Recently I spoke in Calgary, Alberta, and was denounced before I had said a word by, among others, hard-Left Rabbi Shaul Osadchey. Rabbi Osadchey recently wrote a lengthy explanation of why he did this, in response to a letter he received from Brian Sander, one of his congregants. The Rabbi’s explanation was passed on to me with the request that I answer it.

Brian Sander’s letter to Rabbi Osadchey:

Dear Rabbi, I wanted to wait until the dust settled somewhat with all of the controversy surrounding the JDL sponsored Robert Spencer presentation. With all due respect, you certainly have the right to express your opinion on any matter in any forum, however I take exception when you profess to speak on my behalf. You do so when you imply your opinions reflect the community at large. It is misleading to convey that impression. I am not aware of any polling or communication with the Jewish Community that you have undertaken to validate your authority to speak on their behalf. Furthermore, I am confused by your righteous indignation in expressing your opinion about Robert Spencer. You went to great lengths to smear this event prior to the event even taking place, not to mention you were not in attendance to validate your preconceived concerns. I ask where was your voice when Abu Ghosh spread his lies regarding JNF, his message of misinformation towards Israel and its institutions several weeks prior to this event? To suggest that this presentation represents the forces of intolerance, racism and Islamophobia is fear mongering by you. Not to acknowledge the threat radical Muslims, such as ISIS/ISIL, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Taliban pose to the world will assure our destruction as well as our way of life. Mr. Spencer’s message was to sound the alarm that we need to educate ourselves about radical Muslims in order to defeat them. We need to educate ourselves, in order to destroy the movement, not ignore what is happening day in and day out. The death and destruction communicated to us on a daily basis is so commonplace it is reported in the same context as the weather forecast. Fifty, eighty, thirty civilians killed today in car bombings usually upon innocent civilians, followed with, “and the weather today will be partly cloudy, with a high of 15 degrees”. Stay tuned for the next suicide bombing likely within 24 hours! Funny thing is, if you remove the consistent Islamic terrorist events out of the news, there would be few to no deaths of innocent civilians anywhere, except in Israel of course, where it seems beyond criticism by those party to your announcements smearing the JDL and the Robert Spencer presentation. I agree when you say we must build bridges with moderate, rational and peace loving people, however Islamic terrorists do not fall into that category. To have an open discussion focusing on the issue of Islamic terrorism is not racist and certainly doesn’t equate to inciting violence or burning bridges with groups there can never be any bridges to build. Personally, I found Mr. Spencer’s presentation informative, without inciting bigotry or intolerance as you were so wrongly quick to accuse. As a Jew, we live in one of the two greatest countries in the world (the other being Israel), free and democratic societies where we enjoy freedom of speech, protest and peaceful assembly. As the Rabbi of my synagogue I expect you would respect these values to all, including Robert Spencer! Regards,

Brian Sander

Here is Rabbi Osadchey’s response to Mr. Sander, with my responses interspersed:

Even though the dust has not settled, I was still awaiting an email from you and am pleased that you did not disappoint me! You raise a number of points which I would like to address in a sincere tone of respect for you and your position. First of all, I did not speak on behalf of anyone but myself with regard to Mr. Spencer and the JDL. Beth Tzedec’s name was only used by the media for purposes of identification and not as an indication that the synagogue endorsed my position. I did mention that “I believe” that the majority of the Jewish community does not subscribe to Mr. Spencer’s Islamophobic views.

The Rabbi’s use of the word “Islamophobic” is problematic at the outset. In George Orwell’s nightmare of the future, 1984, a secret police monitors citizens for “thought crimes” against the totalitarian state. A thought crime is an idea or attitude the totalitarian rulers deem to be politically incorrect.

“Islamophobia” – which is generally understood to be an irrational and pathological hatred of religious ideas and political practices associated with Islam — is the name that has been given to a modern day thought crime, and a global movement is promoting its incorporation into law today. In the term, “Islamophobia,” the purpose of the suffix is to suggest that any fear associated with Islam – for example of the calls of its prophet or its current day imams to kill infidels or the attacks of 9/11 which implemented those – is simply irrational. And worse: Islamophobia is a response to those attacks that reflects a bigotry that itself should be feared.

