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Jihad Watch

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

BBC: “Virtually all Muslims see violent Jihadism as a perversion of Islam”

Jan 23, 2015 12:34 pm By Robert Spencer

Stop disgracing our MohammedTrue to form for the mainstream media, the BBC here takes up the problem of jihad terror and Islamic supremacism and concludes with a determined optimism born of ignoring unpleasant facts that there is not really any problem at all.

Comments interspersed below.

“Blasphemy, jihad and victimhood,” by Owen Bennett-Jones, BBC, January 22, 2015 (thanks to Gardener):

The Charlie Hebdo murders marked a tipping point.

By selecting a target that symbolised freedom of speech, the Kouachi brothers – who killed 12 people in their 7 January attack on the satirical magazine in Paris – compelled many Europeans to take a stand.

Media houses that had declined to publish images of the Prophet Muhammad have now done so.

Indeed. And many more declined to do so, but Owen Bennett-Jones doesn’t mention them. And Leftists and Islamic supremacists (rolled into one in Mehdi Hasan) used the Charlie Hebdo massacre to continue their long war against the freedom of speech, arguing that just because can say what we wish, we shouldn’t, but should be careful not to offend Muslims just as we are (in their fictional world) so careful not to offend Jews and Christians. Owen Bennett-Jones doesn’t mention that.

By exposing that much of the West’s self-censorship on issues such as blasphemy has been driven not only by reluctance to cause offence but also by fear of physical attack, the brothers obliged editors and publishers to find their courage.

And the massive French marches showed that millions – including many Muslims – wanted to express their support for Western values.

Even if there were Muslims marching in support of Charlie Hebdo and Western values in France, Owen Bennett-Jones doesn’t mention that there were many demonstrations against Charlie Hebdo and the freedom of speech in Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Iran. In Chechnya, 800,000 marched. In Niger, anti-Charlie Hebdo protesters torched forty-five churches. On the Temple Mount, Muslim mobs burned the French flag. There were no Muslim marches anywhere in the world in favor of Charlie Hebdo and the freedom of speech.

But that can’t hide the deepening divide in European societies – just listen to the number of times you now hear the words “we” and “they”.

While virtually all Muslims see violent Jihadism as a perversion of Islam, there is increasing tendency in the Western media to suggest that violence might be integral at least to a strand of Islamic thinking.

For Owen Bennett-Jones, it is a “tendency in the Western media to suggest that violence might be integral at least to a strand of Islamic thinking.” In other words, this idea is coming from non-Muslim Westerners, not from Muslims. Owen Bennett-Jones ignores the numerous statements of Islamic jihadists, such as Abubakar Shekau just recently, explaining that they are acting in accord with the texts and teachings of Islam — shouldn’t self-proclaimed moderate Muslims at least address these and try to counter them, instead of simply dismissing them outright — especially in light of the fact that well over a thousand young Muslims from Western countries have gone to wage jihad with the Islamic State? If “virtually all Muslims see violent Jihadism as a perversion of Islam,” how did this perversion of Islam become so widespread among Muslims in the West? And what of the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah themselves? Owen Bennett-Jones shows no curiosity about what they actually say.

Right-wing, media-monitoring blogs are celebrating the shift, praising any programmes and articles that hint that Islam is regressive.

Owen Bennett-Jones offers no examples of this, because there aren’t any, because there aren’t any “programmes and articles that hint that Islam is regressive,” and hence no “right-wing, media-monitoring blogs are celebrating” anything at all.

Of course, most people still accept that the vast majority of Muslims are just as horrified and upset by militant Islamist violence as anyone else. But Muslims are under increasing pressure.

Most people still accept this because they’re constantly beaten over the head with it by people like Owen Bennett-Jones. But the fact is, we still have not seen any evidence that it is so. There is no large-scale movement among Muslims to combat “militant Islamist violence” and the ideology that gives rise to it. Muslim organizations that are dedicated to opposing “militant Islamist violence,” like Zuhdi Jasser’s group, have tiny followings among Muslims, and more non-Muslim members than Muslim ones. The major Muslim organizations in the West have made absolutely no effort to institute programs in mosques and Islamic schools that teach young Muslims to reject on Islamic grounds the understanding of Islam proffered by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and the rest. Those organizations are significantly more concerned about the chimera of “Islamophobia” than they are about the spread of jihadist beliefs among Muslims. If “the vast majority of Muslims are just as horrified and upset by militant Islamist violence as anyone else,” they are singularly uninterested in actually doing anything about it.

Extremist views

For years, they have routinely been asked by journalists to condemn violence. Now questions are also being asked about mainstream Muslim opinion on doctrinal issues such as blasphemy.

Many Muslims find now themselves described as extremists not because they support violence but because of their religious views.

