The insecurity of Palestinian women and girls

Abstract

Thousands of Palestinian women stagger1 daily the tens of Israeli checkpoints that are distributed in many locations around the West Bank on their way to their workplaces, hospitals, schools, and universities. Passing through these checkpoints has never been a pleasant experience with unpredicted exposure to physical hardships and the constant threats of abuse. Despite the fact that the Israeli sexual assaults are part of their sexual colonial policy which target both men and women regardless of their age, Palestinian women in particular endure different kinds of physical and militarized racial violence from the Israeli soldiers based on their identity as Palestinian and a woman which affects their mental health and insecurity. But Palestinian women remain silent and voiceless most of the time. Drawing upon the author’s personal encounter on an Israeli checkpoint, this paper aims at exploring the ways in which Palestinians were racialized; highlighting the multiple complexities of having a Palestinian female body that put them in lifetime insecurity and mental health vulnerability affect their everydayness mainly while passing through the multiple Israeli checkpoints. This will never be accomplished without analyzing the inner forces and the role of the Palestinian national struggle that hinder women from reporting Israeli sexual colonial violence, as such seeking a national perfection by keeping silent.