Who writes of the “stubborn, feckless resistance of Hamas,” an anti-Israeli jihadist terrorist group? Astonishingly, it is Georgetown University ethics professor and Catholic priest Drew Christiansen, a man like many Georgetown academics who pairs distinguished credentials with abiding antipathy towards Israel and apologetics for Islam.
Christiansen is the former Jesuit weekly America’s editor-in-chief and director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Office of International Justice and Peace. His resume can thus impart considerable authority to his causes. Accordingly, he recently addressed on September 12 yet another event against “Islamophobia” at Georgetown’s Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU).
Notwithstanding Christiansen’s erudite pedigree, his views concerning Islam and Israel are not at all nuanced. His priestly colleague, the late eminent conservative scholar and commentator Father Richard John Neuhaus, already discerned in 2008 that America “under its editor, Fr. Drew Christiansen, has an apparently irrepressible urge to engage in bashing Israel.” The same outlook dominates a National Catholic Reporter blog column begun in 2014 by him and his coauthor Ra’fat Aldajani, described by Christiansen as a “Palestinian-American who represents the majority Palestinian view.”
The pair unequivocally describe Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians as the “West’s last colonial war.” Apparently oblivious to longstanding Arab attempts to destroy an Israel condemned as illegitimate, these authors claim that “Israeli occupation of Palestinian land” after Israel’s 1967 Six Day War victory is the “root cause of the conflict.” This occupation is “illegal,” they proclaim, even though it resulted from Israel’s defensive war and is legitimated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. As properly interpreted, this resolution calls upon Israel to make undefined territorial withdrawals while receiving in return “secure and recognized boundaries.”
Not heeding Israeli legal claims to the Jewish ancestral heartland of Judea and Samaria captured by Israel in 1967, Aldajani and Christiansen deem Israeli settlements here “more properly ‘colonies’ as the French call them.” This Israeli “predatory land grab” also includes Jerusalem and “Israel’s illegal and internationally rejected claim” to the entire city unified by Israel’s 1967 victory. “No amount of insisting that all of Jerusalem is Israel’s ‘undivided and eternal capital’ will change the reality that it never will be,” the pair writes, who call for renewed division of the city into the capitals of Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Aldajani and Christiansen’s condemnation of Israel extends beyond 1967 to Israel’s 1948 independence war. “Israel was built on the forced expulsion of Palestinians in what historian Ilan Pappe has described, in the book of the same name, as ‘the ethnic cleansing of Palestine,’” the pair writes. They describe the March 10, 1948, Plan D (Dalat) of pre-independence Jewish military leaders as a “now well-documented plan for expulsion of noncombatant Palestinians that included direct attack and intimidation.”
Yet leading, left-leaning Israeli historian Benny Morris clearly refutes his fellow Israeli Pappe’s distortion of Plan D, a strategic outline that references the expulsion of Arab villages from Israeli territory only in cases of military hostility. Others have noted that Pappe inverts historical reality, attributing to Israelis ethnic cleansing goals actually desired by Israel’s aggressive Arab neighbors who sought to abort nascent Israel’s existence. “At best,” Morris summarizes, “Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest,” an appropriate accusation given that The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine contains fabricated quotations.
Aldajani and Christiansen describe Plan Dalet as establishing what “has for too long been the Israeli way of war: domination by obliteration.” While the authors note indiscriminate Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, their condemnation of such “war crimes” focuses on how “Israel has not shared modern Western scruples about civilian deaths in wartime.” Indeed, Israeli “subjugation of a despised neighboring people” and “disdain for Palestinian life prompts a reciprocal response by groups like Hamas.”
Aldajani and Christiansen’s febrile invective particularly highlighted Israel’s 2014 Gaza conflict with Hamas. Israel’s “[r]epeated attacks on places of refuge, including specifically designated U.N. compounds, are a scandal,” the commentators wrote. Israeli destruction of Gaza apartment buildings was a “flagrant demonstration of Israel’s disregard for civilian immunity in wartime.”
The real “Israeli way of war” involving considerable, well-documented efforts to spare civilians in conflict differs significantly from Aldajani and Christiansen’s imaginations. Fewer than half of Palestinian casualties in the 2014 Gaza conflict were civilian, a ratio no other country, including the United States, has matched. By contrast, Hamas’ “flagrant…disregard for civilian immunity in wartime” uses human shield tactics to transform United Nations schools and apartment towers into military bases.
