And defaming me in the process. Longtime Jihad Watch readers may recall that Cathy Young has previously attacked Jihad Watch and me personally more than once — you can read about it here and here and here. These exchanges demonstrated that she had little awareness of the realities of the global jihad, and little interest in actually engaging in discussion of the issues, rather than just setting up straw men and knocking them down.
In any case, she is outright lying now in Real Clear Politics, and so I thought I’d set the record straight. It’s one thing to get lied about by jihadists, Islamic supremacists and their addled Leftist allies — and CAIR has cranked up its libel machine to high gear; in a hysterical froth over my speaking to the JTTF a few weeks ago, they’ve now issued their third press release about this and even enlisted Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson to help defame me — but a relatively respectable outfit like Real Clear Politics is on another level, so I thought an answer was in order.
“The Mosque Controversy & Religious Freedom,” by Cathy Young at Real Clear Politics, August 5:
Unfortunately, the backlash is about much more than that. Anti-Muslim zealots have been in the forefront of the protests against the “Ground Zero mosque” — people such as writer and blogger Robert Spencer, who openly declares that the Islamic faith itself is a terrorist ideology and that “moderate Islam” is a deceptive myth, and often implies that every peaceful Muslim is a potential jihadist.
1. “Anti-Muslim”: I am not “anti-Muslim.” I am anti-Sharia, anti-jihad, anti-oppression, anti-terror, and so should be every free person. Several years ago I had a memorable exchange with Islamic supremacist blogger Yusuf Smith, a.k.a. “Indigo Jo,” here. I said: “I would like nothing better than a flowering, a renaissance, in the Muslim world, including full equality of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies: freedom of conscience, equality in laws regarding legal testimony, equal employment opportunities, etc.” Yusuf Smith responded: “So, you would like to see us ditch much of our religion and, thereby, become non-Muslims.” In other words, he saw a call for equality of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, including freedom of conscience, equality in laws regarding legal testimony, and equal employment opportunities, as a challenge to his religion.
Well, if that’s being “anti-Muslim,” Cathy Young, if she had a modicum of commitment to human rights, would be “anti-Muslim” also.
2. “…who openly declares that the Islamic faith itself is a terrorist ideology…” That doesn’t sound like language I use, so I did a search here at Jihad Watch for “terrorist ideology.” Here are the results. That’s right: three posts, two written by me and one by Raymond Ibrahim. I have written 23,450 posts here at Jihad Watch, and two contain the words “terrorist ideology,” and in neither one do I say that the Islamic faith is a terrorist ideology.
Of course, Cathy Young will say I am just hair-splitting — that I say the same thing in different words. But I don’t. I don’t believe or state that the Islamic faith is a terrorist ideology. Terrorism, as I have stated innumerable times, is but one means to a goal that is pursued by Islamic supremacists by numerous other means as well — and that goal is the imposition of Sharia. Insofar as that imperative is part of the Islamic faith — and there are Islamic scholars and religious leaders all over the world who say so, as we document here regularly — then it is a supremacist ideology. But that is not quite the same thing.
3. “…’moderate Islam’ is a deceptive myth…” Every school of Islamic jurisprudence teaches that it is part of the responsibility of the umma to wage war against non-Muslims in order ultimately to subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law. Can Cathy Young please show me the sect or school of Islam that teaches that Muslims must live as equals with non-Muslims and not try to impose Sharia over them — on an indefinite basis?
4. “…often implies that every peaceful Muslim is a potential jihadist.” I often state — not imply — that there is no firewall, no distinction in Muslim communities, between peaceful Muslims and jihadists, actual and potential: it isn’t as if an “extremist” may wander by mistake into a “moderate mosque,” discover his error, and be shown the door. No Islamic group has declared outside the fold of Islam a Muslim who believes in jihad (violent or stealthy) and the subjugation of Infidels. Consequently any Muslim may decide at one time or another to pursue these religious obligations — can Cathy Young explain to me why that is an unreasonable or untrue statement?
