The role of Palestinian women in protecting and supporting the right of return

Many have said Palestinian women are the weak link, vulnerable, with nother to offer and unable to fight for the Palestinian cause. Some may even have gone on to say that even discussions and papers on Palestinian women are only a waste of time.

But the reality is just the opposite. Palestinian women are the mothers of refugees who have been displaced from their land. They never speak of their sacrifices and submit to the Palestinian man for the sake of their legitimate rights. They experience the suffering of the Palestinian people from oppression, torture and crime because of the actions of Zionist criminal gangs during the plight of Palestine in 1948 and the setback in 1967. These are the same mothers who witnessed the massacre of Sabra and Shatila and other massacres that killed thousands of martyrs, the wounded and bereaved widows. Add to that, the suffering of asylum and repeated migration experienced by Palestinian women over decades. Everytime they settle down with thei family in a camp, city or village, they are obliged to move elsewhere again, either in an effort to improve socio-economic conditions or in search of safety because of the wars and incursions.

Keeping the light on the issue of refugees and the right to return are also part of women’s role. It is an endless issue which begins with breastfeeding and rocking the baby to sleep. Customs, traditions, daily Palestinian life are preserved by Palestinian mothers faithfully. It has been so from 1948 and continues to maintain a strong Palestinian identity. Mothers pray on their children, their loved ones to deliver the message to the world, that this is the fruit of our education for our children for generations.

Aside from education and sacrifice Palestinian women circumstances constitute milestones in the history of the Palestinian cause in general and the issue of refugees the right of return, in particular. It is the martyr and martyrdom, the prisoner and wounded, the widow and bereaved, a novelist and notepad and poet and intellectual, political and lawyer... Women managed to represent half of society and educate the other half. They are present at all stages and form of the Palestinian struggle alongside men from the great resistance to stone resistor. At home and abroad, they review stages of the Nakba, give reasons for the uprising Earth Day on March 30, 1976. They are fully aware of how it was them – women – before the men blocking the attacks of the Israeli occupation. The failed attempts to control land and the expulsion of the population has taught a lesson that Palestinian women reported during the Nakba. They understood the Zionist project and taught their children, the future generation, that there is no value to the land without the Palestinian people. 

Example of Palestinian women commited to their country and its people are numerous. Valmanadilh Dalal Mughrabi is one of them. She was a girl Palestinian refugee in Lebanon’s Camp Sabra in Beirut. She participated in a military operation in the Palestinian territories in 1978, where a bus traveling from Haifa to Tel Aviv was hijacked. In the process, they raised the flag of the Palestine. Other model Mujahid Ahlam Tamimi, Palestinian refugee in Jordan, was the first woman to join the Brigades of the Martyr Izz al-Qassam after her return to the Palestinian territories. She was captured in 2001 because of her involvement in the process of Jerusalem and sentenced to 16 life sentences. She was released late 2011 after negociations between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Palestinian women form a solid core holding on to the issue of refugees, the right to return despite 66 years since the Nakba.