Daphne Anson: It's "Honour Killings" As Usual In President Abbas's Palestine

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

It's "Honour Killings" As Usual In President Abbas's Palestine

Do they know or care about honour killings of Arab women?

Here's a cause for the "pro-Palestinian" sisterhood to embrace – an aspect of life in President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority that is rarely reported by the West's Israel-bashing media outlets: the so-called "honour killings" of Palestinian women, and the leniency with which the perpetrators are treated.

Under the existing penal code, drawn up in 1960 during Jordan's jurisdiction (1948-67) over the West Bank, the maximum custodial sentence for "honour killings" is six months.

Wrote Harriet Sherwood in the Guardian last year following the brutal killing in 2010 of Hebron University student Aya Baradiya,

"Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but it is thought there are around 20 such crimes in the West Bank and Gaza each year. Women who have been raped or molested, or are victims of incest, are considered to have stained a family's reputation. Such acts of violation are rarely admitted by the victim's family."

But such was the outcry over Aya Baradiya's gruesome fate that in 2010 Mr Abbas (who had earlier received an unrelated petition signed by 8000 Palestinian women for a get-tough policy on "honour killings") promised to amend the penal code in order to guarantee the stiffest punishment for such a crime.

What he actually did was to suspend an article in the penal code of 1960 that stipulated pardon for any wife murderer who had committed his crime on finding the wife in bed with another man.

This was in effect an empty gesture, since the article had never been had never once been acted upon.

In 2009 Abbas had ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, but sharia prevents its full implementation.

To quote from Harriet Sherwood's article again:

'In Surif, Yasmine Alheeh, 29, minding a clothes shop, says she approves of the legal change [to the article in the penal code]. "There are a lot of things that are hard for a woman to do [in Palestinian society]. A woman has no personal freedom. It's OK to work, but you can't make personal choices."

Nearby, in a vegetable shop, Jalal Danah, 25, says women's actions are limited by Islam. "Our religion does not allow a woman to go out and practise her life without restriction. This would lead to corruption," he says.'

And a current report, by Soraya al-Ghussein and Hannah Patchett for the Ma'an News Agency, quotes Abbas's legal advisersa Hassan al-Ouri as explaining that the UN Convention will only be implemented "so long as it doesn’t contravene Islamic code".

There are no plans to outlaw "honour killings," al-Ouri told Ma'an:.

"Why change it [the law]? This would cause serious problems.... What we need is a new culture.

.... Look, we are for total equality but if there is a basic tenet of Islamic code that we would be forced to change under [the UN Convention], then people would revolt and brand us as non-believers."

Says Interior Ministry official Haitham Arrar (who heads the PA Interior Ministry's democracy and human rights unit) of existing legislation:

"It encourages some people to commit crimes against women, which will go [as far as] killing them."

Laments Palestinian feminist Soraida Hussein, who believes that Abbas is fearful of confronting "conservative forces":

"[O]ur lives – in law and in practice – are seen as less than men's....

[The president should issue a decree that] "anybody killing anyone else will be sentenced to the highest sentence possible, whether it is a woman or a boy.

The minute the law is changed and applied, the minute people will think twice. It's simple and it's not done."

This is a cause that the "pro-Palestinian" western sisterhood should be embracing with gusto.

But for reasons known only to themselves, bashing the Zionist Entity (where rights for women are guaranteed) is far more fun.

1 comment:

Empress Trudy26 December 2012 at 15:17
Haters hate. That is their nature. If you pointed out to them the horrors of honor killings either they would ignore you or call you a liar. Holocaust deniers have been using the same arguments for a half century. This is no different. I say, oh well.
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