Jihad Watch reader (and first-class link referrer) Twostellas has informed me that there is a CAIR Action Alert against me:
Action: Islam-Basher to Appear on C-SPAN
ISLAM-BASHER TO APPEAR ON C-SPAN
ACTION ALERT: Robert Spencer, the publisher of “Jihad Watch,” will appear Sunday, August 20, on a PRE-TAPED C-SPAN “Q&A” segment.
In his book “Guide for Catholics,” http://watchjihadwatch.blogspot.com/2006/05/bias.html
“Islam itself is an incomplete, misleading, and often downright false revelation which, in many ways, directly contradicts what God has revealed through the prophets of the Old Testament and through his Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.. . .For several reasons. . .Islam constitutes a threat to the world at large.
The subtitle of Spencer’s forthcoming book claims Islam is “the World’s Most Intolerant Religion.”
Please watch the program and then contact C-SPAN to express your concerns about the network’s decision to provide air-time to someone whose website promotes bigotry and hatred.
SEE: http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/?ProgramID=1086
CONTACT: viewer@c-span.org
COPY TO: info@cair.com
A few observations:
1. CAIR’s source for this is Watching Jihad Watch, a site whose anonymous operator has thoroughly discredited himself to any fair-minded observer by lying many times, in quite obvious fashon, about my positions and my work, and who is so inveterately dishonest that he has even lied about revealing his own name. Details here (scroll down). (Addendum: His lies continue. A reader just emailed to tell me that his latest post, from August 20, excoriates me for not pointing out that Muslim tipsters helped expose the British airline plot. Oops: I pointed that out on August 17. See also here.)
2. The “Action Alert” quotes a book that I cowrote several years ago, ignoring the two bestsellers that I wrote on my own. This is fair enough, as I certainly do not disavow Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, but I do think it’s interesting that they can’t find anything they can use in A) books I am fully responsible for, with no coauthor; and B) books that sold ten or twenty or 100 times more copies than Inside Islam.
Note also the substance of their scare quote. It is, in sum, an affirmation of Christian belief and of non-belief in Islam. If CAIR succeeds in presenting that as “bigotry” or “Islam bashing,” they will have essentially ruled out of polite society and the public discourse any affirmation of a religious faith other than Islam and concomitant rejection of Islam. Obviously Islam does contradict the Old and New Testaments, or it would not be a religion separate from Christianity and Judaism. One might only find the pointing out of this offensive if one subscribes to the supremacist Muslim view that the original Jewish and Christian Scriptures were Islamic texts, and that the present versions of them are corruptions of those Islamic texts. In other words, CAIR is trying to impose the Islamic perspective on the rest of us under the guise of cries of “bigotry.” This is a matter of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and more.
Let me repeat that: CAIR is condemning as “bigotry” a simple affirmation of Christian faith.
They also include part of a quote in which Daniel Ali and I say Islam constitutes a “threat.” But this should be obvious also. Even if the jihadists do twist and hijack Islam as CAIR claims publicly, they arise from within Islam. And CAIR has done little or nothing effective to counter this threat among Muslims.
3. It’s ironic that CAIR would take umbrage at the subtitle of my forthcoming book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion, in the context of trying to silence me and scold C-Span for giving me airtime. How tolerant!
4. This website does not promote bigotry and hatred. This website tells the truth about how Islamic jihadists promote bigotry and hatred, as well as violence against non-Muslims. I challenge CAIR — Nihad Awad, Ibrahim Hooper, Hussam Ayloush, anyone — to produce even a single statement that I (not unmoderated commenters, since Muslims as well as non-Muslims, and jihad supporters as well as anti-jihadists post here) have written that says something false about Islam. I also would be happy to debate anyone. Nihad, Ibrahim, Hussam, you can contact me at director@jihadwatch.org.
5. CAIR exhorts its minions to contact C-Span at the email link above. I don’t usually do this, but I think in the name of freedom of speech that it is worth asking you to write to C-Span also, at viewer@c-span.org. Tell them what you think of the interview with me last night. Tell them whether or not you think I promoted bigotry and hatred, or said anything false at all.
You might also wish to tell them about CAIR. CAIR recently dropped a suit contesting these propositions — evidently they could not disprove them:
· “Let their [sic] be no doubt that CAIR is a terrorist supporting front organization that is partially funded by terrorists, and that CAIR wishes nothing more than the implementation of Sharia law in America.”
· CAIR is an “organization founded by Hamas supporters which seeks to overthrow Constitutional government in the United States and replace it with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection.”
· “ACAIR reminds our readers that CAIR was started by Hamas members and is supported by terrorist supporting individuals, groups and countries.”
· “Why oppose CAIR? CAIR has proven links to, and was founded by, Islamic terrorists. CAIR is not in the United States to promote the civil rights of Muslims. CAIR is here to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States and convert our country into an Islamic theocracy along the lines of Iran. In addition, CAIR has managed, through the adroit manipulation of the popular media, to present itself as the “˜moderate” face of Islam in the United States. CAIR succeeded to the point that the majority of its members are not aware that CAIR actively supports terrorists and terrorist supporting groups and nations. In addition, CAIR receives direct funding from Islamic terrorists supporting countries.”
· “CAIR is a fundamentalist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the United States Constitution and the installation of an Islamic theocracy in America.”
CAIR is with this Action Alert again behaving like a schoolyard bully, a thug engaging in intimidation tactics. I challenge CAIR to drop the attempt to bully C-Span and silence me — which they are trying to without demonstrating that anything I have said is false or damaging in any way — and to meet me instead in an honest and open debate. Write to C-Span and let them know what you think.