{"id":6590,"date":"2013-10-03T11:42:48","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T18:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6590"},"modified":"2013-10-03T11:42:48","modified_gmt":"2013-10-03T18:42:48","slug":"foreign-policy-magazine-covers-up-syrian-sex-jihad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/foreign-policy-magazine-covers-up-syrian-sex-jihad\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign Policy Magazine Covers Up Syrian Sex Jihad"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Foreign Policy<\/em>\u00a0magazine recently demonstrated why U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is a disaster: because the establishment has a hard time factoring the\u00a0foreign<\/em>\u00a0in their policies (more\u2019s the irony).\u00a0 Put differently, whatever information doesn\u2019t comport with modern Western epistemology\u2014our subjective worldviews\u2014must simply be false, unreal, to be discarded from any consideration in Western foreign policy.<\/p>\n

Other times,<\/p>\n

whatever information doesn\u2019t comport with our subjective worldviews is intentionally dismissed as false, in furtherance of some Western foreign policy, for example, war in Syria.<\/p>\n

Enter\u00a0Foreign Policy<\/em>\u00a0magazine.\u00a0 In an article titled \u201cAre Young Women Really Racing to Syria\u2019s Front Lines to Wage Sex Jihad<\/a>\u201d (originally published under the cutesier title \u201cSorry, the Tunisian Sex Jihad is a Fraud\u201d), one David Kenner writes:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the story that launched 1,000 headlines. And it\u2019s not hard to see why: Tunisian Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou\u00a0announced last week that Tunisian women were traveling to Syria to wage \u201csex jihad,\u201d where they were having sex with \u201c20, 30, [or] 100\u2033 militants, before returning pregnant to Tunisia.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s only one problem: There\u2019s no evidence it\u2019s true. The Tunisian Interior Ministry has so far failed to provide any further information on the phenomenon, and human rights activists and journalists have been unable to find any Tunisian woman who went to Syria for this purpose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let\u2019s consider the evidence surrounding\u00a0the sex jihad<\/a>\u00a0for a moment: For approximately one year, a wide variety of Arabic and other foreign media, news channels, newspapers, and websites\u2014both for and against the war in Syria\u2014have been reporting on the sex jihad; I have personally watched several video interviews of many different men and women, of various nationalities, talking about their experiences with the sex jihad; Tunisia\u2019s former Mufti created controversy by condemning it; and now a governmental official, the Tunisian Interior Minister, is formally on record mentioning it.<\/p>\n

Normally, all the above would fit the criteria needed to verify any story.\u00a0 For example, if many international media, video interviews, and governmental officials\u2014none of which are connected to each other\u2014said that, for example, Muslim men were traveling to Syria to wage jihad, no one would doubt it.<\/p>\n

But because of the alien\u2014or\u00a0foreign<\/em>\u2014nature concerning this particular news, the Western mindset, finding it hard to believe, calls for impossible-to-fill criteria, even as one wonders what other type of evidence can be offered than the aforementioned? (For the record, the naysayers originally dismissed the sex jihad as all hearsay, but now that a governmental official has confirmed it, that too is still not good enough.)<\/p>\n

Kenner\u2019s main source is a human rights activist named Amna Guellali who elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0claims that \u201cIt is surprising that the western media would seize on this [sex jihad], or any other kind of hoax, just because it discredits Islamists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because it discredits Islamists\u201d?\u00a0 What if Ms. Guellali is an Islamist-sympathizer, a supporter of the \u201cliberation\u201d of Syria, as are so many leftists?\u00a0 If the Tunisian government is lying about the sex jihad for some political purpose, could Guellali not also be lying for some political purpose?\u00a0 Why believe one over the other?<\/p>\n

At any rate, after noting how several widely read Arabic media, TV channels and newspapers attributed the sex jihad fatwa to Saudi cleric Mohammed al-Arefe, Kenner scoffs: \u201cArefe, however, subsequently\u00a0denied that he had done so, saying that \u2018no sane person\u2019 would sanction such a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is no proof\u2013certainly no better than the proof supporting the existence of the sex jihad. \u00a0Moreover, because the sex jihad fatwa was originally a secretive matter (only Muslims involved in it needed to know about it); and because it is damaging to the image of, and thus support for, the jihadi rebellion in Syria; and because Muslims are permitted to lie, especially in the context of jihad\u2014see Muslim teachings of\u00a0taqiyya<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0tawriya<\/a>\u2014why would any sane person expect Arefe to admit to anything<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Incidentally, which sounds more insane: Muslim women going to relieve Muslim men waging jihad in Syria to empower Islam, or Muslim women \u201cbreastfeeding\u201d strange Muslim men in order to make them their \u201csons\u201d and be in each other\u2019s company?\u00a0 Well, Dr. Izzat Atiya, an Egyptian cleric from Al Azhar university\u2014the Islamic world\u2019s most prestigious university\u2014issued the latter\u00a0breastfeeding fatwa<\/a>, and, when confronted, openly admitted it, insisting that it comported with the strictures of Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Question: if Islamic jurisprudence legitimizes \u201cadult breastfeeding\u201d\u2014and it does, according to a hadith concerning Islam\u2019s Prophet Muhammad\u2014is it really so hard to believe that it would allow Muslim women to offer sexual services to frustrated jihadis fighting to empower Islam in Syria?<\/p>\n

