The great struggle against radical Islam is being complicated in the West by a phobia of Islamophobia.
Of course, prejudice against Muslims should be condemned. But the accusation of Islamophobia confuses prejudice with legitimate criticism of Islam and concerns about Islamic extremism.
An example of this has surfaced in Britain with the publication by an organization called Hope not Hate (HnH), titled, “The Counter-Jihad Movement: Anti-Muslim Hatred from the Margins to the Mainstream.”
This document profiles 920 organizations and individuals in 22 countries. It says that they make no distinction between moderate Muslims and extremists, that they are “mainstreaming” anti-Muslim hatred, and that their “anti-Muslim rhetoric poisons the political discourse sometimes with deadly effect.”
Outrageously, the document links neo-Nazi and fascist groups with Middle East scholars such as Dr. Daniel Pipes and even with courageous Muslim reformers such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and stellar counter- jihadists such as the Somalian campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
A number of these counter-jihadists already live under a permanent Islamist threat to their lives. Yet, astoundingly, HnH accuses them of spreading anti-Muslim hatred.
I, too, am included in this grotesque list, even though I have repeatedly acknowledged the many millions of Muslims who are neither extreme nor violent and emphasized that the Islamist perspective is merely one interpretation of Islam. Moreover, I am described as a “supporter of Israel” – as if it is axiomatic that Israel supporters will be Muslim-bashers.
Like several other victims of this document’s smears, I have placed this matter in the hands of my lawyers. But there is a yet more disturbing aspect to this calumny. For HnH is supported and backed by mainstream UK Jewish organizations.
As humans, we instinctively root for the underdog. Movies and books exalt the underfunded, undereducated (and often underage) underdog in his fight against the polished grown-ups with their money, influence, and three-piece suits. From a young age, we imbibe the idea that those with money and power are always bad, leaving the “little guy” to save the day. Large organizations are generally viewed with suspicion, regardless of the actual character of the entity. Likewise, irrespective of the goals of the smaller group, the underdog more easily garners our sympathies.
The painful realization is that we, the campus pro-Israel movement, the ones fighting the “good fight” for democracy, human rights, and tolerance in the Middle East, are seen as the “big dog” — the suspect corporate entity. We have funds, and we use them. We are the distributors of shiny pamphlets, the orderers of beautifully arranged food, and the coaches of groomed speakers. We are the ever-present “Israel advocates.” And yet despite — or more aptly because of our well-funded arsenal of promotional tactics — pro-Israel advocates are more often than not on the losing end when put against the world’s newest underdog: the BDS movement.
Seemingly underfunded and representing an “oppressed” people, the BDS movement rarely, if ever, caters events; it hires somewhat radical (and often uncouth) speakers; and it never hands out glossy pamphlets with long words (other than “apartheid,” of course). And in order to critically appeal to the universalist biases of the poorly informed, BDS does not call its supporters “Palestine advocates” — it calls them “human rights activists.”
Israel is facing a grave “king” crisis. Never mind the Muslim terrorists stabbing, slashing and shooting any Jews in range. The real threat was uncovered by Shabak’s Jewish section, a gang of Jewish youths had plotted to “appoint a king”. It’s a lucky thing that Shabak had prevented the “return of the king” through the usual measures of planting informants and torturing detainees.
Just think, if they hadn’t arrested and detained those “right-wing extremists”, Israelis today might be forced to take orders from an undemocratic king instead of an undemocratic Supreme Court.
After Rabin’s death, Kikar Malchei Yisrael, the Square of the Kings of Israel, was renamed Kikar Rabin. The kings of Israel had to make way for the eternal celebrations of outrage for the murder of the Labor PM at the hands of a pawn of a Shabak employee. That killing led to the same ritual cries about the threat of “right-wing extremism” which was somehow worse than the “left-wing extremism” whose pandering to terrorism had killed over 100 Israelis since Oslo.
It’s a lot more than 100 today. And center-right prime ministers have come and gone with bold promises and only made things worse. The regular chants of “Insert name here melech yisrael” at political conventions don’t lead to any arrests. Though considering their tackiness maybe they should.
Still ex-Shabak boss Carmi Gillon has reemerged to cry “We’re at a worse point than before the assassination of Rabin.” Not in the sense that the terrorists set off by his old boss can now bombard Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But in the sense that more “right-wing extremists” are noticing it.
Other than the need to discredit her party’s former leader and push what might be termed the Turnbull Doctrine of warm-and-cuddly relativism, what in the name of Heaven could have possessed the Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs to present Islamic dogma as incontrovertible fact?