When a shopkeeper recently told a BBC radio programme that he loved the Prophet more than his children, many of his fellow countrymen found that difficult, if not impossible, to understand.

This is actually not a problem. I don’t care who he loves. I care only if he is willing to kill on that basis.

The blasphemy issue highlights the depth of the divisions. And while blasphemy used to be conceived as an offence against God, today it’s often seen as an offence against the feelings of religious people.

Today in Pakistan, the country with the most blasphemy cases before its courts, the most commonly alleged blasphemous offence is damage to copies of the Koran.

Those accused are sometimes hacked to death by enraged mobs.

Because blasphemy is such an incendiary issue, it is sometimes used to settle scores.

A disproportionate number of cases are brought against members of the Hindu, Christian and Ahmedi minorities. But many Sunni Muslims also get accused.

One Karachi businessman found himself charged with blasphemy for putting the business card of an unsuccessful job applicant named Mohammed in the bin.

When they were in power, the Afghan Taliban prohibited not only visual images of the Prophet but also foreign TV crews filming any living thing.

The restriction they claimed was in line with Islamic teachings, although the Taliban hardly helped burnish their religious credentials by making exceptions for Taliban ministers who wanted to make important statements.
Limiting free speech

While Westerners tend to view such bans as obscurantist and ridiculous, it was only 30 years ago that some local councils in the UK tried to ban cinemas showing Monty Python’s religious satire Life of Brian.

How many people did enraged Christians murder over Life of Brian? I keep forgetting.

In Ireland, long dominated by the Catholic Church, remnants of such attitudes remain in the constitution, which bans “the publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter”.

I oppose such laws on free speech grounds. But until the Catholic Church starts beheading people for blasphemy (in 2015, not 1492), they’re really a moot point.

In 2009 the Irish parliament passed legislation that spelt out the offence in more specific terms: “publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusing or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion”.

They adopted this in 2009? That is likely to have been a move to appease the country’s growing Muslim population, not its dwindling number of committed Catholics.

Supporters of the clause hoped that the inclusion of words such as “intentionally” and “substantial” would underpin freedom of speech by setting out possible grounds on which to mount defences of allegedly blasphemous acts.

But to their dismay, Pakistan picked up the wording and proposed to the UN Human Rights Council that it be adopted internationally.

The attempt failed and, fearful of becoming model of how to limit free speech, Ireland is due to hold a referendum that would remove the blasphemy article from the constitution with a view to replacing it with legislation on hate speech.

Same thing. “Hate speech” laws are blasphemy laws in new garb. “Hate speech” is blasphemy against the accepted politically correct sensibilities.

The extent to which blasphemy and hate speech overlap is contested. Some argue that blasphemy should be stripped of its religious associations and that to insult anything held sacred by another is blasphemous.
Muslim sensitivities

But this somewhat abstruse, semantic argument risks concealing the issues at stake – should religion be afforded special legislative or even constitutional protection?

And how can religious extremists be stopped from reacting to offence with violence?

Before the cartoonists were gunned down in Paris, the only Westerners fully engaged in these questions were hard-core freedom of speech advocates.

Violent demonstrations in Afghanistan protesting against US soldiers desecrating Korans were relegated to down-bulletin stories that left many viewers baffled as to why everyone was getting so worked up.

That has changed. Blasphemy is the lead story now with political chat show hosts asking: “What is it? How come people take the issue so seriously?

And shouldn’t secular West European countries worry about racist or misogynist speech as much as blasphemy?”

Such discussions almost always develop into a row about power. Political Islamists and Western liberals often argue that Muslim sensitivities about public challenges to their faith and identity are informed by the fact that over time they have been colonised, invaded, tortured and falsely imprisoned by Westerners.

The US and Israel, they argue, are the subject of so much invective and even violence because, for all their talk of human rights, they hypocritically use their own strength to oppress Muslims, whether in Iraq or Gaza. Furthermore, it is argued, Muslims are singled out for abuse.

Thus, while the Charlie Hebdo management sacked a cartoonist for anti-Semitism, it did not hesitate to publish anti-Islamic cartoons.

These arguments about the unequal distribution of power are bolstered by socio-economic surveys within Western countries. Muslims are often at the bottom of rankings measuring people’s health, employability and educational levels.

Critics of political Islamism often respond to these arguments by saying – not very convincingly – that attempts to explain violent jihadism are akin to condoning it.

But they also make more substantial claims – that while Islamists exaggerate and even wallow in their sense of victimisation, they don’t get so angry about the persecution of and discrimination against minorities in Muslim-majority countries.

After all, Christians in the so-called Islamic State and Shias in Saudi Arabia are even more marginalised than Muslims in Europe.

