I recently saw a sign that read: “There are a million reasons for abuse, but not a single excuse.”

Sharon* (name has been changed) came into my office last week after being a client for almost a year. Over the past few weeks, she has been working towards disclosing a “secret.” Finally, through an established trusting relationship, Sharon was ready to tell me her “secret.” She is 16 years old and has had a 19-year-old boyfriend for almost a year. She was finally able to disclose to me how abusive this young man has been to her. Having told me of various forms of abuse, she also stated how angry she is at him, while at the same time she says that she cares for him.

Sharon described the abusive relationship with this young man, telling me many of the terrible things he had done to her, while, at the same time, attempting to defend his actions. She did this by putting herself down with a perception that she is not worthy of more and better than what she got. Why do people get themselves into such relationships where they see themselves as the cause, and even accept responsibility, for the perpetrator’s behaviors?

What makes an abusive relationship? Let’s remember, abuse is illegal, immoral, and inhumane. Often the abuse is clouded with caring messages and visions of allure. These abusive relationships are often characterized by such behaviors as extreme jealousy, controlling, emotional withholding, rage, and verbal abuse as well as physical and sexual abuse. Such relationships often start out as happy and provide a sense of togetherness.

In most situations of abuse, the perpetrator is the male, though this is not always the case. A common feature is the over-controlling man who soon needs to know every move of his partner and gets upset with her should he not be informed. The woman often finds herself more isolated from her old friends, and on the receiving end of endless questions from her partner. Soon the partner starts losing interest in old friends and things once enjoyed.

Everyone has heard the songs about how much love can hurt. But that doesn’t mean physical harm; someone who loves you should never abuse you. Healthy relationships involve respect, trust, and consideration for the other person. Love and caring should not mean constantly worrying about the possibility of being hurt or of the end of the relationship. In the United States, it has been disclosed that one out of every 11 high school dates reports some form of physical abuse.

Abuse can be physical, emotional, or sexual. Slapping, hitting, and kicking are forms of physical abuse that can occur in both romances and friendships. Emotional abuse (such as teasing, bullying and humiliating others) can be difficult to recognize because it doesn’t leave any visible scars. Threats, intimidation, putdowns and betrayal are all harmful forms of emotional abuse that can really hurt – not just during the time it’s happening, but long after, as well. As my client Sharon can testify, all these forms of abuse result in low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. In addition, the victim often starts relating to life in a victim mode and adopts such an attitude to all life experiences.

The first step an abuse victim must take is the realization that no one deserves to be taken advantage of and no one deserves to be abused. The victim must realize it is the perpetrator who must accept total responsibility for his behavior. No matter what the victim has done, it is the perpetrator that is ultimately responsible for what he or she has done. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Those victims who cannot realize this fact must seek treatment to unlock the hidden causes of this sense of unworthiness for their own sense of dignity.

What happens to the victim who continues to see herself as such, where there is no resolution and closure with the perpetrator? Emotionally abused children often grow up to be emotionally abused teens that also grow up to be abused, and abusive, adults. Often these victims perceive themselves as hopeless, helpless and unworthy. Our society has countless professionals who work with such individuals. Such people often struggle with stress, dissolving relationships, fragmented family values and pain. There is a connection between emotional abuse and hypertension, eating disorders, ulcers, sleep disorders and countless other heath-related problems.

Research has often found a relationship between teens who are self-abusive and who have been abused in some form or another. This is a topic of its own, which I might address in this column in the future. However, briefly, self-harm has been defined as “a variety of behaviors in which an individual intentionally inflicts harm to his or her body for purposes not socially recognized or sanctioned and without suicidal intent.” In a published article by a Cornell University research program on self-injurious behaviors in adolescents and young adults, it was found in clinical populations that self-injury is strongly linked to childhood abuse, especially childhood sexual abuse.

In addition, there was evidence that earlier, more severe abuse and abuse by a family member may lead to greater dissociation and thus greater self-injury. Self-injury is also linked to eating disorders, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression and anxiety disorders. The lack of empirical research in non-clinical populations reinforces the assumption that most or all of self-injurious behaviors is a product of pre-existing disorders; however, in more recent research in general populations of adolescent and young adults, this has been challenged.

Back to my client, Sharon*, who is now heavily into serious drugs, missing many of her school classes and starting to alienate herself from her mother with whom she was so close. Sharon’s behaviors don’t just affect her. Her mother has sleepless nights, is now struggling with health issues of her own due to the aggravation and has lost much too much weight due to the stress and worry about her daughter.

