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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

New York Times concedes that Spencer and other anti-jihadists are not responsible for Norway murders

Jul 31, 2011 1:51 pm By Robert Spencer

After blaming me in a front-page story last Monday for the Norway massacre, the New York Times publishes a new piece today that concedes many of my principal points in defending myself against these charges. What will the dhimmi sycophants who have thrown in with the Times’ first position do now?

“The Rise of the Macro-Nationalists,” by Thomas Hegghammer in the New York Times, July 31 (thanks to all who sent this in):

AT first glance, the 1,500-page manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused of the terrorist attacks in Oslo, appears to be a fairly standard ideological treatise of the far right. The document, which Mr. Breivik posted online on July 22 just hours before the attacks and which he titled “2083 “” A European Declaration of Independence,” evokes several of the movement’s central themes and cites numerous right-wing ideologues….

A note about this “far right” and “right-wing” business: this is how I am routinely characterized, as are my fellow anti-jihadists — Hegghammer is merely following the herd. But what is the substance of this mainstream media moniker? Actually, there is no substance to it whatsoever. I have never taken a public position on any other issue besides jihad and Islamic supremacism. I’ve worked with people who are deeply religious and socially conservative and with people who are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan are atheists; Geert Wilders’ party is not justifiably called “right-wing” on any issue except jihad. Pim Fortuyn was a gay activist. Yet all of us and all the other anti-jihadists I could name are “far right” for the sole reason that we oppose the advance of Islamic law in the West. Yet note that in a spectacular manifestation of intellectual incoherence, the mainstream media also considers “far right” those who want to see Islamic law advance in the West and everywhere else — see, to take just one of many readily available examples, this Associated Press article that calls the pro-Sharia forces in Egypt “ultraconservative.”

And that reveals the substance of this media label: something that is “far right” or “right wing” or “conservative” simply means something that the hard-Left politically correct media elites don’t like, and don’t want you to like. They dislike both anti-jihadists in the West and Sharia supremacists in the Middle East, although they hate the former much more than they do the latter, whom they disapprove of but tolerate. After all, they do have their hatred of America and the West in common.

While Mr. Breivik’s violent acts are exceptional, his anti-Islamic views are not. Much, though not all, of Mr. Breivik’s manifesto is inspired by a relatively new right-wing intellectual current often referred to as counterjihad. The movement’s roots go back to the 1980s, but it gained substantial momentum only after 9/11. Its main home is the Internet, where blogs like Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs and Gates of Vienna publish essays by writers like Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Bat Ye”or and Fjordman, the pseudonym for a Norwegian blogger. Mr. Breivik’s manifesto is replete with citations of counterjihad writers, strongly suggesting that he was inspired by them.

Of course, by advocating the mass murder of European politicians, Mr. Breivik goes much further than any counterjihad ideologue has ever done, and his manifesto contains ideas and information that have no precedent in the counterjihad literature. For example, he provides extensive advice on how to build bombs and plan terrorist attacks. The leading counterjihad writers have virtually never advocated violence, and several of them have condemned Mr. Breivik’s actions….

Virtually? That’s weaselly. In fact, we never have. Ever. Still, I appreciate Hegghammer’s acknowledgement that Breivik’s manifesto contains “ideas and information that have no precedent in the counterjihad literature. For example, he provides extensive advice on how to build bombs and plan terrorist attacks.”

It also contains a call to make common cause with jihadists. But this sign of Breivik’s own deranged intellectual incoherence doesn’t fit the media demonization agenda, and so it has not been widely reported. Hegghammer does say this, however.

Indeed, the more belligerent part of Mr. Breivik’s ideology has less in common with counterjihad than with its archenemy, Al Qaeda. Both Mr. Breivik and Al Qaeda see themselves as engaged in a civilizational war between Islam and the West that extends back to the Crusades. Both fight on behalf of transnational entities: the “ummah” “” or “community” of all Muslims “” in the case of Al Qaeda, and Europe in the case of Mr. Breivik. Both frame their struggle as defensive wars of survival. Both hate their respective governments for collaborating with the outside enemy. Both use the language of martyrdom (Mr. Breivik calls his attack a “martyrdom operation”). Both call themselves knights, and espouse medieval ideals of chivalry. Both lament the erosion of patriarchy and the emancipation of women….

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