Over at Smart Genes, Rick argues that the Wall doesn’t matter much. (Link via Civic Dialogues).

Apparently Rick doesn’t think that the “facts on the ground” problem exists at all. By building the Wall, Sharon is attempting to create facts on the ground which will determine how future peace negotiations will go. It is far easier for Sharon - or for a future prime minister after Sharon - to give up the Wall before Israel sinks another hundred million dollars into building it.

Furthermore, no peace treaty is viable unless Palestinian leaders can convince ordinary Palestinians that Israel is sincere about a peace agreement, and can be trusted to make and keep such an agreement. (The vice-versa is also true, of course). Just as building ever more settlements convinced many Palestinians that Israel wasn’t serious about Oslo, a wall built miles inside Palestinian terratory is a powerful argument that Israel is not approaching “the road map” in good faith. If Israel wants to be seen as a sincere negotiating partner, then it must halt all land-grab activities - or even activities that appear to be land-grabbing to Palestinians. If Israel is not willing to do that, then Palestinian leaders who favor negotiations will not seem very credible.

Israel cannot seriously negotiate peace while building new settlements, or while building this Wall. Whatever Israel’s intentions, if their actions speak of land-grabbing, no one outside of Israel and the US will take Israeli claims of wanting a peaceful settlement seriously.
Read the rest of this entry »

–Mark Lilla

(via Philocrites)

In an earlier post, despite writing that I didn’t “entirely trust the article’s source,” I posted quotes from a disturbing Arab News article claiming to quote racist statements from Israeli children.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have posted that at all; but it was worth it, because Jonathan Edelstein (in my comments) did a wonderful job of reviewing the article’s statements (and deceptions). To make up for my previous mis-post, let me quote from Jonathan’s most recent post to Alas’ comments (I think more people will see it here than there).

Meanwhile, back on his own blog, the Head Heeb reports some good news from Israel:

Cool.

Eugene Volokh posts an argument from fellow professor Johathan Zasloff, suggesting that Israel’s attacks on Hamas leaders (and anyone who happens to be standing nearby) could be helpful for peace. How? By eliminating Abu Mazen’s competition for leadership, enabling Mazen to “continue to condemn Israeli targeted assassinations, while at the same time enjoying the fruits of Israel’s crushing his opponents.”

Zasloff’s argument, however, is based on the idea that Israel will actually be able to crush Hamas, to such an extent that Hamas will no longer be a relevant part of Palestinian politics. Gee, is that’s all that’s required?

Reality check: If Israel was able to do that, it would have been done years ago.

The question isn’t “what will wiping out Hamas do” - wiping out Hamas isn’t a realistic policy option. It’s not on the menu. The question is “what will attacks that don’t wipe Hamas out, but do inflict casualties on nearby civilians, do?” What Israel’s attacks do is empower Hamas, by making Hamas seem more significant, more like the “real” opposition to Israel, and assisting their recruitment efforts. (Yes, Hamas leaders are killed, but more will rise to replace them.)

If Israel wants to empower Abu Mazen, they need to change their policy so that Palestinians saying a negotiated solution is possible will seem credible to more ordinary Palestinians. Assassinations of Hamas leaders is not a way to send that message.

Kevin Drum, responding to a similar argument, wrote “I am, as I’ve always been, puzzled by the general hawkish belief that if violence levels are ratcheted up just a little bit more the other guys will finally back down, even though no one ever thinks the same is true in the other direction.”

Stop being macho and start negotiating. Blowing up Hamas leaders (and anyone else standing nearby) is more than a waste of time, it’s immoral and counterproductive.

Given the news of the week, it occurs to me that Hamas is a major area of agreement between left and right: I don’t know anyone, left or right, who wouldn’t dance with delight if a mouth to hell opened up and permanently sucked every member of Hamas off the face of the Earth. (The big disagreement is that the left feels the same way about the folks running the Israeli government).

The Watch and The Mad Prophet Blog posts some disturbing news: Israeli children are being raised to hate Arabs, and in particular Palestinians. The article (which obviously has an anti-Israel bias, by the way) quotes from Israeli schoolchildren’s letters to Palestinians:

I don’t entirely trust the article’s source, but unfortunately I think the above quotes are actually pretty plausible. (And I don’t doubt that similar quotes could be found going in the other direction, of course.)

