Showing posts with label women's rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women's rights. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 06, 2023



The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights just released its report of human rights violations by Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza in 2022 (it has not yet been released in English.)

Its section on violations against Palestinian human rights activists is summarized:

Concerning human rights defenders, the independent commission said: Human rights defenders are exposed to a number of violations and harassment committed by official bodies or other unofficial parties. It may lead to murder, kidnapping, arrest, torture, threats, harm to the family and defamation. Defenders of women's rights are subjected to various harassments by social movements and religious and political parties, who see their defense of women as a contradiction with religion and in line with the goals of the West and a denial of Arab values, customs and traditions.   
Those stories, about real abuse against real human rights activists, is rarely covered by the media - because it doesn't fit the narrative that Israel is the human rights violator of Palestinians and, of course, also one of the biggest human rights abusers in the world. (Apparently Israel is surrounded by an oasis of liberal progressive protectors of humanity.)

So the reality gets buried in reports no one reads while the media exaggerates and fabricates Israeli crimes. 

There are real Palestinian human rights defenders - and no one hears about them.

But there are also fake human rights defenders that get lot of coverage. Here's a story that is getting play in Arabic news sites today:

Human rights organizations have called for a boycott of Israeli companies specialized in the field of water and agriculture, prior to their participation in the United Nations Climate Summit (COP 28) scheduled for the end of next November in the UAE.

These companies work to improve their image in front of the world in light of their theft of Palestinian rights to water and the destruction of the Palestinian environment through toxic agricultural pesticides.

The companies (Mekorot, Netafim, Haifa Chemicals, and Adama) seek to present themselves during the summit with their ability to achieve sustainable solutions regarding the environment around the world, at a time when these companies steal Palestinian resources and direct them towards illegal Israeli settlements according to international law.

Human rights organizations are working to reveal the true face of these Israeli companies, and to defend Palestinian rights against climate colonialism.   
Notice anything strange?

The stories do not mention a single "human rights" organization that is calling for this boycott.

The only group I can find talking about this is, of course, BDS. They probably pretend to be a human rights organization. Yet it would not be a surprise if HRW or Amnesty indeed does call for a boycott of Israeli companies at COP28. Because "human rights" is now nothing more than a slogan, with no relationship with real human rights. 

And the real contributions that Israeli technology make to help the world conserve water are considered not as important as the political boycott of any Jewish-owned company in the Middle East. 

And real humans will be deprived of water in the name of "human rights."




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, June 07, 2023

Mahmoud Abbas congratulated Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Tuesday, on the election of Algeria as a member of the UN Security Council.

Let's take a quick look at what life is like in Algeria today.

- A law was passed in 1962 that ensured that anyone without a Muslim grandparent couldn't be a citizen. Some 140,000 Jews had to leave, and the laws, while changed, ensure that they cannot become citizens today.


- There are credible reports of torture in prisons.

- The judiciary is not independent and effectively controlled by the president.

- There are laws that restrict women's rights.

- Men who beat women can be pardoned if the woman is pressured to marry him. 

- There are laws that criminalize many forms of speech, both in mainstream and social media. Some journalists were harassed and intimidated.

- Laws restrict activities of any religion besides Sunni Islam.

- Gays can be imprisoned under the law for homosexual acts.

- Movies and books must be approved before being allowed into the country.

- Protests in Algiers are essentially illegal.

- Black Algerians, Black migrants and non-Muslims are widely discriminated against.

So Algeria is a racist, homophobic, misogynist, apartheid dictatorship whose citizens have no freedom and limited rights. 

One reason you don't hear much about countries like Algeria in the news is because if the media and human rights groups would judge all countries with the same standards and campaign against all abuses with the same energy, criticism of Israel would be invisible in the tsunami of actual serious human rights abuses worldwide.  And they don't want to live in a world like that. 

A set at the Security Council is a very high honor. Outside of groups like UN Watch, who is protesting giving this honor to a country as contemptuous of human rights as Algeria is?

No one cares. 




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, March 07, 2023

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made an announcement for International Women's Day today:

The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, said that the Palestinian woman has played a pioneering role and continues to play a pioneering role in the struggle and change for the better. About the identity of our people, their existence and their inalienable national rights.