While Aldajani and Christiansen slander Israel’s jus in bello conduct, the bloggers actually defend Hamas’ jus ad bellum for waging war against Israel. For Hamas, the 2014 “Gaza conflict was one of survival” given the “slow strangulation of the Israeli blockade” and the “suffocating conditions under which Gazans are condemned to live.” “[F]or any other people, Israelis included,” the “pain inflicted by the octopus-like stranglehold of the Israeli embargo of Gaza…would provide a legitimate cause” for self-defense. Hamas “conditions for a cease-fire, namely an ending of the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the opening of Gaza’s borders, are legitimate.” “Even with Hamas in power, if there had been no embargo of Gaza, there would have been no rockets fired into Israel,” Aldajani stated to Christiansen in an introductory interview.
Aldajani and Christiansen’s absurdities once again obscure the realities recognized by a July 2011 United Nations report on Israel’s May 31, 2010, maritime seizure of a Turkish ship seeking to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. “Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza,” making Israel’s naval blockade a “legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea,” the report stated. In contrast, almost all humanitarian aid enters Gaza by land.
Although criticizing an “unsustainable humanitarian and economic situation of the civilian population” in Gaza, the report welcomed Israel’s land-based “efforts to ease its restrictions on movement of goods and persons to and from Gaza.” Perhaps such easing explains a March 2015 report on rising obesity in Gaza, despite Hamas’ predilection for diverting intended humanitarian aid to military uses. An estimated 600 Gaza millionaires also profit from smuggling tunnels,
For Israeli-Palestinian peace, Aldajani and Christiansen call for “negotiations in which the two sides meet as equals, as other insurgents have with their onetime rulers” contra the United Nations report concerning Gaza alone. While the “specific circumstances of Gaza are unique…Gaza and Israel are both distinct territorial and political areas. Hamas is the de facto political and administrative authority in Gaza.” Thus the Hamas-Israel “conflict should be treated as an international one for the purposes of the law of blockade.”
“Israel will sooner or later have to negotiate with Hamas as part of the resolution of the conflict, terrorist organization or not,” Aldajani stated to Christiansen. “Menachem Begin, one of Israel’s most prominent prime ministers, headed the ‘terrorist’ Stern Gang during the 1948 war,” Aldajani stated, confusing Begin, leader of the Jewish paramilitary Irgun, with his fellow Israeli prime minister and Stern leader, Yitzhak Shamir. More troubling than factual errors is Aldajani’s equation of such Jewish groups that used violence against British and Arab enemies in the name of an independent Israel with Hamas and its charter threatening Israel with genocide.
“Most of the world recognizes the Palestinian cause as just,” Aldajani and Christiansen nonetheless simplistically state. Palestinians “have lived on the land of historic Palestine since time immemorial,” the pair writes of a population formed by numerous population flows into a territory named by the Roman Empire “Palestine” after the Philistines. Aldajani and Christiansen praise Palestinian leaders for “keeping the Palestinian cause alive through some very challenging decades,” without explaining how this involved anything more than vicious terrorism. While the bloggers describe the 1987-1993 First Intifada as “mostly nonviolent,” evidence shows that the “intifada was violent from the start.”
By contrast, Aldajani and Christiansen judge that the “dream of a democratic Jewish homeland has morphed into a nightmare of ethno-nationalist extremism.” “The Israeli occupation of Palestine is a long-lasting tyranny” in which Israelis “control and exploit Palestinian water supplies,” the pair writes while citing a common but unfounded canard. Ignoring economic data concerning Israel’s various, diverse communities, the bloggers claim that “institutional discrimination…has relegated Arab-Palestinian citizens to the second-class citizenship.”
Israel’s “occupation” evokes from Aldajani and Christiansen the “duty to resist grave public evils, like genocide, ethnic cleansing and the massive violation of the basic rights of entire peoples.” The pair therefore supports limited Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) measures “not intended to de-legitimize the State of Israel, but rather to oppose Israeli settlement and business activities in the Palestinian Territories.” This naïve delimitation of a vicious BDS movement seeking Israel’s destruction accompanies the authors’ equally fatuous approval that the 2009 “Kairos statement called for the liberation of Palestinians from the yoke of occupation.” Yet as the Central Committee of American Rabbis noted in 2010, Kairos’ radical Palestinian drafters created a “factually, theologically and morally flawed document” containing “explicit supercessionism and inherent anti-Semitism.” Aldajani and Christiansen’s support for radical anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Zochrot does not surprise.
Affecting voices crying in the wilderness, Aldajani and Christiansen suggest that ignorance blinds most Americans to the duo’s assessments of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Most Americans remain unaware of “Jewish dispossession of Palestinians even prior to the establishment of the state of Israel,” the bloggers claim. In reality, Zionist settlement actually stimulated Arab immigration into the pre-Israel Palestine Mandate.
