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Newsweek wants you to relax and forget about the jihad against Europe

 

July 12, 2009

 

Go back to sleep, won't you? "Why Fears Of A Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong: Analyzing the forecasts of an emerging 'Eurabia,' hostile to America and western values," by William Underhill for Newsweek, from the July 20 issue (thanks to James):

 

To listen to Europe's far right, it would be easy to conclude that the continent is poised for another round of bitter conflict with a centuries-old adversary.

"Far right" -- thus Newsweek signals to its enlightened, forward looking readers that they are not to think this way. This is no new "bitter conflict with a centuries-old adversary." Only the "far right" thinks there is. And we are not those benighted, neofascist souls, now, are we?

 

"The first Islamic invasion of Europe was stopped at [the battle of] Poitiers in 732. The second was halted at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Now we have to stop the current stealth invasion," argues Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom, which claims that Islamic doctrine encourages terrorism.

Yes, Wilders "claims" that. Of course all enlightened Newsweek readers know that that isn't true. Wilders made it all up. Never mind, for example, that in March 2009, five Muslims accused of helping plot the September 11 attacks, including the notorious Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, wrote an “Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations.” In it they quote the Qur'an to justify their jihad war against the American Infidels. “In God’s book,” asserts the letter, “he ordered us to fight you everywhere we find you, even if you were inside the holiest of all holy cities, The Mosque in Mecca, and the holy city of Mecca, and even during sacred months. In God’s book, verse 9 [actually verse 5], Al-Tawbah [the Qur'an’s 9th chapter]: Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush.”

 

Never mind also that Osama bin Laden’s communiqués have also quoted the Qur'an copiously. In his 1996 “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” he quotes seven Qur'an verses: 3:145; 47:4-6; 2:154; 9:14; 47:19; 8:72; and the notorious “Verse of the Sword,” 9:5. Bin Laden began his October 6, 2002, letter to the American people with two Qur'an quotations, both of a martial bent -- 22:39 and 4:76.

 

One Muslim website wrote some time ago: “The truth is that a Muslim who reads the Koran with devotion is determined to reach the battlefield in order to attain the reality of Jihad. It is solely for this reason that the Kufaar [unbelievers] conspire to keep the Muslims far away from understanding the Koran, knowing that Muslims who understand the Koran will not distance themselves from Jihad.”

 

So it would appear that there are significant numbers of Muslims -- since, after all, Al-Qaeda alone is a worldwide movement -- who believe that Islam encourages terrorism. Maybe they're getting Islam horribly wrong, as we hear claimed every day, but in any case it is they who are finding in Islam justification for violence and terrorism. Non-Muslims like Wilders are merely reporting on that fact. But never mind. Newsweek knows better. Wilders is the one who makes this pernicious claim, and since he is "far-right," he must be wrong. In fact, he is simply engaging in "rabble-rousing":

 

It's rabble-rousing stuff. But underlying Wilders's polemic is an argument shared by many more mainstream right-leaning thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic. Europe, its will sapped by secularism and anything-goes tolerance, has allowed decades of mass immigration without serious challenge. Too feeble to defend their own values, governments have been ready to appease Muslim opinion and must expect the worst. The argument has been gaining ground for some time—fed by alarmist and highly speculative projections from writers like the Canadian Mark Steyn, author of the bestselling America Alone—that immigration and high birthrates could mean that Muslims will make up 40 percent of Europe's population by 2025. Similar and very public warnings have come from American diplomat Timothy Savage, who claimed that forecasts of a Muslim majority in Western Europe by midcentury "may not be far off the mark" if present trends continue, which would heighten the risk of conflict. The British historian Niall Ferguson has written that "a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize—the term is not too strong—a senescent Europe." And the American journalist Christopher Caldwell forecasts that an "anchored" and "confident" Islam looks likely to impose its will on an "insecure" and "relativistic" European culture. The gloomiest commentators, including Steyn and the conservative American writer Tony Blankley, talk of an emerging "Eurabia" hostile to American interests and in thrall to Islam....

