It is certain that if al-Husainy and Qatanani were evangelical Christian pastors who had expressed support for the Ku Klux Klan and called for repeal of the First Amendment, Chris Christie, the Democratic National Committee, and The Learning Channel would be nowhere near them, except to issue condemnations wherever necessary. But when it comes to Muslims, the rules are different: so avid are politicians and the mainstream media to find “moderates” and feature them, thereby proving that they are not “Islamophobic,” that they uncritically embrace any Muslim leader who smiles and talks of peace.
What’s even worse is that when these “moderates” are exposed as not quite so moderate as all that, no one cares. No supporter of al-Husainy or Qatanani is going to rebuke either one for their opposition to the First Amendment—not even Chris Christie. More’s the pity.
Did “Islamophobia” Beat Romney?
Since the election the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic supremacists, along with their Leftist allies, have been crowing that the voters rejected “Islamophobia.” They claim that the defeats of Allen West, Joe Walsh, and Adam Hasner, and even of Mitt Romney himself indicate that the American electorate has decisively rejected candidates who sound the alarm about the threat of jihad and Islamic supremacism, and that there is no such threat, and now we are all moving happily into a glorious multicultural future. But actually, the resounding defeat of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party say nothing at all about the public’s view of candidates who speak the truth about Islam and jihad, because this was not and never has been part of the Republican Party’s approach.
The unreality began right after 9/11, when President George W. Bush went to a mosque and proclaimed that Islam was a religion of peace. The Left was already beginning to articulate the line that any resistance to jihad and Islamic supremacism constituted “hatred,” “bigotry” and “Islamophobia,” and instead of pushing back and pointing out that the 9/11 hijackers and other jihadists used the texts and teachings of Islam to justify their actions and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and challenging Muslim groups in the U.S. and elsewhere to deal honestly on that point, Bush capitulated. When he stood in a Washington mosque on September 17, 2001 in the company of Nihad Awad of Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacists, he was signaling that his administration would not scrutinize Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S. in light of 9/11, no matter how unsavory their ties, or call on them to do anything genuine or effective to reform Islam. He would pursue the “war on terror”—our first-ever war against a tactic—without dealing with the motives and goals of the enemy.
And the Republican Party, avid to defend an increasingly unpopular president, fell into line. Leading media conservatives and almost-conservatives such as Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Mark Levin refused to deal with Islamic issues, no matter how germane they were to understanding what the foes of the United States were up to and how they could be fought most effectively. When they did deal with “terrorism”-related topics, they generally opted to feature Christian Arabs such as Brigitte Gabriel or “moderate Muslims” such as Zuhdi Jasser, thereby implicitly accepting the Left’s claim that there was something “racist” about most post-9/11 criticism of Islam and jihad, and that only those of the same ethnicity as Muslims could legitimately speak about jihad.
Thus when some on the Right, notably David Horowitz, challenged the numerous and manifest Muslim Brotherhood ties of anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, Party regulars declined to join the fray: Norquist was too powerful, too well-connected, and too valuable for his anti-tax work. Most probably did not understand the implications of Norquist’s Muslim ties in any case, having been assured by Bush and so many others for so long that Islam was peaceful, Muslims were moderate (except for a tiny minority of extremists), and that alliance with those moderates was essential. If Norquist was working with Muslims, they must be moderate—right?
And so the media, the Democrat Party, and the Republican Party all agreed: Islam was a Religion of Peace, moderates must be cultivated, and Muslim individuals and groups with Muslim Brotherhood ties and ties to other Islamic supremacist groups counted as “moderate” as long as they weren’t blowing anything up. The truth about the roots of jihad violence and Islamic supremacism in Islamic texts, and the implications of that, were only rarely discussed on Fox News or in other “conservative” news outlets, and when they were, it was usually by accident: when a guest on Hannity or O’Reilly or some other show would venture into territory that the host hadn’t anticipated.
All this soon enough bore fruit. Michelle Malkin, after delving for a time into questions of how Islamic doctrine influenced contemporary jihadists at her popular Hot Air site, jettisoned all such discussions in the summer of 2008—probably not coincidentally, just at the time that she was angling for more air time, and even a show of her own, on Fox. Later, Ann Coulter enthusiastically praised Chris Christie, without hesitating for a moment over the many signs of how deeply compromised he is to Brotherhood entities, or even giving any indication that she need do so for any reason. Party establishment and media figures didn’t even know to look askance. Likewise Romney raised no eyebrows when he insisted that “jihadism” had nothing to do with Islam—after all, no other Republican presidential candidate was saying anything significantly stronger.
And so what of the defeats of West, Walsh, and Hasner? The reason why the Republican establishment embraced none of them wholeheartedly and instead held them at arm’s length was precisely because they spoke the truth about jihad and Islam—or more of it than anyone in the Republican establishment was comfortable with. Meanwhile, Islamic supremacist groups targeted them specifically for defeat, and those on their own side were not willing or able to defend them from charges of “Islamophobia” and “hate.”
