The women’s question in Palestine is framed by many contradictory discourses: colonial, national and Islamist. This paper will present the intertwining of these factors in framing the current ‘feminist questions’ in Occupied Palestine. It argues that the processes for ‘peace building’ and the building of a ‘Palestinian State’ in a continued settler colonial context led to the deformation and the apoliticization of the ‘feminist’ question in Occupied Palestine.

• Islah Jad (Hossneya Gad) is an Associate Professor, Jad is a lecturer on gender issues and politics at the Women’s Studies Institute and Cultural Studies Department of Bir Zeit University, where she was its director from 2008-2013. She is a founding member of its women’s studies MA program. She has written books and papers on the role of women in politics, Palestinian women and the relationships among them, Islam, and NGOs. Dr. Jad is also a consultant on gender issues to the United Nations Development Programme and is co-author of the UN’s Arab Development Report on Women’s Empowerment and author of two books.

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