The Wrath of CON Bostom TKO's Kuntzel

Muhammad has been the major inspiration for jihadism, past and present.

Bostom literally destroys Kuntzel's argument inspired no doubt, by the fallacious arguments of a somewhat dithering Bernard Lewis. This is why Bernard Lewis's pandering and apologizing to Islam is so dangerous. Kunztzel is a mental midget next to Bostom and to insist that Nazism fueled Islamism (when in fact it is just the opposite) is intellectually dishonest and historically inaccurate. Islamic Jew hatred and violent goes back centuries. It's their dogma - read the Koran.

The battle began with Bosotm's November column

Brothers of Invention?

Andrew G. Bostom Front Page Magazine.com
November 30, 2007

Matthias Kuntzel has argued cogently in a series of essays about the unique dangers posed by Iran’s fusion of a martyrdom mentality with nuclear weapons capability and Holocaust denial. He maintains, “It is precisely this suicidal outlook that distinguishes the Iranian nuclear weapons program from those of all other countries and makes it uniquely dangerous.”

Kuntzel’s recently released book Jihad and Jew Hatred, in contrast, is a very problematic work. Kuntzel concludes this rather brief (~ 60,000 word) analysis of what he terms the “ideological roots of Islamism,” by calling for the West to challenge those putative “roots.” But his noble admonition—of vital importance—is thoroughly undermined by the author’s failure to provide a coherent assessment of these ideological roots consistent with a sound doctrinal and historical understanding of the permanent Islamic institution of jihad, Islam’s foundational, continuously expressed Jew-hatred, and their nexus with the modern totalitarianism and Jew-hatred of the Nazi movement.

Kuntzel’s presentation in Jihad and Jew Hatred is limited intractably by basic misunderstandings, and critical, at times selective omissions, which cannot be excused by its brevity. His quintessential argument is that Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood (and associated 20^th century ideologues such as Sayyid Qutb) “invented” jihad war as a sui generis phenomenon, “catalyzed” by Nazism, inexplicably divorcing these “Muslim Brothers of invention” from the sacralized Islamic institution of jihad war, with its clearly demonstrable doctrine and history spanning a nearly 14 century continuum. A corollary argument is made with regard to the “invention” of Islamic Jew hatred by the same movement and ideologues, under even more “profound” Nazi influences.

Meet the “New” Jihad, Same as the “Old” Jihad

Kuntzel apparently misunderstands (and regardless, misrepresents) the basics of jihad, ignoring classical theory and practice. He then proceeds to describe the Muslim Brotherhood’s jihad ideology as a sui generis phenomenon divorced entirely from its intimate connection to a nearly 1400 year old Islamic institution, a salient characteristic of which was, and remains, its continuity. According to Kuntzel (from p. 13),

The [Muslim] Brotherhood's most significant innovation was their concept of jihad as holy war, which significantly differed from other contemporary doctrines and, associated with that, the passionately pursued goal of dying a martyr's death in the war with the unbeliever.

Before the founding of the Brotherhood, Islamic currents of modern times had understood jihad (derived from a root signifying "effort") as the individual striving for belief or the missionary task of disseminating Islam. Only when this missionary work was hindered were they allowed to use force to defend themselves against the unbelievers resistance. The starting point of Islamism is the new interpretation of jihad espoused with uncompromising militancy by Hassan al-Bana, the first to preach this kind of jihad in modern times.

This untenable thesis ignores copious doctrinal and historical evidence (compiled and presented in great detail here), summarized in the discussion that follows.

There is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad despite contemporary apologetics. Jahada, the root of the word jihad, appears 40 times in the Koran—under a variety of grammatical forms. With 4 exceptions, all the other 36 usages (in specific Koranic verses) are variations of the third form of the verb, i.e. jahida. Jahida in the Koran and in subsequent Islamic understanding to both Muslim luminaries—from the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam (including Abu Yusuf, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, and Al Ghazzali), to ordinary people—meant and means “he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like,” as described by the seminal Arabic lexicographer E.W Lane. Indeed, Lane’s, An Arabic English Lexicon (6 volumes, London, 1865) is still used to this day by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars for definitive Arabic to English translation. Thus Lane, who studied both the etymology and usage of the term jihad, observed, “Jihad came to be used by the Muslims to signify wag[ing] war, against unbelievers”. Not surprisingly, there is unanimity between all major Sunni schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi'i, and Maliki), as well as the Shi'ite jurisprudence regarding the permanent. aggressive nature of jihad war.

