Earlier today, Muslims demonstrated in Antwerp to oppose the banning of headscarves in two schools–and the new Swedish head of the European Union, Justice Minister Beatrice Ask, stated that the “27 member European Union must not dictate an Islamic dress code…(that) the European Union is a union of freedom.” As my readers know, yesterday, al-Qaeda threatened France because President Sarkozy had called for a ban on the burqa.

Clearly, this is a major issue in Europe where anywhere from 30-50 million Muslims live. Paradoxically, various European countries have banned or restricted the far less restrictive headscarf (hijab) in schools, universities, and courtrooms–but have not yet restricted the far more smothering burqa. Perhaps hijab is seen as the “nose of the camel,” a garment which, if allowed, will lead Europe right down the slippery slope to more oppressively restricted clothing for Muslim-European women.

Could this issue arise in America with its much smaller Muslim population? Is this an issue we must address?

America is a nation of immigrants, one that is dedicated to freedom of religion and to the separation of religion and state. Thus, most Americans are probably inclined to accept that wearing the Islamic burqa (full-face-and-body shroud), niqab (Islamic face mask), and hijab (Islamic headscarf) is a religious choice and should therefore be protected as a religious right. If not, it is feared, other religious symbols and practices might also be banned; and America would be indulging in religious persecution.

For the moment, I do not want to discuss the politicization of Islamic female attire as a visual statement on behalf of Islamist supremacism and jihad, nor do I want to focus on the headscarf (hijab). In fact, I do not yet want to address whether such Islamic female attire ( burqa, niqab, hijab) is a free or a forced choice and whether or not it is mandated by the Qu’ran.

Religious Muslim scholars and other experts disagree profoundly about this. Some say that such attire is merely a pre-Islamic, desert-based custom that has nothing to do with Islam. For example, in 2009, the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) urged Canada’s government to ban the burka. Mafooz Kanwar, a professor and an MCC director stated: “The burka is not mandated by Islam or the Qur’an and is therefore not religious and protected under the Charter. In Canada, gender equality is one of our core values and faces are important identifying tools and should not be covered. Period.”

Other Muslim scholars insist that such attire is an Islamic custom (if not an actual law) which women must follow in order to be “modest.”

World-wide, many Muslim women do not mask their faces, shroud their bodies, or cover their hair–but many do, especially if they have been threatened with beatings or death if they are not sufficiently “covered.” An increasing number of Muslim women in the West, including educated women, claim that they are freely choosing to wear hijab, the headscarf.

In 2007, Middle East scholar, Daniel Pipes called for a ban on burqas and niqab –not on headscarves. Pipes views the burqa as a security risk and cites literally hundreds of cases in which both common criminals and Islamist terrorists were able to commit robberies, make their escapes or blow themselves and others up, both in the West and in the Muslim world, by wearing a burqa. Male criminals and terrorists did this far more often than their female counterparts. Pipes concludes:

“Nothing in Islam requires turning females into shapeless, faceless zombies; good sense calls for modesty itself to be modest. The time has come everywhere to ban from public places these hideous, unhealthy, socially divisive, terrorist-enabling, and criminal-friendly garments.”

Today, al-Qaeda threatened France over the ostensible issue of the burqa. Tommorrow, America will be in their gun sights on this same issue.

The burqa, niqab — even hijab — are being used as pawns in the power struggle between jihadic Islam and the West. These dress codes are primarily political in nature.

For those people who really and truly believe that the burqa is a religious and not a political/jihadic issue — consider this:

According to the United States monitoring service SITE Intelligence, al-Qaeda has just announced that it plans to “take revenge on France for its opposition to the burka, calling on Muslims to retaliate against the country.” Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, head of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said:

“Yesterday was the hijab (the Islamic headscarf long banned in French schools) and today, it is the niqab (the full veil). We will take revenge for the honour of our daughters and sisters against France and against its interests by every means at our disposal … for us, the mujahedeen … we will not remain silent to such provocations and injustices. We call upon all Muslims to confront this hostility with greater hostility.”

Does anyone really believe that al-Qaeda is a religious group? Or that their religious pronouncements are holy and should be protected by American or European laws?

In a many months-old video, al-Qaeda number two, al-Zawahiri, also condemned the French law (which banned hijab) saying “the decision showed the grudge the Western crusaders have against Islam.” Zawahiri claimed to be speaking in Bin Laden’s name.

Al-Qaeda now has an Algerian-based Salafist-oriented group which is being encouraged to attack either pro-French Algerians or Frenchmen. Or both.

Le Pauvre Algerienne. For nearly twenty years, Algerian women have been pawns in the power struggle between Islamists and the Algerian government.

