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Palestinian Women in Terrorism: Protectors or Protected
Popular Front, Islamic Jihad or Hamas), have established their own “Prisoner’s club” to
provide legal defense for their members.
32 In our experience, the reverse is true of common crime female offenders who serve
prison time. They tend to start out in more traditional clothing, then begin to dress in
Western looking clothes, often wearing tight jeans and T shirts during their imprisonment.
33 The interviews of the women as well as those of community leaders confirm that having
Palestinian women in prison is socially unaccepted and particularly difficult to bear. It is
well documented that in any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians about
prisoners release or exchange, women will be the first on the list to be released. A recent
example is the Hamas first demand to release all women in exchange for releasing Gilad
Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was kidnapped from inside Israel on June 25, 2006.
34 The concern about the “adverse” effect of involvement in the Palestinian resistance
movement on femininity was also documented by Peteet (1991) who studied Palestinian
women in Lebanon. Peteet (1991, pp. 152-53) quotes a husband who laments, “Our
women aren’t women anymore; they have become men….even when they go home they
are no longer women’”
35 Some examples were listed in Berko and Erez, 2007; for instance, “He will be huge with
nice face and polite, with muscles but not too many, and would not look on other
women;” “he should be smart, well regarded in society and should understand me;” “he
should be older, religious and know politics, and can even be poor.”
References
Al-Khayyat S. (1990), Honour and Shame: Women in Modern Iraq, London: Saqi
Books.
Ali Farhana (2006), Rocking the Cradle To Rocking the World: The Role of Muslim
Female Fighters, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 8(1), pp. 21-35.
Ali Farhana (2005), Muslim Female Fighters: An Emerging Trend, Terrorism Monitor 3
(21) (November 3).
Barakat Halim (1985), The Arab Family and the Challenge of Social Transformation, pp.
27-48, In: Fernea E. W., (ed.), Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices
of Change, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Berko Anat (2004, 2007), The Path to Paradise: The inner world of female and male
suicide bombers and their dispatchers, Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot Press (in Hebrew, in
English by Praeger).
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