When Feminism Redefines National Liberation: How Tal’at Movement brought Feminism to the Core of the Palestinian National Liberation Struggle

Abstract

On 8 August 2019, Israa Ghrayeb, a 21-year-old Palestinian living in Beit Sahour, was brutally beaten by members of her family. Since that moment, protests have erupted throughout historical Palestine and beyond, also reaching Palestinian women of the diaspora. Not only did this eventful protest mark the resurgence of a wave of women’s protests in Palestine, but it also brought about the start of a new feminist and anticolonial movement: Tal’at. Using frame analysis to examine the movement’s declarations, Facebook posts, and the archival material available at the Basso Foundation Archive, together with firsthand data collected through interviews conducted during my fieldwork in Historical Palestine, I will try to answer the following questions: How does this new feminist protest-movement differ from the previous ones? What are the elements of continuity with previous Palestinian women’s movements? How did this movement manage to frame an aggregating message in such a fragmented territory?