Against the depoliticisation of Palestinian female shahids

Abstract

Palestinian women’s engagement with politics and their appropriation of conventionally masculine acts of martyrdom during the Second Intifada (2002–2005) have been subject to intense public debate, media scrutiny and contested cultural representations. This article, drawing on studies of terrorism as well as translation theory, examines first-hand accounts of acts of martyrdom by Palestinian women, which uphold Palestinian national and religious discourses of sacrifice. Failing to grapple with how and why Palestinians recognise these women’s acts as martyrdom, many Euro-American and Israeli scholars focus on personal, social and psychological motivations. While many Euro-American and Israeli scholars construct Palestinian female martyrs as socially deviant, we develop a different framework to understand female martyrdom on more local terms that resonate with Palestinians’ lived experience. We introduce five Palestinian female martyrs’ video testimonies that scholarship to date has overlooked. We contend that Palestinian female martyrs (shahids) are conscious agents whose final acts underscore their adherence to religious and national discourses of sacrifice.