Ex-Muslim Feminist Is A Real Liberal

There was a very interesting interview in The Times yesterday, with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim Dutch feminist, politician and writer.

Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia and had a strict Muslim upbringing. She underwent female "circumcision", was beaten and locked up by her mother for trying to work, and only evaded being forced into marriage when she was a child because her father was living abroad.

The article mentions that Hirsi Ali is "particularly harsh on Western feminists such as Germaine Greer, who once wrote that genital mutilation must be seen 'within its cultural context'". Just one of many examples where the extreme left abandon all their principles when it comes to certain aspects of Islam.

The interviewer Janice Turner suggests to Hirsi Ali that if a white person would echo her opinions that Islam is inferior to Western society, they would be labelled a racist. Hirsi Ali responds:

"To me, it's not racist to demand, as a white woman or a white man, 'I will not accept little girls in my country to be forced into marriage, or their genitals to be cut, for them to be pulled out of school, for them to be condemned to a life of submission or violence or death through an honour killing.' If you protest, that doesn't make you into a racist. In my view it makes you a humanist or universalist."

In her new book, she "calls on Western feminists to make common cause with their Muslim sisters. She points to the 13.5 million Saudi women objectively under house arrest, the 34 million Iranian women able to be married at age 9 or stoned for adultery, the women of 26 Arab, African and Asian nations who have their genitals excised."

I am always very interested when I read about liberal or ex-Muslims to see what their views are on Israel, because I believe this says a lot about just how liberal they really are. In general, "liberals" who are anti-Israel will turn a blind eye to Arab oppression, to the extent that they even defend it, and instead accuse Israel of being non-democratic. Meanwhile in the current Arab protests there are a lot of people who call for freedom but at the same time would have no qualms about Israel being wiped off the map. Those people evidently aren't even aware of what true democracy actually is.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is different. First of all, she not only has an issue with Islamic extremism, but says that Israel "has a problem with the ultra-Orthodox". However, she has observed that Israel is a liberal democracy where men and women are equal. A Palestinian confessed to her that economic problems are partly their own fault because of "money sent from abroad to build Palestine being stolen by corrupt leaders". When she tries to give talks on Palestinian corruption though, Hirsi Ali says:

"I do not get a large audience. Often one is talking to a wall. Many people reply that Israel first has to withdraw from the territories, and then all will be well with Palestine."

She observes,

"Most outsiders remain silent on all the problems in their territories. That helps the Palestinians become even more corrupt than they already are. Those who live in the territories are not allowed to say anything about this because they risk being murdered by their own people."

As Elder of Ziyon illustrates so brilliantly, Real Liberals Love Israel.