Only 4% of American films are made by women. In Iran it’s 25%.
Pollak tweeted the picture, adding that the ad was “truly outrageous.”
The [...]]]>
Only 4% of American films are made by women. In Iran it’s 25%.
Pollak tweeted the picture, adding that the ad was “truly outrageous.”
The ad was quickly picked up by a writer at the neoconservative flagship Commentary and then by Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin. Since then, Rubin has been on a crusade against HSBC. But her rhetoric against the bank has been over-heated, occasionally veering off towards misrepresentation of facts.
Rubin has come to be known for her dishonesty. When she called blogger and think tanker Steve Clemons an “Israel-basher” recently, he said it was an “insidious character attack,” a “sliming” that insinuated anti-Semitism. She’s left critical context out of stories, and has been caught publishing misleading distortions of answers from an interview with an Obama administration official.
In the case of HSBC, she has relied on an admittedly long list of circumstantial evidence to support her arguments. The problem is not that she raises this evidence to ask questions, but rather that she offers definitive assessments without backing them up.
Take, for example, Rubin’s admission that she had no specific knowledge about HSBC’s operations inside Iran. “It is not clear precisely what business activity HSBC continues to conduct in Iran,” she wrote. “What we do know from SEC filings is that the bank maintains an office in Iran.”
By the end of her article, however, Rubin addressed HSBC’s business in Iran with searing certainty, writing that the bank “continu[es] to do business with a murderous regime.” Nonetheless, the story, built on her own conjecture, was shortened and published in the print edition of the Washington Post. Worst of all: in the shorter version, Rubin’s conjecture was presented as fact.
Rubin did make a case, using many hints of malfeasance — though none provided concrete evidence of either HSBC misconduct or of the bank doing business with the Iranian regime.
The first examples Rubin points to are that the Justice Department initiated an investigation into HSBC and that the bank had hired Deloitte to look into transactions. She went on, in the web version of the article, to mention actions taken by regulators against HSBC:
And the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a “cease and desist” order to HSBC’s North American unit in October, ordering the bank to enhance its risk management procedures.
Rubin didn’t acknowledge that the hiring of Deloitte, according to the Financial Times article she links to, was exactly the result of the very regulatory moves she’s referring to.
The two “cease and desist” orders (contra Rubin, there were two, issued concurrently and in coordination) didn’t actually state a case or present any definitive evidence. Rubin quotes the order (PDF) from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) like this:
Regulators found that the bank’s compliance program was ineffective and created “significant potential” for money laundering and terrorist financing. This opened HSBC to the possibility that it was conducting transactions on behalf of sanctioned entities.
The first sentence here is close: The order says that the bank’s lax risk assessments created “significant potential for unreported money laundering or terrorist financing.” But the second sentence seems to be pure extrapolation on Rubin’s part, though it becomes the crux of her evidence for making the “business with a murderous regime” accusation.
In the print edition of the paper, the accusation went from being extrapolation to fact — that the OCC was making accusations specifically about “sanctioned entities.” The story, on page A15 of the December 27 Post, read, with my emphasis:
And the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a “cease and desist” order to HSBC’s North American unit in October, having found that there was “significant potential” the bank was conducting transactions on behalf of sanctioned entities.
In reality, neither order mentions Iran or sanctions, let alone lays out any evidence about business with “sanctioned entities.” The OCC order does, however, mention inadequate monitoring of associates of “politically-exposed persons (PEPs),” which usually indicates foreign officials but has been expanded in the OCC order to include “former senior foreign political figures, their families, and their close associates.” But, once again, inadequately monitoring is not the same as “continuing to do business” with someone.
I asked a spokesperson at the OCC if the order implied that HSBC had conducted such business with the Iranian regime. “Under the law, we’re required to make public enforcement orders,” the spokesperson, Kevin Mukri, told me. “But we can’t comment on anything further than that, which puts us in a bind. The order has to be self-explanatory.”
Mukri referred me to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Treasury Department’s liaison to law enforcement, which declined to offer comment for this story.
I asked Mukri if he or, to his knowledge, anyone from OCC had spoken to Rubin on background, or deep background, which would have allowed her to make such accusations without referring to sources. At first, Mukri said that, even if he had spoken to Rubin, he wouldn’t tell me, but then quickly denied having done so or knowing of anyone who had. He explained that speaking about the orders, beyond their content, would be a violation of laws governing the office’s conduct. “It’s something we don’t do as an agency,” he told me. “I’ve been here for 14 years and don’t know anyone who’s done that, ever.”