Kenner next begins to \u201cplay around\u201d with information, writing:<\/p>\n

The Tunisian government has been\u00a0under fire\u00a0for allegedly asking adult women for authorization from their husbands or fathers before they travel to certain countries in the Middle East\u2014Ben Jeddou [Interior Prime Minister] was justifying any restrictions by saying that the government was attempting to prevent women from embarking on \u201csex jihad\u201d in Syria.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This sounds like the Tunisian government first started requiring male authorization (apparently a suggestion that it is becoming more authoritarian and sexist), and then, by way of an excuse, later started referring to the sex jihad as a pretext for asking for male authorization.<\/p>\n

However, going to Kenner\u2019s source (linked \u201cunder fire,\u201d an article written just last month, a year after the sex jihad made headlines) one sees that the order is reversed\u2014women began to be asked for more authorization\u00a0after<\/em>the sex jihad became an issue in Tunisia, which, of course, only validates the phenomenon.\u00a0 (Note: the article also mentions that women traveling to countries like Morocco are also being questioned, yet, as\u00a0this interview<\/a>with a Tunisian sex jihadi makes clear, Tunisians traveling to Syria are doing so by going through other countries first.)<\/p>\n

Next Kenner contradicts:<\/p>\n

The interior minister has also\u00a0made the fight\u00a0against extremist Salafi groups a centerpiece of his term in office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Odd, Kenner\u2019s previous sentence seemed to indicate that the Tunisian government is lying about the sex jihad to cover its growing authoritarian nature over women, but now we find it\u2019s fighting the extremist Salafis\u2014precisely the fellows who\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0demand absolute authority over women, forcing them to wear burqas, and keeping them indoors (as opposed to merely\u00a0in<\/em>\u00a0Tunisia, as the government is doing).<\/p>\n

The contradictions continue:<\/p>\n

The only real evidence of women embarking on \u201csex jihad,\u201d comes not from Syria but from Tunisia\u2019s Chaambi Mountains, an area in the west of the country that has often been the site of clashes between the military and jihadists. Tunisian security forces there\u00a0arrested several girls who were allegedly involved in the practice. Guellali said that she spoke to the mother of an 18-year-old female who was involved\u2014the mother said that a woman close to the Tunisian militant group Ansar al-Sharia [Islamic jihadi organization with wings in Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc.] got her daughter tangled up in a network of girls in the area.\u00a0 But the scope of the problem\u2014and whether it is related to Syria in any way\u2014remains a complete mystery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, after all this, Kenner\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0acknowledge that there is evidence for the sex jihad, that the human rights activist he relied on, Guellali,\u00a0has<\/em>\u00a0personally interviewed some involved in it, and that there\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0a \u201cnetwork of girls\u201d involved in this practice:<\/p>\n

But the scope of the problem\u2014and whether it is related to Syria in any way\u2014<\/em>remains a complete mystery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in that sentence we discover\u00a0Foreign Policy\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0entire motivation: it\u2019s not to convince readers that the sex jihad is a hoax\u2014it can\u2019t, it\u2019s so well documented that after a convoluted ride even Kenner finally admits to its existence\u2014but rather to exonerate the jihadis in Syria from this savage practice.<\/p>\n

After all,\u00a0Foreign Policy<\/em>\u00a0magazine\u2014following U.S. foreign policy\u2019s lead\u2014supports the jihad in Syria and thus seeks to shield it from public criticism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Foreign Policy\u00a0magazine recently demonstrated why U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is a disaster: because the establishment has a hard time factoring the\u00a0foreign\u00a0in their policies (more\u2019s the irony).\u00a0 Put differently, whatever information doesn\u2019t comport with modern Western epistemology\u2014our subjective worldviews\u2014must simply be false, unreal, to be discarded from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[225,33,227,145],"tags":[1017,1061,1044,1041,605,1018],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Ii","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6700,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-historic-revisionism-justifies-islamic-terrorism\/","url_meta":{"origin":6590,"position":0},"title":"How Historic Revisionism Justifies Islamic Terrorism","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 How important, really, is history to current affairs?\u00a0 Do events from the 7th\u00a0century\u2014or, more importantly, how we understand them\u2014have any influence on U.S. foreign policy today? 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