{"id":14801,"date":"2016-01-10T03:13:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T01:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lory-shemtov.com\/?p=14801"},"modified":"2019-08-16T10:11:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T07:11:15","slug":"israeli-welfare-ministry-foster-agencies-traffic-in-palestinian-children-%d7%9e%d7%a9%d7%a8%d7%93-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%95%d7%97%d7%94-%d7%94%d7%99%d7%a9%d7%a8%d7%90%d7%9c%d7%99-%d7%97%d7%98%d7%a3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/?p=14801","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Welfare Ministry, Foster Agencies, Traffic in Palestinian Children \u05de\u05e9\u05e8\u05d3 \u05d4\u05e8\u05d5\u05d5\u05d7\u05d4 \u05d4\u05d9\u05e9\u05e8\u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 \u05d7\u05d8\u05e3 \u05d0\u05ea \u05d0\u05d3\u05dc, \u05d4\u05d9\u05dc\u05d3\u05d4 \u05e9\u05dc \u05d3\u05e0\u05d9\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4 \u05d5\u05e7\u05e0\u05d9\u05df \u05e9\u05e0\u05d5\u05dc\u05d3\u05d4 \u05de\u05d0\u05d1 \u05e4\u05dc\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e0\u05d9 \u05dc\u05d0\u05d9\u05de\u05d5\u05e5 \u05d1\u05de\u05e9\u05e4\u05d7\u05d4 \u05d7\u05e8\u05d3\u05d9\u05ea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israeli Welfare Ministry, Foster Agencies Traffic in Palestinian Children<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

by<\/span> Richard Silverstein<\/span> on<\/span> January 9, 2016<\/span><\/p>\n

in<\/span>Children & Family<\/a>, Mideast Peace<\/a><\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.richardsilverstein.com\/2016\/01\/09\/israeli-welfare-ministry-foster-agencies-traffic-in-palestinian-children\/<\/a><\/div>\n
\n

A few months ago, I wrote about a shocking Israeli Supreme Court decision<\/a><\/span><\/strong> which ratified the officially-sanctioned theft\u00a0of children from a mixed Jewish-Palestinian couple and their adoption by an Orthodox Jewish couple who planned to raise the children with no access to their birth identity. \u00a0The decision was flagrantly racist and defied many Israeli child welfare regulations. \u00a0But it was the decision of the highest court in the land. \u00a0One which foreign observers continue to mistakenly credit with being a beacon of western democratic values. \u00a0No longer.<\/p>\n

Tonight brings a new saga of judicially-sanctioned racism and woe perpetrated again by the Israeli Welfare Ministry (run by Minister Haim Katz) and its child services agency.<\/p>\n

Over a decade ago, Daniella Vaknin<\/strong><\/span> was a troubled teenager living in an Orthodox home in the settlement of Avney Heifetz. \u00a0Daniella was labelled as rebellious, violent, aggressive, and sent to an institution for troubled youth. \u00a0She was abused at this facility and ran away. \u00a0She stayed away till she became an adult and could make her own decisions. \u00a0At that time, she met a Palestinian man, Ala\u2019a Suliman, whose family lived in the West Bank village of Zetta. \u00a0They fell in love. \u00a0Against her parents wishes, she moved to his village, married him, and became pregnant. \u00a0They had a daughter they named Adel.<\/p>\n

Daniella\u2019s mother continued to pressure her to abandon her marriage and return to live with her parents among Jews. \u00a0She warned her daughter that the Israeli social welfare system would frown on her decision and might take her child away. \u00a0Even then, despite living among Palestinians in the West Bank, child welfare officials summoned her to a meeting where they pummeled her with questions about her baby, the care she was providing, etc. \u00a0Among the first questions they asked was why she wore a hijab to meet with them. \u00a0Daniella\u00a0responded that she did this out of respect to her husband\u2019s family. \u00a0The social workers clearly disapproved of this and saw it as a rejection of her Jewish roots.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Daniella understood the immense pain she was causing her mother and decided to return home. \u00a0But that is when the trouble really began. \u00a0A neighbor of her parents reported falsely that Ala\u2019a had threatened Daniela. \u00a0That permitted them to further question her. \u00a0She denied that her husband had ever threatened her. \u00a0But it didn\u2019t help matters.<\/p>\n

Her parents and the child welfare officials persuaded her to place Adel in a pre-school program. \u00a0This enabled Daniella to work. \u00a0She got two jobs and commuted many hours to work each day. \u00a0Luckily, her mother\u2019s best friend agreed to provide care to the child and the arrangement seemed to suit everyone. \u00a0Except child welfare. \u00a0They argued that her long hours of work meant she had abandoned her baby, another false claim.<\/p>\n