Rubin also mentions that two members of Congress recently sent letters about regulations relating to sanctions on Iran:
Moreover, Rep. Frank Pallone (D.-N.J.) recently wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke calling for increased enforcement of prohibitions on banks and other financial institutions doing business with Iran, and citing HSBC as an example of part of the problem. Rep. Joe Baca (D.-Calif.) sent a similar letter.
I was curious about the mention of HSBC in the letter by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) to Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, but his office did not supply the text of the letter following repeated inquiries. Pallone does mention HSBC in the press release for the letter.
The link Rubin supplies for the Pallone letter, however, is from Grendel Report, a blog dedicated to “cutting-edge open source information on terrorism and the Islamic threat” (note the absence of the word ‘radical’ there). The Grendel story, in turn, is attributed to Geostrategy-Direct, a newsletter operated by the World Tribune, a website that says it “tend[s] to reinforce the Judeo-Christian values” and brags about a mention from right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh for definitively connecting Iraq and al Qaeda and proving the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. (One must excuse me for being skeptical of these sources.)
The office of Rep. Joe Baca, the other member of Congress mentioned by Rubin, similarly declined to supply me with a copy of his letter, and no press release exists. So Rubin’s word that it was a “similar letter” will have to stand on its own. The reader is unable to know if the letter mentioned HSBC.
In the print edition, however, the two examples are conflated. Baca’s letter is no longer “similar,” but now also definitively cites HSBC:
Two members of Congress have written to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urging stronger controls on back activities citing HSBC as an example.
The online version of the piece by Rubin contained one more distortion. This one came to Rubin via e-mail from former AIPAC spokesperson Josh Block. Block wrote to her that “the regime in Tehran is the leading human rights violator and state sponsor of terror in the world.” The second bit, on terror, is the same pro-forma language that the State Department uses. But the first part — that Iran “is the leading human rights violator… in the world” — is a tough assertion to back up. I e-mailed and called Block several times for comment, suggesting that he soften the statement by saying Iran is ‘one of the leading…’. Block never responded.
The charge, nonetheless, was a particularly troubling one coming from advocates of Israel who constantly say that the Jewish state is being singled out. And even more troubling coming from Block, whose business partner Lanny Davis was, at the time Block made his comment, working for the Ivorian dictator responsible for the killing of more people in post-election violence than Iran’s leaders were during its own election aftermath (according to the UN).
But Rubin’s eagerness to paint all involved with Iran as a force for evil is not surprising. A U.S. attack on Iran has long been a priority for Rubin, who wrote from her former home at Commentary last September that such a move was the “best of disagreeable options.”
What is surprising, though, is that the Washington Post allows reports to go to print with serious allegations that seem to be based on little more than the combination of circumstantial evidence and conjecture.
]]>But perhaps Rubin’s most egregious language, which would seem to fall well outside of the accepted tone of The Washington Post, has been saved for those individuals and groups that she deems to be enemies of Israel for daring to suggest that Israel should cease settlement construction in the Occupied Territories.
The Washington Note’s Steve Clemons has issued a public call to the Post’s editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, and Post Chairman Donald Graham, to address Rubin’s recent post in which she wrote:
The usual crowd of Israel bashers has sent the president a letter urging him to go along with a U.N. resolution condemning Israel for its settlements.
Clemons, along with a host of prominent foreign policy analysts, issued a letter urging the the Obama administration to support a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction in the Occupied Territory.
He responded to her smear:
I believe that she and I have a serious disagreement about what Israel’s interests are — and I believe that the Netanyahu wing of the Israeli political establishment regularly places short term interests over long to mid-term interests. But I don’t call those who support Netanyahu Israel-bashers even though I believe that as patriotic as they may be as Israelis or as pro-Israel as they may be as Americans they are harming Israel’s interests. That could be a constructive debate — something where both sides could learn something, perhaps.
Calling someone as Israel-basher is akin to calling them an anti-Semite or a bigot, and that can’t go without response. I’m a strong believer in Israel and want a healthy and constructive relationship between Israel and the United States. I have traveled to Israel, have met people from nearly every political party in the Knesset, and love the place and people.
