First public admission of ritualistic child abuse in Israel's religious-Zionist sector sparks national reckoning

Unsurprising. Religious community structure gives men plausible deniability and the social enforcement to get away with anything. The wife is the alibi. The trusty "good, religious" male friends. The congregation is the suppression mechanism. Hypocrisy is a feature not a bug of Abrahamic religion and women bare the cost. I wish everyone who keeps saying we need to "return to tradition" would ask what tradition costs women who live in it.

I had not heard of symphiotomy. That's brutal, those poor women.

Speaking as an Irish person, I can attest to the deep sense of shame felt by honest Irish people about the complicity of wider society with the church and state apparatus that presided over the monstrous treatment of women and children. There are certainly no blinkers among the majority of Irish women below a certain age, and a deep desire never to let Ireland return to those days. There are also many who don't want to admit that pretty much the whole of society preferred to look the other way, and of course those who claim to have known and opposed what was going on. Some see a Marxist perspective and some a purely feminist one.

But you will easily get most Irish people to admit that Ireland was never the island of saints and scholars and innocent idealistic youth dancing demurely at the crossroads. There are many today who think Ireland should take a step back from banging on about Israel and Palestine, for instance, and cast a jaundiced eye much closer to home, to Bessborough, Tuam, etc, and the victims of symphiotomy.

America as a country gets slated for the stories about minority groups. What it allows to happen in Mormon and Amish communities to women and girls as well as its acceptance of social norms around things like youth marriage in small communities are frequently linked with the general state of misogyny there. Sweeping comments about attitudes and rights are frequently made (often incorrectly).

Speaking as an Irish person, I can attest to the deep sense of shame felt by honest Irish people about the complicity of wider society with the church and state apparatus that presided over the monstrous treatment of women and children. There are certainly no blinkers among the majority of Irish women below a certain age, and a deep desire never to let Ireland return to those days. There are also many who don't want to admit that pretty much the whole of society preferred to look the other way, and of course those who claim to have known and opposed what was going on. Some see a Marxist perspective and some a purely feminist one.

But you will easily get most Irish people to admit that Ireland was never the island of saints and scholars and innocent idealistic youth dancing demurely at the crossroads. There are many today who think Ireland should take a step back from banging on about Israel and Palestine, for instance, and cast a jaundiced eye much closer to home, to Bessborough, Tuam, etc, and the victims of symphiotomy.

And has anyone said that France or America are bad places based on abuses by a minority sect in those countries? There's always a rush to discredit Israel as a whole based on something some people did there, and I don't see that sweeping generalisations being considered acceptable about other nations.

ETA: I'd make an exception for Afghanistan, where the traditional culture seems to be so appallingly misogynistic that abuses seem to be the norm, unlike all the other countries you named. Including Israel.

And has anyone said that France or America are bad places based on abuses by a minority sect in those countries? There's always a rush to discredit Israel as a whole based on something some people did there, and I don't see that sweeping generalisations being considered acceptable about other nations.

ETA: I'd make an exception for Afghanistan, where the traditional culture seems to be so appallingly misogynistic that abuses seem to be the norm, unlike all the other countries you named. Including Israel.

Because abuse by a religious organisation is not abuse by the country - clerical child abuse in Ireland is not cited as evidence of the Irish government's moral failings, despite there being plenty of evidence of active and passive complicity from the government (there has still not been any significant pay out from the catholic church to victims, largely thanks to the government and justice system's complicity; I can only think of one criminal conviction leading to jail time, Fr Brendan Smyth, and that was as a result of police action in NORTHERN Ireland)

Similarly, clerical abuse by Church of England clergy isn't used as proof of how bad England in general is, even though the C of E literally has bishops in the House of Lords.

When only Israel is treated differently, when a sex abuse scandal in a religious cult in Israel is brought in to back up the claim that "the days of Israel being the innocent are well over" then it's perfectly logical to say that something else is going on there. You think that's ok - but that jkust means you share that agenda, otherwise you'd see how hypocritical it is to blame a whoel country for the failings of a religion, when in fact the evidence is that it's religions that are the problem. Or maybe just men.

Because abuse by a religious organisation is not abuse by the country - clerical child abuse in Ireland is not cited as evidence of the Irish government's moral failings, despite there being plenty of evidence of active and passive complicity from the government (there has still not been any significant pay out from the catholic church to victims, largely thanks to the government and justice system's complicity; I can only think of one criminal conviction leading to jail time, Fr Brendan Smyth, and that was as a result of police action in NORTHERN Ireland)

Similarly, clerical abuse by Church of England clergy isn't used as proof of how bad England in general is, even though the C of E literally has bishops in the House of Lords.

When only Israel is treated differently, when a sex abuse scandal in a religious cult in Israel is brought in to back up the claim that "the days of Israel being the innocent are well over" then it's perfectly logical to say that something else is going on there. You think that's ok - but that jkust means you share that agenda, otherwise you'd see how hypocritical it is to blame a whoel country for the failings of a religion, when in fact the evidence is that it's religions that are the problem. Or maybe just men.

How strange. MNHQ want to check that posting a link to the Association of Israeli Rape Crisis Centres should be posted on an online feminist forum!