Thursday I drove the Jihad Watch company car, a state-of-the-art Maxwell Roadster, to the David Horowitz Freedom Center's annual Restoration Weekend in Florida. You can see a pdf about the event here. Yesterday morning I spoke (along with student activists Tyler Kristopeit and Rob Lockwood, the Florida Security Council's Tom Trento, and the incomparable Melanie Phillips) on a panel entitled "Jihad On Campus" about our Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week activities, which took me this fall to eight campuses all over the country. Later on I spoke about the subject of my new book Stealth Jihad: efforts to advance acceptance of Islamic law in the U.S.
Among the other speakers were Victor Davis Hanson, Karl Rove, Michael Steele and filmmaker David Zucker (Airplane, The Naked Gun, and now An American Carol), along with (among others) Fred Barnes, Pat Cadell, Caroline Glick, Bernie Goldberg, David Horowitz, Mark Krikorian, Dick Morris, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, and the great comedian Evan Sayet.
I also had the privilege of meeting the great filmmaker Pierre Rehov, who showed his superb and much-needed film First Comes Saturday, Next Comes Sunday, about the exodus of Christians from the Middle East and the need for Jews and Christians (and all who value human rights) to stand together against the advancing jihad. Pamela (who took the picture above just as Rehov was taking his own picture) has an interview with Rehov and more from the Weekend.
"Among the other speakers were Victor Davis Hanson, Karl Rove, Michael Steele and filmmaker David Zucker (Airplane, The Naked Gun, and now An American Carol), along with (among others) Fred Barnes, Pat Cadell, Caroline Glick, Bernie Goldberg, David Horowitz, Mark Krikorian, Dick Morris, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, and the great comedian Evan Sayet."
Well, it's great to know so many well known and respected SPEAKERS were there. I wonder how many actually LISTENED to what Robert Spencer taught them about Stealth Jihad? How many of them had the Sean Hannity smirky reaction "yeah right, like jihadist are going to take over America".
I realize many there may already realize the threat. Its' the Rove's and the Steele's, etc. that I wonder about.
Robert you should ask Carl Rove to have Bush read your site, too late now, but perpahs he can send over a few rockets to iran before he leaves office.
**sighs with envy**
Wish I could have been there!
Great pic. Good to see you having fun and enjoying yourself.
Aww, Charles Johnson wasn't on the invite list? bwhahaha
Great to see so many competent people in the coalition of the willing.
Wonderful work Robert.
May the Force be with you.
Certainly the Good is (lol).
Kudos.
Your stamina, dedication, and focus are amazing.
The 'ordinary' man could not do it...
savage nation
If you enlarge the picture and look over Robert's shoulder you'll see a man that looks just like Charles Johnson standing in that boat holding a sign. I think it reads "Will buy 1 admission ticket for $$$"
"I just wanted to say good luck... and we're all counting on you."
Certainly an impressive group of influential speakers present, besides Carl Rowe there is Michael Steele who maybe the front runner for the job of Chairman of the Republican National committee(RNC). If that be the case he gets my vote for RNC Chairman since he will, if elected have a powerfull influence on the RNC platform for all Republican candidates for office.
USorThem
LOL! Indeed... :)
Just the kind of people in the know we need to make Obama cringe.
The brain trust of Conservatism...Glad to see you have a seat at this table, Robert.
It just seems to me that each year the event is bigger, with more luminaries.
I'd love to watch the film. Wish there were a chance to download it online for a fee though, it would definitely help to give the title more exposure to people living outside the US.
Interesting that you have one of Hollywood's greats there, Michael Steele, that's encouraging news. I was starting to think that we were all on the fringes of society. Seen as a bunch of cranks, sorry Mr Spencer!
but all those guys on this weekend talk are well respected people and well known.
Good.
Sounds fun--what an interesting group of people. Wish I could have been there.
leon
The thing that gets me is that all the stories from the thousand-plus-years of non-Muslim humanity's resistance to the Jihad, are such blood and thunder stuff. They cry out to be filmed - by intelligent people who understand exactly what Islam is all about, and why resistance to jihad and sharia is so important for humanity.
