Rising divorce rates and accompanying problems have led to the formation of the Committee on the Family Crisis in Israel, a sub-committee of the Knesset Welfare Committee.
One of the main forces behind the initiative to form the new committee was the Femilistim organization, headed by Gil Ronen of Katzir. "The name is based on the word family," Ronen explained to Arutz-7, "but also sounds like 'feministim,' some of whose goals we are trying to counter."
The main goal of the organization is to strengthen the family structure and to counter the trend that encourages destructive competition between husbands and wives. Ronen: "Some organizations, and even Knesset Members, promulgate wrong information, and manipulate and inflate data, in order to create unnecessary tension between men and women. For instance, it is constantly claimed that there are 200,000 battered women in Israel - a crazily high number. In fact, however, there are only 6,200 families being treated in the Social Services Ministry for family violence - which includes cases of violence by the wife. In addition, there are only about 600 women in shelters for battered women, and another 600 on waiting lists. This obviously doesn't come close to the 200,000 number that is claimed. Plus, many studies have been done in the western world, and it is very well accepted that family violence goes both ways."
Ronen says, "It is well-known that divorce rates have shot up, and there is a general malevolent atmosphere between the genders. Women initiate more divorces than men, and often after the first child is born; marriages are simply not given a chance. The single mother is made out to be a heroine, with all sorts of incentives, when in fact research shows that children who grow up in single-parent households are more at risk of ending up with socially unacceptable behaviors... Society must return to encouraging marriage; instead of giving extra benefits to single mothers, why shouldn't there be financial incentives for couples who stay married for ten years?"
"Disinformation has been spread for 20 years," Ronen says, "and it's important to dispel it. Feminist MKs such as Zahava Gal'on and Shelly Yechimovitch basically convince masses of women that they are being downtrodden, and we have to neutralize the poison."
Ronen appeared at a recent Knesset Welfare, Labor and Health Committee session, at which Chairman Moshe Sharoni (Pensioners) announced the decision to form the new sub-committee. It will be headed by MK Chaim Amsalem (Shas), who served as a congregational rabbi in Switzerland in the two years before being elected to the Knesset last year. Its members will be MKs Avraham Ravitz (United Torah Judaism), Chaim Katz (Likud), Marina Solodkin (Kadima), and the first Christian Arab female MK, Nadia Hilu of Labor.
Issues Were Discussed
Among issues discussed at the meeting was the police policy - outlined in a Feb. 2006 memo by Police Brig.-Gen. Tuvia Yankelovitch - according to which it is immediately assumed that if a woman complains of domestic violence, the man is guilty. Often the husband is automatically incarcerated for several days until the accusation is clarified. Some speakers demanded stepped-up enforcement of the laws against filing false accusations, including execution of the five-year jail sentence stipulated for this crime.
Ronen cites studies estimating that out of 20,000 cases of domestic violence, "between a quarter and a half are contrived - yet charges of false accusations were filed only 13 times!"
Another participant at the session, Yaakov Eliah, said a solution more comprehensive than merely filing charges against false accusations is needed: "The problem is very deep. Israel holds the record for most cases of keeping husbands away from families, most removals of children from families, and the like. Legislation and new police regulations are needed in order to change this entire approach."
Police representative Dina Marom denied that there is police discrimination against men, but said the following: "Regarding the claims made today, certainly [such discrimination] happens sometimes. [But] there have been [two] meetings between the men's groups and police officials, there was another meeting in the Justice Ministry with a small forum from the police, and there is most certainly an approach of wanting to listen and do something... The police, too, are now giving clear instructions to the officers and investigators regarding their decisions, and we comment on this matter to the investigators. That means that there is a listening ear. In order to concentrate even more on the false accusations, we want and hope to establish some type of system in the police, but this takes some time. We will truly try to give preference to this matter... We will do it systematically, in a computerized fashion, with new forms. That is, there is an open ear, despite the claims of discrimination."