Begin to Understand Islam With These 118 Robert Spencer Articles

Israel and Islam. What is it that really divides the the two, keeping the children of Jacob and Ishmael in perpetual war?

It turns out the difference stares us in the face, at the root of the words themselves. Clarity in understanding the wars of the Middle East comes when grasping the words in the original languages, Hebrew and Arabic, a point Dennis Prager explains in his book Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.

In Hebrew the word “Israel” means to “wrestle with God” or “to struggle with God.” Jacob was renamed Israel after spending a night wrestling with God’s angels. Struggling and arguing with the idea of God is what characterizes man’s relationship with Him in the Torah. Abraham talks back to God, arguing humanity’s case. This perpetual shifting and negotiating, new reaching out to the Divine is mirrored in the way the Bible is put together and how Jews and Christians learn to study it. We wrestle with God by wrestling with the text, trying to assemble the pieces in new and better configurations, building on the sages who have come before us. In Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchk’s The Lonely Man of Faith he shows how this movement back and forth is built into man’s nature as reflected in the two creation stories that start Genesis. Both describe man’s orientation to God and it is our challenge to shift back and forth between them.

In Islam the idea of man arguing with Allah or debating the proper interpretations of the holy text is blasphemous. In Arabic the word “Islam” means to submit to Allah.

While the Bible is a document made of numerous texts across the centuries depicting many mysterious and often conflicting understandings of God and competing schools of interpretation, the Koran purports to be the revelation of one prophet who supersedes all the others. And his book has an easy cheat system for how to make sense of conflicting passages: when two parts conflict, just go with the later prophecy. Abrogation! The practical result of this is that the violent, later prophecies are still in effect for Islam. And where did its doctrine of “struggle” manifest? In its call to wage Jihad. The struggle is not primarily with a transcendent deity, but to impose Shariah law — a Caliphate — onto the entire planet. There’s no mystery between man and Allah in the Koran, the relationship is clear: we are his slaves.

The more one studies the history, culture, and contemporary conflicts between Israel and Islamic states and Jihadists the more evidence one finds for this root breakdown between a free people and an enslaved people. Two of my most important guides in coming to grasp these issues have been P. David Hornik and Robert Spencer who I’ve had the pleasure of of editing each week for the past few years. Today I present collections of their work together, Hornik based in Israel and providing analysis of the news in the Middle East and the cultures influencing it; and Spencer connecting the Koran with the actions of its most zealous modern day adherents.

If there are themes you’d like to see David or Robert explore then please get in touch with your ideas: daveswindlepjm @ gmail.com or @DaveSwindle on Twitter.

Click here to read “100 Visions Of the Sacred and Secular in Israel From P. David Hornik”

Last year, inspired by James C. Bennett and Michael Lotus’s America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century—Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come, I argued that the history of the conservative movement could be understood in terms of three phases, each defined by the most serious threat to the country, and one writer-activist in particular provided an intellectual foundation: “Robert Spencer’s Vital Role in Creating Conservatism 3.0”

The 1.0/2.0/3.0 Bennett-Lotus model is applicable beyond the broad scope of their book. As America itself goes through the shifts from one era to the next so too do the cultures and institutions within it. So I will apply it to one of my preoccupations, political ideology. How does this sound?

Conservatism 1.0 = The Old Right, those who fought against the expansion of the federal government and US entry into World War II, often referred to as isolationists. This ideology was soundly refuted by US victory over the Axis. It turns out that foreign policy ideologies that assume muskets and months to sail across the Atlantic have limited utility in post-Hiroshima worlds. The heirs of this tradition today are the so-called paleo-conservatives (Pat Buchanan) and paleo-libertarians (Ron Paul) and their stealth advocate who has duped Republicans and infiltrated the Tea Party, Rand Paul. (My ax-grinding against all three will continue for the foreseeable future. These people should have been cast out of polite society long ago so they’d have more time to spend with their Holocaust-denying buddies.)

Conservatism 2.0 = The New Right, built by William F. Buckley Jr. and Barry Goldwater and institutionalized at the presidential level by Ronald Reagan. While adapting the Old Right’s traditionalism and opposition to the New Deal, the big shift came in reacting to the new foreign policy reality threatening human freedom: Soviet imperialism. The battle against murderous Marxism was what really animated Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan more than anything else. (It was in reading the extraordinary Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America that this started to become more apparent.)

So I’ve come to conclude that what we call “the conservative movement” was really just the political/cultural wing of what began as anti-communism. Thus, the reason for the degradation of Conservatism 2.0 is that with anti-communism as the primary base the ideological tent could widen to bring in people who do not actually believe in American values. Opposing the Soviets for one reason or another does not require one to be an advocate of America’s founding principles. Thus with the removal of the Soviet threat — only for a time really, of course… — the Reagan coalition has collapsed as each faction now squabbles for power and attention.

Conservatism 3.0 = As anti-communism created Conservatism 2.0, Robert Spencer’s counter-jihad movement will provide a foundational justification for the shift to Conservatism 3.0. As previous generations were fueled by reports of the horrors within Marxist slave states, today the truth about Shariah slave states will gradually bring together people across cultures, borders, and ideologies. And I say Robert Spencer’s counter-jihad movement because he has been a leader in this war for over a decade, documenting not just what is happening but explaining why.

