Otters and Science News: PALESTINIAN VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IS RAMPANT AND RISING - IT IS PART OF OUR CULTURE says Palestinian expert - Palestinian men regard women as property, and most Palestinian women say domestic violence is justified - QUOTES FROM THE KORAN and the Hadith sanctioning violence against women

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Key points:

Palestinian culture gives men ownership over their wives
Most Palestinian women agree with the notion that men have a right to use violence against women.
Gaza leads in the severity and frequency of male violence against women.
There has been a 100% rise in honor killings in the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, according to their own statistics.
Many of those "honor killings" are perpetrated for financial reasons. (See extended report further on this page.)
Mahmoud Abbas, chief of the PA, has failed to amend the law that authorizes men to kill their women if it's done in a state of "great anger".
Some Palestinian women and men activists are vocal in their denunciation of this violence and the law that sanctions it.
But Palestinian criticism of violence against women may have more to do with concern with the Palestinians' image abroad than with genuine opposition to the practice.
Much of the push for statehood is based on a carefully crafted public relations campaign portraying Palestinians as close to sainthood and deserving an independent state.
There have been attempts to blame the Israeli "occupation" for such violence, but the practice of honor killings is widespread all over the Muslim world, and it even happens among Muslims living in the West.
What is not always mentioned is that violence against women is sanctioned and encouraged by Islam's sacred texts such as the Koran and the Hadith. (See quotes below.) Men who beat up or kill women think they are being good Muslims.
The rise in violence against women among Palestinians reflect a general shift towards increased orthodoxy among Muslims all over the world.
Rape coverup - A whistleblower exposed how pro-Palestinian peace organizations cover up cases of rape of pro-Palestinian Western activists by Palestinian men. (See article on this page.)
UPDATE April 7 - Palestinians' image problem: mothers happy when their children die in acts of terror. (Read article further below.)

Violence against Palestinian Arab women is rampant in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Gaza, official PA media reported last month, because both territories' laws and Palestinian culture give men "right of ownership" over their wives.

The head of the Women's Legal Counseling Center, Zainab Al-Ghneimi, stated to Al Hayat-Al Jadida that, under Palestinian rule, the husband "is the one who commands and prohibits." Her comments were translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

"The culture of the entire society" is that a husband "has bought the woman and paid for her, and therefore she has become his property and must obey his orders," Al-Ghneimi said.

Palestinian Arab women have been cultured into accepting this patriarchy, she noted. "41% of the women agreed that violence was justified if the woman leaves home without notifying her husband, while 74% agreed that violence was justified if she neglected her children," she said, quoting a March 29 Al-Hayat article. This is not Islam, she concluded. (However hitting and killing women is sanctioned by Islam's sacred texts.)

Continue reading

Violence against women is well-known in Gaza, as Hamas has enforced a stringent interpretation of Islamic law since violently taking power there in 2007.

The group has banned women and teenagers from smoking hookahs in public, ordered that women's clothing stores are not allowed to have dressing rooms, men cannot have hairdressing salons for women and that mannequins shaped like women must be dressed in modest clothing.

The group also introduced a strict dress code for female university students, demanding that they wear “modest clothing."

Honor killings in Gaza rose exponentially in 2014.

Source

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193726#.VSKo3Zs5CM8

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Palestinian criticism of violence against women in their society has more to do with concern with their international image rather than with genuine rejection of the cruel acts themselves.

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Palestinian journalist calls for

an end to honor killings

Journalist argues that the practice has roots in the Koran - and urges the Arab world to turn away from violent punishments for women.

In the Palestinian Arab magazine Al Hayaam published Saturday, journalist Omar Hilmi Al-Harol called to "cease killing women."

Al-Harol indicated that the phenomenon of murdering women for 'honor killings' is not a new phenomenon in the Arab and Islamic world, but that its roots are deep within the Koran - and not a new phenomenon in the Arab and Islamic, but its roots lie in the Quran as a means of dealing with adulterers.

