions. I consider whether Palestinian women can more effectively realize their political aspirations through the arena of informal politics, or through local and national electoral politics, in which women have fared dismally (see chapter 1). It places their experiences both within the Palestinian context and the Israeli one, and offers an analysis of how women’s social and political agendas have met, clashed, and developed. There has been scant scholarly exploration of these questions. To provide a historical context for Palestinian women’s activism in Israel today, it is important to survey the nature of the Palestinian Arab women’s movement prior to the establishment of Israel. This chapter does not attempt to reproduce the solid body of literature on women’s activism in Palestine prior to 1948, or in the Occupied Territories and refugee camps since then (Fleischmann 2003; Sayigh 1989; Peteet 1991, 2001; Najjar 1992). Instead, this chapter recounts the efforts of the Palestinian women’s movement , in the years prior to the founding of the state of Israel, to create a context for their subsequent activism. Class differences, religion, geographical location, the press, education, regional contacts with other women’s groups—all these factors affected how Palestinian women promoted their cause. But the women also faced contradictions and divisions, as Palestinians were threatened by colonial and Zionist forces and, later, Israeli occupation . Palestinian women’s activism after the creation of Israel can be divided into three stages. During the first stage, from 1948 through the 1950s and 1960s, women activists began to reorganize. Two opposing women’s organizations dominated during that period, the Democratic Women’s Movement (DWM) and the Zionist organization Na῾amat. The second stage encompasses the 1970s and 1980s. During this period the groundwork was laid, in three areas, for the activism of the 1990s. The first area was educa- 44 Chapter 2 tion, where growing numbers of women were mobilized as they entered universities in the early 1970s. The second great factor was the first Intifada, which raised national awareness and political activism among women. The third factor...