The voice of Nadira Abu-Dabai, a young social worker from Nazareth, will presumably be both solemn and excited as she opens a conference on women's leadership in local government that begins this morning in the western Galilee village of Tamra.
Abu-Dabai runs a program for empowering Arab women in local government that will accompany 50 female candidates through the upcoming local elections and a little beyond. To young women like her, such activity may seem natural. For some of the older participants (most women in the program are aged 25 to 40, only one is 50), this initiative to promote women in political life is exciting, if not downright revolutionary.
In order to understand this revolution and its significance, one must examine it on several levels. The first, the universal one, relates to the place of Arab women in the traditional conservative societies they inhabit. On this level, they differ only in degree from their sisters in Tel Aviv: In entering the political fray, they lack essential resources. Money is the most obvious. Less obvious are the personal abilities that stem from education for assertiveness, bargaining and power struggles.
In recent years, it has become clear that local government is the right springboard for women who want to enter politics, even if their goal is the national stage.
Among other reasons, this is because women - precisely because of their traditional occupations as wives, mothers and active members of the community (which means they have concrete and practical skills) - are considered much better equipped than men to deal with civil affairs.
Even the most militant feminists, who once tried to direct women into male professions because that is how they perceived equality, now recognize the power that derives from directing the feminine nurturing force into leadership channels. Women who, for instance, demonstrated managerial abilities - which can and should be strengthened through appropriate studies - while running day-care centers for the elderly could also run a municipal welfare department, where they will have the additional advantage of close acquaintance with the community they are meant to serve.
At this level, the program Abu-Dabai is coordinating is no different from similar programs in the Jewish sector. But it also operates on two other levels that are no less interesting. One relates to the special status of Arab women in their own society, and the second to their special status as Arab citizens of the Jewish nation-state.
Within Arab society, Abu-Dabai and her compatriots continue to bear the heavy burden of an almost Sisyphean struggle that their elder sisters began some 20 years ago. These female leaders - who established the shelter for battered Arab women in the north, were pioneers in the universities and became deeply involved in political movements - were blocked by the representational quotas that men set for them in intra-Arab politics. Only one, Dr. Maryam Mar'i of Acre, dared seven years ago to run for a place that was not reserved for a woman on the short-lived slate established by Dr. Ahmed Tibi. She disappeared again when the list disintegrated even before the elections.
Now, it seems, new winds are blowing through the Arab public. Some of its elected representatives understand it would be worthwhile to include women on their lists (in order to attract female supporters, particularly among the young and educated). Others understand that dedicated, educated women will work harder for them than most men. As for the rest, say the candidates who were chosen for the leadership course, we will have to wait and see. Most of the men encourage women to study and expand their fields of occupation, but politics? What do you need it for, they ask.
Either way, the sisterhood among the group of candidates is impressive: Representatives of Balad work hand in hand with Rakah members, and both help the independents. The main obstacle they will all have to overcome is the clan system, which is unfortunately still the norm in most Arab local authorities. It is hard to imagine any clan that receives only one or two places in a governing coalition choosing a woman to be the person who will represent it.
But the most interesting level on which the conference that opens today operates is that of Israeli society as a whole. In recent years, and especially over the last two years, the establishment - and in its wake, without much thought, the press - has tended to emphasize the separatist trend among Israeli Arabs. Every extremist statement against the state is vociferously reported. But the opposite trend, which exists and is spreading in parallel, is ignored in the best case, and met with cynical suspicion in the worst. That is a pity, because this approach is liable to overlook the importance of the conference in Tamra, which expresses a strong desire on the part of broad sections of the Israeli Arab public to integrate, in a deep and equal fashion, into civil society. The political involvement of these 50 talented and determined women from the north is an important feminist asset for Arab society, but it is no less a promise of future contributions to Israeli society.
