Kevin Barrett is “an American scholar and political commentator,” according to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s house organ, PressTV. He is also, as this article shows, a paranoid conspiracy nut who sees Jews behind everything.
This is no surprise. Barrett is a convert to Islam, and so his hatred, contempt, and fear of Jews has a clear source: the Qur’an depicts the Jews as inveterately evil and bent on destroying the well-being of the Muslims. They are the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); they fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); they claim that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); they love to listen to lies (5:41); they disobey Allah and never observe his commands (5:13). They are disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more. They are under Allah’s curse (9:30), and Muslims should wage war against them and subjugate them under Islamic hegemony (9:29).
And as the Left sinks ever farther into antisemitism, the point of view of Kevin Barrett and his ilk plays better and better in Madison, Wisconsin.
“Rushdie attack might be Israeli plot to spread Islamophobia: Scholar,” Press TV, August 18, 2022:
An American writer and political analyst says the last week’s attack in the US on Salman Rushdie might be an Israeli plot to spread Islamophobia around the world….
Press TV website conducted an online interview with Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American author, journalist, and radio host, on the issue on Thursday.
“The obscene blasphemy in Rushdie’s book is actually much worse than just calling the Prophet (PBUH) insulting names. It is way over the top, and raises the question, why did he write such a book?” Barrett said.
“Several decades ago I read three of Rushdie’s novels as part of my graduate studies in World Literature. My impression was that he wrote The Satanic Verses as a deliberate provocation designed to get exactly the kind of attention it got… Why? Because he is an extreme egotist with boundless ambition but without the talent to match it; he wanted more fame than his writing alone would ever earn him,” said Dr. Barrett, who has a PhD in Islamic and Arabic Studies.
“Rushdie’s first book Midnight’s Children attempts to turn the author himself into a mythical hero whose birth and biography represent the birth and biography of modern India. That is quite a grandiose self-image. Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize and sold well. What could he ever do to surpass that? I think he realized, consciously or unconsciously, that Midnight’s Children was overrated, his talent was limited, and that he would never again achieve that kind of success…unless he did something so outlandishly provocative that his name would become a household word for extra-literary reasons,” he added.
“So in my view, Rushdie deliberately courted the notoriety that ensued from the publication of The Satanic Verses. He invented himself as a character—the obscenely blaspheming author held up as a symbol of Western-style freedom, hunted and forced to live on the run, vastly more famous than thousands of much better writers, a kind of real-life cartoon character in the West’s comic book narrative of free speech (us) versus its enemies (them),” he said….
Johnny B says
You’d think that if the Iranians really thought that Jews were behind the attack, that they would thank the Jews. But maybe the Jews were also bahind the evil fatwa in order to make spread “Islamophbia”? you know, it all sounds pretty plausible … or maybe NOT!!! Unbelievable, they never miss an opportunity to attack the Jews. For what and why? Can we even raise a question like that without being “Islamophobic?
PMK says
The full interview is fascinating.(and funny).
The Israelis set this up to take attention away from the JCPOA, which was about to be revived. It also took attention away from the Palestinian children “shot and killed by Israeli snipers’.
The Israelis have a history using mind controlled patsies in targeted killings. Apparently the Israelis set up Sirhan Sirhan to kill Robert Kennedy. It was necessary to kill him to prevent him from becoming president because he would then find out that Israelis had also killed JFK to remove a threat to their nuclear program. I surmise that he thinks Rushdie’s attacker is another mind-controlled patsy who did their bidding. Hilarious.
Johnny B says
Iran used thousands of underaged mind-controlled patsies during the Iran-Iraq war. They commanded them to clear mine fields for their soidiers to pass and handed the kids green plastic keys to enter heaven. I don’t think Iran has anything on Israel when it comes to mind control..
PMK says
Don’t you mean Israel has nothing on Iran?
PMK says
The author was suggesting that Israel somehow set up this man to kill Rushdie. The implication was that he might not have done it bur for Israeli manipulation.
VICTORMc. says
Yawn yawn. ISLAM is the curse of the earth. This ‘expert’ (yes, a joke) should never be published anywhere. You will never hear from this moron again. WHO cares about his mindless meanderings?
Carol the 1st says
Barret’s flag-waving of his literary degrees has convinced him he has a lucid eye. Not the case. He’s living in his own fantasy land. In a 2015 article (below) he accused Rushdie of issuing a “VEILED THREAT” to six writers who boycotted a Pen Award tribute to Charlie Hebdo. Rushdie stated, ” What I would say to both Peter and Michael and the others is, I hope they never come for you.”
Puzzled? Well, Barret unwraps it all for us by explaining that irony is usually used to mean the opposite
and so the *actual* meaning of Rushdie’s words, translated from the ironic, is: “I hope somebody comes after them”. I guess he’d have us believe that Rushdie is at best a ‘poor sport”?
https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2015/04/27/rushdie-hebdo/