Everyone, thank you so, so much for coming on the Monday of the last week of term and for this sort of irregularly scheduled women's rights in the Middle East Research seminar event. This is the last event in our term. Tomorrow we'll have a book talk. Don't forget about that with Dr. Associate, who's currently here with us today as well. And you all probably know that we have another event, the last session of the Israel-Palestine seminar that we've had this term tonight at five as well.
So make sure to show up for those two. So while you enjoy your lunch, introduce our very dear guest, Dr. Magnus out. Dr. Mazel is an assistant professor at State University, and she received her Ph.D. from the University of Exeter. Her work looks at the relevance of good years theory of practice for relationally capturing various organisational practices, mechanisms and dynamics in sociocultural organisations and in particular social movements.
Her research interests include intersectionality theory, feminist organising, social capital, social networking theory and new social media and organisations. Her research is also driven by constructing realities and the perceptions of agents and social actors through incorporating different interpretive methods which include in the interviewee and participant observation. She is also interested in new research methods such as digital ethnography and social media content analysis.
We are very thrilled to have you here today. Please join me in welcoming. And thank you so much for attending this seminar and really happy to be here and to take part of the women's Flight research seminars and to be Oxford University is such a privilege.
And before I start anything and start before I start also introducing myself, I will just send my salute and your salute, I guess, to all the people that have been killed in Gaza and still are are being killed in Gaza to the mass starvation that's happening at the moment and to the ongoing non-stop genocide that's happening and has definitely after my presentation, I will be speaking more about this because I don't think we can speak about any topic related to
Palestine without speaking about the Gaza and what's happening in Gaza on different levels and skills. My name is Eman Mizell and I was born in Palestine. I lived in Palestine. I went to schooling system in Palestine. I finished my bachelor degree in Palestine. Both Mom and Dad are from Palestine and I finished my bachelor and my first master degree in Palestine.
And then I went to Exeter University of Exeter, where I finished my second master's degree on my Ph.D. And then since 2016, I went back to Business University and I'm working at Music University as an assistant professor and being engaged with different activism communities and organisations, especially feminist activism also in Palestine.
Um, and the context of this research started as a part of my Ph.D. work where after the Syrian and Egyptian revolution started back in 2007, many Palestinian activities and communities started to go out to the streets and support revolutions in Syria and in Egypt. And lots have happened there.
And because I was part of these communities, the feminist question of what's happening to the Palestinian women activists was very interesting for me to explore, because these women have experienced oppression and oppression, both from the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority and its apparatus security system, which is the Palestinian security forces in different fashion and different shapes. So this is the context.
Back in 2011, I interviewed around 43 Palestinian activists since then who have been participating in different activism in Ramallah, where I do live, and in Palestine in the West Bank, which helped me to get to better understand what do we mean by Palestinian feminist organising in Palestine? How do Palestinian women can participate in political activism?
In social activism? What are the obstacles, challenges, plus opportunities and privileges for some, which is the intersectionality kind of lens of looking at what's happening in terms of these different disadvantaged positions, plus the privileges that some of these women do have.
So and I know that this is also part of the International Women's Day, and I would be very happy to speak about what a Palestinian woman day would mean to us as as Palestinians, because it's not a struggle only against patriarchy in Palestine, which is also an orientalist thoughts of what's happening in this country.
Feminist struggles in Palestine are facing Israeli colonisation and occupation and are facing also patriarchy and authoritarianism from the Palestinian Authority and its security forces. So I would be coming and pressing upon these different topics. So first of all, let me start by saying that we can't understand what's happening in Palestine now without understanding what's happening, what happened in the history.
Even we can understand what's happening in the moment without understanding what happened back in time and how the Israeli colonisation have started, and ethnic cleansing and ethnic cleansing, also historic Palestine. So I will be touching upon the history of women movement and how it started. And then I will be also speaking about the emergence of the progressive leftist politicisation and the progressive leftist political parties inside Palestine.
There isn't much said about the left political parties in Palestine and how did they emerge in the seventies and how the left's Marxist Palestinian political parties have effected resistance and gender in Palestine and women issues in Palestine as well, which we are still witnessing in Palestine? Until now, I will be speaking about the Palestinian Authority that we have many problems with and about the creation of the Palestinian security forces.
