By Phyllis Chesler

I admit it, call me crazy, but I was utterly charmed by Governor Sarah Palin which is to say that, despite her beauty, her smiles, and her humor, I saw that she was also Annie Oakley-deadly and no man’s pushover; indeed, I would not mess with her. (Well, did you think this veteran feminist would be charmed by a woman because she is a lightweight?)

After all, Palin represents a state that gave women the right to vote in 1912 — New York State enfranchised women in 1917; a state in which women like Libby Riddles and Susan Butcher have won the incredibly difficult dog sled race known as the Iditarod. Butcher won it three times in a row — something that no man has ever done. The race covers 1,161 miles of Alaskan wilderness and the racer, known as a “musher,” often faces 100 mile an hour winds, blizzards, wild animals, thin ice, avalanches, snow blindness, and sleep deprivation. … (Continue reading…)

(more…)

~by E.D. Kain

This is a pretty apt description of the lefties whose apologism to Islamist radicals has gotten so out of hand, that publishers, theatres, and art venues have all started pre-censoring just about anything critical of Islam from Mozart to the new authour “The Jewel of Medina” by Sherry Jones.

(note: the link to Amazon above results in a dead search)

Mick Hume writes for the Times Online, and published an article recently decrying this abandonment of our freedoms. He writes:

The threat to freedom here does not come from a few Islamic radicals, but from the invertebrate liberals of the cultural establishment who have so lost faith in themselves that they will surrender their freedoms before anybody starts a fight.

Indeed, though the Islamists are responsible for initially causing a great deal of noise about the publication of various cartoons and pictures, it is the Left that has buckled, along with corporations fearful for their profits and employees’ safety.

(more…)

By Fern Sidman

The offices of the prestigious and internationally renowned law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP in midtown Manhattan was the setting for a special session convened by the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists on Sunday, August 10th. The session, billed as several lectures on “Preventing Genocide; “Legal Responses to Ahmadinejad” drew about 30 Jewish lawyers and jurists from all over the country and explored the “jurisdictional, procedural and substantial legal issues involved in bringing Ahmadinejad to account and to justice” and warned that as “Iran moves closer to acquiring nuclear weapons it is vital that every means, including legal actions, be used to deal with the threat of genocide.”

(more…)

JDL Stages Demonstration at Arab Federation Building

By Fern Sidman

Defiant chants of “Condemn Muslim Terrorism Now” and “Jewish Blood Is Not Cheap” could be heard in streets of downtown Toronto, on Thursday afternoon, July 31st, as 30 members of Toronto’s Jewish Defense League staged an angry demonstration in front of the offices of the Canadian Arab Federation. Responding to the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic attacks on Jews by Muslims in the Toronto area, Meir Weinstein, director of the JDL in Toronto said, “The abject silence on the part of the Canadian Arab Federation in the face of vitriolic attacks on Jews by Muslim perpetrators is tantamount to tacit approval of anti-Semitism and gives a green light to others who would entertain the notion of attacking Jews.”

(more…)

By Phyllis Chesler

This weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday evenings at 8pm, EST, Fox-TV will be airing a one hour documentary about honor murders in America. They interviewed me at length and you may see my face and my words on camera. … (Continue reading…)

(more…)

By E.D. Kain

Harry’s Place, a UK blog dedicated to promoting the ideals of freedom and democracy, is being sued by Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, which has been linked to Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood, both terrorist organizations. The blog reports that Mr. Sawalha, according to the BBC…

“master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

In their revelation of the impending lawsuit against them leveled by Mohammed Sawalha, they write:

(more…)

by Michael Rubin*

Sometime this summer, Turkey’s Constitutional Court will decide whether Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) violated the “principles of a democratic and secular republic” that undergird the Turkish constitution and should be barred from politics. Across the Turkish political spectrum, most officials expect the Court to rule against the AKP, thus dissolving the party and banning Erdoğan and his closest aides for at least five years.

Although the prime minister, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, and influential AKP advisers have tried to depict this as the unjust outgrowth of a dispute over headscarves in public universities—and perhaps even a “judicial coup”—the case is legitimate.

