Al-Shabaka Policy Brief Policy Al-Shabaka July 2019 THE POLITICAL MARGINALIZATION OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN IN THE WEST BANK By Yara Hawari Overview also as fighters, organizers, and leaders with agency that is not defined by their relationship to men. Looking Though Palestinian women have always played a back through Palestinian history, women have always fundamental role in the struggle for liberation from been present and active at crucial political and national
[email protected] the Israeli settler colonial regime, they have faced moments, though they have also had to navigate consistent political marginalization. This experience tensions among feminism, nationalism, and anti- has become more multifaceted and entrenched since colonial struggle. the 1990s, when the Oslo Accords unleashed a myriad of changes in the structure of Palestinian society and In 1917, Palestinian women took part in governance. demonstrations against the Balfour Declaration. Many women’s associations subsequently organized These changes have included a newfound dependence themselves under the Arab Women’s Congress, which on international donor aid among Palestinian civil convened in 1929 in Jerusalem. The congress created society, including women’s organizations, and the the Arab Women’s Executive Committee to carry bolstering of a corrupt and relentlessly patriarchal out decisions, and this served as the beginning of an Palestinian Authority (PA) that complements rather organized women’s movement in Palestine.1 Many than confronts the Israeli occupation and its oppression of the women involved in the committee were of of the Palestinian population, both male and female. the urban upper and middle classes, particularly of Such developments have caused today’s Palestinian Jerusalem, and were involved in community organizing women to endure perhaps even more formidable and charitable works.