The Muslim prophet Muhammad himself waged a series of proto-jihad campaigns to subdue the Jews, Christians and pagans of Arabia. Islamic historian Arthur Jeffery in a 1942 essay belittled as “the sheerest sophistry” contemporary efforts

..made in some circles in modern days to explain away all the Prophet’s warlike expeditions as defensive wars or to interpret the doctrine of Jihad as merely a bloodless striving in missionary zeal for the spread of Islam…The early Arabic sources quite plainly and frankly describe the expeditions as military expeditions…Muhammad, as the head of the community of those who served Allah, taking the sword to extend the kingdom of Allah, and taking measures to insure the subjection of all who lived within the borders of what he made the kingdom of Allah

And as numerous modern day pronouncements by leading Muslim theologians confirm (see for example, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi’s, “The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model”), Muhammad has been the major inspiration for jihadism, past and present.

Jihad was pursued century after century because jihad embodied an ideology and a jurisdiction. Both were formally conceived by Muslim jurisconsults and theologians from the 8th to 9th centuries onward, based on their interpretation of Koranic verses and long chapters in the “hadith”, or acts and sayings of Muhammad, especially those recorded by al-Bukhari [d. 869] and Muslim [d. 874][...]

Whither Islamic Jew Hatred?

Kuntzel’s conception of Islamic Jew hatred suffers from the same severe limitations described for his analysis of jihad. He provides only the barest, glaringly deficient outline of the theology and historical practice of this unique form of antisemitism, confined as it is to a mere four pages of discussion (pp. 33; 64-66), and accompanying footnotes. As per Kuntzel, only in Christian “mythology” (not its Islamic equivalent—whatever is meant by his term “mythology—a term, curiously, he does not apply here to Islam) were Jews depicted “constantly” as a “dark and demonic force,” leading (again, only in Christendom) to “anti-Jewish pogroms.” (No such “Medieval pogroms” in Islamdom are mentioned by the author in the context of this discussion, leaving the reader to assume, incorrectly, that none occurred.) Kuntzel ascribes these uniquely Christian phenomena (i.e., implicitly, both the theological, or “mythological” Jew hatred of Christianity, and resultant pogroms) to “simple” origins, which he cannot find (or more aptly, bother to research with any degree of seriousness) in Islam:

…since the Jews had been able to murder even the Son of God, nothing else in the filed of cosmic malice was beyond them. All the fairy tales about the deadly and powerful Jewish force derive from this Christian original. Muslim anti-Jewish prejudice on the other hand stems from a wholly different story, that of Muhammad’s experiences with the Jews of Medina. In this case it was not the Jews who defeated the Son of God, but the Prophet who emerged the clear victor.

Moreover, despite the author’s repeated use of the phrase “the anti-Jewish passages in the Koran” he barely characterizes two verses, alone, i.e., Koran 5:60, and (correctly noted) 5:82 (the latter of which is cited by Kuntzel [p.66] with the wrong enumeration as 5:85, the standard reference being 5:82). Thus a central anti-Jewish motif in the Koran—verse 2:61, and its reiteration at 3:112—is ignored altogether, as are a litany of other important anti-Jewish verses (many intimately related to this central motif, as described below), their exegeses in the Koran, and elaboration in the hadith, sira, and corpus of juridical and anti-Jewish polemical writings by Muslim luminaries from classical Islam, through the present era.

Apparently unknown to Kuntzel, more than four decades ago (in 1964), Moshe Perlmann the pre-eminent scholar of Islam’s ancient anti-Jewish polemical literature, observed appositely,

The Koran, of course became a mine of anti-Jewish passages. The hadith did not lag behind. Popular preachers used and embellished such material.

Salient examples of Jew hatred from these foundational Islamic sources, ignored by Kuntzel, include:

• How as a central anti-Jewish motif, the Koran decrees an eternal curse upon the Jews (Koran 2:61/ 3:112) for slaying the prophets and transgressing against the will of Allah. This motif is coupled to Koranic verses 5:60 and 5:78 which describe the Jews transformation into apes and swine (5:60), having been “…cursed by the tongue of David, and Jesus, Mary’s son” (5:78). The related verse, 5:64, accuses the Jews—as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did in a January 2007 speech, citing Koran 5:64—of being “spreaders of war and corruption,” a sort of ancient Koranic antecedent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Koranic curse (verses 2:61/3:112) upon the Jews for (primarily) rejecting, even slaying Allah’s prophets, including Isa/Jesus (or at least his “body double”), is updated with perfect archetypal logic in the canonical hadith: following the Muslims’ initial conquest of the Jewish farming oasis of Khaybar, one of the vanquished Jewesses reportedly served Muhammad poisoned mutton (or goat), which resulted, ultimately, in his protracted, agonizing death. And Ibn Saad’s sira account maintains that Muhammad’s poisoning resulted from a well-coordinated Jewish conspiracy

