Palestinian women hopeful self-rule will bring greater freedom for them

Karin Laub, Associated Press, Gaza City

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“GAZA CITY, Occupied Gaza Strip — After commanding an underground PLO cell in the Palestinian uprising, Ayshe Abu Maghaseeb is not interested in sitting at home. But she’s afraid it may come to that.

During the six-year revolt against Israeli occupation, Abu Maghaseeb stoned and firebombed soldiers, smuggled messages from PLO leaders abroad and was interrogated by Israeli agents. She says they tried to make her talk by threatening rape and public humiliation. Many other Palestinian women were on the front lines.

Fifty were killed and about 3,000 detained… ‘Arab men don’t believe women should be in positions of responsibility,’ said Abu Maghaseeb, 30. Her face framed by a black head scarf she wears reluctantly to escape harassment by Muslim militants.

In the Algerian guerrilla war against the French in 1954-62, ‘Algerian women took part in all parts of the revolution,’ she said. ‘But after achieving independence, they ended up sitting at home.

We want to make sure this experience will not be repeated in Palestine.’… There are signs Palestinian self-rule will break down at least some traditional barriers.

Hanan Ashrawi, who became known in the West as the eloquent spokeswoman of the Palestinian cause, has been named by Yasser Arafat as the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ‘ambassador’ to Washington.

Eighty-five women have joined the new Palestinian police force… ‘Men have an old boys’ network, but women don’t, so we are trying to beat them to it this time,’ said Zuheira Kamal, leader of the women’s federations… Only about 30,000 of the more than 900,000 women in the West Bank and Gaza work outside the home, most of them as factory hands or domestics.

Anam Tawil, a 29-year-old architect, won a contract sought by 21 established Gaza firms to design four eight-story apartment houses to be built in the Khan Yunis refugee camp… In the Shati refugee camp, just a five-minute drive from Tawil’s office, Ibtissam Badri Tahan, 33, hoped life would somehow improve under a PLO government.

Her parents took her out of school at 15 to marry Mohammed, then 24, and she has borne him eight children. She works from 4 a.m. until evening making hummus sandwiches for the family’s small stand, then does the family cooking, cleaning and laundry.

‘The house is like a prison,’ she said carefully, watching her husband across the table for any sign of disapproval. ‘I hope my girls will have a better life.’”

Context added by this archive

Five Palestinian women named, with ages, jobs and arguments. The last of them says her line while watching her husband’s face.

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"Palestinian women hopeful self-rule will bring greater freedom for them," Wisconsin State Journal, 7 December 1993, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1993-007. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1993-007

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Palestinian women have been organizing since 1922