Did you hear Hillary and Palin were suppose to address a Jewish women organization in NY City, and Hillary backed out because she didn't want to appear with Palin...so after that, Palin was uninvited. They didn't want a Republican standing up with them against Iran without Hillary.
September 18th, 2008 10:33 am
Hillary vs. Sarah, America vs. Iran, and the Film About Stonings in Iran That Ahmadinejad Needs To See
A FURTHER NEWSFLASH: The plot thickens but there is a bottom line; there always is. Obama is the one who decided not to send anyone of rank to stand with the Jews who are opposing Amadinejad’s genocidal and nuclear policies. The Jews in charge did not lean on Obama to come himself, (which would have made sense) but instead, no doubt under some unimaginably heavy pressure, dis-invited Palin. What? Allow Palin to take on the Iranian Monster on prime-time TV and win even more votes? New York Jewish votes? Women’s votes? Anything but that.
To cover themselves, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations now claim to have dis-invited all politicians; too “partisan,” too distracting from the matter at hand.
I’ll say.
But, where is it written that only one rally opposing Amadinejad’s policies can take place in this fine city of ours? Why not two rallies? There are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of New York City Jews, women, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Vegetarians who would be thrilled to see Palin verbally take down Amadinejad live. Let her hold her own rally. If you call it people will come.
Perhaps it’s not too late for Biden to change his plan to address the National Guard in Maryland on Monday and, for the first time, stand up to Iran. (He hasn’t you see. Yes, yes, I know he was very good on the Violence Against Women Act. Perhaps someone can suggest that he read my blog below which is about the Stoning of Soraya M which is the kind of violent thing Iran does to women.
Perhaps even Obama can change his mind and stand with the Jews and with America and with all his American political competitors against Iran’s demented and dangerous policies. Let McCain consider addressing a rally too. If Obama can stand with McCain at Ground Zero, surely, surely, a great Uniter can stand with McCain and Biden and Palin outside the UN.
NEWSFLASH: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has just confirmed that Governor Sarah Palin–a strong supporter of Israel–has been disinvited from the rally against President Ahmadinejad. I suggest that my readers call the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to protest this short-sighted and outrageous decision. Their number is 212-318-6111.
AND NOW BACK TO THE BLOG AT HAND:
Yes, that man is coming back on September 22nd to address the UN. Of course, Jewish groups are holding protest rallies and politicians are being hastily invited and are dis-inviting themselves as speakers. Hillary has now declined to speak on the same platform as Palin, Palin is still planning to speak, the Democrats are trying to persuade the various Jewish groups to cancel Palin, and McCain, in his signature “anti-partisanship” style, is trying to persuade the Democrats to join the Republicans in speaking out against a nuclear and genocidal Iran. According to spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, “Governor Palin believes that the danger of a nuclear Iran is greater than party or politics. She hopes that all parties can rally together in opposition to this grave threat.”
According to Israel Today, Christians have demanded that the UN indict Ahmadinejad over threats to Israel. (God bless them). A petition signed by 55,000 Christians from 128 nations, demanding the arrest and indictment of the Iranian President, will be delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week, reported The Jerusalem Post.
I have an additional suggestion.
Let’s all watch a movie. There is a suitable one coming our way, based on Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s jewel of a book, The Stoning of Soraya M. The great Iranian expatriate actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo, stars in it; reason enough to see it.
Show this film at the United Nations to Ahmadinejad, that arch purveyor of death, and to all those UN apparachniks who lack the courage to stop him. Indeed, why not show the film instead of allowing Ahmadinejad to speak?
Mind you, I have not yet seen the film, (it is wending its way through the film festivals), and do not yet know what, if any, liberties may have been taken with the true-life story which Sahebjam first published in 1990 after he was safely out of Iran. I read it as soon as it appeared in English in 1994. In it, Sahebjam writes that in contemporary Iran, “being born female is both a capital crime and a death sentence.”
The book is a haunting and carefully rendered account of how, on August 15, 1986, a thirty-five-year-old woman was stoned to death in Kupayeh, Iran. Soraya, (peace be upon her), was lynched and stoned to death by the villagers with whom she had lived all her life. Her own father, her two sons, and her lying, greedy, heartless petty criminal of a husband, Ghorban-Ali, all threw the first stones.
How did this happen? When Soraya was only thirteen, an arranged marriage with the twenty-year-old Ghorban-Ali took place. Soraya was docile, obedient, and fertile. She did everything uncomplainingly. Her husband routinely insulted, beat, and then abandoned her and their children; he also consorted with prostitutes and brought them into the marital bed. Soraya dared not say a word. A “complaining” wife is easy to divorce.