“Insidious racism colors perceptions of the conflict” between Israel and Palestinians, Aldajani and Christiansen add, while citing presidential candidate Donald Trump’s address to the American-Israeli Political Action Committee. “Trump used the worst sort of stereotyping to claim that ‘in Palestinian society, the heroes are those who murder Jews,’ and that ‘in Palestinian textbooks and mosques, you’ve got a culture of hatred that has been fermenting there for years.’” Yet abundant documentation of Palestinian society verifies Trump’s supposedly “racist and bigoted” claims.
A clue to Aldajani and Christiansen’s thinking comes from their telling claim that “easily Israel’s most balanced newspaper” is Haaretz. Although “considered to be the paper of note by outsiders…the Israeli equivalent of the New York Times,” one Israeli commentator notes, Haaretz is “utterly unrepresentative of the Israeli public and political system at large.” While Haaretz’s English-language website in 2008 received a million monthly users, only 66,000 Israelis subscribed to the paper and Haaretz accounted for only 6.1 percent of the daily newspaper market in the latter half of 2013.
Israel Media Watch has noted that “Haaretz is not so much a newspaper as an ideological tract” for a “far-left agenda,” often featuring “gross inaccuracies.” Haaretz has published false allegations of Israel forcing contraception upon Ethiopian Jews and one Haaretz columnist compared Israeli fascination with Israeli-American Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt to fascism. Pro-Israel media watch dog CAMERA has also found that English-language Haaretz stories often omit facts discussed in the original Hebrew version, thereby biasing the news for Haaretz’s international audience. Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg stopped reading Haaretz in 2016, stating that “when neo-Nazis are e-mailing me links to Haaretz op-eds declaring Israel to be evil, I’m going to take a break, sorry.”
Haaretz goes well with Aldajani and Christiansen, as CAMERA once caught the pair deceptively suggesting that Israel’s Christian population was declining. The bloggers referenced in 2014 Rateb Rabie, a cofounder with Christiansen of the anti-Israeli Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF). Rabie noted that the “percentage of Christians in contemporary Israel has declined from 20 percent of the population at the time of Israel’s founding to 1.5 percent today.” These statistics, while true in relative terms, conceal an absolute growth in Israel’s Christian population during the same period of over 200 percent.
Aldajani and Christiansen also wrote in 2014 that in legislation under consideration in Israel’s parliament, “Arab Christians in Israel will be required to carry an ID card marking them as Christians.” Additionally, “Christians will also be eligible to be drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces” (IDF). Yet the ultimate law recognized on identification cards Israel’s Christian Arameans according to their Aramean nationality, not religion. The law also provided for mailing notices to Israel’s Christians in order to inform them of voluntary IDF enlistment opportunities.
These errors cast doubt upon Aldajani and Christiansen’s numerous benign assessments of the Islamic faith from which so many threats like Hamas to Israel and others arise. The bloggers write that a Western-Islamic “civilizational divide is at its root an opinion harbored by those who really know very little about Islam.” Not surprisingly, the pair praises fraudulent, error-prone Edward Said’s “precedent-setting book Orientalism” for having “exposed and criticized biased western attitudes and portrayals of Muslim and Arab cultures.”
Concerning caliphates past and present, Aldajani and Christiansen write that the “early military expansion of Islam did not include subjugation and conversion of conquered territories, but contented itself with collecting taxes.” The brutal implications of the jizya tax within a wider system of oppression for non-Muslims remain unstated within Aldajani and Christiansen’s description of “Caliphates…as tolerant centers of sophisticated culture.” The bloggers dismiss the “Islamic State’s [IS] bankrupt claim to ‘Muslim’ ideology” that has “misquoted and misrepresented Islam, cherry-picking verses from the Quran and sayings of the Prophet.” Yet expert judgments disagree, while Egyptian observers of Sunni Islam’s most renowned university, Al Azhar in Cairo, including an alumnus Islamic law scholar, have noted considerable similarity between IS and Al Azhar doctrine.
In IS’ current northern neighbor Turkey, Aldajani and Christiansen see in Fethullah Gülen an “adept of Sufi Islam, a mystic, and an advocate of nonviolence.” The “high moral standards of his followers, their competence and standing in society” along with his private school network show an “inspired Muslim cleric who believes Islam does not have to turn its back on the West and Western science.” More thorough, critical observers see in the movement of this Georgetown University benefactor an “Islamic Supremacist Cult” that “bills itself as a proponent of tolerance and dialogue but works toward purposes quite the opposite.”
