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THE PSYCHOANALYTIC ROOTS OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM
TO THE POINTNEWS.COM ^ | JUNE 3, 2003 | PHYLISS CHESLER, PhD.

Posted on 11/11/2004 2:24:51 PM PST by CHARLITE

In the battle for Fallujah, terrorists used women and children as human shields against American soldiers. On April 27, 2004, in Jerusalem, Hamas used a Palestinian human bomb to kill two Palestinian alleged "collaborators." On April 28, 2004, even as UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, was busy characterizing Israeli policy as the "great poison in the region," Jordanian police arrested Al Qaeda operatives who were quite literally trying to launch a chemical poison attack that might have killed 80,000 Jordanians and Americans. And, on May 1, 2004, in Gaza, Palestinian gunmen shot and killed a Jewish woman who was eight-months pregnant together with her four young daughters.

Despite enormous and continuing denial on the part of left and liberal ideologues and the media, we are facing an exceedingly pathological strain of Islamofascist terrorism. So a crucial question must be asked: from a psychological and anthropological point of view, what kind of culture produces human bombs, glorifies mass murderers, and supports humiliation-based revenge?

According to Minnesota based psychoanalyst and Arabist, Dr. Nancy Kobrin, it is a culture in which shame and honor play decisive roles and in which the debasement of women is paramount.

In an utterly fascinating and as-yet unpublished book, which I will be introducing, the Sheik's New Clothes: the Psychoanalytic Roots of Islamic Suicide Terrorism, Kobrin and her Israeli co-author, counter-terrorism expert Yoram Schweitzer, describe barbarous family and clan dynamics in which children, both boys and girls, are routinely orally and anally raped by male relatives; infant males are sometimes sadistically over-stimulated by being masturbated; boys between the ages of 7-12 are publicly and traumatically circumcised; girls are clitoridectomized; and women are seen as the source of all shame and dishonor and treated accordingly: very, very badly.

According to Dr. Kobrin, "The little girl lives her life under a communal death threat--the honor killing." Both male and female infants and children are brought up by mothers (who are debased and traumatized women). As such, all children are forever psychologically "contaminated" by the humiliated yet all-powerful mother. Arab and Muslim boys must disassociate themselves from her in spectacularly savage ways.

But, on a deep unconscious level, they may also wish to remain merged with the source of contamination--a conflict that suicide bombers both act out and resolve when they manfully kill but also merge their blood eternally with that of their presumably most hated enemies, the Israeli Jews. In Kobrin's view, the Israeli Jews may actually function as substitutes or scapegoats for an even more primal, hated/loved enemy: Woman.

Widespread child sexual abuse leads to paranoid, highly traumatized, and revenge-seeking adults. Based on my own experience in Afghanistan (a non-Arab, Muslim culture), a polygamous, patriarchal culture also leads to an infernal, fraternal competition for paternal favor and inheritance. It is brother against brother, full brothers against half-brothers, full and half brothers against first cousins--and thus, can entire families and clans remain locked in revenge-fueled mortal combat for generations.

Clearly, only evolution of democracy and the elevation of women can begin to change such dynamics. Western feminists, American leaders: Please note. Alas, historically and theologically, Arab and Muslim culture strongly opposes both democracy and equality for women. This is why the battles to liberate Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East are so important and so very difficult. The American and Israeli war against terrorism is like World War Two, not like Vietnam.

Yesterday, further confirmation of Dr. Kobrin's thesis arrived at my door. The remarkable and charming Walid Shoebat, an ex-PLO terrorist, came to visit. He has been speaking about his renunciation of terrorism and conversion to evangelical Christianity. Shoebat has been touring the country speaking out for Israel and against the "occupation of Palestinian minds with Jew-hatred." Unlike the human bombs, Shoebat "merged" with his American-born mother by finally rescuing her from years of captivity and domestic abuse in Bethlehem/Beit Sahur. He also rescued his father, the man who imprisoned and abused her.

Shoebat confirmed the widespread sexual abuse of both boys and girls in Palestinian society. "It is a strange society. Homosexuality is forbidden but if you're the penetrator, not the penetrated, it's okay." He is describing prison sexuality. "If you're a teenage boy with no hair on your legs other boys your age will pinch your butt and tease you. Once, I saw a class of teenage boys turn gymnastics into a sexual orgy. And once, on a hiking trip, I saw a line of shepherd boys waiting for their turn to sodomize a five year old boy. It was unbelievable."

