Women for Israel's Tomorrow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Hebrew: נשים למען עתיד ישראל) is a right-wing 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, in contrast to the left-wing anti-war 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 Israel. The group particularly opposes the return of land captured in the Six Day War of 1967, and aggressively supports Israeli settlement of those territories, which it proposes should be annexed. WiG also opposed Israeli military withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

Ruth and Nadia Matar, co-chairwomen of WiG, argue in Transfer of Arabs is the Only Solution for Peace that Arabs in the "Holy Land" are descended from relatively recent immigrants, and favor their "transfer" to the neighboring Arab countries. They maintain that the United States and the E.U. could use the aid they provide (and political pressure) to help resettle Arabs, and that co-operation from surrounding Arab states would be required as well. They insist that "Fair payment can be made to those Arabs who agree to leave the Holy Land", and that "Arabs who wish to remain can do so, provided they agree to be a citizen of a Jewish State."

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]

Image:Women in Green demonstration Jerusalem Day May28 1995.jpg

Members of Women in Green and supporters demonstrating on Jerusalem Day, May 28, 1995.

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]

Sometime in the summer of 2005, members of the Matar family moved into a house in the coastal Shirat Hayam settlement in Gaza, a closed military zone, to show their opposition to the withdrawal and encouraged others to do the same. "We are here because after this it could be the whole of Yesha and we are here to stop it at the source," said Yehuda Matar, the 16-year-old son of Nadia Matar, using an acronym that refers to all West Bank and Gaza Strip. [4]