Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: violence against women

Showing posts with label violence against women. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Blaming Israel alone for Gaza mental health problems is just another kind of Jew-hatred. Here's why.

The Israeli Gisha NGO concentrates on freedom of movement of people and goods between Israel and the territories, and it issues reports and statistics to that end.

It just released a graphics-heavy online report about the impact of Israel's closure of Gaza on the mental health of Gazans:

In Their Words: Mental Health Professionals in Gaza on Treating the Effects of Closure

“There’s a clear link between the Israeli closure and the grave state of mental health in Gaza. The closure is like a drop of ink in a pool of water, spreading everywhere, touching everything.”
Nedaa Murtaja, psychologist, Gaza

For decades, Israel has enforced restrictions on movement to and from the Gaza Strip, which it tightened to the point of closure in 2007.

....
In late 2021, Gisha and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) convened a group of mental health professionals and representatives of organizations working in the field in the Strip. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the effects of Israel’s closure on mental health, as well as the challenges therapists and care specialists face as residents living under closure in Gaza themselves.

What follows is a summary of the observations made by participants in the discussion.

The number of Palestinians in need of psychological care or assistance in Gaza has climbed dramatically in recent years. According to various studies, between 15% and 30% of individuals living in Gaza develop post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).

“This means there are at least 300,000 people in Gaza living with PTSD, and likely many more,” says Qusai Abuodah, director of resource development and public relations at GCMHP.

A central outcome of the closure enforced by Israel has been a high prevalence of poverty and unemployment in the Strip. Economic hardship elevates stress levels among the general population.

Khitam Abu Shwareb, a social worker at GCMHP, emphasizes the inextricable link between people’s economic reality and their mental health. “Restrictions imposed by Israel on entry of goods and raw materials into Gaza not only disrupt entire economic sectors, they also lead to price hikes inside the Strip, with direct impact on our mental stability.”

“Long-term mental stress leads to severe anxiety disorders and further undermines quality of life, which, in Gaza, is already far from meeting accepted international standards,” Osama Frina, a psychologist at GCMHP, explains. “Anxiety sometimes transforms into physical pain and suffering. The physical suffering, added to frustration and despair, often leads people to experience deep depression, which, unfortunately, also manifests in an increasing suicide rate.”

“The depression experienced by residents of Gaza is not depression in its classic, conventional sense,” says Hassan Zeyada, a psychologist at GCMHP.

“Palestinian depression is different. Gaza’s entire society is in a constant state of high level of chronic stress and ongoing trauma. The Israeli closure and travel restrictions on Gaza affect everyone, without exception. The prevailing feeling among Gaza’s population is one of helplessness and hopelessness. This situation did not appear out of thin air: It is the result of a deliberate process designed to induce a state of helplessness to weaken the resilience of both individuals and society in Gaza.”

Where is the bias in this report?

Everywhere.

The "research" was not meant to determine why Gazan mental health is poor. It determined at the outset, before a word was written, that it is all Israel's fault. Then the mental health professionals in Gaza were asked to confirm and support that lie.

Israel doesn't limit goods and travel in Gaza to "induce a state of helplessness to weaken the resilience of both individuals and society in Gaza." It does it to save the lives of Israeli citizens. In any other context, this is called human rights. Israel allows exports; it allows unlimited medicine and food and fuel; it allows thousands of workers to enter Israel every day and is trying to increase that amount.

I'm not saying that bombings and the restrictions on goods and travel do not affect Gazans - of course they do. But the story doesn't come close to ending there.

The Gisha report does not mention Egypt's own strict restrictions on Gazans being able to cross their border, or Egypt's own severe limitations on imports and exports - all of which have nothing to do with Israel.

But that is only a small part of the bias. This report, and hundreds like it, actually hurt Gazans far more than it helps them. And it does it for reasons that can only be described as antisemitic.

By blaming all of Gaza's woes on Israel alone, it gives a free pass to the many other factors that can and do cause severe mental health problems in Gaza - problems that have little or nothing to do with Israel.

By far, the biggest mental health risk in Gaza (and the West Bank) is from men who abuse their wives and children:

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, one in three women who have ever been married are subjected to physical violence by their husbands and one in seven of never married women by a household member.

UNICEF adds:

Domestic violence levels are also high in 2014 MICSs (PCBS) study, confirming that 93 per cent of children aged 2 to 14 years experienced violent disciplining at home, and 23 per cent of children experienced severe physical punishment. Pervasive and harmful social norms including child marriage, child labour, sexual violence and gender-based violence are issues of great concern.

