First Female Arab Combat Soldier in IDF is Proud to Serve Israel

Part of my ongoing series of strong Arab Women Role Models


When Cpl. Eleanor Joseph, the first female Arab combat soldier in the IDF speak of Israel, she says “This will always be my home”. During moments of difficulty she would remember, “there was a Katyusha [rocket] that fell near my house and also hurt Arabs. If someone would tell me that serving in the IDF means killing Arabs, I remind them that Arabs also kill Arabs.” Eleanor belives that being a combat soldier means that she is granting all Israeli citizens, including Israeli Arabs like her parents, a better and quieter life. “I still believe that peace will come and faith creates reality”.


Article by Rotem Caro Weizman


“Look at the beret,” says Eleanor, smiling from ear to ear, showing off the bright green beret that she earned after completing the trek which is part of her combat training in the Karakal Battalion. Her excitement is accompanied by a new historical precedent, since Elinor is the first Arab female combat soldier in IDF history.

Cpl. Eleanor Joseph was born and raised in an integrated neighborhood of Jews and Arabs in Haifa, but attended a school in which all her classmates were Arab. She later moved to Wadi Nisnas, an Arab neighborhood where she currently lives. Despite the fact that she would always wear her father’s IDF dog-tag around her neck from when he served in the Paratrooper’s Unit, she never thought she would enlist. “I wanted to go abroad to study medicine and never come back,” she said. To her father it was clear that she would enlist in the IDF, as most citizens in Israel do. This was something that worried her very much. “I was scared to lose my friends because they objected to it. They told me they wouldn’t speak to me. I was left alone.”

Despite their opposition, she decided to move forward and enlist. She explained her motive: “I decided to go head-to-head, to check who my true friends are, to do something in life that I have never done before. I understood that it was most important to defend my friends, family, and country. I was born here.” At the end of the day, she says she realized it was the right thing to do, “With time, when you do things from the heart, you begin to understand their importance.”

“I might as well go the whole way”

Unlike most teenagers in Israel, Eleanor did not undergo any kind of special preparations for her recruitment. Other than listening to some of her father’s combat stories and speaking to an IDF officer who helps minorities with enlistment, she didn’t know what she was getting herself into. She came to the Reception and Placement Base, known in IDF slang as the Bakum, and requested to be a combat medic because she decided, “If I enlist, I might as well go the whole way. I thought my father would absolve me from it, but it didn’t happen.” Despite her will to be in combat service, the response to Eleanor was otherwise. “The placement officer laughed in my face and said I was too delicate. I started to cry,” she remembers.

After fighting to receive a high enough medical categorization in order to be placed in a combat position, and following many attempts to persuade the placement officer, Elinor was informed she would be a combat soldier. She remembers that upon arrival to the Reception and Placement Base, “It was the first time I saw my father cry. But then they told me I wouldn’t be a combat soldier, so I cried again.” She says she came to Basic Training not understanding what was going on around her, “I had no preparation so I really didn’t understand what it meant to stand at attention, or to salute my commander or even stand in formation.” Despite initial shock and disappointment that she wouldn’t be in a combat unit, she decided to take a positive perspective and be the best soldier that she could be. “I didn’t want to disappoint those that supported me. I decided that if I am volunteering, I would need to prove myself and be an exemplary soldier, and I succeeded. In the end, I ended up enjoying it."....


Right now, after finishing her training, she says wholeheartedly that she does not regret any of her choices. “I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I had studied abroad as planned, but I understand that I was not as experienced and responsible then as I am now. It is a satisfaction to complete challenging things. I feel that in the army I matured a lot and became more responsible than I used to be”. She also feels satisfied from the respect she gained from the others. “Although everybody is surprised in the beginning I have always been respected, not just me but also my customs and my religion. Nobody ever disturbed me. I feel a lot of serenity and support and somebody even opened a group about me on Facebook. My parents also are very proud of me, maybe a little bit too much.” ....


