{"id":617,"date":"2024-06-26T08:32:18","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T08:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/womenforpalestine.org\/?post_type=portfolio&p=617"},"modified":"2024-07-25T09:37:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T09:37:26","slug":"apartheid","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/womenforpalestine.org\/es_es\/wfp\/apartheid\/","title":{"rendered":"Apartheid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

More than 14 million people, about half of them Jewish and half Palestinian, live in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under the same regime. In public, political, legal and media discourses, the common perception is that these are two separate regimes, each acting on its own, separated by the Green Line. One regime, within the boundaries of the sovereign State of Israel, is a permanent democracy, with a population of some 9 million, all of them Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, whose final status is supposed to be determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military occupation imposed on some 5 million Palestinian subjects.<\/p>\n

This accepted distinction ignores crucial facts: that this \u2018temporary\u2019 reality has persisted for more than 50 years; that hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live in more than 280 permanent settlements in the West Bank; and that Israel has de jure annexed East Jerusalem, and de facto annexed the rest of the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, it obscures the fact that the entire area is organized under one principle: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group \u2013 Jews \u2013 over another \u2013 Palestinians. Israel has enacted more than 50 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel 34<\/span>. Since 1948, Israel has carried out institutionalized policies of racial segregation as a means of ensuring its domination over the Palestinian people. These policies aim to privilege the Jewish Israeli population while controlling Palestinians and denying them equal rights.<\/p>\n

Segregation is carried out by means of separate legal regimes for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians living in the same area. For example, Jewish Israeli settlers living in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are governed by Israeli civil, including criminal, law, while Palestinians also living in the occupied West Bank, with the exception of East Jerusalem, are governed by Israeli military law. Israel was criticized for violating the right to equality in a 2012 report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).<\/p>\n

Describing the existence of two separate legal systems in the West Bank, the committee said it was \u201cappalled at the hermetic character of this segregation 34<\/span>.\u201d The key tool Israel uses to implement the principle of Jewish supremacy is engineering space geographically, demographically and politically. Jews go about their lives in a single, contiguous space where they enjoy full rights and self-determination. In contrast, Palestinians live in a space that is fragmented into several units, each with a different set of rights \u2013 given or denied by Israel, but always inferior to the rights accorded to Jews 34<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Despite\u00a0of the\u00a0entrenched structures of\u00a0patriarchy\u00a0in Palestinian society,\u00a0Palestinian women have\u00a0played a\u00a0crucial role\u00a0in\u00a0resisting\u00a0the ongoing colonization in\u00a0Palestine.\u00a0During the British\u00a0Mandate\u00a0era,\u00a0they\u00a0protested\u00a0in the\u00a0streets\u00a0against\u00a0British\u00a0colonialism, and held conferences across\u00a0the region\u00a0to warn against\u00a0the Zionist\u00a0project.<\/p>\n

When the\u00a0first\u00a0intifada\u00a0broke out\u00a0in\u00a01987,\u00a0Palestinian women\u00a0took\u00a0to\u00a0the streets along with men\u00a0and\u00a0protested\u00a0Israeli oppression.\u00a0They\u00a0formed networks of\u00a0women\u00a0amongst themselves to\u00a0free\u00a0the youth the\u00a0Israeli army\u00a0tried\u00a0to arrest in\u00a0their\u00a0neighborhoods\u00a0and villages.<\/p>\n

