The world turned upside down—Spencer is defending the mass expulsion of sharia believers

I have not been following the Robert Spencer battle with CAIR, but in the latest round, CAIR has accused Spencer’s contributor Hugh Fitzgerald of seeking the “expulsion of Europe’s Muslims,” and accused Spencer of seeking the “expulsion of U.S. Muslims.” Spencer replies that Fitzgerald called for the expulsion of “jihadists and sharia supremacists,” not of all Muslims. He then mentions various mass expulsions of modern times that everyone, including Muslims, accepts, such as the Czech expulsion of Sudeten Germans after World War II and the expulsion of Hindus from Northeast India that led to the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan.

Spencer of course has never written the separationist kinds of things that Fitzgerald has written (and, of course, Fitzgerald himself angrily denied he was a separationist and denounced me for suggesting he was). But what is happening now is fantastic. Now Robert Spencer himself is going on record, and apparently in a high profile debate, defending the idea of a mass expulsion of jihadists and sharia supremacists from the West. For example, he addresses this question to CAIR:

Hugh wrote that the presence of jihadists and Sharia supremacists was a danger to non-Muslims in Europe, and that the jihadists and Sharia supremacists should be expelled. Does CAIR disagree with this—in other words, does it want jihadists and Sharia supremacists to remain in Europe? If so, for what purpose? Does CAIR wish to state on the record that a nation has no right to expel those whom it has determined are a risk to national security?

Unbelievable. Finally, the real issue, which is that sharia-supporting Muslims do not belong among us, has been made explicit in a widely followed public exchange in this country.

Further, while Spencer correctly states that he does not seek the expulsion of all Muslims, only sharia supremacists, just exactly who are these sharia supremacists? Essentially, all orthodox Muslims.

Fitzgerald and Spencer—the separationists in spite of themselves.

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My above interpretation that “sharia supremacists” means essentially all orthodox Muslims receives astonishing support from a comment Spencer made in 2005 (which I found quoted in an anti-Spencer article linked by CAIR). Spencer wrote at Jihad Watch:

I have written on numerous occasions that there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists.

Since jihadists are a smaller and more extreme group than sharia supremacists, Spencer’s statement is a more sweeping characterization of the Muslim community’s extremism than mine.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 15, 2007 08:34 PM | Send