Israel - Divorce Court tells Journalist to Take Psychiatric Tests For Wanting Equal Access To Children

Israel Divorce Custody Court Requests Journalist to Take Psychiatric Tests
For Wanting Equal Access To Children

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem----June 14.....How can one articulate witnessing a child being
taken away from his father?
A responsible, caring and loving dad who pays monthly child support and is
punctual for his two weekly "visits".
A dad who had his child taken away from him this week by an Israel Family
Court due to his exercise of free speech.

Yes, you heard it right.

This week, a friend of mine who works as an Israel Government Press Office
certified and registered journalist who has worked for UPI, Newsday, the
Israel Broadcasting Corporation, The Jerusalem Post and the Israel News
Agency was ordered to take psychiatric tests as a result of his open
editorial criticism of Israel's archaic, gender bias Custodian Law of 1962.
Something out of communist Moscow of 1975?

No, this is Israel 2005!

The veteran journalist, whose name and location has been changed to adhere
to the Israel Court Privacy Act and to protect his young son from further
damage, is a resident of Haifa.

The recently divorced dad, had an excellent defense (why is he on the
defensive) as he entered Israel Family Court. He has paid his monthly child
support, visits his young 4-year-old son twice a week on time, is a
respected member of his community, serves as a officer in the Israel Defense
Forces reserves, is an advisor to Israel's Foreign Ministry and works as a
journalist.

He originally had his child taken away from him by his wife when she went to
the Israel Family Court last November. She complained that this dad had
picked up their child from the kindergarten too early. For that reason and
without having a court hearing, he was ordered not to see his child for no
more than 6 hours a week.

The lack of due process did not stop or begin there.

A few months prior his ex-wife, a native of England, went to the Israel
police and charged him with sexual harassment. Again without a hearing, he
was evicted from his home for one week. All criminal charges were dismissed
a few weeks later.

OK, now let's move fast forward. In January the Israel journalist appeared
in Israel Family Court. He was told by the judge, "let's see how the next
few months go and if you are fine, I will consider joint custody." Those
were holy words to be said by a Israel Family Court judge who knows that all
children in Israel up to the age of six automatically go to the mother
unless she can be proved to be violent, using drugs or is a prostitute.

It's a long stretch from January to June, not seeing your child every day or
even for a few days a week. Many call this child abuse by the mother and
systematic child abuse by the Israel government.

So what happened in court? Easy. The mother, in a barbaric and twisted
attempt to destroy the father's crediability and take away all visitation
rights, took out news stories and editorials he had written criticizing
outdated Israel child custody laws and Israel's under staffed and under paid
child welfare system. The mother's attorney, Yossi, claimed that he was
"crazy" for having written such stories which have found their way into the
New York Times, The Jerusalem Post, the Israel News Agency and Google News.

The judge responded by ordering the Israel journalist to take a psychiatric
test or accept his status quo of seeing his child twice a week for a few
hours. The journalist responded stating that the news stories were his, that
he was proud of his work as a father's rights activist with Israel
Fathers4Justice, the Israel Fathers Rights Association, Horut Sheva and for
good measure displayed his Israel Government Press card for credibility.

The news stories were written in English. The judge does not speak English.
Yet, passed judgment.

Feel the chill from the Moscow River or perhaps shades of free speech as we
witness today in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Syria?

All this dad had asked for was equal access to his young son. Not full
custody. Not even joint custody, but equal access which has been documented
to be the healthiest path by the American Psychological Association.

What really happened here? The Israel Family Court judge never had any
intention of providing full or joint custody, even though the journalist
illustrated that the mother had been highly negligent to the child in
several respects. Why, if the father was crazy, does he still have
unsupervised visits twice a week?

Again the judge stated that she wanted "stability" for the young boy. The
journalist responded: "Why do you assume that the mother is stable?" The
journalist argued that if he had equal access he would be in a position to
maintain a better eye on the child's welfare. He also asked for the Monday
4 hour visit be changed into an overnight using the kindergarten as a
pick-up and drop off point for the child, therefore avoiding contact and
conflict with the mother.

The judge refused to increase his visitation by even one hour.

The Israel journalist, now faced with the option of accepting the status quo
until the child turns six or taking tests which would cost about 2,000 US
dollars, opted to request an extension to find a more seasoned family court
attorney to represent him. That bought him 45 days to make a decision. It
also sends a message to us all that if you have the money, you might be able
to "buy" joint custody!