• How the Koran’s overall discussion of the Jews is marked by a litany of their sins and punishments, as if part of a divine indictment, conviction, and punishment process. Specifically—the Jews wronged themselves (16:118) by losing faith (7:168) and breaking their covenant (5:13). The Jews (echoing an ante-Nicaean, Marcionite polemic) are a nation that has passed away (2:134; repeated in 2:141). Twice Allah sent his instruments (the Assyrians/or Babylonians, and Romans) to punish this perverse people (17:4-5)—their dispersal over the earth is proof of Allah’s rejection (7:168). The Jews are further warned about both their arrogant claim that they remain Allah’s chosen people (62:6), and continued disobedience and “corruption” (5:32-33) Other sins, some repeated, are enumerated: abuse, even killing of prophets (4:155; 2:91), including Isa [Jesus] (3:55; 4:157), is a consistent theme. The Jews ridiculed Muhammad as Ra’ina (the evil one, in 2:104; 4:46), and they are also accused of lack of faith, taking words out of context, disobedience, and distortion (4:46). Precious few of them are believers (also 4:46). These “perverse” creatures also claim that Ezra is the messiah and they worship rabbis who defraud men of their possessions (9:30). Additional sins are described: the Jews are typified as an “envious” people (2:109), whose hearts are as hardened as rocks (2:74). They are further accused of confounding the truth (2:42), deliberately perverting scripture (2:75), and being liars (2:78). Ill-informed people of little faith (2:89), they pursue vague and wishful fancies (2:111). Other sins have contributed to their being stamped (see 2:61/ 3:112 above) with “wretchedness /abasement and humiliation,” including—usury (2:275), sorcery (2:102), hedonism (2:96), and idol worship (2:53). More (and repeat) sins, are described still: the Jews’ idol worship is again mentioned (4:51), then linked and followed by charges of other (often repeat) iniquities—the “tremendous calumny” against Mary (4:156), as well as usury and cheating (4:161). Most Jews are accused of being “evil-livers” /“transgressors” /“ungodly” (3:110), who, deceived by their own lies (3:24), try to turn Muslims from Islam (3:99). Jews are blind and deaf to the truth (5:71), and what they have not forgotten they have perverted—they mislead (3:69), confound the truth (3:71), twist tongues (3:79), and cheat Gentiles without remorse (3:75). Muslims are advised not to take the Jews as friends (5:51), and to beware of the inveterate hatred that Jews bear towards them (5:82).

• How the Jews’ ultimate sins and punishments are made clear in the Koran—they are the devil’s minions (4:60) cursed by Allah, their faces will be obliterated (4:47), and if they do not accept the true faith of Islam—the Jews who understand their faith become Muslims (3:113)—they will be made into apes (2:65/ 7:166), or apes and swine (5:60), and burn in the Hellfires (4:55, 5:29, 98:6, and 58:14-19).

• How Muslim eschatology, as depicted in the hadith, highlights the Jews’ supreme hostility to Islam. Jews are described as adherents of the Dajjâl—the Muslim equivalent of the Anti-Christ—or according to another tradition, the Dajjâl is himself Jewish. At his appearance, other traditions maintain that the Dajjâl will be accompanied by 70,000 Jews from Isfahan wrapped in their robes, and armed with polished sabers, their heads covered with a sort of veil. When the Dajjâl is defeated, his Jewish companions will be slaughtered— everything will deliver them up except for the so-called gharkad tree, as per the canonical hadith included in the 1988 Hamas Charter (in article 7). Another hadith variant, which takes place in Jerusalem, has Isa (the Muslim Jesus) leading the Arabs in a rout of the Dajjâl and his company of 70,000 armed Jews. And the notion of jihad “ransom” extends even into Islamic eschatology—on the day of resurrection the vanquished Jews will be consigned to Hellfire, and this will expiate Muslims who have sinned, sparing them from this fate.

• How, also according to the hadith, stubborn malevolence is the Jews defining worldly characteristic: rejecting Muhammad and refusing to convert to Islam out of jealousy, envy and even selfish personal interest, lead them to acts of treachery, in keeping with their inveterate nature: “...sorcery, poisoning, assassination held no scruples for them.” These archetypes sanction Muslim hatred towards the Jews, and the admonition to at best, “subject [the Jews] to Muslim domination,” as dhimmis, treated “with contempt,” under certain “humiliating arrangements.”

• How a profoundly anti-Jewish motif occurring after the events recorded in the hadith and sira, put forth in early Muslim historiography (for example, by Tabari), is most assuredly a part of “the birth pangs” of Islam: the story of Abd Allah b. Saba, an alleged renegade Yemenite Jew, and founder of the heterodox Shi’ite sect. He is held responsible—identified as a Jew—for promoting the Shi’ite heresy and fomenting the rebellion and internal strife associated with this primary breach in Islam’s “political innocence”, culminating in the assassination of the third Rightly Guided Caliph Uthman, and the bitter, lasting legacy of Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian strife.

“Generosity” For “Appropriate Humility”—Or Dhimmitude?

You have got to read it all. ALL. There is a lot more.

