Bartholomew's Notes

From the JTA:

Should Bat El Levy be asked at Israel’s international youth Bible quiz next week about the messiah’s coming, she may find herself in a bind.

The 17-year-old Jerusalem girl is a world-class scriptural scholar who, as it happens, believes in Jesus.

It might never have been an issue were it not for the sleuthing of an Israeli anti-missionary group, Yad LeAhim, which sees Levy’s participation in the annual Jewish Bible contest as a threat to Judaism.

Yad LeAhim director Shlomo Dov Lipschitz circulated a letter to Israel’s top rabbis last week calling for pressure on the Education Ministry to disqualify Levy from the quiz, which takes place annually on Israeli Independence Day.

…Lipschitz argued that Levy, who comes from a family of messianic Jews — who believe Jesus is the messiah — should not be considered Jewish.

Various Israeli rabbis have joined the chorus against the teenager; the Jerusalem Post reports:

“Messianics are missionaries who proselytize in very sophisticated ways,” said Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, one of the rabbis calling to boycott the quiz.

“It is forbidden to give them legitimacy by allowing them to take part in the quiz.”

Other rabbis that have called to boycott the quiz include Shmuel Eliyahu, chief rabbi of Safed, Ya’acov Yosef, son of Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Tzvi Tau, head of Har Hamor Yeshiva.

Lipschitz is a somewhat sinister figure, and he has featured on this blog before; back in 2005 I quoted a couple of articles about him:

Yad L’achim mainly targets the two largest Christian sects seeking to convert Jews – the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Messianic Jews – but also goes after Scientology, Hare Krishna, Falun Gong, Landmark Forum and other cults operating in Jerusalem and elsewhere.

“Over the years we’ve brought back hundreds of Jews who had gone over to Christianity, and we’ve prevented the assimilation of many thousands of others who had started the process by going to a lecture or two from the missionaries,” says Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifschitz, who co-founded Yad L’Achim in 1950. He emphasizes repeatedly that Yad L’Achim “has nothing whatsoever against Christians in Israel, just against missionaries.”

And:

…”When we find out a missionary is working at a company, we go to the boss and explain to him that there are plenty of ways to fire the worker without anybody being the wiser. This way there’s no trouble with the courts, the media, and with Meretz.

“Some bosses are smart, they understand, and they deal with the problem quietly. I’d say we’ve done this with nearly 10 different companies,” said Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifschitz, head of Yad L’Achim.

Another prominent member of the organization is Alex Artovsky, whom Israeli Jehovah’s Witnesses have accused of leading a campaign of harassment.

The Bible Quiz is properly known as the International Chidon HaTanach, and it was established by David Ben-Gurion. According to the JTA:

A ministry spokesman said that issues of personal belief were not the organizers’ concern and that because Levy “is Jewish according to her Israeli identity cards and school registration,” she can take part in the contest.

That of course still leaves a question-mark over the participation of non-Israeli Messianic Jews (although a recent Israeli court ruling may be of some relevance here), but one wonders how Messianics could be excluded but not other Jews who choose not to follow the usual forms of Judaism, or who are non-religious – a Messianic advocate quoted by the Post points to the Lubavitch Messianists, who believe that the late Menachem Schneerson is the messiah. And is it not unfair anyway for the Israeli Education Ministry to organize a competition with a prize which is not open to non-Jewish Israelis?

(Note on names: Yad LeAhim and Yad L’Achim appear to be same organization. There is, though, also another anti-“missionary” group called Lev L’Achim, which I blogged on here.)

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WND touts the upcoming “Southern California Strategic Perspectives Conference“:

WND founder Joseph Farah joins “Left Behind” author Tim LaHaye, former terrorist Walid Shoebat, evangelist Ray Comfort, best-selling author Joel Rosenberg, Koinonia Institute founder Chuck Missler and more…

Other presenters will include Gen. Shimon Erem of the Israel Defense Forces, radio commentator and author Paul McGuire and archeologist Bob Cornuke.

The conference takes place at Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills and is jointly sponsored by the Koinonia Institute and radio station KBRT.

