New York Times has problems with people being against Jihad

The way of the apologist for Islam: ignore Islam's bigotries

It's an odd feeling when you read an article in which the author does this: sets out a number of propositions that you're clearly supposed to find wrong and horrifying; to which you're supposed to mutter to yourself "how terrible!", but which in reality you think (or at least I do) "well those observations are spot on!".
One such recently in the New York Times an article by Laurie Goodstein, Pompeo and Bolton Appointments Raise Alarm Over Ties to Anti-Islam Groups.

Here's a few of the statements that Goodstein clearly thinks -- with no evidence -- are beyond the pale, but which are in fact true:

Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo both have ties to individuals and groups promoting a worldview that regards Islam not so much as a religion, but as a political ideology that is infiltrating the United States and other Western countries with the goal of imposing Shariah law, the Muslim legal code. These groups believe that the vehicle for this takeover is the Muslim Brotherhood, and they allege that American mosques, civic organizations and leaders and even government officials who are Muslims are suspected of being Muslim Brotherhood operatives.

But it's true that some Muslims are trying to impose Sharia in the United States. The Muslim Brotherhood has been explicit about this:

[Supporters] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions (From “ An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.)  Via Jihad Watch

Then:

The founder of ACT, Brigitte Gabriel, has written that “the purest form of Islam” is behind the terrorist attacks: “It’s not radical Islam. It’s what Islam is at its core.”

Brigitte Gabriel is a brave woman who has suffered at the hands of Islamists who attacked her family when they lived in Lebanon.   She is 100% correct that "It's not radical Islam.  It's what Islam is at its core".  Just read the foundation documents of Islam.  The Islamic Trinity: The Koran, the Hadith and the Sirah.

Also have a look at Gabriel in action here; she's spot on, and powerful:



Again:

Both Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Bolton have appeared frequently on the radio show of Frank Gaffney Jr., the president and founder of the Center for Security Policy, a think tank that argues that mosques and Muslims across America are engaged in a “stealth jihad” to “Islamize” the country by taking advantage of American pluralism and democracy.

But it's true that 80% of mosques in the United States are radical. That's the result of four separate studies, including one by an Imam.

There's more, which I'll leave to Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch to finish off.  Taking the opportunity to say that Spencer is by no means a bigot, or Islamophobe, or xenophobe or racist.  His site does what it says: records the daily examples of Jihad around the world.  He's been doing that for many years.  I've watched him in innumerable videos and read most of his books.  He is hugely knowledgeable about Islam, and careful, always to specify that his criticisms are of Islam, the ideology, not of individual Muslims...