Concerning Israel’s Palestinian opponents, Aldajani and Christiansen overestimate secular trends in a culture dominated by Islam. “Rooted in the Arab Renaissance of the 1920s and ‘30s, the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] and Fatah, its leading party, are essentially secular,” the pair writes in outdated ignorance of Fatah’s decades-long, widespread Islamization. “Palestinian Arabs,” Morris has noted, “like the world’s other Muslim Arab communities, are deeply religious and have no respect for democratic values” but seek a “Muslim Arab–dominated polity to replace Israel.”
Aldajani and Christiansen’s views on Israel and Islam complement a broader leftwing outlook raising many political and theological objections. The pair has lauded President Barack Obama’s extremely dubious “impressive achievements such as health care reform, the Paris climate agreement, rapprochement with Cuba and the nuclear deal with Iran.” Unbeknownst to many, the latter agreement has caused “a series of diplomatic victories that in a less poisoned time would be feted as proof of his foreign policy prowess.”
In contrast, Aldajani and Christiansen cast criticism upon America’s Christians and conservatives. A “multitude of prominent conservatives, both elected officials and the media figures…tell their followers what to believe every day” the bloggers write, evoking the longtime leftist slur of ill-informed, easily-duped right-wingers. In America, “all our greatest domestic terrorists” (Timothy McVeigh?) were Christian, the bloggers assert without naming specific names and the slightest shred of evidence linking Christian belief to such heinous murderers. Nonetheless, “America has evolved and changed positively” with measures like “legalized gay marriage,” Father Christiansen and his blogging partner write for the National Catholic Reporter.
Christiansen’s leftism extends beyond his blog. He endorsed a leftwing religious group’s report (Be Not Afraid) condemning orthodox Catholic groups for opposing the disbursement of Catholic Church charity funds to pro-abortion and pro-homosexual groups. He also signed a 2013 letter opposing a grant to Catholic University of America by billionaire libertarian philanthropist Charles Koch. Along with Christiansen, the letter’s “signatories include a who’s who of former Catholic leaders who presided over an era of weak Catholic identity,” noted the Catholic Cardinal Newman Society.
Aldajani and Christiansen did not go without rebuttal at National Catholic Reporter, where Catholic writer Michael Sean Winters criticized the pair’s writings on Israel as “tendentious at best and inflammatory at worst.” Winters confirmed concerning Christiansen “one thousand percent certainty that he is not an anti-Semite.” Nonetheless, the “catalogue of mistakes and misrepresentations and misunderstood history and completely missing political context that Christiansen and Aldajani claim is analysis…could be put to good use by an anti-Semite.”
No matter Christiansen’s intentions, his views on Israel, Islam, and other matters are more sophomoric than priestly or professorial. Whatever his sacerdotal and academic gifts, political analysis is not one of them; given his past track record, any such future pontifications should meet with considerable grains of salt rather than any false magisterial aura. Unfortunately for today’s college students, Christiansen’s biases and shortcomings are hardly unique in Georgetown University’s hallowed halls (consider here, here, here, and here) and beyond.

ich says
Just because he has a collar does not mean hes smart lol.
He is obviously a total wannabe Muzzie.
I am betting hes a tad perverted too.
He looks like a pedo
jihad3tracker says
GEORGETOWN UNIVERISITY IS WHERE A.C.M.C.U. IS LOCATED. Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal gave $20 million more than a decade ago to start taqiyya there.
Robert put up many posts in the last several years about traitors John Esposito and Nathan Lean — two of the major dogs staffing that propaganda resource.
Look it up — along with their BRIDGE INITIATIVE — one of those “dialogue and understanding” fictions, which never, of course, have any truly open sessions with Christians and Jews asking hard questions of Muslims.
So, now we have further evidence, in the case of this professor, that FACULTY MAY WELL BE BOUGHT OFF WITH MUSLIM MONEY, TOO.
Llibrarian 50 says
The $20 million received in 2005 marked the beginning of organized anti-Israeli protests and propaganda on campus. This donation was the second largest donation in GU history. The money was used to expand a Muslim center named after the prince, a nephew of one of the Saudi royal family
Carmel says
Maybe he should convert then. There are cute little boys in Paradise.
Shane says
He’s no worse than the Dope Francis who is inviting millions of Jihadis into the West. We have to remove our traitorous leaders and replace them with fighters like Trump. Shillary will submit to Islam and bring in even more muzzies than Obambam has.
JIMJFOX says
TOO VERBOSE! An avalanche of words that few will read to the end.
Someone has not heard of the KISS principle.
Seriously, this kind of article loses all its impact.
Caliph says
Never trust anyone over 25 that doesn’t have sex, or claims not to have such desires.
gravenimage says
Not every Catholic priest is an enabler of Jihad, Caliph.
