Irshad Manji has proven herself, time and again, to be a free-thinking commentator unafraid to speak the truth, no matter who her audience is.

As an out-lesbian woman who is unafraid to challenge the status-quo, she is a pariah to mainstream Isalm. Yet, she bravely fights to change things in her community.

She is hardly a "tool" of the Israeli government. She has spoken out, in Israel, against the occupation and she regularly speaks out against the Israeli occupation to mainstream Jewish audiences in North America and Europe.

At the same time, she speaks the truth about how the Palestinians have been continually lied to and cheated by their own corrupt leadership.

Attempts to marginalize her with inuendo like "tool of the Isreali government" are the nothing but work of propagandists afraid of honesty and truth.

Irhad Mani doesn't sit in some tin trailer in the middle of nowhere typing out lies for a small band of followers on a webchat forum. She is out there, putting herself at risk, all over North America, Europe and the Middle East day after day. She is a hero.