Ghorban-Ali had begun to work with a group of extortionist mullahs in some distant towns and had been well rewarded. He “did not want to live any longer” with Soraya, who had become a “silent, resigned woman who was old before her time and, what was worse, completely above reproach.” Ghorban-Ali had a new wife picked out, and although he could now afford many houses, he wanted his old mud house back. For him to get it, Soraya had to die.
He therefore falsely accused Soraya of adultery. Soraya’s aunt, Zahra, a village elder (and the author’s main informant and the character which Aghdashloo plays), loved Soraya and knew she was innocent. But she was powerless and could not save her. Ghorban-Ali tricked Soraya’s own father into condemning her. He also had the support of one of the many fake, pederast, thieving mullahs who, under Khomeini, enriched themselves personally by jailing and extorting money from their prisoners and by then executing them and confiscating all their wealth—a process very similar to the European Inquisition in which the church amassed great wealth in precisely this way.
After Ghorban-Ali denounced Soraya, she was sentenced to die later that same day. Ghorban-Ali was “radiant, jovial. Men slapped him affectionately and heartily…others hugged him.” The crowd of villagers began to chant: “The whore has to die. Death to the woman.” The villagers—who had know Soraya since her birth—cursed her, spit on her, hit her, and whipped her as she walked to her stoning. A “shudder of pleasure and joy ran through the crowd” as their stones drew blood. According to Sahebjams’s account, Soraya died a slow and agonizing death.
When Soraya’s aunt Zahra went to retrieve her body for burial, she was greeted by a “hallucinatory” spectacle. On the exact same spot where Soraya had been stoned to death, a joyful fire was now burning, and around its flames the villagers were dancing. The strolling performers had started their show. The village women had donned their finest multicolored dresses and were turning in circles.”
Afterwards, the fake mullah declared that the sinful Soraya could not be buried in a Muslim cemetery. He ordered some women to carry her broken body away. They half-buried her near a stream that Soraya happened to love. But when Zahra returned the next morning, she found that dogs had devoured most of her niece. She sat and wept, collected Soraya’s bones, and buried them.
What is the point of this heartrending story? Namely, that as Muslim women are being tortured and stoned to death, the Islamist-terrorists, the silent moderate Muslims, and the multi-culturally correct American and European leftists and progressives, including feminists, are de-constructing and justifying the face veil and the head scarf—and strongly opposing American “colonialist” intervention in the Muslim world.
Their view, and they may not be entirely wrong: Rather than shedding American and Western blood in vain and thereby incurring the hatred of the world, let’s give up on the Islamic world and leave them to devour each other as they have always done. Let them stone their women to death. No matter what barbarism they engage in, invading or “interfering” would be worse. The western elites hold that this view is savvy, cool, politically correct, multi-culturally sensitive, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, even feminist, and so on.
I must emphasize that this ghastly, local stoning cannot be blamed on the crimes of the American or Israel empire. And, I said so at the United Nations (of all places!)
When Iranian dissident feminists, (no, contrary to myth, I do not believe that they are terrorists), Ramesh Sepehrrad and Soona Samsani, of the National Committee of Women for a Democratic Iran (NCWDI) asked me to join them and Afghan feminists on a United Nations panel, I was inclined to say “absolutely not.” I had vowed never to return to that cesspool of corruption, sexual abuse, America- and Israel-hatred, and dangerous Third Worldism. But I relented.
The room was very crowded with women–arguably, the types who love to hate America and Israel. About eight women in hijab sat in a menacing bloc in the audience. They were official representatives of the Iranian government. Ramesh stood up and pointed at their leader. She said: “We know who you are. Tell the mullahs back in Tehran what you heard here. Tell them that women will overthrow their corrupt regime, that women will bring them down.” I was thunderstruck by her cool bravery. As she spoke, Ramesh’s colleague, Soona Samsani, (also wearing hijab), stood up and began taking their photos. Clearly, the government officials did not want their photos taken. At a signal from their leader, all eight suddenly left.
I ditched my prepared speech and instead recounted the story of Soraya M. You could hear a pin drop. I reasoned with them: This is corruption from within, a misogyny-run-amuck at the very root of Islam today. This cannot be blamed on any outside forces other than those of Arab Islamist imperialism.
And thus, rather miraculously, I was applauded and not attacked for telling the truth at the United Nations.
According to an NCWDI Report, “Iran is still the largest prison (in the world) for women.” Since 1979, tens of thousands of women have been tortured and executed in Iran.
“A regime like Tehran that uses rape and sexual slavery as weapons against women, stones women to death, and has the highest number of female executions in the world should not be allowed to get its hands on nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime is a state sponsor of terrorism and violence against women. Therefore, the struggle of the Iranian women against this regime is extremely important in the field of international peace and security.”
I agree. I hope the film version of Soraya M’s story helps Westerners understand what is at stake in Iran.
And I hope that the Democrats can find it in their hearts to stand with the Republicans against Iran. We will have to do so both sooner and later.
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