Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on October 14, 2006, 09:11:54 AM
-
Establishing this thread:
-
Posted October 15, 2006 02:08 AM Hide Post
THE MISSISSAUGA NEWS
Muslim leader fears backlash over Liberal views
Radhika Panjwani
Oct 13, 2006
The new president of the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) says she is feeling the wrath of Islamic fundamentalists because of her stance on such issues as terrorism, homosexuality and religious law.
Now, Mississauga's Farzana Hassan Shahid is calling on Queen's Park to intervene. She wants Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant to incorporate the kind of threats made by various radical groups against her and other members of the MCC into the framework of existing hate crime laws.
"There is an underlying fear all the time...that uneasy feeling is part of my daily life," Hassan Shahid told The News. "I have been declared an apostate (a person who forsakes their religion) twice, for opposing the Sharia (a form of Islamic law). We have asked Michael Bryant to include or acknowledge accusation of blasphemy and apostasy into the existing hate laws so the public and legal frame work is sensitized to this issue."
Hassan Shahid said she and other members of her organization receive threatening e-mails and are subjected to other acts of hatred from radical Muslim groups. One strongly worded hate-mail accused her of being the, "younger sister of Satan."
More recently, Hassan Shahid has been in the eye of the storm for her organization's stance on homosexuality. Her husband was questioned by some congregation members at a local mosque recently and ordered to, "control his wife."
"I got a lot of negative e-mails from the Muslim community, questioning my stand on gay and lesbian issues," she said. "I had a hard time explaining to them that I am not supporting homosexuals, but supporting equal rights for them."
MCC's vocal opposition of violence, too, doesn't sit well with the fundamentalist, she said. Hassan Shahid said many Muslims are angry and accuse the organization of not supporting the plight of Muslims in places such as Chechnya, Palestine and Serbia.
"We have denounced terrorism with a type of clarity that is really needed now," Hassan Shahid said. "When we do that we are accused of not understanding the political conflicts abroad...we're really caught between the devil and the deep blue sea."
MCC's former communications director, Tarek Fatah resigned from his post after receiving death threats.
Sohail Raza, the present communications director of MCC, said radical elements are changing mosques, that were once great cultural entities, and relegating them into places where rituals are enforced.
"I think where we lose out is the ability to discuss," Raza said. "The stand is not a line in the sand, every body has a right to interpret their own religion, every body has the right to debate and discuss issues, unfortunately that is lacking and that is what we want to encourage in a democratic society like Canada.
====================
News & Analysis
041/06? October 15, 2006
CAIR:? Attacking Shawn Steel for Telling the Truth?
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is at it again.? CAIR, a Washington, D.C. based Islamic terrorist supporting hate group tell it, Shawn Steel is the devil incarnate.
Steel's offense?? He dared call attention to the background of Bill Dalati, an immigrant insurance agent running for office in Anaheim, California.? Dalati is running as a Republican for city council:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-anaheim9oct09,0,5233676.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Steel rightly points out that Dalati has the backing of CAIR and called CAIR a "pretty radical, nasty group" in a letter he wrote that ended up on a blog.
For most Americans, a CAIR endorsement is the kiss of death for any candidate for public office, and this is as it should be.? CAIR does not throw out endorsements lightly and all Americans should be asking what the payoff is for CAIR should Dalati be elected.
Steel goes on to point out Dalati's attendance at an anti-war rally, his non-support for President Bush in the recent election over the Iraq War issue, and Dalati's support for Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, who is a Democrat and a well-known anti-Semite.
Hussam Ayloush, CAIR's Southern California chapter director, had this to say about Steel:
"The people of Anaheim would appreciate it if outsiders with personal political agendas would keep their divisive political views away from the city.for Muslims to witness what is happening in this campaign, it only makes us realize what it must have been like for Catholics, Jews and African Americans to run for office."
Too bad that Ayloush doesn't take his own advice about outside interlopers.
Ayloush sued Steel a few years ago.and dropped the lawsuit:
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_022_03.html
Ayloush had his shot at Steel and chose to run rather than put up a fight to defend himself in court.? What does this tell us about Ayloush that he believed his own "honor" wasn't worth defending??
The bottom line is that Steel is telling the truth about Dalati and Ayloush, and his masters at CAIR simply cannot abide the truth.
ACAIR predicts that as more information about Dalait's ties to CAIR and extremist personalities comes to light that the good voters of Anaheim will do the right thing and turn their backs on Dalati and his "pretty radical, nasty group" of friends at CAIR.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR (ACAIR)
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
-
No Islamic Law in Minnesota, for Now
By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 16, 2006
A week ago, it appeared likely that Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport would win special dispensation to avoid transporting alcohol-carrying passengers. The Metropolitan Airports Commission had proposed to give those Shari?a-minded drivers an off-colored light atop their cabs, allowing them to remain in queue while customers with bottles found other cabs.
I opposed this ?two-light solution,? arguing in ?Don?t Bring That Booze into My Taxi? that it intrudes Islamic law into a mundane transaction of American commercial life. I urged readers who share my views to write the commission to make known their views.
On October 10, a few hours after my article first appeared, the commission met and reversed itself on the two-light solution. A press release issued later that day, ?Proposed Taxi Test Program Canceled at Minneapolis-St. Paul International; Other Options Will be Considered To Improve Taxi Service,? explained that public response to the proposed program ?has been overwhelmingly against creation of a two-tiered taxi service system.?
MAC executive director Jeff Hamiel noted that, based on public response to the proposed test program the test program (which never went into effect and will not be implemented),? it is clear that its implementation could have unintended and significant negative impacts on the taxi industry as a whole.? Or, in the words of MAC?s press release, ?Some taxi service providers have expressed fears that people opposed to the program will choose other ground transportation options rather than take any taxi from the airport.?
Airport spokesman Patrick Hogan further elaborated: Since the airport began making plans for the two-light solution, ?we?ve heard from Australia and England. It?s really touched a nerve among a lot of people. The backlash, frankly, has been overwhelming. People are overwhelmingly against any kind of cultural accommodation.? That backlash, Hogan said, included 400 e-mails and phone calls.
I thank my readers, including those from Australia and England, who turned out in force and were apparently decisive in stopping this small but worrisome application of Islamic law.
Hassan Mohamud, vice president of Minnesota MAS, naturally expressed his disappointment in the decision. ?More than half the taxi drivers are Muslim and ignoring the sensibilities of that community at the airport I think is not fair.? But other Muslims publicly dismissed the drivers? fastidiousness. Mahmoud Ayoub, an Islamic scholar at Temple University, stressed that Islam bans drinking alcohol, not carrying it. ?I know many Muslims who own gas stations [where beer is sold] and sell ham sandwiches. They justify it and I think rightly so, [saying] that they have to make a living.?
The Free Muslims Coalition announced it is ?disgusted? by the Muslim drivers? behavior, on two grounds: First, ?Most Muslims don?t agree that cab drivers are prohibited from transporting alcohol. Islam merely prohibits Muslims from drinking alcohol and those drivers are seeking to impose their religious values on others.? Second, ?When the cab drivers chose to drive a cab they entered into an agreement to perform a public service that is essential to the economy of any city. They have no right to refuse a fare because the passenger is holding a bottle of wine or other spirits.? Kamal Nawash, president of the Free Muslims Coalition, added: ?These taxi cab drivers basically think they?re living in their own countries where it?s OK to impose your religious beliefs upon others.?
The MAC press release also contains information on another interesting point. The number of incidents has dropped drastically:
At the time discussion of the issue with the taxi industry began in May, cab drivers were refusing to transport customers with alcohol from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport 77 times per month, on average. However, recent changes in federal regulations now prohibit air travelers from taking most liquids ? including alcoholic beverages ? in quantities larger than three ounces through security checkpoints. Since the federal liquids prohibition went into effect in August, far fewer people are noticeably carrying alcohol through airports or subsequently being refused service by taxi drivers.
In a private conversation, Patrick Hogan specified that since the August 10 thwarted terrorist plot in London, there have only been about four incidents per month. Ironically, then, British Islamists plotting a terrorist operation in London effectively solved the problem for U.S. Muslims not wanting to transport alcohol in Minnesota.
For now, taxi drivers who refuse fares so as to avoid transporting alcohol will continue, as has been the case, to forfeit their place in the airport taxi queue and must return to the back of the line, in keeping with a MAC ordinance. But the Free Muslims Coalition correctly argues that this does not suffice. Cab drivers who discriminate against passengers with bottles of alcohol, it holds, ?should be banned altogether from picking up passengers at the airport? and their hack permits should be cancelled.
Exactly. Islamists need to understand that the Constitution rules in the United States, not Shari?a, and Americans will vigorously ensure that it continues to do so.
-
Jihad Incorporated
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 16, 2006
Frontpage Interview?s guest today is Steve Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, one of the largest archival data centers of militant Islam. He started the organization in 1995 after a film he did, Jihad in America. He works closely with law enforcement, Congress and the media. His organization?s mission is to investigate and expose the threat of radical Islam. He is the author of the new book, Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S., which covers every radical Islamic operation, prosecution and incident on American soil, or against American targets, in the last 10 years.
FP: Steve Emerson, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Emerson: Nice to be with you.
FP: So what inspired you to write this book?
Emerson: It was really the collaborative product of my research staff. We felt that a reference book was needed in which all Islamic terrorist groups, operations and prosecutions connected to the US could be found in one place. It?s really a history of radical Islam in the US. This book may set the record for footnotes. I'll be the first to admit that the reading is quite dense. But we have a great forward by Pete Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and nice quotes by Andy McCarthy and Richard Clarke.
FP: How do you go about your work in collecting data on the bad guys?
Emerson: We collect data in numerous ways. From websites, list serves, publications, informants, undercover recordings, government records, court documents, and sources. We have acquired close to 4 million documents and 18,000 hours of audio and video of radical Islamic gatherings, conferences or speeches.
FP: Who are your "consumers??
Emerson: Well, we really have no traditional "consumers" since we don't sell our information and we don't take a penny of government financing. But we do work closely with law enforcement, Congress and the media. Each "consumer" has a different institutional interest. Law enforcement wants to make cases; Congress wants to exercise oversight and disseminate original information; and the media wants news.
FP: Tell us some of the key players in the terrorist network. And which groups are the most influential among the jihadi groups today?
Emerson: Well, today, the terrorist hierarchy has changed considerably from the pre-911 days. Al Qaeda is still the grand-daddy but it obviously lacks the punch and reach it once had. Instead, there are mini-Al-Qaedas that have formed, either in Asia, the Middle East or the West. Jamat Islamiya in southeast Asia has become more of an Al Qaeda surrogate. Hamas, while largely maintaining a hudna, is busily reinforcing and re-invigorating itself with new weapons and explosives for the day that it deems advantageous to attack Israel. Hezbollah, which survived intact in its war with Israel, was actually hurt militarily more than some had estimated. It does however have a worldwide presence.
The threat against individuals or governments deemed to be "enemies of Islam" is growing in its dimensions. The killing of Theo Van Gogh, the recent threats against the Pope, the Danish cartoon controversy all highlighted the growth of threats against high profile targets in the West's backyard.
FP: Can you talk a bit about the organizations in the Middle East, aside from al Qaeda, that pose a threat to us?
Emerson: Well, I would say that Hezbollah poses the greatest threat to American interests today. They have their own ideological hatred of the United States and they are also effectively controlled by Iran. Islamic Jihad, because of its closeness with Iran, could easily put Americans in its crosshairs.
FP: How entrenched are the jihadists in the US today? Are there different gradations of jihadists?
Emerson: There are essentially two types of jihadists. The hard-core military jihadists who are prepared to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States. They have already been indoctrinated. All they await is a charismatic leader or the external order that gives them a green light. Secondly, there is the far greater number of what I call ?cultural jihadists.? The cultural jihadists are not willing to carry out attacks themselves, but rather, they provide the moral support for the military jihad?ists.
They are the ones that believe that Israel or the US carried out 9-11. In the trial of the would-be NYC Herald Square bomber, an undercover informant for the NYPD recounted an astonishing observation. He said that as he made his rounds among two different mosques, he encountered a virulent hatred for the United States. This does not mean that all mosque members hate the United States?I know of mosques and Islamic leaders who genuinely foreswear violence--but it does tell us that there is a problem that has been brewing here for a long time. For example, I can show you a tape of a Hamas rally held in New Jersey where thousands of people in attendance?women, children and men?are all chanting slogans such as ?We buy paradise with the blood of the Jews.? Do I think that all of them are terrorists? Of course not. But they are cultural jihadists.
The cultural jihadists provide the environment for the military jihadists.
Beyond the physical threat posed by jihadists, there is the issue of free speech being increasingly curtailed by virtue of radical Islamic groups--masquerading as "civil rights" groups--labeling anyone who criticizes militant Islam as racist or as defaming the Prophet Mohammed. The threat of violence during the Danish cartoon episode was the real reason why 99% of US newspapers refused to republish the cartoons. The flip side of this problem lies in the refusal of mainstream media--with some exceptions--to investigate the backgrounds or report the ulterior agenda of these Islamic "civil rights" groups. That's a dereliction of journalism 101. Why do they do it? Sometimes they are deceived, other times they are sympathetic to the cause of the group.
FP: Illuminate for us the support system for the jihadists that exists within our own borders.
Emerson: There are different tiers. The largest tier is what I called in the previous question the cultural jihadists. They are not willing to carry out attacks but they provide moral support for such attacks. There is the financial infrastructure. Radical Islamic charities had served as a main conduit for terrorist operations and organizations but Treasury has been quite successful at closing the charities whose financing could be linked to terrorist groups. As a result of this pressure, terrorist groups are resorting increasingly to getting their funding from organized retail theft, in which they traffic in stolen or pirated goods (like baby formula), car theft, counterfeit production or bust-out schemes.
FP: To what extent do mosques provide cover for terrorists?
Emerson: Mosques have tended to serve as save havens and meeting points for Islamic terrorist groups. Of course, we are not referring to all mosques but there are at least 40 episodes of extremists and terrorists being connected to mosques in the past decade.
FP: To what extent do terrorists use the Internet for communication?
Emerson: The virtual jihad has now become a dominant mechanism for terrorist communications among themselves, to the outside world and to gather new recruits.
FP: Numerous Muslim American organizations make lobbying efforts to influence the top echelons of the federal government. How successfully are these and what damage do they do?
Emerson: I don't blame the Islamic radical groups for lobbying. I blame the recipient institutions for legitimizing them. The FBI, for example, has mandated outreach to Islamic groups. That's a good thing to do in principle. But unfortunately, the groups designated as deserving of being recognized by the FBI have disproportionately revolved around groups that are tethered to radical agendas, such as CAIR and MPAC. In turn, this crowds out authentic moderates whose voices need to be reaffirmed in the community. And it strengthens the hands of the cultural jihadists who tell their followers not to cooperate with the FBI or law enforcement. That's precisely the wrong message the government wants to communicate.
FP: How is law enforcement and the U.S. government dealing with the jihadist threat?
Emerson: When it comes down to actual jihadist groups and terrorist financing, the government has been doing a great job.
FP: Steve Emerson, thank you for joining us.
Emerson: You are very welcome.
-
Muslim Moderates Under Siege
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 17, 2006
Since I began work on my new book The Truth About Muhammad, I have often been asked whether I really think it will do any good to discuss the actions of Muhammad that jihadists use to justify violence. Doesn?t that alienate moderate Muslims? I have responded that actually no Islamic reform can possibly take place without an acknowledgment that there are elements of the Qur?an and the example of Muhammad that need searching reevaluation: how can reformers succeed if no one admits that anything needs any reforming?
At the same time, however, Islamic reformers have a difficult road. They are often targeted as apostates by jihadists, and often physically threatened. Farzana Hassan Shahid, the new president of the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC), is the latest victim of this phenomenon. After her liberal views on many Islamic hot-button issues became known, she began receiving death threats from Muslim hardliners who considered her positions evidence of her falling away from Islam. One called her the ?younger sister of Satan.? Another accosted her husband at an Ontario mosque and demanded he ?control his wife.?
Consequently, Farzana Hassan Shahid explained, ?there is an underlying fear all the time...that uneasy feeling is part of my daily life. I have been declared an apostate twice, for opposing the Sharia [Islamic law]. We have asked [Ontario Attorney General] Michael Bryant to include or acknowledge accusation of blasphemy and apostasy into the existing hate laws so the public and legal frame work is sensitized to this issue.?
Hassan Shahid is not the first MCC official to be targeted by jihadists. Up until recently, Tarek Fatah was the MCC?s communications director. But in August he abruptly resigned from his position, as well as from the group?s board, severing all ties with the organization, although he had been one of its founders.
Fatah had excellent reasons to want to get out of the limelight. He had long been one of the most high-profile Muslim spokesmen in Canada: he was host of Muslim Chronicle, a current affairs TV-show focusing on Muslims in Canada. And as communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, he never shied away from controversy, endorsing positions on homosexual rights and other issues that deviated from Islamic orthodoxy ? positions that Hassan Shahid has now echoed. Fatah even opposed the 2005 campaign to introduce arbitration courts based on Islamic law into Canada.
All that took courage. But instead of receiving congratulations from the Canadian Muslim community at large, Fatah became the target of an email campaign initiated by a Muslim student group, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC). The CIC claimed that Fatah didn?t represent the majority of Canadian Muslims. Fatah commented: ?This is as close as one can gets to issuing a death threat, as it places me as an apostate and blasphemer.?
And Fatah, like Hassan Shahid, has received outright death threats. He told the Toronto Police that he has been receiving death threats since 2003, but lately they?re grown in number. And they?re credible enough in content to move him to resign and duck out of sight.
Voices of moderation or reform within Islamic communities are at a distinct disadvantage because jihadists can so effectively use the Qur?an and Sunnah against them to lend credence to their charges of apostasy. Also, all the schools of Islamic law mandate that an apostate male must be killed -- a command rooted in the teachings of Muhammad, who said, ?If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him?? (Bukhari 4.52.260). Thus a death threat can become an act of piety.
It is bitterly ironic that Western non-Muslim observers who know little or nothing of Islam assume that voices of liberalism and reform are the dominant mainstream within Islamic communities in the West and elsewhere, when the reality is that people like Hassan Shahid and Fatah are, despite their popularity among Westerners who like to pride themselves on their ?tolerance,? only marginally influential among Muslims -- and are, above all, hunted.
Muslim reformers deserve all the support we can give them. But we should stop deluding ourselves into thinking they?re the majority. And above all, government and law enforcement officials should stop building policy on the assumption that people like Farzana Hassan Shahid and Tarek Fatah are the majority.
-
Keith Ellison?s Mysterious CAIR Meeting
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 16, 2006
At the beginning of this month, I received an e-mail about a lecture that was taking place on October 14th at the Southwest Focal Point Senior Center, located in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The event was being sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Keynote Speaker was listed as Keith Ellison, a candidate for United States Congress from Minnesota and a man that has raised thousands of dollars through CAIR. Our group, Americans Against Hate, planned to be there and welcome him in protest. All was fine, until we attempted to sit in on the event.
When I received the e-mail concerning the lecture, I wanted to corroborate the information to make sure that it was correct. I searched the Internet. I found nothing. I went onto CAIR?s and CAIR-Florida?s websites ? nothing. I went onto Keith Ellison?s campaign website ? nothing. Details about this event were nowhere to be seen. It wasn?t until I spoke with someone from the Pembroke Pines Police Department that I found out the information was indeed accurate. Questions popped up in my head: Why is this event being made a secret? Why is a Congressional Candidate from Minnesota campaigning in South Florida? And right before the election?
We obtained the permit, and the protest went on as planned. What we were protesting was the fact that Keith Ellison had accepted campaign donations from CAIR officials. We were also protesting Florida Gubernatorial Candidate Jim Davis for doing the same. Ellison had taken money from CAIR?s National Executive Director Nihad Awad, CAIR?s National Chairman Parvez Ahmed, and CAIR?s Government Affairs Director Corey Saylor. Jim Davis had accepted money from CAIR-Florida?s Communications Director Ahmed Bedier. Given CAIR?s ties to the terrorist organization Hamas, given the fact that four CAIR representatives have previously been charged by the U.S. government with terrorist activity, and given the fact that CAIR is being sued for its role in the attacks on 9/11, we believed our case was strong.
Our protest consisted of a small group of people holding appropriate signs. They included: ?GIVE BACK THE MONEY!? ?BEWARE OF CAIR,? ?KEITH ELLISON, JIM DAVIS, CAIR LAP DOGS,? and one sign containing pro-terror quotes from Nihad Awad and Ahmed Bedier. We stood across from the entrance of the center, so that we could get a good look at the attendees. From what we saw and what we heard, there seemed to be very few people attending this event, which led to more questions.
Somebody that resembled Ellison was driven up to the front and was quickly ushered in. CAIR-Florida?s Legal Director, Areeb Naseer, passed by. Earlier, the Executive Director for the group, Altaf Ali, was spotted. A CAIR operative sat outside the door to the entrance ? I figured either to greet guests or to watch us ? or both. Thankfully, police officers were set up there, as well.
Eventually, another CAIR op came outside to videotape us. We did the same to him. I told him it was worse for him ? CAIR already knew what I looked like. We asked him questions, but like a good CAIR soldier, he didn?t say a word. When it was time for our speeches, which were made at a podium we had brought, the op moved closer to video them. My speech contained some hard-hitting evidence of CAIR?s terrorist ties. The op just stood there expressionless. I assumed he had no problem with what was being said. As I spoke, I wondered to myself what the guy was capable of. After my speech, I thanked everyone for coming.
We were about to leave, when I made the conscious decision to go inside to see the event. If someone from CAIR was videotaping us, why shouldn?t we be able to do the same? We asked the police officers if it was alright to go inside to videotape. They said it was okay, as long as we didn?t disrupt anything. Two of us went in. As we reached the entrance to the affair, we were stopped by two people. ?This is a private event,? one said, as he put up his hand to stop us. We said we received permission from the officers. He repeated his statement a couple more times. Areeb Naseer rushed out to speak with the officers. Altaf Ali looked nervous and confused. We took CAIR totally by surprise.
In the end, the officers said, since it was a ?private? event we had to abide by what they were telling us. My colleague stated that it was a public place ? the center was owned by the city ? and we should be able to pass through. However, we didn?t press much further and soon left. With all of the preceding questions, a new question arose: Why did they not want us inside? Keith Ellison is running for public office. Why was this a ?private meeting?? What was being said inside that made it so private?
These are questions that Keith Ellison should be asked. He comes all the way to South Florida from Minnesota, less than one month before his election, to a private meeting that no one knows about, attended by only a small number of people, with individuals guarding the entranceway, an event sponsored by a group that has numerous ties to Islamic terrorism. Is it just me, or does this picture look strange?
As I write, the homepage of Keith Ellison?s website offers a glaring contradiction to his mysterious Florida meeting. On it, he states, ?Between now and November 7 -- and for as long as I have the privilege of serving you in Congress -- I'm going to be seeking opportunities for us to connect face-to-face. I'd like you and your neighbors to join me in town hall discussions around the district where we can talk about the issues that are important to us: the challenges we face and the successes we want to build on.?
How is Mr. Ellison going to ?connect face-to-face? with his constituents, when he?s in another state and he won?t even let the public into his events? It?s just one more question that needs to be answered. Minnesotans should demand to know these answers, before their votes are cast.
-
An Islamic TV Channel Expands Its U.S. Audience
The MEMRI Report
BY STEVEN STALINSKY
October 19, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/41877
Bridges TV, an American-Islamic TV channel "seeking to improve the image of Muslims in the United States" and to "offer a unique perspective on the Middle East and the war on terrorism," has extended its availability into six states, creating a potential audience of nearly 2 million.
The network's programming includes a mix of entertainment, sports, news, documentaries, and advertisements from companies like Ford, with an emphasis on religious programs.
The channel says it has been endorsed by "top American [Islamic] scholars and community leaders," whose representatives appear on many of its programs, including one called "Prominent Scholars."
Some speakers openly criticize Islamic extremists. An imam from Los Angeles, Sheik Tajuddin Bin Shuaib, appeared on the channel on October 8 and denounced Osama bin Laden and the September 11, 2001, hijackers.
Some guests, however, are extremists. One religious figure who appeared October 3 said Muslims have a duty to change America and to increase their numbers to 50% of the population from 2%. He recommended that Shariah, or Islamic law, be implemented in American courts.
During a roundtable discussion on the Arab-Israeli conflict on October 5, one participant offered a solution: "For the Jews to leave and return to Europe."
Bridges TV aired a speech by the influential Muslim scholar Jamal Badawi on October 4. Mr. Badawi, who teaches Islam throughout North America, gave an interview to the Saudi Gazette on June 24, 2005, in which he raised questions about who was behind the September 11 attacks and suggested that Americans could be behind the car bombings of Iraqi markets.
Every night, Bridges TV shows a news program, "Talking Points." Its guest on October 4 was Imam Mohammad Alo Elahi, whom it described as a leading "interfaith figure." According to his Web site, Imam Elahi was a spiritual leader in Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian navy and also is the leader of "one of the largest mosques in the U.S.," in Dearborn, Mich.
The Web site describes his meetings with world leaders and shows photographs of him with the spiritual adviser of Hezbollah, Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah; Ayatollah Khomeini; Presidents Khatemi and Rafsanjani of Iran; Secretary-General Annan of the United Nations; and Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Throughout the day, Bridges TV airs segments of Koranic verses, quite a few of which denounce "unbelievers." One notable verse that aired October 9 praised martyrdom.
Since the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began, the channel has been showing official, Saudi government-controlled Wahhabi sermons from Mecca's holiest mosque, Al-Haram. The sermons stream live via Saudi TV Channel one every day at 4 p.m., and Bridges TV adds its own English subtitles.
An anti-Jewish, anti-Christian sermon from October 5 included the call, "May God destroy them!"
Bridges TV's Web site, bridgestv.com, features a weekly poll. Notable questions and results include 59% calling for Hezbollah to continue as a military force in Lebanon, 73% in agreement with the American policy of withholding funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab government, and 63% believing that the Iranian government's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
One of the stars of Bridges TV is a cofounder and vice chairman of the international health care company CBay Inc., Donald "Skip" Conover, who hosts and produces a show called "Words Matter." He was the subject of a gushing article in the Saudi daily Arab News on September 27.
In the article, Mr. Conover expressed "his disgust" at what he called inflammatory statements about Arabs and Muslims in the press.
He also discussed the power of the "Jewish lobby" and called on all Muslims to vote for the Democratic Party. "Every American politician is in lockstep with Israel. ? If they vote against, then the Jewish lobby will put a lot of money behind the candidate against them in their districts in the future. I have news for the Muslim community. All American politicians are in the pocket of the Jewish lobby today because they control a lot of money, and they spend a lot of money in politics."
"If the Muslims of America believe that they don't want Bush to have a free hand for the next two years, then the Muslims of America need to get organized and make sure they get out to vote for Democrats for both the House and the Senate," Mr. Conover added. "Every Muslim in the Middle East who has a relative in the U.S. should get the message across to their relatives. They need to make sure that all their friends vote against Bush."
Bridges TV claims that its "major purpose" is "to build bridges between American Muslims and other Americans." After viewing the channel, I find this highly unlikely.
Mr. Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
-
Muslim woman refuses to remove her veil in court, so judge tosses case
By Zachary Gorchow
Detroit Free Press
(MCT)
DETROIT - Ginnnah Muhammad of Detroit was looking for her day in court.
Instead, she said she felt as if a judge forced her to choose between her case and her religion in a small-claims dispute in Hamtramck District Court.
A devout Muslim, she wore a niqab - a scarf and veil to cover her face and head except for her eyes - Oct. 11 as she contested a rental car company's charging her $2,750 to repair a vehicle after thieves broke into it.
Judge Paul Paruk said he needed to see her face to judge her truthfulness and gave Muhammad, 42, a choice: take off the veil when testifying or the case would be dismissed. She kept the veil on.
"I just feel so sad," Muhammad said last week. "I feel that the court is there for justice for us. I didn't feel like the court recognized me as a person that needed justice. I just feel I can't trust the court."
The wearing of a niqab has spurred increasing debate, particularly in Europe. In 2004, France banned the wearing of it and other religious symbols in public schools.
This month, former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, still a member of parliament, ignited a fierce debate over the niqab by suggesting that Muslim women in his district remove their veils when they visit his office. He said it would improve communication, calling the veil "a visible statement of separation and of difference."
It has sparked controversy in the United States as well. A Muslim woman from Florida unsuccessfully went to court in an effort to overturn the state's order in 2001 that she reveal her face for her driver's license photo.
In metro Detroit, which has one of the country's largest Muslim populations, a small minority of Muslim women - primarily those of Yemeni descent - wear the niqab, said Dawud Walid , executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Paruk said that as a fact finder, he needs to see the face of a person testifying. Michigan has no rules governing what judges can do regarding religious attire of people in court, so the judges have leeway on how to run their courtrooms.
"My job in the courtroom is to make a determination as to the veracity of somebody's claim," he said. "Part of that, you need to identify the witness and you need to look at the witness and watch how they testify."
Paruk said he offered to let Muhammad, who was born in the United States and converted to Islam at the age of 10, wear the veil during the proceedings except when she testified. He said this was the first time someone had come before his court wearing a niqab, and he noted that many Muslims do not consider it a religious symbol.
"I felt I was trying to accommodate her as best I could," he said.
Walid said Paruk still violated Muhammad's civil rights.
"Although a niqab is donned by a minority of Muslim females, it is still a bona fide religious practice," he said.
Hamtramck, once almost entirely populated by residents of e astern European descent, now has a large and growing population of Muslims.
"There definitely needs to be greater sensitivity toward the growing populace in that municipality," Walid said.
Judges should seek to strike a balance between running their courtrooms and respecting the religious views of those appearing before them, said Steve Leben, a Kansas trial court judge who is president of the American Judges Association.
"I'm not trying to be critical of the judge because it is difficult to make decisions on the fly," Leben said. "But if it's a person's legitimate religious belief, we have a duty to try to reconcile these competing interests."
Mark Somers, chief judge of the Dearborn District Court, which covers the bulk of the Detroit area's Muslim population, said he could not recall an instance when a woman who wore a niqab came before his court to testify.
But he said he would not require a woman to remove her veil during a civil case.
"To me, it would not be an issue," he said. "I simply as a matter of personal policy would never ask someone to do that."
-
CAIR is often a go-to "moderate Muslim" group for MSM pieces, but there are substantial questions about the sincerity of the group or whether it is a taqiya (sp?) front for nefarious groups. Here is a piece from a group which strongly believes CAIR to be a front for nefarious elements:
==============
In Defense of the Constitution
News & Analysis
042/06 October 23, 2006
CAIR'S Bedier: Doing The "Transparency" Bob And Weave
Replying to a recent viewer comment in the YouTube comments section of a video post on the Pope from Ahmed Bedier, CAIR's Florida communications director, Mr. Bedier stated that CAIR is "as transparent as you get, my friend".
Well, not really. It seems to us that whenever a CAIR officer is confronted with a direct question about CAIR, the officer will go out of his (or her) way to dodge the question, or throw it back on the questioner.
(This is anything but "transparent", Mr. Bedier.)
For example, CAIR sued Anti-CAIR's director, Andrew Whitehead, for defamation. But when it came time for CAIR to be "transparent," it cut and ran. The CAIR vs Anti-CAIR court documents show CAIR was afraid to answer questions regarding:
- CAIR's financial ties to the terrorist-financing groups Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief Foundation, and Hamas. (Fearful of admitting in court CAIR's support for these terror groups, they refused to be "transparent" regarding these relationships).
- CAIR's relationship to the Islamic Association of Palestine [former employers of Awad, Ahmad, and Hooper]. The IAP was found civilly liable for murder. Also refused were questions of CAIR's relationship with InfoCom, which was run by convicted CAIR board member Ghassan Elashi.
- CAIR's connections to individuals associated with Saudi Arabia. [Now what could CAIR possibly have to hide here? Mr. Bedier, care to answer?]
- CAIR's connections to terrorist Musa Marzook of Hamas. [We'd love to hear CAIR's explanation on this one.but, once again, only silence from the CAIR troika.]
- CAIR's financial relationship with an identified Saudi prince known for financing Islamic Fundamentalism and supporting terror.
- CAIR's financial relationship with a known Saudi Islamic fundamentalist group that was formed and operating for the purpose of converting non-believers, by whatever means necessary, and who agreed to underwrite CAIR's activities in the United States.
- CAIR's "key personnel" who were identified by FBI surveillance in a meeting with Hamas leadership right here in the USA. [Now why would CAIR officials want to meet with Hamas?]
- CAIR's position regarding Israel's right to exist as a nation.
- CAIR's position regarding the Hamas Charter, [of which CAIR's officers translated into English while working for the Islamic Association for Palestine, a terror front group].
CAIR would not even admit that Hamas was responsible for the murder of innocent civilians.
If CAIR's is so transparent, as Mr. Bedier insists, then why all the bobbing and weaving with discovery requests regarding CAIR'Ss history, ideology, and financial ties?
It is because CAIR is quite transparent, as Anti-CAIR'S has always insisted:
"Let there be no doubt that the Council on American-Islamic Relations is a terrorist supporting front organization that is partially funded by terrorists, and that CAIR wishes nothing more than the implementation of Sharia law in America."
