Recently in Robert Spencer Category

I spoke in Brisbane, Australia on December 1, 2011, as part of a five-city Australian tour in late November and early December. The tour sponsor was the Q Society of Australia.

Of all the talks I gave in Australia, in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Cairns, as well as in Brisbane, I think this one was the best -- although, of course, I am not seeing it from the audience's perspective. I start just before the 30 minute mark.

Just found out this was online (thanks to Jihad Watch reader Benedict) -- hence the 3-month delay in posting.

Yes, it's a video, but it's audio only

Muslim and Leftist spokesmen continue to run from debate from me, and try to save face among their followers by falsely claiming I'm ducking them. Above all, their cretinous venom -- the attacks on my personal appearance, i.e., I'm funny-looking so I must be wrong -- show up the bankruptcy of their position. They have nothing, and they know it. "Negotiations" are ongoing for a debate with one of these Leftist creeps, but his utter lack of any capacity for basic civility is already disqualifying.

For a civil debate, check out this exchange I had Tuesday night with David Goldman, the pundit formerly known as "Spengler." Goldman and I had an unfriendly exchange a few years back, but Tuesday night's was better, and perhaps informative. You be the judge of that.

"The Great Debate: David Goldman vs. Robert Spencer — on The Jamie Glazov Show," from FrontPage, January 16:

Join the Jamie Glazov Show that aired on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week we featured:

David P. Goldman, the author of the new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too). After 9/11, he began writing weekly essays at Asia Times Online under the byline “Spengler.” After joining the masthead of First Things magazine early in 2009, he revealed his identity and devoted himself to writing, mainly on politics and strategy, but also publishing essays on religion, classical music, literature and mathematics.

and

Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (both Regnery).

To listen to the program, click here.

Or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/01/18/the-jamie-glazov-show

While Muslim and Leftist spokesmen continue to run from debate from me, and try to save face among their followers by falsely claiming I'm ducking them, David Goldman, the pundit formerly known as "Spengler," has shown more courage. Goldman and I had an unfriendly exchange a few years back, during which he retailed such gnomic pearls as "The Koran is not a self-help book, nor it is it a political manifesto; it is an existential stance with respect to the world." That millions clearly take it as both a self-help book and a political manifesto did not deter him. So tune in Tuesday night; this should be interesting.

"The Great Debate: David Goldman vs. Robert Spencer — on The Jamie Glazov Show," from FrontPage, January 16:

Join the Jamie Glazov Show on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week we feature: The Great Debate: Was communism a greater threat than Islam?

Two titans will go toe-to-toe:

David P. Goldman, the author of the new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too). After 9/11, he began writing weekly essays at Asia Times Online under the byline “Spengler.” After joining the masthead of First Things magazine early in 2009, he revealed his identity and devoted himself to writing, mainly on politics and strategy, but also publishing essays on religion, classical music, literature and mathematics.

and

Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (both Regnery).

To listen to the program, click here.

Or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/01/18/the-jamie-glazov-show

The call-in number is (347) 857-1380.

See you on Tuesday night!

I start around 30 minutes in, after Vickie Janson and Warren Raymond of the Q Society give opening remarks. This was the second talk I gave during my recent speaking tour of Australia.

I was on the nonpareil Michael Coren's Sun TV show tonight, discussing that alleged bastion of peaceful Islam, modern moderate Indonesia.

Video thanks to Vlad Tepes.

This is just a partial video. I am hoping that complete videos that were taken of my talks in Perth and Brisbane will eventually become available. (This video is erroneously labeled as being from Perth, but it is actually the Sydney talk.) Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for this.

Toward the end of my recent speaking tour of Australia, I did three short interviews with Sheik Yermami and Vlad Tepes. Above is the third. The first is here and the second is here.

In November at Restoration Weekend, Raymond and I spoke on a panel along with Daniel Greenfield and Frank Gaffney. Jamie Glazov was the moderator.

Videos are above and transcript is here.

Toward the end of my recent speaking tour of Australia, I did three short interviews with Sheik Yermami and Vlad Tepes. Above is the second. The first is here.

I was on Eric Bolling's Follow the Money on Fox Business tonight to discuss Iran's latest belligerent moves and Barack Obama's supine response.

This morning I had this email exchange with Anna Williams of USA Today:

1. Williams to Spencer:

Subject: USA TODAY video debate (urgent)

Message: I'm an intern on USA TODAY's editorial page. We'd like to get in touch with Robert Spencer regarding the possibility of a video debate today over the controversy surrounding the TV show "All-American Muslim." Robert, if you receive this, please email me at
xxxxxxx@usatoday.com or call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Thanks.

2. Spencer to Williams:

I am going on Fox at 1PM Eastern but am otherwise free. [I was taping a segment for "Follow the Money" with Eric Bolling; it will air tonight.]

3. Williams to Spencer:

Great! We're working on lining up the other side -- probably someone from [Hamas-linked] CAIR like Ibrahim Hooper to defend the show. Could you please pass on your phone number so we can get in touch with you when we have further details?

4. Spencer to Williams:

I'd be glad to appear with Hooper, but he will not appear with me; he fears how I would expose him. In any case, I'm at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

5. Williams to Spencer:

Ah yes, just found that out on the phone with him. We've run into this several times (debaters backing out, possible debaters refusing to face certain opponents, editors unwilling to feature certain figures) and will probably have to scrap the debate idea... if something works out, we'll call.

I knew that Honest Ibe would not appear with me because he has backed out before. The only time we appeared on a show together was in a memorable segment with Keith Olbermann way back around 2003. Since then Hooper has ducked me again and again.

And why is that? If I were really the ridiculous hatemonger that the merry stomach-stapled beekeeper Hooper and his henchmen portray me to be, then it should be easy to destroy me in a debate and discredit me forever. But Hooper, in his black little heart of hearts, knows that isn't true. He knows that what I say about Islam and jihad is true, and that he can't refute it. And he knows that I will expose Hamas-linked CAIR as the unindicted co-conspirators and friends of jihad that they are. And so in a desperate attempt to stave off the truth, he refuses to debate me.

Also, it's part of the ongoing strategy of Hamas-linked CAIR to pretend that anti-jihadists are outside the bounds of acceptable discourse, so as to marginalize us all and silence all voices standing up against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. Hamas-linked CAIR hopes that if they keep repeating the Goebbels-worthy Big Lie that fighting for freedom and equality of rights amounts to "bigotry" and "hatred," a sufficient number of people will buy it to render the U.S. mute and defenseless before the advancing jihad.

Isn't that right, Ibe? (He has Jihad Watch bookmarked, so give him a hearty greeting.)

Toward the end of my recent speaking tour of Australia, I did three short interviews with Sheik Yermami and Vlad Tepes. Here is the first.

The Q and A session was lively. And here, in case you missed it, is the main talk again:

This was the first of the talks I gave during my recent Australia speaking tour.

Videos thanks to Vlad Tepes.

My eleventh book, Did Muhammad Exist? (ISI) is now listed at Amazon.com, with a publication date of April 9. Here is a short explanation of what the book contains:

Are jihadists dying for a fiction? Everything you thought you knew about Islam is about to change.

In Did Muhammad Exist? best-selling author Robert Spencer meticulously examines historical records, archaeological findings, and pioneering new scholarship to reconstruct what can be known about Muhammad, the Qur’an, and the early days of Islam. He uncovers evidence that calls into question fundamental assumptions made even by non-Muslims. Did Muhammad Exist? reveals:

The earliest biographical material about Muhammad dates from 150 years after the traditional date of his death.
Neither the Arab conquerors of the seventh century nor the people they conquered made any mention of Muhammad, the Qur’an, or Islam for fully six decades.
Recent scholarship indicating that the Qur’an was constructed from existing materials—including a pre-Islamic Christian text.
Numerous archaeological indications that Islam as a religion was fashioned for political reasons.

Far from an anti-Islamic polemic, Did Muhammad Exist? is a sober and unflinching look at the origins of one of the world’s major religions. While Judaism and Christianity have been subjected to searching historical criticism for more than two centuries, Islam has, astonishingly, never received the same treatment on any significant scale. In bringing to light the latest scholarship on Muhammad and Islam, Robert Spencer raises questions of global consequence.

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

I was on Michael Coren's Sun TV show this evening, discussing various Islamic jihad-related issues.

Video courtesy Vlad Tepes.

Here is the first of the talks I gave during my recent Australia speaking tour.

Video thanks to Vlad Tepes.

Robert Spencer in Sydney, November 29, 2011
by Assad Elepty

Robert Spencer, who has written 10 books and hundreds of articles on the nature of Islam and the threat it poses to western societies, spoke in central Sydney to a packed audience on the evening of November 29, 2011. He has already spoken in Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne and has given radio interviews while in this country.
He was introduced by Vickie Jansen of the Q Society.

Robert spoke for over an hour and then answered many varied questions from his audience about the nature and aims of Islam. In his talk Spencer referred to the Jihad by stealth approach by Muslims in Australia, noting that this is the first migrant group which has no intention of assimilating in the host country. He said that Muslims constitute the first immigrant group with a notion of 'superior governance' to the existing society of the host country. They see it as a 'divine responsibility' to emigrate -- just as Mohammed moved from Mecca to Medina with the intention of establishing Shariah law as an eventual aim wherever they are. This is not a question of race -- for both Hindus and Pakistanis, who shared the same country until the middle of last century, were racially similar. However there has never been an attempt by Hindu immigrants to establish a Hindu worldview as the sole approach to life in Australia. Islam, on the contrary, has the aim of fighting [this is the meaning of 'jihad'] from without or within a society to establish Islamic Shariah law there.

