[News] The Political Marginalization of Palestinian Women in the West Bank

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Mon Jul 29 12:41:45 EDT 2019


https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/the-political-marginalization-of-palestinian-women-in-the-west-bank/ 



  The Political Marginalization of Palestinian Women in the West Bank

by Yara Hawari <https://al-shabaka.org/en/author/yara-hawari/> on July 
28, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------


    *Overview*

Though Palestinian women have always played a fundamental role in the 
struggle for liberation from the Israeli settler colonial regime, they 
have faced consistent political marginalization. This experience has 
become more multifaceted and entrenched since the 1990s, when the Oslo 
Accords unleashed a myriad of changes in the structure of Palestinian 
society and governance.

These changes have included a newfound dependence on international donor 
aid among Palestinian civil society, including women’s organizations, 
and the bolstering of a corrupt and relentlessly patriarchal Palestinian 
Authority (PA) that complements rather than confronts the Israeli 
occupation and its oppression of the Palestinian population, both male 
and female. Such developments have caused today’s Palestinian women to 
endure perhaps even more formidable challenges when it comes to activism 
and political participation.

This policy brief addresses these issues, providing a historical 
consideration of Palestinian women’s political participation and then 
examining the reasons behind their de-politicization with a particular 
focus on the West Bank. It concludes by offering some potential avenues 
for Palestinian women and their allies to disrupt this process and 
revitalize the Palestinian liberation struggle through feminism.


    *Palestinian Women as Political Actors*

Palestinian women have long been politicized individuals not just as 
wives, sisters, or mothers, but also as fighters, organizers, and 
leaders with agency that is not defined by their relationship to men. 
Looking back through Palestinian history, women have always been present 
and active at crucial political and national moments, though they have 
also had to navigate tensions among feminism, nationalism, and 
anti-colonial struggle.

In 1917, Palestinian women took part in demonstrations against the 
Balfour Declaration. Many women’s associations subsequently organized 
themselves under the Arab Women’s Congress 
<https://www.palestine-studies.org/jps/abstract/40801>, which convened 
in 1929 in Jerusalem. The congress created the Arab Women’s Executive 
Committee to carry out decisions, and this served as the beginning of an 
organized women’s movement in Palestine. ^1 <#note-10323-1>Many of the 
women involved in the committee were of the urban upper and middle 
classes, particularly of Jerusalem, and were involved in community 
organizing and charitable works. Still, the committee was also a 
political body, with members boldly making speeches 
<https://jps.ucpress.edu/content/24/3/5>in spaces traditionally 
dominated by men, such as the Haram al Sharif and the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre.

During the Palestinian uprising against the British in 1936, Palestinian 
women not only participated in demonstrations en masse, but were also 
part of smuggling operations delivering weapons and supplies to 
guerrilla fighters. Here, rural and working class Palestinian women 
played a vital role. They hid guns in their clothing or in the fields 
and traversed the terrain, sharing important information with guerillas 
such as British troop locations and supply routes. ^2 <#note-10323-2>

Over a decade later, the Nakba, or Palestinian catastrophe, of 1948 
ripped apart Palestinian society, devastating the social and 
institutional infrastructure that the women’s movement had built in the 
preceding decades. The establishment of the Palestinian Liberation 
Organization (PLO) in 1964 provided centralization and an institutional 
home for many civil society organizations established before the Nakba. 
The fervent institution building that followed created many more 
employment opportunities for women. In addition, the General Union of 
Palestinian Women (GUPW) formed in 1965 and brought many women’s 
organizations under its umbrella, reviving the Palestinian women’s 
movement. These organizations 
<http://archive.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=1627&ed=112>offered 
educational, medical, legal, social, and vocational services to women, 
undertook advocacy, and created links with other women’s organizations 
around the world.

