The Left Finally Seeing the Light in "Palestine"?

Perhaps those on the left are finally coming around to see the depravity and the lack of rights in Palestinian territories. Unfortunately in minds of the AP & Human Rights Watch, the lawless rape of women and killing of women who are raped in the Palestinian territories does not demonstrate that hey maybe the Palestinians are the cause of the terrorism. Nothing Israel does forces Palestinians to abuse their women or kill those who have been raped. So if one is willing to kill women who have been raped, isn't one likely to kill Jews in order to gain power? They can't put two and two together.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - A new report presents an alarming picture of the abuse of women in the Palestinian territories, with police, courts and government agencies failing to treat violence such as rape and beatings as a crime.

Human Rights Watch cited practices such as rape victims being forced to marry assailants and light sentences for men who kill female relatives suspected of adultery. In a report released Tuesday, the rights group said families, tribal leaders and authorities, backed by tradition and discriminatory laws, often sacrifice victims’ interests for “family honor.”

And the problem is getting worse with growing poverty and lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the New York-based group said.

The report comes about a year after a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics survey of more than 4,000 households found 23 percent of women said they experienced domestic violence, but only 1 percent had filed a complaint. Two-thirds said they were subjected to psychological abuse at home.

Human Rights Watch urged the Palestinian president, parliament and government ministries to make protection of women a top priority. It said more can be done despite the conflict with Israel and the cash crisis in the Palestinian Authority brought on by the rise to power of the Islamic militant group Hamas.

“The main failing of the system is the failure to treat violence against women as a crime and to address it accordingly,” researcher Lucy Mair said. “We want to say you can take some positive steps and it’s imperative to provide protection to more women."

Human Rights Watch’s report, based on dozens of interviews with victims, social workers, lawyers and police chiefs in the West Bank and Gaza, said abusers in the Palestinian territories are granted virtual immunity.

Rapists who marry their victims are not prosecuted, it said, and such deals are often arranged by the families, tribal leaders and police.

Palestinian law is lenient with men who kill female relatives because of adultery. Yet it bars rape and incest victims from having abortions. Rape within marriage is not considered a crime, the report said.

Police and hospital doctors are not trained to handle abuse cases and often further humiliate victims, the report said.

In one hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus, a doctor announced to a crowded waiting room that his unmarried 16-year-old patient was pregnant. The girl’s mother later cited that incident as the main reason for her decision to kill her daughter, according to a case documented in the report.

A premium is placed on female virginity, with rapists facing a lesser punishment if the victim is not a virgin, the report said. Virginity tests are imposed on sexual abuse victims against their will.

Women’s fates are increasingly determined by tribal leaders or Palestinian Authority-appointed governors, rather than the overloaded courts. The informal justice system is often arbitrary and biased against victims, Human Rights Watch said.

Victims are often afraid to come forward because of social stigma, the perceived futility of complaining and fear of inviting retribution by relatives, the report said. MSNBC