Gender and politics under the Palestinian authority

Journal of Palestine Studies

Volumn 28, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 38-51

  Abdo, Nahla ^a  

^a CARLETON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GENDER ROLE; NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION; WOMENS STATUS;

PALESTINE;

EID: 0033056486     PISSN: 0377919X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2537933     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. These include such scholars as Judith Tucker, Deniz Kandiyoti, and Nira Yuval-Davis.
2. See more on the insider/outsider debate in Caroline Andrew and Sandra Rogers, eds., Women and the Canadian State (Montreal and Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997).
3. A prominent example is Zahira Kamal, a director general in the Ministry of Planning (the first and thus far the only female director general in the PA structure).
4. These include Dr. Suha Hindiyyeh, founder and until recently director of the Women's Studies Center; Hanan Abdel Rahman-Rabbani, project manager of "The Palestinian Model Parliament: Women and Legislation"; and I'timad Muhanna, project coordinator with UNIFEM in the Gaza Strip.
5. These include Maha Abu-Diyyeh, director of the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC); Islah Jad of Birzeit University; and Suhair AzzouniMahshi, director of Women's Affairs Technical Committee (WATC).
6. This is particularly true for the position of "adviser to the president" or "general director." The latter "position" is found quite excessively in every ministry. For example, in the Ministry of Local Government there are twenty officials, sixteen of whom carry the same title, namely, general director at the ministry. This is a phenomenon that persists in most ministries.
7. See the Women's Studies Center, "Women in Decision-Making Positions in Six Palestinian Ministries" (Jerusalem: Author, 1997), p. 12.
8. According to the Palestinian Business Diary, the Presidential Office has nineteen positions for advisers - all men. In fact, the real number of "presidential advisers" exceeds that recorded in the document. In Gaza City, I met with two "advisers" whose names did not show up in the quoted document. Unlike political appointments made in the case of "general directors," most advisers came from economically or socially influential clans. In a meeting with one head of a notable clan, who refused an "advisory" position, I was informed that along with the title "adviser," the holder receives a salary of $3,000 per month, a car, mobile phone, three guards, and a VIP card that allows him "free" movement outside of Gaza. In return, the clan or extended family allegiance to the president is expected. The title "adviser to the president" has in fact become a topic of public gossip and jokes. It is commonly believed that among every tribe, clan, or extended family, there is one "adviser" appointed by the president.
9. See Mohammad S. Dajjani, "The Palestinian Authority and Citizenship in the Palestinian Territories," 1998, available on the PA Web site at http://www.pna.org/.
10. Marwan Darweish, "The Intifada: Social Change," Race and Class 31, no. 2 (Oct.-Dec. 1998), pp. 58-59.
11. Rita Giacaman and Penny Johnson, "Palestinian Women: Building Barricades and Breaking Barriers," in Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin, eds., Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (Boston: South End Press, 1989), pp. 166-67.
12. Nahla Abdo, "Nationalism and Feminism in the Palestinian Women's Movement," in Valentine Moghadam, ed., Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies (London: Zed Press, 1994), pp: 157-61.
13. The exact number and titles of ministries within the PA is still not clear. Some documents, for example, refer to the Jerusalem post held by Faisal Husseini as a ministry, others refer to it as a ministry without portfolio. In its 1996 publication, PASSIA (Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs) mentions a "Ministry of Jewish Affairs," which I could not find in other documents. Some ministries, such as the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry appear to have been divided into two ministries in 1997: one for industry and the other for economy and commerce.
14. See Women's Study Center, "Women in Decision-Making Positions," Table 1, p. 9.
15. Lisa Taraki, "Contemporary Realities and Trends," Birzeit University Women's Studies Program Report 12 (1997), P. 19.
16. Elected local councils were dismissed by Israel in 1982 and replaced by appointed bodies. In 1996, the PA restored the right to elect local councils, but this right has remained on paper, as the PA has delayed elections and instead appointed new local bodies of its own to replace the Israeli-appointed ones.
17. Nadir Sa'id, "The Future of Women's Action in Local Councils," al-Siyyasa al-Filastiniyya 4, no. 13 (Winter 1997), pp. 6-33.
18. Ibid, 13.
19. Mohammad S. Dajjani, Adviser, Palestinian Authority, "The Palestinian Authority and Citizenship in the Palestinian Territories," the Palestinian National Authority Official Web site, Special Report (http://www.pna.net/reports/mcitizen.htm).
20. Ibid., 8, emphasis added.
21. Ibid.
22. For more on the difference between customary unwritten laws and formal laws, see Adrien Katherine Wing, "Custom, Religion and Rights: The Future of Legal Status of Palestinian Women," Harvard Journal of International Law 35, no. 1 (Winter 1994), pp. 149-200.
23. Three different sets of shari'a law - Egyptian, Jordanian, and that used for Muslims in Israel - are currently operative in Palestine. I have dealt with these laws in detail in "Muslim Family Law: Articulating Gender, Class and the State" in International Review of Comparative Public Policy 9 (1997), pp. 169-94.
24. Zahira Kamal, in her introduction to Asma Khader's "The Law and the Future of Palestinian Women: Formulations and Suggestions for the Improvement of Legislation which Protect Human Rights and Women's Equal Rights" (Jerusalem: Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling, 1997, mimeographed), p. 11, identifies three main positions on shari'a reform: secularists who argue for the abolition of religious laws; religious traditionalists who refuse any change to what they see as sacred laws; and those who accept reform as long as the shari'a remains the law of the land.
25. See WCLAC Report 10 (Jul.-Dec. 1996), p. 6.
26. WCLAC, Report 9 (Jan.-Jun. 1996), p. 4.
27. Kamal introduction to Khader, "The Law and the Future of Palestinian Women," pp. 8-12.
28. Interview with Hanan Abdel Rahman-Rabbani, Ramallah, October 1997.
29. al-Ayyam, 6 April 1998.
30. For a comprehensive critique of the notion of civil society, see Azmi Bishara, A Contribution to the Critique of Civil Society (Ramallah: Muwatin, The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, 1997) [in Arabic].
31. For more on the ongoing conflict between the KGOs and the PA, see "Perspectives on the PNGO Network," in the PNGO Newsletter 111 (February 1997). See also Parliamentary Horizons (a documentary newsletter published by Muwatin, The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy) 1, no. O (June 1997) and no. 1 (July 1997).
32. For more on the ongoing conflict between the KGOs and the PA, see "Perspectives on the PNGO Network," in the PNGO Newsletter 111 (February 1997). See also Parliamentary Horizons (a documentary newsletter published by Muwatin, The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy) 1, no. O (June 1997) and no. 1 (July 1997).
33. Khader, "The Law and the Future of Palestinian Women," pp. 41-46.
34. The quota system was adopted during the 1995 Beijing conference, in which Palestinian women participated. For more on this see Khader, "The Law and the Future of Palestinian Women," p. 72.
35. For more details, see Sa'id, "The Future of Women's Action."
36. E-mail correspondence with WATC coordinator Suhair Azzouni-Mahshi, December 1997.
37. Interview with Suhair AzzouniMahshi, WATC coordinator, September 1997.
38. In 1996, I participated in a research project with thirteen veiled, mostly refugee, Gazan women, all of whom identified themselves as Islamists insofar as they did not criticize even those verses of the Qur'an that openly discriminate against women. As the workshops progressed, however, most if not all participants became open to the idea of legal reforms and changes to existing laws and began to see the role and power of patriarchy in both the religious movement and society at large.
39. See Abdo, "Nationalism and Feminism," pp. 148-70.