Latest / Infidels / The Feminist Betrayal of Womankind: Why Feminists Side With Islamists | Phyllis Chesler
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- Richard Landes: we're here with legendary figure in feminism, Phyllis Chessler, who is part of second wave feminism. Phyllis Chesler: It's true. It's true. Richard Landes: One of the major figures is second wave feminism widely cited, widely followed, widely reviewed, and then starting in already in the nineteen late nineteen eighties, you started to Phyllis Chesler: No, no, no, no, no. Starting in the nineteen seventies, but only picking up speed and strength and Richard Landes: In the nineteen week. Phyllis Chesler: power in the nineteen eighties and by the twenty first century, like all the other academics, authors, publishing people, media people, it became totally Palestinianized, which is the title of my forthcoming book. I can't Richard Landes: Palestinianization. Phyllis Chesler: yeah, no no, it it's beyond belief, and I had to go back. I mean, even though I was fighting what I believed was anti-Semitism, okay. And the UN and its Zionism equals racism, okay. But then a turning point was the UN conference in Copenhagen, which I attended and Which was the precursor to Durban One and Durban Two. It was wild. It was wild. Richard Landes: Right. And that was nineteen eighty eight. Phyllis Chesler: Nineteen eighty, eighty. Shmohim. Richard Landes: nineteen eighty. Phyllis Chesler: Yeah, eighty. And I worked with the Israeli mishlachad, and many of them didn't know what hit them. Not because it was a pogrom, psychological pogrom. There were the Iranian women organized by the Palestine Authority people, the terrorists. and and by the European leftist who patrolled the NGO panels saying Israel must die, Zionism must die, the worst possible statements. And nobody expected this. And there were two stalwart warriors, Shulam and Alone, who I had invited to debate Leila Halid. But Chaled refused to talk to her except through the barrel of a gun. And Chaled became glamorized, like Che Guevara, among feminists and others and others. So that was very eye-opening, exceedingly important. Mina Ben Sfi, who was the commander of Chen during the War of Independence, wept in my arms. She said, What is happening? What is this? I thought we'd put it behind us. And when the Richard Landes: Right, right. Most displayers. Phyllis Chesler: when this conference was over, I flew immediately to Israel and I had meetings with David Kimchi in the foreign office to persuade him to let me organize a real feminist conference in Jerusalem Richard Landes: Mm-hmm. Phyllis Chesler: for Chaspara purpose, if for no other purpose. And he agreed. But then Israel rightly annexed East Jerusalem, and I knew that the Arab and Muslim women wouldn't come, Richard Landes: Would not. Phyllis Chesler: or if they came, they'd have to be granted asylum and they couldn't return. But I met with Israeli military people and media people, and I said, the bloody beast is back, it's here, it's here. And they said, Paninalah, Alti Dagi, don't worry. it's it's one nation against the other. So even at the outset, the provincial nature, and I love Israel and Israelis in general, they didn't understand that this is global, that this is cognitive, as well as military, economic, and legal and so on. And I could not get through to anyone. my The filmmaker and artist Rachel Khalfi interviewed me on the front pages of Yiddiot Acharanot. And I said this and she said this and we got it, but very few others wanted to or could at the time. So fast forward to the 21st century, to the middle of the 21st century, to now, and even now I think that. Many brilliant and daring and heroic and genius level of Israelis don't understand how important what you and I have been working on is, which is the cognitive war, for which we still do not have an iron dome against it. And I Richard Landes: Right. Right. Phyllis Chesler: called for this in 2006. I approached whatever multimillionaire philanthropist I could find. And said we need an iron dome. I wasn't asking for money for myself. I should have, but I didn't. And I said, this has to happen. And nobody ran with it. Nob I I I think Israelis have gotten savvier and some Jews as well. Richard Landes: Sad savier but sadder. Phyllis Chesler: Well, they're understandably as we are just it's incomprehensible that these Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: blood libels or what you've called lethal lies could could gain such traction and not only among feminists, no, among the glitterati, the celebrities, the film Richard Landes: Triple is. Phyllis Chesler: stars, the Nobel Prize winners in The New Antisemitism, which I published in two thousand three. Jose Saramago, a Nobel Prize winner in literature, Richard Landes: yeah. Phyllis Chesler: you know, was already piling on this European-style Jew hatred. And Richard Landes: Yeah. Phyllis Chesler: I really do think that Europeans have in very large part funded the and collaborated with and encouraged the all of the groups that have been militarily and mercilessly attacking Israeli civilians. Israeli soldiers. This is a continuation of the Nazi Holocaust by other means. Richard Landes: All right, listen. Yeah, Phyllis the we're we wanna focus on feminism here. All right. So we don't wanna go off too far on Phyllis Chesler: Okay. Well no but it's the point the yes, yes, but the point is that this is not just feminism. Where and at this moment in history, I I don't want to join the pylon against feminism, the best version of it. I I don't really believe that American feminism destroyed the American family and or emasculated men and the military and ushered in abominations including homosexuality. I d I don't. But we've now been fully accused of having done so. we didn't succeed in our best, most ideal goals. We just didn't. did we get rid of rape? Did we get rid of rape? Did we abolish it as a war crime? did we get rid of violence against women or honor killings, femicide? Or there's a whole host of things that we raised to our credit. raise the issues, but only could go so far. In America we don't have an Equal Rights