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Debbie Schlussel and the Great Blog Wars

Debbie Schlussel

Debbie Schlussel

The continuing internet blog wars amongst the anti-Muslims and Islamophobes have been quite funny and interesting for all that they reveal about the agendas driving them.  It was only a matter of time before the fault lines began to appear amongst a group for whom it will be noted (a piece in the future) were really only united by a hate for Islam and Muslims, and in which their real motivations were self-aggrandizement coupled with hatred of the other.

Some bloggers such as Charles Johnson of Little Green Football’s have calmed their rhetoric and focused on other subjects such as science and local politics, while Robert Spencer and his allies have continued their hatred unabated, though stung by the increasing irrelevance of their movement in the Obama age. Who knows how long this will last or the eventual outcome of the Great Blog Soap Opera?

Yet, the fault lines were appearing earlier when in September of 2008 Debbie Schlussel, a well known Islamophobe came out strongly against both Walid Shoebat calling him a “fake terrorist” and Steven Emerson who she described as a “phony.”  All these are welcome contributions to the exposition of the loons and may have softened the image of Schlussel as an Islamophobe in the minds of some if it weren’t for the fact that her motivation in exposing these two wasn’t pure ego.

She was compelled to reluctantly spill the truth about these two for the simple reason that in the case of Shoebat he “cursed her out” and failed to cite the use of Schlussel’s work. So no one should fall under the illusion that her turn of face in exposing these two was motivated by a cathartic realization that they are haters, it was all personal and business — not principles.

In other news the Los Angeles Times has taken Schlussel to task for saying that the recent Ron Howard directed movie Angels and Demons was soft on Muslim Terrorists. Patrick Goldstein aptly describes Schlussel as, “a trigger happy anti-Muslim zealot.”

Just when Ron Howard thought he was in the clear, having avoided being attacks by the Vatican for any anti-Catholic story lines in his upcoming “Angels and Demons,” he now finds himself under fire from the one and only Debbie Schlussel. Revered as a truth-teller in conservative circles, the blogger-critic is actually a trigger-happy anti-Muslim zealot — she went nuclear last year when “Defiance” Ed Zwick director refused to condemn Hamas — who’s now taking aim at “Angels and Demons,” which she (big surprise) thinks is soft on Muslim terrorists.

How did the Howard-directed thriller go from being anti-Catholic to pro-Muslim? According to early press reports, Howard apparently changed the identity of an assassin, who is Muslim in the Dan Brown bestseller, to someone who is now Danish. For the rest of us, this is — how should I put it — not such a big deal. But for Schlussel? She writes:

“Over the years, I’ve written about the many movies in which Hollywood changes the villain or the terrorist in the original script or novel from a Muslim to something else out of politically correct deference to Islam, the religion of whiners (and ultimately, murderers). Now, Hollywood continues in this tradition. … I’m already learning that [‘Angels and Demons’] has been ‘disinfected’ by Islamopanderers (director Ron Howard) not wanting to upset our dear friends in the ‘Religion of Peace,’ who might do something ‘peaceful’ if the movie had stayed true to the book.”

This is just part of a prolonged Schlussel shame campaign, often based on the flimsiest of evidence, to belittle Hollywood for not treating Muslims as wild-eyed villains. In one of her classic posts, she attacked Marvel Comics for giving academic internships to Arab students from the United Arab Emirates, using that as evidence to support her outrageous claim that “Spider-Man and the Hulk are embracing the new Nazis.” She also recently ridiculed the Wall Street Journal for allowing one of its reporters (“with a Muslim-sounding first name”) to write admiringly about a Muslim author doing a DC comic book.

I don’t exactly have a direct line to Ron Howard to talk to him about his casting process. But here’s my suggestion: The next time Howard does a Dan Brown thriller, if there’s a good part for a terrorist, I think he oughta make sure Debbie Schlussel gets first crack at the job.

As Goldstein points out this isn’t the first time that Schlussel has supposedly “uncovered” a so called nefarious Muslim plot against the West — it is a trademark of her paranoid writing. When the Virginia Tech Massacre occurred, the police told the press that the shooter was an “Asian male” Schlussel was quick to tie it to Muslims, saying in a racist screed that “Pakis are considered ‘Asian,’” and that it could be “part of a co-ordinated terrorist plot by Pakistanis.”

Later when it was revealed that the shooter was a student of Korean background and that he authored a play titled Ismail Ax, she continued to attempt to tie the massacre to Muslims, insisting that the Muslim sounding name of Ismail in the play penned by the murderer was enough to conclude that he was a “secret” Muslim and that Islam was to blame.

Needless to say this was rejected by the police as it was obvious that the murderer had no ties to Islam or Muslims. Even more egregious, the ironic fact lost on Schlussel that Muslims died in the massacre.

The case of Debbie Schlussel, a certified trigger happy anti-Muslim highlights the absurdity of the loon blogsphere. All of them have bigger egos than the other and they are willing to throw one another under the bus if it suits them.  It kind of reminds one of the statement “There is no honor amongst thieves” reworked as “There is no honor amongst Islamophobes.”