In his speech today, Tuesday, on the occasion of the eighth of March, International Women's Day, His Excellency added that the State of Palestine has taken a number of pioneering steps to enhance women's participation in decision-making institutions, including the approval of their representation by at least 30% in all institutions of the organization, the state and local government bodies. .

The President affirmed the continuation of work to promote the right of Palestinian women to participation and equality, pursuant to the Declaration of Independence, the Basic Law and our international obligations.
Here is your reminder that the Palestinian Authority signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 2014.

So what has Abas accomplished in giving women equal rights since 2014? 

Here is the last major meeting Abbas chaired, of the Fatah Central Committee, in February:


One token woman. Which was probably the same in 2014. 

Abbas never had any intention to actually help Palestinian women obtain equal rights. Even Palestinians know that they sign every international convention they can just to be considered an international player so they could use that influence to attack Israel. Palestinian law is misogynist, and no one is changing that. 

At least now they are paying lip service to equal rights. In the past, on International Women's Day, the entire Palestinian narrative was how Israel is supposedly mistreating Palestinian women -- for example, putting female terrorists in prison. 





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Amnesty Sweden put up this pair of billboards in Sweden, this one was seen in a subway station.




The text translates to, " Women are always right. The right to choose. The right to protest. The right to study. The right to live without violence."

Notice that the girl in the photo has a necklace of "Palestine" that erases all of the Jewish state.



The girl is Janna Tamimi, a member of the Tamimi family that includes terrorists like Ahlam Tamimi, the murderer behind the Sbarro pizza shop massacre who lives as a celebrity in Jordan. The Tamimi family fully supports terrorism. 

Janna uses the name "Janna Jihad" and has called herself a "journalist" since she was seven. She spreads fake photos of Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel. And Amnesty has used her in other campaigns, falsely claiming that Israel is threatening to kill her.


Every pro-Israel activist faces death threats. Amnesty doesn't seem to think they need protection.

So with the current Swedish campaign, assuming that most commuters don't recognize Janna Tamimi, Amnesty is telling the world that - at the very least - there is nothing wrong with calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. That isn't a human rights violation of Jews who live there. More likely, the subtle message is that Israel must be destroyed - because women are always right. 

Even when they spread vicious antisemitic lies, apparently.

If Amnesty Sweden assumes that most commuters do recognize "Janna Jihad," they are then claiming that it is Israel, not Palestinian leaders, who are limiting her right to choose - even though abortion is prohibited in the Palestinian territories. (I cannot find a single Palestinian campaign or article that calls for Palestinian abortion rights.)  And they are also saying that Israel blocks peaceful protests and that it somehow blocks her right to study.

So either way, under the pretense of a women's rights campaign, Amnesty is pushing anti-Israel and antisemitic lies. 


(h/t M)





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Sunday, February 05, 2023

From Time, in a two page print story:
Israel is no longer a liberal democracy. As Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government took office on 29 December, its illiberalism was evident. No longer a matter for debate or polite embarrassment, the contempt for liberal ideas brings all the disparate factions together: against the media and intellectuals and increasingly against the old Western-inspired Israeli political system and the existing Israeli constitution, including its Basic Laws.
This is really getting crazy. 

Nothing has happened.

The government is not going to reduce the rights of gay people. It is not going to impose a theocracy on Israel. It is not becoming a dictatorship. 

Wikipedia defines a liberal democracy as:
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under a representative democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified (such as in the United States) or uncodified (such as in the United Kingdom), to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. 

Nothing is happening to remotely change Israel's status to anything other than a liberal democracy. 

The only argument that critics can make is that the proposed judicial reforms give too much power to the legislative branch, but now most people recognize that the judicial branch - which can dismiss government officials for literally no reason except what it considers  "reasonable" -  has far too much power as an unelected branch of government. Perhaps the proposed reforms go too far in some specific ways, but the general idea of reforms is quite reasonable and hardly the earth shattering change that they are being portrayed as. 

Everyone agrees there should be a balance of power. The only disagreement is where to draw the line. It is an important debate, but it is hardly a real crisis that threatens Israel's democratic character. 

