A women's conference organized by the dominant Islamist bloc in the Egyptian parliament has called for a council for families to replace the existing National Council for Women, a state-owned daily reported on Friday.
The conference, held Thursday on International Women's Day, also condemned the 1978 U.N. convention against gender discrimination saying it was "incompatible with the values of Islamic sharia" law, the Al-Ahram newspaper reported.
The Freedom and Justice Party conference called for the formation of a national council for the family to "truly express the complementary roles of men and women," the newspaper said.
The Freedom and Justice Party, political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, says it does not endorse gender discrimination, although the Brotherhood argues women should not be allowed to rule the country.
The party is the dominant bloc in both houses of parliament after a sweeping victory in a multi-phase general election that began in November. Women hold just two percent of the seats in parliament.
Remember a year ago when pundits were convinced that the Arab Spring would usher in a new era of liberal values in the Middle East? Good times.
Iraqi activists sounded the bell over the killing of dozens of teenagers by religious police for having "emo" haircuts.
Activists told the Cairo-based al-Akhbar daily that at least 90 Iraqi teenagers with "emo" appearances have been stoned to death by the Moral Police in the country in the past month. The violent crackdown against "emo" Iraqi teenagers came after the Iraqi interior ministry declared them as "devil worshippers."
"The 'Emo phenomenon' or devil worshiping is being probed by the Moral Police who have the approval to eliminate it as soon as possible since it's detrimentally affecting the society and becoming a danger," a statement by the Interior Ministry said.
"They wear strange, tight clothes that have pictures on them such as skulls and use stationery that are shaped as skulls. They also wear rings on their noses and tongues, and do other strange activities," the statement added.
The statement said that Iraq's Moral Police was granted approval by the Ministry of Education to enter Baghdad schools and pinpoint students with Western appearances.
The activists told the newspaper that a group of armed men dressed in civilian clothing led the teenagers to secluded areas a few days ago, stoned them to death, and then disposed their bodies in garbage dumpsters across the capital, Baghdad.
"First they throw concrete blocks at the boy's arms, then at his legs, then the final blow is to his head, and if he is not dead by then, they start all over again," one person who managed to escape told the daily. The exact death toll remains unclear, but Hana al-Bayaty of Brussels Tribunal, an NGO dealing with Iraqi issues, said the current figure ranges "between 90 and 100."
Activists said that leaflets were distributed in Baghdad warning teenagers from donning the "emo" style, and in some regions, teenage homosexuals were killed by battering their heads also by concrete blocks.
"Stoned to death by the Moral Police" has to be one of the most Orwellian phrases ever written without irony.
Two senior terrorists were killed in Gaza Friday, after IDF aircraft targeted a vehicle in the Strip, the army confirmed.
One of the fatalities is Zuhir al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees terror group, Palestinian sources said. The second terrorist killed in the strike is Ahmad al-Khanini, a senior PRC member freed in the Shalit prisoner swap, the Palestinians said. [He wasn't, as Challah Hu Akbar reported and was later confirmed - EoZ]
Al-Qaisi, the IDF Spokesman said, was recently organizing a large, coordinated terror attack to be carried out on Israel's border with Gaza.
Gaza Strip terrorists fired several rockets at southern Israel Friday evening after the IDF assassinated two senior terrorists earlier, including the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees.
Israeli aircraft in turn targeted Palestinian rocket-launching cells, killing at least two terrorists as they were preparing to fire at Israel, Palestinian sources said. The two fatalities were taken to a local hospital.
Earlier, a three-rocket barrage landed in southern Israel, causing no injuries or damages. A short while later, another rocket landed in the south.
Four dead terrorists, no dead civilians. That's the way it should be.
Of course, Israel will be condemned anyway.
Which makes her ability to minimize civilian casualties all the more remarkable. It shows that IDF morality comes from within and is part of its very fabric; it is not a fake morality that comes from outside pressure or worries about appearances. The IDF has been steadily improving its methods to take out terrorists and only terrorists over the years, and now it is the best in the world at it. Even though they are treated the same way by the international community as if they were acting like Assad, and they could save a lot of money and resources by killing everyone in the area, they choose not to.
