Recently in Leftist/Jihadist Alliance Category

The leftist-jihadist alliance is the gift that keeps on giving... to the jihadists. The leftists may think they can leverage the global victim culture that besets Muslim countries to their advantage, particularly by appropriating it into the Marxist narrative, but do not take into account that their allies for now have their own designs as well.

"Soros Critics Muzzled, Beck Says," from The Soros Files, February 3:

“I paid a huge, huge price for going after George Soros,” Glenn Beck told Richard Poe last week. ”But I ain’t dead. And quite honestly, I thought that was an option. … I said on the air, at one point, if I show up dead, check Soros!” Beck chatted with Shadow Party co-author Richard Poe in a satellite interview on GBTV, January 31. They discussed the strange reluctance of U.S. media to criticize Soros; explored Soros’ peculiar hostility toward the United States; and scrutinized Soros’ neocolonial approach to the Muslim world.

The transcript follows below (video here):

BECK: We have Richard Poe. He is the co-author of Shadow Party… his other co-author is David Horowitz, a man I greatly, greatly respect, and Richard Poe has done so much amazing work on George Soros. Can you tell me, Richard, first of all, why is no one looking into George Soros? Why is this ‘class warfare’ on everybody else except for George Soros?

POE: Glenn, I would suspect that what happened to you when you went after George Soros may have a lot to do with that, because, probably, of anybody on network television, you (when you were on Fox News) went after George Soros more thoroughly and more definitively and giving a lot more details about his covert operations overseas (which is the part of the story that is usually not told), you did more of that than, I think, anyone has ever done on network television. And I don’t know the inside story like you do, but it appears to me and I think it probably appears to a lot of people in the media and out of the media that you got punished for that. Now maybe that’s not true but that’s how it looked from the outside.

BECK: Oh, I think I paid a huge, huge price for going after George Soros. But I ain’t dead. And quite honestly, I thought that was an option. You go after, you know, I’ve seen movies before and I thought, if I die, I think I said on the air, at one point, if I show up dead, check Soros! But I didn’t die. I paid a huge price, but I’m going on and I think we are, you know, Richard, I believe we’ve spoken about what we’re working on, on another exposé of George Soros and what he’s doing now. He’s a guy who seems to either frighten everyone or control everyone. Am I wrong?

POE: He has tremendous influence and he is a very thin-skinned person by nature (I’ve observed, I’ve learned) and he seems to have a lot of powerful friends in the government, in the intelligence community, in all kinds of walks of life, and a great willingness to use his connections for personal ends. He does not like to be criticized and I have been astonished, in the few years that I have been taking little digs at him (in my own little way), I have been astonished at the extent to which he will react when he is criticized…

BECK: Oh yeah.

POE: …even if someone so small as little ‘ol me does something.”

BECK: Yeah, it’s incredible.

POE: He will react. [...]

POE: ...He has a very well-developed theory of how the world should work. He believes, of course, in globalism — although sometimes he denies that he believes in globalism. He believes that we should create a new, essentially a central bank for the entire world, which issues a global currency, which would replace the dollar as the dominant currency on earth. He has written this in his books. He has a very, very clearly laid out plan for globalizing the planet. And a big part of this plan, one might even say the biggest part of this plan, as he states very clearly, is to break the power of the United States which he sees as the one force which is strong enough, and stubborn enough, and sufficiently in love with its own independence, to try to stop this from happening.

BECK: Is he a guy who is so naïve that he really thinks that he can get into bed with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic world? Is he using them? Or are they using him? Or do they both think we’ll use each other temporarily and then we’ll off the other? We’ll split the world, or whatever? How does he think he’s going to fare with the Islamic world afterwards? I don’t think he’ll fit into sharia finance real well.

POE: No, I don’t imagine he would, but I would guess that – I can only guess – but I would guess that Mr. Soros and people like him, the sort of people who are gathering now at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland to make these plans for globalization, as we speak, these sorts of people see the Muslim world very much as the old colonial powers used to see it. You can read books that were written during the era of the French Empire and the British Empire, both of which ruled large Muslim populations, and they used to talk about how to manage the Muslims, almost the way you’d manage a type of livestock…

BECK: Right.

POE: …that they’re useful for this, sometimes they’re useful for that. Yes, sometimes they get very fanatical and you have to crack down on them, but you can use them to keep other people under control. And you can actually read these books. Many of them are still in print today. Manuals of colonialism. And I think the elites, like Soros today, are still reading from that book, that old book of colonialism and thinking, well, the Muslims are just a part of our kingdom. They’re just a segment of our, they’re subjects of our empire and they have certain uses. We can use them for this, or we can not use them for that. The Muslims, on the other hand, those who are true believers, they see this, they see everything that happens to their advantage, as the hand of Providence, as the hand of Allah. They don’t care what Soros and people like that think when they help them. They say, look, the infidels are helping us. Allah has made them mad. He’s brought them into our hands. And so, at one point or another, these forces will collide. Certainly.

Source: Richard Poe

http://www.richardpoe.com/

YouTube manifests yet again the Leftist/Islamic supremacist hatred of free speech and of shedding light on jihadists' true genocidal intentions, as well as the common tendency to blame not jihadists for their hateful rhetoric, but instead those who report on that rhetoric.

An update on this story. "YouTube freezes PMW account again," from Palestinian Media Watch, January 16:

In response to yesterday's PMW video-bulletin which showed the PA Mufti's speech that Muslims' destiny is to kill Jews, YouTube has frozen PMW's account. All PMW videos are working except this one but the account is frozen and PMW cannot upload new videos for the next two weeks.

We have uploaded the video to a different server and it can now again be viewed from PMW's website.

The video that YouTube is calling "inappropriate" exposed the Palestinian Authority Mufti citing the Islamic tradition (Hadith) that anticipates Muslims' killing Jews as a precursor to the Hour of Resurrection. The Jews are also called the "descendants of the apes and pigs" by a Fatah moderator at the event. The following is the text of the video.

Moderator at Fatah ceremony:
"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews)
is a war of religion and faith.
Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."

PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein comes to the podium and says:
"47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution of the Palestinian people's history. In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE], and continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad), [found] in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says:
"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'
Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent]."
Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees]
surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 9, 2012]

"The State Department had said last month it was looking into 'very disturbing' allegations that Acosta was a participant in an alleged Iranian plot to launch cyber-attacks on sensitive US national security facilities."

"US orders expulsion of Venezuelan consul," by Jim Mannion for the Associated Press, January 8:

The United States has ordered the expulsion of Venezuela's consul general in Miami amid reports linking the diplomat to an alleged Iranian plot to target sensitive US facilities with cyber attacks, the US State Department said Sunday.

The US action comes as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to kick off a Latin American tour in Caracas later Sunday.

In Caracas, President Hugo Chavez made no mention of the consul's expulsion in his Sunday radio and TV program but accused Washington of "inventing" Iranian plots to attack the United States from Latin American countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

For the United States to say "no country should get close to Iran really is a laugh," Chavez said.

The Venezuelan embassy in Washington was notified Friday that Livia Acosta Noguera, the consul general in Miami, had been declared persona non grata and had until Tuesday to leave the country, said State Department spokesman William Ostick.

"In accordance with Article 23 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the department declared Ms Livia Acosta Noguera, Venezuelan consul general to Miami, to be persona non grata. As such, she must depart the United States by January 10," he said.

"We cannot comment on specific details behind the decision to declare Ms Acosta persona non grata at this time," he added in a statement.

The State Department had said last month it was looking into "very disturbing" allegations that Acosta was a participant in an alleged Iranian plot to launch cyber-attacks on sensitive US national security facilities.

The allegations were made in a documentary that aired on the Spanish-language television network Univision, which said Acosta was taped discussing the alleged plot with a Mexican computer expert who said he was among a group of students recruited for the plot.

The contacts reportedly took place in 2007 while Acosta was serving as a second secretary at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico City.

An excerpt of one conversation has Acosta demanding information that the student, Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo, had passed on to Iranian diplomats about the locations of US nuclear power plants. She was quoted as later telling Munoz that she had passed the information to the head of Chavez's presidential security unit.

Univision said Munoz said he was recruited for the Iranian plot by a leftist professor at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, but then recruited other students to secretly videotape the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats they met with.

According to Univision, the students then sent or personally turned over the material they gathered to US embassy officials in Mexico, the FBI, Pentagon and US lawmakers....

The Leftist/jihadist alliance has been on abundant display during the Occupy protests. At Occupy DC it is taking an especially sinister turn: "Inside Occupy D.C.," from Bill Gertz's Inside the Ring in the Washington Times, December 21 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

People monitoring the Occupy D.C. movement tell Inside the Ring that the two encampments are fast becoming health hazards. Numerous protesters also recently were sickened with unusual respiratory illnesses.

The major emerging problem for the leftists camped out in tents at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza is rats. The rodents appear to be moving into the area by the hundreds, and their numbers are increasing daily.

The McPherson camp appears be where more radical leftists are based. An observer familiar with the McPherson camp said one distinctive smell coming from the park area is that of methamphetamine being smoked.

Among the flags being flown by some protesters are those from the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and al Qaeda.

Here is an interview I did in August 2011 for the German site Initiative1683.com.

Muhammad, the supreme example of human conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21), ordered the killing of dogs:

"Once Gabriel promised the Prophet (that he would visit him, but Gabriel did not come) and later on he said, 'We, angels, do not enter a house which contains a picture or a dog.'" -- Sahih Bukhari 4.54.50

"Abdullah (b. Umar) (Allah be pleased with them) reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and we would send (men) in Medina and its corners and we did not spare any dog that we did not kill, so much so that we killed the dog that accompanied the wet she-camel belonging to the people of the desert." -- Sahih Muslim 10.3811

He also clearly considered them unclean, as indicated by the washing instructions here: "Ibn Mughaffal reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) ordered killing of the dogs, and then said: What about them, i. e. about other dogs? and then granted concession (to keep) the dog for hunting and the dog for (the security) of the herd, and said: When the dog licks the utensil, wash it seven times, and rub it with earth the eighth time." -- Sahih Muslim 551

In accord with such teachings, observant Muslims generally consider dogs unclean, dislike them and don't want to be around them. So this actress warned in her ad that she had a dog, so Muslims wouldn't want the job. And now here again, noticing the truth about Islam, when that truth is unpleasant or jarring to Western sensibilities, is "racism."

"Actress 'banned Muslim handymen' over chihuahua worries," from The Local, December 1 (thanks to David):

One of France's most well-known singers and actresses, Marie Laforêt, will today appear in a Paris courtroom to defend herself against charges that a job advertisement she placed discriminated against Muslims.

72-year-old Laforêt, who first found fame as an actress in the 1960s, placed an ad on an internet site looking for someone to carry out some work on her terrace in 2009, reported daily newspaper Le Parisien on Thursday.

She specified in the ad that "people with allergies or orthodox Muslims" should not apply "due to a small chihuahua."

Laforêt claimed that she made the stipulation because she believed the Muslim faith saw dogs as unclean.

The case was taken up by anti-discrimination organization Mrap, which lodged a complaint against the internet site which ran the ad.

"To think that Marie Laforêt is racist is just stupid," said her lawyer, David Koubbi, according to the newspaper. He said the words in the advertisement were only a "warning."

Koubbi added that the star "has always shown her interest and admiration for the Muslim faith."

"She knew that the presence of a religion could conflict with the religious convictions of orthodox Muslims. It was a sign of respect."

Experts in the Muslim faith were quoted as rejecting the defence.

"Dogs are not considered unclean and it's false to suggest otherwise," said one quoted by the newspaper.

This unnamed expert in the Muslim faith has thereby revealed that Iraq's Ayatollah Sistani is not the expert on Islam that he appears to be, but is actually a greasy Islamophobe. For Sistani includes dogs in his list of unclean things:

The following ten things are essentially najis [unclean]:

1. Urine
2. Faeces
3. Semen
4. Dead body
5. Blood
6. Dog
7. Pig
8. Kafir [unbeliever -- i.e., non-Muslims]
9. Alcoholic liquors
10. The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat [unclean things].

This is especially rich, as Muhammad Malik (here, Mohammad) has in the past been involved in attempts to put a more "moderate" face on Islamic teachings, particularly where apostasy is concerned. When the audience is different, the message is different. "Occupy Miami boss led 'Nuke Israel' rally," by Aaron Klein for World Net Daily, November 24 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

The recent executive director of the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations' South Florida chapter is a founder and spokesman of Occupy Miami, WND has learned.

Mohammad Malik currently is as an activist with several other Islamic groups.

He has led hate-filled anti-Israel protests in which participants were filmed wearing Hamas paraphernalia while chanting "Nuke Israel" and "Go back to the oven" – a reference to Jews being killed in the Holocaust.

