Don't get me wrong, I'm against the stoning of that Iranian woman for adultery, I'm against her lashing, I'm for women's liberation in Iran, I don't like the limitation on women's roles in Egypt and Gaza.
And more than anything else, I believe that men should be able to dress as they please without social pressure to cover themselves up-- even if that means letting their tresses flap in the breeze.
But was it really necessary for the Iranian woman's lawyer, Mohammad Mostafei, at right, to appear at a press conference with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (l) and dashing philosophe manque roue Bernard-Henri Levy (center)? BHL is a ridiculous character who discredits everything he goes near these days, with his shallow shaggy ideology of Islamofascism and his support for the Iraq war. And Israel of course is always pure as the driven sands.... Au secours! [Photo by AP]
[Update: thanks to many commenters for improving my French!]
Quit stoning women, leave Israel alone!
link to youtube.com
BHL is a regular fixture at HuffPo lately. They seem to be giving a concerted platform to some of the staunchest Zionists and Israel firsters, ie Dershowitz, David Harris and others.
huffpoo is just that… a lot of huff and poo and not much else…
Kind of does undermine the whole case. This case should have been all about the Iranian woman and the injustice done to here. Henri-Levy is simply going to exploit the case as an excuse to push for war with Iran (fuel for the US at any rate, I don’t think Europe is idiotic enough to get sucked into any preemptive strikes).
I really hate it how women are objectified in the West. Yes, women operation under strict Middle Eastern cultures like Iran are oppressed, but the oppression is borne out of a notion that women deserve and must maintain a level of dignity. In the west, a woman isn’t a woman unless her bra size meets a minimum requirements and you can see at least half of the surface area of her skin directly.
With Israel now flogging its artists, their position on this issue is less than firm. More and more, the place is looking like Saudi Israelia.
Sacre coeur! For a moment I thought your headline was referring ONLY to Monsieur Bernard Levy! The hair, the shirt, unbuttoned!
He looks like he suddenly rushed out to join the photo-op from a broom-room somewhere to his right! Yikes!
Seriously folks, what the hell was he doing five minutes before this photo was taken?!
He’s from France, Taxi. You do the math. ;)
Who imposed these limitations on women’s “roles” in Egypt? It was none other than Mubarak, Washington’s BFF.
Anyway, I yearn for the day when a Rabbi will not impose a 39-lash sentence on someone who merely performs in front of a mixed crowd.
I yearn for the day when east European and Russian women will not be sold as slaves and sex workers while the Israeli government looks the other way.
I yearn for the day when trafficking in human organs will meet a harsh rebuke by the Israeli government instead of a slap on the wrist.
Oh, really, BHL, shut up, button up, lose the merkin, and go read some more “Botul”:
“More recently, in the essay De la guerre en philosophie (2010), Lévy was embarrassed when he used, as a central point of his refutation of Kant, the writings of French “philosopher” Jean-Baptiste Botul. The Times dubbed him a “laughing stock.” It turned out that Botul’s writings are actually well-known as spoofs and that Botul himself is the fictional creation of a French living journalist and philosopher, Frédéric Pagès” [http://en.wikipedia.org]
It seems the whole story about stoning to death is nonsense. Here is a comment by b (Bernhardt) formerly of moonofalabama.com posted at Pat Lang’s sic semper tyranis blog.
“There is a lot of propaganda around this story and hardly a fact reported in the western media.
From what I gathered:
1. The woman was sentenced by a low court for aiding and abetting to murder her husband and for adultery and the punishment of stoning to death.
But in July the highest Iranian court judged that this was invalid and that the lower courts opinion was false.
There simply is no case anymore against that woman for adultery and there is no legal sentence of stoning her to death. It simply doesn’t exist anymore.
2. There is a sentence against the woman for aiding and abetting to the murder of her husband. That sentence is to 10 years of prison.
So far the facts.
Since 2002 stoning is abolished in Iran. While it is still on the books, it is no longer used.
