The evidence points to the truth -- and to Roobart Sbunsar

Well deserved praise, Robert.

Now, I just wanted to point out something to Martin, because I got a kick out of the following fact:

Martin wrote: Remember, folks: it isn't MuslimWatch; it's JihadWatch.

Well, I did a quick jump to MuslimWatch.org, just on a whim, and guess what: it exists! And what's even more ironic? If you click on the news link, it points to both Dhimmi Watch and Jihad Watch! So, somebody out there with the money to buy some extra domains understands the "score."

http://muslimwatch.org/index.php?option=com_newsfeeds&catid=67&Itemid=37

Sure, we're all watching jihad, but let's be real here: we're also watching Muslims. It's just that some of us focus more on one than the other and vice versa.

You're welcome, Robert. And thanks for the 411, Foehammer.

Its really simple to me...Some see the danger and with an honest heart.....seek to warn and teach....like Robert and the Jihad staff...and others like the y2k craze see money to be made on both sides of the issue....A teacher is never afraid to learn.....As 4 jets pounded my old way of thinking out of my head....I know we can always learn!

Dear Roobart,

Would you care for some bebbaronee on your beetsah to accompany the bebzee? :)

Yours Sincerely,

DDawg

DDawg:

I hope you will be braying before your meal!

Cordially,
Roobart Sbunsar

lol

Then again...some never learn.......PARIS — Mustapha Tougui says he has the Quran in his blood. The Moroccan-born, Saudi-educated lecturer at the Muslim theological institute at the Paris Grand Mosque uses earthy language as he tries to preserve what he calls his students’ “spiritual hygiene.” His enthusiasm is infectious.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12812201/

And this a personal remark for Dean Esmay:

Dean, if you believe that I am "gullible", you have much, much to learn about the intelligence and education of the growing wave of adherents to anti-jihad. An entire two shelves of my library is devoted to scholarly materials dedicated to the continued study of Islam, Muhammad, the Qur'an, jihad and other relevant readings and histories. I have verified the validity of Robert Spencer's work time and again and if you read any of his books, you will note that, unlike many authors, he does not shirk from peppering every page with footnotes.

The more that people learn about Islam, the more we are called ignorant. It is an old, tired trick, and only has a chance of working on the weak-minded. Well, we are far beyond the scope of having only a fringe element pay attention to the works of men like Robert Spencer. The New World War is here and anyone with half-a-brain or more is now paying attention to the threats that are posed to the future of Western civilization.

I would strongly urge you, Mr. Esmay, to start thinking more in terms of solidarity and less in terms of disunity. Check your facts carefully and stop critiquing people that you only disagree with because you happen to the one either ignorant of the facts or harboring some ulterior motive of your own that you are not admitting to. It is NOT the other way around in the case of Robert Spencer; I would have detected disingenuous writing long ago if it was.

Sincerely,

Foehammer

We all need to keep firmly in mind that Dean Esamy is a idiot- wait, I am sorry, name calling is a bad habit and I am trying to cut it out. What I mean is that Dean Esmay upon being told by his third grade teacher that he was "a very bright little boy" decided that he need put no further effort into his education.

Count me among those who have been convinced by Jihad Watch. Despite cordial welcome in Muslim homes and happy memories of Muslim towns, there are some problems with the religion.

And I have to agree about the groundedness thing. Right now Robert and Hugh are lying by the Jihadwatch pool, sipping champagne while nibbling on havarti, refusing to sign autographs. But when a mother pushed her little son in a wheelchair up beside them, they gave her a 60 second head start before they released the hounds.

Sure points towerd the truth.But sooner or later the facts will have to be dealt with.Or should we expect the Islamic ideals chaleging us all over the planet to just subside.And then back to more important things.Or does the threat from this Islamic force pose a huge danger.Has it in the past.Does it now.Will it in the future.Its a matter of degree ofcourse.But if the ideals catch on to a largenough population then the challenge is savere.The baics of the Islamic challenge is set out nearly every day on this web site.How to deal with it is pravided a place.Or how not to.Balence is self regulating.When theres erro its noted.When apprpeate corrected.The stories speak for themselves.The topics are usaly updated.And the history is fairly clear.Its about how one views the world in which we all live it makes all the difference.

and rarely use sarcasm ...

No, never.

(...pointing out Interested to the hounds...)

Facetiously, I assure you!

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Esmay, after reading about your interaction with Robert Spencer, consider the most unfortunate aspect: you are accused of not operating in good faith (and in the best interest of our posterity), but your response is not to reconsider.

