Friday, November 4, 2016

When women's rights would have harmed J Street's Palestinian statehood campaign - by Stephen M. Flatow

...Yet, just as J Street refused for two years to speak out about the mistreatment of a Jewish woman on its staff, it has refused to speak out about the mistreatment of Palestinian women by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
03 November '16..

J Street's controversial response to the sexual harassment of one of its staff members raises questions as to whether its attitude toward women's rights is compromised by its political goals.

After J Street learned, in 2014, that one of its staff members had been sexually harassed, it terminated its relationship with the harasser, Israeli journalist and Palestinian state advocate, Ari Shavit. But J Street has now admitted that it never said a word about Shavit's behavior to the other Jewish groups that have been organizing Shavit's speeches around the country.

J Street's two-year silence on the abuse of an American Jewish woman was wrong. J Street's silence about the abuse of Palestinian women is wrong, too, and both situations may well be related.

J Street's central mission has been to bring about creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel. One of the reasons many Israelis are skeptical about that proposal is that "Palestine" would be a brutal totalitarian state. Israelis understand that brutal totalitarian states often invade neighboring countries.

If Israelis believed a Palestinian state would be a tolerant, pluralistic, democratic state, where the rights of minorities and women were protected, creating such a state would seem a lot less threatening to Israel.

So, yes, Palestinian women's rights matter. They matter because it's a question of justice and equality. And they matter because the issue reveals a lot about what kind of neighbor a Palestinian state would be.

Yet, just as J Street refused for two years to speak out about the mistreatment of a Jewish woman on its staff, it has refused to speak out about the mistreatment of Palestinian women by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

(Continue to Full Post)

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

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