 And so, despite the all the naysayers and second-guessers, the lawyers in the Rifqa Bary case have negotiated a reasonable and potentially life-saving settlement which will allow Rifqa to remain in state custody until she becomes 18 (which will happen in August), at which time she herself will decide whether or not she wishes to be reunited with her family. According to the Columbus-Dispatch, Rifqa has admitted that she’d been “unruly” when she’d fled her home, and the “family will try to resolve their issues with counseling.” In a statement read by Rifqa’s attorneys, ‘both she and her parents said they loved each other and believe counseling is the best route.” Ahem. The family’s honor has now been slightly salvaged by Rifqa’s open admission (clearly, an admission that had been required) that she’d been…”unruly.” Is it “unruly” to choose one’s own God, or to try and save one’s own life? I’m just asking. In any event, in grand American tradition, “counseling” is seen as an all-purpose, face-saving panacea, a way of avoiding a more superficial or harsher rule of law—a way of dealing with problems that are far beyond (or beneath) a judge’s purview. Thus, “The case plan for Rifqa and her parents says they should talk about their respective religions and visit and communicate regularly.” Had there been no settlement, I would have testified as an expert witness in this case. Luckily, thanks to the good lawyering involved, my testimony was not required. And so, the Bary family (the teenager and her parents) will now enter counseling—always a dicey proposition in my opinion; girls and women are especially vulnerable to false promises of happy endings and true love. Many grown, battered women, report how well their sociopathic batterers bond with their counselors, and how their own anxieties and justified paranoia is minimized, scorned. Ultimately, these women may not only be diagnosed as “crazy,” they may also lose their children, their homes, even their lives—right under their counselor’s nose. One can only hope that the counselor in the Bary case will know a great deal about the nature of honor killings and the fate of apostates in Islam. For example, in the tragic case of Toronto’s Aqsa Parvez, the counselors at the shelter for battered women to which she fled did not understand the dynamics involved in an honor killing family and, when Aqsa’s mother called to say she missed her, they simply allowed Aqsa to go; Aqsa went home and was promptly killed by her father and brother. Aqsa’s crime? She did not want to wear hijab. Speaking of honor killings and what counselors do and don’t understand: I am about to publish a new study about honor killings (due out in the next issue of Middle East Quarterly) in which I studied 230 honor killing victims on five continents. Therefore, I am not at all surprised by the “surprising” news coming out of Finland concerning a potentially “new” kind of victim. Native Finnish women who marry “immigrant” men (the article simply will not use the word “Muslim”) have begun to flee for their lives to avoid being honor-killed—but not only by their husbands, but by their husbands’ family, even by his entire clan. One Finnish woman who married into an “immigrant” family says: “They’ve threatened to kidnap my children, and my husband has repeatedly threatened to kill me. He says nobody can stop them, that horrible things happen, and he doesn’t even have to do them himself, that revenge will come from the clan….
The Multicultural Women’s Association Monika, which runs a safe house for immigrant women and their children, says that more and more Finnish women are turning to them when Finnish authorities fail to understand the threat of honour violence.” According to Nasima Razmyar, Monika’s Project Manager: “You can have 200 people involved in honour-related violence, that is, the entire extended family. And not just the family in Finland, but relatives abroad and back in the home country. In general, our laws need to understand much better this type of group threat…One problem is that Finnish authorities in social services and on the police force treat honour violence just like any other case of domestic violence. They don’t take into account the fact that instead of a dispute between two individuals, honour violence pits a single woman against the wrath of a large group of people.” One hopes and prays that the counselor assigned to the Bary family understands the nature of honor killings. They can certainly read my first study, which appeared in Middle East Quarterly. And, I will gladly send him or her my new study as soon as it is published. P.S. Tundra Tabloids reports that Finnish state news had pulled the article about honor-related violence in Finland but restored it recently in a more sanitized form. Here’s what was deleted from the original article: “Among immigrants honor violence has occurred in Finland for many years.” “She said that her marriage was hell, but no one believed her.” “The woman is the man’s property and thus can assault the woman however he pleases, if the woman refuses to obey the rules.” “Honor violence has been increasing in recent years in Finland, when unmarried young women immigrants from a foreign culture struggle under the pressure. They may be forced to marry and be prohibited from socializing with Finns.” “We’re currently unable to secure and protect the lives of people in the way that the authorities should do, Hukkanen says.” Once again, I wish to acknowledge Esther’s fine work at IslaminEurope.blogspot.com Phyllis Chesler 
 This interview with Turkish-German lawyer, Seyran Ates, first appeared in the land of the fjords, the land of oil, the home of the political correctniks who choose and bestow the Nobel Peace Prize. I am talking about Norway, where my friend and colleague, the American author Bruce Bawer, also lives. Bruce has written a number of important books such as While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying The West From Within and Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity. Bruce (who currently has a piece featured on Pajamas) is the one who translates my work into Norwegian. Two far-sighted women, Rita Karlsen and Helge Storhaug, publish Human Rights Service as an online journal in both English and Norwegian. I first “met” Seyran Ates when I was researching my book about Islamic gender apartheid and its penetration of the West. Thus, I quoted her twice in The Death of Feminism. I recently met Seyran for the first time in person in Rome at the G8 conference; I wrote about it for PJM here. We bonded. But, we really met when Seyran came to stay with me in New York City. Seyran Ates' latest book: "Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution" By Phyllis Chesler for Human Rights Service This past week, my home and my life were graced by a very heroic houseguest. I am talking about Seyran Ates, the Turkish-German lawyer, author, and freedom fighter who flew to New York City to spend six days with me, to talk, laugh, dream, strategize, hang out, hide out. Yes, hide out. Seyran’s fourth book Islam braucht eine sexuelle Revolution has just appeared in Germany. Its title: “Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution” has, apparently, led to more than the usual number of death threats. Seyran temporarily cancelled her tour to promote the book and came to visit me instead. Seyran is no stranger to serious trouble. In 1984, as a 21 year-old law student, Seyran was working at a Women’s Center in Berlin where mainly Turkish and Kurdish girls and women came for counseling. Seyran was sitting with her client, a fifteen year old battered Turkish Muslim girl. All around them, other women were giving and receiving advice, shelter, legal services. A quiet man quietly entered. Politely, but firmly, one of the women said: “Sir, there are no men allowed here.” Expressionless, the man in the trench coat assured her that “What I have to do will take no time at all.” Quickly, smoothly, he shot and killed the fifteen year old. He also pumped three bullets into Seyran’s neck and shoulder; she was not expected to live since the shooter had punctured a major artery. Against all odds Seyran recovered but her rehabilitation would take six years. The shooter calmly walked out of the Women’s Center. Yes, he was finally found and jailed for six months but no, he was never convicted. Although six Turkish and non-Turkish women identified him, the police made so many procedural errors that the judge felt there was enough reasonable doubt and could not convict him.
