Hyperventilating Ego-Extravaganza

The old bag is at it again:

There is no peace and consequently, I (I, I, I !) have no peace. Every morning, I (I, I, I !) wake up to news about Muslims blowing each other up ... Yesterday, a friend ... told me (ME, ME, ME !) that Arab Muslims are taking over more and more Jewish Israeli land ... They are not allowing me (ME, ME, ME !) to have peaceful thoughts. Every week, sometimes every few days, I (I, I, I !) am informed that yet another Iranian woman has been ... Daily, the news from Afghanistan chills my (MY, MY, MY !) blood ... Thus, Muslims, among whom I (I, I, I !) once lived and whom I (I, I, I !) once loved, are giving me (ME, ME, ME !) no peace in my (MY, MY, MY !) older years. (The ones I (I, I, I !) knew and loved are either dead or living in exile in the West.) ... please explain to me (ME, ME, ME !) why Gretta Duisenberg ... is now suing my (MY, MY, MY !) friend and colleague the eminent Iranian-Dutch professor of philosophy and jurisprudence, Afshin Ellian, for calling her an “anti-Semite,” when she proudly calls herself an “anti-Semite.”

You get the point? The worst about the threat Islam poses to the West is that it causes Professor Chesler to suffer sleepless nights and doesn't allow her to have peaceful thoughts anymore. And now, finally, at last (we are relieved) to the purpose (apart from letting us know that the worst about the threat Islam poses to the West is that it causes Professor Chesler to suffer sleepless nights and doesn't allow her to have peaceful thoughts anymore) of this hyperventilating ego-extravaganza:

Leon de Winter and Abigail Esman are both asking us all to write on their blogs, in our articles, on our Facebook pages that we, too, believe that Gretta Duisenberg is an anti-Semite. In Dutch, de Winter says:

I invite all readers to support journalistic freedom and freedom of expression by writing ‘I, too, think Gretta Duisenberg is an anti-Semite.’

How many people can Duisenberg sue? Can she sue only one person if thousands, perhaps millions, are saying the same thing?

For Heaven's Sake! Almost exactly seven years ago, I (I, I, I !) and the Jerusalem Post called Gretta Duisenberg (and others) antisemites. Countless people must have done so as well before and since then. And now she (SHE, SHE, SHE !) needs to recruit "thousands, perhaps millions" to save her (HER, HER, HER !) "friend and colleague" from a fate worse than death? Give me a break!

In fact, a Google search for "gretta duisenberg antisemite" renders 398,000 results right now and a picture search shows countless pictures poking fun at the evil old Duisen-hag, even including the antisemitism-topic.

For Phyllis Chesler, the world revolves around one thing, Phyllis Chesler's arse. The fact that people take seriously what this lump of hormones blathers, is proof for the fact that feminism has won long ago.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Can't you keep her, Americans?

There is this perfectly idiotic bit from the Emory University website and I couldn't RESIST fiddling with it:

Margot Kässmann (Dr. Rev.), ex-lay-bishopette and as such former head of the Protestant* church in Germany, is culturally enriching Emory University during the fall semester, serving as Distinguished Theologian-in-Residence at the university’s Candler School of Theology, and as a Distinguished Fellow of the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, which lends a so far unknown meaning to the word "distinguished".

A theologian, pastor, prolific author and able to hold more booze than an entire troop of Russians, Kässmann is an influential leader in the international ecumenical arena and an enormously popular speaker in Europe, often drawing crowds in the thousands, specifically since she was caught in a drunk-driving incident with more than three times over the limit, which proves that we have become an undiscerning, sheepish breed with a knack for the sleazy.

“When I became dean at Candler, I issued her a standing invitation to join us for a semester at our rowdy stagettes whenever she could, and I’m delighted that she has accepted,” says Love, dean of Candler. “Candler faculty and students will be able to interact personally with an extraordinarily creative, charismatic and chadbandian Christian leader. Plus, with our new strategic emphasis on internationalizing the curriculum, whatever that is worth, the fit of having her on campus for a semester could not be better”, says Jan Love. Love is, who would have thought so, female.

Since Kässmann's election in 1983 as one of the youngest members of the board of directors of the WCC, she has broken age and (retch) gender barriers within the leadership of the Protestant church, and it shows. First in 1999 with her election as the first female bishop of the Protestant Church of Hannover — the largest worldwide, then in 2009, when she was elected chair (barf) of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), the governing body of 24 million Protestants. She enjoyed (you bet) a lot of media attention and even granted interviews about intimate matters to the sleaziest of all Caesarean media whores, BILD.

Kässmann’s February 2010 voluntary resignation from her roles as bishop and chair (barf) of the EKD after a drunk-driving conviction when she had always vocally condemned all forms of "excess", has not diminished her popularity, but, as it could be expected in a totally worth- and shameless society, enhanced it: She received several standing ovations at her first major appearance after her resignation, a Bible study for 5,000 people at the Ecumenical “Kirchentag” in Munich this May, which ought to teach Catholics what ecumenism is worth.

“I think the public see her as a leader who models honesty and integrity in the face of difficulty — a model of authentic leadership at a time when too few leaders own up to the consequences of their inappropriate actions,” simpered Love lovingly. Just imagine for a fraction of a moment what the slimy old bag would have said, had a Catholic bishop committed the same "inappropriate action".

Known for her administrative acumen, prophetic witness and pastoral ability to address complex dilemmas of everyday life (burp), Kässmann is the author of more than 40 books on spirituality, the quest for Christian unity, Christian social engagement and Bible study and about all other thinkable footling and fatuous attention whorish things with which a certain ilk of theologians, not all of them female, poisons the hearts and brains of the undiscerning.

During her semester at Candler, Kässmann will deliver lectures, participate in panel discussions, hen parties and preach, addressing such hilariously funny and utterly worthless topics as women’s leadership in the church, post-modern and secular challenges to the church’s mission, and Protestant spirituality, all of which are unbearable below a blood alcohol level of 1.5 o/oo.

Kässmann is the featured speaker at the following events, which are free and open to the public, which is self-explaining because otherwise she wouldn't attend anyway:

Lecture in the Luminaries Series, "The Challenges and Opportunities of Women's Leadership in the Church Worldwide," Sept. 21, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Emory’s Office of the Provost, Luminaries Series, Candler School of Theology, la Veuve Clicquot and The Halle Institute.


Preaching, preening and presiding while pissed, Reformation Day Chapel Service, Oct. 19, 11:15 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus.

Preaching at Emory University Worship Margot Service on Reformation Sunday, Oct. 31, 11:00 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. Drinks will be served.

Lecture, "Bible, Prayer and Confession: Anticipating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation," Nov. 16, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Candler School of Theology, The Halle Institute and Johnnie Walker. 