Charli Main says
If all this was not so serious, you would have to laugh at the absurdity.
The Israelis are invaders illegally occupying their 5000 year old ancestral home land and the Muslim invaders from Saudi Arabia are the legitimate owners of the land they invaded.!!!!
le mouron rouge says
Charli Main,
Amen.
The late Joan Peters did an outstanding job of dispelling the myth of the so-called “Palestinian Refugees” in her book, “From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine”
And what’s more amazing is that she was on the left and into what is now called “Social Justice.” She started to write the book on the “Plight of the Palestinian Refugees” and after 2 years of research she noticed that what she had been told wasn’t lining up with her research.
I consider her a hero as she had the courage to follow the information wherever it took her and not to bend and shape the information to fit her pre-conceived narrative.
She then went back to her Publisher and offered to return the advance she had received stating that based on the information she had uncovered to date she couldn’t write that book and that she was now going to write about the “plight of the Jewish people.”
gravenimage says
You can find her book here on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Immemorial-Arab-Jewish-Conflict-Palestine/dp/0963624202
le mouron rouge says
gravenimage,
Thank you for the link, may I add?
Abe Books – http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=9780060912888&sts=t
and
Alibris – http://www.alibris.com/From-Time-Immemorial-The-Origins-of-the-Arab-Jewish-Conflict-Over-Palestine-Joan-Peters/book/2477984?matches=61
Raja says
Thank you le mouron rouge for your informative comment. Some are still on the side of truth especially when Islam is into non stop lying all across the globe . This is refreshing news to me / hopefully to JW readers too.
Carmel says
Because they took the name of the place , Palestinians , peoples think they were always there. They steal the name and now want to steal the place.
Carolyne says
I support Israel and I am glad they are there to be an ally in a part of the world where most are psychotic. However, I don’t see that there is a legal claim to the land as someone stated above because they occupied it 5000 years ago but not for the last 1945 approximately. Their claim is biblical and religious myth isn’t recognized as law in the Western world. Legal or not, doesn’t matter to me. They are there, they own it, they are not going anywhere. I admire them.
le mouron rouge says
Carolyne,
Just some random thoughts:
Please note that the Jewish people have never completely abandoned the land of Israel, there has always been a remnant in the land.
The Romans http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Philistines.html – hated the Jewish people so they changed the name of Israel to Palestinia (The Philistines were one of Israel’s most hated enemies) which later became Palestine.
After the Jewish people were dispersed from the land around 135AD, a remnant remained and for the most part the land was desolate, – http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Articles/Story845.html.
It was the return of the Jewish people to the land and their dedication and very hard work that brought the land of Israel/Palestine back to life. The Jewish settlers paid enormous amounts of money for this swamp infested and barren land.
Due to British rule at that time, the Jewish people were restricted by the British from returning to Israel/Palestine. The movie “Exodus” is a fair representation of their plight.
This created a shortage of Jewish people to work the land that they were now bringing back to life and productivity thus creating employment opportunities for the neighboring people groups as the land began to flourish.
In closing, this is their land, they never completely abandoned it and they have every right to be there.
Map British Mandate – http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/mandate2.html
Charli Main says
Absolutely correct. Israel belongs to the Jews and Israel is their rightful homeland. Anything else is Muslim inspired nonsense.
JayT says
We don’t have groups of Jews shooting at us in the malls or setting off bombs at our events. We do for Muslims. Seems pretty clear cut which group is the danger.
gravenimage says
So true.
Wellington says
The problem is even wider. One Catholic university after another here in America has become Catholic in name only——Georgetown, Villanova, St. Joseph’s, Notre Dame, et al.
My neighbor who graduated from a Catholic university and is a devout old-school Catholic refuses to have her children go to her alma mater, so disgusted has she become with what has happened to it.
le mouron rouge says
Wellington,
True.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
– Ephesians 6:12
Kepha says
As a practicing Protestant, I mourn what happened to Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Williams, Rutgers, and all those august institutions founded for the propagation of the Reformed version of Christianity, yet got hijacked by Unitarianism and then Leftism.
Has anyone else noted that, as far as the Left is concerned, there is no forgiveness for any non-European state that ever fell afoul of the late, unlamented Soviet Union’s plans? The cynic in me (God forgive me) says that Israel’s cardinal sins were (a) letting the USA get its hands on a lot of captured Soviet hardware after the Six-Day War and (b) back when it was still very much a Leftist country itself, being a far less numerous people than the Arabs.
gravenimage says
I think Israel’s “cardinal sins” were being successful and Jewish.
le mouron rouge says
gravenimage,
Amen & Amen.
