We on 4international stand totally along side of Pastor Jones of the Florida-based Dove World Outreach Centre and we dissociate ourselves from the politics of Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch on this issue. The position of Spencer is nothing short of traitorous on this issue even though he has done great work in explaining how vicious is the ideology of Islam. Spencer has really betrayed not only Pastor Jones but the whole struggle and campaign that he Spencer has done so much for on the stopping of the Mosque on the hallowed ground of the 9-11 crime carried out by Islam.
In every respect Jones is correct and Spencer, Palin and others like that are totally wrong.
The position of Palin on this is a great warning to those Jews, friends of 4international, like Ted Belman on Israpundit who have been backing Palin as a possible defender of Israel. In one stroke, in the flash of an eyelid, the pretensions of Palin, and Spencer, are gone.
Another big warning has come on the issue of what Iman Muhammad Musri told Jones last night to make Jones cancel, then go again, when he sees Musri telling lies about Rauf. You need witnesses with Islam. It must be all written down.
This was Spencer´s big moment, his test as it were, and he has blown it.
This betrayal by Spencer is bound to create huge tensions inside the campaign against the building of the Mosque on Ground Zero.
What Spencer should have done and did not is something along the following:
- Create immediately a United Front with Pastor Jones. Defend Pastor Jones to the very last moment against all who are attacking him. Defend the decision of Pastor Jones to burn the Koran when and wherever he wants to. If Spencer has differences with Pastor Jones on the issue of tactics, then certainly write that up and publish it on his website Jihadwatch, but do so only in the context of standing with Jones against Islam, and against those supporters of Islam like Obama, and (Ted Belman take note) Palin also.
What Spencer and Jihadwatch actually did do, and should not
- Launched into an attack on Pastor Jones. He called Pastor Jones “stupid” in his first sentence.
Spencer wrote September 6, 5.58 am
This church’s plan to burn the Qur’an on September 11 is stupid; I disapprove of it and of many other things about the pastor, the church, and the church’s approach to the jihad threat. I don’t support the burning of books; it’s tactically stupid, as it will make the mainstream media portray the church as a bunch of Nazis, and it’s wrong in principle: the antidote to bad speech is not censorship or book-burning, but more speech. Open discussion. Give-and-take. And the truth will out. There is no justification for burning books.
Marisol’s comments here are apposite: “‘International Burn a Koran Day’ does a grave disservice to the cause of spreading awareness about Islamic teachings and the threat that Sharia poses to our way of life. It is a gift to Islamic groups who would so dearly love to portray all of us who criticize and question Islamic teachings (and triumphalist mosques) as frothing reactionaries.”
Spencer followed this up less than an hour later at 6.33 am with the following:
Once again: This church’s plan to burn the Qur’an on September 11 is stupid; I disapprove of it and of many other things about the pastor, the church, and the church’s approach to the jihad threat. I don’t support the burning of books; it’s tactically stupid, as it will make the mainstream media portray the church as a bunch of Nazis, and it’s wrong in principle: the antidote to bad speech is not censorship or book-burning, but more speech. Open discussion. Give-and-take. And the truth will out. There is no justification for burning books.
Marisol’s comments here are apposite: “‘International Burn a Koran Day’ does a grave disservice to the cause of spreading awareness about Islamic teachings and the threat that Sharia poses to our way of life. It is a gift to Islamic groups who would so dearly love to portray all of us who criticize and question Islamic teachings (and triumphalist mosques) as frothing reactionaries.”
No matter what way Spencer will twist and turn he cannot squirm out of this.
What he has done in the above is to stick the knife into the back of Pastor Jones of the Dove World Outreach Centre, a knife that others like Palin are twisting.
This is unforgiveable! By doing this Spencer has immeasurably weakened the campaign of Americans to stop the Mosque being built by Islamofascist Iman Rauf (who supports Hamas) on Ground Zero.
The consequences for not understanding the Leninist and Trotskyist principle of United Front, campaigned for so many years ago, are simply incalculable.
I do not mean applying the United Front like a dogma. That is not what we are about. We oppose dogma and hero worship etc. Just be aware of past theory and history and creatively develop the lessons.
Spencer and Marisol should have made it their priority to at all costs defend Jones.
No matter what the differences, defence comes first.
Now the life of Jones is clearly in danger. So is the life of Robert Spencer. So is the life of Pamela Geller and a hundred others who immediately come to mind, fighters who are in the forefront of the fight against Islam.
I once spoke to Ted Belman about United Front history in the Trotskyist and Leninist context and he brushed it aside, FOR IDEOLOGICAL REASONS.
That is the rub actually.
It is necessary to open the mind up to the lessons of the past and that so far Spencer has showed that he cannot do or go there. This is because Spencer is psychologically and politically tied with a million strings to US capitalist, essentially imperialist, presumptions about life and this struggle against EQUALLY IMPERIALIST Islam.
But Spencer remains a king in comparision to the Fascist Left such as WSWS.
More on that another time!
4international 