Spencer observed the assymetrical nature of the battle with Islam, in that if one dares to complain about the Islamisation of the country, one's facts and observations are not listened to; one is immediately labelled 'Islamophobic'. He said that a phobia is an irrational fear. But in the case of Islam there is a REAL fear of factually evident situations -- e.g. terrorist killings, aggressive Islamist policies and refusal to integrate into a host country. He said that 'hate speech laws' are advancing in this country. They are really Islamic laws in that in Islam it is not for speaking the truth. You are punished not because what you have said is untrue, but for saying what is not permissible to say in Islam. The Islamic approach is 'a polemic against Judeo-Christian society' . Muslims deplore the division of politics and religion in the west. They state with pride that their 'religion' covers everything in life from everyday matters and all in the political sphere. Spencer says he is not here because he is into hatred of anyone -- but because he loves truth, law and freedom and human rights. This is the essence of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The alternative to this is to grasp power over everyone and everything.

He said that the Koran's Sura 3.110 says that 'the best of People' should rule the earth. The 'best of people' refers to Muslims and those whom Muslims rule, the Koran states, are to be ceaselessly subjugated. This differs from Christianity as the unbelievers are to be made to suffer in this life as well as in the next. While the God of the Christians says that 'Vengeance is mine,' in the Islamic system the Koranic mandate is that Muslims should rule and exact suffering on non Muslims and extract revenge on them for being non-believers. The purpose of the Muslims is to put an end to the rule of the unbelievers. Non-Muslims have NO rights. This motivated Abu Hamza, now in jail in Britain; from an excess of piety he injured himself while trying to construct a bomb to kill unbelievers. He was following the dictates of his 'religion'. Shariah mandates a state of subordination of unbelievers. The tax or jizya -- is the payment a non-Muslim makes to a Muslim for not killing him/her. Spencer likened it to paying protection money to the Mafia. There is nothing benign about it. Humiliation must accompany the payment of such a tax -- whose alternatives are conversion or death. Spencer noted that work is not accorded the same dignity in Islamic societies as it in in the west. The result of work may be respected but not the actual act of work itself. Thus having dhimmis or host societies pay a jizya tax is a source of ready income for Islamic leaders as other kinds of work are not promoted or valued in Islamic countries. Spencer quoted that some Islamic leaders in the past did not want all the dhimmis to convert as they were needed to finance Islamic expansion. Using the tax system of another country is another example of using another's money to finance the aims of Islam.

Spencer stated that it is the intention of the Islamic world that Islamic law is brought to the west. If there is a conflict between Australian law and Islamic law, the Australian law will in time give way, as national laws have in other countries.There are 100 shariah courts in Britain and over 850 Muslim no-go Zones on France. Spencer told the story of the Somali workers in the meat packing plant in the United States who insisted that they be given prayer time during factory hours. After a legal battle the prayer times were given which seriously disrupted the working of the factory and resulted in non-Muslim workers having to do extra work to cover the missed hours. When the non-Muslims insisted that they had the right now to work less hours as the Muslims were, they were refused that request. Only the Muslim workers were granted prayer time.

Spencer warned his audience to be vigilant for the signs of this jihad, signs such as
* halal tuckshops in government schools. This has already occurred a number of government schools.
* A 'Muslim only ' approach to activities such as swimming. Insisting on 'Muslim women only' or 'Muslim only' swimming times.
* Organisations or councils boycotting Israel, while ignoring the crimes committed in Islamic states.
* Appointments of Muslim outreach officers in secular organisations.
* Lack of protest in the face of halalisation of Australian food.

Spencer encouraged others to speak in the name of freedom and democracy when they perceived their human rights were being attacked under the guises of stealth jihad. He said vigilance was required to recognise the doctrines, deceptions, subjugation and aggressive intent of Islam. He said to his audience -- 'Stand up without apology for the dignity of the human person and the freedom of conscience.'

Assad Elepty is a Coptic Christian human rights activist.

Chris Smith interviewed me on Sydney's 2GB radio shortly before my talk there Tuesday evening. Listen here. Omar and Muhammad call in toward the end of the segment.

No, not that ABC. Wednesday evening Steve Austin of Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Brisbane, Queensland interviewed me about my Australian speaking tour and a number of related topics regarding the stealth jihad. Listen here.

I am still in Australia, and have thus far spoken publicly in Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney, and have had several illuminating meetings with local activists. It was a magnificent evening and a packed house in Sydney -- alas, not videoed -- and it was encouraging to see so many knowledgeable, informed people determined to defend freedom. Here, courtesy the Right Wing Death Bogan blog, is another report on my talk in Melbourne, reproduced here with gratitude: "JihadWatch Comes To Town," by Nilk at rightwingdeathbogan, November 28:

PJG has written a guest post over at JihadWatch about Robert Spencer's vist to Melbournistan.

I've known PJG for quite some time now, and we've attended the occasional demo together, so I'm happy to agree with what s/he has to say. Rather than rehash that, I'll add my observations of the evening. (This is your opportunity to rush over to JW and read the report!)

I found the evening to be wonderfully refreshing. Yes, of course Vickie did have to read out a long-winded legal disclaimer, and there was some amusement at her suggesting basically that in the interest of the public interest, we're going to discuss things that are not supposed to be discussed. If you think you might be offended, or if you've come here with the intention of accusing Robert and the Q Society of inciting hatred and hurt feelings then you know where the door is.

That is, of course, my paraphrasing. Vickie is much more diplomatic in that situation than I would be, and it is shocking that in this day and age, in Australia, we are forced into this defensive posture.

Unfortunately, with our draconian laws having claimed several scalps, with Andrew Bolt's being most visible.

The less visible are the likes of QC Peter Faris who has removed himself from public commenting and so many others I know who have been looking over their shoulders before speaking for too long now.

Robert spoke freely and with gusto about the encroachment of sharia norms on our own culture. The extent to which this has occurred is always shocking when you stop to consider the small, incremental steps that have been taken, and what they actually signify.

From the separate toilets for muslims at LaTrobe University - which a friend tells me have been there for years and years and are kept clean by the muslim students in poor comparison to the toilets used by non-muslims - to the City of Monash spending money to put a privacy screen around a public swimming pool so that muslim women can swim without any prying eyes on them.

Needless to say, that last one is going to cost more than anticipated.

These are the most visible symptoms of sharia regulations entering the mainstream, but they are by no means the only ones. Our wonderful 'blasphemy law', also officially known as the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act of 2001 (go read that one, too), has been used primarily against christians, and while it may be worded in a neutral manner, people really aren't that stupid.

Everyone knows who it's there to shackle.

And it's not those who agree with the current, Leftist paradigm.

One recurring theme from Robert Spencer's talk was that we are the inheritors of the greatest, most amazing civilisation the world has ever seen, and he is correct. [...]

God bless Robert Spencer for his work, his passion and his knowledge. His enthusiasm definitely fired me up - it's very easy to get disheartened in this game, and it can become easy to find excuses for not blogging as often as I should.

So what will you be doing for the rest of the war?

Read it all.

Will the Leftists and Islamic supremacists who have been avid to blame me for the Breivik murders now retract and apologize? I won't be holding my breath. But now what I have been saying all along is abundantly established: 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" no more meant that I was his "inspiration" or "mentor" than the fact that Charles Manson invoked the Beatles as the inspiration for his murders meant that they were complicit or responsible.

In reality, although the Left loves to invoke the number times Breivik cited me (although their number is always different), in reality, virtually every time he was supposedly citing me, he was actually citing a news article from Jihad Watch. Another large portion of the total 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 in fact never cited 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. The Islamic supremacists and their Leftist tools never mention the fact that Pamela Geller notes today: "Breivik specifically quoted John F. Kennedy, a hero of the American Left, as inspiration: 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.'"

"Anders Breivik declared insane over Norway terror attacks," by Adam Parris-Long for Yahoo! News, November 29 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Anders Breivik has been found to have been insane at the time of the Norway terror attacks and suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Psychiatrists Torgeir Husby and Synne Sorheim compiled the report on Breivik after conducting 13 conversations with the self admitted attacker, also reviewing more than 130 hours of police questioning.

Breivik lived in his "own delusional universe where all his thoughts and acts are guided by his delusions," the 240-page report found.

Public prosecutor Svein Holden said: "They (Husby and Sorheim) conclude that Anders Behring Breivik during a long period of time has developed the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia, which has changed him and made him into the person he is today."

"He believes he is chosen to decide who is to live and who is to die," he added. "Breivik stated that he committed these 'executions' out of love for his people. He describes himself as the most perfect knight since the Second World War."

Robert Spencer in Melbourne 26/11/11
by PJG (longtime Jihad Watch commenter)

On a day of relentless spring rain, Melbourne – or a select contingent thereof - welcomed Robert Spencer for his first talk in his first ever visit to Australia, courtesy of the Q Society of Australia. The 250-seat room was full to capacity, booked out well in advance of the day.

For a change I decided to put aside my old habit of taking notes. After all, the event was being filmed, and I would have access to the film. But afterwards, Robert asked me to write about the event for Jihad Watch, so what follows is a brief snatch of snippets.

