Just as Arab women in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Yemen have taken prominent leadership roles in nonviolent protest during the Arab Uprisings, so have Palestinian women at West Bank demonstrations emerged as leaders in the grassroots protests against Israel's military occupation. They walk with linked arms in the front row of village protests or carry flags and banners as they face down Israeli soldiers in full riot gear, while their male peers often throw stones and burn tires.

Most news organizations focus on the dramatic images of the young Palestinian men confronting Israeli soldiers and riot police with slingshots and burning tires, but photojournalist Mati Milstein's lens captured the no less arresting images of their female peers.

Why is the prominent role played by these women, who sometimes call themselves "the Palestinian Gandhis" so little known? What are the challenges faced by an Israeli male photojournalist in showing images of Palestinian female protestors to provoke a conversation, without actually telling the story that is theirs to tell?

Join New America NYC for a conversation with Dalia Othman and Mati Milstein, moderated by Lisa Goldman.  Milstein will show and discuss the collection of images he shot over a period of three years at unarmed protests in the Palestinian West Bank. Called Nesa'iyeh, or "a woman's thing," the collection was first exhibited in 2012 at the Marji Gallery in New Mexico

DALIA OTHMAN
Research Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Visiting Scholar, MIT Center for Civic Media

MATI MILSTEIN
Photojournalist
Author, My New Middle East

LISA GOLDMAN

Director, Israel-Palestine Initiative, New America Foundation

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