Most of these characters, of course, need no introduction, although it’s fun to see them lined up together. Perhaps there will be a learned debate between LaHaye and Cornuke on the location of Noah’s ark: LaHaye once wrote a paperback entitled The Ark on Ararat, while Cornuke (whose archaeological qualifications come from Louisiana Baptist University) insists that he found it on Mount Suleiman in Iran. Maybe someone will give Shoebat the chance to clarify some of the weird inconsistencies in his account of his past as a terrorist, or ask him about his recent threats to sue those who have suggested he made it all up. And if we’re really lucky, Ray Comfort will be bringing along his banana to compare with Chuck Missler’s jar of peanut butter; both men have argued that these foodstuffs refute the theory of evolution (see here).

The elderly Shimon Erem, meanwhile, is apparently “considered by many as the ‘patriarch’ of the L.A. Israeli community”, and he liaises with Christian Zionists through the “Israel Christian Nexus“, through which he exhorts Christians to support Israel because “we are on the side of God — and God supports Israel”. According to the programme he will speak on “Israel at 60 what does the future hold” (sic for punctuation); this could be interesting, since unlike LaHaye he presumably doesn’t believe “the future” involves Israel being tricked by the anti-Christ, millions of Jews being slaughtered during the Last Days, and the survivors becoming Christians.

I covered Rosenberg’s apocalyptic ruminations just recently, while Chuck Missler’s Koinonia Institute organised the Christian Zionist tour to Israel which I blogged on a few months ago.

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At Talk to Action.

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The new Private Eye (1209 p. 7) reports on a peace initiative in Sudan led by Lord Ahmed and Yvonne Ridley, and supposedly launched on behalf of British Muslims. Alas, the signs are not good:

Bizarrely, Ahmed and Ridley were stewarded around Khartoum and Darfur by David Hoile, whom older readers may recall from the 1980s as a noisy Conservative student famous for wearing “Hang Nelson Mandela” stickers. Having allied himself with an exotic assortment of rebels and terrorists over the years – the Nicaraguan Contras, Unita in Angola, Renamo in Mozambique – he now works as an adviser and apologist for the Sudanese government, mainly through his European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council in London.

And readers not old enough to recall his 1980s exploits might at least remember his 2001 spat with the Guardian, after the paper printed the claim that he had worn a “Hang Mandela” t-shirt; Hoile insisted it was untrue, and the Guardian issued a correction:

…There is no evidence that Dr Hoile ever wore a ‘Hang Mandela’ T-shirt…Furthermore, Dr Hoile wishes to say equally categorically that at no time did he propose a motion at Warwick University that ‘Nelson Mandela is a terrorist and should be hanged’ nor would he have done so.

A few days later an old photograph emerged showing Hoile sporting a “Hang Mandela” sticker. The Guardian’s readers’ editor Ian Mayes gives further details:

I rang up Dr Hoile on the day of publication and suggested that he owed the Guardian an apology. Dr Hoile apologised profusely to me for any “embarrassment” he had caused me personally. He insisted, however, that word for word, the correction remained correct. He had absolutely no recollection of wearing anything of the kind shown in the photograph, but he had known beyond any doubt that he had not worn a Hang Mandela T-shirt.

Hoile’s adventures are also recounted in Conservative Radicalism, a book on the libertarian right in the UK written by one of the movement’s exponents, Timothy Evans (pp. 40–41):

In May 1985 David Hoile outraged many outside the FCS [Federation of Conservative Students] by going on a secret fact-finding mission to Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua…As well as spending eight days on patrol with Nicaraguan Contras, Hoile told of how he had carried a Kalashnikov, adding: ‘it was a very enjoyable experience’…The Guardian story carried a photograph of Hoile at a Contra camp surrounded by armed soldiers…

The Rhodesian-born Hoile was an FCS vice-president, and he was also involved with the Libertarian Alliance, whose current leader, Sean Gabb, shares his enthusiasm for Sudan. A 1987 Guardian Diary piece also makes a link with the South African Embassy in London:

…Between 6pm and 8pm tomorrow some 150 selected members of the Young Conservatives will be guests at the South African Embassy for a drinks party. According to the invitation, the host is the Counsellor at the Embassy, a Mr. C. Raubenheimer, and the shindig is to mark the departure of a Mr. P. Goossen…The invitation list was drawn up with the help of David Hoyle [sic], chairman of the Conservative Student Foreign Affairs Group, who devotes a lot of his time arranging support for the Nicaraguan contras. (1)

Among those invited were Andrew Rosindell (misspelt as “Rosendale”), now an MP but then chairman of the Greater London Young Conservatives (the GLYCs had sent a delegation to meet independent student groups in South Africa in 1985) and a certain Paul Staines.

