This is why I do not believe a word from Karen Armstrong

I have been told again and again to read Karen Armstrong's writing on Islam, as if somehow her books unlock life's mysteries. I have read articles of her's that glossed over all of the questionable parts of Islam, pretending as if it doesn't exist. Then I read the following article in 'Islam For Today.' Ms. Armstrong discusses Israel, and has the following to say:

Earlier, in the mid 1980s, Armstrong was commissioned by Channel Four television in Britain to make a documentary about the life of St. Paul. This required visits to the Holy Land and to Jerusalem. However, when Armstrong went to Israel and saw the kind of racism against Arabs that dominated Israeli society, she realised that "there was something fundamentally wrong" going on in Israel. (LIE: Israel is no apartheid state) "I was deeply shocked that people could call other people 'dirty Arabs' when some 30 or 40 years before they had talked in Europe about 'dirty Jews'. I was struck by the inability of the Jewish people to learn from past sufferings, but of course it is human nature that suffering does not make us better. The problem with Israel now is that it cannot believe that it is not 1939 any more; the Israeli people are emotionally stuck in the horrors of the Nazi era," she says. Could it be that this is an Israeli ploy to manipulate public opinion? Armstrong answers that "I don't think that this is the case at a profound level. Of course, there are politicians who will use this, but I think there is a profound inability among Israelis to believe that they have left the past behind. They still regard the present as a period of Jewish weakness, when in fact it is a period of Jewish power." "The West has to share a responsibility for what is happening in the Middle East. If it had not persecuted the Jews, there would not have been the need for the creation of the State of Israel. The Muslim world did nothing to the Jews, and the Palestinians are paying the price for the sins of Europe. (lie: see article on Grand Mufti) Therefore, a solution has to be found because there will be no peace in the world without one. But if Israel has America behind it, it does not have to worry about what the rest of the world thinks. This gives a sense of omnipotence. At the moment there is no hope; they, the Israelis, can do what they want because America will always support them. I wish Europe would play a better role, but Mr Blair is running after Mr Bush like a poodle." (sounds exactly like Galloway) Armstrong believes that the Israeli occupation is responsible for the kind of violent resistance it meets from the Palestinians. (total lie: see Dersh article) "The resistance will be as ruthless and violent as the occupation is," she says. "Every occupation breeds its own kind of resistance." Armstrong believes that the phenomenon of the Palestinian suicide bombers has more to do with politics and hopelessness than it does with religion. "I don't think people sit at home and read the Qur'an and say, yes, I must go and bomb Israel. (LIE: see Walid Shoebat - they are taught religious based hatred from age 0 onwards, whether it is 'true Islam' or not) This is not how religion works, and I see just absolute hopelessness when people have nothing to lose. Palestinians don't have F- 16s, and they don't have tanks. They don't have anything to match Israel's arsenal. They only have their own bodies." (Lie: what are the Qassam rockets, then???) "Violence of any sort always breads violence, and the occupation itself is an act of extreme violence, domination and oppression. The way things have been moving has been aggressively against the Palestinians." While she believes that there has been a shift in the way British public opinion views the Palestinian struggle, she warns that the killing of civilians could create a backlash. "In the news coverage after every suicide bombing you see Israeli mothers with their children talking in plain English about their sufferings. One does not get to see the same sufferings of the Palestinian mothers and their children, though they are the weaker party in the conflict." (Lie: What was the media coverage over Beit Hanoun then? When was the last time you saw a picture of Israeli suffering??) Armstrong thinks that charges of anti-Semitism in Europe play into the hands of the Zionist lobby (LIE: see Dersh's article debunking this!) in America because "this will discredit anything Europe says. They say Europe is anti- Semitic because for the first time Europe is becoming aware of the plight of the Palestinians. It is part of a campaign to discredit European input in any future peace process."

Ms. Armstrong, I am very glad you said those things in Islam Today. By doing it, and by parroting Yassir Arafat, you have proven you are no scholar and rather, you are an Islamic propogandist. I already have documented the various lies spread throughout the article, and I do not pretend to be the 'Middle East expert' that Ms. Armstrong pretends to be. Ms. Armstrong is an apologist for the worst sorts of behavior of the Palestinians, and this article proves she is no scholar. I might as well learn about Israel from Sheikh Nasrallah. What is funny is that it took me 5-10 minutes to debunk this babble, and I do not claim to be an Islamic, Middle Eastern, or Israeli scholar. 5-10 minutes! She is put forth as an example of virtue and shown to be the #1 scholar on Islam. Baloney. EDIT: Let me add some more 'pearls' from the article I found - Armstrong little 'gems.'

The key question would be, "why do they hate us?" Armstrong said, followed by others, such as: "What do Muslims think of Christians and Jews? Is Islam an inherently violent religion? Why do we always hear bad rhetoric about Christians? What about women in Islam? Is Islam against modernity?" (LIE: They hate us because THEY HATE. Armstrong implies they have legitimate concerns!)

Then there's more!

"They thought I am an apologist for Muslims, because my article was about the prophet as a peacemaker, and this did not suit their agenda as much as Lewis's did. Both [Bernard] Lewis and Kramer are staunch Zionists who write from a position of extreme bias. But people need to know that Islam is a universal religion, and that there is nothing aggressively oriental or anti-Western about it. Lewis's line, on the other hand, is that Islam is an inherently violent religion," she said. (LIE: Lewis is simply no Islamic apologist. He never said the religion is inherently violent, but rather that it has violent tendancies - go read his writings, yourself!)

Let me quote even MORE from this heinous Armstrong article:

Armstrong thinks that charges of anti-Semitism in Europe play into the hands of the Zionist lobby in America because "this will discredit anything Europe says. They say Europe is anti- Semitic because for the first time Europe is becoming aware of the plight of the Palestinians. It is part of a campaign to discredit European input in any future peace process." Turning to the recent rise of the extreme right in European politics, Armstrong feels that this has been more hostile to Europe's Muslim population than it has to European Jews. (total distortion of reality: the Nazi right in Europe hates Jews more, but the POINT is that the communist left of Europe CLEARLY hate Jews as well, and have had a huge impact upon foreign policy: SEE: Chirac, Ren Ken, Galloway, just as examples!)

But then there's the most egregious line of Armstrong's:

Armstrong believes that both sides should try and deal with the extremism in their midst. "The West, like it or not, is a fact of life," she says. "Muslims should try to use the media; they have got to learn to lobby like the Jews, and they have got to have a Muslim lobby, if you like ....this is a jihad, an effort, a struggle, that is very important. If you want to change the media, then you have got to make people see that Islam is a force to be reckoned with politically and culturally. Have a march down the street at Ground Zero in New York, call it 'Muslims against Terror'. They need to learn how to manage the media and how to conduct themselves in the media." (So as to not be accused of out of context quoting, done all the time by Islamists, I quoted the whole paragraph. She called on Muslims to have a Jihad, the most popular meaning of it to be holy war. She also said that somehow the Jewish lobby has taken over. Hellooooo Protocols of Zion! And she wholly dismissed CAIR and MPACUK, amongst other hate groups that double as Islamic lobbying groups! What a total crock! And she believes the marching on Ground Zero should be done to symbolically prove Islam is peaceful. Advocating actual reforms of the religion...nooooo...can't do that, eh?)

All I can say is...whoa. She is held to be a scholar on Islam? She is a joke, a travesty, a pathetic faux-scholar, who is clearly devoted to spreading lies and hatred against Jews.