See how Newsweek wants you to relax? They want to make sure you don't take any of those writers seriously, and so Underhill has filled that paragraph with code words to warn readers away from these people -- probably many of his casual left-leaning readers will find this magic working upon them without their even realizing it's happening. Wilders is engaging in "rabble-rousing" "polemic." And even "more mainstream" thinkers who subscribe to the same views are "right-leaning." Steyn's work is "alarmist and highly speculative." Timothy Savage "claimed" that predictions of Muslim majorities in Western European countries may be close to correct (but still wrong, evidently). Ferguson and Caldwell get off without sly editorial digs, but the clipped quotations from them, presented without the supporting evidence they adduce, sound, well, alarmist and highly speculative. And Steyn (again) and Tony Blankley (who is -- gasp! -- a "conservative," a word that the mainstream media uses only for bloodthirsty mullahs and other gargoyles) are "gloomiest" of all.

 

By these semaphores Underhill tells us that he doesn't buy any of their analysis, and doesn't want you to, either.

 

Underhill then presents some evidence of the emerging Eurabia and the emerging resistance to it, only to sweep it all aside.

 

But all this obscures a simple fact: the rise of a Eurabia is predicated on limited and dubious evidence. A much-cited 2004 study from the U.S. National Intelligence Council outlines a number of possible scenarios. Its most aggressive is that the number of Muslims in Europe could increase from roughly 20 million today—about 5 percent of the population—to 38 million by 2025. But that projection turns out to be attributed to "diplomatic and media reporting as well as government, academic, and other sources." In other words, it's all speculation based on speculation—and even if it's accurate, it would still mean the number of Muslims will represent just 8 percent of the European population, estimated by the EU to be 470 million in 2025. Indeed, if there is a surge ahead, its scale looks overstated. "There is a quite deliberate exaggeration, as has often been pointed out—but the figures are still being cited," says Jytte Klausen, an authority on Islam in Europe at Boston's Brandeis University....

So relax. What can a tiny minority do? Never mind that a small group of Bolsheviks was able to gain power in Russia and transform the society utterly. Underhill has no time for historical analogies.

 

[...] Fertility rates remain higher among Muslim immigrants than among other Europeans, and Muslims may continue to arrive in Europe in large numbers. But the alarmists assume that past patterns are sure to hold. "The worst of the scaremongering is based on the assumption that current behavior will continue," says Grace Davie, an expert on Europe and Islam at the University of Exeter in Britain.

See? It's all just "scaremongering." Never mind that the concerns about Eurabia aren't solely based on demographics, but upon an increasingly assertive Muslim population in Western Europe that refuses to accept the governing authorities or secular society, and boasts openly about its intention to impose Sharia upon the land as soon as it is able.

 

[...] Moreover, the myth of Eurabia implies the existence of a united Islam, a bloc capable of collective and potentially dangerous action. The truth is that there are no powerful Muslim political movements in Europe, either continentwide or at the national level, and the divisions that separate Muslims worldwide, most obviously between Sunnis and Shiites, are apparent in Europe as well. Each major nation in Europe has drawn Muslim immigrants from distinct regions of the Islamic world, often former colonies, with different traditions and outlooks. A British Muslim from Pakistan would struggle to communicate with a French Muslim from Algeria. A second-generation Muslim from Turkey living in Germany will have little in common with a newly arrived Moroccan across the border in Belgium. Sharp differences exist even within national frontiers. In Germany, more than one in 10 Muslims are Alawites, who aren't even recognized as coreligionists by the more orthodox.

Here again, this matters not a whit. The point is not that all Muslims in Europe will work together, in a coordinated fashion, to establish Sharia in Europe. It only need take some to do so, and some are already working on that.

