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Palestinian Women in the West Bank

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Some Palestinian women are still living in the dark ages, forced to stay home, do not practice their own rights, and are tied up to men’s ideas… These are common frequent thoughts that spread among people from all over the world but the facts not well known and many changes occurred that will make you think again. In fact Palestinian women, In the West Bank, have a significant presence as activists, protesting against an unjust occupation, play a great role as the fundamental of a fragmented and inhibit society.

Politically; they did so in new ways, for example by protests, attending political conferences and seminars, contacting political officials, and joining political parties. By the time, they took a membership of the main Palestinian political factions and made it to formal politics in 1964. In recent years, more women have however started joining the police, reflecting a change within both police and society towards the role of women in security institutions.

Since the early days of the Palestinian struggle, women have been supporting men side by side to rescue their own land. The real start was when they were able to form charitable organizations and express themselves, few women turned to more militant activities like Leila Khalid who became a familiar face in the Western media when hijacked several airliners on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Palestinians women against society

Yet, Palestinian women had to face the traditionally conservative society, many normal attitudes were considered shameful when practiced by women such as involving in any field that requires working with men or as men, another example is her ability to live or travel alone on clear roads. That minimized their progress in many aspects but many younger women found a new kind of freedom through education and political mobilization.

“I’ve always wanted to study mechanical engineering since I was a little girl but I couldn’t do it,” Sandy Mashaqi said, an engineer from the West Bank. Sandy surrendered to society’s look and had to let go, instead, she started studying industrial engineering, during three years of studying an inner voice kept calling for its freedom. “ There wasn’t any girl studying mechanical engineer because of the look others will look at them,” Sandy added.

The fact that women have been facing the fear of showing up and acting the way they are  has played a major role of helping society to keep acting the way it does.“Since I can fly and I have all the potentials needed why would I stay at the ground, with the support of my mother I converted the major and entered the world of mechanics.” Sandy Proudly added. The 24 years old girl finished her engineering studies and graduated to receive a great opportunity to work in her field.

Sandy Mashaqi in a seminar supporting other girls to do whatever they see themselves doing.

Many habits are still unacceptable to do in public like riding bikes, horses but it is very common and acceptable to ride cars. 

Palestinian women police participate in organizing traffic in Bethlehem with policemen in Bethlehem.

Critical Parental thoughts Palestinian women face

In the past, Due to the lacking number of universities, girls had to travel from their homes to universities, and because of the Israeli regulation, such as putting hundreds of checkpoints on the roads, girls were likely to experience harassment at the checkpoints. Plus to education expenses and university accommodation was really high many parents kept their daughters at home. And even marry them off at the earliest possible opportunity; The age of marriage began to fall.

Parents in Palestine preferred males because the boys carry “the name of the family and secure “the continuity of the family line and strengthens the likelihood of its economic stability. On the other hand, Palestinian females were not expected to secure income for the family, but to adapt to the customary roles of women in Palestinian society wherein females were traditionally molded as inferior to men. This phenomenon still exists today, in the villages more likely, but with less pressure, where the women’s role focuses on Home Business, Education, and having children.

Good news

Nowadays, the universities number has increased to be in almost every city in the West Bank and most of the Palestinian women are achieving universities education, instead of only receiving education at the secondary level. Reasons for the change of parental attitude were the “increased demand for women on the labor market”, changes in the status of the economy in the territory, the “economic interests” of the parents, and the idea that a well-educated Palestinian woman has a better place and opportunity on the “marriage market”. In addition to this, armed with earned education, an unmarried daughter can financially support herself and her parents.

While in the present time, women have become active and influential in society with the acquisition of a lot of powers. It has become a pride of the family and plays important role in many businesses sectors, especially in the market and economy.

Laila Ghannam: Ramallah and Al Bireh Governorate in Palestine

 A significant decrease in the rate of early marriage among females

The results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census 2017 indicated that the percentage of women (20-24 years) married before the age of 18 years in Palestine reached 8.5% in the West Bank.  In 2007, this percentage was 17.0% in the West Bank.

