Oh, no. Salon reports:
During an interview published on Friday by Israel HaYom, the Sheldon Adelson-backed Israeli daily, public intellectual and author Ayan Hirsi Ali claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for waging the ongoing military campaign by the IDF against Hamas militants in Gaza.
Asked whom she admired, Ali — who once called Islam a “nihilistic cult of death” — included Netanyahu on a list featuring her husband, Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, as well as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Princeton professor Bernard Lewis. Ali said she admired Netanyahu “[b]ecause he is under so much pressure, from so many sources, and yet he does what is best for the people of Israel, he does his duty.”
“I really think he should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” Ali added. “In a fair world he would get it.”
Kissinger. She singles out Kissinger for admiration. Along with saying Netanyahu should get the peace prize.
Well that’s it. AEI has ruined her.
I was really disappointed when I saw that, and searched for any denial that it is what she actually said but I haven’t seen anything. Who in their right mind no matter who they think is to blame, thinks that it should involve a peace prize? I have read her books and agreed with her about a lot of things in them. I also thought it was great to have a person of color, a person from Africa and a woman to boot that has an international voice in discussing violence and religion. But it seems to me she’s exchanged Islamic dogma for American right wing dogma. I have heard that she is going to speak at the American Atheist convention. I’ve also heard that she converted to Christianity. I “hear” things about Ali, but rarely see confirmation. So I try to hold the benefit of the doubt when I see this sort of stuff, but maybe that is wishful thinking at this point. So disappointed.
Well that’s it. AEI has ruined her.
Welcome. Its frustrating when people who should be on our side say things like this. (subject to #1 – but I dont find it surprising that she would express this view)
I expect a Sam Harris article next explaining why shes right.
No surprise here. Not even the slightest bit. And I think it is BS to pretend AEI ruined her… I think like is attracted to like.
Someone should introduce her to Christopher Hitchens. He wrote an informative little book about Kissinger. Maybe someone should mention this to her.
She was always this awful.
The anti-semitic, islamophilic vein in the orthodox left has lead to absurdities like this.
Nasser’s shift to Soviet support in the 50s was a moment, like the Hitler-Stalin Pact, where a vast array of ‘progressive’ thinkers made a 180 degree turn in their principles.
If you Take A Stand on AN issue, like the threat of Islamism, you’ll find yourself standing next to people (e.g. Evangelical Fundies) who you would not touch with a barge pole. I don’t know what Ali’s internal thinking has been. But the betrayal she experienced at the hands of progressives could excuse a lot.
They ruined her a while back, Kissinger was at Hirsi Ali and Nial Furgesson’s wedding. (Admittedly by his invitation, not hers) Particularly galling when you consider that Christopher Hitchens was on his deathbed at the time, had been a close friend and defender of Hirsi Ali, and his greatest work was in exposing Kissenger’s war crimes to the world. Hirsi Ali’s actions are A total betrayal, not only of human rights, but of basic human decency.
Hirsi Ali also claimed that the welfare state was responsible for the murder of Theo Van Gough, since ‘the killer was on welfare, if he had had to look for work to support himself, he would not have had the time to plan the murder’ a statement so wingnut it makes James Delingpole look almost logical.
Hirsi Ali may have been just as bad before she joined AIE, in Infidel she claimed that as an MP she had advocated ‘dramatically cutting unemployment benefits and abolition of the minimum wage’ to eliminate a supposed poverty trap where Muslim migrants were able to earn more on benefits than by working, and thus could avoid mingling with unbelievers. Even if one accepts the facts of this claim, abolition of the minimum wage would make no sense, one does not ‘make work pay’ by cutting wages! If Hirsi Ali had argued for cutting unemployment benefits and raising the minimum wage she might at least have made sense on her own terms, but as it is, she merely exposed the right-wing agenda she determined to promote, under any rationale, no matter how flimsy.
I know. I’m well aware of Hitchens’s Kissinger book (and thought of it the instant I read this piece). The second and last time I saw (and briefly chatted with) Hitchens on a book tour it was for the Kissinger book. He did a stem-winder of a talk on the subject, full of fiery lefty passion. It was great.
I wasn’t aware of Hirsi Ali before her public advocacy of extremist Right-wing ideology, so for me this is neither a shock nor a change. It’s still unfortunate, just like every other time. :-/
I don’t think I have the same definition of ‘peace’ she’s got.
Oh no. It’s not that, She fit right in. It’s just that ms. Ali doesn’t like to let opportunities for publicity, or moving up in the world to go to waste. She never has. Her rise to prominence in the Netherlands was achieved by casting aside ideals and allies when they were all used up (and then put some shiny new ones in their place of course).
She’s quite something though.
When you have a three-cornered contest between the ideas of the Western Left, the Western Right, and Middle-Eastern Islam, you can finish up with alliances of unprincipled convenience and strange bedfellows. The pro-totalitarian Left never appeared to have any second thoughts over its alliance with Islamic fascism against the Western Right, which it conflated with liberalism. Hirsi Ali’s denunciation of Islam and the threats against her after the murder of Theo Van Gogh by Islamists meant that her most meaningful material and moral support finished up coming from the American Right.
And so it came to pass that Kissinger, one of the greatest war criminals of all human history, turned up at her wedding, and now she gives moral support to the Israeli side in the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian war.
“Plus ca change…” Except that the more things change, the more they become different.
FYI: Christopher Hitchens – The Trials of Henry Kissinger [FULL]
Bernard Lewis, ftr, is a neo-con’s neo-con, long-time hardcore Zionist, Cold Warrior, and Dick Cheney crony.
Hirsi Ali sure can pick ’em!
“Netanyahu should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for waging the ongoing military campaign by the IDF against Hamas militants in Gaza.”
I suppose among all those Gazans slaughtered by the Zionist war machine there must be a few “Hamas militants”, or children who will never grow up to be Hamas militants.
Utter bullshit. She’s never been any different throughout the period of her public prominence. It’s just that some people refused to see it.
Omar Puhleez wrote:
Maybe that’s true after 9/11 in the US, but in Europe it mostly served to illuminate or accentuate the already existent difference in attitudes towards Islam, immigration, and multiculturalism in a wider sense. The left is still the left, the right still the right, and the only thing that changed is the way the far right framed their ideas.
It is really true that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Thank you for that thoughtful comment, Nick Gotts.
I’d say the seeds were always there , but given her life circumstances , some of her views were understandable and atleast , initially , I’d have given her some leeway – but it was apparent that she was always drifting more to the right and I guess we all draw our lines in the sand at different locations.
Truth hurts when you’ve deluded yourself, doesn’t it, Ophelia Benson?
I disagree strongly with her views on both topics but so what? Her right wing beliefs on some topics do not automatically discredit the main topic of her career as some of the commentators here seem to imply.
Another thing, she wound up at AEI because all the liberal think tanks were too scared (of being labeled Islamophobes or being blown up by Islamists) to take her in.
@21 thomaspaine,
“Her right wing beliefs on some topics do not automatically discredit the main topic of her career”
Yes, indeed. Where are all the leftist critics of Islam?
@ 22 RJW
Was that a serious question or am I missing a joke?!
(If the former, you might have a closer look at this blog as well as acquainting yourself with:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/marginoferr/)
At #21, thomaspaine wrote:
Not so. She was welcome at a number of liberal institutions, e.g. Brookings. She chose AEI. Don’t blame liberals for what Ayaan Hirsi Ali does because it’s what she wants to do.