29-year-old Palestinian Saber Alashqar previously lost both legs from Israeli drone rockets in Gaza & is here stone pelting at the Great Return March yesterday. As we saw in the European anti-austerity protests of 2010, especially in Greece, Spain, Portugal, & the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, the movement for disability rights has merged with the movements for social revolution against autocracy & repression. Those with disabilities no longer stay home so as not to discomfit the rest of us & many without disabilities roll the wheel chairs so that activists with disabilities can participate fully. Especially in Gaza which has such a high amputation rate from Israeli bombing, those with disabilities are guided by the struggle for freedom & justice, not by the limitations of their disability.
This must be what the Israeli official meant when he told Palestinian women to stay away from the Great Return March because it wasn’t ladylike. Perhaps Palestinian, Kashmiri, Rohingya, & other women fighting against war, occupation, & genocide are redefining the parameters of “ladylike” because their children’s lives are on the line. More likely, Palestinian women think the concept of ladylike is just so appallingly antiquated that they’d like to tell that Israeli official to shove it. So much for that bombing Muslims countries to save their women from fundamentalists. Lord save the misogynists & colonizers from the women.
