Agents of Defiance and Despair: The Impact of Islamic Resistance on Palestinian Women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Abstract In their struggle against the Israeli military occupation of their land and control over all aspects of their lives, Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have exhibited both despair and defiance. Their despair stems from rising levels of poverty, violence and hopelessness; women are constrained not only by Israeli Occupation policies but also as a result of some of the patriarchal traditions of their own society. Yet they remain defiant and many women are now choosing to express their defiance through Islamic resistance, in terms of social activism, political expression and even militant action. My essay, based on fieldwork carried out in 2001 and 2007, explores women's dilemmas by way of their own narratives and concludes that the Islamic resistance is creating a ‘new vision of modernity’ for women as well as men in the Palestinian territories.