Showing a fine contempt for the fair dialogue that they claim to be trying to promote, the Council on American Islamic Relations has smeared me in a new press release:
The Washington-based council said the growing level of Islamophobic rhetoric in American society prompts some individuals to turn their hate-filled views into violent actions.
Just yesterday, CAIR urged a Los Angeles synagogue that hosted a speech by Robert Spencer, the operator of a virulently anti- Muslim website, to offer its congregation a more balanced perspective on Islam. Comments and articles on Spencer’s site, which is used as reference by a number of Islamophobic commentators, compare Muslims to animals and Nazis and portray Islam as an inherently violent faith that must be confronted.
New comments on that site today include “death to islam (sic),” “islam must be destroyed..destroy islam (sic),” “ISLAM = DEADLY PARASITE,” and “Islam IS the NAZISM of our generation.”
Although these comments were, I believe, taken from the thread on which I issued the challenge, CAIR has ignored my challenge to produce one false statement about Islam from any of my own writings. Once again, although I have written reams about Islam and terrorism, they don’t quote one syllable of my own writings. Instead, they have once again quoted things I didn’t write, selecting material from this unmoderated forum to suit their own ends, and ignoring postings from the same unmoderated thread that did not suit the smears they were trying to make, like this one:
“…the Qur’an is protected by God Himself, no one can change His words, and since the revelation was revealed to Muhammad, peace be upon him, the words have not been changed.”
In other words, what we have here at Jihad Watch is what is known as “free discussion.” CAIR may hate it, but it is protected by American law. I have removed some of the comments that are objectively offensive, as I routinely do when they are called to my attention. As longtime readers here know, many times I have told people that offensive comments are not tolerated and will be removed — when I see them, which is not all that often. I have often been tempted to end comments, but for a variety of reasons have not done so; and I certainly am not going to do so now, under pressure from this group that has shown so little interest in fairness or true dialogue. But I am not also going to be held responsible for material I did not write. Ibrahim Hooper, Hussam Ayloush, I challenge you again: quote me. The fact that you do not and cannot indicates that you know how empty and despicable your attacks on me are.
It is particularly despicable that CAIR is trying to associate me with attacks on innocent people. If CAIR really thinks I am encouraging such attacks, let it establish that from my own writings. My own writings.
Meanwhile, I just searched in vain on their website, where their first attack on me is now featured, for any condemnation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s genocidal call for the destruction of Israel, which both Iran’s President and Foreign Minister tied to Islam: “The world will see the anger of the Islamic world against this regime.”
If CAIR really believes that hate-filled rhetoric leads to violence, let it condemn Ahmadinejad. If CAIR really believes that hate-filled rhetoric leads to violence in America, let it condemn the vitriolic hatred of Jews and Christians that is taught in American mosques and schools.
CAIR has not condemned either one.