David Wood and Robert Spencer “Debate”?
by Sheila Musaji
David Wood is not as well known as Robert Spencer, so a little background is in order. Wood is an Evangelical pastor and has a series of polemical articles on Answering Islam. His focus seems to be on anti-Muslim polemics.
Kiera Feldman reported on an incident in 2010:
Organized by Stop the Islamization of America, the first rally against the “Ground Zero mosque” was held in a plaza near the site of the Twin Towers on June 6th—D-Day. “We are not hatemongerers!” Pamela Hall proclaimed from the podium. “We just want our families and our future to be safe from the racist, bigoted ideology that murdered 3,000 people.” In the crowd, signs ranged from “Everything I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11” to crude drawings of Mohammed with the label “beast.”
Toward the end of the rally, two dark-skinned men were overheard speaking Arabic. The crowd transformed into an angry mob, surrounded the men, and shouted, “go home” and “get out.” The Bergen Record reported that the two scared men, Joseph Nasralla and Karam El Masry, had to be extricated by police. It turned out they weren’t even Muslim. They were Egyptian Coptic Christians who’d trekked cross-country from California to join the cause against the “Ground Zero mosque.” Nasralla later told John Hawkins of Right Wing News that the Record coverage was indeed accurate, adding that he’d been shoved and his camera knocked to the ground. “He said he was worried that things might have really gotten out of hand if the police hadn’t escorted him and Karam El Masry away,” Hawkins wrote.
“I actually caused that by accident,” an evangelical pastor named David Wood told me with a chuckle. He meant the near race riot. Wood is a PhD student in philosophy at a respectable New York institution whose name he didn’t want me to use. Passionate about proselytizing to Muslims, Wood’s expertise is Christian apologetics, the practice of arguing unbelievers into faith. He is best known as the creator of a viral video “Of Mosques and Men,” which argues all Muslims—even those who seem “peaceful,” like “good citizens in public”—had an urge to “smile when there were terrorist attacks.” But Wood allows himself a little laugh about violence when Muslims are on the receiving end.
As he tells the story of that day, “[The Copts] were complaining about not having anything to hand out. And I said, ‘I’ve got some pamphlets on Islam, specifically on whether Islam is a religion of peace.” The pamphlets contained passages of the Qur’an selected to suggest the answer is no. “People thought they were there to defend the mosque and promote Islam,” Wood explained. “Lots of people were fired up about that.” But it was a goofy case of mistaken identity, a funny little mix-up. “The guys who were doing it were actually Christians,” Wood told me as if clearing up the whole matter. “They weren’t Muslims.” In other words: the mob’s anger and actions were justified, but misdirected. Aim better next time?
Garibaldi of Loonwatch has written exposes about Wood in two articles here and here
Wood and Robert Spencer will have a “debate” this coming Sunday on the thesis of Spencer’s new book Did Muhammad Exist? This “debate” will be moderated by Pamela Geller. That may be the only time that you will see the combination of Pamela Geller and moderation in the same sentence.
Wood made the “challenge to a debate” by video and Spencer accepted the “challenge”.
Spencer is still falsely claiming that Muslims are afraid to debate him, and says in his acceptance: So David Wood will do their work for them. Read my article Danios vs Spencer: 18 months and Spencer still avoiding a debate for the Saga of Spencer’s avoidance of a debate with Danios. See The Muslim Communities Useful Idiots for information on some of Spencer’s past debates with Muslims, and why I believe that engaging with bigots is not productive.
These are not individuals who hold respectable, if controversial opinions. These are bigots, and engaging them in such a forum only provides them with some veneer of respectability.
Hosts like Hannity, or Bolling can claim that they have been “fair and balanced” because they included a Muslim. And, full time, paid mercenaries in a “holy war” against Islam like Spencer, will claim “victory” no matter what the outcome. If they have no “facts” that will stand up to scrutiny, they will stoop to ridiculous slurs, as they did with Christina Abraham. And, when all else fails, if any Muslim says anything reasonable, they will say that it is taqiyya.
