Israel Matzav

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

What's a liberal?

Heh (Hat Tip: Jack W).

Labels: liberalism, Muslim treatment of women, Muslims, Republicans, women

Thursday, June 12, 2014

New study by IDF reserve colonel says women don't belong in combat

A new book by an IDF reserve colonel that studied women's role in combat units says that the women shouldn't be there.

"The study found that a particularly high percentage of women who served in combat roles suffered physical harm during their service and will suffer for the rest of their lives from ruptured discs, stress fractures in the pelvis, uterine prolapse and more,” Sagi told Maariv/NRG.

While men also suffer injuries during their military service, he said, studies prove that the female rate of injury is much higher and that the seriousness of the average injury is greater, with entire platoons sometimes unable to function because of the physical state of the female soldiers. The injuries referred to are incurred in training and routine deployment – not actual combat.

"The idea that there is no difference between men and women in the army is a ridiculous one that has been disproved in all of the world's militaries,” Sagi insisted. “One cannot defeat evolution. In days in which a meaningful reduction of the defense budget is required – there is no doubt that the matter of placing women in combat roles requires reassessment.”

"People will read the book and discover that they have been misled in everything pertaining to women's service in the military,” he predicted. “The integration of women in the army has not succeeded, but everyone keeps shouting at us, that we must open before women the remaining units that have not yet been opened to them. I do not know what will help understand that this is a serious mistake.”

...

The book describes ludicrous measures by which women's lesser suitabilty for combat roles is masked. These include lowering the bar of requirements for women wishing to enter combat units, placing benches next to walls that trainees jump over (only for the women to use), running laps in circles (instead of straight-line runs from point A to point B) to make it less obvious that the women are lagging behind the men, and more.

The IDF told Maariv/NRG that Sagi's claims are “completely baseless” and that women's integration into combat units has been a success. “Female combat soldiers are dealt with in a supervised manner, which takes into account their medical, physiological and social needs,” the army said.

Waiting to see if the same people come out of the woodwork as did the last time I raised this issue.

Labels: feminism, IDF, political correctness, women

Monday, March 10, 2014

It's come to this: This is how Catherine Ashton observed International Women's Day

EU FM Ashton's vacuous statement at end of her Iran visit: http://t.co/5Tmh1EM0vj She wore hijab on Intl Women's Day: pic.twitter.com/fFJL5Yv0Zh
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 9, 2014

Now don't get me wrong. I'm an Orthodox Jew, and Mrs. Carl covers her hair (not with a hijab) and wears sleeves below the elbow and skirts below the knee all the time. But Mrs. Carl does that because she chooses to and because that's how we choose to live our lives. Ashton clearly does not choose to walk around in a hijab. Only in Iran.

As to Ashton's statement, it really is vacuous. It sounds like she just wants an agreement - any agreement. And given that she seems quite unsure that there will ever be one, you have to wonder again why the sanctions were eased at all.

Labels: Catherine Ashton, Iranian nuclear threat, women

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Boo Hoo

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.

Labels: Arab treatment of women, Cairo, Code Pink, Egypt, Egyptian treatment of women, Gaza, Hamas, Leftist anti-Semitism, Muslim treatment of women, women

Sunday, January 12, 2014

And again: Lapid puts his foot in his mouth

Yair Lapid has put his foot in his mouth again.

On Friday, Lapid wrote a post on his Facebook page in which he called for firing Israel's Chief Rabbis for ruling that Jewish law forbids drafting women into the IDF.

There's one small problem: When he was the head of the Orot Shaul (hesder) Yeshiva (a Yeshiva that combines Torah study with army service), Lapid's number 2 in the Yesh Atid party, Rabbi Shai Piron, wrote a responsum in which he stated that he is not aware of any halachic ruling that permits women to serve in the IDF (link in Hebrew).

So will Lapid now fire Piron?

Labels: Haredim, hesder, IDF, Shai Piron, women, Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid party

Monday, December 16, 2013

Obama-Biden war on women?

Just a few days after Michelle Obama changed places with her husband, Joe Biden gropes a female White House reporter:

More here.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Joe Biden, Michelle Obama, women

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

'It's not fair!'

Mrs. Carl and I have very close friends who have a sign up in their kitchen which we never tire of repeating to our children:

The following words shall not be heard in this house: "It's not fair."

