Excerpt:
There are few braver, wittier, and savvier commentators on the present confrontation between Islam and the West than Douglas Murray. A contributing editor of The Spectator and a familiar face on Britain's political chat shows – and an eloquent fellow panelist of mine at last November's Restoration Weekend – he has now written an e-book entitled Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady.
It's about time that we started talking about Islamophilia as often as our opponents talk about Islamophobia. As Murray points out, while a healthy fear of Islam is certainly justifiable – given the events of 9/11 and 7/7, for example, and the murders of people like Theo van Gogh and Drummer Lee Rigby – the kind of extravagant praise of Islam that has become commonplace in the Western world in recent years is anything but justifiable. And yet the noxious eulogies for the religion of Muhammed keep coming – from authors and filmmakers and the news media, from "world leaders, diplomats and politicians," from "academics or scholars who lose all critical distance when it comes to the subject of Islam."