Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Monday 25 October 2010

Here Come the Girls!

In Trafalgar Square a gaggle of Western women of a certain age surrounded by Palestinian flags listen approvingly as Israel is vilified by a succession of speakers. In a sleepy town on the other side of the country a “peace choir” of female voices, with a hyper-active female conductor, holds regular pavement concerts flanked by pro-Palestinian placards and at Christmas includes in their repertoire carols with words altered to demonise Israel. In that and other towns across Britain women picket supermarkets and hand out leaflets demanding that other shoppers boycott Israeli produce.

In the United States, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, a long established pacifist group affiliated to the Women’s Coalition for Peace (which is sponsored by the New Israel Fund) blames Israeli policy for causing an increased incidence of birth defects and leukaemia in Gaza, denounces Operation Cast Lead and Israel’s actions on the Mavi Marmara and accuses the IDF of “merrily” gunning down innocents. It claims that “the U.S. unjustly calls Hamas 'terrorist' and thus requires the Palestinian Authority Police to arrest or otherwise persecute Hamas affiliates... Hamas is being badly discriminated against by the U.S. and Israel because of its religious beliefs.” To read more go to www.israport.org/blood-libel-nif-linked-group-blames-israel-for-leukemia...

In Canada, notice of a conference held in Montreal from 22-24 October calls on “all feminists” to participate in a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Conference at which artists, academics, activists…and concerned individuals will converge upon Montreal for this historic conference, which aims to consolidate and push forward the global movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid… The Conference workshop ‘Israeli Apartheid as a Feminist Issue’…[will] explore ways in which feminist organizations in Quebec, Canada and beyond can contribute to the BDS movement”.

Tony Blair’s embarrassing sister-in-law Lauren Booth, as nauseating an apologist for Hamas and for Iran as you are likely to encounter in the female of the species – witness her regular appearances on Ahmadinejad’s propaganda news channel Press TV and her apparent call for Jihad against Israel at a rally in London some months ago – converted to Islam six weeks ago having visited the Fatima al-Masumeh shrine in Qom, and vows to fight on for Palestine and against perceptions that Islam is a violent religion:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgXedDnVbBs
Read more here here http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/articles/europe/1489-al-quds-day-let...
and here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323278/Tony-Blairs-sister-law-L...

Sarah Colborne, campaign and operations director for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – who got a massive write-up on Al Beeb’s news website back in June after arriving home from the Mavi Marmara with what BBC hack Peter Jackson in a brazenly biased report described as a “graphic and disturbing” account of her experiences – appeared at Saturday’s demonstration outside the Ahava store in London to cheer on her rank and file, but icily refused to answer (“I will not engage with you”) when asked whether she condemns Article 7 of the Hamas Charter, which enjoins Muslims to kill Jews: http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/palestine-campaign-head-v...

New Zealand anti-Israel activist Julie Webb-Pullman, one of six Kiwis in the latest Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza, is thrilled to attend a sit-down lunch reception (on 22 October) with Hamas’s President Ismail Haniya and Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar.  Mind you, it was only after a complaint to female organisers of the reception that the Hamas leaders had so far met only male members of the convoy that Ms Webb-Pullman got to encounter her heroes up close and personal. Both Haniya and Zahar graciously put their signatures upon a local Islamic scarf she proffered - and back in the antipodes this revered relic will be auctioned to raise more money for Gaza. “Viva Palestina! Viva Ismail and Mahmoud! Viva Women!!!” the 50-something activist exults on the Kia Ora Gaza blog, as flushed with joy as a schoolgirl with a crush on a pop star.

Also enjoying the occasion was Pippa Bartolotti, a Green Party candidate from Newport in South Wales, pictured here holding the swastika-resembling flag of the fascistic, expansionist Syrian Social Nationalist Party (hat tip: Harry’s Place). On her blog she writes concerning Gaza: “News riddled with propagandist manipulation, secrets untold, deaths, murders and politics fudge the situation, but one thing is clear: the people living in Gaza are fenced in, denied everything but enough food to keep them just above malnutrition levels, and subject to ever changing sadistic laws which the Jewish population would find intolerable. In short Gazans are kept in a prison by the state of Israel, aided and abetted by the US and Europe.... my contribution to their plight is to draw attention to the moral decay of those who perpetuate this inhumanity.” Ms Bartolotti told Press TV: ““It’s only the people that are going to make a difference because the governments are pathetically weak. They’re in the pockets of Big Money and Big Money supports Israel”. See the video posted at Harry’s Place hurryupharry.org/2010/10/18/greens-and-nazis/
and also her article at http://www.progress.org/2010/napoleon.htm