Though Sharon’s parents are divorced, her father, who used to be a good place for Sharon to visit, has now been pulled into the picture in a negative manner as he has become extremely critical of her and very judgmental. This leaves Sharon feeling even more alone and more desperate, which in turn leads her to more injurious behaviors. Though she understands that she is on a very destructive path, she does not see how, nor want, to resolve the situation, as she now feels too desperate, hopeless and useless.

Not only are these clients draining on their families, they are likewise draining on the therapist who is trying, at times literally, to save a life.

We must not only worry about our teens, but our unmarried and married children as well. Self- abusive behaviors and bad relationships can sneak up when least expected. Let’s be there to be aware and supportive.

Mr. Schild is the Executive Director of Regesh Family and Child Services in Toronto, Ontario Canada. Regesh runs many programs helping families and youth dealing with personal and family issues in their lives. He can be reached at 416-495-8832 extension 222 or eschild@regesh.com. Visit www.regesh.com.

Cleaning out some old files last week, the Monitor was reminded how fickle the media can be in the matter of designating heroes and villains, and how a world leader can go from slug to statesman merely by falling into line with the media’s preconceived notions of right and wrong.

By the time Ariel Sharon slipped into an apparently irreversible coma in January 2006, he had, improbably enough, become a media favorite whose departure from the scene was almost universally characterized as a major blow to hopes for Mideast peace.

Of course, Sharon by then had done a complete ideological about-face, overseeing just months earlier the expulsion of nearly 10,000 Jews from Gaza and promising more concessions to come. As far as the media were concerned, what was not to love?

It was a different story back in the fall of 1998, when then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Sharon foreign minister, a move that certified Sharon’s return from the political wilderness. In an editorial remarkable for its name-calling and general nastiness, The New York Times described Sharon as “an implacable foe of the Palestinians”; “reckless”; “leaving destruction in his wake”; and “capable of wrecking the entire peace effort.”

It was as if the Times editorial board had been visited by an apparition of Menachem Begin and spooked into recycling its favored stock phrases about Israel circa 1982. But it was Sharon’s election as prime minister, in January 2001, that inspired a near apocalyptic media reaction.

As the Monitor noted at the time, Reuters headlined a post-election report “Sharon Win Casts Pall Over Mideast Peace Prospects,” as if all was well until the portly old general showed up to spoil the fun.

But the Reuters headline had nothing on this one from London’s left-wing Guardian: “Israel Gives Up On Peace With Sharon Victory” – a headline that served to expand on the theme of warmongering Israel dashing the noble efforts of that munificent elder statesman Yasir Arafat.

The Guardian headline was only the appetizer to the story by Jerusalem correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg, who immediately got to the point: “Israel,” she wrote (in syntax so disjointed it gives the lie to the notion that the Brits hold some sort of patent on proper English), ‘‘yielded to the dark fears unleashed by a Palestinian uprising yesterday, voting by a staggering margin to entrust their future to a man famous for making war, Ariel Sharon.”

Also in The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland compared Sharon to the notorious French xenophobe Jean-Marie Le Pen, and in case his readers didn’t get the allusion to a far-right politician widely reviled for his allegedly racist and sectarian views, Freedland helpfully explained that ‘‘Israel, by a massive landslide, turned to a man who has spent two decades as an international byword for extremism – a global hate figure – and elevated him to the top job…. For anyone who wishes peace for that nation and its neighbors, today is among the darkest of days.’’

Freedland then went on to almost gleefully predict “ostracism” for Israel, “as the world community turns a cold shoulder toward a nation led by a thug…. The country’s link with the Jewish diaspora will weaken, too; Jews in the United States, Britain and elsewhere may want less to do with an Israel that could choose Sharon as its leader.” Finally, no media roundup from the land of tea and crumpets would be complete without a contribution from The Independent’s Robert Fisk, a Palestinian sycophant from way back.

“For once,” Fisk fairly gloated, “the nation that so often points to the bloodstained hands of its Arab enemies will have its very own home-grown blood-splattered leader.” Meanwhile, Newsweek’s Joshua Hammer typified the reaction of the American media to Sharon’s election: “Before he had even formed a government,” Hammer ominously intoned, “Ariel Sharon radicalized both sides of the Arab-Israeli dispute…. Sharon was willing to talk peace, but only on his own terms.’’