I discussed some of this in February.

(1) Edward Vulliamy, “People Diary”, in The Guardian, 24 September 1987.

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New wife was Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa

One of the more interesting African neo-Pentecostal leaders is the Ghanaian Archbishop Nicholas Duncan Williams, founder of Action Faith Ministries International. Duncan Williams, who preaches a message of prosperity and success, underwent a turbulent divorce and remarriage to his first wife Francisca between 1998 and 2001, and their second marriage fell apart in 2005 despite interventions from T.D. Jakes and Morris Cerullo. Duncan Williams has now married for a third time, and this time the bride is someone different. Joy Online reports:

…Then last Saturday April 19, 2008, news came out that Archbishop Duncan-Williams was remarrying in Maryland in the United States of America.

He got married to a successful African American public official and entrepreneur, Ms. Rosa Whitaker, who wields so much influence in the United States and across Africa as the Chief Executive Officer of The Whitaker Group.

That the new wife is American is not surprising – Duncan Williams has been mainly based in the USA for the past few years.

The Whitaker Group website has some background on the new wife:

TWG was founded by Rosa Whitaker, the first-ever Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa under the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and William J. Clinton. Prior to founding TWG, she was an architect of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and worked on World Trade Organization (WTO) and other trade initiatives directly under the current Chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, Charles B. Rangel, and the current President of the World Bank, Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick. With more than 25 years of Africa experience, Ms. Whitaker has an extensive network of high-level contacts in the U.S. government and business community as well as public and private sectors throughout Africa.

Whitaker’s clients have included President Museveni of Uganda; at least one commentator there is sniffy about her efforts for AGOA:

Ugandans should have a special interest in Ms Rosa Whitaker; not only because she was the assistant United States trade representative to Africa when AGOA sounded like a sub-county in heaven, but also because through her company, the Whitaker Group, she was later to be employed by the Uganda government as the country’s AGOA consultant, some kind of USA-based market scout for Ugandan goods, with a thinly veiled role as spinner for Museveni’s politics.

Ghanaweb adds criticism from the other side of the continent:

President J. A. Kufuor has engaged another American lady, this time an African American, as a Special Advisor on AGOA. Her name is Rosa Whitaker, and she is paid a whopping US$300,000.00…per year, effective March 2005 when she signed the contract with the Government of Ghana.

…Whitaker stands out as an example why Washington officials are increasingly debating what constitutes a conflict of interest in such comings and goings. Whitaker set up the first in a series of business relationships with African leaders and countries while still working as the U.S trade representative’s top official for Africa, according to our sources, correspondence and other documents obtained by the LA Times. By March, she had signed the contract with Ghana, also for $300,000 a year, to consult on the law, known as the African Growth and Opportunity Act or AGOA. “It looks like she’s trading off on her expertise and credentials and in a really blatant way”, said Larry Noble, head of the Centre for Responsible Politics, a Washington watchdog group. Whitaker said her private pursuits were above board and approved in advance by the Trade Representative’s office.

The Ugandan connection had an unhappy sequel last July:

An American adviser to the NRM government on trade and investment has lost a preliminary appeal in a U.S. court to dismiss a fraud case filed against her by her Ugandan housemaid.

Ms Idah Zirintusa, a former State House employee, sued Ms Rosa Whitaker in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for fraud, unjust enrichment, and illegal interference with her earlier contract with State House.

…In the pleadings, a copy of which Daily Monitor has obtained, Ms Zirintusa further says that Ms Whitaker violated various provisions of the US Fair Labour Standards Act, D.C. Payment and Collection of Wages Law, and D.C. Minimum Wage Act by failing to pay her the minimum wage and overtime fee to which she was entitled for the domestic services she provided Ms Whitaker and her friend Ms Pauline Harris.

…The court found that Ms Whitaker falsely promised Ms Zirintusa that if she accepted her offer of employment, the American lobbyist would provide payments for the care and support of the accuser’s family in Uganda.

Whitaker – rather shabbily – offered the defence that “Ms Zirintusa could not sustain her claims because she was not legally permitted to work in the United States”.