Wow. “Christians in the so-called Islamic State” are “even more marginalised than Muslims in Europe”? Where in Europe have non-Muslims painted letters on Muslim homes so as to mark them for extortion or murder? Where have Muslims in Europe had their women kidnapped and forced into sex slavery? Where in Europe have Muslims been forced to convert to Christianity, or driven out of their homes and massacred? Owen Bennett-Jones’ bland assertion that Christians in the Islamic State have it even worse than Muslims in Europe, as if there were any equivalence between the treatment of the two groups at all, is a grotesque demonstration of his absolute moral myopia.

Islamism’s opponents also ask whether the religion should be granted unique protections just because some of its adherents feel weak and vulnerable. Might affording Islam special protection from criticism and satire even be racist?

No. Islam is not a race, however much the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media insist otherwise.

After all it seems to be predicated on the view that the Muslim community is incapable of responding to criticism and satire with calm, rational debate.

Where has it done so? I myself have tried to engage with Muslims in a rational manner numerous times, and have invited many to debate. Usually in response I get contempt, abuse, and adolescent insults from the likes of Qasim Rashid, Reza Aslan, Mehdi Hasan, Shiraz Maher, and many, many others. These puffed-up empty suits engage in calm, rational debate only with people who already agree with them and will not expose their intellectual bankruptcy.

It all depends how you look at it. How, for example, do you interpret the fact that when the Kouachi brothers fled the Charlie Hebdo offices they yelled: “We have avenged the Prophet?” Some see that as a sign that Islam teaches not peace but violence.

But others reckon the brothers were in fact using the blasphemy issue as a vehicle to express the frustration, anger and powerlessness that come with being the sons of Algerian migrants, alienated and unable to get a fair chance in the society they were born into.

Yeah, that’s it. It’s all the fault of non-Muslims. Shower more money on Muslim communities, Owen Bennett-Jones, and see if it ends the jihad. Owen Bennett-Jones here ignores yet another thing: the fact that study after study has shown that jihadis are wealthier and better educated than their peers. CNS News noted in September 2013 that “according to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, ‘Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.’ One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, ‘Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.’”

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Filed Under: blasphemy, Featured, journalistic bias Tagged With: bbc, Owen Bennett-Jones


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Comments

  1. moses says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 12:39 pm

    mainstream media always covering up for islam they should be ashamed

  2. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 12:45 pm

    The argument rages in the news entertainment industry. So what? We’ve gone from tiny minorities to vast majorities. Two sides of the same coin. Let’s move from tin coins to gold ones, and publicly explore what the Holy Ko-Ran says, what the Haidths are and what they say, what the sacralized histories say, what the Ulema said centuries ago and what they say now.

    Instead of having the same face on both sides of the tin coin, let there be a gold one with taqiyya on the one side and the truth on the other.

  3. Walter Sieruk says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 12:50 pm

    If so many Muslims really see the violent jihadism as a perversion of Islam then these poor people must have a strong case of denial concerning the violence and killing that is so much part of the essence their religion. For deadly violence is taught is the Koran as in Sura 9:11. and 47:4.

  4. voegelinian says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    ““Blasphemy, jihad and victimhood,” by Owen Bennett-Jones, BBC”

    Undoubtedly, in a back office meeting mulling over the decision of whether to publish this piece (any piece showcasing the problem, then lavishly obfuscating the problem out of existence will do), the chief editors and publisher weighed whether the by-line should read “Mohammed Egbaly” or “Rasheed Ameer” or even “Alice Guernsey-Khan” — or whether “Perhaps, old boy, for an op-ed of this sensitive nature, we ought not have recourse to the old guard, something thoroughly British, lest our readership already showing signs of restlessness out there in the Midlands begin to balk…”

    “What about Owen Bennett-Jones…?”

    “Splendid, old chap!”

    • Neil Jennison says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 1:15 pm

      You old cynic Vogey !

      Probably true though.

    • Mirren10 says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 7:16 pm

      Undoubtedly, in a back office meeting mulling over the decision of whether to publish this piece (any piece showcasing the problem, then lavishly obfuscating the problem out of existence will do), the chief editors and publisher weighed whether the by-line should read “Mohammed Egbaly” or “Rasheed Ameer” or even “Alice Guernsey-Khan” — or whether “Perhaps, old boy, for an op-ed of this sensitive nature, we ought not have recourse to the old guard, something thoroughly British, lest our readership already showing signs of restlessness out there in the Midlands begin to balk…”

      “What about Owen Bennett-Jones…?”

      “Splendid, old chap!”

      Alas, Owen Bennet-Jones is not a pseudonym for a mohammedan; he is yet another example of a British ‘journalist’ who has no ability to reason.

      http://www.apmstations.org/promotion/hosts/hosts.php?pgm_code=bnh

      • voegelinian says

        Jan 24, 2015 at 2:34 pm

        “Alas, Owen Bennet-Jones is not a pseudonym for a mohammedan”

        Huh? That was my point.

