One of the chief distinctions between the anti-Israel rally and the slightly smaller, yet equally exuberant, pro-Israel counter-demonstration held in Times Square this weekend was the sentiments expressed by the participants. While the former vocalized their antipathy towards Israel and the United States and demanded ordinary Israelis be punished-through measures such as the BDS movement-and spent most of their time anathematizing Jews in the most historically inaccurate way possible, the latter concentrated mostly upon messages of solidarity with Israel.

There were, of course, expressions of hostility towards the jihadists who have instigated the current wave of bloodshed, and who continued to barrage terrified Israeli civilians with Iranian-designed missiles even as this was being written.

However, I saw no generalized contempt for the Palestinian people, or even the bellicose Islamist leaders of neighboring countries who exhorted those currently entrusted with power in the Gaza Strip to stand their ground.

The overwhelming sentiment was one of resilience, not hatred, and was expressed through chants like “Am Yisrael Chai,” the people of Israel live, and the singing of the Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel.

As well as an attempt to convey, in concrete terms, the intensity of the terror ordinary civilians, especially those living in southern Israel, experience on a daily basis.

And to connect the coercive violence aimed at Israel to the jihadist attacks carried out against similar Western nations throughout the globe.

Specifically, the United States, which has endured jihadist attacks for the past several decades, including lethal assaults initiated by the men currently in charge of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip.

Needless to say, there are legitimate critiques to be made of the methods Israel employed in responding to the rocket war waged by Hamas, as well as unaffiliated jihadist and Palestinian gangs. If nothing else, the fact that Hamas has been able to enchance its growing diplomatic standing in the Middle East-while preserving its vast, Iranian-supplied weapons arsenal-and was able to deter Israel from a ground invasion bodes ill for the security of Israeli citizens, to say nothing of those Palestinians who will be the unfortunate human shields in future military engagements.

Whether or not the result of this conflict constitutes a victory for Hamas, it is clear to all but the most deluded observers that it is a defeat for the adversaries of Hamas. Rather than Thing, a.k.a. Ben Grimm, Israel reacted to this assault in the dithering, indecisive manner of Shakespeare’s tragic hero, Hamlet. And as we all know, this strategy, if it can be called that, only leads to more bloodshed in the future.

Perhaps most disconcertingly, the inhumanity and barbarity of Islamic law was papered over by the persistently hostile mass media which reported on the Gaza conflict.

As these images from the public execution and dismemberment of suspected “collaborators,” which has drawn remarkably little attention from the fifth estate-with some notable exceptions-demonstrate.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the collective expression of support for Israel we’ve witnessed in New York City, whether from ordinary citizens or self-interested pols, is going to have much of an impact on public discourse. The sad truth is that the dominant media narrative, i.e. Palestinians as perpetual victim and Israel as eternal aggressor, is going to remain in place for the foreseeable future, and not even the most well crafted, factually accurate  publicity campaign is going to alter the status quo.

In fact, it could be argued that the appeal of the formulaic, anti-Israel meta narrative will only grow as those sympathetic to the Islamist cause gain an even surer foothold in the corporate world, within Congress and among influential media organs. The only way to counter this cresting tide is, to paraphrase the great Franz Kafka, take an axe to the frozen sea inside of us. Or in this case, the ice inside of those who willfully ignore the truth before them.

The truth, like life, is not pretty, but it must be told. Israel, like most of the West,  faces an existential struggle. Its preservation does not hinge upon a slick media relations campaign, or a superficially persuasive viral video, but upon disabusing spectators of the fallacies that underlie much of received wisdom about this conflict. And the only way to accomplish that goal is by telling the truth about jihadist dogma and how it informs the actions of  organizations like Hamas.

Flags of Freedom.