It is entirely appropriate for Australians to hold Muslims accountable for the statements and actions of their religious leaders. Writing in The Australian, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has attempted to throw light on the challenge of Islamic radicalism. She offers a ‘reality check’ by injecting what she asserts are ‘basic facts’ into the public debate. However she only succeeds in promoting misinformation and multiplying confusion.
Why must the Australian assistant minister for multicultural affairs present Islamic dogma as incontrovertible fact? Fierravanti-Wells astonishingly declares the Koran to be ‘a collection of revelations from God to the Prophet Mohammed.’ Does she really accept it as a ‘basic fact’ – for the purpose of public debate – that Mohammed was God’s prophet, or that the Koran is a genuine revelation from God? Surely only a believing Muslim could make such a declaration and mean it?
Why can Fierravanti-Wells not show more sensitivity to disbelievers in Islam – the majority of her audience – by adopting an objective stance, for example by saying ‘Muslims believe the Koran to be a collection of revelations from God,’ or ‘Muslims believe Mohammed to be a prophet’?
Good for a Laugh
Why are Christians mocked with a vitriol that would be “hate speech” if directed at any other group? Opposition by some of Christ’s followers to elements of the liberal-progressive agenda must surely be one reason. Another might be that our brave artists target only those who turn the other cheek
Picture this: on the side of a van in a busy street, a larger-than-life representation of the holy Prophet himself, stepping out on a journey, perhaps en route to Medina during the Hegira. He is carrying a heavy burden. Between him and a bystander, who seems rather taken aback by this apparition, a bubble contains the words, “How much to Ballarat?”
The van belongs to an “art courier” called Artist Moving Artists, and you can see the image on its website (www.artistmovingartists.com.au). But just before you check, of course the image doesn’t represent Mohammed. As if it would and the van still be driving freely around. Someone would have complained by now or sued under Section 18C citing Islamophobia. In some places—perhaps even here soon—the van would be torched or the driver decapitated.
No, the image represents Christ and He is carrying His cross, and for all the apparent ease with which He is depicted shouldering this burden, He is on His way to be crucified. The crucifixion of Christ, as Quadrant readers will not need to be reminded, but a lot of other people these days evidently do, is at the heart of the Christian religion. It and the scourging and the long trek up the hill to Calvary which preceded it are not only sacred redemptive events for Christians but in human terms a horrifying sequence of brutality and suffering. So of course to a certain mind they are a perfect topic to make fun of, a golden opportunity for satirising a bruised and bleeding man on his way to a cruel death.
The Christians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are no different from their brothers in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Libya, who face a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing at the hands Islamist groups. Yet Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders want the world to blame only Israel for the predicament of Christians.
The PA’s decision to cancel Christmas celebrations had nothing to do with Israel or the “intifada.” It came after threats by Muslim extremists to target Christians and their holy sites.
On Christmas Day, Muslim Palestinians hurled stones at the car taking the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land to Bethlehem. It would not surprise anyone if next year the PA decides to cancel Christmas celebrations for “security reasons.”
If, in the media and the international community, this strategy of turning a blind eye to the Muslim persecution of Christians continues, next year’s Christmas in Bethlehem is sure to be an even less happy one.
This was not a happy Christmas for our Palestinian brothers in the West Bank who happen to be Christian. The Palestinian Christians have now become a tiny minority in Bethlehem. This year, they were just lucky that Christmas passed without a major terrorist attack or serious outbreaks of violence.
On Christmas day, Muslim Palestinians hurled stones at the car taking the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, to Bethlehem. Twal, head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, was fortunately not hurt in the attack. The stone-throwers, local residents said, were from a refugee camp near Bethlehem. They had apparently said they were opposed to holding any form of celebrations in Bethlehem — on the pretext that there is no reason to celebrate while Palestinians are being killed by Israelis — who, by the way, have merely been trying to stop Palestinians from killing them.
Butchering innocents is standard operating procedure for Arab/Moslem barbarians….remember this atrocity? ” …..an attack on a Jewish family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank took place on 11 March 2011, in which five members of the same family were murdered in their beds. The victims were the father Ehud (Udi) Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children—Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant. The infant was decapitated. rsk
“People are even killed inside the camps, and the refugees are afraid to say if they saw somebody get killed. … they’re buying and selling ladies and even girls.”— Former ISIS operative.
“We will not stop hunting Christians and burning churches. Christians are Allah’s enemies!” — Extremist Islamic leaders, Indonesia.
