أبحاث باللغة الانجليزيةفي الواجهةمقالات قانونية

Problematic solutions : The impact of the quota system on restricting the female representation in Palestine – Mohammad Abualrob

الحلول الإشكالية: تأثير نظام الكوتا على تقييد تمثيل المرأة في فلسطين

منذ أسبوعين

Problematic solutions : The impact of the quota system on restricting the female representation in Palestine

الحلول الإشكالية: تأثير نظام الكوتا على تقييد تمثيل المرأة في فلسطين

Mohammad Abualrob

Lusail University

هذا البحث منشور في مجلة القانون والأعمال الدولية الإصدار رقم 60 الخاص بشهر أكتوبر/ نونبر 2025
رابط تسجيل الاصدار في DOI


https://doi.org/10.63585/EJTM3163

للنشر و الاستعلام
mforki22@gmail.com
الواتساب 00212687407665

Problematic solutions : The impact of the quota system on restricting the female representation in Palestine

الحلول الإشكالية: تأثير نظام الكوتا على تقييد تمثيل المرأة في فلسطين

Mohammad Abualrob

Lusail University

Abstract:

Women in Palestine have been struggling on the national front against the occupation to obtain equal representation since the 1960s. They had not been given enough attention, because the Palestinian political elites had given priority to the struggle against Israeli occupation and diverted attention from the democratic perceptions, particularly the elections, which left women with minor representation and a limited role in the policy and decision-making institutions. However, after signing the Oslo Accords, the state building was commenced, but the women were still underrepresented, and the political elites sought to represent women to conform with the international norms for democracy. Hence, they adopted a feminist candidacy quota, which restricted the feminist representations rather than terminating their marginalization. For fair representation, women ought to demand a quota equal to their societal presence.

Keywords: elections – feminist representation – legal quota – women participation.

الملخص:

تكافح النساء في فلسطين على الجبهة الوطنية ضد الأحتلال، ومن أجل الحصول على تمثيل متساو منذ ستينات القرن الماضي. وحتى اللحظة، لم يحصلن على الاهتمام الكافي، لأن النخبة السياسية في فلسطين أعطت الأولوية للنضال ضد الاحتلال الإسرائيلي، وصرفت الإنتباه عن التطورات الديمقراطية، وخاصة الانتخابات، التي تركت المرأة الفلسطينية بتمثيل ضئيل ودور محدود في المؤسسات السياسية ودوائر صنع القرار. ومع ذلك، بعد توقيع اتفاقيات أوسلو، بدأت عملية بناء الدولة، ولكن النساء ما زلن ممثلات تمثيلا ناقصاً. لقد سعت النخبة السياسية الى تمثيل النساء لتلبية المعايير الدولية للديمقراطية، لذلك تبنوا نظام ترشيح حصة نسوية، ولكن هذا النظام قيد التمثيل النسوي بدلاً من إنهاء تهميش النساء. ومن أجل تحقيق التمثيل العادل، يتعين على النساء المطالبة بحصة مساوية لنسبة وجودهن في المجتمع، أو مشاركتهن في الانتخابات.

الكلمات المفتاحية: الانتخابات. التمثيل النسوي. الحصة القانونية. المشاركة النسوية.

Introduction

The political activism of the Palestinian women has historically been analysed in the light of the development of the Palestinian cause, which implies that the women’s struggle for their own rights including political representation has not been sufficiently examined. Arguably, the focus on the struggle against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land surpassed many other issues. In fact, the political elites gave priority to resist the occupation, which came on the account of breaking from the restrictions of the traditionalism, and enabling the women from asserting themselves in political context in a steady and stable way.[1]

Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the Palestinian Nakba, the Palestinian women –as the majority of the Palestinian people– had been fragmented into several groups that forcefully expelled from their homeland.[2] They had been divided into three major segments; the first remained in their homes in what later became Israel in post-1948-war; the second segment fled from the horrors of war to different parts of the World, and the last group of women stayed in the remaining parts of Palestine, namely the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In fact, the latter group had been divided into two fractions; the first one lived in Gaza Strip under the Egyptian governance, while the second one lived in the West Bank under Jordanian monarchy. Besides the geographic and political division, the Palestinian women had been divided between the different religious and rightist movements,[3] which had perhaps distracted the women’s attention from their representation in the Palestinian policy and decision-making institutions that enjoy wide international recognition, particularly the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).[4] This paper seeks to explore the actual level of representation of the Palestinian women in the Palestinian political representative bodies, and explore whether it reflects the real proportion of women in the Palestinian society of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Firstly: The women in the PLO

In mid 1960s, the Arab states,[5] especially Egypt’s president Gamal Abdunnasir sought to establish a Palestinian representative institution to affirm the Palestinian aspiration for an independent state.[6] Since its establishment, the PLO has become the general framework and worldwide representative institution for the Palestinian people.[7] Furthermore, the Arab state granted the PLO a full recognition as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in Rabat Summit of 1974.[8] As such, the PLO tends to be seminal child of the Arab regimes, and its policies conform with theirs, although their policies are women inhospitable labelled ones.

The Egyptian initiative represented the final episode in the series of the Palestinian activism in Egypt since early 1960s,[9] which paved the way for holding a congress for various Palestinian figures and trade unions in Jerusalem in May 1964, to establish the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).[10] Among the most prominent trade unions was the League of the Palestinian Women, which become later the General Union of the Palestinian Women (GUPW).[11] It was not a surprise that the GUPW was a co-founder of the PLO, as the women started their campaign for feminist rights in the early 1930s.[12] Some scholars argue that the GUPW was formed in a non-democratic method, which materialized by gathering 139 envoys from different Palestinian communities around the world, and forming the GUPW.[13] This approach had been inconsistent with some democratic aspects that other PLO co-founders adopted, such as the elections, which the General Union of the Palestinian Students (GUPS) held at its inauguration.[14] Arguably, the ignorance of democratic principles has contributed to the marginalisation of women rights, as those who do not possess a thing cannot give it.

Since the inauguration, the PLO had been built around the notion of armed struggle, as the only means to liberate Palestine,[15] which came perhaps on the account of democratic representation. In fact, the representatives of the different Palestinian factions and groups including the feminist groups had not been selected by elections, rather they were selected according to the so-called “quota system”.[16] It had enabled the elites of each party of the PLO’s alliance, to hand-pick its representatives, without being obliged to carry out any form of election, and without clear selection criteria. Seemingly, the GUPW consented to this selection mechanism, because it had simply mimicked the GUPW’s establishment manner. This claim is demonstrated in the low number of women in the higher political echelons and in policy and decision-making bodies.[17]

Apart from the absence of the selection method, the PLO’s composition and membership are regulated by its “Fundamental Law” which also sets up the PLO’s policy and decision-making bodies. They consist of three hierarchical bodies from top to bottom: the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the Palestinian Central Council (PCC), and the Executive Committee (EX).[18] It is unclear how properly the women are represented in these institutions, and the impact of the selection method on the representation level of the women. Therefore, this research paper deals in the following sections with these institutions, and sheds light of the women’s representation in each of them.

  1. Women Representation in the Palestinian National Council

The PNC represents the supreme legislative authority of the Palestinian people around the World, as it sets the PLO’s policies and plans,[19] to achieve the Palestinian rights including the self-determination right, and construct potentially an independent state.[20] Although the PLO’s Charter stipulated in article (5) that the representatives in the PNC should be democratically elected,[21] without providing for certain quota either for women, or any other group, this provision had never been enforced.[22] In fact, the PLO’s Arab founders had hand-picked the PNC’s chairman,[23] who had in his turn hand-picked the PNC’s members according to geographic representation irrespective of gender representation,[24] or any other consideration. Therefore, this selection method bestowed the women less than 30 members in the PNC at the its inauguration out of more than 420.[25] Many scholars questioned the assumption that geography would contribute to equal representation on a gender basis.