Vickie Janson, Vice-President of the Q Society and candidate for the Christian Democratic Party, led off with a sobering disclaimer, mindful as we all are now of local laws restricting free speech, and – with a winning smile – invited anyone with ultra-sensitive feelings or a plot to use those laws against us to kindly leave. She then gave us a run-down on what is happening vis a vis the encroachment of Islamic laws and norms, that is, the steady road to control of us by them, here in Australia in schools, universities, workplaces and elsewhere. As keeping up with Islamic advancement and its enabling and funding by our government is now virtually a full-time job, much of what she informed us in her inimitably cheerful style shocked the audience.

Vickie quoted a Muslim cleric who said that there was no “clash of civilizations, but instead a rise and fall of civilizations.” It is clear that to many Muslims here and abroad their religion constitutes the “rising civilization” and ours the falling (not that they would prefer to stop at ours; Hindu and Buddhist civilizations are in their sights for being given a helping hand to disappear…)

Another member of Q called Warren then gave a talk about what he has seen in recent years in Europe, including the car-burning in France and a memorial (!) devoted to the young Muslim car thieves who were accidentally killed when they hid from pursuing police in an electricity compound and whose deaths were “avenged” by Muslim anti-police rioting. These were stories of immigration-related events our government smugly believes cannot happen in sunny Australia, where it is constantly proclaimed that multiculturalism is an outstanding success story and caution is brushed aside.

When Robert Spencer took the floor, it was clear from the enthusiastic atmosphere that few in the room were new to his views and that his message was seen as acutely urgent. He talked of the responsibility of Western people to learn and respond to the Islamic perspectives which are giving rise to Muslims’ so-frequently misinterpreted words and actions, and expanded on the theme that terrorism and da’wa (the call to Islam) are but two sides of the same coin and directed at the same result, the imposition of Shari’a law. Quoting from Maududi’s commentary in a Koran given to him by the Finsbury Park mosque and using Koran 9:5 as an example, Spencer demonstrated that what Muslim apologists claim to be a misleading absence of “context” proves to be from their own side a misleadingly invalid argument, “context” being at least as alarming as verse and backed up by respected Muslim commentary.

He spoke of many topics which will be familiar to JW readers: the Mafia-like dhimma pact, the absence of the “clash” factor as we in the West politely accede to Muslim demands, the campaign of erosion of our free speech which is central to the Islamic agenda, the existence of self-protective Western laws which are being ignored or under-utilized in the interests of political correctness, and the highly successful phenomenon of contrived Muslim victimhood which has the effect of causing us to rush to make further accommodation for them after every terrorist attack and every expression of grievance.

This last aspect was in reply to one of the many spirited questions asked of him in the latter half of the evening. Many questions reflected the helpless frustration people felt in the face of the plethora of tactics employed by Islamic organizations and individuals and shameful capitulation by our own political parties. Spencer advised not only being persistent in our efforts to inform governments and fellow citizens, but to emulate his colleague Pamela Geller’s creativity, for example her “copycat” bus and taxi advertisements which forced public enquiry into Islamic human rights abuses such as death for apostasy and honour killings.

When pressed as to the vexing question of whether President Obama is a Muslim, Spencer could only surmise that if he were, he would not be doing anything differently; the outcomes of Obama’s policies have been extraordinarily helpful to zealots in the Muslim world – both outside and inside America.

As for Iran, it is important that we understand the Iranian Shi’ite view about the Twelfth Imam and about how Muslim “victimhood” can exist in a most threatening and sinister form on a national level as a tactic of war.

And lastly, about “moderate’ or “secular” Muslims about whom so many nurture great hope, Spencer wasted little time. Of course there are many, many Muslims who pose no threat and are not determined to impose the supremacist aspect over us their religion demands they do, but he did caution, in view of fatally naïve exercises of US soldiers teaching Afghani soldiers, against playing with guns with Muslims.

We may not all be able to dazzle people with erudition and quickness of wit the way Spencer can, but at events such as this one we can develop arguments and tactics based on stated intentions of Muslims which are derived from their texts and their own tactics based on principles within those same texts. Robert Spencer and the Q Society on this night helped and encouraged us to work harder, and to devise means in the vital job of defending the uniquely free and prosperous civilization we have inherited through the blood, sweat and inspiration of others before us and which it is our sacred duty to deliver untarnished to our descendants. They will have their own battles, as we have had ours; let us at least spare them the vice-like grip of Islam.

Oh, and a good time was had by all before and after the talks. So many conversations with so many people; the freedom to speak one’s mind; not once being glared at or called a racist/bigot/Islamophobe…! Thankyou, Q and Mr Spencer!

It has nothing to do with Islam and jihad, but I have a piece in Crisis Magazine this morning about the Eastern Catholic Churches, entitled "We Are Non-Roman Catholics." If you're interested in the strange and rare creatures that are non-Roman but Catholic Churches, take a look.

I doubt it will be nearly as much sheer fun as my debates with Marvelous Moustafa Zayed (here and here), but tomorrow night on ABN I'll be debating the Britain-based jihadists Anjem Chaudary and Abu Izzadeen. Tune in here at 4PM PST, 7PM EST.

Put another shrimp on the barbie for me. Details in the video, filmed in front of my bookshelves in the Jihad Watch headquarters, and more specifically here.

Yesterday I was on the Michael Coren Show on Toronto's Sun TV discussing a wide range of matters. (Video thanks to Eeyore.)

Put another shrimp on the barbie for me. In late November and early December I'll be making my first tour of Australia, speaking in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Cairns. Details here.

Video thanks to Eeyore.

Video courtesy the estimable Blazing Cat Fur.

Today I joined Michael Coren on his Sun TV show to discuss the absence of any mention of Islam or jihad -- that is, any mention of the identity and motive of those who attacked us on September 11, 2001 -- at the 10-year commemoration of the World Trade Center attacks.

Spencer Watch is a site affiliated with an larger propaganda outfit that had to go and steal the name of a perfectly nice site about birds.

Yes, idiotic comments happen, and here, we delete them as soon as we are aware of them. Ordinarily, we have better things to do than read anything Spencer Watch puts out, but a reader kindly brought this comment to our attention, which has remained for over a year on a rather major page within the site, intended to imitate our "Why Jihad Watch?"

Wow. Way to refute everything about Acts 17, "RefutingActs17." You totally put St. Paul in his place there, dude.

I'm a bit ill and have thus reluctantly had to forgo my planned trip to Germany for a Freedom Party rally in Berlin on September 3. I am very sorry not to be able to be there, as I had been very much looking forward to standing with the great freedom fighters René Stadtkewitz, Geert Wilders, and Oskar Freysinger.

Here is the speech I had planned to give at the event:

Remarks in Berlin, September 3, 2011
Robert Spencer

Thank you. It is a great honor for me to be here in the company of René Stadtkewitz, Geert Wilders, and Oskar Freysinger. If humane values prevail in Europe, historians of our time will record that these three men were heroes of freedom, defenders of human rights, and warriors against tyranny and the oppression of the human spirit.

It is a great honor also for me to be in Berlin. This city has played central role in the twentieth century’s struggles against totalitarian brutality, and I hope that under the leadership of the Freedom Party it will now become, as West Berlin was in the days of John F. Kennedy, a beacon of hope in a Europe that is again threatened by the darkness of authoritarianism, institutionalized inequality, and the extinguishing of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience.

I come to Berlin as a visitor, and there are so many things to see. I hope to have a chance while here to visit the New National Gallery, the home of so many world-historical works by Picasso, Edvard Munch, George Braque and Juan Gris and so many others. Tonight at the Berlin Philharmonic an orchestra from my country, the Philadelphia Orchestra, is performing works by Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz. It would be good to be there, but it is more important to be here, because what we are doing here is making it possible for future concerts of great music to be held in that magnificent hall, and for that art gallery and others all across Europe to continue to be homes for the towering masterpieces of human achievement.

This is something that very few people grasp. Few people realize that the Sharia, Islamic law, forbids representational art and music. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, said: “Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.” He also said that “on the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.”

Can you imagine believing in a God who not only did not inspire great composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and Mendelssohn, but who says that to listen to the works of such men is an act of “ignorance” for which one will be punished – indeed, tortured? Can you imagine believing in a God who will likewise torture people for creating and appreciating such monuments of human creativity as the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David, the Pieta, the Girl with the Pearl Earring, the Statue of Liberty, and the Great Buddha of Kamakura?

This is not just a question of religious beliefs. No one is forced to love great art or great music. It wouldn’t matter to us what the believers in a God who hates art and music thought or did, were those believers not determined to force us to live in accord with their beliefs and perspectives. And yet they are. Just days ago an imam from the United States, the notorious Faisal Abdul Rauf of the Ground Zero Mosque initiative, said in a speech in Scotland that an essential element of the interweaving of Western and Islamic cultures that he hopes to bring about will have to be the incorporation of Sharia law into the legal systems of Europe and the U.S.

The incorporation of Sharia law into the legal systems of Europe and the U.S. This is a genuine endeavor – Rauf is hardly the only Muslim or non-Muslim advancing it. And so today we have to ask: what would the incorporation of Sharia law into our legal systems mean for our own principles? What would it mean for our freedoms? What would it mean for our rights?

Sharia law denies the freedom of speech. It classifies any criticism of Islam as “blasphemy,” punishable by death. That includes any honest discussion of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings to justify hatred and violence. Under Sharia, such discussion would be against the law.