On the other hand, there is reason to hope. Check out Unmedia, where it’s “hug a Jew” day.

…Go read this one, over at Pedantry. In the post, Scott criticizes the “Israel cannot negotiate while violence continues” position:

That’s not even the most interesting part of Scott’s post (although it is the easiest to quote out of context). Scott goes on to argue that people who see a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians are committing a category error by conflating “collections” with “collectives.” A collection is any group of people: the Palestinians, the Jews, the comic book collectors, all people whose first name is “Albert,” and so on.

It’s a point well taken. In the past, I’ve tended to refer to “Israel and Palestine.” My thought has been that just as it’s possible to create “facts on the ground,” it’s also possible to create “facts in the semantics”; by speaking as if “Palestine” already exists, I was implicitly denying that Israel has any right to Palestinian territory. However, Scott’s post reminds me that that semantic strategy may just muddy the discussion, by making semantic equivalences where they don’t exist in real life.

Anyhow, go read Scott’s post.

The Jerusalem Report has an article summarizing the conflict between Israel’s army and the International Solidarity Movement. The article is slightly biased against the ISM, but not ridiculously so.

Since Israel considers the ISM (which was recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize) to be a pro-Palestinian group, it’s appalling that Israel is cracking down on them. The ISM is clearly a non-violent group; they specialize in non-violent, unarmed protest (done in concert with “internationals”). Isn’t that exactly the sort of pro-Palestinian resistance Israel should be encouraging, rather than undermining?

Of course, there’s the argument that the ISM is really a violent group, but the evidence isn’t convincing. The “smoking gun” against the ISM is that two British citizens, who later committed a terrorist act, were among a group of non-ISM members who dropped by an apartment used by ISM members. No court in Israel - or in America - could convict on evidence that slim. On the other side of the scales, the ISM has a well-documented resume of non-violent activism.

Wouldn’t the situation be infinitely better if all groups defending Palestine acted more like the ISM?

With their actions against the ISM, the IDF sends the message that all pro-Palestinian activism - not only terrorism - is unacceptable to Israel. That’s a terrible message for Israel to send.

Crack down on Hamas. Leave the ISM alone.

Pipa reports their new poll results, about Israel, Palestine and the road map. Reading the poll, I was pleased but surprised to find myself agreeing with the majority (or at least plurality) of Americans regarding almost every question. For example:

47% of Americans think the Israelis have been too uncompromising, and 60% think the Palestinians have been too uncompromising.

There’s overwhelming support for the US placing pressure on both sides to make them cooperate with the “road map.” 70% of the country wants “the quartet,” rather than the US alone, to judge whether or not the parties are cooperating with the road map. This might be because the US is seen as biased – although three-fourths of the US thinks that our government shouldn’t be taking sides in the conflict, 57% thinks the US has been on Israel’s side. As for the other members of the quartet, the UN and the EU are both seen as being fairly evenhanded, while Russia is seen as biased in Palestinians’ favor.

There’s a press release and also full results; both are PDF files.

300 High School Seniors Refuse to Join IDF

Have you heard about the Shministim? In Israel, typical teenagers serve a while in the Israeli Defense Force after high school (there are some exemptions available). But recently some teens are refusing to serve, because they beleive that serving in the IDF supports an immoral occupation.

Seeking to make an example, the IDF is court-martialing six of the high-school conscientious objectors (five who are refusing to serve because they object to the occupation, and one who is refusing to serve because he’s a pacifist). As always, Aron’s Israel Peace Blog has the info: a summary article, “The Saga of the Court Martials“; an interview with Haggai Matar, a co-founder of Shministim and one of the six boys on trial; and an interview with Haggai’s mother Anat Matar, a philosophy lecturer at Tel Aviv University. I liked this quote from Ms. Matar:

Conscientious objectors have always been my heroes; even as a kid, I read The Hobbit and thought that Bilbo’s refusal to fight at the end was the coolest thing I’d ever read. I hope the Israeli COs win their case.

If you’re interested in more information about the Shministim or about Israeli refuseniks in general, check out the Refuser Solidarity Network’s website.

