re: #5 CuriousLurker

In this particular instance, he said something that many folks had long been wanting to tell the Oxbridge crowd. That’s why the final three minutes matter at all.

I read your link, and there’s plenty of material to take issue with. I would question why he insists that desert tyrannies are ‘Islamic’. That would imply that to be a good Muslim, you have to live in a desert and be a subject tyranny, or be a tyrant. I would also argue with his contention that there is this glorious European past filled with respect for the values of right and wrong.

The Oxbridge crowd has been told this before, by Jews or Israelis—and the comment is immediately dismissed because we are Jews and Israelis and cannot possibly be as objective and detached as would be a civilized European. But this took place at the Cambridge debating society, or some name like that, and they had to listen, at least for five minutes.

So, there’s no scholarly principle here, just that the right thing was said at the right time to the right people. Six minutes later, his words turned to smoke. It says something about European culture that he was the one to get in the door and deliver the message. And what is says is no more flattering than the rest of European history.