In a blog post for National Review Online, Robert Spencer defended himself against charges by the Anti-Defamation League that his organization engages in anti-Muslim activism by saying that it is reasonable to lump the ADL in with other supposed “jihadist apologists.”

Spencer's colleague David Horowitz similarly attacked the ADL, saying that ADL president Abe Foxman is “a notorious panderer to left-wing causes” and that the “American Left has joined in what I have elsewhere referred to as an 'unholy alliance,' making itself a valuable ally of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

This attack on the ADL can be traced back to a National Review article Spencer and Horowitz wrote claiming that they espouse “a rational fear of Islamism” based on “the misogyny, bigotry, and terrorism promoted by many (but not all) Islamic institutions and religious texts.” In doing so, they labeled the Southern Poverty Law Center as “jihadist apologists” and also attacked the Center for American Progress and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Center for American Progress policy analyst Matt Duss responded in a letter to the editor published by National Review by pointing out that, while Spencer and Horowitz attacked other groups in their article, they had not attacked the ADL even though it released a backgrounder earlier this year “declaring that Spencer's group, Stop Islamization of America, 'promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam.' ” Duss asked, “Should the Anti-Defamation League also be lumped with the 'jihadist apologists'?”

That led Spencer and Horowitz to do what they had avoided doing in their article: lump ADL in with other groups who are either part of the conspiracy to Islamize America or are unwitting dupes of the conspiracy.

We shouldn't be too surprised about the unhinged attack on ADL. It seems that anyone who does not agree with Spencer and Horowitz is potentially in bed with the jihadists.

Spencer once accused a co-panelist who appeared with him on Hannity and dared to disagree with his point of view of being an “Islamic supremacist.” When former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who has a Muslim wife, attacked anti-Muslim congressional hearings, Spencer said that “the most likely scenario” is that Weiner “did convert to Islam.” And he has said that “it's absurd” to think that “Islam is a religion of peace that's been hijacked” by extremists.

Horowitz has accused Suhail Khan, a one-time aide to President George W. Bush and board member of the American Conservative Union, of being a Muslim Brotherhood “infiltrat[or]” into the Bush White House, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and the conservative movement in general. He further claimed that Khan had been helped in this infiltration by conservative activist Grover Norquist, who has a Muslim wife. Horowitz has also claimed that “there are only a couple of degrees of separation between anybody on the left and the terrorists.”

Here's an excerpt from Spencer's attack on the ADL:

Duss claims that we are part of “an organized campaign to spread misinformation about the religious faith of millions of Americans” -- while denying that he is “peddling 'conspiracy theories'” about us. He makes much of the fact that the reliably Leftist Anti-Defamation League has smeared us also, asking rhetorically, “Should the Anti-Defamation League also be lumped among the 'jihadist apologists'?” Why not? Why should it be surprising that an organization that consistently follows a far-Left political line would follow it in this also?

Here's an excerpt from Horowitz's attack on the ADL:

Duss cites a scurrilous ADL attack on Spencer -- equally innocent of facts -- as though Abe Foxman, who runs the ADL as his personal fiefdom, were not a notorious panderer to left-wing causes. The fact is that the American Left has joined in what I have elsewhere referred to as an “unholy alliance,” making itself a valuable ally of the Muslim Brotherhood and its agents like Hamas, both in America and the Middle East. Anyone interested in the facts Spencer and I presented -- which are still unanswered -- can read our longer essay, Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future, which is available on Kindle for less than a dollar.