To Beat and Kill Women Is Part Of Palestinian Identity - Says Israeli/Arab Lecturer

Israeli/Arab lecturer Yusuf Jabareen admits in a discussion on PA (Fatah) TV what most of us Westerners already know: Arab Muslim men have major anger management issues.

Palestinian Authority TV interview with Yusuf Jabareen, Israeli Arab lecturer at the Technion:Jabareen: "Part of our identity is to kill women, for example, to kill women, to beat women..."Host: "You generalize."Jabareen: "No. I don't generalize."Host: "Not everyone is the same."Jabareen: "Part of our identity is to attack women - we must acknowledge it. Every society has its defects and its charms. Palestinian identity has its charms, but there are things we have adopted from Arab culture for centuries that harm the individual and the woman. For example, in recent months, look how many women were killed in Lod, in Ramle, and in Acre, and so on. That's part of our identity."

He's absolutely right. The fact is, violence against women is a huge problem in Palestine. At least he has the guts to admit it, though the other man's denial is typical.

Honor Killings, the latest rash of Muslim Misogyny

Al Arabiya reported that a 33-year-old woman was murdered in an alleged "honor" crime. Although it later claimed she was only 22, the Jordanian woman, who apparently had been divorced about a year, was stabbed by her older brother in the chest. Brother wasn't too happy about his sister's new found freedom:

“It seems that the suspect was constantly arguing with his sister about her movements and was attempting to restrict her mobility because she was a divorced woman,” a source told The Jordan Times.

Police official Col. Khatib An, however, claims the "honor motive is ruled out" and it was just plain old domestic violence. Because brothers always get so pissed off at their divorced sisters for disobeying them, they plunge knives into their chests. Al Arabiya goes on to say that the brother is being held for 15 days until the case is investigated, which means brother will more than likely walk free. They always do. Because, dang, that hussy should have just stayed home.

Al Arabiya goes on to say:

“Honor killings” occasionally happen in some parts of the Middle East.

Occasionally? Really?

The article goes on to describe the murder of another Jordanian woman who was stabbed to death by her brother in October 2011 after he saw her photo on a friend's cell phone. I would venture to say the friend was not harmed.

Then it mentions the recent murder of a Palestinian woman, Nancy Zaboun, whose husband slit her throat after her divorce hearing. The woman had been abused for the 10 years of her marriage.

But no mention of three honor killings, in a matter of a week, back in Jordon in mid July:

Police on Wednesday were questioning a man who reportedly killed his divorced sister in Jerash in a so-called honour murder earlier in the day.

The suspect, who was not identified by officials, reportedly stabbed his sister then threw her in the street and ran over her with his vehicle until he made sure she was dead.

“The suspect then headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in to the police and informed them that he had murdered his sister to cleanse his family’s honour,” a senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The suspect claimed that he had murdered his sister after learning that she had delivered a child out of wedlock, according to the source.

The victim was the third woman in Jordan to be murdered in the name of “family honour” this week and the second in less than 48 hours.

On Monday, a 28-year-old man in Zarqa reportedly murdered his divorced sister with a brick and a knife at their home in Zarqa for reasons related to family honour.

On July 18, a 60-year-old man allegedly stabbed his 25-year-old divorced daughter seven times at his home in an Amman suburb, claiming family honour as a motive because she had delivered a baby girl out of wedlock.

Wednesday’s victim was the seventh woman to be murdered in the Kingdom for reasons related to family honour this year.

Or the mother who murdered her three-year-old child because she had been born out of wedlock, and the family who she had been given to didn't want her. The woman supposedly murdered her own flesh and blood because she feared a scandal- read, she wanted to spare her own hide.  We all know (including the woman) that someone in her family would have snuffed her out. That's how it works.

Oh, and what about this Jordanian brother who killed his sister after her husband accused her of adultery.  Who knows if that was even true. He killed her in 2010 and was just sentenced to life this year.

And how about the Egyptian brothers,  Ahmed Mukhtar, 35, and Abd al-Basit, 24,who "slaughtered" their sister along with their mother and aunt, in June,

after discovering their sister's actions were contrary to morality."

After chaos erupted in the house, including gunfire, local police surrounded and broke into the home, only to find the aunt, Saida Muhammad Mukhtar, 55-years-old and a housewife, "with her head sliced off"; the mother, Amina Ahmed Muhammad, also 55 and a housewife, found "drowned in blood by the entrance of the house"; and the sister, Sana Mukhtar, 39-years-old and a widow, found butchered in a room.

Of course no mention  of the rash of honor killings in that other region, Afghanistan, including the woman and her two children who were beheaded. She too had divorced her husband after being battered during their 10 years of marriage.

And that's just a very, very small sampling of Muslim misogyny. The bulk of honor killings are female, and the few males that might happen to be the subject of an honor killing are usually gay.

