Everyone should be islamophobic and anti-Islam

By Ted Belman

According to Haaretz, UCLA has come out against the Palestinian harrassment of pro-Israel students at least in one respect.

Following months of contentious debate, the chancellor of the University of California at Los Angeles has condemned efforts by pro-Palestinian groups to bar student council candidates from participating in trips to Israel sponsored by pro-Israel groups.

The target of the chancellor’s criticism was a student-drafted joint statement of ethics, which asked student council candidates, if elected, to refrain from participating in trips to Israel organized by AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and Aish International’s Hasbara Fellowships.

The statement was supported by a diverse group of pro-Palestinian student organizations at UCLA, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Muslim Student Association, Afrikan Student Union, Armenian Students’ Association and Samahang Pilipino.

“I am troubled that the pledge sought to delegitimize educational trips offered by some organizations but not others,” Chancellor Gene Block said, in an email to students, faculty, and staff.

“I am troubled that the pledge can reasonably be seen as trying to eliminate selected viewpoints from the discussion. “If we shut out perspectives, if we silence voices, if we allow innuendo to substitute for reasoned exchange of ideas, if we listen only to those who already share our assumptions, truth gets lost, our intellectual climate is impoverished and our community is diminished,” he said.

Some of these statements are mealy-mouthed but I’ll take them for now.

But a few comments by a pro-Israel student bothered me.

“These are educational trips for students; there is no political agenda,”

And what pray tell is wrong with trips with a political agenda?

“The assumption that someone who is pro-Israel must be Islamophobic is offensive.”

I hate this. Islam is a threat to our liberties and our lives. We should be Islamophobic. To be otherwise is to abdicate responsibility for our future. We should be proud to be anti-Islam. We should own it and proclaim it.

May 19, 2014 | 16 Comments »

Leave a Reply

16 Comments / 16 Comments

  1. @ Bear Klein:
    Those are noble sentiments Bear Klein, but the problem is Alevi’s don’t have the money to export their religion around the world. The Saudi’s do.

    To end radical Islam, the West will have to face Mecca.

    Whilst the West is spending billions on far fighting al Qaeda the real enemy is subverting the West. Financing mosques, donations to universities, Sharia Finance, buying up institutions and then exerting pressure or blackmail. Saudi Arabia just threatened the Netherlands with trade sanctions because of Wilders.

    Saudi Arabia’S Efforts To Expand Radical Islam And Support Terrorism

    But Saudi funding to globally spread their Sunni radical version of Islam-Wahhabism–began in earnest in 1962 with the establishment of the Muslim World League (MWL), which expanded into at least to one hundred branches in more than thirty countries, and served as the main body for other international Saudi charities. Since then, the Kingdom’s charities have been estimated to spend between $1.5 and $2 trillion to build many thousand of mosques, madrassas and Islamic centers equipped with Saudi books and Imams, preaching the Wahhabi doctrine.

    Here we offer the 2011 study again, to reinforce lessons that should have been learned long since. We also include the study’s original set of recommendations, as few if any have been taken to heart.

    Their Oil is Thicker Than Our Blood

    Overview: Saudi Arabia-as an Ally in the War on Terrorist Financing

    For decades US officials publicly heaped praise on Saudi counterterrorism efforts, while the Saudis continued to fund terrorism.

  2. @ Ted Belman:
    It is certainly true that moderate Muslims have no money. What is odd, that Hollywood is protesting against Brunei’s implemantation of Sharia law, but ignore Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE who have investments worth billions in the USA.
    How Saudi petrodollars fuel rise of Salafism

    Free education

    Other, slightly less shadowy recipients of Saudi petrodollars include the numerous religious institutions built around the Arab world to preach Wahhabi Islam, as well as the growing list of Saudi satellite channels that provide a platform for radical Salafist preachers. A large share of the booty also goes to Arab students attending religious courses at the kingdom’s universities in Medina, Riyadh and the Mecca.