But Rubin, it would appear, took Clemons’ post as a personal challenge and used the exact same term in a post this morning in which she characterized a group of congressmen who endorsed General David Petraeus’s concept of “linkage” as “Israel-bashing.”
Rubin, who repeatedly tries to challenge conventional wisdom that the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict damages U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East, wrote:
…[A] group of the worst of the Israel-bashing congressmen sent a letter last May to Obama parroting back the general’s gaffe.
Back in May, these congressmen wrote to Obama, urging him to “continue [his] strong efforts to bring U.S. leadership to bear in moving the parties toward a negotiated two-state solution.”
They began their letter:
As steadfast advocates of the unbreakable U.S. commitment to the security of Israel, we write in support of your strong commitment to a Middle East peace process that results in Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security.
Hardly the language of “Israel-bashing” except, perhaps, in the peculiar world of Jennifer Rubin’s Right Turn blog at The Washington Post.
Rubin’s proclivity towards smearing her opponents as Israel-bashing belies the fundamental weakness of the hawkish, Israeli right-wing — a position she consistently advocates from her perch at The Washington Post. While she can’t be blamed for continuing the abrasive tone that she perfected on Commentary’s Contentions blog, Clemons is right in pointing out that Rubin’s character attacks are beneath The Washington Post and should be called to the attention of the Post’s editors and chairman.
]]>Both Rubin and Goodman reported that HSBC CEO Niall Booker met with Jose Fernandez, assistant secretary [...]]]>
Both Rubin and Goodman reported that HSBC CEO Niall Booker met with Jose Fernandez, assistant secretary for economic energy and business affairs, on Monday.
Neither of the bloggers had any great insight about the closed door meeting—which could have touched on any number of topics—but that didn’t stop them from citing anonymous sources and continuing to make unsubstantiated accusations about the bank.
Goodman wrote on Thursday:
The bank’s controversial advertisement was discussed at a private meeting between HSBC CEO Niall Booker and Jose Fernandez, assistant secretary for economic energy and business affairs, at the State Department on Monday, a source familiar with the conversation told me.
It seems unlikely that the State Department was concerned about HSBC’s rather innocuous ad that called attention to the high number of women in the Iranian film industry, but Goodman nonetheless raised the same regulatory order cited by Rubin in her initial post:
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin reported on Dec. 26 that the bank has recently “drawn the attention of various regulators” and is currently “being probed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.” Regulators at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago also reportedly “found that the bank’s compliance program was ineffective and created ’significant potential’ for money laundering and terrorist financing. This opened HSBC to the possibility that it was conducting transactions on behalf of sanctioned entities.”
While making these accusations, neither Rubin nor Goodman have proven the existence of any business transactions with “sanctioned entities” or, indeed, given any concrete description (innuendo aside) of any business HSBC conducts in Iran.
On Friday, Rubin was quick to follow up with her own source:
… [A] senior administration official only authorized to speak on background told me that “we were previously told by HSBC that they were out [of Iran] entirely, but recent statements suggest they are still in the process of unwinding their business in Iran. We are seeking to clarify exactly where things stand.”
But even Rubin is willing to admit that all of her tough talk about sanctions—and even tougher talk towards HSBC for calling attention to Iran’s female filmmakers—is really just a stepping stone to “stronger measures.”
She concludes:
It is precisely this difficulty [in enforcing sanctions] — and the Iranian regime’s determination to plow ahead with its nuclear program despite sanctions — that has convinced skeptics of sanctions that stronger measures are needed to disrupt the Iranians’ nuclear plans.
Her conclusion is noteworthy in two ways.
First, it’s far from clear that HSBC has violated sanctions in any way, shape, or form. All the bank is publicly known to have done is to publish an advertisement–which was later withdrawn–calling attention to the accomplishments of female filmmakers in Iran. From this, and a heaping dose of speculation, Rubin concludes that HSBC is an example of a regime-enabler and the epitome of the problems with sanctions enforcement? Some serious logical leaps are required to come to that conclusion.
Second, Rubin admits that none of this really matters for “skeptics of sanctions,” such as herself. She has already convinced herself that sanctions and diplomatic outreach are wastes of time and effort. HSBC might not have violated sanctions but, for Iran-hawks, any occasion to call sanctions a failure is an opportunity to inch the U.S. towards “stronger measures.”
