Israel to World: "Suck It."

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza” while “the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.”

Yeah, Israel never investigates its own behavior, or has an independent judicial system, or admits anything. </sarcasm>

She's a journalist who has not uncovered anything new since she made these claims two years ago. This story broke no new information. It's only being picked up by the kind of people who would rather bump the Israel to World: Suck It thread over the rolling middle east thread.

xpost That's a ridiculous thing to cite, Mordy. One, I'm not talking about how forthcoming Israel is compared to Hamas. Two, demonstrating the thoroughness of Israeli investigation by citing an investigation that proved Israeli was thorough is tautological. All countries are loathe to admit error, let alone apologize, for mistakes and vast oversights. It takes decades. But Israel has always seemed more recalcitrant to me than others, whether or not it's for good reason.

My point was that it's a Western country with an independent judiciary and a history of investigating charges made against it.

Unless you believe that Haaretz has sources* that they're not naming, or mentioning, in their article (some kind of deep background that is totally off the page) I don't see how you can give any credibility to the claims of the article. The very headline is contradicted by their reporting. Anyone who could cite the article w/out noting the incredible problems w/ the way it was reported needs to brush up on critical reading imo.

*This is the kind of thing that Haaretz has totally lost credibility on, ime. If the NYT ran a story like this I'd be much more inclined to wonder what kind of sourcing they have on background. Haaretz has a bad reputation for running stories that aren't correctly or properly sourced. This seems to be another example.

It's only being picked up by the kind of people who would rather bump the Israel to World: Suck It thread over the rolling middle east thread.

as opposed to ppl who would like us not to notice that Israel is still telling the world to suck it.

I don't give credibility to the specific article - it's terribly lacking in sources/clarity, which makes its circulation all the more troubling i par for the course when it comes to anything negative about Israel - but I find it telling that the official Israeli response was not simply outright denial but a revision of its birth control application policies. Again, at the very least, I wonder why birth control even came into the immigration picture at all. "Hello, welcome to Israel. Would you like a birth control shot?"

Because family planning is included in universal healthcare?

Israel outright denied this report when it first came out. Look at the links I posted above.

As would be expected, the Health Ministry, the Education Ministry the Jewish Agency, and the JDC all responded to Gabai’s findings with letters denying any intervention in family planning issues among the Ethiopian immigrants.

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/167445/shocking-decline-in-ethiopian-israeli-birthrate/#ixzz2JHx2Syro

xpost Yeah, but it's usually something the patient asks for, not something offered. Imagine the outrage if a woman went to the doctor in America and he/she just outright offered them a Depo shot. "Hey, while you're here, why don't I give you a birth control injection?" That's not how it works. It's patient driven.

That's what's so weird about this. There are a thousand things covered by universal health care. Were immigrants given CAT scans? Breast cancer exams? Braces? Birth control seems to be far down on the list of things to be offered unsolicited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7BEYI_4P3E

Israel does push birth control much harder on patients than the US is able to do. I posted this a bit ago:
http://tentofabraham.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/hasidic-jew-heads-up-one-of-the-most-progressive-health-ministries-in-the-world-2-videos/

Video released by the health department:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51ItMosO7Bw

Can you imagine that running as a commercial in the United States?

Promoting birth control and safe sex as a national campaign is totally different from volunteering it to immigrants on arrival.

"Welcome to Israel, we are so progressive. Here is your Depo shot and a box of condoms. Would you like some medical marijuana? Shalom!"

Uh yeah. Whatever. Point being, Haaretz has turned into the Israeli version of Fox News, unfortunately. Let me know when a real newspaper covers this. You know, one with fact checkers and sourcing.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/28/3117976/israels-health-ministry-orders-halt-to-injectable-contraception-for-ethiopian-women

“At no time did JDC coerce anyone into engaging at family planning at its clinics," a JDC spokesman in New York told JTA in December after the news show aired. "Those options were totally voluntary and offered to women who requested it. They chose the form of contraceptive based on being fully informed of all the options available to them.”

Dr. Rick Hodes, the medical director of JDC's operations in Ethiopia, said injectable contraceptives are the option of choice in Ethiopia.

"We do not inform the Israeli authorities who is on family planning, and I have no idea what happens once they arrive in Israel," Hodes wrote in a letter on the Failed Messiah website that was published Sunday.

"Injectable contraceptives are the most desired throughout the country. They are easy, culturally preferred, and offer the ability to be on birth control without a woman informing her husband, which is an issue here."

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-demand-apology-for-anti-semitic-netanyahu-cartoon/

How is this antisemetic

not to thread police but this might be a better place to ask?
Is this anti-semitism?

Not to be all blame-the-victim here, but is it possible some of the Ethiopian women might have initially accepted the offer of a discreet form of birth-control despite knowing their husbands might not approve, then later had second thoughts and confessed, but played up the extent to which they had felt pressured?

lol

"not to be all blame-the-victim but *proceeds to vigorously blame the victim*" is, without sarcasm or judgment, one of my favorite rhetorical devices, partially because it never makes the unpalatable thing you're about to say any more palatable but we all try it anyway

This looks pretty bad. Whether it was an official official policy or a semi-official policy or just some unofficial action by people with power over the matter remains to be seen, but none of those look very good.

Mordy, I don't see how other evidence of Israel generally having a good or progressive health system is relevant. Israel has its fair share of racism and there are definitely individuals in israeli government who I would not put it past to enact something like this, even if it wouldn't be necessarily supported by the majority.

I think I'd prefer to wait for any source or evidence beyond the initial journalist and 35 anonymous interviews.

Like this is being stated in the most inflammatory way, but there is scant evidence and certainly no one has "admitted" to anything like every story has claimed in the headline.

35 anonymous interviews is nothing to sneeze at, and the statistics show that 57 percent of deepo provera prescriptions were for ethiopians when they make up 2% of the population. Don't you at least find that at least eyebrow-raising? Do you think ethiopian women just especially love birth control?

How do you interpret the admission of the health ministry director general that women received the shot "without understanding the consequences" in light of these other facts? Do you think he just means "oops, we didn't do a good job of explaining"?

I think that he was responding to accusations that they did this by reasserting Israeli policy.

Ministry Director-General Roni Gamzu said the decision did not imply he accepted the allegations by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

I think that anonymous interviews are very hard to interpret. The bits I've read from them are jumbled and confused. Some accuse Israel of misleading them about what the drug was, some accuse Israel of not letting them immigrate without taking the drug, some accuse the refugee agencies in Ethiopia, I haven't seen any actually implicate anyone in the Israeli health administration or in Israel. There is no certainty about when this happened (in Israel? among a particular doctor? among numerous doctors?, who was involved in this decision if it even ever happened, etc. 35 ppl mistakenly taking bc could be attributed entirely to confusion/misrepresenting interviews/language difficulties (not just between doctor-patient but between journalist-subject).

Regarding 57% for Ethiopians:

Rick Hodes, medical director in Ethiopia for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a non-governmental organization that helps to facilitate immigration to Israel, denied the accusation that women are coerced into receiving the injections before leaving for the Jewish state.

"Injectable drugs have always been the most popular form of birth control in Ethiopia, as well as among women in our program," Hodes wrote on Twitter.

Do you believe that the non-governmental organization American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has been involved in a national conspiracy with the Health Department in Israel to keep Ethiopians from reproducing? Because that seems absolutely insane to me.

Well that due released a vague statement so I guess to assume anything other than what he said is insane

A civil rights group representing a small group of people complained that women were being dosed with birth control without knowing it, responsible head of department emphasizes publicly that there is no such program and doctors should be vigilant in response to the concerns.

Totally insane.

If you're going to shutdown a secret government initiative to sterilize an ethnic group, and you decided to broadcast shutting it down to the media in response to accusations from a civil rights group, why would you then deny the program?

Itisamystery.gif

Just deny it completely. You only release the statement he released if you're being a responsible dpt head.

I'm not saying that there isn't dubious shit going on in the reporting, but to call it "insane" is a bit much. Granted your biases are certainly playing a part in my skepticism.

I don't think the reporting is insane. I think the reporting is shameless. I think taking it at face value (esp if you're otherwise a critical news reader) is insane.

If you think people who take 35 testimonies into consideration have a mental disorder, then okay. Kind of offensive, though.

You haven't seen those testimonies. You just have the characterizations of those testimonies of a reporter from Haaretz to rely upon.

If it was a NYT reporter I would feel entirely different.

Yeah, that's where I get my dubiousness from. Still, to say press releases prove once and for all anything seems a bit naive.

goykbe

I'm not saying that some press releases prove anything. I'm arguing that the wisest response to this story is some skepticism until there is more evidence or better sourcing. It is very rare for Western democratic governments to engage in long term eugenics programs (though I admit, not unheard of).

Xpost. No doubt. Still, he called salon reporting this story as true as anti Semitic but how he doesn't think the journalism is anti Semitic so who knows wtf he thinks.

It's a very dramatic accusation. When something very dramatic is argued, you should hold out for more careful evidence. If someone claims, idk, Jessie Ware is Jewish is barely matters. But when you accuse a government of committing eugenics, idk, I want something firmer than the word of a Haaretz reporter trying to convey the results of 35 anonymous interviews with women who mostly don't speak any Hebrew or English.

I agree that more sources are necessary, mordy, but I don't think the evidence on hand is completely and utterly dismissible.

If you don't see how anti-semitism might play into the promotion of this story -- idk.

Israel was also accused of committing genocide in Jenin, mostly on the basis of anonymous reporting and little original research.

If you don't see how you want this story to be not true and you tend to find anti semitism in a lot of things then idk

To be fair, maybe you'd be just as quick to believe such a story written about another first world democracy, like the United States or France or the UK. I doubt it, though.