by Raymond Ibrahim*

According to the Egyptian website Youm 7, Azza al-Jarf, a female Member of Parliament representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Freedom and Justice Party,” is trying to abolish several laws currently enjoyed by Egyptian women—including preventing them from divorcing or even separating from their husbands, because “the man has the authority and stewardship” (see Koran 4:34); mandating that fathers must circumcise their daughters; and trying to get the Egyptian educational system to ban the teaching of the English language—on the grounds that it is an “infidel” tongue—while separating boys and girls in classrooms and forcing girls to wear the hijab.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

We all remember the international uproar that erupted when, during a clash between police and protesters in Egypt, the former beat and partially stripped to her bra a female protester (subsequently known as the “Blue Bra Woman”).

An older video which purports to show an Egyptian officer ordering a woman to take off all her clothes, is even worse, and has sparked new debate. For the stripping is not a product of haste, blind-rage, or chaos—as apologists for the Blue Bra Woman incident argue—but is deliberate, methodical, and sadistic.

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Americans are getting informed about the dangers Islamists pose to civilized societies — threats like stealth infiltration of Sharia (Islamic “law”) into our legal/social system, “honor” killings, homicide bombings, intolerance, support for terrorism… There are too many apologists for Islamist outrages amongst our university academe, primary and secondary educators, media elite, government officials, etc. But the blogsphere, activist organizations, and concerned citizens have learned about Islam, and are fighting back against political correctness gone mad (though we still have a long way to go). Thanks to the efforts of the Florida Family Association, The Learning Channel has pulled its shameless whitewash of Islam, a TV show called, “All-American Muslim,” off the air:

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by Daniel Doron*

As the high hopes for a brave new Middle East fade rapidly, Western policymakers must recognize that promoting market economics and its inevitable cultural changes are far more critical to the region’s well-being than encouraging free elections or resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. In addition to producing material prosperity, diffusing power, and curbing tyranny, economic freedom promotes social, cultural, and religious changes conducive to democracy and tolerance. It enhances personal responsibility and social involvement and instills good work habits and accountability. It builds a civil society with a stake in peace. If there is to be any hope of lasting peace and stability in the Middle East, nothing less will do.

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by Phyllis Chesler

I recently joined Michael Coren at Sun TV in Canada for the second time. The interview took place at the Time Warner building where CNN provides studios for other networks. The view of Columbus Circle, which also houses the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Jazz at Lincoln Center, is breathtaking, very Old New York. One contemplates Central Park trees, a manicured circular garden, and of course, the statues of Christopher Columbus and the USS Maine National Monument, a memorial to sailors who died on board the USS Maine in 1898 in Havana, Cuba.

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Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda won the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award Friday for an image of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen. … the image has religious ‘almost Biblical’ overtones and noted its resemblance in composition to Michelangelo’s Pieta — but in a Muslim setting. …”

- CBC, Feb 10, 2012

“Almost Biblical.” Not… even… close… Comparing Michelangelo’s Pietà to some snapshot of a burqa-ed Muslim woman holding some injured Yemeni street protester is an ideal example of Westerners wearing rose-colored glasses. Many Western “intellectuals” are bending over backwards to placate the largely violent and intolerant Muslim World, because they want to believe in an “Arab Spring.” The Pietà “analogy” is not an analogy at all. It is political correctness gone mad.

The burqa-ed woman is wearing latex gloves, for Christ’s sake! Is she afraid of being soiled by or soiling the wounded man she’s holding? Why is the woman covered from head to toe in black, except for an eye-slit? Because Islamists are so repressed a la Freud that they can’t trust themselves to look upon their own women. The burqa is the sure sign of the third-place status of Muslim women — they can’t drive, work, or be seen to varying degrees depending on what dysfunctional Islamic country in which they reside. Yemen ranks worst in the world according to The Global Gender Gap Report.

Yemen may be or become the top stronghold of al-Qaeda. The country is notorious for Islamic extremism; it’s opposition “is anti-Western and strongly opposes [President] Saleh['s] government;” Yemen’s president and family are corrupt, at times in cahoots with Muslim radicals. The “Arab Spring” is a Western wishful-thinking fantasy and in reality is a grab for power by Islamist extremists (see here, here, and here).

