Surely all terrorists are Muslims?

Red Eye ad“The plot: A terrorist corners a luxury resort hotel manager on a red-eye flight. He blackmails her into changing the hotel room of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, so that terrorists can launch a Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) into his suite….

“Some comments by posters on this site predicted I would hate ‘Red Eye’ because the main terrorist, Jackson Ripner, played by Cillian Murphy (of Irish descent and with blue eyes), was not Islamic. But, are the terrorists, for whom Ripner works, Islamic? Perhaps. Before the missile is launched, you can hear those for whom Murphy is working speaking almost inaudibly. If you listen carefully and speak Russian, as I do, they are saying, ‘Adin, Dva, Tri, Chetiri’, which translates to ‘One, Two, Three, Four’. They could, therefore, be Chechnyan terrorists.

“And that’s my one criticism of the movie. To wit, that director Craven doesn’t tell or impress upon you whether the terrorists are Muslim, in another politically correct move, designed to dodge the criticisms of Islamist groups, like CAIR.”

Debbie Schlussel reviews the movie “Red Eye”.

Front Page Magazine, 22 August 2005

Anti-racism 1, Islamophobia 0

Yessss!! Radio talk-show host Michael Graham, who was suspended by station WMAL last month for describing Islam as a “terrorist organization” (see here), has now been sacked. Strange to relate, some people are not happy. See Front Page Magazine, 22 August 2005

See also Robert Spencer, who posts a link to this “shameful story” under the heading “WMAL fires Michael Graham, earns the opprobrium of all free people”! Dhimmi Watch, 22 August 2005

Further details of the sacking from Islam Online, 23 August 2005

Immoderate Islam

“Last month’s bombings seem to have changed so many attitudes – and yet still, it would seem, some of the most mainstream Muslim leaders refuse to face up to extremism. Last night’s Panorama documentary on the leadership of the Muslim Council of Britain and the views of leading British Muslims gave some indication of the distance the Muslim establishment still has to go.”

The Evening Standard takes up John Ware’s attack on the MCB.

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Scotland on Sunday and Jihad Watch applaud Moderator’s stand

Moderator“At last, a Christian leader breaks the deafening silence that, for too long, has muzzled those whose duty it was to speak out on behalf of the values of western society. The courageous comments of the Rev David Lacy, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, condemning the Islamist ‘hypocrites’ who treat their hosts as ‘enemies’ while leeching off the National Health Service, will find an echo among many of those people who fill his church’s pews – just as they will no doubt be deplored by voices within the liberal Kirk establishment. We say ‘courageous’ because, in recent decades, a climate has been generated, across all the Christian denominations, enforcing a liberal orthodoxy on church leaders from which they deviate at their peril.”

Editorial in Scotland on Sunday, 21 August 2005

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer applauds this as a welcome example of “anti-dhimmitude”.

Dhimmi Watch, 21 August 2005

MP calls for ban on Inayat Bunglawala

A member of the Muslim Council of Britain has insisted he would sit on a government task force aimed at tackling Islamic extremism and denied suggestions he was anti-Semitic. But Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman said the invitation should be withdrawn until Mr Bunglawala explained comments he made about Jewish influence in the British media.

She said: “I am calling on the Home Office to withdraw its invitation and I’m asking Mr Bunglawala to clarify his statements about Jewish people in the media. I heard him on the Radio 4 Today programme recently and he said that there are ‘highly-placed friends of Israel’ in the media.”

This is London, 21 August 2005

Muslim radicals should quit UK says Moderator

Scotland’s most senior churchman says extremist Muslim clerics should leave the country, and has branded them “hypocrites” who treat their neighbours as “enemies”. Church of Scotland Moderator, Rev David Lacy, also accuses radical Islamists of speaking out “against us from within” while receiving “heart operations and care on our system”.

Scotland on Sunday, 21 August 2005

See Scottish Socialist Party press release, 21 August 2005

Muslims rebuff Tebbit’s rant on culture

Muslims rebuff Tebbit’s rant on culture

Morning Star, 20 August 2005

Muslims condemned a primitive attack on their culture from crackpot Tory bigot Lord Tebbit yesterday.

The Tory former chairman denounced multiculturalism and claimed that there had been “no real advances” in art, literature or science in the Muslim world in the last 500 years. The venomous peer proclaimed that the London bombings may never have happened if the nation had listened to his demand 15 years ago that British Asians must pass the “cricket test” and support the England team. In an interview with ePolitix.com, he claimed that multiculturalism was now in danger of undermining British society.

The Muslim Council of Britain accused him of a “blinkered and dangerous” attempt to reduce the terrorism problem to simply blaming multiculturalism. The spokesman conceded that science had not progressed in the Muslim world as it had in the West. However, this was caused not by Islam itself, but “a restrictive interpretation of the faith by too many Muslims”.

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Mindless diatribe

“Tory relic Lord Tebbit claims, in his mindless diatribe against Islam, that communities have to look forward alongside other communities rather than backwards to where they came from. In saying this, he exemplifies his own backwardness by harking back to a society that he imagines existed in Britain before multicultural society. In fact, such a society hadn’t existed for at least 2,000 years. People from different cultures, with different religions and mother tongues, had arrived and settled throughout that time. They became part of society while retaining respect for their roots and keeping alive aspects of their own cultural heritage.”

Morning Star, 20 August 2005

Harry’s Place defends Enlightenment values

Over at Harry’s Place, they’re discussing Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s non-existent call for the Crown Prince of Qatar to be stoned to death for attending a gay nightclub. Given that Harry’s Place was one of the first to take up this story, you might have thought they’d feel obliged to ask whether it was accurate. But apparently not. Of course, we live in hope, but so far not a single one of the numerous contributors to the discussion has addressed this question.

Harry’s Place, 19 August 2005

Ah, the wonders of “Enlightenment values”! It’s reassuring to know that the triumph of reason over irrational prejudice, a commitment to the serious study of empirical evidence, and other such gains of Western modernity are in safe hands among Harry and his friends.