Every day, investors knock on the door of a small home in Kufr Aqab, a village on the Palestinian side of the separation wall but inside Jerusalem municipal borders. The tidy, one-storey, two-room house is surrounded by new apartment buildings, some reaching nine stories high. Contractors are currently finishing more than 1,000 units in the area; billboard advertisements suggest many more are to come.

The same phenomenon is occurring in other Palestinian neighbourhoods that are technically part of Jerusalem, but separated from the ancient city sites by the huge concrete wall.

Apartment buildings are popping up like mushrooms in these areas. The sound of construction fills the air.

Kufr Aqab – once full of open, green spaces – is now “crowded” and “dirty”, says Amira, an 18-year-old Palestinian woman who lives here. She asked not to be identified by her real name out of fear of endangering her Israeli-issued Jerusalem residency permit.

Residents pay taxes to the state of Israel but receive far fewer services than the neighbouring Jewish districts of Jerusalem. While Palestinians constitute approximately 35 percent of the city’s population, only eight to ten percent of the municipal budget is allocated to their communities. “We have to hire someone to come and take [the garbage] because the city won’t come,” Amira says. “They will pick up everything on the main street but not behind it.”

Refuse collection is a long-standing issue for Palestinian East Jerusalemites; even Israeli officials have raised concerns about the issue, and the influx of new residents means things will only get worse.

Numerous requests for comment from the Jerusalem municipality for this article have been unsuccessful.

Unplanned growth has already stretched Kufr Aqab’s infrastructure to the point of breaking, Amira and other residents say. “What once was a spacious entrance into the neighbourhood is now a small, rough, tight road that does not allow cars to pass through it. The entrance [has been narrowed] by two new buildings on each side that have taken space from the road to enlarge their buildings,” Amira explains.

Residents say contractors are left to their own devices. And the investors who knock on Amira’s door everyday – asking the family to sell their home so they can tear it down to make way for even more apartment buildings in the already stressed area – are said to be more concerned with turning a profit than making sure that the neighbourhood is livable.

Munir Zughayer, chairman of the local neighbourhood committee, says the building damages infrastructure. “In too many places, [contractors] have built over [water] drains. [The buildings] are pushing [on the sewage system] and it’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller,” he said. “It’s a mistake to build on it but we don’t have the power to tell people not to build.”

With nowhere to go, runoff pools in the streets, damaging the roads. After heavy snowfall in January, dozens of potholes opened up in the streets. Because the drainage systems are no longer functioning properly, the melted snow ran into a number of houses – Zughayer estimates that more than 40 homes incurred water damage.

Mohammed Reith, a contractor, agrees with Zughayer’s claim that the area’s sewage system can’t handle the influx of residents. Reith estimates that the area’s population has doubled since 2005 and that there remains a huge demand for land and apartments in the neighborhood. “At the moment, the area is not prepared for this number of people.”

It’s not just the streets, garbage, and sewage system. Kufr Aqab, like all of East Jerusalem on both sides of the wall, does not have enough schools. And on this side of the wall, there are no police. Emergency services are also lacking, as Israeli ambulances and fire trucks cannot pass Qalandia checkpoint, which is just outside Kufr Aqab.

“No-one is responsible for security [here] – not the Israelis or the Palestinian Authority,” Reith says. “If there is a problem, no-one will come. The PA needs permission from the Israelis to enter and the Israelis are interested in making chaos [in Palestinian areas].”

But, as Reith and Zughayer correctly point out, the areas on the Palestinian side of the separation wall, such as Kufr Aqab, are the only places in the city that East Jerusalemites can build.

Israel rejects more than 90 percent of Palestinian requests for building permits; structures built without permission in the Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem on the Israeli side of the wall are threatened with demolition and steep fines. These restrictions have created a housing shortage that critics say is intended to push Palestinians out of Jerusalem and into the West Bank. Critics call this “quiet transfer.”

But the separation wall has actually had the opposite effect. It has fuelled demand for homes on the Israeli side of the wall as Palestinian East Jerusalemites fear losing their residency and access to health care, schools, jobs, and their families. The wall and checkpoints have also made commuting more difficult and time consuming, so many Palestinians prefer to live inside the enclave created by the wall, in order to shorten their travel time.

As the wall has pushed Jerusalem ID holders into a confined space, prices have skyrocketed. But most Palestinian East Jerusalemites cannot keep up with the rising rents, nor can they afford to buy homes in this increasingly expensive market. So they move to areas such as Kufr Aqab, where apartments cost a third of the asking price on the other side of the wall. Because these areas remain a part of Jerusalem, the Palestinians who live there can keep their residency.

However, Israel says it has no development plans for the area. And many residents are concerned that Israel will redraw the municipal lines of the city, excluding Palestinian areas beyond the wall and revoking residents’ Jerusalem IDs. This fear isn’t unfounded – Israel unilaterally redrew Jerusalem’s lines following 1967′s Six Day War.

In the meantime, Zughayer and other members of the neighbourhood committee are trying to force the city to take responsibility for the municipal areas on the Palestinian side of the wall. They have sued for better garbage services. And because there are not enough traffic lights in the area, locals have pooled their money to build roundabouts. Zughayer intends to pass the bill along to the Jerusalem municipality.

Zughayer says their work is “an example of regular people who aren’t battling with weapons but are battling with their words for our rights. We’re not working for ourselves – we’re working for our people, the residents, to help the person who has water entering his house.

“As long as the municipality is taking the taxes, we have to get our rights as human beings, to have everything like we are in Israel – streets, garbage, schools. We live like we’re in the middle of Africa, not in a democracy. Where is democracy? Where is it?”

The previous secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, thought that making efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were, as one Israeli news media outlet put it, “a waste of time.” Clinton delegated the task to George Mitchell — a sure sign that she did not expect to leave a legacy in the Middle East. Mitchell failed.

So why should current Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts yield fruit?

Because Obama came and gave an ego-stroking speech to the Israelis, peppered with Hebrew — confirming, yet again, Palestinians’ suspicions that the United States is not an impartial broker in the peace process? Or should we expect Kerry to make headway with the most right-wing government Israel has ever seen? With a government that includes Naftali Bennett, who openly rejects the idea of a Palestinian state and calls for annexation of Area C? With a government that has approved construction in Givat HaMatos — severing East Jerusalem, the future capital of a Palestinian state, from the West Bank? What headway will Kerry make in a country that refused to cooperate with the United Nations’ fact-finding mission on the illegal settlements that pose a threat to the two-state solution that he will try to broker?

Israel is calling for talks with no preconditions, which is itself a precondition. The Palestinians have already balked at the idea of negotiating while Israel continues building the settlements that eat up Palestinian land. What will Kerry do?

Let’s pretend that Kerry, miraculously, gets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on board. Peace accords will still have to be approved by the Israeli Knesset. And, barring a miracle, this pro-settler, pro-expansion Knesset makes that unlikely.

Last week, students at the Palestinian university where I teach were abuzz about Obama’s visit. Even if most of that buzz was in opposition to the president’s trip. But Kerry’s visit, and his attempts to restart a doomed peace process? Talks that simply buy Israel more time to do as it pleases with Palestinian land, that let Israel continue to impose a cruel and inhumane blockade on the people of Gaza, that allow Israel to go on arresting children, to continue detaining Palestinians without charge, to keep on depriving the Palestinian people of their human rights — inalienable rights that no human should have to negotiate for? It’s barely on the radar.

Last month, an international fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council found that settlements constituted a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law and called on Israel to stop all expansions immediately and withdraw from settlements.

A controversial Israeli plan, known as E-1, to build thousands of housing units and hotel rooms near the Ma’ale Adummim settlement, has garnered much attention in the media because it would sever Palestinian East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. (See IRIN’s briefing on E-1 here.)

But at the same time, Israel has been moving forward with equally controversial settlement plans under less scrutiny and with unusual speed.

As US President Barack Obama prepares to visit the region this week, IRIN takes a look at some of the details that have been overlooked in the discussion.

What’s the Giv’at HaMatos plan?

According to Israeli NGO Ir Amim (“City of Nations”), which works to preserve Jerusalem as a home for both Jews and Palestinians, one settlement plan of “critical importance” is Giv’at HaMatos.

In a sense, Giv’at HaMatos does in the south what E-1 does in the east. The planned large housing and hotel complex at the southern perimeter of Jerusalem would further disrupt the contiguity of land between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank required for a future Palestinian state, seriously impeding a two-state solution, research and rights groups say. It would also mark the first new settlement construction in Jerusalem since 1997.

“All construction is problematic but there are several plans that are, in our view, more dangerous if implemented,” Hagit Ofran, director of the Settlement Watch project at the Israeli NGO Peace Now, told IRIN. “Giv’at HaMatos is the most dangerous plan that is now approved.”

Part of the plan – to build 2,612 units – was approved by the Jerusalem Regional Planning Committee on 19 December.

Most of Giv’at HaMatos is currently uninhabited, but according to the International Crisis Group (ICG), which recently released a two-part report on the future of East Jerusalem, its build-up would cut off Arab neighbourhoods in southern Jerusalem, like Beit Safafa and Sharafat, rendering them “Palestinian enclaves”.