Malik has been widely quoted in the Florida news media in recent weeks speaking for Occupy Miami.

The Miami Herald identified Malik as one of the organizers of Occupy's Miami's downtown campsite headquarters.

"We've established that we can be here," Malik told the Herald, speaking as one of the first Occupy Miami organizers. "People said we were stupid amateurs who don't know what we're doing. ... But we did it. We've survived and we're growing."

Last week, the Florida Independent reported Miami police had asked Occupy activists to temporarily leave their camp digs.

The Independent quoted Malik, identified as protesting with the group since the beginning, as stating there were "a lot of cops" in the area, but protesters were "trying to figure out the situation so that it doesn't escalate."

The Independent previously quoted Malik as an "unemployed Miami native who has worked with the ACLU and is the current spokesperson for Occupy Miami."

In September 2010, Malik was appointed as the director of CAIR's South Florida chapter, covering the region of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.

In March 2010, Malik organized a CAIR dinner in Miami. The keynote speaker was Siraj Wahhaj, who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wahhaj has also defended the convicted WTC bomb plotters and has urged the Islamic takeover of America.

Malik departed CAIR several months ago. He previously worked for ACLU Florida, coordinating its Racial Justice and Voting Rights Projects.

He did not return email and phone requests for comment.

Nezar Hamze, the current director of CAIR-South Florida, told WND yesterday that Malik departed his Islamic group under friendly terms.

"He left several months ago, maybe almost a year ago," said Hamze. "He got a better position, I think, at the ACLU," he said.

Malik has served as coordinator of several other Islamic groups, such as the South Florida Palestine Solidarity Network, through which he has organized hate-filled protests; the American Muslims for Emergency Relief; and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Malik himself was the principal organizer of numerous anti-Israel rallies.

A rally in March was titled "Miami's Third Intifada Rally for Palestine."

During the demonstration, protesters reportedly chanted a slogan often used by Hamas and other Palestinian radicals calling for the destruction of Israel: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

A Malik-led rally in December 2008 reportedly drew 200 to 300 rowdy supporters, with some screaming for Jews to "go back to the ovens."

The Florida Sun-Sentinel featured a picture with the caption "Malik incites the crowd."

YouTube video and Internet pictures from the protest depict rally-goers wearing Hamas logos on hats and scarves.

The Florida Jewish Voice newspaper reported Malik's rally began as the Islamic crowd squared off against Israel supporters outside the First Baptist Church in downtown Ft. Lauderdale.

One protester reportedly shouted, "Your mother is a wh*re," then broke into, "Nuke, nuke Israel. Nuke, nuke Israel," followed by, "Go to hell; go to hell; go to hell!"

Another woman, wearing a headscarf, shouted: "Go steal other lands. Go! Murderers! Go back to the oven! You need a big oven."

Malik himself was quoted calling Israel's actions ''collective punishment," accusing the Jewish state of "fuel[ing] terrorism."

Wahhaj, brought in to keynote Malik's CAIR dinner last year, repeatedly has urged the U.S. to accept Islamic law. Discover the Networks notes Wahhaj in 1991 predicted America will fall unless it "accepts the Islamic agenda."

The next year, he stated, "Hear what I'm telling you well. The Americans are not your friends. ... The Canadians are not your friends. ... The Europeans are not your friends. Your friend is Allah, the Messenger and those who believe."...

There is much more.

Fighting on behalf of Islamic supremacists who will end up being far more oppressive in power than anything they've imagined in their wildest nightmares. Leftist/Islamic Supremacist Alliance Update: "3 students from US arrested during Cairo protests," by Charles Wilson for the Associated Press, November 22:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Relatives and school officials said Tuesday they were working with U.S. officials to free three American college students arrested during protests in Cairo, where an Egyptian official said they were throwing firebombs at security forces.

An Egyptian official said the students were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to speak to the media.

The U.S. Department of State said it was aware of the detentions of three U.S. citizens in connection with Tahrir Square protests and was seeking access.

The wave of protests and violence across Egypt that began Saturday has left 29 dead and thrown the country's politics into chaos less than a week before landmark parliamentary elections were to begin. Tens of thousands of people filled Tahrir Square on Tuesday to intensify pressure on Egypt's military leaders to hand over power to a civilian government.

A spokeswoman for the American University in Cairo identified the students as Luke Gates, 21, Derrik Sweeney, 19, and Gregory Porter, 19.

Morgan Roth said the three students had been held by Egyptian authorities since their arrest Monday night but she did not know whether they had been formally charged or what the charges might be. She said it wasn't unusual for American students to get "caught up" in Egyptian politics.

"There's a lot of very contagious passion right now," she said. Students from the U.S. don't always realize what it's like to live in a country without free speech or other civil liberties, and sometimes are motivated to work to change those conditions, she said....

And they're fighting to change them by making them even worse.

The Breivik thing just keeps on going, and probably will forever: Leftists and Islamic supremacists note the fact that the Norwegian mass murderer mentioned me (along with many others such as John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Darwin) in his ideologically incoherent "manifesto" to try to portray me as his "inspiration" or "mentor." In reality, virtually every time he supposedly is citing me, he is actually citing a news article from Jihad Watch; another large number of citations comes from his incorporating whole into his "manifesto" the transcript of a documentary in which I appear, Islam: What the West Needs to Know. He never cites me as an inspiration for his actions or recommendations, and couldn't have done so, because I do not call for violence or anything that violates the human rights we are trying to protect from Islamic supremacism. At one point he even says that I am wrong because I do not call for violence.

Yet still I am supposedly his inspiration -- but the imams who openly call for violence based on the Qur'an and Sunnah are never, ever the inspiration for jihad terrorists like Muhammad Yusuf, even when their calls for violence are crystal clear and the jihadists cite those teachings of violence and name them as their inspiration.

Nor are the likes of Stephen Walt troubled by their self-incriminating hypocrisy, as detailed here by Omni Ceren.

Meanwhile, what's up with two reasonably good pieces in Commentary in one day? Sunspots?

"Is Stephen Walt Responsible for Inspiring Terror Suspect Jose Pimentel?," by Omri Ceren in Commentary, November 21:

ABC News disclosed last night that arrested New York City terror suspect Jose Pimentel “spent much of his time on the Internet… and maintained a radical website called TrueIslam1.” TrueIslam1 has a number of sections, most of them handed over to Islam and jihad. There are two only sections that deal straightforwardly with politics: one labeled “Politics” and one labeled “The U.S.A.”

Both sections have different articles and both of course still contain plenty of Islamic theology – ergo the concept of political Islam – but they have one thing in common. They both have links to free downloads of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s book The Israel Lobby. Other than those links there doesn’t appear to be any overlapping content between the two sections. Apparently, Pimentel thought Walt and Mearsheimer’s feverish opus was something that needed to be read and distributed.

Now here is Walt’s standard for when scholarship that resonates with terrorists calls for chagrin. It was written in the aftermath of Anders Breivik’s horrific killing spree in Norway and was directed at critics of political Islam:

Finally, to what extent can Islamophobes like Pamela Geller or Robert Spencer be held responsible for Breivik’s act? As someone who has some personal experience with “guilt by association,” I do think we should be careful about assessing blame. None of these hawkish pundits openly advocated violence, and all have (for the most part) distanced themselves from Breivik’s act. But it is also clear that their writings consistently portrayed Islam in a crude and monolithic way and tended to depict all Muslims as part of some looming threat to core Western values. And it seems clear from Breivik’s manifesto that these writers did have a considerable impact on his worldview, even if they did not advocate the horrific response that he chose.

Walt’s writings characterize supporters of the U.S.-Israeli relationship as a small cabal of Jews plus the evangelical Christians they’ve managed to corrupt into joining their cause. In that context, his complaint about Gellar [sic] and Spencer’s writings – that they’ve “consistently portrayed Islam in a crude and monolithic way and tended to depict all Muslims as part of some looming threat to core Western values” – could only be more bitingly ironic if it was immediately followed by a call for “self-reflection” and a sneer about being a “committed ideologue.” So naturally:

Yet this seems to have sparked little or no self-reflection on their part, as befitting the committed ideologue.

Walt’s paranoid worldview and its concomitant conspiratorial images are the stuff of ancient anti-Jewish bigotry. They seem to resonate deeply with online and offline jihadists, who give them priority of place next to tracts calling for genocidal warfare. And unlike Geller and Spencer, Walt has an entire media industry helping him make anti-Semitism respectable. On that last point, see Lee Smith’s Tablet Magazine expose from last year.

No one denies Walt has been and can be incisive on a range of issues. That, as much as anything else, is exactly what makes his seemingly genuine belief in the results of “piss-poor, monocausal social science” so obviously the result of some deep pathology: when smart people are outwardly persuaded by bad arguments, it’s not the arguments but something else that’s doing the work. Maybe he’ll notice the incongruity of him criticizing others for influencing Breivik, while at the same time insisting there’s no significance to be gleaned from the affection terrorists have for his work.

Ceren's piece could be better: neither Geller nor I ever have condoned or called for actions such as Breivik's. In his "manifesto" he calls for making war to maintain Christian Europe while saying that he is not a Christian, and includes anti-jihad material while saying that Europeans should make common cause with jihadists. In other words, he is just a psychopath. No one but hard-Left and Islamic supremacist ideologues would reasonably think we had anything to do with the development of his twisted thinking.

The Leftist/jihadist alliance has been on abundant display during the Occupy protests. Here it is displayed most vividly, without apology.

(Video thanks to Pamela Geller.)

Jamie Glazov, editor of FrontPage Magazine, joins Michael Coren on Coren's superb Sun TV show for a wide-ranging interview on the foremost enemies of Western values and Judeo-Christian civilization today.

While the government can't retreat quickly enough into total fantasy regarding Islamic jihad activity, for the hard Leftists and Islamic supremacist collaborators at the ACLU, they're still not moving fast enough.

"ACLU deputy sees national security extremes becoming entrenched," by Steve Fidel for KSL.com, October 30 (thanks to David):

WEST VALLEY CITY —The deputy legal director for the ACLU believes post-9/11 security policies specifically target Muslims, and that the intelligence community has taken training cues from bigots, not experts.

And unlike the era where Japanese Americans were detained in camps during World War II, he sees detainment, surveillance and other infringement policies staying in the extreme in the decade following 9/11 becoming "the new normal."

"While President Obama uses the rhetoric of human rights, his administration is continuing to become more entrenched," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the ACLU and director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy, which houses the agency's work on national security; human rights; and speech, privacy and technology.

Jaffer spoke Saturday night at the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake's Khadeeja Islamic Center.

He urged Muslims to vote and participate in public events, including demonstrations, but said they should not band together as Muslim or Arabic-sponsored groups to oppose government or societal injustices. "Choose something less selfish" rather than representing a Muslim bloc. "You have to think of other people's rights" as well, he said.

That would be something new.

Jaffer credited the Obama administration for releasing memos that discussed and sanctioned torture among detainees in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp after 9/11, but suggested President Obama spent considerable political capital in doing that, setting him at odds with the CIA specifically and the intelligence community as a whole.

He suggested presidents' effect on human rights issues, in the arena of national security, can be limited by the fact a successful president may be in office eight years, but the mindset moves on a different track within the CIA and FBI, where careers can last 30 years.

He said Muslims have balked at careers in the United States' intelligence community because training materials have labeled Islam as incompatible with democracy. He believes FBI training materials for at least the past decade have drawn on the expertise of bigots, not individuals with expertise in Middle East culture. "And I suspect the CIA's training materials are worse."...

I wouldn't worry, Jaffer.

Walid Phares and I have long admired one another's work. He said of my 2005 bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) that it was "a ‘politically incorrect’ but academically sound and challenging work. Spencer displays an enormous amount of well-researched material. He throws the ball back into the camp of Arabist historians.” And about my 2003 book Onward Muslim Soldiers he said: “This book is a necessary tool for students of History, Politics, Civilization and Ideologies....This book is a must read for all those who want to understand the world after September 11.”

Now that Islamic supremacists and their useful idiots in the Leftist media have launched a campaign to discredit and marginalize everyone who dares to resist the advance of Islamic supremacism and Sharia in the U.S., Phares has come under fire for, among other things, those endorsements. The hard-Left pro-jihad propagandist Adam Serwer, who is probably still smarting from the blistering he got here and here, mentioned those book endorsements as part of his hit piece on Phares, without bothering (of course) to produce the slightest bit of evidence that anything in either book is hateful, bigoted, or even false.