Islam is different from Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and most other faiths in that it is a political religion. Muslims recognize no separation between religion and state, and in its canonical texts and preachings, Islam regards all other religions (and non-religions) as “infidel” creeds. Moreover, Islam aspires to establish a global Islamic state or “caliphate” that would impose Islamic law on individuals everywhere, and criminalize heretical thoughts.

Abdur-Rahman Muhammad is a former member of the International Institute for Islamic Thought, a Muslim Brotherhood organization. He was present when the word “Islamophobia” was chosen as a term to be used to demonize and marginalize foes of jihad terror, but now characterizes the Islamophobia this way: “This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.” In short, in its very origins, “Islamophobia” was a term designed as a weapon to stigmatize and silencing critics.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), 56 Muslim governments and the Palestinian Authority, began a campaign against “Islamophobia” in 2008. The OIC declared its intention to craft a “legal instrument” to fight against the threat to Islam “from political cartoonists and bigots.” The reference was to the Danish cartoons of Muhammad that appeared in 2005, touching off international protests by Muslims worldwide, which included riots, the burning of embassies, and even murders of non-Muslims, including a Catholic nun. “Muslims are being targeted by a campaign of defamation, denigration, stereotyping, intolerance and discrimination,” fumed Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the OIC.

“Islamophobia cannot be dealt with only through cultural activities but (through) a robust political engagement,” declared Ihsanoglu. That engagement would be directed toward restricting the freedom of speech. Abdoulaye Wade, president of Senegal and OIC chairman, explained: “I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy. There can be no freedom without limits.” In a July 2008 briefing on Capitol Hill, Pakistani Embassy representative Asma Fatima defended the Muslim outrages as necessary and called for restrictions on speech that insulted Islam: “The ideal of freedom of speech is precious to you, but it’s not value-neutral. You don’t have to hurt people’s sentiments and bring them to the point where they have to react in strange ways.”

That is the ultimate goal of charges of “Islamophobia”: to stigmatize, demonize, marginalize and ultimately criminalize criticism of Islam, such that jihad terror activities can continue unimpeded and unopposed. The charge of “Islamophobia” is a valuable tool the allies and supporters of jihad terrorists have, to silence the foes of that terror.

I did not say that “I know” this to be fact or that my opinion is based upon any poll but rather offered my conjecture which I still believe is true even if only anecdotal. My opinion about Mr. Spencer is based upon a long record of his comments that have characterized the religion of Islam, unfairly and inaccurately, as violent and intolerant.

Here he provides no examples, and so I cannot address any specifics in his argument. However, the idea that I “have characterized the religion of Islam, unfairly and inaccurately, as violent and intolerant.” I did not originate this idea; in fact, numerous Muslims readily tell us that Islam is violent and intolerant. Nor are these all simply modern-day “extremists” ignorant of the true teachings of their faith. The most authoritative sources in Sunni Islam, the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence (madhahib), all teach that Islam is violent. These sources are neither of recent vintage nor “extremist”; this is the classical teaching of Islam from its principal authoritative sources:

Shafi’i school: A Shafi’i manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy, stipulates about jihad that “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh Ali Salman, a Jordanian expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)…while remaining in their ancestral religions.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).

Of course, there is no caliph today, unless one believes the claims of the Islamic State (ISIS), and hence the oft-repeated claim that Osama et al are waging jihad illegitimately, as no state authority has authorized their jihad. But they explain their actions in terms of defensive jihad, which needs no state authority to call it, and becomes “obligatory for everyone” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.3) if a Muslim land is attacked. The end of the defensive jihad, however, is not peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals: ‘Umdat al-Salik specifies that the warfare against non-Muslims must continue until “the final descent of Jesus.” After that, “nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus’ descent” (o9.8).

Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law repeats the same injunctions. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”

However, “if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.” (Al-Hidayah, II.140)

Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”

Hanbali school: The great medieval theorist of what is commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”

This is also taught by modern-day scholars of Islam. Majid Khadduri was an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:

The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)

Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.

All this makes it clear that there is abundant reason to believe that Islam is indeed inherently violent. It would be illuminating if Rabbi Osadchey produced some quotations from Muslim authorities he considers “authentic,” and explained why the authorities I’ve quoted above and others like them are inauthentic. While in reality there is no single Muslim authority who can proclaim what is “authentic” Islam, and thus it would be prudent not to make sweeping statements about what “authentic Islam” actually is, clearly there are many Muslim who believe that authentic Islam is inherently violent.

