Look at the tampon portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, ignore the wife-beating.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
What was Washington D.C. missing?
A feminist hotel whose lobby has a giant portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg made out of "repurposed tampons". Of all the ways the deceased justice would want to be remembered, a giant tampon portrait likely ranks below being the new Land O’Lakes or Aunt Jemima mascot.
But Hotel Zena’s incredible commitment to female empowerment also includes a reception desk full of jumbled high heels, giant portraits of female warriors, thousands of feminist protest buttons, and a Wall of Honor that includes Oprah and Hillary Clinton, for a “fierce” atmosphere.
Because who doesn’t come on a business trip to D.C. and then wants to stay overnight in a “fierce” atmosphere while being glared at by a mural of a dour Greek goddess in every room?
The only thing funnier than a “fierce”, but “inviting” feminist hotel is who’s behind it.
Viceroy Hotels & Resorts announced that “Hotel Zena was created primarily by women, for people, both women and men. It is a hotel that offers a haven for all genders, races, and sexualities."
That might nor be quite the attitude of Viceroy's Maldives hotel in a country where Islamic sharia law orders women who have been raped to be lashed. The Islamic regime made headlines around the world when it ordered a 15-year-old girl to be lashed for having premarital sex.
But then again, 50% of Viceroy is owned by the Mubadala Investment Company, a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Its CEO is the grandson of the former top Sharia judge there.
Some 50% of Viceroy was owned by Jho Low, the businessman at the center of Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal that dragged in sections of its government and assorted Muslim royals. The Justice Department seized some of Low’s assets and the Abu Dhabi wealth fund was negotiating to buy that 50%, but it’s unclear who now owns the other half of Viceroy.
Viceroy’s true hometown in Abu Dhabi is about as feminist as a tampon portait of RBG.
Women have “male guardians” who run their lives and decide whether they can travel and the Sharia Court of Appeals found that men have the right to beat their wives. Female genital mutilation is commonplace, and rape is only a crime for girls under fourteen years old.
Hugging a man without the benefit of marriage however is a crime.
Foreign tourists who reported being raped were sentenced to prison because they had confessed to extramarital sex. In other words, it’s the usual sort of Sharia setup.
And don’t ask about “sexualities”.
“Unnatural sex with another person” gets you 14 years prison. That’s progressive in a region where Iran hangs gay people. And it’s not the only one dispensing death penalties freely.
All of this is a little awkward for a feminist hotel that boasts of its “provocative art” produced by “feminists of both genders” who are “working globally for the cause of human rights”.
A giant tampon portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a very convenient distraction even if it’s not too clear how all those “repurposed tampons” are advancing human rights around the world.
The business model is a familiar one. Take an underwhelming hotel, and renovate it into a “luxury urban lifestyle hotel” by throwing lots of bad art, and virtue signaling at every inch of it. But the investors are often foreign, looking for someplace with potential to put their money.
Last year’s reviews for The Donovan mentioned smells, leaks, and dirty toilets. The hotel had been renamed several times and showed up in the D.C. Madam’s phone records (probably not one of the accomplishments of female empowerment that the current management would like to celebrate, but you never know) and then a $25 million renovation gave it a feminist makeover.
Now if there are any leaks, visitors will be too distracted by all the feminist virtue signaling.
Washington D.C. is leading the nation in the trend of woke hotels with extremely un-woke owners. The Eaton Workshop had been previously announced as a woke hotel with crystal healing, politically correct lectures, and bibles replaced with UN pamphlets. But its ownership was linked to a Hong Kong family entangled with Chinese state-owned enterprises.
Like the NBA, Disney, and the rest of the huge corporate titans, woke is reserved for America.
Opening a hotel in D.C. that blathers about oppression or feminism is fine. It’s just marketing to the ruling class of a government town that sees oppressors everywhere except in the mirror. But don’t expect any lectures about human rights in a Hong Kong hotel or feminist tampon portraits in the hotels of Maldives or Abu Dhabi. That’s the difference between virtue and virtue signaling.
So many corporations have been happy to shout, “Black Lives Matter”, lecture on “toxic masculinity”, ban gun owners, and pro-life activists because that’s the official dogma. Every dot com from Amazon to Spotify will rename Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, because that’s what the ruling class here wants, the way the PRC’s ruling class wants Mao portraits.
There’s no contradiction between Sharia law in Abu Dhabi and tampon portraits in D.C., or Communist propaganda in Shanghai and Black Lives Matter t-shirts in San Francisco.
It’s not about rights, principles, or commitments: it’s about power.
