In Haaretz today, Rosner brings us this gem from the Wall Street Journal editorial page
For reasons both telling and mysterious, Israel has become unpopular among that segment of public opinion that calls itself progressive. This is the same progressive segment that believes in women's rights, gay rights, the rights to a fair trial and to appeal, freedom of speech and conscience, judicial checks on parliamentary authority. These are rights that exist in Israel and nowhere else in the Middle East. So why is it that the country that is most sympathetic to progressive values gets the least of progressive sympathies?
wsj
OK, Fair question. In the interests of full disclosure I consider myself to be a progressive and Pro-Israel, and a zionist, in the sense that I support a prosperous, peaceful and flourishing State of Israel in the middle east.
That being said, I emphatically object to the active and tacit support of the occupation of the territories as bad for Israel, bad for the United States, and really, really bad for the Palestinians.
The WSJ journal chides me on:
Women's rights.
Women don't have it easy in the Middle East, and supporters of Israel take pride in the opportunities afforded Israeli women. But service in the IDF and the modernity of daily life mask tremendous difficulties for many Israeli women, and troubling inequalities for all.
Social institutions, traditions and religious laws have kept girls and women at a disadvantage in schools, in the workplace, in divorce cases, and as victims of violence. Israeli women in minority and disadvantaged groups have disproportionately high rates of unemployment, poverty, health problems and abuse of basic rights. Women make up close to 50 percent of the workforce in Israel, yet are paid an average of only 62 percent of men's salaries. And women also constitute 70 percent of those earning minimum wage or less.
The Orthodox religious monopoly over marriage, divorce and other issues of personal status impinges on the rights of Jewish women to marry whomever they choose or obtain a divorce without their husband's consent. Their Arab neighbors often have it worse, with polygamy illegal but common in Bedouin households, domestic abuse and even honor killings staining the community. Most vulnerable of all are the women, almost all from the former Soviet Union, who are trafficked for prostitution – a growing problem in Israel.
Women's rights
Woman beaten on J'lem bus for refusing to move to rear seat
By Daphna Berman
A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses.
Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.
Haaretz
And try to pray at the western wall, Ladies-it is a crime-7 years hard time
On May 22, the High Court of Justice set a six month deadline for the government to establish procedures for women to pray "according to their custom" at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The case was brought in 1989 after conservative Jews violently attacked Jewish women who were attempting to pray alongside men according to the customs of Reform Judaism. Despite a 1994 High Court of Justice ruling upholding the women's right to worship at the Western Wall, they were not permitted to do so. On March 31, a draft law punishing such prayer with up to seven years of imprisonment passed its preliminary Knesset reading, and in early June the government asked to have the May 22 court judgement reviewed by an expanded panel of judges, on the grounds that it failed to adequately address "the affront to the feelings of those who pray at the wall" that would ensue if women were allowed to pray with men.
Gay rights:
Jerusalem's gay pride marchers attacked
3 participants stabbed, 13 protesters arrested as ultra-Orthodox crowd tries to halt parade
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Friday, July 1, 2005
(07-01) 04:00 PDT Jerusalem -- Violence marred the annual gay pride parade for the first time Thursday when an ultra-Orthodox man broke through heavy security and stabbed three of the participants, leaving them with light to moderate wounds.
Other protesters, most of them religious Jews, lined the mile-long route of the "Love Without Borders" march through central Jerusalem. Some held placards that read "You are corrupting our children" while others shouted insults. One placard read "Jerusalem is not San Francisco."
Thirteen protesters were arrested, including one man who threw a soiled diaper at the marchers then attacked a photographer trying to record the scene.
Pride March
Court turns down restraining order against gay partner
By Ruth Sinai
A Family Court judge in Ramat Gan turned down a request by a man for a restraining order against a former male partner on the grounds that Israel's family and domestic violence laws do not apply to homosexual partnerships.
Haaretz
Freedom of speech:
AP Reveals Israeli Censorship, Says It Will Abide By Rules
Published: July 19, 2006 8:50 PM ET
JERUSALEM Here's some news you may never hear about Israel's war against Hezbollah: a missile falls into the sea, a strategic military installation is hit, a Cabinet minister plans to visit the front lines.
All these topics are subject to review by Israel's chief military censor, who has -- in her own words -- "extraordinary power." She can silence a broadcaster, block information and put journalists in jail.
"I can, for example, publish an order that no material can be published. I can close a newspaper or shut down a station. I can do almost anything," Col. Sima Vaknin said Wednesday.
Israel believes that as a small country in a near constant state of conflict, having a say over what information gets out to the world is vital to its security. Critics say the policy is a slippery slope not fit for a democracy.
Editor and Publisher
Israel Bars 3 Reporters Over 'Undercover' Articles
Permalink
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: October 26, 1988
LEAD: Israel today suspended the press credentials of three foreign correspondents who wrote that Israeli undercover squads were operating in the occupied territories. It said it would investigate if the three had violated military censorship regulations.
Israel today suspended the press credentials of three foreign correspondents who wrote that Israeli undercover squads were operating in the occupied territories. It said it would investigate if the three had violated military censorship regulations.
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said reports that undercover squads had been assigned to kill leaders of the Arab uprising were ''total nonsense, not justified, not based of fact, and I don't have anything to add to it.''
The military censor filed a police complaint against Paul Taylor, chief correspondent here for Reuters, and Steve Weizman, a Reuters reporter, for reporting on Sunday that Israel uses such squads in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The censor charged that the Reuters dispatch violated censortship laws. The news agency's report said the military operated ''an undercover army unit code-named Cherry deployed in the West Bank'' and a ''similar Gaza-based unit code-named Samson.'' Article on Army Units
A Financial Times correspondent, Andrew Whitley, also had his Government-issued press card suspended. Two weeks ago, Mr. Whitley wrote an article describing undercover army units used to gather intelligence in the occupied areas. His article made no reference to assassination.
Rights to fair trial and appeal:
Israel's Military Court System Is the Model to Avoid
Lisa Hajjar
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (10/28/07)
Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the "war on terror," emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees?
That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S. custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges, and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law.
But Israel's model for dealing with terrorism, while quite different from that of the U.S., is at least as shameful.
Long before the first suicide bombing by Palestinians in 1994, Israel had resorted to extrajudicial killings, home demolitions, deportations, curfews and other forms of collective punishment barred by international law.
Imprisonment has been one of the key strategies of Israeli control of the Palestinian population, and since 1967 more than half a million Palestinians were prosecuted through military courts that fall far short of international standards of due process.
HRWMerip
Judicial Checks on Executive branch authority
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Judicial tyranny threatens Israel's security
On Sunday, I told you all about the Supreme Court decision that barely upheld the provisions of the citizenship law that restrict the ability of 'Palestinians' to settle in Israel solely by virtue of being married to Israeli (Arab) citizens. On Monday, I told you that if the law really is what Chief Justice Barak claims it is, then the law needs to be changed.
Actually, this is one bright area, ISrael's judiciary shames our own in terms of independence and fairness, even in the absence of a constitution.
Soooo