GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Dear Readers:

In the coming weeks and months, I will be writing about a great variety of subjects. I will list some in the hope that this will inspire you to call my attention to any additional information you may have about these areas. Please make your comments right here at my blog. If the information is privileged, you may, of course, email me privately through my website: www.phyllis-chesler.com. Please be sure to include the hyphen or dash between my first and last name.

I will answer some of your mail in the blog so please don’t be shy, jump right in.

And now–for some upcoming blogs.

I will cover a rather high-profile debate which will take place in London between my dear friend, Ibn Warraq, and the overly glamorized Tariq Ramadan.

I will also publish an interview with my esteemed colleague, Phillippe Karsenty, who has just visited me here in NYC and who has been unjustly sued by France’s Channel 2 for “defamation.” And why? Because early on, Karsenty understood that the iconic Mohammed al-Durah case was a hoax and that France’s Channel 2 was perpetuating a Blood Libel against the Jewish state and the Jewish people by circulating a fraction of the footage of a staged event world-wide.

An Historic Moment
Left to Right: Gilles Dreyfus, the author, and Philippe Karsenty at the author’s home.

In my opinion, France’s Karsenty, Israel’s Nahum Shahaf, Germany’s Esther Shapira, and PJM’s own Professor Richard Landes and Nidra Poller have constituted a steady and valorous team bearing down on this twenty-first century Blood Libel and hoax. After interviewing Karsenty, I arranged a gathering for him. Among others who came was a direct descendent of Alfred Dreyfus. While Karsenty is not Dreyfus, (and I am no Zola), here is a photo of Phillippe Karsenty and Gilles Dreyfus which may yet turn out to be of historic importance. Stay tuned for my column on the subject of lethal propaganda and the way in which we all–including myself–tend to be taken in by it.

Breaking news may also interrupt my planned flow of blogs.

Moving right along: I will continue writing about ongoing “burning” issues such as that of violence against women especially in the Third World where dowry or bride burnings remain common, as do honor murders, stoning, forced veiling, forced and child marriage, purdah, and polygamy. I will also discuss the role that women themselves sometimes play in such crimes against women.

I must absolutely share with you some late breaking opera news. Thus, I will be writing about Natalie Dessay’s extraordinary performance in “Lucia di Lammermoor” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

In no particular order: I will be reviewing a new and important book by Ibn Warraq titled Defending the West, A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism; a new and important book by Dr. Edith Kurzweil, who served as the editor of Partisan Review for many years. This book is her Memoir and it is titled Full Circle.

I will also be reviewing a book whose publication was cancelled by its American publisher out of fear. Dr. Nancy Kobrin, with whom I have written many articles, has written about the psycho-analytic roots of Islamic suicide killers. I will also be interviewing her on the subject.

Precisely because the news is so bleak from Afghanistan, I will be reviewing a most charming book by Rosanne Klass about her time in Afghanistan in the 1950s titled Land of the High Flags: Afghanistan When the Going Was Good. I might also discuss the recent popular works of Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner), and that of Deborah Rodriguez who wrote The Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil –as well as the reason why the much anticipated film of Hosseini’s novel has been delayed.

In light of ex-Muslim freedom fighter Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s recent flight back to Holland from America, (and back here again), I will review her memoir Infidel. She left Washington D.C. because the Dutch government was no longer willing to assume the no-doubt “enormous” cost of her round-the-clock security detail. One wonders: How much money are we actually able and willing to spend on our right to free speech, free thought, and freedom from Islamist fatwa?

I have been writing about the new-anti-Semitism for nearly seven years now. Clearly, it has not stopped the worrisome, world-wide rise of anti-Semitism. A colleague, Professor Norman Simms of New Zealand, has endured more than his share Down Under, in New Zealand. Since this is very little known, and because his work is so fine, I will cover his story.

Send me your requests. I may not be able to honor them all but I do want to know what you are thinking and what interests you.