Mideast women show the way to pursue peace
By Rania Awwad / Special to The Detroit News
February 2002
"Intifada" comes from an Arabic word signifying a "shaking up" or "shaking off." And the Palestinian intifada has lived up to this meaning by shaking off the Israeli occupation as well as shaking up the societies affected by that occupation.
One particular feature of the intifada that vividly dramatizes the extent to which societies have been shaken up by this struggle has been the unprecedented mobilization and widespread participation of women -- Palestinian and Israeli alike -- in promoting a peaceful and just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestinian women have used nonviolent resistance as a political tool since the beginning of the last century. During the British Mandate period in the early 1920s, they organized petitions to the British government and held mass demonstrations against British policy in Palestine.
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when nearly one million Palestinians were driven from their homes, Palestinian women led the way in organizing the kinds of services and support networks that would be needed to keep this new refugee population alive.
More recently, with the first intifada in 1987, Palestinian women became acutely aware of their precarious and conflicted position under the occupation. They were forced to assume new economic responsibilities for providing for their families, sometime even as sole providers when male relatives were imprisoned, deported, maimed or killed. They were also expected to fulfill their traditional responsibilities as wives and mothers -- preservers and transmitters of the culture and identity of the Palestinian people.
Today, with the second intifada of 2000 raging in full force, women continue to assume important roles in leading peaceful demonstrations and setting up popular relief committees. In some of the larger cities, for instance, women's groups have created after-school programs for Palestinian youth. These programs keep youngsters from being drawn into street fights with armed Israeli soldiers or settlers, and teach them how to express and demonstrate their legitimate frustrations through creative and nonviolent means.
The Palestinian intifada has also promoted the political involvement of Jewish-Israeli women against the occupation, a significant number of whom have taken a strong stand against their government's treatment of the Palestinians. Some are worried about the emotional price their own sons might have to pay for participating in the violent suppression of the Palestinian uprising.
These women can draw hope from the near-legendary success of an Israeli women's peace group that relentlessly campaigned for years against the occupation of southern Lebanon and slowly eroded Israeli popular support for staying there.
The intifada has also created numerous opportunities for encounters and joint ventures between women on both sides. Together they have succeeded in removing Israeli army blockades and filling in trenches -- practices routinely undertaken by the Israeli army to inhibit Palestinian freedom of movement.
In other actions, these women have placed their own lives in danger, such as by lying down in front of army bulldozers or chaining themselves to olive trees in efforts to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes and property.
The alliances between Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian women are, however, still fragile and face constant challenges. The challenges originate both from a volatile and unpredictable political context and the disparities in power and privilege between the two sides. Furthermore, women working for a nonviolent end to the world's most violent conflict sadly enjoy little support -- and sometimes even open hostility -- from those in power.
This is precisely why it is so critical for us to help bolster these movements. It is especially important to help more Palestinian and Israeli women take their rightful places at the peace table.
Last year, through a project funded by the Dutch government, Palestinian and Israeli women began to create their own criteria for establishing and sustaining peace in the region. Such monumental proceedings must be integrated into the larger, ongoing "peace process."
Rania Awwad, a Palestinian-American, is the Washington, D.C. regional director of Palestine Media Watch.