Duncan Williams (whom I discussed here on Talk to Action) teaches that prosperity comes through divine laws of sowing and reaping, and that a pastor should manifest success in his personal lifestyle. A high-flying businesswoman is certainly an appropriate catch; and for her being married to a man of God will perhaps have the added bonus of dampening controversy over TWG.

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Admits NY “Madrassa” claim was “a bit of a stretch”

From the New York Times:

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

This was the Khalil Gibran International Academy, and as was widely reported last year, the school became a centre of controversy in large part to a campaign inspired by Daniel Pipes and organised as the “Stop the Madrassa Coalition”. Now Pipes makes a casual admission:

…Given how little Mr. Pipes knew about the school at the time, the word [madrassa] was “a bit of a stretch,” he said in a recent interview. He defended its use as a way to “get attention” for the cause.

How “a bit of a stretch” to “get attention” is distinct from a deliberate mischaracterisation to capitalise on fear and prejudice is not clear.

The Times also notes a Pipes article from the New York Sun:

…he referred to Ms. Almontaser by her birth name, Dhabah, and called her views “extremist.” He cited an article in which she was quoted as saying about 9/11, “I don’t recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.” (As The Jewish Week later reported, Mr. Pipes left out the second half of the quote: “Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and have stolen my religion.”)

That Pipes is a dishonest demagogue isn’t exactly news, though. Christopher Hitchens provided a few examples back in 2003, observing that “…he employs the fears and insecurities created by Islamic extremism to slander or misrepresent those who disagree with him.” Hitchens complains that Pipes is “useless” as an effective opponent of Islamic extremism because of this tendency.

Meanwhile, Pipes’ blog has a couple of paragraphs about the NY Times article, in which he whinges:

Of interest particularly to me was to learn that in mid-2007 (no specific date provided), David Cantor, chief spokesman for the NYC Department of Education, wrote an e-mail message to Seth Lipsky, editor of The New York Sun: “I won’t allow Dan Pipes a free pass to smear Debbie Almontaser as an Islamist proselytizer who denies Muslim involvement in 9/11. It is a false picture and an ugly effort.” Comment: Excuse me, but is this the way for public officials to refer to critics?

Answer to comment: Yes, when the “critic” is Daniel Pipes. If anything, Cantor was too restrained.

(Hat tip: The Revealer, which notes that the article’s author, Andrea Elliott, won a Pulitzer last year)

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MediaWatchWatch draws attention to a statement from the Christian Legal Centre:

A LONDON Mayoral candidate is taking the BBC and ITV to the High Court for ‘censoring’ his Party Election Broadcasts in the run up to the May 1 elections.

The Christian Choice candidate, Alan Craig, has instructed the Christian Legal Centre to file papers this morning at the Royal Courts of Justice after BBC and ITV officials instructed him to remove parts of his Party Election Broadcast which was aired on Wednesday evening (23 April).

Craig had wanted to say that

“You may know about plans by a separatist Islamic group to build Europe’s biggest mosque next to the Olympics site in West Ham. I think it’s a bad idea that will bring division and I’m glad moderate Muslims support my stance in opposing it.”

According to the statement:

BBC didn’t like “separatist” (said it was libellous) or “moderate” (which implied that the unnamed Tablighi Jamaat were extremist).

I expect the BBC actually said it was “potentially libellous”, but the effect is the same.  Craig changed “separatist” to “controversial”; ITV then insisted that the word “controversial” should apply only to the plans for the “mega-mosque” rather than to the group, and that he should clarify that only “some” Muslim leaders agreed with his concerns.

As I have noted on this blog more than once over the past couple of years, libel in the UK can be an extremely expensive business, so we can well understand why the BBC and ITV have decided to be cautious – even though Tablighi Jamaat have in the past been called worse than “separatist” and “controversial” with no legal repercussions.

It’s also not the first time that concerns over libel have led to an election broadcast being censored: I have read (sorry, I don’t have the reference) that in the 1970s the BBC refused to broadcast an advert by the Labour Party which referred to the fact that John Tyndall, the leader of the far-right National Front, had once been found guilty of a weapons offence. The BBC feared the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which makes it libellous to mention a “spent” conviction if “malice” can be proven; despite the obvious public interest, the BBC decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

Meanwhile, the Christian Legal Centre is an unlikely opponent of censorship: judging from the “blasphemy” section of its website, the organization appears to have no problem with some things being banned.

