Speed Sisters

From the Vancouver Sun:

Director Amber Fares is the first to admit that she knew absolutely nothing about racing before she met the Speed Sisters in late 2009. An Alberta-born filmmaker now living in Ramallah, Palestine, Fares was introduced to the first all-women racing team in the Middle East by a friend at the British consulate in Jerusalem. The consulate hired her documentary film company SocDoc Studios to create a program of video clips called “Speed Sisters.” At the time, there were two or three women racing an old donated BMW that they had souped up to get track-ready.

“We were involved in doing these clips and it wasn’t long before we were like, ‘Wow! This is really interesting. There’s a larger documentary here,’” Fares says. Her relationship with the team went on from there and she has been filming the Speed Sisters regularly for a feature-length documentary since the racing season started in March 2010.

Palestinian Women: Narrative Histories

From the World News:

It is perhaps an inevitable irony that a recent spate of anti-Nakba polemic in Israel has placed the topic firmly on the public agenda, stimulating not only press and media coverage but also renewed interest in the more serious histories of the period. Dr Fatmeh Kassem’s book is therefore most timely. This book does not deal with the macro-history of ‘who hit who back first, and harder’. Rather it focuses on the micro, on the lives of elderly Palestinian women who survived the emptying of the Palestinian towns of Lyd(Lod) and Ramleh (Ramla) in 1948 by the Israeli forces, towns now incorporated into the Israeli state.

These oral histories come from women who are multi-marginalized: as Palestinian second-class citizens living in Jewish-Arab so-called mixed towns; as working-class, often illiterate, subjects and, not least, as women silenced by the male dominated discourse of their own, and the wider society. In her readable and moving book, Kassem has not only salvaged important memories of painful personal and collective histories, she has empowered her interviewees to speak , perhaps for the first time, in their own voices and given them a place on the public stage. At the same time, this is a work of theoretical substance and a significant contribution to the growing body of literature on the Nakba as well as to feminist discourse analysis.

Haneen Zoab: Palestinian Voice In Israel

From Xinhuanet:

"Every woman can be a woman of frustration. I'm not optimistic. I'm not pessimistic. I'm just struggling," said Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian female legislator in the Israeli parliament, Knesset.

Zoabi has made a history in Israel as the first woman to be elected in the Knesset on an Arab Party's list. At her 41, she has been representing the Arab National Democratic Party in the parliament since 2009.

Sitting in her office in Nazareth, viewed by the Palestinian Arabs in Israel as their effective capital, Zoabi argues in an interview with Xinhua that her real task is to advance the cause of ending Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a cause for both Palestinian men and women.

Palestine & Its Women

From the Huffinton Post, Fadi Elsalameen reflects of the role of Palestinian Women:

After spending a month in Palestine visiting the government sector, the private sector, and the NGO sector, I am convinced of the following: Palestinian women are the biggest hope left for the future of Palestine.

Among many meetings, I met Mrs. Diala Saadeh, the Vice President of Global Operations at Sahem Trading & Investment Company in Ramallah. Diala left her job with Reuters in London and returned to Palestine to improve Palestine's global trading performance with Sahem. I learned for the first time that you could invest in Palestine while living abroad. I thought to myself, "we may not have the right of return yet, but we can still make tidy returns on our investments."

From YNET Magazine, Ali Waked reports on the growing role of women in Palestine:

Alongside the far-reaching achievements presented by the Palestinian government in its latest annual report, an additional, feminine revolution is taking place in the West Bank, touching on issues which have been considered taboo until recently.

The female presence in the Palestinian government institutions has become increasingly significant, and now – despite all difficulties – women are making their way to the top in other civilian areas, but also within the ranks of the security organizations.

One of the prominent places for the formation of the feminine Palestinian revolution is the legal arena. Only recently, and after women's organizations and human rights groups have been denouncing the extent of the "honor killing" phenomenon for years, the PA decided to remove the concept from the Palestinian agenda.

