Palestinian Women and Politics in Israel

Though an equal rights clause is written into the Israeli constitution, women are underrepresented in the political arena. This is especially true in the case of Palestinian women - only one Palestinian woman has been a member of the Knesset in the entire fifty-plus-year history of Israel. Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud examines the various factors that have created this culture of political oppression. She relies on both feminist theory and theories of colonial domination as well as conclusions drawn from personal interviews with female activists. Utilizing Arabic, English, and Hebrew sources, she also makes careful distinctions between the lives and experiences of Christian, Muslim, Bedouin, and Druze women. Daoud's focus remains squarely on the experiences of Palestinian women, however, and she demonstrates that the problem is not only due to the minority status of Palestinians. She reveals how they are further hampered by Arab cultural attitudes toward women and the overall political culture in Israel, which continues to privilege men over women even as it pays lip service to equality.