Giv’at HaMatos would connect the dots of several other planned or expanding settlements along southern Jerusalem – including Giv’at Yael in the southwest; and Har Homa and East Talpiyot in the southeast – forming “a long Jewish continuum severing Bethlehem’s urban continuum from Palestinian Jerusalem”, ICG said. Last year, the Israeli government also approved more than 2,000 new units in neighbouring Gilo.

This kind of attachment to Jewish expansions could make peace negotiations even harder.

“From an Israeli public opinion perspective, Giv’at HaMatos is in the municipal border of Jerusalem,” Ofran said. “It’s considered a legitimate part of Israel.”

Barak Cohen, the Jerusalem Municipality’s adviser for foreign affairs and media, told IRIN Giv’at HaMatos is part of Jerusalem’s “natural and much-needed growth”, allowing both Arab and Jewish landowners to develop their properties.

Indeed, part of the Giv’at HaMatos plan, approved on 18 December, allows for the building of 549 units for Palestinians – though Betty Herschman, director of international relations and advocacy at Ir Amim, points out much of it retroactively legalizes building that has already been completed. The figures, she added, amount to just over one-fifth of the Jewish expansion.

Still, Cohen insisted, the development would benefit Jerusalem as a whole: “Not planning and developing Jerusalem neighbourhoods ultimately harms all residents and landowners – Arabs and Jews alike.”

Last year, Israel also issued tenders for the construction of 606 new housing units north of East Jerusalem, in the Ramot settlement, just north of the Green Line marking the border between Israel and the West Bank, and approved another 1,500 units in the neighbouring settlement of Ramot Shlomo, according to Ir Amim.

What other settlements are planned?

Beyond Jerusalem, there was movement on a number of other settlements projects in disputed areas, according to Settlement Watch.

In June 2012, the Israeli government announced it would build 851 new units in the West Bank, including more than 230 in the controversial settlements of Ariel and Efrat. Like Giv’at HaMatos, these two settlements make a contiguous Palestinian territory impossible, Settlement Watch says.

Overall, settlements expanded much faster than usual last year.

In 2012 the Israeli government approved the construction of 6,676 settler housing units in the West Bank, compared with 1,607 in 2011 and several hundred in 2010, according to Peace Now.

For plans that were already approved, it issued more than 3,000 tenders to construction contractors – more than any other year in the last decade, Peace Now said. Construction has actually begun on 1,747 homes.

Regardless of the settlements, Palestinians, especially in Area C, are under immense pressure. Recent weeks have seen a considerable upswing in demolitions of Palestinian structures. According to the Displacement Working Group, a grouping of aid agencies helping displaced families, Israeli forces destroyed 139 Palestinian structures, including 59 homes, in January – almost triple 2012’s monthly average. The demolitions occurred in East Jerusalem and the West Bank – with a majority taking place in Area C – and left 251 Palestinians, including over 150 children, displaced.

The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the (Palestinian) Territories (COGAT) told IRIN there was no connection between the removal of unauthorized buildings and the construction of Israeli settlements. “All construction in the West Bank is subject to building codes and planning laws and unauthorized constructions are dealt with accordingly,” the office said in an email.

What are the knock-on effects?

Settlements are often discussed through the lens of their illegality under international law or as obstacles to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But everything associated with the settlements – including Israeli-only infrastructure, the separation barrier, military checkpoints, restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement, suppression of freedom of expression and political life, and control of Palestinian natural resources – causes a ripple effect through Palestinian society, adversely impacting the people.

The UN estimates there are now 520,000 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, with 43 percent of the land there allocated to local and regional settlement councils. According to the UN Secretary-General, Israel has transferred roughly 8 percent of its citizens into OPT since the 1970s, altering the demographic composition of the territory and furthering the Palestinian people from their right to self-determination.

Baker, of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said a future Palestinian state should include a Jewish minority. “The assumption behind this… is that Jews have no right to live in the West Bank, an assumption that we reject. In fact we see ourselves as the true indigenous people of this land.”

But Israeli settlements have violated Palestinian rights to equality under the law, to religious freedom and to freedom of movement, according to the UN fact-finding mission. They have also eroded Palestinian access to water and to agricultural assets, and the ability to develop economically, it said.

For example, Bedouins from the Palestinian village of Khan Al Ahmar, northeast of E-1, cannot sell their dairy products at their traditional Souq Al Ahmar market any more. Because of movement restrictions (they hold West Bank IDs and lack the proper permits to enter East Jerusalem), they cannot get there.

The UN secretary-general has said that Palestinians “have virtually no control” over the water resources in the West Bank, with 86 percent of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea under the de facto jurisdiction of the settlement regional councils.

There is a statistical correlation between Palestinians’ proximity to settlements and their rates of food insecurity, according to a UN and government survey, which found that one quarter of Palestinians who live in Area C, home to the largest number of settlements in the West Bank, are food insecure. In Areas A and B, the average rate of food insecurity is 17 percent.

In addition, “all spheres of Palestinian life are being significantly affected by a minority of settlers who are engaged in violence and intimidation with the aim of forcing Palestinians off their land,” the mission said.

Operation Dove, an international organization working in the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills, reported that Palestinian children have a very hard time going to school due to settler attacks.

The UN and rights groups say radical settlers use violence against Palestinians with impunity and their illegal outposts are often recognized and retroactively legalized by the government.

Since the occupation began, Israel has detained hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, some of them without charge, and some of them children. Most of the minors are arrested “at friction points, such as a village near a settlement or a road used by the army or settlers”, the fact-finding mission said.

Israel uses what they term “administrative detention” when it considers the detainee a threat to the security of the state.

Ir Amim’s Herschman says Israel is also attempting to create a “greater Jerusalem” through additional means, for example: the Israeli separation barrier, planned national parks, and the construction of highways dividing villages, dispossessing Palestinians of their land and making it harder for them to access services like schools and mosques.

In recent weeks, residents of the Palestinian village of Beit Safafa have been protesting against the planned extension of the Begin Highway that would divide their village in order to connect major Israeli settlement blocks outside the city to Jerusalem.

The planned root of the separation barrier, in addition to a potential national park around the perimeter of the barrier would also close off nearby Palestinian village al-Wallajeh.

The planned route of the barrier extends all the way around and far beyond Maale Adumim and in other areas south and north of Jerusalem. “These lines are a unilateral declaration of a much greater Jerusalem, a unilateral expanding of the boundaries, an exponential increase,” she told IRIN.

Or as the ICG put it, “for many Arab East Jerusalemites, the battle for their city is all but lost.”

Palestine, now upgraded to a non-member observer state at the UN General Assembly, recently threatened to ask the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel if it moves forward with E-1 (Palestine would first have to sign onto the Rome Statute that created the Court).

There was much fanfare over Netanyahu’s announcement last year but what has happened since? How quickly could E-1 become reality? And what of the oft-overlooked humanitarian implications?

What’s the process?

The master plan for E-1 – including 3,500-4,000 housing units, 2,100 hotel rooms, an industrial area and a regional police headquarters west of the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adummim – was first conceived in 1994, expedited in 1999 and approved in 2002 but has been frozen for years due to US resistance.

On 30 November 2012, one day after the UN General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine as an observer state, Netanyahu announced the plans would move ahead.

On 5 December, the West Bank Higher Planning Council of the Israeli Ministry of Defence’s Civil Administration arm approved two specific plans for a total of 3,426 housing units in E-1. But according to Israeli groups that monitor settlement expansion, the plans have not yet been formally deposited for public review.

Once that happens (usually a sign is publication of the plan in a local newspaper), the public will have 60 days to submit objections. The Planning Council would then hear the objections, and decide whether to approve the plan as is, reject it or send it back for amendments.

Once fully approved, there are two further steps. The municipality of Ma’ale Adummim, to which E-1 belongs, must approve building permits. The final step is for the Ministry of Housing to issue tenders for contractors to begin construction.

“No decision has been taken to allow construction in E-1,” David Baker, senior foreign press coordinator for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, told IRIN. “We have allowed so far for preliminary planning and zoning work only.”

To what extent is politics relevant?

So when would bulldozers actually start breaking ground? The whole process could take as little as six months, more likely at least one year, if not two. But it depends on political will. The government can freeze the plans at any point in the process up until the tender stage.

Alternatively, “if there is willingness, it can happen fairly quickly,” said Yehezkel Lein, head of research at the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Jerusalem.

The political will depends on who ends up joining Netanyahu’s governing coalition. The union of his right-wing Likud Party with the centrist Hatnuah Party, led by Tzipi Livni, a long-time advocate of peace negotiations, is likely to slow the process. But to form the rest of his government, Netanyahu is still in negotiations with others, including the far-right Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) Party, led by religious Zionist Naftali Bennett.

Still, to avoid a diplomatic incident, movement is unlikely in the lead-up to or immediately after US President Barack Obama’s visit to the region this month. In addition, “given the instability in the region right now, [moving forward on E-1] would be a very risky, ill-advised decision,” said Betty Herschman, director of international relations and advocacy at Israeli NGO Ir Amim (“City of Nations”), which works to preserve Jerusalem as a home for both Israelis and Palestinians.