Despite their engagement in the national movement on the basis of armed struggle,[26] and affiliation to political factions that share power on the quota system, gender equality had not been enforced in the PNC.[27] The equality was enforced only in the mandatory military training,[28] and perhaps scarifying their lives. Indeed, the representation in the PNC was caught by several social and cultural factors including the utilisation of the scions of elite tribes and clans.[29] Regrettably, the women’s representatives were selected according to these norms, and they were not genuine representatives of the feminist groups.[30] Furthermore, the PLO’s Charter did not stipulate for women’s class quota, or cultural and professional feminist diversity.

In addition, the women’s representation in the PNC had been caught by the geographic representation system,[31] which made their representation level much below their expectations.[32] This system means that every country obtains certain number of seats in the PNC equivalent to the size of its Palestinian population, in relation to the entire Palestinian population worldwide. This implies that the geographic distribution of the representative is based upon a quota system in its core.[33] However, this kind of quota does not observe gender discrimination, which ought to be employed in favour of women. Remarkably, among the 422 representatives of the PNC at the inauguration session,[34] there were only 6.3% of the members. Sadly, the portion of feminine members in the PNC did not reflect the real percentage of women in the entire Palestinian population worldwide.

As mentioned above, the Palestinian women were part of the armed struggle, and some of them were full time commanders in the military ranks,[35] but they were settled to their “natural” role in providing their male-counterparts by logistic needs, such as food and uniforms.[36] Hence, the quota system which is based on the armed struggle, tends to be far from just and fair, as the women paid the price for the struggle against the colonisation of Palestine, but they did not get the prize in return.

In conformity with the so-called women’s natural role, the Palestinian women established a set of charitable institutions in several Palestinian cities and refugee camps.[37] These charities included literacy, sewing and tailoring, first aid, nursing courses and they set up orphanages’ hospitals and schools. Despite this widespread presence in the civil society organisations,[38] and inter-class divisions, the Palestinian women did not get equal or convergent representation to men in the PNC. This trauma made them chant: “We will not be another Algeria” in reference to their refusal to allow undermining their interests, like the Algerian women after the independence.[39]

In fact, the quota system, among other things had made the women’s representation lagging far behind their share in the society. Seemingly, this explains the fact that the women’s presence in the 1996-PNC session did not exceed 8% out of 744 PNC members,[40] and almost 10% of the PNC’s members of 2017 congress,[41] which had been held in Ramallah. This implies that either in exodus, or in national soil, the women representation in Palestine is not taken into consideration as a national priority for inclusive society. (See table 1, page 24).

In its 13th session in 1973, the PNC sat up the Central Council as an intermediary body between the PNC and the Executive Committee,[42] and authorised it with many PNC’s competences, to regulate the meetings and shorten the time intervals. Though, the Palestinian Central Council would be examined in the next section.

  1. The Palestinian Central Council

The Palestinian Central Council (PCC) is the second significant decision making body of the PLO. It is composed of 124 members including only three women.[43] Those deputies represent the mass organisations, political factions, trade unions.[44] The PCC has been established by the PNC in its January 1973-session from its own members, to pursue and actualise its goals, and is headed by the chairman if the PNC,[45] which implies that the PCC is a branch body of the PNC, and its decisions and policies would barely trespass the PNC’s preferences. It is worth mentioning that the PCC is not subject to any specific election mechanism, and it is not evident on what basis do the PCC’s members set in office.

Noticeably, the PCC adopted several significant documents for the women rights, such as the Declaration of Independence of Nov. 1988, which provided for equal representation for women.[46] Furthermore, the Declaration constituted the basis for establishing the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), which adopted a “common charter” to realize the women rights, including not restricted to the political rights,[47] such as equal representation in the policy and decision making institutions. However, this declaration did not take the feminist representation any further, neither in social nor in political spheres, and the women remained underrepresented.[48] This implies that the PCC’s declaration and the charter issued thereby had perhaps been confined the political will of the PNC’s political elites.

