Amira Hass has a column marked by her usual perspicacity and deeply humanistic vision in HaAretz today, in which she notes that,
- There could not have been a worse time to release the Human Rights Watch report on violence against women within Palestinian families and society: yesterday, November 7, at the same time the Israeli army withdrew from Beit Hanun after a six-day assault that claimed 53 lives. At least 27 of those killed were unarmed civilians, including 10 children and two Red Crescent volunteers. Of the 200 or so people injured in the operation, there were at least 50 children and 46 women…
She adds, “In the competition over the Palestinian slot in the Israeli media, it is obvious that a report critical of Palestinian society and its institutions will trump the option of completing a report on this assault.” The same might certainly be said of much of the US media, too.
By way of quantification, Hass reports– and I would tend to trust her on this, given her good relations with Palestinian women’s groups and human rights organizations– that, “Twelve Palestinian women – eight from Gaza and four from the West Bank – have been murdered since the start of 2006 by relatives on the pretext of ‘family honor.'” Of course, this is tragic and outrageous; and in a sense it is only the tip of a huge iceberg of harm that Palestinian females suffer at the hands of a very patriarchal, traditionalist society.
However, several scores of Palestinian females have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces in this same period. And this, too, is just the tip of a huge icreberg of harm that Palestinian females have suffered at the hands of Israel’s all-encompassing, stifling military occupation rule over Gaza and the West Bank.
In the post I put up here yesterday I noted that the latest HRW report on domestic violence in Palestine had made no mention in its own name either of the very harmful direct effects that the Israeli occupation rule has had on the lives (anbd deaths) of Palestinian women, or of the clear link– evident to anyone who spends any time in the West Bank or Gaza, as I do fairly frequently– between these stifling conditions of life and the likelihood of intra-familial violence among many of those thus stifled. The report did have, as I noted in an addendum, one short, third-person reference to the fact that “Some Palestinian women’s organizations” had established such a causal link– but this was, as I noted, buried deep within one of the report’s many footnotes. It was also extremely non-committal
I wish HRW had articulated much more explicitly and clearly this quite evident political and social context within which the phenomenon of domestic abuse– and, any efforts to end it– must surely be considered.
I agree it is true, as Hass argues today, that many members of what she calls the “traditional-masculine lobby in Palestinian society” will, as always, seek use the fact of Israel’s continuing occupation in order to “deter… the voices demanding social change.” I was not, however, arguing that no-one should even mention the facts of intra-familial violence amongst Palestinians these days, or that no-one should think of doing anything about it. I was trying to argue instead that in order to do anything effective about this issue, people do need to understand the whole range of factors affecting the lives of Palestinian women and their menfolk as they work together (I hope!) to build strong supportive relationships and strong, nurturing families. And in that context, the effects of Israel’s occupation rule on the lives of these men and women– both its direct effects, and the knock-on effects it has on the ability of people to sustain strong, respectful relationships inside the home– simply cannot be ignored.
No Palestinian woman who works in a woman’s group or elsewhere with whom I have ever spoken believes that Israel’s role in this can be ignored. Both factors together– the behavior of many Palestinian men and the behavior of the occupation– have to be considered and challenged, or modified. But for HRW to relegate any reference to that principled position to deep inside footnote #103, and to distance themselves from it by simply saying that this is merely what “some Palestinian women’s groups” believe, seems to me extremely disempowering and dis-voicing of those women’s rights activists. It seems to tell them: “Human Rights Watch in New York knows best; and we are determined for our own reasons not to mention the behavior of the Israeli occupation as a relevant factor in this regard.”
I beg to disagree.
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Hamas_threatens_to_attack_US_target_11082006.html
HAMAS clarifies the terms of discussion.
United Nations
! The Sight Inside Biet Hanoun Reveal Unimaginable Horror
Just for reminder, a week ago or so it was the Israeli aggression 1956 war against Egypt, in same day Israeils did the massacre in Kafr Qasim Massacre using the war to did this inhuman acts by those who keep saying they are victimised by the world while they did same acts for years against the Palestinians…
This by Benny Morris, Israel’s best known “New Historian” , I dont know where is HRW in all these crimes done by Isralies
HRW has, of course, criticized Israel on plenty of occasions.
I really don’t get Helena’s serial diaries on this subject. It’s as if an agency is suspect if it does not adopt the “Palestine-Uber-Allles” mentality.
As for New York. It is a major metropolitan area where many international organizations have a base. They can’t have field offices in every area where they cover conflicts or HR situations.
What’s funny is that Helena, in the span of two posts 1) claims that not enough research has been done, 2) claims that HRW wasted too much money doing the research and study (they should have just cited an opinion piece by Amira Hass) and then 3) claims that they didn’t actually study anything, but just made prenouncements from New York.”
Poor Helena, HRW breaks from its pattern of criticizing Israel, and she loses the ability to make a coherent argument. It’s like she loses her train of thought unless everyone around her agrees with her completely.
