So many Better Cops, so little time...

Over the past couple of years I've developed the term "Better Cops" to denote the clever Muslim pseudo-reformer who is so clever in saying the right things, he often even fools otherwise Islamoliterate folks in the Counter-Jihad.

Several of my previous essays on this phenomenon can be found on this Google page.

Aside from the superstars in this category -- Maajid Nawaz, Zuhdi Jasser, Irshad Manji, and others -- there seems to have been more and more of these Better Cops popping up all over the place.  As I wrote back in March of 2016, there are so many, I haven't had time to sustain a regular "Better Cops Watch", though now and again I have noted likely candidates.

At any rate, for now I will just name names of a few various, lesser-known Muslims who fit this bill, and indicate with one sentence the kind of thing they do or say that leads so many, even in the Counter-Jihad, to assume he must be (or "could be") a Muslim Reformer Who Will Help Save Us from their Islam.

Hamed Abdel-Samad:  "Islam is not compatible with democracy".  (For more info & analysis, see here and here.)

Nasser Dashti:  "Islamic conquests constitute colonialism; the Arab mentality is sectarian, dictatorial, tyrannical"

Abdessamad Belhaj:  “In Islamic discourses, migration is seen as a beginning of the Islamisation of Europe, the rich land that will change the fate of Islam, from a religion of the poor to a religion of the rich."

[Also, the report characterizes Belhaj's position]:  

The scholar of Islam and social sciences warned that large numbers of migrants are “calamitous” for the European people, and that neoliberal elites see Islamic terrorism, and state bankruptcy and collapse as collateral damage in their pursuit of endless wealth.

[I.e., Belhaj is appealing to the latent conspiracy-theory sentiments of those in the Counter-Jihad, to divert their attention away from Islam, onto the dastardly cabal of "neo-liberal" elites who are supposed to be the Real Problem.  And guess what, most of the Jihad Watchers who commented on that Jihad Watch thread demonstrate, unwittingly, that they got suckered in by Belhaj.]

Ali Akbar:  In response to Sally Kohn, a lesbian activist who blamed the Orlando attack on right wing Christians, Ali Akbar started a petition against her:   

"Sally Kohn has an unhealthy and very inaccurate view of Christians, not just Christianity but Christians themselves," wrote Ali Akbar, author of the petition, in an email statement to PJ Media.  Akbar defended calling Kohn a bigot. "Bigotry is when you hate an entire group and generally believe you have a superior view. That's clearly what Kohn believes," he declared.  He argued that the Left has "a broader view that 'intolerance' is the real evil and their original sin. Richard Dawkins and the rest of them--all of them believe religion is used to control people instead of communing with the Creator." Akbar continued: "Sally Kohn truly believes that Christian 'intolerance' leads to this attack and all other ails of society, including the gay suicide rate and other tragic things."  Akbar emphasized that "there's no evidence for her accusation. It's bigotry. These are the same people, like Samantha Bee, who say 'f*ck your prayers' and other things. What they want is legislation and their worldview to reign supreme. That's bigotry." "Kohn shares more in common with the killer in Orlando than I do or any right-leaning American, yet we don't blame her," the petition author wrote. "That would be bigoted to lump folks in together like that. I'm opposed to that and CNN should be too." 

[Notice how Ali Akbar slyly tries to make common cause with the so-called "right wing Christians" and, we logically surmise, with the Counter-Jihad -- adroitly positioining himself (and all good Muslims like him) as a victim no less than the Christians Sally Kohn is demonizing]

Raheel Raza: Consider these bullet points of what Raza calls the "Muslim Reform Movement" (partnered with Zuhdi Jasser, that other problematic Muslim "reformer"):

• We reject interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam. We invite our fellow Muslims and neighbors to join us.
• We reject bigotry, oppression and violence against all people based on any prejudice, including ethnicity, gender, language, belief, religion, sexual orientation and gender expression.
• We are for secular governance, democracy and liberty.
• Every individual has the right to publicly express criticism of Islam. Ideas do

Sounds lovely, doesn't it? I wonder if Raheel Raza has also squared the circle and derived 5 from 2 + 2, or blood from a turnip...?  Those are no less impossible than deriving these bullet points from Islam.

The Moral of the Story:

I could spend time digging through Raheel Raza's articles at the Gatestone Institute (linked above) to find more fishily paradoxical formulations.  And above, for a couple of the names I listed of these Better Cops, I provided further evidence of their fishiness (example, on Hamed Abdel-Samad).  But my point is more radical.

The rule of thumb for the Anti-Islam Movement (which still doesn't quite exist, though there is a complex, straggling, amorphous, incoherent, inconsistent approximation of it in the so-called "Counter-Jihad", riddled with nougaty softness about Muslims) is simplex:

Any Muslim, merely by the fact that he is a Muslim, is not to be trusted.  

No matter what they say, no matter how "reformist" and "secular" they seem, we must reasonably conclude, with a ruthless rational prejudice, that all their reformist & secular talk is so much sweet taqiyya whispered into our Counter-Jihad ears to seduce us into thinking that here, finally, we have found the ever-elusive endangered species of the MOMBAN -- i.e., the Moderate Muslim by Another Name.

We, in the still not-quite-existing Anti-Islam Movement, must simply reject any and every Muslim reformer, without even bothering to get evidence for why he or she should not be trusted.  The mere fact that they are not rejecting Islam -- all of Islam in its entirety -- is evidence enough for us to withhold our trust.