]]>- The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin, writing on her Right Turn blog, asks whether India is doing enough to enforce sanctions against Iran. Rubin, picking up on The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, writes, “The revelation that the government of India ‘advised oil companies to open individual accounts with government-owned State Bank of India–India’s largest lender–which has a branch in Frankfurt,’ rather than directly with the blacklisted Iranian Trade Bank points to the shortcomings of sanctions.” She concludes, “The real lesson of this episode is that we should be circumspect about India’s — or any country’s — ability and willingness to turn off the flow of cash to the revolutionary Islamic regime.”
- Commentary: Alana Goodman blogs on Commentary’s Contentions blog that “HSBC may be doing a bit of damage control in Foggy Bottom after its pro-Iran ad campaign sparked criticism from the media and foreign-policy experts.” Goodman claims that the ad came up in a “private meeting between HSBC CEO Niall Booker and Jose Fernandez, assistant secretary for economic energy and business affairs, at the State Department on Monday,” according to an anonymous source. HSBC declined to respond to the claim. Goodman repeats Jennifer Rubin’s suggestion the possibility that HSBC “was conducting transactions on behalf of sanctioned entities.” HSBC has been mentioned by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago as needing to improve its anti-money laundering and terrorist-financing mechanisms but no mention was made of HSBC conducting business with sanctioned entities.
- The Weekly Standard: Stephen Schwartz blogs that Iran is exhibiting the qualities of “other tyrannies before it” by oppressing the country’s Sufis. “Iranian fear of Sufis puts the country’s clerical oligarchs in the same camp with other Islamist radicals from the Balkans to Pakistan, where attacks against the mystics have proliferated along with anti-Western jihadism,” writes Schwartz.
- Commentary: Jonathan Tobin blogs on Contentions that “Iran is still on track to have a bomb in four years.” Tobin says that Western or Israeli “sabotage” operations have delayed the nuclear program and given the West “more time to prepare less-diplomatic methods of ensuring that the tyrannical Islamist regime in Tehran does not obtain the ultimate weapon.” But, warns Tobin, “it is only a matter of time (and perhaps less time than we think) before they succeed.” He concludes, “Stuxnet is not a solution to the existential threat that an Iranian bomb poses to Israel in particular and to stability in the Middle East in general. It is just a delaying tactic.”
- The Wall Street Journal: David Feith adds his voice to the neoconservative criticism of HSBC’s recent advertisement that highlighted the high number of women in the Iranian film industry. Feith characterizes the bank as “Iran’s useful idiots” and says that the ad suggests that “a murderous theocracy is actually a progressive place.” The op-ed lists a number of human rights abuses against women in Iran and concludes that the ad is comparable to defending Nazi propaganda produced by females. “Imagine a 1939 ad pointing to Leni Riefenstahl—Hitler’s court filmmaker and a pioneering female artist—as evidence of the Third Reich’s unexpected “‘potential’,” he writes.
- National Review Online: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Benjamin Weinthal blogs that Germany’s attempts at engagement with Iran, while Iran continues to detain two German journalists, “is yet another example of what a flop this cognitive-behavioral therapy for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and company has been.” Weinthal goes on to compare the arrest of three American hikers in 2009 to “replicating the 1979 model” of holding Americans hostage. Weinthal says that engagement with Iran has only produced more hostage crises and is a form of appeasement. “Germany’s flourishing trade relationship with Iran (German exports to Iran reached €3.4 billion this year) and a steady stream of German members of parliament travelling to Iran to meet Holocaust deniers, human-rights violators, and haters of women, reveal the bankruptcy of critical dialogue and change through trade,” he concludes.
- The Wall Street Journal: Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines in the WSJ Asia edition that the Reserve Bank of India’s crackdown on domestic buyers of Iranian oil marks a major improvement in international sanctions against Iran’s energy sector, but that “further measures, and time for them to work, will still be needed to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.” Dubowitz argues that the U.S. could do more to ensure that oil supply will not tighten if sanctions are more strictly enforced. He writes, “Provided the United States and its allies can get more oil on the market—for example the Iran-loathing Saudis could increase production, or President Obama could lift the moratorium on offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico—then the world oil market would have considerably more elasticity.” He concludes, “The near-miraculous attack of the Stuxnet virus on Iran’s centrifuges and the untimely deaths of key Iranian nuclear scientists may have bought the administration that time, and further strengthened those who want to use economic sticks to beat back Iran’s nuclear aspirations.”