  5. Jeff says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 12:57 pm

    Islam promotes 7th century thinking, barbarism, and tribalism. It can only ever be such a thing. The attempts by the media’s charade to try and bring Islam into the 21st century, by ignoring this fact, will only always fail.

  6. Angemon says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 1:03 pm

    While virtually all Muslims see violent Jihadism as a perversion of Islam

    So this is what passes for journalism nowadays?

    Le sigh…

    • Myxlplik says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 1:13 pm

      Meanwhile France is scrapping plans to downsize its military, and is planning to deploy on French soil. Sounds like mobilization for civil war, against someone doing sit-ups as their jihad?

      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/21/france-to-spend-490m-to-hire-2600-new-counter-terr/

    • Ross says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 2:12 pm

      The problem is that the “minority” of Muslims who agree with Jihad, beheadings, and Sharia, amount to about 300 million.

      Saying “Virtually all…” is at best a stretch.

  7. Dave J says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    (Banner in photo telling the West to “be civilized”).

    You have got to be kidding!

    Owen Bennett-Jones is a moral idiot, obviously.

  8. zebo says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 1:32 pm

    If you google “muslim opinion poll” you will find some dozen polls at “the religion of peace.com”
    which proove that that almost half of all muslims support violent thing in the namevof islam

    (but i guess in new doublespeak terms “virtually all” means” 30-60%)

  9. Marco says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 1:58 pm

    But stealth jihad and implementation of sharia on everyone they are for. But guess that didn’t get mentioned.

  10. Salah says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 2:17 pm

    Western World, be civilized?? Yeah, right!

    (Short video)
    The Civilzed vs. the Savage.

    http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2011/09/us-and-them-nous-et-eux.html

  11. Oliver says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 2:26 pm

    Not the BBC’s finest hour. On the other hand, they did, finally, publish the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cover, and they produced this good documentary recently about the rise of extremist Islam in the UK, in which, for example, a (genuinely) moderate Muslim who is involved with a body aimed at promoting a postive, integrated Islam, says that she is worried that extremism is now becoming “almost mainstream” in the UK:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-0_UkJnS8Y

    In France, where I live, I am also encouraged by the fact Waleed Al-Husseini, Palestinian atheist refugee in Paris, who has written a book (‘Blasphémateur”), is getting increasing press and air time. I suggest liking the facebook page of the Ex-Muslims of France group he has started: https://www.facebook.com/Exmuslims.of.France?fref=ts

    • Oliver says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 2:28 pm

      Ps. to clarify, he is appearing on TV debates and national newspaper columns etc, saying there is no mystery to the Charlie Hebdo killings – they did it because they are Muslims and the Koran and hadiths support it

  12. RonaldB says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    “While virtually all Muslims see violent Jihadism as a perversion of Islam”

    This logic for this statement is clear. Violent jihad is non-Islamic. Hence, anyone advocating violent jihad is not a Muslim. Therefore, no Muslims advocate violent jihad. QED.

    Let’s take another question. Is the piece by Owen Bennett-Jones a news piece, or is it an editorial? It is miserable as a report on the news: it shamelessly explains the events in terms of the view of Bennett-Jones, and makes unattributed, unsupported statements.

    It is even more miserable as an editorial. It assumes as fact questionable statements, and is very weak on any logic connecting his viewpoint even to the facts he purports to represent. For example, he states:

    “But others reckon the brothers were in fact using the blasphemy issue as a vehicle to express the frustration, anger and powerlessness that come with being the sons of Algerian migrants, alienated and unable to get a fair chance in the society they were born into.”

    making a whole raft of half-stated, unsupported, illogical statements. He connects being the sons of Algerian migrants with being frustrated, angry, and powerless. Algerians have been immigrating into France for half a century or more. This statement is unbelievable in its stupidity. The author would fail immediately in a journalism class taught by any professor with integrity.

  13. Oliver says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 2:41 pm

    It may be true that only a minority of Muslims support offensive jihad. On the other hand, I understand the Islamic teaching is just that it’s not appropriate as long as Muslims are too weak and divided for it to be successful… I saw a Muslim saying as much on a forum recently

    • Oliver says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 2:42 pm

      I think also that some other Muslims either are moderates and don’t agree, or are ignorant of this aspect of Islam and believe it to be a “religion of peace”

      • voegelinian says

        Jan 24, 2015 at 2:35 pm

        You’re full of thoughts and speculations, aren’t you?

        • Angemon says

          Jan 24, 2015 at 2:41 pm

          voegelinian posted:

          “You’re full of thoughts and speculations, aren’t you?”

          Pot, meet kettle.

