This Week with George Stephanopoulos

'This Week' Transcript: Holy War: Should Americans Fear Islam?

AMANPOUR: You have a blog called Jihad Watch and you're part of an organization called Stop the Islamization of America.

SPENCER: Quite right.

AMANPOUR: I want to go to Reza Aslan, because you were in Europe, lecturing on this topic of islamophobia-- Where does the Stop Islamization Movement come from?

ASLAN: Well, it comes from the - an organization, a neo - not - what the E.U. refers to as the neo-Nazi organization called Stop Islamization of Europe. And that kind of institutionalized Islamophobia is precisely what your organization, Stop Islamization of America, is importing into the United States. And honestly, you're on the wrong side of history. And very soon, in a couple of decades, you will be sweeped and your ideas will be sweeped into the garbage bin of history, along with the anti-Semites of the 20th century and the anti-Catholics of the 19th century.

(APPLAUSE)

SPENCER: Here again, Reza Aslan is displacing responsibility and trying to act as if this is something that I am doing that is illegitimate, or something that I have created. When actually, you look at the writings of 20th century -- muslim brotherhood theorists like and people like Madudi in Pakistan, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami -- he says, "Non Muslims have absolutely no right to wield the reins of power in any part of God's earth. And, if they do, it is the believer's responsibility to dislodge them from that power by any means possible."

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AMANPOUR: I want to ask Peter -- you have suffered a terrible tragedy -- why is it that you think that something good could not happen to rectify or to go somewhere to assuaging the terrible tragedy that happened on 9/11, if people like Daisy are willing to, as she says, "Be a combatant for moderation"?

GADIEL: Because, as I pointed out, moderate mosques elsewhere in the world have been taken over by the radicals.

AMANPOUR: -- based on...is that true? Is that true here, Brad?

GARRETT: No. I think numbers-wise, doesn't support that. Are there elements inside --

AMANPOUR: 'Cause it's really important.

GARRETT: -- maybe every mosque? Perhaps. But the numbers just don't bear out at the end of the day. That's the problem. You know, the subject is distorted to the extent, because we talk about it so much, that we've made it sort of bigger than it really is.

AMANPOUR: So Donna, do you think that something good to assuage the terrible tragedy you've suffered can come out of what Daisy is doing?

O'CONNOR: Not, not if American people won't let it. And you know, I mean, I'm listening to this, and frankly, this is depressing. You know, the significance of this conversation is I left my daughter at Ground Zero, and I left her country there too. It doesn't seem like an American conversation to me frankly. It seems completely and wholly one-sided. I mean, look, you have -- you read a lot, and I respect that. But I worry about what you're reading. I mean --

GADIEL: Excuse me -- may i say something...

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