- The Wall Street Journal: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a fellow the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines in the WSJ’s Europe edition that European countries could do more to expand sanctions against individuals associated with human rights abuses in Iran. In contrast to those who argue that the West’s approach to pressuring Iran must focus on either human rights or Tehran’s nuclear program, he writes, “If Western democracies were to target the Islamic Republic for its human-rights abuses, bolster the country’s internal opposition, and speak directly to the Iranian people over the heads of their oppressors, they would cause significant harm to Tehran.” Ottolenghi concludes with the suggestion that “every day, a member of the U.S. Congress or of the European Parliament spend just 30 seconds recounting the tale of one Iranian dissident, or one victim of Iran’s suppression, and plead for their freedom.”
The only problem with her outrage is that HSBC implied no such thing.
HSBC responded to Rubin in a restrained–given the charges that Rubin was laying against them–and cogent statement.
HSBC offers no opinion on the lives of artists in any country. This is not a topic that’s germane to an ad campaign for a global bank. The ad needs to be considered in the context of our “Unlocking the World’s Potential” campaign. As with our prior “Values” campaign, this campaign intentionally makes no judgment. The intent is only to emphasize surprising facts based on geographic diversity, as a way to facilitate a conversation about the world’s potential. Other surprising facts featured in this campaign: Holland earns more exporting soy than Japan; USA has more Spanish language newspaper readers than Latin America.
Rubin does have some dirt: she lists some recent letters citing HSBC by a pair of members of Congress, and quotes a September 24 cease and desist order from a U.S. regulator imposing more rigid risk management systems on the bank. HSBC tells Rubin it “continue(s) to follow the letter and spirit of laws, regulations and sanctions related to Iran, in all jurisdictions.”
“It is not clear precisely what business activity HSBC continues to conduct in Iran,” Rubin admits high up in her piece. She concludes by making an unsubstantiated claim that HSBC is “continuing to do business with a murderous regime.”
As Ali pointed out last week, neoconservative responses to the ad—it was first tweeted by the Emergency Committee for Israel’s Noah Pollak—are “intellectually dishonest, utterly lacking in empathy, short-sighted, sloppy and hypocritical.” Rubin’s response manages to incorporate all of these elements in her hard-charging—yet factually challenged–response.
HSBC did not imply that women in Iran are “better situated” than American women. Rubin’s willingness to distort the text of the ad shows a total lack of empathy for the challenges that Iranian female filmmakers have overcome to hold an astonishing 25% of the film-making market. And her inability to celebrate the accomplishments of female filmmakers in Iran shows a striking short-sightedness, sloppiness and hypocrisy considering her supposed concern for the conditions faced by women in Iran.
But then again, perhaps her concern for human rights is overshadowed by a deeply irrational hatred and fear of everything — and anyone — Iranian.
Rubin turns to former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spokesperson Josh Block, now a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, who validates her stance:
It defies logic and common decency that HSBC would engage in this outrageous pro-Iran, anti-American propaganda at a time when the regime in Tehran is the leading human rights violator and state sponsor of terror in the world.
So the cycle begins again. The ad (which HSBC has now pulled) was not “anti-American.” Given the apparent truth of the statistics reported, it was not propaganda. Nor was the ad defending Iran’s human rights violators. Rubin, Block and Pollak’s argument are sticking to a script that necessitates a mindset of intellectual dishonesty, a lack of empathy, short-sightedness, sloppiness and hypocrisy. These aren’t the limited faults with Rubin, Block and Pollak’s argument. They are the foundation of it.
*Ali Gharib contributed to this post
]]>This is typical of neoconservative aggression against Iran: It’s intellectually dishonest, utterly lacking in empathy, short-sighted, sloppy and hypocritical.
Perhaps on his way to hiking in the West Bank, or whatever he does for vacation, young neoconservative upstart cum Israel government PR adviser cum
This is typical of neoconservative aggression against Iran: It’s intellectually dishonest, utterly lacking in empathy, short-sighted, sloppy and hypocritical.
