Professor John Esposito heads the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, edited the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, and was a leading source of information on Islamic movements for the Department of State during the Clinton years.

Which makes him the foremost apologist for militant Islam in America:

The 1990s, he said, would “be a decade of new alliances and alignments in which the Islamic movements will challenge rather than threaten their societies and the West.”

In 1994, he supported the notion that Hamas, the suicide-bombing Palestinian terror group, is also a community-focused group that engages in “honey, cheese-making, and home-based clothing manufacture.”

Esposito also claimed on NPR that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat’s call for Jihad is comparable to a “literacy campaign” or the “fight against AIDS.” …

In fact, rather than admitting error for his own failed judgements, Esposito actually blamed America in the aftermath of the attacks. “September 11,” he said, “has made everyone aware of the fact that not addressing the kinds of issues involved here, of tolerance and pluralism, have catastrophic repercussions.” …

Esposito writes that “contrary to what some have advised, the United States should not in principle object to implementation of Islamic law or involvement of Islamic activists in government.”