Defense Minister Moshe 'Boogie' Yaalon said the same thing to a group of high school students in Dimona on Tuesday.

“There’s tremendous importance in hareidi enlistment, preferably to military service, but also to civilian national service,” Yaalon said.

“A problematic reality has been created here over the course of 65 years, a reality that nobody meant to create, of an entire sector of society that does not serve,” he continued. “This is a sensitive issue.”

“You won’t hear me inciting against this population or delegitimizing it, because I don’t believe in forced enlistment,” he informed the students.

He empathized with their situation, saying, “You’ll say, ‘It’s not fair, I have to do mandatory service, and they don’t.’ You’re right. But in my experience – and I have some experience in this matter – the right way is to allow hareidi men to serve, not to drag them from their benches in yeshiva and put them in jail.”

The IDF started attracting hareidi-religious recruits in 1999, he said. “Back then we had 90 [hareidi] soldiers. Last year there were 2,000 serving in the IDF and another 1,500 in civilian national service,” he related.

“It’s contagious,” he added. “Once, you wouldn’t have seen a young man in uniform in Bnei Brak or in certain neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and suddenly it’s becoming a natural thing, you see soldiers’ laundry in those neighborhoods.”

“And it doesn’t have to be ‘hareidi equals poor’… Because when they get out of the army, 91% of the former soldiers from the hareidi sector are employed… So even if it costs as more, and it does cost us more for them to serve for all sorts of reasons, it’s worth it down the line,” he explained.

Rabbis who work with hareidi soldiers have warned that attempting to force enlistment will put an end to voluntary enlistment.

Well, yeah, but there are still some non-Haredim left who don't want Haredim to serve.

He addressed concerns that if more hareidi men serve in the IDF, it will affect opportunities for female soldiers, due to the strict gender segregation in hareidi society. There is no reason women’s service should suffer, Yaalon said.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. That's what compromise is about.

Labels: Haredim, IDF, Moshe Yaalon, Nachal Charedi, women

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Releasing terrorists to advance peace...

... is like releasing rapists to advance women's rights.

Labels: Middle East peace process, Palestinian terrorists, women

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Provocation at the Wall

In this month's Commentary Magazine, Evelyn Gordon has a lengthy piece on the 'Women of the Wall.'

In an interview with Haaretz shortly before finishing his term as Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren said he had been devoting considerable effort to convincing Israeli leaders that the battle over the attempt by a women’s group to hold prayer services at Jerusalem’s Western Wall “could have strategic implications.” In Israel, Oren explained, the controversy over Women of the Wall “is perceived as a marginal question,” but “Americans see it as an issue of human rights and women’s status and freedom of worship.”

This divergence of views between Jews of the diaspora and Jews in Israel has a simple explanation. Americans see the struggle of Women of the Wall as a crucial battle for human rights and women’s status because they believe both are under threat in Israel. Israelis see the struggle as a marginal issue because they believe neither is under threat. The story of how that perceptual gulf has developed, and how a 25-year-old organization exploited it to catapult itself from relative obscurity to worldwide fame, is indeed a story with “strategic implications.” It’s the story of how Israelis opposed to their countrymen’s choices at the ballot box have sought to generate outside pressure to overturn those choices by creating a false narrative of an Israeli slide into fundamentalism and fascism.

...

[S]ince most Americans weren’t familiar with the details of the [Supreme] court’s [2003] ruling [seemingly barring WOW from the main prayer area], it was easy for WOW to obscure the police’s legal justification and claim that the force was simply kowtowing to Haredi demands, especially given the Haredim’s vocal (and physical) opposition to WOW’s services. That in turn played straight into the “exclusion of women” narrative—a connection WOW made explicitly. As its director, Leslie Sachs, said after one incident, “Today police succumbed to Haredi bullying and put us at the back of the bus again.” Thus, to Americans, it looked like official Israel, in the form of its police force, was colluding with a fundamentalist demand to remove women from the public square.

The organization also enjoyed one serendipitous piece of luck: In April 2013, the Jerusalem District Court asserted that police had misinterpreted the 2003 Supreme Court ruling, and that it hadn’t actually barred WOW from praying at the main section of the Wall. This was a claim WOW had never even made; its own website interprets the Supreme Court ruling the same way the police did: as saying that its right to pray at the Wall “was not without boundaries,” and therefore, it should hold its services at Robinson’s Arch. But since the state opted not to appeal the district court’s interpretation, it became binding, and thereafter, police did try to protect WOW’s monthly services.