Kuntzel’s conceptions of both jihad and Islamic Jew hatred are mere simulacra of these phenomena. Neither will do as history, independently, or worse still clumsily and disingenuously melded together with an excessive bolus of Nazism, into a purported explanatory “narrative.” G.H. Bousquet (d. 1978), one of the most widely acclaimed 20^th century scholars of Islamic Law, wrote the following in 1950, unfettered by our current mind numbing, politically correct cultural relativism:

Islam first came before the world as a doubly totalitarian system. It claimed to impose itself on the whole world and it claimed also, by the divinely appointed Muhammadan law, by the principles of fiqh [jurisprudence], to regulate down to the smallest details the whole life of the Islamic community and of every individual believer... the study of Muhammadan Law (dry and forbidding though it may appear)… is of great importance to the world of today.

By actively ignoring these basic doctrinal and historical truths, Kuntzel failed to examine and address the most compelling if uncomfortable questions about the ideological nexus between Islam, jihad, Islamic antisemitism, and modern totalitarianism, particularly Nazism.

To which Kuntzel replied here today  at Front Page Magazine;

Bostom Misses the Islamist-Nazi Connection
by Matthias Küntzel

On 30 November 2007 FrontPage Magazine published a lengthy and hostile article by Andrew G. Bostom on my book Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11, entitled “Brothers of Invention?”. I say “hostile” rather than “critical” since even the most negative critique of a book assumes that the reader gets to find out what the work in question is actually about.

Not so in this case.

ndeed, in the course of his 22-pages Bostom never once mentions my book’s subtitle, “Islamism, Nazism and the roots of 9/11”, which explains the purpose of the work. That purpose is to show how Islamism arose in the 1920s and 30s, what role National Socialism played in this development, and how there emerged that specifically Islamic antisemitism, drawing on both Koranic and modern European sources, which has characterized Islamist ideology from its inception to today.

Instead of dealing with the point I am making and assessing whether my analysis is right, Bostom is chiefly exercised by the fact that I failed to write a totally different book. The bulk of his piece consists of comments about the early centuries of Islam, a subject that clearly interests the reviewer much more than the topic of my work. In fact, I frequently refer to this early history[1], but the focus is on the historical period in which the most important Islamist organization – the Muslim Brotherhood - and the associated Islamic antisemitism were born.

It is true and well known that the separation from and hatred of the Jews began with Muhammad’s activities in Medina and is a constitutive element of Islam. Anti-Judaism as laid down in the Koran, however, is not the same as antisemitism as laid down in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion“. Mediaeval Jew-hatred considered everything Jewish to be evil. Modern antisemitism, on the other hand, deems all “evil” to be Jewish. In the former case the Jew could save his life through acceptance of the rules of dhimmitude or conversion to Christianity (or Islam). In the latter case, what is involved is not just oppression or conversion, but an irrational belief that the salvation of the world depends on the destruction of the Jews. My particular topic is not the root cause of dhimmitude but the root cause of modern antisemitism within the Islamic world.

What was the importance of Koranic Jew-hatred for the subsequent adoption of Nazi antisemitism in the Islamic world? Conversely, what role did this Nazi antisemitism play in the revival of Islamically motivated Jew-hatred? These questions have yet to find a definitive answer. They require a serious and scientific debate.

Take the example of the especially hate-filled hadith of al-Bukhari which comes closest to anticipating the rhetoric of modern antisemitism and for this very reason appears in the 1988 Hamas Charter: “The hour of judgement shall not come” it reads, “until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’.” According to one of Israel’s leading Arabists, Yehoshua Porath, no mention of this hadith can be found anywhere in Arabic literature after at least 1870.[2] It had fallen into oblivion until its reappearance in 1937 in a statement by the Mufti of Jerusalem. In 1938 it was publicized in German by the Nazis and then disseminated in the Arabic world via the Arabic-language short-wave radio transmitter set up by the Nazis in the vicinity of Berlin.

So the mere existence of a hate-filled text tells us nothing about social reality and the uses that may or may not be made of that text. My concern, however, is precisely with this reality in all its complexity.

There's more ...go and read his read thin argument then read Bostom's full rebuttal here;

Wrath of Con?
By Andrew Bostom

Matthias Kuntzel complains that my review largely ignored his book, and its thesis. What he actually laments is that I took his thesis seriously, and found it seriously wanting. Nothing Kuntzel now presents in reply, or what he wrote in his book, addresses my original criticisms:

"Kuntzel apparently misunderstands (and regardless, misrepresents) the basics of jihad, ignoring classical theory and practice. He then proceeds to describe the Muslim Brotherhood’s jihad ideology as a sui generis phenomenon divorced entirely from its intimate connection to a nearly 1400 year old Islamic institution, a salient characteristic of which was, and remains, its continuity. According to Kuntzel (from p. 13),

The [Muslim] Brotherhood's most significant innovation was their concept of jihad as holy war, which significantly differed from other contemporary doctrines and, associated with that, the passionately pursued goal of dying a martyr's death in the war with the unbeliever.

