Robert Spencer lies again on TV
December 5, 2006
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December 26, 2006 at 1:34 am
would you please explain where Spencer lies? And when you claim that he lied on another occasion perhaps you could explain that too. I’m holding my breath!
January 2, 2007 at 4:41 pm
to: raymond
He just takes a quote from Quran and misinterprets it or does not go beyond that specific quote. He does not say anything that happens before or after the quote! I can take a quote from bible or any of jewish books and say that they are haters too…
he is just a smart ass who is trying to be famous…
April 2, 2007 at 9:53 am
Report on Robert Spencer and the Boston Anti-Islamic Controversy
By Joachim Martillo
Anti-Islamic and anti-Arab talks/propaganda sessions that have been taking place with increasing frequency in the USA since the beginning of February seem to be coordinated (at least in the Boston and the New York/New Jersey area where I spend most of my time). The current increase in defamation of Arab and Muslim spokesmen throughout the USA and the world is probably connected with such indoctrination sessions. Robert Spencer’s February 3rd talk, which took place in Newton, Massachusetts, and which is discussed below, is fairly typical. *
Spencer spoke a little about the Roxbury Mosque and tried to identify as jihadists some people, who in the past had some association with the Islamic Society of Boston, but most of the talk was a sort of rambling attack on Islam that cherry-picked verses from the Quran, commentaries, ahadith, historical incidents, cultural practices, Islamic legal theory, fatawa of various degrees of importance, and various historical, philosophical and political works by Muslim intellectuals over the last millennium. If you want to get an idea of the nature of the talk, you could peruse Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith at the library. Please do not buy it. Or if you do so, get it secondhand so that he gets no royalty.
Spencer’s approach was similar to the anti-Jewish polemic that was common in Germany and Eastern Europe in the late 19th century and early 20th century. (To be honest, I consider Rohling’s Der Talmudjude to have been a good deal more coherent albeit equally wrong and malicious.) Spencer made a big deal about taqiyah even though Maimonides gives in the Mishneh Torah exactly the same sort of permission to dissemble in the same way under exactly the same circumstances. Spencer has more or less recreated the anti-Semitic calumny that Jews give themselves permission to lie every year during the kol nidrei prayer at Yom Kippur and transformed it into an anti-Muslim slander.
Spencer does not like the Quranic verse that assigns authority to men over women even though Abraham Geiger correctly pointed out over 100 years ago that the verse is practically identical to traditional Jewish interpretations of the punishment of Eve in Genesis. Spencer also made a big deal that the Quran characterizes Sabbath-breakers as apes and pigs and that this language creeps into anti-Israel and Zionist polemic. Perhaps, American Jews are sensitive about the issue because 90% of them are Sabbath breakers, but the Hebrew Bible records in Numbers that Moses ordered the summary execution of a Sabbath breaker. Name calling is mild by comparison. I do agree that the terminology is probably inappropriate when attacking Israel and Zionism. Identifying Zionist colonizers as murderous genocidal racist thieves and interlopers corresponds much more closely to my observations of Zionist behavior in Stolen Palestine (pre-1967 Israel) and Occupied Palestine (the lands conquered in 1967).
Spencer ranted for a while about dhimma even though this area of Islamic jurisprudence is quite similar to the canon law and halakhic rules about nonbelievers under Christian or Jewish authority. In any case, the rules for dealing with nonbelievers in all three religions have historically been mostly theoretical because Jews have only rarely been in a situation where they held sovereignty over non-Jews in recent times, and the major Christian and Islamic political entities over the last 500 years have usually used ad hoc systems in place of the specific ordinances of religious law.
He cited out of context a lot of verses that discussed struggle with idolaters or unbelievers and tried to argue that Islam was incompatible with the idea of universal human rights (as if Zionism is). He also cited Kabbani and another Sheikh (probably out of context) in a sort of ipse dixit argument.
Later during questioning he tried to demonize as uniquely evil the desire of ibn Khaldun for the expansion of Sharia throughout the world as if ideas like manifest destiny, mission civilatrice and the white man’s burden did not express a similar mentality in the most positive interpretation and a very racist mentality in a more realistic interpretation.
Over all, Spencer seems to have intended to use the talk to rally the troops against the Mosque and Islam or Muslims in general. Many of the Jewish attendees were quite offended by the thrust and the content. Several questioned Spencer’s competence in interpreting the texts and asked why he cited questionable Orientalist literature instead of asking Muslim scholars. Two compared Spencer’s talk with traditional anti-Jewish polemics. The reaction was to some degree correlated with age. The older people seemed somewhat more anti-Muslim, but on the whole amount of criticism from the audience suggested that anti-Mosque activity is probably on the decline.
There was a suggestion that there should be an open debate or discussion between Spencer and a Muslim scholar. The proposal is questionable. Spencer can pack an amazing number of lies and misrepresentations into 10 seconds, and the answer to each point would probably require several minutes.