In short, Palestinian women have experienced progress in different areas of life and the Palestinian society has become more open and less restricted by customs and traditions that focus on males. Women faced these barriers and constraints and embarked on their ambitions and achieved many achievements and successes.

Hand Made cushions by Palestinian ladies 

 

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In Palestine, no peace before the slate is clean

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It seems that peace in Palestine will remain confined to the realm of wishful thinking. For the vast majority of people around the world, the racist apartheid entity known as Israel is probably the most gargantuan crime against humanity ever committed in the history of mankind.

 Israel was conceived in sin, misbegotten in evil when it was established nearly 75 years ago, remains completely evil today, and will always be irremediably evil, no matter how many people sing its praises.

The creation of Israel in Palestine may not be the most heinous genocidal act in history. But it is most certainly the biggest and most obscene theft ever. How else can any honest person describe the arrogation of an entire country by the British empire and surrendering it, as a (National home),  on a silver platter to another people ( Zionist Jews) on the ground that these people were stateless and persecuted, especially following the tragic events of the World War II.

Indelible calamity for Palestinians

Indeed, the very creation of Israel and its malignant growth into a powerful evil entity has inflicted a huge indelible calamity to every Palestinian family.

 Yes, thanks to Zionism’s triumph, thanks to overwhelming, unlimited and sustained backing by racist, anti-Islam Western powers such as UK and US, every Palestinian family had its share of the still ongoing agony,  immense suffering and misery resulting from the establishment of the evil entity, which is nothing less than a protracted, unrelenting and unceasing crime against humanity.

It is probably impossible to find a single Palestinian who has escaped the impact of the Zionist Jewish crimes, still, continues unabated.

Israel: When will the Jews say Mea Culpa?

This writer’s family, for example, was forced to dwell in a cave for 20 years, following the near extermination of my father’s family in 1953. In that fateful year, Jewish terrorists massacred his three paternal uncles, Hussein, Mahmoud and Yousef not far from the village of, al-Burj, about 30 km southwest of the town of Hebron.

The three, along with other relatives, were totally innocent shepherds, grazing their folks of sheep near the armistice line.  In addition to murdering my family, the Zionist murderers stole hundreds of sheep upon which our family depended on for living.

Read Also: Expect a Srebrenica-like massacre anytime by Jewish Settlers in the West Bank

 Interestingly, up to this day, Israel, the so-called only democracy in the  Middle East, has not said “Mea Culpa“! let alone paid compensations for their crimes When will the Zionist Jews say a simple sorry for their unwept victims? Perhaps when kosher pigs fly!

Yes, every single Palestinian has a story to tell about what happened to his or her immediate family, relatives, neighbours and fellow villagers.

The Zionists, notoriously selfish and narcissistic, calculated that old Palestinians who experienced the holocaust-like Nakba first-hand ( the brutal, violent extirpation of an entire people from its ancestral homeland does constitute a form of genocide),  would die and the young would forget.

However, the Zionist calculations proved utterly faulty as the cause has been kept alive and living, strongly and firmly, in the hearts and minds of millions of people around the world, including in Palestine itself where close to eight million Palestinians continue to live as a thorn in the  Zionists’ side despite all their nefarious designs, plots and exploits to consign our just cause to oblivion.

There are several reasons for this exemplary resilience and steadfastness on the part of the Palestinian people, including the following:

1-The colossal Nakba, was by no means a one-time event lasting for a  few weeks or a few months, followed by peace or an end of hostility. The Palestinians actually never encountered circumstances or conditions conducive to making them or their descendants forget or overcome their pains. Indeed, ever since 1948, the collective Palestinian experience has been a sequence of atrocities, pogroms, repressive measures, mass internment and imprisonment, home -demolitions, land-grabbing, sporadic massacres,  and similar acts of persecution and oppression. This would draw a conclusion that peace in Palestine belongs to the realm of fantasy.