The Israel-hating crowd loves to claim that the Gaza closure is the reason for these statistics, but the numbers are similar in the West Bank, where there is no closure.

Meaning that domestic violence is widespread among Palestinians and it has nothing to do with Israel. The only people responsible for beating their wives and children are the husbands. Women in Gaza fear for their lives - not from Israeli missiles but from their husbands. The victims have to live with this abuse, with fear and mistrust of the people who should unconditionally love them, every day of their lives.

It is interesting to note that there are lots of articles and academic papers about how the "patriarchy" damages the mental health of women and children in the West - and even about how it damages men's mental health as well.. Yet there are practically no scholarly reports about the psychological effects and dangers of living in the highly patriarchal Palestinian society.

Palestinian laws explicitly discriminate against women. Abortion is illegal except in extreme cases. A high percentage of women are pressured into marrying while still children. Polygamy is allowed. Access to contraception is limited by the husbands in Gaza, and Palestinian women are taught that the should never abort because having children is a form of "resistance."

Palestinian children are also scarred by Gaza social mores. They are indoctrinated at birth into a culture of violence and celebrating death. They are taught to cheer when Israeli civilians are killed - but also to celebrate the "ascension to Paradise" of terrorists killed by Israel. Tens of thousands attend summer camps where they are taught nothing but hate and militancy.

Children in Gaza in particular are taught in their classrooms to seek martyrdom - including in UNRWA schools. The adults in their lives are teaching them that their greatest value to the nation is is to be killed.

Do you think that being told that they are nothing more than cannon fodder might affect the mental health of children?

There are other factors that affect the Palestinian psyche. The registered UNRWA "refugees" have been taught for generations that they deserve to have have free housing and schooling paid for by the world, and even the Palestinian government relies on the EU and Arab world to do the work that they should have been doing in funding and building their own institutions. It is a welfare state and they have convinced themselves - and much of the world - that this is normal, that Palestinians do not have to compromise for peace, that they are eternal victims and should sit back and wait for the world to give them everything they demand.

Put it all together and you have a recipe for a society that is deeply dysfunctional.

But NGOs like Gisha don't want you to know this. They are part of the problem. They want to hide the real problems in Gaza and blame only Israel. This helps their bottom line - funders want them to blame Israel for everything - but these kinds of superficial, one-sided analyses end up hurting the Palestinians they pretend to care about because it solidifies the idea that they are not responsible for any of their own problems. .

In the end, blaming all of the mental health issues of Gazans on Israel alone is not serious analysis. It is whitewashing the real issue because of an overriding desire to blame Jews, and Jews alone, for any and every problem. It is a much more sophisticated form of antisemitism than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Mein Kampf or the medieval lie that Jews poison wells - but in the end, just like the classic cases, it is still using Jews as the scapegoat for every problem.

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Another false accusation of an Israeli law discriminating against Arabs

Jewish Voice for Peace writes in their email newsletter:

On Sunday, the Israeli Knesset passed a shockingly racist law — even by the standards of Israel’s apartheid government.

Under the new "sexual terrorism" law, Palestinian citizens of Israel convicted of rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment can receive double the sentence of Israelis found guilty of the same crimes. The law passed in a bipartisan vote of 39-7, and received immediate condemnation from journalists, Israeli feminist groups, and Palestinian lawmakers.

This law manufactures an image of Palestinians as more violent and more dangerous than Israelis. According to the law, a crime is inherently worse simply because a Palestinian committed it. This puts a target on the back of Palestinian men and boys, intensifying the constant threat of violence that Palestinians already live under.

Really? A law that says that Israeli Arabs would get double the sentence of Israeli Jews?

Of course not. The law is described in Times of Israel:

The Knesset on Monday passed a right-wing-backed law that makes terrorist, nationalist or racist motivations an aggravating factor in crimes of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Aggravating factors come into play during criminal sentencing and are a consideration that can push judges toward issuing a sentence closer to the legal maximum.

The law would double compensation fines for sexual harassment motivated by racism or hostility toward certain groups.

The entire intent of the law is to ensure that in cases like the rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher, where the smiling terrorist admitted that his attack was for nationalist reasons, that the sentence would be stricter.

There hasn't been a huge amount of Palestinian rape of Jewish women specifically as terrorism, but they have occured. In 2012, a Palestinian kidnapped a Jewish couple and raped the woman. The court at the time did not consider this a terror attack, but the Israeli Defense Ministry did determine it was a "nationalistic" crime because of previous terror attacks by the rapist.

An Israeli woman gang-raped by four Palestinians in 2006 was likewise determined by the Defense Ministry to have been the victim of a nationalist crime.

