By: Assoc Prof Dr. Nazimah Ab Mumin
WHILE Western powers, led by the United States and the European Union champion themselves as the global vanguard of gender equality, their moral authority is systematically dismantled by their complicity in the suffering of Palestinian women. For decades, the West has used “women’s rights” as a geopolitical cudgel against its adversaries, yet it remains wilfully blind to the unique, compounded oppression of women living under Israeli occupation. This is not a mere oversight; it is a calculated double standard that subordinates the lives of Palestinian women to the strategic interests of zionism.
The gendered violence of occupation
Palestinian women do not merely fight against “traditional” patriarchal norms; they fight an existential battle against a military machine. In Gaza, the Israeli blockade has engineered a humanitarian catastrophe where women bear the heaviest burden. Poverty, restricted movement, and the deliberate destruction of healthcare infrastructure are not accidental “side effects” of conflict; they are the tools of a genocidal war waged by the Israeli state.
In the West Bank, the daily reality is defined by the humiliations of the “apartheid wall,” illegal settlements, and the psychological terror of night raids. For the Palestinian woman, the Zionist project is experienced through the demolition of her home, the arrest of her children, and the physical violations she endures in Israeli detention centres. Here, the struggle for gender equality is inseparable from the struggle for national liberation.
The Aesthetic vs. The Existential: A Case of Systematic Oppression
The depth of Western hypocrisy is perhaps most visible in the current “feminist” preoccupation with the sexualisation of the female body and the plastic surgery industry. In the Global North, vast academic and social energy is spent critiquing the way Western capitalism coerces women into “self-optimisation” through surgical intervention to meet a narrow, fetishised aesthetic. While the hyper-sexualisation of women is undoubtedly a form of social control, it exists on a fundamentally different plane of oppression than that faced by the women of Gaza.
The West views the “oppression” of a woman through the lens of a surgeon’s scalpel or a provocative advertisement, yet remains silent when the Palestinian female body is subjected to literal fragmentation by Israeli bombardment. It is a staggering dissonance: Western society mourns the loss of a woman’s “aesthetic autonomy” while providing the very ordnance that strips away a Palestinian woman’s right to breathe.
By focusing on the “facade” of liberation through body positivity and aesthetic choice, the West ignores the most primal form of oppression: the systematic dehumanisation and physical erasure of women by zionist forces. The West critiques the “veiling” of women as a lack of modern values, yet remains silent as thousands are “shrouded” in the rubble of their own homes.
The Western double standard
Western governments are quick to condemn gender-based violence in Iran or Afghanistan, yet they remain “under the leash” of the Israeli lobby when it comes to Palestine. This alliance results in a “muted” response even when the Israeli military targets civilian infrastructure, schools, and hospitals, places where women and children are most vulnerable.
One of the most insidious aspects of this hypocrisy is the selective critique of Palestinian society itself. Western media often reduces the struggles of Palestinian women to “cultural” factors or “backwardness,” conveniently ignoring how the Israeli occupation is the primary driver of societal breakdown. The economic deprivation and physical trauma caused by the Zionist military are the true roots of the gendered suffering in the region.
The failure of international solidarity
The “invisibilisation” of Palestinian women by international feminist movements is a direct result of political cowardice. Funding for Palestinian women’s organisations is often tethered to “non-political” mandates that forbid the mention of the occupation. This forces these women to advocate for their rights in a vacuum, as if their bodily autonomy can be separated from the land being stolen from beneath them.
In a nutshell, the Western commitment to gender equality is a fiction when it excludes the victims of Israeli state violence. For genuine progress to occur, international feminist movements must confront the reality that the liberation of women cannot be achieved without the dismantling of zionist oppression. Only by addressing the root cause the occupation can the global community offer meaningful solidarity to all women in their fight for both equality and national survival.
The writer is a Breast Imaging Consultant Radiologist and Senior Medical Lecturer
Hospital Al-Sultan Abdullah, Puncak Alam
UiTM Specialist Medical Centre, Sungai Buloh.