Care to put up, or would you prefer to shut up, Mr. Bedier?
Below is a comment exchange from Ahmed Bediers' YouTube space:
http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=_aBiPuUwPHs&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3D_aBiPuUwPHs
bassizzzt42 (1 day ago)
Islam is NOT a religion. It is a political ideology based on lies, intolerance, and hate. Look at how Muslim women are treated - like sub-humans. Islamofascism is alive and well and living in America. Do you know that several CAIR employees have been arrested for terrorism and are doing time in prison? Do not trust Bedier nor CAIR; they are professional liars. CAIR's goal is the eradication of the Constitution of the United States and they wish to establish an Islamic theocracy.
(Reply)
bedier (1 day ago)
Oh yeah, and you want us to trust a screen name bassizzzt42 real reliable source there. We're as transparent as you get my friend, but people like you only hide behind screen names.
(Reply)
(Note: Bedier deleted the above exchange, and several others, on 10/19/06 around 7:30 pm EST - Anti-CAIR wonders why? Could it be that he realized what a fool he was making of himself and his masters at CAIR?)
References:
http://www.anti-CAIR's-net.org/CAIR'SrefusalDiscovery.pdf
http://www.anti-CAIR's-net.org/MotionCompelCAIR'S1.pdf
http://www.anti-CAIR's-net.org/MotionCompelCAIR'S2.pdf
http://www.anti-CAIR's-net.org/DiscDocs.html
http://www.anti-CAIR's-net.org/LegalDetails
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR (ACAIR)
ajwhitehead@anti-CAIR-net.org
www.anti-CAIR-net.org
ADVISORY:
Subscribers are warned that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) may contact your employer if CAIR believes you are using a work address to receive any material that CAIR believes may be offensive. CAIR has been known to shame employers into firing employees CAIR finds disagreeable. For that reason, we strongly suggest that corporate e-mail users NOT use a corporate e-mail account/address when communicating with ACAIR or CAIR. We make every reasonable effort to protect our mailing list, but we cannot guarantee confidentiality. ACAIR does not share, loan, sell, rent or otherwise publicize our mailing list. We respect your privacy!
TIPS:
All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. ACAIR will acknowledge receipt of all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge the source of ANY tip or lead in our News & Analysis or on our web site. Exceptions are made for leading media personalities at the discretion of ACAIR and only on request of the person(s) submitting the tip or lead.
-
Speak To Me, Ibrahim!
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 10, 2003
Wednesday morning I called Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Last week Hooper and I had words on MSNBC?s Nachman show about the propriety of the FBI investigating mosques, and I wanted to get his reaction to new allegations that the al-Farooq mosque in Brooklyn has been a chief source of funding for al-Qaeda.
But Mr. Hooper wouldn?t tell me what he thought. Without allowing me to ask my question, he just said, "I have no interest in promoting the anti-Muslim agenda of you or FrontPage Magazine," and hung up.
Now, I know that tempers are boiling over in today?s tense political climate. But CAIR would be able to gain a better hearing for its new campaign to "foster greater understanding of Islam" if its spokesmen engaged the organization?s political opponents honestly, instead of smearing their positions and indulging in juvenile displays. This is especially true in these days of national crisis. Americans have legitimate questions about CAIR and Islamic radicalism that Hooper and Co. has so far refused to answer, preferring instead to resort to ad hominem attacks upon those who raise the questions.
But the questions aren?t going away. Ibrahim Hooper won?t answer them, but he can?t bury them:
[1] The Al-Farooq mosque is the second American mosque linked to terrorist activity in a week. The first was an Islamic religious center identified in the indictment of South Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian as one base of his operations to aid terrorists. In light of this, is CAIR?s stand against the FBI?s counting mosques as part of anti-terror operations really consistent with CAIR?s stated "commitment to our nation?s safety"?
[2] The Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud gave CAIR $500,000 for its program to put books and tapes about Islam in American libraries. The American Muslim leader W. D. Muhammad has said that when Saudis give money to American Muslims, they say, "We?re gonna give you our money, then we want you to . . . prefer our school of thought." Were these books and tapes approved by Islamic authorities belonging to the Saudi Wahhabi sect?
[3] CAIR?s stated intention in the library campaign is to help Americans learn about Islam "as a religion of peace and justice." How is this goal consistent with financing from Wahhabis, a sect so fanatical and extremist that it sanctions violence against non-Muslims and even against Muslims it considers heretical?
[4] CAIR?s new ad campaign includes fifty-two full-page ads in the New York Times. Where is the money coming from to pay for all these ads ? an expense that must amount to over a million dollars? Does any of this money come also from Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia? If so (or even if not), have they approved the ads? Did Wahhabis help craft the ads?
[5] As long ago as 1999, the Naqshbandi Sufi Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani told a State Department Open Forum on religious extremism that "the problem with our communities is the extremist ideology. . . [Extremists] took over more than 80% of the mosques that have been established in the US." The fact that Wahhabis finance most American mosques would seem to bear out Kabbani?s assessment. Even if Kabbani was only half-right and extremists today control only 40% of American mosques, would they not bear investigating as part of efforts to prevent terrorist acts?
[6] On Wednesday, March 5, the same day I called Hooper, a suicide bomber killed 16 people and injured 55 on a bus in Haifa, Israel. Among the dead were ten high school students, including a 14-year-old American girl, Avigail Leitner. The Islamic terrorist group Hamas praised the bombing. Is CAIR?s Executive Director Nihad Awad still "a supporter of Hamas," as he has stated publicly many times? If so, how does this support square with CAIR?s efforts to portray Islam as a religion of peace?
[7] When al-Qaeda issued a threat during the season of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, causing Attorney General John Ashcroft to raise the level of the nation?s terrorist alert, why did CAIR blame Ashcroft for linking terrorism to the Hajj? Didn?t that linkage come from al-Qaeda, not Ashcroft ? or did CAIR have intelligence to the contrary?
[8] Why, when terrorist groups around the world use the words "Islam" and "Jihad" in their names, are people who ask questions about this fact tarred by CAIR as having an "anti-Muslim agenda"? What is CAIR really doing to sever the worldwide connection between Islam and terrorism? Dodging questions, whitewashing uncomfortable facts, and hanging up on people won?t do it.
Come on, Ibrahim. The American people, to whose safety you are committed, deserve answers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World?s Fastest Growing Faith and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.
-
From http://www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2811
CAIR Founded by "Islamic Terrorists"?
by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha
FrontPageMagazine.com
July 28, 2005
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Inc., filed a defamation lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead, of Anti-CAIR (or ACAIR), a grass-roots project whose name explains its mission: to expose the largest, most vocal, and dangerous Islamist organization in North America.
CAIR's March 2004 lawsuit is part of what seems to be a policy of using the legal process to silence or chill critics. In this case, CAIR claimed it had been harmed by six statements on ACAIR's website, including CAIR's being founded by Hamas supporters, being partially funded by terrorists, and intending to impose Islamic law on the United States.
Then, on June 20, 2005, CAIR filed an amended motion that substantially cut back on its libel claims, retaining just portions of two of the original six statements. With original misspellings retained, the offending passages are:
Let their be no doubt that CAIR is a terrorist supporting front organization?.
[CAIR] seeks to overthrow constitutional government in the United States?.
Why did CAIR drastically reduce its claims versus Whitehead?
It might have to do with Whitehead, admirably represented by Reed Rubinstein of Greenberg Traurig LLP, having responded to CAIR's lawsuit with an extensive and well informed set of discovery requests and documents. These filings perhaps established for CAIR the depth of Whitehead's knowledge and the soundness of his opinions. If so, then CAIR's leadership concluded that the bulk of its case against Whitehead would collapse in court.
CAIR's filing an amended motion has two apparent implications: that CAIR has tacitly acknowledged the truth of Whitehead's deleted assertions; and those assertions can now be repeated with legal impunity.
We list here the key statements that CAIR no longer deems legally improper, followed by some speculations as to why it might have decided not to contest them in court.
[CAIR is an] organization founded by Hamas supporters?.
CAIR was started by Hamas members?.
CAIR ? was founded by Islamic terrorists.
CAIR's leadership must have stretched its collective memory back to 1994 and recalled (along with counterterrorism expert Matthew Epstein) that Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, former officials of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), founded the organization, while IAP's president, Rafeeq Jabar, was (according to Steve Emerson) one of CAIR's founding directors.
Former FBI counterterrorism chief Oliver "Buck" Revell has described the IAP as "a front organization for Hamas." This linkage between the IAP and Hamas was decisively established in 2004, when a federal judge in Chicago found it partially liable for $156 million in damages for its role in aiding and abetting Hamas in the murder of David Boim, a 17-year-old American citizen.
And, CAIR no doubt remembered that it had been caught by Joe Kaufman exploiting the 9/11 attacks to raise funds for two Hamas-linked fundraising organizations, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and the Global Relief Foundation.
[CAIR] is partially funded by terrorists?
Terrorists themselves don't literally give out money, but organizations that fund terrorism also fund CAIR.
The Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank gave CAIR $250,000 in August 1999. The IDB also manages funds (Al-Quds, Al-Aqsa) which finance suicide bombings against Israeli civilians by providing funds to the families of Palestinian "martyrs."
The International Institute of Islamic Thought, an organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, gave CAIR's Washington office $14,000 in 2003, according to IIIT tax filings. David Kane, who investigated IIIT as part of Operation Green Quest's probe into some one hundred companies and organizations, described in a sworn affidavit the various ways in which it may have funded suspected terrorist-front organizations.
The International Relief Organization (also called the International Islamic Relief Organization, or IIRO), a Saudi-financed organization being investigated by the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance for terrorism financing donated at least $12,000 to CAIR.
CAIR receives direct funding from Islamic terrorist supporting countries.
CAIR has received funds from Saudi Arabia, such as the $250,000 from the Islamic Development Bank noted above. In addition, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi-sponsored charity (and another one suspected of financing terror), announced in December 1999 that it "was extending both moral and financial support to CAIR" to help it construct its $3.5 million headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Saudi Arabia, the homeland Osama bin Laden and fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, is reasonably described as "terrorist supporting." The 9/11 Commission staff describes Saudi Arabia as having an environment where "fund-raisers and facilitators throughout Saudi Arabia and the Gulf" raised money for al Qaeda. In July 2005, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey stated that "even today, we believe that Saudi donors may still be a significant source of terrorist financing, including for the insurgency in Iraq."
CAIR has proven links to? Islamic terrorists.
It's easy to understand why CAIR chose to leave this one alone, what with five current or former CAIR affiliates arrested, convicted, or deported on terrorism-related charges:
Randall Royer, CAIR's communications specialist and civil rights coordinator, was indicted on charges of conspiring to help Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to battle American troops in Afghanistan. He later pled guilty to lesser firearm-related charges and was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
Ghassan Elashi, the founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, was convicted in July 2004 along with his four brothers of having illegally shipped computers from their Dallas-area business, InfoCom Corporation, to Libya and Syria, two designated state sponsors of terrorism. In April of 2005, Elashi and two brothers were also convicted of knowingly doing business with Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader and Specially Designated Terrorist. He continues to face charges that he provided more than $12.4 million to Hamas while he was running the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), America's largest Islamic charity.
Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's community relations director, pleaded guilty in September 2003 to lying on his visa application and for passing bad checks for substantial amounts in early 2001, for which he was deported. Khafagi was also a founding member and president of the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), an organization under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for terrorism-related activities.
Rabih Haddad, a CAIR fundraiser, was arrested on terrorism-related charges and deported from the United States due to his subsequent work as executive director of the Global Relief Foundation, a charity he co-founded; in October 2002, GRF was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department for financing Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. According to a CAIR complaint, Homam Albaroudi, a member of CAIR's Michigan chapter and also a founding member and executive director of the IANA also founded the Free Rabih Haddad Committee.
Siraj Wahhaj, a CAIR advisory board member, was named in 1995 by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White as a possible unindicted co-conspirator in connection with the plot to blow up New York City landmarks led by the blind sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman.
CAIR is a fundamentalist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the United States Constitution and the installation of an Islamic theocracy in America.
CAIR wishes nothing more than the implementation of a SHARIA law in American.
[CAIR seeks to replace the government of the United States] with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection....
CAIR is here to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States and to convert our country into an Islamic theocracy along the lines of Iran.
CAIR's goals are clear, as indicated by its leaders' sometimes revealing comments:
Ihsan Bagby, a future CAIR board member, stated in the late 1980s that Muslims "can never be full citizens of this country," referring to the United States, "because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country."
Ibrahim Hooper, the future CAIR spokesman, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune on April 4, 1993: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."
Omar Ahmad, CAIR's chairman, announced in July 1998 that "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."
These facts suggest why CAIR felt it had to drop most of its libel claims against Andrew Whitehead. Should this case go to court, we will watch with interest how Whitehead's two remaining opinions (that CAIR is a terrorist-supporting front organization and that it seeks to overthrow the constitutional government of the United States) fare.
Mr. Pipes (http://www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers). Ms Chadha is the co-author of two forthcoming books on the Middle East.
From http://www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2811
-
How the Patriot Act Saves Lives
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 18, 2006
On January 5, 2005, a drug runner named Noel Exinia, who was engaged in transporting over five hundreds pounds of cocaine from Mexico to New York City, revealed in a telephone conversation that he was interested in other kinds of cargo as well. He spoke about twenty Iraqis, all between the ages of 25 and 33, who would pay $8,000 to get past the Mexico-U.S. border and into the United States. These Iraqis were, he said, in the Mexican cities of Monterrey, Chiapas and Puebla, and were ready to cross into Texas; ultimately, they hoped to get to the Northeast. According to Exinia, they were ?la gente de Osama? ? Osama?s people. What?s more, they were ?dangerous?really bad people.? Even Exinia, with all his experience in the drug underworld as part of the Gulf Cartel, admitted he was afraid of them.
No one would have known any of this, at least until these Iraqis committed a terrorist act on American soil, had it not been for the fact that Exinia?s call was recorded. The recording was permissible under the U.S. Patriot Act.
And that, says Exinia?s lawyer, John Blaylock, is why no one should ever have heard anything about Exinia?s phone call. ?This is an example,? he maintains, ?of a lot of hot air with a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing?.Terrorism is the flavor of the week. If they could have, they would have charged him with terrorism to justify the Patriot Act that is coming up for renewal.? However, Exinia?s previous lawyer, William May, said that he thought the terrorism allegations against his former client were true.
Meanwhile, Henry Crumpton, the State Department?s new counter-terrorism chief, has said: ?I rate the probability of terror groups using WMD [to attack Western targets] as very high. It is simply a question of time. And it is not just the nuclear threat that bothers me. I think, if anything, the biological threat is going to grow.?
The FBI has declined all comment on the Exinia case; no one will even say whether ?Osama?s people? made it into the United States or were headed off. But in any case, if any of them succeeded in carrying out a terrorist attack in the United States, particularly a nuclear or biological attack, would anyone be relieved that their rights had not been infringed by illegal wiretapping?
Apparently the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) would be, among others. With the five-week extension on the Patriot Act due to expire on February 3, they have filed suit against another, closely related and just as controversial element of President Bush?s anti-terror program: the recently-revealed program of domestic surveillance conducted without a warrant or other authorization. The names of the plaintiffs do not inspire confidence in the merits of the suit. The ACLU?s long-standing antagonism to America?s common defense is well documented; for its part, CAIR has had several of its officials arrested and convicted on various terrorism-related charges, and has never answered questions about where it really stands on jihad violence. The Fiqh Council of North America?s condemnation of terrorism that CAIR endorsed with much fanfare (and a great deal of mainstream media attention) was flawed, inadequate, and loaded with weasel words.
That such groups would come out against the Administration?s policies may be the strongest argument in their favor. However, thoughtful and patriotic Americans with a healthy understanding of the global jihad threat ? notably Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation ? have also expressed reservations about various aspects of the Patriot Act. Weyrich notes: ?Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, after 9/11, said if we gave up our way of life in order to catch terrorists the terrorists would have won.? Suspension of some civil liberties in wartime is nothing new: Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; during World War I, Woodrow Wilson had enacted numerous provisions that would make ACLU lawyers blanch today. But in this era of an ever-expanding and ever-encroaching federal government, Rumsfeld?s warning is not just empty rhetoric.
If Judge Samuel Alito is confirmed as expected and takes a seat on the Supreme Court so that the Court again has its full complement of justices, the High Court should consider questions regarding the Patriot Act and domestic wiretapping as quickly as possible. The proper balance must be found between Constitutional protections and national security, such that the plans of the men who made Noel Exinia afraid are discovered and foiled well before they have any chance to come to fruition, but not in a manner that compromises any legitimate Constitutional freedom. Otherwise, we would simply be opposing one tyranny with another. The struggle against global jihad, although few yet realize it, is a great struggle, perhaps the last great struggle, to defend and safeguard the principles of universal human rights and the equality of dignity of all people that have been one of the greatest gifts that Judeo-Christian civilization has given to the world. Upon those principles our defense must be founded, or all is lost.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World?s Fastest Growing Faith and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.
-
CAIR Supports Imam Jalil's Hateful Views
Brian Hecht of Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism has prepared the following post; please quote Brian:
Yesterday, the "New York Post" broke the story of an anti-Government, anti-Semitic speech made by the chief Imam of New York City?s Department of Corrections. On an audio tape obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) at a 2005 Muslim Students Association conference in Arizona, Umar Abdul-Jalil, also the Imam of the Masjid Sabur mosque in Harlem, complained that ?the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House? and that the ?Zionists of the media? have portrayed Islam in a negative light. Responding to the news of Imam Jalil?s comments, New York City has placed him on administrative leave pending a further investigation. As reported by the Post:
At one conference session, Abdul-Jalil charged that Muslims jailed after the 9/11 attacks were being tortured in Manhattan, according to the tape. "They [some Muslim inmates] are not charged with anything, they are not entitled to any rights, they are interrogated. Some of them are literally tortured and we found this in the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in Manhattan. But they literally are torturing people," Abdul-Jalil said.
Abdul-Jalil also accused the Bush administration of being terrorists, according to the tape. "We have terrorists defining who a terrorist is, but because they have the weight of legitimacy, they get away with it . . . We know that the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House, without a doubt," he said.
At another session, Abdul-Jalil urged American Muslims to stop allowing "the Zionists of the media to dictate what Islam is to us" and said Muslims must be "compassionate with each other" and "hard against the kufr [unbeliever]."
Not surprisingly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has a long history of espousing and defending extremist, hateful and anti-Semitic speech (see Steven Emerson's "The American Muslim Leaders' 'Fatwa' Is Bogus"), is defending Imam Jalil?s right to preach his views while earning $76,000 in taxpayer-supported salary and holding a position of public trust, supposedly involved in the rehabilitation of convicted criminals. Of course, CAIR won't defend the rights of newspapers when publishing cartoons which CAIR deems insulting.
For his part, Imam Jalil, after initially denying that he made the comments at all, admitted to the "New York Post" that he had in fact made the incendiary remarks, but that they were being taken out of context. According to the "New York Daily News," Jalil insists that he is not anti-Semitic and has lashed out at those who he feels have questioned his patriotism. As reported by the Daily News:
Yesterday he insisted he wasn't anti-Semitic, adding that his mother was Jewish, having converted to Judaism in 1959.
"I'm more Jewish than most who espouse the Jewish faith," he said.
Into the controversy steps CAIR on the Imam's side. As reported by New York?s ABC affiliate, Wissam Nasr, CAIR?s New York?s Executive Director, said:
"There are other things that are the truth in his statements. For example, harsh treatment of Muslim prisoners at the Metropolitan Detention Center and the jails in New York, so I think we can't mix the two together. And even if it was his opinion, this is America and we are allowed to express our opinions publicly."
The report continues: ?[w]hile the Council on Islamic Relations (sic) doesn't agree with all the statements, the director examined the transcripts with us and defended the imam's right to expression.? CAIR?s position as a defender of ?free speech? concerning incendiary and hateful remarks is rather dubious in light of their views on the recent Danish cartoon controversy. Parvez Ahmed, the Chairman of CAIR, wrote in an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News (and issued on the Islamic Broadcasting Network site), ?[f]ree speech, like every other freedom, comes with the responsibility of good judgment. Newspapers ought to have the freedom to speak the truth, but a cartoon that defames does not further debate.? One wonders if Parvez Ahmed believes that rants about the ?Zionist controlled media? and terrorists running the White House helps to ?further debate.? And just two weeks ago, at a CAIR-sponsored event at the University of Pennsylvania on the Mohammed cartoons, CAIR board member Mazhar Rishi said, ?[t]he right to free speech is not absolute.?
In CAIR?s view, when Muslims are offended, free speech is not absolute and should be exercised responsibly. But when a Muslim in a position of authority receiving a government salary says something offensive, free speech becomes an unlimited, cherished American right. In other words, everyone but Muslims must exhibit responsibility when exercising their right to free speech.
The IPT?s Joshua Shrager appeared on WABC?s broadcast to discuss the issue (click on ?Eyewitness News Video? under ?Related Links? to watch).
Posted by Andrew Cochran
-
FBI ?Bridges? to Terror
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 18, 2006
Prior to 9/11, few understood the scope and capabilities of Al-Qaeda. One of those worthy few was John O?Neill. PBS dubbed him ?The Man Who Knew,? as he warned a friend, on the eve of the attacks, ?We?re due for something big.? Starting in 1995, in his position as chief of the FBI?s counter-terrorism section, O?Neill became absorbed with tracking the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his global network of terrorists. But that search ended, shortly after a plane slammed into the building that he was stationed at, the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was there that John Patrick O?Neill lost his life, while trying to do what he did best ? be a hero. In an act that could only be seen as a way to dishonor his memory, the organization he gave his blood and guts for took part in an event being sponsored by one of the defendants in the lawsuit for his murder.
On April 13, 2006, the FBI led a nationally televised townhall meeting on Bridges TV, a U.S.-based Muslim television network, located in Orchard Park, New York. The press release, sent out two days before the meeting, labeled it ?a historic event in American history? and the ?first-of-its-kind.? [According to the release, it will be re-broadcast worldwide via U.S. State Department television.] Representing the FBI was Paul Moskal, the division chief of the FBI?s office in Buffalo, and Thomas Ginter, the FBI?s local recruitment director. The sponsor for the meeting was the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the moderator was the director of CAIR?s Ohio office, Adnan Mirza. CAIR is currently named as a defendant in the John O?Neill lawsuit, brought forward by his family and filed in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.
In Estate of John P. O'Neill, Sr. et al. vs. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, it is stated, ?Council on American Islamic Relations and CAIR Canada (collectively, CAIR), have aided, abetted, and materially sponsored al Qaeda and international terrorism? In the years and months leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 these organizations were very effective in helping to ensure that North American law enforcement and intelligence officials were sufficiently deaf, dumb, and blind to help pave the way for the attacks on the United States.?
Indeed, CAIR has a profuse track record with regards to its terrorist connections and affiliations. The organization was created by a front group for the Palestinian Hamas. In its short existence, CAIR has lost a Civil Rights Coordinator, a fundraiser, a Director of Community Relations, and a founding Director of its Texas Chapter, all through conviction or deportation. The FBI had a hand in bringing to justice every one of these individuals.
Much of this information was provided to the FBI?s Buffalo office, yet the event still went on as planned. According to agent Moskal, he was ?offended? that there were concerned citizens that had warned him ahead of time not to attend. He stated, ?I was very offended. I mean, what?s the FBI?s international reputation?? But where was his offense at what CAIR and its officials had been involved in, and where was his compassion for his fellow agent ? one of the best the FBI has ever employed?
Furthermore, where was the concern from the FBI about the venue where the meeting was being held? Apart from the disturbing fact that CAIR has direct involvement with Bridges TV ? CAIR?s Executive Director, Nihad Awad, is an advisor for Bridges ? the station openly boasts of its Islamist-oriented programming.
On the homepage of the Bridges TV website, Siraj Wahhaj, a man that was named as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, is featured on the network and saluted as a ?Prominent Scholar.? And on its website, the station proudly displays a ?testimonial? from Eric Vickers, the former Executive Director of the American Muslim Council, who said, in February of 2003, that the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was an act of divine retribution against Israel. Bridges has also worked with the likes of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a group tied to the violent Muslim Brotherhood that was the subject of a U.S. Senate investigation into terrorism financing.
Before and after the townhall meeting, CAIR sent out e-mails and posted ?news briefs? about the event. This is in keeping with CAIR?s practice of exploiting anything that grants the organization an air of legitimacy. Unfortunately, the FBI and other government agencies allow themselves to be exploited.
While the FBI works diligently to protect America from her many enemies, the bureau has, as well, been all too willing to reach out to those that espouse the beliefs ? and in some cases are affiliated (as the O?Neill family is attempting to prove) ? with those that attacked us on 9/11. The Bridges TV/FBI/CAIR episode is but one of many instances of this occurring.
At a time when we are at war with Muslims overseas, it is quite understandable for the American government to want to put on a good face and interact with those mainstream Muslim organizations here at home. However, in order to do that, our government has to settle for those that represent a radical strain of Islam; not one of these groups represents otherwise.
It is with this in mind that one must consider the alternative (not having any interaction) as being far greater than the reward for doing so. For if we continue on this course of trying to make friends with the enemy, in the end, we will never know who the real enemy is.
John O?Neill knew. Hopefully, someone else with any kind of influence figures it out soon.
-
Hamas for Hipsters
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 24, 2006
Today, in what can only be seen as a sinister farce, Ahmed Rehab, the Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, will be addressing the student body of Minnesota State University Moorhead as its fall keynote speaker for 2006. According to CAIR-Chicago?s website, the speech will include a discussion about 9/11, an event which CAIR is currently being sued over.
When viewing the CAIR-Chicago site, one comes away with the impression that the group is nothing more than a hip, modern youth movement. The colorful animated pages, the fancy three-piece suits, the corporate images, the happy smiling faces ? all of this lends to this false image. But the reality is something entirely different.
CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was created by three leaders of a front for Hamas called the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). One of those leaders, CAIR?s current National Executive Director Nihad Awad, has, in the past, publicly stated his support for Hamas. As well, CAIR has solicited money for two Hamas-related charities that were shut down by the U.S. government in December of 2001, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and the Global Relief Foundation (GRF). Both groups had leaders that were also CAIR officials. One of those leaders, Ghassan Elashi, earlier this month, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
In addition to this, CAIR is currently the defendant in a class action lawsuit put forward by the family of the former Chief of the FBI?s Counter-Terrorism Section, John P. O?Neill, naming CAIR as a party to the 9/11 conspiracy to attack America. As stated in Estate of John P. O'Neill, Sr. et al. vs. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, ?CAIR and CAIR-Canada have, since their inception, been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism. These organizations play a unique role in the terrorist network. They emanate from the notorious HAMAS terrorist organization, and like so many of the terrorism facilitating charities named and indicted by the United States government, they are engaged in fund raising under the guise of assisting humanitarian causes; they are, in reality, a key player in international terrorism.?
Ahmed Rehab has his own ?reality.? Born in Cairo, Egypt, Rehab has been inspired greatly by the violent Muslim Brotherhood organization that was established in his birthplace in 1928. He stated as much, when he described ? on his now-defunct personal website ? the founder of the Brotherhood, Hassan Al Banna, as a ?Contemporary Muslim Individual who influenced me? and when he labeled Brotherhood author and philosopher, Sayyid Qutb, his ?Favorite Modern Personality.? This was, of course, the same Muslim Brotherhood that spawned Hamas 60 years later, in 1987.
In keeping with the anti-Semitic attitudes of the Brotherhood and its offspring, Rehab has attacked Jews with standard Jewish hate libels. Concerning such subjects as the Holocaust, he has written that he believes there is a ?Jewish control over the media? and that ?the history of the Jewish film producers in particular have shown that they predate on weak minorities by default.?
CAIR-Chicago?s website states that Rehab was an ?activist in the field of interfaith collaboration? and that he ?is a firm believer in the need to reach out and build bridges.? Rehab pulled his website from the internet this year. Are we to believe that Mr. Rehab has changed his views so dramatically over the course of the last few months?
Ahmed Rehab was also the one to break the story ? through this author ? that CAIR?s parent organization, the IAP, was no longer in existence. The group had been found liable for the murder of an American boy, David Boim, during a Hamas terror operation is Israel. The group was also based in Chicago, Rehab?s hometown. Furthermore, Rehab interviewed IAP President (and co-founder of CAIR) Rafiq Jaber, shortly before the IAP?s dissolution. Question: How close was Rehab to the IAP ? one of three American organizations to be founded by the number two leader in Hamas today, Mousa Abu Marzook ? that he knew of the group?s closure before anyone else?
All of the above are reasons why students and faculty at Minnesota State University Moorhead should have major concerns about allowing this individual to speak at its institution. Given CAIR?s terrorist ties, this event should never have been conceived in the first place. No matter what the CAIR-Chicago website looks like or what Rehab says ? no matter how they dress up their words and imagery ? Hamas masquerading in trendy garb is still Hamas.
-
http://www.douglasfarah.com/
When You Don't Get it, You Don't Get It
Seems like DHS, in an effort to reach out to the Muslim community to calm fears of profiling, decided to take leaders of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on a VIP, behind-the scenes tour of its new counter-terrorism measures.
It is a testament to the idea that you repeat the same mistake again and again and learn nothing that this type of outrage continues to happen. It is no longer a question of ignorance of who CAIR is and what CAIR stands for. That has been too amply documented to be in question if officials bothered with a simple google search. (Of course, as the Washington Post reported this morning, the FBI has basically no capability to do even that online, as their program for computer upgrades has gone down the toilet.
CAIR represents only a small slice of the Islamic community, the small slice that is intent on carrying out a radical Muslim agenda in the United States. The organization has consistently and successfully positioned itself as the voice of moderate Islam in America.
One of the most pernicious lies is that jihad is defined as a personal struggle against sin, rather than violence against infidels. This is historically inaccurate and demonstrably false. That that is still being taught to U.S. agents in any part of government is deeply disturbing and reflects and intellectual laziness that demonstrates that leadership in DHS has not learned even the basics of enemies who would like to blow us all up.
As WorldnetDaily.com reports:? During the airport tour, CAIR was taken on a walk through the point-of-entry, Customs stations, secondary screening and interview rooms. In addition, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were asked to describe for CAIR representatives various features of the high-risk passenger lookout system.
?In a meeting, Brian Humphrey, Customs and Border Patrol?s executive director of field operations, assured CAIR officials that agents do not single out Muslim passengers for special screening and that they must undergo a mandatory course in Muslim sensitivity training. The course teaches agents that Muslims believe jihad is an ?internal struggle against sin? and not holy warfare.
?Customs agents involved in the CAIR tour at O?Hare tell WorldNetDaily they were outraged that headquarters would reveal sensitive counterterrorism procedures to an organization that has seen several of its own officials convicted of terror-related charges since 9-11.
?Isn?t that nice of CBP,? one agent said, to provide a ?group like CAIR with a guided, behind-the-scenes tour of our customs facilities, explaining how programs designed to catch Muslim terrorists work.?
?CAIR says the tour allayed its concerns about profiling and that it ?looks forward to continuing the relationship with U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices in the region, and to furthering understanding between the organizations as well as facilitating future communication in order to eliminate problems for Muslim travelers before they even arise.?
Strange, but truley scary.
-
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=papers&code=06-D_41
Decision Brief No. 06-D 41 2006-08-21
War on the home front
(Washington, D.C.): In recent days, it has become harder than ever to deny the true nature of the conflict in which we find ourselves. As President Bush put it recently, "We are at war with Islamic fascists." To be sure, the mounting evidence does not preclude some from denying this reality. The facts are sufficiently clear, however, that we must begin to question the judgment, if not the motivations, of those at home who persist in trying to obscure the central threat we face from the totalitarian political ideology known as Islamofascism.
Islamofascism on the March
One straw in the wind could be found in Sunday's New York Times which prominently featured an article entitled "And Now Islamism Trumps Arabism." Although the author, writing from Cairo, used throughout the euphemism "political Islam," the import was unmistakable: With its attacks on Israel and its survival of Israeli retaliation, the Iranian- and Syrian-supported Islamofascist terrorist group, Hezbollah, has added luster and new recruits to longstanding efforts to subject the entire Muslim world - and, in due course, all non-Muslim populations - to Taliban-style Islamist rule.
The manifestations of this rising tide have become evident not only in the Muslim world - Arab and Persian, Sunni and Shiite alike. Britain, Canada, Germany and the United States are among a number of Western nations that narrowly averted terrorist attacks, all of which appear to have been orchestrated by adherents to one form or another of the Islamofascist ideology.
The Facts About Islamofascism at Home
Particularly worrying is the fact that at least some of the would-be perpetrators of such murderous attacks fall into a category increasingly described as "home grown" - that is, suicide-bombers who do not come from abroad, but are citizens of the country they are trying to afflict. Detecting and counteracting such individuals has proven to be even more challenging than the task of preventing their fellow ideologues from getting into the targeted nations.
While it is true that Western societies are increasingly arresting individuals suspected of involvement with terror who are native-born, to call them "home-grown" is misleading. This term understates the role being played by foreign Islamists who have been allowed to establish elaborate recruitment and indoctrination operations inside such societies, including the United States.