In these crimes, the rapist specifically seeks out a Jewish woman for attack. As heinous as any rape is, when it is done as a terror act, it is worse: the rapist does not attack Arab women but specifically Jews.

There have also been reports of Palestinian youths sexually assaulting Jewish women on buses and other public places. Again, when they single out Jewish women for assault, that is a terror attack, not an ordinary rape.

There is nothing wrong, and certainly not racist, with saying that a terror rape attack should have a stricter punishment than a similar attack that had no nationalistic motive.

The law does not say anything about Arabs. If a British-born BDS activist would rape an Israeli Jewish woman he would get the same consideration for a sentence.

As we've seen, Israeli courts have not automatically determined that every rape by a Palestinian is a terror attack, just as they do not automatically determine that every shooting by Arabs against Jews is a terror attack - some crimes have only criminal motivation.

The only bigots here are the members of JVP. Notice their wording, defining Israeli Arabs as "Palestinians" and saying that "Israelis" are all Jews. Even though very few Israeli Arabs define themselves as "Palestinian," JVP is telling them that they are not really Israeli, dismissing their own self-definition. And then JVP calls Jews racists for passing a law against terrorism and racism.

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Egyptian mother arrested for "indecent videos" of doing housework in a modest nightgown

RT reports:

Lawyer Ashraf Farahat announced that the security services at Al-Maasara Police Station in Helwan, Egypt, arrested the owner of the “Anoosh Diary” YouTube channel, accusing her of spreading immorality and outraging public decency.

The accused appears in sexy clothes that highlight her body, to attract followers, saying: "I am divorced and I have two young children," explaining that she was broadcasting these videos because there was no source of income for her and her family.

The accused confirmed that she broadcast these videos after one of her neighbors advised her to commit this act due to quick profits, and the accused added that she was earning two thousand dollars a week, and she was sharing the amount with the marketing company that was sponsoring her communication sites.

The videos I could find were more modest than one could see in any street or market in the West. She is wearing a nightgown as she does her household chores.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, weddings feature belly dancers wearing far more revealing clothing and far more provocative movements, and they don't get arrested.

Seven of the 50 most popular websites in Egypt are porn sites. No one is arresting the men who frequent those sites.

Egyptian misogyny is the reason this woman was arrested, which is the same reason nearly all women in Egypt are subject to sexual harassment, which is the same reason why men can harass women with impunity but women can't make videos like this. (Anoush's YouTube channel was taken down.)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Some statistics on violence against Palestinian women

A report in Amad says that, somehow, the "Israeli occupation" has the biggest violent effects on Palestinian women.

But then, in a distant second place, it mentions real statistics on violence against Palestinian women - from Palestinian men.

In 2015, 15 killings of Palestinian women and girls were monitored and documented, while 18 other killings were documented during 2016, and in 2017, the Women’s Center recorded 30 killings. In 2018, 24 Palestinian women were murdered.

In 2019, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics conducted a survey showing that about 59.3% of married or ever-married Palestinian women / girls in the age group (15-64 years) have been subjected to violence (including psychological and economic) by their husbands: 70.4% in Gaza compared to 52.3% in the West Bank. The highest percentage, 66.9%, were in the 20-24 age group. More than half of ever married girls and young women aged between 15 to 19-years-old have been exposed to violence by their husbands.

For physical violence 18.5% experienced it in the previous 12 months from their husband, and 9.5% suffered sexual violence from him. An astounding 12% suffered from sexual violence in the Jericho area not from their husbands.

15% of married women in Gaza experienced incidents of sexual abuse by husbands over the previous year. More than half of these experienced it repeatedly (3+ times).

As long as Palestinians pretend that all problems are from Israel, Palestinian women are not ever going to get the help they need.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Beyond parody: Anti-Israel groups try to get LGBTQ, feminist orgs to support Palestinian gay bashers and misogynists

From The Left Berlin:

Here we reproduce two draft e-mails which have been suggested by the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) coordination team of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP). ECCP is a network of 43 European organisations, NGOs, trade unions and solidarity groups from 18 European countries, dedicated to the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, justice and equality.

We find that this attempt to link different struggles – to show that Palestinian rights are indivisible from the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people – is an important development in building an international movement to support the Palestinians. We therefore urge you to support the ECI initiative and to send these mails to any relevant organisations with which you are in contact.

In particular, the mails ask for support for the ongoing ECI to #StopSettlements and stop EU complicity with the oppression of Palestinians. An ECI is more than just a “normal” petition. If the initiative receives one million validated signatures, the EU Commission is legally obliged to respond to the demand for a ban on illegal trading with the occupied territories.