One day, the authorities came to Adel\u2019s pre-school and took her into custody. \u00a0Daniella had not been provided any warning of their intent. \u00a0And they had obtained no judicial order approving the removal as is required by child welfare regulations (they obtained an order ex post facto). \u00a0They justified taking Adel away from Daniela by dredging up her wayward childhood. \u00a0They claimed she was an unfit mother because she had not changed her ways. \u00a0That she abandoned her daughter. \u00a0That her biological father was a threat to mother and daughter.<\/p>\n

Adel was not taken into emergency protective services as would be normal in such cases. \u00a0She was given directly into the hands of her foster parents, Yehuda and Shoshana Damri<\/span><\/strong><\/span>. \u00a0This raises serious questions of a conspiracy between the Damris and child services. \u00a0In effect, this is child trafficking. \u00a0How can a government agency assign a child to another family before it even has legal custody of the child? \u00a0It\u2019s the worst violation of the rights of the mother.<\/p>\n

Ala\u2019a<\/strong> <\/span>also tried to intervene in the legal process to assert his paternal rights. \u00a0But when the case came before an Israeli Palestinian judge in Nazareth, he astonishingly ruled that no Palestinian father could have any parental rights when the adopted child was to raised by as a Jew. \u00a0The ruling had little or no basis in law. \u00a0But that hardly mattered. \u00a0If you ask why a Palestinian judge would rule against a Palestinian father remember,\u00a0just as with\u00a0security cases, judges are tightly bound to those who appear before them regularly: government officials. \u00a0They tend to rule in favor of authority and against individual citizens who have little or no power. \u00a0People just like Daniella and Ala\u2019a. \u00a0This a perfect example of a Palestinian Muslim judge ruling against a Palestinian father in order to curry favor with the Jewish judicial power structure. \u00a0Divide and conquer.<\/p>\n

In a separate ruling, the authorities found that Ala\u2019a had \u201cabandoned\u201d Adel because he had not visited her. \u00a0In truth, no Palestinian may enter Israel legally without a permit. \u00a0Permits are given exceedingly sparingly and Ala\u2019a could not get one to visit his daughter. \u00a0To official Israel, this didn\u2019t matter. \u00a0The fact that he did not visit his daughter, regardless of the reason, permitted them to steal his parental rights from him.<\/p>\n

System Rigged Against Kids, Parents<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

None of the accusations against either parent\u00a0is true. \u00a0But it hardly matters in the Israeli welfare system. \u00a0Social workers have absolute power. \u00a0Their actions are unchecked. \u00a0Parents have no recourse. \u00a0And judges always go along with the child welfare authorities. \u00a0They rarely side with parents, even biological parents. \u00a0They often make decisions that directly contravene official regulations. \u00a0But no one takes notice.<\/p>\n

The entire process of foster care is hugely rewarding for the many agencies involved in it. \u00a0One of the largest is Orr Shalom<\/a>. \u00a0It supervised Adel\u2019s own foster care arrangement with the family which fostered her after she was removed from her mother\u2019s care. \u00a0In fact, child welfare authorities would have consulted with Orr Shalom even before taking Adel away from Daniella. \u00a0The agency also would\u2019ve identified prospective foster parents.<\/p>\n

Orr Shalom and other such agencies receive more than $4000 per month from the Welfare Ministry for every child who enters their custody. \u00a0If you multiply this by the hundreds of children in foster care, it becomes a lucrative business. \u00a0Nor is it beneficial for them to return foster children to the biological parents care. \u00a0As such, you\u2019ve created a system which works diametrically opposite to what should be the societal interest in having children raised by their natural parents.<\/p>\n

This may explain why they targeted Adel. \u00a0Not to mention that foster parents as well earn up to $500 per month for their role.\u00a0So social workers working for these child welfare agencies are always on the look-out for vulnerable young mothers from whom they may wrest a child. \u00a0In short, it\u2019s a racket and the children trafficked and their biological parents are often the victims.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are myriad justifications authorities and social workers offer for separating children from their mothers. \u00a0Think about the Christian missionaries who forcibly removed Native American and Aboriginal children from their parents in order to \u201ccivilize\u201d the children and introduce them to \u201cmodern ways.\u201d \u00a0Israeli social workers believe they are doing a social good by removing children from \u2018troubled homes\u2019 and finding more stable homes for them. \u00a0There are, of course, hundreds of Jewish couples who cannot conceive and desperately seek to adopt a baby. \u00a0They are often willing to pay handsomely for the privilege.<\/p>\n

Orthodox Settlers Foster Palestinian Child<\/em><\/p>\n

Such a couple were Yehuda and Shoshana Damri. \u00a0They were Orthodox Jews who lived in the West Bank settlement of Elkanah. \u00a0Once Adel was taken from her mother, she was placed in foster care with the Damris. \u00a0Daniella of course objected strenuously to all of this, but to no avail. \u00a0She created a Facebook page<\/a> vowing to fight for her rights to Adel. \u00a0She plastered hundreds of flyers seeking information about where her baby had been taken.<\/p>\n

