Press Action

Hey Irshad, Your 15 Minutes Are Up

Posted 10/22 |

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Excellent piece, Jordy. This woman saw that in this post 9/11 era, she could write a book bashing Islam without any real political context of the global picture and cash in. She is allowing herself to be used by the Christian Right, Bill O’Reilly, and Zionists and is making alot of money. She has done alot of damage.

Posted by Brandy from on 10/24 at 09:47 AM

I’d like to have Brandy weigh in on the Buffalo Commons piece. It’s important for me to know whether or not people see how issues they’re interested in can be connected under that umbrella. Ditto for Jordy. OX

Posted by Richard Oxman from on 10/25 at 01:34 AM

With the exception of the sex fiends in Woody Allen’s stuff, there are very rarely Jewish villains of any kind in films. Spike Lee puts a few Jewish characters - negative ones but realistic in a few of his films, and he’s still called anti-Semite. Jews are often so hypersensitive that it would be impossible, say, to do a film on Meyer Lansky without complains of racism...(and Lansky was not allowed in by the state of Israel, under Jewish members of ISM, he was the only jew to not be allowed there...and objectively he did more for Jews than Ben Gurrion)

Posted by j cummings from on 10/27 at 10:51 AM

Rhino Rick: This article is not about Israel/Palestine conflict per se. As Cummings puts every -ist and -ism into the kitchen sink to make a point, he failed to even closely to touch upon the book itself. Instead, Cummings superficially talks about her ‘connections’ with certain people and how his friend shares his sentiments about the Pakistani Lesbian. Not once did he even hint that her life, as a Lesbian, or as a woman, might be far better in the US than in Pakistan because SHE FEELS that way. I happen to have a gay friend in Pakistan who told me there’s been zero progress made for the lives of the gay community there. What Cummings suggested, however, is that this woman must forget her life experience and focus on bashing the civilizations that promote freedom and democracy, such as US and Israel. Oh, and Rhino : you have lost your credibility when you said Isreal. I am not going into the ME debate with you also because this isn’t the topic of this article.

JCummings : Jews can be hypersensitive indeed, but as intelligent people understand, feelings are not a chosen reaction.

Posted by sks from nyc on 10/27 at 01:03 PM

My point is not differing with that in Islamic societies, Gays are oppressed. My point is that Irshad hurts efforts to build secularism in Islamic society - as evidenced by the many letters I got in regards to this piece, from as far as Iran - by associating with not only Israel, but with far-right Israel advocates like Pipes, etc She also privately claims to support the “Refusenik” movement of brave Israeli soldiers who refuse to act for Sharon’s horrifying policies, risking jail, and cribs her public persona “Muslim Refusenik” from them - yet she refuses to publicly support them or distance herself from the far-right (and decisively homophobic - rabbis were allowed to opnely assault Gay Pride marchers) Likud regime. She also refused to apply the same logic to the largely secular and nationalist Palestinian society that she does to Israel, refusing to travel there unless a very low budget activist group paid her way - and of course the Zionist lobby has more money to buy her

Again, she hurts efforts to build secularism among Arabs and Muslims by associating with right wing Zionism. While she may not realize this, many others do. And yes, SKS, Jews have reason to be hypersensitive, but what I was saying that Hollywood is continually Islamophobic - outright - but you can’t even make a Jewish villain without accusations of AntiSemitism.

Posted by j cummings from on 10/27 at 02:30 PM

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