Today’s episode, from “X”:
Sharmine Narwani, we are told, is a well-known journalist and political analyst specializing in West Asian geopolitical issues. She believes that Islam was around six centuries before Muhammad was born. She wants to spread her ignorance far and wide.
The tweet has 25,000 “loves.” I regard it as a pre-holiday “Coming Attractions” feature, warning us of the fatuous Jesus=Illegal immigrants analogies we will be getting from our woke friends (and a lot of pulpits) all too soon.
(Pointer to Glenn Reynolds, who accurately notes, “Actually, of course, it was a Jewish kingdom when Jesus was born. And it didn’t become Arab or Muslim until the Mohammedan invasion of the 7th century. Today’s inhabitants of “Palestine” are settler-colonialists. Israel is fighting a war of indigenous resistance to colonization.”
Ethics Alarms 
I saw that tweet no more than 10 minutes ago. Astounding historical ignorance.
I continue to be amazed that the left, notwithstanding the antisemitic left, continues to shamelessly display complete historical ignorance about the holy land.
I would be ashamed of myself if I posted something this ignorant, assuming I had the self-awareness to actually listen to the criticisms of it. I doubt this sad sack does, so I expect she will be wallowing in ignorance this time next year in her comfortable bubble of think-alikes.
It is unethical to be this deliberately stupid. In mitigation, I’m glad she’s informing all and sundry that she is not to be trusted. In aggravation, far too many will stupidly believe she’s got a point.
I’m pretty sure she’ll argue she was just speaking metaphorically, or that she really meant Christ was born in a country that became a Muslim majority nation. Someone will probably come to her defense by saying linear time is simply a white supremacist construct. Or better yet, Kamala Harris will drop a great, “Palestine has always been becoming what is was and what it will be as we think of it in both the present and the past.”
” ‘Palestine has always been becoming what is was and what it will be as we think of it in both the present and the past.’ “
Heh! Harris is a more verbose Yogi Berra.
PWS
Speaking of social media and idiots, here’s the idiotic “logic” being used by Democrat Congressman Mark Pocan on Facebook…
That’s not all, how about this follow up post by Pocan…
Key questions for Pocan: Is Trump using his own money to finance the construction? Is Trump getting paid his presidential salary while the government is shut down?
1. Trump does not collect a salary.
2. The construction is being paid for by private donations, mostly corporate.
It sounds very much like Pocan should focus on doing his job, then. His posts about grocery prices and the government shutdown are intellectually dishonest in the style of “there are starving children in Africa.” The existence of one problem doesn’t mean we can’t do things unrelated to that problem. He can disagree with Trump’s policies, and he can disagree with what Trump does to the White House, but those are separate issues as long as Trump isn’t letting the White House changes distract him from presidential duties. It’s dishonest to juxtapose them in social media like that as if it’s substantial commentary.
It must be very frustrating for Pocan when he goes to the grocery store and can’t tell apples from oranges.
The good journalist appears to be responding to a tweet issued by Rep. Brandon Gill (TX-26), who was commenting on the Islamic call to prayer issuing far and wide, and recently approved by some municipalities.
https://x.com/snarwani/status/1980977422167412991
I suspect that she is trying to make the case that Israelis are interlopers and conquerers of peaceful Islamic lands. Surprisingly inert research skills for an Oxford graduate.
jvb
She issued a clarification after being attacked online:
https://x.com/snarwani/status/1981403049336983899
jvb
Wow. A “stop digging” classic! I guess her answer to Native Americans complaining about their land being taken is, “The Europeans arrived in a majority white Christian country—now.”
Maybe. I suspect, though, she would urge that Western European conquerers decimated peaceful, peace-loving, in harmony with nature native/indigineous peoples with violence, disease, domination, a racist ideology and religion, and hatred, and we descendents must give it all back, and leave.
jvb
Her clarification seems to boil down to, “What I said makes no sense.”
For at least ten or twenty years, I’ve been alarmed by the number of seemingly not terribly impressive people possessing Oxford and Cambridge graduate degrees. Have Oxford and Cambridge become little more than graduate degree mills for anyone willing to pay or having a scholarship from some foundation or NGO? And they are invariably lefties.
“seemingly not terribly impressive people” have been graduating with degrees from all elite schools for many, many moons in my experience. Remember, Harvard and Dartmouth, to name two I know ell, literally never flunk anyone out. These degrees create a rebuttable presumption of superior ability and intelligence, but rebuttals are not rare.
Another interesting fact is that it was only called Syria Palestina after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 AD, before which it was called Judea or Israel (depending on who you were trying to offend). In Jesus’s time, he was officially a Jew in the Roman province of Judea.
Yep. Romans did that to demoralize the Jews by referring to the land as that of the Philistines (a now non-existent nation) one of Israel’s ancient enemies.
Normalize referring to islam as Mohammedanism