Nevertheless, WOW also had no qualms about engaging in provocations to keep the pot boiling. The tactic is familiar to its longtime chairwoman, veteran activist Anat Hoffman. She is now executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, the Reform Movement’s Israeli legal and advocacy organization. She also spent 14 years as a Jerusalem city councilwoman for the left-wing Meretz Party and has served on the boards of two prominent leftist organizations, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Israel Women’s Network. But she has been involved in less mainstream activity as well: In 1988, for instance, she co-founded Women in Black, an organization whose protests against “the occupation” and against Israeli efforts to suppress Palestinian terror were considered radical at that time—at the height of the first intifada, years before the PLO recognized Israel.

...

[R]elocating away from the Haredi worshipers would defeat Hoffman’s main goal, as she herself defined it to the Jerusalem Post last December: “I want to see and be seen.” In short, her interest is not in holding women’s services at the Wall per se, but in doing so where they will be clearly visible to others who find them objectionable.

Indeed, WOW’s anti-Haredi agenda was clearly visible this past July, when Haredim finally managed a peaceful counter-demonstration. On the day of WOW’s planned monthly service, as many as 7,000 Haredi high-school girls arose at the crack of dawn to reach the Wall first.

According to police, they completely filled the women’s section, leaving no room for WOW to pray near the Wall as usual—which was obviously the point. The organization and its supporters were furious. “We feel like we’ve been betrayed by the police today because where we’ve been made to pray today is not a place of prayer,” Sachs said. “It is a blatant violation of the district court ruling,” charged Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of the Israeli Reform Movement, who, backed by Israeli Conservative Movement leader Yitzhar Hess, argued that the government must ensure that WOW can pray at the Wall when it so pleases.

What neither WOW nor its supporters explained is this: What were the police supposed to have done with the young Haredi worshipers? Banned them from the Wall? Kicked them out when WOW arrived? The implication was clear. WOW’s demand for open access to the Wall applies only to itself; Haredi women are free to come en masse only when WOW doesn’t want the site.

WOW’s provocative behavior alienated even some Israelis who in principle have no problem with women’s prayer groups. Hillel Halkin, for instance, wrote an article in the Forward in June terming the organization “childish provocateurs” indulging in the “narcissism of thinking that one’s rights matter more than anyone else’s feelings or the public interest.”

...

[G]enerating diplomatic pressure on Israel starts with undermining Americans’ belief in Israel’s commitment to democratic values. Indeed, Shavit linked the two issues explicitly in his July interview with Oren quoted at the beginning of this article: “The Israel of the settlements, exclusion of women from the public sphere, and keeping the Women of the Wall away from the Western Wall isn’t distancing itself from the American left? We’re not making ourselves unpopular with the new and progressive America, including liberal Jews?”

During the years when Israel was negotiating with the Palestinians and ceding territory unilaterally, the left-wing media had no need for Women of the Wall, and consequently had no interest in it. But for the past few years, not only were there no negotiations or withdrawals, there wasn’t even any public pressure for them: Most Israelis attributed the lack of negotiations to Palestinian intransigence and thought unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank would simply create another Gaza-style rocket base.

Consequently, for the left, it became imperative to ratchet up international pressure by making Israel “unpopular with the new and progressive America, including liberal Jews.” In this campaign, Women of the Wall proved useful, hence its sudden rise to media stardom. And in that sense, WOW is indeed a symptom of a broader Israeli problem. But this problem isn’t the “exclusion of women.” Rather, it’s the left’s inability to reconcile itself to the Israeli electorate’s rejection of their chosen policies.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: discrimination, women, Women of the Wall

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Only in Israel: Women (rights) gone wild

This could only happen in Israel. With a woman (Tzipi Livni) heading the 'negotiations' with the 'Palestinians,' Prime Minister Netanyahu is being pressured to ensure that half of the negotiating team consists of women.

The group, made up of feminist organizations and activists, including WIZO and Na'amat, based its name on UN Resolution 1325, which urged member states to give women a role "in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction, and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security."