And we see how this idea is already advancing in Europe. Geert Wilders was put on trial in the Netherlands on what were essentially Sharia charges: offending Islam, offending Muslims. And how did he offend them? By telling the truth.

In Islamic law, telling the truth about Islam can get you killed. Also in the Netherlands, we saw this happen, with the murder of Theo van Gogh. Right now, the agents of Islamization, both Muslims and the multiculturalist Leftists who aid and abet their agenda, resort more often in the West to character assassination: warriors for freedom are demonized, vilified, smeared, and marginalized.

The mainstream media outlets that aid and abet this treatment probably don’t realize that they are helping to advance Sharia, and in doing so, are hastening the death of the principles of free speech on which their craft is founded. But whether they realize it or not, that is exactly what they are doing.

Sharia forbids people from speaking critically about Islam. That means no voice of dissent, no voice of opposition, could be raised against the treatment of women as commodities, the institutionalized oppression of women and non-Muslims, the stoning of adulterers, the amputation of thieves’ hands, the persistence of slavery, or any other element of Islamic law that outrages what are otherwise universally accepted notions of human rights.

If Rauf and his European counterparts get their wish and Sharia law is incorporated into the legal systems of Europe and the U.S., travesties of justice like the Wilders trial will become commonplace. One by one, all those who dare to point out that Islamic law is incompatible with Western freedoms in so many ways will be put on trial, and unlike Wilders they will not be acquitted. They will be silenced. And darkness will descend over both continents.

Remember also that in Islamic law, the freedom of conscience is extinguished. The great Lebanese statesmen Charles Malik saw this up close among Muslims in Lebanon. And so when he served as a rapporteur for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1947 and 1948, and helped draft the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he made sure that it contained a statement about the right to be free from coercion in matters of belief.

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

One would think that would be a given, something taken for granted by all people. But Islamic countries protested against it and later drew up their down Declaration of Human Rights, in Cairo. The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights says that the sole arbiter of what rights human beings have is the Sharia, Islamic law. And Sharia makes the free exercise of one’s conscience a capital offense. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, said, “If anyone changes his religion, kill him.”

If the Imam Rauf and his counterparts in Europe get their wish, it will become a capital offense to leave Islam and convert to another religion, or to have no religion at all. Rauf insisted in his recent remarks in Scotland that no Muslim had any intention of bringing the penal code contained within Islamic law to the West, but in saying that he contradicted himself, denying his own words in his book Islam: A Sacred Law, in which he said: “And since a Shari’ah is understood as a law with God at its center, it is not possible in principle to limit the Shari’ah to some aspects of human life and leave out others.”

Why should we believe Rauf when he says he will not bring these obnoxious and oppressive laws to Europe and America, when he himself has said that Sharia cannot be limited or divided? When he says he wants to bring Islamic law to Europe and America, we should take his words at face value. Remember that several years ago, Hani Ramadan, Tariq Ramadan’s brother, called for the stoning of adulterers in Paris. He didn’t think that there should be any limits to the introduction of Sharia in Europe.

And that stands to reason. If Muslims believe that the Sharia, including its penal code, is Allah’s perfect and immutable law, why wouldn’t they want to bring it to America and Europe? Neither Rauf nor any other Muslim leader can point to any form of Sharia that does not contain mandates for stoning, amputation, the oppression of women and non-Muslims, and the denial of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience. We’re already seeing honor killings and female genital mutilation in Europe and in America. Why shouldn’t the rest follow, when all of this is justified by Sharia?

For remember this also: the Imam Rauf’s words were just the latest manifestation of Islam’s expansionist imperative. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said, “Have no doubt... Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.” In the U.S., Omar Ahmad, the cofounder and longtime Board chairman of the influential Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood front group known as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has said that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.” The prominent American Muslim leader Siraj Wahhaj has said essentially the same thing: “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” And regarding Europe, the most influential Islamic cleric in the world today, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, said that “Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice,” he was upset about the U.S. invasion of Malmö, Sweden.

And yet despite these clear statements of a will to conquer, and many others like them, our government and media elites are more in denial today than ever. In just eight days it will be ten years since my country was attacked by Islamic jihadists who explained, in writings they left behind, that they were committing mass murder in the name of Islam, inspired by the teachings of Islam, and in defense, as they saw it, of Islam. They struck the United States in service of their hope of destroying it, and ultimately imposing upon the U.S., the West and the world an Islamic government that would rule according to this Islamic law that denies the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for all people.

Yet ten years later, it is not only the height of political incorrectness to speak about the motives and goals of those who attacked the United States on that terrible day; it is explicitly against United States Government policy to look into such matters. The Obama administration hardly ever speaks of terrorism at all. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano famously said several years ago that she preferred to refer not to acts of “terrorism” but to “man-caused disasters,” and has focused the DHS report on hunting so-called “right-wing extremists” rather than Islamic jihad terrorists.

Ten years after 9/11, we have a President of the United States who has communicated in numerous ways that the United States’s new primary response to Islamic jihad terror is to redress what Muslims perceived as grievances. Barack Obama has even declared: “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

Obama’s policies toward Islamic terrorism proceed consistently from the assumption that the conflict between the West and the Islamic world is entirely the West’s fault, and that he can thus bring that conflict to an end by means of sufficiently generous overtures to the Islamic world. He has answered the question “Why do they hate us?” decisively by saying, in effect, “They hate us because of what we are doing to them.” Might they hate us for reasons of their own, rooted in their own religious and cultural assumptions that are beyond our ability to affect or change? Barack Obama never considers that possibility.

The President has also warmly endorsed the “Arab Spring” uprising in Egypt. Contrary to the optimism with which the mainstream media has greeted it in the U.S., Egypt’s “Arab Spring” is set to usher into power a Muslim Brotherhood regime that will ramp up the country’s already virulent persecution of Christians, impose principles of Islamic law that will subject women and non-Muslims to institutionalized discrimination, and set Egypt on a path toward open war with Israel, a heroic nation on the front lines of the global jihad.

Such a regime in Egypt will be no friend of free people. And in its hostility to Europe and America, it will likely partner with the post-Gaddafi regime in Libya, which is almost certain to contain significant al-Qaeda elements. And for that we also have to thank Barack Obama, who rushed the U.S. into military action against Gaddafi without considering the likely nature of the regime that would replace him. Gaddafi was terrible, to be sure. His successors are almost certain to be worse.

Meanwhile, domestically Obama’s Justice Department has joined lawsuits by Muslims demanding special accommodation in the workplace, forcing American businesses to change their longstanding practices and reinforcing the Islamic supremacist principle that wherever Islamic law and practice conflict with American law and practice, it is the latter that must give way.

The Obama administration has not only shown no interest in the Muslim Brotherhood organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) that are advancing its stated goal (according to a captured internal document) of “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house,” but has even partnered with several of those organizations on more than one occasion. Obama even sent his close adviser Valerie Jarrett to be the keynote speaker at ISNA’s national convention.

What could go wrong? After all, they say they’re moderate!

And I know that the same kinds of things are happening, and worse, all over Europe.

Ten years after 9/11, the European Union and the U.S. Government are thoroughly compromised, and naively trying to appease the Islamic jihadists who have vowed to destroy both.

But all is not lost. We are still alive, we are still free. As long as we draw breath, we can still fight against subjugation and cruelty. We can still stand for freedom. Oskar Freysinger, Geert Wilders and René Stadtkewitz represent the hope of Europe to avoid the fate of all the other great cultures and civilizations that have succumbed to the boot of oppression and tyranny.

And I hope, I pray, that in the coming months and years many, many more people in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and all over Europe will wake up to what’s at stake, will realize what is in danger of being lost, and join Stadkewitz, Freysinger, and Wilders in their great defense of freedom.

Our fight, as my colleague Pamela Geller has so memorably put it, is for art, music, and love.

Our fight is for a vision of civilization that allows for the human spirit to flower, not to be stifled, terrorized, threatened, and covered in a black shroud.

Our fight is for Beethoven, and Bach, and DaVinci, and Picasso, and Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and all the other artists who have expressed what is deepest within our souls. Our fight is for Charles Malik, the defender of the free conscience. Our fight is for Theo van Gogh, the defender of the rights of women.

Our fight is for a humane and just social order that has seldom been more imperiled, by a more dedicated and implacable foe. But in this great struggle we have resources that will bring us victory. We have the resources of the very elements of civilization that our foes deny. We have the nourishment to the human spirit that are brought to us by art and music, and even more importantly by our vision of what constitutes justice in society.

We have the greatest resource of all behind us: the truth. Any system that forbids the truth, as does Islamic law, is foredoomed. It may prevail in the short run. It may even prevail indefinitely over those whom it succeeds in cowing and terrorizing into never daring to question it. But it cannot and will not prevail over a determined, knowledgeable and free people.

And that is what we are. And that is what we will remain.

In declaring their independence from Great Britain, the founding fathers of the United States knew they faced a struggle, and in that struggle they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Let us do no less. Our cause of freedom demands no less. The enemies of freedom are determined; let us be more determined. They are persistent; let us be more persistent. They are focused on their goal; let us be even more focused on stopping them from extinguishing everything that has made Europe and America great.

Let us prove to be worthy children of those who built our great civilization. Let us stand for freedom in this hour of darkness. Let us stand with René Stadtkewitz and all others who are fighting for freedom in Germany and around the world.