According to attorney Karima Bennoune, from 1992 on, Algerian Islamist men committed a series of “terrorist atrocities” against Algerian women. Bennoune describes the “kidnapping and repeated raping of young girls as sex slaves for armed fundamentalists. The girls were also forced to cook and clean for God’s warriors. … [O]ne 17-year-old girl was repeatedly raped until pregnant. She was kidnapped off the street and held with other young girls, one of whom was shot in the head and killed when she tried to escape.” As in Iran, “unveiled,” educated, independent Algerian women were seen as “military targets” and were increasingly shot on sight. According to Bennoune, “the men of Algeria (were) arming, the women of Algeria (were) veiling themselves. As one woman said: ‘Fear is stronger than our will to be free.’”

In 2006, in a small claims matter in Michigan, a Muslim woman, Ginnah Muhammed, refused to take off her face mask (niqab) while she testfied. Judge Paul Paruk dismissed her case. Muhammed sued, the ACLU backed her. They argued for a “religious exception” to courtroom attire. Although Muhammed’s small claim case was against a car rental agency, here is what Michael Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan stated:

“The Michigan Supreme Court should not slam the door of justice on a category of women just because of their religious belief…Under the proposed rule, women who are sexually assaulted do not have their day in court if they wear a veil mandated by their religion.”

Sexual assault was not at issue nor was the victim afraid that testifying might lead to her death. Leave it to the ACLU to always get it wrong.

Finally, earlier this month, on June 17, 2009, the Michigan Supreme Court, in a 5-2 vote, ruled that a Judge had the power to “require witnesses to remove head or facial covering as (the witness) was testifying.” A Judge has the right to see a witness’s “facial expressions” to determine her “truthfulness” while she testifies.

Expect many more such cases. Indeed, expect Ginnah Muhammed to appeal this right up to the Supreme Court.

Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have gone to court in Florida (2002), California (2005) , Michigan (2008), and Oklahoma (2008) to fight for a Muslim woman’s right to cover her hair or face—whether it is while being photographed for a driver’s license or for a police mug shot; or while working at McDonald’s or Abercrombie Kids. In 2007, CAIR wrote a letter on behalf of a Muslim woman in Georgia who refused to remove her headscarf in order to enter a courtroom to plead “not guilty” to a traffic ticket. In 2004, the Justice Department supported a lawsuit brought on behalf of a sixth grade student in Oklahoma who wanted to wear hijab in her public school. That same year, the school reviewed their policy, amended their dress code, paid the student an undisclosed sum, and allowed her to attend classes wearing hijab.

Religious Muslims are outraged that Christians can wear crucifixes, nuns and priests can wear habits, Jews can wear skullcaps or wigs and head coverings, Sikhs can wear turbans, Hindus can wear veils and saris–but that Muslims cannot wear burqas or niqab.

Of course, only the Islamic female religious attire masks all five senses and makes human interaction almost impossible. Hijab (a headcovering) is another matter entirely and is not under discussion here.

Many conservatives and religious people do not want the government telling them how to dress or limiting their private religious practices. Most progressives, including feminists, view the burqa, (full face and body shroud), niqab, (face mask plus head and body covering), and hijab (headcovering so that no hair shows), as either a Muslim woman’s religious right or as her culturally sanctioned expression of modesty. In addition, they may see the ban on the burqa as a form of “racial profiling,” or as “Islamophobic.”

I appreciate but respectfully disagree with both views. I believe that we must ban the burqa and niqab not only for reasons of national security, (something that Daniel Pipes has already argued), but also for health-related reasons–and on the grounds of women’s rights and human rights.

I will develop this argument at length in the future.

The world has just watched the cold-blooded murder of Neda in Teheran. The last sentence she uttered was: “Death to the Dictator.” Many of us are now about to see the haunting film about the real-life stoning of another Iranian woman, known as Soraya M. These two tragedies took place in a Muslim country.

The blood of real (not just reel) Muslim women, murdered either by the state or by their families, continues to cry out—not only in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa but also in the West.

Two days ago, on June 24, 2009, in Germany, a Turkish father, Mehmet O, a kebab shop owner, repeatedly knifed his fifteen-year-old daughter, Bursa, while she was sleeping. Despite the fact that Bursa, her mother, and her sister all wore hijab, Mehmet O. still felt Bursa was too “westernized,” and that she did not want her “strict Muslim father to control her life.” Bursa’s friends described her as a “fun-loving girl, (who) loved hip hop music….But that is no reason to kill someone.”

This is certainly not the first honor killing in Germany or in Europe by a Muslim father or brother.

Earlier this year, on March 4, 2009, a Turkish brother strangled his 20-year-old twin-sister, Gulsum Semin, because she allegedly had an abortion. Her father has been arrested as an accessory to this murder.

On July 3, 2008, in Norway, an Iraqi woman, Vian Bakir Fatah, who had divorced her violent husband, converted to Christianity, and was dating a Norwegian man, was stabbed to death by her ex-husband and by her violent 16-year-old son.

