An audio of the speech that I delivered today will be posted at the website of the AAJLJ later this week. I will post an edited version of my prepared remarks here, below.
For further coverage, see Fern Sidman’s article HERE.
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Dr. Phyllis Chesler’s April 21, 2009 Speech about Muslim Women’s Rights /Islamic Gender Apartheid
Israel is not an apartheid state but Islam, as it is practiced in many countries today, is the world’s largest practitioner of gender and religious apartheid. I have been asked to speak about Islamic gender apartheid. To some extent, the documentation of “real” apartheid, which characterizes Islam, should serve as a necessary corrective to the false accusation against Israel as an apartheid nation state.
But let me also note that Muslim countries have historically persecuted their non-Muslim citizens but would have us believe that this is not “racism.” Today, Christians, Ba’hai, Hindus, Zoroastrians all live at their peril in Muslim countries; many have been exiled, many have fled. The Muslim world is almost entirely “judenrein,” free of Jews, whose flight comprises the largest, untold refugee story of the Middle East and North Africa. The citizens of Israel come in all skin-colors, practice all religions, speak many different languages of origin–and have all been absorbed at Israel’s expense. But, Islamic religious apartheid is a subject for another day. Back to Islamic gender apartheid.
In December of 1961, I escaped from captivity in Afghanistan. (That’s another whole story. What’s a nice Jewish girl doing in Kabul anyway? Having a grand and dangerous adventure, that’s what!) Anyway, at the time, few westerners understood what living in a Muslim society was like for a woman, an infidel, a Jew, or a budding intellectual, nor did they view Third World countries as inherently dangerous, barbaric, or misogynistic.
What I learned in Kabul rendered me immune to the romanticization of the Third World or to the glamorization of tyrants and terrorists that defined my generation of 1960s and 1970s radicals and activists.
I have often said that my feminism was, perhaps, forged in Afghanistan because when I came home to America I was a very different person. I had seen and experienced Islamic gender apartheid up close and personal. I had nearly died there. Despite their relative powerlessness, some Afghan women were exceptionally kind to me. I think my abiding concern with women’s rights in the Muslim world is an expression of my gratitude and everlasting sense of kinship with them.
When I was there, many poor women were shrouded, they moved like ghosts in the bazaar, and they were forced to sit, quite literally, at the back of the public buses. Poor women always lost their place in line in the bazaar when a male servant pushed them to the back of that line too. This is all pre-Soviet and pre-Taliban, a time when Afghanistan made great strides in terms of modernization.
Still, most Afghan women, including foreign wives, did not socialize with men other than with their immediate male relatives. Polygamy was the custom for men who could afford it, and the custom caused havoc among the children of different wives, all of whom longed for their father’s attention, approval, and inheritance. Male homosexual pederasty was rampant although tabooed and hotly denied. Fathers treated their children as if they were their servants, which they were.
To my horror, Afghanistan has followed me back to America in many ways. It is always in the news: The Taliban, al-Qaeda, American boots on the ground, child suicide killers. Here, in America, in New York City, and in other cities around America, Canada, and all over Europe, one can see an increasing number of shrouded, face-veiled women in public. Honor killings, (which are not like western-style domestic violence), have taken place all over America and Canada and are even more epidemic in Europe where there are many more Muslim immigrants.
What is Islamic Gender Apartheid like?
Women are routinely confined, (kept at home, kept among women-only, hidden behind face and body veils), and brutally punished in the Muslim world merely because they are women. When women protest this state of affairs, they are often killed, certainly arrested, usually tortured. In a sense, being born female is a capital crime in this Islamified and jihadic era.
Muslim women are legally stoned to death, (in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan), beheaded, both legally and customarily, (in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan), customarily blinded by acid attacks, (in Pakistan and Afghanistan)–and not by Jews or Israelis or Zionists, but by other Muslims. Muslim women are buried alive (in Algeria, in Pakistan, under the Taliban and al-Qaeda). Muslim women are gang-raped and then lashed almost to death in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria. They are normatively beaten at home all over the Muslim world and normatively killed in honor/dishonor killings. Physical and sexual child abuse is normative and it is both rampant and denied.