Israel has serious challenges ahead, however, when the smoke clears and all the rubble is cleared away, Israel will be standing tall.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
– Joshua 1:9
Kepha says
You’re probably right, Gravenimage. But I’ve always noticed that our cultural and media poewers-that-be tend to always give former Soviet clients the benefit of the doubt.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Say what you will about this scholar, but he has a great hairstyle.
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsonstappedout/images/3/30/Sideshow_Bob_Icon.png/revision/latest?cb=20150418122122
jihad3tracker says
HA HA HA HA HA ! ! ! ! Thank you for my first solid chuckle on another grim day — monitoring what goes on in The Religion Of Ending Up In Small Pieces.
Champ says
Very funny, Mark Spahn! …with credit to the photographer too 😀
Emilie Green says
The collar provides good cover.
marblegranite says
Gaza and the West Bank are Palestinian Occupied Israel.
le mouron rouge says
marblegranite,
True.
Xero_G says
Mr. Spencer writes a comprehensive master’s thesis exposing Christiansen as a tool and a hack. Including the numerous hyperlinks, this post has enough content to fill a university level course on “How to Expose and Discredit Leftist Propagandists”
Xero_G says
Correction: This exhaustive post was the work of ANDREW HARROD, (not Mr. Spencer)
Angemon says
Indeed, Mr. Harrod did invaluable work.
Salome says
One word: Jesuit. (See also Pope Francis.) The Jesuits are among the people who helped turn ‘justice’ and ‘peace’ into dirty words.
Wellington says
How so, Salome? That’s a pretty expansive charge. For centuries now the Jesuits have been in the forefront of accepting new knowledge (e.g., Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, both a theologian and a paleontologist). Jesuits, per Ignatius Loyola’s directives, should explore every field of knowledge and leave no metaphorical stone unturned. Thus, Jesuits have doctorates in everything from geology to astronomy, from ancient languages to physics.
I am chagrined that in this silly modern era the Jesuits, who had been at the forefront of defending traditional Catholicism, have become a liberal element in the Catholic Church, but looked at over the centuries the Jesuits have been most impressive. As I told college students during the decades that I taught, if you get into an argument with a Jesuit, you had better come extremely well prepared.
BTW, I am not religious at all, as many already here at JW know, but your assertion that “The Jesuits are among the people who helped turn ‘justice’ and ‘peace’ into dirty words” needs back-up, loads of back-up. You provided none.
Mockingjay says
– Here’s a fact I came across only recently that might be of interest in this discussion:
Did you know that there have been (are still?) VERY close bonds between the Vatican – and the Jesuits IN PARTICULAR – and Fethullah Gülen – you know, that islamic preacher living in America who’s now Erdogans’ worst enemy ?
Interesting, isn’t it?
I did not know of this before, but it really could explain a LOT – it could explain the general attitude the Catholic church has adopted – and pushes its followers to accept – towards islam.
Of course, this Gülen figure is just another islamist in sheeps’ clothing. The mere fact that he has fallen out with Erdogan and is now his “enemy” doesn’t automatically make him “our friend”.
But the Catholic church seems to think otherwise.
– So this might be the guy where the Vatican and the Pope – and the Jesuits – mainly get their ideas about islam from.
And its clear they will follow his over ANY other advice.
Wellington says
If, Mockingjay, the Jesuits are so pathetic as to get “their ideas about Islam” from a whitewasher of Islam like Gulen, then indeed they have become a pathetic order.
Screw Gulen. One needs to go to the Islamic sources themselves, beginning with that wretched work, the Koran, which is a hate manual par excellence. If the Jesuits (and the present Pope) are mainly getting their about Islam from Gulen, then it’s even worse than I thought, which it may very well be.
Mockingjay says
– Yes, things might even be far worse than we ever could imagine –
…when thinking about all of this, I actually came up with a new conspiracy theory:
What if this Erdogan – Gülen “controversy” is in reality a carefully staged act to fool the West?
To me, there was something fishy about this so-called coup in Turkey from the start. It has of course often been claimed that Erdogan simply set it up to get rid of his opponents.
But wat if the deception goes even deeper – much deeper?
What if Erdogan and Gülen cooked up this whole thing long before the coup?
What if it was Gülens’ designated task to infiltrate the West, to work on the Catholic church from within, so Catholic leaders would turn on their own for not accepting their views on islam – as they are now openly turning on Robert Spencer?
Erdogan and Gülen were very close friends for years. They shared the exact same ideas about islam. Then, all of sudden, there was a “falling-out” between them. But there are no real details about why this happened exactly. No one seems to really know.
