In this mailing:
- Hisham Jarallah: Help! Israel Is Trying to Defend Itself
- Karen Lugo: Unrecorded Muslim Marriages, Bigamy, and Polygamy
Help! Israel Is Trying to Defend Itself
by Hisham Jarallah
September 12, 2012 at 5:00 am
September 12, 2012 at 5:00 am
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As far as
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are concerned, it all started when Israel
fired back. And they want the rest of the world to adopt this line. Sadly,
there is no shortage of naïve people in the West who share this argument. These
terrorists are causing more harm to the Palestinians than anyone else. But the
two parties would like to see the terror attacks continue so that they can have
an excuse to denounce Israel whenever the IDF fires back.
The Palestinians' two illegitimate governments have once again denounced
Israeli "aggression" against the "helpless" residents of
the Gaza Strip.Such denunciations always come after the Israel Defense Forces succeed in foiling a terror attack from the Gaza Strip or fire back at terrorists who launch rockets and missiles at Israeli targets.
The Hamas government, which sometimes turns a blind eye to anti-Israel terror attacks, is usually the first to condemn Israel whenever the IDF fires back or takes action to thwart the firing of rockets and missiles.
In some instances, Hamas members are directly involved in the attacks against Israel. Yet this does not stop the Hamas government from demanding international intervention to halt Israeli "aggression."
The Hamas government is now using the IDF's anti-terror operations to drive a wedge between Israel and Egypt. This week, for example, when the IDF killed six Palestinians who tried to carry out terror attacks against Israel, Hamas leaders complained to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President, Mohamed Morsi.
Hamas is hoping that Morsi would endorse a more hardline stance toward Israel. The Palestinian Islamist movement would like to see Morsi cut off Egypt's diplomatic relations with Israel under the pretext that the Israelis are killing "innocent" Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, for its part, has always been exploiting Israel's military operations against terrorists to incite the international community against Israel.
Each time the IDF strikes back at terrorists, Palestinian Authority leaders and spokesmen accuse Israel of escalating tensions and killing innocent people as part of an effort to "sabotage" the peace process.
Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority do not have the guts to condemn the terrorists who fire rockets and missiles at kindergartens and other civilian targets inside Israel. That is because they are either afraid of the terrorists or fully sympathize with their attempts to kill Israeli civilians.
As far as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are concerned, it all started when Israel fired back. And they want the rest of the world to adopt this line. Sadly, there is no shortage of naïve people in the West who share this argument.
The only way to stop the violence is by demanding that the terrorists stop using the Gaza Strip as a launching pad for attacks on Israel. These terrorists are causing more harm to the Palestinians than anyone else.
But Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are not going to do anything to make sure that the terrorists stop. In fact, the two parties would like to see the terror attacks continue so that they can have an excuse to denounce Israel whenever the IDF fires back.
Related Topics: Israel
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Jarallah
Unrecorded Muslim Marriages, Bigamy, and Polygamy
by Karen Lugo
September 12, 2012 at 4:00 am
September 12, 2012 at 4:00 am
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The claim
of bigamy, that his wife had never been correctly divorced, would provide the
second husband with an escape strategy from child and spousal support
obligations. The wife, however, rarely has access to the resources required to
contest the divorce terms or to appeal an erroneous determination.
The same week that Republican convention delegates unanimously voted for a
platform provision stating that judges should not consult foreign law or
customs to guide them in interpreting American law, the North Carolina Supreme
Court ruled on the convoluted case
of a bogus Muslim marriage which set the stage for a potentially bigamous
Muslim marriage.North Carolina's highest court sorted through contorted facts and two previous rulings to reach the proper conclusion: that a marriage performed in defiance of state laws -- which regulate ministerial qualifications and marriage registration -- was not valid. The legality of this prior non-compliant marriage had everything to do with how the courts would determine the rights of the husband and wife in the current dispute.
An earlier marriage had involved a Muslim woman participating in some kind of commitment ceremony to a Muslim man. Whether or not the procedures that followed were legally acceptable hinged upon whether a truck driver could legally perform a wedding; whether a properly executed marriage license was required (the state law was later changed to relax licensing requirements); and, whether a verbal Islamic divorce was valid. Also, the record states that the "marriage" only lasted for weeks and was never consummated. Later the same year, the ostensible wife married a different man but this time followed civil marriage requirements.
It should not be surprising that the first union -- and its demise, as it skirted all of the aforementioned solemnization requirements -- later became grounds for a bigamy claim. This bigamy pretext would provide the second husband an escape strategy from child and spousal support obligations. Days after the wife filed for divorce from the second husband, with whom she had three children, the husband filed for an annulment of the marriage. Naturally he claimed that at the time of their legally correct marriage, the woman he assumed was his wife was still married to the husband from the un-formalized union.
What is most disturbing about the proceedings – and many sharia off-record marriages manifest these troubling factors – was the note of "concern" expressed by two of the courts over indications that the husband exploited "not-up-to-legal-snuff" elements of the case to his advantage. The supreme court noted the family court's "concern about the unfairness of the [husband's] inconsistent positions," and suggested that he may have been aware of the wife's prior relationship before he married her.
In a review of over 70 sharia Muslim divorce cases for a policy study, this author earlier demonstrated that it is not unusual for a husband to leverage the sharia customs, which avoid city hall, against the courthouse route, which would enforce civil and constitutional requirements. A wife does not have much of a case against a husband who wishes to escape support or dowry responsibilities when a judge cannot legally recognize the marriage from square one. Even sharia-promoting legal advocacy groups which promote sharia law note the tendency of Muslim husbands to find jurisdictions where there is room to game the system.
The few cases which do make it to the courts are representative of a much larger problem. Adherents of strict sharia law often perform verbal divorces, with the result that many cases are not submitted to a judge. The wife rarely has access to the resources required to contest the terms of the divorce or to appeal an erroneous determination. In this case, there were multiple proceedings as the intermediate court rationalized the terms of the marriage to pass muster, but found that the verbal divorce did not meet legal standards and so concluded that the second marriage was indeed bigamous. The cumulative costs at the end of three trials had to be staggering.
The solution must begin in the mosques and with the imams. In the cases where illicit marriage ceremonies are performed and then registered with the mosque instead of civil authorities, women are susceptible to the schemes of unscrupulous husbands. These practices also serve to normalize sharia codes in defiance of the rule of law.
Another serious policy concern implicated by keeping these marriages off the record is the troubling incidence of sharia polygamy currently hidden from political and legal scrutiny.
As the Constitution vests the states with the retained power to establish law concerning health, safety, and morals (often called welfare), family law is legislated accordingly. While vibrant differences between state policy priorities make for valuable laboratory of democratic comparisons, harmonizing marriage law to require both officiant registration and marriage licensing would go a long way to underscore respect for the civil role in equitably adjudicating divorces and property disputes.
Karen Lugo, Esq., is Co-Director, Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.
Related Topics: Karen Lugo
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