Stoning:
The Iranian judiciary officially placed a moratorium on stoning in 2002, although the punishment remained on the books, and there were a few cases of Judges handing down stoning sentences in 2006 and 2007 [21] In 2008, Iran’s judiciary decided to fully scrap the punishment from the books in a legislation submitted to parliament for approval.[22] As of June 2009, Iran’s parliament has been reviewing and revising the Islamic penal code to omit stoning as a form of punishment.[23]
…
In July 2010, the Iranian judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad was quoted as saying “Stoning has been dropped from the penal code for a long time, and in the Islamic republic, we do not see such punishments being carried out”, further adding that if stoning sentences were passed by lower courts, they were over-ruled by higher courts and “no such verdicts have been carried out.”[26]
A crazy judgment by a lower court is certainly not something unusual even in the U.S.
So what is all the fuzz about if not for simple Iran bashing to prepare the public for war against Iran?”
Posted by: b | 06 September 2010 at 08:16 AM
lysander – thanks for the backdrop on this…
obviously this is just another fairly blatant attempt to bring on armageddon thru a war on iran… nothing else makes sense… look for sucess catering to the ignorant.. it worked with the war on iraq…
Couple of relvant points
1-Kouchner was the second choice after the first choice ( as FM) was declared persona non grta by Jewish lobby .Was not also he for a different reason denounced by Medicine without Border?
2-Levy has a dark side ( actually has more) with African trade.
3-It is intersting to see women oppression so endemic in US?UK -sponsored countries like Pakistan,Kuwait,Saudi,Egypt and to some extent in Azerbaizan.
4-The anti-Ottoman “Young Turks” were vilified and maligned by UK/France in the Arab world for bringing education and science and liberation of women.Same was done to Tipu Sultan in India for his effort of modernization ( Tipu was hailed as the father of Missile science by Indian President Abdul Kalam). The growth of moderinty was the greatest threat to Europe ,now the US has chosen a path akin to that .
RE:”I believe that men should be able to dress as they please without social pressure to cover themselves up– even if that means letting their tresses flap in the breeze.” – Weiss
EMILY POST SEZ (posthumously): Heavens to Betsy!
RE: “dashing philosophe manque roue Bernard Henri-Levy (center)” – Weiss
MY COMMENT: It looks as though he needs help buttoning his shirt! Meanwhile, they deport the Roma.
BBC News ~ France sends Roma Gypsies back to Romania – link to bbc.co.uk
I believe what I see here is a kind of Israeli human rights psyop campaign against Iran.
“stoning of that Iranian woman for adultery”
I think, it should be mentioned, that this woman confessed to have helped to kill her husband. I think, it also should be mentioned, that Press TV reported that the Iranian legal body is likely to convert the sentence to something different than stoning, because stoning is considered a cruel punishment. The Iranian way to prevent stoning is to make the proof hurdle so high, that it never shall happen in reality. As far as I know, the last time it reportedly happen was in 2002.
My impression at the moment is, that this case is used for a faulty psyop against Iran and the Israeli mouth pieces Bernard Henri-Levy and Bernard Kouchner support this impression. I don’t wonder that the imprisoned woman said she feels betrayed by her lawyer. She wanted a criminal defense, but found herself in the mid of a political struggle – on the side of the apartheid state Israel.
Don’t get me wrong, I am against death punishment and cruel punishment like lashing. I don’t know, if this woman had such a really ugly husband that he more or less deserved death. Maybe, if I would be the judge, I would leave the murder of her husband completely unpunished. Maybe. Maybe not. But I would definitely look into the details of the case. Under president Ahmadinejad not one stoning was carried out – shouldn’t he be hailed for this?
“tout wrongee” indeed, though you haven’t mentioned he was also wearing a black suit (!)…this may pale in comparison to his love affair with the IDF, but still beyond the “pale”..
What’s more, it happens that I just caught them on French TV rushing to a press conference. Bernard-Henri was giving ‘ la bise’ , (a kiss on the cheeks) to all those he met..
A l’aide indeed..