"Resolution 1325" wrote to remind Netanyahu of the UN decision and that the 1951 Equal Rights for Women Law includes equality in all government teams, including those that negotiate treaties.

"Our request that women from different population groups be represented [in peace talks] includes the hope to bring different points of view to the table that were not previously there in peace-making efforts," the letter reads.

The group expressed hope that the implementation of Israeli and international law will send a message to the general public that it is necessary to include women in major diplomatic decisions.

Yes, that'll make it all right - if half the negotiating team is women. Sorry, but no. This is a time for the best person available (who is trusted by the government) without regard to their sex or any other defining characteristic.

Labels: Middle East peace process, Tzipi Livni, women

This is rich: 'Equalizing the burden' comes back to bite National Religious

One of the big campaign planks of the Jewish Home party - the heir to the National Religious Party - was 'equalizing the burden.' The Jewish Home party called loud and clear for 'all' Israeli citizens to do three years in the IDF, or in national service if they could not serve in the IDF. The Jewish Home party was so adamant about that plank, that it conspired with Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party to exclude Haredim from the coalition to ensure that 'equalizing the burden' would be implemented.

There's one small problem. Many of the Jewish Home party's supporters don't exactly do what much of the country would consider an 'equal' share. Most religious women avoid the army simply by declaring themselves to be religious. And many national religious men do hesder - a program that combines Torah study with army service, but the army service is limited to 16 months of active duty.

Now, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and his Tel Aviv supporters are going to call them on it.
At Sunday's cabinet meeting, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said that among the groups the government should be “encouraging” to serve a full three years in the army are Hesder yeshiva students – and religious girls and women.

If Israel truly wishes for the defense burden to be shared equitably, it must ensure that all groups serve the full 32 months that regular IDF male recruits serve, the Justice Ministry said Sunday.

In a statement, the Ministry said that it was necessary to examine all the issues involved in equitable service. “In advance of the final government decision on equitable service the government must investigate anew the possibility of increasing the length of service for all yeshiva students as well,” including Hesder students.

According to the Ministry, the government must change its position that it considers 17 months sufficient for Hesder students. In its statement, the Ministry said that the High Court would probably throw out any law that allowed one group to serve for a shorter period than the full amount of time than another group served.

Speaking before the government, Weinstein said that the government needed to put into place a method whereby groups would be “encouraged” to commit to the full service expected. That, he said, would include religious girls and women, who like girls and women from a secular background, should be serving as well.

What goes around comes around....

Labels: Haredim, hesder, IDF, Jewish Home party, women

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Stop 'Palestinian' gender apartheid

Indeed.

Labels: Muslim treatment of women, Palestinians, women

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Sickness: Israeli judge says 'some girls enjoy being raped'

I don't usually do the court thing (I'm not a litigator), but about five years ago, a friend in a messy divorce case convinced me to help him out by going to court and interrogating his ex-wife about some financial documents - including her US tax return - that his Israeli lawyers did not understand. One of the papers involved was a letter to someone called the Foreign Currency Controller, whose approval you needed to transfer foreign currency out of Israel until about 15 years ago. The letter, which the woman admitted to have signed, asked for the transfer of a seven-figure sum to an account held by a company of which she was the sole owner in an offshore jurisdiction. The request had been approved, but when I asked where the money was, the woman said to ask her ex-husband, whose name was nowhere to be found in the letter. She claimed 'he put it in front of me and I signed it without knowing what it was.' I had her nailed. But as I went in for the kill, the judge looked down from the bench and said "my wife trusts me absolutely, and if I handed her a piece of paper asking her to sign away her rights in our apartment, she would sign it without knowing or asking me what it was."

Until this morning, I thought that kind of bias in the Israeli court system was limited to that particular court, but that apparently is not the case. The Jewish Press reports that a judge of the Tel Aviv district court is hearing a case in which a 13-year old Jewish girl who was raped by four 'Palestinians' is seeking to have the attack classified as a terror attack. The judge, Nissim Yeshaya, said, "[Th]ere are some girls who enjoy being raped." Yes, really.

In Israel, a Victim of Terrorism is a person injured as a result of a terrorist act committed for nationalistic reasons, in Israel or abroad.

