On 26 October 2011, the Institute of Women's Studies at BZU hosted Dr. Taghreed Yahia-Younis, lecturer at Tel Aviv University, for a seminar entitled: "Strangeness, Gender and Politics: a Study of the Arab- Palestinian Society in Israel."

Dr. Younis examined the concept of "strangeness" amongst Palestinian citizens of Israel and addressed processes and mechanisms for constructing categories of strangers. She focused on the role of Israel and society in constructing Palestinian citizens as strangers in their own homeland. She also highlighted the construction of female strangers 'al-ghareebat,' the category of women who are regarded as strangers in local discourse. 

Dr. Younis identified five main dimensions around which strangeness and strangers are constructed in Arab-Palestinian society in Israel: the ethno-national, geographical-spatial, kinship, cultural, and affective/sentimental. She added: "The link between these dimensions ranges between partial or full parallelism and intersection, and in all dimensions, the presence of gender is remarkable.” Her study also revealed that the gendered discourse of strangeness is unveiled in various contexts, most important of which are politics and municipal elections.