Radical feminist
Radical feministiStock

The Committee on the Status of Women convened Monday under the heading 70% of Cases Against Men are Closed due to Lack of Evidence, demanding police file more indictments against men accused by women. Disclosure: I participated in the meeting and was even expelled from it.

Of course, the title of the meeting itself indicates preposterous bias: On what basis does the committee determine that the men whose cases were closed really are "wife beaters"? It turns out that for the purposes of the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women, every man who has been charged with violence is guilty. There is no need for investigation and trial.

The committee Chairwoman, MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Joint Arab List) and MK Meirav Ben-Ari (Kulanu) explained that the treatment of men suspected of violence must be made even more stringent now, because "every week, a woman is murdered here" (as Ben-Ari said) and "from the beginning of the year 13 women were murdered" (a statement repeated by both MKs).

MK Ben-Ari bellowed: "When did a woman murder a man? It's just infuriating this fictitious comparison. Shame! Every week women are murdered here ... and for what? Just because they're women!"

We contacted the police and asked for data on the murder of women since the beginning of the year. We were told that 11 women were murdered - including the Muslim woman who was murdered in Jaffa yesterday after the committee's meeting. However, of the 11, only one was murdered by a spouse or former spouse.

On the Haaretz website, six murders of women have been recorded since the beginning of the year (not including Monday's murder). As in the police data, only one of them was a murder carried out by a spouse or former spouse, two Arab sisters were murdered by their brothers, and three women were murdered by their sons. In one of these cases, the woman was 91 and the son decided to commit suicide and murder her too because he feared she would suffer if she continued to live without him.

In another case not appearing on the Haaretz website, Bracha Or, 52, of Tiberias, was murdered by her daughter, who also committed suicide.

As for MK Ben-Ari's question, "When did a woman murder a man?": On February 5, an indictment was filed in the Haifa District Court against a 53-year-old Tirat HaCarmel resident for murdering her 66-year-old spouse, David Nachum. According to the indictment, she planned the murder in detail throughout the previous week, and waited until she was alone with her husband on January 14, and then, as he sat on a chair, she stabbed her husband 65 times with two kitchen knives.

The two lived together in an apartment on Jabotinsky Street for 30 years. According to the indictment, the background to the murder was the woman's fear that she would be hospitalized and her husband would stay in their apartment and enjoy it without her. She was found fit to stand trial.

In conclusion: Since the beginning of the year, one woman was murdered by a spouse, and one man was murdered by a spouse. These are the relevant figures for police investigators who deal with men's and women's complaints against spouses.

For your information, respected MK Ben-Ari: Of course we would be happy to publish a response article if you so desire, and perhaps a more respectful and practical dialogue on these issues can be created, not based on demonization of one of the genders.

The writer is the father of two and the head of the Family Movement in Israel.

Translated by Mordechai Sones