In Seyran’s expert opinion, the problem was that the victims were women—and Turkish women at that. It was a Turkish-on-Turkish, Muslim-on-Muslim crime—perhaps the fate of Turkish-German women was not yet seen as a priority on the multi-culti German agenda. A lesser mortal might have given up. Seyran, however, completed law school. She went on to specialize in defending battered, mainly Muslim immigrant girls and women, including those who are the intended targets of honor killing. However, Seyran was a rebel long before this incident. When she was 18 years old, she ran away from home. She could no longer bear being “treated as her father’s and elder brother’s slave and servant.” She wrote a book about it but under a pseudonym. She titled it: Wo gehören wir hin? (Where Do We Belong?) and it was a cri de coeur about immigrant identity. When I asked her how she found the strength to do this, she told me this: “My parents, who were farmers, first came to Berlin in 1968 as guest workers. Berlin was undergoing a political and sexual revolution. I have no idea what they made of it all. Anyway, I arrived here in 1969 when I was six years old. I was the only Turkish girl in school. Everyone spoke German. Me too. I became completely integrated. There were no separate or parallel facilities, no parallel universe to impede my integration.” Seyran wanted the same freedoms that German girls and women had. Now, in retrospect, she realizes that, as the only daughter, her mother really needed her help. (Seyran has reconciled completely with her family. In fact, they all live together in the same building in different apartments and support Seyran’s decision to be a single mother.) Here, in the West, a non-Muslim divorce lawyer who represents a non-Muslim battered woman client might well be sued by her client’s ex-husband; she might have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend herself. I know many American women lawyers who have faced this. But a lawyer like Seyran risks her life, faces death, each day she defends a battered Muslim woman, each time she helps her flee from an intended honor killing. So many heroic Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and dissidents have received death threats. Some write under pseudonyms, live in exile, often require bodyguards and/or serious police protection.
Here, I am thinking about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Magdi Allam, Lubna Hussein (the brave, trouser-wearing journalist who just fled Sudan), Ibn Warraq, Irshad Manji, Taslima Nasrin, Asra Nomani, Wafa Sultan. Those of us who share their views and who write about them in the West, are usually called “racist Islamophobes.” More at Chesler Chronicles
 Muslim immigrant men have been accused of six "honor killings" in the United States in the past two years, prompting concerns that the Muslim community and police need to do more to stop such crimes. "There is broad support and acceptance of this idea in Islam, and we're going to see it more and more in the United States," says Robert Spencer, who has trained FBI and military authorities on Islam and founded Jihad Watch, which monitors radical Islam. Honor killings are generally defined as murders of women by relatives who claim the victim brought shame to the family.
