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The Police Use Sexual Assault As A Means Of Political Repression.

>> Read all messages from Zehava Galon

No sooner had we heaved a sigh of relief at the halt of the Iranian missile threat than the announcement came about the deaths of seven young soldiers in the political war of deceit in Gaza. The failure to reach a deal to release the hostages and the daily killing of soldiers and Gazans searching for food are inconceivable and unacceptable. This is not what a return to normalcy looks like, because there is nothing routine or normal about a purposeless, endless war. For the coalition, however, warfare and security pretexts are a nonconventional weapon aimed against us, the citizens of the state, to erode and gnaw away at more and more fundamental democratic rights.

Under the cover of war and a state of emergency, the Israel Police went berserk and lost all restraint in their treatment of protesters. Small demonstrations or one-person vigils were dispersed, sometimes with participants arrested on the baseless claim of “illegal assembly.” Self-appointed as censors, police officers decided which messages were allowed on protest signs. However, most seriously and shockingly of all, female protesters were sexually assaulted – there is no other way to describe it – subjected to strip searches intended not only to humiliate them but to make every woman think twice before joining any anti-government protest.

The use of gender-based violence as a means of political repression is totally unacceptable! It is a hallmark of the worst regimes, whose practices have now been imported here by members of Netanyahu’s coalition. Why fight the Iranian regime only to create one here? That is why we sent an urgent letter to the Police Commissioner and to the Israel Police’s legal adviser, demanding that all officers be ordered to immediately cease these illegal actions.

And, we will continue to fight the suppression of protest in every possible public arena: in the Knesset, in the courts, and in the streets. I know there is huge public opposition to Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir’s endeavor to turn the Israel Police into a revolutionary guard, and I promise each and every one of you: the suppression of protest will not pass! Join us in this struggle, and we will win!

Yours truly,

Zehava Galon
President of Zulat

Yours,

Zehava Galon

Zulat President

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.