* I am not using "Evangelical Church", the literal translation of the German term "Evangelische Kirche", of which Americans are so fond. It is misleading, and so "Protestant" will have to do.

Now I was pointed at a recent bout of verbal diarrhoea of that woman, exactly one of those for which she is so widely revered in this country. She explains Americans how they ought to feel about the Ground Zero Mosque, which is, after all, ten whopping walking minutes away from Ground Zero. "Does this building of a mosque really hurts the feelings of Americans? Does it really have anything to do with the terrorist deed of September 11?" In a word: Don't make such a fuss, Amis!

How was that about the religion of the natives? It was considered inferior, dismissed, eliminated by forced baptisms, wiped out. Today there are Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists here -- and they all define themselves as Americans. [No, NOT ALL do that, Margot.] And yet there is an undercurrent: An American is Christian.

If there is a single politically correct issue, however far-fetched, in the vicinity, that woman will grab it and twist it to fit her own shallow, vain, slimy and sleazy devices.

She then goes on to inform us about the evil Pilgrim Fathers and their rigid understanding of religion, and goes on -- as a German SHE CAN NOT HELP IT -- to wax lyrically about the Koran burning of that "fundamentalist" pastor in Florida that never happened and how hurtful this was for, yes, not just Muslims, but specifically for us as Germans -- the entire old schtick of the child molester who thinks he is especially qualified for a job as a kindergarden teacher.

She left out, I guess yet and just, the slavery issue, and I spare you the rest, Americans. Frankly, I've got neither the time nor the stomach to translate the rest of that totally predictable, hackneyed, undignified drivel. Here we have a woman, a woman who holds a doctorate in theology, a woman who used to head one of the largest Protestant churches worldwide, a woman who has supposedly taught for two months now at an American university, a woman who IS BOUND TO HAVE spoken to Americans, a woman who still doesn't know how Americans, her hosts, think, feel and define themselves. Why? Because she doesn't give a damn as long as she looks pretty in her priestly cassock.

In a word: a woman.

She is supposed to come back to Germany later this year. Do me a favour: Keep her!

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

The Peculiar Way of Women to Deal with Their Problems

F.C. sent me the following comment via email:

Hallo, I found your Blog through this and I wanted to comment that last one ... I was wondering are you a Female or a Male? Your Judgement against ... about Phyllis Chesler is really horrible (and I say that being a Female) - I say, Dr. Phyllis Chesler is just wonderful.

Anyway, I saw your Post about Nagla Al-Imam and her Statements: People recently talk(ed) about her, since she appearently converted to Christianity and got persecuted by the Authorities of her Country. About her, an Article appeared on PajamasMedia.

Thank you for approaching Islam/-ic/-ist Threat ... that's great.

I wish you a nice Day and Life.

First, thank you for your kind words, F.C. As for the points you have addressed:

Yes, I am female. "Editrix" is the female form of the male "Editor". Why are you asking? Would you expect a female to be more lenient in her judgement of women because she is one herself? If that is the case, I don't agree.

As for Phyllis Chesler, I think I made a good job of proving my point that Chesler is a hysterical egomaniac and grotesquely overrated shame to any academic environment, and that she is not criticising Islam as such, but talking about her (HER HER HER) personal problems with it. It's all in my various articles about her in German and English. Not my judgement is horrible, it's the plain truth. Chesler is horrible. You, on the other hand, just said you think she is wonderful. I would be seriously interested to learn why you think that. No provocation or sarcasm intended.

Now Nagla Imam: So evil Islamists gave her a bad name by doctoring (how?) what she said about Israel. I guess they did that because they knew what a worldwide outcry would ensue because the Jews generally and Israel specifically are so well loved everywhere, as proven by the massive protests against what she said.

(But sarcasm aside and let's for argument's sake assume they DID doctor her statements. The question remains WHERE THE OUTCRY WAS because we had to believe that she had really said that. The feminists' reaction, however: *CRICKETS*.)

I will say what I think of all that: No Muslim in a Muslim country will convert to Christianity lightly, so in that she is credible. I think it just proves that hatred of Jews is the spiritual staple of Islam and the West. She may have, as it was discussed at a blog, tried to give herself some notoriety to protect herself, but again, it would be a peculiar, peculiarly ineffective -- and very telling -- way of doing so. She may be simply a crackpot, but I don't think it's quite that simple. One thing I know: That a case like that will typically and enthusiastically be picked up by Pajamas Media, this great melting pot of a couple of liberals who don't like Islamic extremism (but have mostly nothing against Islam as such) and thus consider themselves "conservatives".

And to revert to the topic of this blog: I wonder whether a man would have dealt with his personal problems in a similarly less-than-straightforward way.

Thank you again for your opinion. Great food for thought!

Where are the feminists? Where is the outrage?

Found here at the eyeblast.tv blog.

It may be 2 years old but I think it’s emblematic of the situation. Watch the video again and let it sink in how chilling this is. A crazed anti-semite comes out saying that Muslim men should sexually harass and even rape Israeli women and what does this arab tv network do? They invite her on and interview her as though she were just another political commentator with a provocative position.

And the sad thing is that in a society where the call for mass genocide against the Israelis is a common event this woman’s disgusting insanity really is just provocative. In a region of the world where denials of the holocaust and calls for its renewal are common place perhaps the treatment of the call for the mass rape of Israelis as legitimate by a tv network isn’t surprising.

But, clearly, it is disgustingly reprehensible and yet another reminder of exactly what the Israelis are up against.

Notabene that this woman wears no headscarf, that she has had obviously a Western education and that the anchor wears a Western suit and tie. These are the textbook moderate Muslims the West yearns so much to embrace.

If this is two years old, where have the feminists been in the meantime? Where is the outrage? What else do we need to prove the utter worthlessness and hypocrisy of feminism?

---

Hat tip: The 'gator!
Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

The Slave Driverette of Modernity

Margot Kässmann, ex-bishopette of Hannover and ex-"chair" of the council of EKD and thus the highest-ranking of Protestant bishops of both sexes in Germany, retired in February, following a drunk driving incident.

The -- inevitable -- demise was taken as a sign of human strength as well as the drunken joyride was taken as an endearing sign of being "just human". She is an expert of and always appealing to basic human stupidity and laziness, for example when she was shameless enough to equate radicalism, religious zeal and potential danger of Muslim and Christian converts and when she draw a big slime trail right through the Scripture when she twisted it to justify the breach of her marital vows. This bishopette, notabene, is divorced, another matter that proves to her adoring followership how cute and endearingly human she is.

