Fundamentalists Fight Women's Rights Far Beyond Israel

It’s not the case that Haaretz.com is our go-to website for news on Israel. They just come up in our Google News searches. Good SEO and writing in English, I assume.

Researching the status of women in Israel yesterday, trying to understand the composition of the Israeli Knesset, the article Bill would reward parties that boast more women appeared.

The read brings to mind the Fundamentalist Conservatives in Egypt denying the rights of women to become judges, now thrown out by Egypt’s supreme court, but with another attempt at reconciliation scheduled for next week.

via Flickr’s Belgian_Sun_FlowerWomen’s Reservation Bill in India

I’m thinking also about last week’s vote in India on the Women’s Reservation Bill, delayed with fighting and a floor sit-in by seven Conservative members of India’s Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament), now expelled by their Janata Dal-United party.

Note the decisive action taken against the seven members in India. For once bad boys paid the price: expulsion from the group.

Yes, I know their argument was framed around a desire for quotas for members of different castes, and also religious quotas for Muslims, Hindus and presumably other religous affiliations. 

Women’s rights will always be last in the minds of many men who believe we deserve none. At least in India, the men tried to disguise their determination to keep women out of politics by arguing for a broad blanket of quotas.

India’s Women’s Reservation Bill has moved to the Lok Sabha, the India’s Lower House of Parliament, where the same foes will fight its passage. Attempts to reduce the quota from 33% to 20% female representation have failed. The bill remains undiluted and is expected to pass.

In America where you would never know that abortion is legal, listening to the patriarchy on television saying that they answer to God and the Vatican — not the US Supreme Court — there’s a reasonable chance that a health care bill will pass.

The Vatican Strong-arms America

Perhaps the Vatican will not prevail in dictating America’s health care for women from Nancy Pelosi’s office, surely one of the most scandalous moments in American history. Given the Vatican’s pitiful record on women’s rights worldwide, I was chilled to the bone by their aggressive move against American women.

The Vatican’s concerns are on breeding new Catholics, not women’s health and wellness. The rights of a fully-grown woman with an IQ of 180 — the next Albert Einstein — are of lesser value to the Catholic patriarchy, than an unfertilized egg and wandering sperm.

Having their own hands full with errant bad boys doing far more harm to God’s creatures than I ever will, I’m in no mood for Catholic lectures on female morality.

Hopefully, I’ve made it clear that I have no ax to grind with Israel, more than any other patriarchy in the world. As US Commender of our forces in the Middle East Gen. Petraeus testified yesterday, the dispute between Israel and its neighbors does have an “enormous effect” on other regional issues.

More importantly, Jews have always been my guiding intellectual force, the group I looked up to — the onces I wanted to be when I grew up.

La Tombe de Victor NoirWomen in Israel’s Knesset

It pains me then, as I pull back the covers on Israel to read that unlike India, efforts to increase the number of female Knesset members have been stymied by ultra-Orthodox parties.  In true Jewish entrepreneurial fashion (Jews have funded every business I’ve owned), the proposal by MKs Einat Wilf (Labor) and Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), doesn’t aim to impose sanctions on parties with all-male parliamentary representation.

Instead, it offers a NIS 5.5 million payout for any party with a Knesset slate that is 35 percent female on the day the MKs are sworn in. The bill would amend a law that grants more limited funding to parties that meet that criterion.

Just for the record, all quotas are heresy in America, where women probably have more representation than Egypt but come behind India and Israel, based on last night’s research.

Readers are clear that I’m done messing around. The Vatican scared the crap out of me and I’m too old to worry about propriety. Surrounded by women unable to speak clearly because they’re beholden to the patriarchy for their funding worldwide, I’m trying to speak with a clear voice.

Earth in the water drop on FlickrComposition of Knesset

You would never know it but Livni’s centrist Kadima party has 28 seats in the Knesset. Netanyahu’s Likud party has 26; the ultra Orthodox Foreign Minister Yisrael Beiteinu 15 and Interior Minister Eli Yishai’s Shas 11. Labor has 13 seats and has previously aligned itself with Kadima. The remaining 26 seats are spread over six parties.

As I’ve written before, I will no longer keep quiet about international policies governed by men who won’t shake my hand. There is no room for cultural relativism on this topic.  If my hand isn’t worth shaking, my voice worth hearing and my eyes trustworthy enough to be revealed, I’m not on your team, whatever the religion.

For Americans watching Republicans and Democrats slug it out, Israeli politics are monstrously complex and challenging. I’ll turn the conversation back to Haaretz, while I continue my homework: Netanyahu’s fateful midlife crisis.

It’s my goal to be fair and accurate in reporting on the decision-makers, from a women’s rights context, and I have reading to do. 

My party is the global women’s party, and my lens of analysis is that one. The correlations among war, testosterone, fundamentalism and orthodoxy transcend borders. They just wear different clothes. Anne

Note: stopping by the Jerusalem Post, the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (Yesha) sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying:

“The Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Arabs, the Ottomans and the British – none of them could undermine the connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem,” reads the letter, published Wednesday. “Therefore, the demand not to build in Jerusalem or to hand parts of the city to others is totally unacceptable for the Jewish people. We will not negotiate over Jerusalem, we will never divide it.” 

Given the reality that half of my New York Jewish friends don’t know the history of Jerusalem and how the city figured in the original creation of the nation of Israel, we will outline that soon for readers.

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India Prepares To Make Women’s Political History