That’s why shoving the Uighurs in the NBA’s face is a great own on Twitter, but not much else. The NBA doesn’t care about rights. No more than Disney or any corporation shooting off emails about its commitment to racial equality and the millions it’s sending to Black Lives Matter does.
When most Americans were patriotic, corporations also wanted to be seen as patriotic. But these days most Americans matter about as much as most Chinese or most Venezuelans.
The ruling class has a new set of mores and virtues to distinguish it from the folks, as Obama once put it at a San Francisco fundraiser with George Soros in attendance, bitterly cling to their guns and religion, instead of bitterly clinging to their Black Lives Matter signs and RBG portraits.
The luxury hotels of D.C. cater to the new ruling class and its mores and fetishes.
The Zena Hotel, like the Eaton Workshop or any of the new urban luxury leftist hotels, doesn’t represent rights, but the power of the ruling class to repress the rest of the country. The more obnoxious, crude, hypocritical, and abusive its propaganda, the greater its show of strength.
The propaganda can be about female empowerment, the glories of Maoism or Sharia law, but their real message is in the universal language of the power and preening of the ruling class.
In D.C., Democrat women can be groped by Biden before checking into a feminist hotel where tampon portraits and murals of female goddesses and warriors make them feel empowered. It’s no different than the Muslim women who claim that Sharia law empowers them. Empowerment is different from freedom. Rights provide real freedom while empowerment offers a heady rush.
One is a legal reality and the other is an emotional feeling.
A brief history of the tyranny of the Left is that it substitutes emotions for rights. Its empowerment doesn’t promise freedom or rights, only the thrill of power over others.
“Every architectural line, material and art peinstallation was thoughtfully designed and curated to send a message of female empowerment,” a story about the Zena Hotel claims.
It’s not about the empowerment of women. The Zena Hotel is still a product of two massive companies with male CEOs, not to mention Islamic emirates with male rulers, and even the hotel’s chef is a man. But it is about the empowerment of some women of the ruling class, not to rule over their male bosses, but the rest of the country which lacks their wealth and power.
A ruling class doesn’t seek to empower women or anyone else, but to hold and wield power. Zena’s portraits of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, of Hillary Clinton and Oprah, are not about rights: they’re a celebration of the power of a ruling class while pretending that power is feminism.
And if you get too worried about the wife-beating in Abu Dhabi, here’s a tampon mural of RBG.
Today in history, a battle that radical Muslims of the ISIS variety all but venerate took place between Muslims and Christians in Spain, or al-Andalus.
Context: In 1085, Alfonso VI of Leon-Castile captured the Muslim city of Toledo, thereby formally initiating the Reconquista. Great was the lamentation among Muslims and great the rejoicing among Christians. The Muslim emirs of al-Andalus — notorious for their disunity, dissipated lifestyles, and disinterest in jihad — had to act fast, for "the arrogance of the Christian dogs," to quote one Muslim, had "waxed so great."
So they called on their fanatical coreligionists in North Africa, the Almorivades, a sect devoted to waging jihad and enforcing sharia. Their elderly leader was Yusuf bin Tashfin, "a wise and shrewd man," who had "passed the greater part of his life in his native deserts; exposed to hunger and privation, he had no taste for the life of pleasure." Dressed all in black with a veil covering everything but the zeal in his eyes, the 76-year-old sheikh accepted the invitation and entered al-Andalus.
The Moorish emirs quickly "acknowledged his sway," to quote an Arab chronicler, "hoping that he would stop the victorious course of the infidel, and thus open, for the prosecution of jihad, those gates which they had hitherto kept criminally locked," thereby "propping up the tottering edifice of Islam, and humbling the pride of the insolent Christian."
By October 1086, a vast coalition of thousands of Almorivades and Andalusians, under Yusuf's command, found themselves facing Alfonso and his knights at Sagrajas, near Badajoz. (Although exact numbers are unclear, the Muslim army outnumbered the Christian one by roughly three to one.) According to the Muslim chronicler:
When the two armies were in the presence of each other, Yusuf wrote to Alfonso offering him one of the three [conditions] prescribed by the law; namely, Islam, tribute, or death[.] ... At the receipt of this letter, the unbeliever was highly indignant; he flew into a most violent passion, and returned an answer indicative of the miserable state [of his mind].
On October 23, 1086, the Christians finally charged at the frontlines of the Muslim army, where Yusuf had placed the Andalusian emirs, while he and his African warriors held the rear. The battle soon "became fiercer than ever, and the furnaces of war burned with additional violence; death exercised its fury." As expected, it was not long before the Moorish frontline began to crumble and retreat before the Christians, who "repeated their attacks with increasing fury."