For example, mosques and their associated schools (madrassas), prison and military chaplain programs, college campus organizations and increasingly businesses induced to accommodate Islamist demands for employee prayer rooms, time off for prayers, etc. are being used as vehicles for inspiring and/or compelling adherence to the radicals' ideology. Many of these operations receive generous funding from the most important promoter of Islamofascism in the world today, Saudi Arabia.
Enter CAIR
So what are we to make of the claims of a prominent spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ibrahim Hooper, who has publicly denied that Islamofascist imams in some U.S. mosques preach and teach in their schools the destruction of America? In response to a question from CNBC host Larry Kudlow last Thursday, Hooper declared "I've been in a lot of mosques in America. I've never heard that. It's not something that's - I know of in the Muslim community. It's put out and bandied about by anti-Muslim bigots constantly."
This is, of course, patent nonsense. Most, if not all, of those convicted of ties to terror (a population which includes, by the way, three former CAIR officials) have been associated with radical imams and mosques, Islamist missionary organizations like Tablighi Jamaat, and/or Saudi-funded campus or prison recruitment operations.
This is no accident. For example, Freedom House has carefully documented that the Saudis have been providing their mosques in America (Saudi Arabian-financed entities are said to hold the mortgages for as many as 80% of them) with materials that promote jihad against Americans and other "infidels."
For too long, organizations like CAIR (which was reportedly spawned as a political front for the Islamofascist terror organization, Hamas), have been given a pass as they make misleading statements and otherwise sow confusion about the nature of this war. Especially intolerable is their practice of branding those who challenge them and their conduct as "anti-Muslim bigots." (Ibrahim Hooper evidently used such unfounded charges to prevent Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. from debating him on Kudlow's show last week. See Mr. Gaffney's letter on the matter to CNBC President Mark Hoffman)
The Bottom Line
Now that we have no choice but to be clearer about the nature of our enemy in this war, we must stop treating those who apologize for, or otherwise do the bidding of, the Islamofascists as anything but what they are: Part of the problem. The FBI and the law enforcement community more generally, the military and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should stop allowing CAIR and its ilk to provide "Muslim sensitivity training" to their personnel.
Similarly, the U.S. government should refrain from granting those like CAIR access to security-sensitive facilities and operations. Incredibly, in June, according to WorldNetDaily, a senior DHS official personally provided CAIR representatives a "VIP tour" of the Customs screening center at the world's busiest airport, O'Hare International - at the same time British authorities were trying to prevent the penetration of their airport security systems by Islamofascist terrorists.
Finally, the media must not allow, as CNBC recently did, CAIR's bullying tactics to prevent its representatives from being held fully to account. Such practices will only perpetuate the kind of muddled thinking that has to date kept the U.S. from waging the indispensable "war of ideas" against the Islamofascists, both at home and abroad.
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/08/31/video-la-human-rights-award-winner-slams-israeli-butchers/
-
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=6008
CAIR launches rebranding effort
The Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR) apparently thinks it is need of a better image, so it announces a ?new brand identity? on its website this month. The rebranding also includes a new logo. Hmm, sounds like they?ve been talking to expensive marketing consultants.
Here?s what they say about it.
?The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today announced the launch of a new brand identity and logo. The new identity focuses on openness, professionalism and the pursuit of mutual understanding and justice.?CAIR made its announcement at the convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in Chicago, North America?s largest annual gathering of Muslims.?
Because observant Muslims do not imbibe alcohol, I wonder if they toasted the move with a non-alcoholic beverage. My suggestion would have been New Coke, of course.
The organization?s head elaborates.
CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed stated: ?After 12 years of dedicated service to the community, we are reaffirming our core values and recommitting ourselves to three central aspects of CAIR?s mission ? enhancing understanding of Islam, protecting civil liberties and empowering American Muslims.?
He also wrote about the need to transform CAIR in ways that better reflect the group?s core commitment to justice, education, diversity, and dialogue.
Ahmed concluded his letter by stating: ?CAIR is your organization and it is our privilege and honor to serve you and to promote a better America.?
Would that better America be ruled by Sharia law? CAIR?s leadership?s views on the matter are the subject of hot dispute. However, it appears that there seems to be no dispute over the fact that former CAIR employees and officials have been involved in terror.
There is only so much that you can do with a new brand when the underlying product has problems. There?s an old saw about putting lipstick on a certain barnyard animal, but given Muslim sensitivities to this creature, and not wanting to be accused of hate speech, I will refrain from mentioning it.
If CAIR really wants to improve its image, it could start by denouncing the forced conversion of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, at gunpopint. I have searched the CAIR website and found none. If I have missed it, I would be grateful to learn of CAIR?s rejection, and its proclamation that these men have been victimized and are under no obligation to be Muslims.
Strangely enough, the page on the CAIR website linked to the ?Not in the name of Islam campaign? (put your cursor on ?Challenging Hate? on the home page) shows no content via the Firefox browser.
Thomas Lifson 9 04 06
-
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22454_ISNA_Seminar-_How_to_Beat_a_Woman&only
-
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=16661
L.A. Times violates journalistic ethics in Anaheim City Council election coverage
By Steven Emerson
Normally, a race for a seat on Anaheim's City Council garners little attention beyond Anaheim. But this year, one candidate is drawing some outside attention.
Bill Dalati, a Syrian-born insurance agent, is running for a spot on Anaheim's City Council. His candidacy has come under scrutiny because of his association with a controversial organization with known links to the Hamas terror group and his participation at a virulently anti-Israel rally this past summer.
But the Los Angeles Times has been singularly trying to portray the criticism of Dalati, made by Republican Shawn Steel, as racist and unsubstantiated.
On July 29 of this year, during the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which was set off by Hezbollah's July 12 cross-border raid and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, Dalati attended an anti-Israel rally in Anaheim. In its coverage of the City Council race, the Associated Press reported that Dalati referred to the event merely as an "anti-war rally." And the L.A. Times reported on Oct. 9 that Dalati "defended his association with the rally protesting the Israel-Lebanon conflict," quoting him as saying, "I'm not against Jews or Christians ... I don't support Hezbollah. I just don't believe wars solve any issues; love does."
But the situation is not nearly as innocuous as the L.A. Times and Associated Press would have one believe. The Anaheim protest was about anything but "love." The rally was not merely "anti-war" and the attendees were not merely "protesting the Israel-Lebanon conflict." The event in question was billed by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, one of the sponsors of the demonstration, as a "Rally Against U.S.-Israeli Terror in Palestine & Lebanon," hardly a neutral, let alone credible "anti-war" sentiment.
Although the rally drew little mainstream media attention, what little coverage there was whitewashed the content of the demonstration, giving cover for the AP, the L.A. Times and Dalati himself to downplay the nature of the event.
Fortunately, a participant at the rally created a slideshow of the demonstration, posted on YouTube, which shows various demonstrators carrying such signs as "Israel Likes Killing Kids," "Killing Kids Is Not Self Defense" and "End the U.S.-Israeli War," as well as the more typical signs seen at various anti-Israel protests, such as "Stop Israeli War Crimes" and "$134 Billion US Taxes To Israel -- Enough."
Whatever one thinks of American foreign policy and support for Israel, the July rally cannot be fairly described either as simply "anti-war" or just "protesting the Israel-Lebanon conflict."
There were no signs indicating any disapproval of Hezbollah's actions -- the capture of Israeli soldiers -- which started the war, nor were there any signs indicating any disapproval of Hezbollah's indiscriminate shelling of Israeli towns with Katusha rockets (packed with scrap metal and ball bearings to cause as much damage to humans as possible), nor any condemnation of Hezbollah's use of civilians as human shields in Lebanon. There were no signs indicating any disapproval of the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants and no calls for Hamas -- now the majority in the Palestinian government -- to moderate its stance rejecting the existence of Israel to help pave the way for peace.
Yet, the L.A. Times again came to the defense of Dalati on Oct. 13, in falsely describing this rally in evenhanded terms as a "rally protesting the Israel-Lebanon conflict."
In the original story on Dalati, the L.A. Times also refers to Dalati's support of and association with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), describing the organization as it often describes itself: "the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country" and stating uncritically that CAIR is "largely viewed as a mainstream organization." In the second L.A. Times story, the newspaper drops any pretension of reportorial objectivity in its embrace of CAIR: "The largest Muslim civil rights group in the country, CAIR is widely viewed as mainstream and helps the FBI in combating terrorism."
While CAIR may call itself the "largest Muslim civil rights group" in America, the Times completely ignores CAIR's well-documented history of extremism, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, as well as its origins in a now-defunct group, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), an organization that was a losing defendant in a $156 million civil judgment related to the Hamas murder of an American citizen. In the case, the judge noted that there is "evidence that IAP provided material support to Hamas."
Similarly, during a 1994 speech at Florida's Barry University, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad stated, "I am in support of the Hamas movement." Awad was the public relations director of IAP before founding CAIR. And this is what Awad said six years later, on Oct. 28, 2000, in a Washington, D.C., anti-Israeli rally: "Brothers and sisters, we are at least 8 million people, but there are 265 million people in this country who have been deceived, who have been misinformed, who have been intimidated by a small group of people who have been hijacking the political process."
Additionally, several CAIR officials have been convicted on terrorist-related charges. One of them, Randall "Ismail" Royer, CAIR's former communications specialist, trained to fight with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a designated foreign terrorist organization, against Indian forces in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Royer pled guilty to weapons and explosives charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the notorious "Virginia jihad" case.
A founding board member of CAIR-Texas, Ghassan Elashi, is in even greater legal trouble than Royer. Elashi was convicted on a variety of charges in July 2004, including violating the Libyan Sanctions Regulations, and he was found guilty in April 2005 of a Hamas-related money laundering conspiracy, handling money of top Hamas official, the Damascus-based Musa Abu Marzook. Elashi is awaiting his sentencing for both convictions (Elashi's brother, Bayan, was sentenced to seven years in prison on Oct. 11, 2006, for his role in laundering money for Hamas). And Ghassan Elashi is still awaiting another trial, slated to begin in 2007, for his leadership role in the Hamas-linked "charity," the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Texas-based organization shut down in 2001 for allegedly funneling millions of dollars to Hamas.
CAIR has defended Marzook, participating in his legal defense fund when he was arrested in the United States, as well as including his arrest in its annual catalog of hate crimes against Muslims. CAIR's defense of, and links to, anti-Semitic individuals is also unfortunate and extensive.
CAIR officials have defended radical Egyptian cleric Wagdy Ghoneim, who at a May 24, 1998, CAIR co-sponsored rally at Brooklyn College in New York, led the audience in a song with the lyrics: "No to the Jews, descendants of the apes."
Ghoneim gave numerous speeches in the United States calling for suicide bombings. Hussam Ayloush, CAIR's Southern California director quoted in the L.A. Times article, was one of Ghoneim's staunchest defenders, calling Ghoneim's decision to forgo fighting deportation proceedings for overstaying his visa and voluntarily leave the United States "a dent in our civil rights struggle," and "[t]he whole Muslim community today is under a microscope of scrutiny. Committing a mistake that would invite a slap on the wrist for anyone else could lead to prison or deportation for a Muslim."
At the time, Ghoneim had already been denied entry into Canada because of his links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Similarly, CAIR officials have also vigorously defended Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami al-Arian, who has referred to Jews as "monkeys and pigs."
As for CAIR helping the FBI in counterterrorism, consider this exchange in Los Angeles on Sept. 7, 2006, in a press conference featuring various Islamic groups, including CAIR, and a representative of the FBI, Warren Bamford. A reporter asked Bamford whether the dialogue with the Islamic groups helped in the investigations the FBI was conducting. "At this time, I don't have any specific recollection of any times that it has helped our investigations." In point of fact, CAIR actively obstructs FBI investigations by issuing warnings against talking to the FBI and portraying the war on terrorism as a "war against Islam."
Dalati was also criticized by a rival candidate for endorsing former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.). McKinney espoused virulent anti-American and anti-Israeli conspiracy theories, so much so that even fellow Democrats repudiated her. But the L.A. Times simply referred to McKinney as "a liberal Democrat who has been critical of President Bush and the Iraq War." This makes McKinney sound mainstream, the equivalent of describing David Duke as "critical of U.S. foreign policy."
Dalati may understandably want to whitewash CAIR's extremism, the rally in which he participated and Cynthia McKinney's record. But given the ability to check the veracity of such claims, the L.A. Times' embrace of this revisionist history is a violation of all journalistic ethics. The L.A. Times has the resources to research the organization but instead choose just to parrot its propaganda.
Dalati's characterization of the July 26 Anaheim rally as merely "anti-war," however, is cause for concern, and his candidacy is rightly drawing a higher level of scrutiny and attention than the average race for a seat on Anaheim's City Council.
-
Cancer in its midst'
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By M. Zuhdi Jasser
March 30, 2006
During the dark days of our Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote, "That these are the times, that try men's souls." As an American Muslim, I feel the sentiment of these words like a red-hot brand on my brain.
? ?I have watched horrified as assassins have read out the words from my Holy Koran before slitting the throats of some poor innocent souls. To my non-comprehending eyes, I have seen mothers proudly support their sons' accomplishment of blowing up innocent people as they eat or travel. It shatters some part of me, to see my faith as an instrument for butchery.
? ?It makes me hope and pray for some counter-movement within my faith which will push back all this darkness. And I know that it must start with what is most basic -- the common truth that binds all religions: "Do unto others, as you would have them do onto you." The Golden Rule.
? ?But that is not what I am seeing taught in a great deal of the Muslim world today, and, unfortunately, in America it's just not much better.
? ?Night after night, I see Muslim national organizations like the Council for American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, cry out over and over about anecdotal victimization while saying and doing absolutely nothing about the most vile hate-speak and actions toward Jews and Christians in the Muslim world. It is the most self-serving of outrage.
? ?The question I ask myself in the darkness of my own night is, "How did my beautiful faith become so linked with such ugliness." To me, the answer is both deep and simple. A spiritual path must be only about the spiritual while a worldly path must be about this world. When the two get mixed together, it brings out the very worst in both.
? ?Much of what passes today for religious thought and action is actually political. When I hear a sermon in a mosque about the horrors of Israeli occupation, I know that the political arena has taken over the spiritual one. When I see the actions of suicide bombers praised or excused by religious leaders, I know that this politicization is complete. But the current Muslim leadership in groups like CAIR and others want only to talk of victimization. So, it is now high time for a new movement by Muslims in America and the West.
? ?We in the Muslim community need to develop a new paradigm for our organizations and think tanks which holds Muslims publicly accountable for the separation of the political from the spiritual. Gone should be the day where individuals and their organizations can hide behind the cloak of victimization as a smoke screen for what they really believe.
? ?I do believe that religions have cycles that they go through. Christianity was once a highly intolerant faith. Jews were labeled as "Christ killers" and the colored peoples of the Third World were people whose native faith was like ragged clothes to be torn off their bodies.
? ?Thank God those days are over. Now my faith community must do the same. It should be the true test of a Muslim, not so much how he treats a fellow Muslim but how he treats someone of another faith.
? ?Time is not on our side and the volatile radical minority of Muslims could strike again at any time. But, while true change among Muslims may take generations, our history teaches us that once we start the ideological battle, nothing can counter the power of freedom, pluralism and the desire for human rights.
? ?There are some small signs that my community is finally beginning to wake up to the cancer in its midst. We are learning something that was the central lesson of World War II -- that once aroused, evil never stays self-contained.
? ?For many in my faith, it was all right to blow up innocent Israelis as they sat in their cafes and pizza parlors. Through some tortured act of logic, these suicide bombings were seen as some sort of legitimate religion-sanctioned acts. (All the while, notice how few Muslim organizations like CAIR will denounce Hamas by name). But, as evil always does, it migrates, and soon radical Muslims were blowing up little children in Russia, commuters in Spain and worshippers in one of Iraq's holiest mosques.
? ?Maybe our first true wake-up call was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's homicide attack on the wedding party in Jordan. Because now, the evil unleashed on the occupying Jews had landed on the doorstep of Muslims as they partook in a joyous wedding day.
? ?That is the lesson that we in the Muslim community are now learning. Do evil to anyone and eventually it will boomerang on you. Perhaps, that's a good place to start. Let the barometer of our faith be how we treat our Jewish friends, because in the end, that is how we will eventually treat ourselves.
? ?
? ?M. Zuhdi Jasser is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. A former Navy lieutenant commander, he currently is an internist in private practice in Phoenix.
http://www.aifdemocracy.org/
AIFD Commentary
-
New Muslim leader wants Mideast democracy
http://ads.thestar.com/image.ng/site...esc=w indowadBy Jon Wells
The Hamilton Spectator
(May 1, 2006) The new president of the Muslim Association of Hamilton is showing that he's not afraid to wade in on controversial topics.
In an interview with The Spectator yesterday, Ejaz Butt indicated he supports replacing dictatorships with democratic regimes in the Middle East.
"If (U.S. President George W. Bush) really went into Iraq to bring democracy, I would like him to go into other countries, too, if that is the real intention," he said. "Dictators are in most of our countries, and democracy should be brought to every Muslim country, and as a matter of fact the whole world."
When asked for his views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Butt supports Israel's right to exist as a sovereign country.
"I have a lot of respect for the Israelis, and they have a right to defend their own country. But I also want to have an independent state of Palestine -- a democratic one."
Butt was acclaimed yesterday by the association as its new president. The challenges are considerable for the association in the post 9/11 world.
"I'm an ex-military man, I can face any challenge," said Butt with a chuckle.
"I'm ready for it."
Prior to coming to Canada in 1987, Butt was a soldier in the Pakistani army for 12 years. There, as a major, he worked for a time with a lieutenant named Pervez Musharraf -- now president of Pakistan.
Javid Mirza recently stepped down as association president. Butt plans to carry on Mirza's legacy of trying to build better relations and understanding between religious faiths in the community.
He is also determined to have the first traditionally designed mosque built in the city. The mosque where he was to be acclaimed was once a racquet club.
Butt, 53, is married and has two sons -- Atis is a soldier in the Canadian army and Asim is a Hamilton police officer. He said if Atis is called on to serve with Canadian troops in Afghanistan, he will support it.
"That's why you put the uniform on, you do not disobey orders when the crucial time comes. But Afghanistan is a very dangerous place, it's a very difficult mission ... When I hear of a Canadian soldier's death, they are like my own children, it brings tears."
(This Muslim American did not harbor any mental reservations about defending America and its Constitution from all enemies, domestic and foreign)
Army Pfc. Angelo Zawaydeh, 19, San Bruno; Killed in Iraq
From the Associated Press
April 23, 2006
When Angelo Zawaydeh of San Bruno, Calif., first told his parents that he wanted to join the military, they refused.
Not only were they worried about the dangers of their teenage son going to war, but they also had concerns about Zawaydeh, whose father is Jordanian, participating in a Middle Eastern war.
When Zawaydeh first brought up the idea to his parents when he was 16, the answer was simple, said his mother, April Bradreau. But two years later, he made his own decision. When he joined the Army, she said, "we asked, 'Why didn't you go to college?' And he said, 'I can't sit in the classroom anymore. I need to get up and do something.' "
Zawaydeh, 19, was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Ft. Campbell, Ky., and sent to Iraq in September.
On March 15, the private first class was manning a machine gun atop a tank at a Baghdad traffic control point when he was killed by a mortar shell that struck him in the neck.
Kevin Campos said his best friend, a graduate of Terra Nova High School in Pacifica, Calif., and others had vowed to enlist after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We decided that America was worth fighting for," Campos said. "We thought if we're going to live in this country and raise our families here, we had to do something before we started our lives."
But Bradreau, who with her husband, Akram Zawaydeh, received the news of their son's death on the eve of their 21st wedding anniversary, said her son had grown disillusioned with the war over time. "He thought we could let them [the Iraqis] fight their own battles from now on over there," she said.
Bradreau remembered her son as a respectful young man who always was willing to lend a helping hand.
"He died like he lived," she said. "He gave his life for others."
(Another Muslim American who harbored no mental reservations)
Serving Was Soldier's Mission
Sudan Native Killed in Iraq Did 'Good Deeds'
By Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 4, 2006; A13
Ayman Taha, a Berkeley graduate who was described as athletic, a speaker of many languages, and a friend to all who met him, had only to write his dissertation to earn his PhD, his father said.
But three years ago, Taha, a budding economist and the son of a Northern Virginia couple, Abdel-Rahman and Amal Taha, joined the Army to serve in the Special Forces. About a year ago, he was sent to Iraq.
On Friday, as Staff Sgt. Ayman Taha, 31, was preparing a cache of munitions for demolition in the town of Balad, the explosives detonated and he was killed, the Pentagon said yesterday.
It is "a very terrible thing," Abdel-Rahman Taha said. "He was a son, and a very special son."
The father added: "If you believe in God and you realize that this is God's will . . . it makes it a lot easier."
There is also consolation, the father said, in feeling that "this is something Ayman wanted to do."
A family friend, Nada Eissa, agreed. "No, he didn't have to do it," she said. "This is something he wanted to do."
Ayman Taha was born in Sudan, into an academically accomplished international family. Both parents hold doctorates. When his father worked for the World Bank, Ayman attended elementary school in McLean. He went to secondary school in England, then received a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a master's in economics from the University of Massachusetts, where he was working toward a PhD.
"He lived in many cultures," his father said, and spoke English, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese. More important, his father said, were his personality and character.
"If he has a five-minute conversation with you, that would be the beginning of a lifetime relationship," the father said. "I never heard anybody who ever complained that Ayman did something wrong to him.
"He was just that type of character," the father said.
About three years ago, Ayman Taha told his father, "Dad, I have been going to school since I was 5 years old. I want to take a break."
The father said he suggested that his son "try something in the World Bank . . . or Merrill Lynch." But one day, "out of the blue," his son told him that he had signed the papers that would take him into the Special Forces.
He said his son was "definitely" patriotic and believed "in the mission."
"He strongly agreed that what they were doing is good and that they were helping people in the Middle East to get out of the . . . historic bottleneck" that had confined them.
Since boyhood, those who knew him recalled, Ayman Taha had taken an interest in military matters, which showed itself in the books he read and the toys he played with.
Joining the Special Forces was "something he felt compelled to do," said a friend, Hisham Eissa, who lives in Los Angeles and is Nada Eissa's brother.
In economics, Taha's interest was in development. "He felt very strongly about making a difference," and "I think he felt that people like him" were needed for it, Eissa said.
"Everyone whose life he touched loved this guy," Hisham Eissa said. "There isn't a single person who knew him who isn't torn up about this."
The Pentagon said Taha was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.
His wife, Geraldine, and child Sommer live near the base. One sister, Rabah, is a special education teacher in Fairfax County, and another, Lubna, attends Marymount University.
His father said Taha was a devout Muslim who believed that "the message of Islam is very simple . . . to believe in God and do good deeds."
"He believed that what he was doing were the good deeds Islam is asking for."
-
http://muslimsforasafeamerica.org/?p=48
-
Although the website from which this piece comes is sometimes guilty IMHO of hyper-ventilating, here's this:
=================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Georgetown gets $20 million from prince promoting Islam
Just months later, university ejects evangelical Christians from campus
Posted: October 25, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
? 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
The Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University has been renamed after Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal donated $20 million to its projects. And while that may be just the tail, the dog appears to be moving away from its historic Catholic and Jesuit teaching philosophy too.
The Center's leaders say it now will be used to put on workshops regarding Islam, fostering exchanges with the Muslim world, addressing U.S. policy towards the Muslim world, working on the relationship of Islam and Arab culture, addressing Muslim citizenship and civil liberties, and developing exchange programs for students from the Muslim world.
The "Christian" part of the center's projects at the university that has a history of 200 years of higher education following its Christian founding, is conspicuous by its absence in its website plans for its 10-year future.
But that won't be a surprise to leaders of a number of Christian evangelical groups whose leaders recently were told to leave the campus and not list Georgetown University as a site for operations in the future.
That story, reported by WND earlier, still has folks wondering what happened to cause Georgetown officials to ban InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and others. InterVarsity spokesman Gordon Govier said the organization still doesn't know why the move was announced by university officials, who did not return WND messages left inquiring about the situation.
"We still are a little bit confused about what happened," he told WND. "We haven't been able to identify clearly what happened."
He said Christians in the InterVarsity organization still are meeting at Georgetown, but they have no official sanction and are meeting without recognition, much as many Christian churches in nations where religion is regulated meet.
He said there is a committee meeting that is supposed to hear concerns from Christians, and InterVarsity is hopeful there will be a positive outcome, but there's no time frame set.
But the time frame for other interests that have become relevant to Georgetown are a little more apparent. The school's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding confirmed several months ago that the $20 million donation was made by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and a short time later the Center was given the added moniker as Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
The organization now features a number of pro-Muslim statements and articles, with little reference to any Christian statements or understandings. It even has co-sponsored events with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, identified by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a "front group" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terrorism-related charges.
The center's chief, John L. Esposito, summarizes the goals of the organization clearly: "The Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is concerned with Islam and the West and Islam in the West. The Center, since its creation in 1993, has built bridges of understanding between the Muslim world and the West, addressing stereotypes of Islam and Muslims and issues and questions such as the clash of civilizations, and the compatibility of Islam and modern life ? from democratization and pluralism to the status of women, minorities and human rights ? and American foreign policy in the Muslim world."
The Center says it recognizes the increasing demands because of the world's "critical turning point in the history of Muslim-Christian relations" so it will expand its expertise base and operations, "as well as strengthen the website as a source of critical information about Islam and the Muslim world."
The Center's assistant director, Huma Malik, told WND that the $20 million came from the prince because the center is working on projects that interest him, but she could not comment on the influence of the donation or why the evangelical Christians were barred from campus.
The center was founded in 1993 in cooperation with the Fondation pour L'Entante entre Chretians at Musulmans in Geneva "to build strong bridge of understanding between the Muslim world and the West as well as between Islam and Christianity."
The message of acting as an information source for Islam was reinforced in the fact that while the Center's website includes a link for Islamic Resources, there is none for Christian resources.
It also takes a distinct policy stance, with Esposito noting in a recent posting that "despite 'HAMAS' victory in free and democratic elections, the United States and Europe failed to give the party full recognition and support," he wrote.
That type of behavior, he said, provides reasons for "many Muslim autocratic rulers' to retreat from democratization, and he cited a Gallup World Study that says it is the policies of the U.S. that generate hurt in the Muslim world.
"One billion Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia ? tell us that U.S. policies, not values, are behind the ire of the Arab/ Muslim world," he wrote.
Those voices, he wrote, say that while America and the United Kingdom are disliked, other Western nations such as France and Germany are not. He also wrote that the U.S. is suspected because of its relationship to Israel.
"The United States failed to support UN mediation in the face of clear violations of international law, refused to heed calls for a ceasefire and UN intervention, and continued to provide military assistance to Israel," he said of the recent conflict, triggered by a military attack on Israeli soldiers.
"America?s unconditional support of Israel cast it in the eyes of many as a partner, not simply in military action against HAMAS or Hizbollah militants, but in a war against the democratically elected Palestinian government in Gaza and the government of Lebanon, a long-time US ally," he said.
"The primary victims in Gaza and Lebanon were hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, not terrorists. In Lebanon, more than 500 were killed, 2,000 wounded, and 800,000 displaced. Israeli?s military destroyed the civilian infrastructures of both Gaza and Lebanon."
He said "HAMAS and Hizbollah" both are elected political parties, even though the U.S. and others have labeled them "terrorist organizations."
The Center, on a daily news clip posting, highlighted stories quoting a Mecca Imam saying non-Muslims are attacking Muslims out of fear of being over-run by Muslims and the London mayor noting that Muslims in Britain are being "demonized," comparing their recent treatment in London to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.
Faculty members also are being interviewed by al-Jazeera, a network with sources in many terrorist camps.
The prince, who controls tens of billions of dollars in investments in Morgan Stanley, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Deutsche Bank, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, The Walt Disney company and ebay, works through the Kingdom Holdings company.
He also had given a similar $20 million gift to Harvard, which sponsors a Harvard Law School Islamic Legal Studies Program, and the Islamic Finance Project, which looks at the legal and sharia points of view of situations, officials said.
The Alliance Defense Fund earlier wrote a letter to Georgetown asking for reconsideration of its ban on several Christian groups. Officials said no response was received.
Those in a position to know have reported that the Christian groups were booted from campus for being too evangelical, because student clubs promoting Muslim and Jewish beliefs were allowed to continue existing with the formal campus structure.
The Christian groups' brush-off letter from the university starts: "Blessings and may God's peace be upon you!" but deteriorates shortly later to: "Protestant Ministry has decided to move in another direction."
As a result, Georgetown said, "Your ministries will no longer be allowed to hold any activity or presence (i.e. bible (sic) studies, retreats with Georgetown students, Mid-week (sic) worship services, fellowship events, move-in assistance, SAC Fair, etc.) on campus."
Further, the school told the ministry organizations, "All websites linking your ministries to a presence at Georgetown University will need to be modified to reflect the terminated relationship. Your ministries are not to publicize in any literature, media, advertisement, etc. that Georgetown University is or will be an active ministry site for your ministry/church/denomination."
Kevin Offer, who worked with the InterVarsity program at Georgetown, said something had been developing, because the university also recently had started requiring student ministry leaders to meet for formal meetings with the school. "School officials asked questions about what they 'tell students behind closed doors,'" he said.
__________________
-
http://www.startribune.com/191/story/766918.html
KERSTEN102606
Last update: October 25, 2006 ? 9:50 PM
Airport taxi flap about alcohol has deeper significance
The airport taxi controversy may go deeper than the quandary over whether to accommodate Somali Muslim cabdrivers who refuse to carry passengers carrying alcohol. Behind the scenes, a struggle for power and religious authority is apparently playing out.
Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune
The taxi controversy at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has caught the nation's attention. But the dispute may go deeper than the quandary over whether to accommodate Somali Muslim cabdrivers who refuse to carry passengers carrying alcohol. Behind the scenes, a struggle for power and religious authority is apparently playing out.
At the Starbucks coffee shop in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, a favorite Somali gathering spot, holidaymakers celebrating Eid, the end of Ramadan, filled the tables on Monday. Several taxis were parked outside.
An animated circle of Somalis gathered when the question of the airport controversy was raised.
"I was surprised and shocked when I heard it was an issue at the airport," said Faysal Omar. "Back in Somalia, there was never any problem with taking alcohol in a taxi."
Jama Dirie said, "If a driver doesn't pick up everyone, he should get his license canceled and get kicked out of the airport."
Two of the Somalis present defended the idea that Islam prohibits cabdrivers from transporting passengers with alcohol. An argument erupted. The consensus seemed to be that only a small number of Somalis object to transporting alcohol. It's a matter of personal opinion, not Islamic law, several men said.
Ahmed Samatar, a nationally recognized expert on Somali society at Macalester College, confirmed that view. "There is a general Islamic prohibition against drinking," he said, "but carrying alcohol for people in commercial enterprise has never been forbidden. There is no basis in Somali cultural practice or legal tradition for that.
"This is one of those new concoctions."It is being foisted on the Somali community by an inside or outside group," he added. "I do not know who."
But many Somali drivers at the airport are refusing to carry passengers with alcohol. When I asked Patrick Hogan, Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman, for his explanation, he forwarded a fatwa, or religious edict, that the MAC had received. The fatwa proclaims that "Islamic jurisprudence" prohibits taxi drivers from carrying passengers with alcohol, "because it involves cooperating in sin according to the Islam."
The fatwa, dated June 6, 2006, was issued by the "fatwa department" of the Muslim American Society, Minnesota chapter, and signed by society officials.
The society is mediating the conflict between the cab drivers and the MAC. That seems odd, since the society itself clearly has a stake in the controversy's outcome.
How did the MAC connect with the society? "The Minnesota Department of Human Rights recommended them to us to help us figure out how to handle this problem," Hogan said.
Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, thinks he knows why the society is promoting a "no-alcohol-carry" agenda with no basis in Somali culture. "MAS is an Arab group; we Somalis are African, not Arabs," he said. "MAS wants to polarize the world, create two camps. I think they are trying to hijack the Somali community for their Middle East agenda. They look for issues they can capitalize on, like religion, to rally the community around. The majority of Somalis oppose this, but they are vulnerable because of their social and economic situation."
The society
What is the Muslim American Society? In September 2004 the Chicago Tribune published an investigative article. The society was incorporated in 1993, the paper reported, and is the name under which the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood operates.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. The Tribune described the Brotherhood as "the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group."Because of its hard-line beliefs, the U.S. Brotherhood has been an increasingly divisive force within Islam in America, fueling the often bitter struggle between moderate and conservative Muslims," the paper reported.
The international Muslim Brotherhood "preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic," according to the Tribune. U.S. members emphasize that they follow American laws, but want people here to convert to Islam so that one day a majority will support a society governed by Islamic law.
How are society members to respond when questioned about a Muslim Brotherhood connection? The Tribune cites an undated internal memo: "If asked, 'Are you the Muslim Brothers?' leaders should respond that they are an independent group called the Muslim American Society."
The April 2001 issue of the society's magazine, the American Muslim, lists "essential books" for understanding Islam. They include works by Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood's founder, and Sayyid Qutb, one of its most violent theoreticians.
Here's the flavor of these authors' writings:
"Always cherish the intention of jihad and the desire for martyrdom in the Way of Allah, and actually prepare yourself for that," wrote Al-Banna.