The strategy is obvious: the Islamic supremacists and the Left are trying to pick off every freedom fighter one by one, focusing on destroying one of us and then using another's connections to the destroyed one as evidence that he should be destroyed next. The ultimate goal is to leave no impediment to the advance of Sharia and jihad in the U.S. And so it is imperative that we fight back; and today, in "The Jihad against Walid Phares" in National Review, Mario Loyola responds ably to the main charges against Phares:

In recent days, the liberal blogosphere has launched a concerted attack against Walid Phares, one of Mitt Romney’s senior Mideast advisers. The likes of Ali Gharib, McKay Coppins, and Adam Serwer think they smell blood because of Phares’s former association with the Lebanese Forces, the de facto army of the Lebanese Christians during the latter half of Lebanon’s civil war. “Top Romney Adviser Tied to Militia That Massacred,” intoned Mother Jones in its headline for Serwer’s piece. The [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has joined in, with a particularly pathetic letter to the Romney campaign requesting “that Phares be removed” from his advisory position.

The assault on Phares is interesting not just because of the basic ignorance behind its main contentions but also because of its true motives.

A bit of background first. In the years after the 1967 war, the Palestinian Liberation Organization was expelled from the Jordanian West Bank and harried by Jordanian and Syrian forces all the way into Lebanon, where it eventually plunged the whole country into civil war. Phares was a teenager when the conflict erupted in 1975. In 1979, when he was 22 years old, Phares published the first of his many books, Pluralism in Lebanon, which called for Swiss-style federated autonomy for the country’s various ethnic and confessional communities. Of course, among liberals, an idea like that is a cause célèbre — when it is advanced by people they like — and a “hard-line extremist” product of “hateful ideology” when it comes from someone they disagree with.

By the early 1980s in Lebanon, Phares was already a well-known writer and was routinely invited to give talks and lectures to all kinds of organizations, including the Lebanese Forces, an umbrella organization in which virtually every Lebanese Christian group was represented. Phares had no official position with the Lebanese Forces until 1986, when he joined its 22-member Political Council as representative for the small left-of-center party he and his brother had previously launched. During his short tenure on the Council, he variously handled foreign affairs and diaspora issues. This, however, was enough for the Mother Jones “investigation” to uncover that Phares was a “key player” in a “sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during Lebanon’s brutal, 15-year civil war.” 

The connection to one of the most infamous massacres of the conflict gives the Mother Jones story its hook. On their way to Beirut during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Israelis surrounded two Palestinian refugee camps, at Sabra and Shatila, where PLO terrorists were ensconced. In August of that year, the hugely popular Christian leader Bashir Gemayel was elected president of Lebanon — and assassinated three weeks later. Enraged, Phalangist elements of the Lebanese Forces, under intelligence chief Eli Hobeika (later revealed to be in league with the Syrians), asked Israeli permission to enter the camps and hunt down the perpetrators. In the ensuing days, hundreds and possibly thousands of Palestinian refugees were murdered. It was generally understood that the perpetrators were connected to the Lebanese Forces, if only because if you were Christian and you were armed then you were almost certainly with the Lebanese Forces.

The question is whether the war crime of a small rogue group operating clearly outside normal chains of command can be attributed to the organization as a whole. Here the answer is demonstrably “no.” The Lebanese Forces had become the de facto army and political organization of the entire Christian community in Lebanon. It is one thing to link a specific person to a specific massacre, but to discredit someone linked to the Lebanese Forces because of its links to the Sabra and Shatila massacre is to discredit virtually all Christian Lebanese who were prominent during the conflict, even those who rose to the fore years after the massacres. The real target of such an attack is the Christian Lebanese community itself. And let’s note the Left’s rank double standard when it comes to this sort of thing. The Left habitually insists that the United States and Israel recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ elected “representatives,” even if it means legitimizing people who have actually murdered innocent civilians. Mother Jones doesn’t even insinuate that Phares was connected to the massacres, or even that he ever picked up a gun. And Phares’s membership on the Political Council of the Lebanese Forces occurred years after the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

The Mother Jones piece posits several other reasons why Phares should be discredited: that he espoused a “hateful” Christian separatist ideology, that he would be representing the interests of foreigners instead of those of the United States, and that his message is anti-Muslim. The first of these is clearly false — Phares is a federalist — but even if it were true, there wouldn’t be anything hateful about it. All of Lebanon’s confessional communities zealously protect their autonomy and political rights — one of them, the Shia Hezbollah, even has its own army. And how are the separatist movements of East Timor and Palestine not equally “hateful?” The second of the contentions comes from Paul Pillar, 20-year veteran of the CIA: “It should raise eyebrows anytime someone in a position to exert behind-the-scenes influence on a U.S. leader has ties to a foreign entity that are strong enough for foreign interests, and not just U.S. interests, to determine the advice being given,” he told the magazine. The warning about representing foreign views is waved about in the Mother Jones article as a kind of dark insinuation without elaboration, and we are left to wonder just what Serwer thinks he’s talking about. But it’s irrelevant in any case. Phares has lived in the United States since 1990. Other than membership in organizations committed to resisting Syria’s and Hezbollah’s domination of Lebanon (fully in line with longstanding U.S. policy) Phares’s career remains what it has always been — that of a major writer and intellectual on Mideast affairs.

Read it all.

"The people of the United States have become fed up with moral corruption of the country’s officials, they added." That is certainly true.

Leftist/Islamic Supremacist Alliance Update: "Tehran students hold demo in solidarity with Occupy Wall St," from the Tehran Times, October 22:

TEHRAN –A number of students from universities across Tehran held a demonstration outside the Swiss Embassy on Saturday to express their solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Iran and the United States do not have diplomatic relations, and the Swiss Embassy in Tehran hosts the U.S. Interests Section in Iran.

The demonstrators chanted slogans in support of the protesters and denounced the crackdown on the protests.

The students also set the flags of the United States and the Zionist regime on fire and chanted “Down with the United States,” “Death to Israel,” “Down with Capitalism,” and other slogans.

A number of students also delivered speeches at the event, in which they said that true democracy could only be established under the banner of religion.

They also said that the Occupy Wall Street movement has been inspired by the tide of popular uprisings rolling across the Middle East and North Africa region.

The people of the United States have become fed up with moral corruption of the country’s officials, they added.

Analysts say demonstrations in Western countries which followed the Occupy Wall Street movement mark the start of a new uprising against the greed of the capitalism.

Ramin Shamsaii, a student who was present at the demonstration, said liberal democracy is intended to “deceive” people. Shamsaii said “real democracy is only realized under the umbrella of religious democracy.”

He added so long as religious democracy is not established “the world will remain in darkness.”...

"Religious democracy" = Sharia = Islamic supremacism.

The Left tries to quash open discussion of Islam and jihad
by Roland Shirk

In an attack on Robert Spencer and David Horowitz which National Review Online for some reason decided to publish (Spencer's response is here, and Horowitz's here), Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress tried to quash open discussion of the most critical factor in any consideration of how to deal with Muslims around the world: What their religion actually teaches. Not what some tub-thumping preacher in Alabama or smirking professional anti-theist in Manhattan might say that Islam teaches -- what its own holy books and leading international authorities say that it teaches.

In a series of transparent rhetorical tricks, Duss insists that any candid discussion of Islam's intrinsic intolerance and the aggressions carried out every day in its name amounts to hate speech against every Muslim in America. Hence it should be driven out of respectable publications like National Review, which he chided for giving its "imprimatur" to Horowitz and Spencer. Now, as a Catholic I might decide to act like a member of CAIR and accuse Duss of hate speech, for taking a term that rightly applies to the approval a bishop gives a work of doctrine before it is published. Except that I'm not a jackass. Also, I know that only "approved" minority groups get to insist on respect for their cultural forms and religious sensibilities. Duss is laboring mightily to get Muslims added to this group, to place them in the magic circle of perpetual victims who may never be subject to criticism. (Mitt Romney surely wishes that Mormons could get admitted, right about now.)

More appalling, of course, is the idea that National Review still wields that kind of influence in conservative circles, that it has the power to excommunicate those who diverge from its narrow political party line. Thankfully, that hasn't been true since the rise of talk radio. Remember when David Frum (then of National Review) took on Rush Limbaugh -- which one was left standing? Does anyone today even remember whether Frum is still among the living? He could have joined a Sufi commune for all that anyone cares, or ever will.

There are too many online and airwave alternatives for any single journal to set the tone for conservative opinion the way William F. Buckley once did, and that's all to the good. Ron Paul does very well without the good opinion of NR, and the Tea Party has been bubbling along on its own steam. Conservatives who care deeply about political issues now mainly turn to special-interest websites (pro-life, homeschooling, border control, etc.), and general interest political journals are often reduced to watching the march of history go by and crying "Me too!" 

None of this stopped Duss from trying, from equating Spencer and Horowitz with the paranoid conspiracy theorists of the John Birch Society, whom Buckley read out of "decent society." In fact, Duss made the comparison explicit, and called on National Review to blackball critics of sharia, to render them un-persons whose thoughtcrimes should flutter down the memory hole -- in much the way that "establishment" conservatives in Europe have done to populists and opponents of multiculturalism. Of course, in Europe they have laws restricting free speech, and prisons where they can try to lock up dissenters like Geert Wilders. We don't here. Yet.

The fact that Duss is pretending America is Germany, 2011 is 1960, and William F. Buckley is still alive and reigning as pope tells me one thing: He and his ilk are running scared. The facts are against them, so they're reduced to crass ad hominems and open calls for censorship. If they could, they would probably lock up Horowitz and Spencer in a psychiatric hospital for "intolerant personality disorder." Since they can't, they're trying to make critics of Islam radioactive, like race cranks and 9/11 "truthers." It won't work, thanks to the Internet, which blasts down the dikes that elites have long used to channel opinion. If National Review took a bland, dishonest line on Islam, its readers wouldn't humbly change their minds (or shut them off). They would just click somewhere else. The editors know that. There's too much truthful information out there on this subject--most of it online thanks to our own Robert Spencer.

Roland Shirk is Professor of Metaphysics and Ethics at Miskatonic University.

The Leftist/Islamic Supremacist Alliance generally manifests itself as Leftist Useful Idiots doing the bidding of their Islamic Supremacist masters. And maybe here we are again. "Islamic Awakening Has Reached Americans," from the Ahlul Bayt News Agency, October 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Hamid Reza Taraqqi, international affairs deputy of the Islamic Coalition Party added that the Islamic Awakening movement changed the mind of American and European people, making them aware of the real roots of economic and political crises in the west.

He referred to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and said in the wake of the recent developments in the Middle East, people in the US realized that the world’s economic problems originate from injustices done by economic cartels and big corporations.

Islam emphasizes that people’s money should not be in the hands of a few wealthy and based on a Hadith by Imam Reza (AS), one of the signs of anti-Divine governments is accumulation of people’s wealth in the hands of a few, Mr. Taraqqi noted, adding this is happening in the West where the wealth of the majority is in the hands of a minority.

He said when western nations saw how the Islamic awakening rid nations in the Middle East of their tyrant governments, they, too, decided to uproot the main reason behind their problems and troubles.

Taraqqi also highlighted the role of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in disclosing the nature of western governments and their dependence on Zionism and big corporations.

Tarek Mehanna has been charged with conspiring "to kill American troops in Iraq, assassinate two unnamed U.S. politicians and shoot shoppers in U.S. malls." So he is a natural ally of hate-America Leftists.

Leftist/Jihadist Alliance Update: "'Occupy’ protesters branch out," by Christine McConville for the Boston Herald, October 10 (thanks to Wimpy):

The downtown protest group Occupy Boston threw its proverbial doors open yesterday, and played host to supporters of accused terrorist Terak Mehanna, who are looking to raise awareness of the Sudbury man’s upcoming trial.

The Tarek Mehanna Support Committee came to Occupy Boston’s ever-evolving tent city on the Rose Kennedy Greenway to say Mehanna, a Muslim American pharmacist, is a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment.

The U.S. government says Mehanna, 28, provided “material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization,” and acted as a “media wing” for al-Qaeda.

Occupy Boston hosted the pro-Mehanna rally, but, officially, the leaderless group doesn’t have a position on the case....

Of course not!

In "Hikers' heart of darkness," in World Net Daily, October 2, Jamie Glazov discusses the affinity shown by the recently freed hostages Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal for their Islamic supremacist captors in Iran:

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal suffered terrible indignities during two years of imprisonment in an Iranian jail. But they are relieved now – as they have dutifully paid their karmic debt for the sin of being American. That's why, when they were recently released from the Mullahs' jaws and appeared at a press conference in the U.S. upon their return, they expressed their heartfelt gratitude to their Islamist tormentors by blaming America first. Indeed, the country that won their freedom and now gives them sanctuary is, as before, the target of their leftist wrath.

One can't help but wonder: What exactly were Bauer, Fattal and Sarah Shourd (released a year earlier) doing hiking on the border of an Islamist genocidal tyranny that declared war on their country 32 years ago – and that today murders Americans with relish in Iraq and Afghanistan? They couldn't find solace in hiking in Colorado? Why is it that every other American I know has never "mistakenly" stumbled into Iranian territory?

