Creativity in Killing Palestinian Women

Jadal 1 Mada al-Carmel

Jadal, Issue 19, March 2014 www.mada-research.org

Creativity in Killing Palestinian Women Suhad Daher-Nashif*

In recent years, a number of creative works have treated the issue of women’s

killing in Palestinian society in various shapes and forms. These products include

theatrical works and dramatic films, documentary films, music videos,

performance art, and “video art.” Each of these works is characterized by a clear

message and argument, crafted to respond specifically to the practices of killing

women in the context of Palestinian society. This article aims to examine some of

these works by analyzing the discourse utilized in them and comparing it to the

reality within which women are killed or their lives threatened. Specifically, I

will analyze four works: the music video “If I Could Go Back in Time” by the rap

group DAM, various human sculptures in artist Wasim Kheir’s “Insomnia”

project, a video work by the artist Raya Manna’, and the human mosaic put

together by the Sawa Organization and entitled “A Scream of Pain.”

Theoretical Framing

Expressive creative works are directly capable of effecting social change and

making an impact on collective consciousness through the discourse that is

proposed through its use of both direct and indirect spoken language or body

language. Lyrical artwork has a greater power and a deeper influence as it is

more easily accessible and reaches people more quickly.1

1 Massad, J. (2003). Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music. Journal of Palestine Studies, 32(3), 21–38.



In the Palestinian context specifically, in his 2003 article, “Liberating

Songs: Palestine Put to Music,” Joseph Massad examines and analyzes how the

changes in musical style and lyrics correspond to the changes in the exigencies of

the Palestinian struggle itself (p. 21) between 1948 and the beginning of the 21st

century. He articulates aspects of its impact on collective national consciousness

and activity.2 A general examination of some of these nationalist songs3 reveals

that they did not include a radical feminist discourse in their treatment of

women. The dominant discourse found in them was a nationalist discourse that

ignores social issues.

Historically, the development of feminist movements has paralleled the

development of national liberation movements.4 There are those who claim,

however, that a number of nationalist women’s discourses were just as male-

dominated as the discourse of men.5 This was reflected at the level of artistic

production, as the feminist discourse "melted" between the folds of the

nationalist discourse and did not have a presence. Perhaps this was due to the

idea that conditions required national unity, with no time or place for feminism.

The inclusion of the human and women's rights discourse with a feminist

dimension is considered new in Palestinian artwork, especially in the plastic arts

and cinema, and is absent and practically non-existent in song. Visual artwork,

especially film, has dealt with the Palestinian woman on the basis of her status as

a victim of patriarchy and nationalism, such that even if she works heroically, it

is in the service of one of these, and not in service of her position and condition

2 Ibid., p. 22. 3 See, for example, the songs of the groups al-Funun al-Sha’biyya (Popular Arts), Sabirin (Enduring Ones), and al-‘Ashiqin (the Passionate Ones), as well as the songs of Reem Banna, etc. 4 Naaman, D. (2006). In the Name of the Nation: Images of Palestinian and Israeli Women Fighters. In A. Burfoot and S. Lord (Eds.), Killing Women: The Visual Culture of Gender and Violence. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press: 273–292. 5 Massad, J. (1995). Conceiving the Masculine: Gender and Palestinian Nationalism. Middle East Journal, 49(3), 467–483.



as a woman.6 She cannot be a nationalist hero except through relinquishing her

gendered interests and conceding to a non-sexual role for the motherland.

Femicide in Palestinian Society

In 2013, 13 Palestinian women and girls were killed, bringing the number of

women and girls murdered in the last decade to over 80. To this total, one must

also add the women threatened with death—those are considered as “living

dead.” The studies conducted on the killing of women (Femicide) in Palestinian

society have indicated that there is an interrelationship between the formal

Israeli institutions (such as the police, the public prosecutor, social welfare

offices, etc.) and the informal social institutions (such as communal

reconciliation [Sulha] committees, the religious system, and the family).7 This

interaction is dialectical to the extent that one feeds the other and increases

men’s power over women, further relegating females to an inferior position that

facilitates their maltreatment and their murder.

