Home

Jewish author and feminist activist Phyllis Chesler in a recent interview with The Jewish State recalled working at the U.N. in the early 1970s and experiencing anti-Semitism first-hand. At the time, she was seeking signatures for petitions against the "Zionism is Racism" resolution. She lamented the fact that many feminists chose not to lend their support for the petition.

Feminists, she said, are "ideologically Stalinized, because they don't want to bear the baggage/burden of supporting Israel, and because the PR job of demonizing Israel is so effective because so much money has gone into it."

She explained the Stalinization of feminists as them being "more concerned with the world's working people, with global poverty, with condemning imperial capitalism, colonialism, thinking it's only a Western invention, not realizing it's worldwide."

How does this relate to Israel? Israel is seen as a puppet of America and America is seen as opposing Stalinism in every way -- from politics and economics to morals and culture. America is seen as this monopolizing, globalizing, McDonald's and MTV revolution, Capitalist-imposing superpower nation -- rich and greedy, hording its wealth and resources, while people in poor, third-world nations go to sleep hungry and are unable to move up and out of squalor. Moreover, America epitomizes Western values and culture, and is seen as forcing its politics (democracy) and economics (capitalism) on underdog nations. And Israel, like America, is criticized for being a superpower. Israel has a prosperous economy, it has consistently been victorious in battles, and has one of the strongest militaries in the world.

It comes as no surprise then that along with anti-Semitism, Chesler said she "encountered anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, anti-Caucasianism, and demonization of Israel" while working on a U.N. conference for women in Oslo, Norway. Ironically, the Oslo conference, which turned into an anti-Semitic nightmare, came right before the notorious Durban Conference in Geneva -- a conference purported to be against racism.

The feminists, wrote Chesler in her book on anti-Semitism, engaged in what was "quite fashionable" by labeling Israel as a racist, imperialist, oppressive nation, not unlike formerly apartheid South Africa, and pushing its Westernization on a morally lacking, inferior people.

Chesler has published many books, but the significance of her book on anti-Semitism is her break with the hard-left feminists. She admitted being kicked-out of the feminist inner circle or clique with the publication of her book.

The hypocrisy of those feminists who purportedly believe in human rights and equality for all is that they themselves oppose the only true democracy in the Middle East, she said, and instead support regressive Arab regimes.

The feminists, said Chesler, support these discriminating Arab governments because they don't see those governments as discriminating. Rather, they condone or tolerate the governments on the basis of "cultural relativism"; that is, they feel their different, anti-Western, cruel and unfair practices should be respected and they should not judge precisely because they are different and don't want to be deemed "racist."

"So the very feminists who sign against 'Zionist equals racism,'" said Chesler, "are the ones who years later have deserted the cause of Muslim women in favor of a multi-cultural relativism that might say, 'well, you know, who are we to judge a culture if it honors, murders, or stones women to death? Everything is relative; it's tribal, it's not Islam.' For most feminists, certainly in the academy, the concern for universal human rights and women's rights as universal has been totally sacrificed to a concern of whether they can or cannot be accused of being racists."

In her book "The New Anti-Semitism," Chesler writes of a prejudice paradox. She explains that prejudice isn't always an asymmetrical hatred ("I hate you more than you hate me"). Hate can combine with love and still co-exist.

On balance, it should be noted that Chesler finds that Israeli policies discriminate against women as well (although not nearly to the degree that the nation's Arab neighbors do). For a long time she has been involved with an organization engaged in an ongoing law suit with the state of Israel and the Ministry of Religion. The complaint is by Jewish women in Jerusalem seeking equal religious rights and civil rights. "The Women of the Wall," as they are called, seek to allow women to voice their prayers together as equals with men at the Kotel, or Western Wall.

The opposition is mainly comprised of Orthodox, traditionalists who see supporters of "The Women of the Wall" as radical secularists. The reality, as is written in the book Chesler co-edited, "Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site," is that many of the women are in fact very religious Zionists, but feminists nonetheless.

As the book notes, the fact that feminists like Chesler were able to sue Israel without facing certain death (as would be the case in any other Middle East nation) and win, shows how Israel is tolerant and an upholder of justice. Moreover, the fact shows how Israel is changing in the 21st century.

Chesler spared no harsh words for the diplomats she encountered during her tenure at the U.N.

"Yes, it's the very charming, colorful, costume diplomats who beat their wives, who are polygamists, who beat and sometimes nearly murder their house slaves who they bring with them where they live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan so far away from the muddy, little beaten backwater paths that most people from their country experience. And the sexual harassment of female employees at the U.N. by these third-world tyrants, colorfully dressed, is unbelievable and there have been some lawsuits but it just continued. There's a lot of diplomatic immunity. And that's in New York. You can imagine what happens in Saudi Arabia. And you don't get the U.N. condemning Saudi Arabia for its mistreatment of Filipino servants, or for its trafficking and enslaving little boys and little girls. You get the focus only on Israel."

She continued: "In the book '1984,' Orwell wrote about Goldstein and everyone got brainwashed about Goldstein. Israel is now Goldstein. The U.N. has now legalized Goldstein in a campaign funded by first the Soviets, and then by the Arab League. The propagation that has been fueled by Israel in the UN began the day after Israel won the 1967 War."

According to Chesler, the West ignores the threats to Israel at its own peril.

"We are all Israelis!" she said. "Israel was the first," she added, to experience "homicide bombing and suicide bombings, and because the world didn't stop it, now there are homicide bombings everywhere."

And while since 9/11 America has "beefed-up its security," the U.S. could learn a lesson on airport security from its strongest ally in the Middle East, she said.

"America is not as safe at its airports as Israel is at its airports because Israel hires smart, trained people to work in its airports, not post office employee rejects," Chesler said. "Israelis look at the whole person and they figure out if he or she is likely to be threat of any kind. It's not quite profiling, it's reading, studying human behavior."

She later compared the bulk of Muslims today to the "good Germans" of Nazi Germany. She was referring to the Germans who turned the other cheek, that is, those who didn't actively participate in the mass extermination of Jews, but didn't stop what was done either, and thus were complicit in their observer status. These Germans weren't willing to risk death at a chance to save a Jew, but didn't necessarily condone what Hitler had in mind and weren't rushing to sign up to become Nazis. And yet, these Germans were eager to "profit" from their Jewish neighbors suddenly without a home. Like those same "good Germans," many Muslims chose not to speak out or act out for fear of losing their life.

She ended her comments with an anecdote.

"The other night at dinner I was with some very smart people, one of whom knows a great deal about anti-Semitism and he has not changed his point of view. When I mentioned a recent monograph or article... my host said, 'oh, pooh, pooh, don't be hysterical. There's no need for alarm. It's not as bad as it used to be. Things are OK.'"

"I'm thinking, he is out of touch. He is more afraid than I am of what the Jew haters or terrorists might do. He is so afraid that he needs to deny it. He's OK, we're OK, not to worry. Psychologically speaking, that means he can't live with such fear; he can't face random death and random hatred in the eye. He needs to have a world that's orderly and that there are reasons, there are ways of understanding things and ways of working things out. No, evil is not understandable and it does not yield to reason or to facts or to goodness."