Well, the answer is quite simple: Bauer, Fattal and Shourd are the fellow travelers of our time – and protecting their own personal safety on their political pilgrimage was, consequently, the last thing they were hoping for. They were, in fact, lusting for the very opposite – as all fellow travelers do.

This particular episode of fellow traveling had all the usual toxic ingredients; it unfolded according to the expected script. Like thousands of leftists before them, the three progressive pilgrims, in their rejection of their own society, journeyed to an enemy death camp where they could prostrate themselves before their totalitarian secular deity. As I have documented in "United in Hate," the political pilgrims' yearning to worship at the feet of the despotic adversary is almost always accompanied by the yearning to sacrifice one's life on the altar of their utopian ideals.

Read it all.

The fact remains that left-wing politicians and their financiers in the world often openly or secretly have links with Islamic movements. They are trying to legalize these movements. They try to make the leaders of these organizations into political figures. At the same time, they destroy those who are particularly intransigent.

After the leftist philanthropist and billionaire George Soros became one of the major donors to the Government of Georgia, this Caucasian country became very loyal to Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus Jihad.

The Georgian government thinks that the Iranian nuclear program does not constitute a threat to peace in the region. Not to mention the fact that this country now has very sour relations with the State of Israel, which has always been a strategic partner of Georgia in the region.

The American government continues the stupid policy of funding Islamic states and giving them weapons, allegedly to help them become "strategic partners." These include Turkey, Pakistan and other countries. This funding is more like a tribute or jizya, because the loyalty of these countries is in direct proportion to the money that American taxpayers have spent on those countries.

Left-wing politicians justify the financing of Islamic regimes around the world within their own countries by showing that that aid helps left-wing political groups acquire the votes of Muslims. There are many so many examples of this that there is no need for me to give them here.

But I will give an example of how money from the Chechen government passed to the Mujahideen in the Caucasus, and recount what I said to one senior chief of the Mujahideen, Ali Sultanov. After the first jihad (1994-96), he was minister of construction of Chechnya.

The leader of the pro-Russian regime, Doku Zavgayev, asked Russia for more and more money, ostensibly to fight terrorists. And Russia pumped millions of dollars into Chechnya to maintain order. Zavgayev gave them statistical results on the destruction of the Mujahideen.

But in fact, Zavgaev had agreed to a deal with with the Mujahideen, and they divided the money transfers from Russia with each other. This was the basis of the illusory stability in the region. If the money transfer was late, the Mujahideen became active in fighting, and Zavgayev asked for more money. And the money that was received went to the Mujahideen.

This is a very interesting scheme to finance jihad.

This practice is very similar to me to what is happening now in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan and other countries have quietly supported the jihad with money that they have obtained in order to fight against the jihad.

As for the leftists who support the legalization of the Islamic movements, it is also a known practice of Muslims to vote always for the left in elections. Under the guise of human rights and forging relationships with organizations such as the "Muslim Brotherhood," they show Muslim voters their loyalty and acquire their votes in the upcoming elections.

One of the leaders of the Caucasian Jihad said: "Many are afraid of us. Many just do not want problems. They will pay us, and when we awaken and get stronger, and when Allah calls us to the last battle, we will stuff their dollars down their throats. We even do not need weapons to win this war."

He continued: "They think that we are used by them. In fact, no one can use the Mujahedeen, because Allah enlighten our minds and directs the path of Jihad."

We have long covered the abduction of the three hikers and their use by Iran while in custody as pawns in its jihad against the U.S. Having now landed in Oman, Shane Bauer has now made such a statement of outright fiction and outrageous moral equivalence.

As Iran dragged its feet in releasing Bauer and Fattal, one report noted that "the Americans' release might be drawn out to bring attention to inmates Iran wants freed." Bauer now appears to have taken up that cause anyway, and it seems like a long shot to pin it on Stockholm Syndrome.

The following commentary says it very well. "Shane Bauer's ingratitude," by Eliot Abrams for the Council on Foreign Relations, September 22:

In the last year I have written several blog posts about the American hikers imprisoned in Iran, hoping to help keep attention focused on getting them freed. Like every American I was delighted to see them out, finally, yesterday.

Indeed. They were wrongfully imprisoned in deplorable physical and psychological conditions by an enemy regime. Now that they are free:

But like many Americans, I was not delighted by the statement made immediately by one of the two, Shane Bauer. After thanking the Sultan of Oman for helping get them out, he said this:

"Two years in prison is too long and we sincerely hope for the freedom of other political prisoners and other unjustly imprisoned people in America and Iran."

Who exactly are the “political prisoners” in America?

Can we have some names? Who exactly are the “unjustly imprisoned people” in America, and how precisely does Mr. Bauer know them to be “unjustly imprisoned” rather than convicted according to due process of law?

Given that Mr. Bauer has just suffered two years imprisonment by Iran for the crime of hiking and mistakenly crossing a border, is he entirely comfortable with his comparison of the two countries in the statement just quoted? So it would appear. Thinking of the immense diplomatic activity this country undertook to free him and the enthusiasm with which his liberation was greeted yesterday, that statement of his leaves a very bad taste.

The trajectory of Cuspert's life is an interesting insight into the Leftist/Islamic supremacist alliance, showing how rootless Western Leftists can drift into jihad: he started out marching against the Persian Gulf War and ended up a full-blown jihadi. More on this story. "German Officials Alarmed by Ex-Rapper’s New Message: Jihad," by Souad Mekhennet for the New York Times, August 31 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

BERLIN — The man German security officials call a major security risk looks like a figure from a rap video, especially with the tattoos on his hands. The right one says “STR8,” and the left one “Thug.”

“This is from the days when I lived the life of an unbeliever,” said the man, Denis Mamadou Cuspert, as he clenched his fists and looked at the tattoos. “Allah will erase them from me one day.”

Mr. Cuspert, once a popular rapper in Germany, today is one of the best-known singers of nasheeds, or Islamic devotional music, in German. Security officials say, though, that he is an influential figure who incites violence and unrest through inflammatory videos and fiery speeches that praise terrorists and attack the West.

German authorities say people like him inspired the fatal shootings of two American airmen at the Frankfurt airport in March. The 21-year-old man accused of the killings, Arid Uka, whose trial began in Frankfurt on Wednesday, has said he opened fire on a busload of American service members after seeing a video that claimed to show Muslim women being raped by men in United States military uniforms. American officials have said the video — which Mr. Cuspert acknowledged posting on his Facebook page, and which Mr. Uka copied — was staged by militants.

The "video that claimed to show Muslim women being raped by men in United States military uniforms" was actually footage from the 2007 anti-Iraq war film Redacted, directed by Brian de Palma. So the mainstream media should be flooded with investigative reports about how Brian de Palma's work incites to violence, and should be censored -- right?

That won't happen, of course. The New York Times and NBC News and all the rest of those who were quick to accuse me of complicity in murder because a madman in Norway who wanted to partner with jihadis also mentioned me in his ideologically incoherent "manifesto"

Mr. Uka said he was listening on his iPod to nasheeds calling for opposition against occupation forces and the West as he traveled to the airport just before the shootings. “It made me really angry,” Mr. Uka told the judge on Wednesday, referring to the songs’ lyrics. During a tearful confession, he said that Islam had given him strength after a period of depression, but that he now realized that “I have damaged my faith.” [...]

In an interview at a mosque here, Mr. Cuspert denied any direct connection to Mr. Uka, though he said he supported his actions. “The brother hasn’t killed civilians,” he said. “He has killed soldiers who had been on their way to kill Muslims.”

That is similar to the message in videos posted on YouTube and jihadi Web sites that have made Mr. Cuspert popular among Al Qaeda supporters in Europe and elsewhere. As evidence of his reach, a man who goes by the name Abu Bilal in the tribal areas in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region said of Mr. Cuspert: “The brother’s voice has reached the hearts of many people here, too.”

Mr. Cuspert gives speeches all over Germany, and young people are drawn to elements of his personal story, including his membership in Berlin street gangs — he said he used to be a “real bad boy” — and the notion that he finally found the “right way.”

Mr. Cuspert says that Shariah, the legal code of Islam based on the Koran, permits self-defense. “My duty is to use my voice for telling people the truth, and the truth is, jihad is a duty,” he said.

Security officials say that young people who are clicking on his videos do not realize that what they are listening to has been inspired by a radical jihadist theology based on the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam.

Security officials also cannot point to any comprehensive, Qur'an-based Islamic refutation of this "radical jihadist theology." That moderate form of Islam remains the ever-elusive unicorn that everyone believes in but no one has actually ever seen.

At the end of June, Mr. Cuspert recorded a nasheed that praised Al Qaeda’s late leader, Osama bin Laden. “Your name flows in our blood,” he sings.

“I have sworn allegiance to Mullah Muhammad Omar, emir of the Taliban,” he said in the interview, smiling. “He is one of the greatest men.”

In his speeches, Mr. Cuspert has expressed outrage over United States drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas, Yemen and Somalia, and has said that his biggest wish right now is the death of President Obama, who he said was an enemy of Islam...

On Aug. 18, Mr. Cuspert was tried here on charges of possessing illegal weapons. Prosecutors said that he held a gun in a video and that the police found rounds of ammunition during a search of his apartment. German security officials said they sought to jail Mr. Cuspert and stop his “video propaganda for jihad.” The trial judge convicted Mr. Cuspert, but spared him a prison sentence, ordering him to pay a fine of 1,800 euros, about $2,600.

Before he took his new name, Abou Maleeq, Mr. Cuspert had another life. He was born and reared in Berlin by his German mother. His father, who was from Ghana, left the family when Mr. Cuspert was a baby.

When conflicts increased at home with his stepfather, a former American Army soldier and strict disciplinarian, Mr. Cuspert was sent to a home for difficult children. After five years, he returned home. “I grew up with racism,” Mr. Cuspert said. “Though my mother is German, some teachers back then would call me ‘Negro’ and treat all Muslim kids bad.”

His argument with American foreign policy grew in 1990 in the months leading up to the first Persian Gulf war, and he joined demonstrations in Berlin. “We marched, shouted and burned the American flag,” he said, smiling.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq became a source for new conflicts with his stepfather. He joined youth gangs, Mr. Cuspert said, because he was in search of an identity; he found it in the streets of Berlin with the children of Arab and Turkish immigrants.

He said that from an early age he trained himself in Thai boxing, tae kwon do and Brazilian jiujitsu. Social workers in Germany sent him to a special farm in Namibia that sought to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents.

In 1995, he found a new outlet for his anger: as the rapper Deso Dogg. He said, “My songs were about the time in prison, racism, war.”

His music career soared. He went on tour with rappers like DMX and worked on the soundtrack for a German film. But after surviving a car accident, he started questioning his lifestyle and turned to Islam for answers. In 2010, he ended his career as a rapper and turned his focus to fighting the United States and the West.

The message on his cellphone’s voice mail system makes no secret about his ultimate aim in life. “The martyrdom is the most beautiful,” he says in his recording. “Allah is the greatest.”

Yesterday evening, I posted this video of Pat Robertson interviewing me on the 700 Club yesterday morning. However, I discovered later that it wasn't working and reposted it late last night; however, in case anyone is interested, I am reposting it now.

I'm also reposting it in view of the fact that the Left is shocked! shocked! to discover that anyone would say that they hate America, the West and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hamas-linked CAIR, Media Matters, and other Islamic supremacists and Leftist Useful Idiots are in a tizzy about it, as if I said something that wasn't obvious.

Indeed. "Wilders accuses left of demonising him over Norway shootings," from Dutch News, August 1 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-Islam party PVV, has accused left-wing politicians of a witch hunt by trying to implicate him and his ideas in the Norwegian mass shootings of 10 days ago.

In an interview with the Telegraaf, Wilders says the left is out to demonise him by trying to connect him to shootings.

Various politicians and commentators have said that Wilders' anti-Islam speeches and his constant referrals to the 'left-wing elite' have helped create the climate in which Anders Breivik acted.

Islam-huggers

'The truth has to be told because Islam-huggers like [Job] Cohen of the Party of the Arabs [Labour party] caused the problems and have repeatedly ignored them,' Wilders said. 'I would say to Cohen and the rest of the left in the Netherlands: it is not my words, but your silence about the dangers of Islam which has the negative influences.'

In a statement last week, Wilders condemned the actions of Breivik as those of a psychopath and a lunatic....

An update on this story. Christopher Hitchens' useful discussion of semantic engineering in the use of terms like "activists" for the participants in these recent spectacles can be found here. "Israel blocks pro-Palestinian 'flytilla' activists," by Yolande Knell for BBC News, July 8:

Palestinian groups have criticised Israel after activists planning to visit the West Bank were barred from flying and others were deported.

Israeli officials said airlines blocked some 200 blacklisted travellers from flying to Tel Aviv.

