Equal Opportunity, Fatah-Style: What Say You To This, Israel-Bashing Women?

I trust they had fun, the attendees at last evening's Palestine Solidarity Campaign fringe meeting in the English south coast resort of Bournemouth, doing what they do best.  Bit rich that the National Union of Teachers was represented there, surely? Shouldn't that union be exclusively concerned with the pay and conditions of Britain's schoolteachers and related issues, rather than with the doings of the Jewish State?

Oh, but I forget. Bashing the one true democracy in the Middle East has become de rigueur for the British Labour Movement these days, as the line-up on this poster illustrates.

No doubt the usual demonics flew fast and furious, but what (if anything) did and do those who so enthusiastically denounce little Israel make of the following?

We learn from the splendid Daniel Greenfield (see his entire article here): 

'Fatah is for all intents and purposes the Palestinian Authority. After the number of honor killings of women in its territory increased by 50 percent this year, some women from the Forum to Combat Violence against Women began protesting daily against President Abbas’ Muqata palace daily until something was done.

So Abbas’ Fatah Party responded in a way that once again clarifies the moral abyss in which the bottom dwellers of the Palestinian State live.

 The following is the text on Fatah’s Facebook page, posted the day after Palestinians demonstrated against renewed peace talks between Israel and the PA:

“Where are you, Dalal [Mughrabi]? Swear in Allah’s name that you will return, if only for a moment. On your way, bring Ayyat Al-Akhras, Andalib Takatka and Wafa Idris with you. Bring the Martyrs with you.

 Come back here, my sisters, in Allah’s name. Teach yesterday’s whores [at the demonstration] how the struggle is carried out, how to sacrifice for Palestine. Teach them how the Palestinian woman acts like Al-Khansa and not like some young whore standing in the streets in the ugliest way, [using] the dirtiest words.

Come back, oh you modest [women], and teach these whores that the homeland needs sacrifice and blood and not a modeling show and vulgar words and obscenities that [even] men are ashamed to utter. Rest in peace, [you] Al-Khansas of Palestine, our female Martyrs, our female fighters and Dalal [Mughrabi]‘s sisters. Shame on the whores who led the demonstration yesterday and this morning I find no way to describe them but as whores on the sidewalks of the Muqata’a’ (i.e., the PA’s Presidential Headquarters).” [Facebook, “Fatah – The Main Page,” Aug. 29, 2013

 .....  This is the demented misogynist homicidal terror state that our governments seem obsessed with bringing into being as the only way to bring peace to the middle east."

I've mentioned "honour killings" among the Palestinians before, and I've posted this disturbing video before.

As Professor Phyllis Chesler (no stranger to Islamic misogyny as she most recently relates here) once observed, any Western feminist (and as leftwing progressives I'm sure Sarah Colbourne and the rest of the PSC gang consider themselves such) worth their salt 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."

So what say you, Israel-bashing women?  What say you, Israel-bashing lefties of either gender?

Grumpy Old Wimmin For Palestine

I've asked before, and I'll ask again: what is it about the anti-Israel cause that attracts so many women, particularly of a certain age?

I'd have thought that these veterans of the women's liberation era would be protesting outside the embassies of countries where such outrages as the routine abortion of female foetuses, female infanticide, female genital mutilation, "honour" killings, and "dowry" murders are everyday occurrences.

I'd have thought that if they wanted to demonstrate against further suffering in the world, the butchery in Syria, the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria, the treatment of women, minorities, and gays in Islamist countries would be obvious targets for their outrage.

But, of course, Israel is their selected focus for rage and obloquy.

I wonder why.
.
Here's the scene at Manchester Airport on Sunday, when a bevy of women, with some men including a voluble Scottish anti-Israel activist, descended on the check-in desk of their chosen airline.

Never mind.  They could always hop on a flight to Damascus ...

Oppression: A Saudi Princess Speaks Out

Al Beeb on its website carries excerpts from a radio interview on the BBC World Service with a genuine Saudi princess, resident in London.  These excerpts focus on the institutionalised oppression and infantilisation of women in the desert kingdom.  In the course of these remarks relating to women she also touches on other aspects of Saudi society  –  the fossilised educational curriculum and the endemic poverty encompassing much of society –  which she emphasises must also be changed.

For example:

'The content of the syllabus is extremely dangerous. For one, our young are taught that a woman's position in society is inferior. Her role is strictly limited to serving her family and raising children. They are actually taught that if a woman has to worship anyone other than God it should be her husband; "that the angels will curse her if she is not submissive to her husband's needs". Girls are also strictly forbidden from taking part in any physical education. This is a result of a complete misinterpretation of the Koran. I consider these ideologies to be inherently abusive.

