In Puzzling Report, the UN Blames Israel for Domestic Violence in the West Bank and Gaza

On December 23, 2016, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, and failed creative writer-turned-State Department Advisor extraordinaire Benjamin Rhodes colluded with a motley crew of nefarious actors to align the outgoing administration of the United States with those who seek to destroy America's greatest ally, Israel. Specifically, Ambassador Power “abstained” from a Security Council resolution that in effect declares all Israeli “settlement” activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal. It is now the position of our outgoing President that the presence of Israeli Jews in the Old City's Jewish quarter is, in fact, illegal.

For good reason, President Obama has hardly been considered Israel's best friend to occupy the White House over the past eight years. However, for all of his counterproductive and dangerous actions, it took a special kind of gall to knife Israel in the back in the confines of the United Nations, a body that famously once declared that “Zionism is Racism” under a Secretary had been an officer in the Wehrmacht in the Second World War. Under the umbrella of the United Nations, UNESCO recently declared that neither Jews nor Christians have any ties to the holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City. Perhaps there was no more fitting venue for President Obama's final act of betrayal than the United Nations.

In this article, I would like to highlight a particularly absurd anti-Semitic incident from the United Nations in September of 2016. Although it pales in comparison to the actions of the United Nations on the first day of Hanukkah on the 23rd of September, it will provide us with a useful template for understanding the United Nations' pathological hatred of the Jewish state and its people. After reading this article, please see my full article on President Obama's disgrace at the United Nations, and my thoughts on where the United States under a President Trump and a unified Republican Congress can go after the country is finally rid of President Obama in the White House [see blog].

Understanding the UN's Hostility Toward Israel

On September 26, 2016, UN Watch reported that Dubravka Simonovic, the United Nations Rapporteur on violence against women, visited the West Bank to investigate the endemic violence against women in the predominantly Palestinian areas [link].¹ Had it been any other organization besides the United Nations conducting the investigation, one may expect a detailed report on how cultural rot may lead a disproportionate number of men in a society to find it acceptable to abuse women. A cursory look around countries in the Middle East shows that it is not a region hospitable to the rights of women. As the United Nations discovered in its ultimately flawed investigation, the predominantly Arab areas of Israel in Gaza and the West Bank are no exception. Considering the trends in the region, it should come as no surprise that Gaza, which is dominated by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, is not at the vanguard of women's rights. Although Mahmoud Abbas — who is now in the eleventh year of a five-year term as President — is touted as a moderate, it is safe to say that women are far safer in the majority of areas on Israel that do not count on Abbas' feckless government for protection.

Of course, it was the United Nations, and not an impartial investigative body, studying the situation of women in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. In 1984, then-Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick gave a memorable keynote speech renominating President Ronald Reagan, where she accused the Democrats of always blaming America first. Kirkpatrick was a steadfast supporter of Israel, and her attack against the “San Francisco Democrats” could just as easily be applied to the United Nations' position on Israel. The United Nations will always blame Israel first, no matter what contortions are required to do it.

True to form, Simonovic managed to contort reason in seemingly anatomically impossible ways to turn an investigation into violence against women into an anti-Semitic rant against Israel. According to Simonovic's bizarre report, the reason why Palestinian men beat their wives in Israel is because of Israel. To restate this, her investigation allegedly discovered that when a Palestinian man assaults his wife, it is because of the so-called Israeli occupation. Whether it is because of home demolitions of illegal buildings or the homes of terrorists, the inefficacy and indifference of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, or the lack of mobility for people in Gaza (nowhere does she ask why the thoroughly Islamist Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have not made more progress on domestic violence resources than on terror tunnels), Palestinian men beat their wives because of Israel.

Now, one may wonder about the effect that culture has on domestic violence in the West Bank and Gaza. Well, according to Simonovic, the so-called Israeli occupation allowed bad cultural practices to become “petrified.” Apparently, the mere existence of Israel prevents Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza from reassessing cultural practices that underlie systemic violence against women. It should come as no surprise that she addressed cultural rot no further, or that she failed to inquire as to the effect that extremist interpretations of Islam may have on the pervasiveness of violence against women (especially in Gaza).

One would be curious as to what Simonovic would consider the cause of high rates of domestic violence in places such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria. Following her logic that Palestinian men beat their wives because of Israel, I would not be at all surprised if she chalked up violence against women in other Middle Eastern countries as a show of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. It would have been instructive to consider why the situation of women in Israel is so dramatically better than anywhere in the Arab world, but such comparisons would not be in accord with the United Nations' radical Islamist-supporting agenda. For an interesting look at the attitudes of the Middle East on women, please see my blog post which addresses the subject [see blog].

It must be said that Simonovic's report is as offensive to reason as it is to Israel. At the Law Offices of Grinberg and Segal, PLLC, we have dealt with many domestic violence cases in both the immigration and family law contexts. I cannot fathom how someone can look into the eyes of a domestic violence victim and see the opportunity to use the situation to apologize domestic abusers in the name of advancing a bigoted agenda. It is almost hard to tell if Simonvic's goal was primarily to apologize for cultural rot in the Arab world or to slander Israel, but whichever it was; she accomplished both with flying colors. It is a further disgrace that this woman is not just any hack at the United Nations, but the hack specifically charged with investigating violence against women across the world. As rape is used as a weapon throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, she spent her time perverting perverse behavior in the West Bank and Gaza to perpetrate a libelous smear against Israel.

The United Nations, as it usually does, cloaked itself in shame in an issue regarding Israel. In so doing, it insulted its people, the domestic violence victims of the West Bank and Gaza, domestic violence victims around the world, and all people who have not abandoned basic logic for anti-Semitism.

Conclusion

Simonovic's report is just one example of the United Nations' absurd fixation on Israel-bashing. Given its close proximity to President Obama's ultimate abandonment at the United Nations, the story offers an interesting look into the types of individuals that President Obama decided to ally himself with to spite Israel before the General Assembly. I would like to remind you again to read my full blog post on the President's shameful decision on December 23, 2016 [see blog].

Fortunately, U.S. immigration law provides for certain forms of relief for domestic violence victims that actually address domestic violence instead of blaming Israel. To read about the remedies that immigration law offers many victims of domestic violence, please see our website's sections on Victims of Violence Immigration [see category] and removal and deportation defense [see category].

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1. UN Watch, “UN expert: When Palestinian men beat their wives, it's Israel's fault,” unwatch.org, (Sep. 26, 2016)