Glen Jenvey Denies Posting as “Abuislam”

ASSIST News has published an article (here, and reposted here) on Glen Jenvey and the Sun’s “Islamic Terrorists Target UK Jews” story. As readers may recall, Jenvey claimed to have uncovered the plot by monitoring a Muslim discussion forum, but evidence emerged suggesting that the poster “Abuislam” (or “Abu Islam”), who provided the meat for Jenvey’s revelation, may in fact have been Jenvey himself:

In an e-mailed statement, Jenvey denied being Abu Islam, adding that some inflammatory posts formerly on the site have now been either removed or manipulated to the forum administrators’ advantage.

He said, “Over the years I have monitored both www.ummah.net and www.ummah.com and their chat rooms. I know they hate me enough to try and discredit me.”

The email was sent to Jeremy Reynalds, a British Christian living in New Mexico who also monitors Islamic extremist websites – I noted his efforts in this regard in a positive blog entry I made in 2005. Reynalds also tells us that Jenvey is a different person from “Jonathan Galt”, a name which has appeared on Jenvey’s website occasionally and which I thought was a Jenvey pseudonym.

This is the second communication from Jenvey about the controversy since the “Abu Islam” story broke; as I noted previously, an anonymous comment on the blog of “Lionheart” carries the claim that:

Glen jenvey has agreeded for his hard drive on his computer to be read by a expert from the PCC and any other Newspaper.which will show he made no postings on ummah.com.

Curiously, this was followed by other comments written in the same style and published shortly after, but supposedly by different people – when Tim Ireland (who first noted the problem with “Abu Islam”) suggested sock-puppetry, these extra comments were removed and replaced by others.

Reynalds’ report goes on to complain about other extremist postings on the Ummah site, but neither he nor Jenvey address the points raised by Tim Ireland’s investigation – points which cannot be evaded simply by suggesting that posters and moderators at Ummah might have unpalatable views. In particular, it must be stressed that Ummah did not originally claim that “Abu Islam” was Glen Jenvey – the site linked “Abu Islam” to “Richard Tims”, who was spamming on behalf of a (now defunct) website which Tim Ireland noticed was owned by Jenvey. If Jenvey wants to email statements, these are the issues he must address:

1. Who is Richard Tims, and why was he spamming Jenvey’s “Sell Your Story” website on the websites of Ummah and of Jenvey’s friend “Lionheart”?

2. Given that Richard Tims’ message gave very little away and gave no indication of being either pro and anti Muslim, how would anyone at Ummah have known that a fake link to Jenvey could be made by linking Tims to “Abu Islam”?

3. Why didn’t Ummah make the link themselves? Surely we can’t be expected to believe that the moderators faked the trail and then were just waiting around on the off-chance that an unconnected blogger might happen to pass by and work it all out by checking “Sell Your Story” at Whois?

Mike Evans Asks Readers to Buy Multiple Copies of his Books

Bill Berkowitz gives us the latest on Christian Zionist Mike Evans, in the wake of Evans’ new book, Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos (the only book so far published by his TimeWorthy Books). Berkowitz highlights Evans’ shameless marketing techniques:

In an early September e-mail to his supporters, Evans reported some breaking news involving Iran. He claimed that he had received information from a number of Iraqi and Israeli leaders that Iran was “planning a major surge in the next 30 days to kill as many American troops as possible. They believe in doing so they can undermine the success of the U.S. surge and John McCain’s hopes of becoming President.”

…Evans had an unusual idea for dealing with this startling information: He suggested that the best thing his supporters could do would be to head over to “Amazon.com right now and purchase as many copies of The Final Move Beyond Iraq as possible.”  

Why rush off to Amazon.com? “Because this is the only book that reveals Iran’s plans in Iraq. More importantly if you can drive the book to Amazon’s Top Ten bestseller list, the network shows will be calling and inviting me to speak to tens of millions of people. I need to wake up the American people and government so they can pray and prepare for this attack that is coming. You can save American lives by helping me get on the major networks.”

I blogged on Evans’s Final Move Beyond Iraq book here. Both Evans and John Hagee boast of links with Israeli leaders and briefings from intelligence experts (see here, for instance). However:

Despite the bluster and Evans’ certainty, there was no discernable Iranian surge. How many books were sold is unclear.

Bill also notes that

Evans also makes an awkward confession: It appears that he wrote a scathing review of one of Carter’s books and posted it under the initials MD. And his ruse was discovered. “My name is Michael David,” Evans writes, “and those initials stand for that. Had I used ‘ME’ for Mike Evans, my critics would have thought I was posting a crank review.)”

The review is now available under his own name here. It includes the gem that

With characteristic naivete, Carter pressured the shah to allow more political freedom. While some 300 political prisoners were released, censorship was relaxed, and judicial reforms initiated, the youth of Iran were swarming to radical Islam.

Presumably Evans would have preferred a continuation of SAVAK-led torture and oppression (which was probably unsustainable anyway).

MD’s other reviews can be seen here -or rather it’s more or less the same screed spammed onto more than a dozen right-wing potboilers. Certainly, the word “crank” does come to mind.

Apocalyptic Christian Zionist Magazine Cover

lamplighter

This is the magazine of “Lamb and Lion Ministries”, run by David Reagan. In in fact, Reagan does not think that the anti-Christ will be a Muslim, and in the magazine he has a long piece that instead favours the more usual (albeit just as nonsensical) “Revived Roman Empire” theory of the Last Days. I’ve blogged the unedifying debate here.

John Hagee, meanwhile, promotes the idea – like the late Jerry Falwell – that the anti-Christ will be at least partially Jewish. I look forward to a future issue of Lamplighter with a photo of a Haredi above the caption “Will the Antichrist be a Jew?”

Or might that be in bad taste?