"A foundation of fear", comment on "Dutch culture wars"

The letter clipped in the photo here (click to enlarge), might, at first glance, seem very reasonable, a call for tolerance and an attack on "hatred" and "xenophobia".  But that's only if one knows nothing about Islam and the sorts of issues Europe is now dealing with.
My letter to the International Herald Tribune, the international version of the New York Times, below.  There's no chance they'll run it, but one hopes that many write in, so that in time they might carry some of the valid, cogent and logical criticisms of Islam and Islamism.

To: the editors, International Herald Tribune:

Ouch!

I just raised my head from a sustained banging on the table.

When, on when will your editors and sub-editors "get" the issue of Islam?

We critics of Islam are not "bigoted anti-Muslim xenophobes". We criticize the bigotry of Islam which seeks to restrict freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and equal rights for women, minorities and non-Muslims.

In its own bigotry, Islam is unique; it is not like the immigrant waves of the past.

Thus, your letter writer (Roger Algase, 27 October) has it exactly upside down when he says "everybody who cares about democracy and the benefits of an open society should stand up against bigotry against

Muslims...".  The bigotry is from Islam, not against Muslims: witness the growing Islam-inspired anti-semitism in Europe, the direct or indirect imposition of Sharia throughout the continent, the parlous state of the gay community in Amsterdam, once the gay-tolerant capital of the world, now subject to regular gay-bashing by Muslims. Where is the publicity and criticism of this?

You may (but probably won') publish this letter. My main point is to appeal to Herald Tribune/NYT editors to open their eyes to what is happening in Europe -- to give voice the valid concerns of the majority who are seriously and logically concerned about the spread of Islamism.

[BTW: I live in Hong Kong, but spend a lot of time in Europe]

Yours, etc,

….

References:
(1) "Dutch Culture Wars", by Christopher Bickerton, New York Times, October 22, 2010. [referenced in the letter above]
(2) Slightly more trenchantly stated, in the US context, by David Solway in his piece "Islamolepsy":

The major concern is whether or not Islam should be permitted to infiltrate the living plasm of American society .... 

What is most astonishing is that the question even needs to be raised in the first place, since the slightest acquaintance with the historical brunt of Islam, its desire to establish a world-dominant caliphate, its 1400-year record of conquest, spoliation and oppression, its doctrinal ordnance which enjoins the suppression or murder of the infidel in surah aftersurah of the Koran and the ancillary literature, its practice of taqiyyah (or obligatory lying as a form of defense under duress, as in Koran 16: 106, which has been interpreted to mean deception in order to promote its underlying agenda), and its campaign to impose sharia law upon the social and juridical framework of a free society — all this should have alerted us immediately to the menace. That is, assuming we were awake and sentient.