Haha! The progressive commies are being sued for being uppity!

Take a look on that Harry's link above, the last posting was one of mine:

sheik yer’mami
17 May 2008, 11:52 am

‘Robert Spencer & his ilk’ has done more to bring the Islamic doctrine to our attention than any halfwitted commie-liberal-multiculti-diversity-gay-lesbian atheist.

There is no cure for ignorance and stupidity, but Islamic jihad is real and will destroy us. Not necessarily the violent kind, mind you: the jihad by subversion, treason, infiltration, intimidation and finally outbreeding.

Terror, in case you don’t know it yet, is fundamental to Islam: it always works.

Shouldn’t worry a gay atheist. In an Islamic state you can only be killed once…

But perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on Harry's. Pamela already admonished me for not being sympathetic enough. All things considered, free speech is free speech and we are obliged to (grrr) support them...

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at July 15, 2008 8:03 AM

"Robert Spencer and his ilk"
-- RS quoting, I assume, from a contributor or two to "Harry's Place"

I would have preferred it thus: "Robert Spencer, of that ilk." I don't want to be anyone else's ilk. I have my very own ilk. Yes, as those semidemihemi-quaveringly obscene advertisements declare: I've Got Ilk.

Posted by: Hugh at July 15, 2008 8:16 AM

Some on the left are slowly discovering what Islamic supremacy means for the right which the left takes for granted. I've seen some vestigial awareness at a few leftie sites here in the States.

The law suit against Harry's Place -- a law suit brought by a terrorist organization -- could do much to awaken those who are capable of being awakened. If word of the law suit gets out, that is.

Posted by: Always On Watch at July 15, 2008 9:11 AM

Maybe Robert Spencer, of Hugh's ilk...

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 15, 2008 10:11 AM

Infidel Pride:

Nope. Harry is right. I got my own ilk.

Yrs
Robert

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 10:15 AM

All God's chillun got ilk.

Posted by: Hugh at July 15, 2008 10:54 AM

Robert - you should probably read more of the Harry's Place site before criticizing it. First of all, complaining about "Harry" of Harry's Place is like asking of Pink Floyd "which one's Pink?"

David T. is the blogger being sued. He's one of many Harry's Place bloggers who have done some great investigative reports on fascist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the BNP, in Britain. Since the British media, like the American media, seems to have forgotten how to do investigative reports, they provide a very valuable service.

Since the British government chooses to ally with some their local Muslim fascists (just as ours tolerates and encourages CAIR), and since British libel laws are notoriously nasty, they deserve our support.

Posted by: maryatexitzero at July 15, 2008 11:23 AM

You write:

"At the UK blog Harry's Place, it is slowly dawning upon them that not just "Robert Spencer and his ilk" are responsible for people getting the idea that the Islamic concept of jihad may have something to do with terrorism."

The article states:

"Clearly the public are also getting their perception that ‘Jihad = Terrorism’ from sources other than Robert Spencer and his ilk."

Note: they say 'the public.'

And they continue:

"The hate-and-violence preaching clerics exposed by Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque are fully complicit in the growing fear of Islam."

They do not think that "jihad is what you make of it." That is merely the title referring to the article by Sheila Musaji, which they do not quote approvingly.

They write:

"Fools like Islamophobia-Watch (who ironically praise Sheila Musaji’s article) happily peddled the absurdity that Dispatches aided the BNP in their incitements to anti-Muslim bigotry, while being blind to the fact that these Imams-of-hate and the BNP thugs are actually the ones cut from the same cloth."

The remark "Quite right" after the first reference to Sheila Musaji's article means exactly the opposite here given the rest of the article.

And if you look at articles at Harry's Place with the tag 'Islamism' it is hard to find one which justifies the comment: "Now they have been appropriately rewarded for their cluelessness and dhimmitude: Harry's Place is being sued by a jihadist."

They no more deserve to be sued than they deserve the tone of your article here.

Posted by: kgordon at July 15, 2008 11:31 AM

maryatexitzero:

Robert - you should probably read more of the Harry's Place site before criticizing it. First of all, complaining about "Harry" of Harry's Place is like asking of Pink Floyd "which one's Pink?"

Yes, actually I saw that the various articles I accessed were written by various names, and was in haste using "Harry" as a shorthand to refer to them all. I apologize for being unclear.

