Iraqi Women That Defy Islamic Conservatives Keep Getting Murdered - Seth Frantzman

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by Seth Frantzman

Iraqi women face the ultimate misogynism

Originally posted under the headline "Iraqis Channel ‘MeToo’ After High Profile Women Murdered."
One of her last Instagram posts shows her with green angelic wings, a crown and wrapped in glowing coils. Tara Fares was gunned down on Thursday, September 27, as she drove in Baghdad. A motorcycle with the perpetrators sped off. “We belong to God and to him we return,” reads a memorial post on her Instagram.
 

Tara Fares (Instagram)

Fares was the latest in a string of women to be murdered mysteriously in Baghdad and southern Iraq in what locals fear is a growing trend of intimidation against outspoken women. Fares was a described as a model and beauty queen, but her real impact was online with her 2.8 million Instagram followers. She also had an active fan club (@tarafaressfans) that posted her photos online.

Some have pointed a finger at Islamic State, with Turkish newspaper Hurriyet claiming she received threats from ISIS. An article at the Kurdish media network Rudaw noted that the Christian community of Iraq from which Fares came “has suffered repeated persecution for their faith at the hands of different Iraqi regimes.”

Her murder is seen as connected to the targeted killings of others. Rafeel al-Yaseri and Rasha al-Hassan, who were involved in the beauty industry and plastic surgery in Iraq, were killed in August. An activist in Basra named Suad al-Ali was also murdered this month. Last year, a male model named Karar Nushi was also murdered in Baghdad.

Rasha al-Hassan was killed in August (Facebook)

Fares lived in Erbil in the Kurdistan region but had gone to Baghdad from time to time, and was targeted on her recent trip. Erbil is considered safer, and many Christians have fled areas such as the Nineveh plains for the security of the Kurdish region.

Rasha al-Aqeedi, who is from Mosul and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, asked, “How desperate, insecure do you have to be that Tara was a threat to you? The fragile masculinity of those who have access to arms in Iraq is staggering.”

She connected it to the recent Brett Kavanaugh hearing in the US. “As the world watches Christine Blasey Ford's courageous testimony, another social media figure in Iraq was gunned down,” she said.

But who is killing the women, ask Iraqis. Many privately suggest it is not a simplistic story about ISIS or shadowy “fanatics” but rather a more complex motive.

“In one of her videos she cursed a Shia clergyman,” one source said. According to a video posted online after her death, she had complained after a Shi’ite clergy proposed a “temporary marriage” and had claimed politicians in Iraq had robbed the country. Temporary marriage is often used as a euphemism for prostitution in neighboring Iran, and the proposal to her implies she was being harassed and propositioned.

Iraqis express pessimism that the murder will lead to change. Even though one woman has been nominated for the presidency of Iraq this year, it is not seen as an advancement amid the killings. An employee of Al-Iraqiya TV, who worked at the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq called Fares a “whore,” causing further outrage and calls for his dismissal.

Amid the outpouring of remembrances for Fares and the international coverage, the government has said it will act. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Baghdad said that the prime minister had ordered the creation of a special committee to bring the perpetrators to justice. In a private message, one man who knew Fares said that she had lived near him and she was warned not to go to Baghdad. He said people spread rumors that she worked as a prostitute and “this is the reason why they killed her.”

Fares is seen as a kind of symbol for many Iraqis to speak out about the growing sense that far-right conservative extremists are targeting women. Arayish Barzinjee-Martsch, who was born in Erbil and follows politics in Iraq, wrote that up to five women have been recently killed, and although Baghdad is calling for an investigation, Iranian influence may be to blame.

“Iran is trying to turn Baghdad into a sort of religious center or something,” he said. “In my opinion, they are making examples of these prominent women to quiet others who want to break the mold.” It is about enforcing social norms, more than politics, he said.
 
Another source from southern Iraq thought the attack was carried out by Iranian-funded members of the Hashd al-Shaabi group of Shi’ite militias. But he argued it was not likely carried out by militias loyal to Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, rather those closer to Tehran.

“Iranian aligned parties are not happy with the state of civil society activities after the Basra protests.” The protests in the city of Basra have targeted Iranian-backed parties.

It wasn’t about her being Christian, but her behavior, drinking in public and how she dressed, another Iraqi who asked to remain anonymous argued.

“This is what happens after thousands of young men go to war under religious banners and come back to cities,” he said, referring to the Shi’ite militias who fought ISIS and have now come home to places like Basra and Baghdad.

Online the discussion has turned to a kind of ‘Me Too’ moment. “The recent assassinations of female public figures in Iraq have prompted commentators to voice their concerns,” writes one woman who goes by the handle @Observer46664. “Iraqi women who live here have ALWAYS been painfully aware of their vulnerability and fragile social status.” The “proud Iraqi feminist,” wrote on Twitter that “I am an Iraqi woman who lived in Baghdad and my work allows me to see women and girls daily, the sheer horrors that I have been seeing and hearing is beyond disheartening.” She says that it is difficult to reconcile her love for the country with the patriarchal culture “holding back Iraqi women.” And the oppressors are not just a small minority, but “are products of a dominant culture that puts men first.”

With each killing, the chances that another woman will take the victim’s place and try to persevere and challenge the system decreases. With the protests in Basra and uncertainty over who will run Iraq next, including a continued ISIS threat, there is a sense that the country faces yet another crossroads. The killing of Fares was symbolic, another attempt to silence an open-minded voice in a country that sought to leave behind the dark days of ISIS and emerge stronger. Instead, locals feel that militias and clerics will continue their overbearing influence. “The killings will continue, the government didn’t even call this terrorism,” a man in Mosul wrote.
 

Seth Frantzman is The Jerusalem Post's op-ed editor, a Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a founder of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/iraqis-channel-metoo-after-high-profile-women-mu

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What Did Brett Kavanaugh Do at the Junior Prom? - David C. Stolinsky

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by David C. Stolinsky

Back where I come from, officials investigate crimes to discover who committed them; they do not investigate people to see if they can come up with one.

