Category Archives: Islam

Buchanan of Arabia

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The following is an excerpt from my new column, Buchanan of Arabia. I’m sure readers will have plenty to say in response.

After conflating the Danes with the most off-putting exemplars of free expression—Larry Flynt the pornographer, the Nazis of Skokie, and the late Robert Mapplethorpe of the bullwhip-bedecked behind—Buchanan allows that we are all entitled to be contemptuous of “the beliefs and values the Islamic faith holds dear, and for the prophet.” “But if we wish to exercise our right to air [these views] in print or broadcast, we should expect to reap what we have sown.”
With these obligatory lines, Mr. Buchanan discharges his duty to the West and its puny freedoms. What follows is an ode to Islam. Buchanan’s paean to this faith’s brute force is crucial in divining why he demands the West’s capitulation, following the cartoon Jihad.

Christian Butterbach quotes my description of Israel in the column as:

…the Middle East’s only true democracy—a small spot of sanity in a sea of savagery, where enlightened Western law prevails, and where Christians, Jews and their holy places are safe.

He then adds the following important quip:

Are Muslim holy places in Israel not safe???

My response:

Muslims are always safe in liberal countries. You know that; look around. It’s inherent in the definition of “liberal.” Countries with a liberal tradition make it safe for all people to worship openly. Arabs living in Israel proper are as safe as you and I are in our neighborhoods and places of worship. And very active on Israeli campuses—alongside their fellow Jewish, radical-leftists—in anti-Zionist causes. No different to an American campus, really. It would have been a redundancy on my part to add “Muslims,” when it is Jews and Christians who are imperiled in Muslims countries.

In fact, some of the angry letter writers (I don’t mean Chris) should visit Israel (and I don’t mean rush to the PA and hire a “guide” to show them a staged stone throwing). Visit the suicidally liberal schools and homes of real Israelis. I actually grew up in Israel, and went to school with Israeli-Muslims. Yeah, visit Israel, won’t you, instead of writing propaganda, the only verification for which is Mr. Buchanan and other dedicated saboteurs.

‘Taqiyya’ to the Sounds of ‘Tequila’

Ancient History, Islam, Media

The Greek philosophers believed that to be mired in self-contradiction was to be “less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.”

How would they have characterized the rampaging Muslim mobs, who’ve been acting as terrorists to protest that their prophet Muhammad was depicted as a terrorist.

If that isn’t the ultimate performative contradiction, I don’t know what is. To embody a contradiction is indeed a lowly state of being.

Here is the story of the deception to the sounds of a familiar ditty. It all began with a scheming Imam and ended in the riots that rive the Muslim world as I write. It errs in blaming the one for the sins of the many, but is otherwise quite neat.
A doff of the hat to David Conway of CIVITAS for sending the thing along.

Update: It turns out that raging Muslims are more coherent than I gave them credit for; their deeds are in keeping with Muhammad, peace be upon him (it’s now mandatory to offer praise each time the prophet is mentioned). But let historian Srdja Trifkovic do the explaining.
Muslims the world over have demanded that “respect for Muhammad [be] restored.” “We want him to be described as the man he really was in history,” a Danish leader enjoined. So “in the spirit of multicultural tolerance and interfaith dialogue,” Trifkovic has obliged. Read his crash course on Muhammad’s monumental life’s work.

'Taqiyya' to the Sounds of 'Tequila'

Ancient History, Islam, Media

The Greek philosophers believed that to be mired in self-contradiction was to be “less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.”

How would they have characterized the rampaging Muslim mobs, who’ve been acting as terrorists to protest that their prophet Muhammad was depicted as a terrorist.

If that isn’t the ultimate performative contradiction, I don’t know what is. To embody a contradiction is indeed a lowly state of being.

Here is the story of the deception to the sounds of a familiar ditty. It all began with a scheming Imam and ended in the riots that rive the Muslim world as I write. It errs in blaming the one for the sins of the many, but is otherwise quite neat.
A doff of the hat to David Conway of CIVITAS for sending the thing along.

Update: It turns out that raging Muslims are more coherent than I gave them credit for; their deeds are in keeping with Muhammad, peace be upon him (it’s now mandatory to offer praise each time the prophet is mentioned). But let historian Srdja Trifkovic do the explaining.
Muslims the world over have demanded that “respect for Muhammad [be] restored.” “We want him to be described as the man he really was in history,” a Danish leader enjoined. So “in the spirit of multicultural tolerance and interfaith dialogue,” Trifkovic has obliged. Read his crash course on Muhammad’s monumental life’s work.

Christopher Hitchens' Relativism & the Cartoon Controversy

Anti-Semitism, Christianity, Free Speech, Islam, Judaism & Jews

Christopher Hitchens’ cri de coeur over the Danish cartoon controversy fizzled somewhat due to his signature relativism with respect to the facts about the three faiths; it caused him to fudge important distinctions, without which clarity is impossible. One can disdain religion without losing sight of what separates Islam from the Judeo-Christian faiths.

Hitchens says Islam’s anti-Semitism has been borrowed from Christianity. He also mentions a rabbi who grounds his dislike for the Palestinians in scriptures (rather than in the actions of suicide killers and their supporters). These examples are supposed to show that all religions lead their faithful into latrines and lock them there forever.

Hitchens’ arguments, however, are weak. First, Islam is an innovator in anti-Semitism in its own right. For example, the Nazis did not originate the yellow cloth they tagged Jews with; the caliph who succeeded the Prophet Mohammed did. More fundamentally, he neglects to mention that Christianity has changed. Christian and Jewish holy texts, moreover, have been reinterpreted by the sages over the centuries; the Quran has not. Nor can it be, because devout Muslims believe it’s God’s eternal and unquestionable word to Muhammad. At least so deduced the greatest Christian theologian alive, Pope Benedict XVI.

Hitchens should know that one-case studies and spotty historical slates do not remotely equate with the groundswell of virulent, violent fundamentalism that grips and defines the Muslim world today. Contemporary Christianity and Judaism; Buddhism and Baha’ism are religions of peace. The same cannot be said of Islam.