Both the defeats - for example, the horrors of Black Tuesday, The Last Day of the World, when the Jihad took, and devoured, Christian Constantinople and, as Charles Williams the English poet and novelist put it, "the most beautiful church in Christendom became a mosque", or the Muslim destruction of one of the great Buddhist university cities in India, or the tragedy of Biafra - and the victories, would make epic movies, or even television series.
Imagine joint productions, bringing together western and Indian non-Muslim film-makers, that described key episodes from the long Indian resistance to Jihad, that celebrated the heroism of the fighting Sikhs and people like Shivaji; films that described the Portuguese alliance with the Christian Ethiopians in the 15th century, or the Portuguese alliance with Thailand that helped roll back Jihad in that part of the world; a film that segued between Malta's resistance of the Nazi siege in the 1940s, and its resistance to the Muslim siege in 1565.
We need unashamedly Judeophile film renditions, on the grand scale, of the Israeli campaigns in 1956, 1967, 1973, that would make it crystal clear that what was at stake was the very existence of the Jewish state and the life and freedom of every Jew - and indeed, of every non-Muslim - within it, threatened by the sadistic supremacism of Islam, the Arab Muslim desire to crush them and kill them and shove any survivors back inside the hideous Predator Pit that is dhimmitude.
One of the most recently canonised Catholic saints began life as a black woman in Darfur in the 19th century; she was seized and enslaved by 'Arab' Muslims, and only escaped when she was bought by an Italian dignitary and, eventually, taken to Italy where she was educated and, eventually, freed, and where she converted to Catholicism and became a nun...and a saint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Bakhita
Imagine: a film, made perhaps by an Italo-African collaboration, carefully researched, accurately depicting St Josephine's life (beginning from her own memoirs), and with someone like Mr Hugh Fitzgerald from jihadwatch acting as historical adviser; it could totally lift the lid on the centuries of misery and devastation that Islam, with its unrelenting jihad and mass enslavement of the cruellest kind, has inflicted upon Africa, and Africans.
I am so excited to say that I was lucky enough to attend this morning's 'get together' in Palm Beach (I just live across the water in West Palm) and also happily met Robert after the panel discussion! And to top it off, I am just your average, middle class, soccer mom (who happens to be a political junkie).
I wish I could have attended the entire 'retreat'. I only just found out about it at the last minute and contacted the gal in charge who graciously invited me.
To be honest, I could only really afford this morning's program (and that wasn't cheap!)...Nevertheless, I was blown away!
It was awesome!!!! Just to be around like minded people was such a relief for me..since I'm in 'enemy territory' here in Palm Beach County.
What an unbelievable gathering of some of the greatest thinkers in this country!!!!
I may start saving for the next one!
Video links!...or at least audio of any or all presentations! PLEASE!
I'll pay to access it!
Yep, I shoulda down a little more keyboard work first---Over at frontpagemagazine.com, it states the following: "This page will host videos of the speakers and panels following the event."
http://www.davidhorowitztv.com/restoration-weekend-2008
GREAT! THANKS!
A coat and tie on the beach!? Who are you? Nixon at San Clemente?? ha ha ha! (wink, wink)
I'd certainly like to make this next year. A well-deserved break for you too Robert (well a nice, relaxing place to work at least!).
And yes I agree with Bingo - I think we have a right to expect at least one outrageous Hawaiian shirt pic ;)
Nice shot, very nice. Two verray parfyt gentyl knyhtes.
That smile on Mr Spencer's face is positively beatific; and if Monsieur Rehov is a typical example of French Jewry...wow. Drop dead gorgeous.
But as others have observed, the clothes are all wrong for the beach. Far too formal (M. Rehov is a bit less formal than Mr Spencer, but even so...).
However: two fine 'mediterranean' gentlemen like that just wouldn't look right in Hawaiian shirts.
The *proper* costume is 1. the big fluffy white towel draped over the shoulder 2. the black speedos 3. the gold chain round the neck (with a star of david for Rehov, a cross for Spencer) 4. the sunglasses.