After the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, the GUPW 
began responding to the most immediate needs of Palestinian women and 
children, including by establishing health centers and orphanages. In 
the late 1960s Fatah took over the GUPW, and has since dominated the 
organization. Unlike some leftist political factions Fatah lacked 
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/2537876?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>an 
articulated stance or vision for Palestinian women. Despite this, the 
GUPW succeeded in opening branches in the diaspora, and has been 
particularly active in the Arab states with large Palestinian refugee 
populations. Today, it continues as an institution under the PLO.

Around the time of the formation of GUPW, Palestinian women were also 
involved in armed resistance, and most major militant political factions 
established training camps for female revolutionaries. A particularly 
well-known revolutionary was Layla Khaled, a member of the leftist 
Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who captured 
international attention for her role as commander of the Dawson’s Field 
operation, which made her the first woman to hijack an airplane. Khaled 
went on to become a speaker in the international solidarity scene. 
Another member of the PFLP, Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, was among the first 
Palestinian women to take part in military resistance after 1967. She 
later died while preparing an explosive device. Dalal Mughrabi, a Fatah 
member, was involved in a 1978 military operation that resulted in her 
own death as well as the deaths of 38 Israeli civilians.

Khaled, Abu Ghazaleh, and Mughrabi broke many traditional and 
nationalist conventions that had limited women’s role in the liberation 
struggle to caregivers of sons or husbands, whether fighters or 
prisoners. Although organizing and participating in armed resistance 
helped challenge traditional assumptions about gender roles, tensions 
between female emancipation and nationalism remained entrenched. Indeed, 
many Palestinian leaders privileged national liberation over the 
emancipation of Palestinian women, so much so that this stance became 
the norm.

Two decades later images of women and girls throwing stones, challenging 
soldiers, and leading marches during the First Intifada showed promising 
signs of a social restructuring. Women’s groups were solidifying their 
involvement in social works and political organizing during this period. 
This allowed women more movement outside of the home under the pretext 
of the struggle, bringing them into spaces that had previously been male 
only, such as political meetings and the front lines of demonstrations. 
This inevitably contributed to an erosion of the familial patriarchal 
authority.

Yet the First Intifada is also often romanticized in collective memory 
and writing, not only in terms of resistance and community organizing, 
but of the role of women in the struggle. It is important to note that 
some women faced societal backlash for political participation. For 
example, although many women who were imprisoned were glorified during 
their incarceration, soon after their release they often faced social 
obstacles, including not being able to marry or find employment. 
Furthermore, women were still often seen in relation to male figures, 
such as mothers and wives, as demonstrated 
<https://www.palestineposterproject.org/>by many political posters from 
the period.

Several years into the First Intifada, the Palestinian delegation at the 
1991 Madrid Conference included two women (Hanan Ashrawi and Zahira 
Kamal) out of 21 figures. Yet the Oslo Accords several years later did 
not feature any women. Palestinian women were not the only ones to be 
marginalized at Oslo, as refugees in the diaspora and Palestinian 
citizens of Israel were also excluded. Oslo created a framework, albeit 
a limited one, in which the exiled male Palestinian leadership was 
empowered, rather than a framework for the empowerment of the 
Palestinian people as a whole. This exclusion further increased the 
tension between the national struggle and the women’s movement.


    *Depoliticizing Palestinian Women*

The tension between nationalism and feminism has continued in the 
post-Oslo period, and has been accompanied by the trend of Palestinian 
women facing multiple forces that actively suppress their politicization 
and participation in political spaces. The overarching force has been 
and continues to be the Israeli regime, which has oppressed Palestinian 
women since the day it was established through gendered forms of 
violence as well empowering patriarchal structures through its 
relentless colonization and fragmentation of land and communities. Yet 
it is also important to recognize the forces within the Palestinian and 
international communities that contribute to the weakened political role 
of Palestinian women.


