It was with some hesitation that, as Israeli and Palestinian women, we set about working together on an article on the 4th UN conference and the NGO Forum on Women in Beijing, in August-September 1995. We had spent three weeks together there in the Young Women Leaders Program. We asked ourselves how we could approach this issue commonly, in spite of coming from very different and opposite backgrounds.
As a Jewish-Israeli citizen, living in a developed modern state, Netta has the opportunities and the means to fulfill her ambitions, while Hanan, as a Palestinian woman living since birth under Israeli Occupation, has very limited accessibility to similar opportunities in life. This cruel situa¬tion inhibits her chances to develop a better quality of life for herself and her society. It is not easy for occupier and occupied sitting together to try to find a common language.
We sought a common issue, or experience to which to relate, apart from the fact that we were sent to Beijing by the two centers of the "Jerusalem Link": Bat Shalom [Israeli] and The Jerusalem Center for Women [Palestinian]. Although as two young women, members of the Jerusalem Link, we share a common political view regarding the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination and an independent state, we felt that our attitudes to the Beijing conference were not limited to the politi¬cal analysis of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Highlighting Identities

We remember Beijing as masses of women from all over the world, coming together as one voice in order to strengthen themselves as women. The most beautiful sight was how women kept highlighting their different cultures and different identities. They did it not only through their speech¬es, but through clothes, dancing, singing, demonstrating. For example, the Tibetan women showed their identity by staying with their mouths masked in order to express their rejection of the Chinese government.
We wanted to participate in almost all the workshops, touching upon all aspects of our identity. Hanan went to many workshops that discussed the status of Muslim women in Islamic rules and laws, searching for methods that can improve their lives. Netta as a Mizrahi (an Oriental Jew) took part in workshops regarding immigrant women and their contribu¬tion to society. We both found ourselves many times in the Youth Tent, looking for understanding and sharing our experiences and difficulties.
We have decided to share with you two stories, in which each of us describes an incident that highlights one specific major aspect of the other's identity.

A Palestinian Woman in/out Beijing
Netta Amar

For Hanan, actually reaching Beijing was a challenge of its own. Difficulties raised by the Israeli security authorities made the whole trip look like another nightmare of the Occupation. Getting the ticket and per¬mit to leave the country seemed like an unreachable dream. When it final¬ly came true, there came the humiliating search in Hanan's luggage and an hour's wait in a separate room for Palestinians, before she got to the air¬plane. As for me, I came only two hours before the flight, and was asked a few routine security questions. Our separation was degrading. She was treated as the potential terrorist and I as the potential victim.
It seemed as if the worst was behind us as we took off, but Beijing turned out to remind Hanan once again that even though she was physi¬cally far from the conflict, she couldn't escape the stereotypes when presenting herself from Palestine or as Palestinian. The first thing was the NGO's Forum badge that said "Hanan Aruri - Israel." She was furious.
As a Palestinian, it was obvious that she had consented to go to Beijing because she felt she had to raise international awareness to the Palestinian demand for an independent state. She tried to erase the false identity that was given her and write as large and as clearly as possible: "Palestine."

Humiliation

There were many reactions to "Palestine." Some came and asked, out of ignorance, where Palestine was. Some felt the need to correct her, saying Palestine was not yet a state. When she identified herself as a Palestinian, a Jew traveling with her in a taxi accused her of terrorism. While some looked at her with anger and disgust, others encouraged her. But Hanan was proud to wear the corrected badge although it was not as aesthetic as my "Israel."
The most humiliating experience was on our return home, when we landed for 24 hours in Bangkok. Hanan was stopped by the immigration officer because she only had a travel document from Israel and not an Israeli passport. She tried to explain to the senior officer that we had reser¬vations in a hotel in Bangkok and that the Thai Embassy in Israel had told her she did not have to get a visa for her stay there. The officer paid no attention to her pleas. She was warned that if she kept on shouting and protesting, she would be arrested and confined in a small room in the air¬port. She was prohibited to leave the airport till her flight to Israel on EI Al.
So we stayed 24 hours in the expensive Transit Hotel, in the inner part of the airport, feeling we were in prison, not knowing whether it was day or night. Hanan spent her stay in Thailand feeling like an outcast, unwanted, threatened, ashamed, frustrated and sick. When the time came to prepare for the flight, she had to go through a further series of searches and questioning, as before leaving Israel. Before we separated, she said she would never come back to that part of the globe again.

A Mizrahi Woman in the Conference
Hanan Aruri

Among so many women from so many nationalities and cultures, Netta and I felt very close to each other. Yet we tended to take this for granted, until one day when we were going to the NGO site in Huaira, an Algerian woman approached me and started talking to me. Then she turned to Netta and also spoke to her in Arabic. Netta smiled while the woman con¬tinued to speak. She didn't stop the woman in order to correct her that she was not a Palestinian or an Arab. On many other occasions, Netta was regarded as an Arab.
She always identified herself, proudly, as a Yemenite. She felt that in the Far East, at the conference, she could openly highlight her Eastern origin without feeling inferior, which is how many Ashkenazi (European and American) Israelis regard Mizrahi (Oriental) men and women in Israel. She then started to tell me how her Arab origin had brought her closer to the Palestinians. She calls herself an Arab-Jew, a term that would make some people laugh, as if it were not possible to combine the two identities. She regards the relationship between Arabs and Jews who live in Arab countries as having a unique significance which can help Israelis and Palestinians live together.

Against Racism

Netta felt closer to the black African women in the conference than to any other group of women. She regards herself as black. This is the result, she explained, of living in a country that discriminates against the blacks, including the Arab-Jews within it.
When we sat down to write the article, she brought up the issue of the demonstration of the Ethiopian Jews against racism. As the Ethiopian Jews suffer now, so the Mizrahi Jews suffered from racism. They were put in poor neighborhoods, got less good education and had less accessibility to official positions in the government. Racism for her was a phenomenon in Israel, internally toward its own citizens, and externally toward the Palestinians.
Netta explained to me that she supports the Palestinians in their strug¬gle because she is against the denial of rights to all others. In my relations with Netta, we sense a mutual solidarity, mutual understanding, rein¬forced by our common experiences in Beijing.

What Now?

We came to Beijing with a feeling that we had to put across our message to the world, that our problems do not start and finish with male domina¬tion. We feel that we, as women, can contribute to humankind in our spe¬cial way. Our feminism encompasses the problems of all human rights: poverty, exploitation, equal opportunities, self-determination, fighting against stereotypes and other global issues. Feminism is the means to achieve a better quality of life for men and women throughout the world. Although we are in different stages in our national struggle, the two iden¬tities that both of us hold, I as a Palestinian and Netta as a Mizrahi woman, cry out loud: there cannot be a separate fight for the rights of women with¬out a parallel fight for self-determination. We hope that 10 years on, we will be able to come with all of our identities, proud, known and accepted by everybody. At the 5th UN Conference on Women, our identities and our rights will have been mutually accepted in the region and in the world.