[CLIP] Phyllis Chesler: Gender Apartheid and the Silence of ‘Faux Feminists’

we landed in Cabell and the airport official just smoothly took my American passport away and then I discovered that my father-in-law had three wives and 21 children Phyllis chestler was born into a Jewish American family in 1961 at just 20 years old she found herself stripped of her rights as a new bride in Afghanistan she escaped and became an outspoken critic of what she describes as faux feminists in the west Who Remain silent about gender discrimination in the Arab Muslim world and more recently the October 7th victims of Hamas rape and torture she called me up one day and said do you want to help rescue girls and women from Afghanistan and we did with no help from the government Israel is fighting the West's battle by itself for the kinds of freedoms from tyranny that the West has been standing for and is now not not holding on to it too fast this is American thought leaders and I'm Yan Kell Phyllis chestler such a pleasure to have you on American thought leaders it's my pleasure to be here Phyllis tell me about faux feminists well I'm a real feminist a faux feminist is someone who has given up fighting for sex-based rights and is totally invested in gender identities of all sorts and who has lost the plot in terms of women globally so that instead of supporting the Iranian women fighting for freedom and dying for it or the Afghan women trapped under the rule of the Taliban or the Israeli women who were just massacred and raped and atrocities Galore they don't take a position other than an abstract anti-racist anti-colonial postcolonial uh deconstructive position on reality and therefore they help no one and then and they're not alone it's the entire Western Academy and media and human rights groups the United Nations whenever I type it it comes out untied not United because they're really it's a collection of tyrannies and so the feminists are only a small part of it who once cared deeply about violence against women issues all Races all classes all ethnicities and they care nothing for the occupation of women's bodies in Gaza and in Yehuda and shron where they have been increasingly forcibly veiled and uh forced into polygamous child marriages and honor killed instead of focusing on that kind of Sisterhood they're focusing on Jew hatred in the guise of a Liberation struggle so what do you make of this all well so it it's paradoxical certainly some of these uh islamist governments are clearly tyrannies right but you kind of you included the UN among your collection of so explain why you do that well um do you think Russia is a democracy do you think Iran is a democracy or turkey for that matter or let's go Saudi Arabia or qter um they're not democracies they've taken the Western democracy's hostage by the aveto power at a certain meeting Iran was appointed to chair the Human Rights Council Iran where if you know anything about Evan prison you know that they routinely rape and torture and murder dissidents of any kind um women of all kinds and then China is China a democracy I don't think so and their persecution of practically everyone is welln but they're very powerful and they're increasingly in an alliance with Russia with turkey with Iran and that's coming toward Israel and Israel is fighting the West's battle by itself it really is for the kinds of freedoms from tyranny that the West has been standing for was founded for and is now not holding on to it too fast you know I'll just briefly comment on when it comes to women's rights in China for example um a group called women's rights Without Frontiers uh headed by re Reggie Little John focused on gender side there's a lot more men in than women that's because all the girl babies when it was a one child policy they got rid of the girls who were born so now there are too many boys and so now now China's policy is I understand that has changed and they now want women to go back to the kitchen and have more babies of all genders India is also although a democracy with a profoundly awful cast system and class system that they also killed all the girl babies infanticide it's another form of femicide as is honor killing of course you've done a lot of work on honor killing and I this is just some not really in the Lexicon of most people like most people don't even understand what that means I think this is true well Anor killing is very endemic in the certainly the Muslim and Arab world and in Muslim Africa if a girl brings any sort of Shame on her family and in Central Asia as well like Pakistan um if she's getting friendly with a non-muslim person girl or boy if she wants to advance an education if it's suspected that she's having sex outside of marriage even if it's not true if she wants to leave a violent marriage to a first cousin which was arranged against her will her family will kill her because if they don't then the family loses its rep reputation no one else will marry their other children and they may lose their business so when I first began studying it uh mainly Western feminists didn't believe it didn't pay attention uh thought I was being racist even though the victims are also women of color but the