Please let me know what you think of this article, and ask any questions you might have about any of the points raised. Unless they are truly moronic or unhinged, I will reply.
Very good essay. And thanks for including Hitchen’s take - didn’t always agree with him, but always appreciated what he had to contribute.
So, I have a question I’ve been wanting to ask forever. As you point out, people are so quick to defend Islam with the repeated disclaimer that “not all Muslims are like the terrorists.” Yet, where are the Muslim communities decrying the terrorism? Marching to protest the violent fundamentalists within their faith? Most especially, where are the Muslim leaders, the imams, scholars, spokespersons, speaking out against this virulent stream of their religion? Mainstream Protestants and Roman Catholics have been issuing official and public apologies for decades for the part they have played in historic oppression, violence, failure to protect the Jewish people, etc. etc. Why do all the Islamic apologists seem to be non Muslim? I’ve not seen a single Muslim leader in a press conference or, say, a written op ed or essay denouncing their fundamentalist brethren.
Have I missed something? If so, I’d really like to know. Thanks again for your thoughtful writing and any response you might have.
Thanks a lot! I definitely don’t think all Muslims support terror, indeed many thousands of Muslims have been killed by it. However I do think that the degree of hatred and outrage at, eg, Israel in large swathes of the Muslim world, vs the comparative lack of outrage about things like muslim antisemitism, countless terror attacks, ISIS and so is an issue that should be discussed openly and that is, in some respect, revealing.
I believe the issue with progressives is that everything is viewed thru the lens of "ideology". At first glance it's perceived by those around them as compassion. They will use their perceived virtuosity as a shield or a trojan horse. Because progressives are driven by ideology, they have no compassion for anyone who does believe as they do or are considered "victimizers". Human beings have no intrinsic value to them.
What is so dangerous about this type of thinking is that young people are very susceptible to it. Its appeal is the simple, black or white thinking. Good vs Evil. Their leaders use them as tools to achieve power then cast them aside. We must be vigilant to protect our youth and country from this poison. History is filled with examples of what happens when progressivism becomes too powerful. Millions upon millions have died. It's a poison pill.
Very good points. Yes I agree, they present themselves as compassionate but in practice they are quasi-religious ideologues and are quick to crush any dissent against their dogmatic belief system. The pursuit of truth is not as important as the enforcement of adherence to their worldview.
Sorry, I'm not in the cult of Trumpism. I was in the cult of law enforcement for 34 years, having processed a former Israeli pilot for appropriate housing at another facility to serve his prison sentence following a conviction for trafficking large amounts of cocaine. The kilos of cocaine were on their way to black inner cities to produce crack. This convict, talking Hebrew, was crying like a little bitch on his knees.
The crack epidemic devastated black communities, leading to mass black incarceration. A deceased investigative reporter who worked for Mercury News in San Jose, California discovered a connection between the CIA and South American drug cartel members trafficking cocaine into American inner cities to finance The Nicaraguan contras
Israel sterilized numerous Ethiopian female Jewish refugees without their knowledge and to
preserve Jewish whiteness.
Israel supplied White supremacist Afrikaners in apartheid South Africa with arms and specialized training to maintain apartheid. Racist Afrikaners murdered numerous Africans in apartheid South Africa. Israel wears many faces.
U.S. military aid to Israel should be discontinued. Israel has a successful high-tech economy to defend itself.
Not an intelligent response. Year in and year out 98% of terrorist attacks annually are committed by Islamist terror groups. “This one time at band camp” counter arguments are reductive whataboutism bullshit. If you can’t separate the wheat from the chaff, you shouldn’t try to bake the bread. Bumper sticker slogans are not good arguments.
You need to embrace your stupidity. Why are you texting me when you have a babe and a beach house? Your eyes are brown for a reason, junior. I gotta go. Because as it turns out, I am actually at my beach house. And my wife doesn’t like it when I toss midgets.
