Barry Nussbaum: Hello, and welcome to ATP Report. For American Truth Project, I’m Barry Nussbaum. We have a very special friend of the family on today, but before that, a little housekeeping note. Please, if you haven’t subscribed yet, take out your cell phone now and text the word truth, T-R-U-T-H, and send it to the number 88202.

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Robert Spencer, as you know, is the founder and editor of Jihad Watch. He is the national expert on jihad in America and around the world. I encourage all of you to follow him, both online and read his books. Welcome, Robert.

Robert Spencer: Thank you, Barry. Good to be here.

Barry Nussbaum: So, let’s start off with Washington, D.C. There’s an Imam there, he’s a Shia Imam, Sulayman Ali Hassan, and he says all Muslims should strive to wage jihad and be prepared to defend Islam. Now, this wasn’t some speech in Saudi Arabia or Qatar, or Afghanistan. He made his remarks at the Islamic Center in Alexandria, Virginia, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

It’s been aired all over the country on their Islam channel on YouTube. This is a guy that studied in Iran, and he says that Islam must have its emphasis on the mujahid[een] to wage jihad.

How is it possible that this guy is making speeches here in America, literally encouraging the people in his mosque to wage jihad against those in the West, and it’s not covered by the media? Because I assure you, if this were a Pastor or a Rabbi calling for a war on Muslims, it would be everywhere in the news. Why isn’t it covered here?

Robert Spencer: Well, you’re absolutely right, Barry.

It’s a glaring double standard.

It’s been going on for years, and it seems as if the establishment media, for whatever reason, has decided that any story that portrays Islam in a negative light is not going to be reported or is going to be reported in such a way, to make sure that people don’t get a negative view of Islam. So, there’s been no coverage of this story outside of the excellent work done at the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Now, the Imam can take refuge in the deceptions that we have been fed for the last 20 years. If he’s challenged, he can say, well, you know, jihad, it’s an interior spiritual struggle to better one’s soul, and that’s all I was exhorting them to do. He’s banking on, or he would be where he can say this, banking on the ignorance of the American people and the fact that the establishment media, and the political elites, for that matter have for all this time been telling us that there is no marshal, military or violent aspect to jihad, despite the fact that there are 1,400 years of jihad in Islamic history, as I show in my book, The History of Jihad.

Also, the fact that in Islamic theology and law, it’s very clear the primary meaning of jihad is not spiritual struggle but warfare against unbelievers to subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law.

Barry Nussbaum: Well, let’s talk specifically about that last line you just mentioned, Robert. There’s another jihadi who was released from Guantanamo. His name is Ibrahim Al-Qosi, and he is now saying that upcoming jihadi massacres in the United States will not be a carbon copy of 9/11, but they could be even more painful.

He says the days and nights will not pass until we take revenge as we did on the 11th of September, Allah willing. So, here’s a guy making these speeches that ought to scare the heck out of a lot of people. We let him out of Guantanamo because he was thoroughly reformed.

What does he do? He threatens an attack much worse than 9/11. So, two questions should America be worried that this is going to happen? And do you think they have the ability to carry it out?

Robert Spencer: Well, you know, walking around worrying is useless. Something’s going to happen sometime. What we need to be is resolute in the face of a determined enemy. We need our elected officials and military to be in a state of preparedness and be alert to the reality that Al-Qosi is an Al-Qaeda operative.

It’s possible that he’s trying to strike terror into our hearts, but it’s also possible that he’s telling the truth and that a very major attack is in the offing.

The problem is that in Washington, the political and media elites refuse to acknowledge that there is a real jihad threat.

The Biden administration has repeatedly said that white supremacists are the biggest terror threat in the United States. That’s obvious nonsense. There are not organized groups of white supremacists out there, blowing up buildings, flying planes into buildings, and so on, but the real insidious aspect of it is very likely taking away the attention of the FBI, the DHS, and other agencies from the genuine jihad threat to chase after this fake, politically motivated threat.

Barry Nussbaum: Well, said Robert. You broke an interesting story that I was just stunned to read about. Christopher Columbus, that he’s the progenitor of a continental genocide, according to a guy named Alan Mikhail. It was printed in the Los Angeles Times this week.

Now, as you pointed out, the guy could be well dismissed as a quack, but for the fact that he’s the chair of the Department of History at Yale University.

This crazy academic says that the reason Christopher Columbus came and discovered the new world was he was an Islamophobe, and the primary force behind him crossing the Atlantic was fear and hatred of Islam.

Robert, can you please explain what the heck this guy is talking about?

Robert Spencer: Well, there’s no doubt that this is a dyed-in-the-wool ideologue.

