Tea at Trianon: Israel vs. Hamas: Where Have All the Feminists Gone?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Israel vs. Hamas: Where Have All the Feminists Gone?

From Larry Elder at Chronicles:

Black Lives Matter portrayed George Floyd, a black man who died after being subdued by a white cop, as a blatant example of police anti-black “systemic racism.” Never mind that the lead prosecutor, a black man, said, “I wouldn’t call it [a hate crime] because hate crimes are crimes where there’s an explicit motive and of bias. We don’t have any evidence that [defendant] Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.” Yet, Floyd’s death sparked four months of “civil rights” protests. The New York Times, in July 2020, wrote: “… about 15 million to 26 million people in the United States have participated in demonstrations over the death of George Floyd and others in recent weeks. These figures would make the recent protests the largest movement in the country’s history …” Yet, this year in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, 53 mostly black people were shot, including two toddlers, and 11 people fatally shot. And this does not include a victim stabbed to death. Black Lives Matter’s silence suggests black lives only matter when killed by non-black lives.

This brings us to the deafening silence by women’s rights/feminist groups over the murder of an estimated 1,200 Israelis, including the rape, mutilation and kidnapping of Israeli women and girls by Hamas, a State Department-designated terror organization. In April 2014, Boko Haram, another State Department-designated terror organization, kidnapped 276 Nigerian schoolgirls, aged 16 to 18 years old. First Lady Michelle Obama said, “This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education—grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls.” Yet, May Golan, Minister for the Advancement of the Status of Women in Israel, said she asked Obama to comment on Hamas’ brutality. Golan said, “Not a word. And we approached her …”

Where’s the outrage by Planned Parenthood? The Women’s March? National Organization of Women? Emily’s List? Two months after Hamas’ massacre, NOW released a statement with this headline, “NOW condemns the use of rape as a weapon of war.” No mention of Hamas. No mention of Israel. (Read more.)

Also from Chronicles:

One can understand why Hillary Clinton may be hesitant to say much about rape—given her husband’s history with accusations of sexual assault. But where are all those Hollywood celebrities with their tweets of outrage? I thought progressive women loyally and stalwartly supported other women who are victims of sexual violence.

Doesn’t anyone remember the Women’s March in D.C. the day after President Trump was inaugurated in 2017? Half a million card-carrying progressive feminists put on their pink pussy hats to march in protest of the new Trump administration, specifically because of his abusive rhetoric about women. Madonna, always the voice of reason, proclaimed that she fantasized about blowing up the White House, while Ashley Judd declared herself a “nasty woman” in response to vulgar comments made by Donald Trump “expressing the freedom he felt to grab women’s genitals.”

Never mind the important suggestion of consent in Trump’s actual comments (“And when you’re a star, they let you do it.”). Sexual misconduct involving women had to be called out and opposed, wherever and whenever! Even if that sexual misconduct purportedly happened 30 years ago in a changing room of a Bergdorf Goodman’s department store and was reported by a woman who just recently remembered it as she was empowered by progressive donors for the purpose. And never mind if those same donors organized an influence campaign to convince the state of New York to change the statute of limitations by special session to allow this one lawsuit to proceed, though for only a 12-month period. We must believe all women!

But when pregnant Israeli women are raped and have their pelvises broken because of the intensity of the sexual violence by Hamas … crickets.

On Sunday, Squad member Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the House Progressive Caucus, lowered the veil to reveal her conditional stance on rape. When asked why progressives were silent over Hamas rapes of Israeli women, Jayapal stated that sexual violence should be condemned but that “we have to be balanced” in our condemnation, whatever that means. She then quickly shifted into a classic example of both sides-ism, scolding Israel for the death toll in Gaza. Victim blaming is apparently okay when the victims belong to an ethnic group historically at odds with her own.

What a pathetic, cynical, shameful ploy. What is clear to me is that progressives only care about rape and sexual violence against women when it can be used a cudgel against the likes of Donald Trump or his Supreme Court appointees. To paraphrase Whoopi Goldberg excusing Roman Polanski, it apparently isn’t “rape-rape” when Hamas does it—and when Israeli women probably deserved it anyway!

Again and again, “Believe all women,” #metoo, and other examples of the left’s hashtag activism demonstrate that progressive sloganeering about sexual violence is pure politics meant to manipulate female voters into believing that Democrat policies protect women. The tragic thing is that for too many American female voters it seems to work. (Read more.)