The Palestinian report will be considered by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a group of independent experts who monitor implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, in July 2018. The Palestinians purported to become a "state party" to the Convention on April 1, 2014, and were therefore required to submit a "state party report" to CEDAW on their treatment of women.
The report includes a litany of antisemitic accusations and blood libels against Israel. The only people the report identifies as "terrorists" are Israelis, while Palestinian terrorists are referred to as "martyrs," and Palestinian terror attacks are referred to as the "liberation movement." The report blames Israel for the "psychological suffering" of the family members of terrorists, and boasts about the payments the Palestinian government issues to terrorists imprisoned by Israel. The report also accuses Jewish employers of "swindling" Palestinian employees.
It includes the following:
- "1...The report...also describes the situation of Palestinian women under colonial Israeli occupation and the effects of illegal Israeli policies that are part of an institutionalized regime founded on settlement, systematic oppression and discrimination. All levels of the Israeli political and military apparatus, including the Israeli occupation army and the terrorist settler militias, are implicated in the systematic and wide-ranging crimes and violations being perpetrated at against Palestinian women and the entire Palestinian people wherever they are suffering."
- "35...[T]he Palestinian Government disburses monthly payments from its budget through the relevant agencies to the families of martyrs, injured persons and prisoners. That is in order to alleviate the impact of crimes perpetrated by the Israeli occupation. It is usually women who are the most affected by those crimes, notably when income is cut off because a family member or the breadwinner is killed, imprisoned or injured."
- "47. Palestinian women suffer from a system that is discriminatory at every turn. The worst aspect is the colonial Israeli occupation and its major violations of international law in general and of international human rights law in particular. Those violations are committed by both the armed forces and the settlers who have infiltrated the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and surround the Gaza Strip... There is scarcely a single Palestinian woman who has not been touched - directly or indirectly - by the crimes of the Israeli occupation. Those crimes include, inter alia: extrajudicial murder and execution; attacks on civilians, including prominent citizens;... torture and inhumane abuse; ... ongoing crimes committed with impunity by terrorist settler militias; ... The occupation forces also use excessive force."
- "66. Israeli occupation crimes against Palestinians have brought about a rapid rise in the number of persons with physical, mental, psychological and sensory disabilities. Those crimes include shooting and beating civilians;... torture and harsh treatment in the course of arbitrary arrests;..."
- "79. Most discriminatory practices that target women as women are so entrenched in social traditions and customs that they are invisible. The fact that such practices appear instinctive and natural complicates the process of exposing and identifying them as discriminatory and working to alter and eliminate them. Counter-efforts to reinforce stereotypical, traditional roles and entrench a culture of women's subordination take various forms. They include calls to hold on to certain interpretations of religious teachings and reject demands to eliminate discrimination against women as Western cultural imports that violate customs and traditions. Moreover, attempts are made to downplay the importance of and postpone achieving justice for women, dismissing it as not an immediate priority given the need to join forces to end the Israeli occupation and gain independence of the State of Palestine."
- "80. ..The results of a 2011 survey on violence in Palestinian society showed that roughly half of Palestinian families were directly exposed to violence perpetrated by occupation forces and terrorist settler militias..."
- "81. The occupation contributes to the rise in violence against women and helps to consolidate the concept of patriarchal control over women. It also has an impact on the frequency of domestic violence, in particular, family violence. The forms of family violence perpetrated against women in Palestinian society include physical abuse committed by their husbands, their husbands' families or their families; death threats; rape committed by a member of a woman's family or that of her husband; forced flight from the family as a result of physical, sexual or verbal violence or neglect; and distribution of social roles within the family in a preferential manner that favours men."
- "136. Palestinian women prisoners are an important part of the liberation movement and the national struggle for an end to the Israeli occupation and Palestinian independence..."
- "143... Around one fifth of Palestinians living in occupied Palestine have been arrested at some point in their lives. That means around 40 per cent of all males. In most cases, that leaves Palestinian women to bear the burden of supporting and raising children after their fathers or brothers have been arrested. That is not to mention the psychological suffering that comes with the arrest of a family member..."
- "145. In an attempt to alleviate the impact of the crimes of the occupation and restore dignity to the prisoners, the State of Palestine enacted the Prisoners and Ex-prisoners Act (No. 19, 2004), as amended. That law provides for all the legal needs of male and female prisoners during their incarceration. It provides for a full or partial waiver of fees for primary school, university education, health insurance and rehabilitation programmes for male and female prisoners, their spouses and their children. The State also tries to secure jobs for released prisoners - male and female - and give them priority in annual hiring in State institutions."
- "162. Israel, the occupying Power, is the party primarily responsible for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, through its crimes against the Palestinians, such as killings and forced expulsion and displacement... It has done everything in its power to make it impossible for them to return ... by accepting tens of thousands of Jews every year..."
- "193. The Israeli occupation's continued control over Palestinian territory and the behaviour of its soldiers and settlers, particularly in East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank, play a major role in the deterioration of Palestinian education... Students are prevented from receiving a decent education in safe conditions, which has prompted many students, especially female students, to leave school and enter the labour force, or to marry at young ages and start families."
- "229. Israeli employers do not comply with the provisions of the Labour Law when dealing with Palestinian workers. They exploit those workers' desperation for work and use all sorts of methods to swindle Palestinian workers out of their rights..."
- "255. Palestinian women prisoners in occupation jails are living in extraordinary conditions as far as health is concerned. They are subjected not just to systematic physical and mental torture, but also to a policy of deliberate medical neglect on grounds of their nationality and gender..."
- "306. The racist measures imposed by occupation authorities against male and female Palestinian farmers... open the door to attacks by terrorist settler militias..."
- "322. The Israeli judiciary is the cornerstone of the racist colonial occupation regime....provides impunity to the Israeli perpetrators (whether they are members of the terrorist settler militias or the occupation army forces), and gives them licence to continue committing all manner of acts of violence and terrorism against the property and persons of Palestinian men and women, wherever they may be."