Andrew Neil talking about jihadist losers

No, it was the same occasion. My link just gives the unedited version of the exchange.

I get the feeling people haven't realised that BG suffered at the hands of extreme islam when she was a child. I think that'd make most people sound aggressive on the subject.

I've heard of other people described as radical islamophobes who aren't. Maajid Nawaz, for instance.

...whose picture appears at the top of that article I posted, with which people agree.

Just out of interest, how many of you who think BG sounded aggressive in that exchange also think what Richard Dawkins says about islam is aggressive? Or even racist, even though being muslim does not denote race.

To be perfectly honest, I think a bit of ideological, verbal 'aggression' is precisely what's needed to combat islamist jihadism.

The stupid ideas (e.g. that it's OK to kills apostates; yes, that is in islamic scripture) won't change until they are forcefully challenged, preferably by muslims.

I had never heard of BG before so no idea of her track record but agree with you thatbags, I think we need some robust verbal aggression to combat Islamist Jihadism and both her words and Andrew Neil's resonated. Everything about fundamental Islam is repulsive and repugnant just as the Spanish Inquisition's version of Christianity was back in the late 15th and 16th centuries when Islam conversely had something to offer.

". Where jihadists and would-be jihadists are kept away from suicide vests and Kalashnikovs by the pull of counter-narratives and rousing debates. To get there, conservatives must realize that militarism and xenophobia are unlikely to defeat terror. And liberals must embrace the liberal values they have abandoned."

From the last article you gave a link to, bags.

I have not noticed the government putting a stop to selling weapons to any middle eastern country. That's one of the most important things in my opinion. Okay, I know they have weapons and suicide vests now. Every time a suicide bomber blows him/herself up, that's one less weapon available, unless, of course, the company that is selling them looks on it as an opportunity to sell more.

Believe it or not, that is one of the things that stopthewar believe in.
Stop the war means stop providing weapons.

I heard yesterday that there are no IS left in Raqqa. I bet it does not stop it being bombed again, though.

Yes I do think there is an element of aggression in Islam. I remember an undercover "Dispatches" programme a while back when several Imans spat out the term "Kuffars" which I believe is a derogatory term to describe non believers. They went on to describe how Jews and non believers should be killed and homosexuals thrown off mountains. Whilst I imagine not all mosques allow this type of preacher, some obviously do. Possibly they are the extreme Wahabists, or whatever they call themselves, funded by Saudi. I would like to know why they are allowed to preach hateful sermons which amount to inciting violence in the first place.

I did agree with Owen Jones on a discussion programme this morning when he stated that our government is complicit in allowing Saudi to fund these type of mosques.

If people would like to provide evidence of BG's "radical islamophobia", I could be persuaded to agree with those who claim she harbours it. So far I haven't seen any.

A definition of that phrase would help too. Seems to me such phrases are bandied about far too much.

I know BG was the only child of Christian parents during the civil war in Lebanon (a war with far more than two opposing sides) and their home near the border with Israel was destroyed in the bombing by Muslim fighters. She later wrote a book about her experience from age 10-17, stating she had to live in a basement eating grass and crawled through ditches to get water to avoid Muslim snipers.

I have already posted twice that I do not doubt she went through a terrible ordeal. However, some Lebanese who have read her book strongly disagree with parts of her account and have accused BG of exaggeration. This is one Lebanese person's response from 2009 to a Jewish friend who asked for their opinion on BG's book after the friend's Hadassah book club read the book -

Not only nobody ever stayed in a shelter for more than a week at a time, but nobody ever ate grass. If this had happened the people of her village Marjayoun would have made a scandal about it and in the tiny Lebanon, we would have all heard about that. The Christian radio and TV would have been very happy to bombard us with such news left, right and centre. Forget the Christian Lebanese press. Hundreds of foreign correspondents were there covering the war. A story like that would have made numerous front-pages in the Western press. NOTHING. We NEVER heard of such a thing.

Also, the war started in 1975 so she's talking about having stayed in the shelter between 1975-1982. Radical Islam only appeared in Lebanon in the early 80s.

This thread from 2009 from a politics forum gives a lot of information and opinions about BG

thatbags when you read her book, perhaps you can confirm if iBG really does say "Every active Muslim is a radical Muslim.

thatbags I had read that she and her family had suffered terribly at the hands of Muslim extremists and I realise that her hatred is in response to that.

I marvelled at the way in which Antoine Leiris, whose wife and the mother of his 17 month old son was killed in the Paris attack, let the terrorists know that they wouldn't bring him and his son down to their level:

“Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you won’t have my hatred,” he began. “If this God, for whom you kill blindly, made us in his image, every bullet in the body of my wife would have been one more wound in his heart.
So, no, I will not grant you the gift of my hatred. You’re asking for it, but responding to hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to view my countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my liberty for my security. You lost.