On May 15, 2008, Ahmad-Sobair Obeidi, a twenty-four-year old Afghan, brutalized his 16-year-old sister, Morsal for months—then stabbed her twenty three times in a parking lot. He was ashamed of his sister for wearing “inappropriate clothing” and felt that she had “disconnected from her family.” Ahmad himself had a long history of criminal behavior. Obeidi was sentenced to life in prison.

In June, of 2005, a Turkish 25-year-old brother, Ali Karabey, repeatedly shot his 20-year-old sister, Gonul Karabey, in a garden shed to prevent her from marrying her German boyfriend. In 2006, this brother received a life sentence. As in so many other honor killings, Ali promised his sister that he would help with the marriage if they met.

Deceit, trickery, and false promises sometimes play a role in honor killing. In 2007, in Toronto, Aqsa Parvez was lured from a shelter for battered women by her family who told her that they missed her so much they couldn’t sleep. In 2008, in Dallas, the Said sisters were lured to their deaths by their mother Tissie who told them that their father really wanted to work things out.

As far as I’m concerned, Frenchmen are back in vogue. Who could ever have predicted that the French president would stand up for women’s universal rights and for freedom as a universal right — while the American president would hang back, wait, temporize? It’s almost as if we’ve elected a Frenchman president of the United States — and an American-style president is ruling France.

Please contrast the following two speeches.

On June 22th, 2009, President Nicholas Sarkozy stated that he viewed the full-body burqa and niquab as a sign of the “debasement” of women and that it won’t be welcome in France. According to the glorious Sarkozy:

“In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity … The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement — I want to say it solemnly, it will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.”

France has Europe’s largest Muslim population, an estimated 5 million people. Many are hostile to the western enterprise, but some are in the vocal forefront of the fight for women’s and human rights. In 2004, France passed a law “banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad.”

Now, contrast Sarkozy’s words with what President Obama said in Cairo on June 4th, 2009.

“Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.”

This is why I described Obama’s Cairo speech as “throwing Muslim women under the bus.” Obama is literally signaling to the Muslim world that they will be able to create a parallel universe in the land of the free and the home of the brave — and will be able to continue to use our laws to do so.

(I know, I know, Obama also threw Israel under the bus — and yet, some say that his speech was also calculated, careful, respectful — a give-peace-a-chance kind of speech to an audience that has continually called for “death to America.” )

Now, contrast how the two Presidents recently discussed the police riots in the streets of Iran.

Iran is on fire. And as I watch a potentially revolutionary, internet-driven uprising unfold over vote-counting, (vote-counting!) and not over the torture, unlawful imprisonment, and mass murder of Iranian citizens by its own leaders, I only now begin to appreciate the possible psychological impact of that first free, public election held in Iraq, courtesy of brave American blood.

I have been watching the coverage and reading the news about what is happening in the streets of Teheran. I’ve also been contacting Iranian dissident friends and colleagues. I am terrified and outraged (by the heartless Iranian regime), thrilled (by the bravery of so many young Iranians), mortified (by my own government’s cautious refusal to “take sides”). After all, we are talking about a nuclear-obsessed tyranny that has threatened to genocidally exterminate Israel and to re-establish a world-wide Caliphate. Yes, on American soil too if they can.

Several young Ivy League students tried to explain it to me. Quite simply: If America does anything, we will be accused of “colonialism, racism, imperialism, and over-reaching.”

Oh, is that all? Thus, while Iranian youth risks its life and its lifelong health in the streets, our youth, fatally indoctrinated by the professorial disciples of Stalin and Said, remains primarily concerned with how the world sees us, with whether we look good or not in the eyes of evil tyrants. President Obama represents them well, he’s their main man.

Yes, I appreciate Obama’s ostensible eloquence, and the genuinely “pretty” figure that he cuts; he could easily be a movie star, a rock star, a basketball star. I am now convinced that many young American voters want a President who looks like this and who sounds like a “cool,” left European.

While America may not be economically able to ride to the rescue each time evil rears its ugly head abroad, and while we may have an economy, an educational, and a health care system in urgent need of rescue first—still, are we not obliged to have a principled and universal view in favor of freedom, democracy, human rights, and women’s rights?

Yes, even if President Bush had one too? Yes, even if we ourselves are imperfect? After all, aren’t we the country that finds torture abhorrent? Is torture only abhorrent when Americans allegedly perpetrate it on Muslim jihadists captured in battle—but not when Muslims perpetrate it on innocent Muslim civilians? What kind of diabolical double standard is this?

Anyway, the fashionable European approach will not work. Appeasement never does.

Even after Obama bowed, low, to the Saudi King, flattered the Islamic world in Cairo with lies and half-truths—offered it Israel’s neck on the chopping block, threw Muslim women under the bus, and refused to condemn the Iranian regime for seven days—even then, the Ayatollah, his henchmen, and their supporters called for “Death to America, Death to Britain, Death to Israel.”

