CHAPTER-3 THE FIRST INTIFADA
INTRODUCTION-
Intifada is an Arabic word derived from a verb meaning "to shake off," and is the term used to describe the two major uprisings against Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The First Intifada started on December 1987. It was the first mass uprising since the revolution of 1936 that is based inside the borders of Palestine. In previous years, especially since 1965, the struggle was commanded from outside the Palestinian land in neighboring countries. From 1965 until 1987, the Palestinian struggle was dominantly militarized. The situation in the neighboring countries, such as Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, allowed an easy involvement
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“Two years into the uprising, and after many women being arrested, families started to fear for their daughters especially when reports started spreading of an increase in sexual assaults and rape cases practiced by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF),” said Fadwa Al-Labadi. “The biggest obstacle that challenged women’s participation later on was the evolvement of Hamas as a political power on the street. They used to prevent women from participating in the actions of the uprising unless they met several standards of decency.”
At the late years of the First Intifada, women’s participation slowed down and started disappearing by the intervention of “political leadership abroad, the beginning of negotiations and the institutionalizing of the Palestinian struggle”. Pressure from the political leadership started diverting the women activism into the local social work controlled by funded organizations.
“The major defeat for the Palestinian women is in its ‘women leadership’ who betrayed not only the women’s issues but also the national issue”, said Ms. Wahdan. “When the leadership of a people is dedicated to seek its own interest at the expense of its people then the role of all classes of society, including women; is destined to failure.”
Due to their absence in the political leadership, the role of the women, after the end of the First Intifada and the signing of the Oslo agreement, almost