I used to rescue weak wannabe proud boys like you from Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia gang rape. The other super predators usually got sloppy seconds.
"...Simply put, the supremacist religious ideology behind the attacks — Islamist jihadism — does not neatly fit within the reductive ideological worldview favoured by large swathes of the liberal left..."
Exactly. They cannot (or will not) accept that Islamism is:
a) every bit as extreme right as the White Racist & Fascist right, & for exactly the same reasons.
b) directly influenced & inspired by Fascist ideology & practice since the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.
c) that this 2-way traffic in ideas & practice continues to this day.
Leftists are unhappy people. Misery loves company. Never mind that all these academics and celebrities would be targets for the creeps they lionize. The Left loves violence.
They always have. It’s part of their psychological problem. Last night ar the Oscars, sone British director apparently renounced his Jewish heritage because Israel is fighting Hamas. Chickenshit poseur. Talk about a delusional first world mindset. Endorsing islamofascist groups with direct historical ties to the Nazis and thinking it’s a liberation movement is so stupid and sick that only a professor or a celebrity could make that leap.
Israel Responds to Jonathan Glazer: ‘Despicable’ Comments on Jewishness, Holocausthttps://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2024/03/11/israel-responds-to-jonathan-glazer-despicable-comments-on-jewishness-holocaust/
Great article, it's really distressing when I read common sense analysis that states the obvious and then get subjected to politicians and media doubling down on 'the narrative', Take a look at what is happening in Canada at the moment with our Online Harms Bill currently before parliament, an obvious attempt to stifle any debate against their worldview, including hefty fines ($50,000 CDN) and even lengthy prison terms.
Recently found out about Christopher Hitchens, I am before his time and not involved in academia so didn't catch on to the cancer that was growing within it. I found a great quote of his that I think sums up the so-called leftist elite - "I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness."
No problem! Hmmm, depends what they disagree with me on, and how well made/logical their counter arguments seem I guess. In general, I listen to the points they’re making and then either take them on board, or try to rebut them if I think they don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Why must we remain vigilant against anti Muslim bigotry? Muslims ROUTINELY ignore or tacitly encourage these violent thugs. As we have seen in Gaza when crowds cheered with the return of dead bodies and hostages.
I lived in France for a few years before the 9/11 attacks and conducted significant research into Islam in France for a university thesis. It was evident then that anti semitism was disgustingly rife that anti American hatred knew no limitations and that Islam was seen as superior. I will never forget some of the conversations. It was way way past time we exposed Islam for its failings in exactly the same way as we have and continue to hold other religions responsible for theirs.
Unless and until we do the violence will be justified entwined and attached to politics as it always has been. The more extreme men within it will encourage this as a way of life and the men at the top will
Continue to profit from it as they do in Gaza creaming off profits whilst say in safety in Arab states. Dictating wars and chaos. Easily manipulated when it suits too by any nefarious players.
We have permitted and encouraged legions of Muslims to join British society and bury our heads in the sand when they marry off children underage and overseas then return rape children and justify it through their hadiths refuse to condemn anti semitism and side with Iranian mullahs.
Presently there is an advertising campaign in London inviting people to consider Islam as their faith. The wording is clever enough to be promoting both jihad and placing Islam as superior. And yet the same advertising billboard company was told to remove posters for Bring Them Home months prior our of fear of stoking anti social sentiment.
Islam is now the religion no one must confront for fear of Islamophobia.
As someone who survived just about the Nice terror attack and continues to look on in horror at what we are permitting I acknowledge everything you’ve said here as correct but nothing new.
We have no plan no determination no courage and as a result no future.
We need to address Islam itself contain its worst elements and insist upon it fitting in with us rather us fitting in with it and bloody urgently. In some ways I fear it’s already too late.
A walk down Regent Street during Holy Week in what is still a Christian country with a Christian head of state and seeing Ramadan lights blazing reminds me of just how fearful we truly are.