The idea that Muslims must somehow prove themselves worthy to Jews is simply offensive, and part of the required proof seems to include an affirmation of the legitimacy of Israel even though I can cite hundreds of prominent Rabbinical and Karaite scholars as well as eminent Jewish intellectuals of various ethnicities, who will state unequivocally that Zionism is a vile idea that is either racist or runs counter to the last 1000 years of Rabbinic and Karaite Jewish thought.
If this idea of an open discussion goes forward, the format should provide equality. If Spencer is going to interrogate a Muslim scholar about various religious, cultural, communal, historical, social and political aspects of Islam or about the behavior of Muslims from various ethnic groups or states, the Muslim scholar should be able to pose similar queries to Spencer about various aspects of Judaica.
Spencer seems to fixate on certain aspects of the Quranic text, a few specific commentaries, a very narrow portion of Islamic law, certain cultural practices, and the opinions of representatives of political or fundamentalist Islam. Identifying exactly comparable areas in which to question Spencer would be tricky.
Modern Rabbinic Judaism is historically more the religion of the Talmud than the religion of the Hebrew Bible, but today for most American Jews Jewish religion seems primarily a combination of Holocaust fixation, worship of the State of Israel and ethnic narcissism.
While ethnic Muslim identity exists in Eastern Europe among Polish-Lithuanian Tatar Muslims and among Bosnians, Muslims constitute much more a community of faith than do American Jews or Zionist colonizers. When Muslims use the term Jew, they mean a community that follows the tawrat musa. Before Zionism became the dominant ideology among ethnic Ashkenazim, Ashkenazim typically used Jew (Yid in Yiddish) to mean a member of the Ashkenazi ethnic group, which represents something like 98% of American Jews. In order to legitimize the theft of Palestine from the native population Zionists reinterpreted the Ashkenazi ethnic group as the pan-Judaic ethnonational group of anyone whose ancestors practiced some form of Judaic religion. As a consequence political Islamism is probably much more comparable to Zionism, which Nordau, one of the founding Zionist leaders, called Muskeljudentum (Muscle Judaism).
If Spencer wants to question the role that Saudis play in spreading specifically Saudi forms of Islam, his Muslim counterpart might want to discuss the role that Jewish Hollywood executives play in spreading ideas about male-female relations that seem to have developed in the specifically Eastern European Ashkenazi social context (including the Frankist Jewish heresy that encouraged adultery and promiscuity).
To be frank, Spencer really did not seem to have much in the way of qualifications to write or to discuss Islam, and I do not know of any Muslim scholar that would have sufficient command of Judaica to provide a reasonable counterpoint. A discussion or debate between Spencer and a Muslim scholar would probably generate more heat than light and might even give extra life to the anti-Mosque campaign, which seems to be dying.
July 5, 2007 at 1:07 am
I really must applaud Fox news on their biased attempt in almost “leading” their viewers into thinking that us, as a Muslim nation do not condemn terrorism.
This has to be a prime example of media bias against Islam. Any individual viewing this video would’ve noticed how Ms. Edina was being consistently interrogated in an almost condescending fashion, while Spencer and O’Reilly kept rambling on about Jihadist mentality.
Fact is, there is a very unfair representation of Islam with the media. If anyone is using tools such as CNN, Fox, or any “Western” database to educate themselves about Islam, they will definitely be mislead into thinking Islam is a religion of terrorists and nothing else, which is far from the truth.
October 17, 2007 at 11:11 am
O’Reilly is so biased! I don’t think that she wanted to really hear what moderate muslims have to say.
January 13, 2008 at 5:43 am
I have been learning Islam for last one year. But frankly speaking Islam does not seems like a violent religion. It is better if every one tries to find the truth by themselves rather than listening to these kind of biased interviews. We all have enough access to search for it. I think thats why Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world
March 26, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I think it’s important to point out that some of texts Spencer is “fixating” on have a direct correlation to what is going on “now” with the Islamic Extremists! Trying to equate that with anything from the Old Testament, etc. doesn’t get you that far, because it’s all in the past, whilst we’re having to deal with the Jihadist mindset in the present.
Also, if so-called “Moderate” Muslims are so against the extremists teachings…where’s the outcry? The only outcry I’m hearing is when someone says anything bad about Islam.
Also, don’t even try calling the US and Israel terrorist countries…sure we’re not perfect. But think about this…we spend billions on dollars on technology and go out of our way to minimize any civilian casualties. While on the other hand the Islamic extremists/ Jihadists do quite the opposite!
May 5, 2008 at 6:14 am
this video is another typical example of how the western media uses its power to control thoughts of western people–our muslim sister was not given a real chance to prove the muslim point of view–was being constantly interupted from the interviewer. The west does not want to hear the truth.
May 12, 2008 at 4:08 am
I know which muslim scholar to choose for a debate with Spencer and who would know more about Judacia than Spencer himself. Let Dr. Zakir Naik of India debate this man. Let him come forth and accept the challenge. Is that it Mr. Spencer. Are you running away now? Let there be a final challenge. This is similar to the challnege of Ahmed Deedat to the Pope who never replied to the challenge of a debate.