5. Cathy Young also says: “There have been bizarre claims that the Islamic Center is intended as a ‘victory mosque’ to celebrate the World Trade Center’s destruction or honor the hijackers.”
One wonders what makes this statement “bizarre,” given the long history in Islam of building triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of conquered peoples, or converting the houses of worship of those conquered peoples into mosques. There are literally thousands of examples of synagogues, churches, and Hindu temples either destroyed and mosques built on their ruins, or converted into mosques, all over the Middle East, North Africa and India. Can Cathy Young explain exactly why this mosque at Ground Zero will not be understood in the Islamic world as another one of them?
6. Young: “Signs at anti-mosque protests have equated Islam with terrorism and the mosque with a toilet. At one rally in June, two Arabic-speaking Egyptian Coptic Christians who had come to oppose the mosque had to be whisked away by the police after being threatened and told to ‘Go home.'”
Here Cathy Young manifests an abysmal lack of interest in the facts. Here is a statement from Joseph Nassralla, one of the two Arabic-speaking Coptic Christians in question:
Dear Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer,
I am Joseph Nassralla, a Coptic Christian activist from Egypt and founder of The Way TV, a Christian Satellite TV station.
I attended the 10,000 person protest rally against the building to the ground zero mosque which took place at ground zero in NY on Sunday June 6th. We Coptic Christians wanted to express our full support to your initiative and to this important rally.
There was a minor incident at the rally that was blown out of proportion, when my partner, Mr. Karam El Masry, and I were distributing material with some Quran verses and we were also speaking Arabic thus we were mistaken by a few people in the huge crowd, for being Muslims infiltrators trying to disrupt the event. This misunderstanding was clarified when we explained who we were and that we are there to support the crowd against the building of the mosque. I was a little frustrated initially for being identified as a Muslim infiltrator, but was glad that the issue was resolved later. My partner, Mr. El Masry, was even able to freely speak to the crowd after our identity was clarified. He explained how Christians are tortured, killed and oppressed in Egypt at the hands of Muslims who are encouraged to persecute Christians from the pulpit of mosques by Muslim preachers.
The reason I am writing to you, is because I am very disappointed in the mainstream media who used this minor incident to make a blanket generalization about all the attendees of the rally as Muslim haters. This kind of generalization was unfair to the good American people who legitimately stand against the building of a mosque next to ground zero and who are against Islamist agenda in the US. I am very well aware of such an agenda which has destroyed the Christian and Jewish existence in the Middle East.
The same mainstream media who denounces painting all Muslims with a broad brush, is doing the same thing they claim to stand against. They shamelessly use our incident to paint with a broad brush that everyone in the rally was a Muslim hater. I want to make it clear that we are not haters of Muslims, but we are against the Islamist agenda in America, the same agenda that drove us out of our homeland Egypt. We have the right to expose Muslim hate and oppression against us, the minorities in the Middle East who are oppressed on a daily basis by the Muslim majority. This mosque should never be built next to ground zero, it is an insult to the memory of the 3000 fellow Americans.
We did not mean to cause any misunderstanding at the rally, on the contrary, we came to support you and your organization. We come from a Muslim country where we suffered from Muslims and the Islamic Shariaa ourselves. That’s why we felt burdened to attend this rally and flew for 9 hours to be part of it.. We do support you with our heart and soul, and will always support you and everyone who is opposing Islam. We do honor Mr. Robert’s invitation to attend your next rally in September, God’s willing, and are looking forward to seeing you there.
We have come to America to seek refuge from the oppression of Islam and expose to the American public what kind of instigation we suffered at the hands of hateful Muslim preachers who incite the worshiping crowds to burn our homes, kidnap our girls and suppress our freedom to practice our religion. We will never allow media misrepresentation to stop us from our mission.
Yours truly,
Joseph Nassralla