Shoebat's father also told him stories about starving Arab men who would barter sex for meat from Iraqi soldiers. His father, Achmed, was also traumatized in childhood when he witnessed his aunt being raped by a male relative. According to Shoebat, teenage boys prey upon younger children; older male relatives prey upon pre-adolescent and adolescent boys and girls. They do not have intercourse with the girls since this would render them un-marriageable and bring shame upon their families. I heard many stories in both Afghanistan and Iran about the male preference for anal sex, even within marriage, either as a form of birth control or as a preferred homosexual practice.

Most Arabs and Muslims will deny that this is so. They will attack westerners who say so as "orientalists, colonialists, racists." Western intellectuals will agree with them. They have been well indoctrinated by--no, western academics were the ones who first glorified the work of the late Edward W. Said who, in my opinion, published his master work, Orientalism, in 1978 as a way of denying feminist ideas and refocusing academic attention away from women and onto brown, Muslim, Arab men as the truest victims of oppression. Neat trick.

Shoebat's grandfather was the Muktar of his village. Nevertheless, eleven to fifteen people lived cramped into two rooms with a huge balcony, a courtyard, and an outhouse. Once, when Shoebat's American-born Christian mother, (she was forced to convert to Islam), upended a backgammon board in front of his father Achmed's friends, Achmed took a hammer and cracked her skull. Shoebat, her youngest child, took her hand and walked with her to the nearest church where the nuns sewed up her head. There were no hospitals. Whenever his mother tried to escape, (always together with her three children) the Shoebat men would find her, re-kidnap her, subject her to further punishment.

The male sexual abuse of female children exists everywhere; it is one of the main means of traumatizing and shaming women into obedience and rendering them incapable of resistance or rebellion. However, the male sexual abuse of male children--denied, never admitted--may work differently and may turn boys into predatory, pedophilic men. Also, among Arabs and Muslims, revenge killings are uniquely prevalent.

Shoebat told me several extraordinary stories which illustrate Palestinian and Arab Middle Eastern mentality. One of his paternal uncles was supposedly having an affair with the mother of Yusuf Al-Atrash who belongs to the family of Sami Al-Altrash, the Montreal-based student who stopped Bibi Netanyahu from speaking at Concordia University. The woman's husband was the chief of police whose revenge consisted of throwing live grenades at Shoebat's family home. The home bore the unrepaired damage for years. The outraged husband wanted to not only kill his wife's lover but his entire family. "My father and his immediate family all had to die because of what his brother did."

Shoebat asked me how I would resolve this feud-unto-death with a male relative who was also the chief of police. I foundered. Bride-exchange sacrifice? Blood money? I could not come up with the ingenious plan that Achmed, Shoebat's father, crafted--a plan which may also shed light, in part, upon the nature of the Arab war against the Jews.

Achmed persuaded the village that they had to attack, pogrom-style, a nearby Jewish community. (Ramat Rachel). Once the Israelis opened fire in self-defense, most of the Arabs fled. However, the Arab attack upon the Jews provided cover for what Achmed had to do: He himself snipered Yusuf in the back.

When the Israelis, as they always did, allowed the Arabs to safely retrieve their dead, Achmed proclaimed Yusuf al-Atrash a "shahid" and buried him in his bloody clothing. This is a mark of honor. A "shahid" enters heaven more quickly, clothed in his own blood.

This characterizes an Arab way of thinking. From here, it is easy to create the kinds of doctored footage and photo-opportunity journalism that has dominated this latest Intifada against the Jews. It is also a way of thinking that the liberal western media does not comprehend.

Yusuf's martyrdom was not enough, the "honor" of the al-Atrash family had not yet been redeemed. Another man from the al-Atrash family attacked Shoebat's father Achmed, who, in self-defense, stabbed his attacker to death, "ripped his stomach open like a sheep." Shoebat's father immediately went into hiding. By this time, Shoebat was living in America. His paternal uncles called him and asked that he pay the blood money. Shoebat did so but not until each of his uncles ("nice uncles") publicly "abandoned" Achmed. "He is not my brother, I denounce and abandon him."

