Hamed Abdel Samad: "The beginnings of the European left included principles like criticism of religion... Karl Marx was the first leftist, and he said that religion was the opium of the people. The left founded feminism and fought for women's liberation. Nobody fought for freedom of expression more than the left.

The left said that nobody is above the law, and that nobody - not Moses, nor Jesus, the queen, the king, or any celebrity - is above criticism. "They criticized, drew [cartoons], and made comedies about all of them. Nobody defended homosexuals more than the left, and the same is true of women's rights. But when it comes to Islam, the left morphs into the conservative right.

You can draw [cartoons] of Jesus, of Moses, of anybody, but don't draw Muhammad, because that's racism... Why is it racism? When you say that the immigrants have problems in their neighborhood, the [left] says: 'Don't talk about the immigrants. They are victims of the West.' Man, the [immigrants] are killing one another.

Their neighborhoods have become dreadful. No, you cannot criticize the immigrants, or else you are labeled racist and Islamophobic. They picked up the term 'Islamophobia' from the Muslim Brotherhood in the West, and they keep talking about Islamophobia all the time."

This is a despicable leftist approach. I call it the racism of low expectations. "The leftists who help you in the West are laughing at you. They have a psychological complex towards their Western countries. They hate capitalism. They hate America. They hate the West.

They see the West as the worst thing in the world, and they embrace and defend anything that is anti-West. They always wanted to defend the working class, but there are no working classes in the world anymore. Nobody identifies as working class. They all say that they are middle class." Source: Memri.org