TSA goes after columnist reading 'Jewish Press' as woman in niqab walks by
I actually got word of this the day it happened (Wednesday), but I didn't get to post it immediately because of work commitments, and then I let it slip.
Columnist Phyllis Chesler was stopped by TSA agents at JFK Airport on Wednesday for having a copy of
The Jewish Press out in the open while going through security. While she was being questioned, a Muslim woman
wearing a niqab (those bags through which only the eyes can be seen) walked through security unscathed.
My trip through Security at JFK this afternoon was slowed when one of
the agents spotted me holding a copy of the Jewish Press. He found it
suspicious, brought it to another agent, and they had a discussion. At
that point, my bags were opened and searched. Meanwhile, a woman in
niqab – a veil covering the entire face except the eyes -- walked
through without incident. I saw no one ask her to lift the veil to check
her actual identity against her documents.
Phyllis Chesler is... almost old enough to be my mother (sorry Phyllis!) and although she's opinionated, she definitely does not look like a terrorist.....
Great security here in America. Can't wait to fly again.....
Labels: airport security, JFK Airport, Phyllis Chesler, TSA
A boost for the Islamists
The Norwegian terror attacks have turned into an excuse to beat up on conservative, anti-Islamist bloggers. In a disgraceful piece written this morning, the
New York Times all but blames Robert Spencer, Baron Bodissey and Pam Geller for the Oslo attacks.
In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.
His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.
...
In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. The author of a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism withdrawn by the department after criticism from conservatives repeated on Sunday his claim that the department had tilted too heavily toward the threat from Islamic militants.
The revelations about Mr. Breivik’s American influences exploded on the blogs over the weekend, putting Mr. Spencer and other self-described “counterjihad” activists on the defensive, as their critics suggested that their portrayal of Islam as a threat to the West indirectly fostered the crimes in Norway.
Mr. Spencer wrote on his Web site, jihadwatch.org, that “the blame game” had begun, “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.” He did not mention Mr. Breivik’s voluminous quotations from his writings.
The Gates of Vienna, a blog that ordinarily keeps up a drumbeat of anti-Islamist news and commentary, closed its pages to comments Sunday “due to the unusual situation in which it has recently found itself.”
Its operator, who describes himself as a Virginia consultant and uses the pseudonym “Baron Bodissey,” wrote on the site Sunday that “at no time has any part of the Counterjihad advocated violence.”
The name of that Web site — a reference to the siege of Vienna in 1683 by Muslim fighters who, the blog says in its headnote, “seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe” — was echoed in the title Mr. Breivik chose for his manifesto: “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.” He chose that year, the 400th anniversary of the siege, as the target for the triumph of Christian forces in the European civil war he called for to drive out Islamic influence.
Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said it would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”
“This rhetoric,” he added, “is not cost-free.”
...
Mr. Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among Web sites. Pamela Geller, an outspoken critic of Islam who runs Atlas Shrugs, wrote on her blog Sunday that any assertion that she or other antijihad writers bore any responsibility for Mr. Breivik’s actions was “ridiculous.”
“If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists,” she wrote.
Mr. Breivik also quoted European blogs and writers with similar themes, notably a Norwegian blogger who writes under the name “Fjordman.” Immigration from Muslim countries to Scandinavia and the rest of Europe has set off a deep political debate across the continent and strengthened a number of right-wing anti-immigrant parties.
I understand that Melanie Phillips, Richard Landes and Phyllis Chesler are also mentioned in Breivik's manifesto. I can't link to the post that confirms that right now because Melanie Phillips' website has been attacked and is down right now.
Breivik did not specifically target Muslims, but the opportunists who would
force their way of life on all of us are attempting to use this case as an instance of 'Islamophobia.'
None of the people cited in this article has ever called for or advocated violence. Unfortunately, others have used their writings as an excuse for it.
The picture at the top is Robert Spencer holding an Israeli flag in Berlin shortly after German authorities had removed one from someone's window.
Labels: Anders Behring Brievik, Baron Bodissey, Islamophobia, Melanie Phillips, multiculturalism, Norway, Oslo bombing, Pamela Geller, Phyllis Chesler, Richard Landes, Robert Spencer, Utoya massacre
Woman to woman: Let's talk about this
Phyllis Chesler
writes an open letter to Hina Jilani, one of the three non-recanting members of the Goldstone Commission.
Hina, please understand: The lies and slander that have been generated against Israel are every bit as false and unjust as the lies told to justify the honor killing of girls and women.
I once worked at the United Nations. In my opinion, it is completely ineffective save in two areas:
It has legalized Jew-hatred with a vengeance and it has provided a High Life for many Third World/developing world professionals who wish to be well paid to live in the West and yet also wish to retain or achieve reputations as champions of justice. Therefore, I understand the price you would have to pay if you broke with UN-Think or with Third World Think which is so intensely anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Israel—the convenient scapegoats for all the crimes and ills of the Arab and Muslim world.
Nevertheless, please think about the implications of my analogy.
Like an honor killing victim, Israel is being slandered so that the terrorist violence against it will be seen as justified and legitimate. When Israel exposes the Big Lies or tries to defend its civilian citizens against such pitiless violence, like the raped girls and women in Pakistan and other Muslim-majority countries, Israel is blamed. She provoked it. She knew the rules. She knew she was meant to die if she stepped out of line by a millimeter; surely she knew that being born female was a capital crime, a death sentence.
Israel dares to live. It exists surrounded by Arab and Muslim countries that believe she has no right to exist and who have sworn to kill her.
Read the whole thing.
The picture at the top is
Asma al-Ghoul.
