SPENCER: I notice that you don’t give the names of any “madman who kills innocents in the name of God” who are Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu. With 25,000 jihad terror attacks committed in the name of Islam since 9/11, the naming of a single person or incident here or there would only point up the glaring disparity. And as for your claim that “no religion is responsible for terrorism,” this is just begging the question: Does the Islamic religion encourage violence and supremacism? Is it even possible for any religion to do this? Why not? Why do you forbid examination of this question?
OBAMA: And to their credit, there are respected Muslim clerics and scholars not just here in the United States but around the world who push back on this twisted interpretation of their faith. They want to make very clear what Islam stands for. And we’re joined by some of these leaders today. These religious leaders and scholars preach that Islam calls for peace and for justice, and tolerance toward others; that terrorism is prohibited; that the Koran says whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind. Those are the voices that represent over a billion people around the world.
SPENCER: The attendees included Wajahat Ali, an Al Jazeera host with Muslim Brotherhood ties who was co-author of one of the “Islamophobia” smear pieces designed to discredit foes of jihad terror, and Nicole Mossalam, who “has been dishonest about her controversial mosque blocking congregants from giving police information during their investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing.” You claim that there are “Muslim clerics and scholars not just here in the United States but around the world who push back on this twisted interpretation of their faith,” yet there is not a single mosque or Islamic school anywhere in the United States or anywhere else that has a program to teach Muslims to reject the understanding of Islam presented by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
OBAMA: But if we are going to effectively isolate terrorists, if we’re going to address the challenge of their efforts to recruit our young people, if we’re going to lift up the voices of tolerance and pluralism within the Muslim community, then we’ve got to acknowledge that their job is made harder by a broader narrative that does exist in many Muslim communities around the world that suggests the West is at odds with Islam in some fashion.
SPENCER: Any resistance to jihad terror brings this charge. The only way you will be able to eradicate it will be to surrender completely.
OBAMA: The reality — which, again, many Muslim leaders have spoken to — is that there’s a strain of thought that doesn’t embrace ISIL’s tactics, doesn’t embrace violence, but does buy into the notion that the Muslim world has suffered historical grievances — sometimes that’s accurate — does buy into the belief that so many of the ills in the Middle East flow from a history of colonialism or conspiracy; does buy into the idea that Islam is incompatible with modernity or tolerance, or that it’s been polluted by Western values.
SPENCER: So you’re saying that some Muslims have legitimate grievances against the West. This is a signal that more concessions, probably in the form of more taxpayer billions, will soon be in the offing. When jihad terror rages more virulently than ever after those billions have been squandered, will you think of another excuse?
OBAMA: So just as leaders like myself reject the notion that terrorists like ISIL genuinely represent Islam, Muslim leaders need to do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam, that there’s an inherent clash in civilizations. Everybody has to speak up very clearly that no matter what the grievance, violence against innocents doesn’t defend Islam or Muslims, it damages Islam and Muslims.
SPENCER: Islamic jihadists don’t generally consider non-Muslims capable of being “innocent” — they are guilty by virtue of having rejected Islam….
At this moment I was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on my return to my room, found, to my no small surprise and mortification, that though I still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of my meeting with Obama, yet, with the exception of the lines above, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas, without the after-restoration of the latter!
* Just in case it isn’t obvious to everyone, this is an imaginary dialogue. Obama’s remarks, however, are real: they’re taken from his closing speech at his Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, as reproduced at White House.gov on February 18.
Read the rest here.