Could you be wrong to be attacking him? Could there be a truth beyond the comfort you gain from not admitting that objective truth is different from what you've stated?

Islam is a problem. Islam itself, not a faulty interpretation.

In response to what Rench asks, I will just state simply this: ask yourself, if there are only 2.5 million Muslims in the United States and barely a fraction of those are in the U.S. Military, can you wonder what the amount of backstabbing, bomb-making and terrorist activity would be in the due course of time when say 10x that number of Muslims are allowed to live here? And that's just domestic Muslim problems and not counting efforts of the foreign mujahideen like Al Qaeda coming over and toppling more buildings or worse.

How about the 2 million plus Muslims in Canada? Or the 1 million plus in Mexico?

The threat is always proportionate to the population and power and wealth of the Muslim community. History shows this clearly. This is why Europe is in such tremendous danger right now, and yet the North American continent still has 2 oceans that thankfully (or perhaps to our dismay, depending on how you look at the future) insulate us just enough (for now) to allow many of us ignore the danger.

I have zero illusions: given enough time to build up lobbying in Washington, the Muslim threat will increase exponentially over the next 10 years in the United States and Canada, and yes, even Mexico. Do you know that just yesterday I heard that there is a Muslim coalition in Washingon on the Hill itself? Muslim federal employees meet to pray together in the basement of the Capitol Building and to find unity because they feel "put upon" because of their religion. Awe, cry me a river!

Of course, many of those employees are African-American "reverts" to Islam that are not even aware of the history of jihad, the history of Arabia or the true life of Muhammad, and I'm willing to be, of a lot of the content of the Qur'an. It saddens me that the multiculturalism monster has gone so far that we still have elements in the United States that are dead set on separating themselves from the citizenry of the U.S.A. just because it is "en vogue", but this problem is not going to go away anytime soon. However, if people become Muslims because they think it is somehow their cultural imperetive, then they had not cry too loudly when that choice comes back to haunt them one day.

I have no intention of coddling any persons too long that make ignorant choices where faith, country and duty are concerned. We have had far too many years as it stands where flag-burning and refusing to say the Plege of Allegiance are viewed as "rights." Now anyone that chooses to take on the mantle of Islam thinks perhaps that they are choosing the "winning side" or impressing their neighbors or out of sheer self-indulgence in too many cases. Islamofascism has no place in the United States, so if anyone reading is thinking about "reverting", I'd say, think very long and hard about your choices. There are plenty of places to worship in this country. I see no reason why a storefront mosque should be the first choice, for any reason. It should be, in fact, the very last.

I abologize Mr. Sbunser, I meant to say "accombany." I have been in your country too long. :))

I abologize Mr. Sbunser, I meant to say "accombany." I have been in your country too long. :))

Martin 665, that was a very nice description of the value of JihadWatch/DhimmiWatch. Robert and Hugh and Rebecca are truly (inter-?) national treasures. They are knowledgeable about Islam (as well as literature and history), they have excellent senses of humor, and have egos that are very much under control (except for the pack-of-hounds thing).

But then you also said

Oh Robert, you're like a god! You can say nothing wrong!

That is blasphemy. Luckily this is not an Islamic website, or you'd be in big, Big, BIG trouble.

"Roobart Sbunsar"? Why, when I was at RADA, that's what we were always told to mouth during the crowd scenes: "Roobart, Roobart."

Special Guest,
lol! I meant it in jest, of course, not blasphemously. I guess I have the same mindset as Voltaire:
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
Martin

"Throwing red meat to the gullible...."

But what exactly OF THAT red meat?

What are we to make of that long history of jihad? What are we to make of Arab supremacism? What are we to make of the madrassahs? What are we to make of the BILLIONS poured per annum into "radical" islam?

Other than posturing, other than self-flattery, what EXACTLY does Esmay have to offer?

What's Esmay put on the table?

I have significant disagreements with Spencer's and Fitzgerald's prescriptions for the war effort, especially Fitzgerald, and I think that they are apt to focus on the negative when they post on the value of the war effort, but at least they ENGAGE.

Esmay doesn't engage, he dodges. And you can't help but sense that Esmay is scared to death that if he concedes any ground to Spencer, that means that he'll be open to racist accusations. And we all know, the very charge of racism is enough to destroy, marginalize and banish the accused.

Esmay is rather frightened, little man.

That's why Aristotle described courage as the most important of all the virtues, because it makes the practise of those other virtues possible.