Let us stand together. We are free, and we will remain free.

We will never submit, never surrender.

We will never give up.

We will never give in.

Freedom forever! Thank you.

Yesterday evening I spent an enjoyable hour taking questions from a Qur'an study group, and the estimable Amy Peikoff recorded the whole thing for posterity. Many thanks to all who submitted questions. You can find the whole thing at Amy's blog here.

Recently I debated the Imam Moustafa Zayed for the second time. This time the topic was, "Does Islam Guarantee Women Equality of Rights with Men?" After this one, even poor Zayed's fellow Islamic supremacists threw him under the bus -- and usually they claim victory no matter how badly they were bested. So grab some popcorn and watch the fun.

David Wood of Answering Muslims just kindly sent me this transcript of the debate from the Betwixt blog. David says he cannot vouch for its complete accuracy, so if you spot any errors, please let me know and I will fix them here as well as pass them on to the source, to whom I am most grateful for doing this.

MODERATOR: The issue of whether women have rights and equality in Islam is a matter being debated around the country today. Some scholars say that women do have equality of rights while other scholars say the contrary. Which should we accept?

Thank for joining us this evening on Debate Night on ABN Live. I'm Chris Conway, your moderator of the evening.

We have two experts debating this motion: Islam Guarantees Women Equality of Rights with Men. I'm honored to introduce Mustafa Zayed who argue on the affirmative of the motion. Mustafa Zayed is a member of the Scientific Board of Qur'an and Sunnah Research in Cairo. He speaks widely in interfaith settings with devotion to bridging peace between major religions and in communities. Zayed is the author of several books, including The Lies About Muhammad.

I'm also honored to introduce Robert Spencer, who argue on the negative of the motion. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, an organization dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad in religion in modern-day context. He is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades.

We'll hear from each of the debaters an opening statement, rebuttals, crossfire, and a closing statement.I'll notify each debater when there are only 30 seconds left on the clock. We will then conclude the formal part of the debate and open the phone lines for you, the audience, to call in. The number here at the studio is 248.416.1300. Again, the motion of tonight's debate is, Islam Guarantees Women Equality of Rights with Men.

At this time, I'd like to turn over to you, Mustafa, for your opening statement. You have seven minutes.

MUSTAFA ZAYED: OPENING STATEMENT (7 minutes)
Thank you for having me.

Before we speak about the specificity of the topic of women rights in Islam, in generality, dealing with any human being in Islam is included in Islamic Law or Shari'a Law. Shari'a Law is not a law that is made by the limited comprehension of men at a certain period of time in a certain geographical area and then trying to impose that upon all humans worldwide in any time. This is the law of God, and God is just and He forbid injustice upon himself in any topic and forbid it for his worshipers and creations. So when we say "women rights in Islam," we need to understand that it is the law of God, protecting and making sure that women and men are having the [prospective in (3:18)] equal rights.

Two things before we get into the rights of women in Islam and the position of Islam: The first thing is that in Islam, men and women are not in competition. They're not roommates competing for who pays a bigger or small portion of the bill or, you know, splitting whatever cost somewhere. They are to complement each other. They are different in physiology. They are different in emotional structure, and Islamic Law [came (3:41)] that they enjoy the best of their life according to their own structure and needing each other and depending on each other and completing each other---complementing each other. That's number one.

Number two, specifically when it comes to the rights of women, a woman, the female in Islam, is your potential mother. And it's not that females are half of, you know, humanity and they deserve rights, and so on and so forth. No, females are the mothers of the next generation who are to shape and sculpture the character of all men and women, the entire next generation to come. So Islam and Islamic Law made sure to guarantee their protection, their financial sustenance, their stability, so they can perform the best and the most decent job that a human being can do, which is again raising the next generation.

When [you (4:30)] took a position, I would say, hopefully objective position, in looking at the condition of women and the rights and obligations before Islam and after Islam, the difference couldn't be more stark. It's the difference between a day and a nightmare. Before Islam, for example, in parts of India, according to Hinduism, a woman was to be burned alive if her husband passed away. She's just there for me. He dies, there's no need for existence. A matter of fact, in other places when they got some progression, she's not even supposed to get married again. Little newborn babies were burned alive. The horrendous mistranslation in the Bible about the concept of Original Sin, that it is through our mother, Eve, our father, Adam, was deceived out of Paradise into earth. When Islam comes in, all that was rectified. And our mothers, our daughters, our sisters were relieved when Allah (Subhan'Allah) in the Qur'an said, [speaks in Arabic]. It is the devil that deceived them both out of Paradise into earth. Women had now inheritance rights that in America today, women do not have--guaranteed inheritance rights.

Women have equal pay rights. They have the right to own, to speak their mind, to debate, to run businesses. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) only wife for a quarter century, Khadija, may Allah (Subhan'Allah) be pleased with her, was a businesswoman. In England, 'til 1882, the end of the 19th century, a woman did not have any right to own a property in her own name. It has to be the brother, the husband, or the son. She could not even stand in court as a legal entity. At the end of 19th century, that right was mandated to, given to Muslim women in the 7the century. So it's not even equal to or similar to or better to. No, that was better rights in the 7th century.

Islam mandated the education of women in the middle of 7th century. In a a correct hadith in Sahih Al-Bukhari, even for a war captive that is now entrusted to a Muslim man that he, even though, she's not a Muslim, he needs to treat her well and educate her. And the authentic hadith says there, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would release a war combatant that might turn around and come and kill Muslims, if he taught Muslims how to read and write, and the similar thing for Muslim women, how to read and write.

A woman is not an object of desire anymore, is not a vessel for procreation. She is judged for her character and her mannerism. And the word, "religion", in Islam in the language of the Prophet, means character. So you can pursue a woman for marriage for her beauty, for her money, for her social status. The Prophet said, no pursue the one with the character, the only thing that she is actually in control of. She has no control if she was born beautiful or rich or from a good family, but she is in control of her character. She is not an object of desire anymore.

A woman, in Islam, is someone who is equal in so many things that you cannot begin to imagine or even available in the 19th century. She have the right of futya; she can give legal opinions, and many women had that legal opinion. The first commerce secretary that is a female in the history in all of mankind was [Ashafat --- (7:37)] who was the commerce secretary at the time of [Omar --- Al-Khatab (7:43)]. He gave her [--- (7:43)], and she used to rule in the matters of the market between men and women. The first political party that is [led] by a feminist, well I would say a feminist party, that is led by a woman was Asma bint Yazzid Al-Ansari when she came to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), she said, I represent so many women that have the same opinion that I have and saying what I'm saying and here's what we want, here's what we're asking. And Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) responded to her, The only holy scripture in the world, that when it speaks to the believers, speak to them in female and male terms, is the Qur'an, not the Bible, not any other holy scripture. Believing men, believing women, righteous men, righteous women, and so on and so forth. [Reads a verse in Arabic] Whoever do a righteous deed, male or female, we would [--- (8:30)] well and so on and so forth. The only chapter in any holy scripture, the gospels in the Bible or gospels that are outside of the Bible, that is named after a woman is in the Qur'an and which woman she might be. She's the greatest woman that ever lived and will ever live, that's Virgin Mary (PBUH). And in Islam, she is such a pious woman, that's why she was blessed to be the mother of a great, mighty prophet of God. The only chapter in all holy scriptures, that is Chapter An-Nisa (The Women), that is almost a manifesto of unprecedented women's rights now and then.

Islam is not defending the rights of women. Islam, and I represent that position, shows the rights of women that is unprecedented today. That is in Islam. Watch Robert Spencer now coming to you with extreme examples of rural areas of ten villages somewhere and try to generalize them over the entire population of 1.6 billion. Watch him bring in twisted and, you know, misinterpreted and total omissions and mistranslation of books that only God knows where he got their translations from. Watch the circus.

ROBERT SPENCER: OPENING STATEMENT (7 minutes)
Thank you.

I think that I'm not going argue this point. I'm going to let the Qur'an do it, and the Qur'an says, "Men have authority over women, because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them." Now I would ask the learned imam, Mustafa Zayed, if that's a mistranslation or taking out of context... What is the context that would justify such a statement. "Men have authority over women, because God has made the one superior to the other." The question before us is, "Islam guarantees equality of men and women." Obviously, that flatly contradicts the Qur'an, and so I assume the Imam Mustafa, as a believer in the Qur'an, believes that God has made men superior to women.

The passage goes on, "Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts, because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them." And beat them. The learned Imam was very eloquent in saying that the Qur'an is the only scripture, which addresses believers as both male and female. That, of course, is flatly false, but we are not here, I would remind him, to discuss the Bible or Christianity. We are here to discuss Islam and whether Islam mandates equality of rights for women and men. And so, the fact is that the Qur'an does indeed tell believers that they should be distinguished, male and female. They should understand that as being a fundamentally important distinction and does address them as such. And it does not say that women can beat a disobedient man. It says that men can beat disobedient women.

The Qur'an also has this distinction of being the only scripture that mandates spousal abuse. The reality of the spousal abuse is such that in the Islamic world, it is relatively frequent and is taken for granted. And there is a very common hadith, which I'm sure the Imam will be able to refresh us about, in which some Muslims approached Muhammad and asked him what they should beat their wives with. And as it happens, he's brushing his teeth at the time, so he holds up his miswak, his toothbrush, and says, With this, which has been interpreted as meaning that the Muslim should only beat his wife in a symbolic way, and so as not to cause her any pain or cause her any harm. And that's a beautiful thing, I suppose relatively. A symbolic wife-beating seems to me to be perhaps less painful but still rather an odd concept. But, unfortunately, it's contradicted by other hadith.