And how was that build in collaboration with the U.S. and the Israeli occupation to manage occupation from a very near point, which is near to the Palestinian social social fabric, which will make it less costly for an occupier dislike to build and created this entity of oppression inside the West Bank. For example, dislike to oppress, suppress, collect intelligence to silence people actually and stop any form of resistance.
Um, and I will be also a little bit talking about the noise of the Palestinian women movement. This is a flux that different Palestinian that different women organisations now are facing. But how is this taking place? The new ization taking place with the help and the politicised agenda of the international aid upon the Palestinian about upon the Palestinian women case?
And definitely there will be no talk without speaking about this and without speaking about what's happening, because at the moment, from a feminist perspective and from a non feminist perspective, from a humanitarian perspective, So let me just open my staff and everybody out, okay? Or should I preserve my voice usually a little bit low or. But can you hear me? Good. Perfect. If you want to. Just, like, raise your thumbs up and then.
Okay. So Palestinian Women movement have a very rich counter hegemonic feminist organising, organising. And this goes back to 1921 when the first Palestinian Women's Union was established as a first body of the Palestinian women's activist. Since then, the Palestinian women continuously felt empowered to engage in the struggle of national liberation against the British mandate and later on, the Israeli occupation.
So Palestinian women have frequently been steamed by nationalism versus feminism paradox, implying that they must strive to convince a patriarchal, masculine society of the significance of their social rights and equalities and the right to defend their country. At the same time, the Palestinian women's movement emerged from an unsettled political situation in Palestine for sure, which triggered the Palestinian national movement back in time in 1920s and 1930.
So to that extent, it was back in time when the Palestinian movement were activist and activist, and they were trying their best to organise all of these efforts and institutionalise that as well. For example, in 1936, it was a very it was a historic turning point for the Palestinian women when women's start to activism become very politicised owing to women distributing food and medicine to besides villages in, in and in Palestine during the Great Revolt.
And that was in 1936. And this was the Great Revolt, a very popular uprising against Jewish immigration and expansion of their of their settlements. So, for example, this photo goes to 1920. This is the Palestinian Women's Association in 1921, which worked in supporting resistance in Palestine and volunteer to work.
And what I want to do that since the starting point of establishing woman activism in Palestine, it was working in parallel with what's happening in Palestine and the political engagement in Palestine as well. This was the first demonstration, the women demonstration that happened in Jerusalem back in 1929 against the Balfour Declaration and the Jewish Immigration. And the woman Association took a very crucial role in this demonstration back, back in time.
So we were speaking about very well-known Palestinian activist back in time who established this important women movement that we are engaged as Palestinian women in it, like Elizabeth Nasser Hendel, Hassan Wahab, for example. And I just like this example of Zilla Shehadeh, because she is the co-founder of the of the Palestinian Women a movement. She was very active. She was engaged. Is there someone okay?
She was also engaged. Who was also engaged in giving in teaching Palestinian young ladies and and first aid. She was very keen to educate Palestinian young ladies back then in in time am like a woman and a female activist. Which which should be also a memorised Palestinian woman's participation became visible. And from 1929 until 1947, women's activism was recognised in various media outlets, gaining more prominence following the Great Revolt in 1936.
The Palestinian leadership was exiled and many Palestinians were arrested, wounded and killed.
Against this backdrop, Jewish forces in the 1947 experience experienced a relatively easy route through the Palestinian countryside, and in 1948 it was enacted that the Declaration of Israel Palestinian refers to this definitely as and that could be the catastrophe in which upwards of around 800,000 Palestinians, which accounts for 80% of the native Palestinian population back then, were forcibly displaced from their homes and from their lands.
And as you can see here in the act and the slides, around 15,000 also Palestinians have been killed. And here we're talking about 1948. So it's very needed to understand the history of Israeli colonisation so we can understand what's happening at the moment. Right. And it's very interesting to understand the ethnic, the historic ethnic cleansing of Palestine, to understand what's happening in Gaza at the moment and the continuous ethnic cleansing. But it's becoming a brutal port for is there.
And this is a book from the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, written by a Jewish historian that I'm pretty sure you, you know, you know about. Plus the destruction, not only the destruction, the ethnic cleansing of around 530 villages in historic Palestine. So you can see this, these photos back in time. They're becoming also familiar. And now, you know, with the tens and refugees that that happening in Gaza at the moment about all of these photos.
We're back in a back in 1948. But this is also happening in another city at the moment. So it's history repeating itself. In other important part, the progressive Marxist political emergence in Palestine, which is also a very important political understanding and perspective to speak to speak to speak about the diversity of politics in Palestine. Right. So it's not it's not it's not white and black. It's not this group that we have to to to demolish and whatsoever.
No, There's a long, rich history with diverse ideologies and different philosophical political thoughts. And I will be talking about the progressive leftist politicisation of Palestine. So after in October in 1948, the emergence of the nationalist movement shaped by the Palestinian identity and proved the importance and the vivid role of political activism for Palestinians,
in particular, for women as well. In 1964, the Arab League founded the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the PLO, to control. And, you know. Shaped the Palestinian activism. The general Union of Palestinian Human, which is the PLO affiliated women's organisation, was found in 1965.
I'm citing a slight hazards here. If Palestinian academics and feminist revolution, armed resistance and armed struggle and steadfastness were not only political strategies but became crucial to crucial principles of nationhood and served as the main discursive touchstones that formed the Palestinian identity alongside a military revolutionary culture right back in time in the sixties and the seventies.
Because there was rebel, there was the Israeli colonisation ongoing and the Palestinian people were resisting. Right. And resistance and revolution. This is not something new for us. The Palestinian political struggle fragmented into different political parties and organisations. For example, Fatah, which is the PLO largest faction dominating Palestinian politics after its establishment in 1950 until Yasser Arafat's death in 2004.
This period opened doors for political engagement, creating space for including women in leadership. A lot of women leaders were taking and playing very vivid roles back in time in this period. And employment's leading to increased economic independence, internal autonomy and gender consciousness. In 1967, Marxist Secular Party called Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was formed followed by further political Marxist and leftist parties in 1970s in historic Palestine.
These organisations engendered a self-consciously modernising progressive civic ideology, creating discursive openings for men and women to discuss nationalism and feminism, because we can separate between them too. If you're working in feminism issues in Palestine, definitely you will be engaged in politics and what's happening in Palestine from your different political perspective and ideological thoughts.
These parties, the Marxist parties in Palestine for women's fought for women's social and political rights through associations, through associated women's committees. So each and every political party in Palestine back then, they have this woman association that speaks more about the women issues, which will be part of the whole political left organisation or political party. And from 1978 to 1993, so just before Oslo Accords, a new generation of progressive left Palestinians mobilised.
In other examples, the Palestinian Federation Women Action Committee, which was formed in 1982, was one of the largest organisations demanding equal rights for women in the public spaces through wages, job opportunities, education and political participation. This left organisation focus on the practical, very tiny, practical needs of women, including income generation and the provision even of day-care for their children so they can go and participate politically.
It achieved success in mobilising academics and professionals and recruiting working class women through income generating projects aimed at socialising and politically motivating women to acquire an assertive, independent, self independent sense of the self of being career yet strong. This organisation fostered a collective identity and strong feminist consciousness in which women referred to themselves as the net enamel Al-Watan Daughters of Women's Action.
This collective identity was fuelled by the revolutionary praxis of smooth steadfastness in confronting Israeli organisation. And I'm talking here about the seventies to now the spread of someone's steadfastness reached a broader community of Palestinians and engaged the social reality in a way that regenerate Palestinian social relations and asserted the intersection in between political, the political, the social, the familial and the personal.
So this is kind of the intersectionality that we do have to understand. If you want to knock the door and understand what Palestinian feminist movement means. So the angel ization a feminist movement as well. And, uh, sorry. And you know, the ization of Palestinian movement also has been affected by. International politicised the nation of turning the Palestinian woman movement into specialised, professionalised, institutionalised jobs.
And I would be talking about also accurate, also accurate, which took place in 1993, and I personally consider it, among others in other new colonial times, that we're still trapped in another critical turning point in here, which is the extent the extensively criticised 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority and I would be referring to you as the P.A. the Palestinian Authority was designated as an interim self-governing body established to govern specific, limited Palestinian territories.
Within this political arrangement, the Palestinian Authority became economically dependent on donations and guardianship of Israel and the US. The influx of foreign funding led and led many left to just woman committees to follow the agendas of their international donors through a process called This was through a process called into ization.
Middle class leaders who had previously led the Palestinian resistance movement assumed a bureaucratic, institutionalised role, and the grassroots women's movement was de mobilised which affected what's happening in the in the feminist scene and not now in Palestine. Palestinian feminists characterised characterised these as elitist movements that institutionalised and professionalised women's activism, transforming it into specialised, deep politicised work.
Sadly, and I think this is this is a global issue that's happening in different women movements across the world. Following the Oslo Accords, evidence emerge on the growing security cooperation and between the P.A., the Palestinian Authority, the USA and Israel, the associated evolution of the Palestinian security forces. The P. S. S. Greatly impacted Palestinian activism.
In 2002, the Palestinian Authority was forced to start the Road to Reform charter and aimed at providing Palestinians at proving Palestinians were credible partners for peace, paving the way for a further reinvention of the Palestinian security forces.
These reforms created a monopoly of violence as she threw a weapon cleansing process, formed the armed resistance in Palestine, deepening of of authoritarianism, and that this armour, this armament of military groups committed to the armed resistance of Israeli occupation under the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, our current president. So this is like some of the photos, right? These are not the Israeli soldiers. I mean, we I mean, definitely this will not by any mean downplay.
Right. What's happening in terms of violation and killing from the Israeli occupation part. But it's very important to understand how the Palestinian security forces are also exercising violence upon Palestinian people when they will go out and protest. A primary American Israeli strategy concerned. So it's an American Israeli strategy, the diet and plan, if you heard about it.
Concern, funding, manpower and weaponizing the Palestinian security forces by implementing Biden's plan in the West Bank, the Palestinian security forces were trained right. To persuade the resistance elements and gather as much intelligence as possible for arrests to ensure Israel's security in the West Bank. The historical challenges Palestinians have faced impact on more recent activism in the region, including organisation of spontaneous protests following the Arab Spring.
And this is exactly how the context of this research, because I will be speaking also about the findings of this research have started demanding waves of politically motivated activism emerged in Palestine after 2011. So after the revolution happened in Tunisia and Egypt, demanding free speech, social justice and an end of the security coordination and collaboration. And in between the Palestinian Authority and Israel and the economic dependency on Israel, the Palestinian security forces.
One minute the Palestinian security forces is considered increasingly, increasingly authoritarian, encouraging a culture of militarised policing and lack of respect for human rights and the rule of law. It has arrested members of groups who oppose the officials, who oppose the official's peace process politically, particularly suspected supporters of the sending political parties, including Hamas in the West Bank.
Hundreds of civilians have been transferred, transparent, transferred, transferred into military, into military detention without due process, sparking claims of torture and assassination in June 2021. I will never forget this date. A Palestinian political activist, Nizar Banat, was arrested by the Palestinian security forces and tortured to death. He was tortured to death by the Palestinian security forces. Thousands of Palestinians, the protesters and the Palestinian security forces.
Intelligence officers reportedly dragged protesters in the street harassing women. And then here we'll be talking about the intersectionality of feminism, political activism in Palestine, harassing women, stealing their own phones and threatening them to publish intimate pictures on social media.
And yes, it's happened with my friend. Violence and surveillance enacted literally or discursive and maintained, manifested in digital or physical forms, are routinely exercised over Palestinian citizens, in particular women. Because women will be the taboo. Women will be the place where this demonstration might end, because it will be a very frightening place that women can go to. So they should they should terrorise this public place so female activists wouldn't go there and participate.
So this is the context. Exactly of of of my research, because it was really important, just like, to lay down and speak about the long history of the Palestinian woman woman movement, what happened exactly after Oslo and what is the current situation that we are suffering from as Palestinians in general and as female and feminist Palestinians?
So to give you a just like general idea about the findings and this research, by the way, it was published in a very well, Q1 four Stars Journal called Human Relations. It took me four years, two years to write the paper and two years to go through very tough three rounds of revision. But finally it was published on the 7th of January last year. So I'm done with this with this research. But still, I think it's it's it's a milestone that I want to just like build on for further research.
So as I told you, data collected in this research from 43 feminist activists in Palestine, in the West Bank, not in Gaza, about their activism in different protest since 2011 until 2019, which has revealed that woman activist activists experience various forms of oppression practised by the Palestinian security forces and its thugs.
Thugs. It was a word that was repeated by the Palestinian activists who are the plain clothes and uncovered police employed by the Palestinian security forces, taking the form of physical violence and sexual harassment, the Palestinian security forces. So to challenge activist intentions Diamond.
Their political credibility in different ways and tarnish their reputation and question their moral integrity Exactly as Selma, if you can just like go ahead the the the coats and and breathe that she has experienced physical violence.
Yasmeen and as well she was dragged in the streets why she is protesting in one of these demonstration so physical violence sexual harassment were not only practised by the Palestinian security forces member, but also by plainclothes police officers, officers, the thugs, as also Reem is saying. So these are like very popular pictures in here.
This is a journalist called Nasrallah, and she was beaten harshly in one of the demonstrations that went out in Ramallah after the assassination of Mr. Bennett. And this so that woman who wearing red pants, she is employed by the Palestinian security forces as a female, plainclothes. So she can be you know, she can practice her violence may be easier among women.
And this was one of the code that being said, that she was completely shocked when she realised that there was another woman dragging her and pulling her hair and she was a woman. And it took a while, just like to understand what's happening. I mean, she, she, she she got used that they are males. But what's happening you hear. So this also feminist understanding of how violence is also treated upon upon these women.
Most importantly, and this is how I will will we will make this link in between the collaboration of the Palestinian security forces and the Israeli intelligence units. This tactic right, of recruiting uncovered Palestinian security force members to harass and the rest. Women activists resembles methods reportedly used by the Israeli undercover security agents called mystery being right. So the mystery being they are Israeli intelligence units who would be wearing just like normal clothes.
Enter my own campus, which is Birzeit University, and arrest students from there. So our students would be arrested by these mystery being without knowing.
Sorry about what's what's happening. The security agents are trained by Israeli security units to think, act, dress and emulate the speech of Palestinian dialect so that it would be easier for an an activist who is in a demonstration, just like to speak with you, supposing that you are another Palestinian protesters and then you will be arrested easily, their mission is to continuously gather intelligence or to arrest Palestinians while pretending to demonstrate with them against Israeli forces.
This underlines the growing and non-stop. Until now, security cooperation between the PA and Israel since 2005 to create an Abbas loyal Palestinian security forces directly confronting any dissenting voice, any dissenting party association, or any form of mobilisation.
So silencing any voices. Practically Palestinian female activists face a range of measure to control them, exclude them, and shame their bodies by means of proposed dress code, the way they dress up death threats, violence and sexual assaults. The aim of this is clear disciplinary right to disempower woman activists by making them feel unsafe in these public spaces, limiting their mobility and use of spaces. So just like go home, go to university and go work politics.
We have nothing to do with this. Although the first Palestinian Union movement was established in 1921, which was also politicised. So techniques of surveillance and defamation are also taking place digitally. And that was like, Can you attack this tactic practised by the Palestinian security forces, which was, to be honest, shocking for me as an interviewer when I heard that from my participants and just to not all of these names are not the real names and they are anonymous names.
So techniques of surveillance and information were also taking place digitally with the Palestinian security forces using social media to spread accusations of shame and question the honour of some woman activists and not. All right. In a minute I will be speaking how the Palestinian security forces treated women inside these movements differently, where we can also better understand intersectionality inside a political mobilisation organisation, activists shared.
The tactics adopted by the Palestinian security forces to tarnish their reputation online by spreading fabricated sex videos of specific female activists. And we've seen it. So look. Ex is practising sex with someone and she is an activist in this movement. All the social media. So you can just like imagine how hard it was for this female, for this activist on day one.
Such sexual techniques. Again, the collaboration in between Israel and Palestinian security were employed by the Israeli occupation forces during interrogations to subjugate Palestinian women political prisoners. Right. The sexual abuse, the sexual assaults, the sexual violation, the harassment that we also heard a lot about from the Palestinian women, females who were arrested from the palace, from the Israeli prisons and jails.
Moreover, violence and oppression against women activists did not cease after the demonstrations. So the demonstrations was not the final step. Some activists explained this was when it really started with the Palestinian security forces and its intelligence units investigating, investigating personal information about them, including their social status, job situation, political background, friends, associates and and and relationship to black male them and intimidate them for sure.
It is now very interesting to speak about intersectionality and how it took place inside this movement, as some activists accounts were made from relatively privileged positions where modes of expression, appearance and domestic situations meant they enjoyed slightly better positions in the patriarchal system, affording them a little bit of protection inside the movement from the Palestinian security forces.
So observations were made such as and I'm quoting the participants here, although she and other female activists was harshly beaten in the demonstration, no one chased her or abused her. She is married. She had two sons and one girl. Relatedly, Neda, another participant, explained, I think I wasn't abused that much afterwards. So after the demonstration, as I am a married woman with a child, my family is a politically well-known family in Palestine.
No one can touch me. These comments highlight how different patriarchal positions and this is the new intersection. As a Palestinian researcher looking at the fear of intersectionality. I was trapped by fear at this what I would put this intersection. So intersection is telling me about gender, sexuality, race, but patriarchy. My participants are speaking about patriarchal positioning in a different way.
And I will be speaking about the the limitations, both of the theoretical and the methodological limitations of intersectionality as a theory, theoretical framework implied in a context like Palestine.
So these comments by Nader and the other the other participants highlight how different patriotic positions resonate, whereby multiple this advantages advantaged individuals can experience advantage and this advantage together at the same time, someone, an activist, believe they were personally targeted because they failed to embody these patriarchal positions. Now, for example, I think your comment and coat was was very clear too, to better understand what's happening.
Sorry, I should have just put this light on. So. So another said because she felt like completely this advantage of having any of these privileged patriarchal positions. So first, I'm a divorced woman with two kids. Second, both of my male brothers are political prisoners in the Israeli jails. Third, my dad is an old man, so he's not very well established politician in the Palestinian Authority, for example.
So my dad's an old man. Fourth, I know that I'm not that typical traditional woman in the way I live. All of what I listed could be considered socially as my vulnerable spots. That might. We can be the security apparatus exploited all of that. It is like I don't have that support system. So this is exactly how I try to understand patriarchy in Palestine. So first of all, it's not generalise and get from an Oriental perspective of yeah, there's patriarchy happening everywhere.
Because in a minute I will show you how also patriarchal positioning was also supportive in mobilising some of these women because the dad was there in the demonstration and the dad stood in front of one of the police and tell them, Yo, this is my my daughter. Moreover, and this was something also new, something happened internally inside the movement, in between the male activist and the female activist.
Gender equalities and power relations were not only produced by institutional social structures, so the Palestinian security forces and the P.A., but also were sometimes reproduced within protest groups themselves. And here I'm quoting Nadia and Zainab, who are speaking about how the male activists inside the movement were gathering, for example, in a male cafe after the demonstration and taking some decisions. So this was also marginalisation and exclusion of them as females.
So it's not enough what they are experiencing from the Palestinian Authority and their security officers. But still, what's happening, what's happening inside. So women activists would occasionally find themselves subject to male domination in the form of exclusion. Woman Participant stated that some male activists within protest groups exploited their positions as males.
So, for example, they would be the first one who would just like, go to the media and speak about the demonstration or just like decide where to go when the demonstration will start, when it ends. Oh, this jacket looks a little bit short, make it a little bit long, and all of these small details and like meeting up in in male only cafe. So in Palestine, back home, we do have this type of map on the cafes where you can enter into it.
One just like to explore what's happening there, but it's just like very dominated by our. It's like coffee. It's like are women male dominated kind of public space. Some woman activists recount the recounted also and here I would be coming to speaking about the. The relative, the sorry, the family. The family. So as as a as a as a unit, that forbidden activism for some women, but still as a system that supports some women, as a system that protect these women and mobilise this woman.
And this part has to do with the emergence of the progressive Marxist political parties that I spoke about in 1970s. It was very clear in the data collection. So some woman activist recounted how their family, especially male members, prevented their activism. So you can go out. Or like my mom stopped, stopped speaking with me if I, if I would just, like, leave this kind of activism and all of that.
But most interestingly, others told alternative narratives that consider the family as a protector, even as a motivator for activism. The counter hegemonic patriarchal discourse of experiencing family support while remaining politically active. The woman was shaped by family histories and their varied experiences of colonisation and political involvement.
Propelling this further, it was found that these women activists were influenced by their family, their heterogeneous experiences of political activism and associated networks. Most belong to the Palestinian lower and middle, lower, middle, lower, middle or working class. Some might come as such as like my mom was demonstrating next, demonstrating next to me. And I will never, ever forget how she was almost going to slap that policeman when he hits me on my head or when my father.
So in here I'm speaking. I'm just like trying to analyse how patriarchal system could be looked at from different perspective in Palestine, in political activism. When my father knew that I might be harassed, he stepped out with me in the next demonstration supporting me or my dad again told a Palestinian security force unclosed member after he threatened him that he is proud of his daughter and one let anyone hurt me. That was so cheerful also to hear from the participants. So I'm an activist.
So I'm an activist born into a politicised family, right into a politicised family, particular particularly a left leaning one where oppressed by rich, varied experiences of political socialisation. I think this is very important to speak about when we're speaking about political activism in Palestine or feminism activism in Palestine.
Such experiences should be viewed in relation to the history of women's activism in Palestine, right, which under the shadow of occupation, has cultivated a highly educated, politically aware population and a strong feminist movement that still alive. Until now, the leftist movement has a history of inspiring and mobilising the leaders, writers, voices and actions of Palestinian resistance and promoting women's activism.
In addition, and in relation to feminist organising, these activists described how they could be privileged by their leftwing politicised family support, benefiting from practices and informal know how. And this is the quote of Abir. I will be citing it again, which enabled them to invade masculinity inside the demonstration, right to invade masculine domination and other organisational biases of this movement, including exclusion, armour and marginalisation.
So Abir said, I may not have studied in prestigious schools and universities, but I know I know quite well how to act on the ground, how to confront, handle dilemmas and mobilise the streets is the barometer of your know how in political activism, because she is a politicised activist coming from a politicised left wing family in Palestine.
So this is all about my findings, I think, because I've heard that some some of the audience also is interested in intersectionality, feminist intersectionality and I think intersectionality in in the Global South and how we can apply intersectionality in a global and the global south south and in Palestine under Israeli occupation of the Palestine and the Palestinian Authority, authoritarianism needs further discussion.
So intersectionality and this is what I try to do in my human relations paper, which is this research. Intersectionality calls into question the treatment of single identity categories, right, such as gender, class, race, religion and sexuality. As. Mutually exclusive and instead proposes that such categories intersect to create different forms of inequality and opportunity.
Simultaneously. Our so going together kind of oppression has been emphasised as an important dimension of intersectionality that captures these intersect intersections as processes of identity, institutional and social practice. How of it and I think this is very important for review and assessment of this fruitful, yet challenging merge between intersectionality and diverse fields like gender studies, politics, education and organisational studies.
Where I came from can tell us that the theoretical knowledge and the development of intersectionality is moving faster as a knowledge and as a theory. This is my own assumption in comparison to the ontological and logical advancement of intersectionality as a method. And to be honest, when I write about intersectionality, about the theory of intersectionality, I didn't know how to apply intersectionality. And I would love to hear from you. So where I start from, I collected all of this data.
After I did, I conducted the 43 interviews with these women. I ended up with different battery output positioning, but intersectionality. Where does this fit within the intersectionality framework? Israeli colonisation. Where does that fit in in the intersectionality framework?
How can I validate how I can validate as a research from Palestine Global South to the intersectionality theory theory, because it's not about race and it's not about class, it's more about something else which has to do with the historic, you know, with the historic political long history of these of these women. So that was a crucial question for me. So it's an issue that has been raised by many scholars who call intersectionality a theoretical buzzword nowadays.
So we have to know how to imply it. Yet with an unrealised analytical and methodological understanding. Therefore, we might be knowing more about this buzzword of intersectionality.
And yeah, I'm implying intersectionality, but what do we really have to do is to expand our analytical understanding by questioning how we can further expand our knowledge about intersectionality as a method, by questioning the tool, by questioning the tool that researcher are just like having and putting as lenses as intersectionality when they go to the field and explore more.
We are using the tools that we are using to analyse our data categories, categorise our intersections, define access of privilege and discrimination, which is going to contribute to that. Definitely to the future of intersectionality in different scholarly and and fields. This research, we assume in this research, advances a theoretical understanding of intersectionality by exploring how systems of gender inequalities are manifested and institutionalised within different organisational aspects.
So I can't be looking only at the Palestinian security forces as a separate structural entity. I have to better understand how this power is manifested differently in the everyday life of these of these women. So how gender inequalities are manifested and institutionalised within different organisational aspects, uncovering multiple and much way complex intersectional subjectivities among Palestinian woman activists.
I don't think I would be covering this. So yeah, I think we can open the conversation more about the challenges and the limitations of intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological framework. When we are studying, I would say, different fields, when we are studying specific politically, economically, socially, social fields that we are, that we are exploring. As I told you, there is no way to speak about any topic in Palestine without speaking about us,
because it's very crucial to what's happening in the US. It has to do with what happened in Palestine back in time in 19, in 1948. It's the day 149 of continuous non-stop genocide. There's that only three. 30,410 people who have been killed. One third of them are babies. And babies are children that are around 71,007 hundred wounded people. And when I'm talking about wounded people, they're not just like simple wounds. They're just like limbs, cuts of some of some people.
Israel has conducted and has committed for 16 massacres in Gaza. 40 hospitals so far have been bombed. They are out of service. And definitely you know more about this. And you've seen like horrifying videos all over the social media. There are 130 journalists who have been killed also in. In terms of the amount of bombs, it just like traumatic and horrific. Israel has dropped more than 45,000 bombs in Gaza, waiting more than 65,000 tons.
Making one of the most intense bombing in history against a very, very populated area like us, completely destroyed. I think there's a terminology now which is due sides speaking about how the Israeli occupation, the Israeli forces are completely demolishing and destroying the educational system in Palestine. So it's a Jew from education, a Jew side. There's a systematic destruction of the Palestinian universities, almost all universities.
This is a photo of Gaza University, which has just like been taken just like few seconds before the whole university was just like, demolished on on the ground. So almost all the universities in Gaza have been completely destroyed. There are more than 100 Gazan academics and professors who have been killed and they have been targeted, killed.
There's a lot of not research but media now speaking about the use of intelligence units by the Israeli forces in killing specific Palestinians, including doctors, academics and professors. And what's more heartbreaking, that now we're witnessing a humanitarian crisis, seriously, a humanitarian crisis. There is nothing death and there is continuous starvation in Gaza. There's children that they don't have even food.
And there are around 100 children who have been killed, that innocent innocents who are just like eating dates because there is no milk formula. To this situation, the situation is very hard. Now, while we are listening to this presentation, people are starving in Gaza. And definitely maybe you heard about the the flower massacre where people were just like waiting for food coming out of the truck and they were killed. And then they will be telling you that defending yourself.
How come? I don't know. What we can do. I think we can do a lot. We can bring awareness. We can bring awareness in different shapes and in different venues. We can boycotts. We can boycott any affiliation that can support Israel. In terms of militarisation, yes, we can boycott countries, for example, like Japan and the Danish, the Danish government. They stop the trade, the trading of military to Israel. Governments can do this. A lot of diplomatic issues can be done on this scale.
And as individual, we can bring awareness and we can boycott because we know that this is an economic play. We know that it has to do with profits. We know that to keep on going with this ongoing, non-stop genocide, there should be money poured in this violence and this different form of violence. So we have to keep on going, speaking about this and not to be ashamed of speaking it politically. Right. It's Israeli colonisation. It's not a war.
It's a genocide. Right. Killing people, not randomly, systematically. They know that what they are doing there are ethnic cleansing because they are depopulating. What else could be done? When we're speaking about this amount of sorry, all this number of innocents and people have been killed. There is a systematic destruction of making living in Gaza. After this, I don't know when this will end. This kind of impossible. Kind of impossible. Thank you.