Fourteen women were murdered in honor killings since 2014, according to Al-Harol; the last murder was a husband stabbing his wife, in Bir Zeit, north of Ramallah. The journalist sided in the article with a cultural and religious campaign to end harm to women within the framework of the Arab and Islamic world, and deliver messages of gender equality to all.

Dr. Yunis Al-Astal, a member of the Council of Palestinian Clerics and a Hamas MP, recently criticized the punishment of honor killings in Palestinian Arab society.

In his statement, Astal argued that honor killings is a more serious crime than the reason behind the honor killings itself, as punishment for premarital sex - which is the most common reason for the murders, according to Astal - is only one hundred lashes, not execution.

Astal also clarified that while adultery is punishable by stoning according to Sharia Law, the sentence needs to be handed down by the court, not by family members. He slammed the fact that, often, honor killings are carried out in secret - with only close family members knowing her fate.

The Hamas MP urged Palestinian Arabs to solve problems with promiscuity not by murder, but through arranging the two guilty parties to marry.

The move may come as a surprise to some, as Hamas has enforced a stringent interpretation of Islamic law in Gaza since violently taking power there in 2007.

Source
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/180554#.VSKrFZs5CM8

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100% rise in Palestinian

"family honor" killings

PA law protects murderers of women and girls killed for so-called "family honor"

Abbas has repeatedly pledged to change the leniency clause for "family honor" killings in PA law, but he has still not fulfilled his promise, and honor killings have doubled.

PLO Executive Committee member Ashrawi has said that claiming such crimes are due to "family honor" is an "excuse".

According to a senior official in the PA Ministry of Women's Affairs, there has been a 100% rise in the number of Palestinian women murdered in the name of "family honor." The official also complained that PA leader Abbas has not fulfilled his pledge to change PA law, which currently protects the murderers of women who were killed because of so-called "family honor":

"Director of Coordination in the Ministry of Women's Affairs Nabila Rizq revealed that the number of women who were murdered in 2013 in Palestine due to 'family honor' rose to 27, compared to 13 women murdered in 2012... Rizq said the loophole in the penal code -- specifically the extenuating circumstances and circumstances which permit [murder] -- gives the criminal an excuse to commit his crime, and she asserted that three years ago a demand was submitted to President Mahmoud Abbas to remove this clause because it exempts the criminal from punishment."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 3, 2014]

PA law follows the clauses in Jordanian law that are lenient toward perpetrators of crimes such as "honor killings."

According to Article 98 of Jordanian Penal Act 16, perpetrators "shall be liable to a lesser penalty" for crimes committed in "a state of great anger" in response to "a wrongful and dangerous act on the part of the victim" (an act which the law leaves undefined).

Article 340 states that someone who "surprises his wife or one of his ascendants or descendants in the crime of adultery" "shall benefit from the mitigating excuse". ['Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women; Eds. Sara Hossain, Lynn Welchman; Zed Books Ltd.; 2005]

For three years Abbas has been promising to change these laws that are lenient to murderers of women.

Palestinian Media Watch reported in 2011 and 2012 on demands from within PA society that the laws be changed and on Abbas' promises to do so. However, despite his promises, Abbas has failed to bring about change.

Abbas' unfulfilled pledges to protect women, in 2011 and 2012:

In 2011:"Women's organizations, human rights organizations, workers' unions, the political factions and the various social organizations in the Hebron district have hailed the President's [Abbas'] decision to instruct the legal advisor to the Presidential Office to amend sections 340 and 98 of the Jordanian Penal Act 16 of 1960, which allows those who have carried out crimes of murdering women in so-called honor killings to escape justice..."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 15, 2011]

In 2012: "President Abbas decided yesterday to appoint a legal committee, made up of his legal advisor, Hassan Al-Awri, and the Minister of Justice, Ali Mahana, to examine the law of personal status and others. This in order to improve the laws and amend them, so Palestinian women's rights will be protected and defend them from oppression, violence, and discrimination. The president's decision comes following the increase in attacks and cases of murder of women."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 10, 2012]

Member of the PLO Executive Committee Hanan Ashrawi repeated the call to change the PA law and put an end to "extenuating circumstances for murder of women."

