[SF-TX]

Robert Spencer's response to the SPLC:

In libelous new “report,” SPLC equates foes of jihad terror with those who commit jihad massacres

The objective of this libelous new report from the hard-Left money-making and incitement machine the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is made plain within it: “Before you book a spokesperson from an anti-Muslim extremist group or quote them in a story, research their background — detailed in this in-depth guide to 15 of the most visible anti-Muslim activists— and consider the consequences of giving them a platform.” They wish to silence those who speak honestly about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, blaming us for a supposed rise in “Islamophobia.” If they really want to stamp out suspicion of Islam, of course, they will move against not us, but the likes of Omar Mateen, Syed Rizwan Farook, Tashfeen Malik, Nidal Malik Hasan, Mohammed Abdulazeez, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and the myriad other Muslims who commit violence in the name of Islam and justify it by reference to Islamic teachings.

The SPLC doesn’t do that because its objective is not really to stop “Islamophobia” at all, but to create the illusion of a powerful and moneyed network of “Islamophobes,” who can only be stopped if you write a check to the SPLC. That’s what this is really all about. In constructing this illusory edifice, the SPLC labels me and fourteen others “anti-Muslim extremists.” We are, of course, no more “anti-Muslim” than foes of the Nazis were anti-German, but note the word “extremists.” That’s the mainstream media and Obama administration’s term of choice for jihad terrorists. In what way are we “extremists”? Has anyone on the SPLC’s hit list (and given the SPLC’s track record of inciting violence against its targets, that is exactly what it is) ever blown anything or anyone up? Beheaded anyone? Boasted of our imminent conquest of any territory and the massacre of or enslavement of its people? No, all we have done is speak critically about jihad terror and Sharia oppression. The SPLC is trying to further the libel that we are the other side of the coin, the non-Muslim bin Ladens and Awlakis. Until we commit any terror attacks or conspire with others to do so, however, the SPLC’s libel is only that: a libel.

It’s also passingly ironic that the SPLC list includes several people who are doubtless horrified to be in this company, as they have endeavored for years to distinguish their message from that of those whom they themselves would smear as “Islamophobes.” But their temporizing and pandering didn’t work: they ended up on the Index of Prohibited Thinkers anyway, as will, ultimately, anyone who dares to note that Islam just might have something to do with the acts of murder committed in its name and in accord with its teachings.

The entry on me is accompanied by a nifty watercolor, but otherwise has little to recommend it, other than as an example of the Left’s strange tendency to present true statements as if they were self-evidently false, without bothering to explain why. Apparently the SPLC knows its supporters and is aware that it doesn’t need to bother with troublesome things like, you know, facts.

Nonetheless, I have replied in detail here so that the record, for anyone who is fair-minded, is clear. Much more below...

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