The big lies on Israel lend legitimacy to ignoring Israel women’s rights

By Phyllis Chesler 

In these times, reality outpaces fiction by far.

New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, of all people, is supposed to have a book out in March titled Antisemitism in America: A Warning. Given that he has not brought the antisemitism bill to a vote in the Senate and his betrayal of Israel, in collaboration with President Joe Biden, during the Swords of Iron war, this is the height of chutzpah.

As Iranian-funded Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi terrorists attack Israel relentlessly, the world media focuses on imaginary crimes they attribute only to Israel. The coverage is even more relentless than the military attacks. Page after page of news coverage shows photos of suffering Gazans suffering, but never Israelis. The United Nations passes resolution after resolution condemning Israel. Yet it rarely does the same against any other country.

In the last days of his reign, Biden’s team has issued a flurry of executive orders pardoning—not only the president’s son, Hunter, but also some of those who helped carry out the terror attacks on Sept, 11, 2001.

America is merciful toward its enemies and cruel towards its allies. Ask Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about this. The big lies being told about Israel have resulted in nonstop and well-funded demonstrations against “Zionists,” and in the funding of groups that bang on against Israel.

For example, it is no surprise that the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security has focused on two countries that they believe the U.N. Security Council must do something about.

The first is Haiti, a failed nation being run—or destroyed—by criminals. Their main concern there is the “sexual violence against diverse women and girls,” the inability of “LGBTIQ people … to report sexual violence for fear of reprisal,” and the inability of women to “access sexual and reproductive care or services.” As such the working group demands “respect for women’s rights” and demands that (who, the criminal gangs, the U.N. bureaucracy?) “acknowledge and address the specific needs of lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (LBTQ) women.” I agree with this desire, but, really, is this Haiti’s immediate priority?

The second country is, of course, Israel/Palestine, as the NGO likes to say. (There is no such country, but try and tell that to the mesmerized and the brainwashed).

In its “Monthly Action Points (MAP) for the Security Council” on Jan. 6, the NGO spent 609 words discussing the situation in Haiti and 889 words on Israel/Palestine. They refer to the “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” Israel’s “unlawful occupation of the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem” and insist that “international experts” (have credibly) described Israel’s actions as “genocide.” They mindlessly repeat Hamas’s completely misleading figures about the number of Gazans killed, wounded and displaced. They accuse Israel of having committed “constant violations of international humanitarian law.”

These women of peace offer nothing but anti-Israel propaganda. They do not include a single mention or word on the Oct. 7 pogrom or the 99 hostages Hamas continues to hold in Gaza, including several young women. There is nothing in the Working Group on Women, Peace and Security’s monthly report about the perennial attacks on Israeli civilians by Iran’s terrorist proxies, not a word about the displacement of Israelis from their homes or the number of Israelis killed or wounded in a war of self-defense. Not one word is included about the impact the attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis have had on women in Israel may they be Muslim, Christian, Druze, Bahai or Jewish, and, of course, there’s no mention of the need for services for traumatized Israelis, especially women and children.

Based upon their big lies, they call upon the U.N. Security Council, of which Algeria has the presidency, to “demand an immediate, full, and complete ceasefire … ensure immediate, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access into Gaza.” They want the Security Council to “prevent the implementation of legislation restricting the operations” of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

So who is behind this lovely group concerned about the fate of women in Haiti and Gaza that views itself as a “peacebuilder?” It is perhaps no surprise that the Working Group on Women, Peace and Security includes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Center for Reproductive Rights and the Consortium on Gender Security and Human Rights, among others.

Funders of these groups include the left-leaning Tides Foundation, Compton Foundation and ministries within the governments of Norway, Sweden and Lichtenstein. They have all wasted their money. The United Nations has never prevented or prosecuted a single real genocide. They did nothing for the women in Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan, Congo, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, etc. The only thing that the United Nations has ever done successfully was to legitimize Jew-hatred. This little group both reflects and extends that particular agenda.

First published in the Jewish News Syndicate