Alan Mikhail of Yale University, it’s terrible to think that he’s teaching our young people this kind of nonsense.

The kernel of truth in what he’s saying, and what makes it plausible, is that Columbus did sail because of Islam. Not because of some gratuitous hatred or fear, but because the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 led to the closure of the land route that had been taken between India and Europe for centuries.

The Spice Road and so on, all of that was closed. So, Columbus was looking for a new way to India, which is why he thought he was in India when he got to North America, and why the islands where he first landed are known as the West Indies.

But the idea that it was hatred of Islam or some unjustified paranoia is a manifestation of the fact that Alan Mikhail is writing with a political agenda for our own age, and that is to render Americans both ashamed of our history, heritage, and complacent in the face of the advancing jihad threat.

Barry Nussbaum: While we’re busy quoting Robert Spencer, I’ve got another Robert Spencer article that I just really enjoyed. You touched on it earlier that the FBI and the Justice Department have now declared that parents who protest at school board meetings are very likely domestic terrorists, they have a subversive movement, and they want to overthrow America.

Meanwhile, the really scary people, these Imams around the country that are making speeches about the destruction of the American way of life, don’t even get in the press. They don’t even get a line, and nobody investigates them.

There’s this guy, Fadi Yousef Kablawi, if I’m saying that right, had a sermon, I guess, in Miami, where he said that the idea of women’s rights is absurd, and Islamic law literally doesn’t have rights for women at all. I guess in common terms, America is a liberal clown show, and we ought to be listening to Imams like him that know where women should be placed in society.

You wrote this is a quote of yours, “If a Christian preacher ridiculed women’s rights, and called for the replacement of the Constitution with biblical law, you can be sure the FBI would be all over him, as well as CNN, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and all the rest, but not for this guy.” Robert, why the double standard?

Robert Spencer: Well, here again, we see that it seems as if the establishment media has decided, and maybe they did decide in some meeting or other, but in any case, it’s in the A.P. style guidelines. You don’t talk about Islamic terrorism. You talk about militants, insurgents, or something instead of jihadis.

The media has made a decision to never inform the public about jihad activity, the spread of Sharia in the West, or advocacy for Sharia in the West. In fact, any story that makes Islam look to be something negative should be spiked.

So, Americans know Sharia is all about, the stoning, the amputations, subjugation of women, burkas, hijabs at the very least, so much more, the anti-Semitism, and they don’t want Sharia. So, when you have a Miami Imam calling for Sharia, it’s not news as far as the establishment media is concerned. Yes, his name is Kablawi. It’s like an onomatopoeia, you know, a big explosion, KABLAWI! Anyway, sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Barry Nussbaum: Well said and yet terrifying because they’re literally preaching the overthrow of the Constitution, all the rights guaranteed under that beautiful document, and all of its amendments. Not to mention all of the laws since the 18th century and no press at all. He’s literally calling for half the population of the United States to be subjugated under the control of the other half, and not even a line in a newspaper.

Robert Spencer: Yep. The loophole that they have is that the sedition laws that are on the books, which aren’t enforced anyway say ‘the violent overthrow of the U.S.’ It’s what’s illegal, the calling for the violent overthrow of the United States Constitution, but if you want the United States Constitution to be overthrown peacefully, that’s fine, no problem.

Barry Nussbaum: And no coverage.

Robert Spencer: So if you don’t call for any violence, then there’s nothing that anybody can do.

We obviously need recognition that the advocates of Sharia are against the U.S. constitution, and they do want to replace it.

Even if they don’t want to do that by violent means, the defenders of the Constitution need to be aware of it, and those who value the Constitution need to defend it.

Barry Nussbaum: Jefferson was the first to write about it when the Constitution was being written. He was concerned even then, those people, followers of Islam be willing to follow our new Constitution instead of the dictates of Islam. He didn’t think they would, and here we are several hundred years later, Robert. Still having the same discussion only as you point out in all of your writings, which I urge our people to watch, read, and learn. It’s not being reported. Robert, where can people learn about you?

Robert Spencer: At JihadWatch.org, which is the world’s only news site dedicated to jihad activity. You can find information there about jihad activity in the United States and around the world that is not reported elsewhere, JihadWatch.org. I’m also @JihadWatchRS on Twitter. You can find my books for the time being on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever self-respecting books are sold.

Barry Nussbaum: I strongly urge everybody out there in ATP land, please follow Robert Spencer. He is the scholar and boy, oh boy, will you learn a thing or two when you subscribe to his newsletter because it’s unrelenting news, you will not get anywhere else, about the people that don’t want you to keep the country that you love. Robert, thanks for coming on today, and I want to thank everybody out there in ATP land and remind you if you didn’t do it already.

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