ARAB WOMEN'S EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

the coordinating committee directing the women's groups that formed the palestinian women's movement during the mandate period.

The Arab Women's Executive Committee (AWE) was formed in Jerusalem in 1929 with the aim of founding a women's movement in Palestine. The members of the committee were: Wahida al-Khalidi (president), Matiel Mogannam and Katrin Deeb (secretaries), Shahinda Duzdar (treasurer), Naʿimiti al-Husayni, Tarab Abd al-Hadi, Mary Shihada, Anisa al-Khadra, Khadija al-Husayni, Diya alNashashibi, Melia Sakakini, Zlikha al-Shihabi, Mrs. Kamil Budayri, Fatima al-Husayni, Zahiya alNashashibi, and Saʿdiyya al-Alami. Many of these women came from prominent nationalist families in Palestine, especially in the Jerusalem region. The committee planned and convened the first Palestine Arab Women's Congress in Jerusalem in 1929, during which it visited the High Commissioner of Palestine and presented its resolutions to him as a form of protest. According to the bylaws of the Arab Women's Association of Palestine (AWA), the umbrella organization for the local branches of the movement, the AWE was to be the coordinating and administrative committee for these affiliates. In actuality, the AWE was not active much beyond the early 1930s, after which the local chapters often behaved autonomously yet in cooperation with the Jerusalem AWA, which apparently took over the functions of the AWE, acting as the central coordinating body of the women's movement.

see also arab women's association of palestine; jerusalem; palestine; zionism.

Bibliography

Fleischmann, Ellen L. "The Emergence of the Palestinian Women's Movement, 1929–1939." Journal of Palestine Studies 29, no. 3 (2000): 16–32.

Mogannam, Matiel. The Arab Woman and the Palestine Problem. London: Herbert Joseph, 1937.

Ellen L. Fleischmann