"I saw her this morning. Finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago. Of course I am devastated by this pain, I give you this little victory, but the pain will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will find ourselves again in this paradise of free love to which you have no access.

"We are just two, my son and me, but we are stronger than all the armies in the world. I don’t have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17-months-old. He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free. Because no, you will not have his hatred either."

Not everyone can overcome such an awful experience without becoming hate-filled. Perhaps I would become that way myself - I don't know. But I think this man is right to send out a message to such terrorists that, contrary to what they want, these monstrous acts of violence will not make him suspicious of his countrymen and nor will it make him waste his time and energy on those that perpetrate them.

The trouble is, I'm not at all sure that the terrorists care one jot for their victims' relatives' words or feelings.

Thanks, wilmak. I am taking note. Another question: even if we agree that BG has exaggerated in her book(s), in her exaggerations is she criticising radical islam or all of islam? And is she criticising all muslims or some muslims? Those questions are the basis of my queries. Plus the idea that it is not wrong to criticise any religion or any idea. That's something else I hope reading some of her writing will tell me.

If she only criticises radical islam (or primitive islam, which is what Daesh use as their rule book; you know, killing people because they don't share your faith and stuff like that), can we call that islamophobia? A phobia is an irrational fear. I don't think fear of Daesh is irrational. Given the atrocities they've already commited, I'd say it was entirely rational.

dj, I haven't noticed that about our government either. I agree that something needs to be done about weapons supply to groups such as Daesh and Boko Haram. One wonders why previous UK governments didn't do something about that as well as the current one.

* I would like to know why they are allowed to preach hateful sermons which amount to inciting violence in the first place*

There is a problem with that, which I didnt at first appreciate.
Do the same people then go into synagogues and churches of all denominations, and decide what is and what is not appropriate? And who gets to do that?

It doesn't matter, bags. What matters is that someone does it. Tit for tat in the arms race means nobody wins.
You know why Blair didn't; he's a warmonger, as were Thatcher and even Major. If Cameron wants a legacy, the man who stopped selling arms to others is a good one to have, rather than the one who helped start the third world war.

The pope has said that Christmas will be a farce this year as the whole world is at war.

Actually, bags, Daesh get arms because we sell them to Saudi, as does Russia, and they are taken by Daesh when they win the battles.
Daesh have no planes, thank goodness, because nobody will sell them to Daesh. Why does that not apply to other weapons to other countries?

thatbags my main bugbear about BG comes down to that edited version of the video showing the exchange between her and SA. It's been circulating in the UK for a while now and I am concerned it will fuel the flames of anti-Muslim feelings in this country.

Despite information being available at our finger tips, so many people take at face value what they read in the media and are content to repeat it to others without another thought. For someone like me the Internet is such a wonderful thing because I'm a naturally curious (nosey!) person and when I find out about something, more often than not I want to know more. It sounds like you might be the same.

I have been reading the Amazon extract of BG's first book Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America and will read the extract of her latest book They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. I admit my eyebrows have already been raised a few times.

durhamjen probably the biggest hypocrisy about all of this is our trade (not just arms) with Saudi Arabia. If Saudi Arabia hadn't originally funded IS as a way of targeting Assad in Syria, I wonder if IS would ever have got off the ground? Of course, the other jihadist threats would still exist.

Allegedly IS make a lot of money through selling oil to other countries. Does anyone know who the recipients of their oil are?, could be us for all we know. I'm wondering if another country acts as a more respectable third party and brokers deals on their behalf. I completely take the point as far as doing business with Saudi is concerned, it would be wonderful if we didn't have to deal with such regimes and end our co dependency and not have to put up their awful brand of Islam being exported here. Is that the price we have to pay for having a financial relationship with such a toxic regime?

This article answers a lot of questions about IS funding and oil sales, etc.

Fortune article on IS

Originally the USA wanted to preserve parts of Syria's oil infrastructure in the hope that they can be used after the war when IS and Assad, but all that changed.

Re your first paragraph, wilma, why do you fear that the exchange between SA and BG will "fuel the flames of anti-muslim feeling"? I could understand someone thinking it would fan the flames of anti-extreme-islamist feeling. Not that they need fanning. Why would any sane person not be anti-extreme-islamist when Daesh and Boko Haram are their representation?

Suppose, for the sake of argument, I accept that BG is a "radical islamophobe" (whatever that means), I still don't think what she said in answer to SA was anti-muslim. I think it was anti-extremism, anti-terrorism, anti-genocide. That sort of thing. She spoke to SA as a fellow American citizen.

I fear that will happen because it happens now.

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Aljazeera article

Guardian article

Telegraph article

Sorry the first link is BBC article

Donald Trump does not differentiate. He wants all muslims to wear ID.
He's the one who could be president, not BG.