One IDF Policy for Girls, Another for Boys

One fascinating point the “Saga of the court martials” brings up: a genuine case of anti-male sexism. The Israeli Defense Force has an official policy of not granting conscientious objector status to folks who oppose the occupation: this is the “pacifists yes, political refusers no” doctrine.

(In fact, whatever the official policy, the IDF in practice doesn’t grant CO status. “The army’s Conscience Committee, in theory charged with exempting CO’s, was in practice a dead-end, turning down virtually everybody who applied.”)

But, as the defense pointed out in court, the IDF does grant CO status for “political refusers” - if the political refuser happens to be female. In effect, male applicants for CO status are being discriminated against. The court has not yet ruled on this question.

Likud leader accuses IDF of violating human rights

Interesting article in the Guardian: a Likud leader has accused the IDF leadership of looking the other way while the IDF abuses the human rights of Palestinians. The accusations are nothing new, but the source is interesting.

Hopefully Mr. Eitan’s charges won’t be so easily dismissed.

Finding Love in the International Solidarity Movement

This cute story (again from the Guardian) describes how Adam Shapiro (nicknamed “the Jewish Taliban” by some disgusting people) and Huwaida Arraf (founder of the International Solidarity Movement) met, fell in love and married. Both of them were born in the US, and both of them have spent their lives fighting the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

As well as telling the story of their romance and marriage (which is pretty amusing - Arraf almost missed her own wedding because she was performing a hunger strike in an Israeli jail), the article gives an interesting picture of the life of a couple of very dedicated Americans opposed to the occupation.

An interesting cultural point from the article: Arraf’s father (a devout Catholic who at first didn’t approve of the marraige) apparently had difficulty understanding that Shapiro was Jewish but not Israeli. This is something I’ve read about elsewhere - many Palestinians learn to use the word “Jew” and “Israeli” interchangeably, referring not to religion but to Israeli citizenship.

If you’re going to do something criminal, the first step is to make sure there are no witnesses. The Israeli government has been cracking down on human rights workers and monitors - and not just out-of-the-mainstream groups like the International Solidarity Movement.

According to Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Silvan Shalom, “most human rights offices in the West Bank and Gaza strip provide shelter for Palestinian terrorists.” Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other groups have issued a joint statement objecting to this accusation - and to the increased restrictions on their workers.

Note that what’s being talked about here is the right of these folks to do their work in the occupied territories - but how, exactly, does Israel have the right to say who can or cannot observe the situation in the West Bank and Gaza?

In practice, Israel has that right because Israel rules the West Bank and Gaza. But at the same time, each time Israel claims to be a democracy, it’s implicitly denying that Israel rules the West Bank and Gaza - because the folks who live there (other than the settlers) sure aren’t given a vote in Israeli elections. The occupation has gone on for decades; it’s time for Israel to either admit that they’re ruling the people there, and offer them full citizenship and a vote; or, failing that, for Israel to realize they have no moral right to keep out international human rights observers that the Palestinians clearly would prefer be allowed in.

Ariel Sharon stunned the world on Monday by telling the truth:

Amazing as it is, I don’t take Sharon’s statement very seriously. Words are only words; watch the “facts on the ground” to know what’s really going on. Sharon knows that there will always be new attacks which to provide a handy excuse for backing out of peace talks, but by making such a speech now he takes pressure off the Bush administration without committing Israel to any actual concessions.

Meanwhile, the Wall keeps on being built. What is Sharon’s intention for the Wall – is it the land grab it looks like? From an article in Haaretz:

The Wall, as it is being constructed, appears to be an intentional land grab. That’s certainly how it will look to ordinary Palestinians. It’s unlikely that Palestinians will ever take the Israeli committment to a two-state solution seriously while the Wall is being built through their farms, and who can blame them?

Replying to an earlier post of mine, Allison at An Unsealed Room defends the Wall, writing:

Allison’s answer dodges the main issue. The question isn’t “should a security fence be built at all?” The question is “why is the security fence being built that grabs miles of prime land for Israel and destroys any chance of a viable Palestinian state, rather than being built along the green line?” As Inigo Gilmore argued in this past Sunday’s Telegraph, a wall built through Palestinian property and farmland is an incitement to Palestinian violence, and thus endangers Israelis (“There was peace here for 50 years - then the fence came”).