The Damris wanted to adopt because Yehuda was sterile and could not produce a child. \u00a0This is particularly traumatic for an Orthodox family because one of the most important Biblical commandments is: \u201cBe fruitful and multiply.\u201d \u00a0Under halacha, infertility of either spouse is grounds for divorce. \u00a0The couple would\u2019ve been highly motivated, since they couldn\u2019t have their own child, to find one to adopt.<\/p>\n

Adel was a beautiful child with black hair and piercing dark eyes. \u00a0Their prayers seemed to be answered when the social workers gave her to them. \u00a0But later, Shoshana decided she wanted her own child and not to raise the child of a stranger. \u00a0She and her husband could not work out their fundamental differences. \u00a0Eventually, they divorced.<\/p>\n

That raised problems with the adoption agency. \u00a0By regulation, single parents may not be foster parents nor may they adopt. \u00a0By rights, they should have returned Adel to her mother for that reason alone. \u00a0But naturally that didn\u2019t happen. \u00a0Officials winked and nodded at regulations and Adel remained in Yehuda\u2019s care. To return Adel to her mother would\u2019ve ended Orr Shalom\u2019s gravy train. \u00a0So he had to find a wife to marry as quickly as possible in order to retain custody of Adel. \u00a0It took him nearly two years. \u00a0But he finally did and now he is \u2018kosher l\u2019mehadrin<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Daniella had no idea where her daughter lived. \u00a0Though regulations permitted short twice monthly meetings with Adel, they never happened. \u00a0So she did some detective work and discovered where her daughter lived and which pre-school she attended. \u00a0She brought along her smart phone and took a few blurry pictures of Adel in her classroom. \u00a0For her troubles, the teachers swarmed all over her and sent her packing. \u00a0She left the premises without raising a fuss.<\/p>\n

But the next day, Damri sicced the police on Daniella. \u00a0They accused her of attempting to kidnap her daughter. \u00a0Though this never happened, it\u2019s precisely the sort of accusation that officials can use to bolster a fabricated case against a mother to justify stealing her daughter.<\/p>\n

Daniella is further concerned about her daughter\u2019s well-being when she discovered the medication record for Adel at her local medical clinic. \u00a0You can see from the prescription form that she\u2019s being pumped full of Ritalin<\/a> (20mg per day), a commonly over-prescribed drug for young children. \u00a0Adel\u2019s emotional state is terrible and the instability of her circumstances weighs heavily on her. \u00a0She was uprooted from her biological mother and grandmother; inserted into a family she didn\u2019t know with a foster-mother who rejected her and decided to divorce her foster-father. \u00a0Then, after he remarried she was forced to come to know yet another maternal figure, the third in only a few year\u2019s time. \u00a0Adel has endured far more than her share of emotional upheaval. \u00a0All thanks to a system designed to benefit the bureaucracy and the foster agencies, rather than her.<\/p>\n

The Damri family<\/strong><\/span> is quite well-connected among the settler movement. \u00a0A relative, Yochai Damri, was recently elected the\u00a0official leader of the Mt. Hebron settler community council<\/a>. \u00a0He had the support of Naftali Bennett\u2019s Bayit Yehudi Party. \u00a0Though I don\u2019t know the political or ideological leanings of the Damris, it\u2019s almost goes without saying that, given their Orthodox religious beliefs and living in Elkanah, that they are ultra-nationalists.<\/p>\n

This raises another problem under child welfare regulations. \u00a0When children are adopted, officials must respect the religious and ethnic traditions of the child\u2019s biological parents. \u00a0The idea of having a child with a Palestinian Muslim father adopted by an Orthodox Jewish couple living in a West Bank settlement is a serious\u00a0violation of adoption regulations.<\/p>\n

There can be only one explanation for the adoption agency\u2019s decision to place Adel with the Damris. \u00a0They object to miscegenation. \u00a0They further object to a child of a Jewish parent who might be raised as a Palestinian; or even by a mother who was once married to a Palestinian. \u00a0When offered a choice between having Adel raised by a single mother who had rejected her own Orthodox upbringing; or an Orthodox Jewish couple living in a settlement, there was no question which was preferable.<\/p>\n

Just as the Supreme Court decision I referred to above displayed Israeli racism resplendent, Adel\u2019s theft from Daniela confirms that Israel is a State in which religious identity trumps individual or democratic rights. \u00a0It further confirms that Israel is not a democracy, but a theocracy in which Jews reign supreme.<\/p>\n

