More on Aymenn Jawad, and the Spencer-Jawad fight

Aymenn Jawad is the former colleague of Robert Spencer’s who this week had a bitter dispute and parting of the ways with Spencer (discussed yesterday at VFR here and here). Last evening Mr. Jawad wrote to me and apologized for calling me, in a comment at Jihad Watch, a “despicable white supremacist.” He indicated that while our views on racial matters and other issues may differ, “on skimming your writings I find you to be much more well-mannered than Spencer, who is now insinuating, on the basis of no evidence, that I am a secret Hamas fan.” He gave his permission for me to publish his apology.

Amazingly, Mr. Jawad, a citizen of Britain, is in fact 18 years old and a first year student at Oxford. Here is his website. Here are his articles at American Thinker. I told him that he writes much better than the average AT contributor.

Mr. Jawad informs me that his parents come from Iraq, and that he himself has no connection with Islam and does not identify as an Arab.

He has also sent this clarification on the key points in the Spencer vs. Jawad argument:

Thanks for your reply. Basically, the conflict boils down to this:-

Spencer alleges that my article insinuates two things:

(a) That he endorses Trifkovic’s anti-Semitism. (b) That he is a secret supporter of the BNP.

You have the link to the article as originally appeared which I sent you, and the revised version which only didn’t appear in the first place because of a mistake on the editors’ part at the American Thinker. I would be grateful if you provided an update linking to my website with the article as it originally appeared. In any case, judge for yourself (perhaps you could ask your readers to have a look at the article and weigh in too) whether (a) and (b) are even remotely implied. With respect to (a), note this passage in particular two passages:-

Unfortunately, however, such adulation fails to take into account many of Trifkovic’s despicable views. Most notably, his fans often remain unaware of his anti-Semitic views

Being unaware of opinion X doesn’t imply endorsement of X or any form of “attack” through “guilt by association.” It just vindicates the lesson that one should do a little research when choosing allies. And, at the time I first wrote the article, Spencer was unaware of it.

You have already noted the ridiculous nature of allegation (b), I think, as you rightly pointed out that I quoted Spencer approvingly on his stance against the BNP. However, Spencer is being dishonest to say that no comments have turned up in support of the BNP for several years: they turn up in significant numbers whenever a story involving the BNP and Islam is featured on Jihad Watch. Even so, in my article I put such adulation from Jihad Watch readers down to naiveté, and not sinister intentions. I wasn’t “attacking” them either, contrary to Spencer’s wild imagination. Of course, the BNP is increasingly being eclipsed by the EDL, which Spencer openly supports and about which he has to lie, as he does with his colleague Pamela Geller, in order to defend it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 09, 2011 10:03 AM | Send