THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 44, February 16, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ESPOSITO AT STANFORD
By Cinnamon Stillwell
JOHN L. ESPOSITO: UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, SPECIALIST IN ISLAMIC STUDIES, & APOLOGIST FOR ISLAMISM --
DISSEMINATING ISLAMIST PROPAGANDA -- DEFLECTING RESPONSIBILITY FOR ISLAMIC TERRORISM TO THE WEST, WHILE
NEGATING THE NEED FOR SELF-REFLECTION AMONG MUSLIMS -- AIDING, ABETTING, & ADHERING TO AMERICA'S
ISLAMIST ENEMIES
FULL STORY:
Georgetown University Professor John Esposito, Director of the Saudi-financed Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding, has a reputation as an apologist for radical Islam. And it's one he lived up to with a
Stanford University speech last week titled, "Dying for God? Suicide Terrorism and Militant Islam."
Esposito claimed that Islamic terrorism grows primarily out of a sense of political and economic grievance and, of
course, "occupation" on the part of "neo-colonial powers." This spin allowed him to deflect responsibility for Islamic
terrorism to the West, while negating the need for self-reflection among Muslims.
When an attendee asked him why no other impoverished or oppressed group around the world resorts to suicide
bombings, Esposito stonewalled for several minutes before giving one of the few straight answers of the night: "I
don't know."
Esposito displayed contempt for anyone calling for the theological and cultural reform of Islam. He described Middle
East Forum Director Daniel Pipes and Princeton University Professor Bernard Lewis as "among the Darth Vaders of the
world," and Pipes and Islam scholar Robert Spencer as "Islamophobes." Others on the receiving end of Esposito's
vitriol included Martin Kramer, Fouad Ajami, V.S. Naipaul, Max Boot, and Steven Emerson. Esposito has a penchant
for laying into his opponents, but this juvenile behavior fails to answer the substance of his detractors' points.
The Islamic Society of Stanford University and the Muslim Student Awareness Network at Stanford University
(MSAN), co-sponsors of the Islamic Awareness Series 2008, seem to share Esposito's views. Despite calling this year's
offering, "Our Jihad to Reform: The Struggle to Define Our Faith," MSAN makes clear in an op-ed on the subject that
such "reform" has its limits. As they put it:
"Our reform will not be dictated by the likes of Daniel Pipes,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and David Horowitz, according to their
desires to subvert our tradition, but by Islamic scholars,
according to the Islamic notion of reform."
Apparently, Esposito fit the bill.
Esposito's leadership of a center dedicated to "Muslim-Christian understanding" failed to mitigate his hostility towards
Christians. He referenced the Crusades three times in the first ten minutes, each in the false context of acts of purely
Christian aggression. In a relativistic attempt to paint all religions as equally problematic, Esposito compared Islamic
terrorists to "Christian militants," and referred repeatedly to "Christians blowing up abortion clinics" and the "Christian
Right."
He reserved particular enmity for evangelist Pat Robertson who, according to Esposito, is on par with "Muslim extremists"
and should be put "in prison" for publicly expressing a desire to see Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez assassinated. Yet,
Esposito has no qualms about calling for the release of Sami al-Arian, the former University of South Florida Professor
currently serving time in prison for terrorism-related charges.
Esposito's treatment of two self-described Arab Christian students in the audience further revealed this bias. When asked
about the well-documented violence against Christians in Iraq and the persecution of Christians throughout the Muslim
world, Esposito resorted at first to obfuscation and then bullying. After trying to chalk up the violence merely to "primitive"
behavior, he cut off one young woman angrily, telling her that it was "an absurd question."
Esposito's standard answer to this line of questioning was that "all religions produce violence," followed by a litany of
talking points in which he compared random and universally condemned acts of violence among Christians and Jews to the
routine and often sanctioned bloodshed emanating from the Muslim world.
Moreover, he peddled the usual apologist fare on the definition of jihad. Like many of his contemporaries in the world of
Middle East Studies, Esposito downplayed violent jihad, or holy war, in favor of the "personal struggle" interpretation.
Esposito spoke hopefully about the results contained in his upcoming book, Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion
Muslims Really Think. Citing statistics from the book, Esposito declared that anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is
not based on hatred, but on "disappointment" that the U.S.A. isn't "living up to its ideals." Furthermore, Muslims,
according to Esposito, admire the U.S.A, but believe that "Islam is denigrated."
It was this denigration that, according to Esposito, somehow justified the outrage in the Muslim world surrounding the
Danish cartoon controversy. Esposito decried the current atmosphere in the West, whereby, as he sees it, Jews and
Christians are protected, but anything "anti-Islam" goes. Somehow Esposito managed to miss the death threats,
imprisonment, lawsuits, firings, and condemnation meeting those who dare critique Islam these days.
Thanks to Esposito's equivocation, the Stanford students, both Muslim and otherwise, who came to take part in a series
based on "awareness" and "reform" walked away with little prospect for either. But perhaps that was the intention all
along.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Cinnamon Stillwell is the Northern California Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
Stillwell can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.
The foregoing article by Cinnamon Stillwell was originally published in Front Page Magazine, February 15, 2008, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1855 )
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
February 16, 2008
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