• One can have complete sympathy for someone who underwent the trauma of experiencing attempted sexual assault, but the fishy timing and discrepancies of this reported incident make it hard not to ask what unprovable and undefendable allegations will the next character assassin toss out. Hard-drug use? Child abuse? How pervasive and surreal are such fact-challenged defamations going to get?
• Senator Ted Stevens "was not only completely innocent of the manufactured case against him, he was an honest and honorable man. Under Director [Robert] Mueller's overriding supervision, the wrongdoer who helped manufacture the case stayed on and the whistleblower was punished." — Report by Congressman Louie Gohmert.
• Back where I come from, officials investigate crimes that can be named and that have occurred; they do not go around trying to manufacture them. Back where I come from, officials investigate crimes to discover who committed them; they do not investigate people to see if they can come up with one.
• I come from America. It is a nice place to visit, but it is a really great place to live. One day I hope to live there again. A good way to make that day come sooner is to end the government's framing people, and presumptions of guilt. Ending politically motivated prosecutions, criminal conspiracies to overthrow a duly elected president, and ending criminal abuse of power might also help.

(Image source: Pixabay)

Was it the junior prom or just a high-school party? Was Christine Blasey Ford, who says she was the victim of Brett Kavanaugh's alleged sexual assault, 15 or 16 years old at the time? Were there four boys present during the incident, as in the notes of Blasey Ford's therapist, or two, as she says now? Did Kavanaugh's friend, Mark Judge, who strongly denies the incident, participate? Was it even Kavanaugh who participated, or perhaps someone who looked like him? Why did the alleged victim wait 35 years (or was it 36) to come forward? Why did Senator Dianne Feinstein refer the complaint to the FBI, which has no jurisdiction?

One can have complete sympathy for someone who underwent the trauma of experiencing attempted sexual assault, but the fishy timing and discrepancies of this reported incident, not to mention the request by Blasey Ford's lawyer for Judge Kavanaugh to defend himself before knowing what he is being accused of, make it hard not to ask what unprovable and undefendable allegations will the next character assassin toss out. Hard-drug use? Child abuse? How pervasive and surreal are such fact-challenged defamations going to get?

The answer to all these questions is: I don't know, I can't know, and I don't care. Nor do I care what Dianne Feinstein did at her junior prom, nor what Kamala Harris did at hers, although I suspect she spent the evening looking for people to interrupt.

Many people believe that memory is like a DVD or videotape -- it remains the same and can be accessed whenever we please. But memory is more like a computer document -- it can be altered every time we access it, and it may degrade over time.

My wife is a clinical and forensic psychologist. When she was studying for her Ph.D., she was assigned a classic textbook: Eyewitness Testimony by Elizabeth Loftus. The uncertainties of eyewitness reports are detailed. The professor teaching the course, who had testified as an expert witness in dozens of criminal trials, gave this advice to his students if they were to do the same: Get the check first.

According to Thomas Albright, director of the Vision Center Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:

"Human visual perception and memory are changeable, the ability to recognize individuals is imperfect, and policies governing law enforcement procedures are not standard -- and any of these limitations can produce mistaken identifications with serious consequences.,"

If I am questioned by the police repeatedly and give more-or-less the same story, I am probably telling the truth. But if I give exactly the same story each time, it may be a lie I am sticking to. If an associate and I are questioned, and we give more-or-less the same story, it is probably the truth. But if we give exactly the same story, it may be a tale we cooked up. Minor discrepancies are, if anything, signs of truth, not falsehood. Apparently, federal agents and prosecutors do not know it. Why?

As Prof. Alan Dershowitz explains, if I tell a federal agent something, and another person tells him something different, one of us can be charged with the felony of making false statements -- the person the prosecutor dislikes. This is true even if (1) no third person verifies the story, (2) no independent evidence corroborates the story, (3) there is no proof of intent to deceive, (4) there is no provable underlying crime, (5) the statement was not made under oath, and (6) no Miranda warning was given.

They tell us, "If you see something, say something." But their actions teach us, "Keep your mouth shut, and ask for a lawyer." If there is a more destructive lesson to teach in the era of international terrorism, I have yet to hear it.

If you doubt this, ask Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. The special counsel tried to find evidence that Cheney illegally outed an undercover CIA agent. But in fact, the agent was no longer undercover, and she had already been outed by someone else. Nevertheless, Libby was questioned for many hours, over days. At some point he contradicted himself, or contradicted media personality Tim Russert. As reported in the Wall Street Journal by Peter Berkowitz:

"Having failed to find any underlying crime, Mr. Fitzgerald [the special prosecutor] nonetheless pressed on for someone to prosecute, eventually focusing on Mr. Libby, whose trial became a contest of recollections. The excruciatingly inconsequential question on which his conviction turned was whether, as Mr. Libby recalled, he was surprised to hear NBC's "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert ask him about Ms. Plame in a phone call on July 10 or 11, 2003.... Tim Russert's memory changed dramatically between his initial FBI interview and Mr. Fitzgerald's questioning of him....As special counsel, he [Mr. Fitzgerald] placed his quest for a conviction above the search for truth and the pursuit of justice."

Libby, who was subsequently convicted of making false statements, was eventually pardoned by President Donald J. Trump.

Or ask Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to President Trump. Flynn was told that FBI agents wished to see him. He was not told it was an official interview, not just a meeting. He was asked about conversations with the Russian ambassador. The FBI already knew what was said -- they had tapped the phone line, possibly illegally.

But Flynn was not told that, either. How many people know that lying to any federal agent is a crime, even if the false statement is not made under oath? So why did they ask Flynn, if not to entrap him?

Flynn's account of the conversation differed from the transcript of the tapes, so he was charged with making false statements. He had been awarded many decorations over 33 years of service to his nation. His real reward? A felony conviction.

Did Flynn lie, or merely fail to remember? And if he did lie, was it out of malice, or out of ingrained habit from many years in intelligence: Tell only those with a need to know. No matter, his statements were incorrect. To save his family from bankruptcy from legal expenses, and to save his son from similar charges, he pled guilty.

