Editor’s note: Before I get to Spencer’s harrowing story, for those who have asked, just a note that if I am absent from the computer these days as I was on most of Mother’s Day and yesterday there could be several reasons. On Mother’s Day I enjoyed myself! Then yesterday, I had internet connection issues. I’ve had several computer issues lately (who knows what is going on there!). And, finally, spring-time on the farm=work!
“I should have seen it coming.”
Robert Spencer
Most of you know Robert Spencer who has been blogging since 2003 at Jihad Watch. He is an expert on Islam and a best-selling author on the subject. In 2007, I liked his ‘Watch’ so much that it is the reason that this blog also uses the word watch in its title!
We have entered a new level in the war for the survival of Western Civilization. I think all of you can feel it.
Spencer’s experience, unhappy for him, is fortuitous in many ways for all of us willing to speak about dangerous times ahead. The international Left has moved to a new level to silence speech they don’t like—they are obviously willing to go so far as to kill to silence those who oppose their political and cultural views!
Here at Frontpage magazine Spencer tells readers what happened after he spoke to an audience of 500 “brave Icelanders.” Hat tip: Cathy
Last Thursday, I gave a lecture on the jihad threat at the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland. Shortly thereafter, a young Icelandic Leftist registered his disapproval of what I said by poisoning me.
It happened after the event, when my security chief, the organizers of the event, and Jihad Watch writer Christine Williams, who had also been invited to speak, went with me to a local restaurant to celebrate the success of the evening.
At this crowded Reykjavik establishment, I was quickly recognized. A young Icelander called me by name, shook my hand, and said he was a big fan. Shortly after that, another citizen of that famously genteel and courteous land also called me by name, shook my hand, and said “F**k you.”
We took that marvelous Icelandic greeting as a cue to leave. But the damage had already been done. About fifteen minutes later, when I got back in my hotel room, I began to feel numbness in my face, hands, and feet. I began trembling and vomiting. My heart was racing dangerously. I spent the night in a Reykjavik hospital.
What had happened quickly became clear, and was soon confirmed by a hospital test: one of these local Icelanders who had approached me (probably the one who said he was a big fan, as he was much closer to me than the “F**k you” guy) had dropped drugs into my drink. I wasn’t and am not on any other medication, and so there wasn’t any other explanation of how these things had gotten into my bloodstream.
[….]
For several days thereafter I was ill, but I did get to Reykjavik’s police station and gave them a bigger case than they have seen in good awhile. The police official with whom I spoke took immediate steps to identify and locate the principal suspects and obtain the restaurant’s surveillance video.
I should have seen it coming. After all, my visit had triggered a firestorm of abuse in the Icelandic press, all based on American Leftist talking points. Every story about my visit had the same elements: the notice that the SPLC claims that I purvey “hate speech,” which is a subjective judgment used to shut down dissent from the establishment line…
[….]
….meanwhile, I learned my lesson. The lesson I learned was that media demonization of those who dissent from the Leftist line is direct incitement to violence. By portraying me and others who raise legitimate questions about jihad terror and Sharia oppression as racist, bigoted Islamophobes, without allowing us a fair hearing, the media in Iceland and elsewhere in the West is actively endangering those who dare to dissent. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)***, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Center for American Progress and the rest who devote so much money, time and attention to demonizing “Islamophobes” are painting huge targets on our backs.
Continue reading here about Spencer’s horrible experience and his views on what it means. See what he says about Nazi Germany. We know how that story ended…..
*** Note the close ties between the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (one of the nine federal contractors resettling refugees to your cities and towns), click here. The SPLC has every right to speak critically of us who they oppose, but should federal tax dollars go to an organization (HIAS) so closely tied to the SPLC and its ‘hater’ rhetoric. See more on the connection between HIAS wanting us investigated by the SPLC, here in 2014.