Three months and presumably one withdrawal treatment later, the demoted bishopette-soon-to-be-papette made a triumphant return to public life and was received at the oecumenic church congress (Kirchentag) at Munich last week with standing ovations. Serves the Catholic Church right for supporting something that starts with "oecumen". As a staunch opponent of the war in Afghanistan, she spoke about the transformation of a weapon of war into a sign of hope, long bow, rainbow and all that. Yes, we yawned too.

At a sermon in the gallant Cathedral of Our Dear Lady, Munich Archbishop’s own cathedral, no less, Kässmann warned against "demonising" birth control. "We may, however, see it as a gift from God as well" and, with her very own idiosyncratic ability to travel on a slime trail through theology, concluded "for it is about the preservation of life, of freedom, which doesn’t have to degenerate at once into pornography, as much as the sexualisation of our society is, of course, a problem." Can you stomach more? "It’s about love without fear and about responsible parenthood. And for women "it’s about concern for their own lives and those of their own children." Well, whatever. You get the general idea.

Cheers! (Yes I know, that was cheap.)

Dear Catholic Church, your son G. K. Chesterton once said: "The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age." If you want to survive, spiritually and physically, run for the hills at the first sound of "oecumen...", and let the rest have a jolly good time with Ms. Kässmann.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Surprised, Anybody?

The pastoral head of the umbrella organisation of Germany's Protestant churches has admitted drunk-driving after having passed a red light and being caught with a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit. This is not the first time the church leader has made headlines. Criticising Catholic teachings on homosexuality, the ordination of women and celibacy come to mind. The calling for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan in a sermon on New Year's Day became well known or, if you like, notorious, as well. The representative of Germany's 25 million Protestants, who revels in the role of a moral authority, who has in that capacity criticised bankers for their greed during the financial crisis and condemned all forms of "excess", vocally declared that "Nothing is good in Afghanistan" and urged a speedy withdrawal of the German troops.

Now I will let you in on a secret about German psychology. You can bet your last penny that, if a German opposes a war -- ANY war -- he is really, deep down, opposing WWII, where the evil Americans attacked a trusting and innocent Germany to prevent it from completing their great patriotic deed.

"There is no such thing as a 'just war.' I cannot legitimize it from a Christian point of view," the bishop had stated, and: "There is nothing right in Afghanistan. All these strategies have just obscured the fact that soldiers are using their guns and even killing civilians."

Asked whether that applies to the war against Nazi Germany as well, the reply was affirmative: "They always say, if the Allies hadn’t attacked there wouldn’t have been freedom. But I say — why wasn’t there a strategy to avoid war? Why wasn’t the German opposition to Hitler strengthened? Why weren’t the rails leading to Auschwitz bombed?" And who gives an aviating fornication for the fact that is was the "strategy to avoid war" in the first place that enabled Hitler to turn into a threat to the entire free world.

Predictably, such history-relativising and responsibility-misaligning statements evoked a groundswell of support from the leftist German mainstream, public and media.

And now for the really interesting detail: The bishop is, interest- but not really amazingly, a bishoppette.

That women, known for granting the disgusting German tabloid BILD (no links to BILD from my blogs) interviews about her love life and her theology, never misses a snide remark about the Catholic church, like, for example "I'm not an infallibe papette", which proves either that she doesn't deserve her doctorate in theology or that she is an intellectually dishonest hack and oughtn't to head a Protestant kindergarden, let alone the Protestant church. Papal infallibility is clearly defined, strictly limited and has been executed twice, namely by Pope Pius IX in 1854 regarding the Immaculate Conception and by Pope Pius XII in 1950, defining the Assumption of Mary. But that theologian can safely assume that BILD readers don't know that anyway and whatever if it only makes such a great point against that evil old man in Rome whose throne even SHE (SHE SHE!) won't be -- horribile dictu -- able to reach. All this, mind you, goes by the label of "improving ecumenism".

We have, incidentally, reported on Margot Kässmann already when she was shameless enough to equate the radicalism, religious zeal and potential danger of Muslim and Christian converts and about the big slime spot she left in the Scripture when she twisted it to justify the breach of her marital vows. This bishopette, notabene, is divorced.

But as usual, not the problem is the problem, but how people react to it. The entire leftist public and media have their Attends in a knot to protect this paragon of leftist, i.e. rotten-to-the-core and depraved, values. Her organisation explicitly "covers her back" and the online fora are atwitter with statements saying that this is basically a good thing because it proves that she is, after all, human. And that when we all thought, just like she did herself, that she is godlike. Just imagine for a fraction of a moment what had happened, had a Catholic bishop made the same "honest mistake".

I, personally, find it almost a relief that her statements can now safely be dismissed not just as the the unbalanced rantings of an unhinged woman drugged by the thought of her own importance, but as the unbalanced rantings of an unhinged alcoholic woman drugged by the thought of her own importance. With a blood alcohol level of 1.54 o/oo, a non-alcoholic would have been, at best, able to find the next lavatory in time, but not his car, let alone open it, start it and drive it. That is not bad in itself, she is neither the first nor the last alcoholic in such an office, what IS bad is that she thought that she could get away with it (and that, so it seems, she WILL get away with it) and didn't even bother to call a taxi. Being high on one's own inflated ego and being high on alcohol is, in the end, difficult to tell apart, or so I guess.

If Margot Kässmann was, so far, the first bishopette of the German Protestant church, she is now the first booze-bishopette of the same church. And the latter is only the to-be-expected consequence of the former.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

When Feminists are Lying

Excuse the bad pun, but I couldn't resist!

Professor Chesler talks once again about her genitals the Islamic threat to the West:

Earlier today, I was lying on my gynecologist’s table in a highly exposed position when . . .

And that’s where I stopped reading.

I mean, surely, that’s only what one can expect from a feminist with her “gynaecocentric” world view, but she ought to stop pretending to be writing about politics.

I am sick now.

When Bloggerettes Hit The Internet

Debbie "Photoshop Queen" Schlussel: This is from a blogger, a "conservative" blogger, mind you, who wants to be taken seriously as a pundit and when everything else is said and done ends up just as a -- punditerette.

Why? Because she can't help herself just as she can't help herself about the Photoshopping. I wish John Derbyshire would photoshop his awful haido, but alas he doesn't.

It's hormones, stupid!

Btw, nothing but gushing, sucking-up, "supportive" comments there. Americans deserve what they are getting.

Gosh, that woman is a pain in the proverbial. At least Coulter is entertaining, not whining, and fairly often right on the mark. If she weren't so intellectually dishonest and would get off the idea that her cachectic frame in flimsy little black dresses is something to strut, I'd almost like her.

Who gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama?

President Obama and the Nobel Committee are the laughing stock of the world: "Obama also awarded Nobel Prize in chemistry. 'He's just got great chemistry,' says Nobel Committee." SO funny!