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The Joseph Farah-CAIR dispute continues: as my previous two blog entries noted, Farah has been complaining that CAIR has incorrectly attributed to him the idea that pigs blood should be air-dropped over Afghanistan, and that such a false statement is defamatory and dangerous. CAIR has now corrected its statement, pointing out that in fact it was referring to a WND column by another author, Paul Sperry, which advocated dropping leaflets over Kabul threatening to put pig’s blood in the water supply.

Farah responds to CAIR’s lawyer:

I continued: “Perhaps a second or third reading of Paul Sperry’s column by Hooper and you will help you realize what anyone should be able to comprehend in the context of the complete column – that it was satire…”

Yes, it’s the old “it was only a joke” defence, as used for years by bullies and bigots when challenged over their behaviour. Farah also points out that Sperry’s column was written shortly after 9/11.

Of course, spotting satire on WND is rather difficult when you have to wade through columns and reports arguing that the Holocaust was caused by Darwinism, that child abuse in the Roman Catholic church is down to subliminal occult imagery in artwork, and that the pyramids were built by the Nephilim – not to mention the never-ending farrago of nonsense from WND columnists such as Hal Lindsey.

Farah also complains that:

It’s not true that WND is an “an extremist hate site” that “promotes hate every day”…Knowing the kind of people who listen to Hooper, it is very dangerous to be mislabeled as an anti-Muslim extremist.

This comes as Farah headlines his dispute with CAIR as “US Muslims spewing bile”. For a long time WND also promoted Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) under the banner “Shock a Muslim – With the Truth!”, the “Truth” being that

When PC propagandists assure us that jihadist terror doesn’t reflect “true,” “peaceful” Islam, they’re not only wrong, they’re dangerous — because they lull America and the West into letting their guard down against their mortal enemy. And not only do self-appointed “experts” lie elaborately and persistently about Islam — they have also replaced the truth about Christian Europe and the Crusades with an all-pervasive historical fantasy that is designed to make you ashamed of your own culture and heritage — and thus less determined to defend it.

Many more examples can be dredged up, although perhaps not literally for “every day”, and there’s also his continued advocacy for the anti-Muslim demagogue Michael Savage. And let’s not forget more general observations on WND, such as this one from Jack Wheeler:

…neither the adoption of Islam nor all the intervening centuries since has decreased the addiction Arab men have to pederasty…

Farah wants us to believe that Hooper has put him danger because WND has just published a book of ex-Muslim testimonies (with an Islamic portrait of Muhammad on the cover for good measure), and he is desperate to concoct a controversy around it. His target readers, however, will be perplexed as to why Farah is now trying to distance himself from the anti-Muslim views which he has been feeding them for years.

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From WND:

Now consider how dangerous it is for me when the spokesman for this Islamic lobby, with countless connections to terrorism, asserts this prima facie libelous mischaracterization about me – an Arab-American seen by some in the Arab world as a traitor because of his pro-American stands, his commitment to Jesus Christ and his defense of the Jews.

Hooper put a target on my back.

As I blogged yesterday, Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR had dismissed the new WND book Why We Left Islam with the accusation that Farah had once suggested that pig’s blood should be air-dropped across Afghanistan. Farah denies this, although he fails to tell us that he did once publish a column by another author suggesting that the US should drop leaflets over the country threatening to put pig’s blood into Kabul’s water supply (this was in late September 2001). Of course the inaccuracy should be corrected, but Hooper’s garbled version hardly amounts to putting “a target” on Farah’s back. However, Farah is desperate to generate a controversy around the book, hence the feeble suggestion of some kind of threat to his person.

Farah goes on to ponder the possibility of legal action, asking us questions like “Will I get a fair shake in America’s politically correct courtrooms?” and “Are there sharp lawyers brave enough to take my case?” He also commends Michael Savage’s legal efforts against CAIR:

My friend Michael Savage is doing just that – and I commend him for it. But I know the sacrifice he is making by getting down into the gutter with these people. I would urge you to contribute to his legal defense fund so he can pursue his lawsuit against CAIR for as long as it takes to win.

