Islam has grown a faction of "toxic fanaticism" ready to kill anybody who dares criticize or satirize it — and it must be stopped, conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza told
Newsmax TV.
"If you criticize it, if you mock it, if you make cartoons about it … it's going to unleash its fanatics to show up with machine guns and start shooting people," D'Souza said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
Story continues below video.
Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on DIRECTV Ch. 349 and DISH Ch. 223
Get Newsmax TV on your cable system – Click Here Now
"There is some deplorable history of religions doing this through the centuries, but today Islam is in a category of its own in generating this toxic fanaticism.
"[It] basically says that if you criticize their religion, if you criticize the prophet, if you make fun of us, we think it's open season on your life."
On Wednesday, masked gunmen believed to be Islamic extremists entered the Paris offices of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo and began executing its cartoonists, some who had drawn comical drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
The magazine was once criticized by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who said while he defended its freedom to print inflammatory material, questioned its judgment to do so.
D'Souza said the Obama administration believes it is "restating the old argument that I disagree with you, but I defend your right to say it."
"But here's the point — either words are like bullets or they're not. If they're like bullets, then the Muslims are right, that by insulting them you're, in effect, verbally shooting them, …" he said.
D'Souza is now serving eight months of community service and five years of probation after pleading guilty to charges of using straw donors to support a New York Senate campaign, maintains he was targeted by the Obama administration for his political beliefs.