Joshua Muravchik is rude and lost
Reader comment on item: Responding to Joshua Muravchik about "Moderate Islamists"

Submitted by jennifer solis (United States), May 3, 2008 at 20:46

The more I read about this "exchange" the more I see how rude and lost this guy is. I won't repeat most of his assinine commentary, excepting that which is neccessary towards revealing a bit of his myopic viewpoint.

Joshua Muravchik writes -

"In fact, we have two glaring cases of reckless charges by Mr. Pipes. The first involves Kamran Bokhari, about whom Mr. Pipes writes: 'a closer look reveals that [Bokhari] is actually a former violent Islamist who has journeyed merely from overt to covert enmity for the West.' "

Muravchik continues, "According to Mr. Pipes, then, Bokhari, as an American college student in the 1990's, had been a member of a radical Islamist group. Bokhari himself replied to this that the group had become more extreme after he left it, and that in the years since, he himself had ceased to be an Islamist altogether."

Oh, really? This "group" of Bokhari's became "more extreme" after he left?

Bokhari is the former North American SPOKESMAN for "the group", Al Muhajioun.

Al Muhajioun was ESTABLISHED in 1996 (Bokhari's "college years"), and was closely allied to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda; from it's INCEPTION, it has taught recruits that Israel, the Jews and the West are evil and that it is their Muslim duty to fight them. The organization referred to the 9/11 hijackers as "the Magnificent 19".

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=849

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6240

Oh, but remember, "the group", Al-Muhajiron, has become more extreme since Bokhari left.

And now Bokhari has "ceased to be an Islamist altogether". Oh.

Joshua Muravchik and Charles P. Szrom write (in a response to 'D. Becker') -

"We agree that Wahhabi ideology is a great source of Islamic extremism, with all the baleful effects that flow from it. But it is not the only source. There is also the Muslim Brotherhood, born and developed in Egypt, and to which Osama Bin Laden's partner in crime, Ayman al-Zawahiri, traces his roots. And then there is the Islamic revolution of Iran, the main sponser of global terrorism."

I wonder what our dear, reformed, "ceased to be an Islamist altogether" Kamran Bokhari has to say about the Muslim Brotherhood?

Just go to Bokhari's own website.

The very first "commentary" by Bokhari listed is titled, "Who are the Moderate Muslims?" In this article, under something Bokhari calls "Bi-level Relativity", he states -

"The word "moderate" is relative in two respects. First, when one refers to an individual, group, or state as being moderate, it means that it is moderate in relation to other individuals, groups, or states from the common cultural background. The Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab Middle East is considered a moderate Islamist group compared to Al-Qaeda. Iran's Islamic Republic is moderate when compared to Afganistan under the Taliban Emirate."

Rationalism at it's finest.

I'm sure Joshua Muravchik would be proud.

After viewing some of Muravchik's commentary specifically towards Dr. Pipes, and regarding Islam in general, I am convinced he is dillusional, if not clueless, with regards to Islamism.

He's no match for Dr. Pipes, and I look forward to more of the "debate". It is entertaining viewing Muravchik's inventive but inaccurate responses juxtaposed against Dr. Pipes' vast knowledge of the issue at hand.

Hopefully some of it will permeate Muravchik's myopic view of "Islamism".

But I doubt it.

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