For eleven years now, the Republican Party has failed to offer a clear or coherent response to the jihad threat, or a clear or coherent alternative to the Democrat policy of appeasement and accommodation. It is just one more reason why the Stupid Party richly deserves the place on the scrapheap of history toward which it is racing so rapidly.
New York Review of Books Calls for Criminalizing of Criticism of Islam
A piece published in the New York Review of Books and written by the formerly respectable Islamic scholar Malise Ruthven is so full of errors, false claims, and inaccuracies that it is surprising that the New York Review of Books published it at all. On the other hand, as the mainstream media increasingly abandons all pretense of objective reporting and becomes ever more a propaganda arm for the Left and Islamic supremacists, it isn’t all that surprising after all.
In it Ruthven expatiates at length about what he thinks is “hate speech” directed at Muslims. Invoking Salman Rushdie’s criticism of the crude video of Muhammad that was recently blamed for riots and murders all over the Islamic world, Ruthven says: “On the motives behind the film Rushdie is surely right: researchers have revealed close connections between Nakoula, a militant Coptic separatist, and out-and-out Islamophobes such as Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. (Indeed, even as people in the Middle East were rioting against the film in late September, Geller was sponsoring a controversial anti-Muslim advertising campaign in the New York subway, raising questions about hate speech in the United States.)”
This is actually false in every respect. Pamela Geller and I have no connections whatsoever, close or otherwise, to Nakoula, who may not be a "militant Coptic separatist" or a Copt at all. Geller's advertising was not "anti-Muslim," but against jihad attacks against innocent civilians. Ruthven's use of the manipulative and inaccurate media slogans "anti-Muslim" and "Islamophobe" is unworthy of him as a scholar, as is his willing propagation of the spurious concept of "Islamophobia," which Islamic supremacist groups use nowadays to intimidate people into thinking that there is something wrong and "racist" about resisting jihad.
After that, Ruthven’s piece gets really risible. “Matthew Feldman, a political scientist,
” Ruthven notes, “has used the term “Christianism” to describe ultra-right-wing anti-Muslim polemicists such as Geller and the Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones, who also supported the film, in order to highlight their similarities to their Islamist enemies. Both rely on religious feelings to mobilize much larger groups because of the esteem for their respective religions in the broader cultures in which they reside.”
This is even more of a howler than Ruthven's claim that we were behind the Muhammad movie: Pamela Geller, who is deeply proud of her Jewish identity, is now a "Christianist" who is relying on "religious feelings" to "mobilize larger groups"? It is astonishing that Ruthven would have the audacity to write about people that he clearly knows nothing about. In reality, the American Freedom Defense Initiative that Pamela Geller and I head up is not a religious organization, but is dedicated to defending the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law. Clearly these are "ultra-right-wing anti-Muslim" goals!
Ultimately, after a great deal of long-winded chatter that doesn’t get much of anywhere, Ruthven calls for the criminalization of criticism of Islam as “hate speech”: “These contrasting responses suggest the possibility of a two-pronged approach to the free speech issues raised by images of the Prophet. ‘Insulting’ the Prophet with the intent of stirring up hatred might be categorized as a form of ‘hate speech’ comparable to anti-Semitism, racism, flag desecration, or Holocaust denial, which are forbidden by law in many countries (though not the US, where a proposed amendment protecting the US flag failed to pass by a single Senate vote in 2006), because the sacred image of the Prophet has become a fundamental part of how Muslim communities have come to define themselves. While in practice it may be difficult to draw the line between ‘insult’ and ‘criticism,’ if there is a distinction it must lie in intention.”
Who will judge intentions, once Ruthven's authoritarian law is passed? What will Malise Ruthven do if someone in power decides that something he has written about Islam was actually intended to “insult” Muslims, rather than to provide reasonable “criticism”? And why is the New York Review of Books publishing this invitation to the suicide of the free press?
Terrorists Assault Free Speech with Firebomb Over a Muhammad Satire
“You keep abusing Islam’s almighty Prophet with disgusting and disgraceful cartoons using excuses of freedom of speech. Be Allah’s curse upon you!”
That was the message that hackers left on the website of France’s satirical weekly,Charlie Hebdo, after it announced plans to feature the Islamic prophet Muhammad as “editor-in-chief” of an upcoming issue. When the issue appeared last week, the publication’s offices were firebombed and destroyed.
Charlie Hebdo’s editor, Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, was not cowed. “We no longer have a newspaper,” he said. “All our equipment has been destroyed or has melted. We cannot, today, put together a paper. But we will do everything possible to do one next week. Whatever happens, we’ll do it. There is no question of giving in.”
Charbonnier also warned of the danger of placing Islam and Muslims above criticism and even mockery: “If we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of Islamism, that is annoying.”
“Annoying” and worse: It would spell the destruction of free society. Even those who find mockery of someone else’s revered figure distasteful should find this alarming, and support Charlie Hebdo. Islamic supremacists are engaged in a full-out assault on the freedom of speech, an assault that has both violent and peaceful manifestations. This couldn’t be more serious: The freedom of speech is the basis for all our freedoms, for without it all the rest could be taken from us, and not a word could be raised in protest.