Esmay is scared, scared of being branded a racist, scared of losing his little niche audience in the blogosphere, and desperately scared of engaging Spencer, for fear of being shown up as out of his depth.

Esmay presents a rather squalid picture.

"I am going to keep giving you reasoned responses ..."

This is what I like most about the site and Spencer. Robert is a rational man. Esmay is a guy with big funny shoes, painted on face, who is not ready for prime time.

Someday Robert will be seen as someone who is a friend to Muslims. I'm sure he has a whole lot of Muslims thinking because Robert does not appeal to emotion.

Robert--

What you describe as comparative figures on daily traffic at the site greatly underestimates the significance of the articles put up here. For this is not a site that depends only on that daily traffic. Many of the articles then circulate through the web, and appear on all kinds of other sites, in a way that does not happen either to what is put up by Esmay, or to a great many others.

Here's a little way to demonstrate this. Simply google "Jihad" and "Spencer" (or "Jihad" and "Fitzgerald") and then look at the number, and variety, of other sites where pieces are reprinted.

That, in the end, is what counts.

Well done, Robert.

Folks, let's not pour gratuitous scorn on Dean Esmay in our comments. The fact that he is reduced to name-calling is the clearest evidence that he has lost the debate, and at some level he must know this. Rational readers are able to figure out who knows what he's talking about and who is blowing smoke to cover his retreat; the note from Martin shows that.

There are tens of thousands of unique visitors to this site every day but many fewer frequent commenters. Let's not be Esmay-like in our treatment of those who disagree; we may bring discredit on the larger JW/DW agenda. And it may be that our name-calling serves to inflame Esmay to further name-calling of his own, which isn't good for him or for JW/DW.

Finally, I suspect that it is fair to say that Mr. Esmay probably has good intentions in that he probably earnestly wants his opinions about the viability of "moderate Islam" to be true. He agrees with us in not wanting the global jihad to triumph. His way of 'resisting' the jihad, by believing in and promoting 'moderate Islam', is self-deluding and self-defeating, but this is not uncommon. Millions of Westerners have adopted this posture, for the alternative, that the religion of a billion and more people on the planet is fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed to our continued freedom, is a very disturbing thing to contemplate. It is a very human thing to assume the truth of states of affairs that we want to be true. We don't make it any easier for these people to wake up by calling them names.

"a shuck and jive artist who makes his living throwing raw meat to gullible people."

Well. The cat and I are just a little disappointed to have missed the distribution of raw meat. It's grillin' weather here.

Oh, and how would one spell "Dean Esmay" in Arabic? He can then transliterate it, put it in his pipe, and smoke it.

Robert,
I can remember the doubts you had using your valuable time responding to Mr Esmay and getting bogged down in pointless dialogue with a half-wit. The parable of the lost sheep comes to mind in this instance. Just look at this as the tip of the iceberg. Welcome aboard Martin.

Shinoliite (finally got the second "i"):

"Dean Esmay" in Arabic:

ديان إسماي

Cordially,
روبرت سبنسر

Re: "a shuck and jive artist who makes his living throwing raw meat to gullible people."

This looks like projection. Dean must have been looking in the mirror when he wrote that. Dean "shuck and jive artist" Esmay is not a rational man, he's jealous, immature, petty-not really worth it. But maybe he'll grow-up some time in the future. Maybe.

Hugh said

Why, when I was at RADA, that's what we were always told to mouth during the crowd scenes: "Roobart, Roobart."

And during all those newsfootage of crowds of "Asian youths" rioting, the commentators said that they weren't "booing", they were merely chanting "Roobart, Roobart".

[BTW, "that" RADA, home of Sir John Gielgud, Richard Attenborough, Albert Finney, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathon Pryce, etc. etc. etc.?]

I'm familiar with the hand jive, and I know what a schmuck is. But what, pray Gentlemen, is a shuck?

More facts:

I see countless books published by Robert on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Where are the one's by Dean-who?

Just another example of the fact that anyone with half-baked opinions can run their own blog.

"shuck" means to remove the husk from an ear of corn. Hope this helps.

"Shuck and jive" means to BS, to hustle, to prevaricate.

"It is NOT the other way around in the case of Robert Spencer; I would have detected disingenuous writing long ago if it was."

Foehammer-

Agree. I can detect a phony a universe away. Robert is a thinker who cares about the individual (as does "Himself"-though "Himself" is well aware of that). God Bless Robert and Hugh.