One of the manifestations of the alienation and exclusion brought to bear by the

Israeli authorities’ handling of Femicide cases is the attribution of the act of

killing women to Palestinian culture and Arab-Islamic civilization. This cultural

justification is part of the Islamophobia that increased significantly after the

events of September 11, 2001, and that had already been set in motion by the

Second Intifada and the events of October 2000.8 This justification seeks to

absolve the Israeli state from their responsibility towards the threats and the

murder of the Palestinian women, and aims to reproduce specific truths about

the Palestinian community.

6 Naaman, 2006, p. 276. 7 Shalhoub-Kevorkian, N. and Daher-Nashif, S. (2013). Femicide and Colonization: Between the Politics of Exclusion and the Culture of Control. Violence against Women, 19(3), 295–315; Hassan, M. (2002). The Politics of Honor: Patriarchy, the State, and the Murder of Women in the Name of Family Honor. Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture 21(1.2), 1–37. 8 Shahoub-Kevorkian and Daher-Nashif, 2013.



This “truth” becomes one of society’s features and quickly transforms into

an actual practice. Thus, the creation of truth (or, in other words, the

construction of discursive categories by the controlling and ruling Israeli state)

leads Palestinian society to actually place itself within these categories. The

colonial system has succeeded in establishing the fact that the Palestinian man is

violent and a killer, and that the Palestinian woman is his victim. The tragedy of

this imposition lies in its penetration and entrenchment in our consciousness,

such that we have become convinced of its truth: The Palestinian man—

particularly the Muslim—is violent and kills women, and the woman is a victim

who is threatened and killed and whose savior is the White Man. The degree of

society’s internalization of language imposed by Israel is exemplified in the fact

that even after the Israeli media stopped using the term “honor killing” at the

end of 2011 following pressure from feminist and Palestinian rights

organizations, it is still commonly and casually used among the people, and even

persists among male and female intellectuals.

The manifestation of the concept of honor and the treatment of man as

criminal and woman as victim is present in the local Palestinian expressive

artwork that deals with violence against women and Femicide.

It must be noted here that research indicates that in Palestinian creative

works, there is a clear manifestation of a national discourse, but there is an

absence and stammer of feminist discourse. Take, for example, various

Palestinian rap songs, including “If I Could Go Back in Time” by the group DAM.

This song addresses the issue of women’s killing in Palestinian society occupied

since 1948.

“If I Could Go Back in Time” Music Video (DAM, 2012)



In recent years, an alternative popular music scene has emerged among young

Palestinians (Karkabi, 2013, p. 308).9 Musicians and their audiences produce a

politicized counterculture that innovatively fuses local and international musical

expressions as a form of protest that aims to challenge external and internal

impositions of structural oppression and Othering (Ibid.). In her book, Jil Oslo:

Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture, and the Youth Movement (2013),10 Sunaina

Maira documents anthropological fieldwork which she conducted on hip hop

culture in Palestinian society in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the areas

occupied in 1948. In an interview with Maira in Jadaliyya, she says:

This book focuses on Palestinian hip hop as an expression of the social

and political identities of a new generation of Palestinian youth in the

West Bank, Jerusalem, and in Israel. Based on ethnographic research, it

explores how hip hop and activism by Palestinian youth are

rethinking ‘politics’ in this generation and challenging Israeli settler

colonial policies as well as the national leadership’s adoption of the Oslo

framework… I explore how Palestinian hip hop has lent itself to the

politicization of a new generation of youth and the formation of an

alternative public sphere and what it represents to young Palestinians.11

It is necessary here to pose the question: How have linkages been made

between women’s liberation and the liberation of the Palestinian people in

various works? How has the feminist discourse been contained between the

lines of the nationalist discourse through the platforms and theaters and

production studios of these works? In this section I will discuss the musical

9 Karkabi, N. (2013). Staging Particular Difference: Politics of Space in the Palestinian Alternative Music Scene. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 6, 308–328. 10 Maira, S. (2013). Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture, and the Youth Movement. Washington, DC: Tadween Publishing. 11 See: www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/15646/new-texts-out-now_sunaina-maira-jil-oslo_palestini



video “If I Could Go Back in Time” by the Palestinian group DAM,12 and I will

analyze its discourse and the linkage between its discourse and the reality of the

killing of Palestinian women.