Victims of terrorist attacks are eligible for compensation, pursuant to the Compensation for Victims of Hostilities Act of 1970.

During the hearing, the young woman’s attorney, Roni Aloni-Sadovnik, a well known feminist lawyer, tried to convince the panel of judges, headed by Retired Tel Aviv District Court Judge Nissim Yeshaya, that there are cases of rape whose circumstances justify recognition as an act of terrorism committed for nationalistic reasons.

Attorney Aloni-Sadovnik later described the scene that ensued to Israel Army Radio: “In the midst of the passionate debate, he (Judge Yeshaya) suddenly said aloud, in earshot of everyone present, ‘There are some girls who enjoy being raped.’”

“The room fell into silence,” the attorney continued her description. “Even the panel members were silent for several minutes. And he didn’t even get what he had just said. He didn’t understand why everyone became quiet all of a sudden.”

Now, you might have thought that Yeshaya is a flaming Leftist who is trying to avoid the expansion of the definition of 'terror attack' (which is what I thought when I saw this story). Most of the Israeli judiciary leans hard left. But surprisingly, that does not appear to be the case. Go and figure. The bias toward women apparently goes both ways in the Israeli court system - for and against women.Shameful.

Labels: Israeli courts, Muslim treatment of women, religion of rape, women

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Caroline Glick on why the Obama administration is putting women in combat units

Caroline Glick has a different perspective on the Obama administration's plan to put women in combat units than do most prominent women in the media. She spent five and a half years as an officer in the IDF, and she was an embedded reporter with an all-male American infantry unit during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. So what does she think about putting American women in combat units?

As to the US military, as David Horowitz wrote back in 1992, the movement to assign women to frontline combat unit is not about advancing women. It is about destroying the US military. The fact that Obama didn't even need for Hagel to enter office before taking his first swipe at the military shows just how grandiose his plans for gutting US military capabilities in his second term are.

To be clear, as a woman who served as an officer in the IDF for 5 and a half years, and worked as an embedded reporter with an all male US infantry unit in Iraq, I have to say that I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with women serving in combat. But the purpose of last week's decision wasn't about permitting women to fight on the battlefield. They already do. It was about social engineering and weakening the esprit d'corps of the US military. As Saul Alinsky taught his followers the goal is never what you say it is. The goal is always the revolution.

Delegitimizing and weakening Israel is only one part of the "revolution." Israel will survive Obama and Hagel and Kerry and Brennan.

But that doesn't mean we and our supporters in the US should keep silent about their hostility just because we know we can't block their appointments. By pointing out their radicalism, we are at a minimum sending out the necessary warning about what their future plans will likely involve. And that is important, because the more they are criticized the weaker they will feel.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Caroline Glick, United States, women

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

It's come to this: Livni plays the sex card

I was going to headline this post a little differently, but this is a family blog....

Tzipi Livni is desperate enough for votes that she's playing the sex card, calling on women to vote for her... because she's a woman.

Tzipi Livni made a plea for the female vote on Wednesday, calling on them to "think of what kind of country they want to leave to their kids."

"I'm turning to the undecided women voters," she said, with less than a week to go before the January 22 national elections. "I know that there are many of you. I made the decision to join politics, and then to return to it, because I thought of my kids and about what kind of country we are leaving them."

And what are Yacimovitch (Labor) and Gal-On (Meretz)? Eunuchs? (Not that I would recommend voting for either of them either).

At the end of the day, this election isn't about what kind of country we're going to leave our children, but whether we're going to leave them a country at all. And that's why the vote is leaning so heavily to the Right.

Labels: Knesset elections 2013, Tzipi Livni, women

Friday, April 27, 2012

Zionism is synonymous with feminism

The last two posts have dealt with the treatment of women, and this one is a good summary. If you are a woman, would you rather live in Israel or in an Arab/Muslim country?

Let's go to the videotape - and then you can decide (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News).

Perhaps someone should forward this video to Mona Eltahawy.

Labels: United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, women, Zionism

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Obama's million dollar man?

This is off topic (no mention of Israel in this one), but I think it says a lot about the inconsistency of the President of the United States.

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Jack W).

Lead by example? Sounds more like leading from behind to me.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, women

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Clinton's worries

We now have more details on what Hillary Clinton said about Israel on Friday to a closed forum at the Saban Center.

