Liberal Media/Scientific Bias of the Day

PajamasMedia's Phyllis Chesler:

It’s official. Britain’s premier medical journal Lancet has been completely Palestinianized. It no longer bears any relationship to the first-rate scientific journal it once was. . .

We now see his malign influence at work in a new article, just out today, by professors who work at the Department of Medicine at Harvard University; the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at Minnesota University’s School of Public Health; The Boston University School of Medicine; the School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and at the School of Social Work and Social Welfare at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Their study is titled: "Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study." And yes, they have found that Palestinian husbands are more violent towards Palestinian wives as a function of the Israeli "occupation"-- and that the violence increases significantly when the husbands are "directly" as opposed to "indirectly" exposed to political violence.

I believe that Arab and Muslim men, including Palestinian men, are indeed violent towards Arab and Muslim women. I also believe that war-related stress, including poverty, usually increases "intimate partner violence," aka male domestic violence. But beyond that, how does one evaluate this study?

First, let’s follow the money. This study was funded by the Palestinian National Authority as well as by the Core Funding Group at the University of Minnesota. The Palestinian Authority is not a disinterested party. But even worse: The data was collected by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Palestinians are the people who once told the world that Israeli soldiers shot young Mohammed al-Dura, committed a massacre in Jenin, and purposely attacked Palestinian civilians (who just happened to be jihadists dressed in civilian clothing or hostage-civilians behind whom the jihadists hid).

Second, let’s note that the study has a political goal which trumps any objective academic or feminist goal. (These researchers claim to have a "feminist" perspective). In my view, this study wishes to present Palestinian men as victims even when (or precisely because) those men are battering their wives. And, it wishes to present Palestinian cultural barbarism, which includes severe child abuse, as also related to the alleged Israeli occupation.

Third, therefore, the study has purposely omitted the violence, including femicide, which is routinely perpetrated against daughters and sisters in "occupied Palestine" and has, instead, chosen to focus only on husband-wife violence and only on couples who are currently married. The honor murders of daughters and sisters by their parents and brothers is a well known phenomenon in Gaza and on the West Bank. . .

Fourth, if one is completely serious about violence against women, the researchers would have factored in the role of Hamas, which has "occupied" Gaza both militarily and religiously. Since they have done so, more and more (previously modern) women have been forced to veil; more child marriages as well as arranged marriages are now taking place. . .

The Lancet researchers operated in exceedingly bad faith both academically and politically. For example, they write: "Occupation policies, including a separation barrier that is being erected in various parts of the West Bank, affect family connectedness, depriving women of regular contact with their families who might otherwise intervene to prevent intimate-partner violence."

Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim families do not intervene when a husband is beating a wife. On the contrary. Both the husband’s family and the wife’s own family view this as a husband’s right or as a wife’s fault. These researchers have got to know that. Thus, they are playing to western naivete or ignorance about this by claiming the Israeli road blockades are stopping such imaginary, pro-woman family interventions.

Sadly, it's been years since Lancet was first-rate.

(via Best of the Web)