WWII Survivors and their Descendents Oppose Israel's Treatment of Palestinians

*Trigger warning for psychological after-effects on war survivors

As I allude to in this blog's description, I am a woman of multiple causes, one of them being the Israel/Palestine conflict. As a result of being pro-Palestinian, I inevitably discovered Norman Finkelstein, and I have read several of his books and have attended two speeches. It would take an entirely different post to detail my respect and admiration of this man, but that's for another day. I frequent his website and there is an excerpt of a political memoir he's writing. The excerpt focuses on his mother, who survived the holocaust. For the sake of brevity, I have placed in ellipses those parts not relevant to what I want to discuss.

Every night as we watched the news on television my mother would avert her eyes and raise her hand to block the screen when scenes from Vietnam flashed across it. After a few moments the question would invariably come: "Is it over yet?" Not at all given to self-dramatization, she simply couldn't endure the scenes of destruction and death. ... My mother's whole being revolted against it. ...

"Rape By Deception" is that by the Israeli Court System

*Trigger warning for abuse of a rape victim by the court system

So I might be a little late on this, but I'm adding my two cents anyway. According to BBC News, it turns out that that whole rape by deception case in Israel is not as many of us had previously thought.

This was in fact a "real" rape charge where the girl in question had to be taken to the hospital, bleeding and bruised and half-naked. This girl had also been sexually abused by her father since the age of six, forced into sexual slavery, and had been living in a women's shelter when she met Sabbar Kashur. She had felt safe with him, and had hoped for a relationship, not sex. So where does the rape by deception part come in? A plea bargain.

Yeah. Rather than face full sentence, Kashur took the plea bargain sentence of eighteen months in prison on the charge of "rape by deception". Thus, the whole she-cried-rape-when-it-turned-out-he-wasn't-Jewish crap came not from her at all, but from the courts.

The Real Reasons Men Should Speak Up For Choice

My boyfriend recently directed me to a Salon article entitled Why men need to speak up about abortion. He felt it was lacking and that I could do a better job. I don't know if that's true, but I can certainly say what I think is lacking in the article.

The title itself is rather ambiguous; is the author calling for men to speak against abortion, in favour of choice, or simply to talk about it either way? The content of the article, however, is indeed pro-choice with the author claiming to owe his life to his mother's previous abortion, without which she would never have become pregnant with him. The author also acknowledges that his immature response to his girlfriend's abortion proved that he wasn't at all ready to raise a child. Not bad content. Here's what's lacking: the author seems to feel that abortion shouldn't "just" be a "female issue" since men are affected by it as well, as though if men were somehow not affected by it, it would be a perfectly justifiable reason for them not to give a shit. The fact that young men have to pay higher insurance for vehicles sure as hell doesn't affect me for the worse, yet I'm still in favour of abolishing that rule. Why? Well it might just have to do with that little thing called equality. But Goddess forbid a man should have the ability to keep his privilege in check enough to care about an issue that affects men less than women, let alone one that affects only women. But hey, at least he's trying right? And that's why I won't go too hard on him.

Welcome

New to this, but after posting most of my rants on deviantart.com for Goddess knows how long, I feel confident to make a start at this now. Ironically, I only found out about the feminist blogosphere after an argument with the first MRA (men's rights activist) I had ever encountered, so I thank him for his idiocy.

The concept behind the Feminist wing is that on the political spectrum I don't believe that feminist concerns are properly presented. Certainly not by the Right, and not by the centre, and although most feminists, including myself, identify with the Left, it really isn't sympathetic enough to our concerns either, as is proven most recently by the Julian Assange case, but also when leftist men sexually objectify women like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Condoleeza Rice, etc. We need a new political wing. No, not just a party, but an entire wing devoted to feminist concerns. Will there be a lot of overlap with the Left? Sure there will be, but also plenty of disagreement, such as on the age of consent and how we deal with heroes who are accused of a crime. The Feminist wing could contain several parties, some extremist, some religious, some environmental, you name it. But again, all of them would be feminist. I don't know how realistic this idea of mine is and it may be better to improve the Left. I don't know. I do know, however, that when it comes to feminism the Left currently isn't good enough, so I do want to get discussion rolling.

I think that's about all I have to say for this post. I am first and foremost an anti-sexual assault activist, so most of my posts will involve that.