Why are some of my commenters always ready to defend the indefensible?

I knew that my post of yesterday re Mehdi Hasan would produce the usual defence from like-minded individuals and I was right.Here's one that I will spend a few minutes answering:

'Anonymous said...

I'm always very warey of youtube videos that don't allow comments, or don't show entire talks, and just clips out of them - but mostly youtube vids that have disabled commenting, what have they got to hide?

an old video too eh? 2009? I'd like to see him reply to the video to give his take on what he could possibly be trying to say!'

That sounds very close to the 'out-of-context' excuse so beloved by the Islamist hate-mongers that I have blogged about before. Perhaps 'Anonymous' could suggest what Mehdi Hasan could possibly be saying that could justify comparing non-Muslims to 'animals'? I do like the way my 'Anonymous' commenter thinks that it is the video that is questionable: comments not allowed, only clips etc. I wonder if he thinks Mehdi Hasan is ignorant of this video because as a columnist he has had plenty of opportunity to put his comments into context. Maybe 'Anony,ous' thinks that these comments by Mehdi Hasan are a one-off, an aberration in a life of otherwise politically correct views.

Here's Mehdi Hasan again, also from 2009, with another albeit more specific animal reference:

“The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence - because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God. In this respect, the Quran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.”

So not a one-off then, maybe there is a contextual defence for comparing non-Muslims to animals r as 'people of no intelligence' but I cannot think of one.

In the meantime, imagine what the left and the Islamists would say if a Jewish journalist writing for the Jewish Chronicle described all non-Jews as animals or people of no intelligence. Imagine the furore, the denunciations of such prejudice and supremacist beliefs. What would the chances be of such a journalist being given regular work on the BBC? But when it is an Islamist...