After learning about how close Gülen supposedly is with the Jesuit order – and with the Vatican – the whole thing became very, very suspicious to me.
Last july 18, Robert Spencer published an article here on JW about the close ties the Gülen organization has with Hillary Clinton as well.
Is it all just a coincedence? Or was it planned this way?
I think muslims are capable of ANYTHING when it comes to furthering the cause of world-wide domination of islam – maybe you can’t be suspicious enough when it comes to muslims ‘actions and words.
Keys says
“if you get into an argument with a Jesuit, you had better come extremely well prepared.”
Wellington verifies my experience at a Jesuit University. Scholars, and multi-scholars, in about everything; Chinese, archeology, medicine, law, and even commom sense and humility for many.
Salome says
Sadly, these days hanging around a university isn’t a terribly healthy thing to do, and all too many Jesuits have caught the neo-Marxist bug. Commonsense is not as common as it should be, and being among the intellectual elite doesn’t always promote humility. Hubris creeps in and, as I’ve observed elsewhere, the SJs turn into SJWs embracing every trendy cause that just happens to fit the Narrative.
Salome says
I’m terribly sorry, but you said it yourself: ‘in this silly modern era the Jesuits, who have been in the forefront of traditional Catholicism, have become a liberal element in the Catholic Church’. You have just as many footnotes as do I, or just about any commenter here. I’m not talking about the historical Jesuits, but the Jesuits of my lifetime, some of whom I’ve known–many, though not all, have made ‘SJ’ short for ‘SJW’. I recall in the 1980s (yes, I’ve been around for a while) being told (sorry, no footnotes) that the Jesuits were rejoicing that their schools were being shut down in parts of Latin America (i.e., schools for the sons of professionals). They were not only liberal in matters of the faith, but also turning politically to the loony left–regardless of the goods that academically inclined boys whose parents could pay for them to get a good education might do, they were glad to sacrifice that and let everyone be equally ignorant and miserable. By the way, there are still some excellent Jesuits. Fr Samir K Samir is one of them.
gravenimage says
This is not an anti-Jesuit or anti-Catholic site. Jihad Watch calls out the enabling of Jihad wherever it is found.
Salome says
Indeed, Graven. It’s just that (as you will have observed), Catholics and Jesuits have been caught out saying some very un-Catholic things in relation to Jihad lately, and Robert and company have been calling them out.
Raja says
For Catholics and Jesuits the Christian doctrine has NEVER been a strong forte. The result is all too obvious-flirtations with Jihad etc. Please give a break: -wobbly and weird thinking is not = intellectualism. as some consider. Even if the pope has to convert to Islam hardly any would follow him. Such is their touch with the masses and reality.
somehistory says
Fools come in all sizes, shapes, ages and colors. And some major ones come with photo taken standing in front of leaves that make him look as though dark brain matter is exploding from his head.
Many years ago, I watched film of a couple of people who had died in car crashes in which alcohol was involved. The slides showed their brains, turned brown to differing degrees by the alcohol each had consumed. The more each had consumed, the darker the brain and more extensive the discoloration.
His brain has been darkened by lies, untruth, deceit and absurdity. And he makes claim, by wearing a religious *uniform/* that he actually knows something important.
Sam says
I am not a Christian so I ask if this guy can be considered a Christian with so much misinformation. Don’t Christians seek the truth at all times? This guy can not be so stupid about Islam if he just looks around or joins the conversation here he can find about Islam.
Maybe he is getting paid by Muslim masters?
somehistory says
Yes, Christians seek the truth, love the truth and speak the truth. Lies are from satan.
I hope that Christ considers me Christian as I wish to be. And, by Christ’s own words, we are to look at the “fruit” to see if someone is doing as He commanded, If they are, the fruit will be good; if not, the fruit will be rotten. He said there would be “wolves in sheep’s clothing” and would not be “treating the flock with tenderness.”
In my opinion, as I see his fruit, I would have to say “no” he is not following Christ. This guy’s fruit is rotten with lies.
Bill McKenzie says
This is nothing new. After the Church was Romanized, and started teaching “Replacement Theology” and “Amillennialism”, Jews became hated by so called “Christians”. Over the past 1600 years, these same so-called Christians have been the chief persecutors of the Jews. Many bulls and edicts issued by the Popes specifically targeted Jews for discrimination and persecution. The “reformers” that came along followed these say doctrines. Many of the things Hitler did just followed in the footsteps of what the Church had been doing for hundreds of years. Now, I do consider myself a Christian and I realize that during much of this time the Bible itself was repressed by the same Church that claimed to espouse it’s teachings and the laity can not really be held responsible for the lies they were led to believe. At the same time, I cannot help but feel “guilty” for what evils the “brethren” have done to Jews during this age, and many continue to do.
gravenimage says
Hitler *hated* Christianity and considered Christians weak.
