http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ayaan_hirsi_ali_and_the_dangerous_anti_islamic_logic_of_the_war_on_terror/
In a feeble attempt at being humorous, Levitz destroys his credibility in his second paragraph by making the comment that Hirsi Ali was not 'stoned to death' when Brandeis withdrew their offer of an honorary degree, in an attempt to make any criticism of the Brandeis decision seem ridiculous.
Levitz does this even though he includes a description of the film 'Submission' made by Hirsi Ali and Theo Van Gogh, and that Theo Van Gogh was murdered as a result, and that Hirsi Ali also had to spend time in hiding as the result of threats from Muslims — but Levitz doesn't mention that Hirsi Ali went into hiding in late 2002, almost two years before 'Submission' was made, as a result of her writings and activism on behalf of women.
In a previous blog post, I included details about Theo Van Gogh's brutal murder — note that Van Gogh's murderer attempted to decapitate him after having shot him several times in the chest at close range —
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ayaan-hirsi-ali-and-islamic-hate-speech.html
It's especially ironic that Levitz would attempt to be humorous with a mocking comment regarding a threat of death for someone like Hirsi Ali, given that she has lived under a threat of death from Muslims for years, and must travel with security as a result. Here's the second paragraph from Levitz's article --
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ayaan_hirsi_ali_and_the_dangerous_anti_islamic_logic_of_the_war_on_terror/
For those new to this story, let me first assure you that upon withdrawing his offer of an honorary degree, Brandeis president Frederick M. Lawrence did not attempt to stone Ali to death. Rather, he invited her to come speak on campus to engage the student body “in a dialogue about these important issues.”
Here Levitz denounces other writers for not quoting Hirsi Ali, after he includes a single quote from an obscure interview Hirsi Ali had done seven years prior, while including no context for Hirsi Ali's statements --
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ayaan_hirsi_ali_and_the_dangerous_anti_islamic_logic_of_the_war_on_terror/
The Change.org petition that cost Ali her honorary degree acknowledges the legitimacy of her grievances with Islam, but condemns the “hate speech” through which she expresses them. The petition quotes her as saying:
Ali told Reason magazine in 2007, “There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.”Violence is inherent in Islam – it’s a destructive, nihilistic cult of death. It legitimates murder … the battle against terrorism will ultimately be lost unless we realize that it’s not just with extremist elements within Islam, but the ideology of Islam itself …
Curiously, not one of the pieces protesting Brandeis’ decision actually quotes Ali’s past rhetoric. Instead, they refer obliquely to her “ stinging attacks on non-Western religions,” “ provocative ideas” or, most opaquely, her “ life and thought.” The simplest explanation for this chronic omission is that to actually engage with Ali’s rhetoric would be to expose the absurdity of the Judeo-Christian persecution complex that informs so much of the genre.
Of course, Levitz must leave out the context in which Hirsi Ali made that comment, since it undermines his criticism.
Hirsi Ali made those statements in response to the arrest of nine Muslims, who planned to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier in January 2007 —
https://www.google.com/search?q=January+2007+beheading+plot+British+Muslim+soldier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_plot_to_behead_a_British_Muslim_soldier
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/31/uk.terror.arrests/index.html?eref=edition
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/europe/01britain.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/29/brit.kidnap/index.html
The interview that quote was taken from happened on February 7, 2007, just days after the plotters were arrested. Here's Ayaan Hirsi Ali's full quote from that interview --
https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1G1-158982462/violence-is-inherent-in-islam-it-is-a-cult-of-death
"They [the British] have deceived themselves that the men arrested in the [alleged] beheading plot last week and the 7/7 bombers are a fringe group of radical Muslims who've hijacked Islam and that the majority of Muslims are moderate.
"But they are not. The plot to murder Muslim soldiers in the British Army is consistent with the purest teachings of Islam, which encourages you to kill Muslims who join the infidel army. Violence is inherent in Islam - it's a destructive, nihilistic cult of death. It legitimates murder. The police may foil plots and freeze bank accounts in the short term, but the battle against terrorism will ultimately be lost unless we realise that it's not just with extremist elements within Islam, but the ideology of Islam itself."
Of course, Ayaan Hirsi Ali wasn't just responding to one specific event in that interview — she was responding to the endless stream of violence that emanates from Islam every day — and the passages in the Quran which require violence from Muslims, like Chapter 8, Verse 12, or Chapter 47, Verse 4, which command that unbelievers be decapitated --
http://legacy.quran.com/8/12
Now consider these passages, where Levitz charges defenders of Hirsi Ali with hypocrisy, for criticizing Brandeis for giving an honorary degree to a critic of Israel --
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ayaan_hirsi_ali_and_the_dangerous_anti_islamic_logic_of_the_war_on_terror/
One of the most popular lines of argument in the Ali apologias is that Brandeis is guilty of applying an outrageous double standard, one that allows for the hateful criticism of Judaism, but not a fair critique of Islam. Bill Kristol complains that while the university refuses to honor Ali, they saw fit to bestow a degree on playwright Tony Kushner in 2006, despite the fact that Kushner had “called the creation of Israel as a Jewish state ‘a mistake’ and attacked Israel for ethnic cleansing.”
