Max
Blumenthal Dhimmis Down
By Robert Spencer
Hard-Left pseudo-journalist and propagandist Max Blumenthal has weighed in on the Muhammad movie riots, and predictably enough, he has come down squarely in favor of restrictions on the freedom of speech and adoption of Islamic blasphemy laws in the West. The way he does so is revealing of the nature and underlying assumptions of the Leftist/Islamic supremacist alliance.
Blumenthal concedes that “even though the deadly scene in Benghazi may not have resulted directly from the angry reaction to the Islamophobic video, the violence has helped realize the apocalyptic visions of the film's backers.” After retailing various half-truths, distortions and outright lies about the connections between the filmmakers and Pamela Geller and me, Blumenthal returns to this contention: “A group of fringe extremists had proven that with a little bit of money and an unbelievably cynical scam, they could shape history to fit their apocalyptic vision.”
Blumenthal is saying that by producing this video, the creators of “Innocence of Muslims” actually brought into existence the world that they imagined: once in which violent Muslims victimized non-Muslims in the name of Islam. The implication is that if people like Pamela Geller and me, and the Coptic Christian creators of this film, had not dared to insult Muhammad, then Muslims would not be rioting worldwide, and all would be well.
Max Blumenthal sounds like a battered wife suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Does he really believe what he is saying? Does he actually think that if non-Muslims toe the Sharia line and avoid saying or doing anything which offends Muslim sensibilities, that a new era of peace will dawn between the West and the Islamic world?
Is Max Blumenthal really unaware of the Muslim persecution of non-Muslims all over the world – Christians in Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, and Indonesia; Hindus in Pakistan, Bahais in Iran? Does he really think that those tiny and embattled minorities are somehow so offending their benign and tolerant Muslim neighbors that they drive them to violence that they would avoid if they just stopped mocking Muhammad and burning the Qur’an? Does Max Blumenthal really think that that is what non-Muslims in Muslim countries do? And if not, why does he think they are being persecuted so viciously? It couldn’t possibly be the fault of the Muslims, could it? To admit such a possibility is not possible for Max Blumenthal: it would be “Islamophobic.”
Islamic law mandates that dhimmis, the non-Muslim “protected people” in the Islamic state who are denied basic rights and live in a state of subjugation to the Muslims, must not say anything that Muslims consider offensive about Islam, Muhammad or the Qur’an. If they do, their contract of “protection” is voided, and their lives can lawfully be taken. Living under this threat for many centuries, non-Muslims in Muslim lands have learned how to play the game: they not only never criticize Islam or Muslims, but they never complain about their plight. If asked in public, they praise Islam and Muslims to the skies and exult about how wonderful it is to live among such a peaceful and tolerant people. Asked again in private, the same interlocutor is likely to tell a very different story, but people who know that they can and will be violently assaulted for telling the truth learn when they can safely tell it and when they can’t.
And so it is the Max Blumenthal, at the end of his piece, reports happily that the Copts who made the Muhammad video “were not immune to the violence they incited.” Blumenthal explains:
According to Copts Today, an Arabic news outlet focusing on Coptic affairs, [Coptic activist Morris] Sadek was seen taking a leisurely stroll down Washington's M Street on September 11, soaking in the sun on a perfect autumn day. All of a sudden, he found himself surrounded by four angry Coptic women. Berating Sadek for fueling the flames of sectarian violence, the women took off their heels and began beating him over the head.
"If anything happens to a Christian in Egypt," one of them shouted at him, "you'll be the reason!"
Clearly Blumenthal agrees with this: he thinks that Sadek is responsible for the Muslim persecution of Christians in Egypt, because Sadek stirred the Muslims to violence by suggesting that Muhammad was violent. Whether or not Muhammad was violent is irrelevant to Blumenthal, as is the question of whether the victim of violence can really be held responsible for that violence. The Coptic women are blaming Sadek because they have thoroughly internalized the cardinal rule of living as a dhimmi, the same one that Muhammad Atta articulated when he spoke to the passengers on the airplane that he and his fellow jihadists had hijacked: “Stay quiet and you’ll be OK.” Blumenthal wants Sadek, and all counter-jihadists, to follow that rule: stay quiet and you’ll be OK.
Except you won’t, not any more than were the passengers on American Airlines Flight 11. If you stay quiet in the face of Islamic violence and terror, you will not be OK, and your silence will not end that violence and terror. The Coptic women’s fear and anger is understandable, but so is Sadek’s desire to combat the root cause for that fear, which is not criticism of Islam, but the Islamic imperative to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers.
Max Blumenthal is nothing more than the latest exponent of the capitulation of the free West. He would prefer to live as a slave, submitting voluntarily to the silence mandated for dhimmis under Sharia, than stand as a free man who tells the truth. His cowardice and surrender to authoritarian restrictions on free speech will stand through the ages as his sorry legacy, and free men, if any survive, will spit at his memory.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist?.
