Arab women are now ministers and CEOs, yet stereotypes persist

A Saudi woman talks on her phone during the "MiSK Global Forum" held under the slogan "Meeting the Challenge of Change" in Riyadh. (AFP)
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Updated 18 May 2022
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Arab women are now ministers and CEOs, yet stereotypes persist

  • Western and Asian media outlets accused of publishing regressive stereotypes of subdued Arab women
  • Experts say Arab women have a role to play in asserting themselves both in business and in the home

DUBAI: Outdated and harmful stereotypes of meek and oppressed Arab women still prevail in Western and Asian media. 

Despite these faulty notions about who and what they are, Arab women continue to defy expectations and make inroads in the worlds of business, politics, finance, diplomacy and tech.

However, many believe more must still be done to tackle baseless misconceptions about Arab women, their role and their capabilities in the eyes of the outside world.

“We live in a world which has historically looked at our part of the world as a traditional one, where women are more in the family and household,” May Nasrallah, founder and executive chairman of deNovo Corporate Advisers, told Arab News.




A Saudi woman poses for a photo after having a driving lesson in Jeddah on March 7, 2018. (AFP/File Photo)

“But in reality, we are so far away from that (in terms of) the evolution and how much we’ve changed in how we operate here. In the UAE, we have women in government, leadership positions, heads of banks, family groups and ministers, so we’ve changed a lot, but there is a lack of knowledge.”

To change the image of the Arab woman abroad, Nasrallah has urged traditional forms of media, such as television broadcasters, to showcase more female Arab leaders.

“We see multiple examples where they are very impressive,” she said. “It’s about continuing to escalate women to let the world see what they are capable of.”

Another potential area of improvement is in challenging gender expectations that persist within some communities.




Nasrallah and Kanoo were part of a discussion panel on “Arab women’s image,” which took place at the Arab Women’s Forum within the Top CEO conference in Dubai on May 17. (AN Photo/Zubiya Shaikh)

“We need our own traditional images to change internally,” Nasrallah said. “It changes with the different generations and we’re getting there. Look at the leadership around us, and who is running our region right now. It is very forward-thinking, very open minded, and it enhances women in leadership positions. It’s been reflected time and again.” 

Nasrallah believes self-doubt is another obstacle that needs to be overcome in the mindsets of Arab women. Recalling her own time in investment banking, she remembers male colleagues putting themselves forward for promotions or new roles — whether they were capable of them or not.

“Women, on the other hand, second guess themselves and that’s inherent in our configuration, which needs to be changed,” she said. 

A support network at home is also crucial. Nasrallah, who has four sons, said that she drew encouragement from both her father and husband, who pushed her to maintain her full-time career. 

“Having men around us that encourage us to continue to go forth in the business world or workforce is a huge positive.”

Equally, providing the right tools to be successful and to not be afraid to fail would give more women the mentality required to succeed. Having a supportive network of peers would also provide an important ecosystem that can help support them in entrepreneurship.

For Suzy Kanoo, CEO and president of the Khalil bin Ebrahim Kanoo Company and International Motor Trading Agency in Bahrain, raising awareness about the successes of Arab women is key. 

“We talk about how great we are, but women underestimate their strength — it’s unequaled,” she told Arab News.




Saudi entrepreneurs Asmaa Alabdallah (L), founder of BitGo, and Reem Dad (R), co-founder of Taibah VR, stand in front of Halcyon House in Washington. (AFP)

“In my family business, I attend conferences around the Asian continent, and I have noticed they preferred to talk to the male manager, which hit me, and I realized I am blessed to be a part of this region and I am so proud to be an Arab woman.” 

Kanoo, who wrote a book about empowering Arab women called “Hear Us Speak: Letters from Arab Women,” said the West fails fundamentally to understand Arab women and their religion.

“(For the West), being more modest or wearing a hijab has something to do with a woman being more submissive,” she said. 

“(For them) it’s synonymous with that, but when they come here, they see it’s not true at all. This is a choice that everyone has the right to, but I’m respected the same way as someone who wears one and this is the beauty of our region.”

Making an effort to understand, visit and read more about the region would help eliminate such misconceptions, she believes, as foreigners would come to realize that the ideas they have been fed about the role and status of Arab women is false.

However, Kanoo believes an issue arises when Arab women seek to move up the professional ladder. 

“I see that lacking,” she said. “We need more action, with more women on board seats. We’re just as educated. So, we need an extra push and more affirmative action on that.”

She called for more female judges to preside over family courts across the Middle East — a move that would rebalance the mere 8 percent of female judges seen today.