Any idea WHY the Nobel Committee screwed it up THAT big?

That's why:

Thanks to VFR!

Phyllis Chesler's Old Woman Bile Valiant Anti-Jihadism

My favourite feminist academic is having another hot flush power charge at Pajama's Media to the enthustiastic drooling of the run-of-the-mill anti-jihadist one tends to meet in the Internet. My comment may, or may not, pass moderation. Whatever. Here it is:

Goodness, aren't you shooting at a sitting duck? Chesler said pretty much everything that is to say about Wolf's whisked mice droppings, and she wouldn't be Chesler if she wouldn't say a tad too much. And here am I, thinking this is a CONSERVATIVE website. What about the fact that Chesler disses the traditional Western role of women and likens it to the role of Muslim women? For Chesler there is only one alternative to Islam: HER very own brand of feminism.

"In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands." If you forget about the face bit, what is wrong with that? That is not Islamic, but something that should be held high where conjugal faith and honest women are valued.

Oh by the way, did I ask whether this is a CONSERVATIVE site?

But this is best: "Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times." That is first an assumption and second an ad hominem, and to both an academic ought not to stoop, even if she is doing a journalist's job here. It sounds more like the post-climacteric bile of a jealous old crone. However feverishly she may be "anti-Islam", Chesler is STILL the one who said: "mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they 'marry' and raise children" (quotes in the original), and the anti-jihad movement must be pretty desparate if they embrace somebody like her.

Feminists won't save the West, folks! NO feminist will.

Re-reading Chesler's PM-entry, it becomes even more preposterous. Here is the bit I quoted above in its context:

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? [What about: "I am a loud-mouthed jerk-ette who does not know her arse from her elbow and not a traditional Western women from one under sharia"?] 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?

I am not sure what sort of rhetorical transition "Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things" is supposed to be. Is she really comparing a housewife in Saran wrap with women in chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab or improperly veiled and beaten "by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police"? What is her POINT? Should they allowed to wear Saran wrap but not to please their husbands? Does she have a point at all? Do we really need her, of all people, to show Wolf's whisked mice droppings for what they are? Should she be provided with a stage to vent her old-woman frustration on a woman 22 years her junior and by all standards still a stunner, whatever one thinks of her whisked mice droppings? And all that under the banner of anti-jihad?

She isn't speaking for me.

Linda and Liz Play Academics

Here is a blog entry from Roncesvalles about what happens when women are let loose on scientific work. Alright, we all agree, women are less intelligent than men and, more important, shallow, vain and hardly able to judge an issue objectively. Their world revolves around them and their petty personal problems, unimportant opinions, spite- and jealousy-fuelled feuds and tertiary issues. But isn't at least rape an important, worthwhile feminist issue? A major cross-societal issue? A mirror of the relationship between the sexes? Shouldn't they AT LEAST be able to do something about THAT?

But they aren't.

What makes women, what makes FEMINIST women, inviting and sheltering rapists, while pissing and moaning about the lack of attention given to this phenomenon? Alright, that is a rhetorical question, but I am asking it nevertheless.

And while the Lindas and Lizzes of this world are busy being academics, other women are raped.


Edited to add:
It's only now I notice that one of the authors of the unspeakable study I am thematizing at Roncesvalles shares her first name with the rape victim. How very sad, how very ironic.

Nine Million Women or: No Lie Is Quite Too Dirty

I oppose the term "Femi-Nazi" because it is a-historic and blurs the borders between two different phenomena. However, sometimes I am stunned by the affinity of certain totalitarian world views. Here is an excerpt from my latest Roncesvalles blog entry:

At a time where Christians are killed by Muslims, copiously in the Third World and, yet and just, separately elsewhere and both without much interest from public and media, where the world got its collective knickers in a knot that the pope is Catholic, the following from the information site "Katholisches – Magazin für Kirche und Kultur" is of particular importance. "Katholisches" (which means something like "Catholic matters") introduces a book "Toleranz und Gewalt ("Tolerance and Violence") and forwards some details about the dreaded Inquisition, evil incarnate and second only to the 20th century Holocaust of the Jews (if that), in a historical context: Informationen und Zahlen über die Heilige Inquisition aus dem Buch "Toleranz und Gewalt".

According to that book, the Spanish Inquisition has, within the 160 years between 1540 and 1700, passed 44,674 sentences. Of those sentenced, 826 were executed. The book compares this to the Spanish Civil war, where Communists murdered within a time span of six years more than 7,000 priests and monastics. The Roman Inquisition had, between 1542 and 1761, exactly 97 people executed. Another example: Secular jurisdiction executed within the same time span 939 people in the city of Nürnberg alone.

Burning of witches was almost unknown and strictly rejected by the popes. In the 17th century, when all over the Protestant regions north of the Alps the stakes were burning (there is an estimation of 25,000 victims), not a single witch trial was performed. In Spain, about 300 "witches" were burnt at the stakes, in strongly Catholic Ireland 2.

The frequently traded number of 9 million victims can, interestingly, be traced back to Heinrich Himmler, the second most powerful man in the "Third Reich", who intended to fuel thus anti-Catholic resentments. In fact, even his "research team" couldn't fabricate more than 30,000 victims.

Thanks to feminism, the history of the European witch hunts of the late 16th and early 17th centuries has become ideologized and bent out of shape to their liking and, interestingly, 9 million is the number incorrectly and widely bandied about. While witch hunts were seen in the early 1900s as outbreaks of religious hysteria for which an ever-sinister and oppressive Catholic church was responsible, in the Seventies, feminist revisionist historians claimed that they had been a systematic campaign by the patriarchal system to do away with the remnants of -- Yeah, right! -- goddess-worshiping pre-Christian religions.

While both concepts are wrong, somewhat predictably, the more idiotic one has prevailed. As Laura Miller puts it in Salon.com:

For a summary of this now-widespread misperception of the "Burning Times," we need look no further than a passage from the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code": "The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. 'Malleus Maleficarum' -- or 'The Witches' Hammer' -- indoctrinated the world to 'the dangers of freethinking women' and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture and destroy them. Those deemed 'witches' by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women 'suspiciously attuned to the natural world.' Midwives were also killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth -- a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God's rightful punishment for Eve's partaking of the apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During 300 years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women" [internal quotations original, source unidentified, but definitely not "Malleus Maleficarum"].

This is an impressively erroneous passage, incorrect almost from beginning to end, but it is contaminated by one morsel of fact: The "Malleus Maleficarum" is indeed a spectacularly misogynistic and twisted book, compiled by the Dominican inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, published in 1486 and an essential guidebook and inspiration for witch hunters throughout Europe.

For many years, such volumes of demonology ("findings" on the behavior of demons, witches and their master, the devil) were the main sources for historians of Europe's witch hunts, including such revisionist feminist historians as Margaret Murray and Anne Llewellyn Barstow. The trouble is, demonology texts like "Malleus Maleficarum" -- alarmist calls to arms in a society where many people were skeptical about the threat posed by witches -- amount to advertisements and arguments for the profession of witch hunting. When it comes to what actually happened in the real world, they're about as trustworthy as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

In the past two or three decades, however, many historians have turned their attention to more reliable source materials on the witch hunts -- the local records of trials and executions stashed away in hundreds of small towns across Europe and Great Britain. As the historian Jenny Gibbons has pointed out in her admirably lucid 1998 essay "Recent Developments in the Study of the Great European Witch Hunt," this is hard work, sifting through vast amounts of dull documents written in archaic and often frustratingly obtuse language, but it's the sort of thing real historians do.

Let me repeat: That's the sort of thing real historians do.

No doubt, the knowledge thus retrieved painted a somewhat different picture of Europe's witch hunts and at the end of the day, it was what we all know anyway because people do not change that much. Petty feuds among neighbors, resentments within families, disagreeable local characters, the schemes of power hungry public figures big and small and the disgusting psychosexual interests we know in various forms all anyway. The quotation of the phenomenon Hannah Arendt called the "banality of evil" is very apt indeed.

Interestingly, too, some 20 percent of the European average of those tried for witchcraft were men. In some cases, the accused were children. Now try to get that in line with the evil patriarchy.

As indicated in the excerpt of my other blog entry quoted above, the Inquisition was not greatly involved in witch burnings. It was rather a matter of the Protestant sub-culture and while the justification for witch trials was religious, the trials were not performed by churches of ANY denomination, but held in civil courts and prosecuted by local authorities as criminal cases. It shouldn't be forgotten, either, that the power vacuum that developed through the fragmentation of political and legal powers in Germany in the post-Reformation era, made it possible for panics like witch hunts to get their own momentum, when all kinds of moral fundamentalism, that saw the Devil's hand at work in all opponents, run rampant.

In her book "Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany" Lyndal Roper explains in detail that Germany in the late 16th century was a place where marriage and children were difficult to attain because of the estate system and laws that prevented people from marrying unless they could prove that they could support a family, and where illegitimate pregnancies were outlawed and harshly punished. To be a wife and mother was thus a privileged station in life and the target of envy, the base for many accusations of sorcery and witchcraft, different from the political correct history that tries to sell us that witch hunts were organized campaigns by a patriarchial society and a church hell-bent on eliminating all "ancient wisdom". But married women and mothers were by far not the sole targets. When all else is said and done, there are always women who will begrudge other women even their eyesight, and so, somewhat predictably, the cases Roper quotes suggest the opposite to the evil patriarchy scheme, namely that the chief accusers, and the initiating force behind the trials against women, were often -- women, and that the pagan cultures, so glorified in many feminist and "alternative" circles, have, what little records they have left, proven to be every bit as capable of misogyny and brutalizing outsiders and misfits. To summarize: Pagans were no better than Christians, women no better than men and village communities no better than any other human society.

A gift of baked goods that comes with a barbed remark about the recipient's own culinary skills, a quarrel over the price of apples, irritation at someone who doesn't come promptly to dinner when called -- these are the sorts of incidents that precipitated the hideous cruelty of Europe's witch hunts. "It is difficult to comprehend the sheer viciousness of the way villagers and townsfolk attacked those they held to be witches," Roper writes. Then again, if you've ever lived in a small community, is it really that difficult to see how they got started in that direction, if not how they managed to get so far? It may take a village to raise a child, but history also keeps telling us that it takes a village to burn a witch.

So Laura Miller.

Although all that is something anybody with a modicum of common sense knows anyway, there remains a feeling of weird awe towards those women who turn the truth upside down and inside out, who abuse historiograpy to their own twisted ends and who do not shy away from even the most debased of libels and lies, not even those fabricated by a Heinrich Himmler, one of the most effective mass murderers in history.

America's Greatest Strength: Feminism

Under the feministically correct header "Islamic Gender Apartheid" Phyllis mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they 'marry' and raise children Chesler has another hot flush power charge and writes once more about the beauty of feminism the evil of Islam.

Recently, a Pakistani-Muslim man beheaded his Pakistani-Muslim wife in Buffalo. Beheading takes great strength and planning. [As is proven by the Candian bus-beheader or that at a campus cafe at Virginia Tech. And what does this have, even if it were true, to do with anything?] The wife’s crime? After being beaten and living in fear for years, she finally dared to leave him. More: she dared to keep the children and the home. An order of protection forced him out of his castle. [Aren't we sounding a wee little bit spiteful here, Professor Chesler?] In Pakistan he would simply kill her for such insubordination. [So what did he do in America?] He would not be prosecuted. Here, American feminists and domestic violence workers refused to see this as an honor killing [Wow! Thank you, feminism!], refused to understand that a beheading is related to radical fundamentalist Islam and jihad, and insisted that if they did so, it would render them vulnerable to being called “racists.” [They insisted on WHAT exactly?]

Although America is far from perfect, it is still a more democractic, more lawful, more feminist [Yes, she really said that...], and more compassionate [Thanks to feminism, no doubt!] country than is any Muslim country anywhere in the world—no matter how charming or hospitable its citizens may also be. [Chesler is STILL apologizing that she is no better than all the other dumb cows who marry a Muslim and are then, surprise surprise, less than charmed with things in his native land.] The same is true of tiny, imperfect, amazing, and much maligned Israel. It stands head and shoulders above its Arab and Muslim neighbors in terms of human rights. This is one of the reasons it is so demonized.

To my sorrow, many western academics, feminist activists, [How does that go together with the above statement? Are they not "real" feminists, similar to those peaceful followers of Islam vs. Islamists?] and mainstream journalists actively resist this point of view.They claim that human bomb-terrorism, hate speech, child suicide bombers, honor killings masterminded, funded, and carried out by Muslims, have absolutely nothing to do with Islam blah blah yabber yabber yack yack...

Like those other "Islam critics" who see Islam either as a threat to their homosexual lifestyle, to the preservation of the white race or who disapprove not just of Islam but of any religion, specifically Christianity*, this bumbling smatteress**, whose writing does certainly not take great strength and planning but who rather makes up her shit as she goes along, sees it as something that is less-than-tolerant towards feminism. God help us, if THAT is what will supposedly save us from Islam.

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* Interestingly, whereas the first two reasons to be against Islam never overlap, at least it has escaped me so far, each of the first two individually and the third one almost always DO overlap.

** This word is, obviously, one of my home-made creations. It is derived from "to smatter".

Mother-woman gives up whatever ghost of a unique talent she may have had

Or: Riding the Old Nag of Science to Death -- Backwards and Again In the latest edition of Middle East Forum Phyllis Chesler is, so it seems, quite out of character carrying a torch for the Western male. Differing Characteristics of Honor Killings and Domestic Violence

Honor Killings	Domestic Violence
Committed mainly by Muslims against Muslim girls/young adult women.	Committed by men of all faiths usually against adult women.
Committed mainly by fathers against their teenage daughters and daughters in their early twenties. Wives and older-age daughters may also be victims, but to a lesser extent.	Committed by an adult male spouse against an adult female spouse or intimate partner.
Carefully planned. Death threats are often used as a means of control.	The murder is often unplanned and spontaneous.
The planning and execution involve multiple family members and can include mothers, sisters, brothers, male cousins, uncles, grandfathers, etc. If the girl escapes, the extended family will continue to search for her to kill her.	The murder is carried out by one man with no family complicity.
The reason given for the honor killing is that the girl or young woman has "dishonored" the family.	The batterer-murderer does not claim any family concept of "honor." The reasons may range from a poorly cooked meal to suspected infidelity to the woman's trying to protect the children from his abuse or turning to the authorities for help.
At least half the time, the killings are carried out with barbaric ferocity. The female victim is often raped, burned alive, stoned or beaten to death, cut at the throat, decapitated, stabbed numerous times, suffocated slowly, etc.	While some men do beat a spouse to death, they often simply shoot or stab them.
The extended family and community valorize the honor killing. They do not condemn the perpetrators in the name of Islam. Mainly, honor killings are seen as normative.	The batterer-murderer is seen as a criminal; no one defends him as a hero. Such men are often viewed as sociopaths, mentally ill, or evil.
The murderer(s) do not show remorse. Instead, they experience themselves as "victims," defending themselves from the girl's actions and trying to restore their lost family honor.	Sometimes, remorse or regret is exhibited.

Is she? (Colouring added by me.) In 2003 I wrote about Chesler's, then new, book "The New Anti-Semitism", at that time rather restrained:

I read the book and I was disappointed. Chesler is an annoying woman, and that in more than one respect. A founding mother of second-wave feminism, she is not just a man-hater and sloppy researcher if it suits her agenda (in her 1986 book Mothers on Trial she stated that 70 percent of mothers in custody battles lost, which was based on an extremely non-random sample of 60 women, but frequently used as a feminist mantra) and, even worse, one of those irritating women who send their dignity, education and brain flying when they marry a Western-educated Muslim, followed him to his native country, find it -- surprise, surprise -- less than accomodating there and are then jumping on the victim-bandwagon. [...] Not to speak of Chesler's basic credibility problem. An "academic" who writes, as Chesler does in "Women and Madness", that "mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they 'marry' and raise children" (inverted commas by the author!) has lost any right to have her say on any conservative cause. Correction: On ANYthing.

And to answer my own question: no she isn't. This man-hating ogre (or is it ogress?) who has presumably destroyed as many families as the average post-WWII armed conflict, is -- again -- up to her old tricks and, under the disguise of informing about the difference of "normal" domestic violence and Muslim "honour killings", fudging in her anti-social feminist drivel. What is the truth about domestic violence?

Despite the criticisms leveled at Steinmetz and her concept of the battered husband, violence directed at husbands has been reported by others. For instance, Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Suzanne Steinmetz (1980) estimated that about one in eight men in the United States acted violently during marital conflict. However, they estimated a similar number of women also acted violently during marital conflict. They also noted that in a majority of these cases, violence was a mutual or bilateral activity, with only 27% of cases finding that husbands were the sole perpetrators of violence and 24% of cases finding only wives acting violently. With respect to serious violence, as judged by the Conflict Tactics Scales (Note 2), these authors stated that the rate for men beaten by their wives was 4.6%; a figure that indicated "over 2 million very violent wives." While 47% of those husbands who beat their wives did so severely three or more times a year, 53% of women who beat their husbands severely did so three or more times a year. In a later article, Straus and Gelles (1986) reviewed both their own and other studies in the United States and reported somewhat equivalent assault rates for both male-to-female and female-to-male. In their 1975 survey, Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz (1980) estimated that approximately 38 out of every 1000 families experience severe husband-to-wife violence, while 46 out of every l000 families experience severe wife-to-husband violence. Ten years later, Straus & Gelles (1986) reported that the rates have dropped from 38 to 30 and 46 and 44 per 1000 couples, respectively. In overall acts of violence, as defined by the Conflict Tactics Scales, husband-to-wife rates of violence were 121 and 113 and wife-to-husband rates of violence were 116 and 121 per 1000 couples for the two study years (i.e., 1975 and 1985). Although Straus and Gelles (1986) did not dwell on these comparisons, they did make a statement that seems to run counter to the prevailing academic and public perception of the time, namely, that "an important and distressing finding about violence in American families is that, in marked contrast to the behavior of women outside the family, women are about as violent within the family as men" (p. 470). The small change in the wife-to-husband rate of violence, as opposed to some change in the husband-to-wife violence, was suggested to result from a lack of attention or concern to male victimization. The case for giving due regard to domestic women-on-men assaults and an acceptance of this higher level of victimization was backed by reference to other studies finding similar levels of male victimization (Brutz & Ingoldsby, 1984; Gelles, 1974; Giles-Sims, 1983; Jourilles & O'Leary, 1985; Lane & Gwartney-Gibbs, 1985; ; Laner & Thompson, 1982; Makepeace, 1983; Sack, Keller, & Howard, 1982; Saunders, 1986; Scanzoni, 1978; Steinmetz, 1977, 1977-78; Szinovacz, 1983). In conclusion, summarized such data as Straus and Gelles (1986) indicating that women engage in minor assaults against their male partners at a slightly higher rate than for the same attacks upon women by men. In situations in which both partners use violence, men and women were also almost equally responsible for the first blow, but in only one quarter of these relationships was the man the sole victim. At more potentially injurious levels of assault, men were considered to exceed women in their aggressive behavior and it was suggested that a relative rate in the order of 6 or 7 to 1 (male versus female) was evident for the perpetration of injurious assaults.