The decision to move ahead with E-1, she pointed out, came as a “retaliatory gesture to the UN resolution” and in the lead-up to Israeli elections, when there was “a lot of political cachet to be gained” from such an announcement. Because of the ill-understood, multi-level process of planning and approvals, such an announcement could be made, and yet, “theoretically, [construction] might never happen.”

On the other hand, she and others said, Netanyahu could agree to freeze settlement expansion for one year, continue with the preparatory bureaucratic steps required, and begin construction of E-1 one year later without any delay in the process.

Much of the infrastructure for a settlement in E-1, including a major road, utilities, and levelling of ground as a preparation for the future neighborhood, was built in 2004 and 2005; as such “if construction gets going at the site, it will proceed far more rapidly than under normal circumstances,” Peace Now, an Israeli NGO, has said.

Regardless of whether construction starts, Hagit Ofran, director of the Settlement Watch project at Peace Now, told IRIN, the bureaucratic steps would bring any future government that much closer to implementation.

What are the implications of starting construction?

The Israeli government argues that the status of settlements will be determined in future peace talks. But many diplomats and rights groups have termed E-1 a “nail in the coffin of the two-state solution”, because it effectively puts a wedge between Palestinian East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, destroying the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state.

E-1 would also have more immediate consequences.

In the 1990s, when Ma’ale Adummim was first expanding, more than 200 Bedouin families were relocated – some forcibly – further south right next to a landfill near Al Ezariya town. According to OCHA, the move left 85 percent of them unable to practice their traditional herding livelihoods and exposed them to the health hazards posed by the garbage site.

“It was a very painful process,” Lein told IRIN.

Some 2,300 Palestinian Bedouins live in 20 communities in the hills to the east of Jerusalem, in and around the Ma’ale Adummim settlement, within the contours of the Israeli separation barrier. More than 80 percent of them are refugees from what is now Israel and over two-thirds are children, according to OCHA. Ir Amim says around 1,100 of them live within the area slated to become E-1.

Bedouin communities – not only in the area around Ma’ale Adummim, but even more so in the Jordan Valley and other parts of Israeli-controlled Area C – have had their homes demolished and are regularly displaced on the basis that they do not have legal building permits or are living in Israeli military zones.

The Israeli government has long planned to relocate Bedouin living in and around E-1, arguing they are living there without permits. It says their planned transfer (still under legal negotiations) is completely unrelated to the E-1 settlement plan. But observers say their transfer will likely be expedited if E-1 goes ahead. After many objections to the old site near the garbage dump, the Civil Administration has identified a new relocation site next to Jericho.

Forcible transfer of an occupied population is a violation of international humanitarian law. But aid workers fear the communities may “choose” to leave voluntarily, knowing they will soon be kicked out anyway, in order to settle on the best possible land in the new location.

“When you don’t have a meaningful option, even if you agree, it’s not legitimate consent,” Lein said.

An international fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory recently found that the effects of settlements go much further, affecting nearly every aspect of Palestinian life.

On the last day of the semester at Al-Quds University in the West Bank, I entered the classroom to find the usual graffiti on the whiteboard, save for an odd symbol. It was a triangle filled with curlicues, topped by two circles with dots in the middle. I talked to my students — all freshmen in college, mostly women, most in hijab — as I erased the board but found that the symbol wasn’t going anywhere. So I kept rubbing. A few of my students began to giggle. The harder I rubbed, the harder they laughed.

I stepped away from the board and looked at the triangle and circles. It snapped into focus: a patch of pubic hair topped by a pair of breasts.

“Oh,” I said, glad my students couldn’t see my face. I was embarrassed that I’d rubbed a picture of genitalia in front of “my kids,” as I call them.

But I was more embarrassed that I’d lacked the imagination to see what was right in front of my eyes, that I hadn’t expected to find a universal sign of sexuality here (what is more timeless than a woman’s organs?), that I had seen my students merely as “Muslims” and that I somehow, in my mind, had precluded their normal, human desires and the conflicts that come with them.

*

Fida J. Adely similarly calls the reader to task in Gendered Paradoxes: Educating Jordanian Woman in Nation, Faith, and Progress. I’m not usually one to quibble about titles but, in this case, the dry title does a major disservice to this energetic, highly readable exploration of identity politics in a young nation. What’s more, the title also implies that Adely will uphold Orientalist tropes by invoking the prevailing Western view of Jordanian women: that their low workforce participation and high fertility rates despite increasing education suggests a “paradox.”

Rather, Adely allows high school–aged girls to speak for themselves. She uses their stories to examine the larger issues of why Jordanian women often pursue degrees but not careers; how the young women negotiate their relationship with Islam; and how the educational system helps solidify a national identity while simultaneously serving as a place to discuss Islam.

The latter is, perhaps, the true paradox of the book. While the monarchy co-opts moderate Islam for purposes of state-building, more conservative forms of the religion present a challenge to the king’s authority and the primacy of the nation in citizen’s lives. This is particularly relevant in Jordan today, where the Islamic Action Front (the Jordanian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood) is leading weekly protests in the capital city of Amman that, some observers say, could boil over and topple the monarchy.

Jordan, like Egypt, is troubled by high unemployment: while official numbers put it at 13 percent, unofficial estimates say the jobless rate is a whopping 30 percent. When a Jordanian does manage to find work, his wages are low. Cost of living is unmanageably high and rising.

On my last reporting trip to Amman, Jordanians told me that college degrees weren’t helping them find jobs. Many were also concerned about the fact that the economic situation is forcing Jordanians to marry later. As men are expected to provide financially for their wives, a man doesn’t marry until he’s able to do so.

One woman I interviewed at a Friday protest said that she had to give her 26-year-old son — who holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design but was unemployed — the money to start a family of his own. A shar’ia (Islamic law) teacher of Palestinian origin, she was protesting not against the monarchy but the state of the state. King Abdullah II continues to promise reforms but has been slow to deliver.

Women’s rights are a concern, as well, and have been the subject of a few small protests since Jordanians first began demonstrating almost two years ago. Jordanian women are unable to pass their citizenship on to their children and groups have gathered in the capital city to demand reform. Teachers, many of whom are women, have held massive strikes against stagnant wages, shutting down the state school system for weeks on end.

*

Though Jordanians were not yet protesting when Adely did her field research at an all-girls high school in Bawadi al-Nassem, a small town just 40 miles from Amman, the issues that have given rise to demonstrations were already simmering. It is against this backdrop of political and economic uncertainty that Jordanian girls go to high school and look to their futures. With limited job prospects, some young women see education as a means of “marrying up,” Adely explains; Jordanian men looking for a bride eye educated women because they can make an economic contribution to the household.

Anwar, a tenth grader, explains, “The potential groom […] the first thing he asks is: ‘How much is her salary?’ He wants her to help him.”

Adely reminds Anwar that most Jordanian women stop working after they marry and asks, “So what is the benefit from the salary in the end?”

Anwar answers, “A woman who is an engineer won’t marry a laborer. People will typically come and request the hand of someone of the same class.”

Going to school, Adely explains, is also a way for a young, unmarried Jordanian woman to advertise her availability. It makes “a girl who might otherwise spend most of her time at home more visible, even if it delayed marriage.” While premarital romances are frowned upon and, as Palestinian students tell me, can “ruin” a girl’s reputation for life — dashing her chances to marry — Adely found that Jordanian parents sometimes allow their school-age daughters “to be strategic about increasing their ‘prospects’ […] This meant that some adults might look the other way if a relationship was budding or intercede to ensure that it remained ‘honorable’ and resulted in marriage.”

Though education is often a means of “catching” a good groom — either by making eyes at men on their way to school or by getting the college degree that will attract a quality suitor — Adely explains that some Jordanian women do the opposite. They find husbands that will help them pursue a degree. For many Jordanian girls and their parents, education serves as a safety net in case a woman doesn’t find a partner, or ends up divorced or widowed.

I found that the same holds true in the West Bank. Noor is an 18-year-old university student who is engaged to an older, established cousin. So why bother get an education? She tells me, “My parents were like, ‘La samah allah [God forbid] your husband dies or something, you have that degree and you can go out and work and not beg for money.’”

And then there are those women who don’t see education as a status symbol or an insurance policy. They simply use their degrees to work.

Dr. Sumaya is a wife, a mother, and a physician who, Adely explains, is “considered a trailblazer for women” in her Jordanian village. So it’s a bit surprising to find that Dr. Sumaya “seemed uncomfortable” with Adely’s “interest in her story.” Speaking to Adely, the working mother confesses that she regrets having studied medicine.

I feel bad for my kids. I don’t have enough time for them. What adds to this is that my husband is also a doctor who travels, and so he is not even here during the week […] Our financial situation is quite good because my husband and I both work, but our work is very demanding. It’s difficult.