Eleanor belives that being a combat soldier means that she is granting all Israeli citizens, including Israeli Arabs like her parents, a better and quieter life. “At the end of the day, this will always be my home too”, she says before expressing her thought that despite the conflict and difficulties, the hope for peace still exists. “I still believe that peace will come and faith creates reality”.

What Not to do During Summer Vacation: British Girls Genitally Mutilated on Holiday

British Girls Undergo Horror of Genital Mutilation Despite Tough Laws

Female circumcision will be inflicted on up to 2,000 British schoolgirls during the summer holidays – leaving brutal physical and emotional scars. Yet there have been no prosecutions against the practice. Some 140 million women worldwide have been subjected to FGM and an estimated further two million are at risk every year. Most live in 28 African countries.

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Like any 12-year-old, Jamelia was excited at the prospect of a plane journey and a long summer holiday in the sun. An avid reader, she had filled her suitcases with books and was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when her mother came for her. "She said, 'You know it's going to be today?' I didn't know exactly what it would entail but I knew something was going to be cut. I was made to believe it was genuinely part of our religion."

She went on: "I came to the living room and there were loads of women. I later found out it was to hold me down, they bring lots of women to hold the girl down. I thought I was going to be brave so I didn't really need that. I just lay down and I remember looking at the ceiling and staring at the fan.

"I don't remember screaming, I remember the ridiculous amount of pain, I remember the blood everywhere, one of the maids, I actually saw her pick up the bit of flesh that they cut away 'cause she was mopping up the blood. There was blood everywhere."

Some 500 to 2,000 British schoolgirls will be genitally mutilated over the summer holidays. Some will be taken abroad, others will be "cut" or circumcised and sewn closed here in the UK by women already living here or who are flown in and brought to "cutting parties" for a few girls at a time in a cost-saving exercise.

Then the girls will return to their schools and try to get on with their lives, scarred mentally and physically by female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that serves as a social and cultural bonding exercise and, among those who are stitched up, to ensure that chastity can be proved to a future husband.

Even girls who suffer less extreme forms of FGM are unlikely to be promiscuous. One study among Egyptian women found 50% of women who had undergone FGM "endured" rather than enjoyed sex.

Cleanliness, neatness of appearance and the increased sexual pleasure for the man are all motivations for the practice. But the desire to conform to tradition is the most powerful motive. The rite of passage, condemned by many Islamic scholars, predates both the Koran and the Bible and possibly even Judaism, appearing in the 2nd century BC.

Although unable to give consent, many girls are compliant when they have the procedure carried out, believing they will be outcasts if they are not cut. The mothers believe they are doing the best for their daughters. Few have any idea of the lifetime of hurt it can involve or the medical implications.

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Female genital mutilation: the facts

■ Female genital mutilation, also known as cutting, is practiced in 28 African countries. The prevalence rate ranges from 98% of girls in Somalia to 5% in Zaire. It also takes place among ethnic groups in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand.

■ Until the 1950s FGM was used in England and the US as a "treatment" for lesbianism, masturbation, hysteria, epilepsy and other "female deviances".

■ A survey in Kenya found a fourfold drop in FGM rates among girls who had secondary education.

■ Reasons for the practice include conforming to social norms, enhancing sexual pleasure for men and reducing it for women, cleanliness and chastity.

■ No European country accepts the threat of FGM as a reason for asylum.

■ In Sudan, 20%-25% of female infertility has been linked to FGM complications.

■ In Chad, girls have begun to seek FGM without pressure from their immediate family, believing that to be "sewn up" proves they are virginal and clean. The fashion has led to uncircumcised girls being labelled "dirty".


Full article here

Looking for a strong Arab woman role model?

Look no further than Jordanian body-builder Farah Malhass, 26 who aspires to become one of the few Arab woman to enter international body-building.
She'll be following in the footsteps of Dina Ali Fahad Al-Salim Al-Sabah (born February 28, 1974) from Kuwait- the first female Arab athlete to ever stand on the Olympia stage.
Malhass began training at 20, but soon came up against the disapproval of her family, who could not understand why she should chose to "deform my body and make myself look ugly."