...
The irony of this argument is that by equating Kushner’s anti-Zionism with Ali’s condemnation of Islam as a “nihilistic death cult,” Kristol and Sullivan exemplify a double standard exactly opposite to the one they allege.
Whatever one’s opinion on the necessity of a Jewish state, it is a fact that a portion of the Jewish community has been opposed to state Zionism for centuries. Whatever one’s feelings on Israel, it is a fact — confirmed even in the work of Zionist historians like Benny Morris – that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes by Israeli soldiers in 1948. Thus Kushner’s statements align him with a minority position in the Jewish community, and assert a historical fact. Ali’s statements assert that no form of Islam deserves our tolerance, because inherent to the religion is a violent fascism that must be defeated. Kushner asks Jews to question the violence required to establish and maintain a majority Jewish state, in a region densely populated by Palestinians. Ali asks the U.S. government to declare war on the Muslim faith. Her “provocative” ideas aren’t less legitimate because they come from the right. They’re less legitimate because they assert that every “true” follower of Islam subscribes to an ideology of terror.
As Isaac Chotiner of the New Republic has pointed out, one need only imagine an alternate universe, in which Ali grew up a Palestinian victim of Israeli violence, then publicly decried Judaism as a nihilistic death cult, to understand that Ali’s defenders aren’t arguing for fairness, or open discourse. This is not a content-neutral debate about free speech. No one believes that a university’s coercive power in giving or withholding honorary degrees is a threat to the First Amendment.
What a bizarre exercise in perverse, confused, and intellectually dishonest arguing.
Levitz defends a particular critic of Israel as 'asserting a historical fact', that the creation of a Jewish state 'was a mistake', and that Israel is guilty of 'ethnic cleansing', and so the statements from this critic are acceptable, whereas Hirsi Ali's criticisms of Islam are not.
All of what Levitz wrote in this piece regarding Israel is an obvious red-herring fallacy, since it has no bearing on Hirsi Ali's criticism of Islam. Even if what Levitz wrote is true, it does nothing to address the question of Islam being 'an ideology of terror', as he put it.
It's a fascinating omission — Levitz writes an article denouncing a lonely critic of Islam living with death threats, but rather than explain how those criticisms are invalid, because they don't describe the beliefs required by Islam, he denounces Israel, failing completely to make any point, other than to say 'I don't agree with the existence of a Jewish state, or Hirsi Ali'.
And note that there are no 'forms of Islam', as Levitz put it, just as there are no 'forms of Judaism'.
All religions are defined by their founding documents, and that individual followers may pick and choose parts of the founding documents to practice, and in what way, creates forms of following, and not different forms of a religion. That particular Christians don't stone disobedient children, or that particular Muslims don't attempt to behead Christians, for example, doesn't magically remove those commands from religious books and alter the belief systems. That is, a religious denomination is an interpretation and practice of a particular religion — not a new form of that religion.
And notice how Levitz justifies the terrorist attacks against Israel by describing them as —
... the violence required to establish and maintain a majority Jewish state, in a region densely populated by Palestinians.So the violence in Israel isn't the result of self-defense in response to Palestinian terrorist attacks — it is a requirement of a majority Jewish state.
Levitz mentions that many Palestinians were forced from their homes when Israel was founded —
... hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes by Israeli soldiers in 1948.But Levitz doesn't mention that Palestinians were expelled by Israeli soldiers as a result of Arab attacks on Jewish targets, because the 'Arab League' and the 'Arab Higher Committee' rejected the plan of the 'United Nations Special Committee on Palestine', after the British withdrew from Palestine in 1947, because the British couldn't arrive at a solution regarding Palestine that was acceptable to both Arabs and Jews.
If you believe that Israel should not exist, then you should make that case — but trying to simply pretend that Palestinians are innocent victims only demonstrates a biased agenda.
And perhaps Hirsi Ali would denounce Israel and Judaism had she been born in Palestine, as Levitz imagines, but that's more of the same red-herring fallacy, since it isn't relevant to the character of Islam, and Hirsi Ali's criticisms of the violence Islam demands of followers.
The legitimacy of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians has no bearing on Hirsi Ali's criticisms of Islam, or that Hirsi Ali suffered a genital mutilation at the hands of her Islamic grandmother, or that she lives under threat of death from Muslims for reminding people that Islam requires Muslims to commit atrocities.
Even if you agree that Israel's treatment of Palestinians is an atrocity, how does that absolve Islam?
Here is how Levitz sums up the 'Ali controversy', by implying that no distinction can be made between Islam and Western religions, and by describing Hirsi Ali's criticism as a 'phobia' --
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ayaan_hirsi_ali_and_the_dangerous_anti_islamic_logic_of_the_war_on_terror/
What’s at stake in the Ali controversy is whether we should grant legitimacy to critiques of Islam that would be labeled hate speech if applied to the other Western religions. The only rationale for doing this would be if her statements, for all their off-putting ferocity, articulated an inconvenient truth. This is the argument her defenders imply, but are evidently too intimated by “liberal fascists” to forthrightly make.
