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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2004Women in JeninBelow we print excerpts from an interview with H.S.N., a Muslim Palestinian, who toured in October with "Jerusalem Women Speak: Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision," sponsored by Partners for Peace.--Editor. San Francisco—In Jenin, we have lots of women whose husbands have been killed or are in prison and they are raising their children alone, which is not an easy life. Sometimes Israeli soldiers keep coming back to the house over and over, keep searching it. In Jenin, before the occupation women worked, in Israeli factories for example, to support the family. Now they work on farms, harvesting olives, working at home knitting, pickling olives, preparing anything at all. We have many organizations training women. I attended a conference in Miftah (www.miftah.org) encouraging women to take part in politics. A number of women there volunteered to stand for elections. Women are doing a great job in Palestine. They are the mothers, which is not easy, because our kids are suffering so much, not just from the killings and shelling. They need to feel security. We don't have parks, or electronic games, or any place where children can forget about their suffering. I wish I could take them to hear music, learn drawing, or just take them to a beach. This is forbidden to us. We don't have decent schools. Most classes have 50 students per class and they have to learn in morning and afternoon shifts. One time the Israelis took over my children's school and made it the headquarters of their operation in Jenin for a day. They smashed everything there. The infrastructure is demolished and the whole city needs reconstruction. My husband is a doctor and he complains that every time there is an even mildly complicated case he has to transfer them to another city. And with the closures, you can't even transfer the patients from place to place. I read of a woman suicide bomber. When she was about 20 her fiancé was killed by the Israelis. One day the Israeli special forces entered the house and shot both her brother and cousin. She was begging the Israelis to see to them, but she was just thrown to the ground. One Israeli put his boot on her head and squeezed. The other shot her brother in the head. That moment changed her life. It's not easy to witness such brutality and stay human. If you stop the brutality, the inhumanity, as well as end the occupation and humiliation and give the Palestinians back their rights according to the UN resolutions, I don't think there will be more women like her. I can't imagine how Israelis are dealing with the inhumanity they are creating in themselves. I am very impressed with the Israeli pilots who refused (missions against civilians) which are just assassinations. We have some democracy in Palestine, we can say things that can't be voiced in other parts of the Arab world. Dialogue between Palestinians is a healthy thing. We should not just smash the opposition as Israel wants the Palestinians to do. The view of the majority of Palestinians should rule, though the minorities should have a right to object and their objections should be respected. This is a democracy. |
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