Showing posts with label Israeli Occupation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israeli Occupation. Show all posts

Thursday, June 22, 2017

UN Excuses Wife-Beating as Natural Reaction to 'Israeli Occupation' - Israel Today

UN Excuses Wife-Beating as Natural Reaction to 'Israeli Occupation'

Thursday, June 22, 2017 |  Israel Today Staff
First, they called terrorism a "natural reaction" to the presence of Jews in the Holy Land. Now, Palestinian men are being excused by none other than the United Nations for taking out their frustrations with Israel on their own spouses.
At a UN Human Rights Council debate earlier this month, the director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, challenged a new report blaming Israel for when Palestinian husbands beat their wives.
"Is it right to continue infantilizing Palestinians, such that when a man in Ramallah beats his wife, we encourage him to say ‘Israel made me do it’?" Neuer asked the report's author, Dubravka Šimonovic, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.
Neuer further noted that while Israeli counter-terrorism measure might put pressure on the Palestinian population, that doesn't explain why violence against women is equally prevalent in the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
Nor was there any excuse for Šimonovic's lack of actual evidence to support her conclusion.
But, most notably, Neuer wondered how the report could draw a dubious link between Israeli security and Palestinian spousal abuse, while ignoring entirely the regular weekly sermons by Palestinian Muslim clerics encouraging such domestic violence.
Neuer clearly hit a nerve, because the chair of the debate, UNHRC Vice-President Amr Ahmed Ramadan, broke with protocol by refusing to thank the speaker, stating instead:
“I would like to say thank you, but I can’t—because I think that you need to respect this Council more in the next days.”

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Friday, December 4, 2015

Another Sleepless Night - Testimony of a Messianic Soldier Hananya Naftali ISRAEL TODAY

Another Sleepless Night - Testimony of a Messianic Soldier

Friday, December 04, 2015 
|  Hananya Naftali  ISRAEL TODAY
Another rainy night and I'm out, doing my military thing - you know - doing my part helping to make Israel safer.
I looked at the faces of my fellow soldiers who were standing guard with me out in the rain, it doesn't bother any of us.
If we wouldn't be there for Israel, who else is going to do the job? It seems like so many people hate us. Why? Are they being misled by the media?
The other day a young Arab Muslim woman ran toward an IDF officer with an ax in her hand, she was so full of hate that she started to run toward him from a distance. Is that how she wanted to end her life? To throw her life, the dearest gift God gave her, away for a worthless cause? I so wished that the international news teams could have been there to see it happen live, before they covered the event with their stories!
I also wish I could have spoken to this woman before she did what she did.
To try and talk her out of this senseless act. She was probably hate-driven, not knowing that she had lived, and had been taught, a lie her whole life. I wished I could have hugged her and tell her that, yes I'm an Israeli soldier, but I don't hate her back - like her society had brought her up to believe.
In another incident I witnessed a group of Arabs, from the whole spectrum of ages, protesting against the "Israeli occupation". They threw stones at me as they called to boycott Israel. I saw people with hate in their eyes.
But wait!
You use Israeli electricity, Israeli water, everyday you pass the checkpoints into Israel to go work for Israelis and get paid with Israeli money. But when the international TV teams come to your villages you put on a nice show by protesting and screaming that Israel needs to be boycotted. Yes, it is all a show because I really doubt that you mean what you say because it will be you that suffers in the end!
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Sunday, January 26, 2014

Scarlett Johansson is Israel's Unexpected Heroine

Scarlett Johansson is Israel's Unexpected Heroine

Sunday, January 26, 2014 |  Ryan Jones, ISRAEL TODAY  
Scarlett Johansson has played a fictional heroine in a number of Hollywood blockbusters. But Scarlett became much more than that to Israelis in recent days when she stood up to pressure from the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Johansson has been contracted to feature in a multi-million dollar commercial for popular Israeli brand SodaStream during the upcoming Super Bowl.
She never imagined that taking the gig would cause such a media storm. But, as many could have predicted, Johansson soon found herself the target of ceaseless criticism from those who believe that companies like SodaStream are a symbol of the evil "Israeli occupation."
Fortunately for Israel, Johansson is too well versed in humanitarian welfare to be taken in by the propaganda, and sees SodaStream for what it is - an Israeli company doing its best to create an atmosphere of coexistence by hiring as many Palestinian Arabs as possible to work alongside its Jewish employees.
Johansson was very clear and direct regarding the matter in a statement made to the Huffington Post:
"While I never intended on being the face of any social or political movement, distinction, separation or stance as part of my affiliation with SodaStream, given the amount of noise surrounding that decision, I’d like to clear the air. I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine. SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights. That is what is happening in their Ma’ale Adumim factory every working day."
Critics have tried to portray the SodaStream factory in Ma'ale Adumim as a "slave labor" environment for the Palestinians. ButIsrael Today visited the facility back in November of last year, and found very much the opposite to be true.
Arab employees noted that they are able to make far more money working for the Israeli company than they could elsewhere.
"The salary I earn here enabled me to complete my studies. Not many would do this for the Arab people," explained a fresh-faced Yousef Basharat. "It is only a problem for other people [who call this place a settlement]. I need this work, and I am very happy here."
The Palestinians working at SodaStream also insisted that they are treated with the same respect as their Jewish colleagues.
"Everyone is treated the same here. The privilege that the Israeli worker gets, the Palestinian also gets," said Rani Abed Rabbo, who was offered a management position by SodaStream after losing his job in the hi-tech sector. "There is no discrimination here. We eat together, we laugh together. We feel welcome here."
In fact, contrary to the picture painted by anti-Israel propagandists, the working environment at SodaStream is so desirable that "many other Palestinians are also seeking jobs here," according to Abed Rabbo.
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