Lyudmila Babuya, a former member of the Soviet parliament. Since then, Babuya has traveled the world to meet with members of the Jewish community and foreign governments. She is among the world’s most respected public intellectuals.

During the meeting in March 2010 with Palestinian officials and an Arab Israeli delegation, Moshe Rozin, Israel’s chief negotiator, called Babuya “the most powerful woman in the Arab world and the top female politician in the Arab world.”

The following month, Babuya was named the winner of the Human Rights Prize in the Arab world by the Foundation for Arab Studies in New York (FASN). In 2011, in a widely circulated video, she criticized Israeli policies as unfair to women, and her speeches drew worldwide attention. On Monday, Babuya and a delegation of 20 women participated in an anti-violence ceremony at West Bank City Hall.

FASN said at the time: “In the struggle against the occupation, there is a need for a strong women’s movement and to support and protect them. Babuya’s impact and her success was far more evident here in the Arab world than it was elsewhere. She has proved that women can achieve great things.”

In 2010 Rima Abdulrahman, a senior official of the World Health Organization and head for Human Rights Affairs in Doha, Qatar, said, “The Israeli regime’s conduct against women is deplorable. There is no question that they have committed war crimes. The world can’t remain silent about that and should do all that it can to stop the abuse.”

In 2011, her country’s prime minister, Hazem al-Beblawi, went to Gaza to try to restore peace between the two sides. The U.N. human rights office said he was “delusional” for thinking he could reach a settlement without the presence of women.

Abdulrahman told TheWSWS on Tuesday that she was particularly surprised by the Israeli leader’s insistence that Israel would maintain its military presence in Gaza. The country has destroyed all the homes and fields of Gaza to deny the people access, she said.

She urged the U.A.E. to take up Babuya’s cause and stop this systematic violation of international human rights.

“The reality is that women in Israel feel that not only are they denied the right to work, but also the right to be