On the other hand, the PCC had established the Palestinian Authority in 1993,[49] and were authorised by the PNC to draft its constitutional document known as the “Basic Law”.[50] Surprisingly, the draft Basic Law did not stipulate for gender equality in general, nor for equal political representation in particular. Seemingly, the PCC maintained the prevailing status quo in the PLO, namely the quota system, as the PCC is authorised to elect the Executive Committee, which is the highest government-like organ of the PLO. The thriving point with the selection of the Executive Committee of the PLO is that its membership is divided according to an unequal quota system, without elections.[51] Hence, the lack of a real democratic representation system in the PCC had perhaps materialized in poor representation of women in the PCC. From another angle, the women’s representation might bedevil the power balance among the PLO’s factions, as these factions agreed on a certain quota in electing the Executive Committee regardless of gender representation, which they aver its impacts on the decision-making mechanism in the Executive Committee.

Notwithstanding the central role of the PCC in the policy and decision making, and even though the Palestinian women played important roles in the Oslo negotiations, in addition to their role in the armed struggle, they were excluded from the signing ceremony of Oslo Accord, Cairo and Wye River agreements, which were designed and signed by men.[52] In other words, despite that the women were a central element of the political activism, they were not influential actor in the ultimate decision making.[53] Thus, many political decisions have been taken behind the back of the Palestinian women.

However, 2015 encountered a turning point in the stance of the PCC. It had asserted the necessity to achieve full equality for women, and reinforcing their participation in all PLO organs, and the State of Palestine institutions. the PCC committed itself to no less than 30% women’s representation.[54] Nevertheless, the women’s representation in the PCC has still been very shallow for the same reasons that restricted the women’s political participation.[55] They hold 10 seats out of the 124 membership,[56] which represents 8% of the members, while 92% are men. Surprisingly, some women groups including the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) preferred to challenge the women’s underrepresentation quietly, without confronting the dominant political elites.[57] Therefore, one can argue that the PCC’s elites in particular and the PLO’s in general succeeded to contain several feminist groups from GUPW to WATC.

Remarkably, the women’s representation in the Islamic groups is progressing in the upper ranks,[58] but there is no clear indication of authentic progress for the women’s representation in the PCC – a liberal organisation – which strives to realize liberal democratic Palestine.[59] This gives the impression that the women in the PCC are unlikely to be represented either on a liberal democratic basis, nor on conservative Islamic doctrine. (See table 2, page 24).

Since the PCC is an intermediary institution that replaces the PNC, when the latter is not in session, this paper will go a step up, and analyse the women representation in the upper policy and decision making of the PLO, namely the Executive Committee.

  1. Women in the Executive Committee

Though, The Executive Committee is set up through elections by the members of the PNC,[60] and acts like a government-in-exile for the Palestinian people. Its members are afforded a portfolio-like mission according to a quota system.[61] Indeed, the Executive Committee (EC) is vested with implementing the policies, plans and political agendas that are drawn by the PNC.[62] It is consisted of eighteen members, whom are drawn from the PNC membership. Unsurprisingly in the male dominated PNC, which is selected according to geographic distribution, the women were hardly represented in the EC. However, in August 2009, the PNC had voted for the first time in its history, for the first female EC member,[63] namely Ms. Hanan Ashrawi, who is the first and sole woman to hold membership in the EC.[64]

Ms. Ashrawi stated after her election that “the era of done deals that exclude women is over”[65] in reference to the fixed quota system that dominated the PLO institutions. Furthermore, Ashrawi reasserted the role of women in the national struggle for self-determination, and an authentic partner in safeguarding pluralism, democracy, social justice, and equality in compliance with the Palestinian Declaration of Independence that calls for “equal rights, free from sexual discrimination”.[66] Arguably, these values are the focal principles that govern the struggle of women for their own rights within Palestinian society and beyond in many third world countries.

It is suggested that the lack of authentic feminist representation in the PLO’s Executive Committee is an output of the patriarchal attribute of the Palestinian people.[67] Furthermore, the patriarchy had caused ignorance and de-prioritization of the women’s rights and interests, marginalized and de-capacitated the women from elections to chair the EC. Therefore, it is no surprise that all the heads of the EC have always been men since the establishment of the PLO in 1964 to date.

