The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

"This decision does not mean there is discrimination here, or that the activities of the United Nations are blocked. On the contrary, we are committed to all the rights of all our countrymen, taking into account their religious and cultural interests."

"Considering the emergency situation in Afghanistan, it is necessary for the member countries of the United Nations to resolve the problem of frozen Afghan assets, banking, travel bans and other restrictions as soon as possible so that Afghanistan can progress in economic, political and security areas."

"Afghans have the capacity to stand on their own feet."

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

UN officials met with the Taliban's higher education minister, at left, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Jan. 7, 2023 to discuss the country's ban on women attending universities. The organization said Tuesday that the Taliban has since barred its female staffers from working. (Taliban Higher Education Ministry/The Associated Press)

 

A week ago the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan further restricted women's human rights. Initially, when the Taliban took Kabul, they assured the world looking on, that they had every intention of respecting the human rights of women and girls. Presenting themselves as moderately reasonable, in the face of the reputation the first Taliban rule which imposed draconian laws against women seen in public without a male escort. Women were strictly forbidden from being seen without the all-enveloping burqas.

Women were forbidden to hold jobs outside their homes; paid work not for women, even widows without any means of income that could sustain the necessities of life. Child 'brides', a customary Islamist process of engineering girls into early motherhood, was rife. Education for girls was prohibited. Women in ill health could not be examined by male physicians. Women-only hospitals staffed by female physicians and surgeons who during surgeries were forced to wear that same burqa.

 

Afghan women chant slogans during a protest against the Taliban's ban on university education for women in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. The country's Taliban-run administration ordered all local and foreign non-governmental organizations to suspend employing women. (The Associated Press)

 

While the Taliban was busy assuring the global community that it had matured its outlook and was willing to recognize the human rights of women and girls, those same women and girls knew differently. The Taliban's reassurance to the outside world was meant to forestall international involvement in the country's internal affairs as much as to convince global investment to continue its presence in Afghanistan. It took little time before the frail effort to convince the world that the Taliban was anything but the Taliban prevailed.

First to feel the sharp cut of the Islamist sabre were the former government's civil servants, all those who cooperated with the foreign intervenors representing the international community which had ousted the Taliban in search of Osama bin Laden. People were hunted down as traitors to fundamentalist Islam and to Afghanistan. Those that were able to flee to Turkey and Pakistan did, while the former NATO- and U.S.-led coalition members airlifted Afghans known to have assisted them as translators and other workers to safety abroad.

 

Afghan women are protesting against the Taliban’s decision to ban them from the country’s universities. Despite the growing global backlash over the regime's attack on women's rights, the Taliban is refusing to back down.

 

Those Afghans who live under Taliban rule suffer privation and hunger and fear. International NGOs installed themselves to offer humanitarian aid. And then came the pronouncement that Afghan women could no longer work for NGOs. Women attending universities were denied the privilege of returning to classes, joining younger women for whom high school education had previously been forbidden. Now, a week ago the Taliban announced that female Afghan staffers employed with the UN may no longer report for work.

 

In response the United Nations protested the decision, as unlawful and a violation of women's rights. Women, the UN stressed, have been essential for delivering life-saving assistance to millions of Afghans. The UN took the step of instructing its national staff both men and women to remain at home. The response to which was a denial by Taliban authorities that they were responsible for Afghanistan's multiple humanitarian crises. Such decisions as that decried by the UN, they point out, was an internal matter, requiring respect.

 

In the wake of the Taliban takeover of the country and the following economic collapse, aid agencies' role has been crucial in the provision of food, education and health care support. Distribution has been a problem, severely affected by the Taliban edict that banned women from working at non-governmental organizations; citing that they weren't wearing the hijab correctly, or following gender segregation rules.

 

Members of the Taliban stand guard at the entrance gate of Kabul University in Kabul a day after the Taliban said female students would not be allowed access to the country's universities until further notice. (Ali Khara/Reuters)

InTried-and-True Humanitarianism: Israel/UAE/Afghanistan Mission

The group of 41 Afghan women, including some members of the country's women's cycling team, and robotics team, and their families, on arrival in the United Arab Emirates Sept. 6, 2021. (Photo: UAE News agency WAM/Amjad Saleh)

"The issue was they had to collect them [Afghan evacuees] from hiding [from Taliban]."

"They [rescuers] had to do rounds around the city in alleys to pick up these people and try not to create any suspicious movement."

"The stressful part really was around the border. There were a lot of Taliban in the area, they were not allowed to leave the shelter and we were very stressed that someone might find them."

Yotam Polizer, chief executive, IsraAid

"Working alongside international partners to ensure that those in need may reach safety, the UAE has welcomed 41 Afghan evacuees, including vulnerable members from the Afghan girls' cycling and robotic teams, as well as at-risk human rights activists and their family members."