Allison also worries about how “border” Israeli communities - which, for most of the Wall, will in practice mean “settlement communities built on Palestinian land” - will suffer from the sight of an ugly wall. Compare the anguish of having to look at an ugly wall to what the Palestinians in Mazmuriah are facing:

(From “The Bad Fence” by Israeli Neve Gordon.)

Allison writes:

Again, what the Israeli goverment says is a lot less meaningful than what it does. Take a look at the before-and-after maps again:

Contrary to Allison’s claim, the fence is explicitly being built to accommodate Israeli settlements; protecting the settlements is obviously the point of much of the wall’s planned route. Even the Israeli government doesn’t deny this. As Amos Yaron, director-general of the Israeli defense ministry, has said, the fence “will pass wherever it can to protect Jews. And if I need to take it further in order to protect more Jewish settlements, then that is what I will do.” (By the way, if any critic of Israel conflated “Jewish’ and “Israeli” like Mr. Yaron does, they’d be accused of anti-Semitism in an eyeblink.)

Allison also claims that Israel’s critics have no suggestions of what Israel can do. Okay, here’s a suggestion: Tear this wall down and build a new security wall on the Green line. It’s true that a security wall can provide real safety to Israelis, from most suicide bombers. If Israel can build a fence to protect Israeli lives, of course it should.

But this wall uses Israeli security as an excuse for grabbing territory that isn’t Israel’s; saving Israeli lives has become an excuse for destroying Palestinian livelihood and lives. And in doing so, it not only harms countless innocent Palestinians (according to World Bank research, “a finished barrier could leave 95,000 Palestinians trapped in walled enclaves” - quoted from Newsday, 5/26/03), it makes peace less likely and therefore endangers innocent Israeli lives, too.

If the Israeli goverment really wants peace and safety for its people, it would be building the wall on the Green line. And if that’s what Israeli citizens want, they’ll have to learn to stop making excuses when their government grabs yet more Palestinian land.

P.S. I should mention, Allison and others caught me in a couple of errors. During a brain-fart, I stupidly linked Rachel Corrie to the Wall in my earlier post; and I complained only about Sharon, rather than including Barak in my criticism. But I think Allison mistakes nit-piking for debate.

The question is, why is a Wall being planned and built that has the effect of destroying any hope Palestine has of forming a viable state, and of unjustly grabbing huge swathes of land for Israel? Yes, I screwed up some minor facts; but the major fact - the Wall itself - is not in doubt, yet that’s the one fact that Allison refuses to address. Why not build a wall along the green line? Why build a wall that will obviously incite violence and be a barrier to peace talks?

Until Allison and my other critics answer those questions, they haven’t really defended the Wall at all.

Israel is building a Separation Wall. They bulldozed Rachel Corrie to build this wall; they’ve destroyed countless Palestinian homes to build this wall.

That’s okay, we’re told, because the wall will bring peace and security. The wall will keep Palestinian terrorists out of Israel; don’t Israelis have the right to be safe? As for the farms and homes destroyed (none of which belong to Israelis), ya gotta break some eggs to make an omelet.

Well, of course. And that wall sounds like a reasonable proposition. But that wall - the wall for peace, the wall that would be built along the “green line” of 1967 - that ain’t the Wall Israel is building. Instead, Israel is building a Wall that nakedly grabs more territory for Israel. Everything bad you’ve heard about the settlements? The Wall is a hundred times worse.

The blue areas are Palestine.

Look at the map on the right. If you were Palestinian, is this a deal you could agree to? If you were a Palestinian leader, could you ever face your people after agreeing to this?

If you were a Palestinian, wondering if the Israelis are prepared to negotiate in good faith, what would the map on the right tell you about Israel’s intentions?

If you were an Israeli, would you propose this for a second if you were serious about peace?

But Sharon has done more than proposed it - he’s already begun building it. It’s an impediment to peace a hundred times worse than the settlements - but no one is objecting. After all, the Wall is about peace, right?

For details - including some more detailed maps - go read Gush Shalom’s page on the wall. (Link via Aron’s Israel Peace Blog.)

Palestinians protest Islamic Militants
The Associated Press reports on a Palestinian protest against Islamic militants. “They (the militants) claim they are heroes,” said Mohammed Zaaneen, 30, a farmer, as he carried rocks into the street. “They brought us only destruction and made us homeless. They used our farms, our houses and our children … to hide.” (Via Shark Blog).

