Terrorists, not the media, make Muslims look bad

October 17, 2007, the Australian

Sally Neighbour, a journalist with the ABC and The Australian, at a Monash University conference on Monday.

I HAVE to say I tire of people complaining that the media makes Muslims look bad, makes all Muslims look like terrorists. It may sound trite to say this, but the media didn't crash those planes or bomb those nightclubs. Militant Islamists did it, and they did it invoking the name of Islam. The media doesn't make Muslims look bad. Terrorists who kill civilians while shouting "Allah Akhbar" make Muslims look bad.

I also tire of people complaining about the use of terms like "Islamist terrorist". "A terrorist is a terrorist," they say, regardless of religion. The fact is that about 90 per cent - that's my estimate - of the men arrested in Australia in the past five years on terrorism offences have been Muslims claiming to act in the name of Islam.

I think you would find a similar percentage applies globally. I agree we shouldn't call them "Muslim terrorists" or "Islamic terrorists". But "Islamist terrorists" is a perfectly appropriate term in my view, because that's what they are ... (Via A Tangled Web)

Fine words, Sally. But some would argue that "Islamic terrorists" is the correct use of terms. Lawrence Auster:

Religion is about following God, and Islam is a religion the core of which is God-commanded eternal war upon non-Muslims, a fact made numbingly clear on almost every page of the Koran, and confirmed by innumerable jihad warriors and Islamic thinkers over the centuries.