by Sherry Jones
New York: Beaufort Books, 2008. 432 pp. $25

Reviewed by Robert Spencer*

Muhammad and Aisha, a Love Story

Jones, correspondent for the Bureau of National Affairs news agency, never expected her novel about Aisha, daughter of Abu Bakr, the first caliph, and favorite wife of the prophet of Islam, to become a battleground in the war over free speech between the West and the Muslim world. Rather, as she explained, “I have deliberately and consciously written respectfully about Islam and Mohammed … I envisioned that my book would be a bridge-builder.”[1]

The Jewel of Medina became a cause célèbre when Random House dropped it in August 2008 just before publication, citing fear of threats from Muslims — threats, it bears noting, that had not yet materialized. Subsequently, three Muslims were arrested in London for firebombing the offices of the book’s new British publisher, Gibson Square, which also then dropped the book.[2] It has now been published in the United States by Beaufort Books, which, in a press release, said that it “knows how to look for trouble.”

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By Jon Feere*

Illegal-alien and open-borders advocates may succeed in getting the Arizona Supreme Court to ban numerous immigration-related phrases, including “illegal alien” and “open-borders advocates.”

In a significant blow to the First Amendment and the use of legally-correct terminology, Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor has advanced the demands of the Arizona Hispanic Bar Association by moving to ban the following language from all of the state’s courtrooms:

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By Phyllis Chesler*

She knew.

She told her friends that her father was going to kill her. She ran away, stayed at a shelter, stayed with friends. She was lured back home by honeyed sentences. Her family could not sleep without her. Late last year, on December 10th, in Toronto, sixteen year-old Aqsa Parvez’s father. Mohammed, and her brother, Waqas, collaborated in her murder.

Aqsa’s crime? She refused to wear hijab, she was becoming too assimilated.

Mohammed and Waqas Parvez are currently in jail awaiting trial.

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by Daniel Pipes*

NOTE: This is Daniel Pipes’ foreword to the new book by Jonathan Schanzer, Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle For Palestine, released today.

Divisions among Palestinians generally do not receive their due attention, Jonathan Schanzer correctly points out, in the immense academic and journalistic coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, an official, propagandistic, and inaccurate party line holds sway. To quote Rashid Khalidi, a former Palestine Liberation Organization employee now teaching at Columbia University,^[i] a “uniform Palestinian identity” exists. The Palestinians are one — full stop, end of story.

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By Douglas Farah*

One of the significant challenges the next administration will face in combating terrorism is the fracturing consensus on international sanctions, as noted by the Washington Post.

There is no doubt the European and U.N. consensus that gave rise to the valuable tools has softened, if not vanished, in recent years. Much of friction has to do with anti-US sentiment, coupled with the inability or unwillingness of the designating parties to use what evidence there is against designated individuals in a judicial process.

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By Phyllis Chesler

… There are important reasons to vote for Obama and important reasons to vote for McCain. Neither candidate thrills me, both frighten me but for different reasons. But, what worries me even more than the candidates is the way in which so many Americans seem to have lost both their gravity and their sanity. They are behaving like drunken soccer fans or like ecstatic True Believers undergoing a religious transformation. During Obama’s acceptance speech 100 years ago in Denver, I saw people of all ages, both genders, and of every color, weeping, trembling, transfixed. … (Continue reading…)

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By Phyllis Chesler*

The Culture and Media Institute has just released a study entitled Character Assassination: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon. It documents that the mainstream media’s hostility to Governor Sarah Palin has been extreme, perhaps unprecedented. While the majority of the attacks have been launched by men, media women, including feminists on both sides of the aisle, have not been shy.

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by Daniel Pipes*

With Colin Powell now repeating the lie that Barack Obama has “always been a Christian,” despite new information further confirming Obama’s Muslim childhood (such as the Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim), one watches with dismay as the Democratic candidate manages to hide the truth on this issue.

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By Aaron Eitan Meyer*

On October 4^th, the London Telegraph reported that YouTube had taken down comedian Pat Condell’s video “Welcome to Saudi Britain,” with the only explanation being that the video constituted a “terms of use violation.” In the video, which is now back up on YouTube, Condell took aim at the institution of Shari’a courts in Britain, terming them fundamentally unfair to women and criticizing the fact that “we’re now accommodating Saudi Arabian legal principles here in Britain.” A YouTube spokesman told the Telegraph that the site has guidelines regarding certain types of content, including ‘hate speech.’

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

More problems have crept up in Barack Obama’s run for the presidency — this time in Ohio. It would help clarify matters to hear Barack Obama’s stance on voter registration irregularities in the Buckeye State. First, “A federal court ruled tonight that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner violated federal election laws by not taking adequate steps to validate the identity of newly registered voters.” Second, in same the case, the judge’s, “ruling cited the questionable activity of ACORN, a group that has registered thousands of Ohioans.”

According to the Columbus Dispatch, regarding Ohio’s secretary of state:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Barack Obama has found another inflammatory ally, Rep. John Lewis, Democrat from Georgia, to add to his long list of his extremely dubious supporters and connections. In a very ugly smear, Lewis today “likened the politics of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin to segregationist Gov. George Wallace” and claimed that McCain and Palin were “sowing the seeds of hatred and division.” John McCain is no racist and has never fanned the flames of bigotry. In actuality, it is the Obama campaign which consorts with racists and seeks to create ugly racial divisions all in pursuit of the American presidency.

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By Phyllis Chesler

The Dow is falling just as the Twin Towers once fell. Obama’s campaign soars on the wings of this crisis. Some Obama supporters no longer care about facts and become exceedingly aggressive when one tries to offer any. “I dare you to prove that,” they yell, their faces all a-snarl. “That’s a right-wing racist lie.” … (Continue reading…)

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PHILADELPHIA* — Following his earlier apology to Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, Irfan Yusuf has a second time retracted his defamatory statement about Mr. Pipes.

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By Phyllis Chesler

The street had been closed to traffic, the lines were long, the security was tight, the place was packed, and the joint was jumping. No, I was not at the airport or attending an event at the Israeli Consulate–although, these days, more and more places have been forced to adopt Israeli-like security measures. It always starts with the Jews but it never ends with us. … (Continue reading…)

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By Phyllis Chesler

Ah yes, my people, my nation, my burden, my glory, my J Street. The Jews of J Street have named themselves after an imaginary street in Washington, DC, a suitable name for the kind of imaginary but dangerous human engineering projects they have in mind both for America and for the Middle East. The J Street Jews would rather die at Ahmadinejad’s hands as long as a Democrat is voted into the White House than to live if a Republican gains control of the White House. … (Continue reading…)

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