(In fact, one can argue that Israel is more of a liberal democracy than either the US or UK. Universal suffrage for citizens is a key component of any liberal democracy, but unlike Israel, the US and UK do not allow many or most citizens who are prisoners to vote. Is that a crisis? Where are the front page articles about this?)

It seems to me that the over the top reaction to the Israeli elections are more dangerous than anything the government itself is likely to do. Over the weekend, we saw direct, public incitement to violence from Israeli liberals.

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai spoke at a demonstration against the government and said: "This is the opportunity to reach broad agreements, and if the words end, the actions will begin. We will not stop at protests, we will not be indifferent, we will not react with resignation."

David Hodek, a commercial lawyer who won a Medal of Courage, one of the Israeli military’s highest awards, for his conduct as a tank officer in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, told the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference in Eilat that “if someone forces me to live in a dictatorship and I have no choice, I won’t hesitate to use live fire.

Hodek, who was speaking on a panel, appeared to make clear he was not talking metaphorically, saying: “People are willing to fight with weapons. Everyone is aghast [at such statements]. They say ‘How can you say such a thing?’ I’m saying it. If I’m forced to go there and they drag me there, that’s what I’ll do.”
And:
Ze'ev Raz, one of the leaders of the Balfour protest and a former fighter pilot, backtracked on what appeared to be a call to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday. Raz was a pilot who participated in a reactor bombing operation in Iraq in 1981, which is known as Operation Opera.

"If a sitting prime minister assumes dictatorial powers, this prime minister is bound to die, simply like that, along with his ministers and his followers.

He continued by arguing that Israel should integrate 'din rodef' (a concept in Jewish law that allows for the killing of an individual who intends to kill or harm others).

"My din rodef rules that if my country is taken over by a person, foreigner or Israeli, who leads it in an undemocratic manner, it is obligatory to kill him...it is better to kill the criminals first."
These threats and incitement are a far bigger danger to Israel's democracy than the most extreme things the government is proposing. They are normalizing violence as a means to change government policy. That is the definition of terrorism.

And they come from the constant incitement in world media. 

Losers of elections should spend their time convincing voters to support them next time, not threatening to assassinate the elected leaders. 

I have plenty of problems with Netanyahu, and some of the optics of judicial reform are less than ideal, but he is not a dictator. He is not a racist. He has (with next to no publicity) done more for Arabs in Israel than any previous prime minister, bar none. 

Step back. Take a a breath. And if you care about Israel's future, fight for it using all legal means. Debate it using facts, not hyperbole. 

When people demonize political opponents, to the point that prominent people literally threaten violence to get their way, everyone loses. 

(h/t Yoel)





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, January 27, 2023



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!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, January 13, 2023



The assertion that Arabs are only anti-Zionist, not antisemitic, often has its challenges.

The leader of the Houthi Ansar Allah movement in Yemen, Abd al-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, gave a speech for the Muslim version of International Women's Day.

Al Houthi said,  "the global Zionist-Jewish lobby seeks by targeting women to target the structure of society and dismantle the bonds of human society and the family," explaining that the demonic, corrupting Jews target women to corrupt them and seeks to turn them into a tool to corrupt society.

And he explained that the Jews seek to spread corruption more than ever before, and they use all means and capabilities for that.

So, anti-Zionist or antisemitic? It's a real conundrum.




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

From Ian:

IDF Reveals New Terrorist Rocket Launch Sites next to Gazan Schools
Hamas exposed: This is how the Hamas terrorist organization uses schools and education to promote its terrorist agenda. Additional instances of Hamas deliberately using children as human shields are now being exposed. Here are a number of instances that showcase how Hamas endangers the civilians of Gaza.

This exposure comes approximately two weeks after UNRWA reported that the ground of one of its schools had collapsed. The collapse was caused by the construction of a Hamas terrorist tunnel.

Hamas Rocket Launch Site Stationed Adjacent to the Mo'ath Bin Jabal School
Hamas stationed a rocket launch site adjacent to the Mo'ath Bin Jabal school in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. Near the school, which is used by UNRWA as a shelter during emergencies, is a Hamas rocket launch site. Prior to Operation Guardian of the Walls, the school’s principal, Mehammed Abu Oun, maintained contact with an operative in the Hamas rocket array, Jalal Abu Aoun, who it appears enabled this shooting.

