The Enlightenment knew what to say about religions, all of them: “Écrasez l?infame!” In the 19th century, the progressive party believed that one of the reasons for European superiority over the benighted regions of Asia and Africa was the conquest of superstition. | Today, credulous doting on Islam is not just an expression of western self-hatred. On the face of it, Islam and the western left have nothing in common at all. But they do, in fact, something profoundly important. They share the common experience of defeat. Islamic terrorism is not a function of success but of failure. — Geoffrey Wheatcroft —Two Years of Gibberish: The garbled utterances of the left after 9/11 merely flattered the arguments of warmongers. (Prospect)

Some gut-wrenching observations from the author of The Controversy of Zion.