Israel National News interviewed me briefly on my waving an Israeli flag at a rally in Berlin last weekend, after German police had warned us not to do so. My account of this rally is here. "American Islam Scholar Defies German Ban on Israeli Flag," by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz for Israel National News, October 9 (thanks to all who sent this in):
INN: Why did you and a group ostensibly dedicated to preserving European culture from Islamic conquest come equipped with Israeli flags?
Spencer: "The group members generally seemed to recognize that Israel is on the front line of the same global Islamic jihad that threatens Europe and the United States, and all free people."
INN: How did others in the group react to the police demand to conceal the Jewish state's flag?
Spencer: "They reacted with indignation, and a determination to keep the Israeli flag flying."
INN: Was there actually any trouble as a result of your "provocation" with the Israeli flag?
Spencer: "No. When I came close to the counterdemonstrators while holding the flag, I was pushed back away from them by police. They said something to me in German, but I don't speak German. That was all."
INN: Did you feel the demand to conceal the flags was anti-Semitic on the part of the German authorities, or mere cowardice in the face of thugs?
Spencer: "It seemed to me to be the latter. Of course, that cowardice enables and abets the thugs' anti-Semitism."
same old stuff: Provocation.
You can't speak (or show a flag) because of potential violence.
Why, because when you would speak, they knew you would attempt to provoke/incite your followers to violent acts?
No, because those that oppose you will become violent, and if an innocent party were to become injured or killed, that party or their heirs would have legal recourse against us for allowing you to speak/provoke. We can't take that risk.
Failing injury, if we absorb the expense to provide adequate security to prevent injury or death, then we can be criticized and or be removed, for misuse of funds.
Worse yet, if we provide the security, and someone is injured and or killed, would we not have admitted that allowing you to speak would be dangerous, and why would we allow you a forum to speak, if we knew it to be a public danger?
I am sorry, but we, as an organization, cannot absorb the cost and/or take the risk.
It is a most interesting way to control the public dialogue, and limit free speech. Get a group of people together to threaten criminal acts, in order to stop a constitutional right.
I know this is Germany, and this example involves a flag at a demonstration involving two opposed groups. But doesn't go like this:
Put away the flag.
Why is it against the law to have a flag?
No, but we have requested you put away the flag, and failure to follow the direction of a peace officer you can be arrested.
Why?
Because it could endanger the public.
So let me get this straight, having a flag is legal, but since someone else might commit a violent criminal act, you will arrest me and take my property?
Sir, come this way you are under arrest.
Opposing protesters, "Yay!" "We win, we win!"
Holding out, or waving the Isaeli flag, symbol of the country that is most immediately imperilled by Jihad, and in Berlin, Germany, where the German police insist that you stop (for you are, you see, inflaming the crowd -- a "diverse" crowd -- of Muslims and red-brown leftist-Nazi Germans) -- well, I know what you are trying to do. You are trying to disguise the fact that you went over to Germany to meet with all those neo-Nazis you are always hanging out with in Germany, and Belgium, and restaurants in London, and places like that.
Well, you'll just have to think of something a lot less than transparent than that if you expect to fool all us. We weren't born yesterday, you know.
Those poor Germans. So confused.
How much more obvious does it have to be that Islam is become radicalized to the point of resembling the Nazi ideology before these Germans realize what they are appeasing.
The have seen it all before, so should recognize it; can they not see beyond the cover of the book to see the text within ?
If those absurdly PC/MC Germans and others like them would imagine how it would be to live in somewhere like Pakistan as a Christian minority, then realize that could be Germany in a few short decades the way we are going. Unfortunately the shocking and significant events in the Muslim world that might help us to make that connection are far too under-reported.
I think the times we live in are shortly to become a lot more interesting.
On the lighter side. Here is a terrible but topical old joke.
A neighbour of ours was saying she had decided not to have any more children. I asked why.
She said she already has three kids and she had heard that every fourth child born in the world now is Muslim, and she wanted her family to be Christian.
Originally that old joke was about the Chinese. My apologies to all.
Someone needed to to do that, Robert, after the incident where the German police took down the Israeli flag from the apartment window to appease the Muslim and leftist mob marching by. How much longer will the world cater to these brownshirts? You deserve the greatest thanks and credit for what you did here and all that you do.
Way to go Robert!!!
Bravo!
I am utterly proud of you, Robert!
After so much hate-mailers (comfy hidden behind their keyboards) calling you out, it is refreshing to see your smiling face with my beloved Israeli flag in the heart of Germany.
I had read this on Jerusalem Post a couple days ago, but I kept mum because I do not bother to post as many talkbacks there anymore. Useless. Nonetheless, the message of Jihad Watch is slowly spreading - an increasing number of talkbackers begin to quote you there, use "our" language and draw attention to your books and this forum.
As i said somewhere else (endorsing someone else's proposition) - if you setup a kind of paypal facility to help fund security for you, I am in to scrap a couple dollars - i guess a little from everyone here would be enough to keep you safe to do your "thang"!
PalKicker - hi there. I have been commenting (not under the moniker I use here) in Jerusalem Post talkbacks off and on for some years - throwing comments into the official and community blogs as well as into the talkbacks to news articles and op eds.
You're quite right when you observe that "an increasing number of talkbackers begin to quote you there, use "our" language and draw attention to your books and this forum".
I've noticed that also. I began reading Jerusalem Post online, I think at least a year or two before I began reading and posting here, and have continued reading there regularly. And over that time I have noticed a definite shift in awareness among the talkbackers, both those in Israel and also those posting from other countries.
Every now and again I try to point out the need to clarify terms - to say 'local Arab Muslim jihadists' rather than to 'Palestinians', for example.
I was also extremely pleased with myself when I worked out how to 'boil down' one of Hugh Fitzgerald's discussions of the futility of the so-called 'two-state solution' when viewed in the light of the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, into the narrow compass of the '600-characters-or-less-including-spaces' that is permitted by a JPost talkback box.
Israel is a small country: smaller than Australia, smaller than the UK, far smaller than the USA. This *should* mean that a shift at population level, from denial and/or naivety about Islam and the jihad, ought to happen faster than in any of those bigger places, so long as the educators refuse to give up, and just keep on pouring it on. It's easier to bring a tugboat about, than it is to turn an ocean liner. (For the same reason, I wouldn't be surprised if Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy suddenly reached a tipping point and 'flipped' into full counterjihad mode, well before any of the larger non-Muslim nations).
PS - Every now and again I throw a comment about the Jihad, or about Islamic antisemitism, into the pot at the 'Australian Jewish News' online, as well.