on being one of the Palestinian Authority’s only female judges in an interview with IPS. (I heard about this article through IPS’ GenderWire e-newsletter, a great source for news on women globally). She reviews some of the costs and benefits of being a woman in Palestine; on the one hand, gender equality is less a question of rights and more a question of necessity, since Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza face so many challenges simply getting by day to day. On the other hand, since there are limited resources and men are the typical breadwinners, educational and work opportunities for women are restricted.

al Wazir also notes briefly that, since Gaza and the West Bank are currently operating according to different penal codes, the efficacy of the legal system and the future of legal structures in any hypothetical Palestinian state are going to present a challenge.

This interview is an appealing read because, rather than emphasizing assigning blame to any one faction for the issues that Palestinians now face, it highlights some of the challenges that the Israeli presence and the subsequent fallout in Palestian society present now and will present in the future. Any solution - two state, one state, whatever - will have to do more than simply draw boundaries for the Israeli army. Reconstruction will need to take place on numerous levels.