Re-Writing History for Hate

History Book or Agenda-for-Profiteering tool?

 

“MEDIEVAL WORLD: A CREATION OF ISLAM”  is an item by John J O’Neill in the bigoted SIOE offshoot of Pamela Geller’s hate-for-profiteering efforts. 

It is nothing less than a farce in the face of history and I would have ignored it completely except that it is a perfect example of how history is full of such efforts in changing history, abusing its context, to somehow have one side look better of the only option at the expense of others.  In this case it is to create hate for profit but the tools are the same.  

We can add that if John J O’Neill wishes to be considered academic, then why does he avoid context, all facts and tellingly write for and associate with the likes of Geller and would-be-academics like the blogger Robert Spencer? 

Do go to the link and read its style, to learn how well worded text may look scholarly but in fact when looked into are just ugly propoganda tools.  I wrote the following reply, I doubt it will stay long, thus my publishing it here. 

It is a tragedy when one tries to write history to prove an agenda, rather than discover facts based on studying the history in the first place.  The author has most certainly failed on this case, and clearly struggles in desperation to find source to justify it. 

Henri Pirenne is regarded as a history writer of Belgium and now is rather discarded as an example of a time when Belgium tried to justify itself when it was simply a creation of politics at that time.  Similarly, his wider histories are basically ignored as part of that Western-Christian exceptionalism that was so common, and a failure when it came to actually history. 

Most certainly great cities and civilizations existed before and after the ascendancy of Arab and Muslim expansion. Seville had great bridges, viaducts and bathhouses, built by Romans.  Most civilizations expanded and built upon the previous, or destroyed them.  What is the point of O’Neil’s writings but an attempt to somehow temporarily ignore that fact only for the Arabs and Muslims? 

The undeniable fact was that the Arabs and Berbers moved in to locations like Southern Iberia and not only supported what was worth keeping but expanded and added more.  That at that time, Europe was in decline if not moving backwards whilst the Muslim World was in many places starting their own Golden Age.   Cordoba became a centre for learning and science whilst its neighbours were often sleeping in the same room with their sheep, pigs and cows.  Whilst philosophy, astronomy and the words of Aristotle and Plato were being restored, discussed and expanded on – Europe was burning those thinking of such things as witches and heretics. 

Just as undeniable is that the clash of faiths existed, brutality and anti-semitism existed on both sides and histories were often fabrications to support agendas. 

O’Neil attempts to read those that suit his agenda as truths whilst ignoring others and their contexts.  At worst he fails to at least mention other views and leave the questions to the readers, that for him would be defeatist to his agenda. 

The Library of Alexander was destroyed at least four times to varying degrees, rumours of it being finished off by Muslims for various reasons have resonated for years, mostly incorrect and most certainly forgetting the Great Fire of the Alexandrian War in 48 BC, the SAcking by Aurellian in the 3rd Century and the vetting of the un-Godly texts by Pope Theophilus (Copt) in 391.   Most certainly Caliph Umar chose to get rid of what was left of the Library because it stored Ismaili texts that were creating schisms in the empire.  This is well documented.  The problem was that Christianity wanted to say otherwise, such as the equally well documented hoax of Pococke’s translation of “History of the Dynasties” in 1663. 

The only question that comes from this item is why was it written and for what agenda, hate or profit – my bet is a little bit of both. 

Donny vdH
Rotterdam
blootstellen.wordpress.com 

The Cordoba Initiative Revisited

As an update to my previous item on the Cordoba Initiative, the building of a large Mosque and Community Centre a few blocks away from the 9/11 site in New York, the Project appears to be continuing with legal efforts failing to stop it.

I have stated in my blog and in some forums that I am against the Project, but for none of the reasons pushed by the ugly agenda driven groups leading the opposition.   I have not seen evidence enough from the Project that demographics demand the location and that radicalization and other political agendas will not take over the Project.   From what I have seen, there is enough radical, ultra-conservative and outside influences that seep into America’s Muslims, regardless of the best intentions to stop it.  The combination of these two points for me is enough to say, do not build it, or at least do not build it there.  Demographics is important, as it is still a Mosque, they say they want the Project to be a national symbol and a monument to inter-faith dialogue, I support that – so why not in Washington DC as a site?

