Why do Jews keep pandering to Muslim Jew haters?
Her book "Nomad" is a must read!
Ayaan Hirsi Al, a vocal critic of Islam and staunch feminist, has today hit back at a Jewish funded Massachusetts university which withdrew its offer of an honorary degree following student protests.
Brandeis University announced in a statement yesterday it would not honor the Somali-born activist at next month's graduation ceremony.
'The slur on my reputation is not the worst aspect of this episode. More deplorable is that an institution set up on the basis of religious freedom should today so deeply betray its own founding principles,' Hirsi Ali wrote in a statement, according to The Boston Globe.
'I can only wish the Class of 2014 the best of luck - and hope that they will go forth to be better advocates for free expression and free thought than their Alma mater.'
Hirsi Ali also distanced herself from the university's claim that she had been consulted in the decision and rejected its offer to participate in on-campus discussions.
'I assumed that Brandeis intended to honor me for my work as a defender of the rights of women against abuses that are often religious in origin,' she wrote.
'For over a decade, I have spoken out against such practices as female genital mutilation, so-called “honor killings” and applications of Sharia Law that justify such forms of domestic abuse as wife beating or child beating. Part of my work has been to question the role of Islam in legitimizing such abhorrent practices.'
The university had come under growing criticism in recent days for its decision to honor Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006 who is a vocal critic of Islam.
Her comments in a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine were particularly inflammatory.
'Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now,' she said of Islam.
'They're not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars.'
When news of the award circulated, more than 85 of about 350 faculty members at Brandeis signed a letter asking for Hirsi Ali to be booted off the list of honorary degree recipients.
And an online petition created on Change.org Monday by students at the school of 5,800 had gathered thousands of signatures from inside and outside the university as of Tuesday afternoon.
'This is a real slap in the face to Muslim students,' senior Sarah Fahmy, a member of the Muslim Student Association who created the petition, said of the honor before the university withdrew it.
Bernard Macy, a 1979 Brandeis graduate, sent an email this week to Lawrence and several members of the faculty saying, 'Thank you for recognizing Ayaan Hirsi Ali for defending Muslim women against Islamist honor violence.'
But Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, said, 'It is unconscionable that such a prestigious university would honor someone with such openly hateful views.'
The organization sent a letter to Lawrence on Tuesday requesting that it drop its plans to honor Hirsi Ali.
'This makes Muslim students feel very uneasy,' Joseph Lumbard, chairman of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, said in an earlier interview. 'They feel unwelcome here.'
In a statement on Tuesday, the university announced its decision to withdraw the award.
'She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women's rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world,' the university said in a statement..
'That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values.'
The statement implied Hirsi Ali and university President Frederick Lawrencediscussed the withdrawal before it was announced.
Hirsi Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s.
In 2007, Hirsi Ali helped establish the AHA Foundation, which works to protect and defend the rights of women in the West from oppression justified by religion and culture, according to its website.
The foundation also strives to protect basic rights and freedoms of women and girls. This includes control of their own bodies, access to an education and the ability to work outside the home and control their own income, the website says.
Hirsi Ali, a native of Somalia, has written and spoken extensively of her experience as a Muslim girl in East Africa.
She moved to the Netherlands as a young woman, and she was later elected to the Dutch Parliament.
She wrote the screenplay for 'Submission', a 2004 film critical of the treatment of Muslim women.
Shortly after its release, the director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered on an Amsterdam street by a radical Islamist, who also pinned to the victim’s body a threat to kill Hirsi Ali.
Hirsi Ali is married to British historian and public commentator Niall Ferguson, who left his wife of sixteen years, former Fleet Street editor Susan Douglas, for the Somali intellectual.
He had three children with the former Daily Mail assistant editor.
Hirsi Ali and Ferguson are understood to have met at Time magazine’s prestigious 100 Most Influential People In The World party in New York in May 2005.
