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Karen Armstrong, the left’s beloved apologist for Islam

David Gold has a local conservative radio show. While I was in my car the other day, I heard him ask why the jihadis are bombing England, rather than America. I didn’t hear either his answer or the answers the audience called in, but I do have an idea. I think the jihadis are targeting England because they think it’s more likely than America to respond as Spain did to a bombing. That is, one good terror campaign, they think, and England will capitulate to any terrorist demands, including flying the crescent flag over Buckingham Palace.

Now, much as I deride the Brits and loath the resurgent anti-Semitism in that country — an anti-Semitism more reminiscent of Nazi Germany than of any time in British history since 1190 — I think the jihadists are underestimating British backbone when faced with terror tactics. After all, the British dealt with IRA terror for decades. If the terrorism works, it won’t be because Britons cave out of simple fear. Instead, any bowing to Muslim overlords will come about because radical Leftists and anti-Semites have made such inroads into British society that they convince fellow Brits that its entirely legitimate for the jihadis to blow everyone up and that Brits must retreat before them, not out of fear, but because it’s the right thing to do.

There are signs, however, that the British worm is turning. You may recall this video, made by one very fed up Brit. Then, today I read a really nasty post by a British journalist, using his space at The Telegraph blog, saying that Karen Armstrong, the Left’s beloved apologist for Islam, is an idiot:

Islam could do with some good PR this weekend, don’t you think? Send for Karen Armstrong, the conceited ex-nun who jets around the world telling people that Islam is simply, simply adorable and the rest of us are a nasty bunch of Crusaders.

Karen has just given an interview to a newspaper in Malaysia in which she tells the world’s Muslims that she’s wearing herself out doing their work for them: in fact, it has given her a nasty cough and cold. But, first, she establishes where the real blame lies:

“Well, the West has found it always very difficult to understand Islam. Islamaphobia dates right back to the time of the Crusades when we tended to project worries about our own behaviour unto Islam.

“I think what would be helpful would be if Muslims undertook a counter-offensive…”

I think they are, Karen. Oh, sorry, I’ll let you continue.

“… and started to project the peaceful image of Islam more energetically. Trying to find a more imaginative and creative way of expressing this.

“After 9/11 I suggested that American Muslims organise a march going down to the World Trade Centre. That sort of thing. It’s for you to decide how to do it. But, I think, some such initiative would be helpful.”

Read the rest here.

Oh, and how about Tony Blair, freed from the shackles of Prime Ministership, going on a rampage against the civil liberties crowd that would rather see Britain blown up entirely, than see one Muslim with hurt feelings (h/t Michelle Malkin):

Tony Blair has launched a powerful attack on ‘absurd’ British Islamists who have nurtured a false ’sense of grievance’ that they are being oppressed by Britain and the United States.

In his most outspoken remarks on Islamists, the former Prime Minister warns that Britain is in danger of losing the battle against terrorists unless mainstream society confronts the threat.

***

‘The idea that as a Muslim in this country that you don’t have the freedom to express your religion or your views, I mean you’ve got far more freedom in this country than you do in most Muslim countries,’ Blair told Observer columnist Will Hutton, who presents the documentary.

‘The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we’re not actually fighting it properly. We’re not actually standing up to these people and saying, “It’s not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn’t justified.”‘

***

Blair, who normally chooses his language carefully when he talks about Islamists, also takes a swipe at critics who accused him of undermining civil liberties. ‘When I’m trying to change the law in order to make it easier to deport people who engage in terrorism - the idea that that’s an assault on hundreds of years of British civil liberties is completely absurd. Some of what is written on this is loopy-loo in its extremism.’

I’m wondering now, as I’ve wondered before, if the jihadists pushed too far, too fast with their violence, creating a backlash that might prove their undoing. If they’d been patient, and worked through demographics and Fifth Columns, slowly infiltrating themselves into one society after another, they might have surprised everyone by having the upper hand in 20 or 25 years. By rushing things through violence and by making their faux grievances too obvious, perhaps, just perhaps, they might be hoisting themselves by their own petards.

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