Report Three: “Assertions
of Humanity:” Women Working Against Multiple Forms of Violence
Wednesday, May 30, 2007: Jerusalem
and Tel Aviv
Steadfastness and Struggle
"You need to understand that Palestinian women suffer from
triple discrimination: one, the occupation; two, living in a patriarchal
system where there are assumptions about your proper place as a
woman and a man; and three, unequal rights in our constitution.
We work on empowering women and engaging them in political life.
We want women to have a louder voice and be active in state-building."
Thus began our introduction to the work of the Jerusalem Center
for Women, shared with us by Samar Dissi and Zahra Hdeeb. The Jerusalem
Center for Women is the Palestinian half of Jerusalem Link, an organization
working to end the occupation. Jerusalem Link came into existence
in 1993, after the signing of the Oslo accords and after decades
of secret talks that had been taking place in Brussels between Palestinian
and Israeli women since the 1970s. The Israeli half of Jerusalem
Link is called Bat Shalom and the two organizations work jointly
but independently.
The Jerusalem Center for Women focuses primarily on female Jerusalemites
(of all ages) as most NGOs do their work in the West Bank and Gaza.
However, one of their projects is bringing Palestinians from different
areas together to dialog with each other. As Samar explained, Palestinians
are classified into at least five separate identities:
1) second-class Israeli citizens;
2) Palestinian Jerusalemites who are permanent residents of Israel;
3) West Bankers (who carry orange ID cards rather than the blue
Israeli ones and can only access Jerusalem – or other parts
of the West Bank – with a permit);
4) Gazans (who are completely isolated in what amounts to an open-air
prison: while the Israeli settlers in Gaza were withdrawn, all of
Gaza remains surrounded by Israeli army and Palestinians there have
no freedom of movement whatsoever);
5) refugees in the surrounding Arab countries and throughout the
worldAll of these classifications create divisions among Palestinians
because they come with different privileges and constraints and
thus different priorities in terms of politics and needs.
The Center trains women to be political leaders, engages in advocacy
campaigns (most recently around home demolitions), provides support
for female detainees while they are in prison, provides them and
their families with counseling when they are released, and works
with many lawyers to document all of the cases the Center is working
on. However, first and foremost the Center’s staff see themselves
as facilitators and trainers. For example, they insist that the
specific campaigns are led by the women whose homes are being demolished.
At times the women involved with the Center face criticism for their
work: "When they are so busy fighting occupation, women tend
to accept other oppressions. We are told (or we tell ourselves)
to wait till there is no occupation to begin a campaign for equal
rights. But why should we wait until the end of occupation to stand
up against men beating us or the lack of women in political leadership?
However, I want to dispel the myth promoted by the media that it
is only Muslim women who are oppressed or who have to cover themselves.
If you walk with me in [Israeli] West Jerusalem you will see many
Orthodox Jewish women who are covered. With both Muslims and Jews,
if you believe in that version of the faith, then you should dress
that way. And how someone dresses is not the important thing. Men
are men everywhere – they will oppress women everywhere."
What struck me most about our meeting with these two women was their
steadfastness, determination, and energy. There have been 40 years
of occupation and 60 years of an unresolved refugee problem. They
explained that many Palestinians have lost hope in engaging in joint
peace-building efforts with Israelis. Oslo was a devastating disappointment
which led to the second Intifada. Samar attempted to explain the
level of despair: "People are now fed up with everything, we
are reaching the stage of killing ourselves." Samar went on
to express her own frustration with the way in which she always
has to hear about how Israelis are also paying the price of occupation
as though this were an equal tragedy when the losses and the price
paid are so much greater on the Palestinian side: "We can't
compare how our children, mothers, brothers are suffering."
But she continues: "However, we know at this organization that
we are humans on both sides, both have human rights, both should
live. That is why we say we must have two states for two people
with Jerusalem as a shared capital for both states. But this process
can not be unilateral like Gaza and all of the settlers must pull
back to the June 4, 1967 borders."
When I asked them where they take their strength from, Zahra said:
"We want to be solid to confront the solid wall. All of this
teaches us patience. Waiting at checkpoints, you learn patience."