The PA's criminal law, which tended to show leniency towards such murders and mitigated the sentences of those responsible for them, has been changed following a Palestinian government decision that it would now be recognized as a regular murder.

 

Women Defy With Symbolic Action

From UPI:

A group of Israeli women say they smuggled a dozen Palestinian women and four children into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for a day of fun in defiance of Israeli law.

The Palestinians were treated to a meal at a restaurant, swimming in the Mediterranean and a bit of sightseeing about two weeks ago, Haaretz reported Tuesday.

The Israeli women, including writers Ilana Hammerman and Klil Zisapel, picked up the Palestinian women in their villages, after meeting with them twice previously, and brought them into Israel, avoiding security forces at West Bank checkpoints.

Hammerman had accomplished a similar outing with three teenage Palestinian girls in May, Haaretz said. Peace activists approached her about doing the second trip, the Tel Aviv newspaper said. None of the Palestinians had permits to enter Israel.

"We all came, we met the women, we took them in our own cars. We pulled a fast one on the army," Hammerman said.

"We passed the checkpoints in our cars, knowingly breaking the laws of entry into Israel," the Israeli women said in an ad published in the Hebrew weekend edition of Haaretz.

"We don't recognize the legality of the entry law into Israel, which allows every Israeli and every Jew to move freely throughout most of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and denies this right to the Palestinians, to whom this land also belongs."

Hammerman called it "a symbolic act" meant to fuel debate.

Valley of the Wolves

From YNet News:

The Turkish TV show which sparked a diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Jerusalem has now incurred the anger of those who were depicted by it as the victims. Female Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails called on the Saudi MBC channel Monday to stop airing the "Valley of the Wolves" series. They claim that a scene depicting a prisoner being raped by soldiers offends their honor.

"Valley of the Wolves" maintains a decidedly anti-Israeli tone depicting Mossad agents in Turkey as baby-snatchers, among other things. Following its broadcast, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador to Israel for a reprimand in which he was publicly humiliated by being seated at a lower chair than Deputy Minister Daniel Ayalon.

Another Turkish TV show dubbed "Separation" portrayed IDF soldiers as child murderers and is now being broadcast on Arab channels.

According to a report in the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, "Valley of the Wolves" focuses on the "suffering of a Palestinian family whose sons are killed by the Israeli army." The report states that Palestinian female inmates are outraged over a scene in which a supposed Palestinian prisoner named Miriam is being raped by IDF soldiers in an Israeli prison.

In a statement issued Monday, the prisoners said that the scene has no bearing with reality. "This is an attempt to slander the Palestinian female prisoner's image and mask its heroic role." The prisoners feel that the scene is offensive to Palestinian women portraying them as submissive.

"The broadcast of these images is a humiliation for the people and the whole nation and serves the occupation alone," the statement read.

Pink Taxis for Hebron

From Ynet News (Israel News):

Palestinian news agency, Maan, reported on Monday that a Palestinian company is planning to establish a taxi service in Hebron for women only.

This is a popular phenomenon in many cities in the Arab world, and apparently will soon be instated in the Palestinian Authority.

Hazem at-Takrawi, the director of Ishraqat training and development firm, said in an interview that his staff is already training women to drive the taxis, just as is done in cities like Beirut, Dubai, Cairo, and Tehran. As in Beirut, the women-only taxis will be pink.

At-Takrawi said that the company has already conducted a survey that showed that 95% of Palestinians welcome the initiative. In his eyes, he said, there is no reason residents would not agree to the idea.

At-Takrawi noted that the plan would many jobs, and said that more than 100 women, mostly university graduates, have already applied for positions.

If the model proves to be a success, it may be expanded to include other cities in the West Bank.

This has to be one of the most successful business ventures of this decade - and is taking off in quite a number of countries as we have reported here over the past couple of years.

West Bank: Female Judges

From ABC News Online:

Two Palestinian women have become the first female judges in the Middle East to preside over a traditional Islamic court.