perpetrators are men of color and that was a no no and and I was so heartened when women from India and Pakistan for example and turkey another example began citing my work and they didn't view that work as racist they viewed it as feminist MH so sometimes you find unexpected feminist allies who are not faux feminists H tell you you have an absolutely um I would say extremely unusual story maybe tell me about that well I think you're asking me how did the nice Jewish girl from burrow park in Brooklyn uh end up in Kabal Afghanistan and what did I learn there I was young I was foolish I was very young and I met a man at College who seemed totally westernized he was we talked about dust and PR we went to all the best European films and I said I'd love to meet your family and he said well we'd have to get married and then I thought well I had such wust such desire to travel I said okay you know it was Ho Hum so we landed in Cabell this is a long time ago long before the Taliban and the airport official just smoothly took my American passport away and said no problem Madam we'll return it to your family never saw it again and then I discovered that my father-in-law had three wives and 21 children and I was supposed to live with my mother-in-law well this was news to me that's one thing and this was a posh family a family of wealth I wanted to go out and see the Splendor of the city and every time I did I'd have to run away and then there would be a car with a driver catching up with me to bring Madam home but I made it out a few times alone and I saw women in burkers stumbling and with no peripheral vision these claustrophobic garments looking like ghosts and literally forced to sit at the back of the bus and when I went to my Afghan family and said I just saw something terrible they said oh Americans are so hysterical so that was a time in a place where my life was in real danger where I got very very ill and I didn't know how to get out or if I would be able to and I contemplated all kinds of Escape schemes so I understood then what it was like to be trapped in that country with no passport out to the 20th century uh because his mine had been taken away finally at the very last moment uh my father-in-law a very Dapper fellow got me an Afghan passport gave me $10 and said you could leave because he didn't want a dead American on his hands or on his conscience I was very yellow with hepatitis I flew over the Frozen waste of Siberia and I was thrilled on an arlet flight out and then I tried to tell other people at college that I'd seen servants very badly treated that I'd seen women held in held very cheaply and in leading very dangerous lives and nobody wanted to hear it they said how many servants did you have were you now a princess so even professors who I I didn't have the phrase yet for Islamic gender and religious AP paride uh which I now use and my then mother-in-law I mean poor soul the first wife she every day she tried to convert me to Islam every day it was a battle so I really did understand without anyone telling me that it wasn't so good to live in a Muslim country if you were a girl if you were a girl with dreams who reads books and who has intellectual Ambitions I went to graduate school and I wrote a story Memoirs of Afghanistan which was published in the magazine and it was you know filled with also Nostalgia and charm kabell is in a valley and it's surrounded by the pomier mountains and it's very gorgeous and I didn't see the Buddhas of bamyan which the Taliban have blown up I didn't know at the time that the country had once been Buddhist until the Arab Muslims came and converted via the sword I learned these things only over time but when when the women of Bangladesh were being raped in a war zone by Pakistani soldiers I spoke to a group of feminists and I said well we have to get them out we need a feminist Air Force and they thought I was being very poetic and they said well why what are you worried about and I said well if their families learn they were raped and if they're impregnated they'll kill themselves or their families will kill them no one had heard of this I had heard rumors about honor killing in Afghanistan at the time no one really talked about it but I got the the drift of it so many many years later I was privileged to uh first conduct studies on ANUK killing there were four and this allowed me to submit affidavits to judges in America for women who were in flight from being onor killed and who were looking for Asylum and I view that as such important feminist work and then something even more extraordinary happened I'd been uh working with a woman named Mandy sangera who's a seek who lives in London and when I was disinvited to present honor killing findings at a law school in America because I was seen as a Zionist and therefore threats were made Mandy said well we can't have you Dishonored this way and so she convened a panel at University College London where I presented these findings I was very that was so kind of her and then she called me up one day maybe a year later and said do you want to help rescue girls and women from Afghanistan I said I've been waiting for this call my entire life and we did that's what