Alterman and Fund: the “little bit nutty” defense lives on, damn it
Mac-a-ro-nies and Body and Soul have both written good posts on what’s wrong with liberal columnist Eric Alterman’s defense of accused batterer John Fund. From Body and Soul:

Another Satisfied Customer
Eszter is happy with the drawing she commissioned from me. Say, wouldn’t an original Ampersand drawing be just the perfect thing for your/your friend’s wall?

Originalism: Where does it end?
A typically fascinating post from Jack Balkin discusses a problem with theories that Courts should use formalist techniques in judging - or, rather, “neoformalist.” Many of our dearest rights (Balkin has an amazing partial list) are rooted in court decisions that used methods the neoformalists disdained. We’re talking about stuff as diverse as the right to marry, Congress’ right to pass civil rights laws, women’s equality, the existence of the Federal Reserve bank, paper money…

In my view, the problem is that the Constitution is badly written; as written, it’s simply too hard to change the Constitution to keep up with changing social needs. But society isn’t going to come to halt just because the Constitution did; if we can’t have the laws we need according to the letter of the Constitution, then we’ll have the laws we need some other way.

Mass Graves in Iraq and everywhere else
The Shadow of the Hegemon has a good post on the mass graves in Iraq. Permalinks are dead, of course (step AWAY from blogspot!), but look for May 15′th post. “Therein lies the paradox- these mass graves are being used to justify the historically unique intervention of the United States by the supposedly unique evil of the Iraqi regime, yet the existence of these graves only shows that there was nothing unique about Saddam. His evil was a sadly common one.”

Stupid, stupid racist people!
Pandagon relates an encounter he had with a racist store clerk last week (I won’t describe it, go over to his blog to read it) and asks: “Have you ever had something so racist happen to you that you just can’t say anything?”

Does anti-Semitism count? I once had someone refer to insurance fraud arson as “Jew lighting,” for instance. Another woman - in a rural area of a rural state - told me, in all seriousness, that she thought Jews had horns. In both cases, I was unable to reply - it was like the rug had suddenly been yanked out from under my aplomb.

Arundhati Roy converts to republicanism, praises Bush
Okay, not really. Scott M. (formerly known as “Sam” around these parts) links to a new Roy speech on Iraq, entitled “Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy. Buy One, Get One Free.” I haven’t read the full speech yet, but I love Roy’s writing, so I’m linking it here so I’ll remember to read it later.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way right now: There is a zionist lobby in America. They work hard to influence policy, they spend a lot of money promoting politicians they like, and they have a lot of influence in the Bush administration.

So what?

Everyone has a lobby. The major media have a lobby. The Chinese government has a lobby. The farmers have a lobby. Why the heck shouldn’t the zionists have a lobby? And of course they spend money and influence policy; that’s the whole point of having a lobby.

This is so obvious, it’s boring.

And yes, they’ve been very successful. So has the insurance lobby, so has the NRA. Inevitably, some lobbies are more successful than others. So what?

Not all zionists are Jewish - but a lot of them are. This is entirely to be expected, and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging it.

Not all Jews are zionists. But the average Jew is more likely to be a zionist than the average non-Jew; and, more generally, the average Jew is more likely to be interested in Israel than the average non-Jew.

Again, this is so obvious that it’s boring. Jews are more likely to be interested in Jewish issues just as American Indians are more likely to be interested in American Indian issues and just as farmers are more likely to be interested in farming issues.

No one should be called an anti-Semite for saying any of the above. Anti-semitism is hatred of the Jews; you don’t have to hate Jews to believe any of the things I’ve just written.

Yet people who criticize the zionist lobby are often accused of being anti-semitic - merely because they’ve acknowledged the lobby exists. People who criticize the zionist lobby and refer to the obvious fact that zionists are disproportionately Jewish are guaranteed to be labeled anti-semites.

Too many zionists forget that zionism is not Judaism. Not all Jews are zionists. Not all zionists are Jews. Someone who refers to zionism is not talking about “the Jews.” Someone who criticizes zionism is not being anti-Jewish.