Dr. Afshin Ellian who teaches Philosophy of Law at Leiden University, Netherlands, sent me a copy of his Open Letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, which he published in the European edition of the Wall Street Journal.

He writes to me: “Iranian people are really in danger. I hope that democracy and reason overcome the tyranny and irrationality of militant Muslims. The distribution of this letter is very important, please do what in your opinion is necessary. Maybe we can influence the opinion of politicians.”

Ellian describes the monstrous tyranny that has imprisoned all Iran for the last thirty years: The mass, anonymous graves, the continuous torture and murder of political opponents and of peaceful dissidents alike. Ellian writes: “The ruling elite is despised by the people…your puppet Ahmadinejad is reviled. The revolution that had begun in freedom, ended in the rule of President Ahmadinejad, with anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial…many like me feel a deep shame at this uncivilized and un-Persian anti-Semitism.”

While noting that the “mothers of the members of my family who were executed will never forgive you,” Ellian nevertheless promises Khamenei that “they will let you withdraw peacefully, for the sake of freedom and of their grandchildren.” Ellian’s Ph.D thesis is on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Based on this work, Ellian believes that it is, theoretically, possible “for a political transition to take place peacefully (in Iran) and without the shedding of blood.”

I know, I know: Moussavi (unless he’s just had a massive change of heart and mind), is not that different from Amadinejad. I realize that the people are not just risking their lives because of uncounted votes; rather, they are protesting thirty years of being confined in a prison state. I know that women’s rights are key to their protest. Even Moussavi has called for an end to the stoning of women.

Soona Samsani is a religious Iranian Muslim who lives in exile but who never ceases to fight for Iran’s freedom. She is a member of the National Council of Resistance, a group led by Maryam Rajavi that has wrongfully been classified as a “terrorist” group.

Samsani is the one who helped organize a very impressive United States Senate press hearing on the matter of Iran. I spoke for her group in D.C., about Islamic gender apartheid on a panel whose words were beamed up live via satellite into Europe, the Middle East, and Iran and simultaneously translated into Farsi, Kurdish, and Arabic.

I again spoke for her at the United Nations where I saw Samsani personally and impressively face down eight hijabbed members of the Iranian delegation. She also organized the Iranians who “sat in” to protest Amadinejad at the United Nations. In fact, she came to visit and brought two other Iranians along, including a Zoroastrian—a very sweet man who described the extraordinary persecution of his people by the Islamist Iranians.

Samsani responded to my note of concern and support in this way: “Please write a story in support of women and youth in Iran demonstrating. So many killed today.” Others have told me that at least 40% of the demonstrators are women. There have been some unconfirmed reports that, in the last 24 hours, women have been shot on sight for not wearing any—or for not wearing proper—“covering.” She told me about the very large rally just held in Paris. Now, she tells me this:

“Hundreds of students from universities in Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz and many other cities have been arrested in recent days. Agents of the mullahs’ notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) late on Tuesday raided the dormitory for female students at Abu-Ali Sina University in Hamedan. They assaulted the female students and arrested a number of them, dragging them on the ground into vehicles belonging to the MOIS.”

I wonder whether or when American and European feminists will stand up for the women and pro-women activists risking their lives in Teheran? I have just been told that the long-time NOW leadership has been ousted and that a new day has dawned. Stay tuned for more details. I will certainly press them to issue a statement on behalf of freedom in Iran.

The moment one speaks out, one becomes a Rorschach test for every quarrelsome citizen with a laptop and the target of every ideologue’s wrath. But, to paraphrase Edmund Burke: All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men, (and women), to do nothing.

Ultimately, those who remain opportunistically silent tacitly end up collaborating with evil. Standing up and speaking out is our obligation as free men and women.

President Obama is failing that mission in his refusal to speak out on behalf of the Iranian people who are finally—finally!–risking their lives to protest the Iranian mullahcracy. President Sarkozy is to be congratulated for having spoken out so strongly on their behalf. This odd discrepancy has been duly noted both by our own Roger Simon and by Ralph Peters at the New York Post.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is also to be congratulated for his grave and carefully reasoned speech. Unsurprisingly, he is, of course, being attacked by some members of his own party and, as we knew all along, by Palestinian leaders who still wish to exterminate Israel more than they wish to create their own Palestinian state. If you don’t believe me on this, perhaps you’ll believe the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press on this.

And then there’s me, swimming vigorously along in my own small pond. Since 2002-2003, I have been pointing out that we live in post-Orwellian times, that the linguistic and propagandistic reversals of reality are as surreal as they are effective. As many of us have now said: things are no longer what most pundits say or think they are; in fact, they are often the very opposite; everything is upside down, we are on our own, with only our wits to guide us. Choose the wrong leaders and you might find yourself drinking poison-laced Kool-Aid.