we did it was a group of Grassroots feminists who undertook that Holy task with no help from the government um opposition at every step of the way heart stopping anecdotes and then one young woman who I've adopted not legally but financially and with my whole heart who's now in a graduate school uh she's finishing a master's and will continue for PhD I lucked out because she's grateful she's brilliant she's hardworking uh could have gone anyway I mean can you imagine having the opportunity to rescue girls women from that place I had considered running away with the coochies the nomads anything to get out but then I realized Oh They'll marry me off they'll rate me they'll sell me and where am I going you know and they the women wear all their jewelry and the site is a heart stopping site though with camels it's biblical they're walking barefoot with all their jewelry clanging and clinking and tinkling so proudly one thing that just strikes me as you're describing these whole scenes um is that in Afghanistan you know things have gone the other way like it's actually gotten worse yeah right since the 60s when you the time when you were there uh it wasn't good when I was there it got briefly better in the 70s in the cities in the large cities but it's a geographically isolated country that has never been colonized and is ruled by illiterate malas the mosque rules of the country so it's been cursed with bad luck and a history of torturing and murdering bring anyone who thinks outside the box so to speak and I've probably read every Memoir written by Afghans who describe this now especially one by Muhammad anoir which is really a great book it has well first it had a war Russia invaded and I think maybe it wanted more territory maybe it wanted to up uplift the poor in Afghanistan is how it's pronounced that didn't end well for Russia and then the Taliban came in which didn't end well for the people they're lunatics they're like Hamas Isis Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan is the country that gave Bin Laden a safe cave to plan 9/11 he was thrown out of Saudi Arabia he was thrown out of Sudan Dan how bad do you have to be to be thrown out of those two countries Afghanistan Mula Omar took him and that's where he plotted and then there's my country America who didn't look for bin Laden in Pakistan where he was tucked away in abadabad their military West Point and kept looking in Afghanistan but there's a big butt I think that America the boots on on the ground allowed two generations of Afghans to get educations and to taste freedoms open up businesses and acquire skills baded women shelters Rape Crisis centers shut down the minute the Taliban came back right and the boots were gone and this was the context of in which you know you participated in helping get 400 odd women out we all knew what would be happening we had seen the Taliban in action before with their stonings and their hatred of women no education no music no Beauty parlers full burkas um just medieval or Prem medieval so we knew if we couldn't get them out they would at best if they were very lucky they would be sequestered for the rest of their lives indoors and become profoundly depressed they would not be allowed to work they aren't now and America the way we left was horrendous totally irresponsible non strategic the military equipment that we left behind alone I'm sure made its way to Hamas I've been thinking about since I've been reading some of your work I've been thinking about rape as a weapon of War I guess we don't realize how how common this is or at least has been historically and and why and so forth so I want you to dig into that a little bit for me okay well rape is a war against the rape victim just even not in a war zone and it's a hate crime but the FBI doesn't view it as such and mainly it's women who are raped by men although men also rape men women not so much historically it's been not a weapon of War but a spoil so if the Army comes in they do what they wish a pogram and includes rape to the max um but as of maybe the 1990s rape was conceived of as a weapon of War to drive the female population out of their minds to humiliate and break the hearts and souls of the men who could not protect them uh to to cleanse a population I mean as in pograms against Jews it did just that there was no population left and and survivors had lots of psychiatric issues with the islamist groups in North Africa in the 1990s with the raping of women systematically in Bosnia the former Yugoslavia in um Rwanda and in Sudan with the Jano weed perpetrated ated continuous public gang rapes on little girls and women you have a whole new era of violence of War Zone violence don't think for a minute that Russians are not raping women in Ukraine they we just don't have videos of it as Hamas has of their October 7th Massacre many rape victims are resilient many are not so if you're raped and repeatedly raped you'll have insomnia you'll have flashbacks you'll have the the symptoms of post-traumatic stress that we associate with soldiers who've been in war in battle and you'll also have shame you'll blame yourself and you'll think and this is true not in the war zone and in a war zone