For example, when Aisha, Muhammad's favorite wife, whom he married when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine and he was fifty-four, she recalls a time when Muhammad "struck me on the chest which caused me pain." That's Sahih Muslim #2127. And so it appears that he, himself, did not just use his toothbrush to beat his disobedient wife. And, of course, Muhammad, being the excellent example of conduct, that is, unfortunately, the behavior that is sanctioned, as having the example of the prophet behind it, as something that Muslims can and should, with profit, imitate. And so we see on Saudi television, from the kingdom of the two holy places, a place where it's very self-consciously dedicated to being obedient to every aspect of Islam. Actual television programs discussing the proper implements for wife-beating.

Now the problem here is not just wife-beating. The question before us again is about the equality of rights of women with men. In the Judeo-Christian, Western civilization, of course, while this has been a long battle and something that has many vicissitudes as the Imam pointed out, there is the fundamental idea that women and men are equal in dignity before God, and thus, should have equality of rights before the law. But in the Qur'an, it's very different. The Imam Mustafa pointed out that women could testify in court, but he did not bother to tell you about Qur'an's chapter 2:282, which says that "You should get two witnesses out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women such as you choose for witnesses so that if one of them forgets, the other can remind her." And on this basis, Muhammad himself, in a famous hadith told women that he had seen a vision of hell, and there were many more women in hell than men; and the reason why, he said, when the women indignantly asked him why that was, he responded that it's because women were deficient in religion and in intellect. And they asked him again, How is that? And he pointed to this verse in the Qur'an and said you're deficient in intellect, obviously, because your testimony is devalued; and deficient in religion because when menstruating, you're not allowed to pray in the mosque.

And so this was an inequality of intellect and an inequality of spirituality and inequality of rights before the law resulting from it. And so here again, the question before us is, does Islam guarantee equality of rights to women? Obviously, by the testimony of the Qur'an itself and Islamic Law and Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, it manifestly does not.

Chapter 4:11 of the Qur'an.says, "Allah direct you as regards to your children's inheritance. To the male, apportion equal to that of two females." Let me repeat that, "To the male, apportion equal to that of two females." How is that equality of rights? Now, I would remind you once again that I'm quoting from the Qur'an, and the Imam Mustafa may say that this is all out of context, but he cannot--at least if he has any interest in the truth, which, of course, not at all established--but if he does, then he cannot deny that these things are elements of Islamic Law to this day. And that in Islamic Law, as is the consensus, the ijma, of all the Madh'hab of the Sunnis, the schools of jurisprudence, it is agreed upon by them that a man should have greater inheritance rights than a woman, that a woman should not have the same value in her testimony as a man, and indeed is barred from testifying at all in cases of zena or sexual indiscretion, even if she is the victim. [Her] testimony is devalued altogether, and there is this mandate for inequality that manifests itself in many ways, which I am sure we will discuss. But the record of Islamic Law is clear, and so this is not the matter of some obscure village or out-of-context citations. This is a matter of the Qur'an itself as interpreted by mainstream Islamic authorities.

There is much more.

The Leftist dhimmi blog Harry's Place, which dabbles dilettanishly in counter-jihad poses while seldom missing an opportunity to denigrate and defame genuine counter-jihadists, has not surprisingly signed on to the Marxist antisemite Maryam Namazie's One Law For All hit piece on me, Pamela Geller, SIOA and SIOE. Now they have published a response from one of Namazie's accomplices, Adam Barnett, responding to my initial rebuttal to their attack piece, which Barnett cowrote. My initial response is here.

The beginning of this "response," "Adam Barnett’s response to Robert Spencer," from Harry's Place, August 16, is simply bizarre, suggesting that Barnett read in my rebuttal what he wanted to see there, rather than what I actually wrote:

Following the publication of ‘Enemies Not Allies: The Far-Right’, our new report which investigates his and similar organisations, Stop Islamization of America director Robert Spencer has invited One Law for All to ‘substantiate [our] charges, or withdraw them and issue a public apology.’ One could simply recommend that Mr. Spencer read our report.

A cheap rhetorical gambit. Anyone can play that game. I could easily, and, indeed, with more justice, charge Barnett with not actually reading my rebuttal -- as you will see as you read on.

Indeed, in his ‘rebuttal’, he writes as if he has answered all of these charges before.

I have no idea what this means. If I wrote as if I had answered all of those charges before, why did I bother to answer them in this context? But obviously, I did.

It’s therefore strange that he felt the need to reply to them at ‘11:53pm’ on a Sunday night,

This is the most bizarre portion of Barnett's piece. There is something wrong with replying on a Sunday night? 11:53PM PDT Sunday night is Monday morning in London, 7:53AM, just in time for Maryam Namazie and Adam Barnett and the Harry's Place gang to be tucking in to their fried bread with baked beans and black pudding and catching up on the morning news. What could be more convenient? Or is it that as a Marxist, Barnett has no work ethic and objects to my working so late on a Sunday night?

The prosaic reason why I answered so late on a Sunday night is that I had a late meeting that evening, as I actually happen to have noted here, and after it was over I saw several emails that had come in that afternoon and evening notifying me about Namazie's hit piece. So I answered it. Is Barnett implying that I was trying to bury my rebuttal by publishing it on a Sunday night? Then why did I have it published at FrontPage today?

I really have no idea why Barnett registered this weird complaint, or why it is echoed by a commenter at Harry's. Perhaps the Marxists-Have-No-Work-Ethic explanation is indeed the most cogent.

and to attempt to smear his critics as ‘racist anti-Semites’ and ‘supporters of Jihad’.

Note the sleight of hand and dishonesty: The phrase "racist anti-Semites," although it is in quotation marks, does not appear in my piece. I do call Namazie antisemitic, with good reason, and not a "supporter of Jihad" in general but a supporter of the jihad against Israel, but Barnett by placing these phrases in quotes is being either sloppy or dishonest.

Namazie has echoed Palestinian jihadist propaganda designed to demonize and ultimately destroy Israel. As has been documented here and elsewhere on numerous occasions, the Israeli Army actually scrupulously avoids targeting civilians, while the Palestinian jihadists launch attacks from civilian areas in order to try to draw retaliatory fire that will kill civilians and that they can then use for propaganda purposes. Namazie, in echoing these Palestinian lies, is aiding and abetting the Palestinian jihad, which is inherently antisemitic, rooted in Islamic antisemitism.

Notice that Barnett doesn't rebut the charges that Namazie is antisemitic and a supporter of the jihad against Israel. He just calls them "smears," as if that suffices for rebuttal.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Spencer hoped to prevent people from reading the report for themselves.

No, one could not be forgiven for that, given the fact that I have now published a link to that report at Jihad Watch and at FrontPage.

Barnett then spends a considerable amount of time smearing SIOE; it's indicative of how weak his position is that he spends a third of a piece billed as a "response to Robert Spencer" retailing charges against an organization that I have absolutely nothing to do with. I have no role in running SIOE and no hand in formulating its positions. I have never called for or supported the mass deportation of Muslims or the banning of the Qur'an, or called all Muslims liars -- not that I accept Barnett's version of SIOE's positions. Stephen Gash of SIOE responds to Barnett and Namazie here and in the comments field at Harry's Place.

- SIOA’s leaders have surpassed SIOE’s defence of war criminal Radovan Karadzic, (which included offering justifications for his actions), by defending Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, denying Serbian atrocities including the Srebrenica genocide, publishing the work of professional apologists for the Milosevic project, and in Spencer’s case working on an institutional level with such people to oppose an independent Kosovo.

Actually, Pamela Geller posted a piece that said quite clearly: “I am not defending Radovan Karadzic...” And also, Geller has never defended Milosevic at all; she has only expressed skepticism about some of the claims made about Serbian concentration camps – a skepticism that many journalists and historians share. It's the same thing with my "working on an institutional level with such people to oppose an independent Kosovo" -- I have written that an independent Kosovo would be a jihad base in Europe, and that is what it is already proving to be. Given that Namazie so credulously accepts Palestinian jihad propaganda, it isn't surprising that her associate Barnett would decry those who don't accept Balkan jihad propaganda; but to equate skepticism with support for Serbian war crimes is the tactic of a smear artist, not an honest analyst.

Also, Stephen Gash has sent me this:

I take exception to this piece of wilful misinterpretation and flagrant hypocrisy:-

Quote: “SIOA’s leaders have surpassed SIOE’s defence of war criminal Radovan Karadzic, (which included offering justifications for his actions), by defending Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, denying Serbian atrocities including the Srebrenica genocide, publishing the work of professional apologists for the Milosevic project, and in Spencer’s case working on an institutional level with such people to oppose an independent Kosovo.”

Firstly, SIOE’s ironically entitled article “The extraordinary rendition of Radovan Karadzic” complained that Karadzic would not get a fair trial and had indeed already been condemned by both Western and Muslim media before his trial had even started. One Law for All’s claim about “justifying Karadzic’s actions” clearly confirms SIOE’s complaint. Justifying the need for a fair trial is justifying his actions?

Secondly, it’s a bit rich to criticise SIOE for its “justifications” for Karadzic’s actions (800 years of Serbian history would not be allowed in Karadzic’s defence) then to mention an “independent Kosovo” as if this had nothing to do with Serbian history.