Osama bin Laden relied heavily on Qutb in formulating his world view, according to the 9/11 Commission. Qutb had "an enormous loathing of Western society and history," states the commission's report. He taught that "no middle ground exists" in the "struggle between God and Satan." All Muslims must therefore take up arms in this fight, he said.
Hassan Mohamud is vice president of the society's Minnesota chapter. The society is independent and has no connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, he said.
The Minnesota chapter's website, however, states that the organization's roots lie in the Islamic revival movement that "brought the call of Islam to Muslim masses ... to reestablish Islam as a total way of life."
Mohamud says the society has three goals: to present the "real image" of Islam in American society, to preserve the identity of Muslims here and to "make that identity fit without having clashes between cultures and laws."
He emphasizes, however, that Muslims must follow shari'a, or Islamic law, in every aspect of their lives. "There are two conflicting systems here -- two ways of life -- that want to live in the same place and respect each other," he says. The society aims to facilitate conciliation between the two.
Mohamud adds that Americans need to learn about Islamic law because the Muslim population here is growing. That's why the proposed two-tier system for airport cabdrivers is important, he says. It could become a national model for accommodating Islam in areas ranging from housing to contractual arrangements to the workplace.
MAC officials will hold another meeting today about the airport controversy, and Mohamud says he will try to revive the two-tiered pilot project for taxis. Whatever the meeting's outcome, we now have reason to believe that the issue is only a prologue to a larger drama playing out in Minnesota and the United States.
Katherine Kersten ? kkersten@startribune.com
-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061025/wl_mideast_afp/argentinaattacksiran&printer=1
Argentina charges Iran, Hezbollah in 1994 Jewish center bombing
Wed Oct 25, 6:09 PM ET
Argentine prosecutors charged Iran and the Shiite militia Hezbollah with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charities office in Argentina that killed 85 people and injured 300.
Prosecutors demanded an international arrest warrant for then-Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and six other top Iranian officials at the time of the attack, and a former Hezbollah foreign security service chief, Imad Fayez Moughnieh.
In a country with a murky record in pursuing the 12-year-old case, relatives and friends of the victims called on President Nestor Kirchner to take swift and strong action to bring it to trial.
In a statement, Argentine chief prosecutor Alberto Nisman declared: "We deem it proven that the decision to carry out an attack July 18, 1994 on the AMIA (the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, a Jewish charities association headquarters in Buenos Aires) was made by the highest authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran which directed Hezbollah to carry out the attack."
AMIA, supported by Israel and the United States, had long accused Iran of organizing the attack and getting Hezbollah to carry it out.
Those accusations, based on intelligence gathered by the secret services of Argentina, Israel and the US, have been consistently rejected by the Iranian government and Hezbollah.
In Beirut, a Hezbollah source said she had not yet heard that the Shiite militia had been formally charged but that it came as no surprise.
"I have not yet heard that but it is not new," she told AFP. "The Zionists want that (the two parties be charged)."
The Jewish community in Argentina, some 300,000 strong and the largest in South America, had marked the July 18 bombing annually with a demand that justice be served for the attack, the worst on Argentina's soil, and another 1992 attack against the Israeli embassy, which claimed 22 lives.
No one has been tried in Argentina or in any other country for the 1994 attack and the police have not identified the perpetrators of the earlier Israeli embassy attack.
On Wednesday, the Delegation of Israeli Associations of Argentina (DAIA) welcomed the charges as a vindication.
"That is what the DAIA has been saying for approximately 12 years, and validates all of our activities in the matter," Jorge Kirszenbaum, the DAIA president, told the Jewish News Agency.
The AMIA's group of families and friends of the victims called on the president to proceed with the international arrest warrants sought by prosecutors.
"We ask that the executive power take all possible actions -- diplomatic, pursuit and international capture -- with regard to the suspects, with the vehemency and intensity that the situation merits," they said in a statement.
Investigation of the bombing has been a festering issue in Argentina, as Argentine Jews and international rights groups have criticized Argentine leaders for their inability or unwillingness to find those behind the bombing.
On September 2, 2004, an Argentine court acquitted 21 former police officers and a trafficker of stolen cars who were charged with aiding the attackers. The same court then ordered former top government officials investigated for botching the case.
The court found that important evidence against the men had been "irregularly" obtained, and ordered an investigation of Judge Juan Jose Galeano, who presided over the case for nine years, as well as two prosecutors.
Galeano was accused of having paid 400,000 dollars to a key witness to testify against four police officers accused of having provided logistical support in the plot.
-
If this Syrian was Muslim, then he too is part of Islam in America:
=========
Clerk confronts robbers, is killed
The gunmen waited for customers to leave, then handed Simon Khalil a note. He threw it back.
By Jill Leovy, Times Staff Writer
November 4, 2006
When the robbers shoved a note at him, store clerk Simon Khalil threw it back. That's when they shot him.
The 35-year-old Syrian immigrant died hours later at California Hospital after being shot at point-blank range by an assailant wielding a black handgun.
On Friday, Los Angeles Police Department detectives sought the public's help in finding the assailants, who were videotaped.
Police said two robbers entered Khalil's family business, Maple Liquor and Market in the 3000 block of Maple Avenue in South L.A., about 1 p.m. Thursday and waited for customers to leave before springing the note on Khalil.
After throwing the note back at them, Khalil walked around the counter and confronted the men. One robber pulled a sawed-off shotgun from his waistband, and the other pulled a handgun and fired.
LAPD Det. Mike Terrazas described both suspects as short, Latino and in their 20s. One had a goatee and was wearing a black baseball cap, white T-shirt and lower-back brace; the other wore a pink or red baseball cap and a dark blue nylon jacket.
Khalil and his brother, Sam Khalil, of Burbank had owned the store for two years without problems, relatives said.
Anyone with information or anonymous tips is asked to call investigators at (323) 846-6556 or at (877) 525-3855.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jill.leovy@latimes.com
-
"The Muslim population in the United States is estimated as being somewhere between two to six million, and according to the U.S. State Department, by the year 2010 the Muslim population of the United States is expected to surpass the Jewish population, making Islam the country's second-largest faith."
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/eidstamp.asp
-
Simon Khalil
Sam Khalil
My money would be on them being christian.
-
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1023/p01s04-ussc.html
Radical Islam finds US 'sterile ground'
Home-grown terror cells are largely missing in action, a contrast to Europe's situation.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
NEW YORK ? The Islamist radicalism that inspired young Muslims to attack their own countries - in London, Madrid, and Bali - has not yielded similar incidents in the United States, at least so far.
"Home-grown" terror cells remain a concern of US law officers, who cite several disrupted plots since 9/11. But the suspects' unsophisticated planning and tiny numbers have led some security analysts to conclude that America, for all its imperfections, is not fertile ground for producing jihadist terrorists.
AMERICA'S WAY: Omar Jaber of New York says Muslims in the US practice their religion 'without complications.'
ANDY NELSON - STAFF
In the Monitor
Monday, 11/06/06
To understand why, experts point to people like Omar Jaber, an AmeriCorps volunteer; Tarek Radwan, a human rights advocate; and Hala Kotb, a consultant on Middle East affairs. They are the face of young Muslim-Americans today - educated, motivated, and integrated into society - and their voices help explain how the nation's history of inclusion has helped to defuse sparks of Islamist extremism.
"American society is more into the whole assimilation aspect of it," says New York-born Mr. Jaber. "In America, it's a lot easier to practice our religion without complications."
In a nation where mosques have sprung up alongside churches and synagogues, where Muslim women are free to wear the hijab (or not), and where education and job opportunities range from decent to good, the resentments that can breed extremism do not seem very evident in the Muslim community. Since 9/11, however, concern is rising among Muslim-Americans that they are becoming targets of bias and suspicion - by law enforcement as well as fellow citizens. It's a disquieting trend, say the young Muslims - one that might eventually help radicalism to grow.
It's impossible to pinpoint the factors that produce home-grown terrorists, analysts say. But it's also impossible to ignore the stark contrast between the lives of Muslims in European countries where bombings have occurred and those of Muslims in America.
"What we have here among Muslim-Americans is a very conservative success ethic," says John Zogby, president of Zogby International in Utica, N.Y., whose polling firm has surveyed the Muslim-American community. "People come to this country and they like it. They don't view it as the belly of the beast. With very few exceptions, you don't see the bitter enclaves that you have in Europe."
Life in America vs. life in Europe
Part of what so shocked Spain about the Madrid train bombers, and then Britain after the London subway and bus bombings in July 2005, was that most of the perpetrators were native sons. In each case, the young men, allegedly inspired by Al Qaeda ideology, came from poorer neighborhoods heavy on immigrants. (By contrast, a plot foiled in August to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic involved suspects from leafy, middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Britain.)
America, too, has poorer neighborhoods with large Muslim concentrations, but they tend to be interspersed with other ethnic groups and better assimilated into society. Another difference, some suggest, is the general profile of Muslims who have come to the US and raised their families here.
Most Muslim immigrants came to America for educational or business opportunities and from educated, middle-class families in their home countries, according to an analysis by Peter Skerry of Boston College and the Brookings Institution. In Europe, the majority came to work in factory jobs and often from poorer areas at home.
European Muslims today live primarily in isolated, low-income enclaves where opportunities for good jobs and a good education are limited. In the US, 95 percent of Muslim-Americans are high school graduates, according to "Muslims in the Public Square," a Zogby International survey in 2004. Almost 60 percent are college graduates, and Muslims are thriving economically around the country. Sixty-nine percent of adults make more than $35,000 a year, and one-third earn more than $75,000, the survey showed.
In Britain, by contrast, two-thirds of Muslims live in low-income households, according to British census data. Three-quarters of those households are overcrowded. British Muslims' jobless rate is 15 percent - three times higher than in the general population. For young Muslims between 16 and 24, the jobless rate is higher: 17.5 percent.
"The culture is qualitatively different [in the American Muslim community] from what we've seen from public information from Europe, and that actually says very positive things about our society," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "We don't have large populations of immigrants with a generation sitting around semi-employed and deeply frustrated. That's a gigantic difference."
Jaber, the AmeriCorps volunteer, who is studying to become a medical doctor, says he has not experienced anti-Muslim bias. In part, he says, that may be because he doesn't have an accent or look particularly Middle Eastern - his father is Palestinian and his mother Filipino. But he also credits America's melting-pot mentality, as does Ms. Kotb, the Middle East consultant.
'NOT ISOLATED': Hala Kotb of Washington cites 'progressive attitudes' within the Muslim community where she grew up.
ANDY NELSON - STAFF
"We weren't isolated growing up. We were part of the culture," says Kotb, who grew up outside Washington in a family that inculcated a success ethic. "Religion was important, but not so much that you'd have to cover your head or if you don't pray five times a day, that's it - nothing like that. There were a lot more progressive attitudes" within her local Muslim community.
In mosques in America, it's fairly common for imams to preach assimilation, says Mr. Zogby. That's not as true in Europe, particularly in poorer neighborhoods where sermons can be laced with extremism.
"The success of ... Saudi-inspired religious zealotry in Europe was in large part because the Saudis put up the money to build mosques and pay for imams," says Ian Cuthbertson, a counterterrorism expert at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research. "The American Muslim community was rich enough not to require Saudi money to build its mosques."
In Europe, it's estimated that millions of second- and third-generation Muslims have not been well assimilated in their adopted countries, so have little or no fealty to either the European country they live in or the one their parents were born in. "They are much more susceptible to the Internet, returning jihadist fighters, and extremist imams," says Thomas Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There's no doubt that Europe has an incubator environment and we have a somewhat sterile environment for radicalism."
To be sure, the United States has brought charges in several terrorism-related cases involving American Muslims. Some have resulted in convictions, notably the 2002 case of six Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y. Other cases are pending. (See chart on Page 2.)
Identifying and tracking home-grown terrorists is a complicated task - one that risks alienating or even infuriating the general Muslim-American citizenry if tactics are seen as unfair.
Feeling a chill
The young Muslims interviewed for this story chose their words carefully, but their inference is clear: They worry that suspicion toward Muslims has been building since 9/11, and they suggest that US intervention in Iraq and its support for Israel cause angst among many Arab-Americans.
US foreign policies "in the long term are going to hurt the US," says Mr. Radwan, the human rights activist, who works in Washington. "They, along with the crackdown on Muslim-Americans [by law enforcement], feed a feeling of resentment and the perception that the US acts on the basis of a double standard."
Indeed, America's Muslim community would wage the war on terror differently. According to the 2004 Zogby survey, three-quarters say the best way is for the US to change its foreign policy in the Middle East by recognizing a Palestinian state and being less supportive of Israel.
A newer concern for America's Muslims is their standing in post-9/11 society. Many sense that the ground under their feet is shifting - and young people like Florida-born Radwan, in particular, feel it. A 2001 graduate of Texas A&M University, Radwan wanted to become a doctor and began working as a medical researcher. One month after the 9/11 attacks, he was let go - at the end of a three-month probationary period. Afterward, he says, he couldn't get even an interview for a job that used his biochemistry degree or research skills. Eventually he abandoned his hopes of a medical career and shifted to human rights work.
That experience leads him to suggest another reason the US hasn't seen European-style homegrown terror cells: the intense scrutiny the FBI has focused on Muslim-Americans. "That is good in the short term, but bad in the long term," he says. "The Bush administration policies feed resentment that ... will stay in the Arab- American psyche for a long time."
The FBI says it doesn't target any community, neighborhood, or religion. Agents simply go where the leads take them, says John Miller, the FBI's assistant director of public affairs. But he adds: "We have put a growing effort into community outreach because we understand the discomfort the amount of pressure our attention can bring to a community."
Story continues below
SOURCE: STAFF RESEARCH; RICH CLABAUGH - STAFF
Click here to enlarge the image
The 'home-grown' threat: Is it overstated?
A small but growing number of analysts believe that some US officials have overstated the threat of homegrown Islamist radicalism in the United States. While Al Qaeda and foreign terrorists remain determined to attack in America, they say, the focus on potential American cells may be leading the US to misdirect its antiterror efforts.
"My theory as to why we haven't found any [homegrown Islamist terrorist cells] is because there aren't very many of them.... They aren't the diabolical, capable, and inventive people envisioned by most politicians and people in the terrorism industry," says John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University. "The danger is that we've wasted an enormous amount of money with all of the wiretaps [and] investigations, and diverted two-thirds of the FBI from criminal work to terrorism work."
The FBI calls such conclusions "uninformed," citing alleged plots by radicalized US citizens. The most notable was the case of the Lackawanna Six, so named for the six Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y., who went to Al Qaeda training camps in the spring of 2001.
"The people who make these claims [about threats being exaggerated] are never the ones responsible for preventing these attacks," says John Miller, the FBI's assistant director of public affairs. "The point is that if you're the dead guy, or you're a family member of one of those guys, all you know is that you wanted someone to develop the intelligence and take the actions to prevent it."
Still, a lack of public evidence pointing to extensive Islamist extremism in the US is leading a small but growing number of experts to agree with Professor Meuller's assessment. Like Meuller, though, they add a cautionary note.
"There's not zero threat in any community, but it is good news and we have to hope that reflects an underlying reality that [homegrown extremist cells] don't exist here," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "You've always got lone nuts in every imaginable ethnic group grabbing every imaginable ideology to justify terrorism."
-
My theory as to why we haven't found any [homegrown Islamist terrorist cells] is because there aren't very many of them.... They aren't the diabolical, capable, and inventive people envisioned by most politicians and people in the terrorism industry," says John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University. "The danger is that we've wasted an enormous amount of money with all of the wiretaps [and] investigations, and diverted two-thirds of the FBI from criminal work to terrorism work.".........
Still, a lack of public evidence pointing to extensive Islamist extremism in the US is leading a small but growing number of experts to agree with Professor Meuller's assessment. Like Meuller, though, they add a cautionary note.
"There's not zero threat in any community, but it is good news and we have to hope that reflects an underlying reality that [homegrown extremist cells] don't exist here," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "You've always got lone nuts in every imaginable ethnic group grabbing every imaginable ideology to justify terrorism."
**The above "analysts" are clueless. Standard issue left-wing delusion/denial.**
-
http://www.corruptionchronicles.com/2006/11/congress_gets_muslim.html
Congress Gets Muslim
The first Muslim elected to the United States Congress is a Democrat from Minneapolis with ties to an Islamic group that supports terrorism and a radical cult whose leader says God will destroy the entire white race and establish a paradise nation ruled by blacks.
Minnesota?s new Representative in the House, Keith Ellison, was endorsed and partly financed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a massive U.S.-based organization that avidly defends Osama bin Laden and other militant Islamic terrorists and considers U.S. action against terrorists anti-Islamic. In fact, the group demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing bin Laden as ?the sworn enemy? because it was ?offensive to Muslims.?
Ellison, who converted to Islam as a 19-year-old college student, also has strong ties to the Nation of Islam, the black cult led by renowned anti-Christian and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. The group?s doctrine states that black people created white people in a genetic experiment 6,000 years ago and that ?Judgment Day? means that the Gods will destroy the entire white race (devils) and establish a paradise nation ruled forever by blacks.
As if this weren?t enough to question the choice of Minnesota voters, as a state legislator Ellison supported and defended a convicted cop-killer and leader of a violent gang. Ellison used thug-like language to attack law enforcement officials as racists saying ?we don?t get no justice, you don?t get no peace.?. Ellison also supports and demands freedom for another convicted cop-killer named Assata Shakur, who lives in Cuba and remains on the FBI?s most wanted list.
Perhaps having Ellison in the House, represents a victory for violent criminals worldwide. Little Green Footballs says they?ll be celebrating in Gaza tomorrow.
=========================
Tuesday night Keith Ellison celbrated his victory in Minnesota's Fifth District congressional race before a crowd that chanted "Allahu Akbar." Watch a video clip of it here. Next week Ellison celebrates with CAIR and a few other of its Democratic friends at CAIR's annual banquet. Here is CAIR's press release:
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FIRST MUSLIM IN CONGRESS TO SPEAK AT CAIR EVENT IN VA
Keith Ellison will join other elected officials at annual banquet
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/9/06) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced today that Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress, will join other elected officials as a keynote speaker November 18th at the Washington-based civil rights group's 12th Annual Banquet in Arlington, Va.
CAIR's dinner, which in past years had sold-out crowds of more than 1,000, will feature addresses by Representative-elect Ellison (D-MN) and Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Albert Wynn (D-MD).
Other speakers at the event include a representative of the FBI and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Attendees will include many Muslim and interfaith leaders, diplomats from Muslim nations and American Muslim community activists.
To learn more about CAIR's dinner, or to register online, go to:
https://www.cair.com/2006banquet/
Ellison won Tuesday's election in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District by a more than two-to-one margin. He will be the first American Muslim to hold elected office at the national level.
"We are honored to have the first American Muslim elected to Congress offer his first major address during our annual banquet," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.
CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 32 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
For the full story that neither the local nor the national press bothered to dig up about Ellison, check out "Keith Ellison for dummies" and "Louis Farrakhan's first congressman."
-
I thought of starting a new thread for this one, but decided to post it here; apparently these people were badly mistreated because they were Muslim.
===========
today's LA Times:
9/11 prisoner abuse suit could be landmark
Rounded up, Muslim immigrants were beaten in jail. Such open-ended detentions and sweeps might be barred.
By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
November 20, 2006
NEW YORK ? Five years after Muslim immigrants were abused in a federal jail here, the guards who beat them and the Washington policymakers who decided to hold them for months without charges are being called to account.
Some 1,200 Middle Eastern men were arrested on suspicion of terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. No holding place was so notorious as Brooklyn's nine-story Metropolitan Detention Center. In a special unit on the top floor, detainees were smashed into walls, repeatedly stripped and searched, and often denied basic legal rights and religious privileges, according to federal investigations.
Now the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs the jail, has revealed for the first time that 13 staff members have been disciplined, two of them fired. The warden has retired and moved to the Midwest.
And in what could turn out to be a landmark case, a lawsuit filed by two Brooklyn detainees against top Bush administration officials is moving forward in the federal courts in New York.
A judge turned down a request by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to dismiss the lawsuit against them. The case is before an appeals court, where a panel of three judges signaled last month that they too believed it should go forward.
The suit, which also names top federal prison officials and individual guards as defendants, seeks an unspecified amount of money from the government. More significant, it hopes to hold federal law enforcement authorities responsible for their open-ended, "hold-until-cleared" policy for detainees. After Sept. 11, the FBI was in no rush to investigate the detainees, and many men were held in limbo. If the lawsuit prevails, it will create precedents that will probably bar authorities from carrying out such sweeping roundups in the future.
The case is proceeding with just one of the detainees who sued. The government settled with the other, former Manhattan deli operator Ehab Elmaghraby, who this year accepted a federal government payout of $300,000.
But Elmaghraby, who has returned to Egypt(ummm, it says below "deported"), said he could not forgive the guards who jammed a flashlight up his rectum.
"They destroyed me. They destroyed my family," he said in a recent telephone interview. "So I want the officers to stay one week inside those cells. They would kill themselves before the week was finished."
Ashcroft and others have defended the detentions. In a new book, Ashcroft wrote: "Was it worth it to detain and charge hundreds ? in order to find one or more of the key men sent to America to facilitate a second wave of attacks on the United States? I thought so then, and I think so more today."
Five investigations by the Department of Justice inspector general's office, most of them never publicized, documented wholesale abuse of the Muslim detainees at the Brooklyn detention center. In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, 84 men were held there. None was charged in the attacks. Most were deported on immigration infractions.
One disturbing incident, repeated over and over, is particularly haunting ? inmates head-slammed into a wall where the staff had taped a T-shirt with an American flag printed on it. The motto on the shirt proclaimed: "These colors don't run." In time, that spot on the wall was covered with blood.
"They told me, 'Look at our flag. You see the blood that is coming down from our flag? We're going to make you bleed every day like this,' " Elmaghraby recalled.
He said they grabbed his back and sides and rushed him head-first into the wall. "Blood came out of my mouth," he said.
The inspector general determined that many guards were "emotionally charged" in the weeks after Sept. 11. A jail lieutenant told investigators that guards carried around "a great deal of anger." Another lieutenant said prisoners purposely were handed over to teams of up to seven guards, all of them "spiked with adrenaline." That lieutenant further described some of the guards as "talking crazy" and "getting ready for battle."
In legal briefs filed this year with the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, attorneys for Ashcroft and Mueller defended their policy, saying that Washington after Sept. 11 was "confronted with unprecedented law enforcement and security challenges." They said Ashcroft and Mueller had been working with "no clear judicial precedents in this extraordinary context."
Ashcroft in his recent book, "Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice," wrote that the goal was to prevent another catastrophic attack. He was not bothered by holding detainees for long periods.
"If we can't bring them to trial," he wrote, "so be it."
Mueller also has defended the decision, but in a speech to the ACLU acknowledged that the inspector general did "a very good job of pointing out areas where we can do better." He said that clearer criteria were needed for deciding when to hold immigrants as terrorism suspects and that law enforcement should do more to speed up investigations.
Elmaghraby moved to the U.S. in 1990, married and operated a deli near Times Square in Manhattan. Nineteen days after Sept. 11, he was arrested, apparently because his landlord in Queens had applied for pilot training.
---------------
For the first three months in the jail, he said, he was denied a blanket, pillow, mattress and toilet paper. He was locked away in his bare feet.
"No shoes for a terrorist," he said he was told.
He said he was repeatedly strip-searched, dragged on the ground and punched until his teeth shattered. He said that he was displayed naked in front of a female staffer, and that guards violated him with a flashlight and pencil.
Elmaghraby, 39, broke down crying in a recent interview. "They don't treat you like a person," he said. "They treat you like an animal."
He was held for nearly a year ? until August 2002. After pleading guilty to minor credit card fraud charges (plea bargains often are to far less than the actual list of charges-- one would guess especially here where the mission would be deportation. If he is this kind of thief, what credibility to give his claims?), he was deported to Alexandria, Egypt.
He has lost track of his wife in New York (?!?) , he said, and his deli business went under. And he spent most of his $300,000 settlement to repair his stomach and esophagus, which he said were damaged because jail doctors did not properly treat him for severe indigestion and hypertension.
The former detainee with whom the lawsuit is proceeding, Javaid Iqbal, is also 39. Iqbal, a Pakistani, came to America a dozen years ago. He married and he worked as a cable repairman on Long Island. He was arrested in November 2001, apparently after agents interviewed him in his apartment and spotted a magazine showing the twin towers collapsing.
He said he was mocked as a "Muslim terrorist and a killer." He was strip-searched, punched in the face and kicked in the back. He said guards urinated in his toilet, then turned off the water so it would not flush.
He was denied a copy of the Koran. "No prayer for terrorists," he said he was told.
Iqbal was released at the end of July 2002. He pleaded guilty to having false immigration papers and was deported to Faisalabad, Pakistan. His lawyers declined to let him be interviewed.
Guards at the detention center first denied there was any mistreatment, then slowly came forward. Finally videotapes were uncovered that showed abuse, including detainees head-butted into the T-shirt on the wall.
Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons, said 13 staff members have been disciplined. Two were fired, two received 30-day suspensions and one was suspended for 21 days. Two more were suspended for four days, three for two days, and three were demoted.
Warden Dennis Hasty retired in April 2002. He is named as a defendant in the lawsuit but his lawyer, Michael L. Martinez, said Hasty had not been aware of the abuse and had been "appalled and upset" to learn of the allegations.
The lawsuit was filed in Brooklyn in May 2004. Last year, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson ruled against a bid by Ashcroft and Mueller for a dismissal.
The judge said the furor over Sept. 11 did not warrant such drastic measures. He rejected, he wrote, "the argument that the post-Sept. 11 context wholly extinguished ? a pretrial detainee's due process rights."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
richard.serrano@latimes.com
-
**He's a good analyst. I like what he has written of the topic of the global jihad.**
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/27/news/memoir.php
Jew, turned Muslim, offers knowledge of Al Qaeda
By Marc Perelman
International Herald Tribune
Many college students go through a spiritual crisis but rarely does it turn out as it did for Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a Jew who converted to Islam and went to work in a small town in Oregon for a charity that has since been linked to Al Qaeda.
Gartenstein-Ross, 30, has now changed tacks again, converting to Christianity and using his background as a former Islamist insider to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation crack down on Islamist terror networks in the United States.
A rising star in the counterterrorism community, he testified before Congress in September about the dangers of radical Islamist indoctrination in U.S. prisons and the recruitment of potential terrorists among inmates. Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut praised him as a key player in the government's efforts against the U.S. arm of the Haramain Islamic Foundation, a large Saudi charity, that was shut down in 2004 by the U.S. authorities after the U.S. Treasury Department designated it a terrorist-supporting entity with ties to Al Qaeda.
Gartenstein-Ross describes his unusual journey in "My Year Inside Radical Islam," a memoir of the nine months he spent with Al Haramain to be published in February.
While a growing number of former terrorist operatives and counterterrorism officials are publishing insider accounts of their shadowy battles, Ross offers a troubling testimony on the lure of radical Islam for Westerners. This is not merely an academic proposition, since Western converts like him pose a major challenge to law-enforcement officials in their fight radical Islamist networks.
"I thought it was significant to tell people how a reasonably intelligent Westerner would work for a radical Islamic charity," Gartenstein-Ross said in an interview, "and end up not being disgusted by it but actually feeling, 'Wow! There is something to these guys' ideas.'"
He said he had initially embraced a moderate version of Islam before being drawn to his job with radical Islamists in Ashland, Oregon, his hometown, seduced by the appeal of belonging to a close-knit community and the "ready answers" provided by his superiors.
Adopting Wahhabism, the Saudi rigorist interpretation of Islam, he stopped shaking hands with women, listening to music, wearing shorts, and playing computer games. He grew a full beard, endorsed the gay-bashing and conspiracy theories of his mentors, and found himself praying for the victory of mujahedeen, or Muslim holy warriors, around the world.
From that point, Gartenstein-Ross might well have followed the path taken by two other West Coast teenagers drawn to radical Islam: Adam Yahiye Gadahn, 28, who last month became the first American to be charged with treason in more than half a century for his role as a propagandist for Al Qaeda, and John Walker Lindh, now 25, who was sentenced in 2002 to 20 years in jail for fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"We all grew up in homes where answers were not given to us, and we were looking for a sense of direction that we initially found within Islam," said Gartenstein-Ross.
Raised by "New Age Jewish" parents in Ashland, a small southern Oregon town infused with hippie culture and boasting a well-regarded Shakespeare theater festival, Gartenstein-Ross went to college at Wake Forest University, a conservative campus in North Carolina. He felt out of a place there until he bonded with a Kenyan-born Muslim leftist activist who inspired him with his moderate religious beliefs. He converted to Islam in 1997 during a semester abroad in Venice after meeting local Muslims whose free-flowing manner appealed to him.
The following year, just before graduating in communications, he was on a family visit home when he was recruited by a Muslim activist named Pete Seda to work for a local Islamic not-for- profit organization that had just received significant funding from Al Haramain and went on to become its American head office.
Gartenstein-Ross started work for the office in December 1998, running day-to-day operations and overseeing special projects. In one, a prison outreach program, Al Haramain handed out Wahhabist-annotated Korans to prisoners and maintained a database with the names and whereabouts of inmates who received the foundation's material.
He was a true believer when he left Al Haramain amicably in the summer of 1999 to pursue a law degree at New York University. The change of setting and the lifting of the peer pressure helped him realize he had gone astray, he said. Resuming a relationship with a Christian girlfriend, who became his wife, helped prompt him to convert to Protestantism. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then hastened his estrangement from leftist ideals.
After graduation in 2002, he clerked for Judge Harry Edwards at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and worked briefly as a lawyer before deciding to work as a counterterrorism consultant.
He is now advising police departments and writing academic papers about Islamist terrorism. He has also become a regular commentator on Islamic and security affairs in conservative U.S. media, notably the Weekly Standard.
When Gartenstein-Ross testified before the Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs on Sept. 19, Lieberman told the panel that Al Haramain had been closed "in large part due to Mr. Gartenstein-Ross's cooperation with the FBI."
However, a law-enforcement source familiar with the case countered that he had been merely a "piece" of the puzzle and "definitely not some kind of star witness."
Gartenstein-Ross declined to characterize his role but said that he had cooperated with law-enforcement officials in 2002, and then again after the charity was raided and its assets frozen in February 2004.
Al Haramain, which denies the allegations, was designated by Treasury as a terrorism-supporting organization in September 2004. Two of its officials - Seda, also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty, and Soliman Hamd al-Buthe of Saudi Arabia - were indicted in February 2005 for illegally funneling $150,000 to Islamic combatants in Chechnya. Both men are abroad and are challenging the charges in court.
Gartenstein-Ross insists that his latest conversion - religious and political - did not turn him into an enemy of Islam. One of his projects, he says, is to write a book about moderate Islam, the kind he initially embraced.
-
Franchising Jihad
By J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss : 04 Dec 2006
In a forthcoming study for the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, senior researcher Ely Karmon raises the alarming prospect of Hezbollah affiliated groups bringing the Lebanese terrorists' brand of violence to the Americas. While acknowledging that it is too soon to draw clear conclusions about the nature and objectives of these Hezbollah "franchisees," Karmon nonetheless notes that "successful campaigns of proselytism in the heart of poor indigene Indian tribes and populations by both Shi'a and Sunni preachers and activists" have contributed to the growing attraction of Islamist terrorist groups in Latin America. Karmon also observes that "there is a growing trend of solidarity between leftist, Marxist, anti-global and even rightist elements with the Islamists," citing inter alia the September 2004 "strategy conference" of anti-globalization groups hosted by Hezbollah in Beirut.
Evidence of this was already available in the Washington Post's front page coverage of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's September 22 mass rally, which mentioned that among those in attendance was a Lebanese expatriate who had flown in from Venezuela for the event and that "[a]t the mention of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a critic of America, cheers went up."
As it happens, one month after the demonstration in Beirut, on October 23, Venezuelan police discovered two explosive devices near the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. According to a statement in El Universal from the acting police commissioner of the Baruta district, law enforcement officials arrested a man carrying a "backpack containing one hundred black powder bases, pliers, adhesive tape, glue, and electric conductors" who "admitted that the explosives had been set to detonate within fifteen minutes." The man arrested was José Miguel Rojas Espinoza, a 26-year-old student at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, a Chávez-founded institution whose website proclaims that it offers a free "practical and on the ground education" contributing to "a more just, united, and sustainable society, world peace, and a new progressive and pluralist civilization."
Two days after the failed bombing, a web posting by a group calling itself Venezuelan Hezbollah claimed -- "in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful" -- responsibility for the attack. The bombing was meant to publicize Venezuelan Hezbollah's existence and its mission to "build an Islamic nation in Venezuela and all the countries of America," under the guidance of "the ideology of the revolutionary Islam of the Imam Khomeini." (Without a hint of irony, the communiqué, signed by "Latin American Hezbollah," disparaged those who would present the suspect as "a lunatic and a madman in order to hide the truth that he is an Islamic mujahid, a man who has undertaken jihad through the call of our group.")