Thousands of such killings have occurred in Muslim countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Palestinian territories, according to the World Health Organization. Some clerics and even lawmakers in these countries have said families have the right to commit honor killings as a way of maintaining values, according to an analysis by Yotam Feldner in the journal Middle East Quarterly. In the USA, police allege the latest "honor killing" was that of Noor Almaleki, 20, who died Nov. 2 after she and her boyfriend's mother were run over in a Peoria, Ariz., parking lot. Prosecutors charged Almaleki's father, Faleh Almaleki, with murder, saying the Iraqi immigrant was upset that his daughter rejected a husband she married in Iraq and moved in with an American. "By his own admission, this was an intentional act, and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family," says Maricopa County prosecutor Stephanie Low, according to The Arizona Republic. Many Muslim leaders in the USA say that Islam does not promote honor killings and that the practice stems from sexism and tribal behavior that predates the religion. "You're always going to get problems with chauvinism and suppressing vulnerable populations and gender discrimination," says Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Not all agree. Zuhdi Jasser says some Muslim communities have failed to spell out how Islam deals with issues that can lead to violence. "How should young adult women be treated who want to assimilate more than their parents want them to assimilate?" asks Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which advocates a separation of mosque and state. "How does an imam treat a woman who comes in and says she wants a divorce ... or how to deal with your daughter that got pregnant, and she's in high school?" Phyllis Chesler, who wrote about honor killings in her book Woman's Inhumanity to Woman, says police need to focus on the crimes' co-conspirators if they wish to reverse the trend. Before 2008, there were six honor killings in the USA in the previous 18 years, according to her research. "It's usually the father, brother or first male cousin who is charged with the actual shooting or stabbing, (but not) the mother who lures the girl home," Chesler says. "The religion has failed to address this as a problem and failed to seriously work to abolish it as un-Islamic." Jasser says his community needs to address how to treat young women who want to assimilate. "Until we have women's liberation ... we're going to see these things increase." USAToday
New Citizenship Guides Spells It OutBy Phyllis Chesler The Canadian government has just revamped its citizenship guide for immigrants. The document is titled “The Rights and Responsibilities of Canadian Citizenship.” According to Canada’s National Post, “In Canada, men and women are equal under the law,” the document says. “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.” Read more ... Source: PJM
 By Aaron Klein A column on a "right wing" website suggesting an Islamic motivation for last week's Fort Hood shooting massacre may help generate a backlash against American Muslim soldiers, according to CNN. On CNN's American Morning show yesterday, reporter Carol Costello quoted the mother of a Muslim U.S. soldier as fearing "a backlash against Muslim American soldiers." "She knows some are already reaching conclusions as to why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on his fellow soldiers," Costello stated. Continued Costello: "The right-wing website, Pajamas Media, is an example. Phyllis Chesler writing, 'I knew in my bones that the shooter or shooters were Muslim. We must connect the dots before it's too late.'" Costello was referring to a Pajamas Media column entitled "The Jihadist is always the victim," in which Chesler quoted from widespread reports of Hasan's ties to militant Islam. Chesler wrote, "The only answer most people want to hear is that a lone, psychiatrically deranged shooter did it. All by himself, on his own." "They may be right. Sometimes. And yet…The same Instant Personal Jihad Syndrome once led another Palestinian, Sirhan Sirhan, to shoot Robert Kennedy in cold blood." Newsbusters notes Chesler herself does not exactly fit with CNN's grouping of "right wing." Chesler, professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island, has been a noted feminist activist who co-founded the National Women's Health Network and the Association for Women in Psychology. She is the author of thirteen books, including "Women and Madness," "Woman's Inhumanity to Woman" and "The Death of Feminism." In a 1998 interview with Time magazine about feminism, Chesler stated that 'a woman’s body is her own, and she should not be invaded against her will by a rapist, nor should she be prevented from having an abortion." "Clearly, Chesler is no huge 'right-winger,' as Costello would have one believe," noted Newsbusters. Chesler is a prominent critic of Islamic extremism and is a supporter of Israel. In her 2003 book, "The New Anti-Semitism," Chesler argues that anti-Zionism and attacks against Israel are nearly indistinguishable from anti-Semitism. A website run by Revolution Muslim honored Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas, as an "officer and a gentleman," saying his actions should not be denounced. The massacre, which also left more than two dozen injured, was called a "pre-emptive attack" by supporters of the group. Hasan, a Muslim psychiatrist who reportedly had been disciplined for pushing Islam on his patients at one point in his career, had given away his furniture and handed out Qurans before allegedly going to the military post and firing on soldiers at a processing center where soldiers prepared to deploy. "Get Well Soon Major Nidal We Love You," said the website run by radicals who follow an imam once jailed in Britain. "Major Nidal Hasan M.D. An officer and a gentleman was injured while partaking in a pre-emptive attack." Source: WND
Latest recipient of the Yellow Rag Award
 Britain’s Center for Social Cohesion Can’t Get the American Media to Pay AttentionBy Phyllis Chesler The British Center for Social Cohesion, a distinguished think tank, has just released a major expose of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), which is targeting the West, “including the United States, and (which) supports violent jihad.” Britain has just suspended government support for some HT nursery and primary schools which function to indoctrinate unsuspecting Muslim children into dreaming of a global caliphate. And yes, they veil the little, little girls at ever-younger ages. Well-meaning parents who themselves may not be religiously well-versed may believe that what this group does, represents “authentic” rather than dangerously “radical” Islam. According to the Center, “last month, President Obama’s faith advisor, Dalia Mogahed, legitimized HT’s claims that the majority of Muslims support the group’s political vision when she spoke alongside HT’s women’s representative on a UK television programme.” My colleague, Cinammon Stillwell, wrote about this. Mogahed did say that she had no idea that a representative of HT would be on the program. This might be true, but Mogahed could have walked off the set—or spent the time challenging HT’s radical agenda. Read more ... Source: PJM
