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“Christianity Through Jewish Eyes”

Archive for the ‘2010-7 Levitt Letter’ Category

2010′s Top 10 Lies About Israel

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

Compiled by The Simon Wiesenthal Center

Lie #1: Israel was created by European guilt over the Nazi Holocaust. Why should Palestine pay the price?

Three thousand years before the Holocaust, before there was a Roman Empire, Israel’s kings and prophets walked the streets of Jerusalem. The whole world knows that Isaiah did not speak his prophesies from Portugal, nor Jeremiah his lamentations from France. Revered by its people, Jerusalem is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures 600 times—but not once in the Koran. Throughout its 2,000-year exile there was continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land, with the modern rebirth of Israel beginning in the 1800s. Reclamation of the largely vacant land by pioneering Zionists blossomed into a Jewish majority long before the onset of Nazism.

After the Holocaust, nearly 200,000 Shoah survivors found haven in the Jewish State, created by a two-thirds vote of the UN in 1947. Soon 800,000 Jews fleeing persecution in Arab countries arrived. In ensuing decades, Israel absorbed a million immigrants from the Soviet Union and thousands of Ethiopian Jews. Today, far from being a vestige of European guilt or colonialism, Israel is a diverse, cosmopolitan society, fulfilling the age-old dream of a people’s journey and ‘Return to Zion’—their ancient homeland.

Lie #2: Had Israel withdrawn to its June 1967 borders, peace would have come long ago.

Since 1967, Israel has repeatedly conceded, “land for peace.” Following Egyptian President Sadat’s historic 1977 visit to Jerusalem and the Camp David Peace Accords, Israel withdrew from the vast Sinai Peninsula and has been at peace with Egypt ever since.

In 1995, Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel but neither the Palestinians nor 21 other Arab states have done so. In 1993,Israel signed the Oslo Accords ceding administrative control of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority (formerly the PLO). The PA never fulfilled its promise to end propaganda attacks and drop the Palestinian National Charter’s call for Israel’s destruction.

In 2000, Prime Minister Barak offered Yasser Arafat full sovereignty over 97% of the West Bank, a corridor to Gaza, and a capitol in the Arab section of Jerusalem. Arafat said NO. In 2008, PA President Abbas nixed virtually the same offer from Prime Minister Olmert. In 2005, Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Taken over by terrorist Hamas, they turned dismantled Jewish communities into launching sites for suicide bombers and 8,000+ rockets into Israel proper. In 2010, Prime Minister Netanyahu renewed offers of unconditional negotiations leading to a Palestinian State, but Palestinians refused, demanding more unilateral Israeli concessions, including a total freeze of all Israeli construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Lie #3: Israel is the main stumbling block to achieving a Two-State solution.

The Palestinians themselves are the only stumbling block to achieving a Two-State solution. With whom should Israel negotiate? With President Abbas, who, for four years, has been barred by Hamas from visiting 1.5 million constituents in Gaza? With his Palestinian Authority, which continues to glorify terrorists and preaches hate in its educational system and the media? With Hamas, whose Iranian-backed leaders deny the Holocaust and use fanatical Jihadist rhetoric to call for Israel’s destruction?

Today, it is a simple fact that while the State of Israel is prepared to recognize all Arab States, secular or Muslim, these states adamantly refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish State and demand “the right of return” of five million so-called Palestinian “refugees”—a sure guarantee for Israel’s demise.

Lie #4: Nuclear Israel not Iran is the greatest threat to peace and stability.

Though never acknowledged by Jerusalem, it is generally assumed that Israel has nuclear weapons. But unlike Pakistan, India, and North Korea, Israel never conducted nuclear tests. In 1973, when its very survival was imperiled by the surprise Egyptian-Syrian Yom Kippur attack, many assumed Israel would use nuclear weapons—but it did not. Contrary to public condemnations, many Arab leaders privately express relief that Israeli nuclear deterrence exists. While Israel has never threatened anyone, Tehran’s mullahs daily threaten to “wipe Israel from the map.” The U.S. and Europe can afford to wait to see what the Iranian regime does with its nuclear ambitions. But Israel cannot. She is on the front lines and remembers every day the price the Jewish people paid for not taking Hitler at his word. Israel is not prepared to sacrifice another six million Jews on the altar of the world’s indifference.

Lie #5: Israel is an Apartheid State deserving of International Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns.

On both sides of the Atlantic, church groups, academics and unions are leading deceitful and often anti-Semitic boycott campaigns demonizing what they call the Jewish “apartheid” State.

The truth is that unlike apartheid South Africa, Israel is a democratic state. Its 20% Arab minority enjoys all the political, economic and religious rights and freedoms of citizenship, including electing members of their choice to the Knesset (Parliament). Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have standing before Israel’s Supreme Court. In contrast, no Jew may own property in Jordan, no Christian or Jew can visit Islam’s holiest sites in Saudi Arabia.

Lie #6: Plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem prove Israel is ‘Judaizing’ the Holy City.