The cynicism is almost beyond belief. Even the language they use shows that they know that this has nothing to do with reality.

But they know that they must "link" the "struggles." And, as a result, Palestinian women and gays remain imprisoned by laws that are explicitly against them, because their natural allies in the West are being told to concentrate their efforts against the most liberal, pro-gay, pro-woman state in the Middle East.

The draft letters are even more of a joke. For the pro-women's groups:

As Europeans fighting for gender equality, and against sexism and the patriarchal system in our countries, we bear a responsibility to support our sisters’ fights abroad. Including in Palestine where Palestinian women resists the Israeli apartheid regime and demand the fulfilment of Palestinian rights. Our Palestinian sisters are not only confronted with gender violence, femicide but also Israeli settler colonialism which constitutes a gender violence in itself. Israeli occupation and colonisation add another layer of oppression and contribute to gender-based violence within Palestinian communities.

That last sentence translates to "Palestinian men beat their wives and daughters, and we blame Israel."

For the pro-LGBTQ groups:

The Palestinian struggle is deeply committed to addressing gender violence, feminicide, queerphobia and settler colonialism, which are co-constitutive of each other. The State of Israel and its supporters use Pinkwashing as a strategy to cynically exploit LGBTQIA+ rights in order to project a progressive image of Israel while concealing its occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.

Awareness that queer and trans-liberation cannot be separated from Palestinian liberation is growing. As Europeans fighting against sexism, patriarchy, queerphobia and all systems of oppression in our countries, we must support Palestinian people in their struggle for their rights and against the Israeli settler colonial system.

If you really support Palestinians and LGBTQ/women's rights, you would protest Palestinian policies, not Israeli policies!

Fully one out of every three married Palestinian women suffer physical violence by their husbands. Initiatives like these tell these women, sorry, you aren't important.

By prioritizing protesting Israel over the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that have laws against gender equality and gay rights, these groups are showing that their hate for Israel takes priority over their love for their fellow LGBTQ and women in the territories!

That is the nature of antisemitism, both new and old - the hate is so powerful, that people are eager to throw their own purported allies under the bus just to have a chance at hurting Jews.

(h/t DL)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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A summary of the persecution of women in the Arab Middle East

Raseef22, a liberal Arab site with an English section, has a series of articles that describe how badly women are treated in Arab countries, today.

Some excerpts.

Do we have to be superheroes to be safe and protected? The answer is absolutely no. I'm not Superwoman, and I don't want to be her.

I am an ordinary woman with simple dreams, like living in a safe world, and not being subjected to harassment, rape, or physical violence — dreams of not being told by a man at a demonstration, “Ladies, to the back!”, and dreams that a soldier would not be told, “Consider her your sister”, as a means to stop him from beating a female protester — dreams of a man not thinking of my physical safety as his personal mission, turning my body into the scene of a conflict between two men, without a role for me in it.

My wishes as a Lebanese woman are not confined to the geographical spot that I live in. As a Lebanese woman, I search for my wishes in Syria as well, where physical safety would mean thousands of Syrian women not being subjected to all known forms of gender-based violence and torture in the Assad regime’s prisons or during direct military operations, and that Jaysh al-Islam will not kidnap the two human rights defenders, Razan Zaitouneh and Samira al-Khalil, whose fates remain unknown to this day.

My wishes as a Lebanese woman are also in Egypt, where physical safety means individual and collective harassment will not take place, that female demonstrators won't go through virginity testing after being arrested, that Nayera Ashraf and other women will not be killed for refusing marriage proposals from their murderers, that the trans woman Malak al-Kashef will not be put in a men’s prison, and that Sarah Hegazi will not be electrocuted during her imprisonment — that she wouldn't be imprisoned in the first place under the offense that she was brave enough to declare that no system, society, or family had authority over her body.

My wishes are in Tunisia, where physical safety means that women farmers can go to work every day without being run over, killing at least one woman daily due to the poor road conditions. As for the most fortunate ones — the ones that do not get run over — they only receive one-third of what a man earns without being recognized by the state as part of the working-class and worthy of social security and decent wages.

