ANTHOLOGY OF DENIAL: THE USEFUL FOOLS OF THE ISLAMISTS

Here is a short anthology of those who since the September 11 attacks have tried to play down the threat of Islamic terrorism, or to turn blame or attention instead to the West and those trying to protect us. Feel free to send more examples. UPDATE: Peter FitzSimons wins.

Here is a short anthology of those who since the September 11 attacks have tried to play down the threat of Islamic terrorism, or to turn blame or attention instead to the West and those trying to protect us. Feel free to send more examples.

 ABC host Virginia Trioli on the “realistic” way to respond to the 2001 Islamic attacks on September 11 by al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden:

What if that involved bringing him somewhere, absolutely safely, sitting down with him, treating him like a human being and talking about it, and then Osama bin Laden going home again, not bombing the hell out of bin Laden

Trioli on whether FBI was secretly involved in bringing down the World Trade Centre in the September 11 attacks:

 I think it’s quite a possibility.

 Professor Robert Manne, blaming “Islamophobia” on Pauline Hanson and not Islamic terrorists,  September 2002:

 The emergence of Islamophobia in Australia in recent times is not difficult to explain. The ground was prepared with the rightward drift in Australian political culture during the period of Hansonism… With the coincidence of the Tampa "crisis" and the September 11 terrorist attacks a dangerous explosion of anti-Islamic feeling took place.

Waleed Aly after the Boston bombing, April 2013:

terrorism is a perpetual irritant, and that while it is tragic and emotionally lacerating, it kills relatively few people and is not any kind of existential threat… They do not shock us. And for that reason, they cannot truly terrorise us.

Labor Senator Sue Lines on the Abbott Government’s anti-terrorism proposals,  August 2014:

It’s looking for opportunities in the media and elsewhere to try and scare the Australian public and to distract everyone from the budget.

Labor frontbencher Kim Carr on the Abbott Government’ anti-terrorism proposals, August 2014:

This government is seeking to get away from discussion about real budgetary problems.

Australian Muslim Women’s Association and 59 other Muslim groups and leaders on new laws to combat the threat of Islamic terrorism, August 2014:

There is no solid evidence to substantiate this threat. Rather, racist caricatures of Muslims as backwards, prone to violence and inherently problematic are being exploited

 Greg Barns of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, September 2015:

Today's announcement by Prime Minister Abbott that he is raising Australia's terror threat level from medium to high should be treated warily… Why bother to make the announcement? For political reasons that's why. Nothing like panic and fear to trample liberties and freedoms.

Hizb ut Tahrir spokesman Wassim Doureihi, September 2015:

Let me say clearly, even if a single bomb went off, even if a thousand bombs went off in this country, all it will prove is that Muslims are angry.

ABC host Jonathan Green saying the best way to defend ourselves against Islamic terrorism isn’t by tightening border controls and security, August 2014

Our best defence is of course our cultured reason. Our tolerance. Our audacious confidence in the fundamental goodness of others. Maybe even our sense of humour.

Muslim lawyer Lydia Shelley, a member of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, attacking the Abbott Government’s counter-terrorism laws, November 2014:

 [Attorney-General George] Brandis, you completely ignore ASIO’s reports to Parliament for some years now in stating that the rising right wing groups in this country also pose a threat....So, please don't use the Muslim people, don't use the issue of radicalisation, to really sell these laws, which is really about a sustained attack on civil liberties in this country.

Iman Mohamad Abdalla, associate professor at Griffith University, to the Attorney-General on terrorism laws, November 2014:

 It is important to unequivocally state to the Australian people from people well respected like yourself and our Prime Minister, that this is not a Muslim problem. 

Muslim apologist and TV host Waleed Aly on Australia helping to fight the Islamic State in Iraq, September 2014:

What seems to underlie all of this is that ISIS represents a serious threat to Australia… It’s not immediately clear when you consider this is a movement on the other side of the world that seems to be importing people rather than exporting them.

 Fairfax columnist and former ABC Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes, September 2014:

More and more laws to stop terrorists; fewer and fewer measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions

Bernard Keane of Crikey on new anti-terrorism laws police raids, September 2014:

The Muslim men deemed to have been using their phones in some sort of suspicious manner at a footy match; the baseless detention of a senior Muslim cleric by Customs; the dozens of homes of Muslim Australians raided last week without any charges resulting;... all  reflect that this is about the harassment of a single minority. And that harassment, to borrow Abbott’s phrasing, isn’t because of anything Muslim Australians have done, but because of who they are.