Jesus was a man of peace. His mother Mary stood by his side through the worst of times — and she didn’t wear a burqa or latex gloves. “Jesus publicly included many women as his disciples” (see here also for Biblical citations). When Jesus rose from the dead, the first person he appeared to was Mary Magdalene.

So to you “jurors” for selecting the 2011 World Press Photo of the Year award: You got it wrong. It’s a photo — and not the best I’ve ever seen. Do you morons remember who Michelangelo was and what he accomplished — like his David? Michelangelo’s work was sublime, not the product of some digital, idiot-proof, one-shot camera.

This is no Pieta…not even close.

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by Phyllis Chesler

On a single day, the New York Times has been known to publish anywhere from two to six anti-Israel articles, editorials, op-ed pieces, and letters. Today, I see a new danger arising in their pages.

After spending a year proclaiming the triumph of democracy and the miracle of the Arab Spring and, as PM Netanyahu has just noted, refusing to document the existential danger in which Israel finds herself, the Newspaper of Record has now begun the process of normalizing Islam in North America and Europe. Its pro-Muslim “multicultural” agenda is, paradoxically, another form of racism, but I quibble.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Recently, I participated in a Toronto conference which was sponsored by Advocates for Civil Liberties and coordinated by the rather wonderful Meryle Kates. The speakers were powerful and the audience was packed, respectful, incredibly sober and fully engaged. The title of the conference was “When Middle East Politics Invade the Campus.”

No heckling or jeering here.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Despite my own copious critiques, even I must concede that the American mainstream media really does print the bad news about Islamic gender apartheid — but it does so without drawing any “politically incorrect” conclusions, not even on their op-ed pages.

Over the years, the American mainstream media has printed articles about Islamic and African female genital mutilation, the public gang-rapes of innocent young girls in Pakistan (like Mukhtaran Bibi) and the repeated gang-rapes of girls and women in Darfur by ethnic Arab Muslims (the New York Times simply refused to use the word “Muslim”). The media has covered the disfiguring acid attacks on girls and women in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Maddeningly, it draws no conclusion.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Israel continues to endure the fallout from the Mavi Marmara debacle; Israel gets blamed for defending herself even though Turkish hired assassins had come with the express purpose of assaulting and murdering Israeli soldiers.

In the teeth of this cruel public relations disaster, the indomitable Italian parliamentarian Fiamma Nirenstein, the chair of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians, asked me to write something that would be read at a massive pro-Israel rally that she, together with Giuliano Ferrara, the publisher of Il Foglio, helped organize.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Earlier we saw Egyptian preacher Huwaini and Kuwaiti political activist Mutairi call for the reinstitution of sex-slavery. Before dismissing their position as aberrant, that is “radical,” for the record, here are respected Muslim scholar Majid Khadduri’s thoughts on the matter:

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by Phyllis Chesler

There they all stand, guilty as sin, Afghan Taliban terrorists disguised in women’s burqas — but exposed when they were captured by the Afghan Border Police. Their photo (or rather photos) were taken by an Afghan photographer somewhere near Jalalabad and have just been seen worldwide.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Last month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “scrapped the laws” which guaranteed “leniency” for honor killers. Family honor will no longer be a mitigating factor in such cases. On the West Bank and in Gaza, such barbaric murders of girls and women routinely draw sentences of six months or less.

Abbas was apparently driven to this unusual act by public outrage about an alleged honor killing which took place near Hebron on the West Bank.

Over a year ago, on April 20, 2010, 20-year-old Aya Baradiya disappeared. Her paternal uncle, 37-year-old Iqab Baradiya, and two accomplices had kidnapped her, bound her hand and foot, and threw her down a well, leaving her to die a slow and painful death. Her remains were not found for more than a year.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Last week witnessed popular Muslim preacher Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini boast about how Islam allows Muslims to buy and sell conquered infidel women, so that “When I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her.”

This week’s depraved anachronism comes from a Muslim woman — Salwa al-Mutairi, a political activist and former parliamentary candidate for Kuwait’s government, no less: She, too, seeks to “revive the institution of sex-slavery.”

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by Phyllis Chesler

Bin Laden may be dead but, as many have noted, his ideology is still very much alive. Indeed, it  landed on our shores long ago. It is now most definitely here.

Women in burqas and in severe hijab are increasingly commonplace as are other more barbaric gender apartheid practices. This includes heartless honor killings.

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