So Joshua, instead of all this constant carping at me (in a fairly sophomoric third person), why don’t you tell us what steps YOU would would recommend that could best help improve the lot of Palestinians women and girls. Tell us this, based on your experience of and conversations with these people…
The HRW report looks like a good start to me.
A few other things on top of that…
Decreasing the general racism and hatred in Palestinian society directed toward Israel. It’s not surprising that because Palestinian leaders foment hate toward Israel, that such hate is then also channeled in ways that are very negative toward the family.
Stop firing rockets toward Israel and trying to send suicide bombers to kill Israelis. That way Israelis wont have to go after the Palestinian militants, and there will be less casualties resulting from the Israeli actions.
Stop all social pressure for women to wear hijab or any other covering. If the woman wants to as a matter of personal choice, then by all means she can do so. To the extent there are social pressures as well, then that feeds into a belief in subjugation and inferiority of women.
We could, of course, go on forever, but that’s not really the point. The point is that it is patently ridiculous to blame Israel and America for Palestinian domestic violence issues.
Stop all social pressure for women to wear hijab or any other covering. If the woman wants to as a matter of personal choice, then by all means she can do so.
This is really funny; this is not your business or any one else this statement by you just shows that you really have no attention to set peace in any way in the region.
Israelis calling Arabs/Muslims to get their women uncovered now to make a peace with them it’s just an absolute pathetic and unimaginable, what a smooth wards coming from your mouth concerning about women rights….
What else you need from them to do Sir?
Good, Joshua, assuming you’ve read the whole HRW report you’ll notice they’re calling on the PA to do all sorts of things (that I described as “sane, humane,etc”) So I assume you would join the rest of us in urging a full restoration of the PA’s funding so it could even start to do some of these things?
(Pity the HRW report didn’t mention that explicitly, though, don’t you think?)
Re social pressures on females to dress one way or another, I am SO happy that here in the US there is no social pressure (supported by an extremely well-funded advertising industry) on young women to look a certain way, display their bodies in a certain way, starve themselves, and generally present themselves publicly as sex-objects for men’s pleasure… (Irony alert.)
Every society has its own set of “social pressures” on women. Maybe we should attend to our own society’s ills in this regard and leave it to other societies to do likewise?
Funny you didn’t take up my invitation to tell us something on the basis of knowledge you gained through your own contacts with, or other forms of experience regarding, Palestinian women. Are you interested in them as people, I wonder, or merely as vehicles for your own– always highly ideological– arguments?
Funny you didn’t take up my invitation to tell us something on the basis of knowledge you gained through your own contacts with, or other forms of experience regarding, Palestinian women.
HRW tells us their study “is based on more than one hundred interviews conducted in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron, Tulkarem, Jericho, and Gaza.” Maybe you’re suggesting that their methodology was flawed, or their sample too small?
Or are opinions drawn second-hand always inferior? What then can we untraveled rubes ever hope to take from your own first-hand testimony?
Pity the HRW report didn’t mention that explicitly, though, don’t you think?
It didn’t mention funding because it has nothing to do with the laws on the books: These laws include provisions that: reduce penalties for men who kill or attack female relatives who commit adultery; relieve rapists who agree to marry their victims from any criminal prosecution; and allow only male relatives to file incest charges on behalf of minors. These laws deter women and girls from reporting abuse and provide virtual impunity for perpetrators.
That doesn’t sound to me like a funding problem.
Every society has its own set of “social pressures” on women. Maybe we should attend to our own society’s ills in this regard and leave it to other societies to do likewise?
Geez. What a smarmy, supercilious response. Sure, every society exerts social pressures on how women (and men, by the way) look and act. But there are differences in how these social pressures are enforced. Honor killing is certainly an extreme example, and it occurs in places, like Jordan and Egypt which are not occupied by Israel.
Israel also has its share of domestic violence. However, I don’t see many people successfully blaming this on the Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims. What’s more, we have a legal system that attempts to apply equal sanctions on acts of violence, whether domestic or not and whether or not they are committed by males or females of the species (god, I love that usage – but if we’re the dogs….?). I think that that is all that the HRW and reasonably sane people are asking of the Palestinians.
At any rate this, and the previous post, have done much to illustrate the absolute hysterical craziness of certain “advocacies” concerning the Middle East.
My recommendation, Helena, is to post a lot of stuff real fast so that this thread rolls off the bottom quickly!
That should have read:
At any rate this, and the previous posts, have done much to illustrate the absolute hysterical craziness of certain “advocacies” concerning the Middle East.
HAMAS clarifies the terms of discussion.
Vadim, you’d be well advised not to draw attention to the great risks that the US assumes due to its blanket support of Israel.
“we have a legal system that attempts to apply equal sanctions on acts of violence”
Look who speak about violence!! What your state doing from 1948 till now? Can you explain to us?
What about those Israeli groups and gangs who work before 1948 like Kahana and Bin Grunion Groups?