David T. is the blogger being sued. He's one of many Harry's Place bloggers who have done some great investigative reports on fascist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the BNP, in Britain. Since the British media, like the American media, seems to have forgotten how to do investigative reports, they provide a very valuable service.

That's good. I'm glad he has done that.

Since the British government chooses to ally with some their local Muslim fascists (just as ours tolerates and encourages CAIR), and since British libel laws are notoriously nasty, they deserve our support.

Quite so.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 11:46 AM

KGordon:

Thanks. I just reread their piece on Musaji, and that is not at all how I read it, but you may be right and I wrong.

There is also, however, their accusation of "Islamophobia," which I linked in the Update. As I have explained many times, "Islamophobia" is a meaningless coinage designed by its coiners to inhibit honest discussion of the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism. Someone who uses it seriously immediately demonstrates either a willful intention to obfuscate Muslim involvement in jihad activity (as in the case of a group like CAIR) or (in Harry's case) an ignorance of some important and basic issues.

Unlinked above, but scanned this morning by me, was a Harry piece in which they lump me in with Al-Qaeda as holding to an "essentialist" view of Islam as a "monolith." This does violence to my real views, demonstrates a moral equivalence predicated upon an astounding moral blindness (I do not, after all, cut off heads or fly planes into buildings), and manifests a naive assumption that the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism are not as mainstream or as much a matter of consensus among the Islamic legal and theological schools as they in fact are.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 11:51 AM

i wounder if harrys place is try for dhimmi of the year

Posted by: ISLAMSNOTFORME at July 15, 2008 12:49 PM

"I wounder if harrys place is try for dhimmi of the year"

Nope. But you're obviously vying for chump of the year.

Several members HarrysPlace have investigated the infiltration of islamists into public life at great risk to them and their families.

Posted by: Big Luke at July 15, 2008 1:56 PM

Big Luke:

Several members HarrysPlace have investigated the infiltration of islamists into public life at great risk to them and their families.

Good. I'm glad to hear that, and I commend them. I hope someday they get around to investigating the root causes of why this is happening, and stop vilifying those who have already done so.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 2:08 PM

Robert,

I have now read the article more carefully and not furtively at work. Now I think you are right about their assessment of the article by Sheila Musaji, that they do approve of it.

However, there is at least something in the argument that anyone who equates terrorism with jihad, which ever side they might be on, does something to legitimise it in the eyes of some muslims. Even the Combatting Terrorism Unit (who are presumably not dhimmis), suggested using some such word as "qutbism," rather than any words which muslims might use themselves (wahhabism, salafism etc.) for that very reason. Personally I think that is a good suggestion and worth considering.

Of course no one is going to become a terrorist because of anything written here. That is an absurd suggestion. But it is at least worth considering whether the use of some other term, not sanctioned by the islamic tradition, to name the enemy might make it easier for muslims, especially in the West to distance themselves from it more vocally, especially given the defensiveness of many muslims.

Also, in the article, she is making the case to muslims that terrorism is not a legitimate form of jihad. She is not acting as an apologist to non-muslims. The problem is, of course, that even if this point can be debated then there are many forms of violence which would be considered legitimate jihad, even if terrorism is not one of them, quite apart from the many other objectionable things in Islam.

However one may assess an individual point one thing is clear. The writers at Harry's Place and most who comment are, to varying degrees, quite clear that Islam(ism) is an odious, fascist ideology, that organisations like the MCB are fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood etc., that many supposed moderate muslim spokesmen are not moderate, that muslims themselves contribute to the association by others of Islam with terrorism etc., etc.

Included in the blogs they link to are

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/

and

http://www.jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/

Hardly what you would expect from dhimmis.

I read the site frequently, along with Comment is Free (for the comments, not the articles per se), both places where it is reassuring to see that there are still many with broadly leftwing sympathies who see Islam(ism) for what it is.

It is because I know the site well that I found you characterisation of it unfair, to say the least. And perhaps I did not then read carefully enough. But basically the article at Harry's Place (agreeing with Sheila Musaji here) says that it is muslims themselves, by their words and actions, who create the impression that Jihad=Terrorism. I think we would have to agree.

Ok, they take issue with you on some things and you are accused of "frequently straying into islamophobia" (a careless remark which will obviously have coloured your view of them) while they refer to the "fools at Islamophobia Watch." But generally they are sceptical about the usefulness of the term "islamophobia," and the organisations who make such accusations.