Every year, the word “anti-Semite” is degraded more. Accusations of anti-Semitism are flung about far too quickly and easily; zionists are becoming the boy who cried “wolf!” The goal, presumably, is to delegitimize criticism of Israel, by labeling all but the most mild, spineless criticisms “anti-Semitic.” But I’m afraid the result will be just the opposite; calling legitimate criticism “anti-Semitic” will wind up legitimizing real anti-Semitism. And that sucks.

A couple of days ago I criticized Mike of Red Letter Day for describing an anti-Lieberman website as “hard at work… making sure [Bush] will be re-elected in 2004,” and also for referring to a couple of critical-of-Israel websites as advocating “death for Israel.” Mike has posted a response. Although I’m usually leery of line-by-line responses (from a design point of view, they just look bad to me), in this case I think it’s the best way to proceed; click on the link below to read more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Silverman, in a post called “Greens for Bush,” writes:

The tedious Green-bashing and basic dishonesty of this post’s premise aside (there’s no reason to believe that the site Mike links to was created by the Green Party), what strikes me about this post is how much it opposes the very idea of dissent and criticism. The site Mike is objecting to, Joseph Lieberman for President 2004, is a satirical site criticizing Lieberman for being too right-wing (”Joseph Lieberman. A new kind of Democrat. The Republican kind.”). Sub-pages criticize Lieberman on military spending, on capital punishment, and other policy issues.

But apparently - at least, according to Mike - it’s now a terrible thing to criticize Lieberman’s policies at all. Criticizing Lieberman is working hard “making sure Bush will be re-elected in 2004.” To criticize Lieberman at all is to favor Bush.

Those “death to Israel” links Mike mentions? Neither one of them - not the excellent Jewish Women Watching site, nor the horribly designed Divest From Israel Campaign site - can be even remotely described as a “death to Israel” site. To criticize Israel at all is to favor its destruction, apparently.

Needless to say, I disagree with Mike’s dislike of dissent. Criticism is valuable. To attempt to shut down debate and criticism of Democrats with shrill screams of “you’re helping re-elect Bush!” is to undermine the very idea of the primary system; if Democrats running for the nomination can’t be criticized, then what’s the point of having primaries?

Similarly, the hysterical accusations that Israel’s critics favor “death to Israel” make legitimate, responsible debate impossible. Mike should be locked up in a small room with those occasional left-wing nuts who yell about “Zionazis”; the two extremes deserve each other.

Unfortunately, although there are many honorable exceptions, I think Mike’s contempt for dissent is pretty common in the Democratic party nowadays - and even more among Israel’s partisans.

As JWW says, “dissent is not a sin.”

(Postscript - If, like me, you’re a Jew who’s grown tired of “more-Jewish-than-thou” attitudes among some Israel partisans, be sure to check out Jewish Women’s Watching mean and sharp satire, “JewishSpeak.” (Warning: pdf file).)

Update: Mike responds to me here.

Note: Due to this post being published as Alas was switching commenting software, the original comments to this post have been “stranded.” They can still be read here. However, please leave any new comments in the new comment system (link below).

From a lecture by Sara Roy, “Living With the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors”:

The entire lecture is worth reading; I just found the above paragraph particularly striking.

So you’re working at your office, and you hear gunshots outside. Looking into the hall, you see a young man out there and let him into your office so he doesn’t get caught in the crossfire. A couple of minutes later, the army bangs on your door. You let them in, and they arrest the young man, who they say is a terrorist.

Do you now deserve to be bulldozed? You do according to Meryl Yourish, who reports that someone the Israeli Army claims is a terrorist was arrested in the offices of the International Solidarity Movement, the organization Rachel Corrie worked with. The Jerusalem Post article Meryl links to doesn’t bother describing what happened from the ISM’s point of view, but the New York Times article does:

As far as I can tell, Haaretz didn’t even consider this story important enough to report on, but anti-Palestinians all over the blogoverse are crowing about it.

Afghan women want “real, not just symbolic, rights.”
A Reuters report on a women’s rights conference held in Afghanistan, “a conference which would have been unthinkable under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban, but nevertheless underlined how far women have to go to achieve equal rights.” The women are demanding input into a new constitution and a guarantee of equal rights:

In a final declaration, the meeting called on the government to end discrimination and violence against women, and to ensure their rights were enshrined in a new constitution, a first draft of which is expected this month.

It also called for projects to help reduce illiteracy among women and to provide equal employment opportunities, including within the government.