But young women are equally conflicted about their paths. Anwar tells Adely, “You ask a girl why she is studying and she says because she wants to go to the university. Then she wants a groom […]”

Lena, the daughter of a teacher, chimes in, “Also, now there are a lot of women who work, and they see the women who do not work living a life of luxury — not tired. They start thinking about retiring or quitting […]”

She goes on to explain that her mother eventually left her job because she always came “home worn and tired. When she would see the women sitting at home, she would feel as if something were missing from her life.”

*

Adely emphasizes that her interviewees don’t represent Arab women in general; the high school girls only speak for themselves and their individual experiences. This type of disclaimer is a must for someone like Adely, an academic writing against the Western gaze and the many stereotypes that come with it. But the girls’ experiences do, of course, reflect the circumstances and society in which they live.

Amman offers a particularly dramatic example of the pressures Jordanian women are under. As is the case in many societies, city girls here are considered “freer” than those who live in villages. But Sandra Hiari, an architect and urban planner, points out that it’s uncommon to see Ammani women on the street alone.

While a growing number of Jordanians families — even low-income ones — are buying cars, usually it’s the husband who takes the car to work, leaving the woman stranded at home. When a woman dares to take a bus, she faces sexual harassment. So women are confined to taxis — an expensive proposition in a poor country — and this restricts their movement. One survey found that women’s transportation issues are partly to blame for their low rate of participation in the work force.

When I reported on Amman’s urban planning and its impact on women’s lives, Hiari told me,
“I think we women are captured in bubbles. We move from one bubble to another in the city.”

Young Palestinian women also find their mobility limited. But it’s not because of poor urban planning. Israel’s occupation restricts Palestinian freedom of movement.

Noor said, “The occupation makes education harder. Actually from the university it should be like 30 minutes to my balad not two hours. But [because of Israeli checkpoints and the separation barrier] you have to go around.”

Under such circumstances, going to school takes on an additional layer. It becomes an act of resistance against the Israeli occupation. It’s something a girl can do for Palestine.

Nawal, an 18-year-old studying English literature, remarked, “[T]he more you learn, the more you can help Palestine economically, politically, socially. I mean, you have people who are learning urban studies. They can help us with planning. We have lawyers that can help us.”

Noor continued, “We also have research facilities that can lead to discoveries and along the way people from Palestine will get recognized that they discovered [something] and not that we [made] the world’s biggest knafeh [cheese dessert] […] Because, seriously, we’re known for that kind of stuff.”

Even though the girls laughed, some Palestinians argue that food has a place in state-building. Whether it’s a Palestinian chef abroad, a bottle of olive oil stamped with the words “Made in Palestine,” or Taybeh beer, the Westerner who associates Palestine with violence or terrorism is exposed to something that changes their idea of the occupied territory and the people who live in it. The same could be said for scientists and scholars.

“We can’t go against Israel because they have such a strong military,” Salma added, “but if we educate ourselves we will be able to come up with some sort of clever strategy to liberate Palestine.”

Salma is from a conservative Muslim family. Although they now live in the West Bank, they are refugees from a Palestinian village that was destroyed during the 1947¬–1948 war that surrounded the establishment of Israel. Just as Jordanian women are conflicted about their educations, Salma offered me several contradictory answers when I asked her what she hopes to do with her degree.

“I’m studying media because I want to be a journalist […] I don’t want to stay at home after four years of studying,” she answered.

Just a few minutes later, Salma said, “I think the most important thing after we finish college is to marry […] In our society there is a saying: ilmarra labeitha [A woman is for her house].”

But at the end of our roundtable discussion — which included three other 18-year-old Palestinian women who attend a university in the West Bank — Salma confessed that, when she thinks about the future, she is worried about finding a job. Because of the tough economic circumstances of the West Bank and Gaza, many young Palestinian women, even those who believe that a woman is indeed for her home, share this concern.

Amira, an 18-year-old who is majoring in journalism, explained, “Guys now — most of them are trying to find girls who want to work because life now is hard so they want someone who will share —”

“The financial [burden],” Salma finished.

“Yeah, this is what I see right now,” Amira continued. “But before, they like —”

It’s a story the girls know well. Noor finished Amira’s sentence as Salma did. “[Some Palestinian men] didn’t want to educate women because they thought it would lead to a rebellion in the house.”

*

When it came to issues of gender, throughout my conversation with the Palestinian girls I was struck by the same feeling I had as I read Adely’s book: that there is nothing particularly “Arab” about their experiences. Growing up in the Deep South, I’d seen “easy” girls ostracized. I, too, had a mother (albeit a “Western” one) warn me that she would kick me out of the house if I dared to have a baby out of wedlock. Didn’t Mom tell me that I’d better be careful about how I interacted with boys because no one would “buy the cow” when they could “get the milk for free?” Later, in university, hadn’t I met girls who were there just to catch a husband? How often do we see engineers and laborers marry each other in the United States? Hadn’t I known young women in the United States who used education to marry up, whose law and master’s degrees are now collecting dust? Hadn’t my former mother-in-law lectured me that women can’t have it all, that we still have to decide between a career and a family?

Why do Americans consider my Baptist friend in Florida who dresses modestly “conservative,” while a woman in a hijab is thought to be “oppressed” or “extreme”? Note to Western women: just because your society or culture encourages you to show some skin doesn’t mean you’re freer than the women who are pushed into covering theirs. What is the difference between my ex-husband, who wanted me to dress like a tart, versus the man who wants his wife to hide in a sack? It’s two sides of the same coin: either way, the female body is sexed and serves as a site of dis/honor.

As Adely points out, an educated American woman who chooses to stay at home with her children is often applauded for exercising her right to choose while Jordanian women who make the same decision indicate, to Western observers, a lack of development in the “Arab world.” Meanwhile, in the West, the gap between men’s and women’s wages persist. Isn’t the phrase “pink collar” still being tossed around? Young Palestinian women are just as worried about earning a decent living without being confined to certain professions. As Nawal told me, “[T]he only places you’ll find [women working] is, like, teachers in schools and things like that. You know, you can’t find a woman head of state in Palestine […]”

While Gendered Paradoxes offers a revealing look at the lives of Jordanian girls and women, it also forces us “Western” women to hold the mirror up to ourselves. The book serves as a reminder that the so-called culture clash between the “Occident” and “Orient” is less about meaningful differences and more about the constructs that prevent us from acknowledging our similarities. It’s the West’s best defense mechanism: by pointing our collective finger at the East’s so-called lack of progress we can avoid confronting our own troubled relationship with gender.