(more…)

By Andrew L. Jaffee

The stupidity and overzealousness of Islamist terrorists doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Case in point, the “Toronto 18, which was busted during a massive police sweep in the summer of 2006.” The trial of the idiotic would-be murderers in now taking place in Brampton, Ontario. It turns out that this group was planning to hit Ottawa, not just Toronto, and had American friends planning to cause mayhem in Atlanta. Here are some highlights from the testimony:

Fearing his days were “numbered” and his arrest imminent, the alleged ringleader of a homegrown terror cell wanted to forge ahead and build explosives to carry out a “mission” that included an attack on Ottawa, a Brampton court was told yesterday.

“I’m just gonna go all out with the mission call, man, like fully all out,” he is overheard saying in an electronic intercept. “If we had more money, guy, I would have just strapped up, like, as many people as possible. … ‘Cause this is tense.” …

(more…)

by Michael Rubin*

ISTANBUL — Yesterday Turkey’s constitutional court overturned a new law that would have allowed women in the secular republic — established in 1923 by the Westernizing Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — to wear Muslim headscarves in universities.

It now appears all but certain that this summer the court will go even further when it decides a larger case against the country’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development (AK) Party. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AK stand accused of violating “the principles of a democratic and secular republic.” Penalties could range from a suspension of the party’s public financing to its disbandment and the suspension of its leadership from politics. Such a development should be welcome in the United States.

(more…)

By Phyllis Chesler

Every day, people send me the most worrisome and surreal newspaper accounts about Islamic gender and religious apartheid and the Islamification of Europe. To me, these clippings are prescient warnings; they describe patterns and the gathering storm. My informants live on five continents. Here’s a quick round-up of some of today’s clippings.

On June 5th, the GVB bus company in Amsterdam cancelled its annual Christmas party because too many of its workers do not celebrate Christian holidays. Employees union VTN were told that “the multicultural representation of the colleagues in the Christmas party is too one-sided.” Given budgetary restriction and multicultural sensibility, the union opted to gather their drivers together on a holiday all may celebrate, such as New Years.

(more…)

By Andrew L. Jaffee

I worked with a Shiite Muslim for seven years, probably one of the best customers I’ve ever had. I avidly follow true moderate Muslim commentators like Fareed Zakaria, [1] Kamal Nawash, [2] Fouad Ajami, [3] and Mansoor Ijaz. [4] I hold democratically-elected Muslim leaders like President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia with the highest regard. So I find it disturbing that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a “media darling” claiming “itself as an advocate for Muslims’ civil rights and the spokesman for American Muslims” when it is indeed a Saudi-funded, Islamist front for whitewashing terrorism [7]. CAIR is far from moderate.

(more…)

By Phyllis Chesler

It only takes one person.

If one person fights with all his might to tell the truth, (and today that person is Philippe Karsenty), if he or she risks everything to expose the Big Lie, takes on The Very Naked Emperor, then, one by one, others also start speaking out.

(more…)

By Phyllis Chesler

An Historic Moment

Left to Right: Gilles Dreyfus, the author, and Philippe Karsenty at the author’s home.

The same mainstream media that ran front page photos of the Palestinian boy, Mohammed al-Dura, allegedly being murdered in his father’s arms by Israeli soldiers–are, shamefully, not running any stories about the hard-won Karsenty decision in Paris.

(more…)

By Phyllis Chesler

Newsflash: Read Karsenty’s own statment at Pajamas Media.

Well, our era’s Dreyfus has just been vindicated. Or, as an Israeli website would have it: “Pigs Fly Over the Eiffel Tower.” See my previous interview with Karsenty HERE.

A few hours ago, a French Appeals Court finally decided that Phillipe Karsenty did not libel Charles Enderlin of France’s Channel 2 in the matter of Mohammed Al-Dura. One wonders whether the world which was so eager to lap up the base, visual propaganda against Israel, will now just as eagerly lap up the truth. Somehow, I doubt it. Even if the world’s mainstream media now covers this legal victory widely, respectfully, and accurately, it may still not be able to reverse the revulsion towards Israel that this staged photo of the twelve year-old Mohammed al-Dura, (allegedly shot to death by Israeli soldiers), managed to provoke–and to keep on provoking as it was repeatedly aired, copied onto tee shirts, coffee mugs, posters, and banners at demonstrations.

(more…)

by David J. Rusin*

A Saudi court’s sentence of 200 lashes and six-months’ imprisonment for a 19-year-old victim of gang rape, known only as the “Qatif girl,” recently made headlines across the United States. Her story would never have come to outside attention without the efforts of her lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahim. A specialist in commercial law, the 36-year-old Saudi also takes human rights cases on a pro-bono basis.[1]

(more…)