How strange it all seems, that so many Western women invest so much time in excoriating Israel, a comparative bastion of female freedoms and the first country in the Middle East to give Muslim women the vote, while practically ignoring – or even excusing – the insults to and outrages upon members of their sex perpetrated in the Muslim world. Is it a modern version of Rudolf Valentino Seductive Sheik Sexual Fantasy Syndrome? I wish I knew. Such exclusive concentration on Israel’s misdeeds, real or imagined, wouldn’t be due to antisemitism or anything as crude and as ugly as that. Would it?

As Phyllis Chesler, who received an invitation to that Montreal Conference mentioned above, puts it: “Ah, for a minute there I thought the conference would actually address real apartheid, namely that which is practiced by Islam in terms of both gender and religious apartheid; and indeed, in Gaza and on the West Bank, where honor-related violence, including honor killings, normalized domestic violence, forced veiling, polygamy, arranged child marriage and Arab female illiteracy, is rife and rampant. No such luck.”

Read more:
www.phyllis-chesler.com/887/palestinianization-feminism-montreal

11 comments:

  1. Daphne, you just get better and better.

    Lauren Booth's conversion to Islam is her own personal affair, but how does her stand against violence to women (she is active in the V-Day movement) and her feminism, let alone her left-wing credentials explain away her love of Hamas and the Ahmadinejad regime which are both so egregiously in violation of the very rights she has fought against?

    What is this sickness that is infecting the Western world? If you are against Israel, then anything you do, even contradicting your own morals, is acceptable and explicable in terms of Israel-hate.

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  2. It totally perplexes me, Ray. The stonings of female adulterers ... the rape-by-militia of virgin prisoners in order to enable their death sentences to be carried out (since virgins may not be executed) - these horrific abrogations of the rights of female human beings by Iran just seems to pass Ms Booth by. Otherwise, I don't understand how she could continue broadcasting for Press TV a moment longer.

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  3. Funny, I was thinking about the same thing and found this interesting article about why Western feminists are so hands-off when it comes to the position of women in the Muslim world:

    http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_why_feminism.html

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  4. We should take up a collection to treat them all to an all expenses paid vacation to Gaza or Iran for 3 months.

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  5. The Booths are Roman Catholics. The Roman 'Church' venerates, amongst many others, Our Lady of Fatima.



    It should be noted that the Protestant and Pentecostal Churches have nothing to do with this.

    Ms Booth's sympathy with the Arab-Islamic empire and her Catholic background would leave her spiritually vulnerable to whatever spirit/s haunt the Fatima al-Masumeh shrine in Qom.

    Her sister is a New Age Catholic who has, to some extent, influenced her husband. However, this may not be all it seems.

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  6. Hang on here, on the subject of Lauren Booth

    Am I missing something?

    How can she be a Muslim and a feminist?

    Oxymoron screams at me here.

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  7. Great writing Daphne. Arab women in Israel get the best education of anywhere in the Middle East. You won't hear Lauren Booth or any other of these female lemmings saying that ....

    Jonathan Hoffman

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  8. Many thanks for all your comments - and for that link, Bella!

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  9. I'll be bookmarking this for a close read, Bella:
    Why Feminism is AWOL on Islam by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal ...
    US feminists should be protesting the brutal oppression of Middle Eastern women. But doing so would reveal how little they have to complain about at home.
    www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_why_feminism.html

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  10. 'I don't care about Israel's security' | Oy Va Goy! (Chas Newkey ...
    8 Jun 2010 ... Lauren Booth put in quite a performance at an Israel-bashing demo in London at ... Yes, and how bizarre it is that an ostensible feminist, ...
    www.oyvagoy.com/.../i-dont-care-about-israels-security/

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  11. Yes, Anon, the OyVaGoy post is great - shows her on video shrilly inveighing against Mark Regev and calling for Israel to be attacked!

    Here's a good post:
    http://mideastparalleluniverse.blogspot.com/2010/10/particularly-female-israel-derangement.html

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