Yusuf's unperturbed reaction underscored the contempt he held for his "moderate" Muslim allies: "Let the slaughter continue a little while longer," he told a concerned general; "they no less than the Christians are our enemies." Moreover, the Christians would tire themselves out, added the shrewd sheikh, "and we shall vanquish them without great difficulty."
Before long, Alfonso and his knights had penetrated to the rear of the Muslim encampment. Yet Yusuf was nowhere to be found. He had divided his forces into three: one (finally) to aid the nearly routed Andalusians, and one to engage Alfonso; the last, led personally by the wily emir, had circumvented the field of battle. "Advancing with drums rolling and banners flying," they went straight to and put the Christian rear camp to fire and sword.
Realizing he had been outflanked, Alfonso, rather than continuing to rout his foes, ordered an about face back to his own camp. This was a mistake. The Christian knights crashed into their own fleeing men, even as "the Moslems began to thrust their swords into their backs and their spears into their flanks."
Always in the background was "[t]his weird drum beating, which so dumbfounded the Christians." It was, in fact, part of the new tactics brought into play by the Almorivades, whereby military units rhythmically advanced to the beat of drums. As one historian explains:
The thundering roll of the Almoravide drums, now heard for the first time on Spanish soil, shook the earth and resounded the mountains. And Yusuf, galloping along the serried ranks of the Moors, nerved them to bear the fearful sufferings inseparable from holy war, promising Paradise to the dying and the richest booty to those who survived the day.
Soon even the effete Moorish kings who had been driven off the field had returned to the fray. Now "the clash between the two kings was terrific." Now "the earth quaked under the hoofs of their horses," writes a Latin chronicler; "the sun was obscured by the clouds of dust rising under the feet of the warriors; the steeds swam through torrents of blood. Both parties, in short, fought with equal animosity and courage."
Muslim accounts agree: "the stormy din of drums, the clash of clarion and trumpet, filled the air; the earth quaked [under the weight of the warriors], and the neighboring mountains echoed the thousand discordant sounds."
At just the right moment, Yusuf unleashed his elite black guard — 4,000 bellowing Africans, armed with light blades, spears, and hippo-hide covered shields — toward where Alfonso and the bulk of his most stalwart knights were holding ground. He ordered them "to dismount and join the fight, which they did with awful execution, cutting the horses' houghs, spearing their riders when on the ground, and throwing confusion into the enemy's ranks," writes the chronicler:
In the middle of the conflict Alfonso attacked, sword in hand, a black slave who had spent all his javelins, and aimed at his head; but the black avoided the blow, and, creeping under Alfonso's horse, seized the animal by the bridle; then, taking out a khanjar [J-shaped dagger] which he wore at his girdle, he wounded the Christian king in the thigh, the instrument piercing both armour and flesh, and pinning Alfonso to his horse's saddle. The rout then became general, the gales of victory blew, and Allah sent down his spirit to the Moslems, rendering the true religion triumphant.
Exhausted, bloodied, and now impaled, Alfonso and his few remaining men — just 500, almost all of whom were seriously wounded — retreated, even as the relentless Muslims gave chase deep into the night and slaughtered some more. In the words of the historian al-Maqqari, Alfonso "fled from the field of battle like the timid hare before chasing dogs, and reached Toledo, beaten, dejected in spirits, and wounded."
Meanwhile, a grisly scene was unfolding on the field of battle. In keeping with the modus operandi of four centuries of Islamic heroes and caliphs, stretching back to Muhammad's treatment of the Banu Qurayza, "Yusuf caused the heads of all the Christian slain [to the number of 2,400] to be cut off and gathered together in massive piles":
And from the tops of those gruesome minarets the muezzins called to morning prayers the victorious soldiers, now worked into a frenzy by the sight of this bestial treading under-foot of human remains, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful."
The emir later had the now rotten heads hauled off in carts to the kingdoms of al-Andalus as material proof of victory — and a reminder of the fate of all who resist Islam.
Yusuf bin Tashfin is still revered among Muslims, particularly of the jihadist bent, for his pious exploits at this battle. Indeed, with the exception of perhaps the battle of Yarmuk, few if any other jihads of Islamic history are as extolled in Muslim historiography as Sagrajas, though it is known by a different name in Arabic: the battle of al-Zallaqa, meaning "slimy," a reference to the slippery conditions caused by the copious amount of blood shed on the battlefield, as echoed by an Arab chronicler: "For many years after the field of battle was so covered with carcasses of the slain, that it was impossible to walk through it without treading on the withering bones of some infidel."
In the end, "this memorable battle and defeat of the Christian forces ... inspired new life into the body of [Andalusian Islam]" and set the stage for the next century and a half, which saw the absolute fiercest fighting between Christian and Muslim in Spain. But that is another story.
