A recently established women's group, the Zionist Women's Forum, is demanding that the media give prominence to the phenomenon of harassment of Jewish women by Arabs. The group has accused feminist groups of turning a blind eye to the problem because of political bias.
The Women's Forum will hold a conference on "Sexual Violence against a Backdrop of National Conflict" in Tel Aviv, two weeks from now.
Organizer Attorney Tamar Har-Paz told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew radio that she intends to use the conference to show that Israeli feminist groups serve a radical leftist agenda rather than doing what is good for Israeli women. Attorney Har-Paz accused the groups of willfully ignoring acts of violence against women perpetrated by Arabs.
"I am sorry to say that most women's groups have undergone a process of politicization in a leftist, post-Zionist direction,” she accused. “Under a mantle of caring for women's rights they serve the leftist agenda and neglect women's rights.”
Developing Phenomenon
"A phenomenon has developed in Israel, of sexual crimes with a nationalistic background,” she said. “The murders of Dana Bennet and Maayan Ben Chorin, the gang of rapists in the Galilee who attacked Jewish girls and told them it was revenge for the occupation, students at Mt. Scopus [Hebrew University] who are harassed by Arabs, harassment of Jewish women in the Galilee and Hevron areas, all of those women's groups that take every single story [about allegations against Jewish men] to the media are not interested in these stories and maintain silence.”
Har-Paz wants a law passed that would recognize women attacked by Arabs as victims of terror acts and entitle them to receive the state benefits accorded to such victims. “Where are all the women's organizations that went to Congo in Africa to follow violence against women?" she asks. "In Congo, nationalistically motivated crimes against women are considered a war crime. Why not here?”
The forum's conference on "Sexual Violence against a Backdrop of National Conflict" will be held at the Likud headquarters Metzudat Ze'ev in Tel Aviv at 6:30 p.m. on November 22, in time for the UN's Day for Awareness of Violence Against Women.
Left: ZWF logo