Before the founding of the Brotherhood, Islamic currents of modern times had understood jihad (derived from a root signifying "effort") as the individual striving for belief or the missionary task of disseminating Islam. Only when this missionary work was hindered were they allowed to use force to defend themselves against the unbelievers resistance. The starting point of Islamism is the new interpretation of jihad espoused with uncompromising militancy by Hassan al-Bana, the first to preach this kind of jihad in modern times.

…Kuntzel also asserts (on p. 79) that Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, and his contemporary “Islamist” heirs developed the “principle of [Islamic] dominance,” or more specifically, the concepts of Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb (Arabic for, “The House of Islam and the House of War”). In reality, al-Banna merely reiterated what classical Islamic jurists had formulated, and Islamic dynasties (major and minor alike) had practiced continually, for over a millennium.

…(in 1916), the great Dutch Orientalist Hurgronje noted the wide rank and file support among the Muslim masses for a restored Caliphate even at the very nadir of Islam's political power. And here is an extract from an article that appeared in the Calcutta Guardian in 1924 which linked the Pan-Islamic Indian Khilafat (Caliphate) Movement to trends that developed, and intensified following the Russo-Turkish War of 1876-78, fifty years prior to the advent of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928:

The Islamic World was aroused to the fact that the area of Islamic independence was steadily narrowing, and the Qur’anic theory that Islam should dominate over every other religion was giving way to the contrary system. It was felt that the only Muslim power which could deal with those of Europe as an equal was Turkey; and pan-Islamism everywhere inculcated the doctrine that Turkey should be strengthened and supported. The Sultan was urged to advance through Persia into India and make common cause with the Sudanese Mehdi, and restore Egypt to an Islamic Sovereign.

… Kuntzel’s conception of Islamic Jew hatred suffers from the same severe limitations described for his analysis of jihad. He provides only the barest, glaringly deficient outline of the theology and historical practice of this unique form of antisemitism, confined as it is to a mere four pages of discussion (pp. 33; 64-66), and accompanying footnotes. As per Kuntzel, only in Christian “mythology” (not its Islamic equivalent—whatever is meant by his term “mythology—a term, curiously, he does not apply here to Islam) were Jews depicted “constantly” as a “dark and demonic force,” leading (again, only in Christendom) to “anti-Jewish pogroms.” (No such “Medieval pogroms” in Islamdom are mentioned by the author in the context of this discussion, leaving the reader to assume, incorrectly, that none occurred.) Kuntzel ascribes these uniquely Christian phenomena (i.e., implicitly, both the theological, or “mythological” Jew hatred of Christianity, and resultant pogroms) to “simple” origins, which he cannot find (or more aptly, bother to research with any degree of seriousness) in Islam…"

My review included but a few salient examples of the vast array (see here, and here) of doctrinal and historical evidence Kuntzel’s untenable thesis ignores, or misconstrues, whether out of ignorance, or by design.. The yawning gap of omissions (and significant self-contradictions) aside, perhaps more unsettling is Kuntzel’s selective citation, and excerpting. I provide two egregious examples: the redacted discussion of Albert Speer’s memoirs which omits Hiter’s effusive praise for Islam, including the Nazi leader’s resentment that Germany had not been Islamized during the 8^th (through 11^th) century Muslim jihadist forays throughout Europe; and the disingenuous misrepresentation of Sheikh Tantawi’s 700 pp. scholarly treatise elaborating (and extolling) Jew hatred in the Koran, and Sunna, which is reduced, pace Kuntzel, to a few passing remarks on Nazism and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, completely obfuscating its actual Islamic contents, and Islamic “thesis.”

Kuntzel’s reply (and book) ignore another important aspect of my review as well. I included a discussion of the fact that writings produced for 100 years between the mid-19^th through mid-20^th centuries, by major scholars and intellectuals—for example, the historians Jacob Burckhardt and Waldemar Gurian, philosopher Bertrand Russell, Carl Jung, the founder of modern analytical psychiatry, Protestant theologian Karl Barth, sociologist Jules Monnerot, and most notably, the renowned 20^th century scholar of Islamic Law, G.H. Bousquet—all referred to Islam as a despotic, or in 20^th century parlance, totalitarian ideology. Kuntzel further chose to ignore a brilliant, dispassionate contemporary analysis by Ibn Warraq which describes 14 characteristics of “Ur Fascism” as enumerated by Umberto Eco, and analyzes their potential relationship to the major determinants of Islamic governance and aspirations, through the present. Warraq adduces salient examples which reflect the key attributes discussed by Eco: the unique institution of jihad war; the establishment of a Caliphate under “Allah’s vicegerent on earth,” the Caliph—ruled by Islamic Law, i.e., Shari’a, a rigid system of subservience and sacralized discrimination against non-Muslims and Muslim women, devoid of basic freedoms of conscience, and expression. And Kuntzel even chose to ignore Nazi academic and propagandist of extermination Johannes von Leers. Leers, whose pious writings on Islam (which antedated his conversion to Islam by two decades!) and personal career trajectory—as a favored contributor in Goebbel’s propaganda ministry, to his eventual adoption of the Muslim religion (as “Omar Amin” von Leers—Omar, for Caliph Omar; Amin, for Hajj Amin el-Husseini) while working as an anti-Western, and antisemitic/anti-Zionist propagandist under Nasser’s regime from the mid-1950s, until his death in 1965—epitomizes the convergence of jihad, Islamic antisemitism, and racist, Nazi anti-Semitism. Simply put, Kuntzel decided to ignore all these seamless doctrinal, and historical connections between ancient Islam, and modern totalitarianism, especially Nazism.

