Bedouins in Umm al-Hiran. Police said they were in the area to prevent disturbances during demolitions. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Israel, she says, wants to “close the file” on the Palestinians’ demand for a state. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, “is shifting the paradigm from managing the crisis to solving the crisis – but [his is] a one-sided solution in the interests of Israel. Something has changed in the minds of Israelis: Palestinians have ceased to exist. The walls are not just physical, they are also psychological.”
Israel is the only country not shocked by Trump. Netanyahu and Trump represent the same model.
This mindset is reinforced by the new US president, she says. “Donald Trump may seem bizarre and unique to most of the world, but not for Israel. His kind of populism [and] his way of violent speech are the dominant model in Israel. Israel is the only country not shocked and not afraid of Trump. On the contrary, Netanyahu and Trump represent the same model.”
If Trump follows through on his election pledge to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, signifying endorsement of Israel’s claim of the city as its “eternal and undivided capital”, there should be “strong reaction”, says Zoabi.
Zoabi said that Trump’s ban on people from some Muslim countries entering the US was a dangerous formalisation of Islamophobia. “This hatred is nothing new, it’s part of the culture, but now it’s being turned into policy. It’s becoming part of the norm that you can talk with hatred about Muslims without feeling any shame,” she said.
She would like to see a popular civil rights movement, with Palestinians taking to the streets, businesses closing in protest and the Palestinian Authority dissolving itself to force Israel to take responsibility “as an occupying force”. But the international community – Europe, and Britain in particular – must also act, she adds; Israel should not be able to expand settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank with impunity. “If you violate international law, you should pay the price.” Zoabi would like to see government sanctions and a boycott – “Can you imagine a more non-violent protest than a boycott?”
Within her own community, she says, it was no longer “against the norm [for women] to be active leading political struggles. This is not unusual. In Palestinian society, more women have academic qualifications than men. Women in the workplace are not unfamiliar. Independent women, choosing to continue a career, delaying marriage or not getting married, having fewer children – this is something you see more and more. It’s not a conservative society in a stereotyped way.” She has campaigned against issues such as polygamy, domestic violence and so-called “honour” killings. “We had four demonstrations last year, which were widely supported. I’m not in the margins on this issue – I’m in the consensus.”
Zoabi hopes she is a role model to younger Palestinian women: “You should stand for the things you believe in. If you don’t get direct results right now, it doesn’t mean to say there is no outcome. Maybe not for you, but for another generation.”
Last month, Zoabi took part in a protest by female parliamentarians and officials at the Knesset after two aides were barred for wearing insufficiently “modest” dresses. The dress code was eased as a result. “It was so silly – but sometimes you feel really powerful,” she says. “I just wish the Knesset cared as much about freedom as it does about looking at women’s dresses.”