This episode, barely noticed in our preoccupation with the midterm elections, is not the first of its kind in the Americas. On November 9, a court in Argentina issued an arrest warrant for former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight other former Iranian officials for their part in the 1994 bombing of the a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and wounded hundreds. Prosecutors in the case formally accused Iran of ordering the terrorist attack and Hezbollah of carrying it out. Immediately after the judicial actions, Argentine Housing Minister Luis D'Elía, a self-professed follower of Chávez and a leftist demagogue on his own right (he is best known for organizing invasions of private property by piqueteros, unruly unemployed protesters), went to the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires and read out a statement denouncing the legal proceedings as "American-Israeli military aggression against the Islamic Republic." (An embarrassed President Néstor Kirchner was forced to fire the minister.)
As Rachel Ehrenfeld spotlighted in an excellent National Review Online column back in 2003, exploiting its entrée with the Lebanese diaspora, Hezbollah has had a longstanding and profitable presence in South America. In the largely ungoverned jungles of the tri-border region of where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay intersect, Hezbollah clerics have been active since the mid-1980s, seeking converts as well as recruiting new members and organizing cells among immigrant Muslim communities from the Middle East. In addition, Brazilian, Argentinean, and other Latin American intelligence sources report the existence of special Hezbollah-run weekend camps, where children and teenagers receive weapons and combat training, as well as indoctrination them in the anti-American and anti-Semitic ideologies of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors. Hezbollah is heavily involved in South America's thriving trade in illegal drugs, cultivating alliances with both drug cartels and narco-terrorist outfits with revolutionary aspirations like the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia. Brazilian security agencies estimate that hundreds of millions in profits are sent annually from Islamist organizations operating in the tri-border region to the Middle East, most of it going to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Last summer, one week before a cross-border raid by Hezbollah precipitated open conflict between the terrorist group governing southern Lebanon and the State of Israel we warned in a contribution to TCS Daily that the Iranian-backed terrorists' build-up along that border was producing dangerous tensions. "Time is not on Israel's side here," we wrote. "Eventually, Israel may feel compelled to exercise its sovereign right to self-defense by preemptively attacking in a manner that not only eliminates the Fajr rockets, but also prevents Tehran from easily reestablishing them." We concluded by arguing: "For all our sakes, it's high time to bring Hezbollah back into the international limelight."
Then came the ceasefire mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, at which point we noted in another TCS essay that "by setting his strategic objective so ridiculously low—at one point he declared that his group 'needs only to survive to win'—Hezbollah's Nasrallah had emerged from the ordeal that he imposed on Lebanon with bragging rights." We feared that Nasrallah would exercise these rights to the detriment not just of Israelis and Lebanese, but also of Americans and others who oppose his terrorist group and the revolutionary ideology of his Iranian mullah patrons. Even we, however, did not anticipate how quickly Hezbollah would be exploiting its strategic opportunity to significantly expand both the scope and magnitude of its nefarious activities—and right into our own backyard at that.
Five months ago, we warned of a dangerous nexus between Iranian revolutionary and geopolitical ambitions, Syrian irredentism, and Hezbollah terrorism north of Israel's borders. Now it appears that the combination of Chávez's anti-Americanism, Iran's well-financed expansion of the umma and Latin American radicalism is forming yet another front for Islamist fascism, this time in nominally Christian South America. Secretary of Defense-designate Robert Gates, a former CIA chief, would do well to insist that this new front for jihad become a priority for the administration's war on terror.
J. Peter Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. Michael I. Krauss is professor of law at George Mason University School of Law. Both are adjunct fellows of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
-
In contrast to the preceding , , , Not quite sure what to make of this one:
By Ted Oberg
(11/29/06 - KTRK/KATY, TX) - There's an awful lot of exciting news when you round the corner on Baker Road. One of two big yellow signs announces a new neighbor is coming soon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also on ABC13.com:
Send news tips | RSS | ABC13 E-lert | Info mentioned on air | Search abc13.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
K.I.A., that's the Katy Islamic Association, plan to build a mosque here.
"It's not an appropriate place to have a mosque or church," said resident Barbara Simpson.
It isn't going over real well.
"As a house of worship, they shouldn't be disturbing the peace and tranquility of 15 homes," said resident John Wetmore.
Neighbors tell us they're concerned about traffic and drainage and a little fear of the unknown. Some of the homeowners even offered to buy the land back for more than a million dollars. The K.I.A. doesn't seem very interested in the offers.
"We're not going anywhere," said Katy Islamic Association member Alvi Muzfar.
So it seems the community at the end of Baker Road has a pretty good fight. But this fight has gone much farther than many between two neighbors. You see in these fights, sometimes neighbors throw mud at one another. In this instance, they're wallowing in it.
Craig Baker owns pigs. He's the guy behind the second big yellow sign on Baker Road. That's the one announcing Friday night pig races.
"What does it matter, I can do whatever I want with my land right," asked landowner Craig Baker.
Sure can. But aren't pigs on the property line racing on a Friday night a little offensive to a Muslim neighbor?
"The meat of a pig is prohibited in the religion of Islam," said Katy Islamic Association member Youssof Allam. "It's looked upon as a dirty creature."
Yeah, there's that and also that Friday night is a Muslim holy day.
"That is definitely a slap in the face," said Allam..
Now before you go thinking Craig Baker is unfair, or full of hate, or somehow racist, hear him out.
Baker has long roots here. His family named the road and when the new neighbors moved in, he tells us, they asked him to move out.
"Basically that I should package up my family and my business and find a place elsewhere," said Baker. "That's ridiculous, they just bought the place one week prior and he's telling me I should think about leaving."
That new owners deny they ever said anything like that, but Baker isn't budging.
Baker admits the pigs are a message he is not leaving.
The 11-acre property is sandwiched between a pricey subdivision and Craig Baker's business.
K.I.A. eventually plans to build a mosque, a gym and a school there. There's no date for the groundbreaking ceremonies, or the first pig race.
(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)
-
December 15th, NY Times
From Head Scarf to Army Cap
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Tex. — Stomping her boots and swinging her bony arms, Fadwa Hamdan led a column of troops through this bleak Texas base.
Fadwa Hamdan belongs to the rare class of Muslim women who have signed up to become soldiers trained in Arabic translation.
Faith and War
Strong-Willed Woman
This is the third and final article in an occasional series looking at the experiences of Muslims and the United States military.
Previous Articles:
For Recruiter, Saying ‘Go Army’ Is a Hard Job (October 7, 2006)
Sorting Out Life as Muslims and Marines (August 7, 2006)
Only six months earlier, she wore the head scarf of a pious Muslim woman and dropped her eyes in the presence of men. Now she was marching them to dinner.
“I’m gonna be a shooting man, a shooting man!” she cried, her Jordanian accent lost in the chanting voices. “The best I can for Uncle Sam, for Uncle Sam!”
The United States military has long prided itself on molding raw recruits into hardened soldiers. Perhaps none have undergone a transformation quite like that of Ms. Hamdan.
Forbidden by her husband to work, she raised five children behind the drawn curtains of their home in Saudi Arabia. She was not allowed to drive. On the rare occasions when she set foot outside, she wore a full-face veil.
Then her world unraveled. Separated from her husband, who had taken a second wife, and torn from her children, she moved to Queens to start over. Struggling to survive on her own, she answered a recruiting advertisement for the Army and enlisted in May.
Ms. Hamdan’s passage through the military is a remarkable act of reinvention. It required courage and sacrifice. She had to remove her hijab, a sacred symbol of the faith she holds deeply. She had to embrace, at the age of 39, an arduous and unfamiliar life.
In return, she sought what the military has always promised new soldiers: a stable home, an adoptive family, a remade identity. She left one male-dominated culture for another, she said, in the hope of finding new strength along the way.
“Always, I dream I have power on the inside, and one day it’s going to come out,” said Ms. Hamdan, a small woman with delicate hands and sad, almond eyes.
She belongs to the rare class of Muslim women who have signed up to become soldiers trained in Arabic translation. Such female linguists play a crucial role for the American armed forces in Iraq, where civilian women often feel uncomfortable interacting with male troops.
Finding Arabic-speaking women willing to serve in the military has proved daunting. Of the 317 soldiers who have completed training in the Army linguist program since 2003, just 23 are women, 13 of them Muslim.
Ms. Hamdan wrestled with the decision for two years. Only in the Army, she decided, would she be able to save money to hire a lawyer and finally divorce her husband. She yearned to regain custody of her children and support them on her own. She thought of going to graduate school one day.
But when Ms. Hamdan finally enlisted, she was filled with as much fear as determination. There was no guarantee, with her broken English and frail physique, that she could meet the military’s standards or survive its rigors.
“This is different world for me,” she said at the time.
‘This Is the Army’
It was around midnight on May 31 when a yellow school bus brought Ms. Hamdan and 16 other new soldiers to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, a spread of parched grass and drab, low-lying buildings.
Ms. Hamdan had not scored high enough on the required English examination to go directly to basic training, so she was sent here for intensive language instruction.
At Lackland, soldiers enlisted in the Army linguist program known as 09-Lima have 24 weeks to improve their English and pass the exam. In that time, they follow a strict military regimen. They rise at 5 a.m. for physical training. They march to class. They drop to the ground for punitive push-ups.
When the bus arrived at the barracks that evening, Ms. Hamdan said, she hopped out first, her camouflage cap pulled low on her head.
Standing by the metal stairs was Sgt. First Class Willie Brannon, an imposing 48-year-old man with a stern jaw and a leveling stare. He ordered the soldiers to change into shorts. Ms. Hamdan explained softly that she was Muslim and could not do this.
“This is the Army,” he replied. “Everybody’s the same.”
Ms. Hamdan burst into tears.
The issue had arisen at the base before, and some of the Muslim women had been permitted to wear sweat pants instead of shorts. Officially, it would be Ms. Hamdan’s choice.
=============
(Page 2 of 4)
But from the sidelines came two opposing directives, one in English and the other in Arabic. The drill sergeants wanted Ms. Hamdan to get used to wearing shorts, while several of the male Muslim soldiers tried to shame her into refusing.
“You’re not supposed to show your legs,” they told her.
For three weeks, she wore the blue nylon shorts, hitching up her white socks. Then she switched to sweat pants, even as the summer heat surpassed 100 degrees.
It helped, Ms. Hamdan thought, that there were so many similarities between Islam and the Army.
The command “Attention!” reminded her of the first step in the daily Muslim prayer, when one must stand completely still.
Soldiers, like Muslims, were instructed to eat with one hand. The women ate by themselves, and always walked with an escort, as Muslim women traditionally traveled.
The Army taught soldiers to live with order. They folded their fatigues as women folded their hijabs, and woke before sunrise as Ms. Hamdan had done all her life. They always marched behind a flag, as Muslims did in the days of the Prophet.
Nothing felt more familiar than the military’s emphasis on respect. Soldiers learned to tuck their hands behind their backs when speaking to superiors.
When Ms. Hamdan tried this with Sergeant Brannon, she thought of her father. Her eyes automatically dropped to the floor, with customary Muslim modesty.
“Look me in the eye,” the sergeant said. It was a command he had learned to deliver with care.
Sergeant Brannon, an African-American Baptist from North Carolina, had never met a Muslim before coming to Lackland. He soon concluded that the Muslim women in his charge had survived greater struggles outside the military than anything they would face inside it.
“They’ve been through a lot,” he said.
Life Before the Service
Fadwa Hamdan was always a touch rebellious.
One of seven children, she was raised by her Palestinian parents in Amman, Jordan. Her father worked as a government irrigation official while her mother stayed at home with the children. They expected the same of their daughters.
But as a teenager, Ms. Hamdan rejected her many suitors. She wanted to see the world. At 19, she said, she secretly volunteered as a nurse with the Jordanian police, infuriating her parents. That same year, a visiting Palestinian doctor who lived in New York spotted her in the street.
He tracked down her home address, and spoke to her father. The next day, Ms. Hamdan learned she was engaged.
“Your dream has come true,” Ms. Hamdan recalls her mother saying. “You’re leaving Jordan.”
Ms. Hamdan joined her husband in Staten Island in 1987. She felt nothing for him. He was 10 years her senior, and she found him stiff and dictatorial. He only let her leave the house with him, she said. If she upset him, he refused to speak to her for months.
She had children to fill the void. She became more religious, and began wearing the face veil known as a niqab. Eventually, the family moved to Saudi Arabia.
Weeks after Ms. Hamdan delivered her fifth child in 2000, she learned from her mother-in-law that her husband was taking a second wife in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Ms. Hamdan was shocked.
“I couldn’t talk,” she said.
The next summer, on a family vacation in Amman, her husband disappeared one evening with three of their children, she said. Days later she located two of her boys in Saudi Arabia, and learned that the new wife would be joining them.
Ms. Hamdan’s 8-year-old girl had been left with her grandparents in Ramallah. She tried to get the girl back, but her husband had kept the child’s passport, she said.
When reached by telephone in Saudi Arabia, a man answering to her husband’s name said, “This is her choice and I don’t have anything to do with it,” apparently referring to her decision to join the Army. Then he hung up.
It never occurred to Ms. Hamdan to seek a divorce. She feared that it would bring shame to her family. From Jordan, she fought for legal custody of the children. In 2002, a judge ruled that she could keep the three youngest children, but allotted her a meager alimony, not enough to cover their schooling. Reluctantly, she returned them to their father.
Alone in Amman, she felt like an outcast.
“The neighbors, they look at me,” she said.
================
(Page 3 of 4)
In September 2002, she moved to Queens to live with her brother and his wife. She returned to wearing a regular head scarf, or hijab, and started classes at a local community college. One night she came home late, she said, and her brother told her to leave. “She did not follow the rules of the house,” the brother, Sam Saeed, said in an interview.
Ms. Hamdan did not know where to turn. Her father had refused to speak to her since she left Jordan. Over the next 10 days, she rode the subway at night and slept on a park bench in Queens. Finally, she walked into a hair salon in Brooklyn and approached a Lebanese Muslim woman.
“She was hysterical crying,” said the woman, Helena Buiduon.
Ms. Hamdan stayed with Ms. Buiduon until she found her own apartment. She taught the Koran to children and worked in a doctor’s office while earning an associate’s degree in medical assistance.
Her life remained a struggle. She lived in a small, drafty apartment in the Bronx. Other Muslim immigrants found her puzzling.
Some people suggested that she was a “loose woman,” she recalled, a notion that amused her given how little she wanted another relationship.
“I can’t feel anything for anybody,” she said. “I lived like jail. Just imagine you have a bird and the door is open. You think he will go back to this jail again? Never. He’s just flying.”
In 2003, she spotted an ad for the Army in an Arabic-language magazine. She met with a recruiter but cut the conversation short after learning she would have to remove her head scarf before enlisting.
Secretly, though, she kept imagining a new, military life. In March, she made up her mind.
“I broke the law with God,” she said of her decision to remove her hijab. “I had to.”
She put her belongings in storage. She began lifting 20-pound weights. She slipped off her veil in public a few times. She felt naked.
Two days before she left, she stopped by her brother’s video shop in Queens to say goodbye.
Mr. Saeed was kneeling in prayer, as a Spanish rap video blasted from a television set. He stiffened at the sight of Ms. Hamdan, then kissed her on the cheek. They had not seen each other all year. Within minutes, an argument began.
“She’ll never make it,” Mr. Saeed said, looking away from his sister.
“Oh yeah?” she replied, her eyes widening.
“A Muslim woman is not allowed to travel alone,” he said.
“What about working?” she said, her voice quivering. “Look at your wife, she works!”
“She likes to spend time here,” he said.
Ms. Hamdan ran from the store crying.
“She won’t make it,” Mr. Saeed told a reporter after she left. “Woman always weak. She need a man to protect her.”
Later, when Ms. Hamdan heard what her brother had said, she was silent.
“Why didn’t he protect me?” she said.
What Happens Next
Life at Lackland — where soldiers cannot chew gum, wear makeup or leave the base — reminded Ms. Hamdan of her marriage.
“Sometimes, when I’m by myself, I wonder how I have stayed here for six months,” she said as she sat outside her barracks one recent evening. “But I did it.”
She was among 39 men and women in the Army linguist program, in a company of 119 soldiers. The rest were immigrants from around the globe, there to improve their English in the hopes of entering boot camp.
Everyone, it seemed, had a sad story.
The women talked quietly after the lights went out. A Sudanese woman had come to the United States after most of her family died in a bombing in Khartoum. A 23-year-old woman had lost her Iranian mother in an honor killing.
A teenage Iraqi girl cried herself to sleep every night. She, like many other soldiers, began referring to Ms. Hamdan as “Mom.”
“They come into my arms,” said Ms. Hamdan, who was older than most of the others.
She missed being a mother, yet she rarely talked about her own children. She was learning not to cry, and that was a subject that broke her down. Privately, she called them in Saudi Arabia twice a week with 20-minute phone cards, four minutes per child.
As the summer wore on, it became clear that Ms. Hamdan was floundering in her English studies. She failed the exam repeatedly.
Physically, though, she was growing stronger. Push-ups and sit-ups no longer scared her. She found she was a fast runner.
===========
(Page 4 of 4)
On Aug. 10, she won the one-mile race for female soldiers in seven minutes flat, in sweat pants. The next week, she became a squad leader and bay commander, directing a column of soldiers during marches and keeping order in the female barracks.
Days later, she decided to wear the shorts again.
“What, we have a new soldier here?” Sergeant Brannon called out as she walked deliberately down the stairs.
“I am going to show the men I’m like them,” she told him later. “I’m a man now.”
“No, you’re not a man” he said.
“Yes, I’m a man.”
“No,” he said. “You’re a strong-willed woman.”
That became his nickname for her: strong-willed woman.
As Ms. Hamdan’s status rose with the drill sergeants, so did her standing among the soldiers.
“Sometimes I’m tough on them,” she said one recent weekday as she patrolled her floor. The women smiled from their bunk beds. “I like everything clean.”
Another morning, she sat in the mess hall, eating her daily breakfast of Froot Loops followed by nacho-cheese Doritos. A drill sergeant called out that the group had three minutes to finish, just as a clean-shaven soldier walked past Ms. Hamdan with a tray full of food. She shot him a hard look.
“Three minutes,” she repeated. “You hear that?”
The greatest shift for Ms. Hamdan came in her relationship with the male soldiers. They stopped taunting her about wearing shorts. When she gave orders, they listened.
“It seems like a heavy burden has been lifted from her,” Sergeant Brannon said.
Yet even as she felt herself changing, she remained steady in her faith. She never stopped praying five times a day. She attended the base’s mosque each Friday and fasted through the holy month of Ramadan.
On a recent Friday, she sat with her eyes closed on the mosque’s embroidered carpet, wearing a white veil and skirt over her Army fatigues.
“Staying on the straight path is not an easy matter, except for those who Allah helps to do so,” the Egyptian imam said in Arabic over a loudspeaker.
In November, Ms. Hamdan’s English score was still too low, by 11 points, even though she was performing better on the weekly quizzes. She was given a one-month extension, and one more chance.
She took her last exam in December, and failed again. She ran from her classroom.
“Don’t come looking for me,” she recalled telling a startled drill sergeant.
By herself, Ms. Hamdan began walking across the base. Tears streamed down her face as she reached the two-story, concrete building that had long been her refuge.
She climbed the stairs of the mosque. Alone, she knelt on the carpet and prayed. Finally, she sat in silence. She felt at peace.
Ms. Hamdan will be discharged on Dec. 15. She is unsure of what the future holds. She may stay in Texas and look for a job. She may no longer wear a hijab in public. All she knows is that she is different now, and no less a Muslim for it.
“I can face men,” she said. “I can fight. I can talk. I don’t keep it inside.”
She thought for a moment.
“I changed myself,” she said. “I’m a new Fadwa. Strong female. I like this.”
-
Mother Mosque
"We're Americans with dreams and aspirations."
BY MICHAEL JUDGE
Thursday, December 21, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
WSJ
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa--Not far from the banks of the Cedar River and the
concrete silos of the Quaker Oats plant, in a working class neighborhood
adorned with Christmas lights and American flags, sits the oldest mosque in
North America. Founded in 1934, and admitted to the National Register of
Historic Places in 1996, it's not what you think of when you think of a
mosque. There is no lofty minaret, no balcony for the muezzin to call the
faithful to prayer.
There is, however, a place of worship that most resembles a one-room
schoolhouse--a single-story, white clapboard box with plain black shutters.
If it weren't for the crescent-topped green vinyl dome and the canopy above
the entrance bearing the words "The Mother Mosque of America: Islamic
Cultural & Heritage Center," one might easily mistake it for a modest, if
not meager, Pentecostal church, which indeed it was for a brief stint in its
history before being abandoned altogether.
A young boy on a bicycle cuts through the well-kept grounds of the mosque
without giving it a second thought; he drops the bike and runs into a house
across the street with Christmas decorations in the window. Just then, Imam
Taha Tawil, a jovial man in his late 40s wearing khakis and a polo shirt,
comes out to greet me: "Mr. Michael! You made it! Welcome! Welcome!" he
says. "I hope my directions weren't too hard to decipher!"
I don't tell him I've been driving around the neighborhood for a good 30
minutes, half-lost, half-exploring--a few blocks away I came across the
Jesus Church, a limestone building with a boarded-up bell tower that flies a
banner saying simply, "Jesus Will Save You."
As Imam Tawil and I approach the mosque I can just make out the words higher
up on the green dome: "There is only Allah (God alone) to be worshiped, and
Muhammad is his messenger." I wonder which came first, the Jesus Church's
banner or the Mother Mosque's dome?
But I'm not here to talk about any miniature clash of civilizations, etc. On
the contrary, I'm here, at the invitation of Imam Tawil, to talk about
something remarkable: the rebirth of the oldest mosque in North America and
the Muslim-American community that made it happen.
"We've been here for four and now five generations," says Imam Tawil,
pointing to a panoramic black-and-white photo of dozens of early settlers;
the picture dates to 1936 and shows an imam and priest, both of Middle
Eastern descent, proudly shaking hands in the center. "We're as old as the
oak trees in Iowa," he continues. "We're part of the fabric of this great
state. We're Americans with dreams and aspirations."
Many of the earliest Muslim settlers came to Cedar Rapids in the late 19th
century from what is now Lebanon to work the farmland and raise crops of
their own. As the community grew, it needed a permanent place to worship.
Despite the hard times of the Great Depression, the local Muslim community
pooled its resources and the "Mother Mosque" was dedicated on June 16, 1934.
Sixteen young men from the Muslim community here served their country in
World War II; two of those men never made it home. Since then,
Muslim-Americans from eastern Iowa have served their country in nearly every
major military conflict. "At least 20 members of the community are currently
enlisted in the military," says Imam Tawil. "Several are fighting in
Afghanistan and Iraq right now."
Cedar Rapids is now home to Muslims from some 30 countries, including Sudan,
Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia and Iraq. After the 1991 Gulf War, dozens of
Iraqi families--mainly Shiites who rose up against Saddam--found refuge
here. Today, of the 700 Muslim families who call eastern Iowa home, more
than 50 are from Iraq.
"Nearly all of these refugees are striving to become U.S. citizens," says
Imam Tawil, who emigrated from Jerusalem in 1983 and became a U.S. citizen
in 1990. A Palestinian by birth, he says, "I have never had citizenship
anywhere else but America. Every time I vote I feel so proud because I
didn't have this right in my home country."
Around the same time that he became a U.S. citizen, Imam Tawil set out to
renovate and restore the Mother Mosque. The building, which had gone vacant
after housing a Pentecostal church and a teen center, was purchased in 1990;
renovations began in 1991 and a grand opening was held in February 1992. The
mosque serves mainly as a cultural and historical center since a modern
Islamic Center was completed in 1971.
"Our main goal is to educate the public about Islam," says Imam Tawil. Part
of this education process was the founding, in the early 1990s, of the Linn
County Inter-Religious Council. "We started the council to promote
understanding and respect for all faiths," says Cedric Lofdahl, who retired
as the pastor of Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church in 1998. "Taha was very much
involved. I'll never forget it. He said, 'It may be too late for our
generation but we need to be talking together and understanding each other
for the sake of our children.'"
That dialogue, says Pastor Lofdahl, helped the residents of Cedar Rapids
deal with their grief and better understand the nature of the terrorist
attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. "Because we had spent a lot of time together
trying to educate the community regarding various faiths, and because we had
become acquainted with people from the mosque, our immediate reaction was
concern for those people." Imam Tawil agrees. "Our outreach to the
community--because we shared in the community's happiness and sadness--these
things helped us after Sept. 11."
Both men say they remember flowers and cards and letters of support being
dropped off in front of the Mother Mosque in the days after 9/11. "We are
blessed with a community here that understands our endeavors and knows our
struggles," says Imam Tawil, as he prepares to leave his little office in a
little mosque that has witnessed great things.
Mr. Judge, a freelance journalist, is an adjunct professor at the University
of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
-
Sen. Boxer Recalls Award to Muslim Activist
Sen. Barbara Boxer recalled an award she recently gave to an Islamic activist because of his ties to a major American Muslim organization—that critics say has ties to terrorist activities.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 3:08 p.m. MT Dec 29, 2006
Dec. 29, 2006 - In a highly unusual move, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California has rescinded an award to an Islamic activist in her home state because of the man’s connections to a major American Muslim organization that recently has been courted by leading political figures and even the FBI.
Boxer’s office confirmed to NEWSWEEK that she has withdrawn a “certificate of accomplishment” to Sacramento activist Basim Elkarra after learning that he serves as an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). After directing her staff to look into CAIR, Boxer “expressed concern” about some past statements and actions by the group, as well as assertions by some law enforcement officials that it “gives aid to international terrorist groups,” according to Natalie Ravitz, the senator’s press spokeswoman.
CAIR, which has 32 offices around the country and bills itself as the leading Muslim-American civil- rights group, has never been charged with any crimes, nor have any of its top leaders. But a handful of individuals who have had ties to CAIR in the past have been convicted or deported for financial dealings with Hamas—another reason cited by Boxer for her action. The senator directed her staff to withdraw the certificate—which she routinely gives to community leaders in California—and asked that a statement she had previously made endorsing CAIR be stricken from the group’s Web site, Ravitz said in an e-mail.
Ironically, just last month, Boxer had sent CAIR a letter in connection with its 10th anniversary fundraising dinner endorsing the group as a “constant support system for the American Muslim community” and praising it for its work on civil liberties. "As an advocate for justice and greater understanding, CAIR embodies what we should all strive to achieve," Boxer wrote in the Nov. 18 letter.
Boxer tells NEWSWEEK she never saw the letter to CAIR signed in her name or was even aware of the award to Elkarra before it was sent out. "I feel terrible about this," she says. "We just made a mistake. I was not in the loop. That was an automatic signature [on the letter]." But Boxer stands by her decision to withdraw the award and to distance herself from CAIR, saying she was influenced by previous critical statements about CAIR made by her Democratic colleagues Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Charles Schumer of New York. "To praise an organization because they haven't been indicted is like somebody saying, 'I'm not a crook,'” Boxer says. “I'm going to take a lot of hits for this. But I'm just doing what I think is right."
The move outraged CAIR officials who charged that the liberal Democratic senator was responding to the writings of Joe Kaufman, a blogger who has expressed sympathy for slain Jewish extremist Meir Kahane in the past , and whose columns regularly appear on the Web site of conservative activist David Horowitz. CAIR has formally asked for a meeting with Boxer and demanded that she withdraw the action—which one top CAIR official said smacks of “Islamophobia.”
“This is an attempt to marginalize the largest and most mainstream Muslim organization in the country,” says Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s office in southern California. “This is absolutely unacceptable.”
Nihad Awad, CAIR’s top Washington official, vigorously denied the charges that CAIR has any links to terror groups and said the allegations are based on a “deliberate smear campaign” by individuals who cannot brook any criticism of the Israeli government. “We feel that the same crowd who is pushing these smears against CAIR is the same crowd as the neocons that pushed us into the Iraq war,” he says. “They are trying to smear the Muslim community and they are trying to silence its voice. This takes us back to the McCarthy era.”
The incident illustrates the political tensions that have repeatedly arisen in recent years when members of Congress and other political leaders deal with a number of leading Muslim-American groups—some of which have been accused of sometimes murky links to terrorist groups. The CAIR case is especially striking, however, because of its timing.
Just last month, CAIR threw fundraising dinners in the Washington and southern California areas that attracted several leading political and law enforcement figures—along with generating a slew of testimonial statements like that submitted by Boxer's office. At a banquet in Arlington, Va., the featured speakers included Joseph Persichini, the assistant director of the FBI in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office, as well as members of Congress and Keith Ellison, the just-elected Democratic representative from Minnesota who next week will become the first Muslim in Congress. The speakers at the dinner in southern California included J. Stephen Tidwell, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
Ayloush and other CAIR officials have asked how Boxer’s concerns about possible terror links can possibly be true when two senior FBI officials are openly attending its fundraisers and seeking the group’s help in reaching out to the Muslim-American community. Awad, the group’s executive director in Washington, said that CAIR also has conducted “sensitivity training” courses for FBI and Homeland Security agents as well as local police officers around the country. “We train law enforcement officers on how to deal with the Muslim community,” he says.
But terror researcher Steve Emerson—a frequent critic of CAIR—says there has been a fierce internal debate within the law- enforcement community over the FBI’s outreach to CAIR, and adds that some agents he has heard from are furious about the presence of bureau officials at the group’s dinners. “There’s a major clash between field agents and headquarters over this,” Emerson says.
One senior law-enforcement official, who asked not to be identified talking about a sensitive matter, agrees that there is a “split in FBI culture” over the bureau’s relationships with CAIR and says that some agents "hold their nose" when it comes to dealing with the group. But he said other top law-enforcement officials believe it is essential for the FBI to establish better relations with the Muslim community—if for no other reason than to encourage cooperation and the flow of information on terrorism investigations. "In some cities, CAIR is the only [Muslim] group or the dominant group," the official says.
When asked about the attendance of the two top FBI officials at the recent CAIR dinners, John Miller, the bureau’s chief spokesman, responds: “They were invited. It was an opportunity to engage in positive community outreach to the Arab-American and American-Muslim community.” Miller acknowledges that FBI officials “don’t agree with CAIR on every issue. We have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues. But the important thing is we try to maintain open dialogue with all these groups.”
The dispute over Boxer’s award began earlier this month when Kaufman, who runs a one-man group in Florida called “Americans Against Hate,” posted an article about the Boxer-CAIR connection on the Web site of Front Page Magazine, a publication sponsored by David Horowitz. Kaufman noted that Boxer’s office had put out a press release mentioning it was giving a certificate of achievement to Elkarra, 27, who serves as executive director of CAIR’s Sacramento office. The certificate was being given “in recognition of his efforts to protect civil liberties and to build bridges among diverse communities in California.”
Kaufman said in an interview that one of his goals is “to shut CAIR down.” In his article in Front Page, he charges that the group is “connected to Islamic extremism” and notes that two men previously associated with the group have been convicted of terror-related charges and two others have been deported. He also contends that Elkarra himself was a “radical” who had accused Israel of being an “apartheid” and “racist state” and that he had “defended” a northern California man who had trained for jihad in a Pakistani terrorist camp.
Boxer was unaware of the certificate to Elkarra that had been given in her name by staff members in her California office and only learned of it “when she came across a story on Horowitz’s blog,” according to the e-mail from Ravitz, the senator’s spokeswoman. After review by her staff, Boxer was particularly concerned by claims that CAIR had refused to condemn Hamas and Hizbullah and recognize those groups as terrorist organizations,” Ravitz said.
In response, CAIR e-mailed to NEWSWEEK a number of past statements in which it condemned suicide bombings and terror attacks. On Oct. 4, 2003, for example, CAIR issued a statement condemning a suicide bombing at a restaurant in Haifa, Israel, that killed 19 people, including three children. “CAIR condemns this vicious attack in the strongest possible terms,” the statement read. “The bombing is particularly loathsome, coming as it did on the eve of the Jewish community’s holiest day.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the group Islamic Jihad of being behind the attack.
But CAIR Executive Director Awad refuses to say whether he would also condemn Hamas—which has taken credit for similar attacks in Israel—as a group or even whether he considers it a terrorist organization like the U.S. State Department does. “We condemn these groups when they committed acts of terrorism,” he says. “But I’m not going to play the game of the pro-Israel lobby just so they can put words in our mouth. Our position is very clear.
"The entire issue is going back to Israel," Awad adds. "If you love Israel, you're OK. If you question Israel, you're not. If that is the litmus test, no American Muslim and no freedom-loving person is going to pass that test."
Awad also dismisses claims that CAIR members or officials have been convicted of terror-related charges, saying all the cases cited by Kaufman involve individuals who had only loose ties to the group in the past. One of the cases cited by Kaufman was Ghassan Elashi, a marketing executive in a Texas computer company and a founding director of CAIR's Texas chapter, who was convicted last year of financial dealings with Mousa Abu Marzook, a self-admitted leader of Hamas who now lives in Damascus. Another case involved Rabi Haddad, a former CAIR fund-raiser in Michigan, who was deported after being accused by Justice Department officials of providing funds to Hamas. “They were former members,” says Awad. “This is guilt by association.”
Caught in the middle was Elkarra, who recently received a fax from Boxer’s office informing him that the certificate he had gotten just a few weeks earlier was being rescinded. He says the news was especially disappointing because he recently spoke at a local synagogue as part of a CAIR-funded project to build relations with the Jewish community. He also rejects the idea that he is an extremist, noting that—contrary to Kaufman’s allegations—he never defended a Lodi, Calif., man accused by the FBI of training for jihad in Pakistan. He simply raised questions about the handling of the case by the Justice Department similar to those raised by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as a number of news organizations. “It is disappointing that [Sen. Boxer] has succumbed to these extremists,” Elkarra says.