Saudi women jog in the streets of Jeddah's historic Al-Balad district. (AFP)

Arab women must also become more assertive in demanding their rights, taking shame out of the equation, Kanoo added. “Once we stand up and (claim) our rights, that’s it, people start to respect that.”

Generation Z — those born between the mid to late-1990s and the 2010s — is challenging outdated behaviors thanks to social media and evolving parenting habits. “Social media paved the way and parents are another large influence on that,” Kanoo said. 

“More than anything, our governments are helping us through the different reforms we are seeing, across Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Nothing is going to hold Gen Z back. We’re not there yet, but we’re moving forward, which is fantastic.”

But continuing to empower Arab women is not just about reputation or doing the right thing — it is also good for the economy, said Nasrallah.

“A better educated mother will better educate her children and give them opportunities as well, so it’s an ecosystem that will benefit to evolve and grow. 

“More separation brings you down as a society and we need to be lifting ourselves up and showcasing to the world what we are capable of.”

Nasrallah and Kanoo were part of a discussion panel on “Arab women’s image,” which took place at the Arab Women Forum within the Top CEO conference in Dubai on May 17. 

 


Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians

Updated 7 sec ago
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Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians

The community center, funded by UNHCR, offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war
“We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,” said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four

DAMASCUS: Around a dozen Syrian women sat in a circle at a UN-funded center in Damascus, happy to share stories about their daily struggles, but their bonding was overshadowed by fears that such meet-ups could soon end due to international aid cuts.

The community center, funded by the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR), offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war, with an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and Western sanctions.

“We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,” said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four. “There are a lot of problems at home, a lot of tension, a lot of violence because of the lack of income.”

But the center’s future now hangs in the balance as the UNHCR has had to cut down its activities in Syria because of the international aid squeeze caused by US President Donald Trump’s decision to halt foreign aid.

The cuts will close nearly half of the UNHCR centers in Syria and the widespread services they provide — from educational support and medical equipment to mental health and counselling sessions — just as the population needs them the most. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returning home after the fall of Bashar Assad last year.

UNHCR’s representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, said the situation was a “disaster” and that the agency would struggle to help returning refugees.

“I think that we have been forced — here I use very deliberately the word forced — to adopt plans which are more modest than we would have liked,” he told Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation in Damascus.

“It has taken us years to build that extraordinary network of support, and almost half of them are going to be closed exactly at the moment of opportunity for refugee and IDPs (internally displaced people) return.”

BIG LOSS
A UNHCR spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the agency would shut down around 42 percent of its 122 community centers in Syria in June, which will deprive some 500,000 people of assistance and reduce aid for another 600,000 that benefit from the remaining centers.

The UNHCR will also cut 30 percent of its staff in Syria, said the spokesperson, while the livelihood program that supports small businesses will shrink by 20 percent unless it finds new funding.

Around 100 people visit the center in Damascus each day, said Mirna Mimas, a supervisor with GOPA-DERD, the church charity that runs the center with UNHCR.

Already the center’s educational programs, which benefited 900 children last year, are at risk, said Mimas.

Nour Huda Madani, 41, said she had been “lucky” to receive support for her autistic child at the center.

“They taught me how to deal with him,” said the mother of five.

Another visitor, Odette Badawi, said the center was important for her well-being after she returned to Syria five years ago, having fled to Lebanon when war broke out in Syria in 2011.

“(The center) made me feel like I am part of society,” said the 68-year-old.

Mimas said if the center closed, the loss to the community would be enormous: “If we must tell people we are leaving, I will weep before they do,” she said

UNHCR HELP ‘SELECTIVE’
Aid funding for Syria had already been declining before Trump’s seismic cuts to the US Agency for International Development this year and cuts by other countries to international aid budgets.

But the new blows come at a particularly bad time.

Since former president Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels last December, around 507,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries and around 1.2 million people displaced inside the country went back home, according to UN estimates.

Llosa said, given the aid cuts, UNHCR would have only limited scope to support the return of some of the 6 million Syrians who fled the country since 2011.

“We will need to help only those that absolutely want to go home and simply do not have any means to do so,” Llosa said. “That means that we will need to be very selective as opposed to what we wanted, which was to be expansive.”

ESSENTIAL SUPPORT
Ayoub Merhi Hariri had been counting on support from the livelihood program to pay off the money he borrowed to set up a business after he moved back to Syria at the end of 2024.

After 12 years in Lebanon, he returned to Daraa in southwestern Syria to find his house destroyed — no doors, no windows, no running water, no electricity.

He moved in with relatives and registered for livelihood support at a UN-backed center in Daraa to help him start a spice manufacturing business to support his family and ill mother.

