Not a Clear Message?

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Aug 19, 2013 at 17:41

This article by Daniel Pipes has some important thoughts, especially the quotes by the two leaders. But I'm not sure what his point is? Is it that if we focused more on the RELIGION of the Muslims (actually a totalitarian system engulfing politics and culture as well as religion, indeed engulfing everything), rather than the race-based and culture-based comments of Powell and De Gaulle, we would be on stronger ground (as I certainly think)?

When Pipes says no politician today would "dare speak as directly" as De Gaulle and Powell did, is he recommending that some leader should, or not?

Ironically, while he seems to be praising De Gaulle for his comments (and I'm glad to see them), just last week I ran across an article from Oct, 2012, in a NY-based publication called The Muslim Issue entitled, French President Charles De Gaulle is the Founding Father of Eurabia. This was based in part on a quote by De Gaulle from a Nov, 1967 news conference, when he "stated openly that French cooperation with the Arab world had become 'the fundamental basis of our foreign policy'."

Now this is an over-the-top article in that while De Gaulle did betray Israel in the 1967 war, and he probably had a grandiose idea of off-setting both Russian and "Anglo-Saxon" influence in Europe with a bloc of nations led by France, with a subordinate role played by the Arabs, it seems absurd that this advocate of a 'Europe of the Fatherlands' would have stood by while France saw its identity eroded by spineless accomodations with Islamic supremacism in the decades aftre his passing. Indeed, that sentiment of cultural defense and pride is clearly present in Pipes' quote.

But the 2012 article linking De Gaulle's 1967 declaration with the later flood of attempts to reconcile Islam with European civilization is still worth perusal, even if largely wrong.

And so, if Pipes' agrees with Powell's and de Gaulle's warnings, absent the racism of the former, and the cultural condescension of the latter, and at the same time is still not ready to indict Islam itself, then on what basis does he agree with them?!

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