Kaufman, for his part, couldn’t be more pleased. “We are proud of Sen. Boxer,” he says. “By taking back this award, the senator has shown that she is conscious of the extreme problems that Basim Elkarra and his group, CAIR, pose to the public.”
Horowitz, whose Web site first got Boxer’s attention, says, “I’m pleased that Boxer listened to us. The fact that Democrats are finally waking up is good.”
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16384987/site/newsweek/
-
Crafty,
Interesting reminder what we as Americans are dealing with.
If Barbara Boxer could be fooled so can anyone. That is the problem. Everytime I meet or see a Muslim I have to wonder who's side he/she is on. Do they despise Christians, Jews, Americans, "Westerners"? Do they wish we were all dead? Are they secret sympathizers of this Jihad philosophy?
One never knows. Evil is not stamped on people's forehead.
I still believe in profiling. And in the other techniques the W. administration has backed in following these dark forces that lurk just under the sufarce of law abiding facades.
As I've learned in the music arena, laws, ethics, friendships, family ties can easily fall to the wayside for money. When it comes to money forget about it all - all bets are off. I would guess the same goes to religious hatred. Or political hatred (just look at how much Dems and Rep in this country hate each other).
IMO, if we worry too much about political correctness about profiling, surveillance than we will be hit again.
-
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0205/tolerance.html
http://www.islamamerica.org/articles...rticle_id/119/
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatc...1325print.html
And it was Locke, as well as Jefferson:
http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/is-b...tics-john.html
From Jefferson's Autobiography:
"[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom... was
finally passed,... a singular proposition proved that its protection
of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble
declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy
author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting
the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from
the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The
insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they
meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew
and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and
infidel of every denomination." --Thomas Jefferson:
Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:67
From 1777 Draft of a Bill for 'Religious Freedom':
"that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right . . ."
_________________
-
NY Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: January 23, 2007
DEARBORN, Mich., Jan. 19 — After the longtime mayor, Michael A. Guido, died of cancer here in December, a flock of Arab-American candidates stepped forward in the hopes of claiming City Hall.
Abed Hammoud, a prosecutor, withdrew from the mayor’s race.
But despite the fact that roughly one in three Dearborn residents is of Arab origin, most of the Arab-American candidates had dropped out by mid-January. Poll numbers showed that none of them could win.
Internal rivalries echoing those that beset the Arab world, along with the general electorate’s lingering unease about Muslims, combined to derail what many here had hoped would be the chance to prove that Arab-Americans had arrived politically — at least in Dearborn, their unofficial capital in this country.
“One day, an Arab-American will be in office at the top, but this will not be the time,” said Osama Siblani, the burly publisher of the weekly Arab American News, whose friends tease him about his perennial “this is the time” editorial at every election. “There is no doubt that electing an Arab-American to the City Hall in Dearborn would have sent a strong message to the rest of the country that Arab-Americans are part of the political process. Would we want it? Yes. Is it possible? No.”
Mayor Guido had something of a checkered reputation among Arab-Americans here, not least because his first campaign, in 1985, distributed a leaflet promising to address the “Arab problem.” Things improved somewhat over the years — he visited Lebanon, and Arab-Americans donated heavily to his campaigns.
But last summer, he criticized the “mobs” protesting Israel’s attacks against civilian targets in Lebanon and sent the Arab-American community a $23,000 bill for overtime for police officers and firefighters during the demonstration. The bill, sent to a coalition of Arab-American groups, resulted in a free-speech lawsuit.
When Mr. Guido died, several Arab-American candidates stepped forward, including a well-known local prosecutor and a former North American middleweight boxing champion who recently starred on “The Contender,” a reality television series. An intensive vetting of candidates for the Feb. 27 election was started under the auspices of the Lebanese American Heritage Club so that the entire community could unite behind just one contender.
That did not happen, not least because the front-runner, John O’Reilly Jr., having been president of the City Council for 17 years, knew something about the internal rivalries pitting the Lebanese against the Iraqis against the Yemenis. Mr. O’Reilly, known as Jack, set out to separate the Yemenis from the rest of the Arab community here and succeeded in winning their early enthusiasm.
Arab-American candidates “come to us and say ‘salaam aleikum’ and a few other Arabic words to play on our emotions,” said Nass Al Rayashi, one of the founders of the Yemeni American Political Action Committee, using the Arabic greeting of “peace be upon you.” The committee was formed in March 2005 in large part because the Yemenis felt the Lebanese had dominated civic life at their expense.
The Yemenis, concentrated in the somewhat gritty South Side neighborhood sandwiched between the sprawling Ford Rouge plant and Woodmere Cemetery, want a candidate focused on local concerns. These include a lack of parking at the Dix Street mosque and pollution emitted by neighboring industrial areas including the Ford vehicle factory, which drew Arabs here for work for decades, but where fewer and fewer are finding jobs.
“Don’t tell us you go to Ali so-and-so’s house to eat Arab food,” Mr. Rayashi added. “This is America, this is the melting pot. Our interests should be what is good for us here.”
There has long been a division between the economically better off western side of Dearborn and the eastern side. In the old days, recalled Mr. O’Reilly, whose father was mayor from 1978 to 1985, the division was known as the “cake eaters” versus the “factory rats.”
Now some see it as more like the Muslims versus everybody else.
“People are a little bit afraid of them,” Mr. O’Reilly said, attributing it partly to traditional Christian education that he said had long taught that “their philosophy of religion was ‘convert to Islam or die.’ ”
The fact that Arab-Americans in Dearborn are prone to demonstrations, including protests against last summer’s war in Lebanon and the recent hanging of Saddam Hussein, only adds to the unease, he said.
Although more affluent Arab-American lawyers and real estate developers have gradually integrated the western part of the city, an ethnic divide remains. Abed Hammoud, a lead lawyer in the Wayne County prosecutor’s office and the favorite of the Arab community until he withdrew from the mayor’s race on Jan. 12, said he was met with surprise when he knocked on doors in western Dearborn.
“People reacted like I had come from the moon,” said Mr. Hammoud, 41, a kinetic figure with receding salt and pepper hair who left Lebanon in 1985. “They said things like ‘It’s good of you to come to this end of town,’ or they asked me about the people ‘over there’ and they meant the other side of town.”
The Arab American Political Action Committee, which Mr. Hammoud and Mr. Siblani, the newspaper publisher, helped found in 1998 largely to inspire Arabs to run and vote, commissioned a poll to assess Mr. Hammoud’s chances. They found Mr. O’Reilly, suddenly alone in the non-Arab field, commanding an unbeatable 65 percent lead to Mr. Hammoud’s roughly 30 percent. They consoled themselves with the fact that Mr. Hammoud was likely to do better this time as a candidate than he did in his first mayoral primary, which fell on the unfortunate date of Sept. 11, 2001.
But basically the results suggested that at best he would capture the Arab vote — not enough to win the entire city of 100,000.
Time alone may favor the Arab-Americans here. Mr. Hammoud cited numbers showing that in 1998, there were 60,000 registered voters in the city, 8,500 of them Arab-Americans. Today, it is 14,500 out of 57,000, and at least 60 percent of high school students are Arab-Americans.
“People look at an Arab now, and the first thing that pops into their head is terrorism,” said Tarick Salmaci, the boxer, who withdrew from the race. “We want to change that. Arab-Americans have to become political figures to change that.
-
CAIR and the UC-Irvine MSA
On January 31, Dr. Daniel Pipes gave a speech on the topic of "The Threat to Israel's Existence" at the University of California - Irvine (USA) campus.
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/725
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015079.php
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24260_Video-_Muslim_Students_Disrupt_Daniel_Pipes_Speech_at_UC_Irvine#comments
According to published sources, the local Islamic barbarians of the "Muslim Student Union" disrupted Pipes lecture by standing up, chanting, and filing out. Among the words used by these cheap Islamic thugs; "It's just a matter of time before the State of Israel will be wiped off the face of the map," "Takbir," and "Allahu Akbar".
These are the sort of people that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) supports and has in mind when they demand free speech rights.but CAIR is strangely silent to free speech rights when it involves a speaker giving a speech on a topic that does not meet with CAIR approval. This is a weird position for a so-called "civil rights" group.
Once again, we see the tactics used by Islamic thugs in their attempts to define what can or cannot be said on today's university campus. The Islamic thugs dress up like their terrorist brethren in Palestine, disrupt peaceful assemblies with threatening speech, and generally behave like the cheap delinquents that they really are. In the names of "tolerance" and "diversity", university officials refuse to step in and take action to reign in these groups that use infantile measures to advance their hateful agenda.
Like Palestinian terrorists who hide behind Muslim children and women.Muslim Student Union thugs hide behind the skirts of democracy and abuse free speech rights to advance a hateful agenda; an agenda that will result in death or subjugation for every non-Muslim if it is implemented.
, , ,
Note: Hadia Mubarak, current CAIR National board member, is a past president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) National. Don't expect CAIR to condemn the actions of the MSA at UC-Irvine.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR (ACAIR)
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
-
Iraq’s Shadow Widens Sunni-Shiite Split in U.S.
NY Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: February 4, 2007
DEARBORN, Mich. — Twice recently, vandals have shattered windows at three mosques and a dozen businesses popular among Shiite Muslims along Warren Avenue, the spine of the Arab community here.
A restaurant in Dearborn, Mich., was one of several businesses recently vandalized in a Shiite neighborhood. Although the police have arrested no one, most in Dearborn’s Iraqi Shiite community blame the Sunni Muslims.
“The Shiites were very happy that they killed Saddam, but the Sunnis were in tears,” Aqeel Al-Tamimi, 34, an immigrant Iraqi truck driver and a Shiite, said as he ate roasted chicken and flatbread at Al-Akashi restaurant, one of the establishments damaged over the city line in Detroit. “These people look at us like we sold our country to America.”
Escalating tensions between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East are rippling through some American Muslim communities, and have been blamed for events including vandalism and student confrontations. Political splits between those for and against the American invasion of Iraq fuel some of the animosity, but it is also a fight among Muslims about who represents Islam.
Long before the vandalism in Dearborn and Detroit, feuds had been simmering on some college campuses. Some Shiite students said they had faced repeated discrimination, like being formally barred by the Sunni-dominated Muslim Student Association from leading prayers. At numerous universities, Shiite students have broken away from the association, which has dozens of chapters nationwide, to form their own groups.
“A microcosm of what is happening in Iraq happened in New Jersey because people couldn’t put aside their differences,” said Sami Elmansoury, a Sunni Muslim and former vice president of the Islamic Society at Rutgers University, where there has been a sharp dispute.
Though the war in Iraq is one crucial cause, some students and experts on sectarianism also attribute the fissure to the significant growth in the Muslim American population over the past few decades.
Before, most major cities had only one mosque and everyone was forced to get along. Now, some Muslim communities are so large that the majority Sunnis and minority Shiites maintain their own mosques, schools and social clubs. Many Muslim students first meet someone from the other branch of their faith at college. The Shiites constitute some 15 percent of the world’s more than 1.3 billion Muslims, and are believed to be proportionally represented among America’s estimated six million Muslims.
Sectarian tensions mushroomed during the current Muslim month of Muharram. The first 10 days ended on Tuesday with Ashura, the day when Shiites commemorate the death of Hussein, who was the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad and who was killed during the bloody seventh-century disputes over who would rule the faithful, a schism that gave birth to the Sunni and Shiite factions.
The Shiites and the Sunnis part company over who has the right to rule and interpret scripture. Shiites hold that only descendants of Mohammad can be infallible and hence should rule. Sunnis allow a broader group, as long as there is consensus among religious scholars.
Many Shiites mark Ashura with mourning processions that include self-flagellation or rhythmic chest beating, echoing the suffering of the seventh-century Hussein. As several thousand Shiites marched up Park Avenue in Manhattan on Jan. 28 to mark Ashura, the march’s organizers handed out a flier describing his killing as “the first major terrorist act.” Sunnis often decry Ashura marches as a barbaric, infidel practice.
Last year, a Sunni student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor sent a screed against Ashura to the Muslim Student Association’s e-mail message list. The document had been taken off SunniPath.com, one of many Web sites of Islamic teachings that Shiite students said regularly spread hate disguised as religious scholarship.
Azmat Khan, a 21-year-old senior and political science major, said that she, like other Shiites on campus, was sometimes asked whether she was a real Muslim.
“To some extent, the minute you identify yourself as a Shiite, it outs you,” Ms. Khan said. “You feel marginalized.”
Yet some Shiite students said they were reluctant to speak up because they felt that Islam was under assault in the United States, so internal tension would only undermine much-needed unity among Muslims. At the same time, the students said, the ideas used by some Sunnis to label Shiites as heretics need to be confronted because they underlie jihadi radicalism.
=========
At the Ann Arbor campus, Shiite students set up a forum for all Muslims to discuss their differences, but no Sunnis who had endorsed the e-mail message about Ashura showed up, and the group eventually disbanded.
Trying to ease tensions, the Muslim Student Association this year invited a prominent Shiite cleric to speak.
“I don’t want Shiite students to feel alienated,” said Nura Sediqe, the president of the Ann Arbor student group. “But the dominant group never sees as much of a problem as the minority.”
At the University of Michigan’s campus in Dearborn, the Muslim association pushed through rules that effectively banned Shiites from leading collective prayers.
Apart from a greater veneration among Shiites for the Prophet’s descendants, there are slight variations in practice. Shiites, for example, pray with their hands at their sides, while Sunnis cross them over their chests.
“Most Sunni Muslims can’t pray behind a Shiite because if you are praying differently from the way the leader is, then it doesn’t work, it’s not valid,” said Ramy Shabana, the president of the association on the Dearborn campus.
Shiite students at various universities said they faced constant prejudice. Some Sunni students have refused to greet Shiites with “Salamu aleikum,” or “Peace be upon you,” to slight them.
At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Salmah Y. Rizvi, a junior who stocked a reading room with Islamic texts, said the Muslim Student Association there told her to remove them because too many were by Shiite authors.
Students have also taken note of attacks on their faith from the broader world through the Internet. One YouTube video showed Catholics bleeding by crucifying themselves and then showed Shiites bleeding through self-flagellation, as the Arabic voiceover suggested that Shiites were more Catholic than Muslim.
Not all campuses have been affected. Some, like Georgetown University and Cornell University, were considered oases of tolerance.
At Rutgers University, the tension started last year after 15 to 20 conservative Sunni students began openly mocking Shiites, and considered barring women from leading the student association. “They felt it was time to correct individuals within the organization, cleansing the beliefs of the students,” said Mr. Elmansoury, who opposed the rift.
Several students involved said the group was heavily influenced by teachings from Saudi Arabia. The puritanical Wahhabi sect there holds that Shiite reverence for the Prophet’s family smacks of idolatry.
Shiite advocates believe that that thinking has influenced some mainstream American Muslim organizations like the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American Islamic Relations, which they said were slow to criticize attacks against Shiites abroad until the violence in Iraq escalated. As a consequence, Shiites founded their own national lobbying organizations.
Both organizations denied that they disregarded Shiite issues.
Still, some Muslims said that prejudices had continued.
After Saddam Hussein’s execution Dec. 30, one Sunni cleric near Dearborn reportedly gave a sermon concluding that the Prophet Mohammad forgave his enemies, so why couldn’t certain people in Iraq?
Much of the Middle East tension stems from the sense that Shiite power is growing, led by Iran. The grisly video of Mr. Hussein’s execution, with his Shiite executioners mocking him, fanned the flames.
“As a Shiite, I was taking in this event very differently from the Sunnis,” said Shenaaz Janmohamed, a graduate student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. “In a lot of ways Saddam has become this martyr figure who sort of represents Shiite unruliness.”
It is not the first time Shiite-Sunni tensions have spilled over into the West. Britain has experienced periodic outbursts for years. Stabbings and other violence between Sunni and Shiite prisoners in New York state jails prompted a long-running lawsuit by Shiite inmates seeking separate prayer facilities.
Some Muslims worry that the friction might erupt in greater violence in the United States. Others, in both camps, think the tension could prove healthy, forcing American Muslims to start a dialogue about Muslim differences.
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/02/02/video-imam-prays-to-stop-oppression-and-occupation-at-dnc-meeting/
-
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24299_UC_Irvine-_MSU_Calls_for_Israel_to_Be_Wiped_Out&only
-
LBN News
WE DO USE BOOKS THAT CALL JEWS 'APES' ADMITS HEAD OF ISLAMIC SCHOOL: The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs" and has refused to withdraw them. Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton. In an interview on BBC2's Newsnight, Dr Alyusuf was asked by Jeremy Paxman whether she recognized the books. She said: "Yes, I do recognize these books, of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve."
-
In Defense of '24'
An Arab-American defends the real-life Bauers.
BY EMILIO KARIM DABUL
Wednesday, February 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
I am an Arab-American as well as a fan of "24." The two things are not mutually exclusive, despite what the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other such groups have to say about this season's opening episodes possibly increasing anti-Muslim and anti-Arab prejudice in American society.
Most of the terrorists represented in "24" through the years have been Arab Muslims. Why? Well, probably because most terrorists today are, in fact, Arab Muslims. As a descendant of Syrian Muslims, I am very well aware that the majority of Muslims world-wide are peaceful, hard working, and law abiding. That still does not change the fact that the greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. today comes not from the ETA, the IRA, etc., but from one group: Islamic terrorists.
And this is what makes "24" a compelling drama every week. Instead of pretending Islamic terrorists don't exist, the show presents frighteningly real worst-case scenarios perpetrated by Osama bin Laden's followers. So CAIR thinks it's over the top for the terrorists in "24" to blow up Los Angeles with a nuke? Please, if bin Laden and his crew had nukes, most of us would be way too dead to argue over such points.
There is a dangerous trend in the U.S. today that involves skirting the truth at the risk of offending any individual or group. When Bill Cosby talks to African-Americans about self-respect and responsibility, and says publicly what many have been saying privately for years, he's branded a "reactionary," "misinformed," "judgmental," and so on. When "24" confronts America's worst fears about al Qaeda--whose goal remains to kill as many Americans as possible whenever possible--the show is said to be guilty of fueling anti-Muslim and anti-Arab prejudice.
Well, here's the hard, cold truth: When Islamic terrorists stop being a threat to America's survival, viewers will lose interest in "24," because it will have lost its relevancy. Until such time, I will continue to watch "24"--because, believe it or not, the idea that there are Jack Bauers out there in real life risking their lives to save ours does mean something to me.
And as for "24" causing a possible backlash against Muslims and Arab-Americans, where's the evidence of that? The show is now in its sixth season and there hasn't been one recorded incident of any viewer ever slurring or attacking any Muslim or Arab-American because of something that happened on the show. More to the point, in the latest episode President Palmer stated, "The American Muslim community is the greatest line of defense against these terrorists." He advocates strengthening ties with Islamic leaders across the U.S., and is opposed to measures that would in any way infringe upon the constitutional rights of Arab Americans.
That said, I would certainly welcome more characters in movies, TV programs and novels who reflect the overall Arab-American experience. Truth is, most of us don't have bomb-making skills or a desire to become human missiles. And there are Muslim and Arab-American CTU heroes out there, as well as doctors, superdads, women scientists, etc. But just as it took Saul Bellow to give literary voice to the Jewish-American experience, we need our own storytellers to weave the pastiche of tales that make up Arab-American life.
In the meantime, the next time a journalist decides to report on Arab-American concerns about shows like "24," maybe he could actually talk to someone other than CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and seek out Arab-Americans with a different point of view. We actually do exist.
And maybe that same reporter could take a closer look at CAIR. Ask CAIR about the Holy Land Foundation and its support of Hamas. Ask it about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the CAIR board member who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in that case--yet still sits on CAIR's board. Look a little closer, and maybe you'll find that CAIR has good reason to get nervous about shows like "24."
Because terrorists and their supporters continue to hide among us in plain sight, we need Jack Bauer, now more than ever.
Mr. Dabul is a free-lance writer and the author of "Deadline," a novel about modern terrorism.
-
Moderate Muslim intimidated in Tulsa OK
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/02/16/jamal-miftah-a-moderate-muslims-plight/
-
Sorry, no URL on this, but it seems to have enough info to be traceable.
By the way, 12.5%= one out of eight people.
==========================================
Sun, February 18, 2007
Disturbing reality buried
Fear of causing offence and wilful blindness will only end the day innocent Canadians die
By LICIA CORBELLA
In the news business, it's called burying the lead.
It means you missed the most important or interesting part of a story and led with something less significant.
On Feb. 13, the CBC published and aired the results of an Environics poll, which on their website was billed as "Glad to be Canadian, Muslims say."
Apparently "more than 80% of Canada's roughly 700,000 Muslims are broadly satisfied with their lives here."
That's a nice and cuddly kind of story, but hardly surprising. I've been to Afghanistan -- where many of Canada's latest Muslim population comes from -- and even the upper-middle class in Afghanistan live in difficult conditions. I stayed in Kabul's only five-star hotel in December 2003 where hot water was available one-to-two hours a day, electricity was sporadic and my lovely room was utterly freezing.
Poor and middle-class Afghans -- the vast majority -- have no running water, no heat, no electricity and most are totally illiterate to boot.
They are handsome hospitable people -- and extremely resourceful -- but Canada's homeless shelters would look like luxury to your average Afghan refugee. But I digress.
Waaaay down in the online CBC story about this poll is the news that when "asked about the arrests last summer of the 18 Muslim men and boys who were allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in southern Ontario, 73% of Muslim respondents said these attacks were not at all justified." That portion of the poll ended there. No more details. Why? The Environics website made no mention about this portion of the poll either.
However, on CBC's The National television program on the same day, this part of the poll was fleshed-out and the results are alarming.
Fully 12% of Muslim Canadians polled by Environics said the alleged terrorist plot -- that included kidnapping and beheading the prime minister and blowing up Parliament and the CBC -- was justified.
Predictably, the CBC managed to find a talking head -- in this case York University sociology professor Haideh Moghissi -- who dismissed this disturbing revelation.
"It's really negligible that 12 percent feel that the attacks would be justified," said Moghissi. "I don't think it even warrants attention."
Clearly, other news agencies and those who put the poll results on the CBC website agree with Moghissi.
But just how "negligible" is 12% of 700,000 people.
Well, if Moghissi knew arithmetic like she knows denial, she'd know if this poll is accurate, 84,000 Canadian Muslims think it's justifiable to behead our democratically elected prime minister and blow up the very symbol and centre of our democracy!
The Environics poll interviewed 500 Canadian Muslims and 2,045 members of the general population between Nov. 30 and Jan. 5 and is said to be accurate within 4.4 percentage points with regard to the Muslim respondents and 2.2 points with the larger sample group 19 times out of 20.
So, let's err on the side of caution here. Let's subtract the margin of error -- 4.4% -- from 12%. That comes to 7.6%, so let's say, just to be really non-alarmist, we round that down to 7%. That still means 49,000 Canadian Muslims believe conducting a terrorist attack on their own country -- Canada -- is justified.
Is it just me, or does this not strike anyone else as the opposite of "negligible?"
Isn't this significant news?
Considering this poll was published on the same day it was learned al-Qaida -- the Islamic terrorist organization behind the 9/11 attacks -- was urging its followers to target all oilfields, including Canada's, should wake complacent Canadians up.
"We should strike petroleum interests in all areas which supply the United States and not only in the Middle East, because the target is to stop its imports or decrease it by all means," it states.
That threat was made on an al-Qaida online magazine called Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Holy War) and was discovered by a U.S. non-profit group that monitors militant websites called Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE).
In other words, the Environics poll indicates anywhere between 49,000 to 84,000 Muslim Canadians likely would view attacks on our oilsands development justifiable, and if that's the case, it's safe to assume some portion of those tens of thousands of people might be prone to carrying out such an attack.
We already know calls to martyrdom and jihad have been made from Canadian mosques, including one in B.C. and the one in Ontario the 18 alleged wanna-be beheaders attended. It's safe to assume there are more.
But, hey, this is Canada, where in the interest of political correctness and fear of offending, the lead on these kinds of stories gets buried and our heads remain planted where there is no illumination and therefore, no truth. That wilful blindness will likely only end the day innocent Canadians get buried instead of just leads by those who justify terror on their fellow citizens and country.
-
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Corbella_Licia/2.../18/3642930-sun.html
-
From Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/679#meeting
Dear Reader:
A further decision is due in the controversy over taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who refuse to transport passengers visibly carrying alcohol. The Metropolitan Airports Commission, which has jurisdiction over the drivers, invites the public's opinion; and I urge your involvement.
MAC has sent a notice (which I have posted in full on my website, at http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/679#meeting) that recounts developments since its decision in October 2006 to deny requests by drivers to distinguish between Shar'i-compliant and -noncompliant taxis. MAC writes:
For the past several months, the Metropolitan Airports Commission has worked with airport taxi industry representatives and with leaders from the Muslim American Society and the Somali Justice Advocacy League. The goal was to find a solution acceptable to everyone and transparent to the customer seeking airport taxi service. Unfortunately, those discussions have not resulted in a workable, voluntary, consensus-based solution. As a result, the Airports Commission is proposing stricter penalties for refusal of service: a 30-day suspension of a driver's airport taxi license for the first instance, and license revocation for a second instance.
Bravo to MAC. It is important that the drivers be sent a strong signal that they must obey the regulations. Were they allowed to boycott travelers with alcohol, I pointed out in "Don't Bring That Booze into My Taxi," that would intrude Islamic law "into a mundane commercial transaction in Minnesota" and could lead to the transport system as a whole being divided "between those Islamically observant and those not so."
I appealed to readers in October to urge MAC to impose penalties on those who insist on imposing Shar'i norms in Minnesota and to send a message that this practice is unacceptable. The barrage of e-mails and phone calls had the hoped-for effect. According to airport spokesman Patrick Hogan back then, "we've heard from Australia and England. It's really touched a nerve among a lot of people. The backlash, frankly, has been overwhelming. People are overwhelmingly against any kind of cultural accommodation."
Again now, I appeal to all those opposed to application of the Shari'a in the United States to make their views heard in Minnesota. You can do this in either of two ways.
In writing: MAC is asking for "input from the public" through Friday, March 2, 2007, before it makes a decision on the proposed increase in penalties. Written comments should be addressed to:
Landside Operations Department
Metropolitan Airports Commission
MSP International Airport/Lindbergh Terminal
4300 Glumack Drive
Suite LT-3129B
Saint Paul, MN 55111-3010.
In person: For those living in the Twin Cities area, MAC will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, February 27, 2007, at 2 p.m., to solicit testimony from the public via verbal or written testimony. The location will be at:
Ramada Mall of America (formerly, the Thunderbird Hotel)
2300 East American Boulevard
Bloomington, Minnesota
I thank you in advance.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Pipes
-
In Defense of the Constitution
News & Analysis
007/07 March 3, 2007
CAIR: Admits Officials Have Ties to Islamist Terrorism
In a stunning revelation, Corey Saylor, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) government affairs director, on 2 March admitted that convicted Islamic
terrorists were CAIR officials when they committed terrorist acts against the United
States:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18027017&BRD=1675&PAG=461&dept_id=18171&rfi=6
In an article carried by Delcotimes.com, Saylor is responding to questions about
Ghassan Elashi and Ismail Royer and their ties to the leader of Hamas and activities
in support of overseas terrorist organizations. While Saylor first said that Elashi
and Royer were not working on behalf the group, he was later quoted:
"Some people try to hold us responsible for the actions of people that are
associated with our organization. That’s absolutely ludicrous…you don’t hold all of
Enron responsible for what Ken Lay did."
For those North Americans that ever had any questions about CAIR’s ties to Elashi
and Royer, and, by association, tied directly to Islamist terrorists, those
questions have been answered by CAIR’s own spokesman.
Saylor seems to have forgotten that Enron folded like a cheap tent when the criminal
activities of its leadership were exposed…
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR (ACAIR)
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
ADVISORY:
Subscribers are warned that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) may
contact your employer if CAIR believes you are using a work address to receive any
material that CAIR believes may be offensive. CAIR has been known to shame
employers into firing employees CAIR finds disagreeable. For that reason, we
strongly suggest that corporate e-mail users NOT use a corporate e-mail
account/address when communicating with ACAIR or CAIR. We make every reasonable
effort to protect our mailing list, but we cannot guarantee confidentiality. ACAIR
does not share, loan, sell, rent or otherwise publicize our mailing list. We
respect your privacy!
TIPS:
All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. ACAIR will acknowledge receipt of
all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge the source of ANY tip or lead in our
Press Releases or on our web site. Exceptions are made for leading media
personalities at the discretion of ACAIR and only on request of the person(s)
submitting the tip or lead.
-
The Headline should read "Muslims screw us again, just as their book commands".
Ex-Navy sailor charged under espionage law
Man arrested in Arizona, accused of giving details about ships to al-Qaida
A former Navy enlisted man was arrested and charged with violating terrorism and espionage laws by passing along sensitive information about the vulnerability of Navy ships to al-Qaida associates, sources told NBC News on Wednesday.
Officials already knew naval information had been relayed but just recently named a suspect.
Paul R. Hall, now known as Hassan Abujihaad, 31, was arrested Wednesday in Phoenix, Ariz., said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He is accused of sending classified information about the movements of a Navy battle group deployed to the Persian Gulf in the spring of 2001. The document discussed potential vulnerabilities to attack. It was sent to the operators of a London Web site, Assam Publications, who have since been arrested on terrorism charges. Their arrests in 2004 first exposed the contacts.
Federal agents said Abujihaad described the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbor in Yemen as a "martyrdom operation" and said that such tactics were working and taking their toll on the Navy.
He was discharged from the Navy in January 2002, before his contact with the Web site was discovered.
Abujihaad is charged in the same case as Babar Ahmad, a British computer specialist accused of running Web sites to raise money for terrorism. Ahmad is schedule be extradited to the U.S. to face trial.
Investigators discovered computer files containing classified information about the positions of U.S. Navy ships and discussing their susceptibility to attack during Ahmad's investigation.
Abujihaad exchanged e-mails with Ahmad while on active duty on the USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, in 2000 and 2001, according to an affidavit released Wednesday. He allegedly purchased videos promoting violent jihad.
The documents retrieved from Ahmad show drawings of Navy battle groups and discuss upcoming missions. They also say the battle group could be attacked using small weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades. The ships were never attacked.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17507790/
__________________
-
Its the NY Times, so of course there are the shadings that one expects from the Times, but the article addresses matters of interest, and so I post it here:
====================================================
Dr. Faroque Khan, left, and Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid serve very different mosques, one on Long Island and one in Harlem.
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
Published: March 11, 2007
NY Times
Under the glistening dome of a mosque on Long Island, hundreds of men sat cross-legged on the floor. Many were doctors and engineers born in Pakistan and India. Dressed in khakis, polo shirts and the odd silk tunic, they fidgeted and whispered.
James Estrin/The New York Times
Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid at a rally against profiling.
One thing stood between them and dinner: A visitor from Harlem was coming to ask for money.
A towering black man with a gray-flecked beard finally swept into the room, his bodyguard trailing him. Wearing a long, embroidered robe and matching hat, he took the microphone and began talking about a different group of Muslims, the thousands of African-Americans who have found Islam in prison.
“We are all brothers and sisters,” said the visitor, known as Imam Talib.
The men stared. To some of them, it seemed, he was from another planet. As the imam returned their gaze, he had a similar sensation. “They live in another world,” he later said.
Only 28 miles separate Imam Talib’s mosque in Harlem from the Islamic Center of Long Island. The congregations they each serve — African-Americans at the city mosque and immigrants of South Asian and Arab descent in the suburbs — represent the largest Muslim populations in the United States. Yet a vast gulf divides them, one marked by race and class, culture and history.
For many African-American converts, Islam is an experience both spiritual and political, an expression of empowerment in a country they feel is dominated by a white elite. For many immigrant Muslims, Islam is an inherited identity, and America a place of assimilation and prosperity.
For decades, these two Muslim worlds remained largely separate. But last fall, Imam Talib hoped to cross that distance in a venture that has become increasingly common since Sept. 11. Black Muslims have begun advising immigrants on how to mount a civil rights campaign. Foreign-born Muslims are giving African-Americans roles of leadership in some of their largest organizations. The two groups have joined forces politically, forming coalitions and backing the same candidates.
It is a tentative and uneasy union, seen more typically among leaders at the pulpit than along the prayer line. But it is critical, a growing number of Muslims believe, to surviving a hostile new era.
“Muslims will not be successful in America until there is a marriage between the indigenous and immigrant communities,” said Siraj Wahhaj, an African-American imam in New York with a rare national following among immigrant Muslims. “There has to be a marriage.”
The divide between black and immigrant Muslims reflects a unique struggle facing Islam in America. Perhaps nowhere else in the world are Muslims from so many racial, cultural and theological backgrounds trying their hands at coexistence. Only in Mecca, during the obligatory hajj, or pilgrimage, does such diversity in the faith come to life, between black and white, rich and poor, Sunni and Shiite.
“This is a new experiment in the history of Islam,” said Ali S. Asani, a professor of Islamic studies at Harvard University.
That evening in October, Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid drove to Westbury, on Long Island, with a task he would have found unthinkable years ago.