Furthermore, the underrepresentation of women in the EC had significant impact on the women’s occupation of the elite PLO positions, including but not restricted to the diplomatic positions. For instance, the proportion of female Palestinian ambassadors has remained as low as 5.8% of women in 2016, compared to 94.2% of men.[68] Noticeably, the presence of women in the Palestinian diplomacy started as late as 25 years after the PLO’s establishment, when Mrs. Leila Shaheed was the first Palestinian woman appointed as Ambassador to Ireland in 1989.[69] At the present, only nine Palestinian women are serving as ambassadors,[70] among dozens of Palestinian male ambassadors and diplomats.

Admittedly, the PLO had never carried out any elections for its representative bodies, which perhaps explains the nominal representation of women in the Palestinian policy and diplomacy. To handle the past mistakes, and put Palestine in the top list of countries that provide women with equal rights and freedoms, the Palestinian elites should carry out free elections for all Palestinian that breaks from the quota system, to empower the women to run freely for elections. (See table 3, page 24).

The presence of the EC in the political arena, makes it possible to describe the Palestinian political system as dual-institutional regime that is divided between PLO, and the Palestinian Authority, which is established pursuant to signing the Declaration of Principles (Oslo Accords), the PLO vested the Palestinian Authority (PA) by a mandate to implement the Accords,[71] in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Therefore, this paper will study the PA’s political institutions, to highlight the women’s representation in these institutions.

Secondly: Women in the Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority had been established in accordance with Oslo Accords, which had been signed between the PLO and Israel. Pursuant to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the military and political elites of the PLO constituted the nucleus of the PA’s leadership.[72] This implied among other things that the policies of the old regime would reinstate itself in the new established-PA, and would reproduce the quota system and the same leadership, although in a different form.[73] Remarkably, the women did not intuit the significance of this transformation to transform their representation from a minority, to either equal representation with men, or to a minimum quota depending on their proportion in the society.

In fact, the women’s agenda and representation were pushed aside by the PLO’s elites, who structured the PA.[74] The power struggle and the unstable relations between the PA’s elites and the opponent Islamic parties hardened the mission of the feminist groups. The Islamic opposition nominated themselves “defenders of Islam” which enhanced the subversion of the women’s agenda by accusing their feminist agenda as being “conspiracy” against Islam.[75] However, despite the PA is not an Islamist entity, it had almost sided the Islamists in their position behind the closed doors, and gave hollow words to the women movement.[76] The hidden alliance between the two parties resulted in maintaining the status quo of women, and the demands lingered in place. (See table 6, page 25).

In 1996, the first free elections in post-Cold War era for the Palestinian people had been carried out, and the women obtained a limited representation. To clear the fog about the women’s presence in the PA’s political and decision making institutions, the following sections will scrutinize their status in the Palestinian Legislative Council and the cabinet.

  1. Women in the Palestinian Legislative Council

Despite the fact that all the previous Palestinian representative institutions adopted a quota system, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) was the first institution that breaks this approach. Upon its election in 1996, the legislature has commenced a massive legal reform, which brought about a variety of legislation including, but not restricted to the Elections Law No. (13) of 1995.[77] The latter provided for “general, free and direct elections” of the of the legislative and executive branches.[78] Arguably, it was the first attempt to break from the past feminist unrepresentative PLO’s policy and decision making organs.

In fact, the Elections Law was a fruit of long women struggle and lobbying against men-centred legislation,[79] which induced the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to endorse the Basic Law with article (9) that states “the Palestinians are equal before the law… without discrimination based on any norm such as sex”.[80] Basically, this provision put a barrier against maintaining the quota system, and enabled the women to run freely for elections.

However, the women’s participation was restricted by other obstacles, including but not restricted to the financial limitations, as the women are dependent mothers, and they hardly own financial resources, or get monetary help for the feminist organisations to disburse for their electoral campaigns.[81] Therefore, only 25 women out of 672 candidates,[82] which represented 3.7% of the total candidates. The election result was no less frustrating for many women, and squandered their hope for equal representation, as they obtained only 5 seats out of 88 membership, which means that the first PLC included only 5.7% female representatives among its members.[83]

Pursuant to this relapse, the PA’s elites had been criticised, as the women representation had been well below their size in the society, since the official statistics suggest that women constitute 49% of the Palestinian society,[84] and 47.5% of the voters according to the Central Elections Commission (CEC).[85] Therefore, the PA’s elites reproduced the quota system, and adopted the so-called legal quota, or candidacy quota, which implies allocating women certain percentage of seats by law in the PLC,[86] without guaranteeing any minimum representation for women in the legislature.