TGIA, looks like you’re the only here that knew where to properly insert that hyphen in the bozo’s name. As to his hanging around Mohammad Mostafei, it’s for political capital in the anti-Iran campaign he’s actively pursuing. Mostafei was the one that for some unknown reason sent the picture to the newspspaper that earned Ashtiani the 90 lashes but he won’t be doing much lawyering on behalf of anyone in Iran since he is a fugitive from the Iranian justice that already has his wife under arrest. He fled Iran on July 24th and crossed into Turkey on horseback where he was arrested and jailed for illegal entry for about a week. The day of his release, he was whisked away by Europeans that warned him that his life was in danger and Oslo immediately gave him political asylum. At this point he is of zero help to the condemned woman and only Lévy the opportunist is getting any mileage from him.
1-Serge Halimi, BHL: ‘Romanquete’ ou mauvaise enquete?, Le Monde Diplomatique Decembre 2003
BHL supporting armed aggressiona aginst Nicaraguan Government.
2- Maurice Lemoine, Desinformation-Spectacle: La Colombie Selon Bernard-Henri Levy, Le Monde Diplomatique, Juin 2001
BHL castgating FARC but conveneintly shielding Colombian paramilitray rightwing Gov.
Any israeli angle?
You bet.Sandinista gor rid of vile Israeli connection and arms dealing after coming to power and Paramilitary was tarined by Israel and arms to rightwing was sold by Israel.
Also see-http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu:81/LOR0506067g.html
Levy a fervent sympatizer to Massoud of NA of Afghanistan was doing same thing ( cutting limbs off and stoning women ) when Massoud was in power!link to indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu:81
The book on unfortunate Daniel Pearl by BHL was an exercise in vile racial attack on Pakistanis and on islam.
911 allowed a great many opportunist’s dream come to fruition.Media amde this guy .He was created by the necessity of the neocons to have a “foreign sounding “name with French connection to add legitimacy to the islamophobia. We got so many experts on Iraq, on Iran, on Islam, on ME created by media . He is just another drivel.Even his teacher wont identify with him.
Good post. BTW, it’s la chemise, as this is a feminine noun.
From Wikipedia: “Lévy is, with his third wife, a regular fixture in Paris Match magazine, wearing his trademark unbuttoned white shirts and designer suits. Some have attributed to Lévy a reputation for narcissism. One article about him coined the dictum, “God is dead but my hair is perfect.” He once said that the discovery of a new shade of grey left him “ecstatic.” He is a regular victim of the “pie thrower” Noël Godin, who describes Lévy as “a vain, pontificating dandy”.
zing!
Yes, BHL is quite the roque starre
And women’s rights are the new cause célèbre for people who normally couldn’t care less about them when they can’t be used for their purposes.
Like genocides, “Womens’ rights aren’t womens’ rights unless they can be used politically, duh”, to paraphrase someone else here (don’t remember who)
I would share this snippet from James Wolcott ( VF ,Aug 2005 )
-Roger L. Simon,( PAJAMAS media) August 16: “Women’s rights are the very center of the War on Terror. In fact I would argue Islamofascism at its core is more than anything else an expression of rage against women and that Islam itself is not much better on that score.” -a neocon offering antimuslim cacopahny to sanitize the war, with intentional distortion on status of Iraqi women who had enjoyed same right as the men under Saddam. But his brethern from another echo chamber with differen letterhead to sign on-Reuel Marc Gerecht, discussing the forthcoming Iraqi constitution on Meet the Press, August 21: “Women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they’re there, I think they will be there, but I think we need to keep this perspective.”
(he is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Director of the Middle East Initiative for the Project for the New American Century–)
Is women’s issue an issue also on iraq war Ruel is advocating?
[Update: thanks to many commenters for improving my French!]
Actually it’s more fun if the errors are made more outrageous and followed by some decent bashing of those american wanquers. But you can’t have it all. “wrongue” is better than ‘wrongee’ btw. And what’s a manque roue?
I agree with most comments: this is a psyop. Everybody in France is yelling about “lapidation” and it looks like the woman was never under threat of getting one. As for the criminal case and the possible death sentence, it is quite clear that it does not deserve that kind of attention. How about talking about women who really risk lapidation in West friendly countries. Oh wait… Guys fostering these psyops at this precise moment must have a clue as to when the war is supposed to begin.
As for Kouchner and Levy, I don’t think they are in on the timeline. They are useful idiots. Kouchner supported the Iraq war. Levy did not (Phil suggests otherwise).