The main purpose of these evil measures has always been to force the Palestinians, or significant numbers of them, to leave their homeland for good. Indeed, in many instances, the Zionist authorities offered attractive sums of money to “encourage” Palestinians to emigrate to countries such as Australia and Canada. However, very few Palestinians would swallow the Zionist bait.

The unrelenting suffering and the protracted oppression and savagery kept alight the torch of resistance even to this day as most Palestinians came to realize that they were facing two main alternatives: continued resistance even at a high price, or going into oblivion and repeating the experiment of the  “American Indians” of the Middle East.

2-The second reason which enabled the Palestinians to keep their struggle alive is their strong Islamic faith. Islam encourages its followers to resist oppression and not succumb or give in to oppressors. True, Palestinian nationalism played and continues to play an important role in sustaining the resistance. However, it is amply clear that Islam is more able to provide an inexhaustible source of motivations for the increasingly religious showdown with Israel. More to the point, Palestinians feel they have a paramount religious duty to protect, defend, and liberate al-Aqsa Mosque from the claws of Zionism. Indeed, most Palestinians realize there can be no Palestine without Jerusalem and no Jerusalem without the Aqsa Mosque. Hence, their resolve to sacrifice body and soul for the liberation of  Islam’s third holiest sanctuary.

No Peace without Justice, but Justice is more than impossible

Since there can be no lasting peace in Palestine without true justice that leaves the slate thoroughly clean, it would be safe to argue that reaching a genuine peace between Muslims and Zionist Jews would be as unlikely as Satan the devil entering the Garden of Eden in the company of prophets, saints, martyrs and righteous people on the Day of Judgment.

But since Satan will go to hell rather than paradise, peace in Palestine will remain confined to the realm of wishful thinking.

And even if Zionist Jews were to reach the conclusion that enough was enough, they still would have to agree to a system of redress for the egregious injustices inflicted on their victims from the very inception of the gargantuan crime against humanity.

For justice, even a semblance of justice to materialize, the Jews of the world would have to pay the Palestinians adequate and prompt reparations for the purpose of promoting justice and redressing the horrible and still ongoing crimes against the victims and their descendants up to the 10th generation. I cannot determine the exact amount of reparations and indemnification which Jews would have to pay for the victims. But an initial amount of 30-50 trillion dollars would probably suffice for a final rapprochement. Am I undergoing day-dreaming. Definitely. That is why even invoking the possibility of a real durable peace between Palestine and Israel belongs to the realm of fantasy and wishful thinking. (end)

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Israel is Hiding Crucial Demographic Facts About Palestinians

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demographic facts about the Palestinians and Palestinian demographic data

For decades, Israel has been hiding crucial demographic facts about the Palestinians West of the River Jordan (Israel proper, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip). During this period, Successive Israeli governments consistently sought to inflate the number of Jews while deliberately belittling the number of Palestinians.  The purpose of this manifestly racist and still-ongoing policy is to portray the Palestinians as an insignificant and shrinking minority.

Palestinian demographic facts:“The Palestinian womb is overwhelming Israel”

Demographic facts and data are considered Israel’s best-guarded state secrets.

However, from time to time, Israeli officials make racist statements reflecting Israeli anxiety toward the growing Palestinian population and Palestinian demographic data and facts.

 Moreover, the toxically racist Israeli media normally resort to “Statistical manipulation” to ensure the pathologically insecure Jewish citizens that Jews are still a large and growing the majority of the population.

This week, a senior doctor at the Soroka hospital in Beir Sheva in Southern Palestine was quoted as saying that  “the Arab womb is overwhelming the Jewish public” in the country.

The doctor,  Gideon Saar, a cardiac surgeon, was recorded on video, saying the remarks during an election gathering to promote the notoriously racist former Justice minister Ayelet Shaked.

Crucial Palestinian demographic facts: Short is the robe of lying!