Samar concurred and added: "When I talk with a woman whose
home has been demolished and who is looking for a little piece of
carpet for her child to sleep on, how am I going to say I don't
have the strength to keep resisting when I am living at home with
my parents? The women we work with, they teach us. We learn from
them. They give us the power. So we continue. We refuse this Wall
that is separating Palestinians from Palestinians, but it is still
there. But it will be removed somehow, someday. People don't lose
this hope to refuse it."
And yet, the women who work at the Center know they face an immense
battle and spoke to us about Israel's 2020 plan that details how
every inch of Jerusalem will be used. Under this plan "we are
all under the threat of becoming refugees at any time."
They told us international solidarity plays a huge role because
in the West we can raise our voices and call for justice and an
end to the occupation. The Center is always in need of funding,
especially since they lost their USAID money when they refused to
sign a contract that said they would refuse to work with terrorists.
The reason for the refusal? When they asked how "terrorist"
would be defined, it included anyone who was in an Israeli jail
or a relative of someone in an Israeli jail – given the mass
arrests and incarcerations of ordinary Palestinians, this would
mean the Center would be prohibited from working with pretty much
anyone. Additionally, the women who work at the Center are always
eager to be invited to come speak at international conferences and
other gatherings geared towards ending the occupation. To get in
touch with the Center to make a donation or to invite a speaker
to an event or to gather more information about they work they are
doing through the Jerusalem Center for Women and Jerusalem Link,
please visit www.j-c-w.org.
As we tried to leave the area to go to our next meeting, we again
came face to face with the immense, daily nature of this battle.
We were unable to leave because the road we had come in on had since
been blocked in order to begin work on constructing a new checkpoint.
This marked our second detour of the day: earlier we had attempted
to drive up to the Mount of Olives to get a view of the city before
heading to our meeting with Combatants for Peace. That became impossible,
however, as all access roads were blocked in order to conduct a
tax raid. These detours can add 1-4 hours to a trip that should
have only taken 2-30 minutes. For Palestinians trying to reach school,
work or the hospital, this can become a severe problem, especially
as it is not guaranteed that they will be granted permission to
pass through the checkpoint once they have traveled the circuitous
route to arrive at it.
There is a reason why the olive tree is a symbol of Palestine. It
has to do with lasting. The steadfastness of ordinary people --
extraordinary people who refuse to allow these extraordinary circumstances
to become normalized. Their engagement in ordinary daily acts of
living are themselves acts of resistance and assertions of humanity
and spirit that refuses to be broken.
--Cecilia Lucas
New Profile
As we proceed toward Tel Aviv, we pass
through a checkpoint where an Israeli soldier boards and asks for
all of our passports. Interestingly, he doesn't look at our faces
to verify; he just looks at the passports. He is an Ethiopian Jew;
our guide reports they tend to be "rougher", presumably
to prove their loyalty to Israel.
We arrive at a private home north of Tel Aviv, in Nof Yam near Herzaliya,
where we are met by Ruth Hiller & Dorothy Naor of New Profile
(www.newprofile.org). This is an organization which wishes to change
the profile of Israeli society from a militarized to a more civilized
one. They support young people who are resisting military service.
Ruth's story is one of a mother supporting her son. She is originally
from the US, moved with her husband to a Kibbutz where their 5 children
were born. Her first two served in the military and she never questioned
this. When her 16 year old son informed her that he was a pacifist
and did not want to participate in the military, she was shocked
and did not know where to turn. In fact, there was no place to turn
at that time. She began a discussion with a few other mothers which
gradually evolved into this organization. She eventually came to
the place where she believes "Israel is an army with a state
rather than a state with an army". New Profile's goal is not
to eliminate the army but to eliminate the need for the army.
New Profile believes that Israeli culture and media portray a world
in which the use of force is an acceptable, normal means for solving
political problems. They take notice of the fact that the decision
makers in the Israeli government are primarily former army offices,
mostly male. Therefore, women, the poor, and the Palestinians in
Israel have very little say in decision making.
Some other facts which she related include:
• Women serve 2 years in the military, men 3 years.
• The senior year of high school is primarily devoted to preparing
for the military.
• When in the military, soldiers are paid $100/month.
• 25% of Jewish Israelis do not serve because of religious
or medical exemptions.
• 25% drop out before they complete their first year.
• 50% of the land in Israel is under the jurisdiction of the
military.
• The US government provides 2.5 billion dollars a year to
Israel in military aid and10 billion dollars in credit guarantees.--Steve
and Linda Bell
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