By Jonathan S. Tobin, COMMENTARY
In a viral video that just about everyone has seen by now, movie star Ben Affleck butted heads with Bill Maher about radical Islam on the latter’s HBO show. The subject was about those calling attention to the not inconsiderable support that radical Islamists like the terrorists of ISIS get from mainstream Muslims around the world. But what’s interesting about this controversy is not so much the specifics of the conversation but the way it resonated with the public. The uproar seems to show that more than 13 years after 9/11, Americans are now willing to start talking about what’s motivating terrorists.
The crux of the argument was about whether, as Affleck passionately argued, it is racist to say that ISIS’s ideology is backed by a vast number of Muslims. The actor believes this is just prejudice. He believes that instead of calling out the Muslim world for the actions of the terrorists, we should be merely condemning the individuals involved. Like many others on the left who have promoted the myth that America responded to 9/11 with a backlash against Muslims, Affleck seems to imply that the bigger threat to the country comes from the demonization of the faith of 1.5 billion people.
In reply, Maher, ably assisted by author Sam Harris, pointed out that while there are many Muslims who oppose terrorism, the truth is that ISIS’s Islamist beliefs are shared by at least 20 percent of adherents of Islam around the world and many more than that share the same mindset even if they are not eager to don a suicide vest.
Who won? It was not so much that Maher, who is a bitter opponent of all religions, had the better argument as that Affleck had none at all. Used to operating in the liberal echo chamber of Hollywood—which shares many of Maher’s positions on most other issues—he was out of his league when forced to defend an indefensible position. His was an expression of an attitude in which facts that do not conform to leftist prejudices are ignored, not disputed. When confronted with a position that asserted the reality of contemporary Muslim political culture, he simply yelled racism, the ultimate argument decider on the left, and declared the facts unacceptable if not irrelevant.
Yet the point of interest here is not so much that Affleck, who was applauded by liberals for his stance, spoke nonsense or that Mahr had a rare moment of total clarity, but that this sort of discussion struck a nerve throughout the country.
In the aftermath of 9/11 Americans were told ad nauseam that Islam was a religion of peace, a line that has been said as much by Barack Obama as it has by George W. Bush. Indeed, Obama doubled down on this by repeatedly declaring that ISIS is not Islamic, an odd and rather debatable point of theology for an avowed Christian to make.
But in the wake of the latest ISIS murders and the years of atrocities by other Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Boko Haram that followed 9/11 many Americans have awakened to the fact that tracing the roots of terror requires us to confront the faith for which these killers fight. It is true that not all Muslims are terrorists and that all people should be judged for their actions not as a member of a group. But the willingness of vast numbers of Muslims to subscribe to a version of Islam that is rooted in hatred of the West, America, and Israel cannot be wished away or edited out of the movie as a politically incorrect fact. Vast numbers, especially in the Third World, not only subscribe to 9/11 truther myths but also support the terrorists’ war on the West. Others are leery about the war but share the religious beliefs that are its underpinning.
To confront these facts is not an act of prejudice or Islamophobia. Nor does it serve to foment hate. Rather, it is part of an effort to support and empower those Muslims who believe that the Islamist approach is abhorrent to them but who are often silenced or intimidated by radicals and their supposedly more moderate fellow travelers. A Muslim world in which radical beliefs are part of the mainstream needs to be reformed from within. This is necessary precisely because it is the not the desire of the West or of sane people anywhere to be at war with all Muslims.
While the shouting that is part of such cable scream fests does not make for an edifying spectacle, it says something about how far we’ve come in our thinking about this subject that a prominent liberal—even a professional provocateur like Maher—is willing to publicly enunciate obvious truths even if it means being called a racist by a popular actor. It can only be hoped that this can be the start of a more rational discussion of Islam and those who use it to justify terror. If not, we will remain locked in the same state of denial about the cause of the problem in which Obama, Affleck, and much of the nation remain trapped.
@ yamit82:
I can leave comments on like but it won’t accept me. I so confused. I don’t understand
@ honeybee:
T
@ honeybee:
Try this: http://rodens.typepad.com/blog/
press comment on any of the first 4 or 5 open comments and hit typepad and your email should get you in
@ yamit82:
I can see you comment but it won’t let me in:
https://www.typepad.com/secure/services/signin/save
My dad once said that he spoke two languages, English and Profanity. I guess the Yiddish proverb is true: “The apple never falls far from the tree.”
Gotta take Dag out.
Did you knw that you a leave messages in You tube comments?
yamit82 Said:
Diamonds don’t mean naught to me, however if said tube of paint and brushes, quien sabe.
yamit82 Said:
I meant in Wyo. you can marry with a sheep.
honeybee Said:
Pockets full of Big Diamonds.
Marriage???
Living together without the benefit of clergy is fine with me.
yamit82 Said:
Your pockets ain’t that deep, even for my little hands
yamit82 Said:
Your favorite state Wyo. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
honeybee Said:
Name your price.
@ yamit82:
Desgraciado mia. Adios
honeybee Said:
Marriage???
yamit82 Said:
Like the stockmarket, for the right price, I have to paint. Stop teasin me.
honeybee Said:
Stiff GOOD flaccid BAD!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
Cold, but stiff !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
honeybee Said:
You are open to share???
yamit82 Said:
There have been times Darlin, when I was overwhelmed with tasks that I thought this an excellent idea. As for sheep, that been done.
El dorado, Tx had a polygamous community. I prefer polygamy.
honeybee Said:
If gay marriage is permitted, there is no formal reason to prohibit other non-conventional marriages. Why can’t a father marry his daughter? Why can’t three—or ten, for that matter—people enter into a marriage? Why can’t a person marry his lovely sheep?
The court decided that people are equal and so have an equal right to marry. People are equal regardless of sex but then also regardless of number. Ten people are free to marry into one big happy family. A man is free to marry four women, or to heck with the sharia: even ten women! A person who does not find a human soul mate is still equal to everyone else, and society must protect his right to marriage—even to a dog. Homosexuality is ostensibly a natural urge, but so are zoophilia and necrophilia. Hey, we have a world of marriage opportunities!
Bizarre as it may sound, file the papers with your local court to marry your adult daughter, a few female pals, and a dog. Drive the leftist ideas over the edge. Let formal justice face the consequences of its silliness.
yamit82 Said:
The word marriage means to bring together two opposites. How can two men or women marry, they are the same.
@ yamit82:
Deje me en paz, Cowboy. I got two loads of wash and an Angel’s dress to paint, don’t want no naked angels.
honeybee Said:
I like Dead!!!! Works for me!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
How about a third kind,DEAD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
mar55 Said:
There are two kinds: Smart ones and stupid ones.
The smart ones tell you what you want to hear and the stupid ones speak the truth!!!
honeybee Said:
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within” Durant
@ honeybee:
😀 😀 😀 😀
yamit82 Said:
Que bravo mi Vaquero mia !!!!!!!!
mar55 Said:
You not begin to imagine what is coming of the border.
yamit82 Said:
So true, but we [USA] are beset with PC nonsense, gay marriage ? , illegal immigration, bilingual education, war on women ?, etc. ect.
@ mar55:
Muchas gracias. Lo estoy intentando
You are doing fine with your Spanish yammit82.
@ mar55:
There is nothing I can’t disagree with you.
Israel has done a fantastic job of integrating through the language of Hebrew Ulpan.
Gentiles ask why Jews don’t proselytize. Main reason is integration. If too many gentiles tried to convert their cultures would influence and corrupt Judaism. Small numbers of course but no mass conversions.
My big problem with languages is My lousy English grammar.
Do you realize that most Israelis are either bilingual or semi bilingual as an American I find that intriguing. To be able to think in different languages with the differences in nuance is a fantastic aid in intellectual development….
I used to in my mind translate from English to Hebrew no longer now it’s mostly Hebrew to Enlish. Hebrew has only 24000 or so words. It’s challenging.
@ yamit82:
The school systems instead of sending your niece elsewhere to learn Spanish. The bilingual education have been a failure. It has been proved, time and time again that when children are educated with English speaking Americans, they learn English in a short time but also their learning of other subjects increase. As it is, neither the children or the parents learn English. As children acquire language skills. The parents learn the language from their children. This is how many early generations of immigrants integrated in our society. With the illegal immigration and the bilingual education more problems have been created than solved.
I’m against illegal immigration. So many people arriving at the same time does not allow the society to integrate so many in our schools and places of work. Not only Americans are affected by it but it puts pressure to our towns, cities and school system.
The illegals are not screened and we get a lot of criminals because of it. The Great Society changed the rules and allowed the immigration restriction of the past to lapse.
With the new rules, not only parents and children are considered for immigration. This family reunion crap has
done a lot for what is happening right now. The political correctness will destroy our country.
They should learn English and not send your niece to a place where the Spanish language is spoken poorly.
@ bernard ross:
When it coomes to Muslims, there are only two kinds:
Active and inactive. The same fanatical believes.
Trying to impose in the rest of the world their totalitarian system of living. If you can call their way of life living.
No music, literature, dancing, laughing, thinking. Only the worse of the human race and evil is what they believe.
They go against everything good man was created to fulfill.
bernard ross Said:
add Communist party too.
It should be that any subversive group or ideology that wants to subvert,change or alter the core values of the majority should be outlawed. The majority should have a right to protect itself and it’s culture from minorities.
yamit82 Said:
I expect that many Jews watch and belive he is correct also. This is my problem with MSM in that most people including Jews do not consider that they are being intentionally misled by a bought MSM and therefore most do not go looking for alternatives. You compared most Jews to you and I but I came upon these alternate views after 911 unrelated to considering MSM to be wrong about Israel. It was only after some time that I came to realize that there was indeed a conspiracy to libel the Jews through Israel by western institutions. I never even considered there was such an incredible level of disagreement among Jews such that Jews would today completely sell out other Jews. I never imagined that Haaretz, a famous Israeli outlet, would be totally trying to swindle and libel the Jews. Now I know that most of the MSM cites Haaretz as a news AND opinion source pretending to represent the views of the majority of Israelis. Also, why would I have considered the idea that the Jews have rights in YS when Haaretz and all the GOI’s never mention it. I think you are wrong in not realizzing the enormous damage created by the vacuum of GOI’s who do not debunk the canards of illegal or illegitimate Jewish settlement. Most Jews will not do the searching internationally for alternate views, once reading haaretz they would just assume Haaretz is right, and never hearing from the GOI to the contrary means the world is right. do not expect the diaspora Jews to understand what even Israelis do not know: the legally binding internationally agreed rights of Jews to settle in YS, agreed by those who most renege on their agreements. When you complain that Israel loses in peace what it has won in war that is precisely the reason why. International and public pressure is allowed to trump the jews legal rights because NO ONE, INCLUDING THE GOI,STANDS UP TO DEFEND THOSE RIGHTS. Jews in the diaspora and the GOI invest more in non jews than in the Jews rights to settle.
Laura Said:
Absolutely right! In the same way we would criticize someone belonging to the KKK or the nazi party so should those subscribing belonging to Islam be criticized. We dont consider whether the person is a moderate nazi or a radical nazi, just belonging to the club is enough for condemnation. Belonging to an org automatically conveys support for that org.
honeybee Said:
I love her!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3axcaxPt1w
@ Laura:
Right on Laurale!
@ Laura:
True dat !!!!! In regard illegal immigration also.
yamit82 Said:
I am not sure, but wouldn’t be surprised.
yamit82 Said:
PC liberalism has infested the school system.
We as Americans and westerners are taught not to judge and stereotype an entire group of people. But in the case of Muslims we may need to rethink that notion and acknowledge that it’s possible that an entire group can indeed be bad. Islam is a belief system, not a race or ethnicity. We are completely justified in judging Muslims in a negative light based on thousands of examples of Muslim atrocities.
honeybee Said:
Correct me if I am wrong but aren’t Latinos now the majority in Texas? I don’t think they watch Stewart or listen to conservative talk shows.
My neice in Dallas is a school Librarian and had to go to El Salvador for 6 months to perfect her Spanish which is a required language for her position.
yamit82 Said:
Not to their parents, teacher or employers.
yamit82 Said:
Not counting Texas, who’s population is expanding.
honeybee Said:
You are probably correct but I think that 18-30 are still considered adults. From the Rust belt east and the West Coast where mostof the American population resides they are not Limbaugh and other conservatives main audience. While conservative America sits on the bulk of territorial America, majority of the population are on the 2 coasts.
yamit82 Said:
Must disagree, he is popular with the ” under 30″ crowd. Limbaugh and other conservative talk shows have a large following along wit FXN.
@ yamit82:
Actually what it SHOULD show you is the degree to which you can be assured of misstating — or even MISTAKING altogether — the discretion & perceptiveness of the American people.
What the studies HAVE shown is that 30% of those under age 40 view Stewart et al. as alternatives to traditional news outlets.
Unless you had other studies in mind when you wrote that?
bernard ross Said:
Being young, good looking makes up for a lot of sins.
bernard ross Said:
30% of the American adult public get their main news from Jon Stewart. That alone should tell you something.
@ bernard ross:
Hope you don’t bank with J.P Morgan
the man on the street has more sense than these parroting entertainers.