The New York Times Removes the Anti-Semitic Comment

After a bit of correspondence, the Times removed the anti-Semitic comment, no. 24, posted in response to Robert Mackey's "Lede" article, "Israelis Explain, and Mock, Flotilla Crisis" (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/israelis-explain-and-mock-flotilla-clash/).

It is my hope that the Times "moderators" will demonstrate a bit more sensitivity in the future before posting such hatred.

I was also told that my comment in response to Dowd's op-ed should have been posted; however, one senior editor of the Times claimed that "Maureen has denounced the barbaric policies in Saudi Arabia against women more than once, including on an earlier trip to that country as I recall," and stated that my rejected comment read "more like an insult than anything else." My response to that senior editor in relevant part:

Re Ms. Dowd's most recent series of op-eds concerning Saudi Arabia, I read all of them and do not recall a single instance where she denounced their "barbaric policies". Although there was castigation of Israel, she did not once mention the practice of "honor" killings in Saudi Arabia. She never described how women who are gang raped are sentenced to prison and lashings. She never mentioned the problem of "child brides" in this country.

I recall reading her op-ed, "Driving Miss Saudi", where she observed how "Young women in Riyadh try to balance Islam and modernity as the stunted desert kingdom makes progress in 'Saudi Time'", but didn't dare breathe a word concerning any of the above obscenities. Reading this op-ed, one was made to believe that Saudi oppression of women amounted to little more than a dress code. In fact, in her op-ed "Loosey Goosey Saudi" she stated: "after spending 10 days here, I can confirm that, at their own galactically glacial pace, they are chipping away at gender apartheid and cultural repression." Does this sound to you like a denunciation of "barbaric policies"?

Be assured: I'm adamant about advancing women's rights throughout the world and denouncing sexual abuses of any kind, and the ongoing horrific abuses of women in Saudi Arabia also demand forthright condemnation.

Moreover, it should be observed that Ms. Dowd never once described how death sentences are handed out for "witchcraft", why persons go to jail and are whipped for "practicing magic", why limbs are severed for alleged theft, and why persons guilty of "apostasy" are beheaded.

Lastly, in her op-ed entitled "Arabia: Inshallah, Obama", she uncritically informed readers that the Saudi foreign minister laments the need for less talk and more peace in the region. She never breathed a word about the war raging on the Saudi border with Yemen between Yemeni Shiites backed by Iran and the Saudi army and air force, notwithstanding the fact that some 175,000 people in Yemen's northwest Saada province are refugees as a result of the fighting between Shiite rebels and the Yemeni and Saudi armies.

You still think my comment was intended as an insult? It wasn't. It was a cry for much lacking honesty and an end to the abominations being perpetrated against women in Saudi Arabia.