DAM produced “If I Could Go Back in Time” in 2012 with the participation

of the Palestinian singer Amal Murkus. The song presents the story of a girl

killed by her brother, who shoots her in collaboration with her father because

she refuses to marry her cousin and attempts to flee the country. The work

begins by documenting the story from the moment of her death to her waking

from a dream whose essence is that if only time would go back to her, she could

dance and love and sing. The members of the group say that this work reflects

the stories of women’s killings in recent years in Lydda, the city where they

live.13 The work presents the mother as a partner in the repression, and

indirectly in the murder, as she receives a phone call informing her of a delay in

12 To see the work, go to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjnFbe7D9pY. 13 Nafar, T., Nafar, S., and Jrery, M. (2012). DAM Responds: On Tradition and the Anti-Politics of the Machine. Jadaliyya. 26 December 2012. www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/9181/dam-responds_on-tradition-and-the-anti-politics-of.



the departure time of her daughter’s flight, which makes her inform the father

and the brother of their daughter’s intention to flee. The presentation of the

mother as a partner in the oppression of her daughter, and an indirect

participant in her daughter’s murder, is of extreme importance. This act is

crucial because most people blame men for their patriarchal practices and

ignore the range of women’s masculinity and misogyny. This work highlights—

albeit unknowingly—the possibility of a patriarchal and masculine mother. The

story presented in the work is real; it is one that has occurred and continues to

take place, but Femicide is abbreviated to a single stereotypical story that

reformulates colonial and Orientalist notions regarding the Palestinian

community in general and Muslims in particular.

There are many cases of murder in which the killer is the husband who

commits the murder because his wife has demanded her legitimate rights (such

as divorce, or a secure house for her and her children). For example, this was the

case with Yasmin Abu Sa’luk, Amal Khalili, Nisrin Mosrati, and others.14 There

are many stories that are not covered by the story presented in the work. And

although it is true that one music video which does not exceed four minutes long

cannot contain all these stories, but the story that was chosen abbreviates the

reality of Femicide to the following truths: Killing characterizes a Muslim

society; the one who refuses to marry her cousin is killed; there is no connection

between the political reality and women’s killing; and the safe haven for

Palestinian women is Ben-Gurion Airport in Lydda (the White Man is the savior).

Moreover, some of the footage in the work reflects a dangerous

stereotype about Palestinian women. This image is similar to that used by the

West to confirm the ignorance and backwardness of Palestinian society and its

terrorism. For example, the roles available to the Muslim Palestinian woman are

that of mother, housewife, weaver, and defeatist, only able dance, love, and sing 14 The story of Yasmin is related by Samah Salaime-Igbariye in the next paper of this issue.



when she dies. The truth is that dancing, singing, and love—if brought back by

time—do not solve any of the complex existing socio-political difficulties.

The discourse in “If I Could Go Back in Time” ignores the role of the

political context, which enables women’s killings and killing in general in

Palestinian society. It would have been possible—even in a shot of a few

seconds—to indicate the police’s negligence and inaction by making the victim

visible to them as they stand motionless or to have the car pass by them as they

look upon her with pity, ridicule, and gloating looks. How many women were

killed despite having defied the community around them and having complained

to the police? How many women were killed after having declared to the police

that their life was threatened? How many women were killed after a murder

attempt was made and the killer was released to come back and kill her? The

examples include Yasmin Abu Sa’luk 15 and many others in Lydda and

elsewhere—the most recent being the massacre of Dabburiya, in which a

woman, two young females, and a child girl were killed in 2013.