The following interview was conducted with four 18-year-old Palestinian women who attend a university in the West Bank. All of the women are Muslim, though they run the gamut as to the extent of their religiosity: Nawal self-defines as liberal; Salma says that she and her family are conservative. Salma and her parents’ religious/political leanings are reflected in the jilbab [long, loose coat] she wears to cover her clothing as well as by the fact that she doesn’t wear make-up. Noor and Amira both describe themselves as moderate, saying that their commitment to Islam falls somewhere between Nawal’s and Salma’s.
All wear the hijab though it signifies different things for each girl. Nawal says she would prefer to be without the veil and that it is not an outward symbol of faith. Rather, she wears it because her parents and society expect her to.
It’s worth pointing out that a number of my female Muslim students do not wear the hijab. One such woman considers herself deeply religious and, for years, has struggled with her peers’ assumptions that she is unobservant just because she does not cover her hair. The girl, who has spent a lot of time in the United States, resents her peers’ judgments as much as American stereotypes that Arabs are terrorists — something she has confronted often since 9/11.
Nawal, Salma, Noor, and Amira all come from middle-class families. All of their fathers work. Two of the girls’ mothers hold college degrees but none of their mothers are employed.
Two of the girls are refugees from “‘48,” as they call it: the land that is now known as Israel. Their families were expelled or fled during the fighting that began after the United Nations Partition Plan was passed in late November of 1947; the exodus of between 700,000 to 800,000 Palestinians during 1947-1948 is known in Arabic as the “nakba” (catastrophe), or is sometimes referred to as “1948.”
The other two women come from families who have lived in West Bank villages for many generations.
All names and some identifying details have been changed so that the girls felt free enough to talk about the issues at hand without repercussions from their families and peers.
***
Mya Guarnieri: Why are you pursuing an education?
Noor: I guess it’s more for me, for myself, it empowers me. You know, like there was this discussion the other day on, I don’t know if you watch it, it’s called “The Talk,” and they said that men are intimidated by women who are educated. And so it was kind of interesting because they shouldn’t… they shouldn’t feel intimidated. Sure, I’m educated but they [men] have a chance to go educate themselves. Why not go educate yourself?
I’m educating myself for me. Maybe it will help me in the future and my kids and myself.
MG: Do you want to work?
Noor and Salma: Yeah.
Noor: I want to work if I get the chance to.
MG: What does that mean ‘if I get the chance to’?
Noor: If I get to finish, if I get to find work. It’s a bunch of questions. It’s not so simple.
Salma: Yeah.
MG: I got engaged when I was about your age. And then, after I got married, my now ex-husband prevented me from going to graduate school and, when I found a way to go, it made all kinds of trouble.That makes me wonder about you, Noor, because you’re engaged. Do you think your fiancé will put restraints on you, too, once you’re married?
Noor: No, he’s like, “I want you to go get educated, I want you to finish your education.” But about work, it’s depending on the future. I might have kids… Or I might not find a job. There are other factors. It’s not like, “Oh, I want to work so I’ll get a job.”
MG: Does having kids mean you can’t work?
Nawal: Screw the kids.
[The girls laugh.]
Salma: Yeah, we have this thing in our society that is like your house, your kids are most important than anything else. Your job is not so important because it’s like your husband is working, challas [enough]. That’s enough.
MG: But how do you feel about that personally?
Salma: I’m studying media because I want to be a journalist. So I want to be a journalist and go and [cover] news. I don’t want to stay at home after four years of studying.
MG: Nawal, you said ‘Screw the kids.’
[The girls laugh again.]
MG: What does that mean?
Nawal: No, my bad…
MG: No, it’s okay. I know you were joking…
Nawal: Yeah, in my point of view, I’m coming to college and doing this for my [younger] sister and the other generations that are coming up. I’m opening doors — not just for my younger sister, but also the girls in my balad [town]. When society sees more women stepping out and going, you know, other fathers will let their girls go to college and it will be, “Okay, she did it, you can do it.” I think, for me, it’s more about me opening doors for the generation that’s coming up.
MG: Even if you can’t work?
Nawal: I’d better work.
[The girls laugh.]
Nawal: Because you know I didn’t come to college just to take everything and then sit at home. My dad will let me work. As for my husband, I don’t know because I haven’t met him yet.
MG: What would you guys have done if you were in my situation, if your husband prevented you from pursuing your education?
Nawal: I would have divorced.
Salma: Me, too.
Noor: If he was understanding it could work out but if not—divorce.
MG: But how would your families react? My mother was pretty upset.
Noor: The same.
Salma: My father, if there are men [suitors] he doesn’t even tell my sister and me about it. His point of view is, “Just finish your education and then you will get married and do whatever you want. But first of all, finish your college.”
MG: So he’s very supportive.
Salma: Yeah. When I finished tawjihi [exam Palestinian and Jordanian students take at the end of high school that determines entry and placement into college or university], you know tawjihi is hard, I told my dad I just want to marry. I don’t want to go to university. He said, “No, you can’t. Just study because studying is the most important thing in the world.”
MG: What? I don’t believe that you, of all people, wouldn’t want to go to college, Salma.
Salma: Yeah. Because after tawjihi, I was very tired and I was like I just want to get married and my dad was like, no, go to college and then you can do whatever you want. There were some people who wanted to come to my house and ask for me but my dad got angry.
Noor: In my village, divorce is something you can’t technically do. It’s not haram [forbidden according to religious law]—
Nawal and Salma: It’s halal [permitted according to Islam], its halal.
Noor: —it is halal—
Nawal: But, aadi [normally]… the culture [forbids divorce].
Noor: It’s the culture, it is society itself. They pinpoint you. Oh she’s divorced? No, don’t go [with her]. She’s damaged goods. And it’s sad because it’s not all her fault—
Salma: Yes!
Noor: But the guy? He’s not affected by the divorce at all. It’s all the women, it’s all her fault.
Salma: Yeah. That’s right.
Noor (voice rising): No matter if he did something, it’s still her fault.
Salma: That’s our society.
*
MG: Noor is engaged but the rest of you are not. How do you imagine balancing work and family when you finish college?
Salma: I think the most important thing after we finish college is to marry. Because, you know, husband and wife [belong together]. In our society there is a saying, ilmarra labeitha [A woman is for her house].
Nawal: That’s what the society says but I don’t care about that. Whatever happens happens. If I get married, I get married. After 30, 60, 70, if I’m dead and I get married—
[The girls giggle.]
Nawal: —anything. But for now, I think it’s more important to be a strong woman and… the only places you’ll find [women working] is like teachers in schools and things like that. You know, you can’t find a woman head of state in Palestine…Maybe girls want to be head of state and me going to college might open up the opportunity for them.
MG: Your families support your education. But in Gendered Paradoxes, a book I read about Jordan, it says that a lot of parents there support education just so the daughters can catch better husbands—
Noor: My parents were like, “La samah allah [God forbid] your husband dies or something, you have that degree and you can go out and work and not beg for money.”
Salma: That’s the same with me.
Noor: And my dad was like, “I didn’t get a chance to go and study, no one supported me, I want to support you to go and study, I want you to study, I want you to have the education I didn’t get.”
*
MG: Do you ever feel a conflict between following Islamic values and getting educated?
Salma: No. We have this in Islam to get educated because education is the most important thing, and also if you like doing your job at home and you care about your husband and family then that’s fine.
Noor: [In Islam] education is a must. It’s an obligation to seek knowledge. And I think that for every hour you’re going to school you’re getting like 700 hasanat (points for good deeds) for going.
Nawal: And that’s the only reason I’m going to heaven.
[The girls laugh.]
MG: Nawal, what is your relationship to Islam and education?
Nawal: Islam gives me the opportunity to get my education. I’m not against it [Islam] but there are some things about it I don’t like…Overall, it’s not that bad, as long as we get our education.
MG: Do you feel like going to school is doing something for Palestine?
Salma: Yes
Nawal: Yeah, the more you learn, the more you can help Palestine economically, politically, socially. I mean you have people who are learning urban studies. They can help us with planning. We have lawyers that can help us.
Noor: We also have research facilities that can lead to discoveries and along the way people from Palestine will get recognized that they discovered [something] and not that we [made] the world’s biggest knafeh [cheese dessert].
[The girls laugh.]
Noor: Because, seriously, we’re known for that kind of stuff.
Salma: We can’t go against Israel because they have such a strong military but if we educate ourselves we will be able to come up with some sort of clever strategy to liberate Palestine.
MG: What is your political affiliation? Fatah? Hamas? Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [communist party outlawed by Israel]?
Noor: None of the above.
Nawal: Screw them all. Fatah is like the [American] Republicans, Hamas is a dictatorship. We [Palestinians] need a democracy. I’m against all of [the existing political parties]. They’re not for the people, they’re for themselves…Fatah is just in it for the money and Hamas is a dictatorship where they’re not only going to take everyone’s rights but, specifically, women’s rights. They’re gonna make us wear jalabib [long coats worn over the clothes for modesty].
Noor: Like if you look at [pictures from] Gaza, everyone’s wearing it…Fatah and Hamas, neither of them are doing us any good.
Nawal: That’s why we’re coming to college. Inshallah [God willing] maybe people in our generation will take up [the struggle for Palestine].
Amira: I’m Fatah.
Salma: I agree with Hamas on some things but I agree with Fatah, also.
Nawal: Since I’ve been in college one semester, I’ve started to think that the power is in the college students; they’re the strongest in Palestine right now. If we want to make a revolution we should make it now. [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas has been in the chair for a long time. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. [During Operation Pillar of Defense] every time [journalists] would ask him a question about the Gaza war, he was like, “Oh, we’re going on the 29th to the UN.”
[Salma laughs.]
Nawal: Every question—
Noor: He’d dodge it.
Nawal: The questions were about Gaza and he would keep going back to how we’re going to go on the 29th to the UN.
Amira: But who do you think is better than Abbas?
Nawal: I don’t know. Whoever we have left.
MG: So does the future lie in the political parties or the people?
All the girls: The people, the people.