By Gramfan According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Feminism is defined thus: Date: 1895 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests Who can ever forget the iconic cover of "The Female Eunuch", by Germaine Greer? It was everywhere when it was first published in 1970. It was virtually the next best thing that had happened to women since Emmeline Pankhurst and her Suffragettes worked to get women the vote. So we were told. And certainly you cannot deny the benefits and progress that have come from these two women, and the many others who have taken over the baton and changed the lives of millions. Many of today's other famous feminists are living very comfortably on self-earned wealth: fine with me, it's well-deserved. They have turned their politics and activism into income sources by working in journalism and other media. People listen to them. They have power, enormous power. Camille Paglia is but one of many whose opinions are highly respected, and it is easy to see why. Germaine Greer is still going on strongly about all kinds of issues. Gloria Steinem is another member of this esteemed crowd and there are also very many not-so-famous feminists. These feminists are in almost all professions from politics to pianists, parents and yes, prostitutes - the oldest "profession" of them all! Then of course there are the other women in the world who don't occupy this rarified space but who have decided, and yes, it is a decison now, to become home-makers and mothers. Some of them decide to resume successful careers and some chose not to. But I wonder if we all really received so many benefits from all these feminists? Some of us didn't. With all that is good and liberating in human progress there are often side effects and "unintended consequences". Sadly there are goals that have not, and will not be achieved. Certainly many of us get equal work for equal pay nowadays but not all of us. Then there are those who chose to be wives and mothers, who are often scorned, or looked down upon, for their choices. They had jobs, but feminists weren't satisfied; every other woman had to get one too. So they opened fire on homemakers with a savagery that still echoes throughout our culture. A housewife is a "parasite," [Betty] Frieden writes; such women are "less than fully human" insofar as they "have never known a commitment to an idea." And.... Housewives, not men, were the prey in feminism's sights when Kate Millett decreed in 1969 that the family must go. Feminists do not speak for traditional women. Men cannot know this, however, unless we tell them how we feel about them, our children, and our role in the home. Men must understand that our feelings towards them and our children are derided by feminists and have earned us their enmity. Whether or not this understanding garners men's support, traditional women must defend ourselves because the feminist offensive is, most essentially, a breach of solidarity with us, a disavowel of the obligation to honor the Women's Pact [that religious celibates, professional women, and homemakers respect each other] that women in the movement owed to us (Source). Oh yes, this site has more. Feminism today goes on and on, intellectualising and re-defining feminism to the extent where it is almost too difficult to follow, let alone comprehend. Quite frankly I am more interested in the practical day-to-day realities. I take the two definitions at face value and I note it doesn't specify any nationality,political allegiance or religion. 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests It is true a lot of this has happened in the West but rather than have Greer et al espouse "intellectual yada yada" I would rather see these women get militant again and do something to help their long-suffering sisters who live in Islamic countries, and who can but only dream of the lifestyle many of their famous feminist sisters enjoy. All too often I see stories of honour killings, rape, female genital mutilation, subservience, domestic (and other) violence, forced marriage and utter discrimination perpetrated against women in Muslim countries and now also in the West. Some women are getting hymenoplasties and buying repair kits before they marry. Some are being recruited as homicide bombers. One is punished for drinking beer, others face lashings or stonings. An Australian Islamist tries to justify polygamy for everyone. There are women who suffer terribly from acid attacks quite frequently. Women in Gaza are not allowed to ride motorcycles, and Somali women are being scrutinised when wearing a bra! Where's Germaine when you need her, or would this make her happy I wonder? And recently we have the on-going case of Rifka Bary who, as a minor, cannot chose her religion, and could become a victim of honorcide for apostasy. If she is sent back to her parents her fate is unknown. If she is allowed to remain alive the Islamists can deny honorcide even exists. This is happening in the USA now. Yet in spite of these incidents feminists like Naomi Wolfe manage to defend discrimination towards women in Islam and it then takes a compassionate feminist, Phyllis Chesler, who has actually lived in a Muslim country, to sort it out for her! I know many feminists, and women in general, can be fearless fighters. Code Pink, for example, have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan. True, they are an anti-war movement, but perhaps, just perhaps, they could have drawn some attention to the women who live and suffer in the war zones they are so adamantly against. They could have easily added one more mission statement to what is on their website which mentions "social justice". Indeed, any other anti-war group could easily have done the same. I know they do not define themselves as feminists per se, but why not do more? Could they not have met with Malalai Joya and offered some help? Indeed, could not some of our famous feminists, female politicians and celebrities who spend so much time choking on their own venom over Sarah Palin have done the same? Are they afraid? Or are they simply not interested in the women's issues of today because they think it is another culture and therefore they shouldn't interfere. They know it isn't right but they can turn a blind eye to it, even as it happens under their noses, in their own countries. It's a cop-out. The improvement of the condition of women in Islam is, to me, a far loftier goal than getting to wear trousers, getting equal pay, getting an abortion on demand, and having a man treat a woman more like a man! This was definitely an "unintended consequence" for me: trivial as it may seem. I am much heartened by the fact that progress is being made, albeit in small steps. Kuwati women in parliament refuse to wear the veil. An Egyptian Cleric wants to ban burquas and other facial coverings. Honor killing or Honorcide is getting more attention. Lubna Hussein got a lot of media attention over her sentence for wearing trousers. Najwa Bin Laden and her son, Omar, wrote a book about their husband and father, Osama, and seem to be fearless about it. They have provided a fascinating insight into this man. I think the real "feminist"heroines now are the ones who have literally put their lives on the line, not only for women in Islam but for the world in general. Their goals and committment are what is truly deserving of our respect and support. I am referring to women like Dr Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Supna Zaidi, Irshad Manji and women like them. There is another one who would have possibly made it to this list: Neda Soltan. Tragically she cannot, but in spirit she can inspire so much. I feel she deserves a mention among these brave, dedicated and fascinating women. This is my challenge to todays feminists. Use your power again. I am "just a Mom". I do not have your platform and power. This is indeed a most worthy cause to support and fight for. ("Gramfan" has been 'blogging since 2002. She is "just a Mom" of two grown-up sons, and helps her husband of 38 years. She has occasionally written pieces for other 'blogs, and posts comments. She now writes exclusively for Muslims Against Sharia).