The discourse that prevails in “If I Could Go Back in Time” consolidates

the discursive categories produced and used by the colonizer. The Muslim

Palestinian male is a cold-blooded killer, and the Palestinian woman is the victim

of literal and metaphorical violence and murder. Her salvation comes through

escaping to the state’s institutionalized offerings, or escaping with the help of the

White Man (symbolized by Ben-Gurion Airport). This language, in an important

creative work by an important group of stature and influence like DAM, must be

dismantled and a new language should be created. Creating a new language

plays a role in the productions of truths and new possibilities. I realize that a

work can’t take on so much, but music has an important and fundamental role in

15 On January 16, 2014, the trial of Yasmin’s killer (her husband) took place. He was sentenced to life for having killed her, with an additional 12 years for a prior attempted murder. He was sentenced for having attempted to kill her after he killed her, though if he had been imprisoned when he tried to kill her, it is likely that she would be alive today.



creating social change. It has contributed to changing political awareness and

therefore there is a responsibility of the producers and performers to seize their

role and reformulate political consciousness hand in hand with feminist forces

who—often—possess the power of influential words and ideas.

It is important to note here that DAM has other songs that attribute the

killing of women to honor and cultural characteristics. For example, in their song

“al-Hurriyya Untha” (Freedom For My Sisters), they say:

From the time of burying newborn girls alive and circumcision of

desire

To the time of burying an opinion and circumcision of desire

In their work “Laysh” (Why), they sing:

Why are we proud of the past and ignore the present

Why is family honor standing there when it comes to girls

Why do we kill each other and say the Jews are the guilty. . .

Here is a case of the social consciousness that is accompanied by self-

vilification, and of the internalization of the institute’s discourse and its

reconfiguration in a song that is listened to by a generation that bears the hope

of change. It is necessary, therefore, to change the discourse, in order to

penetrate alternative discourse that creates new realities, new discursive

categories, and new practices—a mature feminist discourse and not only a

nationalist one.

Another work that engaged with Femicide is the “Insomnia” art project, which

was held on Al-Carmel Avenue (today known as Ben-Gurion Avenue) in Haifa on

September 23, 2013. The work was the concept of the Palestinian artist Wasim

Kheir and was produced under his supervision.



Human Statues of Femicide in the “Insomnia” Art Project by Wasim Kheir

"Insomnia” is a creative work that uses the body as a means to reflect social

reality. The project comprised various works of performance art stretching

along Al-Carmel Avenue in Haifa. It included theatrical monologues, crime

scenes, “video art,” and pieces of music accompanied by performance, in

addition to works of art exhibited at different stations. Neither the contents of

the exhibition nor its form were publicized beforehand; instead, it came as a

shock to those who came to the street and saw it.16 The body within the work is a

medium that has meaning and connotations, and interacts with the surrounding

environment. In his article “Insomnia: You Should Find the Body in a Different

Idea,” Abdallah al-Bayyari claims that the body in the work of “Insomnia” is an

expression of a material word in a condition of collision, conflict, and

confrontation with the body of relationships with the modern colonial city,

making it capable of creating new meanings in which we feel presences and

absences.17 I agree with this claim, but if we look at the five crime scenes related

to women’s killings, we see that they reflect a reality of man as murderer and

woman as murdered. This is the same discourse heard in “If I Could Go Back in

Time.” This has become a characteristic of a society branded upon it by the

colonial powers and deliberately used by them. Here is a case of the re-

articulation of colonial patriarchy via the imposition of the truth of the man in

the role of the killer and the woman in the role of the killed. In fact, it is correct

that the killer is always a male when a woman is killed, but this is not in isolation

from a reality by which the colonizer encourages this practice in various ways.

