In a recent article, “Islam: ‘Appalling and Abhorrent’ in the Eyes of a Blind World,” Raymond Ibrahim asserts that Islamic countries have a long history of despicable Koran-sanctioned behavior towards Christians and women. 

Does he not know that all Muslims are peace-loving people who just want to own cell phones, eat soft tacos, get a good education, and live in fraternal peace with their neighbors? I personally know a peace-loving Moroccan restaurant owner. When told that Egypt and North Africa were converted to Islam at the point of the sword, not by spiritual conviction, he became quite angry. It was surprising, given the fire in his eyes, that he did not put a triple dose of hot sauce (or rat poison) on my shish kebab. Another Egyptian in a Palestinian grocery store in New York (supposedly an engineer by training, but forced by circumstances to work as a store clerk) communicated his outrage at the West because of the Crusades of 1095 AD. "Getting even" for that historical outrage is not good enough. There will never be peace in the world, according to this man, until the outrage of the Crusades is avenged (even though the Muslims defeated the Christian invaders within 100 years).

You people from the West, you critics of Islam and of Muslims, do not, will not, and cannot understand that Islam is the religion of peace. It wishes well to all people. Murderous rampages against non-Muslims and against females and against converts all over the world are aberrations... not representative of the true intent of Islam. Among a religion that numbers over one billion followers, there are going to be some malcontents who give their heritage a bad name. Are you going to smear the dear, warm-hearted, tolerant, forward-looking Muslim people with a broad brush of accusations and incendiary statements? What about Christian atrocities to women? What about all the battered wives and abused children in the USA alone?

Is not Mr. Ibrahim just another Pharisee throwing the first stone at Muslims? It is pure hypocrisy to portray the kind Islamic population of the world, (salaam alaikum to you) to portray this family-building tradition and culture based on the rights of all people to enjoy freedom and happiness (although the words freedom and happiness appear nowhere in the Koran) as hideously sadistic. It is an exaggeration to portray Islamics as hateful, terroristically-inclined misogynists. If it were true, then it would mean that the very survival of Western Civilization as a force for good in the world is being threatened, and that we are in a cultural, political, and military crisis that is comparable to the first wave of Islamic militancy that took place in the seventh and eighth centuries, and has recurred (albeit with less success) over many centuries up to the present.

Yet, how can that be? The Billboard Awards were on TV just the other night, and then Dancing With The Stars, then the final night of American Idol.... A culture war of a magnitude such as that depicted by Raymond Ibrahim or Robert Spencer or Daniel Greenfield or Steve Emerson or Daniel Pipes or scores of other lesser lights? How can this be, in the midst of a media orgy of glitz, music, competition, smiles, and hip-swaying joy. How can anyone think that we are undergoing a threat to Western Civilization at the same time? It is gloom and doom, an out-of-proportion negative fantasy. It is a version of reality generated by bored intellectuals. It is insulting to the masses of happy, justified Americans.

Lindsay Lohan's Rolls just got a flat tire, and, is she upset! She has returned to rehab from the stress. Justin Bieber is awaiting his next contact with the police, as is Alex Baldwin. Solange just punched Jayzee in an elevator....  And we’re expected to worry about Islamic hatred of women, infidels, Jews,  Christians, Buddhists,  Hindus, Muslim women going shopping with their kids in bazaars in Iraq?  Come on, you must be kidding!!!!