Raymond Ibrahim is author of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West — a book that CAIR and its Islamist allies did everything they could to prevent the U.S. Army War College from learning about. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, and a Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Busted: Iranian diplomat who ferried bombs around Europe now goes to trial
In 2018, an Iranian diplomat left his post in Austria, returned to Iran, and flew a bomb back to Europe. After turning it over to two Iranian operatives in Luxembourg via Germany, he returned to Austria. As part of a coordinated intelligence operation between French, German, and Belgian services, the authorities ended up thwarting the plot by stopping these two Iranian operatives before reaching their destination, an Iranian opposition rally held in a Paris suburb. Their main target was the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Maryam Rajavi. The rally was also attended by prominent leaders from around the world, as well as tens of thousands of Iranians.
How did this on-duty diplomat end up being extradited to Belgium, where after two years of investigation, the trial of Assadollah Asadi begins in November 2020. It is unprecedented because no on-duty Iranian diplomat had ever been charged with terrorist acts in the European Union. Asadi was the third counselor at Iran's embassy in Vienna.
Tehran repeatedly dismissed the charges against Asadi, calling them false accusations by the NCRI's political arm, the MEK. Their response stands in stark contrast to the evidence presented by the Belgium government against Asadi. Since his arrest, Asadi and his lawyer have declined to comment regarding the charges.
During a March 12, 2020 meeting with Belgian authorities, Asadi did lay out the Iranian regime's grievances against the MEK (The main force of the Iranian opposition againt the Mollh’s regime) before warning them of the possible consequences if he was found guilty.
"According to Assadollah Asadi, we (Belgium) do not realize what is going to happen, in the event of an unfavorable verdict," stated the minutes of that meeting. However, he gave no information about any specific organizations that might be involved.
"It is absolutely not a threat of retaliation, and if it's understood that way, it is a misinterpretation," said Dimitri de Beco, Asadi's lawyer during an interview with Reuters. "He will explain the sense of his remarks to the court."
Asadi is just one example of how the Iranian regime uses diplomatic credentials to allow operatives to move throughout Europe and other countries. These operatives have carried out multiple assassinations and other terrorist acts as a larger part of the Iranian foreign policy. Some of their work includes the assassination of four Kurdish dissidents in Germany and the assassination of Dr. Kazem Rajavi in Switzerland.
A study reveals no assassination in which the regime did not use diplomatic garb for its terrorist acts. The case of Mohammad Hussein Naqdi, assassinated in March 1993 in Rome, is another example. The Roman criminal court went through a complicated legal process before condemning the clerical regime.
The goal of these acts is to diminish the influence and power of the NCRI and MEK within the international community while rallying the Iranian people to the regime by focusing them on other military and political issues outside of Iran.
Questions remain about why this plot against the NCRI coincided with the travel of the Iranian President Rouhani to Vienna and then Switzerland? It appears that this trip was meant to take political advantage of this terrorist plot had it been successful.
The Iranian government made multiple efforts to get Asadi released and sent back to Tehran, but their efforts have been unsuccessful to date.
Investigating Asadi's history with the regime clarifies that this is not his first time serving the regime by carrying out various terror plots, which have the backing of the Iranian government's highest levels. He has been part of the Ministry of Intelligence for decades, so being transferred into their diplomatic corps would not be unusual. Everyone knows that the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs worldwide, but particularly in Europe.
Asadi was in charge of all the terrorist projects of the Ministry of Intelligence in Europe. He remains the third secretary for the Iranian embassy in Vienna, despite his arrest two years ago. Many argue that third secretaries are typically promoted after just a few years, so it is more likely that Asadi remains a third secretary to cover his other activities throughout Europe.
This terrorist plot had too many details that would have been impossible for Asadi to pull off without the Iranian regime's highest officials' knowledge. Why use a diplomat? Conclusion: there are legal and technical protections provided to diplomats that make it difficult for them to be arrested, making them perfect to use in various terror activities throughout Europe. However, Asadi was in Germany, and his diplomatic immunity did not extend outside is his assigned post in Vienna. Typically, diplomatic immunity was a critical part of operations for many Iranian operatives.
While no one is sure whether Asadi's trial will end up in a guilty verdict, this case has exposed the ways that the Iranian regime is using its diplomats to act against opposition leaders in Europe. There are calls to close Iranian embassies in response to these revelations. However, to truly stop these attacks by the Iranian regime through its diplomatic corps, the international community needs to do more than close embassies. They need to stand up to the regime and hold it accountable by stopping their appeasement policies. Without a change internationally, the Iranian regime will continue its reign of terror through its diplomats.
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