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Abstract
Palestinian women's organized resistance to the Israeli occupation is decades old and has been well-documented and analysed by feminists in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and outside. Some of the most recent attempts to formulate and shape this resistance make reference to UNSCR 1325. The application of the Resolution in the work of three women's organizations in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Palestinian–Israeli peace-making attempts are analysed in this paper. However, the paper concludes that the disconnects between women's activism on the ground and in academia, the intentions stated in UNSCR 1325, and the Israel–Palestine peace process are so vast that there is little evidence that the Resolution offers an effective mechanism for women to make their voices heard.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Maha Aria of the Wisal Coalition, Bisan Mousa of MIFTAH, Rela Mazali of New Profile, Dr Islah Jad of Birzeit University and women who worked with the IWC, especially Amal Khreishe of the Palestinian Working Women Society for Development and Dareen Khattab, for their generosity in discussing their organizations and their opinions on UNSCR 1325 in oPt. The interpretation of the data as presented in this paper is my own and is not to be ascribed to any other organization or individual.
Notes
The literature on the Israel–Palestine conflict is legion. For some of the earliest reflections, see Edward Said's groundbreaking Orientalism (Said Citation2003 [1978]). A feminist analysis of women's peace activism in Israel and oPt is found in Cynthia Cockburn's From Where We Stand: War, Women's Activism and Feminist Analysis (Cockburn Citation2007). The best contemporary academic resource on Palestinian women's organizing is the annual Review of Women's Studies, published by the Institute of Women's Studies at Birzeit University.
See http://www.miftah.org/ and http://www.iwc-peace.org/ (accessed 2 June 2011). The Wisal Coalition is a very humble, grassroots-based network that does not run an English-language website.
Entitled ‘Homestretch to Freedom’, the plan calls for the recognition of an independent Palestinian State by 2011 (Palestinian National Authority Citation2010). At the time of writing, the PNA intends to call for this state at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2011, even if a final status agreement with the State of Israel has not been reached.
See West Citation1997; Cockburn Citation2007; Castillejo Citation2010; Enloe Citation2010.
For an excellent account of this problem, see Enloe's ‘Conclusion: the Long War’ for a detailed analysis of how Nawal al-Samaraie, Iraq's minister for women's affairs, fared trying to run a poorly resourced, isolated Ministry, from which she resigned in protest in 2009 (Enloe Citation2010: 211–25).
President Obama appointed Senator George Mitchell as his Middle East Peace Envoy as he entered his Presidency in 2009. Mitchell's role was to facilitate ‘proximity talks’ between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. Indirect negotiations were intended to be launched in March 2010, but were derailed by the announcement of increased illegal settlement activity, including building 1,600 new housing units, in East Jerusalem. By 14 December 2010, Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, in an article published in the International Herald Tribune, acknowledged that there was ‘nothing left to talk about’ between Israel and Palestine, and declared the last two years’ efforts ‘for all practical purposes and for the foreseeable future, over’ (Clemons Citation2011). Mitchell himself resigned as Envoy on the 13 May 2011. Obama has, since then, made renewed attempts to revitalize the talks: the impacts of this effort remain to be seen.
No women representatives have taken part in the six rounds of proximity talks. One woman delegate from the Palestinian Legislative Council did participate in the 2009 Egyptian-led process to reconcile Fatah and Hamas, but she was not characterized by women peace activists as representing their aims. There were two women at the unity talks in Cairo in May 2011 but not in leadership roles. It is important to note that the rights of Bedouins as an occupied minority people, of youth, of the disabled and other marginalized individuals, also do not receive attention.
For a highly detailed account of Palestinian history, see Farsoun and Aruri (Citation2006). While they offer a fairly detailed discussion of women as victims of violence and as workers, no mention is made in their study of how women have organized politically over the years.
For an in-depth discussion of Palestinian human security, see UNDP Citation2010a.
See Johnson and Kuttab Citation2001; Jad Citation2004, Citation2010; Farsoun and Aruri Citation2006; Johnson Citation2010.
See Johnson and Kuttab (Citation2001) for an excellent account of the marginalization of Palestinian civil society from the political process from the Oslo period (1993 to present), especially as it manifested in the Second Intifada (2000). See also UNDP (Citation2010b).
Despite public rhetoric about the improving economy of the West Bank, recent research shows that those living in Area C, the Seam Zone (areas between the 1949 Armistice Line and the Separation Wall) and East Jerusalem are experiencing growing poverty (see Save the Children Citation2009).
The documentary film Budrus records a popular struggle in which women were centrally engaged, but this example remains an exception (see http://www.justvision.org/budrus).
The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, as part of the UN-organised Global Open Days on Women and Peace, has recently held a series of meetings with women representatives and has given his assurances that UNSCR 1325 will be reflected on in his reports to the Security Council, but this process is in its infancy and no impacts can be reported yet.
For some of the many accounts following Benjamin Netanyahu's May 2011 speech in the US Congress, see Richard Falk (Citation2011a, Citation2011b).
The goal of the IWC was to change this, so that women who represent women's interests would be included in every aspect of the peace process. The example of successful popular organizing including women, in Budrus for one, shows that the inclusion of women really does make a substantial difference on the ground – including in changing how young male activists behave.
Statement 15 September 2006 (http://www.iwc-peace.org); see also the more recent statements issued in 2010 (http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/BDB76830578DFB0C8525773700685943, accessed 30 May 2011). I am also grateful to Amal Khreishe, General Director of Palestine Working Women Society for Development and a member of the IWC, for her analysis of the IWC's work and impacts in informal discussions in Ramallah throughout 2010.
In July 2005, the Israeli ‘Equal Representation of Women Act’ was updated by the Knesset, demanding the inclusion of women in teams appointed for peace negotiations as well as in committees setting guidelines for domestic and foreign security policy.
See http://www.wilpfinternational.org/middleeast/palestine1325.html (accessed 15 December 2010).
Their website, for example, was rarely updated. I have been unable to find an official statement announcing the disbanding of the IWC in any online source.
Arguments over resource allocation are difficult to assess, but it is certainly true that organisations older than the IWC struggle to find funding, for reasons I do not have space to discuss here. One grouping that has been severely marginalised is the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, founded in November 2000 after the Second Intifada broke out. It brings together ten feminist organizations as well as independent activists and conducts a variety of activities inside Israel and in solidarity with Palestinian women in the oPt. See http://www.coalitionofwomen.org/?lang=en (accessed 2 June 2011).
Supported by UNIFEM, the IWC held what turned out to be their last large international meeting, a colloquium on Advancing Women's Leadership for Sustainable Peace in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and Worldwide, as late as 1–2 June 2010 in Madrid.
The Israeli Security Forces comprise several inter-related organizations (government, military and civilian) that focus on Israel's security.
Interview with Bisan Mousa, Gender Desk Coordinator, MIFTAH, 10 June 2010. The MIFTAH website is also very informative.
Hamas has been intent on defining itself as a movement which imposes a strict gender regime based on its interpretation of Islamic religious codes. Recent evidence of this was a ban on women smoking argila (water pipes) in public. See Palestine News Network Citation2010 and Guardian Newspaper Online Citation2010.
The account of the Wisal Coalition is based on discussions with Mariam Zaquot and Maha Aria of the Wisal Coalition held in Gaza City throughout 2010, including at a public discussion on the occasion of UNSCR 1325's tenth anniversary which was hosted by Mary Robinson, Ela Bhatt and Lakhdar Brahimi of the Elders on 17 October 2010. Quotes are from these discussions.