The Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”)—also known as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the largest terrorist funding case in U.S. history and a designated “terrorist organization” for nations allied to America—is again vehemently protesting my forthcoming appearance at the U.S. Army War College, urging the latter to “reconsider its decision and disinvite Ibrahim,” since my lecture will no doubt be “hypocritical, ahistorical and hateful.”
This, of course, is all déjà vu—a repeat of events from eight months ago. As CAIR itself notes in its new press release, which appeared on February 21, 2020,
Last summer [June 2019], CAIR and its allies launched an online campaign highlighting Ibrahim’s Islamophobic views and their negative impact.
Led by CAIR-Philadelphia and MPower Change, and supported by Community Responders Network, About Face, and Common Defense, the campaign drew more than 1800 signatures and received widespread support from its interfaith allies.
The referenced “petition” (see here) was essentially a hysterical screed; it claimed that if I, a supposed “racist” and enabler of “white nationalism”—despite my Egyptian heritage—am given a chance to speak before a supposedly already “racist” U.S. military, I would incite American servicemen to randomly start murdering Muslims both at home and abroad (see near the middle of petition).
In retrospect, it’s interesting to learn now that this CAIR/MPower petition from last summer received a mere 1,800 signatures—despite its insistence that supporters sign it. By contrast, the much more reputable National Association of Scholars, which delivered a petition in my support to the White House, received three times as many signatures (5,349), many from well-respected scholars and academics affiliated with numerous universities.
CAIR’s new press release continues by boasting how
Last year, the college postponed a similar speaking engagement with Ibrahim in response to widespread criticism [a false claim based on the paltry numbers above]. In response to postponement of his 2019 lecture, Ibrahim restated his bigoted claim that “Islamic terrorism and ‘extremism’ are intrinsic to Islam, and have been from its first contact with Western civilization in the seventh century.”
Yes, I restated this fact (not a “claim”) because it is true—whether or not CAIR whines, and whether or not I speak here or there. Temporal circumstances have no bearing on the articulation of transcendent truths.
CAIR continues:
Ibrahim’s writings advance a discredited theory known as the “Clash of Civilizations” and argues that “Islam and the West” have been engaged in a centuries-long war. The lecture is based on Ibrahim’s 2018 book “Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.” That book promotes the unsubstantiated thesis that Islam, since its beginning, has “terrorized the West.”
For the record, my lecture will revolve around my book, per the War College’s request—hence why CAIR regularly targets it. As such, here one must ask: if the book’s findings are so “unsubstantiated,” why does CAIR fear it so much? Does CAIR have such a low opinion of the intellectual capacity of the U.S. Army War College and its students, as to expect them to believe anything they are told, without adequate evidence?
Or could it be that CAIR is terrified at just how well documented and substantiated the book’s thesis really is—so that, once made known, there is no rebutting it?
Rather tellingly, for example, in none of CAIR’s and its allies’ long press releases and screeds—past and present—do they once highlight a certain passage or excerpt from Sword and Scimitar to support the accusation that it “is based on poor research.” The reason is simple: although long suppressed, the history presented in the book—and which will be presented in condensed form at the War College lecture—is ironclad, verifiable, and beyond well documented; with about a thousand endnotes, the 352-page book is heavily based on primary sources, many of which are Muslim, and from eyewitnesses.
And this history makes abundantly clear that—to reiterate my supposedly self-incriminating words—Islamic terrorism and extremism are intrinsic to Islam, and have been from its first contact with Western civilization in the seventh century. Think of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State (“ISIS”) but on an exponential scale—and for over a millennium—bombarding every corner of Europe, and even America, so that the latter’s very first war as a nation was with jihad-practicing Muslims.
These facts are precisely what CAIR is afraid of.
As such, and because CAIR concludes its press release by urging its followers “to call the U.S. Army War College at 717-245-3972 to register their concerns,” so too do I conclude by saying that, if you disagree with CAIR, call that same number and voice your concerns against those who would quash free speech on Islam at such a critical time as this.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
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