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    • GuestOfGuests

      “She forgot that the Palestinian people had the same roots and they are the semitics too.”

      I stopped reading here simply because you have no knowledge of antisemitism whatsoever (let it be the term itself or the history of the term, or its meaning).

    • A Logical Response

      2% of Americans are Muslims, so how the hell could Sharia Law get even close to coming to America? Xenophobia at its best.

    • Kirook

      @William

      Evidence please?

    • hack

      Debbie Schlussel’s idiotic screeds get lost in translation. Try reading it in the original German sometime.

    • Marc

      Actually Schlussel is writing a new Europe history. Why is she doing that? She always needs create and “discover” later a new “antisemitic” people, by insulting them first and attacking later. If you try to say NO to what is she doing, actually writing, she treats you as an antisemitic. She forgot that the Palestinian people had the same roots and they are the semitics too.

      About the second WW she should know this:

      “The Polish people were classified by the Nazis according to their racial characteristics. The ones who appeared Aryan were deported to Lodz for further racial examination. Most of the others were sent to the Reich to work in slave labor camps. The rest were sent to Auschwitz to die. Polish Christians and Catholics were actually the first victims of the notorious German death camp. For the first 21 months after it began in 1940, Auschwitz was inhabited almost exclusively by Polish non-Jews. The first ethnic Pole died in June 1940 and the first Jew died in October 1942.

      Three million were Polish Christians and Catholics. It would be very sad to forget even one precious life extinguished so ruthlessly. It would be a tragedy to forget five million.”

      Source: http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/

      “In November 1938, many Jews within Germany decided that it was time to leave. Though many German Jews had emigrated in the preceding years, the Jews who remained had a more difficult time leaving the country because emigration policies had been toughened. By 1939, not only were visas needed to be able to enter another country but money was also needed to leave Germany. Since many countries, especially the United States, had immigration quotas, visas were near impossible to acquire within the short time spans in which they were needed. For many, the visas were acquired after it was too late.”

      Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/stlouis.html

      When they reached Havana on May 30, however, the Cuban government refused to recognize their entrance visas. None of the passengers were allowed to disembark. Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Panama were approached in vain, by various Jewish organizations. Within two days all the countries of Latin America had rejected entreaties to allow these Jews to land, and on June 2 the St. Louis was forced to leave Havana harbour. The last hope was Canada or the United States, and the latter, not bothering to reply to an appeal, sent a gunboat to shadow the ship as it made its way north.

      In Canada, Prime Minister Mackenzie King felt, that this was not a “Canadian problem,” ignoring the pleas of many influential Canadians. Frederick Charles Blair, director of the Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources said, “No country, could open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands Jewish peolpe who want to leave Europe: the line must be drawn somewhere.

      Source: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/events/holocaust04/st_louis.html

      Talking about visas in this particular period? Those people tried escape a real danger! Did the Jews, from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee help them? There was no dead risk saving the Jews, as in Poland. Can she imagine how those people felt being refused? Does she know how many Poles died, because of hidden Jews? Tried do something? You should read more about Jewish history! She should be ashamed!!!

      Polish citizens have the world’s highest count of individuals awarded medals of Righteous among the Nations, given by the State of Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews from extermination during the Holocaust. As of 2011, there are 6,266[1] Polish men and women recognized as “Righteous” to this day, amounting to over 25 per cent of the total number of 22,765 honorary titles awarded already. It is estimated by one study that hundreds of thousands of Poles concealed and aided hundreds of thousands of their Polish-Jewish neighbors.[4] Many of these initiatives were carried out by individuals, but there also existed organized networks of Polish resistance who was dedicated to aiding Jews—most notably, the Żegota organization. In German-occupied Poland the task of rescuing Jews was especially difficult and dangerous. All household members were punished by death if a Jew was found concealed in their home or on their property. One study estimates of the number of Poles who were killed by the Nazis for aiding Jews, among them 704 posthumously honored with medals, as high as tens of thousands. An other interresting page: http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/index.asp

      Marc

    • Pol

      This women is sick, I have no idea why someone gives her credit for anything she wrote! Any legit paper that publishes her articles or opinions is just as valuable as trash! I have doubt she graduated from high school, because she has no clue regarding history, her latest version is that Poles killed Jews not Germans. I am canceling my subscription to NY Times, Washington Post & Wallstreet, because of that mental fruitcake!

    • Ron Wolf

      In Vietnam there was the expression “Spray and Pray” referring to holding your inadequate M-16 over your shoulders while safe in your foxhole or embankment and letting loose in the general direction of the enemy. All of us have been guilty of this at one time or another “metophorically”, especially in our profligate use of the pronouns “they”,”them”, and “those”, while not identifying the enemy per se. Debbie, however is not paranoid. The fifth colomn is alive and well in this never ending war of propaganda, and the use of political correctness as a handcuff has been used by a certain religion naming Jews as the enemy to be killed since its inception, and has historically expanded the call to convert or die to all infidels from the times of the Crusades to present. I prefer to look at Debbie’s successes that greatly outnumber her blunders. We all know what “they” prefer you to look at. I implore you to finacially support Debbie in the recent frivilous lawsuit launched by CAIR a fifth column home grown supporter of terror disguised in sheeps clothing and unmasked for what it is by Debbie Schlussel, who is finding as I found out how our own legal system can be against us by a clever and implacable foe, all in the name of political correctness.