The declaration said that planned legal reform should ensure women’s rights to divorce and citizenship and grant them equal political and economic rights.

It said that a body should be established to report on violations of women’s rights and that the new constitution should be approved by a committee of women’s organisations before final ratification.

Zero tolerance for female genital mutilation
Opposition for female genital mutilation (FGM) is often caricatured as a western imposition on African and Muslim cultures. In fact, as far as I can tell, everywhere in the world where FGM is practiced there are local women questioning or protesting FGM. Of course, it’s true that western feminist organizations have sometimes been ham-handed; but it’s not true that opposing FGM is just a Western thing. From the UN Wire:

African leaders and international organizations open a three-day conference today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to urge zero tolerance for female genital mutilation, which the World Health Organization says has been performed on up to 140 million women and girls.

U.N. Helps Sterilize Mexicans Against Their Will
Abortion is too-often the only reproductive right talked about, but the right to choose to have children is just as important. From the National Catholic Reporter (and via Eve Tushnet):

More than 400 cases like hers have moved Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights to issue a harsh report Dec. 16 denouncing the fact that in all of Mexico’s 31 states health organizations have been imposing contraceptive devices on natives and peasants without their consent. The report mentions the United Nations and the Mexican Institute of Social Security in particular.

The commission’s report says it found that “medical personnel in public rural clinics force women to accept the use of intrauterine devices as a method of birth control” under threat of losing the help provided by government programs.

“This commission has also documented that medical and paramedic personnel of the ‘community health brigades’ working in areas of native population put pressure on the male population in order to obtain their consent for the application of irreversible methods [vasectomy] by promising them material goods and economic help…”

UN official: “Visiting brothels where women have been gang-raped into submission, into slavery, is not part of the UN’s mandate.”
This is an ongoing controversy (I blogged about this issue back in August), and I’m happy that it hasn’t faded away. Basically, UN human rights workers have too often been men who think of their occupation as a macho boy’s club, with every right to exploit non-first-world women. Thankfully, some UN folks - like Madeleine Rees, who is now officially my hero - don’t go along with it. From Scotland on Sunday:

Madeleine Rees, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bosnia, has broken ranks to demand that UN officials, international peacekeepers and police who are involved in sex crimes be brought to justice in their home countries.

Speaking exclusively to Scotland on Sunday, the British lawyer has also launched an outspoken attack on her former boss. She accuses Jacques Paul Klein, the former head of the UN Mission in Bosnia, of not taking UN complicity in the country’s burgeoning sex trade seriously enough.

In recent years there has been a massive increase in the trafficking of women in Bosnia, including girls as young as 12. The women are taken from their homes in eastern Europe by organised criminal gangs and brought to Bosnia, where they are forced into prostitution.

The trade in these so-called ’sex slaves’ hardly existed until the mid-1990s. It was fuelled by the arrival of tens of thousands of predominantly male UN personnel in the wake of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord by Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia in 1995.

31 Palestinian Women murdered in “honor” killings in 2002
You can always rely on the UN Wire for depressing news.

At least 31 Palestinian women were murdered in so-called honor killings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip last year, according to statistics released by Palestinian police last week. The victims, most of whom were under the age of 18, were killed by family members for perceived sexual misconduct that brought shame to the family, although in most cases the girls had been sexually abused or raped by relatives.

I’m as pro-Palestine liberation as anyone, but that doesn’t change the fact that Palestinian culture is, by and large, misogynist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and basically deplorable.

Wal-Mart faces largest class action suit in history
The New York Times reports that plantiff’s lawyers in the Wal-Mart sex discrimination lawsuit “want the lawsuit to include all 700,000 women who worked at Wal-Mart from 1996 to 2001.”

In another expert’s report, William T. Bielby, a sociology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, found that women make up 89.5 percent of Wal-Mart’s cashiers, 79 percent of department heads, 37.6 percent of its assistant store managers and 15.5 percent of its store managers. The lawsuit claims that among 20 other large retailers, 57 percent of the managers were women. Hourly jobs at Wal-Mart pay an average of about $18,000 a year, while the average managerial job pays $50,000.

“There are enormous disparities in the rate of promotion for men and women in management,” said Joseph Sellers, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “There is strong evidence that the company is mistreating women because they are women.”