It also buys the Israel media and the Israel Appeals Courts time to pick up
on a child custody story where a child is now being prevented from being
with his father with equal access due to the fact that the child's father is
a working journalist.

It's no wonder that 80 percent of all fathers who have been pushed away from
their children by an angry and disturbed wife, lose all contact with their
children after a short period of time.

The Israel government is presently reinforcing a highly destructive path for
both divorced dads and their children.

Children from fatherless homes account for: the majority of youth suicides,
teenage pregnancies, homeless and runaway children, juveniles in detention,
children with behavioral disorders, high school dropouts and adolescents who
abuse drugs.

They are the same statistics that have been rolled out for years by those
trying to change a court system that gives a great deal of power to the
custodial parent (usually the mother), and a welfare system that initially
demanded fathers be absent before benefits would be paid. Add to those
barriers built-up frustration on the part of the non-custodial father -- or
his selfishness -- and you have a recipe for father absenteeism. The
importance of a father's relationship with his children has been minimized,
and the people who suffer the most are the children. And yet, no one seems
to be making serious efforts to improve those father-child relationships.

David Cozart, community involvement manager at LexLinc, knows that. He knows
society has a dim view of most absent fathers, and he knows that view with
some fathers is deserved. But Cozart wants to change that.

"I didn't come to deal with these issues because of grown folks' problems,"
Cozart said, "but because of problems it is causing children." Cozart, some
community leaders and the Georgetown Street Neighborhood Association in the
US are sponsoring the "Fatherhood Celebration" at Douglass Park from noon
until 4 p.m. Saturday. Festivities will begin at the YMCA, 381 West Loudon
Avenue, with registration at 11 a.m., followed by a symbolic walk to
Douglass Park. "Activities will be focused around children," Cozart said,
"because this is really about children." There will be a picnic, so people
are encouraged to bring blankets. There will also be marbles and jacks, as
well as face painting, basketball, box hockey, chess and checkers, door
prizes and a resource fair.

Those resources will center on support available for fathers who are trying
to be, or have stopped trying to be, in their children's lives. The purpose
is to gather data, Cozart said, to determine needs and then to plan
follow-up programs to satisfy those needs. A third of all children are born
out of wedlock, he said, and half of all marriages end in divorce. That
means "two out of three children have a pretty good chance of being in a
family without a father," Cozart said. He hopes a variety of fathers will
attend: the non-custodial parent who has a child out of wedlock living in
Bluegrass Aspendale; the father who lives in Hartland and is divorced but
having a hard time with visitation; or the father who lives in Masterson
Station Park who has remarried, started a new family, and is having
difficulty fostering good relationships with children from his previous
marriage. While most fathers are doing what they should, many are not. "It
has to be something very strong, something very powerful or something
seriously wrong with an individual to turn their back on a child," Cozart
said.

As the mother of three, I don't understand how something like that could
happen. Unfortunately, history, the court and welfare systems have played a
role in making absenteeism acceptable in the past, Cozart said. "At one
point, it became pretty normal in many situations for a father to distribute
his sperm and go on about hi s business," he said. When men stepped aside,
many women stepped up, he said, and reared the family. Other women saw it
could be done and "that's when normalization began." Plus, he said, some
fathers are allowed to participate in their children's lives on ly when they
provide economically. When they can't, fathers are either blocked from
visitation or fade away on their own with a negative sense of self-worth. I
understand that. I do. I was a single, custodial parent struggling to keep
me and my daughter no more than knee deep in troubled waters. I had to work
and provide. Why shouldn't fathers? The children still have to eat and
survive.

Statistics show, Cozart said, that a lot of fathers are involved prenatally
and in the first few years of a child's life. Something brings that to an
end. Cozart said one of those "somethings" could be the troubled
relationship between the mother and father. He suggested poor interpersonal
relationship skills between parents, as well as power struggles and custody
battles, could be at fault.

"We need to identify those factors that have encouraged fathers to no longer
try" to see their children. There has to be some liaison or agency or agent
that gives non-custodial fathers the ability to weave through various
barriers for the betterment of their children, Cozart said, adding he hopes
that will begin with the celebration Saturday.

"The ordained order of family is father, mother and child," Cozart said. "A
child deserves his mother and father."

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Liberalism: that haunting fear that someone,
somewhere, can help themselves without
Government intervention.

Oops, sorry.. Forgot the link..

http://www.israelnewsagency.com/isra...ustody43440614.
html