“My family members and I have been marked for death, and everyone in the community denied ever knowing my family or me…” — A convert to Christianity, Nigeria.
“In Bangladesh, Christians are a weak minority and this is why Muslims are attacking us.” — Nirmal Rozario, general secretary of the Bangladesh Christian Association.
Teams of trained killers disguised as refugees were sent by the Islamic State (IS) into U.N. refugee camps to kill Christians, including “in their beds,” and to kidnap young girls to sell or use as slaves. This was revealed on October 24, according to a report, soon after an IS operative “got cold feet and renounced jihad after witnessing Christians helping out other refugees within the camp. He then revealed that he had been sent with an Islamist hit squad to eliminate Christians as part of the hate group’s ideological drive to wipe the religion off the map.” The report also quoted an aid worker saying:
They’re like a mafia. People are even killed inside the camps, and the refugees are afraid to say if they saw somebody get killed. If you ask them, they’ll say, “I don’t know, I was asleep.”… The camps are dangerous because they have IS, Iraqi militias and Syrian militias. It’s another place for gangs…. They’re killing inside the camps, and they’re buying and selling ladies and even girls.
A woman falsely accused of burning a Koran was ripped to pieces by a mob in Afghanistan. The woman, Farkhunda Malikzada, was falsely accused by a merchant who was selling Viagra and magical pregnancy amulets.
The tormented final hours of Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-year-old aspiring student of Islam who was [falsely] accused of burning a Quran in a Muslim shrine, shocked Afghans across the country. That is because many of her killers filmed one another beating her and posted clips of her broken body on social media. Hundreds of other men watched, holding their phones aloft to try to get a glimpse of the violence, but never making a move to intervene. Those standing by included several police officers.
At first, the trial and convictions that followed seemed a victory in the long struggle to give Afghan women their due in a court of law. But a deeper look suggests otherwise. The fortuneteller who several investigators believe set the events in motion was found not guilty on appeal. The shrine’s custodian, who concocted the false charge of Quran burning and incited the mob, had his death sentence commuted. Police officers who failed to send help and others who stood by received slaps on the wrist, at most. Some attackers identifiable in the videos avoided capture altogether.
Farkhunda’s death and the legal system’s response call into question more than a decade of Western efforts in Afghanistan to instill a rule of law and improve the status of women. The United States alone has spent more than $1 billion to train lawyers and judges and to improve legal protections for women; European countries have provided tens of millions more.
SEE THIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZtc2ma2GEQ
Pat Condell is the most outspoken and eloquent commentator in the English-speaking world. (Hello, Dr. Krauthammer: maybe it’s time to take a vacation from the Beltway and realize what’s really going on and why the elites of the world in their bubble are so out of touch.) Perhaps he is too outspoken for Fox News Channel, but that is their loss. The rest of us can watch him on our computers and handheld devices and avoid those endlessly rising costs of cable TV subscriptions.
I must confess: my heart breaks for Sweden. Like anyone born and raised in Minnesota, I feel a certain closeness to that country and feel a familiarity that transcends my visit to it long ago. Despite their embrace of political correctness, the Swedes are at heart very decent, humane people, their main faults being a desire to please others in their community (which leads to silencing dissent and conformity) and self-righteous hypocrisy. But these are minor blemishes considering the personal decency most people center their lives on.
Taking advantage of Sweden’s generosity, Muslim immigrants have been arriving in large numbers and, in recent months, catastrophically overwhelming the country’s budget and facilities to house and feed them.
The few minutes you spend watching Condell’s commentary will reward you:
So far everything the Bush and Obama administrations have done has made it worse for the West. The US has not figured out who the enemy is nor how to deal with the threats
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration struggled to define the enemy and to decide how to defeat it. Even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and the Saudis were involved in the planning and financing of the attack, President Bush allowed the Saudis to fly out of the country in the next 24 hours when all other air traffic had been shut down.
No doubt that Bush had decided to maintain good relations with the Arabs, and Saudi Arabia particularly, just as the US had done for half a century. This policy led Bush to say on Sept 17, 2011 to the Islamic world, “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war,” in a speech as sycophantic as any President Obama has ever delivered.
On a different policy tack, Bush said on the evening of 9/11, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
On Sept 20/11 Bush spoke to the Joint Houses Congress emphasizing both tacks:
The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.
…any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.
And so began the bifurcation of Islam into the peaceful Muslims on the one hand and the radicals who hijacked the religion on the other.
Gareth Porter, national security policy analyst, wrote in 2008:
Three weeks after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then-under secretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith’s recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.
