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Petra Marquardt-Bigman is a German/Israel citizen with a Ph.D. in contemporary history with a focus on European public opinion relating to the Middle East, Islamic Terrorism, the US and Israel.
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By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
September 5, 2007
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Calls to boycott "apartheid Israel", just as South Africa had been boycotted, were once again appreciated as constructive proposals at the recent "International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace." The UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People organized the conference and the European Parliament in Brussels hosted it.
The comparison between Israel and South Africa has of course often been refuted as unjustified and inappropriate; however, those who continue to accuse Israel of practicing "apartheid" are hardly doing so because this accusation is warranted by reality, but rather because it is such an effective way to reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a simplistic good-versus-evil narrative which suits the political purposes of anti-Israel campaigners.
That the sloganeering about "Israeli apartheid" is motivated primarily by anti-Israel sentiment and not by genuine concern about human rights violations is all too obvious from the deafening silence about the massive human rights violations affecting millions of women all over the Muslim world.
The very same people who shout loudest about the apartheid policies supposedly practiced by Israel tend to react with utmost indignation if anyone dares to call a spade a spade by pointing out that the kind of gender apartheid enforced and practiced to varying degrees in Muslims countries -- and Muslims communities everywhere -- deprives women of some of their most basic human rights simply because they are women.
A single Arab killed by an Israeli soldier is infinitely more newsworthy than scores of Arabs killed by their fellow Arabs. Any human rights violation committed by an Israeli soldier guarding a checkpoint is much more outrageous than the pervasive, everyday human rights violations suffered by millions of women whose lives are severely restricted by a long list of prohibitions that are designed to keep them utterly dependent on male relatives, isolated from social contacts outside the family circle, and vulnerable to the whims of the men who rule every aspect of their lives.
This hypocrisy is hardly ever addressed in the mainstream media. One notable exception was a Guardian article this spring that described the Saudi Janadriya cultural festival as a "Festival of segregation." The author, Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi scholar and writer, sharply criticized that "for the past few years, droves of leading Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans have traveled thousands of miles to attend a festival of segregation. While they advocate for civil rights of Arab-Americans or Arabs living under Israeli occupation, they seemingly turn a blind eye to the plight of women in Saudi Arabia."
As al-Ahmed also noted, the "international community and the United States responded with great outrage to the imposition of race apartheid in South Africa. [...] Should gender discrimination be considered any less appalling than racial discrimination? International outrage at the plight of the Saudi woman, which is arguably as severe as those conditions faced by blacks in South Africa, has been sorely lacking."
In the case of Saudi Arabia, it is, of course, oil that, for once serves not to fuel, but to dampen any outrage about the deplorable state of human rights for the kingdom's women. And then there is political correctness: it's their culture, after all, and we have to respect it.
For their part, the Saudis were cynical enough to reciprocate by showing that they can do political correctness, too: seven years ago, on September 7, 2000, they signed on to the UN's "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)."
States that sign CEDAW commit themselves "to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including: to incorporate the principle of equality of men and women in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women."
Of course, Saudi Arabia would be unrecognizable if it honored these commitments. So, the kingdom simply registered a reservation stating that it was not bound by any provisions that contradict Islamic law -- and Islamic law, as interpreted in Saudi Arabia, contradicts pretty much all the provisions of CEDAW?
The gender apartheid practiced in Saudi Arabia is generally regarded as particularly severe, but the situation of millions of women who live in remote rural areas in the Muslim world is hardly better -- their only right in life is to be an obedient daughter and a submissive wife, no matter how much abuse is coming their way.
The repercussions rarely make headlines, even though they should: as highlighted by the UN's "Arab Human Development Reports", gender inequality is one of the main obstacles to development in the Arab world. It is hard to deny that the lack of development is an important dimension of the instability and tensions that have turned the Middle East into a breeding ground for fundamentalism and extremism.
But instead of tackling this politically sensitive issue, it is easier to blame Israeli "apartheid". On this subject, it's politically correct to be as blunt as possible: thus, Le Monde diplomatique once featured an article by Leila Farsakh entitled "Israel: an apartheid state?" under the headline: "AN OCCUPATION THAT CREATES CHILDREN WILLING TO DIE." But the men who crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had never encountered an Israeli soldier -- what they had experienced was a childhood in a society that regards those who give life as little more than the property of men.
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