Palestinian Women and the Right to Exist

In the movie 5 Broken Cameras, I noticed that the men were the stars of the film, leading the way for with their sons close behind, to the wall , to the outpost, to the resistance. I saw the women singing in celebration but keeping themselves behind the scenes, behind the camera, behind the wall. I saw them mourn for the 7 year old who was killed by a sniper, gathered together weeping and praying.

I knew that the women were not as complicit as they seemed. Emad’s wife was a force to be reckoned with in the film, reiterating to her children time and time again that they must resist and that they had a right to exist in the land they were born to. So I searched the internet to find information in the ways I which women were resisting under these conditions and found Al Jazeera’s article “How Palestinian Women Defy Israel’s Occupation”

The article features three women- a mother, an artist, and a woman who refuses to leave. Lidia Rimawi’s husband, after being married for only 4 months, was arrested and convicted as a political prisoner and will be 50 before he is released. The couple still wanted children so they smuggled his sperm out of prison and months later their son Majd was born. The guards refuse to allow their son in, knowing that he is a sign of resistance and a victory embodied. Rimawi says “I did this to challenge the occupation.” Her husband suffered the consequences further in an extension of his sentence by 2 months and a 5,000 shekel fine ($1,300). The couple has vowed to have more children and continue what they view as resistance to the occupation- “Women like Lidia make up the backbone of the resistance movement in Palestine. As givers of life, keepers of family tradition, and culture bearers, they continue to resist in often under-reported and under-acknowledged ways.”

Fulla Jallad actively participates in the resistance, throwing rocks while surrounded by tear gas, she says “The role of woman as resistor is a vital role," she says. "I believe woman is the mother of a martyr. She is the sister of a fighter. She's the daughter of a hunger striker." Jallad painted the portrait of a man who was starving himself for being held on no charge by Israelis, and that portrait has circulated since she posed with it next to the Red Cross- “Hungry for Dignity”. She also works as a tour guide at the Natar Resort, the largest museum on the West Bank, saying, "I get to show the world that Palestine has always existed. In the war of existence, to exist is to resist."

The article ends with the story of Wadid, a Palestinian woman who refuses to leave her home despite threats and offers of money. She is situated with three other homes right outside East Jerusalem, and tourists pass by daily, creating a spectacle of her life. Her son was murdered by an Israeli minor who served almost no time for the crime and whose family lives a few houses away. She claims her husband’s dying wish was for her to always remain in the home and to never take money for it. She is 78 years old and says she isn’t going anywhere- “I stay here because it is our land. It's Palestinian land."

The ways in which resistance surfaces and forms is unpredictable. Everyone comes to the table with various privileges and positions, but I believe that the ways in which Palestinian women resist may be some of the most covert and creative tactics I have learned about. These women have to tread lightly around their very strict gender roles, religiously reinforced, but continue living in an occupied state that denies their very right to exist. I think the occupation has done what many acts of oppression have done in the past, and made rebels out of the trampled. These women refuse to be silent and refuse to be overlooked. They continue to liberate themselves and their loved ones through the physical act of creating life, to reminding everyone of the historical right and past of Palestine’s existence.

SIDENOTE: I happened to stumble across this movie this weekend (very weird coincidence) and watched it and it was SO good, and relevant to the class. It’s fiction, but it’s superb and depicts the struggle well I think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5dSeBD-qiY