By Phyllis Chesler We are entering an all-spin zone, a wild, weird and spooky season and I am not talking about Halloween. With a few exceptions, the mainstream media continue to kill stories about honor killings and attempted honor killings in North America. How often did you read stories about the honor killings that took place in Toronto (07), Dallas (08), Atlanta (08), Oak Forest, Illinois (08), Alexandria (08), Buffalo (09), and Kingston, Canada (09)—on and on, until the most recent attempted honor killing in Phoenix? There are two killers still on the loose: Yaser Said, the Dallas monster out of Egypt who abused, stalked, and murdered his two daughters with the help of his wife, their mother, and his son, their brother. Read more ...Source: PJM
 By Phyllis Chesler P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, with the help of Gaubatz’s son Chris, who went undercover, have published an important, perhaps even an explosive and sensational book which exposes the Muslim-Brotherhood connected Council on American-Islamic Relations, otherwise known as CAIR. The book is carefully researched and far too detailed for any one reviewer to summarize in a single review. The authors dub CAIR and other similar groups, the Muslim Mafia in America; indeed, the title of their book is: Muslim Mafia. Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America. They document CAIR’s foreign funding sources, ties to fundamentalists and terrorists, (including the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda), CAIR’s legally aggressive tactics which are meant to censor free speech as well as the truth about Islamic jihad and fundamentalism in the name of alleged “Islamophobia”—and of course, their brazen lies. According to the scholar Daniel Pipes, CAIR has lied about their membership size (it is not 50,000 but 5, 133); lied about how many Muslims actually live in America (it is not 7 million but more like 2.3 million); lied about the source of their financial support (most comes from the Arab Middle East), lied about being a grassroots group, etc. I can assure you that CAIR has also consistently lied about honor killings in North America. Most recently, CAIR funded the lawyers for Fathima Rifqa Bary’s parents (she’s the Muslim teenager who converted to Christianity and ran away after she said her father had threatened to kill her). CAIR and their lawyers insisted that Rifqa had never been abused or threatened, that apostates are never killed by their Muslim families or communities. They specifically told Florida law enforcement authorities that there is no such thing as an honor killing in Islam. CAIR’s usual line is that every community has its share of “domestic violence.” However, in a previous study in Middle East Quarterly, and in a new, forthcoming study which will appear in MEQ as well, I have shown that honor killings and western-style domestically violent femicides are very different. Although some Hindus and some Sikhs do commit honor murders, this is mainly a Muslim-on-Muslim and male-on-female crime. In addition, according to Dr. Rusty Shackleford (MyPetJawa) in the Washington Times: “A source who infiltrated a strategy session convened by the Muslim Brotherhood-associated Council on American Islamic Relations, reported that CAIR “handed out copies of [a recent] Orlando Sentinel article [that was critical of Rifqa Bary] and want supporters to push the meme that Christians have brainwashed and abducted this gullible teenage girl. They also have instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality. This CAIR strategy takes the focus off the near-universal Islamic legal precepts and Quranic injunctions that demand death for apostates and impugns the character of the innocent girl at the center of this controversy who appears to be in genuine fear for her life if she is returned to her parents.” Read more ...Source: PJM
 By Phyllis Chesler When girls or women suddenly disappear, we tend to assume that they’ve been kidnapped by pedophiles or traffickers. Some of us think they were probably prostitutes and either deserved to die or were, tragically, lured to their deaths by a serial killer. We do not think they might have been killed by their own families. And, we always assume that the slavers are men. Both beliefs are wrong. For example, in 1999, in a suburb north of London, a fifteen year old Kurdish Turk, Tulay Goren, suddenly disappeared. The family insisted that she had simply run away. Now, a decade later, her father, Mehmet Goren and her paternal uncles Cuma Goren and Ali Goren are on trial at the Old Bailey for her murder and for having conspired to kill her much older boyfriend, Halil Unal. This case may be the first honor killing which the British police have re-opened after a decade and which they are trying as an “honor killing.” There might be many more such cases, both here and all over the world. I am not usually one to praise the British but I will do so here. They are leading the European pack in terms of dealing with honor killings. Read more ...Source: PJM
 We live at a moment in history when tyrants hold forth with none to stop them. Ahmadinejad-the-Monster held forth in all his western-suited glory at the UN and so did the terrorist, Gaddafi.