you'll think you did something wrong in the wrong place at the wrong time looking the wrong way and it's a it's a form and what they did that is unusual is they photographed themselves they were proud of what they did and they laughed and they took pleasure in it you're talking about uh October 7 now October 7 Hamas and when I saw that I thought we have to capture them and try them in Jerusalem after Israel is Victorious militarily not in the hag certainly not but in Jerusalem the way aan was tried and the way the Nazis would tried at norenberg because the world will not be even slightly Le safer for Jews and for Israelis of any religion if there's not a public acknowledgment and acceptance of what happened a pogram on steroids as I've written and uh I hope we can have that I I don't think the UN is the place I don't think the international criminal court is the place because these are all rapidly jeha hating venues and the thing you asked me earlier about faux feminists usually the feminist movement in America says at me too believe all women you have to trust what the woman says when it came to Israeli women and they were photos and videos and and uh evidence and eyewitness accounts well we don't really know what happen at this point despite the extensive video and photo evidence and so forth there's still you know powerful narratives out there that this was somehow overblown someone who I trust very highly to quote him he said you know serial killers don't do the things that he saw being done on this in this footage yet at the same time these narratives exist that this didn't even happen or perhaps is overblown people are struggling at this point to try to understand how there could be that such a disconnect disconnect yeah well from the day after Israel won the 1967 war of self-defense Russians and the Arab League countries started funding the curriculum in the west strategizing brainwashing that has now paid off off the New York Times which I once trusted and appeared in their pages and and was reviewed in their Pages um no more I'm cancelled now they lie that means all of the trusted media organs Washington Post New York Times not that different now from Al jazer funded by cutter which is the pay Master for Iran lethal you hatred it's almost as if Obama is still pulling the strings of Biden both presidents and H wants Iran to destroy Israel not understanding that this means Iran comes for the West next 10 billion that are American government just Unleashed gave to Iran it was through cutter and why cutter would ever be chosen to negotiate for hostages just to clarify when you say cter is the pay master of Iran what do you mean by that it has its bank accounts its funnels money to Hamas and to Iran and from Iran Iran funds so many uh terrorist groups worldwide Hezbollah is one and Hamas is another why is America delaying taking on Iran there are so many Iranians who have given up their lives fighting for their freedom fighting to be free of this cruel diabolical regime of malas I see the alliance of China Russia Iran turkey against the West that's the only reason why a country like Saudi Arabia would be open to the Abraham Accords because they're terrified of Shiite Muslim power the the Muslims in Iran or Shia and throughout the Arab Middle East at Sunni they were seeing the Abraham Accords as a possible way of containing Iran and of having good economic diplomatic relationships now this M move may have delayed it but maybe there'll be life in it yet and um so all of the University professors whose performances we've just seen in Congress and they had professors before them and all of the students who learn from them really believe that Israel is an apari Nazi na nation state they believe it with their whole Hearts they really believe that terrorist and fascist organizations are Freedom Fighters they truly believe this they have binary thinking there is only an oppressor and someone who's oppressed it's good versus evil but they have it upside down Orwell would not believe his ears so you have have crowds marching Across America and across Europe calling for death to Jews in the name of Liberation in the name of Freedom now Palestinian gazin civilians yeah they should be liberated but from Hamas as should the Arabs who live in Yehuda and shomron otherwise known as the British West Bank uh they should be liberated from abas and from the Palestinian Authority from all of the islamist Taliban like Isis likee Al-Qaeda likee groups whose position on women dissidents independent think is homosexuals is like antithetical to all those in the west who are Marching In Their favor this has been planned for a very long time funded also not just by Arab or Muslim money but funded by China funded by Russia and funded by leftwing philanthropists in America and I'm thinking of Soros certainly as one the Rockefeller brother foundation for another the tides foundation so this is a well financed campaign and you're basically talking about all these funders of what we could broadly call Progressive ideology yes right yes yes and I thought I was a progressive I thought I was a radical I really I mean I was I still am but now all the gold posts have changed so fighting