The Unsettling Email from The Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute wrote:

"Sharia Islamic law is an elaborate legal system created to guarantee there is no defection from the Berlin Wall of the Muslim State. It subscribes to punishments such as stoning, flogging, and amputation of limbs—cruel and unusual by any human standards."
– Nonie Darwish

A few weeks ago I ordered a conservative ladies calendar from The Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute so I could hang it in the BuyBlue office and we could all take turns defacing it. Now I am on the mailing list for The Institute and the half-truth propaganda just oozes from the infection that occasionally contaminates my inbox.

The latest installment is about how an actual real-life Muslim woman who writes books about her loyalty to Israel and the US was the hapless victim of crusties from female Muslim students while she gave a speech about Islamic law that mandates intense violence and subjugation against women. Apparently poor little Darwish was confused by the students' lack of enthusiasm to rally behind a Muslim who makes her living as an advocate of terror and tyranny.

Here is a great example of Ms Darwish's generalizing of Islam.

The email reads as thus:

Recently I (Darwish) spoke at Wellesley College and a large number of female members of the Muslim Student Association attended. As I described the plight of seven Iranian women awaiting death by stoning for sexual violations, I saw no compassion towards their sisters in Islam. I saw only rigid faces and hardened, unsympathetic hearts. Some even made faces at me as I spoke. These young educated Muslim women live in America under the protection of the U.S. Constitution, far removed from the harsh realities of Sharia law I experienced.

I lived in the Middle East under Family Sharia for 30 years and witnessed its cruel and inhumane treatment of women. When I was a teenager, our maid (who was my age) was pregnant as a result of forced (as opposed to *un*forced???) rapes by her boss at the home where she previously worked. My mother, who did not want to send her back to her family because of the possibility she would be killed, sent her to a government facility. A year later, we learned the young maid was killed by her father and brother to protect the family honor.

I witnessed female genital mutilation (and did nothing about it while you were witnessing it?), a common practice that my mother and almost all her generation were forced to endure. I also witnessed polygamy and its devastating effect on family dynamics, husband-wife relationships, women-to-women relationships, and the upbringing of children ...

Indeed I agree, as any thinking human being with two functional hemispheres would, that these atrocities are in the category of psychotic control issues and anyone who perpetrates such things is permanently damaged. I don't know what sort of justice could possibly be done for the victims of such crimes against humanity. That being said, I could understand why she who writes books about supporting Israel and the US policy that feeds it would get nasty looks from Muslim women. For Ms Darwish to selectively preach about human rights violations when she champions two of the biggest human rights abusers in the world is hypocritical and worthy of a lot more than some loathsome facial articulations.

Also from the email:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nonie Darwish, the daughter of a high-ranking Egyptian army officer, was raised in Cairo and Gaza. She is founder of ArabsforIsrael.com and author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.
The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute’s mission is to prepare women for effective leadership and to promote leading conservative women. Policy Express is designed to deliver concise, fact-filled policy briefs authored by the best contemporary thinkers on today’s hottest topics and issues.

Here is my response:

Hello,

I am saddened to read about the terrible human rights violations perpetrated in the name of religion and control. I'm so glad that 'America Under God' does not practice such acts against women as depicted in the Old Testament like Deuteronomy. Praise Jesus we pick and choose what to follow in the bible and that we do not stone women for breaking the holy law. Given our high divorce rates, we would certainly have to stone most wives of our righteous Republican leaders both during and after their tenure as conservative kept-companions!

The issue here seems to be that though the Islamic students at Wellesley were "stone" faced during Nonie Darwish's hollow pleas, it was more likely due to the fact that they could smell a rat than it was that they are unsympathetic to oppression. It is Ms Darwish is the real rat. To support Israel's human rights violations funded by its daily welfare check of $6,800,000.00 from American taxpayers ---a check that exceeds the welfare budget of America's own stigmatized and confused people by 5.67 times, is traitorous not only to Islam, but to also to Christ and the compassion he intended to teach to everyone.

Your crusading efforts to plant the seeds of hate and holy war is vile and plainly evident. How dare you pick THIS to get on your soapbox and try to convince your little echo chamber that you care about women. Your own country in the name of your religion murdering, mutilating and shaming women all around the globe with foreign and domestic policies. Maybe if you poked your head out of your isolationist couture tea-parties you would see that the only reason you are as well off as you are is because of the blood that was shed for the profit your care-takers stole. Get your priorities straight or else you look like a hypocrite.

I will help you with your new priorities.

First on the list: large and multinational corporations fueled by their neo-conservative welfare queens in office.

-sufimarie