  14. Jaladhi says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 2:42 pm

    Ha, ha, ha,… what a bunch of liars!!! They want us to believe this – the fact is all of them believe violent jihad to be totally in accordance with islam, Quran and Mo/allah!! They just keep lying about all this Muslim violence and the dumb kuffars keep believing them and keep towing the same line. And any telling the truth about Islam and Muslims are branded bigots and racists and of course Islamophobes!!

    • Oliver says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 2:45 pm

      From what I’m reading/ hearing lately, though a lot of Muslims are majorly ignorant of what the Koran/ hadiths/ Sira actually support and so actually think it’s a peaceful religion, because the way they practice it is peaceful (saying a few Arabic prayers, giving to charity etc).

    • Oliver says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 2:51 pm

      I’m reading atheist Palestinian Waleed Al-Husseini’s book at the moment, and he says that in Palestine it was seen as a bad thing for ordinary Muslims to actually study religion, and most people knew practically nothing of the Islamic texts – and he lost his faith through deciding to study them and asking questions about them, that the imams couldn’t answer in a satisfactory way

      • Michael Copeland says

        Jan 23, 2015 at 3:17 pm

        IQ al Rassooli says that ninety per cent of muslims know absolutely nothing about the Koran.
        Muslims are only required to memorise and recite Koran passages in Arabic, a language most do not speak, and without being told what they mean.

        • Jaladhi says

          Jan 23, 2015 at 3:41 pm

          My question is if Muslims do not know what is in Quran then where are they learning to riot for perceived insult to Mo/allah. Then their imams emerge as the culprits!! They follow their imam to the letter as he is a rep of Mo/allah and will do whatever the imams say. That is why you see Muslims come out in rage after the Friday prayers when their imam has told them what the kuffars have done to their prophet.

          I think its an excuse to say most Muslims don’t know what is in Quran, hadith and Sira( probably true for the latter two) but they know very well to wage jihad against us to propagate their religion!!

        • Oliver says

          Jan 23, 2015 at 3:49 pm

          Exactly. I keep reading testimonies of ex-Muslims, who say “I actually read the texts and realised it’s not a religion of peace”. However I think we should also bear in mind how hard it is to not follow the usual beliefs and practices in some countries. In Walled’s book he says once he decided he didn’t believe in Allah and Mohammed – because he carefully read the texts, which most people didn’t do, — all his friends ostracised him. |And when he blogged criticising Mohammed and the Koran he was arrested and put in prison…

        • Angemon says

          Jan 23, 2015 at 4:07 pm

          Oliver posted:

          “I keep reading testimonies of ex-Muslims, who say “I actually read the texts and realised it’s not a religion of peace”.”

          That reminds me of a story Mr. Spencer mentioned in some videos. It’s about a pakistani muslim who told him “I’ve memorized the whole quran, and one of these days I’m going to buy a translation to know what it means”.

        • Oliver says

          Jan 23, 2015 at 3:50 pm

          I’d add, he wasn’t even in Gaza, he was in the West Bank, supposedly more modern and tolerant…

    • voegelinian says

      Jan 24, 2015 at 2:38 pm

      “the fact is all of them believe violent jihad to be totally in accordance with islam, Quran and Mo/allah!! ”

      Jesus, finally some potable water here in this asymptotic desert called Jihad Watch comments! Thanks Jaladhi, for telling it like (we must reasonably suppose) it is.

  15. Myxlplik says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    I’ve gotten to the point that I just don’t believe anything they say in the MSM, essentially they are irrelevant, other than for the purpose of disseminating propaganda.

  16. Michael Copeland says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 4:54 pm

    The BBC has left a long trail of misinforming articles. Here are just a few:

    http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/5171-bbc-fog-making-soldier-murder-in-afghanistan
    http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/6139-deception-at-the-bbc
    http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/6578-bbc-draws-a-veil-over-islamic-state
    http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/6541-a-caliphate-in-90-secoonds

  17. Michael Copeland says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 5:04 pm

    The BBC has left a long trail of misinformation.
    “BBC draws a veil over Islamic State” at LibertyGB exposes an example.

  18. Vox populi says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 5:06 pm

    Right. “Virtually all” means to me 99.9 %. 0.1 percent of 1. 2 billions is 1.2 Millions. It took 12 for 9/11. We can therefore have 999’999 times another 9/11, then according BBC it will be over. I feel suddenly very, very better …. is this so called “british humor” ?!?!???

  19. albert says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 5:07 pm

    No-one in Britain will be surprised that the Bolshevik Broadcasting Company would come out with something like this, once world renowned for being impartial the BBC is nothing but a mouthpiece for Islamic fundamentalism and anti Semitism.

    • Oliver says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 5:35 pm

      Watch this, it might improve your opinion of the BBC. I think it’s dawning on them that radical Islam is a problem : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-0_UkJnS8Y

      • pumbar says

        Jan 24, 2015 at 12:37 am

        Too little, too late Oliver. If I had my way the entire rotten edifice would be pulled apart and privatised (I’d make sure we still got Top Gear though).