An artwork that is intended to address and confront the colonizer must take aim

at the proper target. When the white colonizer came to the avenue and saw the

16 For a report on the exhibition, visit the following link: www.arabs48.com/?mod=articles&ID=102692. 17 Published in the online journal Jadal on 4 October 2013.



human sculptures, his ideas about the frustrated and violent Palestinian,

psychologically troubled, who kills his sister and his wife, were reconfirmed.

For example, next to one of the bodies of the female murder victims was written:

“Your Wife, Cause of Death: Your Ideas.”

(Photo of one of the human sculptures)

Next to another was written: “Your Sister, Cause of Death: Your Anger.”

There was another human sculpture next to which was written: “Your Fiancée,

Cause of Death: Your Venereal Diseases.” In another was written: “Your

Countrygirl, Cause of Death: Her Sexual Identity.”

What is remarkable in the work of “Insomnia” is the absence of a division

between the practices of women’s killings from widespread violence in general

in the Palestinian society. This statement is of the utmost importance, because

often the majority of community members treat women’s killings in isolation

from the rampant general violence in society. Men do not attend demonstrations

condemning women’s killings and the demonstrations against Femicide separate

this killing from the killing of men. Community members condemn the killing of



a man and silently accept the killing of a woman because she broke what is

“agreed upon” socially.

In the crime scenes of murdered women, the reason for the killing was

formulated such that it was attributed to a psychological crisis or disease of the

Palestinian man who committed the crime. But the truth is that women are killed

because they are women, and the offender kills them because he is a criminal.

The limitation and reduction of the reasons to the ideas of the man and his

mental state is a reduction of the reality of women’s killings. Remarkably, in

every case the reason for the killing, or “cause of death,” was attributed to the

killer, except in the case of sexual identity, for there the explanation lay in the

woman’s identity. This means that in regards to a case in which the reason for

murder is attributed to the female sexual identity, and not to the fact that the

perpetrator does not accept the difference or to his being a criminal, it is

important to create a language that goes beyond the familiar language.

In the “Insomnia” project, there is an expression of the reformulation of

power relations and the state’s control over the Palestinian cultural scene. The

formal Israeli institute is one that permitted the provision of colonized urban

space for the purpose of a creative Palestinian social statement. The security

coordination is a colonial extension of control over the Palestinian body, mind,

and culture.

With regard to the practice of the killing of women, the “Insomnia”

project did not put forward a discourse different from the common discourse,

socially but also vis-à-vis the institution; instead, it erected a mirror that

intensified the widespread practice of violence and killing in society. Thus, the

“Insomnia” project excluded the institution from the incidents. It is striking that

in “If I Could Go Back in Time,” the salvation and sanctuary to which one can

escape from reality is Ben-Gurion Airport, which—if we consider it seriously—



represents the cause of womens’ murders. Israel, at first glance, claims to protect

the Palestinian woman, but it structurally reinforces the potential for her literal

and metaphorical murder. In “Insomnia,” Ben-Gurion Avenue (Al-Carmel

Avenue) is a space for protesting a reality in order to be free of it, despite the fact

that this avenue is a colonized space that contributed and continues to

contribute to the erasure of Palestinian society.

A noteworthy work of “video art” that was exhibited as part of “Insomnia”

project was a film by the young artist Raya Manna’ about the killing of women

(“Untitled”).

“Untitled,” by Raya Manna’

This video begins by focusing on the lower section of a woman’s legs. As she

stands barefoot on farmland soil, in her black dress, drops of red liquid fall on

her legs. The camera moves to focus on white undergarments, spattered with

red liquid. In the background there are trees and the sound of wind, and clothing

fluttering in the wind. The camera moves to gaze on the girl from behind,

cupping a red liquid (blood) in her hands and spattering the white

undergarments with it until they are soaked with blood and the film ends.