Waleed Aly after the Islamic State slaughtered 130 in Paris in November 2015:

ISIL is weak. I know it doesn’t look like that now, but it’s the truth.

Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, claiming the “causative factors” of the Paris massacre were all failings of the West:

It is … imperative that all causative factors such as racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies and military intervention must be comprehensively addressed.

ASIO boss Duncan Lewis in December 2015:

I don’t buy the notion the issue of Islamic ­extremism is in some way fostered or sponsored or supported by the Muslim religion.

Waleed Aly at a conference to discuss fears of Islamic terrorism,  April 2016:

The problem we have is we keep looking at Europe, where leaders will stand up and say multiculturalism has failed, completely unaware of the irony that they've never bothered really trying it.

Kuranda Seyit of the Islamic Council of Victoria discusses Islamic terrorism, April 2016:

These murders are carried out by people who are not really Muslim.

Laurance Krauss discusses the terrorism threat on the ABC’s Q&A, May 2017:

You’re more likely to be killed by a refrigerator, in the United States, falling on you.

Guardianjournalist Mona Chalabi on the ABC’s Q&A, May 2017:

Actually, the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, if you want to view it in terms of the number of dead bodies, which, as awful as it sounds, is the way to kind of make sense of some threat, actually, really, isn’t that present.

Dr Aloysia Brooks, estranged wife of former al Qaeda recruit David Hicks, in her PhD thesis, May 2017:

 In reality, more people die in car accidents, from domestic murders and bee stings in Australia than terrorist attacks… One could hardly imagine a war on bees occurring any time soon, and therefore it can be ­concluded that the counter-­terrorism laws have been largely politically driven.

ASIO boss Duncan Lewis on the refugee program that brought in people behind the last three terrorist attacks in Australia, May, 2017:

I have absolutely no evidence to suggest there is a connection between refugees and terrorism.

UPDATE

Van Badham, Guardian columnist, March 2017:

 If we're going to talk about extremism, I'm more concerned about the rise of the white nationalist far right.

Waleed Aly after the Islamist Boko Haram - formally called the Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad -  kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls, shouting "Allahu akbar", May 2014:

They are a really, really hard group to define because they are so splintered and so diverse. What we do know though is that the broader movement is a terrorist movement and they’ve been wanting to overthrow the Nigerian government and establish a government of their own. But beyond that, this particular group, who have done this particular thing, it’s hard to identify who they are and they might just be vigilantes.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull implicitly criticising Prime Minister Tony Abbott for strongly denouncing the Islamic State and calling for reform of Islam, July 2015:

It’s easy to sensationalise these scoundrels, these criminals, and we need … to be careful that we are not amplifying their own work, their significance.

Muslim academic Randa Abdel-Fattah after NSW police launched anti-terrorism raids, September 2014:

I’m very cynical about the Government’s use of these raids to politicise the Muslim problem of terrorism.  

Muslim journalist Mona Eltahawy to the Q&A audience after  the NSW anti-terrorism raids, September 2014:

None of you do absolutely anything to help us. You’ve always sold us out. 

Hassan Bazzi, president of the Al Zahra Muslim Association and member of Prime Minister John Howard's Muslim advisory group:

Death to the enemies, long life for the Lebanese resistance.

Labor frontbencher Tony Burke addressing the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network Fundraising Dinner, August 2014:

For those who are political advocates within Palestine itself, I will never know the bravery that comes with putting your life on the line and at risk, in engaging in politics in different ways.

Grand Mufti Sheik Hilali, February 2004:

September 11 is God's work against oppressors.Some of the things that happen in the world cannot be explained; a civilian airplane whose secrets cannot be explained, if we ask its pilot who reached his objective without error: 'Who led your steps?' Or if we ask the giant that fell: 'Who humiliated you?' Or if we ask the president: 'Who made you cry?' God is the answer.

Grand Mufti Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam:

Long live freedom fighters [Hezbollah]... But we have to remember that we are still proud of what is taking place in Lebanon... We are proud of the freedom fighters. 

UPDATE

And the winner - how could I have forgotten? - is Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons, writing just a fortnight after the September 11 attacks:

Hello. We are sorry. We are desperately sorry that the world has now moved to the point where it is on the edge of an abyss from which there can be no return. We accept that such hate as drove the planes into the World Trade Centre towers can only have come from incredible suffering, and we are desperately sorry for that suffering, even if we are yet to come to grips with its specific cause. 

(Thanks to readers Kevin, Graham and Tom.)