The Welcome to Palestine group says the action shows restrictions on access to Palestinian areas.

The so-called "flytilla" comes after Greece blocked an aid flotilla trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Two American women originally involved in the flotilla were among the first to be deported from Ben Gurion Airport after flying in from Athens to try to join the latest protest.

A group from Switzerland was also expected to be expelled.

Airlines with flights from France, Germany and Switzerland prevented ticket-holders from boarding planes after being notified by Israel that they would be refused entry.

Many passengers turned away decried what they said was an abuse of power. Israel argues it is ensuring public order at its main gateway to the world.

Palestinian civil society organisations who make up Welcome to Palestine expected 600 to 1,000 foreign activists to take up their invitation to head to the West Bank for a week

They say they have planned a full itinerary of peaceful activities, starting with events in Bethlehem and Ramallah on Saturday for those able to make it there....

Having been an observer (and arguably a participant) of the Malaysian political scene for a number of years now, I think I'm in a position to be able to well describe that bizarre world to non Malaysians. Even jaded and learned students of politics elsewhere in the world might be in for a shock or two when they get acquainted with how Malaysians think and act in the political realm. Or perhaps not. It can take a lot to surprise people in this cynical age.

Using the standard left wing-right wing model (as flawed as it is), let's start by talking about the people on Malaysia's political left. In Malaysia, the left functions much as they do in US, or as they do in Europe for that matter -- they're outright socialists that believe that Malaysia's ills can be solved if Malaysia becomes a lot more like Europe and adopts a comprehensive cradle-to-grave welfare state, like France or Germany.  This group is represented by the Malaysian political party DAP (Democratic Action Party). DAP is a majority Chinese (Malaysians of Chinese descent) party, despite their repeated attempts to branch out ethnically. As you'll see, ethnic-based political parties in this country are the norm, not the exception.

For an example of a Malaysian left-wing standard bearer, take this guy, Dr. Azly Rahman. He's a self-styled Malaysian intellectual who loves to write (overly) long soliloquys on the evils of capitalism, or the evils of the US Military in Iraq, etc. and on the advantages of 'progressivism'. Educated in the hallowed left-leaning halls and high towers of Ivy League academia, Dr. Azly is, unsurprisingly, a big fan of Obama and has contributed to Malaysia's powerhouse political blog, Malaysia Today.

Speaking of Malaysia Today, the founder of this website is a well-known and noted Malaysian political dissident, Raja Petra Kamarudin. A supposed moderate Muslim, he has recently and proudly described himself as a 'socialist'. He writes on Malaysian politics on his website and elsewhere from his self-imposed exile in the U.K.

These bloggers from the Malaysian left devote a lot of thought, words and space in their writing to the alleged evils of corporations, globalization and 'Islamophobia'. At the same time, this crowd usually downplays or completely ignores the jihad and the ever-growing stack of dead bodies the jihadists are piling up. Or they apologize and rationalize for Islam after the fact. "Yes, Muslims can be barbarous," they might say, "but it's all because of Iraq / Islamophobia / Palestine (fill in the blank)." Oftentimes, Malaysia's political left can get quite chummy with their Muslim overlords. The DAP's chairman has gone on the record to say that, in effect, Islam is just a wonderful belief system. 'Useful idiots', anyone?

In Malaysia, the leftist-Islamist nexus is not just some hypothetical construct, but it is a political fact. DAP and the Pro-Shariah party in Malaysia called PAS are, in fact, united in a  political alliance called (the) Pakatan Rakyat (People's Alliance). This political coalition gained significant power in several Malaysian states in the last Malaysian general election in 2008, but has since been unable to capitalize on those gains. It's been an uncomfortable alliance, with mutual suspicion on both sides, but is held together mainly by the charisma and the force of personality of Pakatan Rakyat's founder, Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar, for those unfamiliar with the man, is a rather interesting character, a nominal 'moderate' Muslim who emerged from a rather pious Muslim background. At the moment he has his hands full with the Malaysian government prosecuting him for alleged sexual crimes. 

Well, what about the Malaysian so-called 'right wing'? Well, this is where the 'left-right' model breaks down, as people in the 'counterjihad' like Robert Spencer and Geert Wilders -- i.e. the people who are diametrically opposed to Shariah and Islam -- are usually described as 'right wing' or even 'ultra right'.  But I digress.

The right wing of Malaysia's political sphere is part and parcel of the jihadist enterprise. Malaysians in this group scrawl Arabic all over their websites, drop 'SWTs', 'SAWs' and 'PBUHs' all over their blog posts like there's no tomorrow, and generally believe with all of their hearts that Mo, Islam and Sharia and the rest are Allah's gifts to humanity. They may not be blowing people up in their backyards, at least not for the moment. But they fully subscribe to the notion of Islamic supremacy. They do attend mosques where the imams every Friday commonly shriek 'Allah hates the kufr', and many of these same people eagerly send money ('zakat') to various jihadist causes abroad. And yes, a number of these Malaysians run off to join the jihad directly. These jihadist elements are represented by the political party PAS, otherwise known as the 'Pan Malaysian Islamic Party'.

With Marxists on one side and jihadists on the other, is there sanity in the Malaysian middle? Well, not really. The 'middle' ground is occupied by UMNO, the race-based 'United Malays National Organisation".  They are the long-corrupt and long-ruling political party who have firmly established 'Malay Supremacy' as Malaysia's de facto centerpiece government policy. It's all in the name of 'racial harmony' of course. UMNO uses a number of dhimmi auxiliaries --  Malaysian Chinese Association and Malaysian Indian Congress for example -- to co-opt any opposition.  Any thorn or political opponent who can't be co-opted or bought off by these crooks is often thrown in prison via ISA, a law which permits the indefinite detention of any one without charge or trial. UMNO also uses various thugs (RELA, UMNO Youth, Special Branch, etc) and a number of Orwellian laws (Sedition Act, Societies Act, etc.) to intimidate & silence critics and stay in charge.

So where does that leave the counterjihad in the Malaysia? The short answer is 'nowhere'. Malaysia, with exception of a few renegades, has no counterjihad worthy of the name. There are a few websites here and there, but there is no organization and the numbers are tiny. In short, critics of Islam are the ultimate outsiders in the insane asylum known as Malaysian politics.

Note: Paragraph 6 has been corrected; 'PKR' was changed to 'Pakatan Rakyat'.

Along with David Horowitz, Pamela Geller (who comments here), David Yerushalmi, Brigitte Gabriel, John Jay, and others, I've been named to "The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle" by the Leftist pro-hate and anti-freedom group Southern Poverty Law Center, whose officials make a tidy living running interference for Islamic supremacists.

ROBERT SPENCER

ORGANIZATION Runs the Jihad Watch website, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Co-founder with Pamela Geller (see above) of Stop Islamization of America and the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

CREDENTIALS Spencer has a master's degree in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Co-produced with Geller the film "The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks" (2011). Author of numerous books including The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion (2007) and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005).

SUMMARY Spencer is entirely self-taught in the study of modern Islam and the Koran.

It doesn't much matter, since "self-taught" does not equal "wrong," however much the SPLC and Islamic supremacists who make the same claim wish that it did. Still, this is an entirely false claim. I began studying Islam while in college, and took courses on it. In graduate school I studied with Gordon Newby, author of The Making of the Last Prophet and A Concise Encyclopedia of Islam -- which is not to say that he and I saw eye-to-eye on much of anything. While in grad school I wrote an extensive study of how the Qur'an's teaching on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (see sura 4:157) was influenced by Gnostic Christian traditions. Certainly the bulk of my study of Islam I did after graduate school, but it is false to say I am "entirely self-taught."

Critics have accused him of doggedly taking the Koran literally — Spencer considers it innately extremist and violent — while ignoring its nonviolent passages and the vast interpretive tradition that has modified Koranic teachings over the centuries.

That's nonsense. Anyone can see an extensive discussion of the Qur'an's nonviolent passages, and of Islamic interpretative traditions regarding it, in my books Onward Muslim Soldiers and The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran. But also, that "vast interpretive tradition that has modified Koranic teachings over the centuries" seems to have eluded not only my grasp, but that of Islamic jihadists around the world -- and yet they, as we have seen again and again, pride themselves on their Islamic rigor and authenticity.

Spencer believes that moderate Muslims exist, but to prove it, they'd have to fully denounce the portions of the Koran he finds objectionable.

How terrible, to ask people to renounce faith-based violence (Qur'an 2:191; 4:89; 9:5, 9:29; 47:4; etc.), the oppression of women (Qur'an 2:282; 4:3; 4:34, etc.), sanctified plunder (Qur'an 8:1; 8:41), and all the rest of it.

Spencer has been known to fraternize with European racists and neo-fascists, though he says such contacts were merely incidental.

Not just incidental, but non-existent. I've never had anything to do with any racists or neo-fascists, and never would -- but this just shows how the Big Lie works: this false claim has been circulating for years, demonstrating yet again that if you repeat something often enough, then people will start believing it.

Benazir Bhutto, the late prime minister of Pakistan, accused Spencer of "falsely constructing a divide between Islam and West" in her 2008 book, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. Spencer, she wrote, presented a "skewed, one-sided, and inflammatory story that only helps to sow the seed of civilizational conflict."

Yes, there is no divide between Islam and the West. Pakistan's close alliance with the United States and heartfelt cooperation in getting bin Laden shows that. And remember that Benazir herself was so interested in heading off civilizational conflict that she funded and armed the Taliban in Afghanistan.

IN HIS OWN WORDS "Osama [bin Laden]'s use of these and other [Koranic] passages in his messages is consistent … with traditional understanding of the Quran. When modern-day Jews and Christians read their Bibles, they simply don't interpret the passages cited as exhorting them to violent actions against unbelievers. This is due to the influence of centuries of interpretative traditions that have moved them away from literalism regarding these passages. But in Islam, there is no comparable interpretative tradition."
— From The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), 2005

Uh huh.

"Where is moderate Islam? How can moderate Muslims refute the radical exegesis of the Qur'an and Sunnah? If an exposition of moderate Islam does not address or answer radical exegeses, is it really of any value to quash Islamic extremism? If the answer lies in a simple rejection of Qur'anic literalism, how can non-literalists make that rejection stick, and keep their children from being recruited by jihadists by means of literalism? Of course, as I have pointed out many times, traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers."
— Jihad Watch, Jan. 14, 2006

Yep.

After all, left-wing radicals don't throw dung, do they?

We have noted a few times at this site that a curious hierarchical scheme emerges -- like a strange game of "rock, paper, scissors" -- when one finds the aims of fashionable left-wing causes such as feminism, gay rights, and campaigns against "Islamophobia" in competition with one another.

That phenomenon is confirmed below in the discussion of "pink washing," "a term used by some anti-Israel critics to decry any attempt to compare Israel's treatment of gays with that of Arab states." Even for the fictional Levantine lesbian, the Islamic agenda absolutely trumps even basic personal safety for gay people.

Across the board, the worst thing about this affair, aside from Tom MacMaster's nearly endangering those who sought to help his fictional character and the brazen theft of the image of a hapless Croatian expat in Britain, is Señor Sappho's presentation of political fantasy as an authentic point of view, playing to the emotions of those already engaged in fantasy-based foreign policy. One sample from this NPR story reads:

Meanwhile, hopefully, as grim as it may seem right now, the way to freedom has never seemed clearer! Our revolution will win; we will have a free and democratic Syria soon. I know it in my bones. Our greatest age is about to appear and we shall once more amaze the world. We will have a free Syria and a free nation; it is coming soon. The revolution will succeed and we will rise above sectarianism, despotism, sexism, and all the dead weight of these years of bitterness, of division and partition, of oppression and of tyranny. We will be free!

Indeed, only in a fantasy would it be that easy. Highly instructive background on Tom MacMaster and astute commentary follow below. "Taken in by 'Gay Girl'," by Jonah Goldberg for the Los Angeles Times, June 15:

I'd barely followed "A Gay Girl In Damascus" until last week, when Daily Beast columnist Peter Beinart posted something to Twitter: "This is really important — this woman is a hero," with a link to a story about Amina Abdallah Arraf, a Syrian American woman and the author of the blog "A Gay Girl In Damascus." According to the story, Amina had been seized by Syrian security forces for her dissident writing.

Quickly, Amina's arrest became a new Internet cause. Even the U.S. State Department joined the effort.

And soon thereafter, the whole thing fell apart. Amina never existed. The author of "A Gay Girl In Damascus" was in fact a 40-year-old straight dude from Georgia living in Scotland. Rather than the sexy young lesbian in the photos (stolen from the Facebook page of a Croatian expat living in London), the photo of him in the Washington Post shows a man who looks like the bearded comic-actor Zach Galifianakis — in a Che Guevara T-shirt, naturally.

