How the "occupation" hurts Palestinian women

Saturday was the "International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women."

The Palestinian Authority noted the day, in its usual way: by using it as a platform to blame Israel.

While one in four married Palestinian women report physical abuse, this is not mentioned in the official PA commemorations of the day. They brush aside any hint of those problems and only admit gender discrimination as a result of Arab heritage.

Instead, they say that all of the problems of Palestinian women are a result of the "occupation." At a conference last week, PA officials and ministers talked about how Palestinian women were fighting for Jerusalem against Israeli violence, how Jews are supposedly taking off their headscarves, and it called on the international community and international NGOs "to stand up against the violations committed against women in Jerusalem in particular and in Palestine in general through implementing  United Nations resolutions on ending the occupation and recognition of the Palestinian state."

The PA knowingly avoids the very real problems of domestic abuse, honor killings, women who are raped who are then accused of adultery, and the majority of Palestinian wives who report psychological abuse from their husbands. Instead , it uses the day as yet another way to blame Israel for all its problems.

Which means that it isn't the "occupation" that hurts women - it is the politicization of the topic that allows the Palestinian Authority to avoid actually dealing with its own issues and problems in its own society because of its single-minded desire to attack Israel by any and all means.

It should be noted that the only time the PA pretends to care about domestic violence against women is when outside agencies give it money earmarked specifically for that purpose. On its own, however, women are just another bullet to try to hurt Israel  - and in the end the only people being hurt are the women themselves, who are doubly victimized, both as victims of abuse in their own society and then as pawns in the PA's never ending campaign to use any topic, no matter how far fetched, as a reason to bash Israel.

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