Why is the Struggle of Women in East Jerusalem, Palestine, a Feminist and Anti-Colonial Issue?

This paper explores critical feminism from a Palestinian decolonial perspective, focusing on how the conditions facing women in East Jerusalem violating their basic human rights. This reflects broader anti-colonial struggles. Existing international legal frameworks have often obscures the continuous nature of Palestinian suffering under an apartheid regime, which systematically deprives Palestinians of their fundamental rights, similar to other colonial systems; illuminating how gender, race, and class intersect within the colonial project, drawing from decolonial approaches and critical feminist studies. It will examine the resilience and resistance of Palestinian women in East Jerusalem as they confront both colonial and patriarchal powers. By addressing the Palestinian experience in conjunction as marginalized groups, especially women, it will highlight the role of critical feminism in understanding their unique struggles. For Palestinian women in East Jerusalem, the threat of eviction, is affecting their daily life, this will be discussed within the contexts of settler-colonialism framework that can explain the dynamic between Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and Israel and its planning authorities, illustrates the interplay of gendered violence and land dispossession.

The settler-colonial regime utilizes land policies to drive displacement, specifically by limiting property registration among East Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents. This especially impacts women, impeding their ability to secure property rights or obtain building permits, thereby heightening their risk of displacement, risk for their family rights. Economic and political marginalization compound this vulnerability, reinforcing social hierarchies and entrenching spatial injustices.

Summarizing, this paper interrogates the interconnected power structures of patriarchy, militarism, illegal occupation, ongoing displacement and ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem. By situating these issues within the settler-colonial framework, we reveal the dynamics between Palestinian residents shed the light and Israeli planning authorities, emphasizing the critical role of feminist and decolonial perspectives in understanding the role of the Palestinian women of resisting these oppressive systems.