The Human Spirit: Women and children

Whether it’s a Gaza-bound flotilla of so-called women activists or a cell block full of women prisoners, they should be dealt with no differently than a mixed gender or all-male party.


Barabara Sofer
Columnist/JPost
25 June '10

A women’s flotilla. What a brilliant public relations move. Images of women sailing the seas excite our imagination. Named for the Virgin Mary, the ship was christened at a shrine to make its passengers appear to be the envoy of sanctity and maternal love. I’m reminded of a breakfast I was privileged to take part in more than a decade ago at a Jerusalem hotel. The guest of honor was Harvard law professor and jurist Alan Dershowitz. I came away with two important thoughts that have remained with me. The first was the realization that no matter how horrendous their crime, the guilty among this famous defense attorney’s clients always rationalized their actions. The second was Dershowitz’s correcting someone who used the phrase “women and children” in its clichéd sense, as in “women and children stood in the front rows of the demonstration facing the cameras.”

“Why group women and children together?” asked Dershowitz. “If women are indeed equal to men, they should not be grouped with children. They’re adults and make their own decisions.” Point well-taken. You either want women to be full-fledged grown-ups responsible for their decisions or not. Whether we’re speaking of a flotilla of so-called women peace activists sailing toward Gaza or a cell block full of women prisoners, there should be no different procedure in dealing with them from a mixed gender group or all-male party.

NONE OF us old enough to identify the names Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigades or Leila Khaled without typing them into a search engine would be naïve enough to think for a moment that women are incapable of terrorism. Let us not forget that there was also a widely reported alert earlier in the year that al-Qaida was sending trained non-Arab women terrorists to attack the West.

To elevate the image of the Mariam, it is purportedly carrying cancer medications. This alleged cargo creates the cynical and false impression that Israel would deny tomixifin or herceptin to Palestinian women.

According to press reports, only women who comply with the dress code designated by the male sponsor can take part in the so-called sacred journey. No licentiousness allowed.

But modesty offers no guarantee of innocent intentions. Remember, please, Hamas-emissary Reem Riashi. In January 2004, this mother of two told the security checkers at the Erez exit from Gaza that the metal plates in her supposedly crippled legs would set off the security alarm. Sensitive to Riashi’s need for modesty, she was asked to wait on the side so that a woman security guard could search her discreetly. That’s when Riashi detonated a two-kilogram bomb, killing two people and wounding 11 Israelis and Palestinians.

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