The Israeli army's boots are stitched together by Palestinian workers in factories in Hebron and East Jerusalem, a little-known example of economic coexistence driven by necessity more than goodwill.
"The Jews who knew how to do that work are gone," said Shimon Horovitz, the boot product manager at Brill Shoe Industries Ltd, which makes some 85,000 pairs of boots for the army every year. "There are no craftsmen left."
In fact, some 40 percent of all shoes on the Israeli market come from the southern West Bank city of Hebron. "It is the city of shoes," Horovitz said of Hebron. "Everyone knows that."
At the Brill factory in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion, where the army boots are made, Israeli workers handle all other stages of production.
Asked about the role of Palestinians in the assembly line, a security official said, "We're an equal opportunity employer. We look at quality, durability and budget."
"If the boots fit, feel good and allow you to defend the county, then that's all that matters," he said.
Now let's do a thought experiment of how the "pro-peace" crowd would react to reading this shining example of Arab/Israeli co-existence and a situation where everybody wins.
Would they smile or frown?
Buy your own pair of IDF boots, and help out the Arab shoemakers of Hebron, for $110. Or, if you are "pro-Palestinian," start a call to boycott the Arab factory for collaboration with the Zionist enemy. Your choice.
Hundreds of Jordanian students rallied outside Amman's University of Jordan on Thursday in protest of a scheduled lecture by an Israeli expert at a mental health conference.
The protesters demanded that Dr. Gideon Anholt's lecture be canceled and called on authorities to expel the Israeli ambassador from Jordan and cancel the 1994 peace treaty.
A university official met with the protesters and promised to cancel the Ben-Gurion University lecturer's appearance so as not to disrupt the conference. Protesters bragged they succeeded in cancelling "the Zionist's lecture" on Facebook. Another lecture by an Israeli expert was also canceled, apparently unknown to the protesters.
Dr. Anholt told Ynet he was smuggled out of the university by security guards. "The protesters handed out flyers expressing outrage over the participation of Israeli occupiers in a Jordan conference," he said. "As things heated up security officers eventually had to take us out the back door."
Anholt recounted his feeling of panic as hundreds gathered outside the university. "It was stressful. Leaving out the back is unpleasant," he said. He noted he returned to Israel via the Allenby Bridge.
According to Anholt, the Jordanian conference dealt with anxiety and depression in the Middle East. He had hoped to meet Arab researchers and explore possible collaborations. Despite his unpleasant experience, Anholt hopes he will return to Jordan in a professional capacity.
The protesters were not shy in noting that their hate was against the Jew.
The JFRANews site headline says "Islamic students union is protesting the participation of the Jewish doctor" and, in case you weren't clear about it, illustrates it this way:
The statement from the students' union says that "every Jew in Palestine is a Zionist warmonger and must be boycotted."
The people who need mental health counseling the most are always the last ones to admit it.
Dar Al Hayat, via Palestine Today, reports that an Egyptian official claims that the fuel crisis in Gaza will be solved "within hours."
But there's a catch.
An Egyptian source said that Hamas wants to create a political crisis with Egypt using the electricity crisis that exists in Gaza. He pointed out that Egypt is working hard to resolve this crisis, but that existing Egyptian agreements on the topic are with the PA, not Hamas. He said that a delegation from Ramallah was due in Cairo tomorrow to discuss the issue and make arrangements for the transfer of fuel for Gaza's power plant..
However, he said that Egypt will supply diesel through the Kerem Shalom crossing in coordination with the Israeli side. And, he added, if Israel does anything to hamper the fuel transfer, only then will Egypt provide the diesel through the Rafah crossing to Gaza.