Ashrawi called on all political, governmental and media frameworks to "stand up against this phenomenon and eradicate it once and for all" and to stop treating such crimes as "family matters" of "family honor," which she described as an "excuse":

"Women are not a symbol of men's or families' honor, but are an equal member [of society], like all other individuals in society. Categorizing these dangerous crimes under misleading titles is an exploitation that provides cover and protection for those who carry out these crimes and encourages them to carry out additional attacks and crimes against women."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 23, 2014]

In addition, the official PA daily reported that some of those murdered women whose relatives claimed were killed because of "family honor" were actually killed because the women were trying to get their proper inheritance, based on a new PA law. Family members had in fact killed them for financial profit:

"[There] are signs of increasing awareness among women about demanding their right of inheritance. This [is happening] even if this demand may encounter many obstacles [caused] by [their] brothers and family, [obstacles] which may even sometimes result in murder, and recording it [the murder] as if it was committed as a family honor [killing]..."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 3, 2014]

As stated, in spite of Abbas' pledges, PA law still grants the above cited clemency for the "family honor" killings in 2014.

The following are longer excerpts of the reports on honor killings in the official PA daily:

"PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi asserted that we must hurry and urgently approve the penal code, dismiss all extenuating circumstances for murder of women, approve a series of legislation concerning the security of society, and specifically the security of women, as well as give maximum sentences to the perpetrators and to anyone who violates provisions of the law.

These words were said as she strongly condemned the murder of a 15-year-old from Jabalia by her father and the murder of another young woman, a 17-year-old from Khan Yunis, by her brother, [both of which happened] in one day.

Ashrawi noted that the number of women who were murdered since the beginning of 2013 and up to December of that year reached 28 victims because of a lack of regulations and laws to guarantee social protection for women, the lack of legal accountability, laxity in pursuing perpetrators, as well as a lack of desire to punish them.

She added: 'It's time to implement the necessary amendments to the law, approve a penal code that dissuades [people from committing the crimes and that will] view these crimes as crimes against humanity, to activate methods for implementing the law and to urge the legal system to assume its responsibility.'

Hanan Ashrawi, a devotee of terroristArafat,
and notorious distorter or Middle East history

Ashrawi denounced the fact that these crimes are called murder for 'family matters,' or what are called 'honor' killings, and described this as an 'excuse.'

In addition, she said: 'Women are not a symbol of men's or families' honor, but are an equal member [of society], like all other individuals in society.

Categorizing these dangerous crimes under misleading titles is an exploitation that provides cover and protection for those who carry out these crimes, and encourages them to carry out additional attacks and crimes against women. Furthermore, it reinforces the policy of escaping punishment and contributes to evading the necessary commitments for opposing it.'

Ashrawi called on all parts of the Executive Authority, civil society and [on] political, governmental, popular, feminist and media frameworks, as well as the legal and the defense systems, to stand up against this phenomenon and eradicate it once and for all.

She added: 'All elements of society must face their social and national responsibility and oppose these dark acts that harm Palestinian society as a whole, and [harm] the components of the future democratic Palestinian state, its principles and status.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 23, 2014]

"Director of Coordination in the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Nabila Rizq revealed that the number of women who were murdered in 2013 in Palestine due to 'family honor' rose to 27, compared to 13 women murdered in 2012...

Rizq said the loophole in the penal code -- specifically the extenuating circumstances and circumstances which permit [murder] -- gives the criminal an excuse to commit his crime, and she asserted that three years ago a demand was submitted to President Mahmoud Abbas to remove this clause because it exempts the criminal from punishment. Rizq deplored the escalation of violence against women, which currently poses a dangerous threat to our society."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 3, 2014]

Nasreen Qawas, coordinator of the 'Right of Inheritance' project, told Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: '... Some of the women grapple with many difficulties with their brothers or families, [difficulties] which have at times resulted in murder due to greed.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 3, 2014]

Source

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=10767

RELATED:

More on Hanan Ashrawi:

Hanan Ashrawi, an Arab raised as a Christian, has been a prominent activist and politician for decades.

Her pro-women message rings hollow, however, since she has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Palestinian Authority oppressive terrorist regimes of Yassir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.

She has been silent about harassment and persecution of Christian Arabs in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza. There are hardly any Christians left in the ancient Biblical areas under Palestinian Authority control, such as the city of Bethlehem.

Ashrawi has also consistently distorted Middle East history and events related to the Muslim-Jewish conflict in Israel.

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RECOMMENDED READING

Women in Palestinian society

Palestinian Media Watch news file

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=587

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COVERING UP RAPE

Whistleblower exposes how peace groups cover up the harassment and rape of female activists by Palestinians

Two activists have exposed a disturbing phenomenon that they say is an open secret within the “peace camp”: female “peace” activists are routinely harassed and raped by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with whom they have come to identify.

They say the phenomenon has gotten worse lately and that many foreign women end up as wives of local Arabs against their will, but cannot escape their new homes.

Roni Aloni Sedovnik, a feminist activist, penned an article in News1 – an independent website run by respected investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak – under the heading “The Left's Betrayal of Female Peace Activists Who were Sexually Assaulted.”

“A nauseous atrocity has been going on for a long time behind the scenes at the leftists' demonstration at Bil'in, Naalin and Sheikh Jarrah [Shimon HaTzaddik],” she writes. “A dark secret that threatens to smash the basic ideological values upon which the demand to end the occupation of the Territories rests.”

It turns out, she explains, that when female peace activists from Israel and abroad come out to Judea and Samaria and demonstrate against the Israeli “occupation,” they are assaulted sexually by the Arab men whom they have come to help. These are not isolated incidents, Aloni-Sedovnik stresses. Rather, this is an “ongoing and widespread” phenomenon that includes verbal and physical abuse.

She accuses the 'peace' camp of purposely covering up the trend so as not to offend “the Palestinians and their heritage, which sees women as sexual objects.”

Media cover-up

Aloni-Sedovnik cites two specific cases which she has knowledge of – one is a case of rape and another is “severe sexual harassment.” The attackers in both cases, she stresses, were familiar with the victims and knew that they were “peace activists.”

The rape occurred several months ago in the village of Umm Salmona, near Bethlehem. The victim, an American activist, wanted to press charges but leftist activists put pressure on her not to do so, so as not to damage the struggle against the 'occupation.'

The second case involved an Israeli activist who took part in the demonstrations at Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, where the High Court ruled that Jewish families may move into homes that they have owned for generations. This woman filed a complaint with the police but retracted it after “severe and unfair pressure” from the demonstrations' organizers, according to Aloni-Sedovnik.

Furthermore, the organizers appealed to demonstrators to dress modestly when they come to the Arab neighborhoods and suggested that they wear head scarves. Aloni-Sedovnik accuses the Israeli media of complicity in the cover-up.

“How is it that we do not hear the voice of the radical feminists who repeat, day and night, that occupation is occupation, and it does not matter if it is a nation that is doing the subjugation, or a man who is subjugating a woman? "It appears that there is a gap between the radical-leftist feminist theory about the active resistance to the occupation of the Territories, and the stuttering self-annulment in the face of the violent conquest of women.”

The Umm Salmona case was reported in Haaretz as an attempted rape but does not seem to have made it beyond the blog pages.

Foreign women raped and subjugated

Earlier this year, a blogger and literature buff named Yehudah Bello, who writes in various venues about history and the theory of evolution, wrote a blog post with the striking title: “The Female Leftist Activists are Raped Day after Day, Night after Night.” Bello is no ultra-nationalist, and he supports the creation of a PA state – a fact which makes his claims all the more believable.

Most female leftist European activists, writes Bello, are brainwashed in their youth into hating Israel, and then sent directly into Judea and Samaria, without spending a single night in Tel Aviv, lest they see civilian Israeli society for themselves and find that they like it.

They are whisked off to Shechem, Jenin and other PA towns and housed in Arab educational or cultural facilities, or private homes. Local Arab girls are sent to befriend them and they have no choice but to trust them.

It is easy, explains Bello, “to carry out a sexual crime against a foreign girl, in her first days away from her family, in a place where no police have ever visited. And this is what happens, and has happened.”

"I was told of such rape cases by women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo,” he says. He says that he met these women when he carried out IDF reserve duty, and met them afterward as well. “They told me what goes on there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any prying eye.”

"These are not just cases of rape carried out to satisfy lust,” he writes. “Usually, they are carried out systematically in order to make the girl pregnant and then take her as a wife – after she converts to Islam, of course. We know about this system from the stories of women who underwent a similar process within Israel and escaped to Europe. But it is hard to escape from the Palestinian territories. Sometimes these women – some of whom are no longer young – are never allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, in order to forestall their escape.”

If someone were to compare the list of foreign female activists who enter Judea and Samaria to the list of those who leave, Bello claims, the magnitude of the phenomenon would be proven. “Everyone knows about it, but no one dares talk about it. The Palestinians have been turned into martyrs. In the Middle Eastern television channels, IDF soldiers are represented as the brutal rapists, who rape Palestinian women.”

Read more - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139738#.UpzGtaEWKM8

Palestinian murders Jewish girl on her way to job interview
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2014/05/palestinians-murder-jewish-teenage-girl.html

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http://www.barenakedislam.com/

Violence against women

sanctioned by Islam

Question: Does Islam permit a man to hit his wife?
Summary Answer: Yes, but only if she doesn't do as he asks. The beating must cease if the woman complies with her husband's demands. Beating is also intended to be the last resort of coercing submission, behind verbal abuse and abandonment.According her testimony in the Hadith, Muhammad, physically struck his favorite wife for leaving the house without his permission. It is not known how he treated his less-favored wives.
The Qur'an: Qur'an (4:34) - "Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great."Qur'an (38:44) - "And take in your hand a green branch and beat her with it, and do not break your oath..." Allah telling Job to beat his wife (Tafsir).
From the Hadith: Bukhari (72:715) - A woman came to Muhammad and begged her to stop her husband from beating her. Her skin was bruised so badly that she it is described as being "greener" than the green veil she was wearing. Muhammad did not admonish her husband, but instead ordered her to return to him and submit to his sexual desires. Bukhari (72:715) - "Aisha said, 'I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women'" This is Muhammad's own wife complaining of the abuse that the women of her religions suffer relative to other women. Muslim (4:2127) - Muhammad struck his favorite wife, Aisha, in the chest one evening when she left the house without his permission. Aisha narrates, "He struck me on the chest which caused me pain." Muslim (9:3506) - Muhammad's father-in-laws (Abu Bakr and Umar) amused him by *slapping* his wives (Aisha and Hafsa) for annoying him. According to the Hadith, the prophet of Islam laughed upon hearing this. Abu Dawud (2141) - "Iyas bin ‘Abd Allah bin Abi Dhubab reported the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) as saying: Do not beat Allah’s handmaidens, but when ‘Umar came to the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) and said: Women have become emboldened towards their husbands, he (the Prophet) gave permission to beat them." At first, Muhammad forbade men from beating their wives, but he rescinded this once it was reported that women were becoming emboldened toward their husbands. Beatings are sometimes necessary to keep women in their place. Abu Dawud (2142) - "The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife." Abu Dawud (2126) - "A man from the Ansar called Basrah said: 'I married a virgin woman in her veil. When I entered upon her, I found her pregnant. (I mentioned this to the Prophet).' The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: 'She will get the dower, for you made her vagina lawful for you. The child will be your slave. When she has begotten (a child), flog her'" A Muslim man thinks his is getting a virgin, then finds out she is pregnant. Muhammad tells him to treat the woman as a sex slave and then flog her after she has delivered the child. Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 969 - Requires that a married woman be "put in a separate room and beaten lightly" if she "act in a sexual manner toward others." According to the Hadith, this can be for an offense as petty as merely being alone with a man to whom she is not related. Kash-shaf (the revealer) of al-Zamkhshari (Vol. 1, p. 525) - [Muhammad said] "Hang up your scourge where your wife can see it"
Additional Notes: Some contemporary Muslim apologists often squirm over this relatively straightforward verse from the Qur'an (4:34) - which actually give men the right to beat their wives if they even have a "fear" of disloyalty or disobedience. Their rhetorical aerobics inspired us to write a separate article: Wife Beating- Good Enough for Muhammad, Good Enough for You Others are not nearly as squeamish. Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradhawi, one of the most respected Muslim clerics in the world, once made the famous (and somewhat ridiculous statement) that "It is forbidden to beat the woman, unless it is necessary." He also went on to say that "one may beat only to safeguard Islamic behavior," leaving no doubt that wife-beating is a matter of religious sanction. (source) Dr. Muzammil Saddiqi, the former president of ISNA (the Islamic Society of North America), a mainstream Muslim organization, says it is important that a wife "recognizes the authority of her husband in the house" and that he may use physical force if he is "sure it would improve the situation." (source) Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the head of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's most prestigious institution says that "light beatings" and "punching" are part of a program to "reform* the wife"* (source). Dr. Jamal Badawi endorses corporal punishment as "another measure that may save the marriage" (source). He isn't clear on how striking a woman will make her more inclined toward staying with her assailant, unless the implication is fear of a more serious beating if she leaves. Egyptian cleric, Abd al-Rahman Mansour, said in a 2012 televised broadcast that in addition to discouraging the wife from filing divorce, beatings would inspire the wife to "treat him with kindness and respect, and know that her husband has a higher status than her." (source) During Ramadan of 2010, another cleric named Sa'd Arafat actually said the woman is "honored" by the beating (source). No one else seemed terribly surprised by this. An undercover report from progressive Sweden in 2012 found that 60% of mosques there actually advised beaten women not to report the abuse to the police. These women were also told that they must submit to non-consensual 'sex' with their husbands. (source) In the birthplace of Islam, about half of Saudi women are beaten at home. "Hands and sticks were found to be used mostly in beating women, following by men’s head cover and to a lesser extent, sharp objects." (source) According to Islamic law, a husband may strike his wife for any one of the following four reasons: - She does not attempt to make herself beautiful for him (ie. "let's herself go") - She refuses to meet his sexual demands - She leaves the house without his permission or for a "legitimate reason" - She neglects her religious duties Any of these are also sufficient grounds for divorce. Respected Quran scholars from the past interpreted verse 4:34 with impressive candor. Tabari said that it means to "admonish them, but if they refused to repent, then tie them up in their homes and beat them until they obey Allah’s commands toward you." Qurtubi told wife-beaters to try to avoid breaking bones, but added that "it is not a crime if it leads to death." (source) Muslim apologists sometimes say that Muhammad ordered that women not be harmed, but they are actually basing this on what he said before or during battle, such as in Bukhari (59:447), when Muhammad issued a command for all the men of Quraiza be killed and the women and children taken as slaves. (Having your husband murdered and being forced into sexual slavery apparently doesn't qualify as "harm" under the Islamic model). But, in fact, there are a number of cases in which Muhammad did have women killed in the most brutal fashion. One was Asma bint Marwan, a mother or five, who wrote a poem criticizing the Medinans for accepting Muhammad after he had ordered the murder of an elderly man. In this case, the prophet's assassins literally pulled a sleeping infant from her breast and stabbed her to death. After taking Mecca in 630, Muhammad also ordered the murder of a slave girl who had merely made up songs mocking him. The Hadith are rife as well with accounts of women planted in the ground on Muhammad's command and pelted to death with stones for sexual immorality - yet the prophet of Islam actually encouraged his own men to rape women captured in battle (Abu Dawood 2150, Muslim 3433) and did not punish them for killing non-Muslim women (as Khalid ibn Walid did on several occasions - see Ibn Ishaq 838 and 856). In summary, according to the Qur'an, Hadith and Islamic law, a woman may indeed have physical harm done to her if the circumstances warrant, with one such allowance being in the case of disobedience. This certainly does *not* mean that all Muslim men beat their wives, only that Islam permits them to do so.