Through a conversation with the artist, she indicated that the work

expresses the phenomenon of women’s killings by portraying the woman in a

position of power, angry, active, and not simply acted upon. According to her, the

woman is a participant in her being a victim of crimes of “family honor.”18 This

argument differs from the arguments of the previous two works, as it differs in

how it imagines society’s treatment of women as weak. In this work, the woman

rebels against the blood relations that govern society, sullies man with his

society’s bloodshed, takes back from him blood and the blood-womb linkage, as

if rejecting this linkage. The blood falls on her legs, and she is unable to fully 18 Quoted from the artist.



separate herself from her society’s bloodiness. The blood may fall on her body

and stain it against her will, even as she rejects it. By being so often a participant

in practices of repression and killing, the blood stains her as well; that is, the

killing of women stains both sexes.

If we reflect on the work, we see that the woman is still the one killed and

the man is still the killer. Despite the revolutionary nature of the work, and its

transgression of the prevailing patriarchal and institution’s discourse through its

kinetic and material content, its formulation in addressing the issue of “family

honor” requires a reformulation that breaks with familiar language. This raises

the question: Is the Arab community truly bloody or has it been imagined for us

as such? Is the killer a man, or is it that man is the instrument to impose the laws

and women are partners in putting them in place and strengthening them? Is the

female acted upon or has she been formulated as such? These questions must be

posed when dealing with the issues of Femicide.

Sawa Organization’s “A Scream of Pain” Human Mosaic

Another work that addresses the issue of Femicide is the “A Scream of Pain”

piece, which was launched by the Sawa Organization of Jerusalem, in the name of

each woman killed and robbed of her right to life. This work entailed the

formation of a silent human mosaic composed of volunteers who, through their

bodies, formed the number of women killed in 2013—totaling 27 in the West



Bank—on the plaza of the Baladna Cultural Center in al-Bireh. During the show,

participants wore white gowns and put white masks on their faces, formed the

number 27, and smeared their hands with red paint, symbolizing blood, to

express their rejection of women’s killings in Palestine. The masks signified the

singular nature of the face of the community, showing that society may differ in

the details of its bodies, but its mentality and social presence is unified.

This human installation reflected the shared culpability in the crime that

rests on every male and female, religious and secular: Blood is on the hands of

the entire society. The installation is silent and the silence of the community is

also a partner in the killing of women and girls. These are truths, but the truth

that was absent here was the role of the occupation and the political context of

the increasing numbers of murder victims in the West Bank. The political

condition plays a key role in promoting Femicide by creating a reality dominated

by poverty and economic vulnerability for women who are already vulnerable

socially. It is a context in which colonialism oppresses every man and woman,

besieges them and limits their movement to make it difficult for women to

access education and work. It is a context that gives shape to a space in which

Palestinian women’s access to the justice system is nearly impossible. It is a

context that undermines the Palestinian legal system, which may help and

support women. It is a context in which a man is repressed, and in turn practices



it on whoever is weaker than him. It is a context in which control over life is lost,

as is manifested in death and murder. The work “A Scream of Pain” offers a clear

message blaming society, but it ignores the responsibility of occupation

experienced by women and the rest of society.

Conclusion

This article sought to shed light on various works that deal with the issue of

Femicide in Palestinian society. The works reflect the language of society, which

reduces the killing of women to a practice of men and their masculinity, and to

women and their inferiority. Each work possesses a power and a distinctive

argument. “If I Could Go Back in Time” demonstrates the patriarchy of the

mother; the “Insomnia” project proves the linkage between all forms of violence

and killing, including women’s killings; in Raya Manna’s film we see the

articulation of a woman’s anger and her rejection of the kinship that is imposed

on her; and in “A Scream on Pain” we see the expression of the responsibility of

the society, of all of its strata, toward women’s killings. Common to all these

works is their sidestepping of the role of the political context in encouraging and

strengthening practices of killing in general and Femicide in particular. Ben-

Gurion is the liberator-killer in three of the works.

*Dr. Suhad Daher-Nashif is the coordinator of Gender Studies Program at Mada al-

Carmel, and a researcher and lecturer at al-Qassimi Academic College and Oranim

Academic College for Education.

Creativity in Killing Palestinian Women

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