Thursday morning hodge-podge about Muslim censorship, Western self-censorship, and Western complicity in Islam’s Holy War

My brain is slowly warming up here so I’m not yet capable of original content.  Instead, let me offer other people’s wonderful stuff.

To get this set started, you have to begin by reading a speech that the Ayatollah Khomeini made in 1942, in which he stated explicitly that Islam is not a religion for wimps, but for conquering warriors (emphasis mine).

Those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [Allah’s law; the Sharia]. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.

There are a lot of people out there upon whom the Ayatollah could spit (if he were still alive).  Fortunately for the Ayatollah’s cause, and very unfortunately for ours, all of the “spitees” are on our side of the cultural divide.  At FrontPage, you can see video interviews with three front-line anti-Islamic (not anti-Muslim, but anti-Islamic) warriors regarding the West’s systematic refusal to stand up to the way in which critics of Islamism are silenced, with the silencing coming from both Muslims and the Left.

Nick Cohen continues this matched set with a discussion about the way in which the literary world, from the moment in 1989 that the Ayatollah issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie, engaged in aggressive, total self-censorship.  I guess one could say that one can’t expect the warrior spirit from writers, but it would be nice if at least some of the writers and publishers had a warrior spirit.  To the extent that they set the mental tone for a generation, since the late 1980s, their tone, sold to universities, politicians, and other self-styled elites, has been preemptive surrender.

Speaking of those elite universities, Harvard continues to ally itself with the anti-Israel cause.  When I’ve suggested that our children not go to Harvard (assuming they could even get in) because I consider Harvard antisemitic, Mr. Bookworm has demanded that I find one instance of overt antisemitism from Harvard.  He’s correct that there is none.  What there is, though, is covert antisemitism, which takes the form of an academic bend profoundly hostile to Israel and supportive of the Palestinians — Palestinians who, just coincidentally, dream of a genocidal purge in Israel that leaves the land and waters running red with Jewish blood.  Stephen Walt, a Harvard professor, provides a nice example of the Harvard viewpoint — he plays a numbers game, which conveniently allows him to ignore little issues such as competing values in an existential war or the fact that the Islamists initiate attacks and we merely retaliate in way that, we hope, prevents further Islamist initiations.  By the numbers, he says, we deserve to be hated.  This is where your tuition dollars go.

And speaking of those values, Gerald M. Steinberg does a nice job identifying Israel’s values (which are remarkably harmonious with the most enlightened Western values), and reminding us that the Left, the Muslims, and the UN (but I repeat myself), have engaged in a steady drumbeat of lies, manipulation, and bullying to make it appear as if Israel is a repressive, totalitarian culture, worthy of scorn and destruction.

And finally, not about Israel, but a link reminding you what the American Left thinks like.  (I originally wrote “looks like,” but “thinks like” is more accurate.)