Lets applaud Farah, and all Arab women who are attempting to break the mold of societal expectations

Attempted Rape of American Peace Activist silenced by Palestinians

Omar Aladdin claims his attempted rape of a Palestinian activist was "marginal and normal."

The Palestinian Authority, as well as the leaders of the Palestinian popular protests in villages such as Bil'in, Na'alim, Umm Salmuna, have been trying to keep the following story away from both public knowledge and the media's eye: One of the more prominent Umm Salmuna activists – a village south of Bethlehem, long entrenched in a battle against the West Bank separation fence – is suspected of the attempted rape of an American peace activist who had been residing in the village as part of her support of the local protest.

Omar Aladdin, who had been arrested three months ago over suspicions he had attempted to rape the U.S. citizen, was subsequently released after agreeing to apologize to the young woman. However, Haaretz had learned that representatives of both the popular protest movement and the PA have since applied pressure on the American peace activist as to prevent her from making the story public.

During his stay Aladdin allegedly attempted to rape a Muslim-American woman, nicknamed "Fegin" by fellow activists. The woman escaped, later accusing the popular protest man of the attempt. One villager who had encountered the American following the incident said she had been in a state of shock.

Aladdin then refused to apologize for the incident, when news of it reached the village's popular committee, the popular protests' governing body, allegedly saying that the incident had been marginal and normal. The American activist then asked the committee to notify authorities of the attempted rape, a request which resulted in the man being arrested by security forces in Bethlehem. After agreeing to apologize for the incident, Aladdin was released from custody by the PA police.

The U.S. citizen was then convinced to retract her complaint, as to avoid tainting the image of the popular protest, which had attracted praise from around the world in recent months.

And the world remains silent.
Read the full story at Haaretz

Work from Home Promoting Islam.

Bored? Tired of Playing Farmville? No one to Chat with?
Looking for a way to fill those empty hours?
Have I got a task for you!

Promote Islam from your very own computer. We'll teach you to spam Facebook (Take THAT, Jethro Tull fan club!)We'll teach you to optimize the Google Rankings of acceptable sites. We'll have you promoting the Religion of Peace and fighting for the cause of Truth Justice and , well not likely the American way, but you get the drift, don't you?

Joel Benin on a Future Palestinian State

Do I think that it's really gonna be a great thing for the Palestinians if they get their own state, wherever it's gonna be? No. It'll probably be a miserable state with dictatorial tendencies and all sorts of corruption and other horrible things that I will be one of the first people to criticize."

Joel Beinin, Stanford University history professor and former president of the Middle East Studies Association, speaking at Stanford University on June 2, 2010.

Honor killing. Domestic Violence. Crimes of Passion. Nope. First degree murder

From the Toronto Globe and Mail:
An article by Kate Allen and Joe Friesen

Just two days before she was killed, 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez went to the movies for the first time.

She had fought her parents for the right to wear Western clothing, and to jettison the hijab they wanted her to wear. She was going to apply for a part-time job, something her father refused to allow. Then she ran away from home for the second time in three months. The first time, her father had sworn on the Koran he would kill her if she ever ran away again.

Yet on the morning of Dec. 10, 2007, Ms. Parvez went home. Thirty-six minutes later, her father called 911 saying he had killed her. When police arrived, they found Ms. Parvez’s mother crying hysterically and her father with blood on his hands.

In a Brampton courtroom Tuesday, Ms. Parvez’s father, Muhammad Parvez, 60, and her brother, Waqas Parvez, 29, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. They will be sentenced to 25 years in prison.

According to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney “We want to underscore that multiculturalism is not an excuse, or a moral or legal justification, for such barbaric practices. Multiculturalism does not equal cultural relativism.”