Teachers as Revolutionaries: The Women of the Palestinian Revolution, 1960s–70s

During the 1960s and 1970s, Jordan was the base wherein the Palestine Revolution started to mobilize and organize itself to liberate Palestine. The revolutionaries, known as the fidayeen, captured people’s imagination, attracting individuals from various segments of society eager to join its ranks. This was true for many women who found in the revolution an active way to participate in the struggle for liberation. As such, many women joined different revolutionary factions. This paper will show the diverse roles women assumed during this period, especially in the realm of education and shaping the political consciousness within their communities, all in the service of the Revolution. Focusing on classrooms and community centers, women utilized these spaces as revolutionary sites to build, expand, and sustain the resistance. These women were teachers, fida’ayat, mothers and daughters simultaneously, undertaking the political work they deemed necessary for the Revolution. Utilizing oral history interviews, memoirs, and newspapers, this paper seeks to integrate these women into their national history. It contends that the absence of women from visible roles on the battlefield does not diminish the political significance of their work, rendering it ‘apolitical’ and unworthy of historical inclusion. This paper follows Naghmeh Sohrabi approach in writing revolutionary history that is inclusive of women, where she states that “writing revolution as if women matter requires us to shift our analytical framework away from revolution as intellectual work (primarily located in the imaginings of revolutionary strategists and theoreticians) to revolution as political work (primarily located in action and in the streets).”