The cynical exploitation of schools proves once again that the terrorist organization consciously chooses to endanger Gazan civilians and use them as 'human shields' in benefit of their terrorist agendas.

Hamas Rocket Launch Site Stationed Adjacent to the Khalil Al Nobani School
Hamas stationed a rocket launch site near the Khalil Al Nobani school in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City.

The school is a completely innocent public building that was intended to provide a secure environment for the children in the Gaza Strip, but in reality, Hamas used it to launch rockets.

Rocket Launch Sites Stationed Adjacent to the Al-Furqan School
Terrorist organizations stationed rocket launch sites near the Al-Furqan elementary school located in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Terrorist organizations launched rockets from the sites near the school throughout Operations Guardian of the Walls and Breaking Dawn, thereby endangering the lives of the students and residents of the Gaza Strip.

Over 1,000 innocent students attend these schools that Hamas uses for terrorist activities. Hamas purposefully puts both civilians and pupils in danger by using them as human shields.

Hamas is only interested in its own terrorist agenda, and students in Gaza constantly find themselves in danger from being used as human shields.


Israel: impunity for UN officials speaking of the Jewish Lobby must end
Israel called on the United Nations to end its impunity for UN officials who use the antisemitic phrase the Jewish Lobby.

"The lack of accountability and impunity for comments made by UN officials only works to legitimize antisemitism and endangers the Jewish people," it said.

Israel's mission to the UN in Geneva spoke out after an Israeli English website The Times of Israel reported that "UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967" Francesca Albanese had used the phrase the Jewish Lobby.

Albanese is tasked with reporting on alleged Israeli human rights abuses to the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. Other reports of the use of the antisemitic phrase

Earlier this year, The Jerusalem Post reported Miloon Kothari, one of three members of the UNHRC's Commission of Inquiry on Israel, had said in a public interview that social media was largely controlled by the “Jewish lobby.” He later retracted that statement due to its antisemitic connotations.

Albanese's comment "that surfaced today are yet another stain on the credibility of this body and yet another example of the impunity that exists today regarding antisemitism and antisemitic comments made by UN officials."

It referenced a Facebook post she wrote in 2014, prior to entering the post of special UN rapporteur in which she wrote that, "America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish Lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust remain on the sidelines..”
UN rapporteur said ‘Jewish lobby’ controls US, compared Israelis to Nazis
The individual tasked by the United Nations Human Rights Council with probing alleged Israeli violations against the Palestinians had previously said that the “Jewish lobby” controls the United States and compared Israelis to Nazis, The Times of Israel reported on Wednesday.

Francesca Albanese, the UNHRC’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, made the comment in 2014 during the 50-day conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group.

“America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed—the Palestinians—who defend themselves with the only means they have (deranged missiles), instead of making Israel face its international law responsibilities,” Albanese wrote on Facebook at the time.

TOI also found that Albanese had sympathized with terror organizations, dismissed Israel’s security concerns and accused the Jewish state of potential war crimes.

Last month, Albanese spoke at a conference in Gaza attended by senior members of the U.S.- and E.U.-designated terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

In her speech, translated into Arabic in real time, Albanese told the crowd: “You have a right to resist this [Israeli] occupation.”


Iran kicked out of UN Women's Commission in 29-8 vote
Iran was ousted from the United Nation's Commission on the Status of Women on Wednesday evening in a vote of 29-8.

Some 16 countries abstained from the vote. The eight countries to vote against the decision were Bolivia, China, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Russia and Zimbabwe.

The decision comes as Iranians continue to protest against the Islamic Republic throughout Iran for a 12th week. The protests were sparked after the killing of Mahsa Amini by Tehran "morality police" in September but has since expanded to cover more issues than just hijab, with many protesters calling for regime change.

One of the central slogans of the ongoing protests is "women, life, freedom."

An Iranian representative to the United Nations stated that the Islamic Republic "categorically rejects" the decision, calling the claims of women's rights abuses against Iran "baseless and fabricated."

The representative claimed that the US was "undermining" the principles of the UN charter and attacking the core principles of democracy.