Afra al-Hamell, deputy director of strategic communications, UAE

Afghan evacuees arrive in the United Arab Emirates. Photo: Afra Al Hameli / Twitter screenshot

With the collaboration between Israeli aid workers and the United Arab Emirates, scores of Afghans have been given a new lease on life. These are people who are vengeance targets of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the new rulers of the country, the Taliban, whose previous rule was brutal and deadly, inspiring many Afghan civilians to flee their native country in fear of the Islamist terrorist regime, living as refugees in Pakistan (ironically the neighbour whose Interagency Intelligence service is largely responsible for the power now held by the Taliban), finding their way elsewhere around the world in a migration forced by terror.

Now that the Taliban have returned through a brief, violent upheaval that uprooted the democratically elected government of Afghanistan and its military, leaving the terrorists to inherit infrastructure and weaponry left by its fleeing military in the wake of the U.S. desertion of its ally, the hunt is on for former government elite, for civil servants, for those who served in branches of the military and the national police, for women who aspired to excel in music and the arts, sports and medical training, for a new-old world of male domination and female subjugation has found its comfortable niche once again.

The newly-revealed rescue mission launched by the two partners of the Abraham Accords, Israel and the UAE was launched to spirit sportswomen, female rights activists, an entertainer and their families, at high risk of imprisonment or sudden death at the hands of the Taliban avenging the incursion of Western influence in Afghanistan. It succeeded in rescuing a total of 41 people under difficult conditions requiring the utmost secrecy and exceptional skills of evasion.

As the first joint humanitarian project between two Middle Eastern countries this is hugely symbolic of the great opportunities that can be seized to help make the world a better place for those inhabiting countries known for their discriminatory and violent values led by unscrupulous and barbaric leaders. The team that formed the backbone of the evacuation exercised their scheme with cautious optimism that working in tandem with all concerned contributing to the success of the venture, would guide its outcome.

There were 19 cycling team members, three robotics team members, a prominent Afghan singer, a number of human rights activists and their vulnerable family members who constituted the rescued Afghans with reason to fear for their lives. The search missions exercised by the Taliban, going house to house to unearth 'collaborators' of the West, adoptees of Western cultural values, men and women who betrayed the Taliban version of sharia law would eventually reveal the presence of those fearing for their lives. These are 41 fewer souls living in the shadow of death.

The rescuers drove across the country's north after collecting those meant to be rescued, clearing checkpoints to arrive at a temporary destination at the border with Tajikistan, a safe house, for several days' stay while awaiting permission to cross into the country. That permission was eventually secured by the rescue team when the president of Tajikistan gave his permission for the border crossing, enabling the rescuers to ferry their charges to the capital of Dushanbe.

From there they were escorted to a chartered jet, courtesy of Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, arriving in the UAE in the early hours of September 6. The jet was financed by Montreal-born Adams who himself is a sport enthusiast, a bicyclist who represented Israel, where he moved five years ago, at the Tour de France with his Israel Start-Up Nation cycle team. Mr. Adams was also involved in lobbying the government of Tajikistan to support the rescue mission.

Israeli-Canadian billionaire cyclist and businessman Sylvan Adams rides a bike with members of his team Start-Up Nation at his velodrome in Tel Aviv on June 5, 2020. (Emmanuel DUNAND/AFP)

The Taliban of course would be apoplectic with rage that despised Israelis, Jews, had infiltrated their emirate under their noses, to plot and carry out a rescue of Afghans whose deserved destiny in their view, would be death. To describe the situation as 'politically sensitive' is to understate the reality. The Taliban went out of their way to state unequivocally their preparedness to foster good relations with any nation on earth -- with the exception of Israel.

Women activists had reached out to the Israeli aid group to assist in rescuing people they had selected ti be evacuated to safety. A mission partly financed by an anonymous family foundation. Nine other members of the Afghanistan's robotics team which had been awarded a U.S. robotics recognition in 2017 were evacuated to Doha with assistance from Qatari officials, making this the second such mission.

The future for girls and women in Afghanistan can be seen from the past, when from 1996 to 2001 when the Taliban were last in power, girls were prohibited from attending school and women banned from work and could only emerge from their homes accompanied by male family escorts with the women fully garbed in black head-to-toe burqas. The women’s ministry in Kabul has been converted to house the “Ministries of Prayer and Guidance and the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” which had in the ruling Taliban's original iteration operated a feared police force implementing sharia.

 

Yotam Polizer, CEO of IsraAid, right, embraces the Afghan evacuees as they arrive in the United Arab Emirates Credit: IsraAid/IsraAid