Perhaps on his way to hiking in the West Bank, or whatever he does for vacation, young neoconservative upstart cum Israel government PR adviser cum Israel lobbyist cum partisan political operative Noah Pollak was in the Athens airport, where he snapped this picture of an advertisement for the bank HSBC:
Along with this picture, Pollak tweeted:
I saw this HSBC ad today at the Athens airport. It says that Iran treats women better than US. Truly outrageous.
Actually, that’s not what the ad says (intellectually dishonest). It says that 25 percent of Iranian films are made by women, whereas four percent of American films are made by women. Do those statistics surprise you? Well, that’s the point, not some overarching statement about whether women are treated better in the United States or Iran. That much is clear from the full ad (click picture to enlarge):
The right side of the advert reads:
We find potential in the most unexpected places.
Do you?
When both sides of the ad panel, and the accompanying image, are all read together in context — the ad takes on a very different light than Pollak’s gross mischaracterization and misrepresentation by omission. HSBC, it turns out, is surprised to find that such a high proportion of films in Iran are made by women, perhaps precisely because of what can be considered a tough struggle there for equal rights. But Pollak ignores the context (short-sighted; utter lack of empathy). Instead, he sets alight nationalistic outrage and the burning itch to demonize Iran at every turn.
Getting back to the link at the top of this post. Kejda Djermani at Commentary, where Pollak used to work, posted the picture (crediting it to “a friend”), linked to the full ad, and exclaimed that the “added context” doesn’t make “the ad any more intelligible or less preposterous.” She then goes off on a rant about ‘who edits these ads anyway?’ (Reader: Did you understand this ad?), and drops a non-sequitur about how many Iranian women suffer violence at the hands of religious authorities:
“In Iran it’s 25%” What is? The portion of American films made by women? Or the portion of Iranian women beaten up by the religious police at some point in their lives?
Again, Reader, did you understand this ad? Do we really think these two young neoconservative pundits did not? (Intellectual dishonesty.) I’m sure the figure about Iranian abuse is made up from thin air. (Sloppiness.) After all, this is the journalism of Commentary. Pollak’s more recent project at the Emergency Committee for Israel fares little better in the realms of honesty and fair-mindedness.
Moreover, though, is that the Iranian film industry is something to celebrate. If either pundit had taken the time, before lashing out at HSBC (fueled by hubristic outrage that one would dare compare the Islamic Republic to the U.S.), to watch a few Iranian films, they’d realize Iran has a thriving and internationally-regarded film industry. Among the three quarters of Iranian movies made by men, some do address the plight of women in Iran. Iran’s women filmmakers have themselves, for more than a decade, made films which vividly portray the inequality and injustices they face. (Utter lack of empathy.)
One would think these apparently prolific women filmmakers would actually make ideal objects of support for the neoconservatives, who claim to be bothered at every turn by human and women’s rights abuses in Iran. (Short-sighted.) But any such support must take a back seat to demonizing Iran. (Hypocrisy.)
UPDATE: I’d like to note that I may have misspoken, or at least spoken with a level of certainty that I should not have possessed. I haven’t read enough of Kejda Djermani’s stuff to know that she is, indeed, a neoconservative, a label which I affix with a careful knowledge of what the word means. For attaching this label to Djermani while speaking out of ignorance, I’d like to apologize.
I made this assumption based on the fact that Djermani writes for the neoconservative flagship magazine Commentary, but should have been more careful about the idea that writing for a neoconservative magazine does not make one a neoconservative. Perusing her blog, I did find this post on the Park51 Islamic Center, which I found thoughtful and honest (while disagreeing with much of it). I look forward to reading more of her work and making a considered judgement about whether or not she should be labeled as part of the neoconservative movement (and I welcome a response from her about whether or not she considers herself part of the movement).
None of that, however, detracts from the central argument of the above post: that whether one is for or against the Islamic Republic (perhaps especially if one is against), the Iranian film industry, and particularly women’s role in it, is something to be celebrated. I also stand by my assertion that, for the above reasons, both Pollak and Djermani’s characterization of the HSBC advert is short-sighted and intellectually dishonest. In that respect, I stand by my characterization that both Pollak and Djermani’s reactions are typical of reflexive neoconservative commentary, even if one of the writers may well not be a neoconservative.
]]>