Granny, shuck is something you do to corn to get to the edible kernels. Shuck and Jive is an American saying, it refers to evasive actions and words.
We have a saying here, derived from the southern black culture, "don't give me none of that shuck and jive", said to folk who "tap dance"(another metaphor for evasive behavior)around truth or unpleasant facts.

For Mssr Esmay, haul it in dude, back off and cool down. I am a "Hugh" (pun intended) fan of Mr Sbunsar, and a virtual singularity on this blog..a liberal, somewhat (but not always) leftist atheist.

My disagreements with him are minor and trivial compared to the overall magnificent work he is doing and has done.. I've bought and read all of his books, and am currently re reading and trying to memorize the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, perhaps the best and most concise (AND also documented) book ever written for the general audience on the subject. I too have volumes of literature on Islam, but most of it is so dry and academic (such as the Qur'an and ahadith and sira) that it takes toothpicks in the eyes to stay awake reading.

If Mssr Esmay needs to fault anything, then he should fault the ideology that has been causing so much grief since the Arab ghazi flew out of the Nejd to conquer, massacre, loot, enslave, genocide and ethnically cleanse the world of pre existing peoples, languages, cultures and religions, in a campaign that never stopped, but like a cancer only went into temporary remission.

It's primitive, but for a chuckle, check out this site, which appears to be a spoof on Esmay's attitude: www.deanesmaysucks.blogspot.com

Hugh-

Hollywood backround actors were instructed to say: "rhutabaga-rhutabaga-rhutabaga", because it produced 'conversational mouthing-motions', and a bit player's speed of enunciation of this gobbledygook only increased the effect.

Islam's apologists have the opposite scam going:

they say apparently logical streams of words, but their empty, cliched
"religion of peace" phrases all turn into "rhutabaga-rhutabaga-rhutabaga", once they are recognized -by more and more infidels- as meaningless formalisms spun by Islamic Imperialists to bluff, deceive and distract the presumed naive audience.

I say to them:

Go Succotash!

When I saw this, I emailed Aziz, since he had conveniently not told Dean's World readers that Arabic has no p and doesn't write vowels -- so that I had supplied one of the best possible renderings of my name in Arabic and he had taken advantage of Dean's readers' likely ignorance of Arabic to portray me as an inept dunce.

you're like a god! You can say nothing wrong!

So does that mean that in Arabic, Palestine is Ballestine, Persia is Bar-cia, Pakistan is Bakistan (urdu = rest of the area)?

Infidel Pride:

No, it's Filistin: فلسطين.

And Farsia, as in the Farsi, or Persian, language.

The F becomes a P in English.

Urdu is spoken in Pakistan. It has a P, as you can see from the beginning of the word "Pakistan" as written in Urdu here: پاکستان. The name itself means "Pure Land" in Urdu, and is also an anagram of the names of some of the regions that make up the country: P for Punjab, A for the Afghan regions, K for Kashmir, S for Sindh and tan for Balochistan.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

But Robert

Isn't "Pak" and "Najis" Arabic words? There is no word "Pak" in Hindi that means pure - the origins there are Arabic. Or do those words have origins in Farsi?

Robert

Just to clarify, in case it wasn't obvious, when I said "rest of the area", I was translating Baki (= remaining) and stan (=land). If pronouced with the "P", it translates exactly like you described. Which is why I'm surprised that "P" isn't represented in Arabic.

Infidel Pride:

No, Farsi. Not Hindi -- Pakistan means "Land of the Pure" in Farsi and Urdu.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Robert

Thanks for clarifying. That makes sense.

So do Farsi and Urdu have an Arabic character representing "P"?

Guys
I am from India, Yesterday in the news, The mulim patriots of India wants a ban on th 100 yeard old National Song.
I am really very hurt at their demand, how can they be so rude...I know that muslims are the worst people to live along with but from what does they get this rude and unyeilding behaviour to ask for a ban on everythig and anythign that they dont like that to in a country where they are a minority.....

I guess when they breed well to even 30 to 40% I can see the temples being blown up frequently...
The World heritage site of AJanta and Ellora were recently saved by cracking a plot to blow them up...

These muslims are filthy pigs wherever they go they creat filth and nothing else........

A bit of history ... Aziz is this Aziz.

And for a hint of the depth of Mr. Esmay's knowledge of Islam, one need go no further than this comment he made on his own latest post slamming Mr. Spencer.

Ted: I don't know if they believe in his resurrection in the immediate aftermath of his execution, but I do know one of the beliefs in Muslim eschatology is that in the last days Jesus WILL come back,...

A quick Google could have cleared up Dean's confusion about Islam's position on both the resurrection and the crucifixion. Or he could have just asked Robert ...