for uh women's rights no no it has to be for Trans rights it has to be for lgbtqi Z rights not women's rights if you say as a feminist that you really don't want to have women in sports competing with men in sports because the women will always lose that means that you're a traitor because the belief is that gender trumps sex that there's no such thing as reality there's no such thing as objectivity it's delusionary it's apocalyptic it's suicidal thinking and I'm now wondering how long will it take for deprogramming to become effective well or is there an appetite for deprogramming so here's here's a question I have right I think you know there there seems to be a number of what you would call what I might call watershed moments okay in the last few months um course October 7th shocking to people um but then the reaction to October 7th perhaps even more shocking right in Western Nations it perhaps wasn't obvious to or not perhaps it wasn't obvious to many Jews even that somehow anti-Semitism is baked into this ideology it was denied it was minimized it was fought Jews are an interesting group because we want to help the other person which assumes therefore that oneself needs no hell that one is just okay and now Jews are realizing are facing in America well we're not exactly okay and what does that du to our ethics our morality about helping the underdog helping those who were more in need so Jews have mainly answered Rabbi hillel's second question if you are only for yourself really who are you you know why were you born if you're not for yourself what are you you're not going to survive so now Jews are faced with a question of survival this is new for the first time since the Holocaust or perhaps it's the third question that's that's the Opera one not now when exactly these are very interesting times as the Chinese said very interesting as in troubling historic perhaps a curse I I've been on on this beat since the early 1970s when I ran into very classic Jew hatd on the feminist left and it sent me to Israel for the first time I then got signatures for petitions against the UN resolution Zionism equals racism which it does not anti-zionism equals racism rather as Judea Pearl has said Daniel Pearl's father and then I worked at the UN put together a conference which took place in Oslo and then I went to that historic women's meeting in Copenhagen 1980 which was a psychological program it was a precursor to Durban it was unbelievable because there were the women from Iran in full dark forbidding chador and they in the Arab League and the left Europeans were uh death to the Jews down with Israel I I didn't know what was going on and I then flew to Israel and gave a series of interviews about anti-Semitism is back bloody Beast is back this was 1980 it was on the front pages of the Israeli newspapers the Israelis in general said don't worry and then I tried to interest American Jewish organizations 1980 81 in allowing me to develop a curriculum to teach their staff how to use the language of Liberation and oppression because I said they will come after us with this language nobody was interested I was not asking for money then we have the intifa of 2000s and I knew I wouldn't abandon my feminist work but I did have to focus on anti-Semitism and I did and I published a book called the new anti-Semitism in 2003 it was the only book of mine that the New York Times would not review did not review I had had front page reviews for other works of mine and Jewish organizations didn't take it seriously uh in one case the head of the ADL at the time had his own book coming out which did get reviewed and guess what that book missed entirely the islamist part of the picture it was all about Christian Nazi era Jew haters that's changed rapidly in a surreal way now and Jewish students are frightened on campuses professors began writing to me in 2003 2004 and to tell me that they are being harassed they're being uh treated badly because they're suspected of being pro-israel and I turned all this information over to somebody who wanted to cover it for the New York Times who then told me that they had been stopped at the highest level this is 2003 2004 and when I spoke on campuses and I I was a professor for 30 years at a university I needed police protection that was new I was asked to speak in 2003 at a conference at Barnard it was a a Grassroots conference mainly African-American women who wanted me to talk about women's inhumanity to woman which was the subject of my 10th book MH we had a wonderful time together they loved every word I said and then an a provocator an agent provocator stood up and said I heard you on WBAI I demand to know where do you stand on the issue of the women of Palestine and I said I think if you're asking me where I stand on the issue of a paride I oppose it and the largest practitioner of a paride are Muslim country where gender and religious apothide prevails Place went crazy everyone began yelling you know I went through the the Litany of the woes and Sorrows of Arab women in that region they didn't care and my son had come to pick me up and he started moving towards the front where I was and then the organizers like hustled me out for