The gendering of national discourses and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The article discusses the narratives which define the ways Israeli and Palestinian women are bound up with their national objectives: the narrative that sees the land, the soil, as female ('eroticized nationalism') and the narrative of defence as the national duty for men vis-a-vis the narrative of reproduction as the national duty for women. Both the Israeli-Zionist and the Palestinian use the strategy of nation first, women after'. It is shown that different historical backgrounds and myths of these societies have similar effects on the situation of women. In Israeli society the obsession with 'security' has neutralized women's efforts to achieve equality with men; in Palestinian society 'liberation and resistance' has neutralized efforts to advance women's issues.