Progress Amid Resistance

362 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAhealth, employment opportunities, access to education, and political andcivil liberties throughout the Palestinian territories. 12 In addition to presentingchallenges in women’s day-to-day lives, these factors have consistentlydrawn attention away from calls for gender equality at the societaland political levels. Nonetheless, women’s rights activists and organizationsare determined to persevere in their efforts to reform discriminatorylaws and practices, as they have many times during Palestine’s tremuloushistory.NONDISCRIMINATION AND ACCESS TO JUSTICEThe instability of Palestine’s domestic and international political situationhas prevented revisions or even parliamentary discussions of many pivotallaws that affect women’s lives, including the citizenship law and the pe nalcode. In addition, with peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestiniansstalled, the status of Palestinians in East Jerusalem remains unresolved,subjecting them to discriminatory Israeli laws on residence and citizenship.Gender-based discrimination and insufficient access to justice persist, andcivil society lacks the necessary legal tools and financial resources to combatsuch treatment.The supreme law of Palestine is the Basic Law, ratified in 2002 andamended in 2003 and 2005. 13 It acts as a temporary constitution until theestablishment of a Palestinian state, 14 after which the latest draft constitutionwill take force. 15 Under Article 9 of the Basic Law, Palestinians are“equal before the law and the judiciary, without distinction based uponrace, sex, color, religion, political views or disability.” Article 11 describespersonal freedom as “a natural right” that “shall be guaranteed and maynot be violated.” Article 4, however, stipulates that Shari‘a (Islamic law) isa main source of legislation, opening the door to discriminatory provisionsbased on conservative interpretations of Islamic principles.Despite the Basic Law’s guarantees, many laws currently in force do notpenalize gender discrimination, while those that do are difficult to enforcedue to weak institutional mechanisms for handling such cases. Four differentsets of laws control the lives of Palestinians: those of the PA, Israel,Egypt, and Jordan. 16 This creates confusion and makes it more difficultfor women’s rights activists to focus their advocacy efforts. A unified courtsystem created in 2002 was designed to alleviate some of this uncertaintyand was seen as a step toward the unification of the legal system itself.