He uses quotations from the Quran in much the same way as do radical Islamists but only with the opposite intention.

I suspect that Rabbi Osadchey has not actually read any of my books or other writings. If he had, he would know that I don’t present any interpretation of the Qur’an of my own. One chief intention of my book on the Qur’an was to illuminate the way the people he calls “radical Islamists” see the world, so it’s only natural that there would be a congruence. But if he were to read it, he would see that I also present other interpretations from a variety of Muslim perspectives.

They are out of context with other mitigating quotes from the Quran and do not account for the historical context in which they were written and which are no longer valid.

This makes it absolutely clear that Rabbi Osadchey has never actually read any of my work, yet criticizes it nonetheless. Even a cursory glance at my online series Blogging the Qur’an would show that I discuss the verses precisely in their historical context, explain how mainstream Muslim historical and modern scholars interpret them, and since I go through the entire Qur’an in that series, I cannot justly be accused of ignoring “mitigating quotes.” See, for example, my two-part discussion (here and here) of Qur’an 9:29: I begin by (quoting a venerable Islamic authority) explaining the historical context of the verse, and then set out how Muslim commentaries on the Qur’an have understood it, noting disagreements. I do not believe anyone can read my writings on the Qur’an and justly come to the conclusion that Rabbi Osadchey sets out above.

Islamic extremists use the Quran to justify terror against the West and people such as Mr. Spencer use the Quran to justify hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

I request that Rabbi Osadchey produce a single quote of mine in which I justify hatred or discrimination against Muslims or anyone. All my work is in defense of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law. This claim is false and libelous.

It would be as if we took verses from the Torah about God commanding us to commit genocide against certain ancient tribes to assert that it remains valid to this day to engage in mass murder. Such use of sacred scripture- whether it be from the Torah, New Testament, or Quran- is a distortion of the text and does not reflect the current mainstream of either Jewish, Christian, or Islamic teachings.

Unfortunately, Muslims who believe that the Qur’an’s violent verses are valid today are all too numerous. They make recruits among peaceful Muslims by appealing to the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example. The “mainstream” that Rabbi Osadchey invokes has not been able to prevent this jihadi recruitment, and tellingly, it doesn’t even try: although jihadism is a global movement, there is no program in any mosque in the West or anywhere else that teaches young Muslims why they should reject the jihadist understanding of Islam on Qur’anic grounds. Why is this the case?

Here is a sampling of comments about Mr. Spencer from several venerated human and civil rights organizations: Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called Spencer and Geller American anti-Muslim writers because their writings “promote a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the pretext of fighting radical Islam. This belief system parallels the creation of an ideological — and far more deadly — form of anti-Semitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” He continued, “we must always be wary of those whose love for the Jewish people is born out of hatred of Muslims or Arabs.”[26][27]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchman? Why is Foxman assumed to be a neutral and disinterested observer who can pronounce an objective judgment on my work? The ADL in fact traffics in reckless defamation. They have libeled the preeminent lawyer and orthodox Jew David Yerushalmi as an “extremist,” an “anti-Muslim bigot” and a “white supremacist.” The ADL has even condemned Israel for fighting anti-Semitism. According to Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance: “The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – biggest Jewish ‘defense’ organization — admits in private that the biggest danger to Jews since WWII comes from Muslim Jew-hatred, but because it fears offending its liberal donors and being charged with ‘Islamophobia,’ the organization remains essentially silent on the issue. In a study of ADL press releases from 1995 to 2011– a good if not perfect indicator of ADL priorities – we found that only 3 percent of ADL’s press releases focus on Islamic extremism and Arab anti-Semitism.” (For the full study, see www.charlesjacobs.org.)

The Institute on Religion and Democracy said about him: “Spencer’s comprehensive understanding of his Christian faith and Islam along with lucidly insightful writing give the lie to his international notoriety as a bigoted ‘Islamophobe.’”[28]

As that one praises me, I expect that Rabbi Osadchey included it inadvertently.

