Media Still Rely on "Jihad" Apologists

Diana West
Thursday, November 19, 2009

You might have missed it, but for much of this past week, the Islamic apology-police were on the case of the Republican governor-elect of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell. It seems that following the jihadist attack on Fort Hood, Pat Robertson, a longtime ally of McDonnell's, criticized Islam on his TV show. And no one in these not just politically, but also Islamically, correct times is permitted to do that -- not even, as we have learned to our horror, senior Army personnel when presented with incontrovertible evidence that a jihadist is in their ranks.

Speaking on "The 700 Club," Robertson called Islam "a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination." Given what we know of Islamic law (Sharia), which, for example, punishes "leaving Islam" with death; given what we know of the bloody history of Islamic expansionism; given what we know of current Islamic attitudes toward both Sharia and the caliphate -- almost exactly two-thirds of Muslims in four countries polled in a 2007 survey by University of Maryland/WorldPublicOpinion.org favored both -- and given what we know of the Muslim Brotherhood manifesto for "a grand Jihad" in America for "destroying the Western civilization from within" so that Islam is "victorious over all other religions," Robertson's statement could be considered humdrum were it not verboten for Americans to say anything about Islam that is not air-fresh sanitized.

But in bizarro world as we know it, Robertson's statement -- particularly the part about Islam being "a violent political system" -- showed up as so much political smoke around McDonnell, carefully tended for days by the Washington Post and a rogue's gallery of Muslim Brotherhood associates.

Not that the newspaper identified them as such. To the Washington Post, Mohamed Magid ("disappointed" that McDonnell had not repudiated Robertson) was "imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society," and not also vice president of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a known Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in the landmark Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terrorism financing trial that last year convicted five defendants on all counts. To the Washington Post, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) (calling for McDonnell to disavow Robertson) was "a Washington-based civil rights group for Muslims," not a Hamas-linked, known Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in the same landmark terrorism trial. To the Washington Post, Rep. Gerry Connolly's (D-Va.) demand for an apology from Robertson represented growing "political implications," not political payback from someone whom "Muslim Mafia" co-author Paul Sperry calls "the Saudi's new man in Congress" for Connolly's dogged defense of a bona fide Saudi madrassa in Fairfax Country coinciding with, as Sperry writes, "what appears to be an orchestrated outpouring of donations from Islamists with Saudi connections."

This is crucial information to deny readers. The story takes on a different cast when it becomes clear that behind this latest attempt to both stifle criticism of Islam and make it a liability to associate with a critic of Islam are groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which, according to its own manifesto, is engaged in a jihad against the United States. Indeed, the first news site to follow the Post's storyline was Islam Online, a Web site that the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusef al-Qaradawi, helped establish, and where readers can find, for example, scholarly Islamic counsel condoning death for homosexuals. Qaradawi is himself a leading apologist for homicide bombings against Israeli civilians and insurgent violence against Americans, military and civilian, in Iraq.

But I digress -- or do I? Is not all of this information essential to understanding the motivations of those who have turned Pat Robertson's critical comments about Islam into a brickbat against the new Virginia governor? Such information never enters mainstream outlets or debate due to precisely this sort of hectoring enforcement of Sharia-style prohibitions on criticism, and even examination, of Islam that the Washington Post, in full dhimmi mode, is all too willing to enable.

Indeed, a recent lead editorial in the paper was headlined "Mr. McDonnell's albatross," with Robertson, of course, in the role of dreaded bird. The Post writes: "Doesn't Mr. McDonnell owe (Virginia Muslims" some reassurance that he doesn't share Pat Robertson's despicable views?"

Are they "despicable," or are they just too close to the historical record?