Today I read in the “Upshot” section of Yahoo News an item by John Cook called “Mosque’s opponents have taken opposite position in court” showing the hypocrisy of some of the forces trying to stop the Project.  It is very telling.

It tells us that many of the players trying to block the project have in fact used the laws that are supporting the Project to support the building of Churches and other houses of worship and yet are now opposing these very same laws.  Cook says “Oddly, many of the groups leading and supporting the campaign against the so-called mosque have a history of arguing in favor of religious freedom on similar cases.”

Family of 9/11 Victims are pushed emotionally by those with agenda hate to assume Islam itself is the cause of their suffering.

The American Center for Law and Justice, the legal advocacy group leading the charge, has argued repeatedly and forcefully in federal court on at least three occasions that local land-use laws such as historical landmark designations don’t trump the religious and property rights of religious groups to build houses of worship. So has the Anti-Defamation League, which controversially came out in opposition to the mosque last week. The group has filed no less than five amicus briefs in federal court arguing that local governments can’t use zoning laws to prevent the building of churches and synagogues.

Indeed, these groups all compose part of a large ecosystem of religious-rights organizations; members of such groups have made frequent use of a federal law that erects significant barriers for local governments seeking to interfere with religious buildings. With few exceptions, in the case of Cordoba House, these groups have either been silent or directly contradicted their own history of statements and action.

The American Center for Law and Justice, the legal advocacy group leading the charge, has argued repeatedly and forcefully in federal court on at least three occasions that local land-use laws such as historical landmark designations don’t trump the religious and property rights of religious groups to build houses of worship. So has the Anti-Defamation League, which controversially came out in opposition to the mosque last week. The group has filed no less than five amicus briefs in federal court arguing that local governments can’t use zoning laws to prevent the building of churches and synagogues.

Indeed, these groups all compose part of a large ecosystem of religious-rights organizations; members of such groups have made frequent use of a federal law that erects significant barriers for local governments seeking to interfere with religious buildings. With few exceptions, in the case of Cordoba House, these groups have either been silent or directly contradicted their own history of statements and action.

More condemning:

The group’s website says it “remains committed to the principle that the use of zoning laws to curtail the religious freedoms of churches is unconstitutional.”

The group’s shift on Cordoba House indicates it may not believe the same rights should be afforded to mosques as “churches.” ACLJ wrote a letter to the New York City Planning Commission [pdf] urging it to confer landmark status on the building and Wednesday, after the Planning Commission unanimously voted not to interfere with the construction of the mosque, ACLJ vowed to pursue the matter in state court, and today filed suit seeking to stop construction of Cordoba House.

I find it interesting that with all the blogosphere hype and a few very short appearances on cable, Pamela Geller who claims to be the leader of the anti-Mosque movement, is not mentioned at all.  Her greatness is obviously in her own mind and she will make her racist, bigoted and self-congratulatory remarks as if she will stop the Project by her own super-powers.

I hope the Project does not go ahead, as I have mentioned, not for bigoted and agenda-for-profiteering reasons.  They simply have to work harder to justify it.

Walid Shoebat: Con Artist and Hate-for-Profiteer

Often the name Walid Shoebat comes up in the anti-Islam blogosphere; praised as a “former terrorist”, the honest zealous convert to Christianity, writes books about the ugliness of Islam, his defending of Israel and his warnings about jihad taking over America.   Sounds too much, as Sarah Palin would say “you bet ya!”

Walid Shoebat is a con artist – who pushes his questionable history to advantage, abused his heritage for advantage, became a zealous evangelical Christian either for profit or out of madness and hangs around other hate-for-profiteers to roll-around in self-praise.

Shoebat is half-Palestinian, half-American, not that this matters.  He claims to be a former PLO terrorist but as many have pointed out, there is no evidence of such and the example he gives, of attacking an Israeli bank is rejected by the Bank itself, the PLO and the Jerusalem Post  as absurd  (Bank Leumi said that “after checking its files, the bank said it had no record of an attack on its Bethlehem branch anywhere in the relevant 1977-79 period”.) .   His links to Evangelical groups that have also claimed to have had ex-terrorists amongst them, with equal questionable backgrounds, has only added to the doubt of this farce.

This evangelical link has had mixed benefit and added hypocrisy for Shoebat.  Chosing to go down this path guarantees an audience and book buyers, thus income.  At the same time, he has to sell to the religious zealots and this falls flat.