Gaza:

"While my father was threatening to kill, torture, and imprison me, the head of the women's protection organization told me: 'Your father loves you and wants the best for you. Do not embarrass your grandfather and uncle. Go back to your family!" This story is only one of hundreds of stories that Gaza's women and daughters live on an almost daily basis, when they are subjected to violence, threats, and torture, and that may sometimes lead to murder. Then, clans, families, and local chiefs intervene and the whole thing is resolved in a session called "an Arab sit-down and a cup of coffee”!
As her voice trembled over the phone, F. S. told me that she wouldn't talk for too long, for fear of being caught by a family member making a suspicious phone call. She says, "I've always dreamed of being a guitarist, and sometimes I imagined myself at a rock and roll concert holding an electric guitar and shaking up the place with my music and singing."
The story began when F. S. went out and actually bought a guitar. As soon as she entered the house, her older brother smashed it to pieces before she could even take it out of its box, and addressed his father, saying, "Goodness, this is just what we needed! A whore in our house." In response, the father gave her several violent punches that ended up putting her in a coma.

Jordan:

Witnesses in this report speak to Raseef22 about the judges’ lack of sympathy for women and lack of understanding for their daily life requirements . They clearly point out that some of the judges make judgements on women based on their presence and appearance. Unveiled women may be met with a grim face and many have been asked by the judge to leave and not return to the courtroom without a headscarf on. Moreover, many sharia judges are not even convinced of a woman’s right to guardianship over herself, let alone over her children.
Unveiled women may be met with a grim face and many have been asked by the judge to leave and not return to the courtroom without a headscarf on.
Extortion, stalling , trickery, allegations of defamation, threats to withdraw custody, hacking phones, and a great deal of lies... These are some of the methods that men use based on the advice of lawyers who recognize the power that men have, and recognize the weakness of the sharia mindset towards women.

Egypt, several stories like this:

“I was verbally harassed by a driver, and I called the police after I filmed the harasser. He tried to escape, but I stopped him. On the way to the police station, they forced me to ride inside a ‘box’ car next to the harasser. One of them began talking to me and I don't know his rank because he was wearing civilian clothes, and he said to me: 'If you file a report, you will stay in the station overnight'.”

This is what happened with Maryam Samir, a student at the Faculty of Engineering, in 2022. As for the rest of her story, she tells Raseef22, “Following a long series of brotherly advice to not file a (police) report, he accused me of being stubborn, and as soon as we arrived, I found all the police officers advising me to leave and just be satisfied with the fear and horror the harasser has experienced so far!”

She continues, “After exchanging cigarettes between the offender and the officers, the policemen suddenly turned against me and they kicked my sister out of the station, handed her my bag and phone, and addressed me by saying: 'We have been talking to you for hours, we do not work for you, if you are 'queer', we will write up a report against you and throw you in detention. You are still a young girl. A harassment report will ruin your reputation.”

Maryam, who filed a report under No. 4,291, at the Mansoura Police Station, was suddenly turned into an accused suspect. She says, “After many hours had passed, I was surprised that a report was filed against me accusing me of insulting, swearing, and slandering. And at dawn I had to abandon my report and go back home defeated”.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Anti-Israel activists hush up Palestinian sexual harassment and rape of their women

In the TV documentary series Shtula, at one point members of the ISM tell the woman posing as an anti-Israel activist that, by the way, she can expect to be sexually harassed by Palestinian men.

It's just part of the job.

This is well known in the anti-Israel activist community.

In 2010, a Palestinian convinced a group of female Western activists to let him stay in their guest house in an Arab village because, he claimed, the IDF was trying to arrest him. He then attempted to rape one of the American women - who was the only Muslim. The Palestinian Authority then convinced her not to press charges, because it would be too damaging to the anti-Israel cause.

This was not an isolated incident.

An Israeli peace activist was "severely sexually assaulted" at Sheikh Jarrah. The victim tried to complain, but "after heavy and unfair pressure from the [Western] organizers of the Sheikh Jarrah protest, she withdrew her complaint." And then these "progressives" warned all Western women to cover their hair and bodies in Sheikh Jarrah.

And other incidents slowly leaked out. One activist admitted to an Israeli reporter, “I know of such rape cases from women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo. I met the three of them during reserve service. I met with each of them afterwards… they told me what happens there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any observing eye.” That activist claimed that some of the female activists became unwilling wives and virtual slaves in Palestinian villages.

Haaretz published a similar article about sexual harassment of leftist activist women in 2012.

Apparently nothing has changed.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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The hot girls of Gaza

I've been to my share of trade shows, and it is not surprising that exhibitors will try to find attractive women to front their booths and try to being in more men.

Guess what? It happens in Gaza, too.

Even with the women covered up, there was no shortage of makeup as the best looking ones were on display at the Gaza National Products exhibition, held on Tuesday in order to promote Palestinian products.

Here are some of the scenes from the show.

Now, do you think that the hijab stops these women from being harassed in Gaza as much as Western women in less modest clothing are? We know that in neighboring Egypt, the hijab has zero effect on reducing harassment - in 2013, the UN reported that 99.3% of women surveyed in Cairo have experienced sexual harassment and rape is a serious problem.

