Balanced? Historical whitewashing is balanced? From the Evening Sun of Hanover, PA, with thanks to The Informed Christian:
The Junior League secured the American-born fourth wife of the late King Hussein to help celebrate its 75th anniversary as the guest speaker at 7 p.m. May 4 at the Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center."She is timely because of the Middle East situation," said Angelina Giuffrida, chair of the speakers' series. "She and her husband always stood for peace. She is an exemplary role model for women."...
Queen Noor knows of the Junior League's interests. She will speak on her choice of topics, Benedict said.
And that's what worries Barry Morrison, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Philadelphia.
"She is totally immersed in the anti-Israel myths of the Middle East," Morrison said. "She shows a very narrow, limited understanding of the history of the conflict between the Jews and Palestinians."
He said her views are divorced from reality.
The Junior League has a right to invite Queen Noor and provide her with a platform, Morrison said. He is concerned about what she chooses to speak about.
In a 2000 speech at the Medical Aid for Palestinians Fundraising Dinner, Queen Noor spoke of the brutal, barbaric Israeli aggressors who massacred Palestinian refugees in 1982 at Sabra and Shatilla. She closed her speech with, "Enshallah, God willing, the next time we meet we will be celebrating our victories, the victories of the Palestinian people."
For the truth on Sabra and Shatilla, see here.
In her 2003 book, "Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life," Queen Noor states that Jews, Muslims and Christians lived peacefully in the Middle East for centuries before the rise of Zionism and the creation of Israel.That just isn't true, Morrison said. No church or synagogue in the Middle East can be taller than a mosque because the Christian and Jewish religions are considered lesser than Islam, he said.
"The views she espouses are troubling to us," Morrison said. "We are concerned about what her message is in York."
Giuffrida was aware of Noor's bias. But, she said, Noor speaks from her perspective, and also criticized Arafat's conduct in Palestine.
"I found her to be balanced," Giuffrida said.
As a good (American) muslim women she would't bite the hand that feeds her... She eats and drinks in good Muslim fashion, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that she sings and sounds like them as well. Why would she stick her neck out?
I guess the silly crown-constricted twit forgets "Black September", when Jordan was attacked by their "refugee" "Palestinians" - who were trying to get a foothold in her deceased husband's kingdom, and the Jordanians had to slaughter their brothers in Allah to stop this "the other Palestine" land grab.
But then History is a dirty diaper wrapped around a forgetful noggin full of air, in her case.
In'shallow.
Only the Arabs know how to deal with other Arabs:
.
How about the Syrians? When was it that Hafez Assad had something like an Islamic Revolution on his hand that he flattened a large township inside Damascus? Some 20.000 residents buried under the rubble in a single night, which became a parking place. Muslim brothers know better: They know each other! And the reporters report the "right " stuff, otherwise they are shot.
And our boys in Iraq protect some "embedded" dickhead,- filming them pop off a piece of scum and bingo: Put the fire out with gasoline! All the world is up in arms about bloody murder!? I say: Take no prisoners boys, if you let them live another day they'll get you and YOU wanna make it home! don't give 'em a second chance, you know what they would do to you??!!
Oh heavens, many of the lovely women of the Junior League will believe anything told them and never miss a chance to schmooze with quasi-nobility as long as they get their pictures in the newspaper and don't drop spinach dip on their best Lily Ann garb. (Former JL member!) LOL
The popularity of Noor Halaby Hussein's book reflects only the deep desire of the Western public to believe pap about the Middle East. How comforting it must be to have a soigne woman -- she hasn't been mistreated by anyone in the stores on Fifth Avenue or the via Condotti, has she? -- let the world know that once upon a time (not a fairy-tale princess, but a princess telling fairy-tales) in the Middle East, believers in the three brotherly abrahamic faiths, in the three monotheisms, were really just -- The Three Amigos!
That's right, they all got along as swimmingly as Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short did when they came to see justice done in rural Mexico from ay! los banditos!.
"Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived peacefully" -- how true. For the Jews and the Christians, it was the peace of dhimmitude, of living as permanent humiliated and degraded residents of a Muslim polity, where Infidels were in every important respect subject to a host of disablities, legal, financial, political, social, and at no time could be described even by that misleading phrase "second class citizens" because they were not "citizens" of a Muslim polity at all, but allowed to live only as long as they did not -- nor even one of their number, for that could trigger a perceived collective guilt that could be dealt with summarily -- violate the terms that, as "Protected Peoples" (as certain bars were "protected" by Al Capone and his enforcers in Chicago, in the Roaring Twenties), they were required to observe.
Noor's Arab version of Lady Di is wearing thin; her views are ridiculous, and the good Main Line ladies who invited her really ought not to sell themselves so short, but to invite not a Manolo-Blahnik bland propagandist, but perhaps someone rather more sober, shall we say -- from the Foreign Policy Institute just down the street?