Bostom kicks ass .................... but there's so much more. Go here

Historian Saul S. Friedman, also citing the emergence of Zionism (as an ideology anathema to the Islamic system of dhimmitude for Jews), concluded that this modern movement, and the creation of the Jewish State of Israel has, not surprisingly, unleashed a torrent of annihilationist Islamic antisemitism, “the brew of thirteen centuries of intolerance”:

Since 1896, the development of modern, political Zionism has placed new tension on, and even destroyed, the traditional master-serf relationship that existed between Arab and Jew in the Middle East. An Arab world that could not tolerate the presence of a single, “arrogant” Jewish vizier in its history was now confronted by a modern state staffed with self-confident Jewish ministers.

This is exactly the Islamic context—completely ignored by Kuntzel—in which the widespread, “resurgent” use of Jew annihilationist apocalyptic motifs would be an expected occurrence, regardless of general European, or specific “Nazi” influences.

Comments

[Surak]

And yet - and yet... If the goal is to encourage me to fight jihad, I'm all signed up, I'm already in action. If the purpose is to say, on the other hand, as Spencer and his followers have implied, that anti-Semitism is uniquely threatening in Muslim scripture and Muslim history, and very little so in Christian scripture and Christian history, I will continue to object. Sorry, but I think the roots of Muslim anti-Semitism are to be found in a certain set of epistles and gospels from 6 centuries earlier.

The Muslims clearly make much of the perceived antagonism between Jesus and the Jews. (Of course, they, like the Christians, know nothing of the fact that Jesus preached mainstream humane Pharisee doctrine, which explains his popularity among the Jews of 2000 years ago.) That antagonism was created in the minds of some very talented writers who put fanatical hatred into the mouth of the rabbi from Nazareth otherwise known for his teachings of love. How else to explain these:
"You are not the children of Abraham. You are the children of Satan. He was always a murderer. You do his will."
"He who does not believe shall be condemned!"
"May his blood be upon us and upon our children."
And that's not even listing the numerous provable absurd libels against the Jewish people and the Jewish religion in Christian scriptures.

Defeat jihad? Great. But when it comes to charges of scriptural anti-Semitism, remember the great Talmud parable about finding a mote in your neighbor's eye, only to ignore the beam in your own (tractate Arakhin - popularized by someone else...).

[Surak]

I skimmed through the Kuntzel response at FPM and Bostom's response. Bostom cites some nasty Muslim prayers regarding Jews. He does not cite the traditional catechism, valid until only recently; he does not cite the traditional Good Friday mass and its reference to the "perfidious Jews", a mass that many traditionalists would like to bring back.

Read this account of a rabbi's recent visit to Eastern Europe:
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Alone_Again3_Naturally.asp
and recall the words of Jesus: "You shall know the tree by its fruit."

Just got off the phone with our local conservative talk-radio station, trying to explain to them why running an ad from Messianic Jews is not going to endear them to real Jews who are considering conservative politics. They don't get it.

Mote in his eye, beam in your eye.

[Surak]

Before I stick in two more cents, I should clarify that the "your" in the last sentence of my previous post is the generic you, meaning "one".

Dr. Daniel Pipes is no slouch on the history of Islam. He too takes very seriously the idea that jihad, political Islam, militant Islam, call it what you will, took a new turn with Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood.

I admit am way in over my head. Frankly I don't get the reason for the fireworks between sincere opponents of jihad. There seems to be a need felt by some parties that Islam must be totally destroyed. I am not yet ready to sign up for the slaughter of 1.2 billion people. There were righteous Muslims during WW2 who sheltered Jews from the Nazis. Not every single Muslim followed the Mufti of Jerusalem. Clearly our government is leaning way too far in the direction of "Islam = Religion of Peace", dhimmitude, appeasing terrorists, disarming their victims, etc. In our effort to right the ship of state, let's not go to the opposite of extreme of genocide of all Muslims. See:
http://www.reformislam.org/
and others.