Amira: Yeah, for me, education is the only opening we can use.
Nawal: Yeah, and during the Intifada, Israelis would hate to see the students go and get their education.
Amira: Until now, especially in Hebron, there are checkpoints that prevent [the students from getting to] their schools.
Noor: [Going to school] is not about you only. It’s about Palestine, as well—your country, making a contribution.
*
MG: Amira, you’re studying media, right? Do you want to get married when you finish?
Amira: Does marrying mean there’s no work?
MG: What does it mean for you?
Amira: My work is the first thing. I’m used to participating in the community, so marrying and staying at home will be something horrible for me…I cannot do nothing. I can remember that in the year of the tawjihi because we studied hard, that I stayed home and it was the worst thing ever
MG: Is it important to you to find a husband that would support your desire to work?
Amira: Yeah, I would like to. Guys now—most of them are trying to find girls who want to work because life now is hard so they want someone who will share—
Salma: The financial [burden].
Amira: Yeah, this is what I see right now. But before they like—
Noor: They didn’t want to educate women because they thought it would lead to a rebellion in the house.
MG: So in the past, men preferred uneducated women but now, because of the financial situation, they prefer educated women?
Salma: Yeah.
MG: I read an article recently that said that the Israeli occupation indirectly impacts domestic violence—
Noor: The occupation makes education harder. Actually from the university it should be like 30 minutes to my balad not two hours. But [because of Israeli checkpoints and the separation barrier] you have to go around. And it frustrates people who have classes to get to and you can’t get to them on time and you get home late… and you go home and you release this anger on whoever is right in front of you.
Salma: I think it’s also like when people used to work inside Israel and now they can’t and they lost their jobs and they lost everything…and so they just beat their wives.
Amira: There is a huge number of people in a small area and the economy is limited—
Noor: It’s frustrating for some people. We don’t have many factories. We don’t have a lot of jobs…
*
MG: What does your family expect from your studies?
Amira: My family keeps on encouraging me. My father said, “[Being a journalist] will be hard for you and this will be dangerous for you, as a woman.”
Salma: Yeah, my father says the same thing.
MG: Why?
Salma: They consider it something hard for women… if you have a calling at night [to cover a story], that’s hard for a woman.
Amira: And we don’t like have enough media jobs in Palestine…
Salma: We’re going to have to go to Qatar and work for Al Jazeera.
[The two girls laugh.]
Amira: I hate Al Jazeera.
MG: Why?
Salma: I like Al Jazeera.
Amira: From the moment they published the papers of the negotiations [the Palestine papers] I understood that they’re creating problems…They wanted the people to get mad at the government… [They made the revolutions] in Syria, Egypt, and Libya, and they tried this here but, in Palestine, it didn’t work.
MG: But Nawal says Palestine needs a revolution?
Amira: But we’re under occupation. We don’t have a country.
Salma: We have to get rid of Israel and then we can think about our future.
Noor: No, I think we should have our own revolution within, fix ourselves and present ourselves to the world. If we present ourselves broken to the world, they’re not going to take us seriously. Do you think anyone is going to take you seriously if you’re all broken? If one is Fatah and one is Hamas? We have to have unity. That’s why we need a revolution to fix us.
Amira: So we don’t need a revolution, we need unity. There is a difference; there is a big difference…Do you think Egypt is in a good situation now?
Noor: No
Amira: Okay, so they got rid of Mubarak and this is a good thing. But are they okay now?
Noor: No.
Amira: And how long will it take them?
[The other girls nod.]
*
MG: What does it say about Palestine that there are so many women here on campus? It’s like 70 percent female, no?
Salma: [Men] have the chance to go outside. But the girls stay in Palestine and go to the local universities. The boys can go to Jordan and Egypt and the US.
Noor: My cousins, when they finish high school, ala tul [immediately], they go overseas. Ala tul. They get the ticket at the beginning of the summer and then yalla [let’s go]. For girls it’s a lot harder because you don’t get the chance to.
MG: I was looking around here and thinking that this means that girls are “liberated” because there are so many women here at school. But, bil aks [on the contrary].
Salma: Yeah, yeah.
MG: In Adely’s book, it says that sometimes going to school puts Jordanian girls into situations that go against Islam—
Salma: My family is a religious family. We have red lines. When I started at this college I was so, so confused. People would be like, “Hi, Salma, how are you?” And they would want to shake hands… but I can’t. I was so confused… I was crying…it was hard for me, it was really hard. But now I have gotten more used to talking with boys.
Amira: I’m used to being with people like this… I go to camps and conferences; this is what made me adapt…
Noor (on being an engaged woman at university): It’s hard. You have to have interactions [with male students]. You know he’s going to ask you for your notes or something like that. You can’t just ignore him and walk away because that’s disrespectful and that’s putting the person down. It’s also hard for me because my [future] sister-in-law goes to this college, too—
The other girls: OOOOOOOOO!
[They all laugh.]
Amira: She’s watching you!
Noor: So the thing is sometimes we have chemistry lab and partners and I’m always partnered up with [boys] and you can’t not talk. You’re going to have to interact with the other gender… but there’s a limit to how much you can interact.
Salma: Yes, that’s right, that’s my opinion.
Noor: The thing is it’s really hard now that I’m engaged because I think that she [my future sister-in-law] is watching me 24/7.
[The girls laugh.]
Noor: And it’s a little annoying because sometimes I just want to walk away when someone talks to me in case she’ll catch it and make a mess. So that’s why I try to avoid [boys] but I can’t disrespect a person, and if they’re asking me to borrow my notes, you can’t just walk away. It’s rude.
Salma: Yeah, yeah, you’re right.
Amira: I felt in the very beginning, should I [study with boys] or what? But I think that we are studying with them for four years… it’s not like two days, a week, or a month, we are staying most of our days in the college with them. So I decided like to make the limitation from the very beginning and to treat them like my brothers or cousins. They all respect me and they know now my limitations.
Noor: Yeah, it’s a brother-sister relationship, they don’t even try anything. They know that limit.
Amira: I remember my first week [one of the male students] did like this (she extends her hand) and I said (she presses her hand against her collarbone).
[The girls laugh.]
Amira: And from that moment they knew that I’m not joking. I’m not joking.
Salma: Like if someone comes up and talks to me and they say how are you? I’m fine, thanks.
Noor: But they know. They know there is a limit.
MG: But there are some girls here who take boyfriends and there is un-Islamic stuff going on on-campus, no?
Amira: Islam is getting behind. People are thinking about leaving this.
Salma: Yeah, a lot of young people don’t care about what is haram or halal, they just leave it.
Amira: All they talk about is smoking and hijab and they forget about the rest—
Salma: Faith and piety and forgiveness.
MG: And what about the girls who pass the red lines?
Salma: Yeah. I was shocked when I saw it.
Amira: It depends on the community—like girls who are from Jericho, who are from Ramallah and Hebron [are all different from one another]. The people from the cities are more open-minded, free.
Salma: We don’t have girls like this in [my town].
Noor: In my balad, if they know that you have a boyfriend, challas, they won’t come and ask for your hand [in marriage]. If you’ve had a boyfriend, that’s the end of the story.
Salma: But the boys can do whatever they want.
MG: Is that fair?
All: No
Noor: It never is fair.
Amira: This is the problem.
Salma: Because they can do whatever they want, but if he goes to masjid [mosque] all the men say, “Oh, look, he’s here, he’s good.”
[The girls laugh.]
Amira: And then the girl, if she does something wrong just one time she spends the rest of her life asking for forgiveness from Allah and the community. No one will forgive her.
MG: But don’t you ever feel conflicted between your desires and—
Amira: Yeah, we do!
Amira to Noor (in Arabic): But you’re satisfied because you’re engaged.
Noor (in English to the group): Not in that kind of way!
[Laughter]
Salma: Yeah this is hard. [Desire] is something adi, usual, it’s human.
Noor: It’s natural to want to be wanted by the other gender. But because you’re a woman and you’re raised in a certain way you know you can’t do it and there’s that restriction.
MG: Is that difficult?
Salma: Yeah, yeah. You must respect yourself and must limit everything in your life. It’s hard—
[Amira smiles, sighs, and lets out a loud, sensual groan.]
[The girls burst into laughter.]
Noor: Parents teach you to put red lines on all that kind of stuff, and the more conservative you are the better your future because in this society, if people start talking about you, challas, you’re ruined. You are ruined. Whether it’s lies or the truth.
MG: That’s scary.
Amira: I [met] Palestinian girls from inside [Israel]. I think they are so, so, so, so, so free.
[Salma laughs]
Amira: I don’t blame them. It’s the culture around them.
MG: Are you jealous at all of their freedom?
Amira: No, but I feel like they are different, so different…
Noor: Here in the West Bank, we’re more stuck on the Arab culture and Islam and things like that, and so if they find out that you’re dating, you know—
Amira: But there are people like this [the Palestinian girls from Israel] here.
Salma: Yes, we have them in Bethlehem and Ramallah.
*
MG: What is the solution to the conflict with Israel? Two states or one state?
Amira: Two states but not two states. It’s normal that [the Jews] live with us but it’s our country. They can stay. They’re still human
Noor: I think one state but both stay, like Amira says.
Salma: Yeah, we can both stay but the [Palestinian] refugees have their right to return. The Jews also have the right to live here in Palestine because Palestine is not just for the Palestinians. It’s for the Christian people, the Muslims, the Jewish, yaani, but not Israel and occupation and not military and things like this.
Noor: That’s the thing about Palestinians and the Jewish. They both think, “Okay this is ours and ours alone.” There are few people who think we should share it. But it should be shared. It’s not just our land.
MG: So you think most people in Palestine say that it’s just [for Palestinians]?
Noor: Yeah
Amira: It’s Palestine but we can share it with the Jews.
Salma: Not with the Israeli government, but with the Jewish.
Amira: From the very beginning, before 1948, there were Jews here.
Salma: Yeah, there were.
Amira: And this was the beginning of the problem, accepting them in the first place.
[The girls laugh.]
Amira: Now we’re saying we want them to stay but have the whole country be Palestine. We want them to stay but this was the first problem.
[The girls laugh.]
Amira: So we are repeating it.
MG: Is there anything we haven’t covered that it was important for you to say?
Salma: I am afraid [of the future].
Amira: Me too. I pray nothing will happen.
MG: You mean with the military? Like a war?
Amira: Yes.
Salma: [I’m worried about] finding a job.
Amira: But nothing could be worse than 1948.

