WUNRN
Women Without Borders
06. June 2008
Palestine - Women - "Today It’s About Sheer Survival"
Elisabeth Kasbauer, Executive Director of Women without Borders talks with Dr. Sara Roy, Harvard University Researcher.
Dr. Sara Roy is a professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at
Harvard and has conducted research on the political, social and economic
development of Palestine since 1985. As the daughter of Auschwitz survivors,
she grew up in a domestic environment that defined teachings from the Holocaust
as a moral obligation. She believes that these lessons apply to all
communities.
Elisabeth Kasbauer spoke with her about the everyday life of women in the West
Bank and Gaza, about the selective allocation of development aid and
hopelessness in the region. Roy was invited to Vienna by the Vienna Institute
for Dialog and Cooperation.
Elisabeth Kasbauer: When we consider the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the
complicated nature of the subject makes it difficult to know where to start.
Women are greatly affected by this conflict.
Sara Roy: The situation in Gaza and the West Bank is precarious at the moment.
Women suffer in many ways: unemployment, broken families, inability to provide
proper nutrition, lack of health care, restricted freedom of movement – the
list is endless. Women are exposed to internal and external suppression. But
there were many strong and engaged women during the peace negotiations in Oslo,
and there were many female ministers as well.
E.K.: Is this period of hope in the past?
Roy: It was a period of possibilities, which is now over. Today it’s about
sheer survival. The primary role of women is to keep the family intact and to
preserve some semblance of normalcy in an environment that is so destructive.
Women have to make sure that their families survive, and this brings us back to
ground zero.
E.K.: Demographically speaking, the population of the West Bank and Gaza is
very young.
Roy: In Gaza, the population growth and the fertility rates are some of the
highest in the world. I have spent a lot of time in refugee camps, and there is
no privacy at these places. There is an enormous amount of pressure on the
whole community, particularly on women. I was so overwhelmed by the sense of
density, the lack of privacy and the lack of any sense of thinking about
myself. It’s as if thinking about yourself as a human being, as a woman, is
selfish and illegitimate. And now it is even worse because the exigencies are
so much more extreme. What are the main concerns of a Palestinian mother? To
provide enough food for her children, to make sure they don’t get shot on the
way to school, and to make sure they remain in good health. How do you get
proper healthcare for your children? First, to make sure that, when you are
pregnant, you will be able to get to a hospital and deliver your baby safely.
But the number of home births in the West Bank and Gaza has gone up
significantly because women physically can’t access hospitals because of
roadblocks and checkpoints.
E.K.: Development programs have always been active in the region. How do
you perceive the sustainability of these initiatives and where can they be
found at the moment?
Roy: There is virtually no development aid at the moment. Most aid is
humanitarian or based on emergency response. In Gaza there is no development at
all. And the majority of these funds are used punitively; this is one of the
major differences in developmental and economic systems today. And development
as an objective has always been extremely problematic in this part of the world
for political reasons; Israel has always constrained and precluded development.
Economic growth would mean political empowerment, and that is simply not on the
agenda.
Aid is also allocated in a very selective way – even humanitarian aid. The U.S.
is largely to blame for this in my opinion, but the EU is also to blame because
it goes along with the program. USAID will not fund a municipality, no matter
how desperately needed, if that municipality is perceived to be run by Hamas.
It is no longer a question of development or change; it is now a question of
control.
E.K.: How is it possible that the Palestinian population was held hostage
by politics while the whole world was watching?
Roy: It’s all about power. And it wasn’t just that the Israelis, the Americans
and the international community chose not to address Palestinian society in a
meaningful way; the Palestinian leadership itself, under Arafat, has always
tried to marginalize civil society. If you empower a society, you create a
potential threat to your own rule.
E.K.: Is there hope on the horizon? Yossi Beizlin, the leader of the social
left-wing party Meretz-Jachad said recently: ‘We must accept that Israel will
be divided and then we will have peace.’
Roy: This is the big question. The status quo is dreadful – for Palestinians and
Israelis. If the situation isn’t resolved in a manner in which both peoples can
live peacefully – and peacefully together – then it will erupt into even more
violence.
Historically, the idea was that Palestinians had to accept the terms that
Israel and the US defined for resolving this conflict. But Palestinians have
learned their lesson; now they say, ‘deal with us as human beings, as equals,
and we will engage with engage with Israel.’ They are prepared to live in peace
with Israel, but will no longer accept pre-conditions, transitional
arrangements or confidence building measures. They now demand reciprocity and
mutual recognition. This is why Hamas has a lot of support. Hamas represents
the only root, political root, that will stand up to the West, Israel and the
international community and say ‘we are prepared to engage, but we will engage
with you on terms that we define together, not terms that you impose on us.’
E.K.: This is a sensitive and internationally controversial question.
Roy: What is the alternative? The Palestinians are ready to die for liberation
and humanity. They are no longer afraid of the military power of Israel. They
believe that there is nothing left to lose.
E.K.: Many in this area have never known anything but war, destruction and
violence.
Roy: Unemployment in the Gaza Strip is approximately 40%. Palestinians are no
longer able to work in Israel; they have been replaced by workers from Asia and
Romania. I hope that both sides realize how irrational the situation is. I find
the situation personally desperate as well; I am Jewish and my family lives
there. It’s a part of the world I have spent a lot of time, both personally and
professionally. I have never felt such hopelessness as I feel now. This is true
among my Palestinian friends and colleagues, and this is true among my Israeli
friends and colleagues.
And there seems to be no solution in sight. My hope has always been that the
international community would take a more principal stand, because historically
it has done so. But now the EU has taken the US position and has abnegated its
historical role in this conflict. So I have to wonder, what do we do now?
Palestinians have been denied an acceptable solution, but they were willing to
tolerate unacceptable conditions for the last fifteen years in the hope that it
would result in a positive solution. Now they understand that that is no longer
the case, and the Palestinians mind-set has changed. This change in attitude
coupled with the acute political situation and knowledge that there is now way
out is extremely dangerous.
E.K.: You have been engaged in this subject your entire academic career.
Many ask, to what avail is this research?
Roy: I am often asked this question. For me personally, the purpose of my
research was to present a counter discourse, counter narrative and counter
model to the one that was being given to us. My idea was always to educate
people and to present a different paradigm on this issue. But I want people to
one day say: "You can't say that we didn't know. We did know." The
information was there.
The interview was published in the June edition of the Austrian magazine
Südwind.
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