Recently Shoebat claimed that the word “666″ in the Book of Revelation was actually a misreading of the Arabic phrase “in the name of Allah”, supernaturally revealed to the author who copied the Arabic script as he saw it.”  That he had seen this “Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus”.   As one popular Christian blogger pointed out, “  So, does the  Codex Sinaiticus offer any better evidence to favour Shoebat’s claim? The digitised text has just been made available on-line, and the answer is, as expected, ”no”. The Codex Sinaiticus actually spells the number out as “six hundred and sixty six.  In other words, Shoebat’s claim is an epic fail at all levels, and as regards the Codex Sinaiticus he either lied about seeing it or lied about what he saw”.

In late 2007 Shoebat along with those other Evangelicals were involved in the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy contraversy.   Elements of the US Air Force Academy’s religous right allowed Shoebat and two others under the banner of anti-terrorism experts  to speak to the students.    It was described by Prof. Douglas Howard, who teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Calvin College in Grand Rapids said “It was just an old time gospel hour — ‘Jesus can change your life, he changed mine,’ that is mixed in with ‘Watch out America, wake up America, the danger of Islam is here.’ ”   Professor Howard said his doubts about their authenticity grew after stories like the Golan Heights saga as well as something on Mr. Saleem’s Web site along the lines that he was descended from the grand wazir of Islam. “The grand wazir of Islam is a nonsensical term.”   (Saleem, one of the three is Kamal Saleem, who has a similar hate-for-profit website and makes outrageous claims of being an important terrorist and who “educates state and federal political leaders, military leaders, intelligence specialists, security officials and contractors, law enforcement agencies”, yet does not even merit even a Wikipedia page).  As someone who has worked with the national security, law enforcement and other agencies, one does not advertise it without serious back-up or one does not advertize it at all.

Shoebat’s website has the standard three elements that hate-for-profiteers seem to have in common.  It has lots of phrases/links to horrible acts or radical quotes, it praises those that give him money (in this case it is pro-right-wing Israeli and Evangelical, and lastly it has lots of money-making links and pictures of his books.   There is not much academic, newsworthy and impartial in any of it.  It quotes Martin Luther King Jr about love, without considering it disrespectful and most certainly the great man would have considered Shoebat a fraud.    

Amongst the quotes of Shoebat in his website he proudly claims that “”The occupation is in the minds of Children who are taught hatred.”  That is strange considering all but pro-Settlers consider Israel “occupied”.  Even the Prime Minister of Israel calls it a occuption.   We assume that there is no “Two State Solution” option for Shoebat, that the race of his father simply does not exist.  Why is that Walid?   It may be in his other quote “Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”.   We can guess that identity is not an issue for him and he is carefully following the ultra-orthodox political line that Palestinians are Jordanians and should go there.   For a devout American Evangelist, why is he towing a dangerous, fringe ultra-orthodox Jewish party-line?    He is often targeted as being a pawn of Israel.  I do not know that, but he may very well have sold-out to a certain fringe radical group within it, a bit like Wilders, with no logical connection that can be fathomed except for money, support and sales.

On the same front page as the above quotes, Shoebat also says that “The Israeli Arab Conflict is not about geography but about Jew hatred” and yet a few lines down says “No one (Arab or Jew) has a “right of return” Jews who fled Arab persecution from 1948 to 1956 should have no right of return to Arab lands, and Arabs who ran away in 1948 and 1967 should have no right of return either”.    So it is about land afterall and conveniently Jews should not have a right of return to lands that they do not want to go back to anyhow?  Get real Walid, the subject is about land and your following the Settler Arguments down to the full stop at the end of the sentence.

The question of Israel for me is about radicalism, those against it and those defending it with the average person on both sides of the border suffering for it.    The Settler Movement is an ugly religous-based excuse for land-grabbing and is as evil as the radical hijackers who took over the resistance against it.   Walid Shoebat may claim to be an Evangelist, from his work above he is failing to prove that, but there is no doubt that he is used, abused and backed by the radical Zionist Settler Movement.

Sham, scam-artist, con-man, hypocrite, cultural sell-out, ugly radical – take your pick, all are good descriptive of the scum known as Walid Shoebat, profiteer from hate.