Editorial, October 29, 1010

Women, stand up

JEWISH tradition has always held its female figures in high esteem. The biblical matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah are regarded for their strength and caring qualities. Miriam watched over her baby brother Moses and, with him, ultimately helped lead the Israelites from Egypt. Esther is immortalised for saving her people and Ruth, formerly a Moabite princess, converted to Judaism and is an ancestor of the great King David.

From biblical times to today, the challenges women face may be different, but as any woman would tell you, they are certainly still there.

Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner Dr Helen Szoke agrees young women today have opportunities limited only by their own ambitions and choices. Citing higher-education figures and employment rates, she said it is evident how far we have come. Despite freedom of opportunity for female Australians, Dr Szoke was quick to point out that a gender gap is still very real. While women can reach the top positions in almost all fields — and occasionally do — they are rarely remunerated in line with their male counterparts. And for career women, work-life balance seems an oxymoron, as mums try to squash making a meaningful contribution to the workforce with raising a family into a 24-hour day.

Some women are succeeding — just look at our Prime Minister, Governor-General and the Premiers of two of our states. But many more are being held back by conventions that have no place in 2010.

Most women have unique skills that can improve, enhance and strengthen corporations and organisations. But, what they often lack is the time and the opportunity to structure their lives around meetings scheduled to fit into a man’s diary — this is particularly the concern in our community.

There is no doubt about it, Jewish Australia is failing to include enough women at senior levels. You can count the number of female presidents on your fingers and too many boards have one token woman.

While The AJN is not calling on the community to impose gender quotas, we are left pondering whether more can be done to help women reach the top.
With AGM season upon us, members of communal groups should look around the boardroom table. If you don’t see enough female faces, do something — if you’re a man, demand change and if you’re a woman, create the change you want to see.

The danger of unilateralism

MUCH has been made of recent threats by the Palestinian Authority to circumvent the peace process and approach the United Nations directly to endorse unilateral Palestinian statehood in territory encompassing East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — the pre-1967 borders in their entirety.
Proponents of this plan can cobble together a very persuasive-sounding argument for their view. To draw a parallel with legal terminology, what they are really looking for is a “summary judgement” in the court of world opinion, under the dubious assumption that the opposing case — Israel’s — has no real prospect of succeeding or being successfully defended.

The siren song of unilateralism is found in its simplicity and its promise. If the world would only impose a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders to the millimetre, so the story goes, it could finally put an end to the Jerusalem question. It would sate the desperate hunger of Palestinians for self-rule. It would placate the Arab world and may even provide a long-sought panacea for anti-Westernism and Islamic extremism.

Ironically, pretty much everyone would concede that the one thing such a move would absolutely not do is bring peace. Certainly, statehood within the pre-1967 borders is a key Palestinian demand, but others would remain — none more thorny than the Palestinian demand for a right of return to Israel.

In truth, premature Palestinian statehood could end up condemning the sons of Abraham and Ishmael to a future of perpetual conflict. It has proven difficult enough for a Palestinian leader to sell a peace to his people based on a land-for-peace formula — imagine how much harder that would be when Israel no longer has land to negotiate with.

This is why last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the American Task Force for Palestine — hardly a bastion of pro-Israel sentiment — that there was no substitute for a negotiated peace settlement: because there simply isn’t.

There is a good reason why the US and European nations have repeatedly chosen the peace process over a UN-imposed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s not that they have some sort of aversion to a simple solution. It is because they understand that an imposed solution in the long term would not be doing anyone any favours — not the Israelis, naturally, but also not the international community of nations, nor the Palestinians themselves.