Perhaps jihad is here to stay. And after the barbarism meted out to the left wing peacenik Gaza loving two state seeking Jews last October what are we to expect next?
Yeah, you’re right. If it wasn’t for Jews the Islamic extremists wouldn’t have killed or oppressed anyone. Apart from the Yazidis who they burn to death, the British schoolgirls they blow up, the Nigerian Christians, the moderate Muslims and apostates, the French cartoonists of course…but best just forget about those trifling matters
A fundraising campaign aimed at freeing from prison a Jewish extremist convicted of killing three members of a Palestinian family in a 2015 arson attack has raised over NIS 1.2 million (over $300,000), with more donations pouring in.
Amiram Ben Uliel was found guilty in 2020 of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, arson, and conspiring to commit a racially motivated crime, as part of a “terrorist act.”
He is serving three life sentences plus 20 years for the firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma, in which Riham and Saad Dawabsha were killed along with their 18-month-old son, Ali Saad. Only the couple’s 5-year-old son, Ahmed, survived the terror attack, with extensive burns.
The drive to have his conviction quashed, titled “Amiram also deserves justice,” gained headlines earlier this week when far-right Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech spoke at a fundraising event for the campaign, insisting Ben Uliel was innocent and describing him as a “holy righteous man.”
Please let me know what you think of this article, and ask any questions you might have about any of the points raised. Unless they are truly moronic or unhinged, I will reply.
Very good essay. And thanks for including Hitchen’s take - didn’t always agree with him, but always appreciated what he had to contribute.
So, I have a question I’ve been wanting to ask forever. As you point out, people are so quick to defend Islam with the repeated disclaimer that “not all Muslims are like the terrorists.” Yet, where are the Muslim communities decrying the terrorism? Marching to protest the violent fundamentalists within their faith? Most especially, where are the Muslim leaders, the imams, scholars, spokespersons, speaking out against this virulent stream of their religion? Mainstream Protestants and Roman Catholics have been issuing official and public apologies for decades for the part they have played in historic oppression, violence, failure to protect the Jewish people, etc. etc. Why do all the Islamic apologists seem to be non Muslim? I’ve not seen a single Muslim leader in a press conference or, say, a written op ed or essay denouncing their fundamentalist brethren.
Have I missed something? If so, I’d really like to know. Thanks again for your thoughtful writing and any response you might have.
Thanks a lot! I definitely don’t think all Muslims support terror, indeed many thousands of Muslims have been killed by it. However I do think that the degree of hatred and outrage at, eg, Israel in large swathes of the Muslim world, vs the comparative lack of outrage about things like muslim antisemitism, countless terror attacks, ISIS and so is an issue that should be discussed openly and that is, in some respect, revealing.
The Left is soft on terrorism, because they hate America and the West.
Yep, more or less sums it up
Great essay! I love your ending.
I believe the issue with progressives is that everything is viewed thru the lens of "ideology". At first glance it's perceived by those around them as compassion. They will use their perceived virtuosity as a shield or a trojan horse. Because progressives are driven by ideology, they have no compassion for anyone who does believe as they do or are considered "victimizers". Human beings have no intrinsic value to them.
What is so dangerous about this type of thinking is that young people are very susceptible to it. Its appeal is the simple, black or white thinking. Good vs Evil. Their leaders use them as tools to achieve power then cast them aside. We must be vigilant to protect our youth and country from this poison. History is filled with examples of what happens when progressivism becomes too powerful. Millions upon millions have died. It's a poison pill.
Very good points. Yes I agree, they present themselves as compassionate but in practice they are quasi-religious ideologues and are quick to crush any dissent against their dogmatic belief system. The pursuit of truth is not as important as the enforcement of adherence to their worldview.
I completely agree- black and white thinking. Today's leftists see everything through a painfully simplistic lens.
White supremacy
is the most powerful religion in the world. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are all chauvinistic murderous cults.