    “Most of the students at Medina University are foreigners who benefit from generous scholarships handed out by Saudi patrons, as well as free accommodation and plane tickets,” said Amghar. “Once they have graduated, the brightest are hired by the Saudi monarchy, while the rest return to their respective countries to preach Wahhabi Islam”. According to Amghar, the members of France’s nascent Salafist movement follow a similar path.

  3. Islamists and their beliefs are who and what I believe to be the enemy who needs to be dealt with. The solution is not near. I believe if this is to be a change moderate Muslims will have to moderate the religion just like the Christians have done in comparison to Christain religion of the crusader times and inquisition times. In Turkey their is a sect of Islam called Aleveis and they are far more moderate than the Sunnis or mainstream Shias. They make up about around 15% of the Turkish population

  4. @ Ted Belman:

    Now any Muslim who supports sharia and Jihad is my enemy. But that doesn’t mean that I hate him.

    Huh?
    So… Does that mean that you LOVE your enemy???
    Once, the enemy is being defined, do you not think it clears the thinking process?
    It simplifies it.
    Yes. There might be some that will inadvertently be wrongly identified.
    Well, bravo foxtrot delta!
    Let’s be properly prepared for the 99.99%.
    As far as the anomalous rare reading that may occur…deal with that prn, on a case by case basis.

  5. If the west isn’t prepared to stand up to the radical Muslims how do you expect the moderate Muslims to do so.

    For the last 1300 years the fundamentalist have held sway and the moderate Muslims never revolted or took over.

    So how can Pipes say, the moderate Muslims are the answer,

  6. Bear Klein Said:

    We understand that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution.

    Pipes is famous for this quote. Andy Bostom totally disagrees. So do I. Moderate muslims are not the answer. They have no money and they have no power and they have no scriptures that support them. They are apostates. Zudi Jasser organized a million man moderate Muslim March and only 50 people showed up, most of whom were Jews. There were more moderate Germans than Nazis. A lot of good it did the Jews.

  8. @ Ted Belman:
    Daniel Pipes does a good job on this topic:
    He would say the “Islamist” is what I believe you are referring to ( I could be wrong as I do not speak for you but that is how I took what you were saying). The Islamists are the enemy including their belief system.

    Islam vs. Islamism

    Leftists and establishmentarians variously offer imprecise and tired replies – such as “violent extremism” or anger at Western imperialism – unworthy of serious discussion. Conservatives, in contrast, engage in a lively and serious debate among themselves: some say Islam the religion provides motive, others say it’s a modern extremist variant of the religion, known as radical Islam or Islamism.

    As a participant in the latter debate, here’s my argument for focusing on Islamism.

    Those focusing on Islam itself as the problem (such as ex-Muslims like Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali) point to the consistency from Muhammad’s life and the contents of the Koran and Hadith to current Muslim practice. Agreeing with Geert Wilders’ film Fitna, they point to striking continuities between Koranic verses and jihad actions. They quote Islamic scriptures to establish the centrality of Muslim supremacism, jihad, and misogyny, concluding that a moderate form of Islam is impossible. They point to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an’s deriding the very idea of a moderate Islam. Their killer question is, “Was Muhammad a Muslim or an Islamist?” They contend that we who blame Islamism do so out of political correctness or cowardliness.

    To which, we reply: Yes, certain continuities do exist; and Islamists definitely follow the Koran and Hadith literally. Moderate Muslims exist but lack Islamists’ near-hegemonic power. Erdo?an’s denial of moderate Islam points to a curious overlap between Islamism and the anti-Islam viewpoint. Muhammad was a plain Muslim, not an Islamist, for the latter concept dates back only to the 1920s. And no, we are not cowardly but offer our true analysis.

    And that analysis goes like this:

    Islam is the fourteen-century-old faith of a billion-plus believers that includes everyone from quietist Sufis to violent jihadis. Muslims achieved remarkable military, economic, and cultural success between roughly 600 and 1200 c.e. Being a Muslim then meant belonging to a winning team, a fact that broadly inspired Muslims to associate their faith with mundane success. Those memories of medieval glory remain not just alive but central to believers’ confidence in Islam and in themselves as Muslims.

    Major dissonance began around 1800, when Muslims unexpectedly lost wars, markets, and cultural leadership to Western Europeans. It continues today, as Muslims bunch toward the bottom of nearly every index of achievement. This shift has caused massive confusion and anger. What went wrong, why did God seemingly abandon His faithful? The unbearable divergence between premodern accomplishment and modern failure brought about trauma.

    Muslims have responded to this crisis in three main ways. Secularists want Muslims to ditch the Shari’a (Islamic law) and emulate the West. Apologists also emulate the West but pretend that in doing so they are following the Shari’a. Islamists reject the West in favor of a retrograde and full application of the Shari’a.

    Islamists loathe the West because of its being tantamount to Christendom, the historic archenemy, and its vast influence over Muslims. Islamism inspires a drive to reject, defeat, and subjugate Western civilization. Despite this urge, Islamists absorb Western influences, including the concept of ideology. Indeed, Islamism represents the transformation of Islamic faith into a political ideology. Islamism accurately indicates an Islamic-flavored version of radical utopianism, an -ism like other -isms, comparable to fascism and communism. Aping those two movements, for example, Islamism relies heavily on conspiracy theories to interpret the world, on the state to advance its ambitions, and on brutal means to attain its goals.

    Supported by 10-15 percent of Muslims, Islamism draws on devoted and skilled cadres who have an impact far beyond their limited numbers. It poses the threat to civilized life in Iran, Egypt, and not just on the streets of Boston but also in Western schools, parliaments, and courtrooms.

    Our killer question is “How do you propose to defeat Islamism?” Those who make all Islam their enemy not only succumb to a simplistic and essentialist illusion but they lack any mechanism to defeat it. We who focus on Islamism see World War II and the Cold War as models for subduing the third totalitarianism. We understand that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution. We work with anti-Islamist Muslims to vanquish a common scourge. We will triumph over this new variant of barbarism so that a modern form of Islam can emerge.

    Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum.

    May 13, 2013 addendum: This article updates and summarizes a longer version, “Islam and Islamism – Faith and Ideology,” I published in the National Interest, Spring 2000.

    May 18, 2013 update: The article above has been misinterpreted, for example by Walid Shoebat who states that “Pipes makes an unsubstantiated claim that a majority of Muslims are moderate and that Islamism is only supported by 10-15 percent of Muslims.” No, I do not claim that 85-90 percent of Muslims are moderate. Let’s use more precise language. I estimate that a very small percentage of Muslims are actively opposed to application of the Shari’a and can be defined as anti-Islamists. That leaves a vast body that includes traditionalists, Sufis, Islamic supremacists, and completely apolitical types. I do not characterize them as moderate. I only call them not Islamist.

  9. Everyone should be islamophobic and anti-Islam

    I hate this. Islam is a threat to our liberties and our lives. We should be Islamophobic. To be otherwise is to abdicate responsibility for our future. We should be proud to be anti-Islam. We should own it and proclaim it.

    I am in total agreement.

  12. @ Ted Belman – Are you also saying we are supposed to hate all one Billion Muslims? Or just their religion?

  14. “Islamophobic”? Are you kidding? A phobia is an irrational fear. Is is irrational to fear or loath Islam when virtually every terrorist and the vast majority of bloody conflicts in the world and counting is Muslim? When their credo is to convert the world to Islam or kills those that won’t convert? An ideology that subjugates women and brutalizes all who fail to adhere to it is to be feared and loathed by the rational and the term must be changed from it’s present suggestion of a pathology to something that better describes the clear and present danger that it is.