Bill McKenzie says
Oh I agree, but that did not stop him from using the same tactics that the “church” used against Jews. Civil and political discrimination, segregation into ghettos, making them wear specially marked clothing – even executing them and burning them as heretics were all practices of the Church for hundreds of years.
gravenimage says
The pair unequivocally describe Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians as the “West’s last colonial war.”
……………………..
Just grotesque. Israel is the *only* democratic nation in the Middle East.
Also, it is notable that Israel was not considered part of the West until she became really successful–then suddenly she became an honorary white, Western nation–at a time when this is perversely considered a bad thing.
Would this creep have any problem with Muslims “wiping Israel off the map”? I wouldn’t count on it…
mortimer says
Aldajani and Christiansen are preaching to the uninformed and pre-emptively DIS-informing them with soothing distortions of Islamic doctrines and Islamic history.
The basis for their errors and the sources they use have all been thoroughly discredited by modern scholars in Western universities. Moreover, Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization which demands genocide in its charter.
Aldajani and Christiansen’s distortions can only mean one thing: they are more deeply involved in Marxism than in Christianity. The five-thousand year connection of the Hebrew nation with Israel is substantially proved by modern archeology. Large numbers of Arabs prefer the civil liberty and human rights of Israel to the unfree dictatorships that surround Israel.
IQ al Rassooli says
WHY is anyone surprised at what the Catholic clergy are doing today? For 1700 years they institutionalized Jew hatred all over Christendom and have NOT recanted
Muslim Jew hatred especially (as well as hatred of ALL none Muslims) is not different from that perpetuated by the Church leadership accusing the Jews of killing God (in Jesus); ALL Jews for ALL time and yet declare that they represent a forgiving creed
Hence the Catholic clergy as instructed by pope Francis sides MORE with Muslims than with Christians or Jews
Drew Christiansen is therefore a despicable TRAITOR to Christians since he is siding with the very Muslims (so called palestinians) who are literally EXTERMINATING Christians and destroying their churches right under his watch and that of Francis all over the Arab and Muslim world
Hence where are the morals and intellect of such ‘Christian’ leaders when they are denying Facts and Reality and pretend to be knowledgeable?
It is no wonder that a great number of Catholics are leaving their faith and turning elsewhere with such criminally negligent and imbecile leadership
IQ al Rassooli
Kafir & Proud!
Allan says
If we were very cynical we might suspect that he’s a fifth columnist who pretends to hold a faith which he does not. We would speculate that he’s a Protestant, a Muhammadist, or a Marxist working like a termite from within. I don’t believe this, but Drew Christiansen, himself insists publicly that stranger things are true. My own certainties, however, are rather more modest.
Lo! Roma sarà una città islamica.
Paul Clark says
Drew Christiansen is playing “follow the leader.”
Ann Marie says
He’s a Jesuit. While the Jesuits are considered the scholarly branch of the Catholic Church, they’re also known for their liberal attitudes.. This is not a surprise. But to have him bash Israel like he is doing and the Jews, he seems to have forgotten that Jesus was a Jew… He has no right to wear the collar. Another priest who has forgotten how Christianity began.
duh Swami says
Jerry Brown gov of California was a Jesuit, and he’s as liberal as it gets…
Do these religious types believe that Allah is the God of Abraham the Hindu?
If so, you should not believe any6thing they say…
Allah’s real name is not Satan, it’s ‘Filth’, and this filth resides in the hearts and minds of those possessed by him (it)…If you believe one word of the ‘holier than thou’, you have also been possessed by the malevolent filth called Allah…
le mouron rouge says
I’m fairly new to this site, can someone please shed some light on why some of my postings have been deleted?
It happened again today on this topic, there wasn’t any profanity or harsh language, l did add a few links to articles that supports my premise, is that not allowed?
Your comments would be appreciated.
Joel Shapiro says
Hamas as a “resistance” movement? If people were killing these spriest to stop them from promoting antisemitism, would we refer to those killers as a resistance movement? This is not only hypocritical, it is also aiding and abetting terror. And it is also blocking peace (by supporting and enabling continued war against Israel).
Old veteran says
Did the doof ever read the Koran? Ever read how Muhammed said on his deathbed for his followers to “ride the entire Arabian peninsula of all jews and Christians”? Then it is that simple. The Arab-Muslim world must obey Muhammed.