      */The NGO-ization of the Women’s Movement /*

The Oslo Accords not only created a new framework for “peace” and 
“state-building;” they also set in motion a fundamental transformation 
of Palestinian civil society 
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/palestinian-civil-society-what-went-wrong/>,including 
the women’s movement. Foreign aid flooded into Palestine and created a 
situation in which civil society became dependent on external patronage. 
Whereas before Oslo political parties mainly supported civil society 
organizations, the post-Oslo era saw a deliberate weakening and breaking 
of these ties. Many scholars have identified this process as 
“NGO-ization,” which Islah Jad aptly describes 
<https://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/changing_their_world_-_demobilization_of_womens_movements_-_palestine.pdf>as 
circumstances in which “issues of collective concern are transformed 
into projects in isolation from the general context in which they arise, 
without consideration of the economic, social, and political factors 
affecting them.”

The professionalization and bureaucratization of civil society 
organizations created a distance between them and local grassroots 
communities. The focus became centered on project deadlines, budgets, 
funding proposals, and annual reports, all of which were answerable to 
the international donor community. The shift to a donor-led agenda also 
distanced many organizations from the politicized rhetoric of liberation 
and nationalism. Many groups and organizations within the women’s 
movement were also subject to this transformation.

Many Palestinian leaders have privileged national liberation over the 
emancipation of Palestinian women 
<https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://ow.ly/hpFf50v5QvW&text=Many%20Palestinian%20leaders%20have%20privileged%20national%20liberation%20over%20the%20emancipation%20of%20Palestinian%20women&via=AlShabaka&related=AlShabaka>Click 
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This change is particularly noticeable in the post-Oslo lexicon of 
women’s rights within Palestinian civil society. Many terms or buzzwords 
used to obtain project funding have been defined by UN agencies and 
other international organizations that place their own meanings and 
conditions upon them. For example, the term “empowerment” is limited 
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46526231_Empowerment_as_Resistance_Conceptualizing_Palestinian_women's_empowerment>to 
socioeconomic empowerment and participation in “decision-making,” rather 
than empowering women to resist the occupation and build a vision for a 
postcolonial world. Indeed, many projects 
<http://palestine.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment>focus 
solely on household economic empowerment, aiming to help women become 
financially less dependent on male breadwinners. This stands in stark 
comparison to the many female-led cooperatives established before Oslo 
that attempted to gain economic independence from Israel and were 
articulated as a form of resistance, such as the women’s produce 
cooperatives 
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858974?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>established 
by the Palestinian Union of Women’s Work Committees in the West Bank and 
Gaza during the First Intifada.

A more recent example of this donor-led transformation can be seen in a 
week-long campaign launched in early 2019 by UN agencies, international 
organizations, and Palestinian NGOs. The campaign, called “My Rights, 
Our Power,” was meant "to raise awareness on women's fundamental human 
rights" and domestic violence in particular. It focused on five areas of 
concern: the right to a life free of violence, the right to achieve 
justice, the right to seek help, the right to equal opportunities, and 
the right to make one's own choices. The campaign omitted the Israeli 
military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as its 
overall structure of apartheid, as major contributing factors to rights 
violations committed against Palestinian women. Indeed, the words 
“occupation” or “Israel," let alone “apartheid” or “colonialism,” did 
not appear in press releases 
<https://www.unicef.org/sop/press-releases/my-rights-our-power-joint-campaign-launched-palestine-raise-awareness-womens> and 
campaign materials. This reflects a trend in the international aid and 
donor community’s discourse in which “issues” and "barriers" to women's 
rights are spoken of in a political vacuum to avoid any Israeli 
discomfort. This is a clear example in which dependency on the donor 
community rendered organizations unwillingly complicit in the 
depoliticization of the Palestinian women’s struggle.

While this process of NGO-ization has demobilized many groups within 
Palestinian society, women remain disproportionately affected due to 
institutional patriarchal tendencies to exclude women from the political 
sphere.


      */The Veneer of Institutional Inclusion/*

The return of the PLO to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and its subsequent 
devolution into the Palestinian Authority (PA) left many on the ground 
frustrated, particularly women grassroots activists from the First 
Intifada who then lost their leadership roles to predominately male 
politicians, highlighting once again the tensions between the national 
struggle and women’s liberation. In 2003, in part to alleviate this 
tension, the PA established the Palestinian Ministry of Women’s Affairs, 
and between 2012 and 2014 under Minister Haifa Al Agha it created 
<http://thisweekinpalestine.com/achieving-gender-equality/>gender units 
in all Palestinian governmental agencies. These units are supposed to 
deal with gender issues, particularly female participation in 
institutional politics, yet their implementation and outcomes remain 
minimal. In reality, it is likely that they were established to appease 
certain requirements, particularly those of funders, and respond to both 
domestic and international pressures to create a more gender-balanced 
political structure.

