This may be Human Rights Watch’s grossest Israel smear yet
Jack Elbaum
Video Embed
According to a report from Human Rights Watch, Israel is apparently less free for women than Libya and right up there with Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
In a new report titled “Trapped,” Human Rights Watch included a map with a heading reading “Can women leave their homes without guardian permission?” It included Israel in the “No” category, along with a number of the countries that surround it. In a piece on the report, the Guardian repeated the claim and included the map.
HOUSE MUST SAVE MILITARY FROM BIDEN’S CLIMATE OBSESSION
https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1681174768572039169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
But women are obviously allowed to leave their homes, work, drive, serve in the army, and do anything else a man would do under Israeli law. An Israeli would laugh in your face if you claimed otherwise. The workforce participation among women in Israel is higher than in the United States. There are cultural issues within some communities, but that does not change the law, which is what is being disputed. Israel’s Declaration of Independence states that it “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” Not to mention, under Israeli law, all discrimination on the basis of gender is illegal, and the government has passed numerous laws to promote, even mandate, the representation of women in all areas of Israeli society.
Only later did the Guardian issue an update and remove the incorrect information. It clarified “that Human Rights Watch says it included Israel in the report because some religious courts can have jurisdiction over marriage and divorce, and deprive women of spousal maintenance.” There are certainly problems with empowering religious courts, but none of what Human Rights Watch writes proves, in any way, that Israel doesn’t allow women to leave the home without the permission of a man. It is a claim that simply cannot be backed up because it is not true.
In other words: The claim of the Human Rights Watch is a joke. There is a reason why Israel is rated as a “free” country by Freedom House, which also writes that women “enjoy full political rights in law and in practice” in Israel, while the countries around it are invariably listed as “not free.”
This is the kind of thing that happens when formerly respected institutions are eaten by progressivism and unhinged hatred of Israel from the inside. They no longer care about facts, just The Narrative — and it means everyone is less informed as a result.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.