Enemies of Israel, exploit this phony issue. Jerusalem is holy to three great faiths. Its diverse population includes a Jewish majority with Muslim and Christian minorities. Since 1967, for the first time in history, there is full freedom of religion for all faiths in Jerusalem. Muslim and Christian religious bodies administer their own holy sites. Indeed, the Waqf is allowed to control Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, even though it rests on Solomon’s temple and is holy to BOTH Jews and Muslims.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem’s municipality must meet the needs of a growing modern city. The unfortunately-timed announcement during U.S. Vice President Biden’s visit of 1,600 new apartments in Ramat Shlomo, was not about Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, but for a long established, heavily populated Jewish neighborhood in Northern Jerusalem, where 250,000re 250,000
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Jews live (about the same population as Newark, NJ.)—an area that will never be relinquished by Israel.

Lie #7: Israel policies endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The charge that Israel endangers U.S. troops in Iraq or the AF-Pak region is an update of the old “stab in the back” lie that Jews always betray their own friends, and the libel spouted by Henry Ford and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that “Jews are the father of all wars.”

U.S. General Petraeus has stated he considers Israel a great strategic asset for the U.S. and that his earlier remarks linking the safety of U.S. troops in the region to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal (which 2/3 of Israelis want) were taken out of context. A resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would benefit everyone, including the U.S. But an imposed return to what Abba Eban called “1967 Auschwitz borders” would endanger Israel’s survival and ultimately be disastrous for American interests and credibility in the world.

Lie #8: Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism.

From the Inquisition to the pogroms, to the 6,000,000he 6,000,000
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Jews murdered by the Nazis, history proves that Jew-hatred existed on a global scale before the creation of the State of Israel. In 2010, it would still exist even if Israel had never been created. For example, one poll indicates 40% of Europeans blame the recent global economic crisis on “Jews having too much economic power,” a canard that has nothing to do with Israel.

The unsettled Palestinian-Israeli dispute aggravates Muslim-Jewish tensions, but it is not the root cause. During World War II, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a notorious Jew-hater, helped the Nazis organize the 13th SS Division, made up of Muslims. Unfortunately, in addition to respectful references to Jewish patriarchs and prophets, the Koran also contains virulent anti-Semitic stereotypes that are widely invoked by Islamist extremists, including Hezbollah (whose agents blew up the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994), to justify murdering Jews worldwide. The disappearance of Israel would only further embolden violent Jew-haters everywhere.

Lie #9: Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. Goldstone was right when he charged that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians.

The Goldstone Report on Israel’s defensive war against Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which 8,000h 8,000
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rockets were fired after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2005, is a biased product of the UN’s misnamed Human Rights Council. The UNHRC is obsessed with false anti-Israel resolutions. It refuses to address grievous human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and beyond. Faced with similar attacks, every UN member-state including the U.S. and Canada would surely have acted more aggressively than the IDF did in Gaza.

Yet, Richard Goldstone, a South African Jewish jurist, signed a document prepared by investigators whose main qualification was rabid anti-Israel bias. He accepted every anonymous libel against the IDF. But he insisted that hearings in Gaza be televised, guaranteeing that fearful Palestinians would never testify about Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields and their hiding of weapons in mosques and hospitals. Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz denounced Goldstone’s Report as a modern “blood libel” accusing Israeli soldiers of crimes they never committed.

Lie #10: The only hope for peace is a single, bi-national state, eliminating the Jewish State of Israel.

The One-State solution, promoted by academics, is a non-starter because it would eliminate the Jewish homeland. However, the current pressures on Israel are equally dangerous. In effect, the world is demanding that Israel, the size of New Jersey, shrink farther by accepting a Three-State solution: a PA state on the West Bank and a Hamas terrorist state controlling 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. All this, as Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, stockpiles 50,000es 50,000
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rockets, threatening northern and central Israel’s main population centers.

In 2010, most Middle East experts believe that the only hope for enduring peace is two states with defined final borders. But too many diplomats, pundits, academics and church leaders ignore the fact that current polls show that while most Israelis favor a Two-State solution, most Palestinians continue to oppose it.

Reprinted with permission from The Simon Wiesenthal Center.

http://www.aish.com/jw/me/92746669.html

The History Of Jerusalem

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

By Mortimer B. Zuckerman, www.USNews.com

After Israel was recognized as a new state in 1948, it was immediately attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The attacks were repelled, but the Jordanians, who were asked not to join the Egyptian war effort, conquered East Jerusalem and separated it from its western half. In 1967, the Arab armies again sought to destroy Israel, but Israel prevailed in the famous Six-Day War and reconquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip.

East Jerusalem, a growing community, was expanded on rock-strewn land that had been in the public domain for the last 43 years. But Palestinian leaders laid claim to East Jerusalem, including the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, the holiest sites in Judaism, and which the Arabs had failed to protect while controlling it. When he gave his speech in Cairo, President Obama looked to when “Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims.” Did he not realize it is only under Israeli rule since 1967 that all adherents of all religions represented in Jerusalem have been able to worship freely and access their religious sites?