 

Posted by Robert at July 12, 2009 4:46 AM

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Loading comments...  +12 Vote up Vote down  KarshiKhanabad 58p ·  1 day ago

 

Newsweek magazine is completely dhimmified, like the elites on both sides of the Atlantic who read its feelgood drivel. It conveniently omits any reference to Muslim boasts about taking over Europe, and makes no mention whatsoever of global Islamic terrorism.

 

Newsweek is a worthless waste of trees.

Reply 4 replies · active 17 hours ago

 +9 Vote up Vote down  billbonney 77p ·  1 day ago

 

I have no knowledge of this bloke William Underhill, other than the fact he comes across as a total dhimmi prat.

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +11 Vote up Vote down  flowerknife_us 72p ·  1 day ago

 

Newsweek needs a name change-Opinionweak.

 

Print some Prophet Cartoons, see if opinions change.

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +15 Vote up Vote down  djrz 71p ·  1 day ago

 

/sacasm

 

Oh, I believe EVERYTHING Newsweek says. So I'll just ignore when I read about "Asians" raping teenaged girls and grandmothers in the UK. I'll just sing "Kum-ba-ya" holding up the peace sign when I hear about the Taliban beheading just about anyone. I'll hand out flowers to Muslims demonstrating with signs that say "KILL THE JEWS" and "DEATH TO THOSE INSULTING THE PROPHET."

 

I'll discount the hundreds of Muslim leaders of countries, highly respected clerics and leaders of self-proclaimed jihadi armed forces who claim that all Muslims must work for the destruction of all non-Muslim groups.

I'll reject the evidence that HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of non-Muslims have been KILLED in the name of Allah over 1400 years, and NO LEADING MUSLIM has EVER apologized for any of those killed.

I'll let my children be KIDNAPPED by pedophile Muslims to be "converted" and raped. It's the neighborly thing to do.

After all, what is more important: Freedom or Islamic slavery?

/end sarcasm

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +5 Vote up Vote down  ddoggma 50p ·  1 day ago

 

Newsweek and the others are trash, that I would not, wipe my ass with.

Reply 2 replies · active 1 day ago

 +8 Vote up Vote down  wopette 74p ·  1 day ago

 

Newsweek rag is only meant for people like Underhill who wear rose colored glasses..They don't want to know the truth about Islam, it makes them feel safer to believe that "terrorists" are just this small group of misunderstood Islamic zealots....As if their denial of what Islam is will save them in the end..Shame on Newsweek for embracing the revised history Islam offers...

Reply 2 replies · active 1 day ago

 +7 Vote up Vote down  MrFitnah 55p ·  1 day ago

 

This is what you get when you spend millions to promote a positive image of Islam.

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +7 Vote up Vote down  HenrikRClausen 63p ·  1 day ago

 

There is no grandiose "European Far Right" movement.

 

There are, of course, concerned citizens who speak up against what they see as wrong, but it borders on 'hate crime' that media and politicians attempt to stigmatize these citizens as 'extremists'.

 

We want democracy back. Mainstream Media, such as Newsweek, can go broke for all I care.

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +10 Vote up Vote down  duh_swami 107p ·  1 day ago

 

Mahoundian immigrants may come from different places, but they all meet at the mosque...

 

This is an 'opinion piece' and most of Underhill's opinions are way off base...He is basically lying, and not doing a very good job at it...

Reply 1 reply · active 1 day ago

 +12 Vote up Vote down  toastandmarmalade 68p ·  1 day ago

 

Islam is the only religion that needs a professional marketing department ......and we all know why

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +3 Vote up Vote down  MrFitnah 55p ·  1 day ago

 

He went to oxford not Georgetown which was my first guess

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +2 Vote up Vote down  persikas1 52p ·  1 day ago

 

So , 8-10% muslims by 2025 is nothing to worry about .

muslims usually have about 3 times as many children as the locals , or so I've read - at least these are the figures or France.

At 10% , this means one in 3 babies is muslim - as this will increase exponentially , this means one in two babies 20 years after that.

i.e. 10% in 2025 means the majorty of children born in , let's say 2026 , will be muslim.

