Battered Women, Si; America-Haters, No

Fellow Americans: Prepare to receive the entire female population of Pakistan sometime soon. And that's just for starters. I don't oppose this—but I honestly don't know if we can economically afford to do it. Given the recession/depression, I rather doubt we can. But get ready for something like this to happen anyway.

Today, the Obama administration reversed a Bush-era policy and opened the way for "foreign women who are victims of severe domestic beatings and sexual abuse to receive asylum in the United States." The battered women will have to meet "strict conditions for asylum" and will also have to show that "domestic abuse is widely tolerated in their country…that they could not find protection from institutions at home or by moving to another place within their own country."

Studies show that 50-90% of Pakistani women are routinely beaten, even when they are pregnant, and that daughter-beating and wife-beating are not considered crimes. Pakistani men will sometimes publicly gang-rape a young girl in order to falsely "avenge" another crime committed by a member of their own clan; be-head, throw acid at, or burn alive a girl or woman who has offended their family or political-religious honor; they will marry a ten-year-old daughter to a fifty-year-old man in order to settle a debt, or to receive a small sum of money. In Pakistan, most honor killings of girls and women are not prosecuted either. In one study, my own, first published in Middle East Quarterly, almost half the honor murders perpetrated in the West were perpetrated by Pakistani men or Pakistani families.

I know, I know: Male domestic violence is a global phenomenon. Why single out one country—isn't that "racist" or "Islamophobic" and doesn't that suggest that all Pakistani Muslims are batterers or tend to batter women more than, let's say, Christian-American men do?

But they do. They are trained to do so. Their culture has normalized woman-battering while the Big Bad West has actually gone and criminalized it, tried to shelter its victims and prosecute their persecutors. True, we have done so rather late in the day and in an imperfect way. But this level of progress does not exist in the Arab Middle East, Africa, or central Asia where even honor murders are accepted, rarely reported as such, even more rarely prosecuted, and where reduced sentences apply to this but to no other crime.

A friend, who insists upon anonymity, has suggested a campaign of sorts. He was not thinking of battered Pakistani women as candidates for asylum but now I am.

Apparently, the Obama Administration has also just declared its intention to allow Palestinians from Iraq and from Gaza into the United States. It is unclear whether such Palestinians are among those who cheered on 9/11, participated in the killing of American soldiers or Israeli civilians—or are themselves, human rights and feminist activists who have been censored, arrested, tortured, and persecuted by Hamas, by the Palestinian Authority, or by their own families. Here is a copy of the letter he wants people to send to their Senators. Think about doing so:

To the Honorable X:

I would like to bring to your attention several disturbing issues that have upset me and many of my friends. The United States is about to allow in people from the Middle East that will bring their violence to our shores. Instead of allowing this, we should focus on saving people who are fighting for human rights, pro-western and are at risk for having these beliefs.

First, I recently heard that the US Government will be allowing Palestinians from Gaza to immigrate to the US. For more information see: President Obama has written Presidential Determination No. 2009-15 of January 27, 2009 which is entitled Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs Related To Gaza, Memorandum for the Secretary of State. He has allocated "$20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs…"

Second, I was shocked and disappointed to find out that we are also going to accept, en mass, 1350 Iraqi Palestinians to Southern California this fall, according to the Christian Science Monitor. These are the same people who cheered for Saddam during the 1991 War and cheered for Saddam during the 2003 Gulf War. They also cheered when one of Saddam's SCUD missiles struck Riyadh and killed 27 and injured 98 of our soldiers and brought terror to Israel by firing over 40 missiles. It is ironic that the Jews were reminded of Hitler's war machine again during the 1991 Gulf War since the SCUD missiles were advanced versions of the V-2 rocket developed by Nazi scientists and used to attack London and England during WWII.

The Wall Street Journal, noted that; "During the Gulf War in 1991, they danced on rooftops in praise of Iraqi Scud missiles raining on Israeli neighborhoods. Again, in the mid-1990s, after bus bombs in Israel killed dozens….an estimated 70,000 Palestinians filled a Gaza stadium to cheer a reenactment of the massacre. The deaths of over 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11 was another cause for dancing in Palestinian streets, though Arafat's men suppressed foreign coverage of the fete." Even YouTube captures the Palestinians cheering the 9/11 attack.

Are we so quick to forget? I am opposed taking in people who are inimical to our way of life. Furthermore, sending them to southern California where the second largest concentration of American Jews live is outrageous. I would expect the violence that they would bring and that could erupt from this group of Palestinians to be unacceptable. Why is the US taking in Iraqi Palestinians when the rest of Arab world has hardly lifted their fingers to help them? Has any Arab country offered to help? After all, the money that the oil rich countries have could be used to help their own instead of being spent on their lavish lifestyles.

If we are going to allow people into our country, I suggest we do not bring hateful people to our shores but we save Palestinians who are for human rights, are pro-western, and are at risk for having these beliefs.

I look forward to hearing from you on this important matter.

Thanks.

Name

Here's Phyllis speaking again. And by the way folks: A battered woman can also be an America-hater–and she can believe that she deserves to be beaten. Studies show that as well. Ponder it all. Have a magnificent weekend.