Under Jordanian rule, from 1948 to 1967, dozens of synagogues were destroyed or vandalized, and the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was desecrated, its tombstones used for the construction of roads and Jordanian army latrines. The rights of Christians as well as Jews were abused, with some churches converted into mosques. In other cases, mosques were built next to churches and synagogues just so their minarets could rise above them.

When Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967, it kept building for its residents. So did the Palestinian Arabs who continue to build in Jerusalem (incidentally, there is more new Arab housing being built than Jewish housing).

But Israel’s claim for sovereignty over the whole, undivided city of Jerusalem does not spring from conquest in 1948 or 1967. Rather, it signifies the revival of historic rights and claims that predate the arrival of any Arabs to the region, and stems from biblical times.

Jerusalem is not just another piece of territory on a political chessboard. It is integral to the identity and faith of Israel. The city was founded by King David some 3,500e 3,500
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years ago. Since then, Jews have lived there, worked there, and prayed there. It has been more than a political capital; it has been their spiritual beacon. During the First and Second Temple periods, Jews from across the kingdom would travel to Jerusalem three times a year for the Jewish holy days of Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot, until the Roman Empire destroyed the Second Temple in 70 A.D.

That ended Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem for the next 2,000 years. But the Jews never relinquished their bond. Jews in prayer always turned toward Jerusalem. The Arks–the sacred chests that hold the Torah’s scrolls in synagogues throughout the world–face Jerusalem. Each year, the Jews during Passover say, “Next year, in Jerusalem.” These same words are pronounced at the end of Yom Kippur. Jewish wedding ceremonies are marked by sorrow over the loss of Jerusalem. The groom cites a biblical verse, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning” (ref?) and breaks a glass signifying the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is much less embedded in the Muslim culture. When Muslims pray, they face Mecca, not Jerusalem. The Old Testament mentions Jerusalem, or its alternative name Zion, a total of 457 times. The Koran does not mention Jerusalem once. Mohammed, who founded Islam in 622 A.D., was born and raised in what is now Saudi Arabia; he never set foot in Jerusalem. The religious connection to the city took root decades after his death—and after the Muslim conquest of the then largely Christian city—when the Dome of the Rock shrine and the Al Aksa mosque were built in 688 A.D. and 691 A.D. to proclaim Islam’s supremacy over Christianity and its most important shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is of note, too, that Mohammed died in 632 A.D., nearly 50 years before the Al Aksa mosque was completed. This is why Jerusalem never replaced the importance of Mecca in the world of Islam. Indeed, in the 1,300he 1,300
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years that various Islamic dynasties ruled Jerusalem, not one Islamic dynasty ever made the city its capital.

Jerusalem’s importance appears when non-Muslims, including the Crusaders, the British, and the Jews controlled or captured the city—and only then did Islamic leaders claim Jerusalem as their third most holy city after Mecca and Medina. However, the national covenant of the Palestine Liberation Organization, written in 1964, never mentions Jerusalem. It was added only after Israel regained control of the city in 1967.

Jerusalem has never been the capital of any political entity, except the Jewish State. Jews have been the majority in Jerusalem for the past 150 years. At the time of Israeli statehood in 1948, 100,000 Jews lived in the city, compared to 65,000 Arabs. Before 1865, the entire population lived behind the Old City walls that are today the eastern part of the city. When the city began to expand beyond the walls because of population growth, both Jews and Arabs began to build in these new areas.

Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Jewish nation. Israelis have no intention of ever again being prevented from living throughout the city as they were between 1948 and 1967 when, under Jordanian control, Jewish communities were ruthlessly and violently driven out of areas where they had lived for centuries. Israel has a very different perspective. To Israelis, there is no Jewish Western Jerusalem and Eastern Arab Jerusalem but simply a mosaic of people who are mixed and cannot be separated or divided, according to the old 1949 Armistice Line.

Now in the area that is referred to as East Jerusalem, that is, an area north, south, and east of the city’s 1967 borders, there are roughly a half a million Jews and Arabs living in intertwined neighborhoods. There are no entirely Palestinian areas that can be split off from the rest of Jerusalem. All neighborhoods are an integral and inextricable part of modern Jerusalem, so building in them in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution.

But what the world never remembers is what the Israelis can never forget. When Jordan controlled the eastern part of the city, including the Walled City, the Temple, and the ancient Wailing Wall, it permitted reasonably free access to Christian holy places. But the Jews were denied any access to the Jewish holy places. This was a fundamental departure from the tradition of freedom of religious worship in the Holy Land, which had evolved over centuries—not to speak of a violation of the undertaking given by Jordan in the Armistice Agreement concluded with Israel in 1949. Nobody should expect the Jews to risk that again.

Since Israel reunited Jerusalem in 1967, it has faithfully protected the rights and security of Christians, Arabs, and Jews. Muslims have enjoyed the very freedom the Jews were denied under Jordanian occupation. Christians now control the Ten Stages of the Cross; Muslims control the Dome of the Rock. Yet the Palestinians often stone Jewish civilians praying at the Western Wall below. Their leaders and imams repeatedly deny the Jewish connection to Jewish holy sites. Freedom of religion is an American value that should not be compromised.

