This is a Cross-Post by Adam Barnett
Some people just can’t help themselves. In his amusing response to my article, SIOA director Robert Spencer disputes some of the charges made in One Law for All’s new report. I’ll leave most of his arguments, such as they are, to the judgement of the fair-minded reader, but some of what he writes calls for a reply.
The phrase ‘racist anti-Semite’ is from an email of Spencer’s sent on the 15th August, which we can produce if challenged. Here is the line in question: ‘In fact Namazie is a racist anti-Semite, who despite her posturing about opposing the jihad, aids and abets the jihad against Israel.’ (Incidentally, Maryam Namazie can speak for herself, and has responded to Spencer’s noisy rubbish on her blog.)
On Mr. Spencer’s claim that he has ‘absolutely nothing to do with’ Stop Islamisation of Europe, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ll simply invite anyone interested to read Geller and Spencer’s gleeful remarks upon accepting directorship of its U.S. branch from its leaders, (see our report p.48-49). I don’t read Mr. Spencer’s output enough to know if he has ‘called for or supported the mass deportation of Muslims or the banning of the Qur’an, or called all Muslims liars’, but he has endorsed SIOD’s political programme, which does. (p.50) If Mr. Spencer didn’t want me to talk about SIOE in my response, (and I can see why he wouldn’t), he probably shouldn’t have requested that we ‘retract [our] charges against [himself], Geller, and SIOA/SIOE’.
Pamela Geller wrote about Barack Obama’s sexual history in August 2009, proclaiming that ‘it is well known that Obama allegedly was involved with a crack whore in his youth’, and that ‘Obama allegedly trafficked in some very deviant practices’. (p.52) Why Mr. Spencer chose to focus on this part of my assertion, and not his colleague’s work on the President being a secret Muslim, or having been born abroad, is a question I’ll leave for him to address.
SIOA’s absolutist defence of and support for the English Defence League is documented on pages 55-59 of our report, and includes the following quotes from Robert Spencer: ‘the EDL are standing up for human rights, for the freedom of speech, for Western civilization, for Israel, and for the defense against the global jihad and the Islamization of Britain.’ ‘The EDL deserves the support of all free people.’
Similarly, the comments made by John Joseph Jay, who Mr. Spencer confirmed was ‘a member of the SIOA board’ in August 2010, are quoted at length in our report, and are unambiguous: ‘every person in islam, from man to woman to child may be our executioner.’ ‘[We should declare] old fashion war with wholesale slaughter including indiscriminate death of innocents and babes. down to the last muslim, if necessary.’(p.50-51)
Lastly, on SIOA director Pamela Geller’s denial of Serbian atrocities in the Balkans, (p.53-54), the following statement from Mr. Spencer’s piece is well worth having on record, and speaks for itself: ‘Did [Geller] actually say that “Bosnian Muslims killed themselves in order to ‘manipulate media coverage’”? Of course not. If you look at the actual post to which Barnett is referring, you will see that Geller is not saying that Bosnian Muslims committed suicide in order to manipulate media coverage, but killed their own in order to create the illusion of Serb attacks on civilians and thereby manipulate media coverage. The Palestinians do that, so why wouldn’t jihadists in the Balkans?’
I’d like to thank Mr. Spencer for his candour here, which I do think clarifies his positions quite sharply.