Apropos of "bebsi" -- my kids are tired of me gleefully pointing out the "bebsi" sign in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

And one person whose name travels into Arabic worse than "sbunsar" was the previous Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

Pilgrim

Thank you Gentlemen.
Mr Esmay is obviously as slippery as a barrowload of eels.

Infidel Pride,
The closest urdu rendering of "P" is the third letter of the urdu alphabet. It is pronounced as "Pe". The first two are pronounced as 'alif' and 'be'. "Pe" can be written in Hindi as : alphabet P for parvat, with a chotte 'a' kee matra.

I was nutty enough to study urdu for a while.

Infidel Bride:

Yes, it's the first letter of "Pakistan" above, which if you look closely you will see is similar but not identical to the Arabic B.

Cordially
Roobart

"Remember, folks: it isn't MuslimWatch; it's JihadWatch."

This is a good distinction. However, as someone else has commented it is a blurred distinction as well. An ideology that has no "believers" is benign (like the Aztecs' religion for example). I personally do not fear extinct, dead ideas, what I fear is people who are proponents of evil ideologies. A dusty copy of the Qur'an won't do any harm to my children, but a neighbour who reads and follows its teachings may.

the lack of the P sound in Arabic was one of the ways Israelis had of distinguishing Arabs from Jews. Alas, prolonged exposure of Arabs to Hebrew and to international TV has taught today's Arabs how to pronounce the P --instead of supplying B instead.

Anyhow, some Israelis, wanting to show their contempt for Shim`on Peres, and their feeling that he is more pro-Arab than pro-Israel, call him Shimun Berez. Berez is the Hebrew word for spigot or faucet.

Robert Spencer,

Thank you for all that you have done over the years to educate the West about the nature of Militant Jihadism and its roots in traditional Islam, while not failing to acknowledge the many moderate muslims, who just want to live peaceful productive lives.

I was particularly appalled at the personal slurs you had to endure during this interaction. IMHO certain people ought to be ashamed of themselves.
I for one consider you to be a true cultural hero, a man of great courage, who has not been afraid to stand up and tell us what we needed to know, even under the threat of jihadi extremism. So many have preferred to stay silent or anonymous, naturally, mostly out of fear.

I believe that the people who attacked you are actually persons who have bought heavily into the "neocon" project to democratize the Middle East. Hook, line and sinker. Unfortunately, they have allowed their hopes for reform to run far ahead of the real news on the ground - to the extent that they have become "good news bunnies". Not content with rationalizing away every setback, I believe their attack on you shows, that they are now trying to drown out any bearer of bad tidings. Anyone who says, "No. Reform is not really happening to the extent we had hoped, and you need to adopt a more skeptical approach, as we have been saying all along". Faced with that challenge to their hopes, their response has been to try to "shoot the messenger".

It's as if they are saying, "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up. Reform is happening. You are just Islamophobic"

Never mind the elections of Islamists in so many places where democracy is tried. (Surely the widest "sentiment poll" you could hope for?) Never mind the ever-greater impositions of traditional Sharia law even in the very places where we had thought we were fighting to establish more secular liberal governments. Never mind the ever-greater threat of nuclear Iran with its fingers in every crevice of "our" Iraq. Never mind the obvious loss of public support for the war, which is making it more and more likely that the intervention will have to end soon. Never mind the evidence that Iraq may be breaking up along ethnic and religious lines and faces a vicious civil war the moment we pull out. Never mind the wider geopolitical problems that are becoming daily more pressing, like the rise of China. Never mind the growing alliance of Russia, China and Iran.

It's a storm in a teacup Robert. Don't let it get you down. Reality always wins in the end. Just keep reporting reality, good and bad. Let the dreamers of dreams dream on. Gulliver had problems with the Lilliputians too.

Hebrew has the P sound in the letter peh (pay), which becomes "fay" when following a vowel sound.

In the Yemeni dialect of Hebrew many of the ancient sounds are preserved, such as the "w" sound for the letter vav, and the "j" variant in the "g" of gimel, and the "th" in the "d" of daled. These possible variants survive in modern standard Hebrew only in small dots that appear over the letters gimel and daled. They are used in prayer and Torah reading among Yemeni Jews, but no longer exist in most Sfardi and in none of Ashkenazic pronunciations.

My wife's father, who is a Baghdadi, uses the "wav" instead of the vav. Her people speak a dialect of Arabic when they are amongst themselves, but have pretty much given it up for standard Hebrew except when speaking to the grandmother.