Or ask the family of the late Senator Ted Stevens. According to a report by Congressman Louie Gohmert:

"That U.S. Senator [Ted Stevens] was not only completely innocent of the manufactured case against him, he was an honest and honorable man. Under Director [Robert] Mueller's overriding supervision, the wrongdoer who helped manufacture the case stayed on and the whistleblower was punished."

How does this differ from extracting confessions by torture? True, we no longer have Torquemada using the rack ‒ we have Mueller torqueing the legal system. But is the result any better, either factually or morally? Both the Inquisition and the Nazis extracted confessions by threatening family members. The Nazis called this Sippenhaft. We should call it criminalizing political differences and Stalinizing democracy. As Lavrentiy Beria, head of the KGB under Stalin, reportedly said, "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."

The Bible teaches us not to go around spreading slander. Or bearing false witness. It would be good if we heeded these lessons. Otherwise it may soon be we who are prosecuted, and our character maligned.

Back where I come from, officials investigate crimes that can be named and that have occurred; they do not go around trying to manufacture them. Back where I come from, officials investigate crimes to discover who committed them; they do not investigate people to see if they can come up with one.

In the unlikely event the Feds come calling: Give your name, then repeat "lawyer" interminably, perhaps to music. If you are lucky, maybe they will pass it off as early senility.

I come from America. It is a nice place to visit, but it is a really great place to live. One day I hope to live there again. A good way to make that day come sooner is to end the government's framing people, and presumptions of guilt. Ending politically motivated prosecutions, criminal conspiracies to overthrow a duly elected president, and criminal abuse of power might also help.

David C. Stolinsky, a retired physician, is based in the US.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13084/brett-kavanaugh-nomination

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The other woman - Silvio Canto, Jr.

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by Silvio Canto, Jr.

People grow angry when they see an injustice on the level of destroying a man and his family.

Last week, regarding Judge Kavanaugh before the U.S Senate, I pictured millions of US women watching and saying: "That could be my husband, my son, my father" etc. In other words, the overwhelming majority of men do not assault women. Instead, they are good fathers and husbands who respect women. 

So how are those women feeling now? I saw this from Stephanie Gutmann:

We are furious at the people purporting to speak for women, furious that what should have been an ordinary parsing of evidence (what little there is after 36 years) was turned into a Kabuki theater campaign ad for the Democratic Party, stressing their trope that the GOP is conducting a so-called war on women.
Sixty-nine percent of Republican women, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll released Monday, said they favor confirming Kavanaugh. As for anecdotal evidence, I know what my friends and relatives are saying and what the several women who called into Hugh Hewitt’s radio show said this week.
Many conservative women detest the McCarthyite tone of the proceedings; we feel sickened by the sight of crowds of college girls ripping up pro-Kavanaugh posters; we are worried as mobs chant, “We believe survivors!” (What if Ford is not truly a “survivor”? Don’t we have to establish whether she’s a survivor first?)

This article confirms what I've been seeing on a purely social basis. My analysis is not a poll but rather just plain conversation, from talking to people at church, over coffee, waiting at the bank and so on. 

People grow angry when they see an injustice on the level of destroying a man and his family.

The Democrats clearly overplayed their hand. They never anticipated that women would be angry at them. Maybe they will show up to vote and express their discontent. I hope so!

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Silvio Canto, Jr.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/the_other_woman.html

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My Kavanaugh Moment - Howard Rothberg

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by Howard Rothberg

How I became a banned author in Canada.

 
FrontPageMag Editor's note: The essay below was written by the author in 2009 about a life-changing series of events that began at a bookstore in 2003. It first appeared in Scragged.com and parts of it have also appeared in the Jewish Tribune. The author has asked us to rerun it with a new title in light of the current leftist witch-hunt directed at Brett Kavanaugh. 

A quiet Sunday afternoon at the Chapters store in Waterloo, Ontario. (Chapters is Canada's monopoly book retailer with 73% of the retail book market - ed)  A nice, relaxed informal lecture to a small group about The Second Catastrophe, my new novel.

I had just started talking about why I had written the book - about how, after the failure of the Oslo process, and Arafat's rejection of Barak's generous offer for a two-state solution at Camp David II, the Palestinians had started the Second Intifada. I mentioned how disappointed a lot of us were to see that Arafat apparently did not want a state alongside Israel, but one in place of Israel.

That was a mistake.

I now realize that I was in Canada, where only politically correct speech is protected.

I was in Canada, the land of cultural relativism, where the most important value is tolerance. Criticizing any other country or culture is a breach of the now distorted policy of multiculturalism. Now, I would pay the price.

If I had only known how big a price.

A young man came in and sat in the second row. He picked up a copy of my book from the table, took a perfunctory look at it, and started interrupting me.

"You think all Muslims are terrorists," he asserted.

"I do not," I replied, as categorically as possible.

"Well, that's what your book says," he retorted.

It looked to me as if he had just taken a few glances at it, so I replied: "Have you read my book?" He paused and then said, "Part."

I decided not to take him seriously and I continued. Another mistake.

Suddenly a man appeared, standing off to my left, and started into a rant. It was something about how the Americans and the Israelis are the real terrorists, and that democracy is really fascist. He was scary.

University of Waterloo Professor Dennis Stoutenburg was there and tried to calm the man.

"Sir, this is a lecture. Why don't you sit down and listen?"

Another mistake.

The first man identified himself as a Palestinian, and the second as a Kurdish Iraqi.

Then they took turns talking - and talking. It was apparent that they were not going to let me speak any more. They had decided to take over my lecture.

The Palestinian was shouting something about how the Israelis kill five Palestinians a day. Some audience members had heard enough.

"Be quiet and let the author continue with his lecture; he has the right to give his lecture," said one audience member.

"He has no right to lecture if he is going to say things in support of Israel," said the Palestinian. His words cut me like a knife.

Then the Iraqi started in. Again someone pleaded with him to be quiet so I could lecture. Then came the words that still ring in my ears: "He's a f****** Jew."

Up to this point there had been no store employees sitting in on the lecture. A couple had earlier come by and stood at the periphery of the seats for a few minutes each. One of them, a young woman, was wearing a hajav, the head-covering worn by many Muslim women.

