What Happened to Middle Eastern Jewry?

October 23, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Faith, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Reut Cohen gives a personal anecdote in a larger untold story, illustrating what millions experienced:

My paternal grandfather vividly recalls his experiences living as a Jew in Baghdad and the Farhud pogrom, which was a Nazi pogrom coordinated by Haj Amin al-Husseini. In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq. Nearly 300 Jews were killed and more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, and hundreds of Jewish-owned shops were robbed and destroyed. My older family members recall witnessing how Iraqi soldiers pulled small children away from their parents and ripped the arms off young girls to steal their bracelets; pregnant women were raped and their stomachs cut open. My grandfather hid his baby brother underneath his t-shirt when the violence began and ran home. My great-grandfather saved his entire family during the riots that broke out in Baghdad by claiming to be a Muslim when Iraqi troops came into their home with the intent of looting, raping, and killing. Eventually, when being a Jew was practically criminalized, my father’s family escaped to Israel with only the clothes on their backs — their belongings were confiscated — leaving behind everything that they knew. Their experience was not a unique one and was shared by several thousand Baghdadi Jews.

Other Islamic countries treated their Jewish populations similarly. My maternal grandmother escaped from Syria during the mid-1940s. Her parents had died and she was forced to live with an older sister. As a 16-year-old girl, she decided to pay a Druze man with the gold her mother left to her and made the long, tedious journey to modern-day Israel. Because Syrian officials would incarcerate any Jew fleeing in the direction of Israel, my grandmother and other individuals making their way from Syria to what eventually became Israel would only be able to walk at night. Several Syrian Jews found it nearly impossible to flee. The last few Jews from Syria made their escape in the early 1990s. Our male relatives who arrived in Israel in the 1990s shared their stories with us. They were taken by Syrian authorities and tortured for unspecified amounts of time, experiencing unspeakable cruelty at the hands of Syrian officials.

What Is To Be Done - To Us?

October 16, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Book Review, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Election 2008, History, Islam, Islam and the West, National Security, Religion, Russia, Terrorism, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

The final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was primarily about the economy. That was appropriate and understandable. The big winner was Toledo’s new favorite son, Joe the Plumber – who will now be able to charge a lot more for his pipe-wrench artistry. And he will never again have a problem getting a table at Tony Packos.

It would be wise, however, for all Americans to remember something very important that is being overshadowed by the current cultural obsession. We are all concerned about our money. But the stakes right now are higher than mere dollars and cents.

In other words: It’s not just the economy, stupid.

As the long and hard fought presidential election campaign moves into the final frenetic stretch, there is an important court trial underway across the Atlantic - in Scotland. Two men have been charged with plotting terrorist bombings in Glasgow and London last year.

Two Muslim men - Mohammed Asha is from Jordan and Bilal Abdullaf is from Iraq.

Both are medical doctors.

While Americans worry about the possibility of another Great Depression, it is worth asking if we are in danger of being preoccupied with a Great Distraction at a crucial moment in our history.

Of course, our economic woes are quite real – ominous, in fact. And they cannot and should not be ignored. Not watching the store is what got us into this fix in the first place. But one has the sense that this nation is an increasingly soft target for something worse. And if it ever were to turn out that while we focused like a laser beam on the economy, our enemies decided to exploit our myopia, we could be in a bigger mess than we have ever imagined.

I am not trying to be “gloom and doom” here – just saying that it has probably crossed the mind of an adversary or two that this would be a fitting time to unleash something bad.

Bad, as in “where, oh where are you Jack Bauer?”

It is important for all of us to realize – even if it involves interrupting our current morbid fascination with the Dow and all things monetary – that the greatest strategic threat against our nation is not something that has been, or could be, done by people named Freddie or Fannie. Not even close. Our greatest enemy is, and will be long after the current financial mess is cleaned up, Islamism and its agenda to subdue all who persist in the audacity of being non-Muslim infidels.

In the sixth century B.C., Sun Tzu, in Art of War, said:

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battle. If you know only yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or lose. If you know neither yourself, nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

He also said: “All warfare is based on deception.”

There is an elephant in the big room under America’s spacious skies. It has to do with the potential for us to eventually see some of the same things happen here that are happening more and more frequently in Europe. I am referring to things like two presumably intelligent, and certainly well educated, doctors in a plot to bomb and kill.

Daniel Pipes is a widely read expert on the threat of radical Islam. He is a director of the Middle East Forum and calculates that, “10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam.” Let’s do the math (a fine young man on my staff, who has a graduate degree in theoretical mathematics would remind me here that this is arithmetic, not math – but you get my drift).

Estimates of the global Muslim population range between 1.3 and 1.6 billion – roughly one in five human beings. This means, if Pipes is right (and it is possible his estimates may be on the conservative side) – that there may be between 130 and 240 million people in the world who, in the name of Islam, hate America. These are the people who had a party on that sad September day seven years ago.

By the way, the total combined population of an earlier axis of evil enemies - Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in September of 1939 - was approximately 194 million. That’s total – as in every man, woman, and child.

How about the statistics right here in the U.S.? Well again, the estimates are all over the place, but it is generally accepted that between three and five million of our neighbors are Muslim. An article in Newsweek last year used the figure eight million. Applying the Pipes formula to here at home, we come up with the potential for anywhere between 300,000 and 1,200,000 people in this country who may be less-than-enamored of the rest of us. Or worse, some may be longing for the day when the fruited plain becomes a Muslim caliphate.

Here is where it gets complicated. We are a nation of people fierce about liberty. We believe in things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to assemble, to vote, and hold these things to be precious. We have no desire to become a police state, with neighbor turning on, or turning in, neighbor. We do not want to become hysterical and paranoid.

But there are bad people out there. They have guns and bombs and ugly ideas. And they have no problem “blending in” – even spending a long time cultivating a reassuring cover.

Bear in mind that the guys on trial across the pond right now are doctors.

There is a precedent for this, and it is one Americans should study. A few years ago, Margaret Thatcher, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990, described an often-overlooked previous pattern for what we are now witnessing.

Writing in 2002, she said:

Perhaps the best parallel is with early communism. Islamic extremism today, like bolshevism in the past, is an armed doctrine. It is an aggressive ideology promoted by fanatical, well-armed devotees. And, like communism, it requires an all-embracing long-term strategy to defeat it.

The Iron Lady nailed it. Though the terms Islamo-fascist and Islamo-nazi are used these days with regularity, perhaps Islamo-bolshevik should become part of our vocabulary. Though Islam and communism as ideologies bear little resemblance to each other, beyond a mutual affinity for subduing and controlling others, they do have much in common methodologically.

It is a mistake to think of terror as the only weapon in the Islamist arsenal. It is a very public one, indeed – and horrifying. But behind the ugliness of terrorism lies a persistent and pernicious pattern of deceit and manipulation. The term taqiyya refers to the practice of deliberate deceit in the service of Islamist goals. The ends justify the means, in other words - lying, fraud, stealing, cheating, all things that most religions commonly consider sins, are perfectly appropriate in the pursuit of jihad.

John J. Dziak, Ph.D., a professor at The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., has written extensively on Russian Intelligence. Last year, his article, Islamism and Stratagem, appeared in The Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies. He drew parallels between the methods used by current day Islamists, and those used ninety-plus years ago by Lenin and company:

The Bolshevik regime was a conspiracy come to power. The Soviet Union in practice was a seventy-one-year old counterintelligence operation raised to the level of a state system.

Organic to such a counterintelligence system is the widespread practice of provocations, diversion, deception, disinformation, ‘maskirovka’ (military focused deception), penetration, and other active measures of a highly aggressive nature.

He also noted that, “from its earliest history Islam has practiced what westerners label stratagem, deception, dissimulation, concealment, etc., in its dealings with not only the Infidel but with other Muslims, as well.” He identified Islamism as, “the twenty-first century heir to the counterintelligence state traditions of the totalitarian systems of the last century.”

During a recent radio interview, Brigitte Gabriel, author of the new book, They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It, told me, “history reveals very clearly that the apathetic give way to the passionate, and the complacent are subdued by the committed.”

I have written before about the love Islamists have for a spurious document called, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This anti-Semitic tract, though long-ago exposed as a forgery created by the Tsar’s secret police to foster anti-Jewish sentiment in early 20th century Russia, has long been a favorite of demagogues from Adolf Hitler to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The ironic thing is that, though the idea of a vast Jewish conspiracy to control the world has been so clearly proven as false, a group called the Muslim Brotherhood actually did write a plot of their own.

And this document is no forgery.

Brigitte Gabriel devotes an entire chapter to this in her book and it is chilling to read. Discovered in Switzerland just a few weeks after September 11, 2001, “The Project,” as it has come to be known, outlines a century long plan “to dominate the West and establish an Islamic government on earth.”

It is a 14-page “How To” manual about infiltrating a society en route to eventually subjugating it. Among its instructions are such motivational nuggets as:

• Avoiding open alliances with known terrorist organizations and individuals to maintain the appearance of “moderation.”
• Infiltrating and taking over existing Muslim organizations to realign them toward the Muslim Brotherhood’s collective goals.
• Using deception to mask the intended goals of Islamist actions, so long as it doesn’t conflict with Sharia law.
• Involving ideologically committed Muslims in democratically elected institutions on all levels in the West, including government, NGOs, private organizations, and labor unions.
• Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be converted and put into the service of Islam.
• Collecting sufficient funds to indefinitely perpetuate and support jihad around the world.

And so on.

Lenin could not have said it any better in What Is To Be Done.

“The Un PC Reality”

October 10, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, International Affairs, Islam and the West, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

Sen. Obama keeps invoking the administration’s past support for Pevez Musharraf and the purported policy of sweeping under the rug, blaming it for the devolution of Pakistani Islamist’s indemnity towards the United States. This line of rationale is totally PC, Bridget Johnson argues in her article at Pajamas Media today, as the current government is in power democratically and radical clerics stoking the sentiment are only promoting theocracy:

And — here’s the harsh reality — they were emboldened by the departure of Musharraf, not singing the praises for renewed civil liberties. The bomb targeted the lower floor of restaurants at the Marriott, packed at that hour with Muslims breaking the Ramadan fast. Some of the other dead, such as Czech Ambassador Ivo Zdarek, died in the resulting fire that spread to the rest of the hotel. The intentionally-timed bombing didn’t just target foreigners, and the hotel wasn’t bombed because of lingering anger at Musharraf suspending civil liberties. It was a challenge to the new government, because they know how much weaker things are at the top now.

Dog Days in Tayside

July 7, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Culture, Islam, Islam and the West, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

Tayside is a town near Dundee in Scotland. The local constabulary’s slogan is “Here for you” and, as part of an advertising campaign, they selected a small black German shepherd puppy about to be trained, by his handler Mike, for the department’s K-9 squad. The idea was to give him his own website, with lots of photos and even a blog written in the “first” person.

Here’s how the pooch described the way he was named:

Well… I guess you’ve heard the news by now… my new name is Rebel! Not so much ‘Rebel Without A Cause’… but Rebel with big paws!

Greg MacBain at St Ninians Primary school put forward the name suggestion and Mike picked it out from hundreds of entries. Apparently he thinks it suits my personality… I don’t know what he means… woof!

Anyway, Mike still can’t get used to calling me Rebel. He’s been calling me ‘puppy’ for so long! I’m getting bigger and bolder by the day and, now that I have had all of my injections, I can start getting out and about in the community more.

I went to St Ninians School last Friday to meet up with Greg and all the lovely boys and girls… boy did I get a lot of attention.

The pupils managed to raise over £50 for the PDSA by charging 20 pence for every name suggestion. The vet from the PDSA came with me to the school to collect the cheque. I know that the money will be used to help some other animals who are not as fortunate as me.

In the afternoon I went to visit my agent Sarah at Force Headquarters and I got a little too excited and left a calling card for her at her desk… oops.

The campaign was successful beyond imagination. Rebel soon became a major local celebrity. The Tayside PD puppy training website received the numbers of hits that The New Nixon only dares to dream about during nights of very fevered sleep, and the TV crews weren’t far behind.

What a great idea. What could go wrong? What indeed.

Postcards featuring a photograph of Rebel sitting inside an overturned police hat next to a telephone —advertising a new number for non-emergency calls— were distributed throughout the community. That’s when the trouble began.

In today’s New York Post, John O’Sullivan describes Rebel’s brief career cut short as a cautionary tale about out of hand multiculturism, and draws some not entirely comforting conclusions.

 

Hitler’s Favorite Jihadist

July 4, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Terrorism, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

As members of the Allied Expeditionary Force entered the landing crafts that would transport them to their rendezvous with history in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, they received individual copies of the Order of the Day drafted by their Supreme Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He had given the go ahead for the massive invasion, code named Overlord, in spite of weather that was less than inviting. He wanted the men to understand what they were fighting for – and against.

He told them:

“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”

In those days leaders weren’t as concerned about the politically correct parsing of phrases and words as some seem to be today. It was clear to them that they were not fighting mere “flesh and blood” but abhorrent ideological wickedness (“Nazi tyranny”). And they passed that clarity onto those who were engaged in the perilous fight.

So, why is it so hard for some today to call things as they are?

We are not fighting a war on terror. We are fighting against a pernicious way of thinking. Terrorism is a methodology – a way to fight a battle. The technique itself is not the enemy. Our foes are people and regimes who, in the name of foul opinion, perpetrate destruction. Just like back in the 1940s.

Can you imagine what it would have sounded like if Ike, FDR, or Churchill had been bound by the sensitivities of our day? We would have been “battling the blitzkriegers,” or maybe “bringing to justice those who dared to attack too early on a Sunday morning,” - hardly clarion calls.

Wars make more sense, and they tend to be conducted with greater vigilance and effectiveness, when we understand things in terms of good vs. evil. But these days it’s hard to even bring up the idea that militant Islam is to blame, much less to frame the current conflict as a war against it. History, however, leaves clues that remind us that there is really not much new under the sun.

David G. Dalin and John F. Rothman have written a new book, one that should be read by all Americans seeking to understand current geopolitical reality, called: Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam. They make a compelling and well-documented case that we are actually fighting the quasi-spiritual offspring of Nazism and Fascism.

Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974) is by no means a household name today, but his story is a key historical plot-point helping to create the mess we now find ourselves in. From his appearance on the stage of turbulent Middle Eastern politics in 1921, until his death fifty-three years later, he was a consistent and vociferous voice preaching a blend of anti-Semitic, anti-Western, and pan-Islamic rhetoric to anyone who would lend an ear. And there were plenty of listeners. There still are. He was the grand mufti (maximum leader) of Muslims in Palestine – the big kahuna.

Mr. al-Husseini’s political journey was driven by a radical interpretation and application of Islam. He was an effective and charismatic leader of a vast movement - forerunner of the various manifestations of Islamic fanaticism extant. This virulent form of his religion took hold during the period between the two world wars and grew to become the plague it is on all houses of freedom.

And it turns out that al-Husseini was a big fan of a man by the name of Adolf Hitler. The number one Nazi liked him, too.

In November of 1941, a little more than a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a meeting in Berlin, one that is often relegated to a footnote in the history of that great global conflict. Haj Amin al-Husseini made his way from the mansion he’d been provided by the Nazis toward the Reich Chancellery, where he was to meet Hitler in the dictator’s private office. Dalin and Rothman describe this ominous meeting in great detail.

The mufti sought to ingratiate himself with Hitler and the strategy was reciprocal. They pledged allegiance to each other. And why not? They had common goals and enemies. The German leader bestowed honorary Aryan citizenship on his guest (Hitler interpreted al-Husseini’s blond hair and blue eyes as evidence that the Islamic leader must have possessed some “pure” blood) and it was clear that his visitor was keenly interested in being set up as the Nazi leader in Palestine and its surrounding region.

Al-Husseini eventually recruited 100,000 European Muslims to partner with the Waffen-SS, and the authors of Icon of Evil hint at the idea that the cleric-politician was influential in the decision to implement the notorious Final Solution. He was good buddies with Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichman.

Nazis and radical Islamists – together. Nothing good could come of that, and in fact, a lot of today’s bad stuff was incubated in that Berlin laboratory.

One of the most captivating portions of Icon of Evil is devoted to the question: What if Hitler had been victorious and the war had turned out differently? Drawing on similar previous musings by writers such as William L. Shirer, John Keegan, and David Fromkin, the duo shares a chilling narrative about how radically different life would be today had Hitler won. This is important not just because of the horrifying idea of a Hitler-dominant Europe – but also due to what the Middle East would look like in such a case. Al Husseini wanted to extend the Holocaust beyond the borders of European living space to the Middle East. His goal was something near and dear to the heart of the depraved men running the Third Reich – a Palestine that would be virtually Judenrein (a reprehensible Nazi term literally meaning: “clean of Jews”).

Then there’s the story of how this wicked preacher was able to avoid the Nuremberg trial dragnet, in spite of clearly being guilty of egregious war-crimes. He would not be brought to justice, but rather would live out his days back in the Middle East. His post-war work included becoming something of a mentor to men who would become famous in his cause. What do Gamel Abdel Nassar, Anwar Al Sadat, Yassir Arafat, and Saddam Hussein have in common? They were all connected with, and deeply influenced by, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Hamas and Hezbollah are very much part of his legacy, as well. He worked closely with the theoretician of radical Islam, Sayyid Qutb, as well as Saddam’s infamous uncle, General Khairallah Talfah. The guy was connected. And the usual suspects he ran with paved the way for everything from the attacks on September 11, 2001, to the maniacal rantings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In fact, some of Haj Amin al-Husseini’s spirit is in the intellectual and emotional DNA of every current radical Islamist.

Now, here’s what really bugs me – why could we fight a war nearly seventy years ago, all the while referring to our enemies as Nazi thugs, and yet today be so concerned about sensibilities that we’re reduced to, at best, rhetorical beating-around-the-bush?

The war we are in is not against a weapon, no matter how dreadful that weapon is. We are fighting a virulent ideology. To be brutally honest about it - to call our enemies today terrorists, or even Islamo-Fascists, is not strong enough.

They are Islamo-Nazis and they’re really bad people - like the German-Nazis were.

Is Teheran Finally Running Scared?

July 1, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Islam, Islam and the West, National Security, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

Ali Akbar Velayati, Ayatollah Khamenei’s top foreign policy adviser, warned against President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad’s “provocative” language against the West, indicating a split in Teheran’s leadership. Some in the regime, at least, have evidently concluded that the U.S. and Israel mean business. Velayati seemingly favors the suspension of uranium enrichment to avoid a possibly fateful confrontation:

“Americans wanted Iran not to accept Solana,” Velayati told the hard-line daily newspaper Jomhuri Islami. “Therefore our interests imply that we should embrace Solana.” Velayati’s remarks were among the strongest indicators of a split within Iran’s opaque leadership circle over how best to handle the standoff with the West and Israel over the country’s nuclear program. A media report Tuesday by a news organization close to the pragmatic chair of Iran’s Expediency Council, Ahmadinejad rival Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, suggested that Iran might be willing to suspend or curtail uranium enrichment for a six-week period during which negotiations would take place.

Speechless in Kuala Lumpur

June 18, 2008 by Joshua Trevino | Filed Under International Affairs, Islam, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

It was supposed to be Malaysia’s moment in the sun, at the intersection of the Muslim and Western worlds, and helping define a constructive relationship between the two. But the non-Malaysian participants at the Third International Conference on the Muslim World and the West in Kuala Lumpur this week didn’t seem to get the message, as they used their pulpit to attack the principle of free speech.

The irony in this turn of events is palpable, especially given the contradiction between the dramatic expansion of Malaysian press and social freedoms, and the course urged by the Muslim dignitaries present. Since Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi took office after the decades-long autocracy of Mahathir Mohamed, restrictions on Malaysian media have been dramatically curtailed, to the point that, though still imperfect by Western standards, it is perhaps the most free media and social environment in the Muslim world.

A direct beneficiary of Malaysia’s media liberalization is the political opposition — a fact that Badawi acknowledges, and accepts as necessary for his country’s good.

This, though, is not a risk too many non-Malaysian Muslim power holders are willing to take. It is perhaps too much to expect that the major Muslim dignitaries present at this week’s Conference — a Saudi prince, a Turkish bureaucrat, and a former Pakistani prime minister — will have reflexes toward individual liberty. None of them hail from known bastions of Jeffersonian democracy. Yet all of them hail from known bastions of tradition, chief among them the duties of guests to hosts. Their denunciation of free speech in Malaysia now is an act of a bad guest.

The Conference opened on Monday morning with an on-the-record panel of four Muslim and three Western dignitaries. The constructive dialogue envisioned by the Malaysian hosts was swiftly subsumed by plaintive invocations of Muslim victimization.

Introductory remarks by the Malaysian Foreign Minister were followed by the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanouglu of Turkey, who delivered a rambling speech on the injustices of the West’s portrayal of Muslims. The litany ranged from the drearily familiar invocation of Muhammed cartoons, to Geert Wilders’s Fitna film, to an otherwise obscure video game by an American college student, in which the object is apparently to kill Islam’s founding prophet.

Secretary-General Ihsanouglu’s solution was as simple as it was troubling — and was made the more troubling by its popularity with the assembled delegates. There is, he declared, “a campaign of incitement under the guise of freedom of expression.” Therefore, freedom of expression must go. This sentiment was warmly received. Erstwhile Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz garnered applause when he stated, “Producing cartoons on religious leaders, where sensitivities are hurt, should be discouraged — and should be opposed and not be protected under the guise of freedom.”

Prince Turki al Faisal, a longtime fixture in the Saudi power structure, put it in more blunt terms: “I can never accept, in my personal view, that freedom of speech is morally right when it supersedes and offends my faith and my belief.”

Thus did three of the four Muslim speakers demand an end to Western freedom of speech as the prerequisite to reconciliation with the West. The fourth preferred to denounce Israel, and the three Western panelists — a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and an Australian — raised no objection. Indeed, it was possible to read into the latters’ remarks an oblique endorsement of the notion: “Political problems have to be solved in political ways,” intoned Spain’s Jose Maria Ferre de la Pena, who serves as a “Special Ambassador” from Madrid to the Islamic world.

To attack freedom of speech as a root cause of the conflict between the Western and Muslim worlds is to make two grave errors. First is the implicit contention that Muslims are psychologically and culturally inert, and purely reactive to Western stimuli. This is plainly false: Muslims have the same capacity for moral choice, and the same independent existence, as all persons — even if their conference-going, globe-trotting leaders pretend otherwise. Second is the baleful reality that if Muslims attempt to suppress free speech, then defenders of free speech will be forced to stand up for every stupid, cruel, and vicious rhetorical attack upon Muslims. By reacting to an abuse of liberty with an attack on liberty, Muslims against free speech elevate those abuses to exercises in principle.

In that light, the eminences at the Third International Conference on the Muslim World and the West would do well, while they’re in Kuala Lumpur, to stop attacking a basic freedom — and start learning from their hosts.

This piece appeared in the print version of the Washington Examiner on 16 June 2008.