Which , in turn means , a substantial muslim majority about 2050 - bye-bye Europe !

Reply 7 replies · active 1 day ago

 +7 Vote up Vote down  alleycat87 60p ·  1 day ago

 

That last paragraph is particularly off-kilter, where he says that we shouldn't be worried about Muslim immigration because there are many different kinds of Muslims from different countries - this doesn't make for a more peaceful society in any way, because they fight with each other as well as non-Muslims.

Just my 2 cents...

Reply 2 replies · active 1 day ago

 +2 Vote up Vote down  persikas1 52p ·  1 day ago

 

sorry , it should read the majority of children born in , let's say , 2046 will be muslims and a substantial majority maybe 2060 .

Reply 2 replies · active 1 day ago

 +3 Vote up Vote down  gozan303 67p ·  1 day ago

 

Jay: Man, we ain't got time for this cover-up bullshit! I don't know whether or not you've forgotten, but there's an Arquillian Battle Cruiser that's about to...

 

Kay:"There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they Do... Not... Know about it! "

 

--Scene from Men In Black

 

See, us workaday, simple folks are panicky irrational animals, and must be mollified about all potential threats to our civilization. They exist, to be sure, but there are smart, edumacated fellers behind the scenes taking care of all that stuff, so we just have to keep the economy going by living our happy little lives of blissful consumerism. What more could we want, as long as we've got climate control, an LCD TV and an Xbox, right? Just leave all that technical stuff like immigration, foreign affairs and lawmaking to our upstanding elected officials. After all we pay their salaries! Now gimme another Xanax and wake me up when there's a real crisis happening. I'll be checking my viocemail, honest.

 

--what the MSM wants from us

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +6 Vote up Vote down  BostonPatriot 68p ·  1 day ago

 

Again, this is a classic example of lefties looking at the Muslim immigrants purely from their Western, materialistic, secular world view. Because they won't be an ABSOLUTE majority in numbers, and because they aren't united in a single political movement,and because they're not all terrorists, then they can't be a serious threat. That's pathetically narrow and shallow thinking. It's ALREADY reached a point where the Muslim community can impose elements of Sharia onto Western society----the prohibition against pictures depicting Muhammed has already been forced on Europe, and they've accepted it. Also, the bedrock of that author's argument is that things like immigration, increase in Muslim populations as a percentage of the overall population, and integration will probably take a dramatic turn in a different direction in the future---but that's largely based on his wishful thinking. I did not see anything in his piece to argue against the prediction that at least some countries in Europe are going to face large-scale ethnic conflicts with their Muslim populations.

Reply 1 reply · active 1 day ago

 +6 Vote up Vote down  Thomas_H 74p ·  1 day ago

 

William Underhill is a CAIR-approved expert on who is, and is not, an expert on Islam.

That is why he confidently puts in the expert category Jytte Klausen ( "authority on Islam in Europe") and Grace Davie ("an expert on Europe and Islam"), but not, for example, "prophet" Mohammet, Osama Bin Laden, Khomeini and the hord of learned imams and mullahs who daily preach and explain to countless millions of moslems their duty to impose Islam on our planet.

Now what does Jytte Klausen and Grace Davie (and Juan Cole, Karen Armstrong, John Esposito etc...etc...) have, except not being moslems, that make them greater authority then authentic and thorougly proved moslems?

Reply 2 replies · active 1 day ago

 +6 Vote up Vote down  proxywar 59p ·  1 day ago

 

part 2:

 

Moreover, they totally disregard the fact that these islamic teachings go on in muslims countries around the world, as if these muslim countries don't follow Islam properly? As if a western-liberal who converted to Islam does? Point being the Quran is riddled with contradictions one can litterally make it say whatever one wants. However, the point is in muslims nations these pratices go on just as our western scholars have documented. So how can I go back to sleep when stealth jihad is already HERE?