So, occasionally, Al Arabiya?  Wishful thinking and the typical denial.

In fact, Chechnya's leader Kadyrov actually condones honor killings.

Honor killings are a major problem not only in the Middle East, but anywhere in the world where Muslim immigrants congregate with no desire to integrate and evolve.

Another Afghan Woman Tortured By Husband And In-Laws

Another case of wife torture in Afghanistan.

According to Khaama Press, in the capital city of northern Baghlan province, Pul-e-Khumri, Afghan police arrested Abdul Mateen for torturing his 22-year-old wife Reeka by

.... shaving her head, putting her on snow and beating with cables.

The individual was finally detained by Afghan security forces and is currently under the investigations.

In the meantime provincial women affairs department chief Rahima Zarifee praised the Afghan security forces and said the tortured Afghan lady was taken to a secure place and her husband along with the first wife of him was detained by Afghan security forces.

Reeka who was tortured by her husband said she got married with Abdul Mateen three years back and was tortured, humiliated and insulted by her husband during these three years, and was even to prostitution.

She also said she filed complain against her husband but went to her husband’s house due to continued requests and lack of residence where she was again tortured until the police forces were informed and arrested her husband.

This comes as the wave of violence against women have dramatically increased across the country specifically in northern Baghlan province which has created concerns among the government officials and local residents in this province.

This was the same region where they found the 15-year-old bride, Sahar Gul, who had been starved, severely tortured, and kept in a dark basement by her husband and in-laws for refusing to prostitute herself.

At least they survived, 28-year-old Fatima wasn't so lucky. She was hanged by her husband's family, and then they threw boiling water over her dead body.

If violence against women is escalating now, just wait until we pull out.

Very sad!

Pakistan To Enact Tough Domestic Violence Law

Here's some surprising news out of Pakistan:  the Senate is finally doing something to protect women and children against domestic violence with a Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill.  The Bill also includes domestic workers in the home, who also are often subject to major mistreatment by their employers.

Senator Nilofar Bakhtiar's DV Bill, which passed unanimously in 2009 in the lower house of parliament and has now passed in the upper house, takes the whole issue of domestic violence one step further.  It won't just be a criminal offence to beat women and children, any act of violence including sexual, physical, or mental, any kind of harassment, hurt, intimidation, or "confinement and deprivation of economic of financial resources" will land someone in jail for up to six months.  They'll also be subject to a fine of at least $1,100 (100,000 rupees).

This is a major step considering it's actually a cultural and religious mandate to beat wives in Islam.




Apparently, prior to this law there were no repercussions for a man who beat his wife or child, it was simply considered a domestic affair and men were never prosecuted.   I'm not sure what took so long for it to finally reach the upper house, and the law still has to be enacted by  President Asif Ali Zardari, but it's very promising.

The U.S. would do well to follow suit and enact tougher DV laws, since we have as great a problem with domestic violence but don't have religion or culture to blame.

It's A Girl- Female Infanticide and Foeticide In China and India

Women are not highly regarded in certain cultures, religions and countries.  In fact if you're female in certain regions of the world you'd be lucky if you even make it out of your mother's womb. In those places where males are valued more than females gendercide is astonishingly prevalent. According to the United Nations there are more than 200 million 'missing' girls as a result of 'femicide'.

If you live in China or India (followed closely by Taiwan, Pakistan and South Korea) you have less of a chance of surviving birth or toddlerhood than anywhere else in the world. It's estimated that China and India combined kill more infant girls than are born in the U.S. per annum. If they're not aborted, the infants are killed or abandoned and neglected.

The documentary film "It's A Girl!", produced by ShadowLine Films, documents this tragedy.

It tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters' lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.

Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members.

The war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.

Shot on location in India and China, It’s a Girl! explores the issue. It asks why this is happening, and why so little is being done to save girls and women.

According to Safe World For Women, more often than not it's women who are responsible for the death of their baby girls. One harrowing interview in the film trailer (see below), a giggling woman nonchalantly discusses killing 8 of her young daughters. Oftentimes, it's the mother-in-law who forces the issue:

The most insidious force is often the mother in law, the domestic matriarch, under whose authority the daughter in law lives. Policy efforts to halt infanticide have been directed at mothers, who are often victims themselves. The trailer shows tragic scenes of women having to decide between killing their daughters and their own well-being. In India women who fail to produce sons are beaten, raped or killed so that men can remarry in the hope of procuring a more productive wife.

And poverty and ignorance are not always a factor in gendercide.

Firstly, there is no evidence of concerted female infanticide among poverty-stricken societies in Africa or the Caribbean. Secondly, it is the affluent and urban middle classes, who are aware of prenatal screenings, who have access to clinics and who can afford abortions that commit foeticide. Activists fear 8 million female foetuses have been aborted in India in the last decade.

Read the rest of the article on gendercide.

"It's A Girl" is scheduled for a release in 2012.