Spoken like a true cult member
Sorry, I'm not in the cult of Trumpism. I was in the cult of law enforcement for 34 years, having processed a former Israeli pilot for appropriate housing at another facility to serve his prison sentence following a conviction for trafficking large amounts of cocaine. The kilos of cocaine were on their way to black inner cities to produce crack. This convict, talking Hebrew, was crying like a little bitch on his knees.
The crack epidemic devastated black communities, leading to mass black incarceration. A deceased investigative reporter who worked for Mercury News in San Jose, California discovered a connection between the CIA and South American drug cartel members trafficking cocaine into American inner cities to finance The Nicaraguan contras
Israel sterilized numerous Ethiopian female Jewish refugees without their knowledge and to
preserve Jewish whiteness.
Israel supplied White supremacist Afrikaners in apartheid South Africa with arms and specialized training to maintain apartheid. Racist Afrikaners murdered numerous Africans in apartheid South Africa. Israel wears many faces.
U.S. military aid to Israel should be discontinued. Israel has a successful high-tech economy to defend itself.
Not an intelligent response. Year in and year out 98% of terrorist attacks annually are committed by Islamist terror groups. “This one time at band camp” counter arguments are reductive whataboutism bullshit. If you can’t separate the wheat from the chaff, you shouldn’t try to bake the bread. Bumper sticker slogans are not good arguments.
I bet Grandpa Vinny trafficked lots of heroin into black neighborhoods on the East Coast. The source of your college tuition?
You need to embrace your stupidity. Why are you texting me when you have a babe and a beach house? Your eyes are brown for a reason, junior. I gotta go. Because as it turns out, I am actually at my beach house. And my wife doesn’t like it when I toss midgets.
I used to rescue weak wannabe proud boys like you from Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia gang rape. The other super predators usually got sloppy seconds.
Then you woke up and still had your binky.
"...Simply put, the supremacist religious ideology behind the attacks — Islamist jihadism — does not neatly fit within the reductive ideological worldview favoured by large swathes of the liberal left..."
Exactly. They cannot (or will not) accept that Islamism is:
a) every bit as extreme right as the White Racist & Fascist right, & for exactly the same reasons.
b) directly influenced & inspired by Fascist ideology & practice since the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.
c) that this 2-way traffic in ideas & practice continues to this day.
Those that refuse to see cannot learn.
Yep! Exactly right.
Excellent piece. We need to wake up and realize that the left and Islamists are at war with civilized society. Thanks.
Thanks Carl! Well put.
Yup, and that's certainly been amplified since October 7th.
Excellent. I whole heartedly agree. People, the left, with this mindset, do not have the mental capacity of decernment.
Thank you.
Thank you! Well said.
Leftists are unhappy people. Misery loves company. Never mind that all these academics and celebrities would be targets for the creeps they lionize. The Left loves violence.
They always have. It’s part of their psychological problem. Last night ar the Oscars, sone British director apparently renounced his Jewish heritage because Israel is fighting Hamas. Chickenshit poseur. Talk about a delusional first world mindset. Endorsing islamofascist groups with direct historical ties to the Nazis and thinking it’s a liberation movement is so stupid and sick that only a professor or a celebrity could make that leap.
Israel Responds to Jonathan Glazer: ‘Despicable’ Comments on Jewishness, Holocausthttps://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2024/03/11/israel-responds-to-jonathan-glazer-despicable-comments-on-jewishness-holocaust/
Great article, it's really distressing when I read common sense analysis that states the obvious and then get subjected to politicians and media doubling down on 'the narrative', Take a look at what is happening in Canada at the moment with our Online Harms Bill currently before parliament, an obvious attempt to stifle any debate against their worldview, including hefty fines ($50,000 CDN) and even lengthy prison terms.
Recently found out about Christopher Hitchens, I am before his time and not involved in academia so didn't catch on to the cancer that was growing within it. I found a great quote of his that I think sums up the so-called leftist elite - "I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness."
Great comment, I agree with you.
I live in West Hollywood and am surrounded by people who defend terrorism and are more offended by those that call it out. Thank you for this.
Now pretty standard. A sorry state of affairs. Thanks for the comment!
Thank you for finding me. I agree with your POV. How do you respond to people who disagree with you?
No problem! Hmmm, depends what they disagree with me on, and how well made/logical their counter arguments seem I guess. In general, I listen to the points they’re making and then either take them on board, or try to rebut them if I think they don’t stand up to scrutiny.
How about you?
Why must we remain vigilant against anti Muslim bigotry? Muslims ROUTINELY ignore or tacitly encourage these violent thugs. As we have seen in Gaza when crowds cheered with the return of dead bodies and hostages.
I lived in France for a few years before the 9/11 attacks and conducted significant research into Islam in France for a university thesis. It was evident then that anti semitism was disgustingly rife that anti American hatred knew no limitations and that Islam was seen as superior. I will never forget some of the conversations. It was way way past time we exposed Islam for its failings in exactly the same way as we have and continue to hold other religions responsible for theirs.
Unless and until we do the violence will be justified entwined and attached to politics as it always has been. The more extreme men within it will encourage this as a way of life and the men at the top will
Continue to profit from it as they do in Gaza creaming off profits whilst say in safety in Arab states. Dictating wars and chaos. Easily manipulated when it suits too by any nefarious players.
We have permitted and encouraged legions of Muslims to join British society and bury our heads in the sand when they marry off children underage and overseas then return rape children and justify it through their hadiths refuse to condemn anti semitism and side with Iranian mullahs.
Presently there is an advertising campaign in London inviting people to consider Islam as their faith. The wording is clever enough to be promoting both jihad and placing Islam as superior. And yet the same advertising billboard company was told to remove posters for Bring Them Home months prior our of fear of stoking anti social sentiment.
Islam is now the religion no one must confront for fear of Islamophobia.
As someone who survived just about the Nice terror attack and continues to look on in horror at what we are permitting I acknowledge everything you’ve said here as correct but nothing new.
We have no plan no determination no courage and as a result no future.
We need to address Islam itself contain its worst elements and insist upon it fitting in with us rather us fitting in with it and bloody urgently. In some ways I fear it’s already too late.
A walk down Regent Street during Holy Week in what is still a Christian country with a Christian head of state and seeing Ramadan lights blazing reminds me of just how fearful we truly are.
Perhaps jihad is here to stay. And after the barbarism meted out to the left wing peacenik Gaza loving two state seeking Jews last October what are we to expect next?
The real culprits behind people fighting back against Jewish encroachment on real estate that didn’t belong to them?
Yeah, you’re right. If it wasn’t for Jews the Islamic extremists wouldn’t have killed or oppressed anyone. Apart from the Yazidis who they burn to death, the British schoolgirls they blow up, the Nigerian Christians, the moderate Muslims and apostates, the French cartoonists of course…but best just forget about those trifling matters
It's an excellent article, I only wish it were more extensive and specific on various examples of this despicable behavior by Islamist extremists.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/campaign-to-free-israeli-killer-of-palestinian-family-raises-over-nis-1-2-million/amp/
A fundraising campaign aimed at freeing from prison a Jewish extremist convicted of killing three members of a Palestinian family in a 2015 arson attack has raised over NIS 1.2 million (over $300,000), with more donations pouring in.
Amiram Ben Uliel was found guilty in 2020 of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, arson, and conspiring to commit a racially motivated crime, as part of a “terrorist act.”
He is serving three life sentences plus 20 years for the firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma, in which Riham and Saad Dawabsha were killed along with their 18-month-old son, Ali Saad. Only the couple’s 5-year-old son, Ahmed, survived the terror attack, with extensive burns.
The drive to have his conviction quashed, titled “Amiram also deserves justice,” gained headlines earlier this week when far-right Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech spoke at a fundraising event for the campaign, insisting Ben Uliel was innocent and describing him as a “holy righteous man.”