The ‘NGO-ization’ of Palestinian civil society has demobilized many 
groups, but women remain disproportionately affected 
<https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://ow.ly/hpFf50v5QvW&text=The%20%E2%80%98NGO-ization%E2%80%99%20of%20Palestinian%20civil%20society%20has%20demobilized%20many%20groups%2C%20but%20women%20remain%20disproportionately%20affected&via=AlShabaka&related=AlShabaka>Click 
To Tweet 
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The current inclusion of women within institutional Palestinian politics 
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip remains very shallow. Although the 
Palestinian Legislative Council has maintained a 20% quota of women 
since 2006 – a development Palestinian activists and women’s 
organizations fought hard for – the percentage remains low. Moreover, 
other bodies have even lower proportions of inclusion. Of the PLO 
Executive Council’s 15 members, only one is female – Hanan Ashrawi.  Out 
of the 16 governorates in the West Bank and Gaza, only the governorate 
of Ramallah and El Bireh has a female governor – Laila Ghannam. 
Similarly, the government as of April 2019 headed by Mohammad Shtayyeh 
has a mere three female cabinet ministers out of 22 – Mai Kaileh, 
Minister of Health; Rola Maayya, Minister of Tourism; and Amal Hamad, 
Minister of Women’s Affairs. These women, with the exception of Ashrawi, 
come from a Fatah background. This is unsurprising considering the 
domination of Fatah over the Palestinian political scene and the recent 
efforts 
<https://al-shabaka.org/memos/abbas-and-the-farce-of-palestinian-democracy/>by 
President Mahmoud Abbas to consolidate power within his party.

These attempts to consolidate power are indicative of the politics 
inherent in the PA, namely those of one-man leadership, rule by 
presidential decree, and a failure to separate legislative, judicial, 
and executive powers. Furthermore, the lack of democracy and democratic 
processes – Abbas is well into a decade past his mandated term – has 
allowed for nepotism and patronage. It is thus unsurprising that under 
the PA patriarchal tendencies have solidified.

The PA attempted to elevate the status of Palestinian women in 2014 when 
it acceded to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of 
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) without any reservations. It was 
the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to do so and was 
heralded by some, including those in the international community, as 
demonstrating significant progress on women’s rights. Yet several issues 
render the accession less significant than it might seem. Firstly, the 
CEDAW text has not been published 
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/11/human-rights-watch-womens-centre-legal-aid-and-counselling-and-equality-now-joint>in 
the PA’s Official Gazette and as such remains non-binding for domestic 
law. Secondly, a November 2017 decision by the Supreme Constitutional 
Court, which regulates the status of international agreements in the 
Palestinian legal system, allows for courts to not apply agreements that 
conflict with Palestinian law. This allows for unregulated executive 
powers 
<https://www.birzeit.edu/en/news/bzu-professor-examines-recent-supreme-constitutional-court-decision>and 
for the legislature’s maintenance of theoverarching patriarchal authority.


      */Weaponizing Women’s Bodies/*

The fact that Palestinian women are often lacking the most basic legal 
protections and political representation means that they are 
particularly vulnerable when it comes to the weaponization of their 
bodies. Sexual harassment and violence are sensitive topics in 
Palestinian society, and a social stigma is often attached to those who 
have suffered them. The threat of sexual violence and the use of sexual 
harassment are therefore particularly powerful weapons. Both the Israeli 
regime and the PA have used such gendered violence to deter women from 
being politically active.

Since its establishment the Israeli regime has systematically used 
gendered tactics to oppress Palestinians. This has contributed to the 
enforcement of gender stereotypes and patriarchal narratives, excluding 
women from the political sphere or targeting those who are politically 
active. Targeting manifests itself in a variety of ways and can include 
harassment, threats of sexual violence, and imprisonment, the latter 
being the most effective way to curtail political work. Indeed, female 
political leaders have been consistently imprisoned by the Israeli 
regime, including legislator Khalida Jarrar 
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/08/why-is-israel-afraid-of-khalida-jarrar/>. 


During imprisonment, Palestinian women are often subjected to gendered 
violence in an attempt to “break” them. For example, Khitam Saafin, the 
leader of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, spent three 
months in Israeli administrative detention. During that time she 
reported 
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/Palestinian-women-haunted-by-abuse-in-Israeli-jails-658416317>that 
Israeli soldiers took pictures of her on their phones and subjected her  
to unnecessary strip searches. The Israeli prison authorities are also 
known <https://jps.ucpress.edu/content/46/4/46>to deny women sanitary 
towels and restrict their access to bathrooms when they are menstruating.

The current inclusion of women within institutional Palestinian politics 
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip remains very shallow 
<https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://ow.ly/hpFf50v5QvW&text=The%20current%20inclusion%20of%20women%20within%20institutional%20Palestinian%20politics%20in%20the%20West%20Bank%20and%20Gaza%20Strip%20remains%20very%20shallow&via=AlShabaka&related=AlShabaka>Click 
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Interrogations by Israeli soldiers or security forces also often include 
sexual harassment or threats of sexual violence to pressure women and 
girls to sign confessions or give information. This was demonstrated in 
a leaked video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkkSORwIbnQ>of the 
December 2017 interrogation of the teenager Ahed Tamimi, who was 
arrested for slapping an Israeli soldier who had invaded her home and 
had previously been part of a raid that resulted in her cousin being 
shot in the head. Ahed was subjected to an interrogation in which two 
male officers verbally harassed her and made comments about her body.

In recent years the PA has increasingly cracked down on activism and 
activities that challenge its authoritarianism, using such brutal 
techniques 
<https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/10/23/two-authorities-one-way-zero-dissent/arbitrary-arrest-and-torture-under>as 
detention, interrogation, surveillance, limitations on mobilization, and 
cyber attacks. It has adopted gendered mechanisms similar to those used 
by Israeli forces to deter female participation in political activities.

Demonstrations and protests have often been sites of gendered violence. 
PA security forces use insults and insinuations that often amount to 
verbal sexual harassment, in addition to telling women they should be at 
home and not in the streets. This draws on misogynist and global notions 
of honor and shame, which can also be mobilized against women’s 
families. PA security forces have been known to visit women’s and girls’ 
fathers to “discuss” their activism. For some women, this has serious 
repercussions and means they are prevented by their families from taking 
part in political activities. There have also been cases in which 
security forces have gone to a female activist’s place of work and have 
spoken to her employer in an attempt to get her fired. This type of 
sabotage occurs more easily via social media, as rumors and slanderous 
language can be spread quickly and anonymously in ways that become 
nearly impossible to refute.

In more severe cases physical sexual harassment occurs, with women 
grabbed and groped at demonstrations. This was the case at a June 2018 
protest demanding the PA lift the sanctions on Gaza, in which Fatah 
loyalists harassed and assaulted women 
<https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/pa-attacking-people-gaza-sanctions-180615100149988.html>at 
the behest of the PA security forces. The sexual harassment of women in 
such spaces aims to punish and deter them from taking part, but it also 
encourages male activists to deter female participation out of fear for 
women’s safety.

It is important to note that Palestinian women have not been passive in 
the face of gendered violence. They have, for instance, long confronted 
the weaponization of their bodies through such tactics as recognizing 
their right to remain silent during interrogations and remaining in 
groups or pairs at demonstrations. Another tactic is to mentally 
compartmentalize. Indeed, one activist told this author, “I mentally 
prepare myself before the demonstration, I tell myself, ‘Today my body 
is not mine.’”


    *Liberating All Palestinian People *

The aim of this policy brief has not been to romanticize the pre-Oslo 
period, but rather to address how the political marginalization of 
Palestinian women has accelerated with the entrenchment of the military 
occupation, the increasingly repressive Palestinian authorities, and the 
weakening connection between civil society and the grassroots. Moreover, 
the entire Palestinian liberation project has been geographically, 
socially, and politically fragmented, resulting in a situation of 
historic vulnerability. While discussions revolve around efforts to 
revive it, the important question Palestinians must ask themselves is 
whether they can reignite a path to liberation with half of their 
population marginalized from the process.

Both the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Authority have used gendered 
violence to deter women from being politically active 
<https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://ow.ly/hpFf50v5QvW&text=Both%20the%20Israeli%20regime%20and%20the%20Palestinian%20Authority%20have%20used%20gendered%20violence%20to%20deter%20women%20from%20being%20politically%20active&via=AlShabaka&related=AlShabaka>Click 
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With this in mind, what follows are recommendations for disrupting this 
process of political marginalization and revitalizing the liberation 
struggle through feminism:

*1.* Palestinian women, collectives, groups, and organizations pursuing 
women’s rights and gender equality need to be restructured and 
revitalized into an autonomous women’s movement that struggles for 
women’s liberation in all spheres, including political, economic, and 
social spheres. The need for women’s autonomy is imperative in a context 
of patriarchy, where male domination is present in all areas. 
Organizational autonomy does not mean a separation of struggles, but 
rather provides a space for women to think more freely and collectively 
about liberation. Women’s rights must be both individual and collective 
and must not be separated from the collective right of indigenous 
Palestinians to be free of settler colonialism.

*2.* Women’s groups and organizations must find a way to reconnect both 
with the grassroots and the liberation discourse. One way to do this is 
to return to collectivism and tackle elitism within the NGO network by 
making processes more democratic and representative. 
<https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/palestinian-civil-society-what-went-wrong/>This 
also requires moving toward self-sufficiency to weaken the grip of 
donors, which could include a membership-based system, and pave the way 
for economic sovereignty.

*3.* Groups and activists must engage with the political marginalization 
of women. In particular, men in these spaces need to be aware of the 
power dynamics that prevent women from participating and support women 
in fighting against them. For example, in meetings, discussions, and 
demonstrations, men should step aside and create space so that women can 
take leading roles. Additionally, rather than telling women not to stand 
on the front line out of fear their bodies will be weaponized against 
them, men should join women in coming up with tactics to tackle this 
weaponization.

*4.* While bearing in mind the specific context of settler colonialism, 
Palestinian women should also examine recent examples of other women in 
the region who have been part of processes of great political change, 
such as in Tunisia and Sudan. It is equally important to rebuild 
historic solidarities, such as with the Kurdish Women’s Movement, rather 
than looking toward the West, to learn and develop by example.

*5.* Palestinian nationalism has long focused around macho imagery 
embodied in the male fighter or prisoner, with women often only 
discussed in relation to men. This has resulted in a liberation politics 
that is not only exclusive and dominating of women but also oppresses 
men. There is therefore an urgent need to incorporate feminism into the 
Palestinian political project through the adoption of a new document of 
liberation, a document that would understand feminism not only as a 
theory but also as a practice and way of life that works toward the 
liberation of all people.

Only through such actions can the Palestinian leadership and civil 
society begin to tap the strength of Palestinian women in the 
Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.

_________________________


          Yara Hawari <https://al-shabaka.org/en/author/yara-hawari/>

Yara Hawari is the Palestine Policy Fellow of Al-Shabaka: The 
Palestinian Policy Network. She completed her PhD in Middle East 
Politics at the University of Exeter. Her research focused on oral 
history projects and memory politics, framed more widely within 
Indigenous Studies. Yara taught various undergraduate courses at the 
University of Exeter and continues to work as a freelance journalist, 
publishing for various media outlets, including Al Jazeera English, 
Middle East Eye and the Independent.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
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