Yet already there are calls for free people to surrender. Calls for self-censorship and greater “sensitivity” toward Muslims have already begun. Bruce Crumley wrote in Time magazine in the wake of the bombing that “it’s obvious free societies cannot simply give in to hysterical demands made by members of any beyond-the-pale group,” and that “intimidation and violence must be condemned and combated for whatever reason they’re committed,” but that “it’s just as evident members of those same free societies have to exercise a minimum of intelligence, calculation, civility and decency in practicing their rights and liberties—and that isn’t happening when a newspaper decides to mock an entire faith on the logic that it can claim to make a politically noble statement by gratuitously pissing people off.”
Certainly a decent person doesn’t go around gratuitously angering people. But when it comes to censorship or even legislation, who is to decide what angers people gratuitously? The people in power, of course. Time is essentially calling for restrictions on the freedom of speech and the creation of a special, privileged class that is beyond criticism. That is the death of free society and the road to tyranny, for the class that is beyond criticism will have a free hand to do whatever it wants, and what will anyone be able to say?
Unfortunately absent from the public square are the voices telling the Muslim community in Paris, and Muslims all over the West, to grow up, and to stop reacting with firebombs and threats and murder to everything that offends them. The fact that it is virtually certain that such voices will be less numerous than those calling for “sensitivity” in the face of violent intimidation and thuggery is as good an indication as any that Western society is desperately ill, and that when it comes to Islam, leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have lost all sense of perspective. Before they regain it, we are certain to be in for some very rough days ahead—days that will make the firebombing of Charlie Hebdo look like a gesture of mild disapproval.
Crumley, of course, like so many other enlightened liberals, camouflages his slouch toward totalitarianism in the guise of “sensitivity” and resistance to “Islamophobia.” The gaping hole in his argument, however, is that he is making it after Muslims reacted violently to satire. Judaism and Christianity are lampooned on a regular basis, but Bruce Crumley never lifted a finger to call for “sensitivity” toward the religious feelings of others when Piss Christ was being displayed as a serious work of art. So Time’s argument boils down to saying that we should capitulate in the face of violent intimidation. This is not really about being sensitive at all. It is about doing what the thugs want so they won’t hurt us again.
I’d rather die first.
Insulting Muhammad
As the world continues to be roiled by riots blamed on alleged insults to Muhammad, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is attempting to shore up its “moderate” bona fides by claiming that Muhammad didn’t react to insults the way the rioters have. CAIR-St. Louis Executive Director Faizan Syed claimed Friday: “The violent reaction to the anti-Islam film that has spread across the world is not what the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught or would have wanted. He was insulted in his life much worse than in this film and he reacted by forgiving others.” CAIR-St. Louis is distributing free copies of a white-washed PBS documentary, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet. Syed explained: “Through this campaign we hope to show the true legacy of this great man and to clear up myths and misconceptions that many people unfortunately hold today.”
I’m all for clearing up misconceptions, as well as for examining what Islamic tradition says about how Muhammad behaved when insulted. In reality, contrary to Syed’s claims, Islam mandates death for non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state who mention "something impermissible about Allah, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), or Islam" ('Umdat al-Salik, o11.10), and such laws go back to passages in the Hadith and Sira in which Muhammad orders the murders of people who have insulted him, including Abu ‘Afak, who was over one hundred years old, and the poetess ‘Asma bint Marwan. Abu ‘Afak was killed in his sleep, in response to Muhammad's question, “Who will avenge me on this scoundrel?” Similarly, Muhammad on another occasion cried out, “Will no one rid me of th
is daughter of Marwan?” One of his followers, ‘Umayr ibn ‘Adi, went to her house that night, where he found her sleeping next to her children. The youngest, a nursing babe, was in her arms. But that didn’t stop ‘Umayr from murdering her and the baby as well. Muhammad commended him: “You have done a great service to Allah and His Messenger, ‘Umayr!” (Ibn Ishaq, 674-676)
Then there was Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf. Muhammad asked: "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?" One of the Muslims, Muhammad bin Maslama answered, "O Allah's Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?" When Muhammad said that he would, Muhammad bin Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab)." Muhammad responded: "You may say it." Muhammad bin Maslama duly lied to Ka'b, luring him into his trap, and murdered him. (Sahih Bukhari, volume 5, book 59, number 369)
Likewise Islam QA calls for death for blasphemers, using both Qur'an and Hadith to make its argument. “The scholars are unanimously agreed,” the site explains, “that a Muslim who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) becomes a kaafir [unbeliever] and an apostate who is to be executed. This consensus was narrated by more than one of the scholars, such as Imaam Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh, Ibn al-Mundhir, al-Qaadi 'Iyaad, al-Khattaabi and others.”
The Worldwide Jihad: The Truth About Islamic Terrorism Page 9