Palestinian Bedouin women in Israel are leading a quiet revolution
Samah Salaime writes in +972 on 6 November 2026:
Certain segments of Israeli public discourse seem endlessly preoccupied with the oppression of Arab women. Images of women wearing hijabs or niqabs are particularly convenient fodder for sustaining a familiar narrative: Arab society is backward, violent, and oppressive, while Jewish-Israeli society is progressive, enlightened, and committed to women’s rights.
But what happens when those same Arab women become educated, organize, lead, and vote? When they demonstrate that they do not need rescuing, but instead demand civil and political equality? What happens when they insist on speaking for themselves and exercising political power?
Last week, we got an answer. Shortly after the final votes in the Knesset election were counted, revealing a historic achievement for Arab parties following unprecedented voter turnout, veteran Israeli journalist Ayala Hasson appeared on the right-wing radio station Galei Yisrael.
“What is the [anti-Netanyahu] change bloc?” she rhetorically asked interviewer Eli Tzipori. “[It is] Bedouin women in the Negev, wearing veils, whose husbands have several other wives like them, and who are mostly battered wives, and after they grow up and become ‘elderly’ at age 26, the husband brings in another wife. And these women are usually Palestinians from Hebron or Gaza, sisters of [late Hamas political leader] Ismail Haniyeh. “This is your change bloc? The Muslim Brotherhood is the change bloc? Don’t you care about the history of the State of Israel and the people of Israel? Don’t you care about our future?”
These were women from some of the most marginalized communities in the country, including villages whose very existence the state refuses to recognize. Women who have spent years fighting for access to housing, water, electricity, education, and personal safety had gone to the polls to claim a say in their future.