my safety and thereafter many times I needed police protection when I was speaking which is crazy and then of course the disinvitation Cambridge had invited me to speak at a 10th anniversary of their women studies program and then disinvited me when I asked I saw who the other speakers were rabid anti- Zionist speakers masquerading as feminists so I just said well do you have what kind of security do you have planned and on the basis of that question they said maybe you should come another time and they never invited me another time well you're describing as this this happened earlier yes than let's say take your average conservative speaker that might try to go to most campuses they they're in a similar situation that you were yes suddenly back in 2003 yes I at the time I had no idea about any of this so this this trouble was brewing it was there only it wasn't seen now you're right you bring up October 7th which was beyond surreal and shocking but manage the sight of Jewish blood thrilled the Jew hatis globally it's almost as if the global intifa was zombie like primed to all act out and act up at the same time in response to this death cult Massacre celebrating it as just desserts for the Israeli Nazi how do you explain all sorts of people that ostensibly weren't even particularly um let's say you know indoctrinated into into ideology suddenly coming out on the obvious wrong side of all this on mass well you know heard Instinct Conformity fear lack of Courage cowardice explains a bit of it ignorance disinformation misinformation explains a bit of it um people don't want to lose their jobs or their friends or their family members or their funding they want to remain popular and safe and then they really do believe because the media has hammered this into them and their courses as well at college that Israel is a bad guy not the good guy that Israel deserves to be destroyed that Israel deserves to be exterminated because then the world will be safe then the world will be free it took the New York Times not n weeks to finally have an article that I just read by Jill filipovic uh that admitted that acknowledged in their Pages it's a oneoff that this was terrible what happened on 107 and kidnapping civilians and keeping them hostage with they're probably being tortured and raped every single day Etc not so good but on the other hand you know the Nuance is the Palestinians have been suffering they've been suffering because of Hamas a terrorist organization which takes all the money meant for their populations for themselves to enrich their bank accounts which are huge and to build their Terror tunnels and to get all their military equipment and the population in Gaza has been so heavily brainwashed that there they were in favor of 107 according to polls but on the other hand they'd be shot down dead if they didn't say they were in favor all of the media the journalists who went into Gaza or onto the West Bank they knew that they were seeing doctored footage pkin Villages but they reported it as if it was true all of the top media in the west reported um Hamas health uh death figures that happened like overnight they knew right away it was 578 people killed no no objectivity anything hysterical statements that Israel now is quickly more quickly than ever before managing to denounce but psychologically the first narrative out is the one that sticks so Israel proves that no it didn't bomb the Al Ali Hospital hital in fact it was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that fell short as they usually do that bombed an adjoining parking lot and Israel had nothing to do with it and there were not 500 people murdered but it didn't matter because now all over the Arab media and the left-wing Western media they're saying Israel did it and therefore deserves to die deserves to be massacred so I think the conservative media is important I think any media that can tell the truth will make a huge difference but are you conservative well they say I am and on some issues I am but I don't like to be identified by one thing only I don't want to salute a single flag but on so many issues I agree with conservative point of view for example if a man says really I feel that I'm a woman and if you address me as a man I'll sue you that's where we are in the world today so maybe I used to be or would now be considered a classical liberal which is now conservative there are so many Israeli leftists who spent six months on the streets demonstrating against bib Netanyahu for judicial reform or against judicial reform and now they're all United and they're in battle so Israel has its own demons in addition to this massacre and the hostages and Hezbollah funded by Iran has been shelling Rockets into the North of Israel while Israel is fighting deep in Gaza and losing as of yesterday 116 very young soldiers average age 22 perhaps in their 20s when Arafat launched his plann and pre- planned and strategized intifa of 2000 Israelis were being blown up on buses and in cafes in such a large number that if we looked at it in American demographic terms it would have been like 50 or 60,000 Americans killed murdered and hundreds of thousands wounded and Israel has been living