That is not all. Dividing Jerusalem would put Palestinian forces and rockets a few miles from Israel’s Knesset. Also, the Jewish neighborhoods bordering Arab neighborhoods would be within range of light weapon and machine-gun fire. This is exactly what happened after the Oslo Accords, when the Palestinians fired from Beit Jalla toward Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhoods, wounding scores of residents.

The vast majority of Israelis believe Jerusalem must be shared and not divided. Even the great Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, who made the Oslo agreement, said, “There are not two Jerusalems; there is only one Jerusalem.”

Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

By Phyllis Chesler in Middle East Quarterly, www.MEForum.org

Morsal O, a 16-year-old German-Afghan girl, was killed in May 2008 by her 24-year-old brother Ahmad Sobair O. He stabbed her twenty-three times in a parking lot in Hamburg, Germany, because of her alleged impure moral conduct. Murder of teenage or young adult women by their fathers or other close male relatives is characteristic of classic honor killings and is not a pattern in non-immigrant Western populations.

To combat the epidemic of honor killings requires understanding what makes these murders unique. They differ from plain and psychopathic homicides, serial killings, crimes of passion, revenge killings, and domestic violence. Their motivation is different and based on codes of morality and behavior that typify some cultures, often reinforced by fundamentalist religious dictates. In 2000, the United Nations estimated that there are 5,000re 5,000
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honor killings every year.[1] That number might be reasonable for Pakistan alone, but worldwide the numbers are much greater. In 2002 and again in 2004, the U.N. brought a resolution to end honor killings and other honor-related crimes. In 2004, at a meeting in The Hague about the rising tide of honor killings in Europe, law enforcement officers from the U.K. announced plans to begin reopening old cases to see if certain murders were, indeed, honor murders.[2] The number of honor killings is routinely underestimated, and most estimates are little more than guesses that vary widely. Definitive or reliable worldwide estimates of honor killing incidence do not exist.

Most honor killings are not classified as such, are rarely prosecuted, or when prosecuted in the Muslim world, result in relatively light sentences.[3] When an honor killing occurs in the West, many people, including the police, still shy away from calling it an honor killing. In the West, both Islamist and feminist groups, including domestic violence activists, continue to insist that honor killings are a form of Western-style domestic violence or femicide (killing of women).[4] They are not.[5] This study documents that there are at least two types of honor killings and two victim populations. Both types differ significantly from each other, just as they differ from Western domestic femicide. One group has an average age of seventeen; the other group’s average age is thirty-six. The age difference is a statistically significant one.

Families Killing Their Young Women

The study’s findings indicate that honor killings accelerated significantly in a 20-year period between 1989 and 2009.[6] This may mean that honor killings are genuinely escalating, perhaps as a function of jihadist extremism and Islamic fundamentalism, or that honor killings are being more accurately reported and prosecuted, especially in the West, but also in the East. The expansion of the Internet may account for wider reporting of these incidents.

The worldwide average age of victims for the entire population is twenty-three (Table 1). This is true for all geographical regions. Thus, wherever an honor killing is committed, it is primarily a crime against young people. Just over half of these victims were daughters and sisters; about a quarter were wives and girlfriends of the perpetrators. The remainder included mothers, aunts, nieces, cousins, uncles, or non-relatives.

Honor killings are a family collaboration. Worldwide, two-thirds of the victims were killed by their families of origin. (See Table 1). Murder by the family of origin was at its highest (72 percent) in the Muslim world and at its lowest in North America (49 percent); European families of origin were involved almost as often as those in the Muslim world, possibly because so many are first- or second-generation immigrants and, therefore, still tightly bound to their native cultures. Alternatively, this might be due to the Islamist radicalization of third or even fourth generations. Internationally, fathers played an active role in over one-third of the honor murders. Fathers were most involved in North America (52 percent) and least involved in the Muslim world; in Europe, fathers were involved in more than one-third of the murders.

Worldwide, 42 percent of these murders were carried out by multiple perpetrators, a characteristic which distinguishes them considerably from Western domestic femicide. A small number of the murders worldwide involved more than one victim. Multiple murders were at their highest in North America and at their lowest in Europe. In the Muslim world, just under a quarter of the murders involved more than one victim. Additional victims included the dead woman’s children, boyfriend, fiancé, husband, sister, brother, or parents.

Worldwide, more than half the victims were tortured; i.e., they did not die instantly but in agony. In North America, over one-third of the victims were tortured; in Europe, two-thirds were tortured; in the Muslim world, half were tortured. Torturous deaths include: being raped or gang-raped before being killed; being strangled or bludgeoned to death; being stabbed many times (10 to 40 times); being stoned or burned to death; being beheaded, or having one’s throat slashed.