So goes the poem by iconic English writer Rudyard Kipling, a man who brilliantly limned the boundaries-be they political, cultural, or mental-which separate the East from the West. However, one commonality that both share, unfortunately, is the proliferation of a muscular, revanchist Islam intent upon dominating, if not eliminating altogether, its perceived adversaries. The penultimate panel of the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress examined countries which find themselves mired in “Stage 3″ of the illness known as Islamic jihad, as we heard from three distinguished freedom activists who hail from societies which are on the front lines of the clash of civilizations.

Credit: Atlas Shrugs 

Considering that the spark for this latest iteration of global jihad was touched off in Cairo, it’s only appropriate that Ashraf Rameleh, the founder and president of the Voice of the Copts, spoke to the assembled about the 14 century-long subjugation of indigenous Egyptians by the forces of Islam. He contextualized the violence unleashed against Egypt’s remnant of believers in Christ by the Muslim Brotherhood and its Salafist allies by recounting his own personal biography, which has led him from being a persecuted minority within his homeland to a successful post-graduate education and architectural career in both Italy and the United States. The 9/11 attacks initiated by Al Qaeda upon his adopted homeland prompted him to delve more deeply into the world of anti-Islamist, pro-freedom political activism, the center of which became a campaign to raise awareness about the besieged community of Coptic Christians living in Egypt.

Although Copts were beleaguered iconoclasts among the Christian establishment of the Byzantine Empire, the true tragedy of their story began to unfold with the invasion of Egypt  by Umar’s Islamic armies. After several centuries, and the imposition of the jizya upon non-Islamic subjects, their country was transmuted into the Arab-Muslim state we’ve now come to associate with political and social regression, as well as both international and domestic terrorism.

However, even after Egypt had been fully conquered by the descendants of Mohammed, the full complement of sharia law was not implemented for many years. The provisional constitution of 2011 enshrines the primacy of Islam as a source of legislation, a plank that will inevitably be carried over into the new constitution. The warnings voiced by Ashraf Rameleh are important because they foreshadow the path our own country might take if we make any concessions to the notion of a dual legal system which recognizes sharia-either in civil or criminal matters.

The call by Mohammed Morsi to ban speech Muslims consider blasphemous is merely the prelude to a wider war the resurgent ummah and its allies will wage against the freedoms we once treasured in the West. By being the proverbial canary in the coal mine, Egypt’s Coptic Christians serve as a template for what will we happen if we don’t resist the forces harnessed on behalf of Muslim rage. By continuing to yield our freedoms to a totalitarian ideology, we are ensuring that the Copts will not be the last victims of the jihadist mentality.

Someone who is intimately familiar with that way of thinking is  Mordechai Kedar, an Arabic literature scholar from Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Kedar noted that his country, Israel, was under constant bombardment from its foes not merely because of its unique character as the sole Jewish state, but also because it serves as a symbolic avatar of the United States; little Satan to our Great Satan. The freedoms, including freedom of speech, which Israelis esteem are the same freedoms that Americans enjoy, but which is under withering attack by institutional forces sympathetic to Islam.

One of the more intriguing aspects of his speech touched upon the dichotomous nature of Islam’s response to criticism of its holy book and prophet, and by extension, its core religious tenets. He made the astute observation that Islam is not opposed to criticism per se, a point illustrated by the rejection-and conversely, codification-of certain hadiths that met with either approval or disapproval among the ruling ulama. No, what Islam’s adherents categorically reject is criticism and/or dissent from Islamic dogma by non-Muslims, i.e. kufr. Because Islam views itself as superior to all other faith systems, it cannot scruple any evidence that contradicts the revealed truth of the Koran which emanates from Christians or Jews, much less Hindus, Buddhists or atheists.