  20. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 5:27 pm

    Western world be civilized! Stop disgracing our Mohammed.

    I agree. Let’s publicly examine him instead. In place of cartoons of him we would see the Holy Prophet’s history as a thief, murderer, rapist, sex slaver, pedophile, terrorist and more. All this could be easily done by quotes from the Islamic scriptures.

    Thus silly cartoons of him would be replaced by his grim facts.

    • Oliver says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 5:38 pm

      That bit where Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah says he personally had a trench dug and then had all the males over puberty of a captured tribe brought out and then beheaded them into it, was one of the less admirable episodes…

  21. Canadian Patriot says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    Followers of Islam, the most backward and barbaric religion on the planet, telling us, Westerners, to be civilized. Talk about hypocricy!

    • Jaladhi says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 7:43 pm

      They don’t know what “civilized” means!! In Islam everything is reversed, evil is good and good is evil, civilized is barbaric and barbarians are civilized, and on and on, on similar lines!! Talk about delusion and hypocrisy – thy name is Islam!!!

  22. AnneM says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    NO BBC, this is a fathful following of Islam.

    • VictorMc says

      Jan 24, 2015 at 4:26 am

      The BBC is an utterly clueless pro Muslim anti-Semitic organisation. I have a feeling they only employ kids under 20 years old. They have gone down the pan so badly in recent years and a big percentage of the British public want this taxpayer funded organisation sold off.

  23. JMB says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 6:15 pm

    Let me get this right; Muslims can be up in arms and commit murder over some rather stupid infantile cartoons. BUT, They stay strangely silent about all the jihad and terror which they (Muslims) claim that is giving their religion a bad name and even claim is not part of Muslim. Why are they not out there protesting against jihad and terror?

  24. Michael Copeland says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 6:36 pm

    “frustration, anger and powerlessness that come with being the sons of Algerian migrants, alienated and unable to get a fair chance”?
    Herring value? Not much. Couldn’t the author do better?
    Here is a more florid example: this is Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, chairman of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought (RABIIT), with a whole flock of Bedouin-approved fashionable scapegoats:

    “From what we have witnessed, it seems to me that the primary causes of the current tension and conflict in Nigeria are not inherently based in religion but rather, rooted in a complex matrix of political, social, ethnic, economic, and legal problems, among which the issue of justice – or the lack of it – looms large as a common factor.”

    Now that is better. These goats are proper red herrings.
    http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/6442-for-peace

    • Will Doohan says

      Jan 23, 2015 at 10:15 pm

      Anytime the leftists or ‘journalists’ use the term ‘it’s complex’, they mean to imply that either the reader or listener is some sort of simpleton compared to them, or that the issue not only doesn’t have but can never have a simple solution.

      I go on alert to recognize bullshit when ever i encounter the phrase.

  25. Anon says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    Long article and interspersed commentary. What I mean by that is that there is virtually NO-ONE other than Robert Spencer explaining all this in such DETAIL. There are a few others but Robert consistently provides a level of detail that would win any debate.

  26. Arthur says

    Jan 23, 2015 at 10:51 pm

    What I don’t understand is this: Islam contains passages that can be ‘peaceful’ and (more, superseding) passages that are ‘violent.’ If a person wanted to have a religion that had less or no violence in its written word, they could clearly choose, from their heart, any number of other religions.

    Islam is an ideology and faith, not a race, so one CHOOSES to remain in it, join it, or leave it (with consequences, of course). So every adult Muslim alive has chosen to remain in a religion with both peaceful and (overriding) violent fundamentals. Can we not hold each individual responsible for their choice? Does their choice not reveal something about who they are?

    I argue, they are no less responsible for their choice than any who choose the path to violence and hate, particularly when they have been educated as to what their choice really means. Those who choose violence will not get my sympathy or pardon.

    • Oliver says

      Jan 24, 2015 at 2:09 am

      That might be literally true, but in some Islamic countries if you say you no longer believe, or change religion, you will be ostracised by everyone, and possibly arrested for apostasy. .

      • voegelinian says

        Jan 24, 2015 at 2:47 pm

        “in some Islamic countries if you say you no longer believe, or change religion, you will be ostracised by everyone, and possibly arrested for apostasy. .”

        One implication there (and there’s no way of verifying it — and certainly no way to verify specifics about it) points to a broad human rights tragedy; but why is it our responsibilty to fix? The point & problem of it all is that even if there is such a tragedy, it is inextricably intertwined and enmeshed with a much broader and deeper problem that is increasingly endangering our societies — and the safety of our societies should be paramount, and not be hampered by a neo-Wilsonian Western Man’s Burden to “help” untold millions of Muslims we suppose are “victims” of Islam (and, as I noted above, cannot pinpoint anyway, with adequate reliability).