While his business was doing well, he said he would struggle to repay his creditors the 20 million Syrian pounds ($1,540) he owed them now that his livelihood support had been cut.

“Thank God (the business) was a success, and it is generating an income for us to live off,” he said.

“But I can’t pay back the debt,” he said, fearing the worst. “I’ll have to sell everything.”

Netanyahu admits Israel supporting anti-Hamas armed group in Gaza

Updated 06 June 2025
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Netanyahu admits Israel supporting anti-Hamas armed group in Gaza

  • Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel is supporting an armed group in Gaza that opposes the militant group Hamas, following comments by a former minister that Israel had transferred weapons to it.
Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.
The European Council on Foreign Relations (EFCR) think tank describes Abu Shabab as the leader of a “criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks.”
Knesset member and ex-defense minister Avigdor Liberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Netanyahu’s direction, was “giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons.”
“What did Liberman leak? That security sources activated a clan in Gaza that opposes Hamas? What is bad about that?” Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media on Thursday.
“It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers.”
Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, told AFP that the Abu Shabab clan was part of a Bedouin tribe that spans across the border between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
Some of the tribe’s members, he said, were involved in “all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that.”


Milshtein said that Abu Shabab had spent time in prison in Gaza and that his clan chiefs had recently denounced him as an Israeli “collaborator and a gangster.”
“It seems that actually the Shabak (Israeli security agency) or the (military) thought it was a wonderful idea to turn this militia, gang actually, into a proxy, to give them weapons and money and shelter” from army operations, Milshtein said.
He added that Hamas killed four members of the gang days ago.
The ECFR said Abu Shabab was “reported to have been previously jailed by Hamas for drug smuggling. His brother is said to have been killed by Hamas during a crackdown against the group’s attacks on UN aid convoys.”
Israel regularly accuses Hamas, with which it has been at war for nearly 20 months, of looting aid convoys in Gaza.
Hamas said the group had “chosen betrayal and theft as their path” and called on civilians to oppose them.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, said it had evidence of “clear coordination between these looting gangs, collaborators with the occupation (Israel), and the enemy army itself in the looting of aid and the fabrication of humanitarian crises that deepen the suffering of” Palestinians.
The Popular Forces, as Abu Shabab’s group calls itself, said on Facebook it had “never been, and will never be, a tool of the occupation.”
“Our weapons are simple, outdated, and came through the support of our own people,” it added.
Milshtein called Israel’s decision to arm a group such as Abu Shabab “a fantasy, not something that you can really describe as a strategy.”
“I really hope it will not end with catastrophe,” he said.


Gaza marks the start of Eid Al-Adha with outdoor prayers among the rubble and food growing ever scarcer

Updated 06 June 2025
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Gaza marks the start of Eid Al-Adha with outdoor prayers among the rubble and food growing ever scarcer

  • Israeli offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians
  • After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Palestinians across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip marked the start of one of Islam’s most important holidays with prayers outside destroyed mosques and homes early Friday, with little hope the war with Israel will end soon.

With much of Gaza in rubble, men and children were forced to hold the traditional Eid Al-Adha prayers in the open air and with food supplies dwindling, families were having to make do with what they could scrape together for the three-day feast.

“This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,” said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis. “There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses ... The conditions are very, very harsh.”

The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia. For the second year, Muslims in Gaza were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the traditional pilgrimage.

The war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies.

Since then, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in its military campaign, primarily women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants in its figures.

The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.

After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter for the UN several weeks ago. But the UN says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because of Israeli military restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said Thursday that Gaza’s people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation.

“This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,” Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience, said in an interview.

Over the past two weeks, shootings have erupted nearly daily in the Gaza Strip in the vicinity of new hubs where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed according to Gaza hospital officials.

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid and trying to block it from reaching Palestinians, and has said soldiers fired warning shots or at individuals approaching its troops in some cases.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly formed group of mainly American contractors that Israel wants to use to replace humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the UN, said Friday that all its distribution centers were closed for the day due to the ongoing violence.

It urged people to stay away for their own safety, and said it would make an announcement later as to when they would resume distributing humanitarian aid.