No one at the UN stopped the Libyan madman from speaking well beyond his allotted 15 minutes. If the UN can’t even do this, can you imagine them actually stopping a genocide or a terrorist plot in process?If they can’t or won’t, why are we funding them? Why do they exist? The American President has decided to “engage” with the UN and with the world of tyrants. Perhaps he can, perhaps he thinks like them. Me - I have an increasingly hard time dealing with their righteous arrogance and post-colonial resentments, not to mention their demonization of Israel. For example, let me share two recent conversations with you. In retrospect, both conversations were a little like talking to Red Guard Maoist youth leaders in 1949 in China. The first conversation took place in Rome at the international conference I attended. In my speech I referred to “third world” countries. Immediately afterwards, a young woman in a business suit (pants and a jacket) started following me around. She was from South Africa and was pleasant enough but strangely persistent. She said: “ We do not say ‘third world.’ That suggests that one world is ‘first’ and the others, last, or lesser. We would like you to say ‘developing world’ instead. Isn’t that more hopeful?” Said I: “You make an interesting point and I actually agree with you. Going forward, I might do as you suggest.” But she was programmed to go on, to wear down, force concessions, so that everyone will think exactly as she does. She was not used to easy victories and did not seem to hear or believe me. She continued explaining why ‘third world’ was a derogatory phrase and not a good post-colonial way of thinking. I repeated that I agreed with her. When she continued to press on, I backed away. Afterwards, I thought that she had shown very little respect for one of the keynote speakers (myself) whose presentation had just excited a good deal of interest. Ah–she was psychologically programmed to go after those in positions of authority. The second conversation took place in New York City. I was interviewing a college graduate for a potential position. One young woman identified herself as a feminist—but then quickly told me she was a Muslim and that some of her female relatives wear hijab and that their decision was a private one that no government should abrogate. I said that given my work and given how strongly I’d bonded with a stellar group of Muslim feminists at the conference in Rome, I would welcome a Muslim feminist on the job. And, I agreed with her about the importance of separating religion from state–but then said that the matter was still exceedingly tricky. Said I: “One does not want the government mixing in matters of religion or telling women what to wear but as long as Muslim girls and women can be killed for refusing to wear hijab, how can we as feminists fully support it?” Throwing all caution to the winds, I referred her to my website and recommended some books including Nonie Darwish’s Cruel and Usual Punishment, and a new and rather elegant little book by Marnia Lazreg titled Questioning the Veil. Open Letters to Muslim Women. I should have kept my mouth shut. Read more here ...Source: Chesler Chronicles United Nations
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 She founds a new organization: Former Muslims United Not again. Ah, yes again and again until we have won this war of ideas.
Nonie Darwish, the warmest, sanest, least prejudiced Egyptian whom I know, has both been attacked and has not been defended by the administrative elite at the Whittier College Law School where she is scheduled to speak later today. According to Steven Emerson, the Muslim Student Association on campus defamed Darwish and tried to stop or at least delay her presentation. Not surprising. They specialize in such demonization and censorship campaigns. Darwish pleads the case of Muslim women whose human rights are seriously violated by shariah law. But the academic administrators at Whittier Law School have not strongly defended her right to speak, nor have they praised her work. This is unforgivable; according to Emerson, many happen to be women who are also feminists. Alas, this is also not surprising. I wrote an entire book about this phenomenon: The Death of Feminism. What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom I have written about Darwish before. I admit it: I adore her for her courage. Darwish is also the founder of ArabsforIsrael—c’mon, this woman warrior has guts.
But, I now wonder whether this brou-ha-ha has anything to do with a press release that Darwish has just sent round. Darwish and others have formed a new organization: Former Muslims United. Darwish is an apostate (she converted to Christianity)—just like Magdi Alam who converted to Catholicism and now requires seven police officers around the clock– and just like Rifqa Bary, the Ohio teenager who has run away from her Muslim family and is now in state custody in Florida. The Former Muslim press release reads as follows: “Prominent former Muslims– apostates from Islam– will hold a press conference Thursday, September 24 to announce the launch of a new civil liberties organization, Former Muslims United, and the start of a national campaign to educate the American public and policymakers about the threat from authoritative Shariah– Islamic law– to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims. At the press conference, Former Muslims United founders Nonie Darwish and Ibn Warraq (both internationally-respected authors and scholars) will release letters calling on the Department of Justice and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate possible hate crimes and civil rights violations against apostates from Islam, including the circumstances of the current Florida case of 17-year old Rifqa Bary, a former Muslim. The letters are also signed by Former Muslims United co-founders Mohammad Asghar, Wafa Sultan and Amil Imani.” Darwish and Warraq will release the text of Former Muslim United’s groundbreaking “Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims,” copies of which will be received in the offices of dozens of Muslim leaders across America by September 25, the 220th anniversary of Congress passing the Bill of Rights. They will also distribute a list of the names of this first group of Muslim leaders to be asked to sign the Muslim Pledge. Additional Muslim leaders will be sent the pledge in the next month as the national campaign gets underway. The names of all pledge recipients will be listed at Formermuslimsunited.org.” Smart. Islamists are not the only ostensibly aggrieved people who can use civil rights law to their advantage. Darwish and the Former Muslims United organization can be reached at info@formermuslimsunited.org We, the people are not boots on the ground, we are not risking our lives as soldiers in combat zones. All we can do is risk our popularity by telling the truth, standing up to the Big Lies about America, Israel and the West, and opposing Islamist and leftist “politically correct” censorship. I congratulate Nonie Darwish for her leadership in the war of ideas. Source: Chesler Chronicles
Hijab (The Headscarf)—Yes; The Burqa—No
Pajamas Media 15 September 2009 Banning the burqa in the West might be one way to ban Islamist fundamentalism and the barbaric subordination of girls and women in certain immigrant communities. For this reason, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French Minister Fadela Amara have again called for this ban. Earlier today, French immigration Minister, Eric Besson, called the burqa “debased.” I would hope that the French take their argument further. In the past, they have mainly cited security concerns: Burqa wearing women might be “racially” attacked or burqa wearers themselves might be terrorists or criminals who are planning to attack or rob civilians. I would hope that the French also argue for such a ban on women’s rights/human rights grounds, as I have already proposed. Thus, clothing which completely covers the face and head in a way which muffles speech, hearing, and vision, which limits or prevents all human communication and identification, and which, in effect, functions like an isolation chamber is, by definition, a violation of human rights. None of this applies to hijab, the Islamic headscarf, which has already been banned in France in school and which is the subject of protest and controversy across Europe.