As we all know, mendacity has always been and continues to be Israel’s modus operandi and ultimate lifeline. Israel lies about almost everything, from how it came into being to its possession of nuclear weapons. So, we shouldn’t be surprised a bit to discover Israeli efforts to cover up crucial demographic facts in occupied Palestine.

Indeed, lying rather obscenely is simply an integral part of being Zionist.

Read Also: Is anti-Semitism essential for the survival and growth of Zionism and Jewish peoplehood?

Honesty and being Zionist are eternal oxymorons and shouldn’t be used in the same line. Israel lies as often as Israelis breathe.

Rare admission:

In 2014,  the Head of the Military Administration in the West Bank, euphemistically called the Civil Administration, made a rare admission when he pointed out that the number of Palestinians between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean exceeded the number of Jews. 

The admission has since been confirmed by many Israeli scholars, including Sergio Della Pergola, an Italian-Israeli demographer and statistician.

Some irate right-wing officials dismissed the shocking revelations demographic facts about Palestinians as “spurious and distorted.” But Della Pergola, a Hebrew University Professor, dismissed these right-wingers as “delusional.”

Three out of four Russian immigrants are “non-Jewish”

According to the Israeli media, it has been revealed by official Israeli circles that hundreds of thousands of “Jewish” immigrants from the former Soviet Union are actually “nom-Jewish” according to the so-called “Law of return.” The Ynet English website on 17 November 2002, reported that in 2020, three out of every four Russian immigrants were actually non-Jewish.

The “shocking” report came after leaders of the religious and fascist Jewish parties, which won the recent elections in Israel, expressed intention to amend the Law of Return and reopen the sensitive question of who counts as Jewish according to Jewish law or Halacha.  According to the Jerusalem Post, only 28% of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union were actually Jewish. The same source reported that between 1990-2020, the percentage of truly Jewish immigrants didn’t exceed 36%. 

 

Palestinians have a clear majority

Today,  data shows that the existence of a Palestinian demographic majority west of the River Jordan (Israel and the occupied Territories) is a clarion fact that only the willfully blind refuses to see. In fact, if we deduct around 500,00-600,00 non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union from the projected Jewish population, the Palestinian majority becomes an axiomatic fact that even the most dishonest Israeli politicians wouldn’t deny.

According to Palestinian and Israeli experts, the crucial Palestinian demographic facts today exceeds the Jewish population by at least 300,000 people.

However, some hot-tempered Israeli leaders and pro-settler circles keep indulging in prevarication, statistical sophistry and outright lies to produce an otherwise rosy outlook.

Palestinian demographic facts: Apartheid to make “them” out of sight and out mind”!   

Israel, especially the so-called  “deep state,”e.g.,  the hawkish security establishment, has been using a variety of criminal tactics to neutralize the problem. These tactics include the following:

1- Denial and concealing crucial Palestinian demographic facts, classified as “top secret”  from the general public, while making the classified data available to top politicians, like the Prime Minister, the President, and Mossad Chief. Moreover, military censorship has been barring the normally-liberal Israeli media from discussing the matter or making “harmful” Revelations.

2- Maximizing systematic persecution, repression and state sponsored-terrorism against the Palestinians for the purpose of coercing them to emigrate as the Zionist gangs did in 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave following the perpetration by Jewish terrorists of genocidal massacres like Dir Yasin, Tantura, Dawaymeh, etc. Indeed, for decades, Israel claimed the refugees were not expelled but left voluntarily.

Read Also: Rectifying Nuclear Imbalance with Israel should be a strategic priority for Egypt, SA and Turkey

3- Confining as many Palestinians as possible to the smallest possible territory.

4. Refusing to grant non-Jews building licenses to construct a home in (Area C) of the West Bank, which constitutes more than 65% of the occupied territory.

5- Demolishing Palestinian homes in the contiguity of Jewish colonies or in areas coveted or slated for settlement expansion. It is estimated that Israel demolished more than 50,000 Palestinian homes in Gaza and the West Bank since 1967.

