RUTHFULLY YOURS

WHILE a growing number of fashion brands are creating fashion collections aimed at Muslim women, Pierre Bergé has taken issue with designers creating Islamic clothing.

“I am scandalised. Creators should have nothing to do with Islamic fashion,” the 85-year-old told French radio station Europe 1 yesterday, reports The Guardian. “Designers are there to make women more beautiful, to give them their freedom, not to collaborate with this dictatorship which imposes this abominable thing by which we hide women and make them live a hidden life. These creators who are taking part in the enslavement of women should ask themselves some questions.”

Bergé went on to say that the only reason that labels – which include Marks & Spencer, Uniqlo and Dolce & Gabbana – create such collections is “to make dough and nothing else”, and he would tell them to: “Give up the dough. Have convictions. Defend your convictions.” The French businessman – who founded Yves Saint Laurent alongside the eponymous designer, who was also his life partner – stressed that his comments are not Islamaphobic. “I live in Morocco most of the time, I am really not Islamophobic,” he said.

His comments come as Laurence Rossignol, France’s women’s rights minister, criticised Marks & Spencer’s full-body swimsuit, suggesting that the British retailer is “bowing to religious conservatives,” according to The Daily Telegraph.

“What’s at stake is social control over women’s bodies,” she told RMC radio. “When brands invest in this Islamic garment market, they are shirking their responsibilities and are promoting women’s bodies being locked up. It is irresponsible on the part of these brands. All those who participate in how society is represented have a responsibility.”

Marks & Spencer responded to the comments, saying that it “provides a wide range of quality swimwear”, and that it has sold the full-body swimsuit “for a number of years and it is popular with our customers internationally”.

The European Union has been increasingly expressing its growing antagonism towards Israel by

1. imposing specific labelling laws for goods produced by Jews emanating from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)

2. building structures in Area C of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) without consent or authorisation by Israel – which exercises full administrative and security control over this area under the Oslo Accords to which the European Union is a signatory.

Positions such as these taken by the European Union – coupled with a growing tide of Jew-hatred in Europe during the past decade – create an atmosphere of hostility towards the Jewish State and can legitimise public expressions of opinion in Europe that would otherwise have been deemed politically incorrect and subjected to widespread criticism.

A case in point seems most likely to have occurred following the tragic events in Brussels on March 22 when 32 people were killed and 340 wounded in two terrorist attacks at Brussels Zaventem airport terminal and the city’s underground metro system.

Belgium’s federal hotline – set up by the Belgian Interior Ministry to take calls after these attacks – has fired an operator who told a caller that Israel does not exist and should be called Palestine instead.

The caller told the operator that he was a volunteer for the city of Antwerp’s Jewish Coordination Committee. Their message was recorded and the full English translated transcript follows:

XXX: Good afternoon, my name is XXX. I am a volunteer in the Jewish Coordination Committee of Antwerp. We are contacted by persons… we have two persons of the Jewish community that were hurt in the attacks in the airport.

Crisis Centre: Yes sir.

XXX: They are prepared to be transported back to Israel. Our volunteers are busy with it and take care of everything but we received information from the hospital that we need special papers from the police that they can be released. Is this correct and to who should we ask that? Can you tell me more about that?

People who reflexively blame the wrong party for criminal acts are either misinformed or disingenuous.

The sad truth is that in the Palestinian territories, Christians are forced to live like dhimmis — second-class citizens who survive largely by the protection-money they are required to pay to buy their daily safety. These barely-tolerated citizens exist only at the whim and pleasure of the ruling Muslim majority. Muslim Arab discrimination against non-Muslims includes economic and socially prejudicial behavior that makes it difficult or impossible for Christian Arabs to run a profitable business or for their families to be fully integrated into society.

It is also appropriate for Catholics to raise with Vatican authorities the issue of Father Twal’s continued representation of the Faith in the Holy Land: Who is he serving first, God or man?

No one of good will, especially Catholics, wants to accuse a prominent member of his faith of being knowingly untruthful. The truth rarely is found in the Palestinian public narrative. But in case of the latest repetition of Father Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, falsely blaming Israel for the ongoing spate of Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians, it appears certain from his consistent record of non-nuanced criticism of Israel, that he is motivated by a political bias.

Twal proclaimed that Israel’s alleged “occupation” of “Arab Palestine” is the cause of the murderous violence visited on Israeli civilians by Arab attackers — apparently “forgetting” that the Jews have lived in the region for nearly 4000 years. He was also apparently forgetting that the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been glorifying such “acts of resistance” since the autumn of 2014. How can Twal ignore the reality that Palestinian media has been glorifying these knife attacks as “glorious feats.” In Palestinian schools, in fact, the attackers are hailed as heroes.

Professional criminals convince the children’s parents that their daughters are going to a better life in Turkey. The parents are given between two and five thousand Turkish liras ($700-$1700) as “bride price” – an enormous sum for a poor Syrian family.

“Girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen are referred to as pistachios, those between seventeen and twenty are called cherries, twenty to twenty-two are apples, and anyone older is a watermelon.” — End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT)

“The most important question is why the refugee camps are not open to civil monitoring. Entry to refugee camps is not allowed. The camps are not transparent. There are many allegations as to what is happening in them. We are therefore worried about what they are hiding from us.” — Cansu Turan, a social worker with the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV).

Many Muslims have difficulty with, or even an aversion to, assimilating into the Western culture. Many seem to have the aim of importing to Europe the culture of intimidation, rape and abuse from which they fled.

Although the desperate victims are their Muslim sisters and brothers, Arab states do not take in refugees. We have not seen any demonstrations with signs that read “Refugees Welcome!” The people in this area know too well that asylum seekers would bring with them problems, both social and economic. The only way they can think of helping women is to “marry” them.

On International Women’s Day, March 8, Turkish news outlets covered the tragic life and early death of a Syrian child bride. (source: )

Last August in Aleppo, Mafe Zafur, 15, married her cousin, Ibrahim Zafur, in an Islamic marriage. The couple moved to Turkey, but the marriage ended after six months, when her husband abruptly threw her into the street. With nowhere to sleep, Mafe found shelter with her brother, 19, and another cousin, 14, in an abandoned truck.

On 8 March, Mafe killed herself, reportedly with a shotgun. Her only possession, found in her pocket, was her handwritten marriage certificate.

Mafe Zafur is only one of many young Syrians who have been victims of child marriage. Human rights groups report even greater abuse which gangs are perpetrating against the approximately three million Syrians who have fled to Turkey.