In 2005, the legislative majority issued the Elections Law No (9) of 2005, which embodied the above-mentioned candidacy quota of “no less than a woman in: a) the first three names in the list, b) the next four names that follow, c) the five names that follow to the end of the list.[87] In fact, this system guarantees the women minimum percentage of candidacy, which is 20% of the candidacy list, and there is no clear commitment to list the women in the top positions in the previous groupings, to enhance their chances of winning sufficient positions.[88] As such, the women are guaranteed candidacy, but not representation.

Furthermore, providing for one woman in every name-group means that the feminist representation is restricted to one in each candidate group, whereas the men’ representation escalates with the progress of candidacy group from two in the first group, to three in the second group, and four men in the third group, and so on to the end of the list. Moreover, the 20% representation limit that is granted for women does reflect their actual portion in the society, which is 49% of the Palestinian people according to the Central Statistics Bureau.

The candidacy quota trick was reviled in 2006-elections, when the women obtained 11.2% of the parliamentary seats, despite the fact that their voting percentage has been 46% of the constituency.[89] Obviously, the quota system and the aspiration to a democratic Palestinian state did not hold together in relation to the women representation under the PLO’s political regime. Regrettably, the achieved women representation did not match the minimum ground that the elections law granted for women, not did match the feminist portion in the society. Nevertheless, the women did not challenge the elections results in the courts to enforce either percent.

It is worth mentioning that the PNC had decided in its twenty-first session, in Gaza in April 1996, to grant full membership to the PLC-members in the PNC.[90] This implied adding 83 men out of 88-PLC members in 1996, and 115 men in 2006, which had increased the originally imbalanced representation of women in the PNC in favour of men. (See table 5, page 25).

Nevertheless, the women took every possible opportunity to advance their concerns and demands to PA’s political elites, this paper will scrutinise the women’s representation in the executive authority of the PA, namely the government.

  1. Women in the executive

The PA has a dual headed executive branch; the president and the prime minister. In fact, the appointments to the major political and decision making posts occur by a presidential decree, upon a recommendation from the government, which in practice, is an appointment by men dominated government, in favour of other men.[91] One of the major posts that used to be filled in cooperation between the president and the cabinet is the governor. In fact, since 2010, there is only one female governor among 16 male governors in the PA,[92] which perhaps alarms the women’s advocates about the level of feminist representation that the executive seeks.

In general, the women still represent %11.3 of the total employees of the middle and higher governmental positions,[93] in the executive branch. Therefore, the PA had potentially resorted to cosmetic the feminist representation to confront its international sponsors. In fact, since the beginning of 2000s, many donor states have made their funds to the PA conditioned to certain reform agendas, including the institutional and political realms. The donors focused specifically on the democratic representative institutions,[94] perhaps including the PLC and the government. Thus, the PA decided in May 2014 to accede to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is the most famous women human rights treaty on the international level.[95] It provides women equality with in various aspects of life, including but not restricted to the political representation and decision making.[96]

Remarkably, the PA had not put serious efforts to enforce CEDAW. This seems to be clear in the statement of Chief Sharia’s Justice/the president’s adviser in the religious affairs Mahmoud Alhabash, who has stated that “Even if Palestine signed the CEDAW… we will not touch any act that touches our principles or our values.”[97] At the beginning of 2021, the PA’s executive branch issued several laws by decree that seem to be compatible with CEDAW’s framework. For instance, the president of the PA issued Law by Decree No (1) of 2021 to amend Law No (1) of 2007 regarding the elections,[98] which is expected to comply with CEDAW’s equality provisions, in the representative and decision making institutions.