Lebanese army warns Israeli airstrikes might force it to freeze cooperation with ceasefire committee

Updated 06 June 2025
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Lebanese army warns Israeli airstrikes might force it to freeze cooperation with ceasefire committee

  • The Lebanese army said it started coordinating with the committee observing the ceasefire after Israel’s military issued its warning and sent patrols to the areas that were to be struck to search them

BEIRUT: The Lebanese army condemned Friday Israel’s airstrikes on suburbs of Beirut, warning that such attacks are weakening the role of Lebanon’s armed forces that might eventually suspend cooperation with the committee monitoring the truce that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The army statement came hours after the Israeli military struck several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs that it said held underground facilities used by Hezbollah for drone production. The strikes, preceded by an Israeli warning to evacuate several buildings, came on the eve of Eid Al-Adha, a Muslim holiday.
The Lebanese army said it started coordinating with the committee observing the ceasefire after Israel’s military issued its warning and sent patrols to the areas that were to be struck to search them. It added that Israel rejected the suggestion.
The US-led committee that has been supervising the ceasefire that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war in November is made up of Lebanon, Israel, France, the US and the UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
“The Israeli enemy violations of the deal and its refusal to respond to the committee is weakening the role of the committee and the army,” the Lebanese army said in its statement. It added such attacks by Israel could lead the army to freeze its cooperation with the committee “when it comes to searching posts.”
Since the Israel-Hezbollah war ended, Israel has carried out nearly daily airstrikes on parts of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah operatives. Beirut’s southern suburbs were struck on several occasions since then.
The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel began on Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began launching rockets across the border in support of its ally, Hamas, in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling and the two were quickly locked in a low-level conflict that continued for nearly a year before escalating into full-scale war in September 2024.
It killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, while the Lebanese government said in April that Israeli strikes had killed another 190 people and wounded 485 since the ceasefire agreement.
There has been increasing pressure on Hezbollah, both domestic and international, to give up its remaining arsenal, but officials with the group have said they will not do so until Israel stops its airstrikes and withdraws from five points it is still occupying along the border in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah says that it has ended its military presence along the border with Israel south of the Litani River, in accordance with terms of the ceasefire deal.


Israel warns of more Lebanon strikes if Hezbollah not disarmed

Updated 28 min 38 sec ago
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Israel warns of more Lebanon strikes if Hezbollah not disarmed

  • The strikes came around an hour after Israel’s military spokesman issued an evacuation call
  • “There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel,” Katz said

BEIRUT: Israel warned Friday that it will keep striking Lebanon until militant group Hezbollah has been disarmed, hours after it hit south Beirut in what Lebanese leaders called a major violation of a November ceasefire.

An Israeli military evacuation call issued ahead of Thursday’s strikes sent huge numbers of residents of the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, long a bastion of Iran-backed Hezbollah, fleeing for their lives.

The attack on what the Israeli military said was Hezbollah’s underground drone factories came on the eve of Eid Al-Adha, one of the main religious festivals of the Muslim calendar.

The strikes came around an hour after Israel’s military spokesman issued an evacuation call, and sent plumes of smoke billowing over Beirut.

The attack came six months after a ceasefire agreement was sealed in a bid to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.

“There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

“Agreements must be honored and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force.”

Under the ceasefire brokered by the United States and France, Lebanon committed to disarming Hezbollah, which was once reputed to be more heavily armed than the state itself.

Hezbollah sparked months of deadly hostilities by launching cross-border attacks on northern Israel in what it described as an act of solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack.

The war left Hezbollah massively weakened, with a string of top commanders including its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah killed and weapons caches dotted around Lebanon incinerated.

Israel has carried out repeated strikes on south Lebanon since the truce, but strikes targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs have been rare.

“Following Hezbollah’s extensive use of UAVs as a central component of its terrorist attacks on the State of Israel, the terrorist organization is operating to increase production of UAVs for the next war,” the military said, calling the activities “a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

Under the truce, Hezbollah fighters were to withdraw north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.

Israel was to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon but it has kept some in five areas it deems “strategic.”

The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south and removing Hezbollah infrastructure, with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam saying Thursday that it had dismantled “more than 500 military positions and arms depots” in the area.

Following the strike on Thursday, Lebanon’s leaders accused Israel of a “flagrant” ceasefire violation by launching strikes ahead of the Eid Al-Adha holiday.

President Joseph Aoun voiced “firm condemnation of the Israeli aggression” and “flagrant violation of an international accord... on the eve of a sacred religious festival.”

The prime minister too issued a statement condemning the strikes as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.

One resident of southern Beirut described grabbing her children and fleeing her home after receiving an ominous warning before the strikes.

“I got a phone call from a stranger who said he was from the Israeli army,” said the woman, Violette, who declined to give her last name.

Israel also issued an evacuation warning for the Lebanese village of Ain Qana, around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border.

The Israeli military then launched a strike on a building there that it alleged was a Hezbollah base, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency.