Friday, 10 December, is the day of Israel’s march for human rights. Thousands of Israelis from all walks of life and representing a rainbow of concerns will come together to demonstrate for civil rights for all. Below are some thoughts about human rights from various Israelis
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I learned most of all about the meaning of my protest – being a young, Sephardi, Jewish Israeli woman – when I encountered he unbelievable policy that this state, the Sate of the Jews, employs vis-à-vis refugees and asylum seekers. I feel that my protest is not a solely individual one but rather follows from great compassion which, so I feel, should be a most basic thing for any man and woman who live freely anywhere. Apart from the fact that most of our mothers and fathers were refugees, and that one of Israel’s most advanced industries exports weapons that are used in conflicts in African countries [from where some refugees now here originate], there is the basic, shining premise that the strong must help the weak. This is the foundation of it all. I do not wish to compel anyone, but I do feel that is our moral obligation.
Come march with us, asylum seeking men and women, alongside activists from the entire spectrum. Join the cycle of compassion in which we open our arms to receive more and more people, and to give too, until we succeed in making Israel (which sometimes makes it hard and makes us despair) an equal and containing state. Because, after all, ours are the arms that uphold it and its leaders.
Meital Russo, activist with ASSAF – The Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel
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The right to a healthy environment means that every individual has the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and build their home on uncontaminated land. That right also means that every individual has the right to fight for a healthy environment: To struggle against a plant that would not install filters because they are costly; fight for promoting public instead of private means of transportation; and encourage the exposure of documents that attest to failed environmental planning.
I can see that the causes we are fighting for may differ but are nonetheless similar in many ways. Whether it be the environment, the occupied territories, the refugees, or the protection of children – our country avoids making decisions, issuing policies, or enforcing the law.
This is why I will be marching next Friday. I wish to call on my state to realize that public life needs organization and policy; and that in many, too many issues the state decides not to decide for irrelevant reasons, and because each ministry strongly defends its own share, and because the State of Israel is privatizing itself to death and surrendering to the wishes of the wealthy and affluent.
I will march also because we don’t take to the streets often enough, since it is easier to expect others to do it for us.
Ronit Piso, Public Health Coalition in Israel
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Clearly, it is easier to refer to children of Philippine origin as a “demographic threat” than to deal with the policy that brought their parents here in the first place; and it is easier to instigate against Africans or Arabs when a woman from their community is murdered than to admit that misogyny and violence against women is a national plague that requires thorough treatment and major budgets. And when the “nation” rolls its eyes when the man or woman on the street – at least those shown on TV – say they hate the Arab and fear the refugees. The cynics at the top are pleased, knowing that what they are doing works.This is why we will join the Human Rights March: To show politicians, journalists, and spin-masters who try and tell everyone else what to say, that we may be cynical too, but we are no suckers. We will be silent no more and demand that everyone be accorded that which we all deserve: A life in an orderly democracy, with transparency and freedom of expression, in a tolerant environment, with an economic safety net.
We must show them that we can be as big and loud as other pressure groups. It is time for us to stand up and be counted – blacks or whites, headcovered or not, men and women, straight and queer, Jews and Arabs – demanding human rights for all.
Nirit Moscowitz, ACRI spokeswoman
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While the term “gender separation” sounds rather neutral, we must not ignore the fact that the demands to introduce such separation means in all actuality that women are pushed back both on as a physical measure as well as an abstract or conceptual level. Every separation demand is based on identifying women with the private sphere and with their duty to stay away from public scenes, and that is motivated by the desire to maintain the existing gender hierarchy.
While the government is impotent on the issue, failing to devise a clear policy and red-lines, while ultra-orthodox currents pressure politicians and decision makers, and in the absence of secular pressure to the contrary – gender separation is now an expanding phenomenon.
For us, the Human Rights March on December 10 will serve as an excellent opportunity to remind ourselves of that which we too often tend to forget – that the public sphere belongs to everyone, men and women alike.
Attorney Einat Horowitz,
Legal & Public Policy Department Director
Israel Religious Action Center
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Over the past few years we have been experiencing an increase in violations of the rights of Israeli citizens. I will come to march because the majority of the population in Israel is apathetic. Apathetic to the suffering of African refugee children, apathetic to the continued occupation of the West Bank, apathetic to the hours that Palestinians from the occupied territories are made to wait each day at checkpoints, apathetic to the fate of women who are sold like merchandise to panderers in South Tel Aviv, apathetic to crowds of migrant workers, whose rights are trampled upon day after day.
I will come to the march because in the twentieth century many democracies collapsed, and it is clear that in these cases, the collapse began with violations of minority rights, of foreigners or those resisting the structure of power, and with the perpetual exhaustion of all opposition, until it turned into silence. Israeli democracy is failing. The forces overrunning it from the inside – in the government, in the Knesset and in society – are growing stronger and the public’s silence is very loud. It is hard for me to fathom a public struggle more important in Israel than the fight to resist the dissolution of democracy.
I will come to the march in Tel Aviv because I don’t have a foreign passport stashed in my desk drawer. I don’t dream of living elsewhere. I want to struggle so that life in this country, my country, will be based on social justice and defense of the innocent and the dignity and freedom of all people living here.
I will come to the march because of a combination of fear and faith: fear of the continuation and amplification of violations of human rights and civil liberties and the deterioration of democracy; and faith that we have an interest and a duty to fight these trends – faith that the only hope for a future for this country is in building a society based on equality, democracy and an unwavering commitment to human rights and faith- sharp and firm. And faith that we have the power to change reality.
See you on December 10 in Tel Aviv.
Ron Gerlitz
The author is the Co-Executive Director of Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel
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On December 10 – International Human Rights Day – we will march together, women’s organizations, and we will once again lift our voices to protest, because we are sick of the systematic violations of our rights.
Every woman has been sexually harassed at least once in her life. Every third woman has been sexually assaulted. Every seventh woman has suffered from sexual abuse committed by a family member. Most of the people who earn minimum wage are women. Most of the civilians wounded in wartime are women. Most of the people whose freedom of movement is limited are women. The majority of the people at the lowest levels in terms of employment, income and social position are women.
Women are murdered in the name of ‘honor.’ They are beaten and bruised in the name of love. Women are fired from their jobs when they are sexually harassed, when they are pregnant, when they are undergoing fertility treatments, when they are older and when they no longer fulfill the boss’s idea of ‘standard appearance.’ Women work from morning ‘til night – inside and outside the house – but they are paid for only a fraction of their labors. Women are required to provide all sorts of services from dawn until dusk, because that is how our role was defined by society – a society in which the man is in control of the woman’s life. Women are exposed daily to an environment that is filled with violent pornography – from sexist advertisements to sexual harassment. For a significant proportion of the female population, home is a place that is not only small, but which also tends to be dangerous.
Dorit Abramovitch is an Israeli feminist writer and LGBT activist.
Supported by The European Union