6-  Applying two sets of laws, one lenient, another harsh and draconian, to  Jews and Arabs living in the same area, even the same neighbourhood.

Yet Zionist Jews bark furiously and uncontrollably like rabid shipyard dogs whenever someone calls the racist entity apartheid? Do they want the world to celebrate with them their “exemplary egalitarianism” and the kosher savagery meted out to the helpless and virtually abandoned Palestinians whose only “crime” is their being goyem and therefore un-kosher? Is this the way Jews are supposed to pay back for Muslim protection for many centuries in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and many other places?

I advise doubting Jews to read “the Jew and the Cross” to realize the huge difference in the treatment Jews received under Islam and Christendom. (see The Jew and the Cross – Dagobert David Runes).

Exercising some honesty and rectitude is always beneficial and rewarding.

7- Israel has been manipulating statistical data and crucial demographic facts to give the impression that the Palestinians are not actually a nation, but a cacophonic set of sects and tribes with very little common bonds.

Thus, Israeli statisticians divided Palestinians into Muslims, Christians, Bedouins, Jerusalemites, Israeli Arab citizens, and Circassians. Samarians, etc.

This sort of statistical mutilation is not met with a reciprocal sub-categorization when dealing with the Jewish community which has far more ethnic and religious heterogeneity. For example, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate doesn’t consider a majority of American Jews (Reform and Conservative Jews) to be bona fide Jews. Orthodox Jews, who are in control in Israel, routinely quarrel and scuffle with Reform and Conservative Jews at the Western Wall esplanade, shouting obscenities at them and calling them abusive epithets like “Goyem” (non-Jews) and “Notsrim” (Christians).   

Demographic holocaust

One might wonder how Israel would deal with its demographic dilemma in the medium and distant future. Some Israeli leaders, especially within the jingoistic religious messianic circles don’t hesitate to use far-fetched explosive terms like “demographic holocaust” to describe the Palestinian demographic advantage.

The scandalously corrupt analogy between one of the greatest tragedies in the history of mankind on the one hand,  and the survival and growth of the Palestinian people in its own ancestral homeland on the other, cheapens the holocaust and seriously corrodes international efforts to combat true, virulent anti-Semitism. It also exposes the brutal ugliness of the Zionist mindset.

Unfortunately, we Palestinians have learnt that nothing can be dismissed as unthinkable as far as the depraved Zionist mentality is concerned. Indeed, a state that shamelessly argues that Jews have an inherent right to be racist “because they are a special people” can do anything, however ghoulish and nightmarish or diabolic it may be.

That is why, the Rabbis of Gush Emunim, who represent religious Zionism, declare openly that the solution for the Palestinian problem is a combination of three measures: Transfer or collective deportation; a tight, humiliating apartheid regime; and\or a war of extermination. Frankly, I prefer to believe these evil rabbis rather than notorious pathological liars like Netanyahu, Lapid, and Biden.

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Palestinians’ surrender is unlikely in Jenin refugee camp.

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Jenin refugee camp

A massive operation of murder and terror at the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank has been carried out by the Israeli army immediately after the Eid Al-Adha holiday, killing and maiming scores of Palestinians including dozens of innocent civilians.

The massive operation wreaked havoc and caused huge destruction to homes and property as well as to the camp’s infrastructures.

The latest massive operation in Jenin refugee camp began shortly before dawn on 3 July, when as many as a thousand crack soldiers and around 150 armoured vehicles stormed the unprotected civilian camp,  allegedly to eliminate Palestinian resistance fighters hiding in the area.  Israel claims the fighters occasionally attack the occupation army patrols and paramilitary Jewish settlers,  notorious for their often murderous attacks on Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank.

Read Also: Huwara rampage: a prova for a possible Israeli Holocaust.

The settlers, emboldened by the establishment in Israel six months ago, of the most fascist government ever in Israel’s history, have escalated their organized army-backed terror against Palestinians.

The massive operation in Jenin refugee camp, which is continuing for the second consecutive day as this report is being compiled,  has been described as the biggest since 2002.