As I blogged at the time, Savage’s original legal suit was dismissed in March, although he was allowed to submit an amended version. However, if Farah finds being accused of anti-Muslim hate so objectionable, why he so keen to identify with a man whose whole reputation is based on vulgar rants about Muslims “getting on…all-fours and braying to Mecca” and suchlike?

UPDATE: More today.

UPDATE 2: Terry Krepel of Conwebwatch observes that:

Since WND is less a “news” website than a platform to advance the personal views and agenda of its founder and editor — Farah — it’s a logical assumption that Farah condones, if not approves, such actions. For Farah to narrowly defend himself and portray CAIR’s claim as completely baseless is disingenuous and a cynical attempt to sell books.

And as for Farah’s demand that the New York Daily News, which printed Hooper’s comment, should give him right of reply, Krepel

…WND regularly attacks people and organizations without giving them an opportunity to respond — columnist Olivia St. John is just one recent example. And “print[ing] accurate and truthful statements about known individuals – named or not” is simply not WND is known for, despite what Farah would like us to believe — just ask Clark Jones. Or Barack Obama. Or Islamic Relief. Or Michael Schaivo. Or Teresa Heinz Kerry. Or…

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…but has to make do with snark from CAIR

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah rubs his hands with glee at the thought of a new WND book provoking an immoderate reaction from Muslims:

“If Muslims rioted around the world after a Danish newspaper published a political cartoon making fun of Muhammad, what will they do in response to this?”

Farah is referring to Why We Left Islam, a collection of testimonies from ex-Muslims which is decorated by a medieval Persian portrait of Muhammad, and which argues that terrorism is the “real face” of Islam. Farah quotes CAIR:

“This book is put out by WND Publishing (sic), which promotes hate every day on its extremist anti-Muslim hate site,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, told the New York Daily News. “The editor is a guy who suggested air-dropping pig’s blood over Afghanistan. There are 7 million American Muslims and over a billion worldwide who love Islam and practice it peaceably on a daily basis.”

So, no calls for the book to be banned or for the authors to be hunted down, but Farah – who is quick to headline this as “U.S Muslims spewing venom” on his front page – makes the best of it:

“CAIR can always be counted upon to make wildly untruthful and reckless claims about others, while maintaining a hypersensitivity about its own concerns…Here, for example, Hooper makes this claim that WND promotes anti-Muslim hate on its site every day, offering only one example – and that one is totally untrue.”

Well, Hooper’s claim is somewhat garbled, but it’s not “wildly” off-base. Probably he was thinking of this late September WND 2001 column, by Paul Sperry:

U.S. forces should start by dropping leaflets over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, warning residents, in their native Persian tongue, that we’ve enlisted Afghani moles to contaminate their water supplies with pig’s blood.

Sperry – whose Muslims-under-the-bed book Infiltration was recently commended to Christian Zionists at a Jerusalem conference by Retired Lt. Gen William Boykin – sees the Islamic prohibition on pork as a morbid horror rather than as simply a religious taboo, and he claims that “pigs are to Islamic terrorists – such as Osama bin Laden and his henchmen – what kryptonite is to Superman, or what garlic is to Dracula.”

Why We Left Islam is edited by Susan Crimp and Joel Richardson. Crimp is a veteran journalist-biographer, and her past subjects include Joan Collins, Elton John, and the Kennedys; she has also written a book on Mother Teresa, entitled Touched by a Saint. Richardson, meanwhile, is the author of Antichrist: Islam’s Awaited Messiah, which, according to an endorsement from Pastor Reza Safa, “is central to recognizing the fulfilment of Biblical End-Times prophecy in our day and understanding the role that Islam plays in it”; Robert Spencer adds that it’s a “must read”. “Richardson” is apparently a pseudonym due to death threats, although no details are given.

Joseph Farah, of course, has a bit of a problem: we wants us to hate and fear Muslims, but as a Christian dominionist he also despises habits of religious moderation, pluralism, secularism, and respect for reason which would provide a sensible way forward for the Muslim world. Richardson’s Islam-obsessed rehash of the familiar themes of “Last Days” Christian prophecy paperbacks would suggest that he’s just the man to present the stories of ex-Muslims without seriously raising any general criticisms of religion.

UPDATE: Joseph Farah Threatens Libel Action

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