Egypt knows quite well that Israel has not done anything to limit fuel to Gaza through Kerem Shalom, and is willing to restart those transfers as soon as Hamas agrees. And they also know that Hamas is refusing the fuel from Israel because they cannot impose an additional tax on that fuel (beyond the PA tax) without risking a mass uprising of Gazans unwilling to pay the high prices.
In other words, if this story is true, Egypt is getting ready to publicly call out Hamas for their role in creating this artificial crisis, but is first giving them one more chance to quietly give in and start accepting fuel from Israel as they used to.
In an interview with Al Quds al Arabi, Hamas spokesman Salah Bardawil says that Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar met with Western and US officials in Cairo last May.
Bardawil said that Hamas wants to be part of the Arab spring, which led to the rise of Islamic movements in the Arab world. In that context he says that Hamas representatives held a back-channel meeting with Western officials, including Americans.
While he says that Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar was one of the people who met with Western officials in Cairo in May, he refused to provide details about the meeting.
The United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), scheduled to wrap up its annual session on Friday, is expected to pass a resolution condemning Israel's part in the degrading of living conditions for Palestinian women, while failing to mention the mistreatment of women in the ongoing crisis in Syria.
Friday's session will include such professional resolution as concerning "woman and natural disasters," "women hostages," women and girls and AIDS," and "mortality among women."
However, the panel is expected to also an eight-clause resolution, determining that the "Israeli occupation" in territories, including East Jerusalem, is the main obstacle for the advancement of the Palestinian woman.
Responding to the decision to condemn Israel, Israeli envoy to the UN Ron Prosor told Haaretz that the "council's bring levels of absurdity and cynicism to new heights."
"The thousands of Syrian women butchered, tortured, raped and trampled under Assad's iron boot don't even get a passing mention in the panel's decisions," Prosor added.
In private discussions and in response to official Israeli appeals, the panel's European members have attacked the wording of a resolution specifically addressing Palestinian women, and agree that it is not professionally motivated.
However, like similar resolutions accepted in last year's session, European representatives are expected to either back the draft or abstain the vote.
Prosor referred to this apparent pattern, saying that "under the protection of the European states' abstaining, the [CSW] turns its back on the tortured and murdered women of Damascus and continues to obsessively deal with Palestinian women."
"Does the resolution denounce 'honor killings' in the Palestinian society? Does the resolution discuss Hamas' repression of women in Gaza? Of course not. The UN continues to deal with the Palestinian issue without any connection to what's happening on the ground."
Naturally, no other country is singled out for its treatment of women by the UN. Because women's rights are jealously safeguarded in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Meanwhile you can read about the 58.1% of wives in Gaza who are exposed to violence by their husbands.
The UN's education, science and culture organization has just voted 35 to 8 for a resolution that condemns Assad for abuses, yet — despite vigorous efforts led by the U.S. — keeps the regime on its human rights committee.
"For UNESCO to keep President Bashar al-Assad on a human rights committee while his regime mercilessly murders its own people is immoral, indefensible and an insult to Syria's victims," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva human rights group that heads a campaign of 55 parliamentarians, human rights and religious groups demanding Syria's expulsion.
"The world squandered a golden opportunity to expose the Assad regime's lack of legitimacy. Politics trumped human rights, with too many UNESCO diplomats fearful that if Syria were removed for gross violations, their own regimes would be next."
"Today's appalling decision calls into question the credibility of UNESCO's mission to promote human rights. Syria's membership is a lingering stain upon the reputation of the UN as a whole," said Neuer.
After UNESCO elected Syria to its human rights committee in November, UN Watch launched a campaign to reverse the decision, prompting the US and Britain to initiate today's debate at UNESCO.
"While today's text rightly condemns Syria's violations — a welcome first for UNESCO — the promised call to oust the regime from UNESCO's human rights panel has been completely excised. We're left with words, but no teeth."
"By maintaining Assad in a position of global influence on human rights, UNESCO today has sent absolutely the wrong message. It an unconscionable insult to the suffering people of Syria," said Neuer.
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