With all due respect for the good intentions of the French, perhaps Western governments should not automatically or necessarily ban hijab for women; the matter is tricky and complicated for girls as we have seen, as city after city across Europe has discovered. Indeed, this is a complex and challenging matter. Today, in Holland, in the very country that is putting the sober and very brave parliamentarian,Geert Wilders on trial for exercising his political free speech—another bright Dutch light, Trouw historian Tineke Bennema has called on “women who were born in the Netherlands to voluntarily put on a headscarf ‘out of solidarity’ with the hijab wearers.” You know, like the Danes allegedly once wore the yellow Jewish star. Read All here: http://europenews.dk/en/node/26287
 par Jamie Glazov
Naomi Wolf se dit «consternée» de la manière « erronée» dont j’aurais présenté son opinion favorable au voile musulman sur mon nouveau blog NewsReal. Elle a demandé à mon patron, David Horowitz, de « supprimer ce mensonge de [son] site et de faire une mise au point. » Elle a exprimé des exigences du même ordre auprès de Phyllis Chesler, qui avait également évoqué l’odyssée totalitaire de Wolf dans un récent article sur Pajamas Media.
Wolf insiste sur le fait qu'elle ne trouve pas la burqa « sexy » et qu'elle ne souhaite pas l'institutionnaliser, même si son récent article dans le Sydney Morning Herald est intitulé : Behind the Veil Lives a Thriving Muslim Sexuality (Une sexualité musulmane florissante s’épanouit sous le voile) : dans cet article, elle explique qu’au cours de ses voyages au Maroc, en Jordanie et en Égypte, elle a découvert que le voile était à la source de beaucoup d’érotisme (autrement dit, les relations sexuelles entre époux sont torrides quand les femmes se couvrent et ne se montrent qu’à leur mari, etc.)
Lire la suite...Source: NewsReal (Traduction par Poste de veille et Bivouac-ID)
 No, the debate between Naomi Wolf and Phyllis Chesler isn’t dead yet. Quick link summary for those just jumping in: On August 31 Phyllis Chesler wrote a piece at Pajamas Media challenging an article Naomi Wolf wrote about veiled Muslim women for the Sydney Morning Herald. Jamie Glazov, FrontPage’s managing editor and a blogger for NewsReal, wrote a post in support of Chesler here. Wolf didn’t care for either Chesler or Glazov’s characterizations of her position. She left a comment demanding that David Horowitz, NewsReal’s Editor-In-Chief, remove Glazov’s blog. She also contacted Chesler. Glazov had an additional rebuttal here, Horowitz weighed in here, Robert Spencer commented here, and the other day Salon sided with Wolf here, prompting further rebuttals from Chesler here, and Glazov here. (And there are two feminists in support of Chesler here.) Now to this summary one can add two defenses of Wolf and one somewhat neutral observer who takes some shots at both side: AltMuslim claims that Wolf’s defense of the veil is “rational culture”: Finally, there is an unusually vociferous face-off over the veil occurring in the blogosphere – but it’s not among Muslims. Celebrated author and activist Naomi Wolf (who we interviewed at the start of the economic crisis) penned an article entitled, “Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality” in which she documented her experiences in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt. She found that in typical Muslim households, “It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling — toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.” There was “demureness and propriety” outside of the home, “but inside, women were as interested in allure, seduction and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” When walking through a bazaar with a Pakistani-style shalwar kameez and headscarf (hardly a burqa), she “felt a novel sense of calm and serenity” and even, “in certain ways, free.” That was too much for conservative activist Phyllis Chesler, who is rallying the troops (including David Horowitz and Ann Coulter) to savage Wolf, saying that “most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice” about covering “and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families” (though Wolf had said along, “Choice is everything”). Read more ... Source: NewsReal BlogNaomi Wolf
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 By Phyllis Chesler The outpouring of support for my position in favor of universal women’s rights both humbles and strengthens me. This struggle is not about me nor is it about Naomi Wolf who so unwisely went to war over one blog of mine which critiqued her written views about the Islamic veil and the oppression/repression of Muslim women. But now, the issue is also about liberal-left double standards vis-a-vis Free Speech, their incredibly thin skins when they are challenged, not personally, but politically. A different opinion calls for “apologies” and “corrections,” perhaps even for a dressing down and a public recantation. I also think that some people have a very hard time when they are exposed as less than perfect. Thus far, my two recent articles on this subject have received nearly 300 comments, most of which are on point, amazing, hilarious, brilliant, and deadly. They are still pouring in. I did not publish those comments which were gratuitously insulting to Wolf as a woman. No need for that when there are so many important issues involved and so many thoughtful comments. I urge you to read these comments. They “annoint me, my cup floweth over.” Readers: Bless you and thank you. Read more ...Source: PJMMore on the subject: Wolf Demands An Apology, Chesler Won't Back Down. The Ladies Exchange Their Views.The Burqa: Ultimate Feminist Choice? Naomi Wolf Discovers That Shrouds Are Sexy.
 By Phyllis Chesler It seems that Naomi Wolf is quite upset by what I’ve written yesterday. She has posted a comment at my blog, written to me privately (below), left a message in my office and written to at least one website that linked to my blog. I am answering her here. Dear Naomi: Hello and I hope you are well too. My piece is not a personal attack. Please don’t take it as such. It is a political and intellectual critique of what you wrote. There are no “terrible inaccuracies” in what I’ve written or in how I’ve conveyed the general tenor of your article. Your demand that I print a “correction” and issue an “apology” is uncalled for as is your offer to go over my mistakes with me, point by point, on the phone or in a debate. I dare say, this last bit is a wee bit arrogant and frightening. One woman’s “mistake” is another woman’s “opinion.” I now understand that you’ve left a phone message in my office, posted a letter at my blogsite at Pajamas Media, written to me privately, and also written to Frontpage Magazine which has linked to my piece today. Are you going to track down every site that linked to this piece as well? Read more ...Source: PJMMore on the subject: The Burqa: Ultimate Feminist Choice? Naomi Wolf Discovers That Shrouds Are Sexy.
August 31st, 2009 8:10 am - Phyllis Chesler
The Burqa: Ultimate Feminist Choice?
Naomi Wolf Discovers That Shrouds Are Sexy Women in chadors are really feminist ninja warriors. Rather than allow themselves to be gawked at by male strangers, they choose to defeat the “male gaze” by hiding from it in plain view.
But don’t you worry: Beneath that chador, abaya, burqa, or veil, there is a sexy courtesan wearing “Victoria Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotion,” just waiting for her husband to come home for a night of wild and sensuous marital lovemaking.
Obviously, these are not my ideas. I am quoting from a piece by Naomi Wolf that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago. Yes, Wolf is the bubbly, feminist author who once advised Vice President Al “The Climate” Gore on what colors he should wear while campaigning and who is or was friendly with Gore’s daughter. Full disclosure: I have casually known Wolf and her parents for more than a quarter-century.
Wolf recently traveled to Morocco, Jordan, and Eygpt, where she found the women “as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” Whew! What a relief. She writes:
“Many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. … Many women said something like this: …’how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.’ This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.”
Really? If so, I’m the Queen of England.
Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times. A Westerner, “playing” Muslim-dress up, Wolf claims that hiding in plain view gave her “a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.” In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands.
Marabel Morgan lives! In the mid-1970s, Morgan advised wives to greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy clothing and/or transparent saran wrap with only themselves underneath. Her book, Total Woman, sold more than ten million copies. According to Morgan, a Christian, “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”
Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things.
Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police? Most Muslim girls and women are impoverished and wear rags, not expensive Western clothing beneath their coverings. Only the pampered, super-controlled, often isolated, and uber-materialistic daughters of wealth, mainly in the Gulf states, but also among the ruling classes in the Islamic world, match Wolf’s portrait of well kept courtesan-wives.
Being veiled and obedient does not save a Muslim girl or woman from being incested, battered, stalked, gang-raped, or maritally raped nor does it stop her husband from taking multiple wives and girlfriends or from frequenting brothels. A fully “covered” girl-child, anywhere between the ages of 10-15, may still be forced into an arranged marriage, perhaps with her first cousin, perhaps with a man old enough to be her grandfather, and she is not allowed to leave him, not even if he beats her black and blue every single day.
Wolf claims that she donned a “shalwar kameez and a headscarf” for a trip to the bazaar. I suggest that Wolf understand that the shalwar kameez and headscarf that she playfully wore in Morocco are not the problem.
I wonder how Wolf would feel if she’d donned a burqa, chador (full body bags) or niqab (face mask) for that same trip; how well she would do in an isolation chamber that effectively blocked her five senses and made it difficult, if not impossible, for her to communicate with others?
And, by the way, the eerie effect, ultimately, of shrouded women is that they become invisible. They cease to exist. They are literally ghosts.
Wolf presents the West as anti-woman because it treats women as sex objects. Am I happy about pornography and prostitution in the West? Hell no and, unlike Wolf, I’ve fought against them–but to portray these vices as a “Western” evil, and one that the Islamic world opposes, is sheer madness.
It is well known that the Arabs and Muslims kept and still keep sex slaves–they are very involved in the global trafficking in girls and women and frequent prostitutes on every continent. You will find pornography magazines in every princely tent–those for boys as well as for girls. I am told that the Saudis fly in fresh planeloads of Parisian prostitutes every week. Perhaps they veil them before they conduct their all-night and all-day orgies. Or, perhaps they view them as natural, “infidel” prey.
Let me suggest that Wolf read a book that is coming out in September, written by a Christian-American woman, Mary Laurel Ross, whose American Air Force husband trained the Saudi Air Force. It is called Veiled Honor and is a timely, comprehensive, “nuanced” (Wolf calls for “nuance” in our understanding of “female freedom”) account of her approximately fifteen year sojourn in Saudi Arabia. I would also suggest that Wolf read the works of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel) and Nonie Darwish (Cruel and Usual Punishment) for starters.
Then again, I suspect that Wolf is not necessarily looking for any “nuanced” truths about “female freedom” but is, rather, fishing for Saudi gold and positioning herself within the Democratic Party. After all, what she has written in this brief article supports President Obama’s position vis a vis the Muslim world. Source: http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/08/31/the-burqa-the-ultimate-feminist-choice/
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
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And so, despite the all the naysayers and second-guessers, the lawyers in the Rifqa Bary case have negotiated a reasonable and potentially life-saving settlement which will allow Rifqa to remain in state custody until she becomes 18 (which will happen in August), at which time she herself will decide whether or not she wishes to be reunited with her family.
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