 Aside from that, the focus in most of our educational system is on religious subjects such as hadith (sayings attributed to the prophet), Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), tafssir (interpretation of the Koran) and of course the Koran. The attitude is that "learning itself, anything other than religion won't get you into heaven so don't waste your time". I would like to see religious teaching limited to the Koran and the Sunna (the way the prophet lived), where the true ethics of Islam lie. The rest is blind rote learning of the most dangerous kind. It has left our youth vulnerable to fundamentalist ideologies that have led to terrorism and abuse of the true meaning of the Koran....

The ministry of social affairs is tolerating cruelty towards women rather than protecting them. The only refuge homes that abused women can turn to are state ones. In these, women are continuously told that by seeking refuge they have brought shame on their families. 

If they come from powerful families then they will be sent straight back to their homes in fear of the wrath of a powerful patriarch. As a result we have seen many cases of suicide by educated women, doctors and scientists who were sent back to their abusers.

 We need independent women's refuges where the rights of women are upheld and backed up by powerful laws that can override family traditions and protect women.

The ministry of social affairs not only abuses women's rights but is also one of the reasons poverty is rife in the kingdom. A corrupt system that lacks transparency has meant that more than 50% of our population is poor and needy even though we are one of the wealthiest countries on earth....'

It may be that Al Beeb is not squeamish about freely publicising these comments since they refer to a country that is a key ally of the West.

But the formalised oppression of women is prevalent in other parts of the Islamic world as well, and given the de facto existence of numerous sharia courts in Britain, which aren't renowned for being run by New Age guys, we don't have to travel to Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan to find it.

Moreover, I suspect that so-called "Asian" gangs who in Britain and other parts of northern Europe groom vulnerable under-age white girls for sexual abuse are acting on an ingrained premise that females are inherently inferior (and in all likelihood on the further premise that by sexually possessing these girls they are getting revenge on their former colonial masters, symbolised by the white fathers who, being male, "own" the girls).

Yet with honourable exceptions (there must be some, surely?) the Israel-demonising lefties regardless of gender are wilfully blind to all this.

Or at least wilfully shtum about it.

They misdirect their spleen at Israel.

What a bunch of hypocrites (to put it no stronger) they are.

"Nice Middle Class White Women Are So Sought After To Head Palestinian Solidarity Initiatives": An Anti-Israel Activist Explains Why

One of the characteristics of the Israel-demonising movement in the West is the disproportionately large and prominent role of middle-class Western women, including militant feminists, not merely in its ranks but at its helm.  I made my first foray into this topic with this post

Many supporters of Israel are amazed and perplexed by the hatred such women have for a country that, in stark contrast to misogynistic Islamist movements including Hamas, guarantees women's rights and which was, indeed, the first state in the Middle East to enfranchise Arab women.

I guess many would not hesitate to use the phrase "useful idiots" to describe these distaff opponents of Israel.

Just how useful these dames and damsels are to Israel's rabid enemies is indirectly confirmed in an article by Laura Stuart, "a British revert to Islam" and an alumna of the Mavi Marmara and of first Viva Palestina  convoy to Gaza writing in an extremist Israel-hating online journal (host to such types as Gilad Atzmon, Alan Hart, and Stuart Littlewood).

She writes, inter alia:

'There may have been a time in years gone by when Muslim activists found it beneficial to suppress their Islamic identity. Solidarity movements needed white people to give them a broad appeal. A group of Muslims who identify as Muslims were easily portrayed by Zionists as a bunch of jihadis....

.... [N]ice middle-class white women are so sought after to head Palestine solidarity initiatives.

 ... Palestinians residing in exile in the U.K. find no place within these so-called Palestinian solidarity movements. Palestinians will find that without compromising either their Islam or the legitimate anger they feel towards those who oppressed and displaced them, they cannot operate in pro Palestine movements. Because of the over-zealous political correctness found wherever so-called anti zionist Jews are running things, Palestinians will be excluded from belonging to the very campaigns that claim to represent their interests.  I myself have been asked many times to tone down my Islamic identity when speaking on camera and even for using verses of the Quran in my writings ...."

And she continues:

'The Palestine Campaign in the west is totally controlled by “gatekeepers” – people of the left who maintain a very strict version of political correctness to the point of rendering themselves totally ineffective....

Do I want to bring down the state of Israel? For sure I do. Jews, Muslims and Christians will live peacefully side by side again once this criminal genocidal entity is brought down...

In my years as an activist I have made a personal observation that the more “manly” activists in the movement come in for the most attacks. The political left have a strong aversion to “alpha males” in fact I would go as far as to say the politcal [sic] left is almost a “testosterone free zone”....

Islam and its followers are the only real threat to Israel....'

 Read the whole article here  (Hat tip: Michelle)

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