Women: A Reflection on Hope

In my Christmas letter I included an item about  the election of Ms. Mira Rizek, the National General Secretary of the YWCA of Palestine as the World YWCA president during the November meeting of the World Council in Johannesburg, South Africa.. I referred to the event as one of the highlights of our year, because I felt maybe that was a good omen for the recognition of Palestine through this great and oldest women’s world movement whose  priorities always included important issues as human rights, refugees, climate change, disarmament, and others, often long before they were considered issues on the United Nations platform. 

Any outstanding achievement by women always gives us hope,  because women are doers, especially that we are sick and tired of all the rhetoric that we hear by the men politicians.  Although I do not want to generalize, but from my experience especially in volunteer work for many years, and in work that focuses on the common good, women do excel.  Of course we have seen very bad examples of women  not in accordance to that  theory, so I like to exclude them from being role models. 

Nevertheless,  I had hope that justice might eventually prevail when Fatou Bensouda,  a woman from Gambia,  and chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC),  ruled against Israel recently in moving toward a full war crimes probe.  Of course hell broke loose in Israel, and it will not hesitate to block any action by exerting  pressure,  as usual,  through different ways and means that we have become too familiar with.  

So the question remains whether the Prosecutor will stand firmly for the principles of the ICC, or will she cave in like so many other world leaders or heads of commissions?  I have a feeling she won’t,  because Israel has made a mockery of International law for too long.  Its use of false justifications to be considered above the law, which  has been humiliating for the International Community, cannot hold water any more.  So it is high time that those  crimes of  Israel,  are fully exposed, and the guilty be prosecuted.  Israel needs to pay a price for flouting International law  and for its ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians ever since 1948.  Otherwise the law of the jungle will eventually prevail, and those governments and bodies who have either shielded Israel or turned a blind eye to its actions will be paying the price themselves.