Thus, terrorists are only “militant” freedom-fighters, the Israelis are the new “Nazis,” American Christians are endangering liberty and women far more than Islamic countries or Islamist death-eating gangs are, etc.

Thus, I decided to fight back by employing the language of lying propagandists in order to tell some incredibly suppressed truths. My blog yesterday was titled End the Illegal Occupation of Jerusalem. Many people have read this and many have posted interesting comments.

I scored a bull’s eye. This morning, I received an email from a prominent Israeli woman, someone I have known for at least 35 years. Yes, she has consciously modeled her work on that of American feminists and progressives who have long been the all-too-willing hostages of the Democratic party, but she is also a smart and accomplished woman. She is learned, eloquent, and does good deeds on earth. Unlike me, she has moved from “right” to “left.” (I am no longer sure such designations help us understand anything but that’s the subject of another blog). In truth, I believe she has been taken over by the “dark side”—and she would say the same of me. She writes, in response to my blog:

“I don’t know who Helen Freedman is or whence she derives her “facts,” but I would suggest that you not publish this kind of disinformation without checking its veracity and certainly not with such an inflammatory headline, so redolent of “yellow press.”

You should look at the Website of Ir Amim, an organization that aims at maintaining Jerusalem as a city for ALL its inhabitants, in which both Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, enjoy full equality in everything relating to town-planning, granting of building licenses, house demolition and the provision of basic services such as educational facilities and even garbage-collection. At present this is not the case, despite the fact that the non-Jewish population pay municipal taxes (unlike many haredi Jews). There is gross discrimination and THAT is what you should a) be informed on and b) write about.

And as for “Illegal settlements”, how about the land-grabbing by settlers and the state itself in the Occupied Territories, the illegal building, the harassment of Palestinian farmers, the uprooting of crops and even of centuries-old olive trees, which are often the major source of income for many of the local population?

I will be happy to introduce you to the right people, the researchers who, unlike Helen Freedman, have objective evidence of the realities in our troubled land.”

I answered her privately, as follows:

Racquel, Racquel (not her real name):

“This is not worthy of you. You might say hello first. Or, at least end with a civilized personal greeting. As you may recall, I was the one who first “faced you down” with unpleasant information about how Israelis were treating some female Palestinian prisoners in 1988. We have both traveled a far distance ever since.

As you know: I have already written, lectured about, “covered” the facts about the various inequalities between Jews and Palestinian Arabs for years. I do not see anyone in the Arab or Palestinian world talking about the existential danger that Israel is in, about the unfair demonization and increasingly dangerous isolation of Israel nor, with the exception of the Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents with whom I work, do I see Muslim people and leaders addressing Islamic religious and gender apartheid.

Thus, with a heavy heart, I draw certain realistic and necessary conclusions that you either refuse to draw—or with which you disagree. Fine. But you really should not adopt such a high-and-mighty tone with me.

You and your many allies in the Israeli media and university system and among all their European, North American, and international counterparts, can simply continue to write the articles that you write. Keep it up and you will become the most successful fifth column that the Jewish people have ever had. You can criticize me or Helen Freedman or Aaron Klein all you want—but it will not help Israel, the Jews, the West, the cause of liberty, or even the Palestinian people one little bit.

I would be happy to talk to your allies who have different information and a different point of view but I usually find that leftists and feminists, (my old groups), are, sadly, highly intolerant, demand absolute obedience to their point of view on each and every issue and, if they fail to get it, start name-calling and then cut off all contact.

Really, with whom shall I speak?

Raquel: How is your family? Yourself? Congratulations on your latest award.”

All best,

Phyllis

I await her answer. But I also sent her one of the comments at my blog. I reproduce it here for all to see.

“One needn’t be right wing, nor a Zionist, or even Jewish to understand what animates those who fulminate over Jewish ’settlements’. One only has to ask the right (no pun intended) questions to understand what their agenda really is. For instance - since there are many, many more illegal Arab buildings/settlements in E. Jerusalem and ALL over Israel, are the people who are clamoring for Jewish ’settlement’ to cease, also calling for Arab demolitions? Further, while 20% of Israel’s population are Arabs with full citizenship, why is the PA allowed to demand that Judea & Samaria become Judenrein, all in the name of ‘peace’?

These type of questions to a fair minded person would be answered in a fair minded manner. However, when the agenda is fueled by anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic nuances, these same (righteous) questions become nothing more than a hindrance to ‘peace’ efforts.

There is nothing more important within this framework than to expose the hidden prejudices of the (in)human rights brigade.

I say: Better this kind of an exchange of views over the internet than the booing, jeering, and physical menacing of lecturers and audiences that we see at the hands of western leftist bullies and masked pro-Palestinian Muslims in university auditoriums when the lecturer is not sufficiently left and pro-Islamist; better this exchange than the more violent ones at street demonstrations in which the violent perpetrators literally perceive the peaceful Jews as “raging and violent.” The psychological projection is wild, out of control.”