Their\u00a0heroic deeds\u00a0turned them into the\u00a0mothers of\u00a0the whole nation.\u00a0Since the inception\u00a0of the\u00a0Israeli occupation,\u00a0Palestinian women have been\u00a0enduring\u00a0torture, interrogation and incarceration\u00a0in Israeli\u00a0jails.\u00a0In the\u00a0rural\u00a0areas\u00a0of Palestine,\u00a0women\u00a0have been\u00a0able to\u00a0disrupt\u00a0Israeli dispossession policies\u00a0and\u00a0practices\u00a0to expand\u00a0illegal\u00a0settlements.\u00a0They\u00a0have done so\u00a0through\u00a0their\u00a0daily acts of\u00a0resistance\u00a0or sumud-the\u00a0persistance to\u00a0stay on the land against all odds.\u00a0They\u00a0have\u00a0turned their\u00a0homes\u00a0into a\u00a0political\u00a0space\u00a0in which they nurture\u00a0the love\u00a0and attachment for the\u00a0land.\u00a0Scenes\u00a0of women\u00a0hugging\u00a0their\u00a0trees\u00a0and standing\u00a0in front of\u00a0Israeli\u00a0bulldozers when Israel started\u00a0building its\u00a0Apartheid\u00a0Wall\u00a0testify to\u00a0the strong\u00a0connection between\u00a0women\u00a0and land. Such\u00a0connection\u00a0is stronger than\u00a0that\u00a0of\u00a0men,\u00a0because\u00a0women\u00a0are the tenders of their\u00a0land\u00a0while\u00a0men\u00a0work elsewhere,\u00a0mainly as cheap wage labourers in Israeli\u00a0corporations.<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0hardly surprising\u00a0that\u00a0Israel has\u00a0been\u00a0systematically\u00a0targeting women\u00a0and children\u00a0amid the\u00a0unfolding\u00a0genocide in\u00a0Gaza.\u00a0It\u00a0is because\u00a0women\u00a0are\u00a0givers\u00a0of a\u00a0new life for\u00a0the nation\u00a0in\u00a0the eyes of\u00a0Israel, they\u00a0hold\u00a0the keys\u00a0of the decolonial\u00a0future\u00a0through\u00a0reinforcing a culture of resistance and defiance in the\u00a0minds\u00a0of their children and\u00a0communities.<\/p>\n

Recently, after the murder of Israa Ghrayeb by a member of her own family, many women decided to break the taboos of sexual violence and spoke out about the aggressions, harassment and intimidation they experienced in their homes and also outside of them. It was their \u00abit’s over\u00bb that, under the cry \u00abThere is no liberated homeland without women’s liberation\u00bb, swept through historic Palestine, seeking to redefine the national struggle through the prism of the feminist struggle. The demonstrations were promoted by the Tal’at (emerging) movement.<\/p>\n

The Palestinian feminist movement is strong and aware of the challenges internally and externally, in terms of the struggle against patriarchy and against colonization and occupation, understood as an extension of male chauvinist and patriarchal policies of oppression against Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The university is another bastion of women’s resistance and emancipation. The Gaza Strip has one of the highest unemployment rates of newly graduated youth in the world, 70%, hence the tendency to continue studying since for them, this is also an opportunity to leave the Strip. Today Birzeit University, the largest university in Palestine, has more than 15,000 students (62% of whom are women).<\/p>\n

This has resulted in a vibrant movement of Palestinian women, many of them feminist, who have organized themselves into dozens of NGOs and collectives but also who have permeated Palestinian political and cultural institutions imposing a feminist narrative of the Palestinian cause worldwide.<\/p>\n

From journalism, activism and law, many women resist in different ways, in some cases leading the resistance of their communities. This is the case of the Tamimi family in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, which made headlines around the world after the arrest of one of the teenagers of the family, Ahed Tamimi, after she slapped a soldier who tried to arrest members of her family 34<\/span>. Its women and girls have been the undoubted leaders of the resistance in the village and a reference for the rest of Palestinian women and girls around the world 38<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

34 <\/span>https:\/\/www.adalah.org\/en\/law\/view\/533<\/a><\/p>\n

35 <\/span>https:\/\/bdsmovement.net\/colonialism-and-apartheid\/israel-and-the-crime-of-apartheid<\/a><\/p>\n

36 <\/span>https:\/\/www.btselem.org\/apartheid<\/a><\/p>\n

37 <\/span>https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/jan\/01\/ahed-tamimi-palestinian-girl-filmed-slapping-israeli-soldier-is-charged-with-assault<\/a><\/p>\n

38 <\/span>http:\/\/existiresresistir.org\/resistes.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n