Background to the Palestinian Nationalism
Introduction
One very widely recognized conflict of our time is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This bloody struggle has endured for over a century and involves a complex web of players, alliances, and grudges that have brought about the death of many and disrupted the lives of countless others. According to one source, at least 1,104 Israelis and 6,836 Palestinians have been killed since 2000 alone, and many more have been injured. The same source states that while the number of Israelis who are being killed has decreased since 2002, the number of Palestinians being killed has remained relatively high. The situation is desperate, especially for Palestinians, many of whom are extremely …show more content…
Contrary to this belief, the public-sphere involvement of Palestinian women has a rich history. Although Palestinian women staked their claim in the public sphere decades before the Intifada, there were limits to this participation. This section discusses Palestinian women’s involvement until 1967 foremost as divided along class lines, but also as reactionary to national emergencies, or as limited to charitable work. Beginning as early as the 1880s, when Zionist immigration into Palestine began, women in rural Palestine fought along men to resist the earliest Zionist settlements, an example of women’s participation in response to a national emergency. When the 1917 Balfour Declaration was issued, there are records of women protesting alongside men. During the 1920s, Palestinian women founded numerous welfare and charity organizations all aimed at "one goal…to be of benefit to the nation." The charities culminated in the first Palestinian women’s conference in 1929. The creation of the Arab Women’s Congress, which first convened on October 26, 1929, in response to the 1929 Wailing Wall riots was another way in which Palestinian women became politically involved. The uprising threw new political responsibilities onto the shoulders of Palestinian women as they watched their men go off to fight, die, or be imprisoned by the British. At the Congress, where over 200 women gathered, four resolutions were passed. They protested the Balfour Declaration and deemed it “a deliberate violation of all the pledges given to the Arabs…. and…it contains two contradictory and irreconcilable parts…” Further, the resolution calls any Arab who will not work to fight against the Declaration a “traitor to his country and
Introduction
One very widely recognized conflict of our time is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This bloody struggle has endured for over a century and involves a complex web of players, alliances, and grudges that have brought about the death of many and disrupted the lives of countless others. According to one source, at least 1,104 Israelis and 6,836 Palestinians have been killed since 2000 alone, and many more have been injured. The same source states that while the number of Israelis who are being killed has decreased since 2002, the number of Palestinians being killed has remained relatively high. The situation is desperate, especially for Palestinians, many of whom are extremely …show more content…
Contrary to this belief, the public-sphere involvement of Palestinian women has a rich history. Although Palestinian women staked their claim in the public sphere decades before the Intifada, there were limits to this participation. This section discusses Palestinian women’s involvement until 1967 foremost as divided along class lines, but also as reactionary to national emergencies, or as limited to charitable work. Beginning as early as the 1880s, when Zionist immigration into Palestine began, women in rural Palestine fought along men to resist the earliest Zionist settlements, an example of women’s participation in response to a national emergency. When the 1917 Balfour Declaration was issued, there are records of women protesting alongside men. During the 1920s, Palestinian women founded numerous welfare and charity organizations all aimed at "one goal…to be of benefit to the nation." The charities culminated in the first Palestinian women’s conference in 1929. The creation of the Arab Women’s Congress, which first convened on October 26, 1929, in response to the 1929 Wailing Wall riots was another way in which Palestinian women became politically involved. The uprising threw new political responsibilities onto the shoulders of Palestinian women as they watched their men go off to fight, die, or be imprisoned by the British. At the Congress, where over 200 women gathered, four resolutions were passed. They protested the Balfour Declaration and deemed it “a deliberate violation of all the pledges given to the Arabs…. and…it contains two contradictory and irreconcilable parts…” Further, the resolution calls any Arab who will not work to fight against the Declaration a “traitor to his country and