This sort of devious, unethical, and downright childish behavior, is not surprising from individuals who consistently “get it wrong” when it comes to Islam and Muslims, and who see no ethical problem with simply removing articles from a site when they are proven to be inaccurate. Not too surprising for individuals who are co-founders (Spencer & Geller) of a group, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group is also described by the ADL in the following terms: “Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), created in 2009, promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American” values. The organization warns of the encroachment of shari’a, or Islamic law, and encourages Muslims to leave what it describes as the “falsity of Islam.”
I believe that it is not “cowardly” to leave these folks alone, just sensible. It is not that their claims cannot be, and have not been answered, but rather that they have proven themselves time and time again to be untrustworthy and dishonorable in both their tactics and their responses to reasoned argument.
Spencer and Wood seem to have a mutual admiration society. Spencer posted a notice about the “debate” with a note to watch Wood’s video, and Wood posted a notice with a note to read Spencer’s book.
The notice points out that this “debate” will be right after Geller and Spencer’s “Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference” (their most recent anti-Muslim hate fest) ends. It is worth noting that David Wood will be a speaker at Spencer and Geller’s conference. I’m sure their promotional video will be more exciting than the actual “debate”.
It seems pretty obvious that rather than a debate, this is a calculated publicity stunt to gain a little more notoriety for their conference, and to publicize Spencer’s book. I’m sure that they will both have an opportunity to get in a few anti-Muslim zingers in the course of this “debate”. Let the bigots talk among themselves.
UPDATE 4/30/2012
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more strange. Robert Spencer just posted a new notice about tonights “debate”. The debate is now to be between Spencer and Wood (on the same side) versus Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri.
Both Choudary and Bakri are part of the Muslim lunatic fringe. Just type their names or the term lunatic fringe into our TAM search engine for more information on these disreputable folks.
I’m curious as to how Spencer is going to talk to Omar Bakri since the last I heard he had been denied re-entry to England, and arrested in Lebanon, convicted and given a life sentance.
All that has changed is that we now have anti-Muslim bigots and Muslim bigots debating. Let the bigots talk among themselves.
UPDATE 5/1/2012
Robert Spencer has posted a video of this ludicrous “debate”.
Danios of Loonwatch has just published an article shedding more light on the quality of this debate and its’ participants. He includes the great visual at the bottom of this page. Robert Spencer to Debate Achmed the Dead Terrorist and The Dictator which includes the following
... Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri are absolutely despised by the vast majority of the Muslim community, even by the ultra-conservative and radical Muslims they pretend to represent. They are caricatures, just one step away from being Achmed the Dead Terrorist or a character thought up by Sacha Baron Cohen (like Ali G or Admiral General Aladeen, A.K.A. The Dictator). Choudary and Bakri play the part of terrorists and radical Islamists, which is why hateful Islamophobes love giving them ample air time: look at how crazy those Moozlums are!
It’s absolutely no surprise then that Robert Spencer and David Wood, two loons in their own right, would debate two even loonier loons. Spencer wastes his time engaging such unserious clowns, because–just as Sheila Musaji noted a long time ago–he has a pattern of seeking out complete fools to debate with so that he can then crow in victory afterward. Meanwhile, Spencer will doggedly avoid debating anyone (1) with a serious grasp of knowledge of the topic at hand and (2) the debating skill to back it up. And of course, (3) anyone named Danios. What’s interesting is that even Robert Spencer’s debating partner, David Wood, seemed to imply on his website that Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri are weak debaters. Wood agrees with Choudary and Bakri’s view that Muhammad existed, but he doesn’t think that they will be able to make a convincing argument. Why not just debate Achmed the Dead Terrorist or The Dictator? It would certainly be just as enlightening and perhaps a bit more entertaining.
Robert Spencer’s homepage boldly declares that he is “the acclaimed scholar of Islam”, and yet he has no educational qualifications to validate that lofty claim. In fact, all he has is an M.A. in Christian studies…If I get an M.A. in Buddhist studies, does that mean I get to be “the acclaimed scholar of Judaism”? Spencer has never had his work submitted for peer review in the academic world, and so his arguments–while they certainly might pass off in the non-scholarly world–have never been tested by the real experts in the field. Spencer’s version of peer-review is debating the equivalent of Achmed the Dead Terrorist and The Dictator. ...