That was the end of the lecture. I said something to the effect that I would not be called a "f****** Jew" at my lecture. The store manager came over to me and told me not to swear. I told him that I was the one being sworn at; he said that it didn't matter. He gathered up the books on the table and escorted me to his office at the back.

"I want you to call the Police." I said.

"What for?" he replied.

"Because these totalitarians just stopped my right to lecture, and are swearing at me, and who knows what they will do next?" I said.

"I don't have the number," he claimed.

I couldn't believe this. "Try 911," I suggested.

Professor Stoutenburg and his wife Laura, who teaches English at Conestoga College, came by to see if I was all right. I wasn't. I was in a state of shock.

Stoutenburg said he had just finished talking to the store employee with the hajav. "She is a Palestinian," he added. "I think she knew the protestors."

Finally, the police officer indicated he was ready to talk to me and any witnesses. He had been interviewing the protestors outside.

"Do you know that one fellow stopped my lecture, and then called me a "f****** Jew," I said.
Apparently he didn't know, because he began to jot down the derogatory expression.

"I hope you are going to charge them," I said.

"Well, I have investigated, and the only thing I could really charge them with would be causing a disturbance, but I decided to let them go, with a warning not to come back to this store."
I was incredulous. He had let them go before talking to me and some of the witnesses, like the Stoutenburgs.

"Do you mean that it's not a crime to use Gestapo tactics to break up a lecture and tell the author that he is a "f****** Jew?" I said.

The constable looked as if he would rather be somewhere else. "Well, we get 2 or 3 racial slurs a day in Kitchener-Waterloo; I can't charge everybody," he replied.

"But don't you see a difference between a racial slur used in a dispute over a traffic accident, and one used to silence an author at a lecture he was invited to give by Chapters?"

"I can't give you any special treatment because you are an author," he said with what sounded a lot like sarcasm.

I was in shock. I said to him, "Don't you understand what it is like for a Jewish author whose grandparents were gassed in Auschwitz to be called a 'f****** Jew' at a lecture?"

He looked at me blankly.

Then I understood. I said, "You don't know what Auschwitz was, right?" He didn't say anything.
I asked him to escort me to my car, for my safety. When we got outside, there was a man milling around, who looked to me like he might be of Middle Eastern background. The officer just climbed into his cruiser.

"Aren't you going to escort me to my car?" I asked.

He started his car. "I can see what happens from over here," he replied.

That evening Mantua Books, my publisher, issued a press release saying they regretted to announce the cancellation of my speaking engagements at Chapters/Indigo, including the previously advertised events at the Ancaster store on May 30 and the Ottawa store on June 13.

The release went on to say that Mantua was NOT giving in to inflammatory tactics, but were trying to protect the author from physical harm and not inconvenience and annoy Chapters/Indigo and its customers when it came to heckling and racial/religious slurs.

In the meantime, Mantua Books said they would endeavour to find more secure forums for me to lecture, where they can provide the necessary level of security for my physical safety, and where they can provide personnel who can eject those whose purpose is not to engage in free and open debate but to silence those with whom they disagree.

Another mistake. My publisher had not precleared the wording of the press release with the director of public relations at Chapters. Sorya Ingrid Gaulin, the PR director, went ballistic.

She called me and said it was improper for my publisher to issue a media release before going over it with her. I said that it was up to my publisher, and that I didn't think my publisher's release had been in any way critical of Chapters.

Then she lowered the boom: "I heard you said some things at the lecture just as objectionable as what was said to you. We are going to issue our own press release, and you may not be happy with what it says."

"What are you alleging that I said?" I was shocked, to say the least.

"Racist things."

"What do you mean, exactly?" I asked.

"I heard that you said that all Muslims are terrorists!"

I was sinking deeper into my state of shock. All I could say was: "I definitely did not say that. If you put out a press release with such nonsense, I will sue to protect my reputation." I hung up.

She issued her press release all right. Suddenly, I was in an Orwellian world where the victim of racism was now the racist. The press release apologized for any "inappropriate behaviour and. racist comments both from the guest author and some of the attendees at this particular event."

Two months have passed. I have written to or spoken with most of the civil rights organizations in Canada, most of the Jewish organizations in Canada, and the organizations that serve the interests of authors. Some ignore my letters, some call back with messages of empathy, some even say they are investigating. But to date, not one organization has published a statement, in a newsletter, in a press release, or by verbal statement to the media, expressing dismay at what has happened to me, at what has happened to freedom of expression, at what has happened to someone who dares support Israel, at what has happened or not happened in the police investigation.

I have had a lot of support from individuals on Internet sites. I have had no official support from any organizations to date, Jewish or non-Jewish, except from PenCanada (which says it wrote a letter requesting Chapters to reschedule the lecture - which letter Chapters President Heather Reisman denies receiving) and the Canadian Coalition for Democracies. Three newspapers saw fit to report the incident. One (the Kitchener-Waterloo Record) portrayed it as a "scrap" with competing claims of who was the racist. Until this article in the Jewish Tribune, only one newspaper (the Globe and Mail) has thus far carried an opinion piece (by Professor Emeritus Herbert Lefcourt) warning that allowing this to happen unchallenged is conducive to the "slippery slope" where it is much easier for the next incident to happen.

Professor Lefcourt was right. In June, someone wrote in to the Public Forum message board of the website for the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, a message board where quite a few people had posted messages of concern over the incident. This person used the name of a reputable Jewish family in Waterloo, and in broken English, wrote that he/she was in attendance at my "reading" (if he had been there, he would have known it was a lecture not a reading), that he was Jewish, and that I am a "hypocritical evil little bigot," a "rascist (sic) scum" and then the clincher; he claims that in response to my being sworn at, I had said, "This just proves that all Arabs and Muslims deserve to die."

The Canadian Coalition for Democracies, to its credit, is undertaking a court application to require Rogers, the Internet provider for the computer from which this message was sent, to disclose the name of its customer.

The awful irony for me is that my book, The Second Catastrophe, is in part about a Canadian professor who writes a book about Israel, and then gets in trouble after giving a lecture at his university. Most of the lecture is completely unassailable, but in one small portion he gets a little loose with his wording. The lecture takes place in early 2002, the peak of the suicide bombings. He asks what are Israel's options when faced with these almost daily attacks. I have him state: "(One) suggestion is to create a series of impenetrable fences and buffer zones, essentially to keep the animals in the zoo."

Of course, the next day, the novels Anti-Israel student newspaper runs a big headline: "Zionist professor calls Palestinians (animals in the zoo)."

The poor professor pays dearly for his slightly inappropriate wording. He is charged with offences against the university's Human Rights Code, which makes it an offence to demonstrate bias against an ethnic, religious or national group, and an offence to make statements that would reasonably cause some students to think a professor is biased against them.

However, as much as I think about what I have said, or what I have written, I can never find the words that are inappropriate or find any words that are racist. Maybe I should not have repeated the 'f' word, even to admonish someone else for using it. But a racist I am not.

I have met my Waterloo, and I don't like it.

Postscript

After this article was written, we continued with the Court Application.  I was aided by Alastair Gordon of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, who was quite upset that his organization's internet public message forum should be used for the posting of the message with the terrible allegation against me.

The family name used by the person making the post was the name of a reputable Jewish family in Waterloo, who were well known to me.  In fact the gentleman is the son of Dutch Jewish Holocaust survivors.  I asked him if he knew of anyone in his family with the first name given on the posting.  His response was interesting.  He was sure that there is no such person in North America with that name.  He said that since his family had been mostly wiped out in the Holocaust, he had made it a hobby to look for other people with his family name, in the hope of someday finding some relatives.  With the internet of course it is far easier to make these searches than it used to be.  He told me with some confidence that there could not be a person with that name in Canada, and that the name was probably made up.

Thanks to the footprints that everyone unwittingly leaves in cyberspace, and the pro bono legal services generously provided by Toronto law firm Weir Foulds LLP, the Court Order referred to above was successfully obtained.

What we found out when Rogers made disclosure was truly fascinating, and enlightening.  At the same time it was truly frightening.  The Internet subscriber from whose computer the posting originated was identified as Ms. Howaida Wahdan of Waterloo at an address listed in directory assistance under the name of Mr. Elsayed Khedr.  The address was a few doors away from the Jewish family whose name appeared on the posting!

The Jewish family whose name was "stolen" for purposes of the nefarious internet posting were well acquainted with the Wahdan/Khedr family.  In fact, up until recently, their children had played together! For some reason, the Jewish family told me, the Khedr child had stopped coming around to their house, just about the time of the posting!

The Jewish family told me that Ms. Wahdan is the wife of Elsayed Khedr, that they are well-to-do Palestinians, and that Mr. Khedr is an Engineer, working often in Egypt, while Ms. Wahdan looks after the children in Canada.

In today's world, there are some Islamists who will riot and kill over a political cartoon.  I am not pleased that Chapters has falsely accused me in print of making anti-Muslim "racist" comments.  I am even more upset when it is alleged in print that I said "all Muslims and Arabs must die".  This could be dangerous to my life.

Does anybody care about all the lying going on?  Does anybody care about the danger to Canadian authors?

In the meantime, Mantua Books brought a Court Action in Small Claims Court claiming damages as a result of Chapters' actions and words, based on their employees actions and words, which hurt their author's credibility and damaged Mantua financially.

Something very odd happened during the course of the litigation.  Chapters/Indigo had returned all of my books shortly after I demanded a retraction from them for calling me a "racist".  They had been carrying 7 copies per store, and some stores in the bigger cities had already sold out their allotment.  Yet the vice-president who wrote Mantua Books said they were returning ALL of the books due to "slow sales".  This was a bit odd, because normally they would first reduce their inventory down to 1 or 2 from 7, or would carry it only in the stores where it was selling well.  The really odd thing that happened was that during the Israel-Hezbollah War, the flagship Indigo store at Bay and Bloor in Toronto suddenly ordered 30 copies from the publisher, perhaps not knowing about the "ban" on the book.  Usually orders from Chapters/Indigo are done centrally, but it seems individual stores have the ability to make their own orders.  The publisher mentioned the order to the lawyer for Indigo, but did not hear anything right away, so went ahead and shipped the 30 copies.

These were not placed as part of a special display, but rather all placed back in the stacks of fiction indexed by author's last name.  Mantua then advertised in a newspaper ad that the book was available at that store.  But by the time purchaser's came to the store, someone at Indigo/Chapters found out about this order of the "banned book" and instructed someone at the store to remove all copies, so that when purchasers inquired, first store staff had no idea what happened to all the books, and then they were told to offer customers coupons if they wanted to buy a different book.

Anyway, later, after legal threats, Indigo put the books back on the shelves, but the original customers who were attracted by the ad, were not aware of that.  But regardless, of the 30 books, ordered, and without any further advertising, at least 25 were sold.  This was despite Chapters' website stating that the book was unavailable at any of their stores, which was of course, untrue.  Obviously there was a large market for the book, especially during that war.

As part of the law suit we finally got to see the written statements of Chapters' staff.  Here is the original 2004 statement of the part time employee at Chapters Book Store in Waterloo:

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"I went to see the author signing fifteen minutes into it and when I got closer to the area, I heard voices that became louder and louder.  I saw two people in the audience, one calmly stating basic facts to the author, the other yelling out, 'What are you . a f***ing Jew?' only to have the author yell back, 'A f***ing Jew?  This only proves that Middle Eastern people are terrorists.'  From there the yelling progressed, eventually reaching a point where the managers asked the audience members to leave, and the author gave up and stepped into their office.

"For a person to come into my workplace and insult and judge me in such a manner without him knowing anything about me is absurd.  According to him, when walking down the street, I should be avoided at all times because my skin is darker and I wear a headscarf.  I am aware that the man in the audience should not have cursed at all given the atmosphere. Nonetheless, the author, as a professional and as a representative of what books the company holds should have controlled himself against saying such piercing words.  It was uncalled for, rude and worst of all it was racial discrimination.

"What frustrates me most about this whole scenario is the fact that both customers and employees alike had to witness something so hateful towards those of Middle Eastern descent.  At one of the most difficult times to be of a visible minority for Arab and Muslim people, it was completely unjust for him to generalize the way that he did.  I also noticed that he kept repeating the word 'they' and 'them' like we were some vicious robots that act, think and speak alike with one brain. Even if it was for a split second that someone looked at me and thought, 'So she's a terrorist?' that is one split second too much.  I have never in my life done anything to intentionally hurt anyone, and to be accused of being one that intentionally inflicts pain upon others is hurtful and untrue.  It seems as if my genetic makeup caused him to automatically make an unfair assumption.  And that is racism at its worst."

---

Note that the allegation made against me verbally at the beginning of all this was that I said that "all Muslims are terrorists", but by the time the part time employee had to reduce it to writing it was changed to "this only proves that all Middle Easterners are terrorists".  Of course, I did not say that, but even had I done so, a claim that all "Middle Easterners" are something or other would be not racist, but just plain stupid, since Middle Easterners include white Jews, brown Jews, black Jews, Coptic Christians, Armenian Orthodox Christians, Bahais, Druze and various Muslims.

Here is the bookstore clerk's retraction obtained just prior to the start of trial, this week.   I have agreed to only post it and not make further comments:

1. At the presentation given by Mr. Rotberg on Sunday, May 16, 2004, I observed two individuals arrive part way through his presentation and commence interrupting him, to which he responded.  The Iraqi Kurdish individual then called Mr. Rotberg a "f*****g Jew", which was completely inappropriate and very offensive.
2. Mr. Rotberg stated that he would not be called that slur and he repeated this slur several times himself, as if he could not believe it had been used.  I then heard him say something further, in response, concerning Middle Easterners and terrorism.
3. I cannot say with certainty that my written statement contained a completely verbatim transcription of Mr. Rotberg's comment, which he would have made in the heat of the moment.  I wrote down my belief and understanding of what I thought I heard him say.  He was understandably upset at the time and these comments all happened in a matter of a few seconds.  It is possible that I may have misunderstood what he intended to say.
4. Any dispute between Mr. Rotberg and myself as to the precise content and meaning of his words, and the beliefs they reflect, could easily be attributed to our respective life experiences and built-in biases, as people of Jewish and Palestinian backgrounds.  The events of that day are not evidence that either one of us is racist.  Well-intentioned people of different backgrounds occasionally mis-communicate.
5. In exchange for the Terms of Settlement dated August 27, 2008, between me and Mantua Books, I disclaim any and all legal rights against Mantua Books and Howard Rotberg that have arisen to date.

---

And so, by the time of this settlement, the allegation was further downgraded to the allegation that I said "something further, in response, concerning Middle Easterners and terrorism."

So, the monopoly book chain in Canada called me a racist, then banned all my books because I said "something" concerning Middle Easterners and terrorism in response to hecklers taking over my lecture with no protest by their employees and in response to being called a "f*****g Jew".

The actual Small Claims Court proceeding was a farce, because the rules of the Small Claims Court allow the defendant to file affidavits of people who do not have to appear in Court and be cross examined before the Court.  We were successful in collecting the money owed for the books sold (Indigo paid up after the Claim was started) but in Court the Judge would not hold Indigo responsible for the actions of its employee who stood by smiling as the lecture was taken over by Islamists.
While the Court had some adverse things to say about Indigo and we achieved payment of the amount owing to us, which Indigo had withheld for a year, incredibly blaming "computer problems" for non-payment, the Court rejected the most important matter of Indigo's liability in negligence for actions and non-actions of their employees.

Unfortunately, the Court absolved Indigo from anything that happened before the Manager came back to the lecture after hearing the commotion.  The Court said that "what occurred was a rapid escalation, a sudden conflagration which culminated within a matter of minutes".  It appears that we did not make our case that Indigo was negligent in allowing the take-over of an author lecture by extremists who announced, in the presence of at least one Indigo employee, that they would not allow the author to talk.   We did not make our case that this take-over of the lecture happened before the "rapid escalation", which, in the view of the Court, Indigo managers handled properly in their conduct to the guest author.

The result was that Indigo was held not to have breached a common law duty to protect its guest author from verbal assault and racist taunts.

While the Court found that the guest author "presented as an intelligent man with a passion for civic and community involvement", with "many commendable civic and community activities", the Court found that the guest author, in yelling out that he would not be called a "f*****g Jew" was as blameworthy as those who called him a "f*****g Jew" and stopped his right to lecture at a location where he had been invited to speak.   Perhaps it was a waste of time to sue the bookstore.   Of course, we wouldn't have bothered if the police would have agreed to charge the hecklers with the offense of causing a disturbance.

One of the things that bothered me most was that no civil rights organizations would honour my request to ask the police to reconsider their quick determination not to lay criminal charges for "causing a disturbance" (easier to prove than a charge of hate crime).  When I was quoted in the Canadian Jewish News bemoaning that fact, the director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who I had known for years and had unsuccessfully asked for assistance, got angry.  He then in print said that he had no knowledge of what happened in the store, that the Congress was not an "investigative" organization (notwithstanding that I had offered him written and sworn affidavits from audience members, and most immorally of all, that he had "every confidence" in the Waterloo Police Force.
This was after I requested an investigation by a detective.  The detective assigned, a woman named Detective Dietrich, treating me with the utmost sarcasm and finally told me that I should stop bothering the police about the incident or she would find something to charge me with!

I no longer feel that I have freedom of expression in the country to which I have given so much.  I practiced law with a stellar record for 20 years, I participated in community and volunteer organizations, often in a leadership position, I donated money to charities, I wrote for a number of different newspapers and magazines, wrote four books, set up a publishing company for authors whose works were too politically incorrect for mainstream publishers, raised three children, and I am an award-winning developer of affordable housing for low income working people in converted heritage buildings in various cities in Southern Ontario, and lecture widely on the topic of affordable housing.  But when I think of myself as a Canadian citizen, all I can think about is how I am a "f*****g Jew".

Howard Rothberg is a Canadian writer, businessman and publisher.  He is the author of The Second Catastrophe: A Novel about a Book and its Author, TOLERism: The Ideology Revealed, and Exploring Vancouverism: The Political Culture of Canada’s Lotus Land. He is President of Mantua Books.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271524/my-kavanaugh-moment-howard-rotberg

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Jeremy Corbyn Calls For an Arms Embargo on Israel - Hugh Fitzgerald

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by Hugh Fitzgerald

A disturbing glimpse at the U.K. Labor Party's leader -- and his dark Jew-hating world.

The Labour Party — Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party –has called for the U.K to impose a  total arms embargo  on Israel. This would not be the first time the U.K. has imposed such an embargo on Israel. In the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war, at the time of maximum peril to the Jews of Israel, with the nascent state invaded by the armies of five Arab states, Great Britain also imposed such an embargo. It was not alone. The United States also banned sending arms to the belligerents on either side. The most important weapons deliveries, including airplanes, for the Jews in 1947-49 came from Czechoslovakia.

The British, unlike the Americans, did not impose an arms embargo on both sides in 1948. Instead, they continued to supply arms to Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq. More important, the British armed, trained, and provided officers, to the Arab Legion of Jordan. Under the overall command of General John Bagot Glubb, the Arab Legion was the most effective fighting force on the Arab side, and the only one that could claim a clear victory — at Latrun — over the Jews during the 1948 war. Even before the war was declared by the Arab states, the Arab Legion joined forces with local Arabs, who attacked the four Israeli settlements that made up the Etzzion bloc. The Jewish forces consisted of members of the Hagana militia and kibbutzniks. Of the 129 Haganah fighters and Jewish kibbutzniks who died during the defence of the settlement, Martin Gilbert states that fifteen were murdered on surrendering.

Controversy surrounds the responsibility and role of the Arab Legion in the killing of those who surrendered. The official Israeli version maintains that the kibbutz residents and Haganah soldiers were massacred by local Arabs and the Arab Legion of the Jordanian Army as they were surrendering. The Arab Legion version maintains that the Legion arrived too late to prevent the attack on the kibbutz by men from nearby Arab villages. The  surrendering Jewish residents and fighters are said to have been assembled in a courtyard, only to be suddenly fired upon; it is said that many died on the spot, while most of those who managed to flee were hunted down and killed. Israel continues to insist that members of the British-commanded Arab Legion took part in the killing of those who had surrendered.

John Bagot Glubb was one of those old-style British Arabists — some called him a second Lawrence of Arabia — who went native in a big way, even able to converse with the Bedouin in their own dialects. When he was finally discharged by King Hussein in 1956 — Hussein wanted to totally “arabize” the Legion and show other Arabs that he was indeed Jordan’s ruler — Glubb Pasha retired to his home in Great Britain, and wrote a series of books “to dispel Western misconceptions and prejudices about the Arab world and Islam.” Delving deep into the past, he started that series in 1964 with ”The Great Arab Conquests,” a book on seventh-century Arabia where, he wrote, the Bedouins ”established the greatest empire in the world of their day.” A second book, ‘The Lost Centuries,” published in 1966, “traced the destiny of the Moslem empires from the 12th century to the European renaissance in the 15th.” A third book. “The Life and Times of Muhammad” again was an effort to correct cliches he thought had “distorted the image of the founder of Islam and his religion.” Glubb was a great admirer of the Arabs. He adopted two Palestinian Arab children. He also was an apologist for Islam. And the Arab Legion stood for all the military aid that the British lavished on the Arab side in that 1947-1949 conflict.

So Corbyn’s call for an arms embargo on Israel brings us back to the earliest days of the state. But now Israel has one of the most powerful armies in the world, is itself in the top ten of the world’s arms exporters, and in some areas of military technology — such as drones — is among the world leaders. Furthermore, while Israel does import a large amount of weaponry from the United Kingdom, there is nothing it receives from the U.K. that is not available elsewhere, albeit at a higher price. Israel is a good customer, and its expert use of the weapons it buys serves as  a kind of advertisement for those weapons with other potential buyers. The amount of British sales to Israel has gone way up in the last three years: £20m worth of arms licensed in 2015, £86m in 2016, and £221m in 2017.

If Corbyn wants to put a total arms embargo on Israel, will he also call for an arms embargo on any other countries? One country buys 49% of all British arms exports — Saudi Arabia. On what grounds could Corbyn deny democratic Israel arms and yet continue to supply them to one of the world’s most repressive regimes, a state where Wahhabism is the official religion, where human rights hardly exist, where non-Muslim workers have no rights and often are treated as little better than slaves, where women have far fewer rights than do men, where public executions and public amputations are the norm, where a ruling dynasty helps itself to tens of billions of dollars of the nation’s wealth? How could Jeremy Corbyn conceivably justify continuing to supply such a country with weaponry? And what of the other major buyers of British arms that are dictatorships or despotisms? China, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Venezuela, Egypt, Bahrain are among them. Most are outright dictatorships; Venezuela and Pakistan hold “elections,” but there is so much fraud, intimidation, and corruption that these cannot be considered  democracies in the Western sense. If any kind of morality is to be invoked in arms sales, then none of these countries ought to be supplied. Is Jeremy Corbyn ready to declare an embargo on all of these countries, or is he  interested only in depriving Israel’s Jews of the wherewithal to defend themselves?

“The UK has consistently armed many of the most brutal and authoritarian regimes in the world, and a number have been invited to London to buy weapons,” said Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade. “These arms sales aren’t morally neutral, they are a clear sign of political and military support for these regimes.”

I suspect Smith was not talking about Israel, which is neither brutal nor authoritarian, but about Saudi Arabia, China, Venezuela, the Emirates, Kazakhstan. That’s not something Jeremy Corbyn wants to hear. But even if Smith meant to include Israel in his indictment — as supposedly “brutal” in its suppression of the Hamas-sponsored riots in Gaza — he would certainly be aghast at an arms embargo that targeted only that country.

