The Knesset met today as part of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. MK Nissim Zeev created an uproar during the session when he said he did not understand “why there were so many shelters for women victims of violence.”
Channel 7 correspondent Haggai Seri-Levy reports that Zeev said that the issue had been exaggerated. Some of his statements sparked the outrage of Knesset members—for example, when he said, “I have yet to see a woman walking in the street wrapped in plaster casts.”
“They talk about 200,000 women victims of violence,” Zeev told Channel 7. “In fact, the total number of women using shelters is only 700. It's thus incorrect to portray this as a catastrophe or a wave of violence against women. I submitted these figures, but it upset them.”
Zeev explained, “I did not give men permission to beat their wives, God forbid. On the contrary, I opened with the words of Maimonides, who says that a person should love his wife more than himself. My words should not be misunderstood.”
Zeev said, “I call on Knesset members to weigh the catastrophe against the exaggerated figures presented to the Knesset. It has been portrayed as a war in which women are standing in line in front of hospitals, some in plaster casts and others with broken noses.”
He added, “The number they presented seems exaggerated. I'm not trying to minimize the number, but when you talk about 200,000 women, this means that 25% of the women you see on the street are victims of violence.”
Zeev explained, “Domestic violence may be a result of the weak party manipulating his power or of mutual escalation. It may be a case of a drunk husband beating his wife and kids. A peaceful man may beat his wife.”
MK Zeev gave a recent example he had encountered in which a woman attacked her husband with a bottle. He says the husband preferred not to file a complaint so that he would not be questioned and jailed.
“The motive was poverty and difficult financial straits,” Zeev concluded. “It is not necessarily violence for the sake of violence. A lack of jobs leads to domestic violence. I think that the government is responsible for a situation in which people cannot make a living, which leads to domestic violence.”
Liora Minka, head of the Emunah association, commented on Zeev's statements saying, “Shas Party MK Nissim Zeev apparently fell on his head and has lost all touch with reality. This is not the first time this has happened to him.” She says that Emunah, a nationalist religious women's organization, strongly rejects Zeev's statements and objects to them on ethical, humanitarian, and feminist grounds.
“It's difficult to believe that a person can cross the Knesset threshold without having the slightest degree of sensitivity and wisdom,” she said. “Pity us his ignorance and pity us his presence in the Knesset.”
Reader responses to the article
The Sephardic Emunah movement always stands on the side of the secularists. The entire subject and the mad way it was addressed only serves the interests of those secularists who claim that the bastards are beating their wives but they're afraid to file a complaint. That's a lie. Emunah says the same thing. That's also a lie. The truth is there are many women victimized by violence, but most of them of secularists and it's because of the obscene advertisements they present. Television desensitizes the mind, and the press publishes pictures of women portraying them as merely sexual objects. If partisans of the National Religious Party (and Emunah is one of them) have televisions in their homes and buy papers from the secular press, it's no wonder they also have violence, drugs, crime, etc.—Uri.
Is this the logic of a foolish man? There are a limited number of shelters. That's why there are only 700 women, made completely desperate by domestic violence, who are able to take advantage of this solution. Logic and morals say that we should increase the number of these women's shelters, but Nissim the wolf claims that the limited number of such shelters proves that we need no more of them. We can excuse his statements and say that they are foolish, or we can be realistic and admit that he's evil. Apparently Zeev would prefer women to stay at home, even if they're beaten night and day. We can assume that closing the existing shelters would make him very happy. That would completely support his view that the abuse of women is a marginal phenomenon—Erez. |