The Knesset's Committee for Advancement of the Status of Women erupted in controversy in a special session Monday, when a group of female lawyers claimed that false accusations of violence filed against spouses in divorce proceedings have reached epidemic proportions.
The lawyers – Pnina Yehezkel, Maya Alon and Moran Samun – head the Committee on False Accusations and Parental Alienation in the Tel Aviv District of the Israel Bar Association. The told the assembled Knesset members and women's activists that based on their long years of experience as divorce lawyers, they can state with complete confidence that false accusations are a daily occurrence.
Representatives of women's groups shouted “shame!” at the the three and some of them claimed that the phenomenon of false accusations does not exist at all.
MK Aliza Lavie, Chairperson of the Committee for Advancement of the Status of Women, cited statistics she received in the course of the session, according to which the annual total of false accusations filed by women is about 11, and the number for men is similar.
Attorney Alon retorted that she alone knows more than 11 people who have suffered false accusations, and promised to bring the committee more detailed information.
Journalist Gil Ronen, the head of the Familists, a pro-family group, said that false statistics about domestic violence designed to demonize men are produced in the universities and passed on as facts to the media, the public and the Knesset.
The committee had convened for a special summer recess session after MK Lavie claimed on television that nine women had been murdered since Operation Protective Edge began in July. This number turned out to be untrue. The total of nine relates to all of the women murdered from the beginning of the year.