Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin posts a rant after she is deported from Egypt to Turkey instead of being allowed into Gaza for - get this - International Women's Day. Meanwhile, her fellow travelers, pictured above, remain at Cairo airport.
Just the other day I hopped on a plane to Egypt, eager to join the international delegation of 100 women headed to Gaza for International Women’s Day. Little did I know I would be stopped at the Cairo airport, detained, held overnight in a cell, then in the morning brutally assaulted by Egyptian authorities. They threw me to the ground, stomped on my back, handcuffed me so tightly they dislocated my shoulder, and then deported me to Turkey.
Now the Egyptian authorities are blocking most of the remaining delegates from entering Egypt and traveling to Gaza. It has been frustrating and disappointing for us, but we cannot forget that almost two million Palestinians remained trapped in Gaza while the Egyptian Rafah border remains closed or tightly controlled
What happened to me was traumatizing, but is minor compared to what Egyptian activists are going through, including women. Thousands of peaceful Egyptian demonstrators have been killed or jailed by the Military Junta since the July 2013 military coup.
And just how does this moron think that Hamas is treating 'Palestinian' women in Gaza? Here's an example.
There's only one country in the Middle East which strives to treat its women like human beings. But Benjamin and her ilk cannot even acknowledges that country's existence. Jew hatred takes precedence over women's rights for these self-proclaimed women's rights activists.
And when he ran for Secretary General, this guy was supposed to be the 'better' candidate.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has blamed the 'occupation' for Arab backwardness. Talk about letting the Arabs avoid responsibility for their own actions....
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon laid partial blame for
stifled development in the Arab world on "protracted conflict, injustice
and occupation," in a message relayed Monday to the Third Arab Economic
and Social Development Summit in Saudi Arabia.
"The stalemate in
the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis is especially
troubling," said Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social
Commission for Western Asia Rima Khalaf, who delivered Ban's message.
He called for a renewal of "collective engagement to resume meaningful
negotiations that will realize Palestinian aspirations to live in
freedom and dignity in an independent State of their own, side by side
with Israel in peace and security."
The Arab world has no one but itself to blame for its backwardness. Itself, the way it practices Islam and the way it treats its women are all high on the list of reasons why the Arab world is stuck in the 8th century, And morons like Ban Ki-Moon who justify that behavior are high on the list of reasons why they will never modernize.
We are often told how Arab girls in Israel suffer from 'apartheid.' The picture above is one of 15 that show how Arab girls really live in Israel. The rest of the photo essay is here. I challenge you to find any country in the Arab - Islamic world where Arab or Islamic girls and women are freer.
The fact is, Arabs don’t all look alike or think alike. But we are often pushed into a kind of groupthink, a kind of self-censorship that hinders our development and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
We are not a universal group. But some of us believe in a simple universal truth: that every Arab deserves to live in freedom, wherever he or she might call home. Some of us want Arab countries to be more like America and Israel, places where the individual can flourish.
Say those words to many Arabs and they are shocked and angered. Soon, words like imperialist are thrown about, and the subject turns to Israel. Always, it seems, it turns to Israel.
Why the anger when I hint that America and Israel might have something to teach the Arab world? I thought about it for the longest time, and only recently stumbled upon the answer.
It is all about Arab self-doubt. It is all tied to a profound lack of cultural self-confidence, and a deep-seated fear that maybe, just maybe, Arabs won’t be very good at the self-governance thing. That Arab nations won’t be capable of building democratic cultures that engender the flourishing of human freedom, and that these nations won’t have the ability to tap the God-given talents of their people the way Americans and Israelis do.
That maybe, just maybe, the Arab world will never measure up to America or Israel.
Better, goes the logic, to cling to anger over the plight of the Palestinians. Better to cling to international policy disputes and to a deep-seated hatred of Israel. Better to play the role of victim, and the role of self-righteous critic, than to do the hard work of lifting up the conditions of your people.
Okay, he grew up in and lives in America, but his story tells you that many Arabs who grew up like he did still retain the ancient Middle East hatreds. But he gives me hope.
Another Lara Logan: NY Times photographer sexually harassed in Libya
I'm sure that this is all just a coincidence and that the treatment that New York Times photographer Lynsey Addario endured in captivity in Libya has nothing - nothing at all - to do with the treatment Lara Logan endured at the hands of a mob in Cairo and certainly nothing - nothing at all - to do with Arab Muslim attitudes toward women.
One man grabbed her breasts – the start of a pattern of sexual harassment she endured over the ensuing 48 hours.
‘There was a lot of groping,’ she said. ‘Every man who came in contact with us basically felt every inch of my body short of what was under my clothes.’
As she was being driven away from Ajdabiya, she said another of her captors stroked her head and told her repeatedly that she was going to be killed.
‘He was caressing my head in this sick way, this tender way, saying, "You’re going to die tonight. You’re going to die tonight",‘ she added.
Miss Addario was with Anthony Shadid, the paper’s Beirut bureau chief, photographer Tyler Hicks and reporter and videographer Stephen Farrell when they were seized while leaving the scene of fighting between rebels and Libyan government forces because they decided it had become too dangerous.
Their driver inadvertently drove into a checkpoint manned by troops loyal to the Libyan dictator.
‘I was yelling to the driver, "Keep driving! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!",' said Mr Hicks. ‘I knew that the consequences of being stopped would be very bad.’
There's nothing to see here, so just move on. They just sound like 'ordinary' adolescent males, don't they?
Video: Putting women's rights back on the Middle East media agenda
Why does our mainstream media give the Arab and Muslim countries of the Middle East a pass when it comes to their treatment of women? I don't know. I'd suggest that it's the racism of no expectations. We don't expect these brutes to behave any differently, so we write it off by saying that we cannot expect them to behave differently.
On Tuesday, I chanced upon this post, which claims that Lara Logan wasn't raped at Tahrir Square in Cairo. The post is based upon nothing but the writer's impressions. As our rabbis tell us "lo ra'iti eino ra'aya" (the fact that I didn't see it doesn't prove anything). I don't believe that post for one minute. Sexual harassment of women is routine on the streets of Cairo. But if I had not read about it five years ago, I would not have known it from our mainstream media.
Let's see if we can change things, starting with getting our mainstream media to tell the truth.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