"Our efforts to promote and protect women's rights are driven by our rich culture and well established constitution and is based on our cultural and ethical values. Just a cursory look at the advancement of Iranian women and girls and their status in various fields...can lead you to perceive Iran - away from prejudice - as a progressive society that takes into consideration their needs and listen to the voices of its women and girls eagerly."

Wednesday, November 16, 2022




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!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Diversity. Equity. Inclusion.

These are sacred concepts for progressives. 

They also happen to be concepts roundly ignored by the Palestinian leadership. 

And the aforementioned progressives don't really care.

Here is a photo from a PLO Executive Committee meeting presided over by Palestinian dictator Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday evening.


Not one woman. Not one man whose skin tone would make them a victim of discrimination anywhere.

Once upon a time, Hanan Ashrawi was a member of the committee. She resigned in 2020 - and was replaced by yet another white man.

EC members are not elected. They are effectively handpicked by Mahmoud Abbas to support his decisions, as he controls every single branch of Palestinian government. 

None of this bothers the people who claim to care so much about diversity and inclusion. 





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, November 08, 2022

Al Quds reports:
The police in the governorate of Jericho and the Jordan Valley closed, on Monday evening, a tourist villa in the city, by a decision of the governor, Jihad Abu al-Asal.

The Police Public Relations and Media Department stated, in a press statement, that the closure was implemented by the Tourism, Antiquities and Environment Police, following the publication of advertisements for renting the villa and in video clips on social media that met with general discontent from citizens in the governorate and the rest of the regions.

What appears to have happened is a young Christian Palestinian influencer, Marya Jadaoun, made a series of TikTok videos advertising a private villa in Jericho, including one with her cavorting in a pool while wearing a bikini. She has made similar videos before. Apparently the villa's owner paid her to make a viral video, which included its name and phone number.

I found it without sound:


Thousands of people saw it and some complained about such a terrible thing, which caused tens of thousands of others to now seek the video online (Jadaoun removed it from her TikTok.) 

Naturally, the Palestinian police stepped in to not only make sure that the video was taken down, but that the villa itself must be closed, for allowing a private person to wear a bikini. 

Jadaoun said that the video was taken with full permission of the villa, but she apologized for it anyway, because a Christian acting like a normal person in the West Bank is in danger. 







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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, October 26, 2022


By Daled Amos

Last week, a piece "In Defense of Hamas" appeared in The Amherst Contra, an anonymous student publication at Amherst College. The article whitewashes the terrorist group as "the perennial bogeyman" and defends it against being "consistently portrayed as a terrorist organization". There really is not much more to say about it -- or The Amherst Contra itself, which prides itself on publishing "unpopular opinions," starting this year with "Would We Be Better Off Without Democracy?" But it is an example of the ease with which Israel is condemned on campus.

Unlike that anonymous article, last year, following the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, a letter was circulated with the signatures of rabbinical and cantoral students, decrying the situation in Israel, and blaming Israel:

What will it take for us to see that our Israel has the military and controls the borders? How many Palestinians must lose their homes, their schools, their lives, for us to understand that today, in 2021, Israel’s choices come from a place of power and that Israel’s actions constitute an intentional removal of Palestinians?

These students inform us: "we are future leaders of the Jewish community" -- though that may not be the way most Jews view cantors. For that matter, not every rabbinical student is a future leader of "the Jewish community."

Be that as it may, there is no indication of what grasp, if any, these students have of the full situation in Israel. But even putting aside the question of the depth of their understanding of current events in Israel and of the history -- issues arguably outside their areas of expertise -- there are also the areas that are supposed to be their area of expertise.

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, notes a lack of what one would have expected to find in a letter by rabbinical students and future Jewish leaders:

There wasn’t a word about Ahavat Yisrael – a love and solidarity with our fellow Jews in Israel, with the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our own homeland, to the very real sacrifices this experiment in Jewish national self-expression has imposed from its inception.

But this vacuum goes beyond Jewish students.

There was also a letter from scholars in Jewish and Israeli studies in response to last year's conflict who condemned Zionism as being

shaped by settler colonial paradigms that saw land settlement as a virtuous means of solving political, economic, or cultural problems, as well as modern European Enlightenment discourses that assumed a hierarchy of civilizations and adopted the premise that technological progress and development of an ‘underdeveloped’ territory would be an unqualified good. [emphasis added]

While they follow this with a passing reference to "the challenges and limitations of applying a settler colonial paradigm to the Zionist case, the unique historical Jewish connection to and presence in the Land of Israel," that does not stop these scholars from accusing Israel of "unsustainable systems of Jewish supremacy." 