Tom MacMaster was raised to be a peace activist. When he was a kid, the family trekked to the Pentagon to hand out origami doves to commemorate the bombing of Nagasaki. He's the co-director of Atlanta Palestine Solidarity and claims to have visited Baghdad on a "student peace mission" to deter the Iraq war.

In an "Apology to Readers" posted on June 12 from his vacation in Istanbul, MacMaster writes, "While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on this blog are true and not misleading as to the situation on the ground."

He explains that as a white guy with an Anglo name, people wouldn't take him seriously in online discussion groups. So he made up Amina and her countless fictional experiences in Syria and America.

At first it sounds a bit like the old jokes swirling around the publishing industry: Lincoln sells. Medicine sells. Dogs sell. So let's put out a book about Lincoln's doctor's dog! It'll be a bestseller!

Except McMaster's ploy really worked. People desperately wanted to believe in this "hero": a saucy, sage, left-wing member of the LGBT community who likes to wear the hijab, can't stand Israel or George W. Bush and who parrots every cliche about the romantic authenticity of the Arab people and their poetic yearning for democracy, peace and love. Whereas no one cared about McMaster's "Anglo" arguments, Amina's assertions succeeded with little effort. For instance, "she" writes of the Palestinians' need to return to their homes in Israel: "It's simple but, maybe, you have to be a Levantine Arab to get this. It makes perfect sense to me." Of course it does!

CNN interviewed "her" — by email — for a story about gay rights and the Arab Spring. "She" said things were going great for gays. The feedback, even from Muslims, for her blog was "almost entirely positive."

But the CNN story troubled her. The outlet encouraged the sin of "pink washing" — a term used by some anti-Israel critics to decry any attempt to compare Israel's treatment of gays with that of Arab states. Israel is tolerant, even celebratory, of gay rights (Israel recently launched a gay tourism campaign with the slogan "Tel Aviv Gay Vibe — Free; Fun; Fabulous"). Syria punishes homosexual activity with three years in prison (In Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran, the punishment is death).

Who cares, Amina angrily responds. In fact, how dare "advocates of war, occupation, dispossession and apartheid" use Arab and Muslim hostility to gays as "'evidence that the primitive sand-people don't deserve anything other than killing by the enlightened children of the West."

Besides, "she" has never been harassed by Arabs for being gay. But in America, "she" has been "struck by strangers for being an Arab" and "had dung thrown at me" for wearing the hijab.

Except that is a lie.

Worse, it's propaganda. McMaster's fake-but-accurate lesbian was perfectly pitched to Western liberals desperate to alleviate the pain of cognitive dissonance. No longer must you think too hard or make tough choices if you're, say, anti-Israel and pro-democracy or pro-gay rights and in favor of the self-determination of Muslim fanatics. Heck, you can even stop worrying and love a lesbian feminist who sees no big deal in wearing a religiously required sack over her head.

Of course she was a hero. Of course she didn't exist.

The Message from Stuttgart
by Monika Kaufmann

Before Robert came to Germany, he asked me about security guards; I answered that there would be plenty of police and they were on our side. When we met at the airport and rode on the train to Stuttgart, I told him there were lots of places I’d never invite him to in Germany, such as Cologne in North-Rhine Westphalia, but that Stuttgart was pretty calm. I couldn’t have been mistaken more. The times they are a-changin’, and the Stuttgart 21 project, the big reconstruction of Stuttgart’s central railway station, attracts all kinds of radicals and rioters from all over Germany. Meanwhile, you can even hire “professional” protesters; you don’t even have to pay them, they join anything they deem a Just cause -- and “just” is simply anti-Western.

And these demonstrators apparently excel as brilliant minds. Here is an example: “I go to school in Neukölln (part of Berlin) and there are 20 Muslims in my class, we have no problems.” “In Neukölln the headscarf sluts beat up Polish girls.” Enraged: “How dare you call ‘em sluts!?” Not a word about the Polish girls, it escapes this brilliant mind that Poland was the first country that the Nazis invaded in World War II, and that accordingly the Germans have a certain responsibility for the protection of Poles on their soil. Or, “You’re racists!” “What race is Islam?” “You’re against everybody who looks like someone from an Islamic country, against black-haired people...” Pointing at Robert: “Is he blond?” “Uh, you know what I mean...” And so forth.

On Thursday afternoon, June 2, the idyllic Schlossplatz in the centre of Stuttgart turned into a witches’ cauldron. So-called antifas (anti-fascists) and jihadis stormed our stage and occupied it. Everything turned topsy-turvy, our agenda went down the drain, and when eventually the stage was cleared and our orators were able to speak briefly, the unleashed mob threw metal ashtrays, bottles filled with ice, eggs and horse shit at them, as there were some mounted police on the ground. Our “friends” know how to use the materials they find; they’re ecologically sensitive. But the police were not very helpful. They kept a low profile and only de-escalated when absolutely necessary.

While I was pondering this nightmarish rally in Stuttgart, I recalled another rally nearly forgotten that I had attended in Munich back in the nineties. The circumstances were similar, but not quite so. The subject was an exhibition touring Germany about the war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht during World War II. The Nazis rallied against this exhibition, and we, the democratic forces, protested against the Nazis. As clashes were to be expected, task forces from all over the Federal Republic were detached to Munich. Everything went smoothly. The two opposing parties never got any closer than 100 metres to one another. I never saw more than a few banners and a van of the Nazis, and I remember several times being told by the police not to move another step. Eventually the Nazis gave up and we won a victory. End of story.

Comparing these two rallies, some questions arise: What went wrong in Stuttgart, and why did it go right in Munich? Were the police in Stuttgart incompetent and the police in Munich efficient? The answer is that they were efficient at both locations by serving the political intention perfectly. The police are part of law enforcement; they do as they’re told. In Munich their orders were to keep the opposing parties apart by all means, and that’s what they did. In Stuttgart they were told to keep a low profile and only to interfere when absolutely necessary. The message from Stuttgart is clear: the security of some intrepid freedom fighters from all over the world standing out for our values, such as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, equal rights for men and women, the right of physical integrity for apostates, etc., is not more important than the right of some radicalised moronic thugs to fight for their Muslim friends’ special rights. As Robert pointed out so many times, in our free societies Muslims are equal to other citizens, but as in Orwell’s Animal Farm, they want to be more equal. They always demand extra rights, and as rights can’t proliferate, granting new special rights to one group invariably means curtailing the rights of others. Special accommodation for Muslim customs at work places always implies some disadvantages for their non-Muslim colleagues. This is something the self-appointed fighters for tolerance and freedom of religion in our midst are not aware of, especially in Germany, where they drew the wrong conclusions from the past.

But getting back to the message that the new government of Baden-Württemberg, where Stuttgart is the capital, is sending out to the rest of the world: We accommodate undemocratic elements in our society, as long as they stand out for the poor disenfranchised Muslim community. Boohoo, can’t help it, why are Muslims always misunderstood? These freedom fighters are a nuisance. Who needs freedom of speech anyway? We prefer to stand with the simple-minded Muslim supporters.

Two dialogues with policemen can shed a light on this: “Why are these rioters here?” “They’ve got the same right to rally as you have.” True; but they should have kept them away from the stage, our stage. “Why didn’t you proceed more harshly against the rioters?” “I can give no comment.” Pretty helpless.

In the face of all this, I’m requesting the readers of Jihad Watch to copy and paste this little email to Mr. Kretschmann, the new prime minister of Baden-Württemberg, who had after coming to power replaced the police officials, such as the chief of Stuttgart police. Please feel free to modify the mail to your liking.

This is his email address: poststelle(at)stm.bwl.de

Dear Mr. Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, It has come to my attention that in Stuttgart, the capital of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, governed by your administration, friends of mine were terribly harassed and abused at a rally on June 2. Some people threw manure, eggs, metal ashtrays and ice-filled bottles, only because my friends peacefully protested against a violent and supremacist ideology, Islam.

I shall refrain from doing any business in your state from now on. I don’t feel safe there. I’m a free American (European, Indian, Filipino, Thai, African etc.) citizen, and I thought that Germany respected freedom of opinion and other human rights. I must have been utterly mistaken. I thought that the Germans were not ausländerfeindlich, but obviously they are.

Yours sincerely

The correct translation of “ausländerfeindlich” is hostile to foreigners, not xenophobic. Those who were rejected in Stuttgart were friends from all over the world; they were not aliens to our society. Anyway, to tell German multiculturalists that they are “ausländerfeindlich” is the worst offence they can think of. Please let them feel where their weak points are.

Monika Kaufmann is a human rights activist who writes from Germany.

When I spoke at a Pax Europa rally in Stuttgart, Germany last Thursday, Leftist thugs stood for the jihad by trying to drown us out, and by throwing bottles, ice, eggs and manure at the stage. Now informed sources have identified the Leftist organizations that were carrying water for the jihad at that rally. An informed source has sent me this account of that rally in Stuttgart, about which I wrote here:

The first major action of the invading forces was to occupy the stage where the event was to take place, at 15:40, 20 minutes before the announced starting time. Unfortunately, this took place with no resistance from the police. The police was following events closely and created an extensive video record of it all. Accusations of 'police violence' has become a major problem for the German police, and they were clearly well prepared to document in detail how the day was proceeding.

Stage occupied, the whole area became filled with victorious Antifa activists and sympathisers. Horns, drumbeats and slogans made it clear who controlled the area, and photographers where repeatedly intimidated and threatened to abstain from filming the events unfolding. Police officers joined the activists on stage, and at 15:54 made the first attempt to clear the stage for the event to commence at 16:00 as planned. Next attempt at 15:59.

Things in a stalemate, it was interesting to study who were supporting the disturbances. Flags and banners were observed from at least the following organization, who one must assume would be held responsible for any violence and damage done:

• ADHK (Confederation for Democratic Rights in Europe)
  
• Antifa
  
• BIR-KAR
  
• DKP, German Communists
• Die Linke
  
• Social Democrats
  
• Social Democrats youth branch
  
• LinksJugend Solid, youth branch of Die Linke
  
• Piraten Partei
  
• VVN, an Association for victims of Nazism
  

I think the Greens (Die Grüne) deserve praise for not supporting street violence. They are heading the local government in that area.

All the while, the police was negotiating with the roughly one dozen black-clad activists who were holding the stage. The negotiations went on for quite a while, but did not lead to the desired goal of liberating the stage to pave way for the event to proceed. The activists were visibly aggressive towards the police, and several were arrested and taken away. Eventually the police abandoned the dialogue approach and – much to the fury of the crowd – cleared the stage by force. The police line advanced to clear the place in front of the stage to make room for the audience, but the black-clad activists did not yield until pepper spray and batons were taken into use. Light injuries and further arrests took place.

The Palestinian flag was carried very prominently during the entire event. This is another curious twist, for Palestinian organisations like Fatah and Hamas are known for anti-semitic sentiment, and Hamas even quotes the same sources as the National Socialists did, as concerns Jews.

As can be expected given the composition of the crowd, slogans against capitalism are also on display. It seems that these people are not aware that the most prominent anti-capitalist movement in German history was .. the National Socialists.

Antifa supporters frequently tried to stop people from filming and taking pictures. The crowd seems to be unaware that intimidation and control of the press has been a cornerstone of each and every fascist movement in history, and that by doing what they do, they are acting like fascists themselves.

Anyway, we held our event, albeit with the police not preventing the Antifa goons from hurling projectiles at us. But we stood and faced them, indicating our determination never to surrender.

Here are some photos from the Pax Europa rally and near-riot by bottle-throwing Antifa goons on June 2, plus one of me with freedom fighter René Stadtkewitz from two days later. Details (including video) here, here and here.

UPDATE: Here is yet another video from the June 2 rally. This one gives you more of a sense of the atmosphere of the day:

UPDATE: Sheik Yer'mami was there with me; his account is here.

Now there's a headline. And no, I was never a Muslim. You'll have to watch the second video above to find out what I meant by that.

Thanks to Kitman TV and Europe News for these videos of my talk to the human rights group Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa on Saturday, June 4. Antifa goons spotted some BPE people on their way to this event and tried to follow them, but the BPE folks lost them.

Europe News also has a useful summary of the event.

In Human Events today I recap the serious threats to freedom I witnessed in Germany over the last few days:

In Stuttgart, Germany, last week, violent Leftist and Islamic supremacist demonstrators violently menaced anti-jihad activists – giving a sobering picture of where Germany, Europe, and the U.S. as well are headed if we don’t stand up and resolutely defend our freedom now.

Thursday afternoon I spoke in Stuttgart at the invitation of the human rights group Pax Europa. The event was well advertised, and so the thuggish Leftist/Islamic supremacist alliance mobilized and was out in full force.