It is precisely this sense of superiority which makes the wave of Islamic immigration which has submerged the continent of Europe over the past half-century such an existential crisis. Dr. Kader’s identification of the demographic implosion European nations have undergone in the past half-century-and its attempt to mask this dilemma by importing bodies from the Middle East and North Africa-is not a novel concept. See Mark Steyn. However, I appreciated his honesty in pinpointing one of the main reasons for this crisis. Namely, the lack of will among Europeans to produce future generations of Europeans. The mass influx of Muslim immigrants into EU countries can be traced to a number of factors, but two of the most prominent-as Dr. Kader delineated in his speech-are the attempt by their nations of origin to displace economic-hence, political-discontent, and the slow, yet inexorable, death spiral of Europe. Personally, I don’t think Dr. Kader spent enough time examining the fundamentally undemocratic nature of Europe’s management of mass immigration, but I do applaud his refreshing willingness to “call a spade a spade.”

An equally blunt assessment of the dire nature of the threat Asia-and by inference, the West-faces came from Babu Suseelan, who hails from India, a cautionary tale on the perils of inter-communal relations, especially within those nations whose inhabitants disagree with regard to the virtue of Islamic teachings. Although most here might remember the exchange of citizens that occurred between India and Pakistan after the former’s postcolonial partition in 1949, what most aren’t aware of is the fact that over thirteen percent of the Indian population remains committed to various forms of Islam.

Although often portrayed as a tolerant, peaceful minority within the larger mosaic of a multi-confessional state, Muslims within India have had a checkered past that begins with the 7th century Arab-Muslim invasions of Punjab and Sindh and continued with a series of holocausts which-as Dr. Suseelan noted-have no equal in the history of religious persecution, and whose number of victims are conservatively placed at 80 million. Deobandism  takes its name from a center of Islamic “learning” that-although touted for its deceptively pacific overtures-is the Indian analogue to the obscurantist Islamic doctrine which took down the World Trade Center, and is responsible for the wave of “martyrs” who regularly slaughter innocents throughout the Indian subcontinent and South and Central Asia.

Yet the true threat posed by Islam is not merely terrorist violence-as horrific as this manifestation of jihad might be-which is merely an expedient to an end, rather than an end in itself. The mortal threat inherent in Islam is its persistent ability to circumscribe the terms of debate and discussion in heretofore open societies. The decision by the government of Rajiv Gandhi to ban the importation of The Satanic Verses, and the fact that public readings of this work are not allowed to take place-even as its author promotes his new memoir recounting his years in hiding from Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa-is testament to the enduring power of Islam to silence its critics, even in purportedly free societies. We’ve already witnessed scenes on American soil that are reminiscent of courageous Bengali writer Taslima Nasreen’s flight from India; how long before the right to dissent from Islamic orthodoxy is proscribed altogether? The banning of books is the gateway to the banning of ideas.

This is precisely why the question of Islam’s place in Western society must be debated and discussed openly, especially in countries like ours, which still has yet to bear the full brunt of a comprehensive ideology which seeks to consign its critics to the same fate as that of the courageous refuseniks who rejected the groupthink imposed by leaders of the former USSR. Whether the resolution to this problem is to enact a wholesale ban on Muslim immigration-as Mr. Susaleen suggests-remains to be seen. However, what can’t be denied is that the cavalier attitude we have towards the migration of millions human beings whose values and mindset are incontestably opposed to ours has not worked, and must be challenged on every level.

In our fourth and final part, we’ll reveal how this challenge is unfolding in Europe, the birthplace of Western civilization and one of the prime battlegrounds in the global battle for freedom of thought and expression.

The global jihad against speech-aided and abetted by our enemedia-was the primary subject of discussion at the SION conference this past Tuesday, and the panels assembled represented the full spectrum of thought and action that is being suppressed as a result of the collaboration between government officials-both elected and unelected-intent on “managing” our ever-diminishing pool of  liberty, the custodians of the fifth estate, and the presumptive caliphate which is using them as its ideological cat’s paw. The mobs overwhelming embassies in North Africa and the Middle East and slaughtering American citizens represent the physical violence that most associate with the term jihad, yet there is another more potent element of jihadist doctrine which involves employing coercive means more subtle than car bombs, rocket propelled-grenades, and Kalashnikovs.