However, the Law by Decree No (1) of 2021 did not fully fulfill this obligation, rather, it raised the feminist quota from 20% in Law No (1) of 2007 in the candidacy list, to 25% in the law by decree No (1) of 2021.[99] This level of representation does not conform to the minimum feminist representation that had been demanded by the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee,[100] or to the decision the Central Council to make the women’s representation no less than 30% of the political and representative institutions.[101]

In fact, the new legislation represented a continuation to the pre-CEDAW era, when the candidacy quota represented a restriction for equal representation between men and women. Seemingly, this policy has pushed the former sole and only feminist member in the PLO’s executive committee to announce her intention to abstain from running for elections in 2021.[102] If Ashrawi’s stance would make any indication, it would probably suggest that the feminist representation in Palestine is encountering a retreat, even after the PA’s elites acceded to CEDAW.

Remarkably, since 2006 to date, the feminist representation in the government is ranging between 12.5-22.7% of the total portfolios.[103] It is very close in numbers to the threshold that the PLC granted for women according to the Elections Law of 2005, which is 20%, and the percentage they obtained in practice, which is 11.2% of the representatives. This implies the fact that the government complies to a certain extent to the boundaries that the legislature set for the government in practice, not in text.

As for the ministerial posts, the feminist representation in the Council of Ministers is still primary. In 2020, women held only 14% of the ministerial portfolios,[104] and the men held the remaining 86%. They are assigned to the Ministry of Women Affairs, The Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Health.[105] It is noticeable that none of the previous portfolios belong to the Sovereign ministries, which implies that even when the women are represented in a certain PA’s institution, they are assigned to the service posts, not the policy and decision making ones.

Conclusion

The contemporary Palestinian political system had been built in early 1960s, and the establishment process had been influenced by policies of the Arab regimes that were incompatible to the democratic norms and principles. In addition, the concept of the armed struggle had dominated the political view, and dissipated the women’s chances of being equally represented like men. Presumably, holding arms had been linked to the men at the time of establishing the PLO. At this phase, women were assigned other roles in the Palestinian life, which conform to the cultural heritage and traditions.

Nevertheless, at present, the Palestinian political elites tend to be unpassionate about the equal feminist representation, because the marginalization of women has become a frequent practice in the Palestinian political institutions since the outset of the representative institutions of the Palestinian people till now. Seemingly, making a turning point in the representation of women doesn’t seem to be an easy mission under the governance of the ongoing political elites, because the majority of them are the same elites, who dominated the policy and decision making since the past century. Presumably, the change the policy and decision making entails change for the policy and decision makers in order to fulfil equal representation for women.

Notwithstanding the previous crucial reasons, the women organizations hold some segment of the responsibility about the low representation. First of all, their outset had emerged on non-democratic manner. Their representatives were selected on geographic basis, and from the noble and wealthy families, which overlooked the other classes in the Palestinian society. Potentially, these classes did not put a lot of efforts to expand the representation to include all other classes, rather they were satisfied with representing themselves, and their clans.

Furthermore, the women representative organizations had been very tolerant and passionate with the political elites, and enabled these elites to blackmail these organizations to decorate the undemocratic policies and decision making institutions of Palestine. These organizations were expected to make use of the constitutional moment that occurred after the establishment of the PA, and entrenched their rights, especially the equal political representation in the constitutional provisions of the Basic Law, and in the PA’s enforcement institutions. The inability to do so had resulted in continuous low representation and marginalization of women in the various representative Palestinian institutions.

Recommendations

As the women in Palestine are underrepresented, it goes without saying that the first and foremost recommendation of this paper is to seek a representation system that empowers women, and provide them with equal rights and representation, especially in the political sphere. Notwithstanding this, the paper also recommends the following:

  1. The PLO ought to break from the old undemocratic narrow Arab regimes, and resort to the wider more democratic representative policies that conforms to the international standards.
  2. The political elites in Palestine should seek new modern notions and perceptions for the representative institutions of the Palestinian people. This implies that the notion of armed struggle might have served the Palestinian cause on the political arena, but it is not necessarily a representation mechanism. Furthermore, it does not seem to be fair and just for women to be represented only according to one sole notion.
  3. The geographic distribution does not seem to be ideal model for representation, because it might happen that the representatives in a certain geographic area might be from a certain class, or segment of the society. Therefore, this notion ought to be replaced by fair and free general democratic elections that brings delegates from all classes, trade unions, organizations and necessarily from all genders in the society.
  4. The women organizations had been established on non-electoral regimes, and that weakened their positions, and marginalized their rights on the political agenda. Therefore, they ought to re-establish themselves on democratic basis, and reform their representative mechanisms to be fit for international perception.
  5. Since the women did not make the best use of the constitutional moment, which occurred at the endorsement of the Basic Law, they should consider networking with the international feminist organizations, and introduce their demands and rights through international agenda that the PA struggles to position itself on it.

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Appendixes:

Table 1: Women’s Representation in the Palestinian National Council (PNC)

Number category Number = percentage
1 PNC Members (inauguration Session 1964) 422 = 100%
2 Women members 1964 30 = 6.3%
3 Women in PNC in 1996 Session ~60 of 744 members = 8%
4 Women in PNC in 2017 Session ~80 of 744 members = 10%

Table 2: Women’s Representation in the Palestinian Central Council (PCC)

Number Category Number = Percentage
1 PCC Members 124
2 Women Members (Initial) 3 = (2.4%)
3 Women Members (2015) 10 = (8%)
4 Men Members (2015) 114 = (92%)

Table 3: Women’s Representation in the PLO Executive Committee (EC)

Number Category Number = Percentage
1 EC Members 18
2 Women Members (Pre-2009) 0 = 0%
3 Woman (Post-2009) 1 of 18 = 5.5%
4 Female Ambassadors (2016) ~ 8 of 130 = 5.8%
5 Male Ambassadors (2016) 122 = 94.2%

Table 4: Women’s Representation in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)

Number Category Number = Percentage
1 PLC Seats (1996) 88 = 100%
2 Female Candidates (1996) 25 out of 672 = 3.7%
3 Women Elected (1996) 5 = 5.7%
4 Women’s Share of Population 49%
5 Women Voters (1996) 47.5% of electorate
6 Women Elected (2006) 11.2% of seats
7 Candidacy Quota (2005 Law) 20% of candidate lists
8 Candidacy Quota (2021 Amendment) 25% of candidate lists

Table 5: Women’s Representation in the Executive Branch of the Palestinian Authority (PA)

Number category Number = Percentage
1 Female Governors (2010–Present) 1 out of 16 = 6.25%
2 Women in Middle/High Gov’t Posts 11.3% of employees
3 Women in Cabinet (2006–2021) 12.5–22.7% of portfolios
4 Women Ministers (2020) 14% of ministerial posts

Table 6: Key Legal and Policy Commitments for Women’s Representation

Number category Number = Percentage
1 PCC Declaration (1988) Equal representation = 50/50%
2 Elections Law No. 13 (1995) General elections = 50/50%
3 Elections Law No. 9 (2005) 20% candidacy quota
4 CEDAW Accession (2014) No direct quota enforcement
5 PCC Resolution (2015) 30% target (not enforced)
6 Law by Decree No. 1 (2021) 25% candidacy quota

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  2. – Yoav Peled and Nadim N Rouhana, ‘Transitional justice and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees’ in Israel and the Palestinian refugees (Springer, 2007) 141, p. 326. ↑

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  103. State of Palestine, the Central Statistics Bureau, “Proportion of women in government, management or senior positions in Palestine”, published on: 4/4/2022. Available at: https://cutt.us/I4vyB. Retrieved on: 29/1/2025. ↑

  104. The Palestinian News & Info. Agency (WAFA), “Palestinian women participation in labor force, policy-making very low – Statistics Bureau”, published on: 10th March 2020. Available at: https://cutt.us/WtHSw. Retrieved on: 1/2/2025. ↑

  105. State of Palestine – Council of Ministers, “The Eighteenth Government”. Available at: https://cutt.us/udgHO. Retrieved on: 1/2/2025. ↑

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