In my years knowing Robert and editing his work, I’ve gradually come to see that the depth of this war is actually deeper than any America has ever experienced. The Nazis and Communists were the 20th century’s institutionalization of 19th century European ideologies based in class and race. But this is a conflict that predates the colonization of the North American continent. I’ve come to see that it’s vital not just to understand the history of Islam and what the Koran teaches, but the central role that they’ve had in provoking the creation of our nation centuries before we existed. What initially inspired Westward exploration? Islam shutting off the trade routes to the East. We exist today because our ancestors would rather try and go around the Jihadists than to defeat them militarily.

In starting this collection of Robert’s PJ Media and PJ Lifestyle articles we begin with his all-time most popular article, one that received over 100,000 pageviews, “5 Ways Muslims Have Contributed to ‘Building the Very Fabric of Our Nation’“:

5. Getting us here in the first place

This one predates the United States as a nation, but without it, the United States would not exist. Every schoolchild knows, or used to know, that in 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America while searching for a new, westward sea route to Asia. But why was he searching for a new route to Asia? Because the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453 closed the trade routes to the East. This was devastating for European tradesmen, who had until then traveled to Asia for spices and other goods by land. Columbus’s voyage was trying to ease the plight of these merchants by bypassing the Muslims altogether and making it possible for Europeans to reach India by sea.

So the bellicosity and intransigence of Islam ultimately opened the Americas for Europe – and made the United States possible.

Continue page 2 of the article here. To further grasp the chasm of differences between Western and Koranic values, consider the first of several series in this collection, a group of 13 articles in which Robert focused on how Islam molds men and women differently in its family structure. Also see Robert’s “Jazz and Islam” series which I’ve included next — these fights go well beyond the religious, political, and military realms, manifesting in how the competing civilizations regard art and the most intimate aspects of human life. Over the years Robert has consistently shined a light on these difficult truths, being banned from Great Britain and vilified even by self-proclaimed conservatives for his refusal to shut up as humans suffer. I hope with this collection if you may have shrugged off Robert’s interpretation of Islam in the past you’ll give him another chance.

How Islam Affects the Family and Male/Female Relationships

1. Straight-Arrow Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Mama’s Boy
2. How Mothers from Hell Raise Their Boys to Do Evil
3. Why The Sword of Islam Cuts Apart Families
4. Will Islam Make a Man Out of You?
5. The Muslim Family: An Empire of Fear
6. Can Parents’ Divorce Push a Teen to Join Al-Qaeda?
7. Would You Strangle a Cop for Giving Your Wife a Ticket?
8. Proving Their Manhood in Syria
9. My Son Jihad: Glorifying Evil in France
10. ‘Stone Cold’ Yousef al-Khattab and His Children
11. Teaching Children Jihad in Dagestan
12. How 10-Year-Old Boys Learn to Slaughter Infidels in Syria
13. The 7 Ways Islam Kills Romance

The Real War on Women

1. The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage
2. What Would It Take for You to Kill Someone You Love?
3. Why It May Be Easy for Huma Abedin to Stand by Her Man
4. Could the Rape Jihad Come to America?
5. Canada (and the U.S.) Welcome Polygamy
6. Child Marriage Comes to Australia
7. Burned Alive for $47
8. Daughters of the Jihad Death Cult
9. 5 New Hashtags for Michelle Obama
10. 7 Reasons Why the Oklahoma Beheading Has Everything to Do with Islam

The Jazz and Islam Series

1. Why Did Lenin and Muhammad Hate Music?
2. 5 Exhilarating Jazz Improvisations to Unshackle Your Spirit
3. Blues for Sayyid Qutb
4. 5 Jazz Women We Love
5. John Coltrane and Bilal Philips: Two Converts’ Paths
6. The Questions Nobody Wants to Ask About ‘Moderate Islam’
7. James Holmes: It Serves Him Right to Suffer
8. Innovators: 6 Unique Jazz Performances That Will Blow Your Mind
9. How Miles Davis and John Coltrane Ruined Jazz
10. Why So Many Jazz Musicians Converted to a Heretical Form of Islam
11. No More Music for Muslims: The Spiritual Journey of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Terrorism and Jihad

1. See No Jihad: U.S. Still Treating Fort Hood Jihadis as Criminals
2. The Real Lesson of Benghazi
3. ‘Islamophobia’ and the Latest New York Jihad Plot
4. 8 Reasons You Aren’t Safer than You Were 4 Years Ago
5. Obama’s Dangerous Fantasy of Al-Qaeda Defeated
6. Pork No, Killing Infidels Sí
7. The National Guardsman’s Jihad
8. 5 Things the National Guard Jihadist Wants You to Know About Islam
9. 5 Things You Should Know About the Latest Military Jihadist
10. 5 Truths the 9/11 Museum Should Tell About 9/11
11. 8 Signs That ISIS Will Strike in the U.S. Soon
12. 5 New Signs of the West’s Myopia About the Jihad Threat
13. 4 Freedoms at Stake in Our Defense Against Jihad
14. 10 Things We Should Have Done Since 9/11 to Defeat the Jihad
15. 10 Acts of Jihad in America That Americans Haven’t Heard About
16. 6 Reasons Why the U.S. Should Not Arm the Syrian ‘Moderates’

What Is Stealth Jihad?

