Democratic Palestine : 32 (ص 14)
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- Democratic Palestine : 32 (ص 14)
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legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people. Finally, they ap-
pealed to the UN to provide interna-
tional protection to the Palestinian
people, and to put an end to the
repressive Zionist practices.
This conscious initiative was made to
escalate the popular uprising and reaf-
firm its goals of freedom and in-
dependence. Meanwhile, Palestinian
women are participating side-by-side
with men in confronting the Zionist
occupation authorities and foiling all
political conspiracies, oppression and
terrorism which aim at aborting the in-
tifada.
A Palestinian woman, the mother of
the martyr, Abdul Salam Eftaha, was
asked by a journalist if she would allow
her other sons to participate in the in-
tifada. She answered, «As long as I’m
alive, I will teach my sons and other
youths how to fight. We want to live in
peace, and we want the occupation
troops to leave our land, and I don’t
care what the cost will be to achieve this
aim.»
Meanwhile, in an interview about the
situation in the Palestinian camps with
a correspondent in January, 1988,
24-year-old Asma Kharoub said, «It is
true that life in the camps is very bad,
but when you are face-to-face with your
enemy and you do everything to con-
front him, the situation becomes very
good.»
Last August, a Guardian correspon-
dent wrote how he saw a little girl,
under six, attacking Zionist soldiers
and asking them to leave her land and
her roof top where they were posted,
and to stop throwing tear gas in her
bedroom.
POPULAR RESISTANCE
The previous months have witnessed
hundreds of courageous acts by
women. In addition to throwing stones
and molotovs, and attacking the
military authorities’ centers, many
women have attacked Zionist soldiers
with knives or other sharp instruments.
On December 14, 1987, Aisha
Ekdah, a 25-year-old handicapped per-
son, attacked an Israeli officer and hit
12
him in the face with her shoe. She was
arrested, but the military authorities in
Abasan Al Kubra were later forced to
release her after women attacked their
center with stones, and refused to leave
until Aisha Ekdah was released.
On June 2, 1988, a Jerusalem woman
shot at Zionist settlers who were walk-
ing in Shamir Park which is near the
Knesset. She killed one, and the second
ran away before the police arrested her.
Likewise, another woman from
Maghazi Camp in the Gaza Strip at-
tacked a soldier with a pair of scissors,
wounding him seriously.
On September 26, 1988, a military
court in Nablus. sentenced Rania
Tawfiq to five years in prison for stab-
bing a soldier who was guarding the
military governor’s office in the city. In
the same city, on October 1, 1988, a
woman was arrested for throwing boil-
ing water on a military patrol walking
the streets of the city, causing serious
burns to three soldiers. In the town of
Shuweika, near Tulkarem, a woman
was arrested for beating a Zionist
soldier on his back and neck with a
hammer.
In January, in Tarqumiya, near
Hebron, Naema Abdul Fattah was ar-
rested for attacking a soldier with an
iron bar and trying to take away his
weapon after wounding him. Also
worth mentioning is in February, 1988,
an older woman called two soldiers to
her home and then threw dust in their
eyes while attempting to take away their
weapons.
All of these cases prove the un-
paralleled courage of Palestinian
women in confronting the occupation
authorities. They attest to their deter-
mination to continue the intifada until
the attainment of freedom and _ in-
dependence.
THE ECONOMIC FIELD
In the intifada’s escalation from par-
tial civil disobedience to total national
civil disobedience, the Palestinian
women have played a prominent role in
the boycotting of Zionist products and
replacing them with locally produced
goods. Women also play an active role
Hl
through giving lectures and visiting
homes to inform the people about this
process. The export of many Israeli
products to the West Bank and Gaza
Strip has been sharply reduced. For ex-
ample, during the first year of the in-
tifada, the sale of make-up fell by ap-
proximately 70%. According to the
Israeli daily, Yediot Ahranot
(September 20, 1988), most factories
and companies, which depend on the
West Bank and Gaza Strip for
marketing their products, have been
negatively affected or unable to expand
their production; this applies especially
to companies dealing in luxury items,
furniture, carpets and women’s
clothing; their sales have fallen
70% -90%. It is apparent that these sec-
tors are closely related to women.
The occupation authorities have in-
tensified their economic siege against
the Palestinian people because of the
continuation and escalation of the in-
tifada. The conscious positive response
to these measures was self-sufficiency
and returning to the land to cultivate it.
Naturally, it is the Palestinian women
who have been prominent in this field.
They have raised slogans in compliance
with the UNL calls, for example, «Len-
tils are the meat of the poor,» «Wheat
and oil are the essentials of the home»
and «Organization is the result of
planning.»
Thus, «victory gardens» emerged
with the cultivating of small gardens of
green vegetables, onions, tomatoes and
other produce. Additionally, Palesti-
nian women are preserving fruits,
pickling vegetables, raising chickens
and baking bread at home.They have
established cooperatives and increased
bazaars to sell all sorts of low-priced,
home-made products in support of
needy familes.
Girls have played a prominent role in
the voluntary work committees,
especially in helping with the olive and
citrus fruit harvests, the production of
olive oil and the marketing of these
products, despite the occupation
authorities’ new measures aimed at
preventing farmers from _ harvesting
their products.
Democratic Palestine, March 1989 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 32
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