Note to the Reader: I chose the title for this blog after reading Paul Eidelberg’s article on the subject. Hat tip: Barbara Sommer.

Aaron Klein Exposes the Truth About Illegal Settlement Activity

I recently met my friend, Helen Freedman, at the U Café. This café on the upper east side is my local watering hole, an oasis, a village well, where I meet people for coffee. Sometimes, when it’s quiet, I just sit there and read, as if I lived in Paris, Rome, Warsaw, Vienna, Tel Aviv, or on the lower east side of NYC–but long ago, when a writer had a favorite cafe where he (or she) read their newspapers, penned articles and books, met other writers to argue, plan revolutions, initiate love affairs, and to dream.

Freedman had just returned from one of her frequent trips to Israel. This time, what amazed her most were “all the illegal Arab settlements” which had grown exponentially “all over Jerusalem.”

Illegal Arab settlements?

This information is well documented in journalist Aaron Klein’s important new book: The Late, Great State of Israel. How Enemies Within and Without Threaten The Jewish Nation’s Survival. Klein’s book illuminates, infuriates, saddens, and cries out to both heaven and humanity.

According to Klein, he chose his book’s shocking title “with a heavy heart,” in order to “awaken people to this very real possibility,” to “prod the world into pondering the unthinkable; and to shed light on the scope of the calamitous threats facing the Jewish state.”

Klein is not a diplomatic insider, nor is he a scholar; he is a passionate and courageous young journalist who, unlike most of us, including most scholars, talks to Palestinian terrorists all the time.

Klein indicts the world’s governments and the global media, including the Israeli government and media, for having conspired in covering up the fact that the late Yasir Arafat’s was a bloodthirsty terrorist; for continuing to present Fatah, under Mahmud Abbas, Arafat’s right hand man, as a “moderate,” when this is not the case; for being so “entrenched in their accepted narratives that they will completely invert the truth or blindly repeat proven falsehoods…(all in order to mask) the murderous ways of their Palestinian or Arab state partners.”

I only wish that those who helped President Obama craft his Cairo speech had read Klein’s book before they led (or followed) our commander-in-chief down the proverbial garden path. Actually, I wish that American Jews, 72% of whom voted for Obama, understood how very far from fair or balanced or even historically accurate his Cairo speech really was.

It wasn’t a pro-Muslim woman speech either as I’ve previously written.

Klein condemns the media for not covering certain stories: “How the U.S. knowingly funds Palestinian terrorism; how Israel and the international community legitimize the jihadist Hamas movement; how the Jewish state has already essentially forfeited the holy Temple Mount…and allowed hundreds of thousands of Arabs to live illegally on Jewish-owned land.”

According to Klein, who has been WorldNetDaily’s Jerusalem bureau chief for four years: The city of Jerusalem, like so many European cities, now has its own “no go” areas. “Israeli police units stay off the streets” of certain “densely populated Arab neighborhoods” which, in effect, constitute a “significant terrorist apparatus (which is) now based in eastern Jerusalem. The clear aim is to keep up a steady stream of attacks on western Jerusalem neighborhoods in order to pressure Israel into ceding eastern Jerusalem.”

Over the years, Israelis have allowed more than “100,000 Palestinian Arabs to occupy tens of thousands of illegally constructed housing units in eastern and northern Jerusalem.” Criminals, mercenaries, soldiers dressed as civilians, human bombs and their terrorist handlers, may all live among them. This other illegal occupation or settlement activity began long after 1967, when Israel won a third war of self-defense launched against it by the major Arab powers. These Palestinian Arab immigrants were not living in these places before 1948 or before 1967. Indeed, Klein documents that under Jordanian rule, one of these Jerusalem neighborhoods, Shoafat, was actually a forest.

These crowded Palestinian Arab housing complexes, schools, villas, palaces, (my friend Helen Freedman just saw a Saudi-built Polo Club! somewhere nearby), are now filled with weapons and fighters. Worse still: According to Klein, these Palestinian Arabs have built their illegal settlements on land owned by the Jewish National Fund, (JNF), which was entrusted to buy land for Jews in the Holy Land.

A religious Muslim feminist and the Morgantown Mosque

Asra Q. Nomani is best known for many things. A former Wall Street Journal reporter, she is also the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. Nomani is a religious Muslim feminist who organized the first-ever woman-led, mixed-gender Islamic prayer group in New York City in 2005, and who made a good faith effort to bring her hometown mosque in Morgantown, West Virginia into the twenty-first century, both in terms of women and tolerance.

Nomani, born in Bombay but raised in Morgantown, is also the last friend whom Daniel Pearl saw before he was kidnapped, held captive, and beheaded on video. Pearl was staying at Nomani’s rented home in Pakistan. Currently, Nomani teaches journalism at Georgetown University where she co-leads the Pearl Project, which will publish their discoveries about what really happened to Daniel Pearl.