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last week that the state cannot extend its separation barrier through the West Bank village of Batir, located next to the Green Line that divides Israel from the Palestinian territories.

Petitioners argued the wall would destroy Batir’s ancient agricultural terraces and unique irrigation system, both of which are still in use today, shattering the ecosystem and villagers’ livelihood.

Meanwhile, though, another battle dragged on just a few kilometres away in Jewish neighbourhoods on the Israeli side of the Green Line. Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim, two communities visible from Batir, are also fighting the state to preserve their identities. While the agricultural terraces that characterised these areas before the 1948 war are long gone, as are the Palestinians who tended them, locals say there is still something worth saving here.

Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim are struggling against the Jerusalem municipality and investors’ attempts to gentrify the area. Their story is a microcosm of Israel – a state that was once socialist-leaning, a people that boasted “us Jews take care of one another”, has given way to rampant capitalism. New apartment buildings are mushrooming up all across the country, often on lands that were Palestinian-owned.

The Israel Land Administration (ILA) now controls Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim’s lots, which were just a handful of the tens of thousands of hectares of Palestinian land the state appropriated under the 1953 Land Acquisition Law. With the ILA’s blessing, the city has given investors permission to demolish some 900 apartments and build high-rises in their place. The new towers will include commercial centres and about 3,600 apartments that will attract more than 10,000 additional residents.

Meir Pele is the investor behind the first phase of the project, which will see some 250 apartments destroyed and 900 built on Nurit Street. Speaking to Haaretz, the Jerusalem municipality called it a “golden opportunity” for residents.

But those living there say the government and city gave the land away without their knowledge or consent. In some instances, they gave developers the green light to destroy buildings that include privately owned apartments. And developers’ plans are likely to push low-income locals out of their homes.

Mike Leiter is an Ir Ganim resident and activist. Leiter says that Pele is offering residents apartments in the new towers and will waive building maintenance fees for the first three years. But after that, residents will be subject to charges that will be unaffordable for many.

For developers to move forward, however, they must get residents to sign a contract saying they agree to the plans.

The city, which is struggling financially, stands to make a tremendous amount of money from the taxes the new residents will pay. The municipality, Leiter says, “is so hungry for this to succeed that they have let loose this [investor, Pele]. He’s threatening people that if they don’t sign, he’ll take them to court.”

Pele denies claims he is coercing people into signing contracts.

But whether Pele is pressuring them or not, the fact is many in Ir Ganim and Kiryat Menachem are Ethiopian immigrants who barely speak and read Hebrew. Under Israeli law, if a majority of those in the buildings designated for demolition sign, the developer can sue the holdouts, twisting their arm into agreeing.

“[Pele is] aggressively pushing people to sign a 68-page contract – 68 pages. I couldn’t sign that without a lawyer,” adds Leiter.

While a number of residents have signed, word quickly spread through the Ethiopian community not to agree to anything without an attorney.

A number of the buildings slated for demolition are in poor condition. Residents complain about a lack of insulation and leaky pipes that drip sewage. It’s a runaway process: Because the occupants are poor, they can’t afford to pay maintenance fees. And so the buildings continue to deteriorate.

Gabriel, an Ethiopian resident of Ir Ganim who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, immigrated to Israel 15 years ago. He managed to buy his apartment with a special government-subsidised mortgage that is offered to new citizens from Ethiopia. His home is one of those that will be torn down to make way for the towers.

“I want a new apartment. The building is falling apart,” he says. “If there will be an earthquake our building will crumble. When people go down the stairs, [those inside the apartments] can feel the building moving.”

However, he is concerned about the impact of the high-rises and the massive influx of new residents. The area’s infrastructure isn’t built for large neighbourhoods. The traffic in and out of Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim will be unbearable during rush hours, Gabriel and other locals say.

When asked if building maintenance fees might eventually drive him out of the new towers, Gabriel shrugs. “I don’t know what I will do. Maybe my financial situation will improve in the meantime.”

Desperate to provide his wife and baby girl with a safe home, Gabriel isn’t thinking about the long term. “I’ll solve today’s problems today,” he says. “Tomorrow I’ll take care of tomorrow.”

While Leiter’s building will not be affected by the plans – known as “pinui-binui”, or “evacuation-construction” – he is concerned about the impact they will have on Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim’s character.

Tensions between different groups of Jewish Israelis are common throughout the country, sometimes pitting secular against religious; Jews of Eastern European descent against those with roots in Arab countries; and immigrants against native-born Israelis. But Leiter says Ir Ganim is an exception to this rule, and that’s one of the reasons why the neighbourhood must be saved from gentrification.

The area is home to Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe; Jews who immigrated from Morocco, Egypt, and Iran; Russians who came to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union; recent arrivals from Ethiopia; and American-Israelis such as Leiter, who has lived in Ir Ganim for more than 30 years.

“What’s beautiful about this neighbourhood is that we have three elementary schools and there’s a big population of Ethiopian kids and they all go to the schools here,” Leiter says. “It’s not like other places [in Israel] where we hear on the radio that they’re not letting [Ethiopian] kids in.”

Ethiopian Israelis face widespread discrimination in Israel. In 2010, British journalist Jonathan Cook revealed that Israeli doctors were pushing Ethiopian immigrants to take Depo Provera, a birth control shot with a wide range of side effects.

Last week, Israeli journalist Gal Gabbai reported that Ethiopian women are being coerced into taking the drug and, in some instances, are not being told the shot is for birth control.

Ir Ganim is a rare bright spot, a place where most, Leiter says, “make an effort” to get along regardless of their ethnic background.

Gabriel’s take on coexistence among the various ethnicities is less than rosy. “There’s racism here … I didn’t expect it in a state where the people went through so many problems all over the world. I didn’t expect it from a people who experienced racism themselves.”

While Gabriel doesn’t think developers’ plans constitute discrimination, many believe the city and businessmen have targeted the area because the population is disadvantaged.

“It’s a [population] transfer,” Leiter says. “They’re pushing out weak people. We say, as a community, we want these people here.”

The Jerusalem municipality and ILA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

At a commercial center in Kiryat Malachi, a short walk from the apartment building where three Israelis were killed Thursday morning by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, an elderly man selects tomatoes at a small produce stand. The 74-year-old man, who immigrated to Israel from Algeria with his family when he was a teenager and who does not wish to be identified, says that he is not worried about additional rockets.

“I’m safe here,” he says, as he examines a tomato, “I’m following the [Israeli Army Home Front Command’s] directions and doing what they say. So there’s no problem.”

The father of six and grandfather of nine said that he like most Israelis support “Operation Pillar of Defense,” which has taken the life of 15 Palestinian residents of Gaza since it began on Wednesday.

“I support our [army] officers, Defense Minister [Ehud Barak], and Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu],” he adds.

***

Two men, sipping beer out of plastic cups outside of a nearby cell phone accessories store, voice similar feelings.

Eli Chalilo, a 38-year-old who emigrated from Uzbekistan with his parents when he was 18, says, “Right now we feel fine, but this morning was a little stressful.” He adds that his house is just 200 meters from the building that was hit by a rocket.

Chalilo, who is currently unemployed, wears a white sweat suit and sunglasses. He sent his two children to family in Jerusalem because he is worried about their safety. But, he adds, he is not concerned about his own security. He points to the sky, “God’s up there.”

The two men are joined by Eli Pozielov, 31, the owner of the cell phone accessories store. The father to three children, aged three, four and five, says, “My kids are crying. They’re scared, I’m scared, I don’t know what to do, where to go.”

His wife works in Ashdod and, with schools and kindergartens closed, Pozielov left the children with his sister so he could come to work. But, “no one’s coming to the store [to buy anything]. People aren’t going out of the house.”

Pozielov feels the operation is necessary and thinks that Israeli ground forces need to enter the Gaza Strip. “We must, we must. We have to do like we did during Operation Cast Lead but this time stronger.”

He adds that Israel needs to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. When asked about the 1.7 million Palestinians who live there, he answers, “They got used to it already.”

Chalilo jumps in, “The Arabs are like donkeys.”

“Like animals,” Pozeilov agrees.

“You have to give them a beating so they won’t raise their heads,”  Chalilo continues, adding that he knows what he’s talking about because he came from a Muslim-majority country.

When asked about his experience living in Uzbekistan, however, he admits, “Everything was fine.”

But Israelis can’t live with Arabs or Muslims, Chalilo insists, “Because this is the Jewish state. It’s our country.”

Although a four-year-old and seven-year-old were killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli army fire, both men insist that “Operation Pillar of Defense” is “pointed” and that “only terrorists” are dying.

***

Esti, a 31-year-old math teacher, was home with her children Thursday morning when a missile fired from Gaza hit Kiryat Gat. The bomb shelter attached to her building was locked, she says, so she and the children stood in the stairwell.

When asked how she feels in the wake of the strike, Esti, a religious woman who wears modest clothes and a wig to cover her hair, says, “The messiah needs to come.”

She adds that the army needs to enter Gaza “to show [the Palestinians] who is really in control.”

Like the men in nearby Kiryat Malachi, she feels that Israel should reoccupy Gaza or, “do something absolute to finish [the conflict with the Palestinians].”

“We’re suffering [from rocket fire] now,” she continues, “but someone who lives in Gaza is suffering [from Israeli fire] all the time. For how long now? So we have to find a solution. If the solution is an occupation, it’s an occupation.”

When asked about the implications for Israel’s demographics—wouldn’t reoccupying Gaza mean that a Jewish minority is ruling over a Palestinian majority?—Esti answers, “I don’t know. The solution has to come from above. We’re just people.”

