Media professionals and specialists recommend adopting a media vision to advocate Palestinian women's causes

The Palestinian Center - Gaza
Palestinian journalists recommended the need for the media to adopt a clear media vision in order to convey the cause of Palestinian women to the international and also the Arab community, and to reveal the suffering they have endured and still endure as a result of the last Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which continued for 22 days and whose victims were around 1,350 martyrs and more than 5,000 wounded, half of them women.
The journalists called on the organisations concerned with women to begin urgent programmes that help in alleviating the pressure and psychological tension the woman lives in, which in turn is reflected on the members of the family, stressing that the violence to which Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip are subjected, whether from the occupation or from the local community, has come to constitute a phenomenon, which is reflected negatively on their lives.
The participants also called on the international community to form committees to defend the rights of Palestinian women that have been violated by the Israeli occupation army, and to try the leaders of the occupation as war criminals, stressing that if the reality of women continues in this image and they continue to be treated as a legend of steadfastness without taking into account the violations of their rights, the stripping away of their will and the practice of violence against them, that would increase the criminality committed against them.
They called on the women's organisations and the official and civil organisations connected with women's issues to unify their efforts and to diversify the programmes offered to women, and for these programmes to spring in the first place from the needs of Palestinian women.
This came during a meeting organised today, Sunday, by the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution at the Centre's premises in Gaza, entitled "A crushed reality... and a false media", attended by a group of journalists and specialists and the members of the media group for combating violence against women affiliated to the Centre.
The Centre presented a paper that dealt in detail with the reality of Palestinian women since the Nakba of 1948 until today, demonstrating with official figures the seriousness and gravity of the reality they live in.
Abdel Moneim Al-Tahrawi, projects director at the Centre, said: "Palestinian women have paid a great price from their lives in order to wrest even a small part of their rights, which everyone sings the praises of, from the officials and the civil and government organisations."
A subject of research and interest
He explained that the issue of women and the media is one of the issues that has been and still is a subject of research and interest, and disputes have often occurred and accusations have been exchanged about responsibility for this clear stereotyping of the woman, her image, her life, her interests and her message.
Al-Tahrawi added: "The media did not succeed in conveying the image of the Palestinian woman as it should after the last Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that began on 27/12, since it focused on the image of the steadfast, strong woman defying her reality, by addressing the image of the iron woman, until it has come to constitute a danger to the reality of women, and the media has become a sword held over the reality of the Gazan woman."
He noted that the media was looking only for the first shot, forgetting that its role must also come after that shot, given that research and studies confirm a noticeable increase in the state of psychological tension and in the psychological illnesses many members of society suffer from, particularly women and children in the first place.
He said: "Palestinian women today suffer deteriorating political, economic, social and psychological conditions and a crushed, worn-out reality. Despite this, the media adds to their worries further worries, singing the praises of a reality that bears no relation to them, for the woman suffers a bitter reality as a result of the continuous violations of her rights, whether from the Israeli occupation or from the social customs and traditions that have stood and still stand in the way of women's progress, a reality in which the woman's pains accelerate, particularly after the Israeli war."

The figures speak
He noted that women bear these pressures without many resources or much support being available, and a rise is observed in the rate of occurrence of psychological disorders among Palestinian women and their children. A survey carried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicated that more than half of the women surveyed reported being subject to fits of weeping and that a third of them stated that they think "more than they should" about death, while 46% pointed to feelings of despair and frustration and 29% to a sense of anger and suffering a nervous breakdown
Al-Tahrawi concluded his remarks saying: "The figures are the best proof of the worn-out reality Palestinian women live in. Everyone diagnoses and everyone stays away from the solutions that would alleviate that reality, particularly as 9.1% of Palestinian women aged 15 and over are illiterate, their participation in the labour force is low and does not exceed 15.2%, and as for unemployment, it reached 23.8% during the year 2008. 61.2% of households headed by females are poor, 330 women martyrs over the past eight years, and 60 women prisoners at the end of 2008