Israel is one of the few countries that has had violence constantly forced upon it. It has had to fight three major wars for its existence, in 1947-49, in 1967, and in 1973. It has fought smaller wars, too: the Sinai Campaign in 1956, the three recent wars in Gaza — in 2008-2009, 2012, and 2014 — against Hamas, as well as an endless campaign against Arab terrorists inside Israel and the territories. Israel must, unfortunately, make use of the weapons it buys. It thus tests them out on the battlefield. If Israel successfully uses British weapons, and the Israelis have a long history of successfully using their weapons — then other potential buyers on the world market will find them more appealing. If the British defense industry can no longer supply Israel, it will not have that battlefield testing of its weapons, that real-life advertisement for their efficacy.

Will a British embargo really hurt Israel? Licences issued to UK defense contractors exporting to Israel in 2017 included those for targeting equipment, small arms ammunition, missiles, weapon sights and sniper rifles. In 2016, the UK issued licences for anti-armour ammunition, gun mountings, components for air-to-air missiles, targeting equipment, components for assault rifles, components for grenade-launchers and anti-riot shields. None of these, with the possible exception of the “components for air-to-air missiles” and “missiles,” are major items. None of them seem to be the kind of thing that Israel could not find from another supplier. Unlike, say, Israel’s own Iron Dome technology, or now its “steel dome” anti-tunnel technology that has been developed with the Americans, there is nothing the British can offer that is unique to them.

There is another aspect to consider. Corbyn may not care, but many in the security services of the United Kingdom certainly do care, about what Israel can offer, not just in weapons systems of its own, but in its intelligence capability. Israel has for years faced an extraordinary threat from Muslim terrorists. Now much of the world faces the same kind, if not the same level, of threat. Israel has during that time developed intelligence networks, both human and technological, that are unrivaled, and of obvious interest to other governments. One government that has collaborated with Israel, receiving information about Iran and such allied terrorist threats as Hezbollah, is Saudi Arabia. Last year, Great Britain was the European nation that suffered the most attacks by Muslim terrorists. It needs whatever help other countries can give. Israel has the expertise — again, both human and technological — that could help detect and foil such threats. Its knowledge is not limited to terrorists in the Middle East. The European nations ought to be solidifying their security ties to Israel, for their own benefit. None of them has had the experience of terrorism that Israel has endured for decades, nor do they have the expertise its agents have developed. There are many acts of Israeli derring-do, of eliminating terrorists in Damascus, or in hotels in the Gulf, or in the capitals of Europe.There have been the assassinations of four Iranian nuclear scientists right in the middle of Tehran, that set back their nuclear program for a long time.

The Israelis also devised Stuxnet (with some help from the Americans), a diabolically clever computer worm that does little or no harm to computers not involved in uranium enrichment. When it infects a computer, it checks to see if that computer is connected to specific models of programmable logic controllers (PLCs) manufactured by Siemens. PLCs are how computers interact with and control industrial machinery like uranium centrifuges. The worm then alters the PLCs’ programming, resulting in the centrifuges being spun too quickly and for too long, damaging or destroying the delicate equipment in the process. While this is happening, the PLCs tell the controller computer that everything is working fine, making it difficult to detect or diagnose what’s going wrong until it’s too late. That is not something that Jeremy Corbyn, who has never said a word about Iran’s nuclear project, would probably care about. He doesn’t realize how much the Israelis have done, in protecting themselves by delaying Iran’s plans, to also protect the West. Nor does Corbyn ever discuss Islamic terrorism. So why would he care if Israel continues to be of inestimable value to the West in helping foil Islamic terrorists, if he doesn’t think that such terrorism is much of a problem? For Corbyn, the only problem that haunts him is the existence of Israel, that vast outpost, the last remaining example of Western colonialism, that doth bestride the world like a colossus.

In considering the wisdom of an arms embargo, Corbyn should be reminded of Israel’s extraordinary advances and innovations in weapons technology, right across the board: the Merkava battle tank, the Spike missile system, the Tavor assault rifle, the Jericho III intercontinental ballistic missile, the Iron Dome defense, and the many improvements Israel has made to American weapons and systems of all kinds.. Some of these just might be useful to the British military. But these technological feats are of no concern to Corbyn; he’s not interested in arms; he doesn’t believe in war; he’s a disarmament enthusiast from way back. His grasp of geopolitical reality does not go much beyond Islington. He’s interested in arms embargoes, or rather in one particular arms embargo, the one he wishes to impose on Israel. (We’ll get to Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and other arms customers who don’t appear to bother him at all, a bit later). Corbyn sees Israel not as a tiny permanently imperiled country but as an implacable and powerful colonialist entity, an outpost of the West (Corbyn doesn’t much care for the West, he likes the Third World), using the Holocaust as a way to justify its oppression of the poor “Palestinians.” He doesn’t want to arm a state like that.

Israel would have something to lose if Corbyn were to declare an arms embargo. But it would not lose nearly as much as Corbyn thinks, for so much of what Israel buys from the U.K. is the kind of thing that can be bought elsewhere. It is the U.K. that would be shooting itself in the foot, by damaging so dramatically its relations with the one Western country that, because of its long experience of dealing with Islamic terrorism and terrorist networks, knows best how to uncover, infiltrate, foil, and fight them. The knowledge Israel has acquired has been shared with the West, and has helped to have saved Western lives. Corbyn may not know this. Were he to become Prime Minister, he would then be privy to all sorts of secrets. He would learn the full extent of the terrorist threat inside the U.K. He would learn, too, how much the British, and other European, security services rely on information that is supplied by Israel. Perhaps even that knowledge wouldn’t change his determination to impose an arms embargo, one that would spell the end of any cooperation with Israel. Or perhaps, mugged by reality with the first terror attack that occurs when he is the resident of 10 Downing Street, he will shift course, and if not embrace, at least not push away, those “Zionists” that for now he so implacably disfavors.

Hugh Fitzgerald

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271500/jeremy-corbyn-calls-arms-embargo-israel-hugh-fitzgerald

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