Nomani will now also be known as the subject of a documentary about her struggle for the soul of Islam, which is airing tonight — June 15 — on PBS at 10 p.m. EST. “The Mosque in Morgantown” is the latest feature in the America At a Crossroads series.

Nomani was jolted awake by Pearl’s beheading. In the wake of this tragedy, she chose to become a single mother and went on hajj to Mecca where she experienced a tremendous spiritual “high.” Nomani saw that men and women were not separated at Mecca’s Masjid al-Haram. When she returned to America, she wanted to bring her own mosque into the 21st century, to transform it into a woman-friendly, “family-centered Islam,” and not a hardhearted “boy’s club.” She also wanted to moderate — if not eliminate — the forces of hatred within Islam that lead to kidnappings, Jew-hatred, suicide terrorism, and jihad.

Pearl’s beheading forced Nomani to reexamine Islam. Those who had kidnapped Pearl were militant, religious Muslims who believed that their violent acts were sanctioned by the Qu’ran. Nomani resolved to take a more activist role in the “battle of ideas, the war of ideas.”

She wanted to create something that may not yet exist: “A more inclusive and tolerant Islam in the world.”

Nomani is precisely the kind of ally that both the West — and the East — urgently need. In addition to other important ex-Muslims (Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan) and secular Muslims (Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali), there is now Nomani: a religious Muslim feminist who wants to redeem, reform, and uplift her religion, both as a feminist and as a devout Muslim.

Upon her return home, Nomani was horrified by what she found in the Morgantown mosque. A harsh Arab and Saudi Wahhabi influence had taken over her childhood mosque — a place that her father had established in the early 1980s. A rude man barked at her to take the back door entrance. This rudeness extended to other women as well.

Finally, Nomani, her mother and a young female relative walked in through the front door and took a place together behind the men’s section. But the sermons became more hateful. “To love the Prophet is to hate those who hate him.” One man, seen on camera in the film, is very dismissive of Nomani. He says: “She wants to bend the rules her way but the laws are not human laws.”

However, as the film documents, extremists — mainly Arabs — led by one rather physically and verbally violent Egyptian, Hany Ammar, took over. At that point, Nomani, says on camera: “I began hearing really scary sermons. An unchaste woman is worthless. The West is on a bad path. We must hate those who hate us. Women should be silent in a mosque. Jews are descendants of apes and pigs. Men should surround (Nomani) and scare her.”

Ammar says on camera: “I pray to Allah that you be punished. May Allah get revenge for Ammar. He physically attacks a young Muslim moderate man — one hears, but does not see this attack. Ammar’s wife Mona is even more conservative, more aggressive than he is. She minces no words in expressing her contempt, even hatred for Nomani. She, like certain kinds of religious women, is even more zealous in upholding the patriarchal status quo, more aggressively empowered to strike down any other woman who dares challenge male supremacy or Islamic gender apartheid. This is a phenomenon that I discuss in my book Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman.

Ammar tries to ban Nomani from the mosque.

Nomani began writing about what was happening in her mosque in the media, which did not further endear her to them. Predictably, they accused her of only wanting media attention.

One soft-spoken young man on camera says: “Had (Nomani) gone about this in the right way (working with moderates like myself), we could have made ten years progress in ten months.” However, Nomani’s mother insists that “the extremists will never change.”

Together with some other Muslim feminists, Nomani then crafted an Islamic Bill of Rights for Women which they actually posted at her mosque. Included are the following rights: that women have “an Islamic right to enter through the main door;” an “Islamic right to pray … without being separated by a barrier;” “an “Islamic right to hold leadership positions.”

Nomani is quoted on camera: “We are going to change the world starting here.” Also, in her travels, Nomani began a woman’s section on the main mosque floor, a place behind the men where the women could unobtrusively hear and see the prayers and sermons.

‘Tis true: No good deed goes unpunished. But it’s also true that those who perform good deeds are not that easily stopped.

Most bloggers are pleased when another blogger links to their site. It means that their information will reach more readers. Being linked to is usually viewed as an honor: The blogger’s work has been recognized as valuable.

However, this is not true for the website known as “Women Living Under Muslim Laws” (WLUML). Apparently, they want their information made available only to those who march lock-step along with them on other, ostensibly unrelated subjects. WLUML does not want to be “tainted” by any affiliation with a website, (in this case, mine), a site that also links to the work of…certain people.

I have just launched a new and streamlined website at www.phyllis-chesler.com and thus, I’ve begun to systematically link to other websites. Since I have also just published one of the first academic studies of honor killings in the West, and in the distinguished journal Middle East Quarterly, I decided to link to other websites that are also concerned with the plight of Muslim women.

