Balancing the national and feminist struggles
NEWS FROM WITHIN, an English language bulletin on the Israeli state published by a collective in Israel that includes defenders of
Palestinian rights, devoted its March 11 issue to the position of
Palestinian women living under Israeli rule. In its introduction the bulletin explained: "March 8 is not celebrated, or even recognized as a day of celebration by the vast majority of Israelis." Nonetheless, there was a rally in Tel Aviv sponsored by Women Against the Occupation and the Movement of Democratic Women, the women's organibe given precedence at the expense of another, although combining these three aspects of struggle was problematic and the way forward was not
A lively discussion followed Dr. Giacaman's presentation. Participants zation of the Communist Party. It was attended by thousands of
Israeli and Palestinian women.
Unlike the situation in Israel itself, on the West Bank there were many activities to mark women's day, but they tended to focus on the national question. Marxists sponsored a forum that examined the question of the specific oppression of Palestinian women and its relation to the national struggle. The following article describes it.
Women's
To mark International
Day, Matzpen (an anti-Zionist Marxist
Organization) held a discussion on the struggle of West
March
4 on
Giacaman,
Bank women. Dr. Rita at Bir Zeit University a lecturer and the director of the Public Health
Project gave a detailed history of the
26 women's movement in the West Bank and analysed the present position of women. The meeting was well attended by Palestinian women from
Bank, Palestinian women from inside the 1948 borders, Israeli women and a number of Palestinian and Israeli men.
Dr. Giacaman explained how the present West Bank women's committees were set up during the 1970s in response to the realization by certain sections of the Palestinian movement that there was no mobilization of West Bank Palestinians at a grass-roots level. The impetus was national rather than feminist, but all the committees subsequently formed included feminist demands in their theoretical aims. The women's committees have concentrated solely on building constituencies for their respective nationalist ideologies, but have never the less had an important effect upon the lives of West Bank women. For the first time, women from rural and refugee backgrounds have been able to participate in a wide variety of activities which have improved their social and economic positions. Women have learnt how to organize themselves, have become politicized and have created a number of vital services for all women in the form of literacy and health classes, clinics and nurseries. Dr. Giacaman stressed the need to create a balance between the nationalist, class and women's struggles for liberation. Each struggle is essential, and no aspect should the occupation had not in some senses been beneficial in pushing forward both the national • and women's struggles. Dr. Giacaman hastened social change, of the old class system and the extended family. The position the West Bank was better in some respects than that of women in most other Arab countries. hand, the entry of West Bank women the wage-labour force in large numbers tended to impose a double on women without liberaeconomically. because of this double burden of work outside and inside the home, family size was decreasing in spite of strong nationalist pressures to use demographic factors in the struggle against Israel.
Dr. Giacaman was asked to compare the position of Palestinian women inside Israel with that of women on the West Bank. Contrary to the popular image, Dr. Giacaman suggested individual Palestinian women from inside the 1948 borders may have achieved a high degree of personal liberation, in general they were probably more oppressed. This was attributed to the lack of any independent women's and to clinging to the tribal traditions in the face of the imposition of modern Israeli society. Finally, Dr. Giacaman stressed that the liberation of Palestinian women could not succeed without radical changes in society, which would mean a restructuring of traditional gender roles and the active involve ment of men in women's struggles. It was important however, that the women's struggle not be organized along the male-dominated factionalist policies of the present nationalist movement.
Further meetings of the three groups of women are planned for the future.
International Viewpoint 7 April 1986
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