It is probably not nearly as bad in Gaza as in Egypt, because the culture is far more conservative, but that's the point: women are not responsible for being harassed and attacked, it is the men who attack them, no matter what the women choose to wear.

In Gaza, if there is no problem with women dressing up nicely and wearing makeup to put a nice face on a business, then there should be no problem if they want to take off the hijab, too. The harassers are the criminals, not the victims of harassment.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Gaza women join Arab protest against femicide and "honor killings" - but must include the mandatory anti-Israel angle

There have been some shocking murders of women in the Arab world recently, such as that of Nayera Ashraf, 21, stabbed to death in broad daylight in Egypt by a man whose marriage proposal she rejected, and Iman Arsheed, a Jordanian nursing student shot multiple times for similar reasons.

In response, women throughout the Arab world called a general strike for two hours on Wednesday to protest these and similar murders by a patriarchal Arab society.

In Gaza, dozens of women joined in the strike as well. But the rules are different in Palestinian ruled areas.

They had to add an anti-Israel angle.

Gaza's AISHA Association for Woman and Child Protection sponsored the protest. A speaker from that group said, "We in feminist organizations, women's rights organizations, and our allies announce our support for the cross-border women's strike campaign, to demand an end to the systematic violence and oppression of women in the Arab region. We are appalled that women are still being deprived of their basic rights, including the right to life, and we are outraged by the escalation of brutal murders of women in various countries in the region."

But AISHA spokesperson Heba Al-Danaf took pains to say that this is not only a protest against femicide throughout the Arab world, but also against Israel, saying that "the Israeli occupation is one of the reasons that contribute to the continuation of murders against Palestinian women."

By adding this gratuitous and absurd anti-Israel message, the group completely undermines its goals. Suddenly, it is not Arab men who are at fault for killing Arab women - but Israel. Arab women are murdered throughout the Middle East - but in Gaza, it is Israel's fault.

This takes Arab men off the hook. It isn't the patriarchy or misogyny or male supremacy that makes them treat women like garbage - it is the "occupation."

Palestinian Arabs grow up with the unshakeable belief that everything bad about their situation is Israel's fault, and anything that takes away from that message must be muted. This pervasive antisemitism hurts the Palestinian themselves by diluting and misdirecting the issues towards an enemy that they cannot control.

Gaza men beat and murder women, and Israel is blamed.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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On #InternationalwomensDay, hypocritical "pro-Palestinian" groups don't give a damn about Palestinian women's rights

Today is International Women's Day. As usual, "pro-Palestinian" groups are using it as a means for anti-Israel propaganda.

Yet not one is calling for more women's rights under Palestinian rule.

As we've mentioned before, the Palestinian Authority cynically uses women's rights as a weapon against Israel but really doesn't care about rights for its own women.

It joined the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) along with over a dozen other international agreements in 2014 without reservation. Yet it never actually put any of CEDAW's provisions into law.

Not only that, the PA itself has rejected the convention as violating Islamic law.

Not one "liberal" anti-Israel group said a word.

The editor of a major Palestinian newspaper admitted that there was no intent for the Palestinian government to actually take these international agreements seriously. The only reason that it joined these conventions was to pretend to be a "state" so the International Criminal Court can bring a case against Israel: "The government cannot implement CEDAW in its entirety in light of the existence of a societal system, and that the signing of the agreement is political and was not intended to undermine the Sharia, and had it not been for the signing of CEDAW and many other agreements, the International Criminal Court would not have accepted us."

The actual laws under the Palestinian Authority and under the Gaza government undermine women's rights. Here are only some examples from a 2018 UN report that, as far as I can tell, was completely ignored by these hypocritical "pro-Palestinian" groups who pretend to care about Palestinian rights.

It gets even worse.

A 2018 survey showed that:

35% of Palestinian men say that men who kill their female relatives for "honor" reasons should not go to jail.

47% of Palestinian men say that female relatives who "act or dress" in ways that they disapprove deserve to be punished.

17% of Palestinian men admitted to have engaged in physical violence against their female partners, 21% of women say they have been hit by their husbands.

80% of Palestinian men say "A man should have the final word about decisions in the home."

34% of them say "There are times when a woman deserves to be beaten."

63% of men say "A woman should tolerate violence to keep the family together."

Again, these "pro-Palestinian" NGOs and media outlets who happily use women's rights as a club to beat Israel don't have a word to say about Palestinian misogyny that affect Palestinian women every day.