The most powerful and efficacious weapon against jihadist ideology is, in fact, the truth. Which is why the vanguards of Islam and their accomplices go to such great lengths in order to suppress the means through which the truth is disseminated. That was the main theme of the second panel of the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress, which comprised men and women from England-until recently, one of the most resilient bastions of free expression on the planet-and Australia, a much younger parliamentary democracy whose citizens find themselves caught beneath a resurgent Islamic tidal wave facilitated by its leaders abandonment of sound immigration policy.

Debbie Robinson, of the Q Society, gave us a detailed overview of the parlous situation Australians find themselves in due to the proliferation of Muslim immigrants faithful to the Koran now living on a continent built upon British common law. The most recent  manifestation of this danger can be found in Muslim Brotherhood acolytes calling for the summary execution of the filmmaker who, in their eyes, committed blasphemy, exploiting the very freedom which they could never hope to enjoy in one of the many despotic Muslim nations from which they emigrated.

However, the question of sharia law’s application in Australia is not one of recent vintage, despite the befuddled media coverage of jihadi demonstrations in that nation’s capital this week. In fact, it is a question which has become so embedded within national discourse that a former Chief Justice of Australia has publicly rejected the notion that sharia law can coexist with the laws of his country. You need look no further than the scourging  a convert to Wahabbism received at the hands of his masked attackers to realize that this isn’t a theoretical debate for Australians. Is it really that far-fetched to conceive of a day when the punishment meted out to a member of the Burns’ Gang in the drama The Proposition might befall the unfortunate recipient of justice from a sharia court?

That question is even more pertinent to the men who came to New York City from England, which some would characterize as Ground Zero in the war between Islamic supremacism and Western societal norms.

Kevin Carroll of the English Defense League-seen above-described some of the battles in this titanic struggle. Currently running for sheriff in a newly created constituency, Mr. Carroll and other members of the EDL have been subjected not only to physical attacks-some so violent as to require hospitalization-by crypto-fascist, Marxist goon squads and their Islamist accomplices, but have been persecuted by the English authorities, which view those exercising their rights to assemble lawfully and express support for the United Kingdom as posing more of an exigent threat than those organizing terror plots in what is now the hub of pan-Islamic nationalism and jihad within Europe.

The extent to which the inherent rights exercised by Englishmen and women have been curtailed in the name of insulating Islam and its practitioners from any substantive criticism was brought home by Tommy Robinson, the founder and leader of the English Defense League. A life-long resident of town of Luton in the county of Bedfordshire, England,  Robinson embodies the selfless patriotism and commitment to family that were once hallmarks of the English working class. Unfortunately, today he represents a besieged minority under attack on the streets, in the courtroom, and in the yellow press for defending what the intelligentsia consider antiquated notions of Englishness. Instead of resisting the Islamists and their leftist shock troops who are threatening the lives of Robinson and his family, the British police have instructed him to remove himself from Luton-his childhood home-lest he antagonize the Muslim supremacists behind  one of England’s numerous, unofficial Sharia law zones.

The skewed priorities of UK law enforcement-which view the EDL as posing a more exigent threat than the intellectual progeny of Bin Laden did not come as a surprise. What did strike me though was Tommy Robinson’s almost apologetic defense of the gifts he brings to bear in this struggle against Islamic nationalism and its infection of contemporary Europe. He made the inexorable point that, unlike the rest of the continent, Great Britain-with a few notable exceptions-does not have any towering intellectuals or courageous political leaders to rally public opinion on behalf of the Enlightenment values which are now imperiled. The political class within the UK is effectively neutered, spinelessness being virtually a prerequisite for public office, as Tommy and his cousin Kevin Carroll pointed out during their speeches.