She looks towards her kids, including a little blonde boy who wears a colorful, embroidered kippah (religious skullcap), who are sitting on play horses inside the dark, deserted mall. Only the food court is open. “The people there [in Gaza] also have children,” Esti says. “There are people there who want to live a normal life and an occupation would give them a chance to [do so].”

Despite the fact that Palestinian citizens of the state receive disproportionately less resources and face discrimination in both the public and private sectors in Israel, Esti points to them as an example. “Look at the Arabs in Ramle. They have work, they’re living well.”

“I think the solution is to occupy Gaza and then manage it like a normal state, give them their rights and benefits.”

***

A handful of Israelis have gathered on a lookout point outside of Sderot. From here, they can see smoke rising from the Gaza Strip. Two men drink beer and eat potato chips; I’m there to cover Israeli reactions for Al Jazeera English and, when I ask the men if they are willing to be interviewed by AJE, they curse. A few boys joke that they have come “to see the fireworks.”

But Amos, a 53-year-old mechanic from Sderot, says that he felt scared and anxious alone in his home with the siren going off. His ex-wife and son live in Jerusalem. So he came to the look-out because he feels safer here.

The siren goes off in Sderot moments before I enter the small, depressed city in the south of Israel. I’m with a group of journalists and Phil Weiss, who is driving, stops the car. I crouch alongside a rear door, as though the thin metal could defend me from a missile. The Iron Dome defense system intercepts the rockets fired from Gaza, rendering them white puffs in the sky above my head.

When we enter Sderot, I see that the streets are mostly empty, save for African refugees milling about near a bomb shelter and a few families that have ventured out for food. Cars rush through town, pausing at stop signs.

Bert Luski, an unemployed factory worker, stands outside of a restaurant that serves falafel and other Middle Eastern foods.

Luski, 56, remembers the days that he worked alongside Palestinians from Gaza. Although he got along fine with the laborers, he says, “They don’t understand peace. They want to take our girls, our money, our houses, our pants.”

Despite “suffering 12 years” of rocket fire, Luski says he’s not scared and he won’t leave Sderot. “What, every time someone throws a stone, I should run from here? That’s absurd.”

“If Bibi Netanyahu stops now, he’ll be making a mistake,” he adds.

While interviewees disagreed on the goals of “Operation Pillar of Defense” and they also disagreed as to who is responsible for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip—with some blaming the Israeli government itself—all called the offensive necessary. But they also agreed that the current round of fighting is unlikely to bring peace.

To Westerners and Palestinians, Gaza “is hell”, says Ali Batha. “It’s a scary place … It’s the last place in the world [people want to go].”

There’s Gaza’s 30 per cent unemployment rate, and the Israeli blockade that restricts imports and exports. Clean drinking water is increasingly scarce. Fuel and electricity shortages cause daily blackouts.

And, according to the United Nations, the Gaza Strip “will not be liveable by 2020″ unless the blockade, isolation, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict all come to an end.

Despite the bleak outlook, and despite the fact that Batha, 31, is in the prime of his life, he is planning to leave the West Bank to move to Gaza. It’s the only place where he and his wife, Rehab, can live together.

Because of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement, it’s been three-and-a-half years since the two have seen each other.

Batha and Rehab are just one of thousands of Palestinian families who have been torn apart by Israel’s “separation policy”.

“The dominant aspects of it are to disallow travel between Gaza and the West Bank, to prevent Palestinians from Gaza from moving to the West Bank, and to induce or coerce Palestinians from the West Bank to move to Gaza,” says Sari Bashi, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement.

When asked about the separation policy and its aims, Guy Inbar, a spokesman from the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activity in the Territories, answers that because “terrorist groups in Gaza” seek “to relocate the existing terrorist infrastructure to [the West Bank], Israel has adopted a policy which reduces movements between Gaza and [the West Bank]“.

Batha and Rehab met in 2000 at Birzeit University in the West Bank, where Batha studied economics and Rehab earned a degree in business administration. “It was in a discussion about mythology,” Batha recalls. “She started to talk and I was like, ‘Oh my god, there is a beautiful girl and she is talking about serious things in an [intelligent] way.’”

The two quickly became friends. After one month, Batha confessed his love to her, adding, “I don’t need an answer from you, just take your time.”

He then embarked on a campaign to win Rehab’s heart. “I did a lot of crazy things,” Batha smiles. He scaled the side of her dormitory to reach her balcony. He also covered the sidewalk to her building with drawings and poetry.

Rehab fell for him and they moved in together.

When Rehab graduated in 2004, the couple struggled to decide whether Rehab should travel to the Gaza Strip to visit her parents.

Although Rehab was born in Lebanon, her family moved to Gaza in the early 1990s, as Israel was beginning to restrict Palestinian freedom of movement. In 2000, Israel blocked Gazans from travelling to the West Bank to study. Rehab was one of the last to receive permission to do so.

Because Rehab worried that she wouldn’t be able to return to the West Bank to complete her studies, she did not visit Gaza while she was earning her degree.

After much discussion, Batha and Rehab agreed that she would spend a month in Gaza with her family. But, just as the couple feared, Israeli authorities refused the travel permit she needed to return to the West Bank.

The couple reunited and married in Dubai in 2007. When they tried to go back to the West Bank a year-and-a-half later, Israeli soldiers refused entry to Rehab because she had a Gaza ID. So the two went to Egypt, where Rehab’s family now lives, and tried to solve the problem from there.

They conferred with high-ranking officials from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) who, according to Batha, suggested they obtain a referral to a West Bank healthcare facility. Israeli authorities allow a small number of Palestinians to travel from Gaza for medical purposes.

While Palestinians are free to move to Gaza, Israel prevents family reunification in the West Bank, Bashi explains, “unless you are an orphan under the age of 16 with no relatives to care for you in Gaza, an elderly person in need of constant care with no relatives to care for you in Gaza, or a chronically ill person with no relatives to care for you in Gaza”.

Bashi calls the policy “extraordinarily restrictive”, pointing out that it excludes “any healthy adult”.

In addition to recommending that Rehab get a medical referral, PA officials said she might have a stronger case if she were in Gaza. So in 2009 she went alone. As a woman who does not wear a hijab, Rehab found the move to conservative Gaza difficult. But she remained there, without family, for three years before returning to Egypt.

On numerous occasions, the couple submitted the necessary paperwork to the PA, which passes on requests to the Israelis.

“[Our] file has been with the [Palestinian] Ministry [of Civil Affairs] for a long time,” Ali says, adding he has made countless attempts to follow up on the application.

“The Israelis say, ‘We didn’t receive anything from you’ … [The PA] says ‘bring your papers, bring your papers’. I don’t know where [the PA] put the papers. Maybe in the garbage.”

While Batha is angry with the PA for not doing more to help, he blames the Israeli government for the painful separation from his wife, which he likens to “a prison”.

Israel also maintains the Palestinian population registry, which gives it the final say regarding official address changes.

In Nisreen Asaid’s case, this means that Israel decides whether or not the 30-year-old mother of two will be able to live with her children.

Asaid was arrested at an Israeli checkpoint inside the West Bank in 2007 as she tried to travel from Ramallah to Qalqilya. Soldiers told Asaid that her address was registered in Gaza, where she had lived until she was 14.

She was interrogated and then transferred against her will to the Gaza Strip. Asaid was not allowed to say goodbye to her daughter, who was 10 at the time, or her toddler. She has not seen her children, who remain in the West Bank, for more than five years.

Thanks to a 2011 gesture brokered by the Quartet, Asaid has managed to update her address to the West Bank. But she has been unable to get permission from Israel to travel back from Gaza.

Her son doesn’t understand why his mother disappeared from his life and why she can’t come back to Ramallah. When they talk on the phone, Asaid says, he sometimes tells her, “We will bring a car to the Erez checkpoint and we will raise the fence and you can go underneath.”

Another family has a similar problem. A mother who is stranded in Gaza, raising five children on her own, got her address changed to her husband’s home in the West Bank city of Jenin.

Now Israeli officials say she must pick up the new ID in the West Bank. They refuse, however, to issue her the necessary travel permit.

Bashi says Israeli attempts to control Palestinian movement within Gaza and the West Bank violate international human rights law.

“Because Gaza and the West Bank are part of a single territorial unit, Israel is obligated to respect the right of Palestinians to travel freely within the territory and to choose their place of residence within the territory,” she explains.

“Any restriction on that right can only be implemented for security reasons, or out of security concerns about the passage [through] Israel.”

But a spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories disputes this, saying the Israeli Supreme Court has found “no fault” with the policy.

“There is no legal obligation to allow free movement between Gaza and [the West Bank] … Regarding this specific issue, Gaza and [the West Bank] cannot be declared as a single territorial unit.”

Bashi points out that Israel does not have security claims against any of the families interviewed. “And there is certainly no security reason to prevent these families from being together,” she says.

As the peace process stagnates and the blockade grinds on, Asaid waits and hopes to see her children. And Batha contemplates his next move: “I can go to Gaza, I can go to hell – whatever – just to feel that I can be with her.”