Anti-Semitic Feminists

You would think that good feminists would have serious objections to the way women are treated in the Palestinian territories.

You would also think that good feminists would be marching to protest the way women are treated in many Islamic countries.

Shouldn’t feminists naturally oppose cultures that practice honor killings, that allow men to beat their wives, that jail rape victims for having sex outside of marriage, that force girls into arranged marriages, that refuse to allow women to drive cars or to go shopping by themselves?

Being political leftists and fierce supporters of gay rights, feminists should naturally oppose cultures where homosexuality is a capital crime, and where anyone who is caught being a homosexual is hanged.

You would also think that feminists would cheer the advanced democracy of Israel, a country that guarantees women’s rights, freedoms and opportunities.

If those were your thoughts, disabuse yourself of your ignorance and naiveté. If those were your thoughts you do not understand America’s radical left.

Ready for a wake-up call?

Emily Shire has the story:

Last week, a group considered the largest academic feminist organization in North America approved a measure to cut all ties with the state of Israel, including the researchers, teachers, and academics who work in its universities, museums, and cultural centers.

The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) voted to endorse “the 2005 call by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of economic, military and cultural entities and projects sponsored by the state of Israel.”

You read that right. The leading group of feminist academics has chosen leftist politics over women’s lives. They have signed on to a blatantly anti-Semitic cause because they believe that it represents the politically correct thing to do. Women be damned; it’s only the ideas that matter.

Islamic cultures count among the worst practitioners of misogyny on the planet. What do these feminists find so attractive about that?

If they know, they do not care. Having long suspected that an important strain of contemporary feminism merely uses women as pawns to advance the revolution, I am not surprised to find feminists openly embracing misogyny. Because that is what happened here.

Shire also quotes what the BDS movement stands for:

Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions.

Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions

The movement goal is perfectly consonant with the goal of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah: to eradicate the state of Israel and to send the Jews back to the Ukraine. Why? Among other reasons Israel is a liberal democracy that respects human rights. And it has been a successful nation surrounded by civilizational failure.

The only difference is that BDS wants to destroy Israel non-violently while Hamas is happy to resort to violence. That is why noted feminist academic and dimwit Judith Butler sees Hamas as a progressive force but refuses to support it wholeheartedly because it resorts to violence. She too supports BDS.

Feminist supporters of BDS naturally cloak their madness, stupidity and misogyny in feminist terms:

As feminist activists, scholars, teachers, and public intellectuals who recognize the interconnectedness of systemic forms of oppression, we cannot overlook the injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated against Palestinians.

Don’t be too surprised. Last week an anti-rape group on the Columbia campus aligned itself with the Students for Justice in Palestine. I repeat again, if a woman is raped in a strictly Muslim culture she will be jailed for having sex outside of marriage. If a teenage girl is caught holding hands with a boy she will be murdered by her father and brothers. And some Muslims believe that they have a right to rape infidel women. Therefore, women who are militating against rape culture actively embrace a culture that allows men to commit acts of violence against women.

If you think that these activists care about women, think again.

Naturally, the Columbia feminist anti-rape group has aligned itself with Palestinian culture. Shire quotes her colleague Lizzie Crocker:

My colleague Lizzie Crocker pointed out the problem with conflating matters pertaining to Israel and campus rape last week when she wrote about how No Red Tape, a Columbia University anti-sexual assault group, had aligned itself with Students for Justice in Palestine.

“No Red Tape has lost the plot. In trying to be inclusive of other oppressed groups, they’ve alienated victims that their group is dedicated to advocating for,” Crocker wrote.

One is tempted to say that these are merely useful idiots. After all, their abject stupidity is striking. And yet, that is too easy. They are suffering from an ideological depravity that ought to be exposed for what it is and rejected by all rational feminists. Certainly, it ought to be rejected by anyone who respects women. Increasingly, that does not seem to include feminists.