https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/05/02/some-heartening-news-and-all-the-rest/feed/PJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 11:05:59 -0400<![CDATA[I&#8217;ve written about the phenomenon of &#8220;libel tourism&#8221; here before. It wasn&#8217;t invented by Islamic jihadists&#8211;what, when you come right down to it, have they invented? But the noisome use, or threat, of litigation to silence legitimate criticism has become a specialité de la maison musulmane. If you&#8217;re a rich Saudi and you don&#8217;t like what someone says, threaten to sue. It&#8217;s amazing what an aposiopetic effect it has. And there&#8217;s the carrot as well as the stick: Cambridge University Press goes through their usual scholarly process with a book called Alms for Jihad. It is vetted by outsiders. It is edited. It is published. But Kalhid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker living in London, doesn&#8217;t like what it says about some of the charities he&#8217;s involved with, so he has his lawyers threaten Cambridge with a suit. Cambridge instantly, and cravenly, capitulates, pulps the book, writes to libraries that have bought the book asking them to remove it from their shelves, and issues a public apology that, inter alia, defames the authors of the book. Some months later, Cambridge gets £8 million from a Saudi prince for an Islamic Studies Center. Post hoc or propter hoc? You decide.]]>Fri, 02 May 2008 06:35:39 -0400<![CDATA[Roger Kimball]]>https://pjmedia.com/roger-kimball/2008/05/02/some-heartening-news-and-all-the-rest-n114765