Honor killings are a Muslim-on-Muslim crime, a collaboration of an entire family against their own female blood. So is female genital mutilation, shrouding/veiling, polygamy, (which is sometimes foolishly romanticized by feminists), arranged and child marriage to a man old enough to be your grandfather, or arranged and child marriage to a first cousin.
According to a recent study, in Pakistan, 90% of all women are beaten throughout their lives. One million women in Pakistan are beaten while they are pregnant. Honor killings are rampant, the killers are rarely prosecuted.
If a Muslim girl or woman wants “out,” wants to go to college, wants to leave a dangerously abusive marriage, wants to have non-Muslim friends, wants to work outside the home, wants to wear makeup, her own family might kill her.
Islamic gender apartheid is characterized by a sense of the female as dangerous, sub-human. She is kept apart, segregated, kept in her place–unless she has been trafficked as a sex slave, which is common all throughout the Muslim world, as is slavery.
Although America is far, far from perfect, it is still a more advanced, more democratic, more lawful, and a more compassionate country in the world. The same is true of tiny Israel. However, western academics, feminist activists, and mainstream journalists, actively resist this point of view. They claim that terrorism and hate speech committed by Muslims has absolutely nothing to do with Islam; that barbaric practices, such as stoning, be-heading, or honor killing are all “pre-Islamic” customs and have nothing to do with Islam; pairing Islam with what is done in its name, by its followers, by its national and religious leaders–is “racist.”
Thus, perfectly good American feminists are far more comfortable in criticizing Christianity and Judaism for their allegedly misogynistic practices than in criticizing Islamic gender apartheid and the barbarism of many Muslim customs.
Muslim nations, individual Muslims, including jihadic terrorists practice extreme gender apartheid. America and Israel do not. Still, I would be silenced, boo-ed and heckled for saying so at the United Nations both in NYC and today, in Geneva. Could I say this on most university campuses without causing a riot?
Let me tell you what happened in 2003 at a feminist grassroots conference at Barnard in NYC. My speech went very well, lots of applause, laughter, sympathetic faces. It all changed when one woman “demanded” to know where “I stood on the question of the women of Palestine.” No matter how carefully I described Islamic gender apartheid, (female genital mutilation, arranged marriage, polygamy, veiling, honor killing), they all kept yelling about “the humiliation at the checkpoints.” Nothing could shake their brainwashed conviction. I had to be hustled out for my safety. Now, I rarely speak on campus without a security guard.
Today, courtesy of the world wide Saudi Lobby (far more powerful than the Israel Lobby), which has spent billions on exporting terrorism and propaganda, Westerners view Third World Muslim countries as innocent victims of evil American military policies and of European colonialism and racism. As the ideas of Edward Said and other left-wing ideologies increasingly shaped the university curriculum and the media in the West, most academics learned to fear being called “racists.” They all became politically correct “cultural relativists.”
My training as a research and clinical psychologist, expert courtroom witness, psychotherapist, and author, as well as my experience as a pioneer feminist activist and theoretician has led me, almost inevitably, to the study of honor-related violence, especially to the study of honor killings in the West.
I first wrote about Islamic Gender Apartheid in the West in a series of articles which I published between 2004-2005, and which I expanded into a chapter of my book, The Death of Feminism which was published in 2005. I have continued this work in articles which have appeared from 2006-2009. In all, I have published more than 50 articles about Islamic gender apartheid and at least 25 additional articles about honor killings in America.
Most important, I conducted an original study on the subject which appeared in MEQ in 2009. This study sparked an amazing interest: Many people reprinted it, referred to it in glowing terms, (for the first time, this included some prominent feminists), and insisted on interviewing the author. Other people condemned the study, refused to discuss the issues it raised, interviewed the author—but then failed to quote her point of view in their publication.
(At this point, I walked people through the first Chart in the study which compares domestic violence, western-style, with honor killings which are, by definition, femicide, murder. I believe that I have shown why and how honor killings follow a different pattern than domestic violence in the West does. I also talked about how Islamic gender apartheid, including honor killings have penetrated the West, including America and Canada. I said that if we do not protect Muslim women here that their blood will also be on our hands).
I suggested: We must work with Muslim dissidents and Muslim feminists, many of whom are staunch secularists, some of whom are religious and are hoping to begin the work of re-interpreting and reforming Islamic religious law and practices.
We must identify pro-woman immams and mullahs in the West and work with them to prevent honor killings and honor-related violence.
We must prosecute honor killings and other honor-related violence under our laws in the West and not allow Islamic religious law to apply to any citizen or resident in the West.
Funding for shelters for battered Muslim women is required. I challenge the Saudi princes to fund this as opposed to one more madrassa or one more anti-American and anti-Israeli Middle East Studies program.
Then, I again denounced Durban II and congratulated the organizers and sponsors of the counter-conference for having done the right thing and for making it possible for me to join them.
Anti-Semitism ranges from the ridiculous to the surreal. In a world where everybody hates everybody else, anti-Semitism stands out as uniquely powerful–found everywhere, for no reason. Hitler had no conflict with the Jews. He loved music, and many Jews in Germany were musicians. Germany loved academics, and many Jews in Germany were academics. Germany neededd atomic scientists, and before World War II, most of the world’s atomic scientists were Jews who lived in Germany or its allies, Italy and Hungary. Enrico Fermi wasn’t a Jew, but he was marriede to a Jew and therefore was Jewish under the Nuremburg laws. Anti-Semites, however, are totally selfless. They will pursue their hatred no matter hiow much it harms them. That is why the Palestinians have consistently fought against the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Anti-Semitism–the need to die in a jihad while killing Jews–is more important than independence.
I am appaled, this information should be more openly desminated, its their acheleess heal. Can of you join me on the patriotic resistance, to help the American people(and the world) Understand? Cause its going to take a grass roots effort.’.C CarlGottstein@yahoo.com
Yes, Phyllis, once again we see the world split apart over “The Jewish Question.” The UN and the human rights NGOs have highjacked the words, the concepts, and the institutions that we once so ardently fought for after World War II. Now we are faced with opponents who are not only maliciously inclined, but many deluded by the mirage of fine-sounding platitudes and self-deluded by the ideas that have been rejiggered into grotesque parodies of their former selves. To be a Jew one must fight against idolatry in all its forms: not least is self-righteousness and self-hatred.
Norman
Re. the case of Roxana Sabari and the inexcusible refusal of the US to do anything about the kidnapping of one of its own citizens: in 1976, the government of Israel correctly determined that a group of Palistinians and the pro-Palistinian government of Uganda had committed an act of war by hijacking an Air France flight originating in Tel Aviv, and containing 105 Isralies and French Jews. In a brilliantly executed raid on the Entebbe Airport, all but five of the hostages were rescued, with only one Israeli casualty. Later, for 444 days, 1979 – 1981, 53 US citizens were held captive by the Islamic givernment of Iran. Inspired, no doubt, not only by Israel’s previous success but by the rationalle behind the raid (our citizens, our responsibility), the US government — headed by President Carter, in the days before he became a Jew-hater — attempted a rescue operation that failed when two helecopters crashed, killing eight of the rescuers. At least we tried.
Ah, for the days when we protected our own! Roxana Sabari is a US citizen, “convicted” of a non-crime in a kangaroo court, where her lawyer was not even permitted to present a defense. If she were, say, a Saudi reporter whose reporter’s credentials had expired the day before, would she have been subjected to such treatment (Ah, but — if she had been a Saudi reporter, she would have been a man and, thus, entitled to be treated like a human being!)? Her unlawful detention is nothing less than an act of war against the US, and should be treated accordingly. But, will anyone have the guts? Of course not! We’ll do SOMETHING, of course; we’ll beg and plead, “Oh, Mr. Amadinejad, please have mercy on us worthless infidel Americans and allow our daughter to return home. Here — we’ll give you several billion dollars in aid and tell Israel they have to stop being so mean to you if you’ll only release Ms. Sabari.” How about, “Send her home now or we’ll bomb you back into the stone age, along with all your little friends!” instead.
Anyone out there with any guts? I thought not.
Sri Aurobindo, in my opinion the greatest Indian mind in the last 1,000 years, very well knew the nefarious consequences that the partition of India would bring to his country, and to the world at large. Although in exile in Pondicherry at that time, a French enclave in India, he sent a doctor friend to Gandhi and Nehru to advice acceptance of the Dominion Status proposal brought to India in 1942 by Sir Stafford Cripps. This was the last opportunity for cooperation between Hindus and Muslims, Sri Aurobindo affirmed, and the desires of the Muslim League under Mohammned Jinnah to break apart. That Gandhi bears great responsibility is not well known. That his wrong policy of non-injury finally caused more than a million innocent casualties during partition is rarely discussed.
Israel soon may not be able to count unconditionally on the US as before. India is a natural friend of Israel. India, with her religious tolerance, has been the last refuge of many persecuted by religion intolerance, from the Zoroastrians to the Jews. Besides, both countries have the same enemy.
The government of Saudi Arabia may be committed to spreading Islam and backs it up with money, but Pakistan is the real infectious sore. It is the only Islamic country so far with nuclear weapons, and the one that provided the technology to North Korea, and help to the Taliban, and to Kashmiri Islamic terrorists, and then some. Before Palestine, there was, and still is, Kashmir.
The United Nation, of course, does not have the stomach to intervene in the Kashmiri conflict where ethnic cleansing has been occurring against Hindu Pundits for decades. Right now almost 100,000 displaced Kashmiri Hindu Pundits are refugees in camps around Delhi in their own country! SHAME ON THE UNITED NATIONS! In Bangladesh, Hindus are routinely killed, discriminated against, evicted from their lands, but no one can make the United Nations move a finger there. SHAME ON THEM!
Have the world forgotten what happened recently in Mumbai? Has the state of Israel taken notice that the young Rabbi and his beautiful wife, both Israeli citizens, in Mumbai were TORTURED before being killed by these animals that were under the influence of drugs. They better pay attention. India should have attacked Pakistan right then and there with EVERYTHING in their power. But if something Gandhi said that was totally correct was: “The Muslim is a bully, the Hindu is a coward.”
It is a folly to entertain the idea that evil can be confronted, in this stage and age, with anything but force. Gandhi sent an open letter to the British people in 1940 to open their houses to the Nazis and allow them to conquer Great Britain. Luckily, Churchill knew better. Krishna told Arjuna: Fight!
Israel must attack the nuclear facilities in Iran, and if the mad dogs Ayatollahs answer like Amadinejad says they would, Israel must NUKE them.
Let me repeat: NUKE THEM, yes with atomic bombs. Many lives will be saved at the end.
Dr. Chesler,
You are the embodiment of an international intellectual/life treasure. In back to back essays you somehow capsulize so effectively, rationally, and eloquently the clash of memory and absurdity of the current state of the world! Your modesty combined with your convictions create a clarion call, no a cry, of civility, outrage, conviction and hope that only a great mind can muster.
In “Moral Courage: Irena Sendlerowa, Who Saved Jewish Children in WW2 in Poland,” you introduce us to a memory that many did not even know, on the day of Holocaust Memory. This Irena, a woman, yes a human being, who saved 2,500 jewish children! Why did she do it? So they could be the next generation of factory workers for the Nazi’s (a Shindler motive, perhaps), no because it was the right thing to do! She wanted that next generation of children who would remember, yet forgive and realize that by her example if they had the moral courage to stand up for injustice could carve out a new reality for themselves and others free of bigotry and flourishing in independent thinking and morally right values.
In a way you are one of Irena’s “saved” children. Because then you deftly shift intellectual gears and expose the Durban II conference for the farce that it is. Without hitting us over the head, your nuanced article on the “Counter Conference”, especially your highlighting the plight of women under Islamic rule, exposes the unfortunate irony of this week’s events.
Why would the UN have such a conference THIS week? Why would they have it in Geneva, a city in a country that espouses neutrality? Oh, the Orweillian irony is not lost on you. Nor the plight of women, yes, that group that makes up a majority of our humanity. You speak the truth because you, like Irena, have moral courage. May the rest of us follow your lead and use reasoned thinking, what’s right, and what’s fair to overcome the hatred and injustices that the UN has only become a venue to forment!
Carry On, Dr. Chesler, it will not be easy, but you shine a bright light.
Phyllis, by the way, I forgot to congratulate you on your speech at the counter-conference. It is brilliant, and one of the best summaries I have ever read on “The Religion of Peace”.
That so many horrors must be mentioned and described in so short an essay, is an indication of the EXTREME EVIL that we are facing here.
Make no mistake, the Evil Forces are on the rise again. Drawing a comparison from popular culture and true crime, allow me to quote serial killer “The Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, who still seats on death row in California. He said that “Jesus” was powerful (referring to goodness), BUT THAT SATAN RULES. He was not far from the mark.
The same dark forces that were behind Hitler, those that produced Auschwitz and other monstrosities are now behind Islam and Jihad. My friend, Belgian writer Georges Van Vrekhem, who lives in the experimental city of Auroville in India, recently published the only book I know that tries to explains the power behind Hitler, and how that power used him.
http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-His-God-Background-Phenomenon/dp/8129109530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240447558&sr=1-1
The book, “Hitler and his God, The Background to the Hitler Phenomenon” is available through Amazon.
That powerful, sinister, cruel, entity well known in occult circles as The Lord of Falsehood, who prefers to be called The Lord of the Nations, nowadays doesn’t use the phrase “Sieg Heil”, but wears a turban and cries: Allah u Akbar”.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler
Great article or rather two articles. Your eloquence is phenominal, I wish that there was some way to write a comment worthy of this article. Thank you for your wonderful insight.
There is no doubt that there must be some connection to the fact that Dr. Chesler delivered her most eloquent speech at the Durban II counter conference on the very same day that the State of Israel and Jews and others around the world marked Holocaust and Heroes Remembrance Day.
As we sit and reflect on the event that defined the 20th century in terms of pure evil and the manifestation of man’s inhumanity to man in the most grotesque of terms, we witnessed a modern day Hitler ascend the podium in Geneva as representatives of the global community gathered to ostensibly grapple with the grievous issues of racism, gender discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance.
It is clear that the world has learned nothing from the lessons of the Holocaust. Calling Israel a “most cruel and oppressive, racist regime,” which was created from the “pretext of Jewish suffering” during World War II, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also issued a clarion call to the global community. “Governments must be encouraged and supported in their fights at eradicating this barbaric racism… Efforts must be made to put an end to Zionism” he declared.
Despite the exhortation of UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon that the Iranian president not utter words of diviseness and hated the recalcitrant Ahmadinejad once again utilized the world stage to promulgate his plan to destroy Israel and ridicule the tenets of the western world.
There is also no doubt about what Ahmadinejad meant. He is calling for another Holocaust; a total annihilation of the Jewish people irrespective of where on this earth they reside.
As the world remained silent for the most part, in a classroom at Fordham Law School in New York, there was a voice that spoke truth to power. There was a female “David” who took on “Goliath” and never retreated. There was a voice that told those listening about the inherent dangers of Islamic gender and religious apartheid and who stood up for Israel and America in the most urbane vernacular.
Kudos to Dr. Chesler for being a moral voice of clarity, a beacon of light in a world immersed in spiritual darkness and for having the temerity to challenge those forces who refuse to address the truth.
Dr. Chesler, I enjoyed your writing. That so much of the world ignores Islamic gender apartheid is incomprehensible. With few actual feminist leanings, I treasure my mother’s memory, my wife’s partnership and my daughter’s potential. I find the Islamic way disgusting.
A American gentile who admires his many Jewish friends, I am struck by the continuing persecution of the Jewish people. I would suggest that while India may be a natural ally of Israel, go into that friendship with eyes open. The Jewish people have been betrayed countless times by their friends.
Miamiman, israel & India are already exploring their mutual interests. India just launched a spy satellite made in Israel.
For years young Israelis right out of the army went to India on cheap extended vacations. Because it is such a vegetarian culture, you can be kosher there very easily. Indians have no history of political issues with Jews. Both are ancient peoples who are not afraid to modernize, both countries are democracies, both have growing high tech industries, both are not seriously affected by the global economic slump because they didn’t make stupid loans. And of course their mutual enemy was highlighted by Mumbai.
Bush created a great alliance with India on trade & defeating terrorism, and of course was a friend to Israel. Obama has still not met with the Indian President OR the new Israeli PM. But his first phone call after taking office was to Mahmoud Abbas.
Caroline Glick suggests that all the democracies in the shadow of tyranny (Russian, Chinese, Muslim) join forces now that the US is absenting itself from its previous commitments to democracy.
14. Yehudit
Thanks for the info. I know what you say to be correct. Not only about the satellite, remember Israel sold to India several of the modified, and upgraded, AWACS planes, to the great objection of Pakistan.
Bush alliance with India was good, but not enough. That the 2 countries could finally ratify the nuclear pact was a plus, but Bush catered to Pakistan too much for too little, for they continued helping the Taliban and subverting the Kashmir. Pakistan is basically a failed state. India is a natural ally of the US too.
Isn’t it ironic that Durban I preceded the greatest Muslim racist atrocity on American soil on 9/11. What Islamic atrocity is in store for us following Durban II? What will be Obama’s overseas contingency operation should a man-caused disaster befall our nation in the coming week? My prediction: DHS will be out in full force arresting patriots who criticize Obama and Islam, while Obama will go on a Middle Eastern apology tour to bow before Arab tyrants the world over.
An excellent article by Dr. Phyllis Chester. What more is there to say but that today we live in a cruel world where Evil rules.To let it alone is perfidious but what more can we do when America’s President Obama is but a ‘man of Peace’ and Israel only a little nation? with the world’s inducement that a ‘Palestinian State’ would solve all their Problems…..?
In a couple of posts around here before, I had advocated for Israel to attack and destroy the nuclear capabilities of Iran. After a harsh retaliation, then Israel must use nuclear bombs and nuke them.
I know some people will read this and agree, but no one says it. We are so good, you know. Here is the real danger.
But I stand by my statement because I am totally convinced that the time has already passed for negotiations, and by the way the Iranian government only wants to destroy Israel and the Jews, and is not interested in peace at all. They use, in a war of attrition, now Hamas, then Hezbollah. This until they build atomic weapons. The only thing left to Israel is a show of great force. It is a matter of survival. This will finally bring peace and save lives.
The Jihadis only understand the Law of the Jungle, survival of the fittest.
There is something named Karma, in the Bible is defined by the expression “Whatever you sow, you reap”. Amadinejad and the hateful Ayatollahs seem not to understand this cosmic law. They don’t understand that if you constantly spew hate and use violent language against others, calling for destruction and genocide, one day, just one day, Wotan the Berserker may knock at your door. (As it did to Hitler and Nazi Germany).
MiamaMan,
If Israel attacks and destroys the nuclear capabilities of Iran, there is a danger that Russia, and maybe even England, will attack Israel. Pogroms will break out all over Europe. Nevertheless, attacking Iran may be the least awful of all the alternatives facing Israel at this moment. The crazy rulers of Iran are quite willing to turn their country into a suicide bomb.
Think of the suicide bombers in Iraq. What they have done in the last few days is murderously destructive and utterly pointless. If there are suicide bombers willing to kill themselves in order to kill other Iraqi Muslims, how very many more people there must be who would kill themselves in order to kill Jews.
Thanks MiamaMan for your offering. It is but too true that the time has passed for negotiations though Obama is ready for another try. However it is fervently hoped that ‘someone’ will have the courage to do another ‘Ozirak’ on Iran and that at the same time Wotan the Berserker will pay the little ‘mahdi’ a belated visit.
Mr. Jochnowitz:
I went further, Israel to attack the nuclear capabilities of Iran, and when they answer harshly, to NUKE them.
England I totally discount from any answer in such a scenario. But you have a point that Russia may get nervous, and here they must be checked by the US. Israel has also warned Russia a couple of times before, they have several (3)German silent submarines always out at sea, and who knows what they have there.
Pogroms in many parts of the world, probably.
Attacking (Nuking) Iran is the only alternative left. Otherwise, let Jews in Israel pack their bags once more and leave the neighborhood. The Ayatollahs and Amadinejad have a clear objective now, a war of attrition against Israel, using now Hamas, then Hezbollah, and again Hamas, until they get the bomb. For obvious reasons, like size and population, Israel can’t win that war. Notice Lebanon is at the brink of electing a Hezbollah government, like Hamas in the Gaza strip, that’s why Hillary Clinton went there 2 days ago, to try to put out a fire that has not even started yet. Israel is totally surrounded by enemies that do not want negotiations or peace, but its destruction.
Is Israel willing to dissolve itself, or worse face another Shoa? I hope not. Israel represents the hopes of the West against the Islamic Jihad onslaught, losing Israel is like a minuscule representation of worse things to come, akin to a laboratory petri dish where some of the worst problems of the world are being enacted, resolved, formulated, we can’t afford to lose Israel, period.
In “The True Believer” that 1951 masterpiece by Eric Hoffer that is so relevant today, he states that the “believers” of mass movements have always rooted for those that kill the most and are tyrants, such as Lenin (John Reed), Stalin, Mao (Susan Sontag), Uncle Ho (Shirley McLaine, Hanoi Jane), Pol Pot, Castro (Spielberg, Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Harry Belafonte, Coppola), Chavez (Penn again), so, if Israel nuke them, you will see an interesting show of support by the most unexpected quarters.
The conflagration intended by Iran can only be diffused by at least the same amount, or greater, power, and I don’t think conventional power is enough, it must a nuclear type.
Finally, then Israel can be criticized for something they did, which is fulfilling prophecy.
Back in the nineteenth century visonary individuals sensed a huge massacre coming upon the jewish people. They developed a plan that took them years to complete: to set up a sanctuary called Israel where the jewish people could find refuge from the coming genocides. But, unfortunately, by the time Israel was set up, the atomic bomb had already been invented. Israel can be destroyed with a single atomic attack.
So Israel is not a sanctuary simply because it is too small a place. It never was a sanctuary. To continue to think that it is is to continue to be deluded by a dangerous mirage. It makes no sense to run around in circles trying to solve a problem that has no solution. Israel cannot be made any larger than it is. Logic says the jewish people need a twenty first century sanctuary, a well thought out witness protection program for the entire jewish nation. Logic says the first thing that needs to get done now, before the atomic attack hits Israel, is to get as many young people out of that trap as possible and settle them anonymously elsewere. Logic says the whole jewish way of life has to be rethought because jews cannot remain identifiable if they want to survive in the era of the caliphate. The caliphate seeks to annihilate jews everywhere, whether Israel exists or not:
Hamas, which has convinced many western leaders and journalists that it spends more time building schools than bombing civilians, broadcast a sermon earlier this month depicting the Jews as enemies
of humanity, inherently evil, seeking to rule the world and a dangerous threat to Muslims:
“The time will come, by Allah’s will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth.” (Al-Aqsa (Hamas) TV, April 3, 2009)
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Life/When+hatemongering+common+currency/1536855/story.html
Sermons like that are broadcast every Friday accross the caliphate. It is more appropriate to spend limited resources on a large scale witness protection program
for persecuted religions than on one for … Islamic women who have already bought into the Islamic ideology. I ought to be shot for saything this, perhaps, but one of the mainstays of Islamic barbarity to women is the fact that Islam recruits older women as the slave drivers of younger women. Once a woman has lived out her youth in slavery and has become old enough to become
a slave driver herself (i.e. she has a grown son who can marry a woman she can slave-drive), she will do all in her power to preserve the Islamic repression of her sex.
LT;
Allow me to disagree, where Israel is now is where it was before Islam, and where it is supposed to be. It is a bastion of progress in the middle of a stagnant Islam.
You “Madagascar” idea does not hold water. Israel does not want to be larger, but just to be left in peace to exist.
What do you think the Islamist Jihadis would do if Israel is conquered? I guess follow the Koran that requires them to convert others, with the sword if necessary. Israel for them is just a stepping stone.
No, Israel is verily the Nemesis of Allah (a blood-thirsty demon). Israel is certainly the David of the Torah.
so the UN is evil and anti semitic is it? Is that why they refuse to prosecute Israel for its war crimes? You can’t have it all ways you semitic nutcase, (arabs are semitic too) using feminism to attack Islam is a very bad idea, there are far too many of us jewish and non jewish who will not let you get away with this or use feminism to spread your gospel of hate and lies