August 11, 2008 at 12:22 am
The rule of abrogation Sura 2:106 is why Spencer is correct in his assertions. Loosely the verse says that any verse that contradicts previous verses is better. So when applying this idea we see that Muhammed’s later revelations of war on non-believers are justified. You can’t cover this up by citing peaceful verse that Muhammed relayed while starting his religion in Mecca because he himself said they were henceforth abrogated. If the Quran is the word of God, Spencer simply points to the reasons that the Jihadists against America do what they do. If not confronted and ignored it will only grow, just like a tumor.
August 15, 2008 at 11:20 pm
LOL @ “Big Daddy Harrison”.
You are so ignorant. You have nothing to say. Yet, you whine about how Judaism is a religion of filth! I laugh at you and HaShem laughs as well.
Go take your hatred of Jews and Muslims elsewhere.
October 14, 2008 at 7:30 am
I always read the same about Robert. People claiming that he is a lier without bringing any evidence about where exactly he is lying/misinterpreting/misquoting. Robert Spencer is very clear every time he speaks: “if I’m wrong, prove it”.
Once an for all: Spencer doesn’t quote violent verses of the Qur’an just because they’re written there; he does it because THEY ARE QUOTED BY JIHADISTS THEMSELVES TO JUSTIFY THEIR VIOLENCE. It doesn’t really matter what’s written in the Bible if the Pope explicitly rejects it, no matter how sacred the Bible is.
Robert Spencer woulnd’t have any problem with Islam if it wasn’t a supremacist ideology, that is, an ideology that, when established in a given country, affects law, politics, freedom of thought and freedom of expression of EVERYONE, and if you think I’m “a zionist lier”, I invite you all to research about the plight of non-muslims in muslims countries. Use your own sources, read whatever you want, and you’ll see what I mean.
August 4, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Soo it’s all rubbish…
But tell me this: how come Muslims are involved in just about every conflict in the world?
How is it that Muslims blame Jews, a race not even in the top 10 of world religions (there are more Animalists & Jains than Jews) by population for all of their woes.
It was the Muslims who imposed Jizya, Mohommamed who said its purpose was to make non Muslims feel “subdued”.
Furthermore, Zionists never “stole” land. On the contrary, after the Ottoman Empire fell, the Brits and allies gave 99% of the remaining land to Arabs (mostly Muslims after the Ottoman had converted or killed others). They promised all of the Ottoman Province of Palestine (never an Arab country, and “Palestinian” was neither culture nor people pre 1948) to the Jews in 1918. In the 20s the Brits went back on their word and gave 70% of Palestine to the Arabs (The Hashemite clan to be exact, who had previously been given an area we know today as Saudi Arabia (Hejaz) for their allegiance to the Brits in the war against the Ottomans, but the Hashemites lost that land to the House of Saud (hence “Saudi” Arabia) and they then went back to the Brits for a “replacement swatch of land”. That swatch was ~70% of “Palestine”. This became Trans-Jordan, today it is Jordan, it is the homeland of Arabs who lived in the province of Palestine (what you call “Palestinians”) and is ruled by a tiny minority of “Hashemites” (a tribe that supposedly traces lineage to Muhammed).
The remaineder of the land did not go to the Jews easily. IN 1948 the Brits went back on the Balfour Declaration AGAIN, and attempted to split the remaining 30% into 2. The Jews accepted, the Arabs rejected. Israel was founded and a day later all of its Arab neighbours attacked it.
The Arabs lost that war and every single one after that. Had they won, we would not be talking of “occupied Israel”… THAT IS PRECISELY THE PROBLEM! The Arabs think they can have “do-overs” on wars, that is not realistic nor sane. Men died defending Israel in the various wars the Arabs instigated, the Arabs lost those wars and when one loses a war there are consequences.
Be thankful that the “evil Zionists” were not expansionist for if they were, they would have marched to Damascus & Amman (and likely Cairo as well) after the 6 day war. The Arab nations militaries were in shambles, without an air force and with little hopes of defence (Remember, no war has been won in this century without attaining air superiority… Conversly, once air superiority is established in CONVENTIONAL WARFARE, the party that has it usually dominates.)
Wake up and smell the gunpowder.
August 4, 2009 at 3:45 pm
BTW: Note how Spencer bashers always resort to ad-hominem attacks. They say things like items are “quoted out of context” (the Koran has no context! It’s not chronological! It often leaves out the context since its a rambling monologue), and that he is a bigot (prove it).
You will see alot of words but hardly any explanation for the venom they spew.
Spencer’s book relied on MUSLIM SOURCES!!! His main sources are the Quran and WIDELY ACCEPTED ahadith! He doesn’t even use the many ahadith that would easily support his argument, because some are not widely accepted by the Muslim community… To state he is unscholarly or that his process is flawed is simply absurd.
Argue the content, argue the argument, not the author.