Finally, worldwide, 58 percent of the victims were murdered for being “too Western” and/or for resisting or disobeying cultural and religious expectations (see Table 1). The accusation of being “too Western” was the exact language used by the perpetrator or perpetrators. Being “too Western” meant being seen as too independent, not subservient enough, refusing to wear varieties of Islamic clothing (including forms of the veil), wanting an advanced education and a career, having non-Muslim (or non-Sikh or non-Hindu) friends or boyfriends, refusing to marry one’s first cousin, wanting to choose one’s own husband, choosing a socially “inferior” or non-Muslim (or non-Sikh or non-Hindu) husband; or leaving an abusive husband. There were statistically significant regional differences for this motive. For example, in North America, 91 percent of victims were murdered for being “too Western” as compared to a smaller but still substantial number (71 percent) in Europe. In comparison, only 43 percent of victims were killed for this reason in the Muslim world.

Less than half (42 percent) of the victims worldwide were murdered for committing an alleged “sexual impropriety”; this refers to victims who had been raped, were allegedly having extra-marital affairs, or who were viewed as “promiscuous” (even where this might not refer to actual sexual promiscuity or even sexual activity). However, in the Muslim world, 57 percent of victims were murdered for this motive as compared to 29 percent in Europe and a small number (9 percent) in North America.

What the Age Differences Mean

This study documents that there are at least two different kinds of honor killings and/or two different victim populations: one made up of female children and young women whose average age is seventeen (Table 3), the other composed of women whose average age is thirty-six (Table 5). Both kinds of honor murders differ from Western domestic femicide.

In the non-immigrant West, serious domestic violence exists which includes incest, child abuse, marital rape, marital battering, marital stalking, and marital post-battering femicide. However, there is no cultural pattern of fathers specifically targeting or murdering their teenage or young adult daughters, nor do families of origin participate in planning, perpetrating, justifying, and valorizing such murders. Clearly, these characteristics define the classic honor killing of younger women and girls.

The honor murders of older women might seem to resemble Western-style domestic femicide. The victim is an older married woman, usually a mother, who is often killed by her husband but also by multiple perpetrators (30 percent of the time). Worldwide, almost half (44 percent) of those who kill older-age victims include members of either the victim’s family of origin or members of her husband’s family of origin. (See Table 5.) This is extremely rare in a Western domestic femicide; the husband who kills his wife in the West is rarely assisted by members of his family of origin or by his in-laws.

However, in the Muslim world, older-age honor killing victims are murdered by their own families of origin nearly two-thirds of the time. This suggests that the old-world custom has changed somewhat in Europe where the victim’s family of origin participates in her murder only one-third (31 percent) of the time. Thus far, in North America, no members of the family of origin have participated in the honor killing of an older-age victim. Whether North America will eventually come to resemble Europe or even the Muslim world remains to be seen, as this will be influenced by immigration and other demographic factors. Finally, nearly half the older-age victims are subjected to a torturous death. However, the torture rate was at its highest (68 percent) in Europe for female victims of all ages. The torture rate was 35 percent and 51 percent in North America and in the Muslim world, respectively.

Worldwide, younger-age victims were killed by their families of origin 81 percent of the time. In North America, 94 percent were killed by their family of origin; this figure was 77 percent in Europe and 82 percent in the Muslim world. (See Table 3.) In North America, fathers had a hands-on role in 100 percent of the cases when the daughter was eighteen-years-old or younger (See Table 4). Worldwide, younger-age women and girls were tortured 53 percent of the time; however, in Europe, they were tortured between 72 and 83 percent of the time—significantly more than older-age women worldwide.

Western Responses to Honor Killing

Many Western feminists and advocates for victims of domestic violence have confused Western domestic violence or domestic femicide (the two are different) with the honor killings of older-age victims. Representatives of Islamist pressure groups including Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Canadian Islamic Congress, various academics (e.g., Ajay Nair, Tom Keil), activists (e.g., Rana Husseini), and religious leaders (e.g., Abdulhai Patel of the Canadian Council of Imams) have insisted that honor killings either do not exist or have nothing to do with Islam; that they are cultural, tribal, pre-Islamic customs, and that, in any event, domestic violence exists everywhere.[7] Feminists who work with the victims of domestic violence have seen so much violence against women that they are uncomfortable singling out one group of perpetrators, especially an immigrant or Muslim group. However, Western domestic femicide differs significantly from honor killing.[8]

Former National Organization for Women (NOW) president Kim Gandy compared the battered and beheaded Aasiya Hassan[9] to the battered (but still living) pop star Rihanna and further questioned whether Hassan’s murder was an honor killing:

Is a Muslim man in Buffalo more likely to kill his wife than a Catholic man in Buffalo? A Jewish man in Buffalo? I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that there is plenty of violence to go around—and that the long and sordid history of oppressing women in the name of religion surely includes Islam, but is not limited to Islam.[10]

At the time of the Hassan beheading, a coalition of domestic violence workers sent an (unpublished) letter to the Erie County district attorney’s office and to some media stating that this was not an honor killing, that honor killings had nothing to do with Islam, and that sensationalizing Muslim domestic violence was not only racist but also served to render invisible the much larger incidence of both domestic violence and domestic femicide. They have a point, but they also miss the point, namely, that apples are not oranges and that honor killings are not the same as Western domestic femicides.