Can we really believe that the scientific findings from decades ago have not yet arrived at Professor Chesler's desk? In post-Renaissance Europe, society ostracized and humiliated hen-pecked husbands. In France, for example, a "battered" husband was forced to trot around town riding a donkey backwards. It is safe to assume that enough men are, despite the worst efforts of a feminist society, still carrying some faint remnants of the patriarchal ethos telling him that a husband is expected to protect his wife and family instead of being beaten by her. Thus, a battered husband may be just -- dare I say it -- ashamed to admit that he has been the victim of female violence, which makes one wonder about the number of unreported cases. But, thanks to the Cheslers of this world, as we children of the post-feminist age know, men do not suffer from subtle feelings like shame, victimization or humiliation. Only women do that. I wish that hysteric woman would just shut up or at least stop abusing her academic position to deal with her personal problems. As a saviour -- saviouresse -- of Western civilization she is simply miscast.

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We have dicussed "honour killings" and the matter of "honour" in Muslim societies generally (for example) here, here, here, here or here. Many continuative links provided.

Why Women Oughn't To Be Holding A Public Office

SPIEGEL ONLINE reported last Friday, that Wolfgang Bosbach, a fairly prominent Christian Democrat politician, dared, in the light of the recent arrests of would-be terrorists who are ethnic German converts to Islam, to say that Germany needs to keep a closer eye on their Muslim converts. He said, too, that such converts seek out contact with violent and fanatic Islamist groups, which is specifically dangerous, because in such cases the attackers come from the midst of German society. Bosbach said that the monitoring of converts ought to be considered. This, predictably, triggered off angry twittering from the most odious of Gutmenschen, bishops of the Protestant church. In this spirit, the Protestant (female) Bishop of Hannover, Margot Kässmann, warned against overreacting because, although converts are often specifically ardent fighters for their religion, "that is found within Christianity as well."

Picture: DPA.
Right, Margot. And now tell me where and when the last Christian bomber, suicide or not, butchered dozens, hundreds, thousands of innocent bystanders.

Kässmann is the bishop whose divorce caused some moderate cluck-clucking in the media and a lot of boring soulsearching and some clever bible-interpretation by her. "Marriage", so Kässmann, "is a good and right institution ... But the bible says, too: 'Whatever you wish to loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16, 19)'". What the bishop and doctor of theology did not say was that this word of Christ has nothing to do with divorce ("If you manage to get a divorce on earth you will be shot of your husband in heaven [Thank God!] as well") but is about the redemption from culpability by mutual forgiveness. She, too, subtly changed the quote. The original quote says 'Whatever you will loose on earth will be loosed in heaven', which proves that she knew what she was saying and is probably cleverer than her simpering (don't I just LOVE that word!) picture suggests.

Kässmann, too, wrote to the pastors of her diocese about her divorce: "It has been an immensely difficult step, which needed a lot of trust in God." Maybe a leading ... person of the church thinks he/she/it HAS to talk such drivel, and I wonder whether one of her pastors asked her why she didn't stick to the biblical command of marital faithfulness in the first place if violating it was so terrifically difficult and needed so much trust in God.

The shameless arbitrariness, blatant cynisism and lack of any ethical compass from what is supposed to be our elite is as frightening as sickmaking and we need not to be amazed that we can now add cowardice to this roster.

I don't really know how to translate "Bischöfin", the female form of the German word Bischof. Is it bishopette or bishopeuse? What sounds more vile?

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My blog entry The Muslim faith is not a totalitarian dictatorship from last December may be interesting in this context.

Lawrence Auster's blog is always worth a look. He is never shuns the truth and has lately provided an interesting link to a blog of which I wasn't aware so far, Wise Man's Heart. The Wise Man blogger offers some interesting thoughts on the German reaction to Muslim terrorists from within. His thoughts on women and voting are worth following as well. The reactions this mere play with thoughts triggered off are almost comical to watch.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

A Good Opportunity Sadly Wasted

The conservative National Review Online published on November 25 an interview with the feminist, psychotherapist and women's studies professor Phyllis Chesler, professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at CUNY, headed "Liberal & Pro-Israel, Feminist Phyllis Chesler on "The New Anti-Semitism"", the latter being the title of her recent book.

Today, what's new about anti-Semitism is its extraordinary global reach. Jew hatred is being mass-produced. The Internet, films, and the media have the power to circulate these virulent opinions around the globe, 24/7. The most illiterate of peoples have "seen" the Israelis commit a "massacre" in Jenin, something Israelis did not do -- even the United Nations finally admitted this. But no matter: A false picture is more powerful than a thousand words.

What's new is that Jew-hatred has reached a surreal level in the Islamic world. The Arab Islamic Middle East is almost entirely judenrein (free of Jews), except for Israel, which remains under profound and almost permanent siege. Christians still remain endangered in Muslim lands. Historic Islamic and Koranic views portray Jews as "pigs and monkeys," to be segregated, impoverished, jailed, tortured, exiled, and massacred.

What's new is that these ideas and practices, which are native to Islam, gathered additional force over an 80-year period in which Arab Muslims collaborated -- literally -- with Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s, and with Stalinists from the 1950s until the fall of the Soviet Union. Islamic Jew-hatred, anti-Americanism, and totalitarianism now fuse both East and West.

What's new is that this hatred has, incredibly, been embraced and romanticized by Western liberals, public intellectuals, Nobel Prize winners, all manner of so-called progressives and activists and, to a great extent, by the presumably objective media. The educated elites claim that they do not in fact hate Jews. How can they -- the noblest among the "politically correct" -- be racists? They loathe racism -- except, of course, where Jews are concerned.

What's new is that Jew-hatred (disguised as anti-Zionism) has itself become "politically correct" among these so-called intellectuals. They have one standard for Israel: an impossibly high one. Meanwhile, they set a much lower standard for every other country, even for nations in which tyranny, torture, honor killings, genocide, and every other human rights abuse go unchallenged.

Today anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism. Israel has increasingly come to represent the Jews of the world, and is treated as they have been treated for thousands of years. She is demonized, isolated, and attacked while the world either actively rejoices, or simply does nothing to stop it. Israel has also become the symbolic scapegoat for America and for Western values such as democracy, religious freedom, and individual and women's rights.

The intellectuals control the masses with linguistic distortions that would make George Orwell weep. The way language is being used to misrepresent both the truth and Jews is relatively new. The intelligentsia tell us that Israelis are the "new Nazis" and "worse than Nazis." This is a new form of Holocaust denial. It lets Europeans off the hook: they no longer must wrestle with their own formidable colonial pasts and their persecutory-collaborationist-bystander roles in the Holocaust.