The trampling of the rights of parents in the social welfare system is but one symptom of a disease ravaging the Israeli body politic. \u00a0That the system can kidnap children and wrench them from the arms of loving parents merely because it disapproves of a lifestyle or marital choice, is part of the sickness afflicting Israel. \u00a0In a society respecting the rule of law such grave violations of human rights would never be tolerated. \u00a0In Israel, they are de rigueur<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I called the Welfare Ministry press office, the government child welfare agency (Sherut LaYeled), and several social workers assigned to Adel\u2019s case for comment. \u00a0I reached one of the social workers twice and each time she hung up on me without uttering a word. \u00a0I also sent them an e mail requesting comment. \u00a0No one has yet responded.<\/p>\n

Banning Books and Miscegenation, Israel-Style<\/em><\/p>\n

On a related note, an Israeli novelist published a young adult book recently called Borderline<\/a>. \u00a0It deals with an Israeli Jewish woman who meets a Palestinian man and falls in love with him. \u00a0The book was recommended for inclusion in the national high school reading curriculum<\/a>. \u00a0However, the education ministry under the \u2018able\u2019 direction of Naftali Bennett, decided that it must protect the tender, confused identities of Israeli teenagers. \u00a0The pedagogic specialists determined that reading such literature would confuse them about their own Jewish identity and give them the mistaken impression that miscegenation was a desirable phenomenon.<\/p>\n

This is only a slightly more elegant approach than that of the thugs of Lehava<\/a>, who prefer to beat Palestinian men who dare to dream they may soil the purity of Jewish maidens. \u00a0So you see that the evils of this system permeate all: from child adoptions to the public schools. \u00a0It is riddled with the concept of Jewish racialism and superiority. \u00a0These are values derived directly from the ideology of Meir Kahane, who is, to my chagrin, the patron saint of the contemporary Israeli State.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli Welfare Ministry, Foster Agencies Traffic in Palestinian Children by Richard Silverstein on January 9, 2016 inChildren & Family, Mideast Peace http:\/\/www.richardsilverstein.com\/2016\/01\/09\/israeli-welfare-ministry-foster-agencies-traffic-in-palestinian-children\/ A few months ago, I wrote about a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40611],"tags":[549,559,560,569,580,591,597,598,600,642,651,652,653,666,669,686,688,689,690,698,700,711,978,979,5953,10929,10930,10931,21588,22380],"class_list":["post-14801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-40611","tag-child-welfare-authorities-would-have-consulted-with-orr-shalom-even-before-taking-adel-away-from-daniella","tag-daniella-vaknin-was-a-troubled-teenager-living-in-an-orthodox-home-in-the-settlement-of-avney-heifetz","tag-daniellas-mother-continued-to-pressure-her-to-abandon-her-marriage-and-return-to-live-with-her-parents-among-jews","tag-education-minister-naftali-bennett-dressed-as-policeman-forbids-israeli-reader-from-entering-a-bookstore-to-buy-borderline","tag-foster-agencies-traffic-in-palestinian-children","tag-in-fact-child-welfare-authorities-would-have-consulted-with-orr-shalom-even-before-taking-adel-away-from-daniella","tag-israeli-supreme-court-decision-which-ratified-the-officially-sanctioned-theft-of-children-from-a-mixed-jewish-palestinian-couple-and-their-adoption-by-an-orthodox-jewish","tag-israeli-walfare-ministry-foster-agencies-traffic-in-palestinian-children","tag-israeli-welfare-ministry","tag-nor-is-it-beneficial-for-them-to-return-foster-children-to-the-biological-parents-care","tag-one-of-the-largest-is-orr-shalom-it-supervised-adels-own-foster-care-arrangement-with-the-family-which-fostered-her-after-she-was-removed-from-her-mothers-care","tag-orr-shalom-and-other-such-agencies-receive-more-than-4000-per-month-from-the-welfare-ministry-for-every-child-who-enters-their-custody","tag-orthodox-settlers-foster-palestinian-child","tag-she-warned-her-daughter-that-the-israeli-social-welfare-system-would-frown-on-her-decision-and-might-take-her-child-away","tag-so-social-workers-working-for-these-child-welfare-agencies-are-always-on-the-look-out-for-vulnerable-young-mothers-from-whom-they-may-wrest-a-child","tag-the-banned-novel","tag-the-damri-family-is-quite-well-connected-among-the-settler-movement","tag-the-decision-was-flagrantly-racist-and-defied-many-israeli-child-welfare-regulations","tag-the-entire-process-of-foster-care-is-hugely-rewarding-for-the-many-agencies-involved-in-it","tag-there-are-myriad-justifications-authorities-and-social-workers-offer-for-separating-children-from-their-mothers","tag-tonight-brings-a-new-saga-of-judicially-sanctioned-racism-and-woe-perpetrated-again-by-the-israeli-welfare-ministry-run-by-minister-haim-katz-and-its-child-services-agency","tag-yehuda-and-shoshana-damri","tag-978","tag-979","tag-5953","tag-10929","tag-10930","tag-10931","tag-21588","tag-22380"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shemtov1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}