        At this juncture in the problem & point, along comes the seemingly no-nonsense “counter-terrorism expert” (whether with actual degrees and Think-Tank Credentials, or just some civilian blowhard who has “experience”) with a deft goalpost-moving spasm: why, it’s in our pragmatic self-interest, don’t you see, to indulge in sweeping assumptions about hundreds of millions of Muslims and presume we can read their minds and know they are all “ignorant of their own Islam” and that furthermore they are yearning masses seeking to escape, if only the West would help them…! Yes, that’s the ticket! (A one-way ticket on the protracted train wreck we’re already on, in fact, under a new and improved baggage claim of being “Counter-Jihad”…)

        • Angemon says

          Jan 24, 2015 at 3:31 pm

          Oliver posted:

          “in some Islamic countries if you say you no longer believe, or change religion, you will be ostracised by everyone, and possibly arrested for apostasy.”

          and voegelinian replied:

          “One implication there (and there’s no way of verifying it”

          Oh really? “There’s no way of verifying it”? Of course that what Oliver posted is verifiable. This is an astonishing lapse of reason from a seasoned Jihad Watcher (a JihadWatch Watcher in fact). What that response quoted above fails to factor in is the mountain of evidence JihadWatch has been churning out day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, indicating to anyone whose skull is not too thick (or whose semi-conscious affection for certain aspects of PC MC is not consciously resisted) that apostasy is punishable with death in islamic law, and that people who openly apostate from islam in islamic countries have shorter lifespans.

          You don’t even need to go and check the penal code of islamic countries, voeg, because you’re sitting on… What is it that you call it, voeg? The “Mountain of Evidence that is Jihad Watch over the years”? The “grotesque mountain of data about Muslims reported here for years at Jihad Watch”? The “dismally dismaying mountain data reported at Jihad Watch”?

          No, I think that in this case “the increasingly inconvenient, ever growing mountain of evidence to the contrary” fits like a glove.

          http://www.jihadwatch.org/search_gcse?q=apostasy

          Perhaps voegelinian’s refusal to admit the treatment given to muslim apostates in islamic countries just goes to show he must have been staring at the mirror the day he allegedly “coined” the term “asymptotic” to describe those who claim to be anti-islam, yet still in one way or another, and to one degree or another, harbor the PC MC virus in their system. Voeg’s asymptotic tendencies need not be pronounced; sometimes they can reflect merely a twitch or spasm, like in this particular example – “oh, we can’t verify what apostates from islam go through in islamic countries”. Voeg spent a great deal of time making a big show of being politically incorrect, oh-so-though on islam and muslims (going as far as to create a blog, JihadWatch Watch, to attack and deride JihadWatch contributors and commentators for allegedly being too soft on islam and muslims), and acting like he despised PC MC, but when the rubber met the road, the seemingly no-nonsense “expert”, the self-proclaimed doctor, suddenly manifested a telltale tic of PC MC himself.

          Shame on you voeg. Shame. On. You.

  27. Michael Copeland says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 4:51 am

    “the vast majority of Muslims ….virtually all Muslims…” These unbacked assertions are slipped in to impart a sort of democratic reassurance. This is mistaken: Islam is not defined by polls, nor by a show of hands on the shop floor. Polls, and unbacked assertions, can be interesting, but they make no difference to what Islam is.

  28. albert says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 5:37 am

    I have conducted a poll( well, thought of every BBC “news” bulletin for the last 15 years) which clearly shows that all Muslims in the UK think that the BBC is an organisation they can well and truly take the P*SS out of and yet still rely on for that organisations unquestioned blindingly slavish support.

  29. Gamaliel says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 6:00 am

    Owen you would give Algerian Jihadis a chance woudn’t you? Owen, would you hire a Jihadi? You would go to an operating room with Jihadi doctors right?

  30. DrJohn says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 6:28 am

    The UK has given in to Islam supported by both the socialists and so called conservatives politicians. The BBC has always been an organ of the ultra liberal left and even the people’s hope in UKIP is subsiding as they move increasingly to a position of political correctness. My green and pleasant land is now finished along with the rest of Europe. Our hope is in Israel and the USA to fight and win the war against Islam. God Bless America.

  31. duh_swami says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 6:39 am

    While virtually all Muslims see violent Jihadism as a perversion of Islam,

    Exactly how does this kuffar know that? It’s not possible to know that…This guy is a big BS’er…This kuffar speaks for virtually all Mahoundians? When did they hire him to do that?

  32. BC says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 8:21 am

    The BBC is so obviously partisan in favour of immigration that it put son programmes where they portray illegal migrants as doing somehing heroic!