with this for all of the 21st Century and the Oslo Accords fake deluded impossible why Israel wants peace really wants peace but the Arabs don't want to live in peace with the Jews because Islam has taught them or as my good Muslim allies beg to say to differ that it's islamism it's the hijacking of Islam that has taught them hatred hatred of the Infidel and a desire for a global caliphate I think those who want that are serious about trying to get it and we're making a huge mistake not to take them seriously do you think there's been a fundamental shift where things are starting to move in a different direction I see some signs of that I think some people are waking up now there are a lot of Christians in America who are for Israel and and that's new chapter in Jewish Christian relationships and there are a lot of Muslims who I work with who are for Israel I did a program the other day um with two Muslim feminists who went on a Mission to Israel an Interfaith mission to stand with their Jewish sisters there's another uh Coalition that I'm part of called The Clarity Coalition which is an Interfaith Coalition of uh very independent Brave thinking Muslims Christians and Jews and or ex-muslims too one of whom is going to be running for the Senate from Arizona Judy jasser who's a retired Navy uh person so I can't be against all Muslims because that's not possible it's not true but those who are fanatic those who want this Global caliphate those who hate Jews and hate infidels that means everyone else Hindus bahai Israel gave Asylum to the bahai when they fled from Iran anyone who's not Muslims on their hit list all of them and the people who do not have the ability to resist them to overthrow them not an easy thing to do I work with them and I would love to see coalitions of resistance I think it it's inevitable because look at the darkness otherwise look at the death and destruction otherwise so I'm not saying we'll win I'm saying that we have the capacity to fight to win and I hope we do that and what about these young people that have however bought into this uh you know Progressive woke ideology you know Islam has been engaged in slavery still is and certainly colonialism and imperialism so there's such a lack of such a great ignorance on the part of the wers in terms of human imperfection the sins and crimes of all Humanity whatever colors they may be not just the West not only America and I'm not sure about how you re-educate someone who's been indoctrinated deeply indoctrinated I'm not sure I'm I think that's going to be a task for the coming Generations I think it was a mistake for conservatives to leave the universities and to set up independent think tanks I understand all the reasons why it happened but had they been able to remain even in battle things might be at a better place right now I'm I can't be certain I'm thinking of all of the women around the world who who need our best efforts and who themselves are trying as hard as possible endless numbers of stories to tell perhaps another time uh who are not indoctrinated in this way this is a western disease this is a western suicide packed with the devil and and the wers also they believe in Marxism and in the ability for human beings to perfect humanity and Society no matter how many hundreds of millions they have to kill in order to do so and it's very rapid and it's dangerous and needs to be called out as we finish up I've been kind of dancing around the same question in a way um but do you see that shift happening I'm seeing some signs that it's actually being called out in ways I haven't seen do you expect that to continue I hope it does see I don't want to give false hope uh I think we're in a very bad spot and I think that I've been marking it uh tracking it for quite a long time so I don't want to lie I don't want to say oh we're going to turn it all around what I can say is that at least for the Jews we're an eternal people we're still here no matter what and we'll continue to be here if the world continues on if we fight if we tell the truth if we stand up with courage even if it means we lose our friends or family members if we say what needs to be said then we have a chance of saving not the planet not the climate that's another battle but we have a chance of saving education and knowledge and culture I read that activists interrupted an opera in New York at the Metropolitan Opera for climate for 22 minutes half the audience booed third walked out the Opera was ton hoer I'm not a great Vagner fan but just because in my own living room I have an opera Channel I sat and I watched that Opera as a as a small private Act of resistance to the lack of manners the lack of respect for authority for culture for art which is upon us in every way and that's what we're looking at we're looking at a bloody overthrow of all tradition deeming it all evil nothing worth saving barbarians are not at the gate The Barbarians are within so we need to fight it from within well Phyllis chestler it's such a pleasure to have had you on my pleasure to be with you you ask good questions thank you all for joining Phyllis Chesler and me on this episode of American thought leaders I'm your host Yan [Music] Kell