When these groups claim that Israel is the main oppressor of Palestinian women, they are actively hurting Palestinian women by not allowing a real conversation about their rights to even take place.

"Palestinian Feminist Working Group" shows no interest in women's rights for Palestinians

A recent Mondoweiss article by the "Palestinian Feminist Working Group" sheds some light on how hate for Israel is often disguised using liberal buzzwords that have nothing to do with the actual agenda of these groups.

The article is typically ridiculous - it pretends that Zoom, YouTube and Facebook's pulling the plug on a conference featuring a proud terrorist Leila Khaled was about censorship and a silencing of Palestinian feminist voices when it was simply adhering to existing US anti-terrorist and sanctions laws.

It goes on to justify Palestinian terror as "resistance" and defining everything Israel does as terror.

This is the first appearance of this group, which is what makes it interesting. The group has no website. It describes itself this way:

The Palestine Feminist Working Group is a U.S. based network of Palestinian and Arab feminists who are committed to ending all forms of Zionist colonial and gendered violence and oppression. We believe that social liberation is a critical component of Palestinian national liberation. The working group was founded by the Palestinian Youth Movement’s (PYM) Women’s Committee. To learn more about our work and/or to join our efforts contact us at Palestinianfeminists@gmail.com

Note that it doesn't say a word about feminist issues in the Palestinian controlled territories at all. The supposed feminism of this group begins and ends with attacking Israel.

Many of the people signing this article are academics at US universities:

Noura Erakat, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, Rutgers University
Dr. Sarah Ihmoud, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, The College of the Holy Cross
Dr. Hana Masri, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Maisa Morrar, Physician Assistant and member, Palestinian Youth Movement
Dr. Loubna Qutami, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies, UCLA
Basima Sisemore, Researcher, Othering & Belonging Institute, UC Berkeley
Randa M. Wahbe, Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology, Harvard University
Yazan Zahzah, MA in Women and Gender Studies, San Diego State University
Leena Odeh, J.D., The Decolonizing Race Project

Isn't it strange that these "Palestinian feminists" have so little interest in feminist issues in Palestine?

The United Nations Development Programme published a comprehensive guide to gender laws under the PA and Hamas in late 2018. It uncovered state-sponsored discrimination against women, which I have summarized before:

Domestic violence: Palestine has no domestic violence legislation.
Marital rape: Marital rape is not criminalized.
Abortion for rape survivors: Abortion is prohibited in the West Bank by the Jordan Penal Code (Articles 321–325) and in Gaza by the Criminal Code of 1936 (Articles 175–177).
Sexual harassment in the workplace: Sexual harassment is not criminalized by the Labour Code.
Honour crimes: Mitigation of penalty Laws allowing mitigation of penalties for ‘honour’ crimes were repealed in 2011 and 2018 in the West Bank. However, the government in Gaza has not applied the reforms.
Adultery: Adultery is an offence in Gaza and the West Bank. In the West Bank, Article 282 of the Penal Code criminalizes adultery
Human trafficking: Palestine does not have comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation. Some provisions of the Penal Code of Jordan apply to trafficking in the West Bank.
Sex work and anti-prostitution laws: Prostitution is prohibited by Articles 309–318 of the Penal Code in the West Bank and Articles 161–166 of the Criminal Code of 1936 in Gaza.
Marriage and divorce: The personal status laws for Muslims require the husband to maintain the wife. A wife owes obedience to her husband. A husband can divorce by repudiation (talaq). A wife has the right to divorce on specified grounds. She can also apply for a khul’a divorce without grounds if she forgoes financial rights.
Male guardianship over women: Muslim women require consent of a wali (male guardian) to marry. There are some weak legal protections for women under guardianship. Women can seek permission from the court to marry if the guardian withholds consent without a legitimate reason.
Guardianship of children: Fathers are the sole guardians of children.
Custody of children: After divorce the mother has custody up to a certain age, but automatically loses custody of her children if she remarries. Inheritance Sharia rules of inheritance apply to Muslims. Women have a right to inheritance, but in many cases receive less than men. Daughters receive half the share that sons receive.
Polygamy: Polygamy is permitted.
Legal restrictions on women’s work: Some legal restrictions exist on women’s employment in certain industries that do not apply to men, such as mining.

The report seemingly went into a black hole. There are very few references to it online. Yet it is probably the most comprehensive report on women's rights in the Palestinian territories that exists.

Real Palestinian feminists would be screaming from the rooftops about this. But not the members of the "Palestinian Feminist Working Group."

The fact that Leila Khaled's PFLP actually murdered an Israeli girl last year doesn't diminish her "feminist" bona fides for some reason. None of these "feminists" condemned the murder of a Jewish girl.