One might argue that the stated murder motive of being “too Westernized” may, in a sense, overlap substantively with the stated and unstated motives involved in Western domestic femicide. In both instances, the woman is expected to live with male violence and to remain silent about it. She is not supposed to leave—or to leave with the children or any other male “property.” However, the need to keep a woman isolated, subordinate, fearful, and dependent through the use of violence does not reflect a Western cultural or religious value; rather, it reflects the individual, psychological pathology of the Western batterer-murderer. On the other hand, an honor killing reflects the culture’s values aimed at regulating female behavior—values that the family, including the victim’s family, is expected to enforce and uphold.

Further, such cultural, ethnic, or tribal values are not often condemned by the major religious and political leaders in developing Muslim countries or in immigrant communities in the West. On the contrary, such communities maintain an enforced silence on all matters of religious, cultural, or communal “sensitivity.” Today, such leaders (and their many followers) often tempt, shame, or force Muslim girls and women into wearing a variety of body coverings including the hijab (head covering), burqa, or chadari (full-body covering) as an expression of religiosity and cultural pride or as an expression of symbolic resistance to the non-Muslim West.[11] Muslim men are allowed to dress like Westerners, and no one challenges the ubiquitous use of Western technology, including airplanes, cell phones, the Internet, or satellite television as un-Islamic. But Muslim women are expected to bear the burden of upholding these ancient and allegedly religious customs of gender apartheid.

It is clear that Muslim girls and women are murdered for honor in both the West and the East when they refuse to wear the hijab or choose to wear it improperly. In addition, they are killed for behaving in accepted Western or modern ways when they express a desire to attend college, have careers, live independent lives, have non-Muslim friends (including boyfriends with whom they may or may not be sexually involved), choose their own husbands, refuse to marry their first cousins, or want to leave an abusive husband. This “Westernization” trend also exists in Muslim countries but to a lesser extent. Allegations of unacceptable “Westernization” accounted for 44 percent of honor murders in the Muslim world as compared to 71 percent in Europe and 91 percent in North America.

Tempted by Western ideas, desiring to assimilate, and hoping to escape lives of subordination, those girls and women who exercise their option to be Western are killed—at early ages and in particularly gruesome ways. Frightening honor murders may constitute an object lesson to other Muslim girls and women about what may happen to them if they act on the temptation to do more than serve their fathers and brothers as domestic servants, marry their first cousin, and breed as many children as possible. The deaths of females already living in the West may also be intended as lessons for other female immigrants who are expected to lead subordinate and segregated lives amid the temptations and privileges of freedom. This is especially true in Europe where large Muslim ghettos have formed in the past few decades. It is particularly alarming to note that in Europe 96 percent of the honor killing perpetrators are Muslims.

The level of primal, sadistic, or barbaric savagery shown in honor killings towards a female family intimate more closely approximates some of the murders in the West perpetrated by serial killers against prostitutes or randomly selected women. It also suggests that gender separatism, the devaluation of girls and women, normalized child abuse, including arranged child marriages of both boys and girls, sexual repression, misogyny (sometimes inspired by misogynist interpretations of the Qur’an), and the demands made by an increase in the violent ideology of jihad all lead to murderous levels of aggression towards girls and women. One only has to kill a few girls and women to keep the others in line. Honor killings are, in a sense, a form of domestic terrorism, meant to ensure that Muslim women wear the Islamic veil, have Muslim babies, and mingle only with other Muslims.

Since Muslim immigration and, therefore, family networks are more restricted in North America than in Europe, honor-killing fathers may feel that the entire burden for upholding standards for female behavior falls heavily upon them and them alone. This may account for the fact that fathers are responsible 100 percent of the time for the honor murders of the youngest-age victims. In Europe and in the Muslim world, that burden may more easily be shared by sons and brothers, grandfathers, uncles, and male cousins.

What Must Be Done

How can this problem be addressed? Immigration, law enforcement, and religious authorities must all be included in education, prevention, and prosecution efforts in the matter of honor killings.

In addition, shelters for battered Muslim girls and women should be established and multilingual staff appropriately trained in the facts about honor killings. For example, young Muslim girls are frequently lured back home by their mothers. When a shelter resident receives such a phone call, the staff must immediately go on high alert. The equivalent of a federal witness protection program for the intended targets of honor killings should be created; England has already established such a program.[12] Extended safe surrogate family networks must be created to replace existing family networks; the intended victims themselves, with enormous assistance, may become each other’s “sisters.”

In addition, clear government warnings must be issued to Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu immigrants and citizens: Honor killings must be prosecuted in the West, and perpetrators, accomplices, and enablers must all be prosecuted. Participating families should be publicly shamed. Criminals must be deported after they have served their sentences.

Western judicial systems and governments have recently begun to address this problem. In 2006, a Danish court convicted nine members of a clan for the honor murder of Ghazala Khan.[13] In 2009, a German court sentenced a father to life in prison for having ordered his son to murder his sister for the family honor while the 20-year-old son was sentenced to nine and a half years.[14] In another case, a British court, with the help of testimony from the victim’s mother and fiancé, convicted a father of a 10-year-old honor murder after the crime was reclassified;[15] and, for the first time, the Canadian government informed new immigrants:

Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, “honour killings,” female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.[16]

Islamic gender apartheid is a human rights violation and cannot be justified in the name of cultural relativism, tolerance, anti-racism, diversity, or political correctness. As long as Islamist groups continue to deny, minimize, or obfuscate the problem, and government and police officials accept their inaccurate versions of reality, women will continue to be killed for honor in the West.