Yes, I know it is easy to make fun of the Junior League. But not everyone who lists her Dilatory Domicile is a dope; some are charming and intelligent. (See Spackman's "An Armful of Warm Girl"). There were members of the Junior League who early sized up Hitler for what he was, and some even did something about it. In other words, why have the members of the Junior League fallen for this? What's next? A talk by John Esposito? Or perhaps matinee-idol Tariq Ramadan, someone to swoon for as he ladles out his taqiyya in cardamom-flavored droplets?
Let the Junior League members come armed with study of Qur'an and hadith and sira, and ask, demurely and sweetly, perhaps one shy questioner fingering her pearls, what "Your Majesty [oh, god, must that form of address be used for such a common commoner, this airline executive's perfectly ordinary, utterly banal and vacuous but of course best-selling daughter?] thinks about the value of negotiations, since apparently no Muslims are allowed to make a permanent peace treaty with any Infidels -- because that's what Muhammad lay down -- but that a temporary truce could be allowed in order for the Muslim side to be stronger?"
Or ask her when she thinks the "Palestinian people" were invented, and whether she knows of any use of that phrase, applied to the local Arabs, prior to the 1967 war? Oh, and while we're at it, you over there -- almost a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn -- why don't you ask her if the "Palestinian people" were so eager for their own state, why didn't the Jordanians give them a state between 1948 and 1967, when they had the chance?
I think, if everyone does his homework -- kindly buy, read, and memorize Samuel Katz's "Battleground" and do NOT forget to read the actual provisions of the Mandate for Palestine, including the Preamble -- it could be quite a session. Not what the Queen, or the propaganda and p.r. groups behind her, expect. Not at all.
C'mon Junior League. Pitch in. No one is asking you to wade through the gore of Fallujah. But you cannot, either, be dim dollies for the propaganda wing of the Jihad, that would prefer that we all believe that there absolutely nothing wrong with the tenets or attitudes or atmospherics of Islam, and that is all just a matter of our support of the Mighty Empire of Israel, that with 0.2% of the land area of the members of the Arab League, apparently doth bestride the Middle East like a colossus.
And remember, you Junior League members who are docents at Anne D'Harnoncourt's museum, or who just like to visit from time to time this or that museum or monument -- what would happen to all those sculptures, and all those paintings, under Islam -- the very Islam that Queen Noor, in her amiable plausibility and practiced taqiyya, is helping to protect and to promote, even if she does not herself quite realize what she is all about. She's just been downgraded, and so have her children -- the result of court intrigues by the even better-looking "Palestinian" wife of King Abdullah (don't worry, Junior League, while his features are much coarser than those of his liquid-eyed father, the "plucky little king" so favored by so many journalists (Alan Clark, however, called him "oily"), did go to Deerfield -- was even on the wrestling team.
Let the Marines and the people in the Reserves and the National Guard take care of one aspect of the Jihad. As far as the propaganda wing, there -- Junior Leaguers -- there you have a responsibility to help out. Simply by raising some unpleasant truths, and not letting Noor get away with her nonsense and plausible lies.
Hugh - Once again, thanks for the tips!
Hugh, perhaps you would considering donning a tasteful wig and even more tasteful pearls in order to do some questioning yourself? Take a camcorder, too.
I admire Dame Edna, but I don't think it suits me. And what would Chamfort say if he were alive? En draguant les femmes, il faut que le corps se.... well, you get the idea. It just wouldn't work
You know what they used to say about the blacks in the South. No, they're just fine. Not bothered by slavery, then Jim Crow. No, nothing bothering them. They're out there without a care in the world.
So that is a good example of Queen Noor's perspective about the Ottoman Empire. Oh, everyone got along just fine.
Of course it's a bunch of crap. The Ottomans permitted the Jews to live there if they just paid extra taxes for protection. But, no the Jews were never bothered by this or by the other shakedowns or persecutions. No, everyone got along just fine.
Either the Jews put up with this treatment or they left. What were they going to do. Call the ADL. Jews had a choice. Either put up with 3rd class status or leave. So they put up with the 3rd class status.
Now I believe Queen Noor has a right to present her case. But its a case that falls apart with any scrutiny.
One night on Larry King Live Queen Noor claimed Paul Anka was a Arab-American that has contributed to the USA in a positive way,Paul Anka
was born in Ottawa Canada and became know for his teen-Idol image in Canada.
His song "Diana" launched his career and he moved to the USA and toured various States,he recently appeared on a TV special in Canada
that was filmed in Ottawa since that's his home town.
I emailed the show to correct the Queen's
assertion but never got a response,too often Arabs and Muslims aren't called up on their misinformation expressed on public TV or media in general.