(Redirected from
Women in Green)
Women for Israel's Tomorrow is a right-wing grass-roots political women's group in Israel. It is more commonly known as Women in Green (WiG) (Hebrew: נשים בירוק) due to its followers' "custom" of wearing green hats, unlike the older left-wing organization Women in Black.
WiG is a registered non-profit organization founded in 1993, and is not affiliated with any political party. According to the group's website, the movement is "dedicated to the security and Jewish heritage of historic Israel". It is opposed to a two-state solution; that is, the creation of a Palestinian state alongside, and mutually recognizant with, Israel. Instead, it favors the transfer of the Arab population in both Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip to neighboring Arab countries. According to WiG, only Arabs who agree to become citizens of an officially Jewish state should be allowed to remain.
The group particularly opposes the return of Arab land captured in the Six Day War of 1967, and aggressively supports Israeli settlement of those territories, which it proposes should be annexed after the expulsion of the Arabs living there, unless they agree to become Israeli citizens. ("Transfer of Arabs Is The Only Sound Solution For Peace!" WiG article, September 30, 2003). The group also opposed Israeli military withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
WiG's political activism extends to the United States, where it maintains several chapters, which hold demonstrations and fundraisers every year. An advertisement on its website for a protest scheduled for April 11, 2005, when Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon visited president George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, said:
- The Arab-Moslem threat is real and palpable. They hate America and Israel and a democratic way of life, and have a completely different concept of what is moral. If you don't take a stand against the Arabs and the Saudis NOW, you will live to regret it ... Before you know it the Arab hordes will be at your doorstep. They believe in no compromise. The Arabs are ruthless, and are waiting and praying for the opportunity to strike. Don't wait until they have Nuclear Arms. Act now, before it is too late! [1]
Nadia Matar , the group's co-chair, caused controversy across the Israeli political spectrum in September 2004 when she compared the government's intention to remove Israeli settlers from Gaza to the involvement of the Judenrat ("Jewish Council") in Berlin in 1942, which under orders from the German government organized the expulsion of the Jewish community from that city. [2] Matar drew this comparison in a letter she sent to Yonatan Bassi, the head of the department overseeing the civilian aspects of the withdrawal. She attached a copy of a 1942 letter from the Judenrat, which she claimed mirrored the letter Bassi sent to Gaza settlers explaining the procedures for the evacuation. Matar stated:
- Yonatan Bassi is a much worse version of the 'Judenrat' in the Holocaust, for then in the Holocaust, this was forced upon those Jewish leaders by the Nazis, and it is very difficult for us to judge them today. But today no one stands with a pistol to Bassi's head and forces him to cooperate with the deportation of the Jews of Gush Katif and northern Samaria. [3]
Activities
- Weekly street theater.
- Public demonstrations, petitions and grass roots activism.
- Frequent press articles, commission posters, newspapers advertisements.
- Lectures to groups regarding political current events.
See also
References