I think, to be honest, that where Islam and Islamism are concerned, there is considerable agreement between you and Harry's Place. However, there may be disagreement about Muslims. Personally I feel that while many public spokesmen for Islam practice wilful deception and almost certainly support some terrorism, for many ordinary muslims it is possibly more useful to speak of cognitive dissonance, or simply that they are also in denial. After all many ex-muslims say that they were brought up to believe that Islam is a religion of peace and that Mohammed was a moral example to mankind, and that it was learning the truth about the Quran and Islamic doctrine that made them leave Islam. On the other hand there are those who are taught from an early age exactly what Islam means. Obviously what is taught varies with time and place.

Posted by: kgordon at July 15, 2008 2:33 PM

Hehe......

Robert... You called them a bunch of clueless dhimmis and they reacted by telling you to bugger off. Regardless of how you judge their views, you need not have weighed into this in the first instance.

You can argue whether their reply was lacking in grace all day long, but do you honestly consider that your main article is any less so, given that you used the main point of the lawsuit and the ramifications thereof as a vehicle for ramming home your summation of their cluelessness and dhimmitude?

If you're going to smack someone in the mouth, you have to know that there's going to be one coming back the other way.

Posted by: Wishbone at July 15, 2008 2:59 PM

Wishbone:

The links embedded above and other articles at Harry's Place show with whom these attacks began: these people were taking potshots at me long before I ever heard of them. That's their prerogative, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that I would have a high estimation of their understanding of the jihad threat when they have never demonstrated that they do.

I have no objection to their answering back at all, and noted that they did so in a not unexpected way.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 3:03 PM

Robert-

In essence, a fair enough point. However, if the underlying issue is so important, something along the lines of 'We're not exactly friends, but best of luck in this instance' might have been less provocative. The lawsuit should have been the main issue; instead it's turned into 'who's a dhimmi and how stupid are you for being one?'

I think I'll respectfully disagree with the method in this instance, Robert.

Posted by: Wishbone at July 15, 2008 3:23 PM

KGordon:

Thanks. I readily acknowledge that all I have to see is "Islamophobia" used as a serious designation, and I tune out. That it is used of me is less important than the idea that it is a viable category for anyone but jihadist propagandists. That did color my view of the Harry site in general.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 3:30 PM

Wishbone,

I ain't infallible. You may be right. Probably if they hadn't accused me of "Islamophobia" I would have been much better disposed.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 3:32 PM

Wishbone, Gordon, etc.:

I should also note that I always react strongly to accusations of "Islamophobia," particularly when they come from non-Muslims, because it is precisely such spurious charges that jihadists are using today in order to try to limit the freedom of speech in Western countries -- and they're trying to limit it precisely in regard to an honest discussion of the elements of Islam that give rise to violence.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 15, 2008 3:41 PM

I had not visited Harry's Place until today.
It seems odd that someone who could write that "Hamas is both racist and genocidal" would describe JW/DW as Islamophobic, but maybe he is in denial. Or a different HP member. Or just confused. Or only reading the comments, and not the articles themselves.
Anyway, if this goes to court it will probably be an interesting (for us) and instructive (for
clueless dhimmis) case.

Posted by: M Al-Content at July 15, 2008 3:57 PM

Aside from his status as a dhimmi or not, the big problem here is allowing tribe cultures like Hamas into the courts of modern societies. They are completely incompatible. The tribe culture will never reciprocate. There is nothing to interface with, no common protocol. The tribe is like a computer virus in an operating system. There should be ground rules laid down on who can sue, particularly if they are foreign, just as there are ground rules that countries have to meet in terms of democracy and rights before they can join the European Union, for instance.
Apparently any murderous, bigoted and inhuman entity can sue in Western courts.
http://www.bravenewsworld.com

Posted by: Max Publius at July 15, 2008 4:31 PM

Dear Robert, Gordon, Max, et al:

Let me just say that I've enjoyed the little jousting above and the thoughtful and courteous manner in which it's been conducted! It also led me, too, for the first time to Harry's Place...

One teeny comment on KGordon's post above where s/he notes: "...*still* many with broadly leftwing sympathies who see Islam(ism) for what it is."