The battle for women’s rights is central to the battle for Europe and for Western values. It is a necessary part of true democracy, along with freedom of religion, tolerance for homosexuals, and freedom of dissent. Here, then, is exactly where the greatest battle of the twenty-first century is joined.

Phyllis Chesler is emerita professor of psychology and women’s studies at the Richmond College of the City University of New York and co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women’s Health Network. The author wishes to thank Jonathan Francis Carmona, graduate student at Hunter College, CUNY, for the statistical tests for this study, and Prof. Howard Lune, director of the Graduate Social Research Program at Hunter College.

Table One: Entire Population (N = 230)

REGION Worldwide North America Europe Muslim World
AVERAGE AGE 23 25 22 23
BY PERCENTAGE
Killed by Family of Origin1,2 66 49 66 72
Family Position1
– Daughter/Sister 53 50 49 56
– Wife/Girlfriend 23 27 34 17
– Other3 24 33 27 27
Paternal Participation4 37 53 39 31
Multiple Perpetrators 42 42 45 41
Multiple Victims1 17 30 7 21
Tortured1 53 39 67 49
Motive4
– “too Western” 58 91 71 43
– “sexual impropriety” 42 9 29 57

1 Significant according to a chi square test.
2 Family of origin includes fathers, mothers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, and male cousins.
3 “Other” includes mothers, aunts, cousins, and no familial relation.
4 Significant according to a Pearson correlation test.

Table Two: Women Only, All Ages (N = 214)

REGION Worldwide North America Europe Muslim World
AVERAGE AGE 23 26 21 23
BY PERCENTAGE
Killed by Family of Origin1,2 69 52 66 75
Family Position1
– Daughter/Sister 56 52 53 58
– Wife/Girlfriend 24 28 37 17
– Other3 20 20 10 25
Paternal Participation4 39 52 42 33
Multiple Perpetrators 42 45 44 40
Multiple Victims1 18 30 7 21
Tortured1 54 35 68 51
Motive4
– “too Western” 58 89 73 44
– “sexual impropriety” 42 11 27 56

1 Significant according to a chi square test.
2 Family of origin includes fathers, mothers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, and male cousins.
3 “Other” includes mothers, aunts, cousins, and no familial relation.
4 Significant according to a Pearson correlation test.

Table Three: Females 25 Years of Age and Younger (N = 129)

REGION Worldwide North America Europe Muslim World
AVERAGE AGE 17 18 18 17
BY PERCENTAGE
Killed by Family of Origin1,2 81 94 77 82
Family Position1
– Daughter/Sister 74 94 67 73
– Wife/Girlfriend 14 0 20 14
– Other3 3 6 13 13
Paternal Participation4 54 88 54 46
Multiple Perpetrators 46 75 46 38
Multiple Victims1 17 30 8 20
Tortured1 53 25 72 47
Motive4
– “too Western” 57 88 74 38
– “sexual impropriety” 43 12 26 62

1 Significant according to a chi square test.
2 Family of origin includes fathers, mothers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, and male cousins.
3 “Other” includes mothers, aunts, cousins, and no familial relation.
4 Significant according to a Pearson correlation test.

Table Four: Females 18 Years of Age and Younger (N = 68)

REGION Worldwide North America Europe Muslim World
AVERAGE AGE 15 15 14 13
BY PERCENTAGE
Killed by Family of Origin1,2 89 90 86 90
Family Position1
– Daughter/Sister 82 100 78 79
– Wife/Girlfriend 8 0 13 6
– Other3 10 0 9 15
Paternal Participation4 70 100 68 61
Multiple Perpetrators 39 80 32 32
Multiple Victims1 25 29 16 30
Tortured1 55 30 83 58
Motive4
– “too Western” 55 80 67 41
– “sexual impropriety” 45 20 33 59

1 Significant according to a chi square test.
2 Family of origin includes fathers, mothers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, and male cousins.
3 “Other” includes mothers, aunts, cousins, and no familial relation.
4 Significant according to a Pearson correlation test.

Table Five: Females 26 Years of Age and Older (N = 51)

REGION Worldwide North America Europe Muslim World
AVERAGE AGE 36 40 31 37
BY PERCENTAGE
Killed by Family of Origin1,2 44 0 31 65
Family Position1
– Daughter/Sister 24 0 13 37
– Wife/Girlfriend 55 89 87 26
– Other3 21 11 0 37
Paternal Participation4 8 0 13 7
Multiple Perpetrators 30 11 43 30
Multiple Victims1 9 29 8 5
Tortured1 45 44 53 44
Motive4
– “too Western” 56 88 69 38
– “sexual impropriety” 44 12 31 62

1 Significant according to a chi square test.
2 Family of origin includes fathers, mothers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, and male cousins.
3 “Other” includes mothers, aunts, cousins, and no familial relation.
4 Significant according to a Pearson correlation test.

