LGF posted this classification of “Islamophobes” from the MPAC-UK forum last week (apparently it originates with our old friend, the venomous and mendacious Umar Lee), and I was not going to comment on it, but since people keep sending it to me, here it is:
Category 1: The Seed Planters
Examples: Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis
Usual Profession: Academics
Main Motivation: ZionismCategory 2: The Theological Warriors
Examples: Robert Spencer, Craig Winn, Pat Robertson
Usual Profession: Christian preachers
Main Motivation: Religious bigotryCategory 3: The Media Voices
Examples: Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Ann Coulter
Usual Profession: Radio and TV personalities
Main Motivation: MoneyCategory 4: The Fringe
Examples: LGF, Joe Kaufman, Jewish Task Force
Main Motivation: RacismCategory 5: The Politicians
Examples: George W Bush, John McCain, miscellaneous Republican politicians
Usual Profession: Politicians
Main Motivation: Need to court the anti-Islam voteCould a similar system be used to classify British Islamophobes?
This list is stupid in many, many ways. Emerson is not an academic, but a journalist and researcher. I am not a “Christian preacher,” and defy anyone to find any Christian preaching on this site. Even my book Religion of Peace? was designed to combat the fashionable moral equivalence that saps the will of Westerners to defend themselves against the jihad — not to proselytize or to discuss the truth claims of Christianity and Islam.
Just as silly and inaccurate is the inclusion of people like George W. Bush and Sean Hannity on a list of “Islamophobes,” as if their only difference from people like Craig Winn and Pat Robertson were motivation.
But the crowning stupidity of this paranoid little Enemies List is its utter unreflectiveness and displacement of responsibility. In this view “Islamophobic” or Islamorealistic people can only possibly be energized by base motives. You don’t see “Main Motivation: Muslims Blowing Things Up” anywhere on this list. It never occurs to the originators and propagators of this list, or they are trying very hard to make sure it never occurs to you, that maybe “Islamophobes” are born every time a Muslim shouts “Allahu akbar” and murders someone in the name of Islam. Every time a Muslim in the West declares that Islam will soon dominate and subjugate non-Muslims, another Islamorealistic person opens his eyes.
But go on thinking it’s all about Zionism and religious bigotry and money and vote-getting, guys, if that makes you feel better. Just be aware that as long as you do, and as long as you continue to refuse to clean house and separate yourselves from the Islamic jihadists and Islamic supremacists you profess to abhor, you will just be creating more and more “Islamophobes.”
And that, of course, may be just the game, because victim status, as our own CAIR well knows, can be very, very useful.