Sharia law is traditionally seen as the domain of men, but in the West Bank towns of Hebron and Ramallah, two new judges are hoping to bring changes to the way courts treat Muslim women.

Judge Asmahan Liwheidi is one of the women presiding over an Islamic court.

It took a certain man, Sheikh Tayseer al Tamimi, effectively the Chief Justice of the Palestinian state, to pave the way for the women's success.

Against all opposition he challenged the belief that women could never be Sharia judges and allowed Asmahan Liwheidi in Hebron and Khulud Mohammed Faqih in Ramallah to sit the judges' exam.

Surprisingly many Muslim men support his decision, including Bilal Dofesh, who is in court because he and his former wife want to remarry - a move which is traditionally not allowed under Sharia law.

West Bank: Women Weavers

From AFP:

In recent years Palestinian women in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have embraced traditional embroidery as a way to support their families while their husbands and male relatives have found it increasingly hard to find work.

A hand-embroidered dress will fetch between 1,200 and 1,500 dollars on the international market, and the women are typically paid around 300 dollars for the work, which is usually done over a period of one to two months, according to figures from a cooperative in the town of Al-Bireh near Ramallah.

The cooperative, which includes some 2,500 women, preaches self-sufficiency, with a prominent sign on the wall reading: "Woe to those who wear what they don't sew and eat what they don't grow."

The women cater largely to Palestinians in the diaspora, who seek out clothes and household items bearing the distinct embroidery of their homeland.

Gaza: Clampdown on Women's Freedom

From Workers Liberty:

In July 2009, Hamas officials initiated what they called a "virtue" campaign, saying they were concerned about increasing "immoral" behaviour in Gaza. The main victims have been women.

In July a judge ordered that female lawyers had to wear the jilbab (a full-length robe) and the hijab (headscarves) in court. Nearly all the 150 women lawyers in Gaza wear the headscarf already, but they challenged the ruling as illegal and won. One, Dina Abu Dagga, said, “It was not the Chief Justice’s right to change the dress code. It was absolutely illegal… We are not against the hijab. I wear it myself. We are against imposing it… Today you impose the hijab, but tomorrow it will be something else.”

As the new school year began, in late August, pressure was placed on parents to dress their daughters more conservatively. Some female students have been refused entry to schools. Girls are being told they must wear a jilbab and a headscarf. Previously, the uniform typically required for female public school students was a long denim skirt and shirt.

Zeinab Ghonaimy of the Center for Women’s Legal Research and Consulting in Gaza reports that a school administrator slapped one female student in front of her schoolmates for not wearing the jilbab: "Physically assaulting students and humiliating them in front of their peers is simply unacceptable, whatever the reason, and especially to force them to wear certain religious clothing in violation of their religious freedom."

In mid-October the police began enforcing a new law which prevents women riding motorcyles. The ban, which was posted on a Hamas website claims they seek to “preserve citizen safety and the stability of Palestinian society’s customs and traditions.”

Hamas have banned mannequins and the display of women’s underwear in shop windows.

Hamas police patrols now demand women dress ‘modestly’ on the beach and that women are accompanied by fathers or brothers. Some of those that have broken these rules have been beaten-up by the police. One resident told Human Rights Watch that, on the night of 9 July, Hamas police beat up three young men for swimming without shirts.

It is increasingly rare to see women in the street who are not wearing headscarves – something now “mainly confined to the wealthier areas of Gaza City” (Guardian, 19 October). Those that do venture out without coving their hair can expect to be taunted.

In mid-October the Independent Commission for Citizens Rights’ office in Gaza City was raised by Hamas police and forced to close. Local human rights activists claim Hamas want to stop independent reporting of the current wave of repression.

Women Cycle for Peace in Lebanon

From the Daily Star:

About 300 women from 30 different countries cycled through the Bekaa and Mount Lebanon Saturday with the message of promoting peace in the Middle East and empowering women in the region. The women were part of the Follow the Women Foundation, an international program that seeks to encourage peace and unity in the Middle East through peaceful actions. The program is in collaboration with the Women for Peace International foundation. Two of its main goals are to focus of the issues of Arab women and to guarantee the rights of Palestinian women.

Israel Releases Palestinian Women

From Outlook India:

Signalling a breakthrough in the deadlock over prisoners' exchange, Israel today decided to release 20 female Palestinian detainees in exchange for a new videotape of an Israeli soldier abducted three years ago.

The video will be viewed as an evidence that Sgt Gilad Schalit is alive after more than three years of captivity in Gaza.

The exchange will be carried out on Friday after the Justice Ministry today posts the names of the Palestinian prisoners on its website and no legal hassles delay the process.

The suggestion for an "unequivocal" proof of the Israeli soldier's condition came from the German mediator, working together with the Egyptians.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu congratulated Hagai Hadas, who is leading efforts to release Shalit, and the team on their "professional work" away from the spotlight.

"It is important that the whole world will know that Gilad Schalit is alive and well, and that Hamas is responsible for his fate and well being," Netanyahu said.

A statement released by the PMO said the cabinet decided to respond positively to this initiative as a "confidence building measure within the framework of the indirect negotiations" with Hamas over Schalit.

Palestine: Female Judges

From Globe & Mail:
"Judge Khuloud al-Faqeeh's biggest fear when she became one of the first two female Palestinian Islamic judges was that men would refuse to stand before her. As in every Arab and Muslim country with the exception of Sudan, only men passed judgment in Islamic courts.

“They expect a man with a beard and a turban,” said Judge al-Faqeeh, smiling wryly from behind her desk as her hand made a circular movement above her cream-coloured satin head scarf.

Considered by many in this male-dominated society to be too emotional to serve as judges, women in Islamic courts were there to receive judgments, not to give them. The results were frequently unfair. But after the appointment of two women judges to Islamic courts in the West Bank last month, Palestinian women have begun to find an understanding ear – and more equitable judgments.

Women across the Muslim world consider the Palestinian women judges a milestone for women's rights. But some disagree, arguing that Islamic law prohibits equality of the sexes."

Pink equals Women Only

From Middle East Online, a quirky story of a business built upon discrimination:
"A taxi firm in Lebanon has unveiled a new concept geared toward women, complete with a fleet of pink cars and pink-attired female drivers ready to keep the sexes apart.

"Initially, I thought I would have a rough time finding female taxi drivers given that in Lebanon this is a man's job," said Nawal Yaghi Fakhri, owner of "Taxi Banat" or "Taxi for Women" which was launched on Tuesday.

"But to my surprise I got about 40 requests."

The initiative, the first of its kind in Lebanon, has won the backing of the tourism ministry keen to cater to a growing clientele of wealthy female tourists from conservative Muslim countries in the Gulf region.

"This is the second such company to open in (Arab countries of) the Middle East after the United Arab Emirates," Lina Ghanem, a spokeswoman at the tourism ministry, said.

The company's drivers will only serve women.

A women-only cab company was also launched two years ago in the Islamic republic of Iran, which frowns upon the mingling of the sexes, although men and women do sit together in shared taxis.

The idea, however, has not gone down well with some in Lebanon. "This is what you call sexual discrimination," joked Jad Fakhoury, a Lebanese businessman who attended the launch ceremony."

Female Islamic Judges

From the New Zealand Herald:
"The Islamic courts were among the last male-only bastions in Palestinian society, where women have been presidential candidates, police officers and even suicide bombers.

But Khuloud Faqih, 34, and Asmahan Wuheidi, 31, made history last month when they became the first female Islamic judges in the Palestinian territories.

Across the Arab world, only Sudan has had women judges in Islamic courts, while Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, all relatively progressive states in the region on women's rights, do not.

Muslim courts in the Palestinian Authority rule over family affairs such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and custody, relying on Islamic jurisprudence rather than secular rules.

Palestinian feminists have praised the female judges but say the move will not make a dramatic change, because the judges still rely on Islamic laws that ultimately favour men."