I wrote to each such group telling them that I would be linking to their website. I did not vet these sites in terms of their overall political positions. (Yes, I was tempted to do so, but I resisted that temptation. Accurate information about Islamic gender apartheid, including honor killings and what we may do to prevent them or to prosecute such dishonorable murderers, is information that is too important to remain hostage to any one ideology or political party.)

Today, I received two emails from an Elly Kilroy on behalf of WLUML, asking me to “please immediately remove the link to Women Living Under Muslim Laws from your list of recommended websites; we do not want to be associated with you in any way.” The email reads as follows:

“Dear Phyllis,

Please could you remove the link to Women Living under Muslim Laws from your list of Recommended Websites; we are more than uncomfortable about being in the same list as names such as Daniel Pipes, Melanie Phillips and Internet Haganah to name just a few.

We are an international solidarity network committed to human rights, and our natural allies on issues related to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory would be feminist, progressive groups such as Women in Black (http://www.womeninblack.org.uk/), the Coalition of Women for Peace (http://coalitionofwomen.org/home/english) and the New Profile Movement (http://www.newprofile.org/english/) who are working for a peaceful end to the occupation and siege on Gaza, as well as women’s rights, rather than keeping company with those supporting increased militarization and sowing hatred against Arabs/Muslims.

Regards

Women Living Under Muslim Laws
International Coordination Office

How different is this behavior from that of an Arab diplomat who refuses to shake hands with an Israeli diplomat or who walk out of a United Nations meeting when an Israeli diplomat mounts the podium? Why is Kilroy’s UK-based office refusing to be associated with known Zionists–even when those very Zionists, (myself and Daniel Pipes), are doing work that is entirely relevant to Muslim women? Isn’t this a little like damning Israelis as Satanic but still continuing to use Israeli medical and scientific discoveries to save and improve their lives?

They proudly cite their affiliations with other peace-oriented womens’ groups, including Women in Black. Their preferred groups seem to consist of Jews and Israelis who take a prominent anti-Israeli stand, who demonstrate against “the Occupation,” but who do not study honor killings. One of their preferred “peace” groups glorifies and supports Israelis who refuse to serve in the Israeli Army. I doubt that Women in Black, a group which I once, long, long ago, supported, are actually studying honor killings or other aspects of Islamic gender apartheid. They are a street demonstration group, always at the ready to demonstrate when Israel is to be maligned and Palestinian terrorists are to be glorified. Kilroy writes about “ending the seige on Gaza.” Does she mean ending the seige against women in Gaza which Hamas launched? The seige of ever-more forced veilings and honor murders of women in Gaza? Alas, Kilroy is not referring to that seige at all.

Does she even realize that Israel pulled 8,000 productive Jewish residents out of Gaza and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza? And that armed and masked Palestinian gangs took over, raining rocketfire down on Sderot, assasinating Palestinians whom they alleged were collaborating with Israel, having shoot-outs with each other, converting donated ambulances into weapons of war, using the vast sums donated to Gaza for humanitarian purposes for guns and rockets in their never-ending war against Israel and to line their own personal pockets.

In fact, WMUML’s behavior and way of thinking is precisely what I documented at length in The Death of Feminism. What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom. To my enormous sorrow, I was forced to conclude that feminist academic and activist groups, much like other “progressive” groups, have been completely “Palestinianized” and are now less concerned with sexism than with racism and/or with alleged “Islamophobia.” Feminist groups are also more concerned with blaming America first and Israel second–and only with that particular banner held high will they dare to cautiously address women’s rights and survival.

Please understand: American and Israeli foreign policies have absolutely nothing to do with honor killings, polygamy, arranged marriage to a first cousin, mandatory veiling, stonings to death for alleged adultery, female genital mutilation or any other aspect of Sharia’ law or of pre-Islamic tribal culture.

What is really going on here? Well, I wonder how many American philanthropic foundations, owned and staffed by Democratic Party operatives, actually fund and otherwise facilitate WLUML’s various projects? I see some familiar names on their various pages….

Oh, what’s a girl to do? My resident website genius informs me that I can link to whomever I wish, with or without their approval. There is no law that prevents my doing so.

Gentle Reader: What shall I do? Keep linking to WLUML on the offchance that although they have a left, “politically correct” point of view that their information may nevertheless be useful? Or should I cut the connection?

POSTSCRIPT: I will not post lying propaganda at this site. Different, opposite, opposing points of view–yes; untrue propaganda–no. For example, one reader just sent a brief comment with a link to YouTube which claims that Palestinians are forced to become “collaborators” with Israel in order to “receive medical treatment.” This is a blatant, brazen lie and it has no place at my blog. However, a reader certainly may critique certain Israeli policies and behaviors as long as they are even-handed, and provide an objectively accurate context.

My blog will not be used as a forum for Durban I or Durban II types of propaganda.