Jewish supremacy?

No mention of the ongoing integration of Israeli Arabs in the Israeli military, government and Israeli society in general.

They conclude their letter with the obligatory 

commitment to upholding student and faculty free speech and academic freedom. [emphasis added]

by which they mean a commitment to non-violent protests and boycotts at a time when pro-Israel free speech on campus by students and professors can be dangerous both to one's person and profession.

Both the rabbinical students and these Jewish and Israeli scholars proclaim their Jewishness while attacking Israel, all while at the same time lacking Jewish empathy with Israel. 

In his article The Demise of Jewish Studies in America—and the Rise of Jewish Studies in Israel, Joshua M. Karlip writes about how "American Jewish studies, like American Jewry itself, is fast becoming de-Judaized." Karlip is a professor of Jewish history at YU. He sees this rejection of Jewish particularity as a major contributing factor behind these attacks by Jewish scholars on Israel. Whereas in the past, Europe demanded a "disavowal of Jewish national particularism" in exchange for acceptance, today's academic community demands "the de-Judaization" of their scholarship. 

Karlip claims that part of the problem is that these scholars lack depth in their Jewish background:

Their own often scant Jewish knowledge has abetted this process. With up to 80 percent of contemporary American Jewish scholars not able to read Hebrew sources fluently, is it any wonder that they have adopted the progressive left’s rejection of Zionism and Israel as a “settler colonialism” that displaced “indigenous populations”? If they had bothered to master Hebrew, perhaps they would have studied the Jews who prayed three times a day for the return to Zion rather than the acculturated elites who sought home in Russia, Poland, Germany, and France.

What they are missing, he writes, is what makes it possible for Jews from Morocco, Yemen, Ethiopia and Russia to make aliyah and bond together with an Israeli identity, which is "more than a 'constructed,' 'invented' identity."

Without that consciousness of our own nativeness in the Holy Land, of a people exiled and yearning to return home, the national culture, language, and civil society of Israel would not exist, let alone thrive, today. 

Writing in May 2021, Ruth Wisse gives another example of Jewish scholars who de-Judaize in their scholarship, in this case seeing Jewish self-perpetuation and continuity as nothing more than an exercise in corrupt male power. She quotes from The History and Sexual Politics of an American Jewish Communal Project to illustrate her point:

A Jewish continuity paradigm emerged forcefully in the 1970s as a set of expert pronouncements and community policies that treated women and their bodies as data points in service of a particular vision of Jewish communal survival...Condemning intermarriage and decrying low child-bearing rates became signature features of the affective work of Jewish communal research. [emphasis added]

As Wisse describes this approach, "every sensible Jewish communal initiative to encourage Jewish marriage, family, and education as the sustaining features of Diaspora survival is defined as a suspect tool of indoctrination."

Again, Jewish particularity is rejected with a total apathy for the richness of Jewish life, history and culture.

But what are we supposed to make of this "free speech" and "academic freedom" that the scholars above claim to support in the context of their condemnation of Israel and its alleged crimes? Is academic freedom just a variety of free speech for scholars?

According to an article this year in The New Republic, academic freedom not only covers research and teaching, but also statements that scholars make outside of that ("extramural utterances") -- for instance on social media.

The point is that academic freedom of expression is an extension of their recognized expertise and competence in their field, which is why what they outside of academia -- what they say publicly -- gets respect. But by the same token, shouldn't they be held responsible when they go off the rails? 

For instance:

the AAUP (American Association of University Professors) has consistently held that faculty should not be fired for extramural speech unless that speech calls into question a professor’s fitness to serve. Ordinarily, that speech has to bear directly on the faculty member’s field of study. The idea is that a historian who is a Holocaust denier is obviously unfit, whereas an electrical engineer who is a Holocaust denier is just a crank. This position makes perfect sense, though few people realize that it entails the unsettling corollary that professors enjoy greater protection for extramural speech when they have no idea what they’re talking about than for speech within the areas of their research and teaching. (emphasis added)

And academics who talk and write outside of their field of expertise -- and say outrageous things, are not all that hard to find.