And Hammer quoted “a senior Israeli military source” who supposedly observed that “When … cars start exploding in the middle of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, then we’ll see how short [Sharon’s] fuse really is. He’ll be out there … doing whatever it will take to stamp it out. But there is a price to be paid – and the price may be war.”

Never mind that it’s almost impossible to imagine “a senior Israeli military source” saying something even remotely resembling that quote, especially given the mood in Israel at the time – the very mood that made Sharon’s landslide win over Ehud Barak possible.

A better question: Why is it that when a reporter uses anonymous or unattributed quotes, those quotes almost always reflect what one strongly suspects are the reporter’s own views?

Jason Maoz can be reached at jmaoz@jewishpress.com

To learn more about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), and to read their plan for Israel’s future, visit www.jewishisrael.org.

To learn more about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), or to order Feiglin’s newest book, “The War of Dreams,” visit http://www.jewishisrael.org/.

It looks like the Israeli government is preparing to release approximately 1,000 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit.

How many Israelis will die as a result of this deal? Anything over zero is likely to be right. A conservative estimate is about 100.

How many soldiers will be abducted? How many parents will find themselves in the shoes of the Shalit family? A conservative estimate is about 10.

If the implications of the deal are so clear, why is Israel’s government proceeding with the plan?

The murdered and abducted of the future have no present political significance, for it is only the current captives who are shaking government seats. Israel suffers from a complete loss of values and destiny, and the politicians have nothing more to do than ensure their personal political survival. Gilad Shalit is a threat to this survival. Future captives are not.

So what should we do? Abandon Gilad Shalit? Israel should eliminate Hamas’s political leaders one by one until Shalit is freed. We should make it clear that if any harm befalls him, their entire political elite will be eliminated – with no exceptions. If the head of Hamas is directing the negotiations for Shalit’s release, then he is the person responsible for the fact that Shalit is still in captivity. As Shalit’s captor, he deserves to die.

So why doesn’t Israel proceed to eliminate the Hamas leadership?

Most of us remember that Ariel Sharon released 436 terrorists in exchange for Israeli drug dealer Elchanan Tannenbaum. Sharon applied heavy pressure on his government ministers to approve the deal, even though many initially opposed it. Tannenbaum was not a soldier captured in the line of duty. He was a drug dealer who endangered his own life while pursuing illegal money.

Sharon bulldozed the deal through the cabinet, and Tannenbaum was later released from an Israeli prison before completing his full sentence. At that point, I already felt that the only explanation for Sharon’s strange behavior was that Tannenbaum had something on him. I could not explain to myself in any other way how the government could approve such an insane deal. According to reports from the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs Committee, 29 Israeli citizens have been murdered by terrorists released in exchange for this lowlife. The Tannenbaum deal also created motivation to abduct additional soldiers. Clearly, the motivation to kidnap Gilad Shalit was triggered in part by the inordinately high price paid in the Tannenbaum deal and in previous prisoner exchanges.

My next question is seemingly unrelated to the abduction of soldiers. Why did Sharon insist on making Ehud Olmert the No. 2 man in his government? Olmert was in 33rd place on the Likud list at the time – a most unlikely candidate for the No. 2 spot. Why did Sharon make him deputy prime minister, the position that eventually afforded him the premiership of the State of Israel?

A 60-page report, titled “The British Gas Government,” based almost entirely on public sources, ties Tannenbaum, Sharon and many other currently serving Israeli leaders to the British Gas Company and to its owner, billionaire Martin Schlaf. It seems that Schlaf buys politicians like houses in a Monopoly game and then uses them for his business needs. Yasir Arafat was one of Schlaf’s first “acquisitions.” Schlaf received a hefty portion of the Jericho casino profits in exchange for doing favors. (Arafat’s private jet was owned by Martin Schlaf.)

The document also identifies the source of the surprising wealth of some very prominent politicians in Israel who have never worked a day in their lives. It explains why Israel did not develop the natural gas field off the Haifa coast, preferring to sign a dubious contract with the British Gas company, which is drilling – you guessed it – off the coast of Gaza.

Yes, it seems that Tannenbaum has some very unpleasant information about a number of Israeli politicians who are snugly in the pocket of Martin Schlaf. Lucky for us, Schlaf is not interested in an Israeli military strike on Gaza that could endanger his business interests off the coast.

I often explain that Israel is in limbo because it has lost its Jewish vision. On the tactical plane, that essential loss of vision finds its expression in nearly incomprehensible levels of personal corruption.