Dinesh D’Souza, of the Hoover Institution, wrote that Spencer downplays the passages of the Quran that urge peace and goodwill to reach one-sided opinions. He contends that Spencer applies a moral standard to Muslim empires that could not have been met by any European empire.[29]

Dinesh and I were debating, and he said these things in the course of the debate. Of course in such a context he criticized my work, as I criticized his. Here again, he is not a neutral observer, and demonstrated in our debates a very slight and patchy knowledge of the Qur’an and Islamic doctrine – see this, in which another debater caught him out as being ignorant of basic facts about the Qur’an.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) listed Spencer as a “Smearcaster” in an article in 2008, stating that “by selectively ignoring inconvenient Islamic texts and commentaries, Spencer concludes that Islam is innately extremist and violent”.[30]

I’ve written a commentary (here) on every chapter of the Qur’an – actually a summary of mainstream Muslim commentaries. The charge that I ignore peaceful passages of the Qur’an is demonstrably false.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center: “As the director of the Jihad Watch blog and co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, Robert Spencer is one of America’s most prolific and vociferous anti-Muslim propagandists. He insists, despite his lack of academic training in Islam, that the religion is inherently violent and that radical jihadists who commit acts of terror are simply following its dictates. His writing was cited dozens of times in a manifesto written by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik. Spencer was banned from the United Kingdom as an extremist in July 2013.”

I am no more “anti-Muslim” than foes of the Nazis were “anti-German.” It has become common, because of the efforts of Islamic supremacist and Leftist groups, to equate resistance to jihad terror with “hate,” but there is no substance to this. In reality, the charge itself is a tactic employed in order to stifle honest counter-terror analysis and action.

The SPLC keeps tabs on neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. And that is good. But the implication of their hate group label is that the group that Spencer and Geller founded, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, is another one of those, which is false. While the SPLC may have done good work in the 1960s against white racists, in recent years it has become a mere propaganda organ for the Left, tarring any group that dissents from its extreme political agenda as a “hate group.” Significantly, although it lists hundreds of groups as “hate groups,” it includes not a single Islamic jihad group on this list. And its “hate group” designation against the Family Research Council led one of its followers to storm the FRC offices with a gun, determined to murder the chief of the FRC. This shows that these kinds of charges shouldn’t be thrown around frivolously, as tools to demonize and marginalize those whose politics the SPLC dislikes. But that is exactly what they do. Its hard-Left leanings are well known and well documented. This Weekly Standard article sums up much of what is wrong with the SPLC.

This Breivik charge is meant to imply that I call for violence and that Breivik heeded my call. This is absolutely false. In all his quotations of me, Breivik never quotes me calling for or justifying violence – because I never do. In fact, Breivik even criticized me for not doing so, saying of me, historian Bat Ye’or and other critics of jihad terror: “If these authors are to [sic] scared to propagate a conservative revolution and armed resistance then other authors will have to.” (Breivik, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, p. 743) Breivik explains in his manifesto that he was “radicalized” by his experiences with Muslim immigrants in the early 1990s, before I had published anything about Islam (See Breivik, p. 1348).

Breivik also hesitantly but unmistakably recommended making common cause with jihadists, which neither Inor any other opponent of jihad would ever do: “An alliance with the Jihadists might prove beneficial to both parties but will simply be too dangerous (and might prove to be ideologically counter-productive). We both share one common goal.” (Breivik, p. 948). He even called for making common cause with Hamas in plotting jihad terror: “Approach a representative from a Jihadi Salafi group. Get in contact with a Jihadi strawman. Present your terms and have him forward them to his superiors….Present your offer. They are asked to provide a biological compound manufactured by Muslim scientists in the Middle East. Hamas and several Jihadi groups have labs and they have the potential to provide such substances. Their problem is finding suitable martyrs who can pass ‘screenings’ in Western Europe. This is where we come in. We will smuggle it in to the EU and distribute it at a target of our choosing. We must give them assurances that we are not to harm any Muslims etc.” (Breivik, p. 949)

There is a mountain of similar material available if this does not suffice to make the point. So, even if Mr. Spencer had spoken on April 28th (a Jewish holiday by the way!)

Is this supposed to be an implication that I am anti-Semitic? I was invited to speak on April 28 in Calgary by a Jewish group.

about motherhood and apple pie, his presence alone was provocative and inflammatory.