He would ask for donations from the immigrant community he refers to, somewhat bitterly, as the “Muslim elite.”
But he needed funds, and the doors of immigrant mosques seemed to be opening. Imam Talib and other African-American leaders had formed a national “indigenous Muslim” organization, and he knew that during the holy month of Ramadan, the Islamic Center of Long Island could raise thousands of dollars in an evening.
It is a place where BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes fill the parking lot, and Coach purses are perched along prayer lines.
In Harlem, many of Imam Talib’s congregants get to the mosque by bus or subway, and warm themselves with space heaters in a drafty, brick building.
Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Imam Talib had only a distant connection to the Islamic Center of Long Island. In passing, he had met Faroque Khan, an Indian-born doctor who helped found the mosque, but the two had little in common.
Imam Talib, 56, is a thundering prison chaplain whose mosque traces its roots to Malcolm X. He is a first-generation Muslim.
Dr. Khan, 64, is a mild-mannered pulmonologist who collects Chinese antiques and learned to ski on the slopes of Vermont. He is a first-generation American.
But in the turmoil that followed Sept. 11, the imam and the doctor found themselves unexpectedly allied.
“The more separate we stay, the more targeted we become,” Dr. Khan said.
====================
(Page 2 of 6)
Each man recognizes what the other has to offer. African-Americans possess a cultural and historical fluency that immigrants lack, said Dr. Khan; they hold an unassailable place in America from which to defend their faith.
For Imam Talib, immigrants provide a crucial link to the Muslim world and its tradition of scholarship, as well as the wisdom that comes with an “unshattered Islamic heritage.”
Both groups have their practical virtues, too. African-Americans know better how to mobilize in America, both men say, and immigrants tend to have deeper pockets.
Still, it is one thing to talk about unity, Imam Talib said, and another to give it life. Before his visit to Long Island last fall, he had never asked Dr. Khan and his mosque to match their rhetoric with money.
“You have to have a litmus test,” he said.
One Faith, Many Histories
Imam Talib and Dr. Khan did not warm to each other when they met in May 2000, at a gathering in Chicago of Muslim leaders.
The imam found the silver-haired doctor faintly smug and paternalistic. It was an attitude he had often whiffed from well-to-do immigrant Muslims. Dr. Khan found Imam Talib straightforward to the point of bluntness.
The uneasy introduction was, for both men, emblematic of the strained relationship between their communities.
Imam Talib and other black Muslims trace their American roots to the arrival of Muslims from West Africa as slaves in the South.
(Is this at all true? I thought the point was that the Muslim Arab slave traders felt free to enslave the non-Muslim blacks?)
That historical link gave rise to Islam-inspired movements in the 20th century, the most significant of which was the Nation of Islam.
The man who founded the Nation in 1930, W. D. Fard, spread the message that American blacks belonged to a lost Muslim tribe and were superior to the “white, blue-eyed devils” in their midst. Under Mr. Fard’s successor, Elijah Muhammad, the Nation flourished in the 1960s amid the civil rights struggle and the emergence of a black-separatist movement.
Overseas, Islamic scholars found the group’s teachings on race antithetical to the faith. The schism narrowed after 1975, when Mr. Muhammad’s son Warith Deen Mohammed took over the Nation, bringing it in line with orthodox Sunni Islam. Louis Farrakhan parted ways with Mr. Mohammed — taking the Nation’s name and traditional teachings with him — but the majority of African-American adherents came to embrace the same Sunni practice that dominates the Muslim world.
Still, divisions between African-American and immigrant Muslims remained pronounced long after the first large waves of South Asians and Arabs arrived in the United States in the 1960s.
Today, of the estimated six million Muslims who live in the United States, (a number commonly claimed, which I have plausibly seen challenged) about 25 percent are African-American, 34 percent are South Asian and 26 percent are Arab, said John Zogby, a pollster who has studied the American Muslim population.
“Given the extreme from which we came, I would say that the immigrant Muslims have been brotherly toward us,” Warith Deen Mohammed, who has the largest following of African-American Muslims, said in an interview. “But I think they’re more skeptical than they admit they are. I think they feel more comfortable with their own than they feel with us.”
For many African-Americans, conversion to Islam has meant parting with mainstream culture, while Muslim immigrants have tended toward assimilation. Black converts often take Arabic names, only to find foreign-born Muslims introducing themselves as “Moe” instead of “Mohammed.”
The tensions are also economic. Like Dr. Khan, many Muslim immigrants came to the United States with advanced degrees and quickly prospered, settling in the suburbs. For decades, African-Americans watched with frustration as immigrants sent donations to causes overseas, largely ignoring the problems of poor Muslims in the United States.
Imam Talib found it impossible to generate interest at immigrant mosques in the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo, who was Muslim. “What we’ve found is when domestic issues jump up, like police brutality, all the sudden we’re by ourselves,” he said.
Some foreign-born Muslims say they are put off by the racial politics of many black converts. They struggle to understand why African-American Muslims have been reluctant to meet with law enforcement officials in the wake of Sept. 11. For their part, black Muslim leaders complain that immigrants have failed to learn their history, which includes a pattern of F.B.I. surveillance dating back to the roots of the Nation of Islam.
The ironies are, at times, stinging.
“From the immigrant community, I hear that African-Americans have to learn how to work in the system,” said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, adding that this was not his personal opinion.
At the heart of the conflict is a question of leadership. Much to the ire of African-Americans, many immigrants see themselves as the rightful leaders of the faith in America by virtue of their Islamic schooling and fluency in Arabic, the original language of the Koran.
“What does knowing Arabic have to do with the quality of your prayer, your fast, your relationship with God?” asked Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “But African-Americans have to ask themselves why have they not learned more in these years.”
=================
Every year in Chicago, the two largest Muslim conventions in the country — one sponsored by an immigrant organization and the other by Mr. Mohammed’s — take place on the same weekend, in separate parts of the city.
The long-simmering tension boiled over into a public rift with the 2000 presidential elections. That year, a powerful coalition of immigrant Muslims endorsed George W. Bush (because of a promise to stop the profiling of Arabs).
The nation’s most prominent African-American Muslims complained that they were never consulted. The following summer, when Imam Talib vented his frustration at a meeting with immigrant leaders in Washington, a South Asian man turned to him, he recalled, and said, “I don’t understand why all of you African-American Muslims are always so angry about everything.”
Imam Talib searched for an answer he thought the man could understand.
“African-Americans are like the Palestinians of this land,” he finally said. “We’re not just some angry black people. We’re legitimately outraged and angry.”
The room fell silent.
Soon after, black leaders announced the creation of the Muslim Alliance in North America, their first national “indigenous” organization.
But the fallout over the elections was soon eclipsed by Sept. 11, when Muslim immigrants found themselves under intense public scrutiny. They began complaining about “profiling” and “flying while brown,” appropriating language that had been largely the domain of African-Americans.
It was around this time that Dr. Khan became, as he put it, enlightened. A few weeks before the terrorist attacks, he read the book “Black Rage,” by William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs. The book, published in 1968, explores the psychological woes of African-Americans, and how the impact of racism is carried through generations.
“It helped me understand that even before you’re born, things that happened a hundred years ago can affect you,” Dr. Khan said. “That was a big change in my thinking.”
He sent an e-mail message to fellow Muslims, including Imam Talib, sharing what he had learned.
The Harlem imam was pleased, if not yet convinced.
“I just encouraged the brother to keep going,” Imam Talib said.
An Oasis in Harlem
One windswept night in Harlem, cars rolled past the corner of West 113th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. A police siren blared as men huddled by a neon-lit Laundromat.
Across the street stood a brown brick building, lifeless from the outside. But upstairs, in a cozy carpeted room, rows of men and women chanted.
“Ya Hakim. Ya Allah.” O wise one. O God.
Imam Talib led the chant, swathed in a black satin robe. It was Ramadan’s holiest evening, the Night of Power. As the voices died down, he spotted his bodyguard swaying.
“Take it easy there, Captain,” Imam Talib said. “As long as you don’t jump and shout it’s all right.”
Laughter trickled through the mosque, where a translucent curtain separated men in skullcaps from women in African-print gowns.
“We’re just trying to be ourselves, you know?” Imam Talib said. “Within the tradition.”
“That’s right,” said one woman.
The imam continued: “And we can’t let other people, from other cultures, come and try to make us clones of them. We came here as Muslims.”
He was feeling drained. He had just returned from the Manhattan Detention Complex, where he works as a chaplain. Some of the mosque’s men were back in jail.
“We need power,” he said quietly. “Without that, we’ll destroy ourselves.”
Since its birth in 1964, the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood has been a fortress of stubborn faith, persevering through the crack wars, welfare, AIDS, gangs, unemployment, diabetes, broken families and gentrification.
The mosque was founded in a Brooklyn apartment by Shaykh-‘Allama Al-Hajj K. Ahmad Tawfiq, a follower of Malcolm X. The Sunni congregation boomed in the 1970s, starting a newspaper and opening a school and a health food store.
With city loans, it bought its current building. Fourteen families moved in, creating a bold Muslim oasis in a landscape of storefront churches and liquor stores. The mosque claimed its corner by drenching the sidewalk in dark green paint, the color associated with Islam.
The paint has since faded. The school is closed. Many of the mosque’s members can no longer afford to live in a neighborhood where brownstones sell for millions of dollars.
=======================
Page 4 of 6)
But an aura of dignity prevails. The women normally pray one floor below the men, in a scrubbed, tidy room scented with incense. Their bathroom is a shrine of gold curtains and lavender soaps. A basket of nylon roses hides a hole in the wall.
Most of the mosque’s 160 members belong to the working class, and up to a third of the men are former convicts.
Some congregants are entrepreneurs, professors, writers and musicians. Mos Def and Q-Tip have visited with Imam Talib, who carries the nickname “hip-hop imam.”
Mosque celebrations are a blend of Islam and Harlem. In October, at the end of Ramadan, families feasted on curried chicken and collard greens, grilled fish and candied yams.
Just before the afternoon prayer, a lean man in a black turtleneck rose to give the call. He was Yusef Salaam, whose conviction in the Central Park jogger case was later overturned.
Many of the mosque’s members embraced Islam in search of black empowerment, not black separatism. They describe racial equality as a central tenet of their faith. Yet for some, the promise of Islam has been at odds with the reality of Muslims.
One member, Aqilah Mu’Min, lives in the Parkchester section of the Bronx, a heavily Bangladeshi neighborhood. Whenever she passes women in head scarves, she offers the requisite Muslim greeting. Rarely is it returned. “We have a theory that says Islam is perfect, human beings are not,” said Ms. Mu’Min, a city fraud investigator.
It was the simplicity of Islam that drew Imam Talib.
Raised a Christian, he spent the first part of his youth in segregated North Carolina. As a teenager, he read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” twice. He began educating himself about the faith at age 19, when as an aspiring actor he was cast in a play about a man who had left the Nation of Islam.
But his conversion was more spiritual than political, he said.
“I’d like to think that even if I was a white man, I’d still be a Muslim because that’s the orientation of my soul,” the imam said.
He has learned some Arabic, and traveled once to the Middle East, for hajj. Yet he feels more comfortable with the Senegalese and Guinean Muslims who have settled in Harlem than with many Arabs and South Asians.
He is trying to reach out, but is often disappointed.
In November, he accepted a last-minute invitation to meet with hundreds of immigrants at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, an opulent mosque on East 96th Street.
The group, the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays, was trying to persuade the city to recognize two Muslim holidays on the school calendar. The effort, Imam Talib learned, had been nearly a year in the making, and no African-American leaders had been consulted.
He was stunned. After all, he had led a similar campaign in the 1980s, resulting in the suspension of alternate-side parking for the same holidays.
“They are unaware of the foundations upon which they are standing,” he said.
Backlash in the Suburbs
Brush Hollow Road winds through a quiet stretch of Long Island, past churches and diners and leafy cul-de-sacs. In this tranquil tableau, the Islamic Center of Long Island announces itself proudly, a Moorish structure of white concrete topped by a graceful dome.
Sleek sedans and S.U.V.’s circle the property as girls with Barbie backpacks hop out and scurry to the Islamic classes they call “Sunday school.”
It is a testament to America’s influence on the mosque that its liveliest time of the week is not Friday, Islam’s holy day, but Sunday.
Boys in hooded sweatshirts smack basketballs along the pavement by a sign that reads “No pray, no play.” Young mothers in Burberry coats exchange kisses and chatter.
For members of the mosque — many of whom work in Manhattan and cannot make the Friday prayer — Sunday is the day to reflect and connect.
The treasurer, Rizwan Qureshi, frantically greeted drivers one Sunday morning with a flier advertising a fund-raiser.
“We’re trying to get Barack Obama,” Mr. Qureshi, a banker born in Karachi, told a woman in a gold-hued BMW.
“We need some real money,” he called out to another driver.
The mosque began with a group of doctors, engineers and other professionals from Pakistan and India who settled in Nassau County in the early 1970s.
-
Page 5 of 6)
“Our kids would come home from school and say, ‘Where is my Christmas tree, my Hanukkah lights?’ ” recalled Dr. Khan, who lives in nearby Jericho. “We didn’t want them to grow up unsure of who they are.”
Since opening in 1993, the mosque has thrived, with assets now valued at more than $3 million. Hundreds of people pray there weekly, and thousands come on Muslim holidays.
The mosque has an unusually modern, democratic air. Men and women worship with no partition between them. A different scholar delivers the Friday sermon every week, in English.
Perhaps most striking, a majority of female worshipers do not cover their heads outside the mosque.
“I think it’s important to find the fine line between the religion and the age in which we live,” said Nasreen Wasti, 43, a contract analyst for Lufthansa. “I’m sure I will have to answer to God for not covering myself. But I’m also satisfied by many of the good deeds I am doing.”
She and other members use words like “progressive” to describe their congregation. But after Sept. 11, a different image took hold.
In October 2001, a Newsday article quoted a member of the mosque as asking “who really benefits from such a horrible tragedy that is blamed on Muslims and Arabs?” A co-president of the mosque was also quoted saying that Israel “would benefit from this tragedy.”
Conspiracy theories about Sept. 11 have long circulated among Muslims, and Dr. Khan had heard discussion among congregants. Such talk, he said, was the product of two forces: a deep mistrust of America’s motives in the Middle East and a refusal, among many Muslims, to engage in self-criticism.
“You blame the other guy for your own shortcomings,” said Dr. Khan.
He visited synagogues and churches after the article ran, reassuring audiences that the comments did not reflect the official position of the mosque, which condemned the attacks.
But to Congressman Peter T. King, whose district is near the mosque, that condemnation fell short. He began publicly criticizing Dr. Khan, asserting that he had failed to fully denounce the statements made by the men.
“He’s definitely a radical,” Mr. King said of Dr. Khan in an interview. “You cannot, in the context of Sept. 11, allow those statements to be made and not be a radical.”
When asked about Mr. King’s comments, Dr. Khan replied proudly, “I thought we had freedom of speech.”
It hardly seems possible that Mr. King and Dr. Khan were once friends.
Mr. King used to dine at Dr. Khan’s home. He attended the wedding of Dr. Khan’s son, Arif, in 1995. At the mosque’s opening, it was Mr. King who cut the ribbon.
After Sept. 11, the mosque experienced the sort of social backlash felt by Muslims around the country. Anonymous callers left threatening messages, and rocks were hurled at children from passing cars.
The attention waned over time. But Mr. King cast a new light on the mosque in 2004 with the release of his novel “Vale of Tears.”
In the novel, terrorists affiliated with a Long Island mosque demolish several buildings, killing hundreds of people. One of the central characters is a Pakistani heart surgeon whose friendship with a congressman has grown tense.
“By inference, it’s me,” Dr. Khan said of the Pakistani character. (Mr. King said it was a “composite character” based on several Muslims he knows.)
For Dr. Khan, his difficulties after Sept. 11 come as proof that Muslims cannot stay fragmented. “It’s a challenge for the whole Muslim community — not just for me,” he said. “United we stand, divided we fall.”
The Litmus Test
Imam Talib and his bodyguard set off to Westbury before dusk on Oct. 14. They passed a fork on the Long Island Expressway, and the imam peered out the window. None of the signs were familiar.
He checked his watch and saw that he was late, adding to his unease. He had visited the mosque a few times before, but never felt entirely at home.
“I’m conscious of being a guest,” he said. “They treat me kindly and nicely. But I know where I am.”
==================
Page 6 of 6)
At the Islamic Center of Long Island, Dr. Khan was also getting nervous. Hundreds of congregants had gathered after fasting all day for Ramadan. The scent of curry drifted mercilessly through the mosque.
Dr. Khan sprang to his feet and took the microphone. He improvised.
“All of us need to learn from and understand the contributions of the Muslim indigenous community,” he said. “Starting with Malcolm X.”
It had been six years since Imam Talib and Dr. Khan first encountered each other in Chicago. Back then, Imam Talib rarely visited immigrant mosques, and Dr. Khan had only a peripheral connection to African-American Muslims.
In the 1980s, the doctor had become aware of the high number of Muslim inmates while working as the chief of medicine for a hospital in Nassau County that oversaw health care at the county prison. His mosque began donating prayer rugs, Korans and skullcaps to prisoners around the country. But his interaction with black Muslim leaders was limited until Sept. 11.
After Dr. Khan read the book “Black Rage,” he and Imam Talib began serving together on the board of a new political task force. Finally, in 2005, Dr. Khan invited the imam to his mosque to give the Friday sermon.
That February, Imam Talib rose before the Long Island congregation. Blending verses in the Koran with passages from recent American history, he urged the audience to learn from the civil rights movement.
Dr. Khan listened raptly. Afterward, over sandwiches, he asked Imam Talib for advice. He wanted to thaw the relationship between his mosque and African-American mosques on Long Island. The conversation continued for hours.
“The real searching for an answer, searching for a solution, was coming from Dr. Khan,” said Imam Talib. “I could just feel it.”
Dr. Khan began inviting more African-American leaders to speak at his mosque, and welcomed Imam Talib there last October to give a fund-raising pitch for his organization, the Muslim Alliance in North America. The group had recently announced a “domestic agenda,” with programs to help ex-convicts find housing and jobs and to standardize premarital counseling for Muslims in America.
After the imam arrived that evening and spoke, he sat on the floor next to a blazer-clad Dr. Khan. As they feasted on kebabs, the doctor made a pitch of his own: The teenagers of his mosque could spend a day at Imam Talib’s mosque, as the start of a youth exchange program. The imam nodded slowly.
Minutes later, the mosque’s president, Habeeb Ahmed, hurried over. The congregants had so far pledged $10,000.
“Alhamdulillah,” the imam said. Praise be to God.
It was the most Imam Talib had raised for his group in one evening.
As the dinner drew to a close, the imam looked for his bodyguard. They had a long drive home and he did not want to lose his way again.
Dr. Khan asked Imam Talib how he had gotten lost.
“Inner city versus the suburbs,” the imam replied a bit testily.
Then he smiled.
“The only thing it proves,” he said, “is that I need to come by here more often.”
-
Concerns about CAIR reach even the NY Times, which for reasons known only to it, thinks the ACLU is a worthy source of comment :roll: and-- surprise-- fails to interview/quote any of "A small band of critics have made a determined but unsuccessful effort to link it to Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, and have gone so far as calling the group an American front for the two." Unsuccessful? As determined by whom?!? Oh well, its the NYT :roll:
Anyway, here it is:
===========================
Group Advocating for Muslims in U.S. Gets More Scrutiny
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: March 14, 2007
With violence across the Middle East fixing Islam smack at the center of the American political debate, an organization partly financed by donors closely identified with wealthy Persian Gulf governments has emerged as the most vocal advocate for American Muslims — and an object of wide suspicion.
Basim Elkarra of the Council on American-Islamic Relations with Certificate of Appreciation from Senator Barbara Boxer that she revoked.
Chronology of a Souring Relationship The group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, defines its mission as spreading the understanding of Islam and protecting civil liberties. Its officers appear frequently on television and are often quoted in newspapers, and its director has met with President Bush. Some 500,000 people receive the group’s daily e-mail newsletter.
Yet a debate rages behind the scenes in Washington about the group, commonly known as CAIR, its financing and its motives. A small band of critics have made a determined but unsuccessful effort to link it to Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, and have gone so far as calling the group an American front for the two.
In the latest confrontation yesterday, CAIR held a panel discussion on Islam and the West in a Capitol meeting room despite demands by House Republicans that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, not allow the event. The Republicans called its members “terrorist apologists.”
Caley Gray, a spokesman for Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat who helped book the room, rejected that label in a phone interview and said CAIR held similar meetings when Congress was controlled by Republicans. Still, Mr. Gray called back to specify that Mr. Pascrell did not endorse all of the group’s positions.
Last fall, Senator Barbara Boxer of California issued a routine Certificate of Appreciation to the organization representative in Sacramento, but she quickly revoked it when critics assailed her on the Web under headlines like “Senators for Terror.”
“There are things there I don’t want to be associated with,” Ms. Boxer said later of the revocation, explaining that her California office had not vetted the group sufficiently.
CAIR and its supporters say its accusers are a small band of people who hate Muslims and deal in half-truths. Ms. Boxer’s decision to revoke the Sacramento commendation provoked an outcry from organizations that vouch for the group’s advocacy, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the California Council of Churches.
“They have been a leading organization that has advocated for civil rights and civil liberties in the face of fear and intolerance, in the face of religious and ethnic profiling,” said Maya Harris, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Northern California.
Government officials in Washington said they were not aware of any criminal investigation of the group. More than one described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as akin to McCarthyism, essentially guilt by association.
“Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares,” said Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. official who directed counterterrorism in the Washington field office from 2002 to 2005.
Outreach to all Muslims via groups they support is an important aspect of ensuring that extremists cannot get a foothold here as they have in Europe, Mr. Rolince said.
The cloud kicked up by the constant scrutiny is such that spokesmen at several federal agencies refused to comment about the group and some spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
After a brief interview, Ms. Boxer declined to answer additional questions about the commendation to the Sacramento representative, Basim Elkarra. A spokeswoman, Natalie Ravitz, said in an e-mail message that the senator had decided “to put this entire incident behind her.”
Joe Kaufman, who Ms. Boxer’s office said first drew her attention to CAIR’s reputation, is the founder of a Web site that tracks what he calls the group’s extremism, cairwatch.com. Other critics include the Investigative Project, a conservative group that tries to identify terrorist organizations, and the Middle East Forum, a conservative research center that says its goal is to promote American interests in the region.
“You can’t fight a war on terrorism directly when you are acting with a terror front,” said Mr. Kaufman, who advocates shutting down the organization.
Founded in 1994, CAIR had eight chapters at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the group, but has grown to some 30 chapters as American Muslims have felt unjustly scrutinized ever since.
Broadly summarized, critics accuse CAIR of pursuing an extreme Islamist political agenda and say at least five figures with ties to the group or its leadership have either been convicted or deported for links to terrorist groups. They include Mousa Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader deported in 1997 after the United States failed to produce any evidence directly linking him to any attacks.
There were no charges linked to CAIR in any of the cases involved, and law enforcement officials said that in the current climate, any hint of suspicious behavior would have resulted in a racketeering charge.
=======
Page 2 of 2)
The group’s officials say the accusations are rooted in its refusal to endorse the American government’s blanket condemnations of Hezbollah and Hamas, although it has criticized Hamas for civilian deaths.
Chronology of a Souring Relationship Several federal officials said CAIR’s Washington office frequently issued controversial statements that made it hard for senior government figures to be associated with the group, particularly since some pro-Israeli lobbyists have created what one official called a “cottage industry” of attacking the group and anyone dealing with it.
Last summer, the group urged a halt to weapons shipments to Israel as civilian casualties in Lebanon swelled. In September, it held a dinner for former President Mohamed Khatami of Iran at a time when much of official Washington had ostracized that Islamic republic. In November, the group sponsored a panel discussion by two prominent academics who argue that the pro-Israeli lobby exercises detrimental influence on United States policy on the Middle East.
“Traditionally within the government there is only one point of view that is acceptable, which is the pro-Israel line,” said Nihad Awad, a founder of CAIR and its executive director. “Another enlightened perspective on the conflict is not there, and it causes some discomfort.”
When Mr. Bush visited a Washington mosque in 2001, Mr. Awad was among the Muslim leaders he met. But Dana M. Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Awad had not been invited to any recent iftars, annual dinners to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. She offered no explanation.
This year, when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales met with the leaders of half a dozen Muslim and Arab-American organizations in his office, no representative from CAIR was invited.
When Karen P. Hughes, the close adviser to Mr. Bush and under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, started interacting with the group, she was criticized as dealing with “Wahhabis,” shorthand for Saudi-inspired religious extremists, a State Department spokesman said.
CAIR has raised some suspicion by accepting large donations from individuals or foundations closely identified with Arab governments. It has an annual operating budget of around $3 million, and the group said it solicited major donations for special projects, like $500,000 from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia to help distribute the Koran and other books about Islam in the United States, some of which generated controversy.
The donations are a source of contention within CAIR itself. Several branch directors said they had avoided foreign financing and had criticized the national office for it.
Officials at other Arab-American and Muslim organizations said there was a decided split between how the national office operated and how the branches did. The branch offices, which raise their own money and operate largely as franchises, concentrate on local civil rights problems and hence develop close working relationships with law enforcement.
When the Southern California chapter threw itself a birthday party last November, nearly 2,000 people packed the Anaheim Hilton’s ballroom to hear guests of honor praise the organization, including J. Stephen Tidwell, the director of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles office.
“I am very excited to be here,” Mr. Tidwell told a reporter covering the fund-raiser for an Arab-American television news channel, calling CAIR “an important bridge for the F.B.I. into the Muslim, Arab-American community.”
The Washington office, the officials at the other Arab-American and Muslim groups said, tends to fight more image battles because its main staff members have backgrounds in public relations. Still, they said, CAIR’s contrarian image helps with fund-raising both in the American Muslim community and among Arab governments because both believe that the federal government is biased against them.
Some Muslims, particularly the secular, find CAIR overly influenced by Saudi religious interpretations, criticizing it for stating in news releases, for example, that all Muslim women are required to veil their hair when the matter is openly debated.
But they still support its civil rights work and endorse the idea of anyone working to make American Islam a more integral part of society. One Arab-American advocate compared CAIR to “the tough cousin who curses at anyone who speaks badly about the family.”
Some activists and academics view the controversy surrounding the group as typical of why Washington fails so often in the Middle East, while extremism mushrooms.
“How far are we going to keep going in this endless circle: ‘You are a terrorist!’ ‘No, you are a terrorist!’? ” said Souleiman Ghali, one of the founders of a moderate San Francisco mosque. “People are paying a price for that.”
-
Concerning the previous post, here's an example of some points missed by the NY Slimes:
===========
CAIR’s Blood Money
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 13, 2007
At 12:17 pm on February 26, 1993, a 1,500lb urea-nitrate fuel-oil bomb hidden inside a rental van caused a massive explosion that ripped through the parking garage of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring another 1,042 – the first large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil by Islamic extremists. The terrorists had intended to topple one of the buildings onto the other, potentially killing tens of thousands of innocent Americans. Sadly, the fourteenth anniversary of that event passed last week with very little discussion by major media outlets, even though that lethal attack by Islamic terrorists ominously foreshadowed the unspeakable horror of 9/11.
At 8:00 pm on June 6, 2006, the Ohio affiliate of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OH) honored one of the unindicted conspirators in that 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn, NY imam that had also served as a defense witness at the trial of one of the men convicted for that terrorist attack, the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman (a conviction that CAIR has labeled “a travesty of justice”). More than 400 CAIR-OH supporters gathered at this fundraising banquet.
Following the event, CAIR-OH issued a press release heralding the more than $100,000 that Siraj Wahhaj had helped raise that evening for the organization’s “civil liberties work”. CAIR-OH Director Adnan Mirza attributed the fundraiser’s success to the popularity of CAIR-OH’s agenda with Ohio Muslims. “Our community sent a very clear message that the work we do is vital to the well-being of the Ohio Muslim community and that CAIR-Ohio’s efforts are appreciated,” she said.
Of course, Siraj Wahhaj’s ties to the 1993 World Trade Center terrorist attack may not have been known to the hundreds of CAIR supporters who were in attendance that evening, but they were certainly known to CAIR. On repeated occasions, CAIR officials on the state and national level have not only risen to the defense of Wahhaj, but they have gone to great lengths to embrace the unindicted terror co-conspirator and involve him in the inner workings of the organization, such as having him serve on their Advisory Board. CAIR National spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, has gone so far as to call Wahhaj “one of the most respected Muslim leaders in America.” Curiously, that article by Hooper praising Wahhaj has disappeared from CAIR’s website.
Hooper was defending his terror-linked comrade after Dr. Daniel Pipes had noted the connections between CAIR and Wahhaj, yet without substantively dealing with criticism offered by many noting the inconsistency of an organization that loudly proclaims itself a “moderate” voice representing the American Muslim community and a self-proclaimed staunch opponent of terrorism would so consciously embrace and promote an individual that bore responsibility for one of the deadliest terror attacks in the US prior to Oklahoma City and 9/11.
In that same article by Hooper, he further attacks Pipes:
Pipes continues to promote a spurious distinction between "patriotic" Muslims and "chauvinists" who "want to impose Islamic law and other Middle Eastern ways on this country." Of course Pipes fails to mention even one instance in which CAIR called for the imposition of Islamic law in America.
This is an outright lie, as Pipes has posted on his website a July 1998 news article in which CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad is quoted speaking to a group of California Muslims expressing his hope of seeing an America under the domination of Islam. In that article, Ahmad is quoted as saying,
Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran ... should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.
It is hardly an extraordinary leap to conclude that Omar Ahmad, who again was one of Hooper’s organization’s co-founders, who is listed on CAIR National’s website as a member of the Board of Directors, and who was addressing the crowd in question in his capacity as a representative of CAIR, was in fact representing the views of CAIR when he called for the establishment of shari’a as the highest legal authority in America, which presumably would also mean higher than the US Constitution. Nonetheless, CAIR deliberately savages any commentator who dares to draw that conclusion.
Years after Ahmad was reported to have made that statement, CAIR began waging a media campaign to attack the journalist who recorded Ahmad’s statement, with Ahmad saying “she’s lying”. CAIR’s protests notwithstanding, the newspaper in question has stood by the journalist’s reporting.
With respect to the “civil rights work” that Siraj Wahhaj was helping CAIR-OH raise funds for, it might be that CAIR will soon start waging a campaign against the Columbus Dispatch to expunge from the public record its report in February of last year where former CAIR-OH president and current CAIR National Board Vice Chairman, Ahmad Al-Akhras, likened the publication of the Danish Mohammad cartoons to a physical assault against Muslims, thus a crime. The Dispatch, which identified Al-Akhras as “an advocate of free speech”, said that he was insulted by a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons depicting the prophet. Most American newspapers, including The Dispatch, have refused to publish the cartoons. "Your fist should stop where my chin is," Al-Akhras said.
This was the same CAIR official who just weeks after the Wahhaj fundraiser had submitted a letter to the editor in the Dispatch saying that the jihad being waged by the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Courts Union against the UN-backed Somali government, and which was beginning to brutally impose shari’a law on the citizens of that country, was “a positive development”.
Ahmad “Free Speech” Al-Akhras, who lives in the Columbus, Ohio-area and is still active with the local CAIR-OH affiliate, was the subject of a FrontPage Magazine article last August (“CAIR, Assault, and Videotape”) for assaulting a local independent journalist who was taping his speech at a rally in support of the Hezbollah terrorist organization. But woe unto those who dare note the support given by CAIR officials to terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah and HAMAS.
I also reported last year (“Kafir-phobia: Americans as Anti-Muslim Bigots”), about the public campaign led by CAIR-OH against non-Muslims in an Ohio community, implying that the community was seething with racial and religious hatred against Muslims in response to repeated acts of arson against a Muslim-owned business. CAIR-OH called on law enforcement authorities to investigate the arsons as hate crimes, even after it was discovered that the business owners themselves were responsible for the acts of arson. In that incident, CAIR-OH issued no apology for inciting hatred and displaying their bigotry against the non-Muslims in the community that they had falsely blamed for the fires.
This is indicative of the “civil liberties work” conducted by CAIR-OH that is being supported with the funds raised in the event featuring Siraj Wahhaj. The organizers of the CAIR-OH event may have believed that the fourteen years that had passed since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing may have been sufficient for memories of Wahhaj’s personal involvement in that terrorist attack to fade, but the support and praise showered on Siraj Wahhaj over the years by CAIR officials only stains the $100,000 he helped CAIR-OH raise that evening with a deeper blood red.
-
Threatened by the Jihad
By Steven Emerson
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 14, 2007
On January 26, 2007, I appeared on Fox News Channel’s Hannity and Colmes program to discuss a January 8, 2007 meeting between the Attorney General of the United States and various Muslim and Arab groups, some of which have a long history of supporting terrorist groups and extremist ideologies. In response to a question from Alan Colmes about the importance of “good relations” between Attorney General Gonzales and the Muslim community, I stated, “ut when you say the ‘Muslim community’ – [the Attorney General] is anointing them representatives of the Muslim community, when in fact there are many others who support the war on terrorism, who don't tell their members not to cooperate with the FBI, who don't support Hamas and Hezbollah, unlike members of this group. So, in fact, I think it's wrong to confer legitimacy on those very organizations that inhibit cooperation with the FBI, that support Hamas or justify Hezbollah, and who are radical in terms of portraying the war on terrorism as a war against Islam.”