I think it should be "now" instead of "still". In the recent Guardian article below by Soumaya Ghannousi, the 300+ comments were mostly anti Ghannoushi's islam-apologia. A year or so ago, I believe they may have been much more in tune with cultural relativism and politically-correctly in support of her views. If I'm correct in that judgement, it means that sites such as JW are having some real effect in alerting the public to the true nature of Islam/jihad....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/soumayaghannoushi

Posted by: Meeker at July 15, 2008 5:20 PM

Can the Mafia also sue people in England?

Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 15, 2008 6:57 PM

The pox on Harry and other useful idiots of Islamic jihad.

Posted by: US_infidel at July 15, 2008 7:01 PM

maryatexitzero, can you pleased explain what qualifies the BNP as "fascist"?

Please undermine your statement with some facts, since I've been wondering what political choice do they have in England and Scotland and Wales when it comes to voting against islamization of their fair isles.

Your clarifications could be a welcome aid in my decision-makign process since i am outside the Kingdom and looking in via blogs like this and varous other media sources.

Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 15, 2008 7:20 PM

maryatexitzero, can you pleased explain what qualifies the BNP as "fascist"?

Please undermine your statement with some facts, since I've been wondering what political choice do they have in England and Scotland and Wales when it comes to voting against islamization of their fair isles.

The BNP are commonly referred to as fascists for the same reason Islamists are referred to as fascists - they tend to be authoritarian, their political organizations were founded by fascists and/or Nazis, they support ethnic cleansing. Their primary goal is to lead a political entity united by ethnic, religious and cultural 'purity'. They believe that the state, not individuals, know what's best for the pure members of their ideal society. Since they're opposed to dealing with people who are not pure, they tend to be isolationists.

You could argue that this does not, technically, make them fascists according to the original definition provided by Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile. But technical definitions and semantics are beside the point. Honestly, do you think a bunch of authoritarian ethnic cleansers and isolationists are likely to solve Britain's problems?

Since you asked for my opinion, I'd have to say that the best solution to Britain's problems is to do something about liberal tolerance of crime. Britain's biggest problem is their tolerance of Islamist fascist groups and criminals in general. Hoping to profit from the Islamic banking tulipmania, the government caters to the Mafiasque Islamist thugs from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Britain's laws against self-defense (have you outlawed carving knives yet?) make people feel defenseless and helpless.

The place sounds a lot like New York city in the 1970's and the 1980s. The mafia and the criminals were in charge. The police hid in their cars and their stations, refusing to go into bad neighborhoods. Wealthy liberals would entertain and honor local terrorists. New York improved after Rudy Giuliani took over, but even before he was in charge, people let the government know that the were mad as hell and they weren't going to take it anymore. They formed neighborhood watch groups and supported vigilante groups like the Guardian Angels. They relentlessly criticized the government for not doing its job. Criticism of the government, and challenges to government authority, inspired Giuliani to do the right thing.

A liberal or a traditional conservative government will listen to people. The BNP won't. Once these authoritarian groups (whatever you want to call them) are in charge, they tend to stay in charge. Sure, they might kick out a few defenseless Muslim pizza guys and electronics salesmen, but after they've finished beating up on the defenseless, who will be classified as 'impure'? The Jews? The Irish? The Welsh? People with mental or physical disabilities?

The British have a history of resisting authoritarianism. If there's any way to make Britain less British, it's by electing the BNP.

Posted by: maryatexitzero at July 15, 2008 8:54 PM

Robert, I do think you're wrong to use a blanket accusation of "dhimmitude" about Harry's Place. The point of Harry's Place (and this is speaking as someone who agrees wholeheartedly with you on Islam) is that it is open for debate.
Perhaps the dhimmi's that you were thinking of were the regular trotskyite commentators such as TheIrie and Flanker, with the occasional jaw-dropping stupidity from Gene and Macro-Attila Hoare?
But thank you for the support. Now, can we do something about the NKVD - sorry! - I mean the Human Rights Commisions in Canada!

Posted by: Wien1938 at July 15, 2008 8:55 PM

..ummm..just to be clear, when I describe neighborhood watch groups like the Guardian Angels, I'm talking about groups that don't carry weapons, and who work work with the police.

When the writers at Harry's Place decided not to back down, and to challenge the lawsuit, that was another way of letting the government know that their policies are way out of line. From what I've read in the news, conservative writers and leftists (even total moonbats like George Monbiot) are united in an effort to change those laws.

Posted by: maryatexitzero at July 15, 2008 11:52 PM