Labels: Goldstone Commission, Hina Jilani, Phyllis Chesler
Taking on the cultural revisionists
With the full horror of what happened to CBS News reporter Lara Logan in Cairo's Tahrir Square ten days ago just
starting to come out, Phyllis Chesler takes on a group of writers who are unable to acknowledge the basic truth that Logan was raped (that term sounds so much starker than the blander 'sexually assaulted')
by Muslims as an act of war against westerners.
Writing at the London Guardian, blogger Amanda Marcotte chose not to focus on this act of jihadic barbarism because she did not want anyone to draw negative conclusions about Islam, Muslims, Egyptians, or about the so-called Egyptian pro-democracy “revolution.” Instead, like many other commentators, Marcotte bemoaned the fact that “rightwingers” might now draw some politically incorrect conclusions. Marcotte writes:
“In this case, rightwingers who have an interest in stoking fear and loathing of Muslims worldwide pounced at the opportunity to smear all Egyptians with this crime.”
She dismisses the possibility that any “rightwingers” might have a genuine concern for the victim and condemns them all for using Logan’s public gang-rape and beating for “political score-keeping.” After all, every good multicultural relativist knows that all cultures, all countries, all religions are equal and therefore are pretty much the same—except for Western cultures which are somehow worse.
Thus, while Marcotte admits that Egypt is well known for its sexual harassment of women, she insists that women in the West, especially in the United States also endure street sexual harassment. Marcotte cites one study that shows that “up to 100% of women in the United States are sexually harassed” on the streets and claims that at similarly “jubilant” times, such as fraternity parties on the American college campus, women are also ”sexually assaulted.”
I doubt that fraternity gang-rapists curse their victims as “Jews.” But forgive me: I am about to accuse Islam and Egypt of having an anti-Jewish bias. I also doubt that boozed up American fraternity gang-rapists claim that they are overthrowing a dictator and taking power for the people.
In any event, according to Marcotte, “rightwingers” are also delighted to focus on the vulnerability of female journalists because “rightwingers” want to keep women pregnant and barefoot and out of the job market, certainly far away from war zones.
Well, at least they don’t want them to wear burqas. Again, forgive me: I am suggesting that burqas are not a sign of freedom but that burqas and face veils do, increasingly, characterize Islamic gender apartheid in a jihadic era; and that they were all over Tahrir Square.
Ultimately, Marcotte believes that the real assault on Logan is a “rightwing” “assault on all women who have ambitions, or who are willing to be out in public while looking attractive. This response to Logan’s attack should make it clear that the US and Egypt differ on the issue of sexual violence perhaps only in degree but not in kind.”
Read the whole thing.
I'm not familiar with the other writers Chesler cites - Asra Nomani, Kim Barker, and Sabrina Tavernise - but Marcotte is an all-purpose hater. She
hates Jews and Israel as well. I guess she hates us enough to even sell out her own gender. Can a woman be misogynist? Marcotte is trying hard.
Labels: Islamic treatment of women, Phyllis Chesler
Why Martin Peretz attacked Jonathan Pollard
In two
articles on his own
blog, the New Republic's Martin Peretz attacked former Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Phyllis Chesler rips Peretz some new body parts, summarizing his attacks and tearing them apart
here. But what I find most interesting is Chesler's description of Peretz's motivation.
Peretz stands alone. What can explain this? In my view, there is only one explanation.
Recently, Peretz himself was accused of being a “racist rat”—and at Harvard, on the very day Peretz’s many former students had chosen to honor him. I actually defended Peretz from his attackers. Now, in retrospect, I must reconsider that defense. While campus public shaming tactics are neo-fascist in style and intent, it is clear that Peretz’s unexpected attack upon Pollard is, indeed, a racist attack. It reeks of pure anti-Semitism.
This is Peretz’s bid to gain favor with the politically correct anti-racist left. How does a liberal Zionist Jew do this? He attacks, nay, he sacrifices and scapegoats the most vulnerable Jew, the Jew already accused of being a Jewish “traitor.” Pollard is guilty of dual loyalty—not Peretz. Pollard-the-dastardly-Jew chose Israel above America. No one should mistake him for Peretz-the-good-Jew.
While Peretz has, in the past, defended Israel among his left colleagues, (it is the only democracy in the Middle East, its Arab citizens will not renounce their Israeli citizenship to live under the authority of Hamas or Fatah and Peretz says so himself) and yet, at the end of the day, (which has now come), Peretz will not choose a right wing, nationalist religious Israel over and above his loyalty to the secular anti-Zionist “left.” His wild accusation against Pollard is meant to prove that once and for all. Yes, Peretz has struggled with his own dual loyalties, but he is now, publicly and emphatically choosing the liberal left which has rejected him—and he is doing so on the near-corpse of a Jew who has already been punished more than enough.
Peretz is part of a class of American Jews that is paranoid about its own position in American society. It's the same symptom that leads some American Jews to be so paranoid about expressions of religion in American public life that they oppose the public expression of their own religion to avoid seeing the public expression of other religions. It's the same symptom that leads some American Jews to attempt to hide the fact that they are Jewish - whether by changing their name or by abandoning Jewish observance - so that they will be 'safe' the next time the anti-Semites come around (a method that was proven not to work in Nazi Germany). And it's the same symptom that leads some American Jews to be willing to abandon their brethren in Israel and elsewhere in the World in the false belief that doing so will somehow protect them.
Martin Peretz has shown that his Judaism is not something of which one should be proud, but something from which one should hide in shame. Would that no other Jews catch any of his symptoms. Jonathan Pollard certainly didn't catch them.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Jonathan Pollard, Martin Peretz, Phyllis Chesler
