31 Comments

1. George Jochnowitz:

I would not have expected any administration ever to acknowledge, even implicitly, that Islam abuses women. The fact that it has happened is a sign of progress.

Whether it will be dangerous, of course, is a different issue. It may well be. But the perpetrators of 9/11 were not refugees.

As far as admitting Gazans is concerned, the question is complex. The high population density of Gaza is one of the many factors that make the place a danger to Israel. Would refugees from Gaza decide to choose life in a new country, or would they prefer to choose virtue (dying in a jihad) instead? By and large, refugees in the United States have been hard working and non-violent. But of course, by-and-large isn’t enough, since a tiny number of suicidal jihadists can do an enormous amount of damage.

Jul 16, 2009 - 3:09 pm 2. Norman Simms:

Can’t afford it? Can America afford not to?

As for room for all these battered, abused, and persecuted women, easy: for each one that arrives, send over there (at his own or family’s expense)–Pakestan, Gaza, wherever–either a homegrown batterer, abuser or persecuter, or some recently arrived version of the same crry stuff.

Norman

Jul 16, 2009 - 5:02 pm 3. Violet:

I don’t understand why Muslim batterers would allow their women to leave the country and take refuge in the United States. This presents a perfect opportunity for Islamists to stage more attacks on US soil or at least provide additional support to the Jihadists already living in our midst.
I’m all for helping victims of domestic or sexual abuse but how do we know we’re not inviting fundamentalist terrorists into our home? I agree with Ms. Chesler. We should give aid to those individuals who are pro-western, human rights activists, or anyone who would otherwise risk persecution for their beliefs.

Jul 17, 2009 - 2:33 am 4. al Rassooli:

I have read this article most carefully twice. As usual Phyllis has made all of her points brilliantly and perfectly clearly.

I agree 100% with everything she has said in this article – I’d love to be able to agree and endorse it even more (as offences against women and violations of even their most basic rights is one of the central issues and tragedies of Islam) however 100% is the best I can do!

Readers of this article may be interested to read about the circumstances behind the creation of a truly fascinating movie we recently received (and that is now available to see on youTube). For full information please take a look at

http://www.al-Rassooli.com/movie

you’ll find it’s highly relevant to what Phyllis has written and adds further weight (as though any were needed).

Kind Regards,
Ibn al Rassooli

Jul 17, 2009 - 6:09 am 5. Greenconsciousness:

Phyllis,you need to clarify this post.

I totally support battered women’s classification as political refugees if they come without their oppressor, and for adding female circumcision to the list of desired immigrants. However, it is clear that Obama is admitting them in order to act as a cover for his sympathies with the male left’s favorite martyr heroes, Muslim US hating anti Semitic patriarchal women killers. Knowing there would be outrage over bringing Palestinians to the US, Obama covers and smothers his true intentions with press releases about battered women.

This is how the sexist jerks he surrounds himself with have used women’s issues from the start of his campaign, cynically to cover their real evil and unremitting campaign to humiliate women. The symbol of their misogyny is how they have used and humiliated Hillary Clinton who has no real power and has not implemented any substantial programs for women in the State Dept and in fact covered her hair in the middle east to show her obedience to Obama.

But your post is not clear.

It seems as if you are conflating oppressed women escaping persecution with their oppressors.

I never read a post of yours protesting the flood of Mexicans, South American and other illegal immigrants that have destroyed working class’s economic security in this country. Very few people and no politicians have spoke for the working class against this tidal wave of cheap labor to protect our jobs and our children’s jobs from those who work for minimum wage and less. Illegals has taken our traditional work in restaurants, as day labor, nannies, hotels, lawn cutters and yard work and in jobs that should not even be done by decent humans, all in service to blood sucking corporate exploiters and predatory lenders who own our politicians.

No one protests those immigrants because to speak for the US citizen working class is to be called a racist by the corporate and government funded “immigrant” non profits that lobby to put additional economic burdens from illegal immigration on taxpayers instead of thee employers of illegals. UMOS funded by gov funds here gets over a million a year tax dollars to teach English and otherwise prepare farm workers for jobs. California is the example of how everyone but corporations pays their expenses.

Now why suddenly, seemingly, your posted objection to the immigration of battered women? People can kill you by destroying you economically just as much as with a bomb. They have us living in tents in parks now, willing to sell out our unions, health care, desperate for jobs, any job.

So I would send the letter in your post to my “Representative” only if the letter clearly distinguishes between women escaping the patriarchy and the killer patriarchs. The women can be asked whether they are willing to renounce the more ugly aspect of their culture or whatever it takes to satisfy you before they are admitted. BUT remember no one has been asking Muslim men any questions as they immigrate here.

Who better to speak out against those US fools who willingly don the burka for their black Muslim men and who wear the headscarf in the US as a symbol of their slave like submission to a patriarchal culture? Who better to speak out to them than women who have had to experience the reality of what they have romantically chosen or been intimidated into choosing than women fleeing to freedom? who better to serve as an example of courage giving the US women the inspiration to resist?

In fact, we should do an exchange. Let’s ask the burka wearing creeps to offer their citizenship to those who really want it. We will send the burka wearers to Saudi Arabia and welcome those to the US who cannot wait to throw burka in the garbage where it belongs.

Jul 17, 2009 - 6:12 am 6. "progressive"watch:

The way Islam treats woman is a univeral self-condemnation.

The immigration mentioned in Chesler’s article,Obama’s immigration policies are Trojan-horse immigration.

Jul 17, 2009 - 6:18 am 7. Battered Women, Si; America-Haters, No « Right Sided American Kafir:

[...] Continue Reading   [...]

Jul 17, 2009 - 7:26 am 8. Ann:

If this goes forward I hope that every woman will be required to sign an agreement not to wear any form of head or body cover and enter into her new freedom with relish. I don’t care for Obama as I question his real agenda, but the principle of giving these poor women right acrossd the middle east a chance in life away from the mysoginistic men of their clans and islam, is a good move on his part, but it must be handled with great care and caution. After all lying to the infidel, that is all non-muslims, is an hadith in the koran, which all muslims adhere to and, therefore, so how willthe administrators for the immigration of these women know who is for real and who is not. I serously doubt that that will be possible. I fear there will be those wanting to go the US for spurious reasons. For all those seriously oppressed women, for me personally, this is good news and I can only wish them God Speed and every good blessing in a new life.

Jul 17, 2009 - 7:35 am 9. BettyBlue:

It’s not going to work. The battered women are going to bring their abusive families along with them, importing anti-female violence into the US.

They will not enter into their new freedom with relish, they will insist on wearing head-coverings, burkhas, jilbabs, etc., all the while claiming that they must be allowed to do so, because of religious freedom. Meanwhile, child marriages and honor killings will rise, and no one will dare to do anything about them, because it’s politically incorrect to notice such things.

A bad idea, from the get-go.

Jul 17, 2009 - 9:24 am 10. BettyBlue:

Also, as Phyllis points out, Moslem women can hate the US, just as much as Moslem men, and there have been female suicide bombers, and there were Moslem women helping the men who butchered schoolchildren at Beslan.

No, no, and again, no.

Jul 17, 2009 - 9:25 am 11. BettyBlue:

Wouldn’t it be a better idea to bring persecuted Iraqi Christians, here?

Also, if we’re going to offer haven to political refugees, wouldn’t it be a good idea to start cutting back on all the freebies we provide to illegal Mexican immigrants? We really can’t afford to bail out Mexico, AND offer asylum to countless numbers of people from the Middle-East at the same time, no matter how persecuted they might be. Something’s gotta give.

Jul 17, 2009 - 9:27 am 12. Grizzly Groundswell | Uniting Conservatives through thought, voice and image!:

[...] Battered Women, Si; America-Haters, No. Fellow Americans: Prepare to receive the entire female population of Pakistan sometime soon. And that’s just for starters. I don’t oppose this—but I honestly don’t know if we can economically afford to do it. Given the recession/depression, I rather doubt we can. But get ready for something like this to happen anyway. [...]

Jul 17, 2009 - 10:37 am 13. Battered Women, Si; America-Haters, No. « Brian Bonner:

[...] Battered Women, Si; America-Haters, No. Fellow Americans: Prepare to receive the entire female population of Pakistan sometime soon. And that’s just for starters. I don’t oppose this but I honestly don’t know if we can economically afford to do it. Given the recession/depression, I rather doubt we can. But get ready for something like this to happen anyway. [...]

Jul 17, 2009 - 11:01 am 14. Greenconsciousness:

Violet makes the error of thinking all Muslim women are vanquished. Look at the Iranian women. Look at their bravery – so many being tortured right now and they knew what they risked when they joined the protests.

There is a sea of resistance and anger and courage among Muslim women – many using the European shelter system to escape. I wish I could make US feminist realize these women are as diverse as US women and many are sisters and many are not. But we have a duty to help those women desperate for freedom. Muslim women have died for freedom – been lashed 100 times for wearing pants, stoned for having a lover.

There are many Muslim women asking for political asylum and there are significant immigration decisions involving female genital mutilation brought by women resisting going back to their country because they do not want mutilation.(in sotomayor’s 2nd district but no one is talking about those cases)

In Canada a women has been fighting deportation to Pakistan because her husband boasted in writing he would kill her the minute she landed for not being Muslim enough.

It is not about their husband’s letting them. They are escaping. If you read Death of Feminism you will read about Phyllis Chesler’s escape from Afghanistan.

Jul 17, 2009 - 12:37 pm 15. Dr S McCosker:

I agree with Betty Blue. Start a campaign for an Operation Magic Carpet – to evacuate from Iraq, into the West, the native Christians of Iraq who are – I believe – in imminent danger of being mass-murdered, that is, subjected to jihad genocide, by the surrounding Muslims (see William Saroyan’s ‘70 000 Assyrians’ to find out what the Muslims of Iraq did to ‘celebrate’ the British withdrawal from Iraq in the early 1930s. I anticipate a similar ritual festival of slaughter in the wake of the American withdrawal.

And no Muslim of any kind either in the West or in Iraq should be allowed anywhere near that rescue-and-evacuation Operation; interpreters, background-and-bona-fides checkers, etc, should be drawn from the Arabic-speaking population of Assyrian Christians who are already lucky enough to have escaped to the West (and, perhaps we can call in Iraqi-background Jews, from Israel and the West, to help, as well).

For good measure – The beleaguered Copts of Egypt, also, should go right to the head of the ‘refugee and asylum-seeker’ queue for all western lands (I speak as an Australian), since Muslim violence against them has been steadily escalating over the past few years, such that I believe genocidal mass-murder to be a real possibility. And again: let bona fide Copts already resident in the West, and perhaps also Jews of Egyptian origin familiar with the language, help check and process the Coptic refugees/ asylum-seekers – NO Egyptian Muslim, whether on Egyptian or on Western soil, or Muslim of any kind should be allowed to have access (as, for example, interpreter) to any part of the process of admission, whether in Egypt, or on Western soil. For if they are, I believe there is a very high chance they will either maliciously sabotage the applicants – thus shoving them back into the Predator Pit of de facto dhimmitude – or assist Muslims to pretend to be Copts in order to infiltrate the west in even greater numbers.

It should also be loudly and firmly stated that any Muslim discovered to have posed as an Assyrian Christian, or as a Copt, in order to get into the West,will be booted back into dar al Islam the instant that their imposture is detected.

Apart from Copts and the Assyrian Christians, other persecuted non-Muslim populations from dar al Islam, whose members could be given priority in the immigration/ refugee queue comprise: Christians, Hindus, Sikhs from Pakistan; Christians, HIndus, Buddhists from Bangladesh; Christians, Hindus and Buddhists from Malaysia and Indonesia; non-Muslims from southern Sudan, displaced by the genocidal jihad there. NO Muslim immigrants should be taken from these lands; but the non-Muslims should be offered refuge by majority-non-Muslim countries. Unlike the Muslim ‘immigrants’ and ‘refugees’, there is absolutely no risk that people from any of these populations will be subsequently caught (like those young Muslim men in Toronto) cooking up seditious plots to attack the government of, and kill large numbers of people within, the societies that have taken them in.

Jul 17, 2009 - 1:43 pm 16. Louis Santacroce:

It is the equivilent of accepting Nazis as immigrants at the height of WWII (never mind that we did exactly this following the war; the rationale being that at least they weren’t Communists). The fact is that, without a complete and visable renunciation of all things anti-western and anti-Semitic, I don’t trust them (and even then; remember, the Koran says it’s okay to lie to infidels). Accordingly, I will copy these letters out and send them to our senators post-haste, and urge all of you to do the same.

Folks, we have been warned, over and over, and by the very people who are trying to destroy us. They have a blueprint for our distruction; it is called the Koran, and it is freely available to anyone who will read it, just as Hitler’s book was available (and in just as many languages)long before he made his move. Too many didn’t listen then, and too many aren’t listening now.

Jul 17, 2009 - 2:22 pm 17. Sylvie7:

The world we live in is becoming more and more bizarre as time goes by. Weren’t the Jews forced out of Gaza so that the Arabs could have it, to ensure their freedom and autonomy. Why are they now being sent to California? Why California, where their conservative Islamic traditions will be set down in a place even New Yorkers consider far out and often inexplicable.

As for Muslim women, some of the bravest, most out spoken, clear thinking women in the world today come from Muslim countries. Many Iranian women in particular are well educated and creative. So where has the feminist movement been in supporting Muslim women’s efforts to improve the lot of women including their less educated or able sisters.

Their only concern seems to be villifying Israel, where women enjoy independence,equal rights, access to education, and freedom to control their own lives. Obama must be living in one of those parallel universes people talk about.

Jul 17, 2009 - 2:35 pm 18. Obama may be opening the door to millions of asylum applicants « Refugee Resettlement Watch:

[...] It’s a thorny problem. Whose heart doesn’t go out to a woman with a story like the Mexican asylum seeker? But domestic violence (what a sterile term!) and sexual abuse are so common around the world that, as Phyllis Chesler points out, [...]

Jul 17, 2009 - 6:50 pm 19. Cat:

I hesitate to second such a “battered-women-rescue” program, however appealing it is to the emotions.

As Professor Chesler points out, most women in Pakistan have been beaten repeatedly as part of a systemic approach to the social control of females. It is almost certain that they will have internalized their degradation, and will feel “lost” without the structure of such a society, however appalling it may seem to us. The freedoms and values of our nation will likely appear chaotic and immoral to them. The chances of them rejecting the formal indicators of their slavery — the public cowering, headcoverings, body tentings, and other costuming — are slim to none.

Further, these women are largely uneducated and offer no useful skills to an advanced, technological culture. They will immediately become financial burdens with no serious likelihood of contribution for the rest of their lives. The most predictable outcome is that these women will be drawn into mosque-based, isolated “communities” where their Islamic social dysfunctions will be continued and magnified. The only difference will be that Americans will have to pay for, and deal with, these dysfunctions, all in a shrill atmosphere of accusations of “Islamophobia,” sharia-creep, aggressive litigation, and the like.

Lastly, as American Muslimahs assure us over and over again, Muslimahs of the global ummah neither want nor need the imperialistic, colonialist, decadent “help” of Westerners. It is best to let the Pakistanis be Pakistanis, and if Pakistani Muslimahs wish to change things, then let them do that — over in Pakistan.

Jul 17, 2009 - 7:02 pm 20. Judy K. Warner:

Phyllis, I wanted to email you privately but I couldn’t find an email address. I’ve written two posts on this for Refugee Resettlement Watch, one on the asylum issue, and one on the mistaken story about the Gaza immigration. The second one is copied here, but you’ll have to go to the blog for the links, since I don’t see how to make links here:

Those Gazans just won’t go away!
Posted by judyw on July 17, 2009

In the piece I cited in my last post, Phyllis Chesler unwittingly repeats a false story that we’ve repeatedly tried to correct, but we don’t have a wide enough readership to kill it outright.

It’s based on a Presidential Determination from January, in which President Obama allocated “$20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs” for Palestinians in Gaza.

The apparently obvious — but wrong — conclusion is that our government is bringing Palestinians from Gaza into the U.S. That is NOT what the order is about. It was given after Israel went to war in Gaza to stop the constant rocket attacks. Its purpose was to provide funds for Gazan Palestinians within their own country who were displaced from their homes or otherwise in special need from the war. The language is boilerplate, but “migration” is not the same as “immigration” in any case.

We would be the last people in the world to cover up for Obama, or to minimize the damage he is doing to our country. In this case, he is not doing what he is accused of. And why would he? From his point of view the residents of Gaza are more useful where they are, where they can rain down more rockets on Israel and create more anti-Israel lies for CNN. I wish people would spend their energy fighting the many real threats we face, not making up phantom ones. Here are the posts we’ve done on the issue with more details:

February 11, by Judy: Hamas members are NOT flooding into the U.S. from Gaza

February 21, by Judy: Hamas members flooding into U.S.? Maybe even terrorist prisoners! (Or not.)

February 23, by Ann: Palestinians as refugees to the U.S.?

March 11, by Judy: Senator Kyl bases amendment on misinterpretation about Palestinian refugees

And by the way, that $20 million mentioned in the Presidential Directive was only a quick little injection of money into Gaza. Obama followed it up with almost a billion additional dollars shortly afterwards. It all went into Gaza, or maybe into Swiss bank accounts; who knows? But it did not bring any Gazans here.

Jul 17, 2009 - 7:33 pm 21. Shoshana Rubin:

It’s a fantastic idea but one which I strongly doubt was Obama’s intention: we in the US should allow all Muslim women from the Islamic ME to move here. In fact, we may have to force them to move here.

That leaves all Islamic men to pray and play with each other without being able to breed more Islamists. Essentially, it means we won the war on Islamism or terror or whatever the new president calls it.

Jul 17, 2009 - 8:47 pm 22. Still4Hill:

Your are my hero and the model for my master’s thesis that I did in Haiti. I am not Jewish, but have been to Israel. You are always on the spot, Phylis!

Jul 17, 2009 - 9:31 pm 23. Max Friedman:

Put these refugee women in Obama’s Chicago mansion. He’s not using it right now. Besides, they will be living within walking distance of American terrorists (Ayers and wife), a dead leftist Rabbi (Wolf), and a nearby mosque (Farrakhan’s). Should make them feel right at home.

Jul 17, 2009 - 11:19 pm 24. david levavi:

17. Sylvie7:

“…Why California, where their conservative Islamic traditions will be set down in a place even New Yorkers consider far out and often inexplicable…”

A better question to ask is why Obama believes, per his urgent memorandum, that “…it is important to the national interest to…furnish assistance (to)Palestinian
refugees and conflict victims in Gaza…”

Important to whose “national interest?” Not America’s certainly. Is Obama referring to the national interest of a future state of Palestine?

As for southern California as a haven for these folks, Obama could not have chosen better for exactly the reasons contained in your question, Sylvie. Barbara Boxer and the Gays for Palestinian rights have the red carpet ready and waiting. Likewise many Obama-supporting Hollywood Jews.

Is Gaza explicable?

Jul 18, 2009 - 6:18 am 25. Greenconsciousness:

I support this BW immigration asylum. I have long been an immigration critic because of my politics on overpopulation and species elimination from overpopulation. But at the same time I am a fierce critic of our foreign aid policies. While I believe, for the sake of US human rights, women’s rights and our own evolution, we must close our borders I also believe we must use our foreign aid in ways that promote human and women’s rights in every country which accepts our aid. Our aid must be conditional on progress toward human rights. While I have no faith in the misogynist Obama I know the republicans are just as bad. So only democratic organizations with oversight authority provide any hope for change.

I write here in that vein to introduce as an alternative to banning women seeking freedom from persecution. We can urge the passage of the internationals violence against women act (IVAWA)- the bulk of which is explained here.

http://www.greenconsciousness.org/weblog/2007/11/international-violence-against-women.html

The International Violence Against Women Act has three main components.

First, the bill reorganizes and rejuvenates the gender-related efforts of the State Department by creating one central office – the “Office for Women’s Global Initiatives”, directed by a Senate-confirmed Ambassador who reports directly to the Secretary.

The Coordinator of the Office or Women’s Global Initiatives (the “Coordinator”) will be charged with monitoring, coordinating, and organizing all U.S. resources, programs and aid abroad that deals with women’s issues, including gender-based violence.

Additionally, my bill creates a new Office of Women’s Global Development at USAID, also to be directed by a Senate-confirmed nominee. The Director will be responsible for addressing gender-based violence and integrating gender into U.S.government assistance programs.

The Director will work closely with the Coordinator and the Secretary of State to implement the provisions of the IVAWA legislation.

Under the current organizational scheme, projects addressing violence against women, either primarily or tangentially, are spread throughout the State Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) without a central inventory, game plan or leader.

My bill will raise the profile of women’s issues generally at the State Department, and ensure that gender-based violence programs are building on past successes, leveraging core competencies and working in conjunction with other initiatives.

Second, the International Violence Against Women Act mandates creation of a 5-year, comprehensive strategy, with coordinated programming, to prevent and respond to violence against women in 10 to 20 targeted countries.

The Act creates a dedicated funding stream of $175 million a year to support programs dealing with violence against women in five areas:

1 The criminal and civil justice system (everything from drafting laws on domestic violence, to enhancing women’s access to property and inheritance rights, to reforming police practices),
2 Health care,
3 Girls’ access to education and
school safety,
4 Women’s access to employment and
financial resources, and
5 Public awareness campaigns that change social norms.

Jul 18, 2009 - 6:56 am 26. Universalgeni:

Important links here! You Americans don’t know, what you are doing. This is chain immigration 101. Europe made exactly the same mistake. And we’re still doing it. Look at these links, read them and cry – the situation is the same all over Europe. The first article is from the Norwegian Embassy in the US. All in English, of cause.

I made some spaces in the beginning of links in the hope that the spamfilter would except them:

Norway: h t t p://www.norway.org/News/archive/2002/200201culture.htm

Holland/Nederlands: h t t p://www.nisnews.nl/public/290906_1.htm

Denmark: h t t p://www.cphpost.dk/news/1-latest-news/12602.html

Jul 18, 2009 - 8:41 am 27. Universalgeni:

Important links here! You dear Americans don’t know, what you are doing. This is chain immigration 101. Europe made exactly the same mistake. And we’re still doing it. Look at these links, read them and cry – the situation is the same all over Europe. The first article is from the Norwegian Embassy in the US.

I made some spaces in the beginning of links in the hope that the spamfilter would except them:

Norway: h t t p://www.norway.org/News/archive/2002/200201culture.htm

Holland/Nederlands: h t t p://www.nisnews.nl/public/290906_1.htm

Denmark: h t t p://www.cphpost.dk/news/1-latest-news/12602.html

PS: the spamfilter did eat my comment. I’ll try one more time.

Jul 18, 2009 - 8:46 am 28. Those Gazans just won’t go away! « Refugee Resettlement Watch:

[...] by judyw on July 17, 2009 Update July 18: Phyllis Chesler changed her post, after I posted the comments following this paragraph in her comments and we had a short email [...]

Jul 18, 2009 - 12:20 pm 29. jw:

I believe that Nonie Darwish is a woman who came from Gaza.
Note that Delilah seduced Sampson in Gaza and led him to his death!

Jul 18, 2009 - 5:55 pm 30. G:

Although it appears that the issue of Gazans coming to America is not accurate, Judy Warner did not address the issue of 1350 Iraqi Palestinians which are planned to be moved to southern California as was noted in the original article. In the Refugee Resettlement Watch web page which she refers to, it is “confirmed” that they are coming. See: refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/it-is-confirmed-1350-iraqi-palestinians-coming-to-the-us/

The bottom line is people from the Middle East are coming to America; some might not share a love for the US and its freedoms especially equal rights. What is the best approach to this and how can we get our government to support it, if at all?

Jul 18, 2009 - 11:34 pm 31. Let’s Rescue the Heroes: Free Asma’a al-Ghoul : Ft. Hard Knox:

[...] Obama has recently promised to allow “battered” women from other countries to apply for political asylum here. If so, I previously wrote, we will soon [...]

Jul 20, 2009 - 12:47 pm

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