So did Israel now learn the good behaviours and attitude in hard way that she now consulting others in the region for good attitude?
JES if you run out or you are short of memory go to charge it….
To refresh your memory JES
“The Arabs are Donkeys and Beasts”
“The nation of Israel is pure and the Arabs are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil disaster, an evil devil, and a nasty affliction. The Arabs are donkeys and beasts. They want to take our girls. They are endowed with true filthiness. There is pure and there is impure and they are impure.”
–Rabbi David Batzri, head of the Magen David Yeshiva in Jerusalem [Israeli newspaper Haaretz, March 21, 2006]
“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.”
Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 [N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1]
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/palestine.html
Vadim, you’d be well advised not to draw attention to the great risks that the US assumes due to its blanket support of Israel.
Don’t worry, “No Preference,” I doubt anyone here is so craven as to let empty threats (like this one by the “Al-Qassam” brigades) color their views on I-P.
“teach the American enemy merciless lessons they will not forget?” How embarrassing. Says a lot about the judgment of the organization’s leadership, that’s all.
Salah,
You continue to be entertaining, as usual. I think that we were talking about domestic violence and honor killings. But what do I know? After all, according to several imams in Gaza, who are regularly featured on PA television, I’m just the son of apes and pigs!
JES,
You and your folk demanding that Arab women be uncovered your thought of honour killings both of you have no rights to put your orders and conditions to these limits.
Your statement it just far from the main topic here JES, Helena talking about Palestinians suffering because of your polices and massacres to the people of Plastein we do not talking about honour killings, it’s not your businesses at all discussing this matter, yes you can object this act and condemn them.
This means there is no common ground for peace to agree with you.
In regards to stoping the hatred I think both side doing their share in this matter blaming one side “Arab” and keep deniing and ignoring other side of hatred not can be helpful at all.
Let’s be balanced here if Arabs killed same numbers of Israelis as the Israelis killing what the emotions and the feedback form the people of Israel toward the Arab?
Are they giving them a smile and say sorry? no they will charged with hatred for every Arab they will not like to look in face of an Arab, this is the story for 70 years you “Israelis” killing Arabs for no reason just to grape their land and push for more settlements on their land put yourself here and tell us the truth what’s your emotions then?
If we talking about changing this hatred story we need 50 years of building the bridges of peace and love when the new generations sees the good well from other side then the hatreds will be faded and finish, asking to stope the hatred now its not can work simply its deep in hearts and minds of many generations what you did in Beat Hannon these images printed in the minds of those kids on the ground how we can weep off these image?
Its our responsibility both side to give hope open doors for the people not sanctions them killing them make them suffer on hope they can surrenders to you this is not can work and will never work if you insisting on this policy I tell you will live in the same miss for hundreds of years and the prove their form the day Israelis staring there dream in Promise land and here we go every day killing or war no stope to this death lines…
it’s not your businesses at all
Of course it is. It’s as much our business as human rights abuses by Israelis in the occupied territories, and as much your business since as far as I know you aren’t any more Palestinian than Helena.
Salah,
I agree with you about building bridges to peace. I do not agree that the issues of women’s rights and honor killings are none of the world’s business – unless, of course, societies who condone such actions want to remain outside the course of modern human interaction.
By the way, I never stated any demand for “uncovering”, as you say, Muslim or Arab women. I don’t think that anyone else here did either. The issue is that women themselves should have the right to decide how they dress without fear of physical violence or death should they choose not to cover themselves.
I agree with you about building bridges to peace.
How? its not by stating this the peace come to the land of Plastein, JES when Israelis stope hunting those Palestinian individuals and stope their aggressions moving tans and stoping Chops over the heads of Palestinians when Israeli accepted there are Palestinians do not agree and oppose your occupations not shoot down them or hunt them by remotes rockets or car bombs to get red of him all these acts will boiling the people and without this daily acts by your state say you agree all this meaningless.
One questions JES for you, why Israel refusing continuously setting with Arab stats for peace dialogue sponsored by UN and other international world courtiers to solve the problem?
In all the offers that Arab gave Israel to come to peace they refused on different grounds but the only agrees to do peace deals as individual states like we see with Egypt sand Jordan and with US the sponsor of this we “Arabs” seeing US a bias sponsor in all of this and this fact you can not denied they why Israel talking about peace run and refused to set with there number under internal umbrella to solve Palestine problem and I think the time now you “your state really should looks to Saudi King Abdullah offer and start negations to set up the peace in the region.
” PR-media strategies explain why the news continues to emphasize the violence directed against Israelis. However, the media reports do not include international law in their coverage, with regards to human rights, the rights of Palestinian refugees and the obligations of occupying forces. The Geneva Conventions and several UN Security Council Resolutions are solid sources for reference. If news reports included the historical fact that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem exist on Palestinian land, the background information may cause Americans to raise questions about the legality of those settlements. Moreover, people may begin to reassess the root causes of the conflict.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0502/S00151.htm