It was preceded with bombing from the air of homes and other buildings by Apache helicopters and armed drones, causing the death of several Palestinians.

The few Palestinian resistant fighters in Jenin refugee camp, lightly and poorly armed, sought to prevent the invading forces from reaching the centre of the camp.  They succeeded for a time, despite the massive operation of the occupation army. As of now, at least 10 Palestinians were martyred, and as many as 100 other Palestinians were injured, some quite seriously.

Israeli sources said one Israeli soldier was Injured. However, it is widely believed that a number of soldiers were either killed or injured as apparently wounded soldiers were seen on stretches being rushed to an awaiting helicopter which flew them to hospitals.

The Israeli army reportedly fired grenades at the main mosque at Jenin refugee camp, claiming that resistance fighters barricaded themselves inside the holy place. The army had threatened to destroy the mosque if the fighters didn’t surrender.

Massive bulldozers taking part in the latest operation caused wanton destruction to the civilian infrastructure, demolishing civilian homes, shops, and businesses.

The invading force prevented ambulances and medical teams from reaching the wounded. According to eyewitnesses, some wounded people were left bleeding to death.

Goal: Extirping any realistic hope for Palestinian statehood

 The declared purpose of the latest massive operation in Jenin refugee camp is the elimination of all vestiges of active resistance to the Jewish occupation and apartheid.

However, an Israeli lawmaker affiliated with the ruling Likud  party was quoted as saying that the ultimate strategic goal behind the latest massive operation in Jenin refugee camp was to “irreversibly extirpate  and eradicate, once and for all, any remaining  realistic hope for Palestinian statehood.”

In other words, Israel is hell-bent on imposing by force unconditional capitulation of the Palestinians.

In order to reach this ultimate goal, Israel must coerce the Palestinians to abandon, once and for all, any dreams or ambitions for freedom from the wicked tentacles of the hateful Jewish Octopus. Hence, the latest bloody massive operation in Jenin.

Palestinian surrender is highly unlikely in Jenin refugee camp.

It is implausible that the Zionist entity will achieve such a genocidal goal, since pushing the Palestinian people to the corner would cause massive tribulations throughout the Arab world, and even the wider Muslim world, given the paramount status of the Aqsa Mosque in the hearts of Muslims.

Besides,  the elimination of all realistic prospects for the establishment of a sovereign and territorially-contiguous Palestinian state, a Zionist goal that has more or less been achieved,  will, almost certainly,  prompt Palestinians to demand equal citizenship rights in a bi-national unitary state extending from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean.

Hamas appeals to Muslims: Don’t normalize with the murderers of our children 

 In the meanwhile, the Palestinian Islamic group, Hamas, has appealed to all Muslims to immediately stop all forms of normalization with the enemy.

“We appeal to all Arab and Muslim states to immediately end relations with the Zionist regime,” said Ahmed Ayyoub, a spokesman for the group in the Jerusalem area.

He added: your normalization with this Zio-Nazi  entity  is killing our children and tormenting our people.”

Saleh Aruri, deputy-head of Hamas, said during an interview with Aljazeera on 3 July that normalization with Israel was immensely harming the Palestinian cause.

Israel, he said,  is exploiting her normalized relations with a number of Arab dictatorships to encircle the Palestinians and try to liquidate the Palestinian national cause.

The United States is openly colluding with the Talmudic fascist Israeli regime to expand the so-called Abraham Accords by including some additional Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia.

The Accords are mainly designed to isolate the Palestinian cause by neutralizing Arab and Muslim support for the Palestinian people.

So far, three Arab regimes have gone too far in their relations with the very entity that desecrates the Third most important Islamic sanctuary, namely al-Masjidul Aqsa.  These states are The United Arab Emirates which has established a quasi-alliance with Israel, the little Sheikhdom of Bahrain and Morocco.

The three despotic regimes  seem to have turned their backs. almost completely to the Palestinian cause and people.

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