A Publication of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies Sharqiyya

Sharqiyya ّاﻟﺸﺮﻗﻴﺔ A Publication of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies Sharqiyya ّالشرقية Sharqiyya A Publication of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University Editors Annie Tracy Samuel Heidi Basch-Harod Ben Silsbee Editorial Board: Uzi Rabi Ehud Toledano Esther Webman About Sharqiyya Sharqiyya is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and the Middle East & Islamic Studies Association of Israel. It publishes scholarly articles about the recent history and politics of the Middle East and North Africa and seeks to promote and disseminate the work of scholars with firsthand knowledge of the region’s cultures and languages. This will be the final issue of Sharqiyya in its present form. Beginning in 2014, Sharqiyya will merge with Rihla, the student journal of Tel Aviv University’s International Master of Arts in Middle Eastern Studies Program (MAMES). The new Rihla, like Sharqiyya, will include articles, essays, and photographs about the recent history and politics of the Middle East and North Africa from graduate students all over the world, and particularly those with firsthand knowledge of the region’s language and cultures.Rihla will also seek to feature one article from a senior scholar in each issue. The editors of Rihla are now accepting submissions. Articles should be written in English and should be no more than 3,000 words. Please send all submissions and inquiries to [email protected]. Table of Contents Letter from the Editors ...........................................................................................................5 Women’s Dialogues in the Galilee: Voices, Questions, and Echoes of Change in the Middle East Liora Lukitz ...........................................................................................................................7 Women, Islam, and Public Protest before and after the Arab Spring Moyra Dale ............................................................................................................................15 ‘Urfi and Delayed Marriage in Egypt Shoshi Shmuluvitz ...............................................................................................................22 The European Union’s Response to the Arab Spring and the Limitations of Normative Power Alexey Khlebnikov .................................................................................................................30 LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Since the outbreak of the Arab uprisings in late December 2010, we have read about and witnessed the women of the Arab Middle East using their voices to be heard, to be seen, to be respected, to be empowered, and to be a meaningful party in the decision making of their future and that of their respective societies. Portraying women as a formidable contingent of the uprisings, the world’s media outlets continue to cover women’s struggles in the Middle East. Many of the stories written are the same. Descriptions of women taking to the streets, commingling with men or separated into women-only groups of protestors, veiled and un-veiled. With their appearance, talk of secular versus religious groups and the jockeying for power over the state, its legislature, and, most importantly, its constitution fill the lines of copy on the women of the “Arab Spring.” Suddenly, the global news-consuming audience is an expert on buzzwords and terms like Salafis, Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood, and shari‘a, words that entered into the Western world’s vocabulary following the events of September 11, 2001, words that have become more and more familiar over the years of military and humanitarian involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the discussion of women and the Arab uprisings, those words are tied into the future of women in the Middle East. Consequently, global decision makers and their entourages of analysts and aides are scrambling to interpret how women have and will include themselves in the discourse on the establishment of democracy, civil society, and global politics. For those who look deeper into the stories, discoveries of decades-long women’s movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, and even Yemen have come to the fore. Women in this region of the world have been struggling for decades for their rights to custody of their children after divorce, to work in public places, to vote, to pass on their citizenship to offspring, to utilize the education that so many now possess. Indeed, years of rule under Western-backed dictatorships proved to be a mixed blessing for the women of the Middle East.* The articles contained in this edition of Sharqiyya bring important voices into that discussion, voices that go well beyond the headlines to share perspectives from the inside out. In her article on the efforts of Arab female students in northern Israel to overcome obstacles to their personal and professional development, Liora Lukitz examines how the echoes of the Arab Spring have reverberated in the Galilee. Moyra Dale’s article on women, Islam, and public protest provides the historical context that is often missing from commentaries on recent events, and challenges common assumptions of whether women’s involvement in the Arab Spring protests may (or may not) enhance their ability to influence their society and claim more complete control over their rights. Shoshi Shmuluvitz hones in on one particular area in which gender roles are currently being disputed in her examination of * These paragraphs are adapted from an article written by Sharqiyya editor Heidi Basch-Harod entitled “Shame and Honour Re-appropriated: Women Finding their Voices” and published by open Democracy, which can be found at http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/heidi-basch-harod/shame-and-honour-re-appropriated-women- finding-their-voices. 6 Letter from the Editors / Sharqiyya ‘urfi and delayed marriage in Egypt. Finally, Alexey Khlebnikov analyzes the impact of the Arab Spring on the states in neighboring regions and how the European Union’s response to the revolutions in North Africa reveals the precarious nature of Europe’s normative power. If anything is clear about the Arab Spring, it is that we have much left to understand, especially as the various transitions in the region are still taking place. By shedding light on the voices and history at the heart of the region, we hope that the articles contained in this issue of Sharqiyya contribute to constructing a rich and complex conception of the Middle East. Annie Tracy Samuel, Heidi Basch-Harod, Ben Silsbee Editors WOMEN’S DIALOGUES IN THE GALILEE: VOICES, QUESTIONS, AND ECHOES OF CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST Liora Lukitz1 This article is the outcome of three years of field work in a leading college of engineering in northern Israel. It examines the efforts of Arab female students in the area to overcome the multifold obstacles to their personal and professional development posed mainly by their predominantly patriarchal and traditional environments. Instead of accepting their prescribed roles in a male-dominated and restrictive society, these young women are confronting the barriers to personal and collective emancipation with confidence, awareness, and newly acquired skills. As a minority within a minority—educated young women within the Arab minority in Israel—their efforts to become accomplished professionals and to redefine their position in society reflect an unprecedented change in their self-perception as individuals and point to their potential contributions to the progress of their own communities. This article also examines how these efforts reflect larger trends and provide new insights into the events that are reshaping the region, specifically the struggle of Arab women in a changing Middle East to reform their societies and be fully incorporated into political and economic life. The rise of Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab Spring was a turning point in this struggle and further reinforced the need to analyze its effects on women’s positions throughout the region. The young Arab women of northern Israel perceived these events with both apprehension and hope, fearing that radicalization might spill over into their communities and jeopardize their fight for equal professional opportunities. At the same time, they believed that if the struggle for reform led by women in the region succeeds, they too will benefit. The questions discussed in this article first arose during a conversation with some of my female students at Braude College of Engineering in northern Israel’s Galilee region.2 The discussion took place in my course on the role of media in reshaping the Middle East, and centered on comparisons of the fight for women’s rights in the Middle East in the 2000s with the struggle of women in the region during the 1980s and the 1990s as represented in the media. The students’ comments during and after class inspired me to set up a dialogue between them and Inaam Wali, the leading actress in Iraq’s National Theatre who fought Saddam Hussein’s regime before leaving Iraq and reconstructing her life in Germany as a free, secular woman. I believed this cross-generational dialogue could help my students understand women’s struggles for rights at different historical stages. The exchange was conducted online and in person over the course of several weeks following the onset of the 1. Liora Lukitz was a research fellow at the Center for Middle East

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