One example of this is Joy Karega:

Karega was a professor of rhetoric and composition who promoted a panoply of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including the claims that ISIS is a CIA/Mossad front and that the 2015 Islamist attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo was in fact a false flag operation conducted by Israel. Both were rightly determined to be in the ballpark of Holocaust-denying historians.

Sure enough, Oberlin College originally defended Karega on free speech grounds, and only months later finally fired her.

But what about less blatant examples of academics going outside their area of expertise?

Phyllis Chesler wrote last year about how Academics Use Propaganda, Not Expertise, to Bash Israel. She describes an open letter by Palestinian Feminist Collective, claiming that "once again, Palestinians from the far north to the far south of our homeland are defying settler colonialism's attempts to partition the land and the people." Academic feminists enthusiastically joined in with a statement that ignored both facts and context. Chesler writes:

Subsequently, academic feminists, issued a statement "In Solidarity With Palestinian Feminist Collective," which links to non-scholarly boilerplate propaganda, none of which is concerned with the Islamic gender apartheid that afflicts Arab Palestinian women in Israel, Gaza, and on the West Bank. They focus on "evictions in East Jerusalem" without understanding the history, legality, or nature of this dispute.

...The gender studies people link to facts about the "humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip," which fail to acknowledge that Israel left Gaza in 2005. Whatever the situation there may be, it is due to Hamas's greed, corruption, and terrorist goals.

Dear God: How is it possible to claim that "Palestine is a feminist issue," which they do, without even mentioning forced child marriage, forced veiling, and honor killing – which are indigenous customs – not caused by the alleged Israeli occupation?

Chesler describes how she took a random sample of 1 professor at 10 gender, women's studies and sexuality departments and found only one professor who even addressed the issue of honor killing -- and even then, only to attack Trump and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

But none of these randomly chosen 10 have an advanced degree in the history and nature of the Middle East, the Arab World, Islam, Judaism, or Israel. None are teaching courses in such areas as experts. They are merely using their expert credentials to support propaganda. [emphasis added]

But spreading propaganda in the guise of academic scholarship is not limited to feminist academics. Chesler points to "Palestine and Praxis: Scholars for Palestinian Freedom," an open letter featuring 70 pages of signatories with about 45 names on each page. The signers claim to be "scholars" who identify with "the Palestinian struggle as an indigenous liberation movement confronting a settler colonial state." These "scholars" call for "boycott campaigns – and to anti-Israel campus activism and to "pressure (their) government to end funding Israeli military aggression."

But...

Guess what? Only 11 of the first 450 signatories teach in Middle East, Palestine, and Arabic Studies.

Both the feminist academics and the "scholars" are recycling Palestinian Islamist propaganda and trying to pass it off as scholarly opinion. Do not fall for it. [emphasis added]

This is not just an issue of academics and scholars going outside of their areas of expertise. There is an issue of a lack of objectivity and the pursuit of personal agendas. As Menachem Kellner, who teaches philosophy and Jewish thought at Shalem College writes, the concept of academic freedom is being abused:

the concept of “academic freedom” is meant to enable academics to research and teach evidence-based truths in the fields in which they are competent. It is not meant to protect academics who introduce their personal politics into their research and teaching in order to browbeat their students and foment an atmosphere of prejudice and hate designed to silence rational inquiry.

Such academics share responsibility for the atmosphere of fear that Jewish students suffer on college campuses.

Jews have all kinds of opinions about Israel, and are certainly free to express them -- so does anyone else for that matter. But the fact that someone is Jewish doesn't mean he knows what he is talking about. Jewish scholars are free to condemn Israel, but in turn, we are free to question their motives and agenda, and even whether they really have the expertise to back up what they claim. The same applies to any scholar who signs on to a condemnation of Israel -- we can question what agenda they or their group is pursuing.

And we should.





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, October 24, 2022




Today is National Day of Palestinian Women.

The theme of the day was to pressure Israel to release terrorists from prison.