If this is One Law for All’s notion of justice, it begs the question what “One Law” are they campaigning for exactly?

It is certain that many of One Law for All’s supporters consider the Iraq War to have been started on a false premise (by saying this One Law for All will no doubt assert that SIOE claims the war was started on a true premise such is the way communists manipulate other’s statements). They may be interested to know that some Germans, at least, consider that the bombing of Serbia began with a lie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjP_9LOyBuk Documentary in 5 parts

Back to Barnett:

Ms. Geller has gone so far as to say that Bosnian Muslims killed themselves in order to ‘manipulate media coverage’, and refers to the 1995 genocide as a ‘propaganda lie’ which was ‘manufactured [by] the international community’ as part of ‘the ongoing blood libel against the Christian Serbs’. (p.42-43, 53-54 and here)

This sounds absurd, and Barnett wants it to: he had to lie about Pamela Geller's statements in order to create the absurdity. Did she actually say that "Bosnian Muslims killed themselves in order to ‘manipulate media coverage’"? Of course not. If you look at the actual post to which Barnett is referring, you will see that Geller is not saying that Bosnian Muslims committed suicide in order to manipulate media coverage, but killed their own in order to create the illusion of Serb attacks on civilians and thereby manipulate media coverage. The Palestinians do that, so why wouldn't jihadists in the Balkans? But of course, Namazie retails that Palestinian propaganda, so it is not surprising that her colleague would be a stooge for the jihad in the Balkans as well.

This is presumably what Mr. Spencer means when he writes of SIOA’s ‘opposition to the jihad in the Balkans and skepticism (sic) about some of the charges made of Serbian war crimes.’

"Sic"? Apparently Adam Barnett is so parochial and ignorant that he doesn't know that skepticism is the correct American spelling of the word. He is even more of a dim bulb than I thought.

- SIOA’s leadership has supported, defended and praised the English Defence League, (without equivocation until recently), and has promoted their events, published their statements and attacked their critics. (p.55-59)

Regarding the EDL we have always been consistent: we support them insofar as they reject racism, neofascism, antisemitism, etc., and root out such people from their ranks. When Barnett says "without equivocation until recently," he is simply lying, as our support has always come with that caveat, as it does for all groups and all individuals anywhere and everywhere.

Co-director Pamela Geller’s web log has featured conspiratorial articles regarding the President of America’s religion, his family, his sexual history, and the circumstances of his birth, and has likened his ‘stealth jihad on the White House’ to ‘an SS officer getting elected president during WW II’. (p.52-53)

Pamela Geller's criticisms of Obama are well documented in the book The Post-American Presidency -- substantiated with over 400 footnotes. Pointing out Obama's failures and nefarious alliances is not racism; her criticisms are accurate. Everything she wrote in that book has come to pass: Obama is busy earning his place in American history as our worst president. Pamela Geller never wrote about Obama's sexual history, but made an offhand statement in response to an oft-repeated rumor after Sarah Palin had been abused and lied about by the media for the umpteenth time. Here again, Barnett is lying in order to paint a dishonest picture of Geller's work.

In 2010, Robert Spencer defended his and Geller’s ‘colleague’ Joseph John Jay, who had recommended the ‘wholesale slaughter’ of Muslim civilians, including children, on the grounds that he had been ‘misinterpreted’. Spencer maintains this still, and Ms. Geller has recommended Jay’s writings as recently as July 2011. (p.51-51)

Here is where I wonder if Barnett, while charging me with not reading his smear piece, did not read my rebuttal. In it, I reported that "John Jay does not actually have any role in or position with SIOA, but be that as it may, the report is lying about him. In reality, he has written, in his inimitable fashion, 'i do not advocate carte blanche killing one’s liberal relative, nor all muslims. to assert differently is a lie.'"

I could go on, but I ought to address Mr. Spencer’s direct challenge regarding a quote of his which we included. Here is the quote, published on his Jihad Watch site in 2005: ‘there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists. While Americans prefer to imagine that the vast majority of American Muslims are civic-minded patriots who accept wholeheartedly the parameters of American pluralism, this proposition has actually never been proven.’

Writing today, Spencer claims ‘what [he] meant was there is no institutional distinction, so jihadis move freely in Muslim circles among those who oppose them and claim to do so’. However, when asked by a commenter on the original article in 2005 ‘how distinctions can be made’, Spencer replied: ‘That’s simple. Let American Muslims renounce all attachment to violent Jihad and Sharia, refuse all aid from Sharia states (chiefly Saudi Arabia), and cooperate fully with anti-terror efforts aimed at rooting jihadists out of American mosques.’ (p.52) Having thus identified all Muslims as suspects who are guilty until proven innocent, Spencer does not specify how to treat Muslims who do not ‘cooperate fully’, or who fail to make the prescribed disassociations. But based on his record and the company he keeps, I’m glad we’ll never have to find out what it might entail.

This vicious little smear is, in fact, entirely baseless. There is nothing sinister about calling upon Muslims or anyone else to obey the laws of this country, and his insinuation that some terrible evil must be what I have in mind for those who do not comply is not substantiated and cannot be substantiated by a single scrap of evidence from anything I have ever written. In my first rebuttal piece, I noted two of many instances in which I affirmed that Muslims in the U.S. are innocent until proven guilty (contrary to the explicit claim of his report); Barnett doesn't mention that. In the last chapter of my 2008 book Stealth Jihad I make a number of recommendations for what can be done about the problem of stealth jihad and Islamization -- none of which involve anything but working through legal channels to enforce existing laws.

So Barnett's vicious insinuation only masks the fact that he has absolutely nothing to go on. I knew Harry's Place was full of clueless and complicit Leftist dhimmis, but even they should be ashamed of running a piece that contains a libel of that order.

I think this meets Mr. Spencer’s challenge, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring all of this to people’s attention. I’m not sure how one squares the above with the claim that SIOA ‘stand[s] for the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for all people’. Perhaps Mr. Spencer will enlighten us.

Done. Now will Adam Barnett have the decency to retract and apologize, both for his report's smears and his new ones? I doubt it. After all, Namazie yesterday responded to my request for a retraction by saying: "This is politics. Yours is far-Right; why not own up to it. Much more respectable!" In other words, "I don't like your politics, so I feel free to lie about you." And lie she does, as does Barnett.

Here is the video of last night's debate (thanks to jzaik).

I am always surprised by how deceitful these Muslim spokesmen can be, and in this case, I think Moustafa Zayed knows that he is lying, and knows that he is lying poorly. Note his high state of agitation, increasing as the debate goes on. "War is deceit," as Muhammad said, but even on that score Zayed is not a very good warrior. Marisol has some apposite comments on the debate here.

And here again are the background ahadith I promised. In the debate, I referred to several ahadith that he challenged. About the first one he said that I was conflating two ahadith, one in which Muhammad said that the majority of people in hell were women, and another in which he spoke of women being deficient in intelligence and in religion. Zayed claimed that Muhammad did not speak of these two things together -- a minor and diversionary point, to be sure, since he didn't challenge the authenticity of either hadith, but in any case, even in that he was lying, as here is the hadith in which Muhammad speaks both of hell being filled with mostly women and women being deficient in intellect and religion:

Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:

Once Allah's Apostle went out to the Musalla (to offer the prayer) o 'Id-al-Adha or Al-Fitr prayer. Then he passed by the women and said, "O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women)." They asked, "Why is it so, O Allah's Apostle ?" He replied, "You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you." The women asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?" He said, "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?" They replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?" The women replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her religion." (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 6, Number 301)

Zayed also claimed that Aisha never said that Muhammad had struck her and caused her pain, and that I was misrepresenting the translation. Here it is from Sahih Muslim, translated by the Muslim scholar Abdul Hamid Siddiqui and posted at a Muslim Students Association website:

Muhammad b. Qais said (to the people): Should I not narrate to you (a hadith of the Holy Prophet) on my authority and on the authority of my mother? We thought that he meant the mother who had given him birth. He (Muhammad b. Qais) then reported that it was 'A'isha who had narrated this: Should I not narrate to you about myself and about the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him)? We said: Yes. She said: When it was my turn for Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) to spend the night with me, he turned his side, put on his mantle and took off his shoes and placed them near his feet, and spread the corner of his shawl on his bed and then lay down till he thought that I had gone to sleep. He took hold of his mantle slowly and put on the shoes slowly, and opened the door and went out and then closed it lightly. I covered my head, put on my veil and tightened my waist wrapper, and then went out following his steps till he reached Baqi'. He stood there and he stood for a long time. He then lifted his hands three times, and then returned and I also returned. He hastened his steps and I also hastened my steps. He ran and I too ran. He came (to the house) and I also came (to the house). I, however, preceded him and I entered (the house), and as I lay down in the bed, he (the Holy Prophet) entered the (house), and said: Why is it, O 'A'isha, that you are out of breath? I said: There is nothing. He said: Tell me or the Subtle and the Aware would inform me. I said: Messenger of Allah, may my father and mother be ransom for you, and then I told him (the whole story). He said: Was it the darkness (of your shadow) that I saw in front of me? I said: Yes. He struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you? She said: Whatsoever the people conceal, Allah will know it. He said: Gabriel came to me when you saw me. He called me and he concealed it from you. I responded to his call, but I too concealed it from you (for he did not come to you), as you were not fully dressed. I thought that you had gone to sleep, and I did not like to awaken you, fearing that you may be frightened. He (Gabriel) said: Your Lord has commanded you to go to the inhabitants of Baqi' (to those lying in the graves) and beg pardon for them. I said: Messenger of Allah, how should I pray for them (How should I beg forgiveness for them)? He said: Say, Peace be upon the inhabitants of this city (graveyard) from among the Believers and the Muslims, and may Allah have mercy on those who have gone ahead of us, and those who come later on, and we shall, God willing, join you. (Muslim Book 004, Number 2127)

Today on SunTV's The Source with Ezra Levant, I discuss how jihadis are trying to take advantage of the London riots.