In a closed session at the Saban Forum attended both by Israeli and American decision-makers Clinton addressed the issue of discrimination against Israeli women. She expressed concern for Israel's social climate in the wake of limitations on female public singing and gender segregation on public transport.

Among the Israeli representatives taking part in the forum were Minister Dan Meridor, Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

Clinton, a longtime advocate for women's rights, noted she was shocked at the fact that some Jerusalem buses have assigned separate seating areas for women. "It's reminiscent of Rosa Parks," she said, referring to the black American woman who refused to give up her seat to white passengers in the 1950s.

As it happens, Israel's Supreme Court ruled several months ago that no one can prevent someone else from sitting anywhere they want on a public bus, so to the extent that this exists (and my neighborhood is one of the places where it nominally does exist), it is totally voluntary. We do not have separate men's and women's buses and no one asks women to give up their seats when it gets crowded at the front of the bus. In fact, the back two thirds of the bus tend to be mostly women on the buses into and out of ultra-Orthodox dominated neighborhoods.

Referring to the decision of some IDF soldiers to leave an event where female soldiers were singing, she said it reminded her of the situation in Iran.

We've had arguments about this in the comments section, but Jewish law regards a woman's voice when heard by a man not her husband or son as erva (nakedness) in most circumstances and erva is something to be avoided at (literally) all costs. I don't understand the fuss about that incident. No one argued that it couldn't take place - only that religious soldiers who were offended by it should not be forced to stay and listen to it.

This year's Saban Forum has been focusing mainly on issues related to Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Some members of the forum said that Clinton's statements about Israel stemmed from genuine fear for the country's future.

Yeah, sure....

Labels: Hillary Clinton, Israeli democracy, Saban Center, women

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Lazy Susan has no comment

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is about to be executed in Iran for a murder that there is no proof she committed. And the United States and its female ambassador to the United Nations are silent.

Even the New York Times and the Washington Post have covered the story. Mina Ahadi, a spokesman for the International Committee Against Stoning and Execution, has been engaged in non-stop demonstrations against the Iranian government and its perverse judicial decision.

Remarkably, Ms. Ashtiani probably has no idea that there is vocal support for her cause. Iranian mullahs do not react to appeals of reason and fairness: Only when their positions are watched and challenged with condemnation, do the mullahs pay attention.

This explains why the United States' official inattention to this matter is tragic. As we have not offered a diplomatic protest -- have not uttered a word about Iran's role on the Committee for Women's Rights, the United States has abandoned its moral leadership in matters affecting all women.

Where is our leadership on this matter? And where are the feminists who should be at the barricades over this issue?

This is not the first time, and probably will not be the last time, hypocrisy is on display. But it is morally repugnant for a nation that is willing to consider stoning for an alleged legal infraction -- with no evidence other than the judges "feelings" - is in the position of defining rights for women.

This bizarre set of conditions demonstrates an Iran and its byzantine policies on the ascendency and the United States in decline. And that can only mean turning the clock back several centuries to when women did not have legal rights and were considered "half a man" in a court of justice.

My suspicion is that if former Ambassador John Bolton were representing American interests at the United Nations, a protest voice would be heard. Unfortunately Ms. Rice, his successor, and President Obama, have chosen appeasement as their strategy, perhaps believing that if we offend the Iranian mullahs, negotiations with them on nuclear weapons and other matters would be impossible.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

Labels: executions, Iran, Susan Rice, UN Women's Rights Agency, women

Thursday, November 11, 2010

UN rejects Iran for women's rights council, takes Saudi Arabia instead

This could only happen in the mad, mad world of the United Nations.

The United Nations on Wednesday rejected Iran's bid for a seat to the board of the new U.N. agency to promote equality for women after fierce opposition from the United States and human rights groups to Tehran's treatment of women.

But the U.N. accepted the bid of Saudi Arabia, which is also opposed by human rights groups.

Iran, which has been criticized for its record on women's rights, received only 19 votes -- short of the necessary 28 votes for approval.

In recent months, Iran sparked an international outcry by sentencing to death by stoning a woman convicted of adultery.

In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive and are barred from many facilities used by men.

Even 19 votes is an "only at the UN" moment.

It's long past time to withdraw from that disgraceful body.

Labels: Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Nations, women