The participants in supportive vigils for prisoners organized by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in coordination with the governorates, on the occasion of the National Day of Palestinian Women, today, Monday, stressed the need to form a fact-finding committee to study the situation of male and female prisoners and discuss it with the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, and to facilitate and facilitate regular and regular family visits for female and male prisoners.

For its part, the Ministry of Women's Affairs called, in a press release, on the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, to put pressure on the Israeli occupation, the occupying power, to end the file of administrative detention and to abolish the policy of solitary confinement and stop its use against Palestinians.

What does that have to do with women? Not much, but they tried to shoe-horn it in, by mentioning female prisoners (a whopping seven prisoners are mothers, out of 30 total)  and that Palestinian women are suffering when their husbands or sons are in prison.

Nablus Governor Ibrahim Ramadan said, "The wounded, the martyr, and the captive represent the homeland. Without them, there is no homeland. We support their mothers who shed tears for their children for the sake of the homeland."

To Palestinians, women are there to make male babies to blow up Jews, and this is their highest purpose.

If you think this sounds sexist, that is because it is. Even a Palestinian Women's Day is hijacked into anti-Israel incitement, and Palestinian women are shoved to the side on their supposed special day.

The website of the Minister of Women's Affairs - who very ministry's existence is proof that Palestinian women are regarded as peripheral to society - features several statistics showing exactly how little women are regarded in their society:

96% of Chambers of Commerce members are men
15 of 16 governors are men
89% of foreign envoys are men
87% of cabinet members are men 
95% of PA Central Council members are men
89% of members of the National Assembly are men

This is the reality of women's rights in the PA - and it is worse in Gaza under Hamas.

The Ministry of Women's Affairs, like the National Day of Palestinian Women, are symbolic shell institutions to make the gullible West (and pesky Palestinian women) believe that something is being done to address the inequalities in Palestinian society. They exist so the PLO can report to the UN how many accomplishments they have achieved - "look, we put resources into women's rights!" But none of it translates to anything that actually helps Palestinian women.

And the anti-Israel feminists of the world don't give a damn. 




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, September 30, 2022

Independent Arabia reports that Hadash MK Aida Touma condemned Israel making injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera available to Bedouin women in the Negev. She said it is “dangerous and falls within the appalling racist policies,” adding that this Israeli policy aims to control and restrict childbirth in the Bedouin community  in the Negev.
It quotes Israel's Liberal magazine:
Inside a women’s clinic in the city of Beersheba, the largest city in the Negev desert region in Israel, Fatima Abu Al-Qia’an (30 years old) and a group of her married companions are standing in queues, anxiously waiting for their turn for an urgent medical examination.

This is just like the fake controversy over Israel supposedly forcing Ethiopian Jewish women to take Depo-Provera.  

As I reported at the time, in more patriarchal societies, women who want to take birth control prefer to covertly use the Depo-Provera injection without their husbands knowing. Husbands might want huge families but many of their wives do not.

Israel is giving these women the option of birth control, giving them more control over their own bodies. Which means that the "progressive" crowd will report this as the exact opposite. 

What about the side effects of Depo-Provera, which Touma says outweighs any benefits, specifically its effect on bone density? Well, the Royal Osteoporosis Society of the UK quotes the  World Health Organization:

More recent advice however from The World Health Organisation (WHO) 2007 recommends that there should not be any restriction on the use of Depo-Provera if you are aged between 18 and 45 nor on the length of time you can use it (if you are eligible to use this method).

It recommends special consideration if you are under 18 (when bone density is being built up rapidly) or over 45 (when you are approaching the menopause) although it is felt that the advantages will generally outweigh any concerns about the theoretical consequences (fractures) of long term Depo-Provera use. This is in part due to emerging evidence that has shown that bone density tends to recover over time once Depo-Provera is stopped. However with continuing use of this contraceptive it recommends that the overall benefits and risks are periodically reviewed.

Other pro-women measures, like anti-polygamy laws, laws promoting female employment and laws against child marriages, are also meant to empower Arab women in Israel - and they also peripherally discourage the Arab women having families as large as they were forced to when their husbands didn't allow them to work. They too have been spun as "anti-Arab," 

Israel's attempts to modernize Bedouin society and empower Bedouin women is twisted as being racist. 

Because when you are an antisemite, everything Israel does is assumed to be racist.



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

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