Women's campaign hits West Bank

RAMALLAH, Middle East - A young Palestinian-American is the driving force behind a nascent #MeToo movement in the West Bank, selling T-shirts, hoodies and denim jackets with the slogan "Not Your Habibti (darling)" as a retort for catcalls and writing down women's complaints from her perch in a West Bank square.

Yasmeen Mjalli wants to encourage Palestinian society to confront sexual harassment, a largely taboo subject.

"What I am doing is to start a conversation that people are really afraid to have," said Mjalli as she put her merchandise on hangers in a clothing store.

Her parents, who grew up in a Palestinian farming town, immigrated to the United States and returned to the West Bank five years ago, weren't pleased with her plan.

"To be able to have peace with them, I have to check my feminism at the door, which is very difficult because that's really who I am," said Mjalli, who moved to the West Bank last year, after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in art history.

Mjalli and other activists say that starting a conversation about sexual harassment doesn't mean copying the #MeToo movement in the US, where victims are speaking out in growing numbers.

Cultural differences require a different approach.

But skeptics expect limited impact on Palestinian society.

Nader Said, a Palestinian pollster, said public discourse is crowded with issues seen as more pressing, mainly Israel's occupation of the West Bank and other lands Palestinians seek for a future state. Respondents listing top concerns in a survey ranked women's rights near the end, he said.

Associated Press