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +3 Vote up Vote down  Rogster 54p ·  1 day ago

 

I expect that most people will be misled by the rhetorical 'tricks', that Robert draws attention to, because it requires a strong/inquiring mind to see through them. It is almost like apologists have their own language, of certain 'code words' that, when carefully inserted, can make even the most egregious evidence/claims, appear preposterous. It is the language of those who disable their opponent, in order to save themselves from ever having to confront their opponent's evidence/claims - As if all you have to do is say "It's controversial, it's scare-mongering, it's far-right, it's a myth, it's divisive, it's solely out of hatred, etc", and then you win the debate, because you've instantly set your opponent on the defensive, and charged them with so many 'crimes', that they'll waste the entire debate, having to refute the accusations, rather than actually debate about the topic.

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +9 Vote up Vote down  anonamustafa 60p ·  1 day ago

 

"The truth is that there are no powerful Muslim political movements in Europe...."

 

This is proof the guy is clueless.

 

ISLAM IS A POLITICAL MOVEMENT YOU DIPSH!T!!!

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +4 Vote up Vote down  KafirNonbeliever 24p ·  1 day ago

 

Of course, Wilders is correct that Islam is a scourge. However, his statement last week that his party wanted to kick Romania and Bulgaria out of the EU, shows that he is truly extreme. Let me be clear, he is correct that neither was truly ready for EU membership in 2007. In all such cases, membership is political. Both nations bear the scars of hundreds of years of Ottoman occupation with such effects as stymied development, the very thing Wilders should care about. However, it is also true that several other countries that joined the EU over the years have not been ready. Under the standard that Wilders seems to be employing, it is not even certain that Italy would make the cut for EU membership today if it were a candidate. Iceland and Ireland would certainly not be acceptable today. If it's gypsies that Wilders doesn't like, then he should be honest. He should know that they are not popular in either Romania or Bulgaria.

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +5 Vote up Vote down  IronGauntlet 77p ·  1 day ago

 

Let the left do what they want. It'll result in their own demise

But they should not be allowed to drag the world down with them.

Reply 2 replies · active 23 hours ago

 +6 Vote up Vote down  Rogster 54p ·  1 day ago

 

A 10% Muslim population, is the point at which the Muslim population becomes almost impossible to reverse, without severe social unrest, because the moment any politician attempts to reverse the population trend, those Muslims will take to the streets and riot.

 

If a few thousand can cause chaos in a major city, like Paris, then what would happen if 10% of the country's entire Muslim population, decided to take to the streets - It would overwhelm the army and the police force... and that's just 10%!

 

For countries which have much higher percentages (eg. 40%) of Muslims, a reversal in that population trend, would almost certainly result in civil war and bloodshed on an immense scale.

 

It should be incumbent on all non-Muslim states, to ensure that they act 'before' Muslims increase to 10% of the population.

 

But then, it is interesting to see what happens when an anti-Islam politician, threatens to gain political power, in a non-Muslim country - http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2285611.ec...

 

...encouraging information :)

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 +7 Vote up Vote down  louella 48p ·  1 day ago

 

If Europe doesn't see her way back to Catholicism then it will be Islamification all the way. There is nothing else that will withstand these demographics and a seemingly deliberate policy of Islamic immigration.

 

Western Secular values certainly don't stand a chance against these. In fact these unsuccessful vague values seem to be the gateway by which Islam has infiltrated what was once successfully defended as Christendom!

Reply 4 replies · active 1 day ago

 +12 Vote up Vote down  BostonPatriot 68p ·  1 day ago

 

Reading the piece again, I had to laugh at one part---even the dhimmis let their true beliefs slip out a bit. The author goes out of his way to argue that many Muslims are not religious. Hmmm.....now why would the author see that as a positive sign unless, deep down, he truly believed that Islam was not compatible with Western democracy?

Reply 0 replies · active 1 day ago

 

 

 

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