    • nat

      @ Haec Dies

      Where have Muslims attacked the Constitution, and could you please give examples of the what you mean when you say you’re trying to stop Sharia Law? Look forward to a dialogue with you.

      All the best.

    • Haec Dies

      I dont know how I came upon this site. I have studied Apologetics to Islam. I am also involved in groups trying to stop Sharia Law and also the rise of attacks on our constitution. I am shocked by this site. I am more over shocked that you are all Americans. I really hope you are all studying the idealogy of extreme Islam in America. The Sharia Law that is trying to rear its ugly head here in the states. It is Americans like you that make it hard for us that are truly fighting this. You are only going after the people that are out there and being the strongest voices. I am not in these peoples groups like Pamella Geller or Robert Spencer and I know they have strong personalities but really to go out and call them Islamaphobes is way out of line. You need to stay focused if you are really in the big fight. I have to say really disgusted by this site and I look forward at making your name known among my very large circle because you are more counterproductive than even the Ground Zero Mosque Imam. Friendly fire is the worst ! Shame on you and your cohorts. I only hope you have a change of heart and start lashing out on the real enemy of the free world. I wish you the best.

    • john

      I blame TOM CRUISE for not saving these people by introducing them to SCIENTOLOGY surely these are the type that need it

    • To John Jackson – It’s been a good while since this article was printed and you made your comments; but in case you’re still checking the comments I’d like to respond to what you’ve said.

      I am a Christian – of a unitarian and liberal variety, not fundamentalist or evangelical – and I have come to have a great respect for Islam after doing my own research and reading in the Qur’an. I began looking into Islam after reading an e-mail that attacked Islam and the Qur’an because of the supposed ‘terrorist’ verses in that venerable book. When I started looking up the verses, I found that they are indeed in the Qur’an; but their contextual meaning is quite different from what terrorists and Islamophobes portray. I wrote the following article in my blog, which you might find of interest: http://mystic444.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/does-islam-proclaim-that-all-infidels-should-be-killed/.

      Being of a Christian background, I am very aware that all kinds of ridiculous things can be taught as being ‘Biblical’; and the verses quoted in support of the ridiculous tenets are certainly in the Bible (usually, at any rate). But that doesn’t mean the verses actually teach the ideas they are being quoted to prove. One needs to carefully read the verses in their contexts (both immediate context, and the wider context of the writer’s other writings and the writings of the other Biblical authors) in order to correctly understand what is being taught. One of my ‘pet peeves’ is the ‘Christian’ teaching that Jesus is the ‘One True God’, the ‘second Person in the Trinity’. Many verses are quoted to support this claim, but I am convinced that when these verses are carefully read in their contexts (both immediate and wider) they will always be found to show the writer considered Jesus as distinct from and subservient to God. They certainly believed that God had appointed Jesus to be “Lord” over His creation (sort of ‘commander-in-chief’ – under God – of all the armies of God and all creation), which is more that Muslims are willing to allow as I understand their beliefs. But the Christian writers did not believe Jesus was actually God. I have a number of articles in my blog on that subject also.

      At any rate, just because the verses terrorists use to support their actions are actually in the Qur’an, does not mean that terrorists have correctly understood those verses and are properly using them for support. Mainstream Islam repudiates terrorism, and recognizes that the Qur’an allows self defense, but never aggressive violence (and particularly not killing of innocents). Any ‘infidels’ to be killed are those who have themselves violently attacked Muslims first. Check out my blog article to which I referred, and read those Qur’anic verses in their contexts.

    • Vivek Golikeri

      My real reason for being aghast and unhappy with this woman Schlussel is my bitter memory of what was done to Japanese-Americans during World War Two. The difference between jihadists and Muslims as such is exactly the difference between being German and being Nazi.

      We need to walk a fine here in these dangerous times between legitimate security and shameless bigotry. David Ben-Gurion ( a truly great man ) once said “We shall fight the White Paper as if there no war, and the war as if there were no White Paper.”

      Likewise, we need to oppose bigotry as if there were no jihad, and jihad as if there were no bigotry.

    • DavTo

      Just came across this article. Goldstein says that Schlussel is “revered as a truth-teller in conservative circles.”

      Uh, no, actually, she’s held as a nutjob by most conservatives. She just calls herself a conservative. She’s actually a crazy liar…recently, she said on her site that she’s the subject of a “bogus complaint” by someone else. The Michigan Bar’s inevestigating her as a result. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. Careful you don’t criticize her too often, though–if you do, you’re obviously an anti-Semite. (She’s kinda like Uncle Leo in that episode of Seinfeld–“He even thinks his rabbi is an anti-Semite!”)

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