Many thanks to the ever-superb Blazing Cat Fur for the video.

Instead of writing my book, I've been spending a good part of this afternoon in an illuminating email exchange with Scott Shane of the New York Times, who has written two articles blaming me for the Norway mass murders. In my response to the second one, I wrote: "How many times do you think Scott Shane is going to smear me in the New York Times (my comment on the first time is here) without bothering to even try to create the appearance of journalism by contacting me for comment?" That precipitated his first email:

1. Scott Shane to Robert Spencer:

Hi Mr. Spencer -- Just saw your recent post about being upset that I didn't reach you for comment. In fact, I tried on deadline and failed -- couldn't find contact info on your site, and looked for you via Nexis in Sherman Oaks, CA and left some messages for "Robert Spencer" there, though I gather now that I may not have been looking in the right place. I was glad to find that you had addressed the Breivik manifesto issue on your site, and I quoted that and recycled the comment when I mentioned you in the second article. I got this email address from a colleague and I hope it reaches you.

I'm not planning more articles mentioning you at the moment, but please feel free to call or email with any additional thoughts beyond what you posted. And in any case, I'd appreciate your sending any other relevant contact info in case you or your site do arise in another breaking story.

By the way, you have numerous and enthusiastic defenders who have taken the trouble to write to me with their thoughts. Plenty of abusive email, but I'm used to that, as I'm sure you are, too.

Thanks and again, sorry I didn't manage to reach you earlier.

Scott Shane

2. Robert Spencer to Scott Shane:

Dear Mr. Shane.

Thanks for writing.

There is a "Contact Us" box on the right side of the Jihad Watch front page that goes right to me. [Actually, it's on the left side. Sorry, Scott. -- RS]

In any case, my email is director@jihadwatch.org and office number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.

As long as I have you, may I ask why you thought it relevant to bring up Breivik and me in connection with a story about the government not wanting to tar all Muslims with suspicion for terror activity? Can you actually produce a single quote from me, out of 10 books, hundreds of articles, and 25,000+ blog posts in which I have actually done that? I can send you plenty in which I have explicitly denied that all Muslims were terrorist or pro-terror.

As for abusive emails, obviously I told no one to write to you, abusively or no, and yes, I get death threats and abuse in my email on a more or less daily basis. It's ironic, isn't it, that the one who is supposed to be the "hater" is the object of so much more "hate" than I could conceivably have had the energy to dish out (not to say that I accept the appellation)?

Cordially
Robert Spencer

3. Scott Shane to Robert Spencer:

Thanks. I stupidly missed the contact link.

On the other point, that part of the article was about the Obama administration's promise to create a collection of vetted material for teaching law enforcement and other officials the basics of Islam and related topics. I think very few Muslims would accept your books, which frankly do come across to most people as hostile to Islam, as fair and appropriate material to teach about their religion. The FBI was clearly embarrassed by this particular PowerPoint and said it is no longer used.

I'm sure it must have been unpleasant to discover that you were cited so frequently in Breivik's manifesto. But it was also, in my view, clearly newsworthy that your work and that of other American "counter-jihad" bloggers and writers appear to have influenced him so significantly.

Best

Scott

4. Robert Spencer to Scott Shane:

Thanks for your reply.

Are you aware of the OIC campaign to brand any and all examination of the ideology of Islamic terrorists as "hostile to Islam," and to criminalize it accordingly? My work shows what Islamic jihadists point to in Islamic texts and teachings in order to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims. Can you substantiate the charge that I display any hostility to Islam as such from anything that I have written? Hostility to the hatred of and persecution of non-Muslims, sure. Hostility to the oppression of women, sure. Hostility to the denial of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, sure. Shouldn't any person who values human rights have such hostility? Shouldn't you? And if I report how such outrages of human rights are justified in Islamic texts by Islamic theologians, as they are on a daily basis, does that make me "hostile to Islam"? Is it wrong for law enforcement officials to have knowledge of the ideology that motivates people who are working to commit terror attacks in the U.S.?

In reality, I did not influence Breivik at all. Read his manifesto, and you will find that he was plotting violence in the 1990s, before I had published anything about Islam. A useful video exposing his real agenda and showing how I could not possibly have influenced him is here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/08/why-anders-breivik-was-not-and-could-not-have-been-radicalized-by-robert-spencer-or-pamela-geller.html

I invite you to take 8 minutes and watch it, and tell me your impressions.

Also, Breivik cited many, many people. He cited Obama approvingly. He cited the New York Times. He cited Locke, Jefferson, Darwin, etc. He said he thought that his ilk should make common cause with the jihadists. Why did you not report on these aspects of his manifesto?

Cordially
Robert Spencer

5. Scott Shane to Robert Spencer:

Thanks, interesting video, though the smirking tone doesn't appeal to me. I do think a fair reading of Breivik's manifesto shows that he had embraced the view of Islam as a menace, or potential menace, to Western values that you and many others have also embraced. Obama, Locke, Jefferson and Darwin were cited, of course, but not nearly as often or as centrally as your work.

Trust me, if I had found dozens of approving citations of Al Sharpton or Glenn Greenwald or Karl Marx, I would have reported that.

Best

Scott

6. Robert Spencer to Scott Shane:

Smirking tone is well deserved, no? The biased mainstream media reporter didn't ring any bells with you? I guess the old adage about we're the last people to see our own faults holds true in this case. Anyway, your response is just counter-assertion, not reply. Wood demonstrated definitively that what motivated him was not my work, but other things altogether. Just saying "He was motivated by your work" is no refutation of the evidence he marshaled.

Also, Scott, if I have never advocated violence or anything but legal action, and some madman commits murder and cites me, what responsibility do I thereby incur? Martin Luther King consistently preached nonviolence. Yet the KKK blamed him for the Watts riots, saying that the rioters agreed with his philosophy and he had inspired them. Was he thus discredited? Would you say that no one should criticize anything, because some nut might mistake the criticism as a call to violence?

And finally, see this:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/horowitz-the-character-assassination-of-robert-spencer.html#comment-807394

Cordially
Robert Spencer

7. Scott Shane to Robert Spencer:

Well, those are good questions. Did Anwar al Awlaki incite violence 2002-2008, when he didn't call for violence, condemned 9/11 but also asserted that the US was at war with Islam? A lot of your fans would say yes, I suspect. Some also parse the words of CAIR leaders from some years ago for evidence of ill intent, but maybe that's as unfair as blaming you for Breivik!

8. Robert Spencer to Scott Shane:

Anwar Awlaki didn't call for violence from 2002 to 2008? He didn't to the New York Times, which praised him as a moderate, but he praised Palestinian suicide bombers in 2002, exhorted his hearers to Islamic martyrdom (i.e., killing unbelievers and getting killed in the process) in London in Dec. 2002 and Jan. 2003, was arrested in 2006 for kidnapping a Shi'ite and holding him for ransom, and sent a message to the Somali jihadists al-Shabaab in 2008, praising them.

If you're comparing me to Awlaki, please specify where I ever justified violence of any kind by anyone in any way analogous to any of that.

As for CAIR, I am not sure what you mean by "ill intent." I have never said they're inciting to violence. Their record is clear: Ibrahim Hooper said that he'd like to see the US Government become Islamic, but not through violence. And I am convinced on the basis of his consistent actions that he is pursuing that goal, but not through violence. Hooper believes in Sharia, I believe Sharia is oppressive. He fights for it, I fight against it. Neither of us are violent. If I am responsible for Breivik, he is responsible for Bassam Khafagi and the other CAIR officials who have found their way into violent jihad plots. But I have never asserted that, and don't believe it.

9. Scott Shane to Robert Spencer:

Fair enough.

10. Robert Spencer to Scott Shane:

Great. Thanks. I look forward to your New York Times article defending and exonerating me.

The Imam Moustafa Zayed is coming back for more: despite being thoroughly humiliated in our last debate (watch it below and see), and ignoring The American Muslim's cowardly plea to Muslims not to debate me, he contacted ABN and asked to debate me again. So we're on for Friday night, August 12 from 9 to 10:30pm EST. The topic will be "Islam guarantees women equality of rights with men." I will argue no, and Zayed, believe it or not, will argue yes. No doubt he will be ready with plenty of sand to throw in the eyes of the kuffar. But I will be ready, too.

This debate had originally been scheduled for last night, but I had neglected to note another speaking engagement for yesterday evening on my calendar, and thus inadvertently scheduled a conflict. When I discovered this, I asked that the debate be rescheduled, and it now has been. However, before the new date was set the wretched Zayed took advantage of my request to claim that I was ducking him, thus revealing his utter lack of honor and scruples, and detestable and desperate dishonesty. But after all, he can only hope to win by lying. Here is our first debate, and watch for the rematch on the 12th: