Jew World Order

Palestinian mothers with their vibrant history of resistance to the occupation should be placed at the forefront of the movement to liberate Palestine. It is, after all, Palestinian mothers who routinely endure and confront the brutality of Israeli oppression while raising, protecting and educating their children. We should affirm the vital contributions made by mothers like those living in Nabi Saleh, Palestine, who continue to defy and resist settler colonial violence. 

Their commitment to the liberation of Palestine should be viewed as a feminist and reproductive justice issue.

A few months ago, as part of my work with MAMAS, a collective I co-founded focusing on the labor of mothering among Black, indigenous, and people of color-based communities, I had the opportunity to interview the Palestinian mother-daughter duo, Nawal Tamimi and Janna Jihad, 15. From their home in the village of Nabi Saleh, located in Occupied Palestine, they had their arms wrapped tightly around one another as they recounted the devastating impact the Israeli occupation has on their lives and the lives of all Palestinians. It is a familiar story, but for some reason this conversation, this exchange in particular, punctured the depths of my souI. I still hear Nawal’s words reverberating:

“I’ve never known freedom. I haven’t had the chance to taste it. I dream of it. I dream of the day when mundane activities of daily living like driving to work or taking my daughter to school aren’t interrupted by the violence of the occupation. When a 20-minute drive is actually a 20-minute drive as opposed to an hour or more due to military checkpoints and arbitrary road closures that restrict and control Palestinians’ right to movement. I have fantasies of hopping into a cab and driving to the beach with Janna, and I hope and dream of the day when Janna and all the youth of Nabi Saleh can go outside to play without worry of being assaulted or, even worse yet, murdered by Israeli occupation forces.”

As she spoke, her voice mirrored the strength of who she is and also reflected the psychological and emotional state of mind she and other Palestinian mothers like her are in. Nawal detailed the horrifying accounts of being born and mothering into occupation, as well as witnessing members of her own family murdered in front of her. Like 21-year-old Ezz Al-Din Tamimi who was shot dead at close range in front of her daughter Janna in 2018.

“I can close my eyes and remember the phone call from Janna. We had all left for work that day and the kids were at home playing. Janna frantically shouted through the phone ‘they are shooting at us and they got Ezz.’ The only thing I could think of to tell her was to take out her phone and go on Facebook live.”

As Ezz lay there bleeding out on the cold concrete, the only tool Nawal’s daughter could use in an attempt to protect herself and the rest of the children from being shot at and murdered was her cell phone and social media.  

Those who refuse to acknowledge the pervasive traumatic experiences the occupation has on Palestinian families are quick to point a finger, shift blame onto the victims, and shame Palestinian mothers for the deaths of their children. They demonize them with accusatory statements, questioning how they could let their children participate in demonstrations and confront the occupation forces. Here in the U.S. this is akin to blaming Black and Brown mothers for their disadvantaged positions and calling their parenting into question by assuming that unfit parenting is to blame for their child’s assumed “criminality.” 

Yet if we examine the occupation of Palestine from a reproductive justice lens, we would clearly see how the apartheid state routinely and systematically disrupts Palestinian mothers’ ability to create families and to parent free from violence. The oppressive conditions perpetrated by the occupation are enshrined in discriminatory practices like the 1952 Citizenship Law which tears Palestinian families apart by blocking family unification. One of the racist facets of this law prohibits Palestinians living in historic Palestine and who are married to residents of the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip from being able to relocate their significant other to reside with them, essentially barring families from being together. It is also a means of population control by restricting the number of Palestinians who reside in historic Palestine.

Another form of reproductive justice, violently imposed by the state of Israel, suppresses Palestinian mothers struggling for the right to conceive children. This involves imprisonment or the indefinite incarceration of their spouses through administrative detention with its recurring six-month renewal periods. The practice attempts to thwart family preservation and results from too many Israeli politicians finding Palestinian births to be implicitly threatening. 

This reality is most vividly seen in Julia Bacha’s 2017 film Naila and the Uprising, the real-life story of Naila Ayesh who shortly before the first intifada was tortured in an Israeli prison and miscarried. Later, Naila is separated from her newborn son when she is imprisoned and only a protest campaign reunites the two — in prison.

To resist Israel’s limits on the right to family, incarcerated Palestinian men have smuggled their sperm out of prison so that their significant other can undergo fertility treatment and continue to give breath to a new generation of Palestinian children. In doing so, they are sending a clear message to the occupying power that they can cage their bodies, but not their will to survive and create life.

The extraction of children from their families through arrest and detention is another common tactic utilized by occupation forces which robs Palestinian mothers of their right to safely raise their children. Reproductive rights are under attack when mothers like Sameera Shalaldeh Khattab are awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of Israeli soldier boots storming her home at 4 a.m. in search for her son Ata Khattab, a cultural icon with the world renowned El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe, which dares to resist settler colonialism by promoting the beauty and richness of Palestinian culture through dabke.  According to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, the Israeli Occupation forces in 2020 detained around 4,636 Palestinians, including 543 minors under the age of 18.  

In my interview with Nawal, she detailed the accounts that lit the fuse to the weekly unarmed demonstrations that members of her village organized in 2009, and that took place every Friday until 2018. These protests were staged in defiance of the occupation, and more specifically to protest the state-backed settler theft of their land and confiscation of a spring that served as the water supply for families in Nabi Saleh. 

“Initially, we did not want our children to participate in the protests, and we purposely left them at home while we filled the streets of our village demanding our rights and protesting the theft of our resources. However, the Zionists soon recognized this and began using our kids as a target by deliberately shooting tear gas filled canisters and rubber bullets into our homes directly aiming for our children. Our kids told us, ‘We are more likely to get killed in our homes than out in the streets next to you. If we are going to die, we want to die by your side.’” 

Occupation forces ultimately forced the children of Nabi Saleh into the streets. The assaults on their homes and children pressed the kids to participate in the weekly protests in order to resist the occupying forces’ attempts to silence or even kill them.

Clearly, the US-backed apartheid regime creates the deadly conditions that leave Palestinian mothers fighting for their lives. The violent injustices perpetrated by the settler colonial state are made more visible with the attacks on the mothers and community care takers who are defending their lands and homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and are striving to protect their children, neighbors and communities in the face of forced evictions from their homes and being thrown onto the streets by the Israeli apartheid state. These mothers have taught us the meaning of what Black feminists like Audre Lorde have called collective care-work, or what it means to care not only for one’s own biological children, but also for all children and families surviving the occupation.

Nawal shared instances of how she would ride in the ambulance with children and youth who were shot at by occupation forces and how she would stay with them at the hospital until their own families arrived.  

“If I witnessed any child get injured, I would confront the soldier and say: ‘This is my son! Get away from him.’ I would ride in the ambulance with injured youth because if left unaccompanied there is no telling what the occupation forces would do. They could stop the ambulance and prevent the child from getting the care they need. Our role, as mothers, was very important: to be inside the ambulance with someone you might not know, supporting him, holding his hand, and when a soldier opens the ambulance door you scream, ‘Close the door! This is my son, you shot him!’ Once you are at the hospital you complete the paperwork for them without even knowing who this child is and you stay with them until their family arrives. These situations are not easy and sometimes you feel like you want to collapse, yet we have to be strong.”

Another cruel symbol of reproductive injustice is seen even in death. Israel violently deprives Palestinian mothers of their right to bury their children by withholding the bodies of their deceased loved ones. Currently, close to 70 Palestinian bodies are being held captive by the apartheid state. In June 2020, we witnessed this type of collective punishment when 26-year-old Ahmad Erekat was extrajudicially executed at an Israeli checkpoint and eight months later his mother, Najah, is still anxiously waiting for the day that she can properly lay her son to rest. These reprehensible practices are a violation of human rights and an extension of how the apartheid state, from early childhood to death and beyond, directly target Palestinian mothers because they consider their reproductive labor a threat to their survival. 

Ultimately, these illegal and repressive measures call attention to how the occupation strips Palestinian mothers of their ability to parent their children in safe, healthy, and violence-free environments. They illuminate the ways in which mothers must respond to the unrelenting challenges of life under occupation while simultaneously raising children under state violence.

A focus on reproductive justice is warranted because Palestinian mothers like those in Nabi Saleh are telling us that it is. They are telling us they have big dreams for their children that become unfulfilled promises because the occupation sabotages every aspect of their lives and the lives of their children. We must examine the occupation under the lens of mothering and need to consider how the persistent punitive measures of the racist state interfere with Palestinian mothers’ right to family without fear of being displaced, detained, or killed by occupation forces.

Rather than ignoring the contributions and sacrifices that Palestinian mothers make to raise their children in the most oppressive conditions, we owe it to them to cement their fight for freedom as a feminist and reproductive justice issue. These mothers have a distinct perspective about state violence that is born out of their lived experience and we should see them as analysts and leaders who inform the strategies needed to counter the occupation. They have been modeling what it looks like to integrate care work and political organizing — all while enduring systemic targeting by the same state apparatus against which they are fighting to protect their loved ones. We should honor mamas like Nawal Tamimi by uplifting their analysis and vision for a free Palestine because it is upon their bodies that the systemic issues, including trauma and reproductive injustices, of the occupation play out.

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