The same can be said of most British pseudo-intellectuals, who are equally culpable for the disastrous cultural and spiritual degradation of contemporary Great Britain. The political extermination Northern Irish classicist, poet and parliamentarian Enoch Powell experienced at the hands of England’s opinion-shapers for daring to question the status quo is one of the main reasons why the fight against Islamist ideology is being led by men like Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, although I don’t believe either man has to qualify the vitally important elements of courage and honesty in identifying the problems facing Britain they both bring to this task. After all, the battle over whether sharia law and Islamic doctrine should prevail over the values of the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution will be decided in the streets and the homes of ordinary Britons, not intellectual salons in London.

That said, the address delivered by George Igler, the creator of the Discourse Institute, outlined the intellectual argument against the UK’s increasingly restrictive view of individual liberty. At least, that liberty not enjoyed by Islamic ideologues. The son of parents who experienced the absence of liberty firsthand behind the Iron Curtain of Communist Hungary, Igler recognizes the inherent tenuousness of liberties that most Westerners have taken for granted for centuries. His speech focused upon the ways in which British bureaucrats and politicians had distorted the relationship between man and state, pointing out that our sufferance of government is tied exclusively to the protection of inalienable-and non government-derived-rights. This compact has been abrogated by a state that now views its function as maintaining stability in inter-communal relations, which means that some groups, e.g. Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-as well as their offspring-are given protection from the critical speech of groups like the EDL. This fundamental negation of rights illustrates why conferences like the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress are so urgent at this moment in time.

They, along with the Discourse Institute, wouldn’t be necessary if the “free” press exercised its right to dissent from political and religious orthodoxy, rather than attempting to hunt down individuals who blasphemed Islam or to blacken the name of patriotic citizens who want to ensure that their children enjoy the same freedoms they once did. But the fact remains that we are not only facing an aggressive, resurgent political Islam, but a much greater threat posed by those who would do away with our patrimony from England, and ultimately, Greece, in order to placate the sensitivities of an ideology with whom no mutual reciprocity exists and which, according to its holy book-none can be achieved.

In Part III of our report, we’ll be examining how the threat of Islamic jihad is experienced by those in the continent from which the armies of Mohammed first emerged.

Note:  Video footage, including a rousing speech made by the legendary Pamela Geller, as well as a moving speech by 9/11 mother Nelly Braginskaya, at Atlas Shrugs. Also, additional photos and footage provided by the indefatigable photo-blogger Urban Infidel. 

If  there was a single, overarching theme to the first Stop the Islamization of Nations Congress, it was just that. Freedom. The freedom exercised by Rifqa Bary-the courageous young woman who converted to Christianity despite the wishes of her Muslim parents, and whose portrait you see emblazoned upon the poster above-as well as the freedom to engage in critical inquiry regarding any and all subjects-including Islam-are one and the same. For fundamentally, they both come down to the exercise of free will. Individual choice is something that is not highly valued in authentic Islamic culture, as the plight of the recently freed Iranian Christian pastor  Yousef Nardakani, and the fate which befell Arab journalists who republished the famous Jyllands Posten Mohammed cartoons, demonstrate.

I traveled to the UN Millennium Plaza Hotel on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 massacres in order to listen to a roster of speakers who would illuminate just how precarious the freedom we enjoy is, why it is imperiled-not only in the United States, but across the globe-by whom, and how we can resist the encroachment of those who would circumscribe, and ultimately, eliminate it.

Notwithstanding the passel of amiably grouped American and United Nations flags in that photo, the  values of the United States and those undergirding the United Nations could not be further removed from one another. Anyone who has read the aptly titled The UN Gang by Pedro Sanjuan, a career diplomat and Foreign Service officer-a book that , ironically enough, was stolen while I attended the conference-would recognize just how different our nation is from the anti-American swamp in Turtle Bay. Unfortunately, those in power today-particularly within this administration-seemingly want to emulate the rogue’s gallery of Islamic theocracies, tinhorn military dictatorships, and third world socialist backwaters that currently comprise its membership. At least, with respect to the citizen’s relationship to the state.

Although the words from the Old Testament prophet are laudable-if a bit confusing when juxtaposed against the United Nations general opinion of Jews-they in stark contrast to most of the actions undertaken by the UN, which range from supplication before the preeminent state sponsor of terror, to deploying “peacekeepers” whose chief recreational activity consists of terrorizing the people they were putatively sent to protect. However, the most insidious threat posed by the United Nations is its attempt to nullify our natural rights in order to preserve the edifice of Islam as a great religion.

In decades past, the free world-led by the United States-would have led the fight against criminalizing dissent. However, the position espoused by the American government has been changed dramatically. The instinctive reflex on the part of government officials is exemplified by the craven tweet-since deleted-by the United States embassy in Cairo issued shortly before it was assaulted by a salafi mob. A mob which included, it should be noted, both the younger brother of Al Qaeda’s current emir and members of the terrorist organization whose leader is responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing. Of course, now that the Arab Spring is in full bloom, we should keep in mind that yesterday’s terrorist might very well be today’s democrat.

The most significant aspect of this transformation is the State Department’s active encouragement of a UN resolution, crafted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which would criminalize any substantive criticism of Islam. As Robert Spencer pointed out during the conference, this treaty would have the force of law, and there’s no reason to believe that the United States Supreme Court-McConnell vs. FEC made its cavalier attitude towards expressive speech plain-to honor our First Amendment rights any more than it has recognized those enshrined within the Second Amendment, or, I would add, the Fifth.

The institutionalization of this dhimmification of our legal system is occurring in our own backyard. State Senator David Storobin, who-regardless of any other criticism that can be leveled against him-should be congratulated for having the temerity to attend this conference, explained why this is such a pernicious development. A man whose family escaped from the Soviet Union-the largest totalitarian empire in world history-and whose relatives were slaughtered by Islamic separatists-Senator Storobin is perhaps uniquely qualified to speak to this issue. He denounced hate speech laws, which he correctly described as penalizing thought rather than criminal action, and averred that he believed in the principles of the Founders. “The founding fathers of America, not the Soviet Union. Madison, not Lenin.”

It’s a quote worth keeping in mind when the vanguards of the left insist upon adopting a policy of prior restraint against the only religion of global breadth they seemingly venerate.  What makes matters even more grave is the fact that those whose sensitivities will be preserved at the expense of our liberty, unlike the victims of other thought crimes-or perceived thought crimes-the left has sought to give protected status, these individuals have the propensity to vent their displeasure in ways much more colorful than public protests or civil disobedience. This fact was brought home to the audience during the speech of the man you see below, David Yerushalmi, founder of the American Freedom Law Center and tireless advocate for American civil liberties.

Mr. Yarushalmi’s speech focused on the nexus between the application of sharia law within Western societies and the inexorable diminishment of civil rights and liberties of citizens living in those societies. Contrary to the anodyne picture of sharia which has been painted by the press, academe, and assorted lapdogs of CAIR touted by our intellectual betters, the facets of Islamic law-provided we ever agree on a school of Islam to impose-which many have no trouble with in principle are diametrically opposed to the values we cherish as American citizens. A perfect illustration of this conflict in practice occurred earlier this year during an Arab American festival held in the city of Dearborn, Michigan.

Exercising their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble and voice their opinions, several Christian missionaries decided to demonstrate their profession of faith in Christ-and disbelief in the assertions found within the pages of the Koran-during this event. Doubting the claims of Mohammed-or his adherents-is a criminal offense-in Islam, not in the United States-which led to these men to being stoned by a frenzied mob of “Arab Americans.” Despite the fact that it was the peaceful protesters who were attacked-to the point of bloodshed-they were the ones told to vacate the premises, lest they be arrested.

The Orwellian revision of the facts by local and national media outlets-where the victims and aggressors were inverted-was not surprising. However, the willingness of a large municipal police department to enforce the legal code that contradicts the 1st Amendment is what led Mr. Yarushalmi to pursue a lawsuit against the officials responsible for this outrage.

While this incident might be interpreted as speaking to the depressing lack of respect for constitutional rights by those entrusted with the use of deadly force by the state, the tenacity with which this lawyer is seeking redress is what stands out in my mind. This determination to protect the sacred right of free speech can also be seen in the legal battle between the American Freedom Defense Initiative/Stop the Islamization of America and the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority over the content of the subway ad you see presented in the powerpoint presentation below.

Questioning the rationale behind the construction of a mosque within sight of Ground Zero, the ad was initially deemed unacceptable by MTA executives before a lawsuit reminded them that freedom of speech trumps the tender sensibilities of a teflon-coated religion. The same MTA was forced to back down again after a federal judge chastised it for refusing to consent to the display of another AFDI/SIOA ad which supported the state of Israel.

However, the most intriguing recent legal victory of Mr. Yarushalmi’s was the decision by the corresponding public transportation governing authority in the city of Detroit.

The poster you see above is nearly identical in content to billboards commissioned by atheist activists exhorting non-Muslim believers to abjure their faith. The only difference being that a the consequence for individuals who answer the question posed here in the affirmative is death. As the tragic fates of Jessica Mokdad…

…and Aqsa Parvez make clear.

It is precisely the willingness among adherents to the Koran to inflict often lethal violence upon its critics which leads governments to attempt to circumscribe the actions, and police the expression of thoughts, of the people whom they ostensibly serve. However, the complicity of almost every major media organ-both in print and on television-in the whitewashing of Islam’s intolerance of dissent-among other less than admirable traits-has as much to do with affinity for the ends-if not always the means-of its followers, as it does any craven abdication of responsibility linked to fear. We’ll examine the responsibility of the press for the current state of affairs in Part II of our coverage.

Update: My full live-tweet of the SION Conference is online! Read it here. 

Today marks the eleventh anniversary of the catastrophic attacks upon the Pentagon and World Trade Center, as well as the thwarted assault aimed at the U.S. Capitol, which led to the loss of thousands of lives and introduced millions of Americans to the apocalyptic ideology of Al Qaeda and assorted Sunni jihadists.

As the democidal tyrants in Tehran inch ever-closer to acquiring the second Islamic bomb, one which will be at the disposal of adherents to an apocalyptic, Shia millenarianism, it’s worth noting that violence is merely the chosen expedient for people who want to impose their dogma upon the entire globe. A much more existential, and efficacious, threat to our civilization is the campaign to erode, and eventually abolish altogether, the fundamental natural rights we exercise every day of our lives and which we have taken for granted for far too long. The foremost right among them being the freedom to debate issues such as this one without the fear of coercion and reprisal from those who disagree with our opinions.

That’s why the SION Freedom Conference, organized by my dear friend Pamela Geller and slated to take place later today, is such a watershed moment. It will serve as the chief forum from which to illuminate the dire threat posed by an ideology that wishes to permanently redact, to criminalize, any critical observations about it inside of nations where speaking your mind is enshrined as a bedrock constitutional principle.

In addition to Atlas, there will be a roster of courageous dissidents from across the globe showcased this afternoon, including Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has experienced firsthand the animosity some Muslims feel towards those engaged in critical inquiries regarding the Religion of Peace. I will attempt to live-tweet both speeches-along with the rest of the proceedings-provided my not-so-smart phone doesn’t fail me-as it so often does.

You can follow my updates here, and ask questions of your own @OddLane. For those of you blessed to have some disposable income during the worst economic recession in recent memory, might I suggest putting some of it towards defraying the immense costs that events such as the SION Freedom Conference impose upon their sponsors? If inclined, you can do so by accessing this link.

Hopefully, tomorrow’s event will honor the memories of those thousands-from New York and elsewhere-who can no longer speak for themselves.