And only in this way was Shoebat finally able to rescue his mother. He paid the blood money and brought both his long-suffering mother and her abuser, his father, to America. Since Shoebat's mother holds an American passport she was able to bring her husband into the country with her.

Recently, Shoebat's brother–a man they had previously socialized with-- called Shoebat's wife. "Tell your husband that we know what he is doing against Islam. Tell him we know where he lives. Bye bye."

"I told my wife, Welcome to the Middle East where your beloved one day can become your executioner the next day."

Shoebat is, miraculously, engaged in redefining loyalty. He has taken his mother's side, and in so doing, has broken with the shame, honor, and secrecy codes of his father's culture. It is important to understand that Shoebat has not broken with his father. On the contrary, he rescued him too. Shoebat's mother and father both live near him in the United States.

These amazing anecdotes confirm the veracity of Dr. Kobrin's work. In my view, they also suggest that Americans and Europeans begin to think twice about what Arabs tell them about who started a fight, and why the Israelis, the Jews, and the Americans are to blame.

Phyllis Chesler, PhD, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies and the author of twelve books including the best-selling WOMEN AND MADNESS and most recently, THE NEW ANTI-SEMITISM. THE CURRENT CRISIS AND WHAT WE MUST DO ABOUT IT (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley). She may be reached at her website www.phyllis-chesler.com


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abuse; arabculture; children; islam; islamofascism; molestation; muslim; religionofhate; religionofpeace; tpd; tradition
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To: pepperspray
How can you be so caviler about the rape of children who are too young to know they are Muslim. They are simply children.

It isn't till they are older they become bastards that deserve a slow painful death.

21 posted on 11/11/2004 3:09:34 PM PST by processing please hold (Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
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To: Rightfootforward; I_Love_My_Husband

Pings to you. Thought you might enjoy a little light reading.


22 posted on 11/11/2004 3:11:04 PM PST by Veto!
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To: CHARLITE
THE PSYCHOANALYTIC ROOTS OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM

IMHO, the psychoanalytic problem might (partly) have it's roots in genetics.

I won't waste time tracking it now, but maybe a year ago I stumbled across a
demographics web-page (from the Palestinian Authority, no less) that documented the
high rate of cousin-marriages in the PA area.

Although some very smart commentators think that "cousin-marriages" aren't
that big of a problem...
I think that what we see in the PA is nearly proof of it.

I can't recall the exact rates of "cousin-marriage", but it was high enough to make
me feel much better about having grown up in Oklahoma!
23 posted on 11/11/2004 3:14:43 PM PST by VOA
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To: ninjak
Sickening. The child abuse of these people goes way back to early Biblical times.

"Among the heathen there were fire worshipers. The worshipers of Molech and some other idolaters burned their children in the fire as an act of piety (II Kings 16:3; 21: 6; Jer 7:31; Ezek. 16:20-21): (The New Westminister Dictionary of the Bible)

One of the commands of the one God to the Israelites was that they were not to make their children "pass through the fire."

The Islamics are still just pagans, and allah is nothing but one of the pagan gods of their ancestors.

24 posted on 11/11/2004 3:24:00 PM PST by Still German Shepherd (Call them what they are: liberals/democrats are socialists and communists.)
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To: bikepacker67

bttt


25 posted on 11/11/2004 3:35:53 PM PST by Still German Shepherd (Call them what they are: liberals/democrats are socialists and communists.)
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To: CHARLITE
Wow! This explains a bunch about what is behind the problems there. It IS far deeper than even a religion thing, though Islam is the culture that condones and fuels it.

Most Americans do not know, or want to hear about this. Because of this our war on terror has far further to go before the country will understand it enough to be ready to commit to it totally.

Will the problems only end when the current generations are removed?
26 posted on 11/11/2004 3:40:06 PM PST by JSteff
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To: CHARLITE

ping


27 posted on 11/11/2004 3:44:00 PM PST by playball0
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To: CHARLITE

This article seems pretty outrageous, especially from what people have told me about Muslim society.

A guy I used to work with grew up in Jordan. He said during his lifetime he had personally seen several people beheaded for being caught in homosexual acts (as well as a number of other punishments for murder, theft, etc). Someone brings a charge, they find the witnesses, the witnesses testify, then the guy who is the judge makes the sentence. The trial and sentence is carried out all within a week or two, no long-drawn out appeals.

I'll have to take this article with a grain of salt until we can get some more confirmation.


28 posted on 11/11/2004 3:46:01 PM PST by webstersII
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To: pepperspray

So now we supposedly understand why they cower and hide behind their children, train them to kill themselves and then seek safety in populated areas, who cares.

So what is the answer?


29 posted on 11/11/2004 3:46:28 PM PST by JSteff
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To: pbrown
They [women libbers] don't care about other women, why should they....they got theirs, let the Arab women get their own.

you are correct. it's all about personal power and has nothing to do with a more noble cause for all sisterhood.

30 posted on 11/11/2004 3:51:18 PM PST by mlocher (america is a sovereign state)
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To: backhoe

Ping


31 posted on 11/11/2004 3:57:06 PM PST by EdReform (Free Republic - helping to keep our country a free republic. Thank you for your financial support!)
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To: webstersII
It does seem outrageous, because if true, what is going on is outrageous. The people that come from there no doubt do not brag about these practices, but keep them quiet. Not sure what kind of proof you want, but you might be interested in reading The Sword of the Prophet (Islam history, theology, impact on the world) by Serge Trifkovic. I think you can get it from the Conservative Book Club. He is dispassionate than the writer of this article. In any case, we're entitled to believe or not believe, but I have no doubts about the veracity of this article.
32 posted on 11/11/2004 4:24:00 PM PST by Still German Shepherd (Call them what they are: liberals/democrats are socialists and communists.)
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To: CHARLITE

So let me get this straight-now the world will have yet one more reason to pity these barbaric thugs? Give me a break. There is no way you can theorize about matters sadistic and sexual to "explain" away an entire culture's abbarent behavior. When will these people start to take some responsibilty for themselves for crying out loud! Why should we need to simply understand some ridiclulous analytic theory just so some kook can sell a book?


33 posted on 11/11/2004 5:02:19 PM PST by pepperspray
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To: CHARLITE

This is nothing more than CYA for the entire Islamic community-When people are turned into victims, they can do whatever they want. Poppycock to this junk.


34 posted on 11/11/2004 5:08:43 PM PST by pepperspray
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To: bikepacker67

Is that the copy with the super soft pages?


35 posted on 11/11/2004 11:47:14 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: webstersII

Islamics lie. The madness of this "religion" is infinitely deep.


36 posted on 11/11/2004 11:51:41 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: pepperspray

A twisted sexual dynamic fuels Islam. It needs to be understood. Polygamy for the wealthy puts a larger number of men into a state without a woman of their own. It was a great motivation for the armies of Mohammed and his successors. Win battles get women and do the work of heaven as well. Their idea of heaven is fresh pussy for crying out loud.

It is strange to have a psychiatrist cavalierly dismiss this article without a rational discussion of its faults. It clearly is not written to make the killers into victims.


37 posted on 11/11/2004 11:58:31 PM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
Is that the copy with the super soft pages?

Yup... 2-ply, unscented.

38 posted on 11/12/2004 2:59:07 AM PST by bikepacker67 ("This is the best election night in history." -- DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe 11/2/04 8pm)
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To: CHARLITE
Allahu Fubar!

The only answer seems to be to kill them all.

Father God, I pray that You will save them, change them, and deliver them all from this plague of islam. But if they refuse to be saved and changed I pray that You kill them before they drag others into hell with them.

39 posted on 11/12/2004 7:41:32 AM PST by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: justshutupandtakeit

What is strange is not that I am a psychiatrist who dismisses this as garbage or that I see it as yet one more way for Islams' apologists to gain contrived sympathy but the timing of this nonesense. Ok, let's have it your way and scientifically test the hypothesis that moslem kids are victimized by their parents-I suppose we could test the hypothesis by asking moslems if it's true, but hook them up to a polygraph first....


40 posted on 11/12/2004 10:07:39 AM PST by pepperspray
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