  33. Brother Mark:) says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 10:17 am

    “Even if there were Muslims marching in support of Charlie Hebdo and Western values in
    France,”

    Just to be fair about this, the above statement would seem to contradict this which is written soon after:

    “There were no Muslim marches anywhere in the world in favor of Charlie Hebdo and the freedom of speech.”

    I think we need to get the story straight on this…..

    Thank you.

    Brother Mark:)

  34. thomas pellow says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 11:47 am

    Teh BBC is very Islamophilic;

    It supports open-door, mass immigration from Islamic countries into the UK, Europe, and the West.

    It uses euphemistic language to censor aspects of Islamofascism;

    and BBC hires Muslim journalists, including Al Jazeera ones, to present TV series for Islam.

    The BBC is a dangerous, publicly-funded, global political organization, which propagandises for
    Islamic interests.

  35. mortimer says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 1:15 pm

    Owen Bennett-Jones is either lazy or he is hiding what he knows about jihad or both.

    His hypothesis that jihadism is a perversion is not supported by facts (perhaps hearsay…but that is not good reporting).

    He has expressed opinion based on unconfirmed hearsay opinions. He has made no effort to disprove the hearsay by testing it against written documents.

    Owen Bennett-Jones is a lazy, therefore a very poor and inaccurate journalist.

    The editors who publish such unverified opinion about Islam are negligent and not serving the public well. Their bosses should fire them or demote them.

  36. Champ says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 2:41 pm

    BBC: “Virtually all Muslims see violent Jihadism as a perversion of Islam”

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I see this as another reason NOT to trust *any* muslim.

    • Champ says

      Jan 24, 2015 at 2:48 pm

      o0ps: another reason *why* NOT to trust any muslim ..because the “why” is very important 🙂

  37. Linda Rivera says

    Jan 24, 2015 at 4:06 pm

    On the Temple Mount, Muslim mobs burned the French flag — the holiest place on earth, the Jewish Temple Mount, given by God to Jews for His worship only, was horribly defiled by the followers of the Blood Cult of Mohammed.

    Muslims riot and murder over cartoons of a MAN. Muslims INSULT Almighty God, defiling the sacred Temple Mount – I’m extremely angry.

    • ayatollahowmany says

      Jan 25, 2015 at 5:45 am

      Please DON’T. The exact same ‘outrage’ muslims instantly invoke when they are ‘insulted’.

      Of course you won’t riot, pronounce ‘fatwas’ or offer rewards for killing- but righteous indignation
      plays the same games THEY play.

  38. Bruce says

    Jan 26, 2015 at 2:03 am

    I think that RS’s phrase, “moral myopia,” describes Bennet-Jones’s article quite well. One statement of B-J’s, though, was not countered:

    “Thus, while the Charlie Hebdo management sacked a cartoonist for anti-Semitism, it did not hesitate to publish anti-Islamic cartoons.”

    “Anti-Semitism” is a term that is vague enough so that it is misused in arguments like this one quite often. Technically, it means a prejudice against people who speak a Semitic language, so that Anwar Sadat once said, reasonably enough, that he couldn’t be anti-Semitic, since he was a Semite himself. However, when he was young, he was certainly a Jew-hater of the first rank, and that’s what the term has meant traditionally in Europe. But what is a “Jew”? It ought to mean “someone who embraces Judaism,” but in the ’30s and ’40s millions of Jews who had lapsed, or become secular, or even converted to Christianity, suddenly discovered that Jews were a “race,” and targeted for extermination.

    If someone at Charlie-Hebdo was fired for being “anti-Semitic,” then it must have been for race hatred against the Jews, not for being against Judaism as a religion – the cartoonists were against all religion, and certainly included the Torah alongside the Bible and the Koran in their depictions of scriptural toilet paper. As most of us on this thread, including RS, would agree, race hatred is not OK, against Jews, Arabs, Pygmies, Caucasians, or anyone. It is Jihadist Islam that is the enemy, and Islam, as RS keeps trying to explain to the MSM, is NOT a race. For B-J to conflate “anti-Semitism” (race hatred against Jews) with cartoon criticism of a religion (Islam) is false equivalence, and another case of “moral myopia.”

    • Angemon says

      Jan 26, 2015 at 5:17 am

      Bruce posted:

      “If someone at Charlie-Hebdo was fired for being “anti-Semitic,” then it must have been for race hatred against the Jews, not for being against Judaism as a religion”

      The guy they sacked, Maurice Sinet, is a leftist, anti-capitalist, self-proclaimed anti-semite. He wrote a column where he said that Sarkozy’s son was converting to Judaism and marrying a Jewess to advance in life. He was asked to apologize and he replied that he’s rather to cut his own balls than apologizing. After being fired he filed a wrongful termination lawsuit and won,

      • Bruce says

        Jan 26, 2015 at 8:54 pm

        Thanks, Angemon, for the info. It sounds like I wasn’t too far off the mark.

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