[Surak]

Also - the brave Bangladeshi Muslim who is on trial for his life for daring to advocate diplomatic relations with Israel.

[john jay]

pamela:

a seminally important post.

thank you for publishing it.

surak:

the question is not whether the west should kill all 1.2 billion persons who are muslim.

the question is, how many of them will have to be killed in order to cause them to quit jihad; in order for them to stop plotting to wage conquest of all other people and religions by jihad; and to quit building the infrastructure for jihad and interpretation of their scriptures in support of it, in the mosques, in the theology, and in the schools that teach islam.

the question is, when we we start to wage the war against this religious doctrine as supported by certain nation states, and by the institutions of the religion.

the question is, when do we start to wage war against this now resurgently pernicious religion by those who wage jihad, that being the non-uniformed religious zealots who wage the jihad.

john jay

[Surak]

John Jay - I agree with you 100%. The West did not seek this war. It is the choice of the jihadists. For those of us who want to live, we must be willing to kill as many of the enemy as necessary to survive. That amount may rise into the millions or tens of millions. So be it.

I am referring to something else, a scary phenomenon among some understandably frustrated anti-jihadists, who say they want to destroy Islam. We unconditionally defeated Germany and Japan without eradicating them from the face of the Earth. I have seen some commenters here and elsewhere who appear ready to engage in the largest democide in world history. Sorry, but we do have Muslim friends. I'm not prepared to watch them all die.

I'm going to look for a letter from King Faisal (?) of Iraq to Chaim Weizmann (?) in the aftermath of the Balfour Declaration which is proudly pro-Zionist. This would add some weight to the notion that a moderate Islam did exist at one time.

[john jay]

surak:

if i might add these observations.--

bostom's review of kuntzel's book is not just a "tempest in a tea pot" sort of disagreement over very minor doctrinal points.

it is not just a disagreement over methodology, nor is it just a minor difference in perception of the causal roots of the same religious manifestation.

bostom's very well thought out and supported point is that both anti-semitism and the jihad as a method of spreading islam are endemic to the faith and its institutions, and have been part and parcel of the faith since its inception.

the implication of bostom's thinking are profound, and profoundly disturbing.--

kuntzel's argument suggests that islam's virulent contemporary expression of anti-semitism & jihad, because of its recent "grafting" onto the faith, is something that may somehow be "repaired." that it is perhaps transient, superficial, and may be excised from the faith, ... , rendering islam peaceful, and an acceptable religious presence in the west.

of necessity, bostom's analysis rejects this optimistic view.

bostom shows us a faith whose absolute roots in doctrine and teaching are premised upon the jihad as a tool of spreading the faith, and whose anti-semitism is part and parcel of the institution and dogma of the faith. the "recent spate" of jihad & anti-semitism is not, therefore, a transient, superficial matter that can be excised and corrected.

for 1400 years the faith has believed as it believes. for 1400 years the faith has acted as it has acted.

bostom demonstrates absolutely the roots of these behaviors in the core writings of mo, in the koran, and as supplemented by muslim "scholars" for centuries.

these aspects of islam are not, therefore, in bostom's view if i understand them correctly, going to go away.

they are, as noted, endemic to the faith, and indeed, the kind of hatred spewed by islam is part and parcel of the zealous adherence to the faith as exemplified by its followers. this is my view, and i do not see it pronounced by bostom, who is way more fair in his assessments than i am.

the recent behavior and pronouncements of islam are but part of that history.

the faith will not "heal" itself, will not change its beliefs or its behavior or its adherence to the tactics it now pursues and has always pursed, by any guise or process of reform by tossing off recently acquired "error."

that is the implication of bostom's thought and analysis. that is why he took such pains to demolish kuntzel's efforts.

these are not small matters of doctrinal concern.

these are hugely important matters for the west, for our political and spiritual leaders, for each of us, ... , in choosing how best to confront the evils of this jihad in its current reiteration.

kuntzel thinks this is aberration.

bostom demonstrates that this savage jihad is the essence of the faith.

it is not going away.

the differing perceptuals have monumental implications in deciding how this is to be approached.

i believe that bostom absolutely carries the day in this.

he has the surgeons unflinching and objective appraisal of the malady to be addressed. he will not let his analysis be swayed by wishful thinking, nor deterred from his logical assessment because he anticipates his thinking will take him to unpleasant conclusions.

in my view, bostom's analysis and perspective have to control how we approach this problem, or we perish under the weight of our own inability to understand what it is we face, under the weight to understand what it is we must do to preserve ourselves.

john jay

......................................

[john jay]

friends:

say your prayers.

we need to re-open some channels of communication, if we want to secure our salvation.

keep your powder dry.

john jay

[Pamela Geller]

what John said

[Surak]

"the faith will not "heal" itself, will not change its beliefs or its behavior or its adherence to the tactics it now pursues and has always pursed, by any guise or process of reform by tossing off recently acquired "error.""