About a thousand protesters from the frequently violent hard-Left Antifa group showed up, along with around 500 German riot police. “Antifa” stands for “Anti-fascism,” but if any fascism was on display, it was from the “anti-fascists,” who did their best to destroy the Pax Europa event. They were menacing people, starting fights, banging drums, blowing whistles, and chanting Leftist and Communist agitprop slogans. One young man from Antifa came up to me as I was standing right in front of a line of German police and said, "You're lucky there are so many police here today." He was not expressing solidarity.

Pax Europa had planned a full program featuring Middle Eastern Christian musicians, a Coptic Christian activist, and others, so as to highlight the hollowness of the Islamic supremacist narrative of Muslim victimhood and anti-jihadist racism. But the police ordered the Pax Europa organizers to drastically reduce the scope of their event. Everyone was restricted to ten minutes only. Several participants opted not to appear, in light of the manifest danger. Antifa people were attacking supporters of Pax Europa. I saw several individuals being chased by rabid Leftist gangs. At least one man went to the hospital.

The police used loudspeakers to call on Antifa twice to disperse, as Pax Europa had lawfully reserved the space for their event. The Antifa people responded only by moving forward, chanting slogans, banging their drums, and holding aloft the usual Leftist kitsch -- Che Guevara, the hammer and sickle, the Palestinian flag, signs denouncing Islamophobia, etc. The police moved them back a bit but did not ask them again to disperse, and allowed the Pax Europa event to begin.

It was an incredible din. We had loudspeakers that appeared to be able to reach the considerable crowd behind the protesters, but the Antifa thugs did all they could to drown us out: the drums got louder, the vuvuzelas came out, they were blowing whistles, and of course they were screaming and yelling. They also started throwing things: bottles, ice, eggs, excrement and more. One bottle narrowly missed the Coptic activist's head and crashed onto the stage -- other bottles crashed at our feet. Several speakers were hit with eggs. The manure they threw was all over the stage floor....

There is more.

Here, courtesy Kitman TV, is a better version of my talk in Stuttgart Thursday before a crowd of violent fascist thugs trying to stop me from speaking, do me physical harm, and/or drown me out. My account of the event is here.

Here is video of my talk before violent Antifa pro-jihad demonstrators in Stuttgart, Germany yesterday. (Video courtesy Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell and Europe News; thanks to ESW.) It gives you a hint of the atmosphere. I will post my photos as soon as I can, which will be next week at the earliest. Here again is the account I posted a few hours ago about the event:

Thursday afternoon I spoke in Stuttgart, Germany at the invitation of the human rights group Pax Europa. The event was well advertised, and so the thuggish Leftist/Islamic supremacist alliance mobilized and was out in full force.

About 1000 Antifa protesters showed up, banging drums, holding signs with the usual accusations of racism and "Islamophobia," blowing whistles, and menacing people who came out for the Pax Europa event. There were also about 500 German police on hand in riot gear. The Pax Europa organizers told me, "This is all for you" -- because they had publicized that I would be there. One young man came up to me as I was standing right in front of a line of German police and said, "You're lucky there are so many police here today."

Pax Europa had planned a full program featuring Middle Eastern Christian musicians, a Coptic Christian activist, and others, so as to highlight the hollowness of the Islamic supremacist narrative of Muslim victimhood and anti-jihadist racism. But the police ordered the Pax Europa organizers to drastically reduce the scope of their event. Everyone was restricted to ten minutes only. Several participants opted not to appear, in light of the manifest danger. Antifa people were attacking supporters of Pax Europa. I saw several individuals being chased by rabid Leftist gangs. At least one man went to the hospital.

The police used loudspeakers to call on Antifa twice to disperse, as Pax Europa had lawfully reserved the space for their event. The Antifa people responded only by moving forward, chanting slogans, banging their drums, and holding aloft the usual Leftist kitsch -- Che Guevara, the hammer and sickle, the Palestinian flag, signs denouncing Islamophobia, etc. The police moved them back a bit but did not ask them again to disperse, and allowed the Pax Europa event to begin.

It was an incredible din. We had loudspeakers that appeared to be able to reach the considerable crowd behind the protesters, but the Antifa thugs did all they could to drown us out: the drums got louder, the vuvuzelas came out, they were blowing whistles, and of course they were screaming and yelling.

They started throwing things: bottles, eggs, excrement and more. One bottle narrowly missed the Coptic activist's head and crashed onto the stage -- other bottles crashed at our feet. Several speakers were hit with eggs. The manure they threw was all over the stage floor.

I stood right in front (they missed me; I dodged a few projectiles) and watched them as they screamed and gestured and threw things -- it was like looking into the pit of hell. Here were young people passionately committed to their cause and believing it to be that of justice and freedom, and they are eager and willing useful idiots for the most radically intolerant ideology on the planet. So when my turn came to speak, I addressed them, and told them just that. I told them they wouldn't like what happened to them when their friends took power, but by then it would be too late.

And it may be already, for Europe. But I was glad to be there yesterday, and to stand against what was so obviously a force for oppression, hatred, and evil.

UPDATE: You can see photos here. I also have many, but will not be able to post them until next week, so watch this space.

The pioneering researcher of the Leftist/jihadist alliance (see his book United In Hate) elucidates its latest manifestation. "Why The Left Cried When Osama Died," by Jamie Glazov in FrontPage Magazine, May 12:

The death of Osama bin Laden has driven a stake into the heart of the Left, causing progressives to bleed and moan as their unholy alliance with radical Islam absorbs the devastating May 2 blow.

The radical Islamic half of the romance is in agony as it sheds bitter tears for the mass murderer. Indeed, Hamas, Hezbollah, the armed wing of Fatah, and tens of thousands of radical Muslims around the world have prominently displayed their sorrow and anger for the world to see.

The alliance’s leftist half is, meanwhile, also deeply grieving. The guru of the leftist political faith, Noam Chomsky, is responsibly leading the way. Having distinguished himself, among other intriguing ways, as a Jew who has traveled to Lebanon to embrace personally the leaders of Hezbollah, whose stated top priority is to rid the world of Jews, the M.I.T. professor emeritus has not disappointed the faithful, progressive flock. Furiously responding to the assassination of the Left’s idol, Chomsky fumed in his recent article: “We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.”

The al-Qaeda leader’s killing is an outrage, in Chomsky’s mind, because Bush’s “crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s.” Chomsky is outraged not only that the operation was clearly “a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law,” but also that its victim had never been legally proven to be the perpetrator of 9/11. Undoubtedly, Chomsky’s Gulag Denial mindset continues unabated, for having shamelessly attempted to deny the Khmer Rouge’s Holocaust in Cambodia was clearly not enough to satiate Chomsky’s totalitarian odyssey.

Following in the leftist guru’s tracks, Glenn Greenwald fumed over at Salon.com that Americans were cheering and feeling patriotic that “someone just got two bullets put in their skull.” This is terrible in leftist eyes because that “someone” is not George W. Bush but rather America’s most wanted enemy-terrorist. Greenwald is also very upset that a question lingers over whether bin Laden really had to be killed and not taken prisoner instead.

Heaven forbid! A targeted assassination of the leader of al-Qaeda, a jihadist terrorist organization that has killed thousands of innocent American citizens. Oh, the unjustness of it all! One wonders whether Greenwald will be able to soldier on.

Meanwhile, Curtis Doebbler, a leftist “human rights” lawyer who teaches at a Palestinian university, grieves that the “West is now celebrating the death of someone who, however misled and wrong-minded, was a person who was willing to fight for the poorest and the most vulnerable people in the world to the very end of his life.” He continues: “That the US had to kill him in violation of international law makes all the more believable Osama Bin Laden’s claims of Western hypocrisy and the need for a better alternative.”

The “alternative” that Doebbler is dreaming of and that Osama had in mind? Well, it’s not that complicated: it’s what Islamists are offering leftists – and that which leftists are salivating over – in their unholy alliance: Sharia law....

There is much more. Read it all.

A particularly witless example of the Leftist/Islamic convergence. "Europeans Blame Israel for Murders Committed by Islamists," by Benjamin Weinthal for the Weekly Standard, April 26 (thanks to Jack):

Berlin—Many European reactions to the recent murders by radical Islamists of pro- Palestinian Israeli filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis and Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni replicate the typical recurrence of the same: Shift the blame to Israel in an a priori fashion without delving into existing empirical evidence.

Take the example of Inge Höger, a Left Party member of the German Bundestag, who blamed both executions on the Israeli government. Relying on German taxpayer funds to pay for her Left Party website, she said:

The question one must pose is: Who profits from this terrible crime? First of all, now two of the activists most ‘dangerous’ for Israel, because they were the most engaged, well known and noted, are eliminated. The murders of Vittorio and Juliano could also be a means of dealing a serious blow to the international solidarity movement – especially given the upcoming second flotilla and the fact that international activists still won’t let themselves be prevented from going to Palestine.

[...] Radical Salafists were responsible for Arrigoni's murder in the Gaza Strip. And it is widely believed that hardcore Islamists also killed Mer-Khamis in Jenin.....

The Leftist/Islamic supremacist alliance will be in full flower this weekend as the Andy Warhol Museum hosts the puerile Islamic supremacist and jihad apologist Reza Aslan. Aslan, of course, is the subject of an ongoing Jihad Watch case study in how the media and cultural elites are, out of ignorance, political correctness, multiculturalism, and Western guilt and self-hatred, useful idiots for Islamic supremacist agenda.

Aslan, despite his preposterous puffery, has revealed himself to be a arrogant gutter-minded adolescent buffoon who is clownishly incapable of staking out or defending a coherent intellectual position, and instead retails tired and oft-retreaded Islamic supremacist talking points about Muslim victimhood.

His Islamic supremacist ties and proclivities are becoming more ill-concealed by the day; nonetheless, he remains a heralded and media-saturated "moderate" Muslim. In reality, Aslan is a Board member of the National Iranian American Council, a group that genuine Iranian pro-democracy forces regard as an apologetic vehicle for the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has tried to pass off Iran's genocidally-minded President Ahmadinejad as a liberal reformer. He has called on the U.S. Government to negotiate with Ahmadinejad himself, as well as with Hamas -- that is, with two of the most barbaric and murderous adherents of Sharia.

Aslan has even praised the jihad terror group Hizballah as "the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon," as well as the Jew-hating, women-hating, kuffar-hating Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within" -- including, presumably, the works of Andy Warhol. Aslan wrote: "The Muslim Brotherhood will have a significant role to play in post-Mubarak Egypt. And that is good thing." If, in 1932, someone had written that "the National Socialist Party will have a significant role to play in post-Weimar Germany, and that is a good thing," he would have rightly been called a Nazi sympathizer.

Aslan has also spoken at events sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, a Brotherhood group, and at an event co-sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of Hamas-linked CAIR, and moderated by the notorious Edina Lekovic, the Muslim Public Affairs Council flack whom Steve Emerson caught lying on national television, denying she was editor of a Muslim student publication that praised Osama bin Laden as a great mujahid. Emerson produced copies of the rag showing Lekovic's name on the masthead as editor on the very same page on which the praise for Osama appeared.

In light of all this, it's clear that Hamas-linked CAIR, Lekovic and Aslan are on the same side, and it's clear which side they're on. What would Warhol, who for all his eccentricities was a devout Byzantine Catholic, think of this jihad apologist being feted at his museum?

"Symposium looks at Islam, art," from IslamicSpotlight.com, April 13:

A major symposium, “Dis[Locating] Culture: Contemporary Islamic Art in America, will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at The Andy Warhol Museum, followed by a reception. It is co-sponsored by the Michael Berger Gallery, which opens an exhibition of the same title this weekend, and the Pittsburgh Middle East Institute.

The keynote speaker, Reza Aslan, is a Muslim American scholar of religion and the internationally acclaimed author of the best-seller “No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam.” He is a contributing editor at the Daily Beast who has appeared on CNN, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report” and “Real Time With Bill Maher.” Born in Iran, he is associate professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and lives in Los Angeles. He holds degrees in religion from Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations....

How long is Aslan going to continue to pass himself off as a contributing editor at the Daly Beast? He hasn't published an article there in nearly four months. Kuffar and greasy Islamophobes can't take four months off from work and remain in good standing, but maybe the rules are different for Aslan. Is this title of contributing editor some sort of jizya, some sort of tribute that the Beast is paying to him so as to establish its multicultural bona fides?

Mr. Aslan will also participate in a discussion of Islam and building interfaith understanding from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Temple Sinai, 5505 Forbes Ave., Squirrel Hill. The free public event will be followed by a book signing of “No god but God,” which has been translated into 13 languages.

I wonder if Temple Sinai knows what Reza Aslan thinks of Hamas and Hizballah, and of Israel itself.

Jamie Glazov speaks with DemoCast following his address before the San Fernando Valley ACT! for America chapter. March 16, 2011. Don't miss his groundbreaking book on this topic, United In Hate.