1. Investigate Radical Christianity!
2. McCarthyism and Mohamed Elibiary
3. Why Is the Pentagon Listening to Hamas-Linked CAIR?
4. DC Comics Mainstreaming ‘Islamophobia’
5. Obama’s Islamic Supremacist Human Rights Rep
6. How Muslims Celebrated Islamophobia Awareness Month
7. The Ground Zero Mosque and Media Sleight of Hand
8. #MyJihad: CAIR’s New Twitter Campaign to Whitewash Islam
9. The Jihad Against Christmas
10. A Subway Murder and the ‘Islamophobia’ Industry
11. Huma Abedin, Alger Hiss, Huma Abedin, Alger Hiss, Huma Abedin, Alger…
12. What Is the Difference Between ‘Extremist’ and ‘Moderate’ Muslim Brothers?
13. 4 Muslims Who Deserve to Be Under Surveillance
14. 6 Elements of ‘Extremist’ Islam That ‘Moderate’ Muslims Endorsed as They Condemned the Islamic State

Antisemitism

1. Islamic Antisemitism Enters American Electoral Politics
2. The Worldwide Rise of Islamic Antisemitism
3. Would a Palestinian State Bring Peace?
4. Obama Throws Israel to the Wolves
5. 7 Reasons Why the Palestinians Don’t Occupy the Moral High Ground
6. 5 New Muslim Calls for Genocide of the Jews
7. 6 Ugly Signs of Resurgent Worldwide Antisemitism

Europe

1. Yes, You Can Tell the Truth About Jihad Violence in Britain (As Long As You’re For It)
2. 5 Books That Will Get You Banned From Britain
3. The 5 Latest Signs of Britain’s Imminent Demise
4. Who Lost Britain? 14 Culprits

Censorship

1. Is It Still Possible to Question Islam?
2. Suicide of the Western Media
3. The Muhammad Movie Riots
4. U.S. Imams Call for Restricting Free Speech
5. 2013: The Death of Free Speech
6. Too Cowardly To Print Muhammad Cartoons?
7. Building Bridges Between Christians and Muslims: A Case Study
8. Conan O’Brien Discovers: Muslim Polygamy Is No Joke
9. 5 Ways the Islamic War on Free Speech Advanced Last Week
10. 5 Muslim Movie Reviews
11. 5 New Victories for Muslim Enemies of Free Speech
12. 5 Things the Media and Government Won’t Tell You About Boko Haram

Reza Aslan

1. Why Reza Aslan’s Christian Relatives and Friends Aren’t Trying to Kill Him
2. 5 Falsehoods in Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
3. The Hypocrisy of the Left’s Commitment to ‘Peacemaking’
4. 3 Times I Was Framed for Murder – And How You Can Be, Too
5. 5 Ways Bill Maher Is Right and Reza Aslan Wrong About Islam

Hypocrisy

1. The Media’s Double Standard for Muslims
2. The New Left Fascists
3. The Hypocrisy of the ‘Islamophobia’ Scam
4. The Hypocrisy of the Fatwa Against Terrorism
5. The Hypocrisy of the Feminist Response to Islam’s Oppression of Women
6. The Hypocrisy of the Western Christian Response to Muslim Persecution of Christians
7. The Hypocrisy of the Leftist Response to Ariel Sharon’s Death
8. The Hypocrisy of Ibrahim Hooper and CAIR’s ‘Islamophobic List’
9. The Hypocrisy of the Huffington Post’s Praise of Muhammad
10. The Hypocrisy of the Media Whitewash of Islamic Blasphemy Charges
11. 5 Islamic Scholars Who Say They’d Demolish Me in Debate – But Don’t Dare Try

Shariah

1. Muslim Journalist Challenges Sharia, Gets Accused of ‘Hate’
2. Is Michael Bloomberg Secretly a Muslim?
3. Muslims vs. Archaeology
4. U.S. Army Solution to Afghan Attacks: ‘Avoid Arrogance,’ ‘Respect Islam’
5. Now that the U.S. Is an Islamic State…
6. Algerian Jihadists Wanted to ‘Teach the Americans What Islam Is’
7. When Slaves Choose Their Slavery
8. The Persecution No One Dares Name
9. ‘It Never Occurred to Us that Muslim Neighbors Would Betray Us…’
10. Behead First, Ask Questions Later
11. 5 Sharia Atrocities for Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres to Protest
12. 5 Stories from Last Week Revealing Sharia’s Spread in the West
13. 5 Ways the Quran Explains Today’s Headlines
14. 5 Non-Muslims Who Know More About Islam than the Caliph of the Islamic State

An excerpt from the appendix of Not Peace But a Sword summarizes the difference between Islamic and Biblical values:

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