The backlash the students of Brandeis have incurred for asserting that Islamaphobia is in fact bigotry, reflects precisely what makes Ali’s rhetoric so dangerous. Far from being a fringe position in our discourse, the idea that Islam is a uniquely malevolent ideology is the necessary fiction behind the war on terror.
What's at stake is not whether critiques of Islam would be labeled hate speech if applied to other Western religions, but whether any religion, and the actions committed by a large number of its followers, can be criticized without people attempting to condemn the person making the criticism, and, by implication, giving quarter to those who wish to silence the critic — even with death threats, as is the case with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
It is not relevant that some would consider Hirsi Ali's comments illegitimate hate speech, if she spoke about Western religions (or any religion) in the same way, but whether or not her comments are supported by actual fact.
And notice the complete absurdity of the second paragraph in the quote above — Levitz asserts that Hirsi Ali's rhetoric is 'so dangerous' because of the 'backlash' to students at Brandeis 'for asserting that Islamaphobia is in fact bigotry'.
When Levitz uses the word 'backlash' to describe the response to the students of Brandeis, does he mean that many of them had to go into hiding like Hirsi Ali? Does he mean that many of them now live under threat of death, and so they must travel with security like Hirsi Ali? Does he mean that some of them were murdered, and that their murderer also tried to decapitate them, like Mohammed Bouyeri did to Theo Van Gogh?
Ayaan Hirsi Ali's rhetoric is dangerous, but only to her — Hirsi Ali has lived with death threats from Muslims for years, but the students of Brandeis do not live with death threats from Christians, and certainly not from Atheists like Hirsi Ali.
The use of a 'phobia' word — in this case 'Islamaphobia' — is such an obvious intellectual ruse to hide an empty argument, it hardly deserves comment, but in this context it's worth emphasizing how asinine the use of that term is, given that the person that Eric Levitz is claiming has such a phobia, had a personalized death threat written to her, that was attached to the chest of her murdered friend with a knife — by a Muslim.
How many threats does Hirsi Ali have to receive from Muslims before people like Levitz will acknowledge that she isn't expressing a phobia? How many of Hirsi Ali's friends have to be murdered by Muslims before people like Levitz will acknowledge that she isn't expressing a phobia?
In the quote below, it almost seems like Levitz was beginning to muster enough courage to make a justified criticism, but of course, he won't acknowledge that Islam may have a bigger problem than Christianity, and that Ayaan Hirsi Ali certainly isn't the problem --
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/20/ayaan_hirsi_ali_and_the_dangerous_anti_islamic_logic_of_the_war_on_terror/
To be clear: Fundamentalist religion is a scourge. And without question, fundamentalist Islam enjoys more political salience in many countries across the Middle East, than fundamentalist Christianity does in American politics (though the influence of the latter is considerable). What is fictitious in Ali’s rhetoric, and in the logic of our public policy, is the notion that Islam is uniquely susceptible to violent interpretation, and therefore all Muslims are inherently suspect.
Can anyone explain the difference in meaning between 'fundamentalist Islam enjoys more political salience' and the partly parenthetical phrase 'considerable influence of fundamentalist Christianity in American politics'?
What's the difference between that convoluted phrasing, and simply writing: 'Islam is only slightly more influential politically, than fundamentalist Christianity.'
In any case, however you decode Levitz's confused writing, it's absurd that he won't make a clear distinction. Notice that much of the violence committed in the name of Islam is not a response to Western intervention (as in the case of Hirsi Ali and Theo Van Gogh) — as much as people like Levitz like to pretend that Muslims are being provoked. To get a better sense of that, check this site from time to time —
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
If you can believe it, there is even more nonsense in Levitz's article, but consider just one more quote, where Levitz attempts to equate Hirsi Ali's denunciations of the violence Islam demands of followers, as legitimating violence --
Ali argues that because some of the Quran’s rhetoric legitimates violence, everything associated with the book is poisoned. It seems only fair then, that the students of Brandeis applied the same logic to Ali herself.
It makes one wonder how Levitz would respond, if he had received credible death threats. Ayaan Hirsi Ali seems especially polite given the threats she has had to deal with — not to mention the refusal of people like Levitz to acknowledge those threats.
But that pretty much sums up Levitz's thinking — pretend that the attacker is the victim, and that the actual victim caused the violence.
When I wrote the title for this post, I didn't intend it as a provocative exaggeration — I really don't know what else to make of what Levitz wrote, since it's such an extreme expression of abject moral cowardice and dishonesty. Who does Levitz think will respond to what he wrote in a positive way? Does he really believe that honest, courageous, and insightful people will line up with him against Ayaan Hirsi Ali?
Notice that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is risking her life to raise awareness about the problems with Islam, and Eric Levitz certainly knows that he is risking nothing by attacking her.
Eric Levitz should spend some time with Nada Al-Ahdal and Nujood Ali, since those young girls have so much more courage than he does.
Then perhaps he may consider trying to help victims of Islam (as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has done), rather than attacking them in poorly written articles, in which he attempts to posture as a moral crusader.