Once again, I agree 100%. The naive view of some idealistic politicians is that this reform, moderation process will happen all by itself, and that nearly all Muslims reject jihad. Not so. A recent poll showed that about one fourth of young Muslim American men support homicide bombings. The numbers are higher in other countries. Jihad has widespread support. It will not go away by itself, anymore than did Prussian imperialism, Japanese imperialism. After killing several million Germans and Japanese, they changed their minds. I believe the same can be true of Islam. We will end up having to kill millions of crazed jihadists and their supporters before the active jihad is brought to a close. We know from Iraq that jihad can be defeated if we have the will. I do not mind killing as many jihadists as is necessary to secure our survival, even if that requires millions of the enemy to die. A good case can be made for leveling a wide swath of the Afghan-Pakistan border, home of some of the most dangerous, vile people on Earth. I can live with the survival of people who hate us - the Europeans do. Victory for the West is not the same as advocating the eradication of Islam, which is the unavoidable conclusion of Bostom's piece.

What do you think of Zuhdi Jasser? Irshad Manji? reformislam.org? I don't think you want their death. They won't have a chance to be successful unless we kill the jihadist bullies.

What do you think of the commenter on this site who said something about "the dirty muzzies"? I can't tolerate that, in honor of the minority of courageous pro-freedom, pro-Western Muslims. As a Jew, I am very afraid when I see the kind of xenophobia that Robert Spencer allows on JihadWatch. That can become lethal anti-Semitism in a heartbeat.

Win the war, absolutely, and never apologize for defending yourself. Our fear of lethal force is emboldening evil monsters around the world. If someone explodes a nuke in New York, I'd support nuking Damascus, Gaza, Mecca, Tehran, if not Cairo, Karachi and Mogadishu. But in the course of war and victory, do not dehumanize all of "them". Churchill said, "In victory - magnanimity."

[The Editrix]

I am amazed that Küntzel’s political affiliation wasn’t discussed much, so far. Küntzel is a member of the “Anti-German” political left. The Anti-Germans appeared as a distinct political group in the early Nineties as a response to the racist attacks on foreigners and general chauvinism following German reunification. The basic creed of the Anti-Germans includes solidarity with Israel and American foreign policy and a critique of mainstream left anti-capitalist views, specifically the anti-globalisation movement, which are (rightfully, I believe) thought to be structurally antisemitic.

Antisemitism is considered to be deeply rooted within the German culture and all Anti-German efforts are exclusively focused on fighting this phenomenon. I am trying to put it as simple as possible: Anti-Germans believe that capital and labour have overcome their (capital’s and labour’s) antagonism are focusing their (capital’s and labour’s) mutual efforts now on destroying the group historically identified with the “greedy side of capitalism” (”raffender Kapitalismus”) — i.e. the Jews. By destroying them (the Jews) they (capital and labour) allow capitalism to survive. And because capitalism is by definition in a permanent state of crisis, it is trying to save itself through antisemitism and antisemitism is thus a permanent given.

This means, of course, that the working classes can’t be trusted anymore and the Anti-Germans close that gap by a bit of early Marxist theory, whereby first more capitalism is needed until we can reach the state of communism, specifically in underdeveloped Arab/Islamic/fascist regimes, which, lo and behold, resolves the problem of “Western imperialism” as well: More of it is needed because antisemitism emerges primarily under conditions of stunted capitalist development and Western capitalism (in this case the USA and their allies in their “war against terrorism”) therefore deserve support.

My own take on that is, that, while some of the historical analysis of the Anti-Germans has merit, for example that antisemitism is an integral part of German (and European) culture, their conclusions are extremely weird and speak of a self-hatred I find disturbing. As an example: while it is true that, as the Anti-Germans say, mourning for the dead of WWII in Germany is only too often turned into revision of history and relativism of German guilt, mourning itself is natural and legitimate and should not be, as the Anti-Germans do, denounced.

Of course, “Anti-Germanism” is an ideology with a lot of allure for those Germans who are decent enough to see antisemitism for the evil it is, yet who can not face giving up their leftist positions. However, it should not be overlooked that here we have a totally fixed world-view, almost bordering on the cult-like (as anybody who had an argument with one of them will come to see), and if Küntzel blames, in that spirit, the age-old Arab antisemitism on the Germans and gets acclaim for it, historians have a credibility problem.

The fact that Hitler and the Muslims were quite adequate in their genocidal Jew hatred, even that the Mufti might have influenced Hitler more than vice versa, is quite well documented. This blog entry contains a lot of information and further serious sources, all of which must have been available to Küntzel as well. But if one considers such a fact as something that might be used to relativize the German guilt (and it might indeed), one might easily, consciously or subconsciously, overlook it and then historiography has lost any credibility and its place in academia and can consider itself a preventive political tool to balance injustice.