Back in the 80s and 90s I used to joke that there was no real need in the world for papal infallibility, since we had the ACLU. Whatever stand they took on any issue, you could infallibly say the opposite, and you'd be dead right, every time. From their origins as a front group for the Communist Party, USA, to their defense of antiwar extremists in the 60s and violent felons, their “First Amendment” defense of kiddie porn but disdain for pro-life demonstrators, right up to their sick espousal of the “right” of Neo-nazis to march past and mock Holocaust survivors... they had a perfect record: Wrong about everything. Then the Bush administration came along, and in its well-meaning but ham-handed War on Terror it took actions that seemed to many of us to violate real (as opposed to fictitious) civil liberties, and the ACLU was ruined for me: On occasion, if only by accident, it was right.

Still, they do their best. The ACLU has partnered up with the terrorist-friendly CAIR on a regular basis, and it opposes even sane and necessary domestic security measures, border control.... Give those guys credit, they're wrong about almost everything!

Now they have to go and confuse me again. The ACLU has stumbled, surely inadvertently, onto the right side of an issue, as the Mansfield News Journal reports:

MANSFIELD -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio expressed disappointment and concern over a decision by Mansfield City Schools to withdraw permission for a controversial speaking event that had been scheduled Monday at a school building.

The event, organized by the Mansfield North Central Ohio Tea Party Association, included a presentation by Usama Dakdok, characterized by some as "anti-Islam."

"While we might disagree with the message of the speaker, they have a right like any other group to fully air their views without interference by government officials. Public officials -- sheriff and superintendent included -- have a duty to provide a safe venue for all speakers. Shutting down an event because some individual or group does not like the message is dangerous to free society and the democratic process," ACLU of Ohio Executive Director Christine Link said in a written statement Tuesday.

Mansfield City Schools Superintendent Dan Freund announced Monday the school would not host the evening event organized by the tea party group, citing safety concerns about the number of people who would turn out to support or oppose Dakdok.

Freund said the presumed content of the speaking event was not a factor in the decision.

A coalition of advocacy groups opposed to the message of the keynote speaker was scheduled to host a press conference later that morning. The groups, including the Mansfield branch of the NAACP, applauded the school district for not allowing the event to happen.

Bonnie Oleksa, an organizer with the tea party group that invited Dakdok, said she was disappointed with the district's decision.

"We don't deserve this treatment," she said. "We paid to rent (space in) that school, we had a contract for that school and we put out radio spots advertising the event."

Oleksa said the district was pressured to cancel the event. She said the tea party group will be pursuing legal action in response to the school district's decision.

"I don't want this to happen to us again," Oleksa said.

She said she was grateful for the ACLU's words of support.

The tea party group is scheduled to host several future events at Mansfield Senior High School, including a mayoral candidate's forum and a rally commemorating the founding of the tea party movement. The ACLU expressed concerns whether the group would be allowed to hold the events at the school.

"Shutting down the venue for one speech does not eliminate the message. Censorship is counterproductive for all groups, as it lays the groundwork for the government to suppress future messages of the very groups protesting," Link said. "Speech must be protected for all, or ultimately it will be available to no one."

Freund said the school district has not discussed whether it will allow the tea party group to hold future events on school grounds. He said the district's decision to withdraw permission for the Monday event was the right move. Freund consulted with Mansfield police before making the call.

"We think we followed our policy and did what was best to protect our children, who are in and around our building in the evening," he said.

Police Chief Dino Sgambellone said allowing the event to be held on school property presented a potentially dangerous situation.

"It was just unknown if 20 people would attend or 500," he said. "When you have passionate people coming together on both sides of an issue, I would hate to see something tragic happen.

"It's not that people don't have the right to protest, but let's do it at a venue that doesn't present a possible danger for children."

The tea party group was able to arrange an alternate location for the Monday speaking event, an office complex at 1456 Park Avenue West. More than 350 people crowded into the space to hear Dakdok. Tea party members receptive to the lecture bumped elbows with concerned listeners from the local branch of the NAACP and the Islamic Society of Mansfield.

No one was observed protesting outside during Dakdok's 150-minute lecture. The Christian evangelist's interpretations of Islam and the Koran drew mixed reactions from the crowd. The meeting included a few outbursts, but was otherwise orderly.

The ongoing effort of stealth jihadists like the Muslim Brotherhood-founded CAIR to partner up with domestic leftists continues—and this time it went so far beyond the pale of American mores that it forced the ACLU to oppose it. We all know that Muslims are no friends of free expression: Blasphemy laws across the globe, the absolute ban on non-Muslim worship at the Islamic “Vatican” in Saudi Arabia, the violence aimed at those who “blaspheme” their non-divine prophet... it's not for nothing that we call Islam The World's Most Intolerant Religion.™ (I'd really like to see that used on CAIR's business cards—wouldn't you?)

In the past we've seen the Organization of the Islamic Conference herding U.N. delegates from all their godforsaken countries to demand a global ban on “religious defamation” (which would only apply to anti-Muslim speech—since if it covered Muslims it would ban the hateful, anti-pagan, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian Qur'an). It seems for now they'll have to settle for a resolution by the UN Human Rights Council “combating religious intolerance and negative stereotypes [and] stigmatization” as a first step.

It's grimly amusing to see the lead country opposing intolerance is... Pakistan, where “blasphemy” is punishable by death and government ministers are murdered with impunity for opposing such laws. But the OIC's agenda is out on the table: They want the world body to solemnly impose the equivalent of blasphemy laws... on the world as a whole. This flows as predictably as arithmetic from the fundamental Muslim belief that Islamic sovereignty, like Allah's, is universal.

So CAIR, the creature of the Muslim Brotherhood, is using American leftists to ban “blasphemous” speech in American schools—using the ludicrous canard that criticism of Islam could lead to violence and endanger children. The grotesquerie of this effort, the crass menagerie of distortions and hypocrisy proved too much even for the professional destroyers of social order who staff the ACLU. Maybe it gave them a too acute glimpse into the future.

I know better than to see in this a sign of hope that American liberals are waking up to the threat we (that even they) face. To people like this, every policeman is still a cossack, every Western flag bears the swastika, every pushback against an aggressive minority making outrageous claims is another Dred Scott decision. Some ideologies really are impervious to new information, and cannot be reformed. How ironic that a world-view which claims the honorable old title of “liberalism” (a word once associated with freedom lovers like Frederic Bastiat) should decay into a mirror of the old joke about the Bourbons: “They learn nothing, and they forget nothing.”

There's a paradox buried deep within Western liberal attitudes toward Muslims, and it helps explain the otherwise incomprehensible behavior that multiculturalists exhibit when confronted with arguments, evidence, and finally proof that Islam is an aggressive ideology on the march. It will take a little digging, and several points of comparison, for me to uncover, but once I've done so, I hope my thoughts will help the reader deal more productively with the kind of people who are outraged by foolish stunts like Koran-burning, but blithely indifferent to suicide bombing, blasphemy laws, and the death penalty for escapees from Islam. To understand all is not to forgive all, but it can help build a bridge, across which we might be able to coax the occasional dupe back over to sanity.

In his New Republic review of That’s Offensive! Criticism, Identity, Respect, by Stefan Collini, Isaac Chotiner analyzes why it's considered essential in “enlightened” Western circles to avoid offending Muslims, but perfectly acceptable to outrage Christians. In the course of recommending the book, Chotiner writes:

Collini begins by defining “offense.” From a dictionary entry, he writes that the taking of offense is often seen as intensely related to one’s feelings. This may suggest, he writes, “that if someone does not feel offended, they have not been offended. And this may in turn seem to entail the reverse proposition, namely that each individual is the only possible judge of whether or not they have been offended.” For claims of offense to be given respect, however, an objective standard needs to have been violated by the offender. No one, for example, is offended by people who snore in their sleep. We might find them annoying, but they do not offend us. Nor is sympathy always granted to those who claim to have taken offense. To say of someone that they “do not easily take offence” is to compliment them, Collini notes. The bar, in other words, is higher than it could be.

Collini is also aware that in many societies today, free speech is highly valued, even at the cost of offense. “If we confine ourselves to the traditional form of the debate about ‘free speech,’ it is not difficult for those of a liberal disposition that the rights of criticism should be guaranteed in any tolerably open society, even when the activity risks giving offence to some of those being criticized.” And yet Collini sees the outlines of a problem: “Those who think of themselves as committed to ‘progressive’ moral and political causes have come to believe that two of the central requirements of an enlightened global politics are, first, treating all other people with equal respect and, second, trying to avoid words or deeds which threaten to compound existing disadvantages.”

Treating people with respect is a fine goal, but Collini notices that respect tends to be shown with special deference to so-called “out groups.” Claims of offense that would otherwise be ignored are instead given credence and even deference. Collini also correctly identifies the people who tend to fall into this trap. Very few “progressive” forces, for example, would have shown any “understanding” of hurt Christian feelings if Jesus had been mocked in a Danish newspaper. The entire force of the argument against the offensiveness of the Danish cartoons was based on the concern that Muslims were somehow less powerful than other religious believers. But this hardly qualifies as an adequate justification for a double standard.

Let me translate this into terms that make more sense to me: Western liberals feel that as part of the upper-middle class of prosperous, First-World countries, they stand in a position of safety and strength. It seems to them—at least, they convince themselves—that members of Muslim minorities in such countries are comparatively weak. If that is true, then criticism of Islam or Muslim behavior appears in their eyes as bullying, the abuse of the weak by the strong. Their own self-images as broad-minded and magnanimous, cosmopolitan people are bolstered by acts of apparent generosity toward the weak. Indeed, their very status as members of Western elites depends on displaying such behavior—as the prestige of Renaissance Florentine bankers rested on their generosity toward the arts; that's how they bought higher status than that city's old nobility. To show a narrowness toward ethnic or religious minorities in the West is now a clear cultural marker that one is not in fact of the elite, but one of the lumpenproleteriat or lower-middle class philistines—whose anxiety and hostility toward the “Other” is merely a symptom of their fragile, fading standing in society.

To put things more concretely, a native Upper East-Sider in New York City enrolled at Columbia University cements his psychological sense that he belongs in the top 2% of American (and hence of world) society by attending lectures by visiting Palestinian terrorists. If on the way out he sees a “Bridge and Tunnel” construction worker waving a flag and holding a sign, that undergrad sneers disdainfully at the “Islamophobe” in exactly the same way he might at a painting by Thomas Kincaid, or a gathering of (white!) Pentecostalists singing hymns. Should that same undergrad—perhaps in search of really good hummus in the Arab section of Park Slope, Brooklyn—stumble into a mosque, he would never, never admit to having similar feelings of scorn for the open religiosity he'd witness there. For one thing, he'd get a frisson from how “exotic” the whole thing was. More importantly, if he permitted himself to admit to a feeling of cultural superiority, by that very act he would be lowering his own social status. He might as well toss out that jacket he bought at Barney's and put on a Walmart vest, then go home and crack a Coors lite while watching Glenn Beck.

There's another, darker side to the equation—the envy elite liberals feel of the very minorities they claim to succour. George Gilder had the cojones to point this out in his classic Men and Marriage. He wrote at length of the many ways in which feminism had truncated, quashed, and make disgraceful many of the traditional attributes of masculinity among men: Aggression, stoicism, physical courage, pride in one's name, patriotism, adherence to inherited tradition—all of these became stigmatized as toxic secretions of the “patriarchy,” and elite men who wished to mate with elite women learned to shed them. It's as if on some secluded island all the peahens “decided” they despised their cock's flashy tails, and in order to reproduce, those peacocks had to pull out all their own feathers.

However, when upper-crust liberals (I include here elite nonwhites such as Barack Obama, who had to take lessons, as he admits, in how to “walk black”) look at minority groups, they find that masculinity remains respectable there. All the attributes that would get you shunned on Morningside Heights are on proud display in the ghetto ten blocks north, and the SAT athletes who feel deprived of them can get a “fix” by blasting gansta rap in their iPods, or indulging in revolutionary politics. Likewise, I'd argue, liberals can live vicariously through Muslims—their “pride,” their group cohesiveness, their dogmatic certitudes and their truculent aggression.

Thus pro-Muslim liberals can at once retain their attributes of upper-class status by showing their generosity to the weak and distinguishing themselves from low-status “xenophobes,” while indulging at one remove the game-cock self-assurance, macho pride, and truculence of Muslims. It's really quite an impressive psychological adaptation our elites have made to the almost impossible mating conditions set for Western males, and I'm tempted to admire it. But I can't help looking at the bloody stubs where their tails used to be and feeling a twinge of sadness. No, make that contempt.

There—I've given the game away, and climbed down several notches in the social hierarchy. I shall turn in my collegiate tie for a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt. No peahen nookie for me.