In Caroline Moser and Fiona Clark, (eds). Victims, Perpetrators or Actors: Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence , London: Zed, 2001, pp. 85-98. Rethinking Women's Struggles in Israel-Palestine and in the North of Ireland Simona Sharoni Introduction According to conventional wisdom, political conflict inevitably has negative implications for the lives of women, while the signing of peace agreements always carries with it positive ramifications. This chapter 1 critically examines this proposition in relation to central themes in the growing body of literature on women and conflict and through particular examples from the lives and struggles of women in Israel-Palestine and in the North of Ireland. A critical review of common trends in feminist literature on gender and political conflict and a brief history of the major turning points in each conflict set the stage for a comparative analysis of women's struggles in both contexts. More specifically, I examine carefully the lives and struggles of Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the Palestinian uprising known as the intifada, which began in 1987 and lasted roughly until 1998, and to women in nationalist West Belfast at the height of the 'troubles' (1969-81). I conclude with a preliminary discussion of the general lessons to be drawn from this analysis, about women's activism amidst armed conflicts and after they are proclaimed resolved. Feminist theorizing on gender and political conflict The body of literature on gender, war, and peace in general and on women and political violence in particular has grown significantly in the past decade. Furthermore, debate of these issues has spilled over beyond the narrow confines of ivory towers to policy think tanks and the mainstream media. But despite the explosion of literature and the proliferation of public debates on these issues, a few trends dominate, leaving many assumptions about the relationship between gender and political conflict largely unchallenged. The most common trend in the literature on political conflict involves the exclusion of women and gender issues from the arena of international politics. This exclusion has often been explained through reference to the public-private dichotomy. In this dichotomy, the public sphere, where politics takes place, is deemed a masculine domain, while women are relegated to the private sphere and assigned sole responsibility for matters involving the home and family (Elshtain 1981). While the public-private dichotomy was originally invoked to challenge women's exclusion, its uncritical use across cultures and contexts may reinforce the view that women have no power or political agency and that they are totally dependent on existing social and political structures. As Amal Rassam argues, 'implicit in this dichotomy of public/male, private/female is the assumption that power, viewed as belonging to the public-political domain, is a male monopoly and that women, confined to the domestic sphere, are powerless' (in Singerman 1994: 180).