If that is true, it is true because groups that are allies of and dupes of global jihad groups have engaged for years in relentless defamation of anyone who explores the ideological roots of jihad terror, such that they are charged with being “hateful” solely for noting how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism.

I would not condone or give the appearance of support to such an individual by my presence. In addition, I went to great lengths to make it clear to the media and anyone who asked me that I did not attempt to censor Mr. Spencer, prevent his lecture from occurring, or discourage people from attending it. Rather, the signatory organizations to the statement sought to express their right to free speech by disavowing his comments.

Which comments? The statement condemning me didn’t quote a single “hateful” statement that I have made. Why not? Because I haven’t ever made one. I again challenge Rabbi Osadchey to produce a single hateful statement from me.

As to where I was when Abu Ghosh spread lies about JNF, I must admit that I was not aware of such an incident. But, perhaps you should ask where was JNF in informing people about it since, if I had no knowledge of it, then I presume many others did not as well. However, the overall point of speaking out against ISIS and the other Islamic terrorists is one that I do take seriously and have acted upon through public statements and through appearances at several anti-terrorist rallies here in Calgary. For me the real issue is not sounding the alarm about Islamic terrorism. Only cave dwellers are unaware of the horrific terrorist events that have unfolded over the past decade. This is not new and we don’t need Mr. Spencer to inform us of it as if we are stupid, uniformed, people who live in Shangri-La. We are most aware of the danger of these murderous groups. The real issue is how we respond to such world events. …Even if I were to accept Mr. Spencer’s words as educational and informative, I still do not know what he wishes us to do that is positive and constructive. Are we to disengage from all contact with the Muslim community because some believe, incorrectly, that the Quran permits them to deceive us?

I’ve never called for this.

Should we try to enact legislation that restricts Muslims from entering Canada (ala Trump in the US)

There are obvious problems with this, but given the fact that jihadis have vowed to exploit the refugee crisis to enter Europe and North America, and that two of the Paris jihadis were recently-arrived refugees, and that San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik had passed five separate background checks from five separate US government agencies, can the Rabbi propose an alternative plan to protect Canadians and Americans from jihad terror attacks?

Ahmad al-Mohammed and one other of the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had just entered Europe as refugees.

In February 2015, the Islamic State boasted it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees. And the Lebanese Education Minister said in September 2015 that there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country. Meanwhile, 80% of migrants who have come to Europe claiming to be fleeing the war in Syria aren’t really from Syria at all.

So why are they claiming to be Syrian and streaming into Europe, and now the U.S. as well? An Islamic State operative gave the answer when he boasted in September 2015, shortly after the migrant influx began, that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had already entered Europe. He explained their purpose: “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah.” These Muslims were going to Europe in the service of that caliphate: “They are going like refugees,” he said, but they were going with the plan of sowing blood and mayhem on European streets. As he told this to journalists, he smiled and said, “Just wait.”

or bar them from practicing Islam?

I’ve never advocated that, either. I’ve made specific recommendations. Here are some:

Tell the truth about Islamic jihad and supremacism. It is now customary in American schools to hear about Muslims who have been oppressed because of 9/11, and how it is so important for non-Muslims to be accommodating and welcoming of them. That’s all very well, but it should also be taught, and incorporated in public school curricula, that some Muslims are waging an ongoing Islamic jihad against the United States.

Enforce existing laws. Section 2385 of the federal criminal code states that “whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.” It may be that the proviso in this statute that the overthrow of the government must be planned as taking place by “force and violence” prevents this law from being applied against Muslim Brotherhood groups intent on subverting America from within. Legal minds should study that issue. But surely—somehow—working toward “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” as the Muslim Brotherhood has stated its own strategic goal for America, ought to be a prosecutable offense.

Reclassify Muslim organizations. The U.S. government should call upon Islamic advocacy groups in this country to renounce any intention now or in the future to replace the Constitution of the United States with Islamic Sharia. This renunciation should be backed up with transparent actions in mosques and Islamic schools, which should teach against this intention, and against the elements of Sharia that contradict American freedoms. Those that are found to be teaching sedition should be immediately closed and prosecuted where warranted.

Reconfigure our international alliances so that no state that oppresses women or non-Muslims in accord with Sharia provisions gets a penny of American aid, or is considered a U.S. ally.

Is all this hateful? How? Where?