Methodology

This study analyzes 172 incidents and 230 honor-killing victims. The information was obtained from the English-language media around the world with one exception. There were 100 victims murdered for honor in the West, including 33 in North America and 67 in Europe. There were 130 additional victims in the Muslim world. Most of the perpetrators were Muslims, as were their victims, and most of the victims were women.

The perpetrators and victims in this study lived in the following twenty-nine countries or territories: Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Gaza Strip, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and the West Bank.

In general, statistically significant interactions were found for age, geographical region, the participation of multiple perpetrators (mainly members of the victim’s family of origin, including the victim’s father), family position, multiple victims, the use of torture, and the stated motive for the murder. Between 1989 and 2009, honor killings also escalated over time in a statistically significant way.

Worldwide, the majority of victims were women; a mere 7 percent were men. Only five men were killed by their families of origin whereas the rest of the male victims were killed by the families of the women with whom they were allegedly consorting or planning to consort with either within or outside of marriage. The murdered male victims were usually perceived as men who were unacceptable due to lower class or caste status, because the marriage had not been arranged by the woman’s family of origin, because they were not the woman’s first cousin, or because the men allegedly engaged in pre- or extramarital sex. Men were rarely killed when they were alone; 81 percent were killed when the couple in question was together.

Although Sikhs and Hindus do sometimes commit such murders, honor killings, both worldwide and in the West, are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim crimes. In this study, worldwide, 91 percent of perpetrators were Muslims. In North America, most killers (84 percent) were Muslims, with only a few Sikhs and even fewer Hindus perpetrating honor killings; in Europe, Muslims comprised an even larger majority at 96 percent while Sikhs were a tiny percentage. In Muslim countries, obviously almost all the perpetrators were Muslims. With only two exceptions, the victims were all members of the same religious group as their murderers.

In the West, 76 individuals or groups of multiple perpetrators killed one hundred people. Of these perpetrators, 37 percent came from Pakistan; 17 percent were of Iraqi origin while Turks and Afghans made up 12 and 11 percent, respectively. The remainder, just under a quarter in all, came from Albania, Algeria, Bosnia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guyana, India, Iran, Morocco, and the West Bank.

[1]Ending Violence against Women and Girls,” State of the World Population 2000 (New York: United Nations Population Fund, 2000), chap. 3.
[2] BBC News, June 22, 2004ne 22, 2004
English: World English Bible - WEB

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[3] Yotam Feldner, “‘Honor’ Murders–Why the Perps Get off Easy,” Middle East Quarterly, Dec. 2000, pp. 41-50.
[4] See, for example, SoundVision.com, Islamic information and products site, Aug. 24, 2000g. 24, 2000
English: World English Bible - WEB

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; Sheila Musaji, “The Death of Aqsa Parvez Should Be an Interfaith Call to Action,” The American Muslim, Dec. 14, 2007ec. 14, 2007
English: World English Bible - WEB

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; Mohammed Elmasry, Canadian Islamic Congress, Fox News.com, Dec. 12, 2007ec. 12, 2007
English: World English Bible - WEB

14 For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.

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; Mustafaa Carroll, Dallas branch of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, FoxNews.com, Oct. 14, 2008ct. 14, 2008
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[5] Phyllis Chesler, “Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?” Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2009, pp. 61-9.
[6] According to the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, the most widely used measure of correlation or association.
[7] See, for example, SoundVision.com, Aug. 24, 2000g. 24, 2000
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; Musaji, “The Death of Aqsa Parvez Should Be an Interfaith Call to Action“; Elmasry, Fox News.com, Dec. 12, 2007ec. 12, 2007
English: World English Bible - WEB

14 For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.

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; Carroll, FoxNews.com, Oct. 14, 2008ct. 14, 2008
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[8] Chesler,” Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?“; “A Civilized Dialogue about Islam and Honor Killing: When Feminist Heroes Disagree,” Chesler Chronicles, Mar. 2, 2009Mar. 2, 2009
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; “Jordanian Journalist Rana Husseini on ‘Murder in the Name of Honor: The True Story of One Woman’s Heroic Fight Against an Unbelievable Crime,’” Democracy Now, Oct. 21, 2009ct. 21, 2009
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[9] Fox News, Feb. 16, 2009.
[10] Kim Gandy, NOW president,Below the Belt. No Woman, No Culture Immune to Violence against Women,” Feb. 20, 2009.
[11] BBC News, Oct. 5, 2006ct. 5, 2006
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; Aisha Stacey, “Why Muslim Women Wear the Veil,” IslamReligion.com, Nov 15, 2009.
[12] James Brandon and Salam Hafez, Crimes of the Community: Honour-based Violence in the UK (London: Centre for Social Cohesion, 2008), pp. 136-40.
[13] Brussels Journal, July 2, 2006.
[14] Deutsche Welle (Bonn), Dec. 29, 2009ec. 29, 2009
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[15] The Guardian (London), Dec. 17, 2009ec. 17, 2009
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[16] The National Post (Don Mills, Ont.), Nov. 12, 2009.