These people aren't feminists. They are Jew-haters who use feminism as a justification for their bigotry and hate.

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Wednesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Where Is the Feminist Outrage Over Discrimination in Gaza?

Refreshingly, the feminist writers from The Nation and Ms. Magazine did not openly come out and lay the blame for this public relations debacle at the feet of Israel.
But I will buy a free dinner at the vegan, slow food, locavore restaurant of your choice, in the city of your choice, if you can find one article in either publication by a feminist writer that explicitly and substantially criticizes Hamas and the Palestinians for their terrible and discriminatory mistreatment of women in Gaza. And especially this most recent incident of discrimination against Palestinian women.

Raping Women in the Name of Islam by Khaled Abu Toameh

What happened to the two women in Libya is a big disgrace not only to Islam, but to all those who sympathize with fundamentalists and terrorists, including the "scholars" and "sheikhs" who authorize such crimes.
Moderate Muslims who fail to strongly condemn the Muslim terrorists and rapists also bear responsibility for the crimes that are being committed in the name of Islam.
The gang rape in Libya will also cause tremendous damage to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. As of now, families of "pro-Palestinian" activists around the world will have to think ten times before sending their daughters on humanitarian aid convoys.

New Fatwa permits rape of non-Sunni women in Syria

Jordanian Sheih Yasir al-‘Ajlawni is certainly not the first cleric to legitimize the rape of infidel women in recent times. Calls to capture and rape non-Muslim women are appearing with increasing frequency and from all corners of the Islamic world.

Court finds stone-thrower guilty of murder

In a groundbreaking decision, a military court found a Palestinian man guilty of murder for throwing a rock at an Israeli car, causing it to crash and killing the driver and his infant son.
The court at Ofer military prison on Tuesday found Wa’al al-Araji, 25, from Halhul, to be directly responsible for the deaths in 2011 of Asher Palmer and his 1-year-old son Yehonatan.

Is Norway funding the murderers of Israelis?

"The country’s 3 largest opposition parties have asked for an investigation into Norwegian financing of the PA".

Too much of a good thing? Palestinians realize downsides of foreign aid boom

With food insecurity soaring and GDP declining, Palestinians in the West Bank are waking up to the fact that their foreign aid dependent economy is unsustainable.

The Tunnel Economy

Commercially speaking, these tunnels offer an opportunity to smuggle subsidized Egyptian goods and commodities that are banned from being exported, such as petroleum products or certain food items. Successive Egyptian governments have failed to find ways to reduce these subsidies—which deplete their budgets—for fear of social unrest. Likewise, these tunnels also represent an opportunity for more clandestine trades such as arms dealing.
The biggest beneficiaries of the tunnel trade may be the select group of families on both sides of the border, some of whom have transformed into millionaires, in addition to the Hamas government and what it collects from tax on smuggled goods.(h/t Zvi)

MEMRI: Egyptian Author Alaa Al-Aswany On Situation Of Copts In Egypt

In an ironic article, Egyptian author Alaa Al-Aswany describes what it is to be "a Muslim in Britain," metaphorically referring in fact to the state of the Copts in Egypt, who suffer from severe persecution and discrimination. The following are excerpts.

ElBaradei slams ban against Iranian tourists in (Egyptian) mosques

On Twitter, ElBaradei wrote, “How come we, Sunnis and Shias, perform pilgrimage together yet we talk about preventing Iranians from visiting some of the houses of God?”

Saudi man who paralysed his best friend in knife attack faces having his spinal cord severed in 'eye-for-an eye' punishment

The ultra-conservative desert Kingdom enforces Islamic law and on rare occasions issues punishments based on the ancient code of an ‘eye-for-an-eye’.
Ali Al-Khawahir was 14 years old when he stabbed his friend in the backbone and has been imprisoned for 10 years.

Lego denies discontinuing Jabba's Palace over race claims

Toy manufacturer Lego has denied claims by Austria's Turkish community that it is withdrawing one of its Star Wars products because of allegations it was riddled with racist stereotypes.

Also:
The Jewish “Occupation” of Judea?

One has to wonder why the international community decided to use the term West Bank even after the area was liberated. And the fact that all Jews were forced out of Judea and Samaria during Jordan’s illegal occupation is something you rarely hear in the media or anywhere else. I guess people want to maintain the false image of Jews in Judea and Samaria as “foreign occupiers”? Well, they are not foreign occupiers. Jews lived in the so called “West Bank” for ages…. That’s until all of them were either killed or forced out of the area after Jordan’s occupation started in 1948.