The propagandists go further, calling Israel the apartheid state. This is a lie. Islam is the largest practitioner of both gender and religious apartheid in the world: It persecutes all non-Muslims. Jews cannot apply for citizenship in Jordan, for example, and yet no Western group has called for divestment campaigns there. Meanwhile, the Arab leadership continues to terrorize the last Jewish enclave in the Middle East.
[...]
...I am part of a landmark lawsuit on behalf of Jewish women's religious rights in Jerusalem, asking that women be allowed to pray in women-only groups in the Kotel, the strictly female section at the Western Wall. Our case has so far received three separate decisions in the Israeli Supreme Court. Had we tried to bring such a lawsuit in Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, we would probably have been imprisoned and executed. While Israeli Arabs (i.e., Palestinians) are second-class citizens, their live birth rates, incomes, health care, and freedom of worship and expression are vastly greater in Israel than in any Arab country. In a sense, those Palestinians who might find themselves fenced in by Israel's self-defense might also, theoretically, become Israeli citizens, which would improve matters for them.

Two books ago, I wrote about woman's inhumanity to woman. That was the book's title. Like men, women are not necessarily compassionate or even fair towards other women -- especially if those other women are identified as "evil racist settlers" and the enemies of a beloved revolution. Feminists are no better but perhaps no worse than other women in this regard. Female concentration-camp guards in Nazi Germany were not known for their compassion, but rather for their cruelty towards their female prisoners. Female members of the Ku Klux Klan are not known for their sympathy for African-American women. Women on both sides of a number of hot political issues do not behave in "sisterly" fashions. Most women are human beings, have internalized misogyny just as men have, have a higher standard for female than for male behavior, and are more comfortable competing with other women than with men.

Actually, in romanticizing Muslim suicide bombers as "freedom fighters," Western feminists jeopardize Muslim women, Muslim feminists, and Muslim intellectuals whose fates are desperate and tragic under jihadic Islam.

No feminist worth her salt would ever say that simply because men of color may be unemployed or oppressed, that they therefore have the right to batter their wives and assault their children. Many feminists are not thundering against gender apartheid in the Islamic world (some have done so, but in restricted ways), but feminists are thundering against Israel as the apartheid state.

If we applied a single feminist standard to all humanity, we would loudly oppose Arabs stoning women accused of adultery, honor killings, polygamy, veiling, seclusion, sexual and domestic slavery, etc. Feminists have done so in limited ways, but have relaxed their attention to this matter when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Feminists and leftists have also opposed the American liberation of both Afghanistan and Iraq. But however difficult and imperfect these plans are, what other option do freedom-minded feminists have?

Many feminists who are quite principled on certain issues (equal pay for equal work, reproductive freedom, gay rights, sexual and domestic violence, childcare, etc.) unthinkingly believe that their critiques of patriarchy and of specific American policies can and must be transformed into a generalized hatred of America -- the very country in which they practice their dissent -- and transferred to the Middle East. Many feminists are totally blind to their own Jew hatred and are now more obsessed with the occupation of disputed lands in the Middle East than they are with the occupation of women's bodies worldwide.

In my view, certain feminists seem to have a deep and abiding respect for the so-called "freedom fighter" who is willing to die for the "revolution" and to kill the "colonial oppressor." The fact that Palestinian suicide bombers, and their fascist and misogynist Iranian and Saudi funders, are not stirring a democratic or feminist revolution is cause for irony and tears. Some feminists are still fighting against the Vietnam War and have confused it with American and Israeli wars of self-defense against al Qaeda.
[...]
I am also a hawk on abolishing the global sexual slavery of women and children -- which, increasingly, the Bush administration has taken on as a serious issue and which the liberal feminist movement has opposed.

I am a religious Jew and thus have the greatest respect for other people of faith. Atheists and secularists are extremely intolerant toward religion, and do not view freedom of worship -- even for women and gay people -- as an important issue.

As I write in my book, 9/11 was a direct attack on democracy, modernity, religious pluralism, and women's rights. When Islamo-fascist terrorists are attacking my country, my culture, and my people, I oppose them. While war is hell, self-defense is a duty.

If the fact I understand all this makes me a conservative, then so be it.
[...]
We must support Israel's right to exist, and to exist free from terrorist violence. Israelis have endured the equivalent of 9/11 almost every other week for the last three years. I am a psychologist and a pioneer of trauma and healing therapies, and even I cannot imagine the level of post-traumatic stress symptoms Israelis must be suffering -- they, who have lived through so many wars of self-defense and whose parents and grandparents endured Hitler's Final Solution, the gulags, Cossack pogroms, and persecution and exile from Arab and Muslim lands. We understand that Israel cannot afford to lose a single war, not even a single battle.

We must form Jewish-Christian alliances. Perhaps we must form alliances among all the dhimmi -- Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Assyrians, Zoroastrians, Kurds, Persians, etc. -- who are suffering under Islamic jihadic rule.

We must continue to oppose the liberal media on all these issues.
[...]
... the dark side of Jewish history is repeating itself; the world is again demonizing Jews and creating a situation in which another Holocaust might be possible. I want all people of good will to make sure this does not happen.
[...]
As imperfect as American democracy might be, what we have achieved here would constitute a revolution in any Islamic or Arab country. This is a quiet view, not an apocalyptic one. Perhaps that is why so many progressive Americans refuse to entertain it. It is true that America may have risen on the backs of others, but it is also true that Islamic countries have refused to enter the modern era.

I would like us to feel proud that we are Americans, and to understand that America is really trying to bring religious and individual freedom to a region in which they do not exist at all.

I read the book and I was disappointed. Chesler is an annoying woman, and that in more than one respect. A founding mother of second-wave feminism, she is not just a man-hater and sloppy researcher if it suits her agenda (in her 1986 book Mothers on Trial she stated that 70 percent of mothers in custody battles lost, which was based on an extremely non-random sample of 60 women, but frequently used as a feminist mantra) and, even worse, one of those irritating women who send their dignity, education and brain flying when they marry a Western-educated Muslim, followed him to his native country, find it -- surprise, surprise -- less than accomodating there and are then jumping on the victim-bandwagon.

Chesler doesn't mingle words when it comes to the hypocrisy of the left, but the overall hysterical pitch of the book gets seriously on my nerves and the thought that this is what one probably has to expect from a female, and feminist, author, is of little comfort. However, what really puts me off is that Chesler clearly misses the historical opportunity to settle her score with feminism, which would have made the book more than just another one among those who ex-leftists who saw the light recently. But she obviously didn't want to do that. As it is, it leaves the impression that the left, including feminism, are just suffering from a temporary moral and ethical blackout and not from a basic problem of legitimacy and lack of truthfulness.

Not to speak of Chesler's basic credibility problem. An "academic" who writes, as Chesler does in "Women and Madness", that "mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they 'marry' and raise children" (inverted commas by the author!) has lost any right to have her say on any conservative cause. Correction: On ANYthing.

The above excerpts from the National Review Online interview say almost as much about her argument with feminism and the left as the entire book does. It's a annoying waste of a damn good opportunity and I'm even trying to be kind here.