Doubly oppressed - by the state and by their men

On Monday it was a quiet Christmas morning in Nazareth. The streets were deserted, and stores locked. A parking place in the narrow streets was hard to find with residents at home for the holiday. But the office of Arab Women Against Violence (WAV) was open. Three women appeared for work on the second floor of a colorless residential building.

"We aren't celebrating," explains Aida Touma-Suliman, WAV's director general, for the umpteenth time on her cellular phone. Every worker takes off for her own religious and ethnic holidays. Touma-Suliman takes no religious holidays at all. As a sworn communist, she does not "buy" the concept, not even as an excuse for a day off.

"My daughter actually asked me if I am going to work. I told her that I was, like every year," she says.

She is not fazed by media exposure. She prefers to attend meetings and engage in social action. "Why do you have to write about me? Because Jews find a socio-politically active Arab woman exotic? That's how the Jewish public looks at us. The Arab minority knows the Jews, but the opposite doesn't happen. The Jews don't know the Arabs. The connection creates cultural richness, but only for us," she preaches.

Pregnancy as a tool of war

Touma-Suliman is now the most senior woman in local Arab parties. There is an Arab woman MK, Nadia Hilou (Labor), but predominantly Arab parties did not give female candidates realistic slots on their party lists. Touma-Suliman recently joined the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee as a representative of Hadash, the predominantly Arab-Israeli Communist Party, after party secretary Iman Ouda dramatically relinquished his seat.

With that, Hadash became the first mainly Arab party represented by a woman in the Higher Monitoring Committee. (Hadash's two Arab MKs, Mohammed Barakeh and Hana Sawid, also sit on the panel.) Touma-Suliman is not officially the only woman on the committee, because MK Hilou can also participate in deliberations. But MKs from Zionist parties rarely attend its meetings. Off the record, they dismiss the committee's claim that it represents the entire Arab public.

Touma-Suliman gets angry when asked why women's participation in the Higher Monitoring Committee is important, or how it will change decision-making. "What do you mean, why? First of all, it's our right, as women, to be represented. Why should there be no representatives of half the population? Second, when people ask why it's important and what decisions we will make, the usual aim is to negate the legitimacy of female representatives on the committee. We are not better than men, but we bring different discourse. Decisions will change, as well," she says, with gleaming eyes.

She recalls MK Abbas Zakour's recent call to Muslim women to become pregnant to win the demographic war against the Jews, in response to an extension of the Citizenship Law, which prevents Arab-Israelis married to Palestinians from living with their spouses in Israel. "Perhaps, if there were more women, the Monitoring Committee would have responded to this call. It is unacceptable to make such comments at women's expense," she says.

According to her, Arab women in Israel are the most downtrodden people in the nation, "We are doubly oppressed: Once, by the state because we are Arabs and, again, by Arab men. But I am optimistic. It is unrelenting optimism. We must not examine things under a microscope. We must take a step back and look at the progress."

Touma-Suliman, 42, was born in Nazareth. She lives with her spouse, Jaris Suliman, a self-employed engineer, and her 16- and 18-year old daughters, in Acre. She has a B.A. in psychology and Arab literature from the University of Haifa. She has not taken the time to pursue an advanced degree. "Many people call me doctor, and I correct them. One can express oneself without a Ph.D.," she says, in a somewhat apologetic tone. "I am a graduate of the university of life."

Touma-Suliman says that while she was in high school, an Arabic teacher noticed her socialist tendencies and, perhaps, her political potential. After reading an essay she wrote, he commented, "My daughter, you are unconsciously aware of class issues." She became familiar with Communism, passionately embraced its ideology and still adheres to it. "Communism is more relevant than ever, in this period of crushing globalism," she says.

The list of political activities in which she takes part is very long: director general of WAV; a member of the International Women's Commission for a Just and Sustainable Israeli-Palestinian Peace; a member of the board of Sikkuy, the Association for Advancement of Equal Opportunity; a member of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) Central Committee; a member of the Hadash secretariat; one of the authors of "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel"; and a member of the International Committee of the Mediterranean Social Forum. "I may have forgotten something. I have to check my daily planner," she admits with a smile.

In recent Hadash primaries, Touma-Suliman ran for the second slot on the Knesset list. She backed out, at the last minute, to avoid upsetting the battle between CPI Secretary General and former-MK Issam Makhoul and MK Hana Sawid, who entered the Knesset for the first time. She also contended for the same position in the preceding Hadash primaries, but lost to Makhoul. She does not reject the possibility that she will run again.

Without gloves

According to a survey of Arab-Israelis by the Ibn Khaldun Institute on behalf of WAV, 78 percent of the Arab-Israeli population supports women's involvement in politics, and 86 percent believe women's involvement in politics will contribute to social progress. Based on those findings, a coalition of Arab women's organizations launched a campaign to promote women going for decision-making positions. Touma-Suliman says this is neither a minor nor a simple shift. An Arab citizen must alter his voting patterns, she says, to vote for a woman: "We must fight traditional voting patterns. A woman was never the candidate who represented a clan. In that context, a man will always be elected. Thus, for women to fill decision-making positions, it will only be on the basis of different voting patterns."

Touma-Suliman promises to promote changed voting within the Higher Monitoring Committee. "Look," she says, "voting for a clan is foreign to me. I was educated at home not to look at that. I received an internationalist education from my father. He taught me to look at a man as a man. That is what I do in every forum in which I am a member."

But the Higher Monitoring Committee is in trouble. For many years, major Arab parties have attempted to agree upon its reorganization. The Balad northern Islamic party strives to hold direct elections for committee seats, while Hadash is opposed. And the committee's chairman, Shawki Khatib, threatened to resign if parties fail to commit to upholding committee stands. The parties then promised cooperation and approved an internal steering committee comprised only of party representatives who are not MKs.

Last week, Touma-Suliman attended a steering committee meeting that focused on national service for Arab citizens, and the panel unanimously voted to oppose anything offered to Arab youth.

Touma-Suliman rejects any conditions tying rights to obligations, and is unwilling to accept exclusion of Arab citizens from key positions because they are members of a minority. "The state came to us. We were born here," she says. "It is inconceivable that an American Jew has more rights in this nation than we do. Let them tell us clearly we are subjects rather than citizens - I'd like to see that."

Touma-Suliman directs theWAV offices with a powerful hand, combining a sense of humor and a rolling laugh with the obstinacy of an experienced manager. She seeks social transformation in a society in which women are murdered for "family honor." WAV reports eight such murders this year.

The organization's new campaign focuses on the marriage of minors. "The Islamic Movement supports the content of this campaign, but rejects efforts of women's coalitions, based on the claim that we promote values that our foreign to our society. Is preventing the marriage of young girls a promotion of values foreign to our society? They are damaging society, themselves," she charges, in a moment of anger.

She objects to any expression of violence. When a photographer recently asked her to be photographed with boxing gloves at her side, like the other hundreds of women on TheMarker's list of strong, Israeli women, she absolutely refused.

"So what if they all agreed? He can say that all of them, except one, agreed," she says.

Touma-Suliman insists that all WAV staff meetings be conducted in Arabic, and that staff know the Arabic for professional terms. In her personal life, she is also careful to separate languages. She speaks flowing, excellent Hebrew, and has palpable knowledge of Israeli culture, but on the radio or delivering a lecture, she speaks superb, literary Arabic.

In 1993, Touma-Suliman delivered a speech in Arabic at a women's conference in Jordan. "Women approached me to say they thought that we Israeli-Arabs had lost our Arabic and become 'Israelized.' I proved that was not true."