If you have been asking yourself why Israel does not eliminate the terror leaders responsible for Shalit’s abduction (or other questions such as: Why are we stuck with this despicable character for a prime minister? Why can’t Israel beat the Kassams? And why doesn’t Israel’s leadership take effective action?) – Just remember the name Martin Schlaf.

To learn more about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), visit http://www.jewishisrael.org/.

(*Names changed)

You can contact me at annnovick@hotmail.com

In a recent article for FrontPageMag.com, Kenneth Levin (whose most recent contribution to The Jewish Press was the April 20 page-one essay “The Empty Rage of Jewish ‘Progressives’”) took off on Steven Erlanger, the putrid Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times. In the course of his critique, Levin recalled a particularly egregious example of biased reporting by a former Times Jerusalem correspondent named William Orme.

Levin’s mention of Orme triggered memories of when the Times’s coverage of Israel reached an all-time low, thanks in large measure to Orme and wife Deborah Sontag, who happened to be the Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief.

How bad was Orme? On Oct. 1, 2000, he began a front-page story in the Times on the recently launched Palestinian intifada by writing that the violence had been “set off by the defiant visit on Thursday of a right-wing Israeli leader, Ariel Sharon, to the steps of the ancient mosques atop Jerusalem’s Old City.”

The article only got worse as it went on, a textbook example of advocacy journalism. To start with the highly subjective lead, if Orme’s use of “defiant” isn’t a clear-cut instance of editorializing, nothing is. (Orme would use the same word to describe the Sharon visit three days later in another front-page piece.)

Note also how Orme described the site of Sharon’s visit: “ancient mosques atop Jerusalem’s Old City.” Not a word about the Temple Mount or its central place in Judaism.

Orme was just warming up. Describing the tragic shooting of Mohammed al Dura, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy caught in a crossfire between Arab snipers and Israeli soldiers (the circumstances of the incident would be the subject of fierce debate for years afterward), Orme painted a graphic word picture – “The excruciating scene … the boy’s screams … the father’s cries of horror” and dutifully quoted a senior adviser to PA Chairman Yasir Arafat who condemned the “killing in cold blood [of] an innocent child.”

Orme then immediately followed with this loaded line:

“There was little reaction [to the boy’s slaying] from Israelis, many of whom spent the day strolling to synagogues and family gatherings on the Rosh Hashanah holiday….”

By juxtaposing the “excruciating scene” of gunfire and bloodshed with an almost pastoral image of “strolling” Israelis oblivious to the nearby turmoil, Orme managed to convey a startling contrast of horror and holiday – dueling images with Israel, as usual, ending up on the sharp edge of the shiv.

But Orme’s most blatant bit of editorializing appeared toward the end of the piece, in this extraordinary paragraph:

“Israeli army spokesmen said the troops came under fire from the Palestinian police. But television footage of the incident, including the shooting of the 12-year-old boy, and the absence of any serious Israeli casualties, served to reinforce the Palestinians’ belief that the Israelis were responding with disproportionate force.”

Notice Orme’s wholly subjective tone and transparent agreement with Palestinian claims, as in his clever use of the phrase “served to reinforce.” It happened that much of the footage in question could best be characterized as chaotic and confusing (as is usually the case in tense and dangerous situations), and therefore the one thing it could not do was “reinforce” anything other than perhaps some preconceived notions on the part of a New York Times correspondent.

Orme passed the Israel-bashing baton to his wife the next day. In her October 2 article, Deborah Sontag claimed “It is widely believed [in Israel] that the present violence was touched off by Mr. Sharon’s visit on Thursday.”

What, precisely, does “widely believed” mean here? Did Sontag take a poll? Did she speak with the left-wing editors at Haaretz? Did William Orme suggest it over breakfast?

But what could one have expected from Sontag, who upon Sharon’s election as prime minister a few months later described him as an “unreconstructed Zionist” – a curious choice of words, seemingly suggesting that unadulterated Zionism is something enlightened individuals are expected to outgrow, if not disassociate themselves from. You know – enlightened individuals like the ones at The New York Times.

Point of reference: the executive editor of the Times during the heyday of Sontag/Orme’s almost daily journalistic assaults on Israel was Joseph Lelyveld, who in a recent article in the left-wing New York Review of Books essentially justified Jimmy Carter’s application of the term “apartheid” to Israeli policies. The pieces eventually come together, don’t they?