The New York Sun, of course!

From today’s New York Sun: Three Myths About Islam, by Edward N. Luttwak.

“Many people know many things about Islam and its history. Unfortunately, much of what they know happens to be untrue. The great Jewish Orientalists of the 19th century, such as Gustav Weil and Ignaz Goldziher, can be blamed for myth no. 1: that Islam is especially tolerant of other religions. Their scholarship was immense but they were too eager to praise Islam to remain objective. …”

“Nevertheless, sections on Islam in American college texts are full of fantasies about Islamic tolerance, often featuring a mythic Andalusia where all was wonderfully multicultural until the wicked Christians arrived. Absurdly, some of those same texts celebrate, as yet another example of tolerance, the welcome that the fleeing Maimonides received in Fatimid Egypt: He had fled from Andalusia, of course, then the scene of one of Islam's recurrent outbursts of murderous fanaticism; we are living through another. It is perfectly true that until quite recently, Christians were even more intolerant than Muslims, …”

“Myth no. 2 is that Muslim extremists are not attacking us, but only counterattacking, so that if non-Muslims would only stop provoking them, all would be well. … Islam has been on the attack from its birth in the seventh century. … The only reason the continuity of Muslim aggression is news to some is because until recently almost all Muslim countries were under European colonial rule or subjected to European protectorates. … With de-colonialization, the violence resumed. It has now reached virtually all places where Muslims are in contact with non-Muslims, so that there are almost daily reports of outrages from Nigeria, Sudan, and Egypt in Africa; from Iraq (Christians are fleeing the country), Israel, and Lebanon in the Middle East; from India, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia.”

“But Muslims certainly cannot be faulted for Myth no. 3: that Islam is a religion of peace. That myth is strictly the creation of Western liberals and especially American educational administrators, librarians, and academics determined to invent their own peaceful Islam, in which even Jihad is always or at least mostly an entirely nonviolent spiritual struggle. … None of the three myths can survive the light of competent scholarship, and the author of "Islamic Imperialism: A History" … Efraim Karsh, of King's College, London, is much more than merely competent.”

See also “An Unholy Alliance” in the Sun where Fred Siegel reviews the latest book by Melanie Phillips. “Like American universities and with similar results, much of Europe has been in the grip of a self-defeating multiculturalism in which liberal ideals are turned toward the illiberal ends of Islamic extremism. …”

Wait! The Sun has more … on Ayaan Hirsi Ali! I’ll let Atlas explain.

I also have an article on the denial of the Islamic threat. The New York Sun is a rare exception. During previous threats, such as the rise of communism in the 1930s, there were a few brave people and publications that could face the ominous threat amidst the general willful blindness of most intellectuals and major publications. Today, we find writers of integrity in the New York Sun.