Source:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/003-wife-beating.htm

UPDATE April 7, 2015

Palestinians' image problem:

mothers celebrate when their children die in acts of terror

By Ari Yashar

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has a long history of broadcasting images of Palestinian Arab women ululating in cries of joy over their dead "martyr" terrorist relatives, particularly in cases of mothers celebrating the terrorist activities of their children - but one official has warned the custom may be creating a public relations problem.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) translated a broadcast on official PA TV from late last month, in which the mother of a "martyr" explained the ins-and-outs of the celebratory ululations, saying "it's true what they say that we ululate for our children because our child is going to Heaven to marry the Dark-Eyed Virgins."

"We say 'praise Allah' for everything. It's our duty to give ourselves and our children," said the mother of the dead terrorist, even as she admitted, "praise Allah, it's true that this hurts and that we feel agony and pain. Today, every day and every moment, I miss my son. I'll never forget my son."

"It's not that we don't love our children. We do love our children, but also our homeland. We say 'Allah willing' and maintain our resolve," she said.

Her position was backed by Widad Manawil of the General Union of Palestine Workers, who said "we tell all women to learn from the resolve of Palestinian women, from the one bidding her Martyr son farewell and the one welcoming her prisoner son with ululations."

"A nation of barbarians"

However, one PA official recognized how bloodcurdling the ululations are, and how they present the relatives of the dead terrorists and Palestinian Arab culture in general in a bloodthirsty light.

"I am against ululations, against restraining the emotions and against presenting ourselves as a nation of barbarians who don't care about loss and deprivation," said PA Ramallah and El-Bireh District Governor Laila Ghannam. "In psychology, this is called denial, while we Palestinians have learned that it is pride."

She added, "when the world sees us carrying a martyr and hears our ululations, it thinks we have no feelings - especially when it's a child; for when a child dies as a martyr, the first image we publish is of him holding a weapon. The mother must express her feelings, and this is what I tell all the mothers I visit."

Despite her words, Ghannam, who was recently honored by a Philadelphia Councilwoman, has been very active in promoting "a nation of barbarians," honoring countless terrorist murderers guilty of vile acts throughout numerous public statements.

PMW has documented how Ghannam said in a speech "we promise and swear to these mighty ones: we are still (following) your path," going on to rattle off a list of senior terrorists from Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PSF).

Her list included "the president and icon, Martyr Yasser Arafat, Dr. George Habash (PFLP founder), comrade Abu Ali Mustafa (head of PFLP), Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Hamas founder), Fathi Shaqaqi (Islamic Jihad founder), Samir Ghosheh (Sec.-Gen. of PSF), Abu Jihad (a founder of Fatah) and all the great leaders."

Yassin alone was responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings targeting buses and cafes.

Source
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193776#.VSQLu5s5CM8

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