Amendment, and we're still the feminists of today, the faux feminists, the fake feminists, are choosing identity politics, gender over sex-based rights. It's a nightmare. And and the reason that this is a problem of feminism and for feminists Is that in addition to all of this concern about occupation of a country that's never existed, known as Palestine, it's become the feminist issue of the day. The entire tw I mean, I looked at every area of American feminism, including reproductive rights and goddess worship and organization, activism, women's studies. I left no stone unturned, and they're all Talking about Palestine, but not about the occupation of women's bodies in Gaza, in Yehuda and Shamron, or in Afghanistan and Iran and Saudi Arabia and in Muslim countries. This is the feminist betrayal of womankind. In addition to all else, to turn our backs on the very women who are being murdered because they don't want to wear. face coverings or head coverings and we're donning it or not me we're campus women who have all kinds of freedom and education in America and in Europe but in America are putting on hijab or niqab as a they think a symbolic virtuous gesture about racism against racism this is very crazy so Richard Landes: All right, so so let me ask you this, because in some senses you you're absolutely right. It's crazy because people are invoking these high ideals to do what are essentially on one level a betrayal of the very cause they embrace, and on another level suicidal for their society. All right. So Phyllis Chesler: yes. Yes, yes. Richard Landes: on the one hand you have these strange ideas for this. To what degree do you think this is a submission to Muslim patriarchy and misogyny so that Phyllis Chesler: It is that. Richard Landes: so that they sound like they're revolutionaries and they're edgy, but in fact they are obedient dimmi. Phyllis Chesler: I agree. I think that the fear of freedom is very great, especially among women, but also among Westerners who like rules to tell them what to do, with the promise that then what, they'll get into heaven, they won't be destroyed, because we will be dis we are being destroyed. So it is partly female like submissiveness, desire to please. Desire to be popular, desire to keep their positions. Richard Landes: Wait a minute, why the desire to please the very type that they hated so much? And and here let me introduce. I I did with Corina as well. Let me introduce the essay that goes way back. The Authoritarian Personality. Phyllis Chesler: Mm-hmm. Richard Landes: And and one of the aspects of the authoritarian Phyllis Chesler: Adorno. Richard Landes: personality is that. You are submissive to stronger people and you have contempt for weak weaker people. Is it possible that feminists lost respect for white men who listen to them and Phyllis Chesler: Well Richard Landes: have a healthy respect for the people who really will bully them? Phyllis Chesler: Who will behead them, not just bully them. Richard Landes: Right. All right, yes. Phyllis Chesler: I think that most feminists or Democratic Party believe true believers and Marxists to a great extent as well, both. And they have identified the enemy as white men and Christianity. They have no understanding at all of the history of Islam, the nature of Islam. The treatment of women under Sharia law. And I work with Muslims. Not every Muslim is bad or is unaware of what I'm saying. They say similar things and they tend to be Zionist as well as for Western civilization. Some are religious, many are atheists or ex-Muslims or versions in between. And they appreciate the freedoms they have in the West. Now, the young women. the the so-called feminists, they're not real feminists. They're faux, fake feminists who believe in Palestine or Baalis. They do not, they cannot and refuse to comprehend because they've been sold such a bill of goods. Islam, they think, is a race. It's not only a race, but it's like African Americans as a race, they don't understand Islam as a religion and a political ideology. It's not a race. There are Muslims of all colors. I mean, I lived, I was kidnapped and kept in Afghanistan long, long ago. Taught me a lot. And there are Afghans who do not view themselves as Arabs, but who have been colonized by Arabs. They used to be Buddhists and pagans. And the and Alexander marched through Afghanistan. What does this say that? There are blue eyed, green eyed Afghans and they are now they've been so Arabized that they blew up the Buddhas of Bamyan. That's the Taliban, not our friends. Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: And I you know, I I was privileged to be part of a team and it's a feminist team, grassroots that rescued three hundred and ninety-eight women from Afghanistan. In as Biden was pulling out in the most disgusting of ways. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And even yesterday, yesterday, there's a feminist group in America known as the feminist majority. It's Ellie Smeal, connected to Ms., which is an empire and a media machine. Okay, that's good. But what did they call for? signatures on a petition to be delivered to the UN to plead for or to demand maybe in writing for education for the girls in Afghanistan. Now the one woman who I chose as my own, who I consider my Afghan granddaughter, she is now counseling other women trapped, which is a great a a great action. But I don't see the feminist majority doing stuff like this. I I remember in the 1990s, indeed Ellie Smeal with Mavis Leno, J. Leno's wife's money, had a campaign. But it was words, just words. Jews know how to rescue. Jews know how to sponsor for asylum. Now I'm not saying there are no Jews part of her empire. There are. But they don't take risks and they don't do deeds. I so the the woman who I work with, I've worked with for many years. She's an Indian Sikh British guy who who got an OBE for the kind of work she does with refugees. Richard Landes: All right. Phyllis Chesler: And she just called me up one day and she said, Do you want to rescue some women from Afghanistan? And Richard Landes: Wow. Phyllis Chesler: I said, I was waiting my whole life for this kind Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: of offer 'cause I know what it was to be trapped with no exit and being sent back to the tenth century. And this is before the Taliban. It only got worse under them. And I wrote it I I wrote about this in a book called An American Bride and Kabul, but I did a lot of research. And you know, I have a soft spot for Middle East and Central Asian peoples. Jews were once very much among them, including in Afghanistan. Early on, it's fascinating and unknown. of Course, the kings in Afghanistan held the Jews hostage. They used to be, our people used to be the Silk Road traders and bankers, so to speak. And that changed overnight, but they weren't allowed to leave. Not a good story. Written about it very brilliantly by Sarah Aharon, who wrote about the Jews of Afghanistan and who There's a colony of them living in Queens, New York, and I got to meet them. Not from Bokara, not from Samakan, but from Herat, from Kabul. Interesting, Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: interesting. We've been everywhere. So I didn't know there was great drama because the women were running under the lashes and the gunfire and the batons of the Taliban on the way to the airport. And I didn't know whether my woman made it out. In fact she was on the very last plane before the ISIS suicide K bomber blew himself and thirteen American Marines and countless Afghan s civilians up and she saw it from her plane window. This Richard Landes: War. Phyllis Chesler: is very very dramatic and very significant, very important. and and it Richard Landes: It just points up the madness. Phyllis Chesler: Well, the Taliban, I mean, is the UN by the way, the UN condemns Israel. That's all they've done. Richard Landes: in the madness of the feminists who side with these people. I mean, granted, they're mad. Phyllis Chesler: Yeah, no, no, no. But the United Nations, which they support That's another discussion. All the UN has done in my opinion is legalized Jew hatred. That's it. Have they condemned communist China? Have they condemned Khomeini's Tehran? Have they condemned Saudi Arabia? No. Have they condemned Afghanistan? No way. No, no. So this is so i it defies understanding because it's so Crazy. Now I understand about brainwashing. I know that it can work. I understand about peer pressure. That too can work. I understand about an infusion, Qatari money, Iranian money, goodness, for years and years and years turning our professoriate in America into robot mind, not thinkers, and Richard Landes: Do you mean? Phyllis Chesler: all their students, and then the next few generations of their students, this is what they heard. I I was in touch with any number of feminists who are still real feminists on the issues of violence against women, trafficking, prostitution, legalization of surrogacy. But where we parted company was on Israel. And one in particular who should really know better, kept sending me lies from all the left-wing press. And I tried to send her the truth. I sent her truth-based realities. And she said, I'm so sad that such a brilliant woman like yourself has been taken in by these lies. And at a certain point, I realized can't talk to her anymore, even on the very issues that we care about and share an opinion about and a history for. Couldn't at this moment in time, I can't do it. And this for me was before even Ten Seven. You can imagine after ten seven that the question, and it's a it's a raging question. you've heard of Reem Al-Salam, yes? Richard Landes: Yes. Phyllis Chesler: Yeah, okay, so she's not a friend of the truth. But she does care about sexual violence against women, so she says. So I published something, I think yesterday, about how She is anti-Israel. She after 10-7 went out of her way to deny the truth and attack Israel. And yet there are feminists because her position on the sexual violence against women, not Israeli women, not Jewish women, was so attractive and on a wavelength with them that they have to also, you know, applaud her or include her. I refused to sign a petition. That's a very good feminist set my way supporting her when she was attacked for her sex based rights analysis. And maybe at another moment in history when our people are no longer vulnerable, no longer in danger, no longer defamed, I can decide to communicate again. But at this moment, I can't. And it's a loss for all of us. I can't, because They're they've now identified themselves as stupid, cowardly, dangerous, all of the above. Richard Landes: All right. Let's pick up the cowardly. because I think one explanation for this Simplistic, we can nuance it psychologically, but one explanation for this is they are scared of the supremacist Muslims. They are preemptive digni. They're already behaving like subject infidels in a Muslim society, in which rule number one is do not criticize Phyllis Chesler: Mm-hmm. Richard Landes: because that will be deemed blasphemy and you're done. So so Phyllis Chesler: And you'll be killed. Richard Landes: So on the one hand they're doing this because they're afraid of this, but they wrap it up in this high minded language. Is that too simplistic? Phyllis Chesler: I don't know if they're afraid, they're they're unaware, they're unconscious. They're group thinkers, they're conformists of the first order. I mean instead of being independent, free thinkers. Richard Landes: Okay, so but how does feminism how does feminism, which starts out with really independent thinkers like you? You your early book Women in Madness was very radical, out of the box. How does a movement like that end up with sheeple? Phyllis Chesler: Well, they didn't all write that book, did they? And ha ha and an Richard Landes: But they read it. Phyllis Chesler: and they by the way, they also the feminists who are real feminists still in certain areas Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: also I I mean they they believe in the UN. They still believe in the UN and go there for meetings, despite all that it leads to in my opinion is that they see some women Who they might who they might otherwise not have seen. They mentor some younger women, that's all good. Their values and programs don't ever get into the UN programs of action, which also are meaningless. And they have a night, and this includes Israeli feminists for sure, very good ones, who believe that if they do a very good legal study and To have a lot of forensic evidence from 10-7 that they can take it to the UN. yes! And that then the UN will do something. that there is an international human rights order of some kind. There isn't. There isn't. But the need to believe and hope and act as if it's true overwhelms reality. It it does. Now, I don't know whether this means that they're frightened. At some level, perhaps. But I'm not sure. I mean, I think look, look at the history of of Jew hatred and pogroms and hatred hatred. They're in on it. They're collaborating with it. They're betraying not only the truth and the Jews, but they're betraying the civilization that alone gave rise to women's rights movements. So Richard Landes: Right. Right. Phyllis Chesler: and they don't see it that way. They think that women's rights movements now have to focus on Reparations for African Americans or parative justice for the worst pedophile rapists. and they believe this. They believe it. And they think that Israel is the worst country on earth, and next to it are Western Christian conservatives. that's really bad too. And they don't see, they don't understand the Red-Green Alliance at all. Not mean not at all. So how do we Richard Landes: Right. Right. So how do we how how do we penetrate that? How do we penetrate? Phyllis Chesler: Well, that's the question, isn't it? And I mean I wrote about Richard Landes: Yeah. Phyllis Chesler: brainwashing in Mothers on Trial, which the the battle for children in custody, which came out in nineteen eighty six first, and I updated it in twenty eleven. And the alienation of children via brainwashing by often the father but sometimes the mother, is very effective and there are some programs that have tried to deal with Deprogramming it, but it's a one-on-one basis. You have to find each person, isolate them entirely from their world and from what they read and from who they know. And then it's I'm not certain how successful it is. So I'm thinking, okay, I'm a psychologist or I've been one. So how would we go about deprogramming everyone who believes every lethal blood libel that you have written so eloquently about against Jews in Israel? where do we put them? On what islands do we take each one? I mean, Richard Landes: No, it's not gonna work. Phyllis Chesler: right? Devil's Island, Alcatraz? Where? So this is a huge this is Richard Landes: All right. Yeah. Phyllis Chesler: a very question, Richard. And I don't think we I'm hoping that genius Israelis who are so good with technology will come up with something, not AI, no, not Claude, will come up with something to de because this is huge. And at the very least we need an iron dome before that to keep it away. To every when when I wrote The New Anti Semitism, I was writing it in two thousand and two thousand one, two Richard Landes: Three, two. Phyllis Chesler: thousand two. I said, look, this is bigger than the Nazi era, because on every streaming platform, every internet site, 24-7, every language on earth, the Jews are being defamed. Where can this go? Where can this lead to a happy little place? No. We always know that these lies lead to pogroms. It's in the history. And women who care just about women, for example. I was attacked as a racist when I did my four studies for Middle East Forum, or I published it there, about honor killing. And I didn't s I didn't say and feminist Richard Landes: yes. And you were and you were cancelled. Phyllis Chesler: Well, I was cancelled before then for the anti-Semitism. But the honor killing it is Hindus in India do it but only in India, not that often, and there's women involved in it. Hands-on as well as conspiracy collaboration. Muslims do it, mainly Muslims in the West. And sometimes Sikhs do it as well. There isn't an interview I left. I mean I was working on the fifth study and I let it go, which would have been: how do we account for those handful of women, sometimes men, who escaped being unakilled? And it has a lot to do with their learning Christianity, with a friendly neighbor, with a soldier from the West who helped them. And it's a it's a big story. But for this, my concern about Muslim women who I've lived among and who I work with was seen as racist and Islamophobic. Thank you, Hattam Bazian, for this false but so useful concept of how not to ever criticize a Muslim for committing a terrorist crime, a sexual violence crime, anything, anything. Because that will right be very bad. So I you know, so the big question is then how do we deprogram every country on earth? Richard Landes: So let me let me ask you something here because on one on the one hand deprogramming suggests really deep psychological changes have taken place, and I'm willing to admit and acknowledge that it certainly has happened and certainly among the leadership of these movements. But It seems to me you're describing a fairly large population of what is disparagingly called sheeple that, you know, follow their mimetic desire to do what everybody else is doing. Phyllis Chesler: Well no no but but Richard they they're being re rewarded for this. It's not merely out of fear. There are rewards. They're popular, they're well paid, or some of many are. I mean, look at the heartless ovation given to a big fat lie at the Venice Film Festival. Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: Well, I mean, yeah, they applauded Lenny Riefenstahl as well, you know, Hitler's not filmmaker. Richard Landes: Right. Did you see right, did you see what Isabella Tabarowski wrote about that? And then Phyllis Chesler: I think I have. Richard Landes: and Andy Pessant, that it's like the speeches that Stalin gave. And every and the reason that went on so long was that no one wanted to be the first person to stop clapping yet. Phyllis Chesler: want there to be the first to stop was what th they both said. Well, you know, I can do without first of all, who are the celebrities, our gods on Olympus? They Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: are not educated. They're really not. They many have not gone to college. Some have not gone beyond college. None of them have ever studied Judaism or Middle East history or the history of Islam. Richard Landes: Not not like going to college would have helped. Phyllis Chesler: that's true, they would have been maybe further roomed. But let's say that it might help. It once did, hopefully it might again. Richard Landes: In principle. In principle. Phyllis Chesler: But they feel entitled to opinions that are just mindless, heartless, conformist. I mean, when when this young woman, Hannah Einbinder, won something for a TV series called Hacks. Which I tried to watch, I have to admit I couldn't keep watching it, but all right, that's me. That's my deficiency. Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: So when she suddenly shouted out when she got her award and free Palestine, I'm thinking, does she know what she's even saying? Does she know that what she just said is the equivalent to kill the Jews, kill all the Jews now, exterminate, do a genocide on Israel? I I you know, but she got applauded for it. So I Richard Landes: Right. So so in a sense this is the same thing as Judith Butler saying that Hamas is part of the international progressive left because they're anti imperialist, the pacifist Judith Butler. Phyllis Chesler: Well that that's a big one. The anti imperialism, socialism, Marxism, The whole post colonial crap and the I mean, if you r you tr you ever try to read Judith Butler? I dare you. Richard Landes: Yeah, no, no, no, I did. I I had something she won a prize for being the most obscure writer, and then she was asked to interpret one of her sentences or paragraphs, and she couldn't do it. She couldn't do it. She couldn't tell you what it meant. Phyllis Chesler: And what'd she say? It's a yeah, you have to take it in context. Well, look at the look look at the media worldwide, look at the New York Times, lie after lie. I mean, I I stopped covering it because I kept documenting how many articles in one issue of the New York Times condemned Israel Richard Landes: Yeah. Phyllis Chesler: and falsely, and how long it took them to issue a very small print acknowledgement. It was a little editing mistake. N nothing to see here. And they continue continue doing it. Now I'm reminded of Laurel Leff's the New York Times coverage of the Holocaust in the fine print, maybe at the back pages. I mean, and many Jews write for them. And I wonder, must I now call all of them traitors? I sometimes think yes. Sometimes I think, well, they're just big fat liars, you know, and lazy. but want to keep their jobs. These are plum positions from their point of view. I think it's Shandan al Kappa from my point of view that they're working there. So, but that's me, that's you, that's the band of us. So for the feminist organizations are no longer just politically correct in terms of in in terms of imperialism, colonialism, et cetera, et cetera, racism, anti racism. They're Islamically correct. That's what they've become. And they're more concerned with the sanctity of covering one's head and one's face than they are with honor killing for refusing to do so. And so they've as I've written, they've betrayed the Jews for sure. They've betrayed Western civilization, absolutely, and they've abandoned the most. promising and most vulnerable Muslim women of color, also of color, like so many in Israel are, right? They've abandoned them and betrayed their own feminist principles. After 10-7, and I've written countless articles, there isn't a second wave feminist who I didn't reach out to and I didn't acquaint with the facts. And all of them remained silent, all until safely about ten weeks later, after Biden said something or other, after the Democratic Party, in short, gave it a hecksha, it was kosher to say something. Then a long letter agonizingly balanced about the suffering of the women in Aza, the suffering of the women in Israel, the suffering of women everywhere, every country. God forbid they should focus on Israel even for a second. They published this. So I called up the very, very good woman who crafted it agonizingly. It took seven to ten days to satisfy everybody. Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: And her name is Jane Manning. She's a lawyer. And I said, You forgot to ask me. She goes, my god, I did, I did. Sign now. I said, I'd be happy to. And I wasn't happy to, but I felt I had to. And I said, by the way, did you approach feminists and they refused to sign it? She goes, yes. She but I can't tell you their names. I said, Allow me to tell you their names, which I proceeded to do. And she gasped. And these are all the feminists who were very good on the other feminist issues. Sex based rights, Richard Landes: But no. Phyllis Chesler: not gender based rights, girls. So you know, it it's Richard Landes: You know, it's it's right. It's it's a it's a derangement disorder. You see the same thing. I was talking with a a woman who worked for Arab news networks, and I said, Do they have any pro professional journalistic standards? She said, Yes. They're very good, except for on Israel they just lose it on Israel. Phyllis Chesler: And Israel is the symbol, as we know, of light out of darkness, out of tr for truth telling most of the time, the symbol for what has become Western civilization at its best. It is now declining. The sun is setting, not just on Europe, but on America now, and this requires a serious fight back. And also, as some of us have begun saying, we need to go on the offensive. We really do. But is it too late? Will it work? Must we do it anyway? These are Richard Landes: All right, let me ask you, let me Phyllis Chesler: Unanswered. Richard Landes: right. Let me ask you a wild scenario. Okay, because Phyllis Chesler: go ahead. Richard Landes: I I heard this from these two journalists who Arab women journalists Phyllis Chesler: Al Jazeera, Al Arabia. Richard Landes: who had worked for all those guys and stuff. And one of the things they said was that Phyllis Chesler: Mm-hmm. Richard Landes: Zayna Brabuah also makes this point, which is that The irony is that when Muslims come to the West, they regress and Phyllis Chesler: that's second generation, third generation. Richard Landes: Yeah, and so you have supremacist Islam, which is obviously deeply anti modern, flourishing in the West, and in fact they think that the reaction this the same reaction which is to adopt the basic benevolent rules of civil society will come from the Arab world. So here's my scenario. Arab feminists, first wave Arab feminists manage to assert their dignity within their culture. No. I don't know. I don't. Phyllis Chesler: No, no, no. There there are individual Arab and Central Asian Muslim women who have done extraordinary things as individuals for which they were punished, really punished. If not killed, then if lucky, placed under house arrest. If not placed under house arrest, then beheaded in the public square. We have a princess in Saudi Arabia who I I have written about. This is twenty twenty-five years ago. She Actually fell in love with a man, not an a prince, it wasn't arranged, and they planned to run away together, but they caught them, and she was beheaded, as was he, in the public square. Then there are other princesses, that means the most privileged women in a place like Saudi Arabia, who tried to make a getaway. It was so bold and so determined. Well, they were. They were captured off the coast of Goa, India. They were in a boat at that point. And they have been in solitary for twenty-five, thirty years. Who knows what state their mental health could possibly be? And why did this happen? Because their mother escaped her husband. And if she wanted to save her daughters, she'd have to come back from England, which she did not do. Now these people do not screw around. with women. And despite the plane loads of prostituted girls and women that they fly in every week from the West, they they don't. Their women have to be a certain way. Yeah, there's improvements. I worked with the Saudi women in nineteen ninety one perhaps, two, three, who wanted to drive their own cars and go out without a minder. And Their passports were pulled. Oisha Almana was one of their names. Their passports were pulled. And they didn't kill them though. Now there's new waves and those Richard Landes: Nothing can try. Phyllis Chesler: yeah, now they can drive if they're wealthy enough to have a car of their own, right? If they're from wealthy enough families and they have some educations, yes. So if feminists would I mean, I think because in my raw youth, in my wild and raw youth, I married a college student, mate, friend of mine from Afghanistan, who was from one of the hundred leading families. I had no intention of staying there. I thought, I want to travel badly. And I so I did, so I did. I was in amazing places. And then I couldn't leave. They took my American passport away. I couldn't get out. I contemplated everything, run away with the nomads, the coochies, but they'll just kidnap me also or sell me or who knows what. There was no way out, and I was lucky that yes, a way was found out because my then father-in-law, who had three three wives and twenty one children about whom I knew nothing, decided he didn't want a dead American on his hands, because I was dying. So he gave me ten dollars And an Afghan passport, which I still have, orange cover in Dari. And I came home. I came and I kissed the ground at what was then called Idlewild Airport. And I said Richard Landes: Yeah. Phyllis Chesler: the land of liberty and of libraries. Now try to tell that to a leading feminist. America is the worst country on earth after Israel. They don't get it. Of course, things are imperfect everywhere. Human beings are imperfect. What was God thinking? I ask every day. We are co twisted Richard Landes: Huh. Phyllis Chesler: at the root, crooked at the root. So if they had experienced what life was like in a Muslim country, in a very wealthy family. I think they might and sure, what am I saying? If if if they had been kidnapped and held against their will and then made a a point to learn from that and study it and in a sense try to redeem it and repa me they tried to convert me to Islam every day. That was my mother-in-law. Crazy woman. But you know, I was happy when I read what the Rambah wrote. It doesn't matter if it's under force, it doesn't count to get it back. So these educated Americans, feminist, female, male, not feminist, anti-feminist, they have a a grave comeuppance coming their way if they don't wake up and keep awake. Grave comeuppance. They they and again, America is filled with human beings and is far from perfect, but you know, compared to Most Muslim countries, it's head and shoulders above it. Try to tell that to an American academic. I've tried. Richard Landes: Wow. All right. We try and end on something optimistic or positive. Maybe you could tell us some of the young generation of feminists that you admire. Phyllis Chesler: Well they're well, feminists against anti-Semitism, UK based. Had a day arise? bless my life. I I work with them, I applaud them, I I adore them. there was a fist fight at a feminist conference in England, maybe in Brighton a couple of years ago, and some pro Palestine moron, you know, Mounted the stage with the flag, you know, free Palestine, and so on. And some of these women took umbrage. And when they got home, they decided that they're gonna have feminists against anti-Semitism. They are the first and only of their kind. And they reached out to me. Richard Landes: You'll send me in you'll you'll send me information on them and we'll post it along with Phyllis Chesler: yeah, yeah, no, I I I I have it. I have it. I mean I did it they interviewed me Richard Landes: Good. Right. Phyllis Chesler: and we've I was their first interviewee and I was honored and they were even more honored, but they are wonderful. I don't know, in the UK, two or three of them at one point were going following two evil dudes, going door to door, trying to get people to admit on camera that they were against Israel too, or something like that. And they went up against them, fist against fist. I figured, what ho, what's this? So they're not all Jews. There are some Jews among them. there are Christians among them. This is a great good sign. The younger ones involved with them in one way or another, Nicole Lampert and Zoe Strimple and Susan McDonald and Josie Stein. McDonald and Joe and Stein are two of the founders of this. They publish they have a site, they publish interviews, they publish their own thinking. We need to have that in every country. And I'm not gonna organize I'm I'm turning 86 in two weeks. I can't Richard Landes: Wow. Phyllis Chesler: go on foot and organize, you know, country to country, city to city, but I hope that somebody does, because there are I worked with a a young feminist. who works who worked with feminists against anti Semitism and She's a mathematician, so nevertheless, she's organizing feminists in America and she is certainly pro-Israel. She came in one day, she's not Jewish. She came in one day wearing a Jewish star. I said, What's this? And she said, Well, I'm going to convert. I said, Why don't you hide the Jewish star for now? Until you're you until you've done it. But she didn't want to. I said, That's interesting. Interesting. So she wears her Jewish star. you know, on public transportation in New York City. Let's see how this develops. So there are some saying there are some s for me, it doesn't matter anymore whether the feminist of any age who's against men in girls' locker rooms or against men in female sports. No. She has to go further than that and be for West and Civ and for Israel. And for the Jewish and the survival of the Jewish people. Nothing less will work for me right now. In the future, as I said, when we're all in the future, if we exist, if the world exists, and has not been taken down by AI or other kinds of apocalypses, I might change my view. What about you, Richard? When would you change your view on what we know in our bones? Richard Landes: So look, I mean I I don't know if we've discussed fully the idea behind Infidel Awareness Month, but part of the idea is to Phyllis Chesler: It's a great idea. Richard Landes: right, is to place this war of the I call them calipators, but we're generally referring to them as the supremacist Muslims. Th this war of Supremacist Muslims, both violent and nonviolent, care is definitely a supremacist Muslim organization. they've been conducting a war against the West pretty much for the last fifty years. And I I believe Phyllis Chesler: Totally. Mm-hmm. Richard Landes: as a student of millennial ideas and apocalyptic chronologies and stuff, that fifteen hundred is their sort of target date for taking over. They they have a hundred year war plan. To take over the West. It may only take 55 years because they've been so successful in the first half that you know we're on the ropes. However, if we conceive of it that way, if every year we have an infidel awareness month in which we discuss the issues that need to be discussed, then I think we can begin to fight back. So we're at halftime. We're we're We're at halftime and we can win this game in the second half, but we're not gonna win the game if we don't show up. I mean, as a friend of mine put it right. A friend of mine put it Phyllis Chesler: Right. If we don't fight. It's we didn't lose the cognitive war, we just didn't fight it. So now Richard Landes: Right, right, exactly. Phyllis Chesler: we have an opportunity to do that, I hope. And I think you should expand the infidel month to to infidel year. I mean I mean really because this is true all the time around the clock. Richard Landes: You're not the first person to say that to me. Yeah. No, we'll go we'll go all year, but the the point of the month is every day is a different subject and all of the subjects are relevant to understanding what we're up against and starting the conversation that will help us find a way to resist. Phyllis Chesler: Y I agree. But you know, there is something else, not fear. But Americans have been so brainwashed, those who think, those who don't think, into guilt over what they believe is American empire and the Richard Landes: Right, right. Phyllis Chesler: history of slavery in America. They don't understand that Muslims practice slavery to this minute and have always done so Richard Landes: Right. And then Phyllis Chesler: and it's race based, it's anti-African. But They hope that the barbarians will free them from the guilt about this imaginary American empire, Richard Landes: That's masochistic. Phyllis Chesler: even if it means that the price will be the entire planet will be bombed back to the seventh century. So the guilt Richard Landes: So wait a minute, but but but you're describing a masochistic condition in which, you know, you you want to be hurt to expiate for your sense of guilt. Phyllis Chesler: Well, but that's not an independently arrived at guilt. That's an imposed guilt over fifty or sixty years. As if Islam has no history of colonialism, imperialism, conversion via the sword, Islamic Richard Landes: Right. Right. Phyllis Chesler: gender and religious apartheid. The first time I mentioned that phrase, which is accurate and apt. The the Richard Landes: Religious apartheid is absolutely a perfect description of Sharia. Phyllis Chesler: The group that had invited me to speak, beloved feminist speaker, was at Art Art and they went crazy. I had to be hustled out to my safety. And I thought what? Richard Landes: Blanche. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's they went crazy over IN Here Seattle. I mean the statement by the Phyllis Chesler: Well, this was before Ayan. This was before Ayan. And Ayan, who's really smart, I was the only feminist who had her back and who excoriated universities that refused to give her shelter or a perch or a place. Only conservative universities entities did so. This is crazy. This they said that What was the accusation at Brandeis? And and it was spearheaded by the women's studies people the women and gender studies people. Richard Landes: It was studies and the accusation, one of the accusations was that she is a Western supremacist. Phyllis Chesler: Well no no and she was a racist. Now take a look at her. Richard Landes: No, Islamophobe. She they didn't call her a racist, they called her an Phyllis Chesler: They did. They should they did. They did. And then some moron who was excerpted, Deborah Scroggins, I don't know her personally, in Nation, in the pages of Nation, compared Ayan in a book to Lady Al-Qaeda. And guess who she preferred? Richard Landes: Lady Alakida. Yeah. Phyllis Chesler: Lady El Paper. It's kind of it's an insanity. And and in fact a couple of feminists, second wave style, wrote articles ten, eleven weeks later after they had signed this well balanced bogus letter, claiming that they had been there all along to lie, revisionist history, more of same, and that they condemned the other feminists for their silence. And I think neat trick that. How are we gonna deprogram the internet because it is filled not just with Soviet era revisionist history, but our own our own history has been utterly revised. Richard Landes: You keep going down negative or trying to wind up and you keep taking us down the Phyllis Chesler: How how can you expect me to be positive? Richard Landes: Can't again. Phyllis Chesler: I mean when H here's what I'd like. I would like feminist intellectuals, those who are, to learn how to shun propaganda and peer pressure. I want them to write clearly about subjects in which they're truly expert. Every feminist journal magazine, I wrote about this the other day. They assign a journalist who has no history whatsoever of expertise in any of these areas, Judaism, Middle East, Islam, nothing. And then they do Judith Butler like things which I you know, all right. We understand that that's who they're comfortable with and that's who they choose. Richard Landes: All right. I think Phyllis Chesler: I want them to quit being Jew haters and anti-Zionists, and I want them to appreciate Western Civ. And there are many who are doing that and who may not be just younger, who may be revisiting. the issue in Richard Landes: All right. Phyllis Chesler: later age. I know because they they post comments at my Substack site and I see it. But I think we have to be very serious about the situation that we find ourselves in now and not be Pollyanish. We have to I a long time ago I thought, what is every Jew in the West or outside of Israel, is every Jew gonna need an IDF platoon? Richard Landes: Ha ha. Phyllis Chesler: I and I thought, well, it's too late for me to join. But the skills and the training. And Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: when I want to say something about care and the Muslim Brotherhood, they have managed to penetrate and infiltrate us from top to bottom, including getting s politicians elected at every level in America. And they're very bold and brazen and clear about their views. They're not hiding anything. We have to deal with that. We have to get them unelected. We have to get other people elected and that's really heavy lifting. And do we have the forces to do that? Maybe, maybe not. Richard, tell me what you want me to say that's positive. In fact, tell me what's tell me what's positive. I'd like to hear it. I beg you. Richard Landes: No, no, no, no. No, no, no. I'm looking for a quote. I'm looking for the quote from Benjamin Kirsty and he's got his blog is called No Deceit, No Despair, I think. Yeah, Phyllis Chesler: That's good. That's good. Richard Landes: yeah. I think that's a good I think that's a Phyllis Chesler: We have a lot of newbies maybe not all very Nahum Catelyn's Richard Landes: Right, right. Okay. Phyllis Chesler: terrific. Kirsten is very good. I can give you a whole string of names and you know them 'cause they're Richard Landes: Okay. Phyllis Chesler: weighing in now and they're new. They're newbies. And they're some are a little bit too vulgar for my taste, I'm not naming any names. Some are of their generation. What do I know of another generation? Another time. Now here's something positive. So last night I went to a draft at my shore, and the rabbi spoke, but first a young, a very young woman, I think born last week, who's a fourth year Talmud, graduate Talmud student at Yeshiva, and she gave Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: a wonderful talk about Teshuva, what is it? And what is it we should be seeking for? And I thought, I grew up in Borough Park in born in 1940. This was unheard of. It was un it was a sight not imagined. Richard Landes: Right. Phyllis Chesler: No bot mitzvah for me, which I took very hard and very personally at the time. But here she is, a little thing born last week. And she's quoting Talmud like nobody's business, totally Richard Landes: Yeah. Phyllis Chesler: sure of herself. And said very interesting things. And I give our rabbi Ben Skydel credit for inviting her. She's apparently been there before and will return again. Rifka Werner is her name. I there was no time for me to speak to her, but I'd love to do so. I'd love to listen to her. I don't need to speak. So there is also rising among Jews great. education among women, which I think is a pretty good thing. Richard Landes: All right. All right. I in fact I misquoted Kirstein's blog. The the title of his blog is No Delusions, No Despair. Phyllis Chesler: Well, we have to fight, we have to keep fighting, we have to keep on keeping on and Richard Landes: Well, we have to face we have to face the truth. I mean what we're dealing with is people Phyllis Chesler: absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Richard Landes: who refuse to acknowledge the disastrous road that they've taken. And Phyllis Chesler: Hundred percent. I went to the first conference on anti-Semitism two thousand two at the Center for Jewish History and I took my son Ariel along. And as these world class mavens spoke, I looked sadder and sadder. So Ariel said, Mom, what are you saying they're saying what you're writing? I said, Yes, but they're the experts and I'm a total new one. I said they haven't gone beyond what I figured out. This is not good. So I I say that because too many have not figured out where we are. Refuse to or afraid to are being rewarded for refusing to do so. Whatever it may be, there's too many. And that number has to change, or we are doomed. Richard Landes: No delusions, no despair. Phyllis Chesler: That's it. Richard Landes: Thank you, Phyllis. Phyllis Chesler: Thank you, Richard.