On Monday, July 8th, I posted an article on Townhall.com entitled, “Islam, Violence, and Civil War,” looking at the violent origins of Islamic history and then looking at Muslim violence in the world today, concluding with the statement, “The roots of violent factionalism run very deep in Islam.”

Interestingly, on the same day, Townhall carried a column by the conservative journalist Jeff Jacoby entitled “What Is Islam?” He concluded his article by saying, “Radical Islam — not Islam itself — is the menace that must be defeated. In that struggle we have no more invaluable allies than moderate Muslims.”

When you have five minutes, read both of our articles and then let me know if you agree with Jeff, with me, with both of us (that’s possible to!), or with neither of us. I’m not dogmatic about my position here, but I found it fascinating that our pieces were published on the same day, leading to some interesting discussion on Townhall.