On February 16, 2007, MPAC’s lawyer sent me a letter demanding an apology for my allegedly “[f]alse statements about the Muslim Public Affairs Council on Hannity and Colmes.” The letter demands that I “immediately issue a public apology and … cease and desist from making false statements about MPAC,” and that “MPAC is willing to pursue all available legal remedies” should I not comply with MPAC’s demands.
And what are the allegedly “false statements” MPAC is claiming I made? That “MPAC told its ‘members not to cooperate with the FBI,’” and that MPAC “are the ones radicalizing their community.” Now let’s analyze those charges by looking at MPAC’s own words.
First, that MPAC has instructed American Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI:
MPAC and its lawyers claim this to be untrue. But at a July 1, 2005 ISNA conference in Dallas, MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati did just that. Al-Marayati, speaking of the FBI’s terrorism investigation in Lodi and the use of Muslim informants in that case, California, told the assembled crowd of Muslim-Americans, “[c]ounter-terrorism and counter-violence should be defined by us. We should define how an effective counter-terrorism policy should be pursued in this country. So, number one, we reject any effort, notion, suggestion that Muslims should start spying on one another.” Right there, Al-Marayati is instructing Muslim Americans to not even attempt to observe any extremism or terrorist activity in their community, and even if they should observe something troubling, to not inform law enforcement authorities, that the duty owed to the Muslim community by the government is greater than to society at large.
And Al-Marayati continued, “Law enforcement is going to come to your mosque. It already has as far as I can tell. Everywhere I go, either somebody tells me that officials have met with them publicly or they tell me that they know who those folks are that are representing law enforcement. So we know they have communicated one way or the other with the Muslim community. The question is how do you deal with it in a healthy, open, transparent manner. That is why we are saying have them come in community forums, in open-dialogues, so they come through the front door and you prevent them having to come from the back door.”
Here, Al-Marayati is instructing Muslim Americans not to cooperate with the FBI’s preferred methods of investigation, and that, as he stated earlier, it is the Muslim community, and its so-called leaders, that should define the terms of the FBI’s investigation. That approach can hardly be described as full-fledged cooperation with law enforcement. Far from it, in fact. Al-Marayati used the Lodi case as an excuse to tell Muslim Americans not to deal with the FBI directly. Demanding that the American Muslim community only work with FBI agents and other law enforcement in public forums clearly detracts from the ability of investigators to do their job, which is to protect American citizens from the threat of radical Islamist terrorists. MPAC, and groups like it, are also clearly seeking to intrude into and ultimately to dominate the relationship between the law enforcement and the Muslim community, ensuring that the degree of allowable cooperation is regulated by these self-appointed leaders.
And why did Mr. Al-Marayati not urge his listeners in Dallas that they should extend full cooperation to the FBI and law enforcement community at every instance, rather than to demand a specific approach which is debilitating from an investigatory standpoint? Or that law abiding American Muslims need some sort of self-appointed intermediary when working with the FBI? And how can people feel comfortable providing information to law enforcement if they can only do so in an open forum? I will leave that to the reader to decide. But one thing is clear: MPAC is on the record telling American Muslims not to directly cooperate with the FBI, while at the same time advocating an impractical or impossible way for those who actually have information to relay it to law enforcement.
Now let’s analyze the other alleged “false statement”: that MPAC serves to radicalize the American Muslim community:
This claim is even easier to demonstrate, as MPAC officials give speeches and quotes to the media that can only serve to alienate and radicalize Muslims who hear them. The constant refrain: a conspiracy theory that the War on Terror is a contrivance of the U.S. government and is really a “War against Islam.” Such a conspiracy dismissed legitimate efforts by law enforcement to fight terrorism and terrorist financing perpetrated on U.S. soil. By virtue of the sheer number of times MPAC officials (and, for that matter, officials of other U.S.-based Islamist groups,) have made that claim, it is impossible to include them all here. But here are several instances that easily serve to make the point:
· Aslam Abdullah, MPAC Vice Chairman and Editor of the MPAC-linked magazine, the Minaret, in a 2002 online forum entitled, “The Truth behind America's War on Terrorism,” wrote, “[t]here are three specific lobbies that are turning the ongoing war on terrorism against Islam. The Christian Evangelicals who want to see Muslims converted, the political Zionists who want to see Muslim [sic] politically obliterated, and the Hindu Extremists who want to see Muslim [sic] humiliated…Mr. Bush and his administration have not been able to challenge these lobbies. Many members of these lobbies are in the administration and in FBI, law enforcement and even Congress.”[1] (emphasis added)
· MPAC “hate crime prevention coordinator” in May 2004, speaking to the Inter Press Service article reported, “The war on terror is a war, really, on a community that is being connected to the (9/11) hijackers.”[2]
· In a January 2002 article in the Minaret, stated that, “ince the Sept. 11 attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the U.S. government has pursued a policy where it has targeted Islamic, Arab and Palestinian organizations and individuals, in a manner that often lacks legal legitimacy.”[3]
· And al-Marayati, in the Los Angeles Times in March 2003, blasted “the FBI’s policy of targeting people because of their race and religion.” He added, “That’s what they’ve been doing since the attacks, and we don’t know of any case that has resulted in the arrest, indictment or prosecution of a terrorist.”[4]
A recent study conducted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has concluded that the repeated use of “War on Islam” mantra is directly related to the radicalization of the “homegrown” jihadists.[5]
Al-Marayati also infamously told an L.A. radio station after 9/11, “f we’re going to look at suspects we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list,” engaging in the very kind of conspiracy theories heard in the most radical quarters around the globe. Additionally, MPAC officials have defended Hezbollah, blasted the U.S. government for actions taken to stop the funding of Hamas by U.S. front organizations, and repeatedly defended convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami al-Arian, downplaying his jihadist exhortations and claiming that his prosecution was merely “political.”
As a well-known analyst of militant Islamist groups in the United States, I have been a target of a vicious smear campaign by organizations which are afraid of having the bright light of day shone on their words and deeds. For example, in December 2004, MPAC, published a “policy” paper titled “Counterproductive Counterterrorism,” in which more than 20 of the 48 pages were at their core a personal hit piece against me. And after failing to de-legitimize me through character assassination, MPAC is now threatening to silence me using the court system.
Legal action has become a mainstay of radical Islamist organizations seeking to intimidate and silence their critics. In September 2005, journalist Robert King, writing in the Indianapolis Star, outlined the strategy[6]:
Sayyid Syeed, the secretary general of ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), a group generally less vocal than CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), earlier in the weekend said his organization is considering filing defamation lawsuits against some of its sharpest critics.
King goes on to write that one of the potential targets frequently cited by America’s Muslim leaders is yours truly. And why is that? Because I have spent more than a decade exposing radical Islamists in the United States, many of whom are functioning in leadership capacities in these very groups in question. CAIR by the way, as King noted, has repeatedly taken to the courts, fortunately with very little success, to stifle criticism. Thankfully, the First Amendment protections granted by the U.S. Constitution do not favor this latest tactic employed by the Islamist groups.
MPAC cannot stand to have its agenda exposed, especially when it comes in the form of having its own words, and the words of its officials, used against them. In their minds, any such efforts need to be stifled. MPAC’s smear tactics have not worked, and as such, their lawyers have now stated that “MPAC is willing to pursue all available legal remedies” to silence me. MPAC’s bullying attempt to stifle free speech will not stand. Such tactics should be vigorously opposed, and MPAC, like CAIR before it, must learn that legal threats will not work to stifle legitimate criticism, especially when the facts underlying the criticism are both well documented, and as is often the case, straight out of the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Notes:
[1] Aslam Abdullah, “The Truth Behind America’s War on Terrorism,” November 30, 2002, http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=Og1n6h.
[2] Amantha Perera, “US Muslims Fear Second Term for Patriot Act,” Inter Press Service, May 7, 2004.
[3] “Relief Groups Shut Down,” The Minaret, January 2002.
[4] H.G. Reza, “FBI Has a Pledge and a Request for Muslims,” The Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2003.
[5] Stewart Bell, “Jihadization of youth a 'rapid process'; CSIS: Study Of Extremism,” National Post, January 26, 2007. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=25e76872-b309-47a7-841b-938bdd9ffd71
[6] Robert King, “Muslims aim to challenge critics in America; Convention seminar focuses on best ways for followers to respond when their faith is attacked,” Indianapolis Star, September 5, 2005, http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/RobertKing50905.htm
-
http://proteinwisdom.com/index.php?/weblog/entry/22644/
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Scrutiny Increases for the Council on American-Islamic Relations… [Karl]
...and New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar does not care for it. Not one little bit. So much so that any notion of accuracy or honesty flew right out the window.
For example:
A small band of critics have made a determined but unsuccessful effort to link it to Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, and have gone so far as calling the group an American front for the two.
MacFarquhar seems to have a rather Clintonesque parsing of the word “unsuccessful” in mind. Andrew McCarthy, a man with plenty of experience prosecuting terrorism-related charges has observed:
CAIR, you see, was birthed by a Hamas creation: the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). Several of CAIR’s top officials, including its founders, Omar Ahmed and Nihad Awad, were high-ranking IAP officers (respectively, its president and public-relations director). Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s communications director… is a former IAP employee [;] Hooper makes no secret that he would like to see the United States become an Islamic country under sharia law. As it happens, the IAP was started in 1981 by high-ranking Hamas operative Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook. Long a specially designated global terrorist under U.S. law, Marzook is also currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago, and named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a second U.S. terrorism indictment (which explains that he helps run Hamas’s “Political Bureau,” the branch responsible for “directing and coordinating terrorist attacks”). But he’s believed to be in Syria with other Hamas heavyweights, so maybe, using the Iraq Study Group strategy, we should just negotiate with him. In any event, so incestuous is the Hamas/IAP tie that, in 2004, a federal judge found the IAP liable for Hamas’s terrorist murder of an American citizen in Israel.
McCarthy also notes that “when CAIR was founded in 1994, part of the seed money came from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development”—whose assets were frozen in 2001 based on the U.S. Treasury Department’s conclusion that it provided millions of dollars annually that is used by Hamas.
After noting that even as solid a lefty as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has made defforts to distance herself from CAIR, MacFarquhar tries another defense:
Government officials in Washington said they were not aware of any criminal investigation of the group. More than one described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as akin to McCarthyism, essentially guilt by association.
Number of those government officials quoted or named? Zero. MacFarquhar did find a former official, however:
“Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares,” said Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. official who directed counterterrorism in the Washington field office from 2002 to 2005.
Those blank stares may be from people who find Rolince as oblivious about CAIR, its activities and leadership as he was about Zacarias Moussaoui before 9/11, or perhaps Rolince deals with people who are clueless about CAIR (he’s a consultant for CBS News)—but such ignorance proves nothing about CAIR. Rolince might want to speak with Steven Pomerantz, former FBI assistant director and chief of the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Section, who has stated, “CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.” And “CAIR is but one of a new generation of groups in the United States that hide under a veneer of ‘civil rights’ or ‘academic’ status but in fact are tethered to a platform that supports terrorism.” For that matter, MacFarquhar might have contacted Pomeranz, whose quote is widely published on the Internet, including in the Wikipedia.
As for that guilt by association, you have to read through to paragraph 18 to get a hint of what those associations might be:
Broadly summarized, critics accuse CAIR of pursuing an extreme Islamist political agenda and say at least five figures with ties to the group or its leadership have either been convicted or deported for links to terrorist groups. They include Mousa Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader deported in 1997 after the United States failed to produce any evidence directly linking him to any attacks.
MacFarquhar somehow fails to mention that Marzook (per McCarthy) is a specially designated global terrorist under U.S. law, is currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago, and was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a second U.S. terrorism indictment. He also fails to mention that Marzook is not among the “big five” usually identified by CAIR critics. Those five are:
• Ghassan Elashi (founding board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter) – was Chairman of Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which was shut down by the United States for raising millions of dollars for HAMAS; in July of 2004, was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering, and making false statements about shipments of high-tech equipment to countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism;
• Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer (national staff member of CAIR) – past Communications Director of the Muslim American Society (MAS), an organization that publishes materials calling suicide bombings against Israelis justifiable; in April of 2004, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his participation in a network of Al-Qaeda-related militant jihadists centered in Northern Virginia;
• Bassem Khafagi (CAIR’s Community Director) – was co-founder and past President of the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), an organization that has been investigated for possible funding to terrorist-related groups and publishing of materials calling for suicide bombings in the United States; in November of 2003, was sentenced to prison for bank fraud and making false statements on his visa application; was later deported to Egypt;
• Rabih Haddad (fundraiser for CAIR’s Ann Arbor chapter) – was co-founder and past Executive Director and Public Relations Director for Global Relief Foundation (GRF), which was shut down by the United States for its financing of terrorist groups, specifically Al-Qaeda; was arrested by INS for visa violations, in December of 2001, and was later deported to Lebanon;
• Siraj Wahhaj (national board member of CAIR) – in February of 1995, was named by federal prosecutor, Mary Jo White, as a possible co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; was a character witness for Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for his part in the ’93 bombing conspiracy; currently sits on the board of directors of the radical Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
BTW, CAIR featured Wahhaj at one of its big events on March 3rd of this year.
MacFarquhar then presses his case:
There were no charges linked to CAIR in any of the cases involved, and law enforcement officials said that in the current climate, any hint of suspicious behavior would have resulted in a racketeering charge.
Here, as with MacFarquhar’s note that the United States failed to produce any evidence directly linking Marzook to any attacks, MacFarquhar seems (or pretends to be) oblivious to the notion that politicians might not want to associate with or give a platform to a group whose officials seem to be involved with financing terror groups more often than one might like. The New York Times certainly seems willing enough to engage in far more tenuous assertions of guilt by association; it never fails to document alleged wrongdoing by Halliburton, years after VP Dick Cheney stopped working there. So it is not as though this type of reasoning is foreign to the paper. If Chimpy McHitlerburton continued to throw open his doors to Enron after five officers had been convicted of criminal charges, I suspect the paper would have disapproved.
MacFarquhar continues:
Several federal officials said CAIR’s Washington office frequently issued controversial statements that made it hard for senior government figures to be associated with the group, particularly since some pro-Israeli lobbyists have created what one official called a “cottage industry” of attacking the group and anyone dealing with it.
God forbid that MacFarquhar report what those controversial statements might be. Perhaps these officials were referring to the comments collected by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha in the the Middle East Quarterly:
In October 1998—months after Osama bin Laden had issued his first declaration of war against the United States and had been named as the chief suspect in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa—CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as “the sworn enemy,” finding this depiction offensive to Muslims. CAIR also leapt to bin Laden’s defense, denying his responsibility for the twin East African embassy bombings. CAIR’s Hooper saw these explosions resulting from “misunderstandings of both sides."[57] Even after the September 11 atrocity, CAIR continued to protect bin Laden, stating only that “if [note the “if"] Osama bin Laden was behind it, we condemn him by name."[58] Not until December 2001, when bin Laden on videotape boasted of his involvement in the attack, did CAIR finally acknowledge his role.
CAIR has also consistently defended other radical Islamic terrorists. Rather than praise the conviction of the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, it deemed this “a travesty of justice."[59] It labeled the extradition order for suspected Hamas terrorist Mousa Abu Marzook “anti-Islamic” and “anti-American."[60] CAIR has co-sponsored Yvonne Ridley, the British convert to Islam who became a Taliban enthusiast and a denier that Al-Qaeda was involved in 9-11.[61] When four U.S. civilian contractors in Falluja were (in CAIR’s words) “ambushed in their SUV’s, burned, mutilated, dragged through the streets, and then hung from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River,” CAIR issued a press release that condemned the mutilation of the corpses but stayed conspicuously silent on the actual killings.[62]
During the 2005 trial of Sami Al-Arian, accused of heading Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States, Ahmed Bedier of CAIR’s Florida branch emerged as Al-Arian’s effective spokesman, providing sound bytes to the media, trying to get his trial moved out of Tampa, commenting on the jury selection, and so on.[63]
More broadly, TheReligionofPeace.com website pointed out that “of the more than 3100 fatal Islamic terror attacks committed in the last four years, we have only seen CAIR specifically condemn 18."[64]
MacFarquhar or his unnamed officials—the sentence quoted above is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so—let us know that CAIR would have gotten away with it too… if it weren’t for those meddling Joos!
Indeed, he goes on in that mode for a couple of paragraphs, also referencing CAIR’s pro-Hezbollah position during Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel last summer. MacFarquhar does not put it that way, natch. Then again, MacFarquhar is not above writing a glowing profile of the Party of God’s Secretary General, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, either.
No doubt that’s the sort of piece that gets you selected to write about CAIR at the New York Times.
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/03/15/video-terrorism-expert-emerson-unloads-on-cair/
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/03/15/cair-and-the-st-petersburg-declaration/
-
I don't know how or why the Twin Cities became the center of American Islamic issues - home of Zacarius Moussoui, Kieth Mohamed Ellison, cab drivers that won't drive customers with liquor, the Imams who undermine airport security - now we have another one, the cashiers who won't scan bacon at Target.
Like the Imam-airport controversy, the cashiers seem to know to go after a 'Target' worth suing, not some single location locally owned corner grocery. And Target happens to be headquartered here.
The setup is that some Target stores now sell food. Muslims don't eat pork. Common sense might tell you that if you don't want to be around one of the most common American meat products, don't work at a grocery store. Target offered the cashiers who refuse to scan bacon a transfer within the store with no cut in pay. I wonder if that ends the controversy. lol
Here is one commentator's take. Joe Soucheray is St. Paul newspaper comumnist and local talk show personality where he is mayor of his mythical town of Garage Logic where the theme is common sense (conservatism) as compared with the alternative views in the neighboring towns of Liberal Lakes and Euphoria.
Quoting Soucheray:
"As long as the newspaper is asking for feedback, I might as well weigh in.
Actually, who might best weigh in is a spokesman for Muslims, which is part of the problem. There are many. As I understand it, there are many imams, just as there are many priests or rabbis. And while it is true that pork is forbidden in the diet, it is my understanding as well that there is no prohibition against touching pork.
That's problem No. 1. If there is no directive against touching pork, then why in the world is a Muslim cashier refusing to scan a package of bacon? And if he or she is practicing a tributary branch of the faith that prevents touching pork, then most of us have the same question we have about the cabdrivers. Why did you take a job where you might have to touch pork or be in the same car with a bottle of vacation rum?
Besides which, when you get a package of bacon home, you practically need a garden shears to open it. We spend billions of dollars a year in this country marketing and packaging products. Handle the package of bacon by the shrink-wrapped, double-sealed, triple-glazed hermetically encapsulated cardboard corner and slide it across the scanner. There. The price gets registered, and you haven't touched any pork.
Or, as ridiculous as we might wish to get, keep a pencil handy and poke or guide the bacon across the scanner.
This is America. We get inventive. And we get inventive in order to keep things moving along. That's the way we do business. Please join us.
That might touch at the heart of our shared frustration. We are basically a large blob of 300 million or so people who conduct our commerce in a secular fashion while practicing, pretty much in private, an astounding variety of religious obligations. Great. Worship grasshoppers for all I care, but when I am standing at the counter with a dollar in my hand, reach behind you and get me that O-ring I need for my lawnmower.
As wave after wave of immigrants arrived in, say, the Twin Cities, I can find no historical evidence that they demanded that America accommodate them. On the contrary, they assimilated, worked hard and benefited from America. I can find no historical evidence that other immigrant groups wished to have such a religious presence in the material marketplace, or, to put it another way, we have not previously been this expected to accommodate such a public component of one particular faith.
That's what stuck in the craws of most of us, and most of us are weary of being thought intolerant by the likes of newspapers."
--
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/16926961.htm - AP coverage of original story
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/columnists/16920908.htm - Soucheray column, St. Paul Pioneer Press
http://www.powerlineblog.com/ - the link and excerpt was from powerline
-
WSJ on line, today
================================
Islamosocialism
The European left makes common cause with the Muslim right.
BY BRET STEPHENS
Sunday, March 18, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
"It is a profound truth," declared the British Socialist Party in a 1911 manifesto, "that Socialism is the natural enemy of religion." Not the least of the oddities in the subsequent history of progressive politics is that today it has become the principal vehicle in the West for Islamist goals and policies.
Caroline Lucas, a member of the Green Party faction in the European Parliament, is a longtime activist in anti-nuclear, animal-rights and environmentalist causes, and not someone likely to describe herself as an anti-feminist. Yet in June 2004, she joined British MPs Fiona Mactaggart of Labor and Sarah Teather of the Liberal Democrats for a press conference in the House of Commons organized by the Assembly for the Protection of Hijab. The Assembly, better known as Pro-Hijab, is a pan-European organization formed "to campaign nationally and internationally for the protection of every Muslim woman's right to wear the Hijab in accordance with her beliefs and for the protection of every woman's right to dress as modestly and as comfortably as she pleases."
Once upon a time, feminists and socialists alike would have translated that as "subservience to the patriarchy." Now they seem to have rediscovered their roots as civil libertarians, at least when it's politically expedient. Consider the issue of the Armenian genocide. In 1998, the French-speaking wing of Belgium's Socialist Party (PS) co-sponsored legislation to criminalize denial of the Ottoman Empire's murder of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, much as Holocaust denial is also against the law.
Yet for the past several years, the same PS has been blocking the process of criminalization it helped initiate, presumably in the service of free speech. "Additional legal and historical research," says Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Laurette Onkelinx, remains to be done in ascertaining exactly what happened in Anatolia in 1915.
Progressives have also been remarkably mindful of civil liberties in matters of immigration. When the German state of Baden-Wüttemberg last year required applicants for citizenship to answer a series of questions regarding their personal views, the leader of the German Green Party, Renate Künast, denounced it as "immoral." "A country governed by law," she argued, "cannot ask questions about moral values." Among the questions: "Where do you stand on the statement that a wife should obey her husband and that he can hit her if she fails to do so?"
Curiously, however, Europe's progressives have been somewhat less tolerant on other issues concerning moral values and personal belief. Take "Islamophobia," which progressives often consider akin to racism and have, in some instances, sought to ban by legal means. In Britain last year, Tony Blair's government enacted the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which criminalized "threatening" comments against religious persons or beliefs. Comedian Rowan Atkinson and author Salman Rushdie, among others, warned that the law undermined basic rights of speech. But for London Mayor Ken Livingstone it was not enough: He defined "Islamophobia" as "discrimination, intolerance or hostility towards Islam and Muslims," and regretted that criminal acts were not more broadly defined by the legislation.
Since coming to office nearly seven years ago, Mr. Livingstone has become a symbol of the marriage of the European left and the Islamist right. It's a marriage of mutual convenience and, at least on one side, actual belief. In the Netherlands, a recent study by the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies found that 80% of immigrants--the overwhelming majority of whom are Muslims--voted for the Labor party in recent elections, while the two main center-right parties received a combined 4% of the immigrant vote. In neighboring Belgium, the left-wing sociologist Jan Hertogen credits immigrants for "[saving] democracy" by voting as a bloc against the secessionist and anti-immigrant Vlaams Belang party.
For Muslim voters in Europe, the attractions of the Socialists are several. Socialists have traditionally taken a more accommodating approach to immigrants and asylum-seekers than their conservative rivals. They have championed the welfare state and the benefits it offers poor newcomers. They have promoted a multiculturalist ethos, which in practice has meant respecting Muslim traditions even when they conflict with Western values. In foreign policy, Socialists have often been anti-American and, by extension, hostile to Israel. That hostility has only increased as Muslim candidates have joined the Socialists' electoral slates and as the Muslim vote has become ever more crucial to the Socialists' electoral margin.
More mysterious, however, at least as a matter of ideology, has been the dalliance of the progressive left with the (Islamic) political right. Self-styled progressives, after all, have spent the past four decades championing the very freedoms that Islam most opposes: sexual and reproductive freedoms, gay rights, freedom from religion, pornography and various forms of artistic transgression, pacifism and so on. For those who hold this form of politics dear, any long-term alliance with Islamic politics ultimately becomes an ideological, if not a political, suicide pact. One cannot, after all, champion the cause of universal liberation in alliance with a movement that at its core stands for submission.
This is not, of course, the first time such a thing has happened in the history of the progressive movement, or in European history. On the contrary, it is the recurring theme. In the early 20th century, the apostles of Fabianism--George Bernard Shaw among them--looked to the Soviet Union for inspiration; in the 1960s the model was Mao; in the late 1970s, the great French philosopher Michel Foucault went to Iran to write a paean to Khomeini's revolution. In nearly every case, the progressives were, by later admission, deceived, but not before they had performed their service as "useful idiots" to a totalitarian cause.
But the stakes today are different. At question for Europeans is not the prevailing view of a distant country. The question is the shaping of their own. Europe's liberal democrats were able, sometimes with outside help, to preserve their values in the face of an outside threat. Whether they can resist the temptations of Islamosocialism remains to be seen.
Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.
-
Assimilation Studies
Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants to Britain originating from the same region.
By Stanley Kurtz
A preference for marriage with cousins characterizes large sections of the Muslim world. In two previous pieces, “Marriage and the Terror War” and “Marriage and the Terror War, Part II,” I’ve argued that the Muslim preference for cousin marriage (along with several associated social practices) helps explain why it has become difficult to reconcile Islamic social life with modernity, why Muslim immigrants in Europe have been slow to assimilate, and ultimately, why we are engaged in a war with Islamic terrorists.
Cousin marriage, I have argued, helps to create and organize a deep-lying bias in the Muslim world toward in-group solidarity—a social strategy that has the effect of walling off Muslim society from outside influences, heightening internal cohesion, and insuring cultural continuity. By no means do all Muslims marry their cousins. Yet, throughout much of the Muslim world, the cultural ideal and practice of cousin marriage helps to set and reinforce in-group solidarity as a leading social theme.
Seminal
For a dramatic illustration of the social significance of Muslim cousin marriage, there is no better place to turn than the work of British social anthropologist Roger Ballard. Ballard directs the Centre for Applied South Asian Studies at England’s University of Manchester. In addition to authoring numerous papers on South Asian immigration to Britain, Ballard is a frequent consultant on legal cases involving “forced marriage,” “honor killings,” and related cultural issues.
Although Ballard has written a great deal on immigration, his 1990 paper “Migration and kinship: the differential effect of marriage rules on the processes of Punjabi migration to Britain” stands out as a ground-breaking work. This single seminal paper has underwritten a small but burgeoning sub-field in which British anthropologists have begun to outline the impact of culturally distinctive marriage practices on the dynamics of immigration and assimilation.
I take a very different view of immigration-related policy issues from Dr. Ballard and his associates (about which I’ll have more to say in a future piece). Yet no one can gainsay the intellectual accomplishment of Ballard’s extraordinary 1990 essay, or the articles that followed. (Here I’ll be drawing not only on Ballard’s influential 1990 piece, but on “The South Asian Presence in Britain and its Transnational connections” and “Riste and Ristedari: the significance of marriage in the dynamics of transnational kinship.”) It’s a commonplace that Muslim immigrants in Europe have been slow to assimilate. In a general way, the public attributes this relative isolation to Muslim religion and culture. But if you’re looking for a clear, powerful, and detailed account of exactly what it is that’s been blocking Muslim assimilation in Europe, there is no better place to begin than Ballard.
Variation on a Theme
Before turning to Ballard’s work, I need to note that the form of cousin marriage favored by the Pakistani Muslims who immigrate to Britain is a regional variant on the “parallel cousin” marriage favored by Muslims in the heart of the Arab World. (I discussed the nature and significance of “parallel cousin” marriage in “Marriage and the Terror War” Parts I and II.) While many Pakistani Muslims do in fact marry their first or second “patrilateral parallel cousins” (their father’s brother’s child), many others marry first and second cousins of other types. In contrast to Muslims in North Africa and the Arab World, Muslims in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan prefer marriage with any closely related cousin—not merely “patrilateral parallel cousins.”
The details of this widespread Muslim variant on the classic pattern of Arab parallel-cousin marriage need not detain us. The point is that the fundamental principles I laid out in “Marriage and the Terror War” Parts I and II still hold. Although many Muslims who live north of the Arab heartland marry “cross cousins” as well as “parallel cousins,” they do so with the aim of creating a tightly bound group of in-marrying relatives. While some societies use cross-cousin marriage to cement inter-group alliances, the “northern” pattern of Muslim cousin-marriage generally eschews such alliances and strives instead to create an exclusive group of in-marrying kin. (For more on the Pakistani Muslim variant of cousin marriage, see Veena Das, “The Structure of Marriage Preferences: An Account From Pakistani Fiction.”)
Think of classic Arab parallel-cousin marriage as the ultimate expression of a more widespread Muslim tendency toward in-marriage, or “endogamy.” Even in the core Arab area, parallel-cousin marriage is just one form of in-marriage—a cultural ideal that sets the tone for a more complex and varied range of “endogamous” practice. In the north-Muslim variant, parallel-cousin marriage tends to lose its special status (although not entirely), while a powerful emphasis nonetheless remains on a preference for marriage within the kin group, to cousins of all types. (For more, see Chapter Two of Carol Delaney's The Seed and the Soil.) In short, when Muslims marry cousins—of whatever type, they generally do so with the idea of creating and cementing the solidarity of tightly bound in-groups.
Natural Experiment
Part of what makes Ballard’s 1990 “Migration and kinship” piece so powerful is that he has identified Punjabi migration to Britain as something like a natural controlled experiment, with cousin marriage as the key variable. Somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of all South Asians in Britain are Punjabis. The Punjab sits athwart the border of India and Pakistan and is home to substantial communities of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. Muslims live almost exclusively in the Pakistani half of Punjab, while Sikhs and Hindus live largely in Indian Punjab. Whatever their religion, Punjabi migrants to Britain have a great deal in common. Most come from small, peasant, farming families, share basic cultural premises, speak a common language, and originally entered Britain intending to pocket savings from manual labor and return home. (In the end, many Punjabi guest workers remained in Britain.)
In family life, Punjabis of whatever religion organize themselves into patrilineal descent groups. Within those patrilineal clans, a “joint family” forms around a man, his married sons, and their children, with women leaving their natal homes to move in with their husbands. The family lives communally, sharing wealth and property, with grown sons under their father's authority, and in-marrying wives working under the direction of their mother-in-law. And whether Muslim, Hindu, or Sikh, the modesty of women in dress and behavior is a key cultural value for all Punjabis.
Despite these many similarities, the position of Punjabi Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu immigrants in Britain dramatically differs. Ballard focuses his comparison on two immigrant groups: Punjabi Muslims from the Mirpur region of Pakistan and Punjabi Sikhs from the Jullundur region of India. (Ballard frequently invokes Punjabi Hindus for comparative purposes as well.) Far from being obscure or isolated examples, it turns out that nearly three-quarters of British Punjabis are either Mirpuri Muslims or (largely Sikh) Jullunduris. With Punjabis making up the great majority of all British South Asians, Ballard’s careful comparison is therefore telling us about two of the largest and most influential South Asian immigrant groups in Britain.
So what’s the difference between Jullunduri Sikhs and Mirpuri Muslims? Quite simply, Jullunduri Sikh’s have moved relatively far down the road of assimilation, while Mirpuri Muslims have not. Now largely middle class, many British Sikhs have abandoned manual labor to start their own businesses, have moved from the inner city to the suburbs, and currently see their children performing academically at the same level as other middle-class Britons. British Mirpuri Muslims, on the other hand, move between unemployment and manual labor, are still largely confined to poor, inner-city ethnic enclaves, and rear children with a limited grasp of English and a notably low level of academic achievement.
Given the broad social, cultural, and linguistic similarities between Mirpuri Muslims and Jullunduri Sikhs (and Hindus), how are we to account for the radically different trajectories of these immigrant communities in Britain? Can religion explain the difference? In a sense, it can. Yet the key barriers to assimilation aren’t always religious in the strict sense. The factors that inhibit assimilation have less to do with Muslim beliefs per se than with the distinctive, non-textual practices that organize Muslim society.
In particular, the practice of cousin marriage has served to create a culturally insulated community of Mirpuri Muslims in Britain. A process of “chain migration,” in which generation after generation of Mirpuri immigrants wed cousins back in Pakistan, has reinforced Muslim cultural continuity by keeping a continuous stream of unassimilated immigrants pouring into Britain. Before describing the impact of Muslim marriage practices, however, Ballard needs to deal with an obvious alternative explanation for differential rates of immigrant achievement and assimilation.
Don’t Follow the Money
The simplest way to account for the different levels of economic success and assimilation found in Mirpuri Muslim and Jullunduri Sikh British immigrants is to note that Jullundur's local economy has long been in much better shape than Mirpur’s. When it comes to economic development, Pakistan has been far less successful than India. And Jullundur is one of the most prosperous areas in one of the most prosperous states in India. Mirpur, on the other hand, is situated in an economically stagnant section of Pakistan. Immigrants from Jullundur therefore tend to have better educational and technical skills than immigrants from Mirpur, and this clearly accounts for a significant part of the differential economic and cultural success of the two immigrant communities in Britain.
Of course, although it may no longer be fashionable to raise the issue, these pre-existing economic differences could themselves be rooted in cultural differences. Ballard leaves this point largely unexplored, yet many aspects of his account are suggestive. Ballard notes that Mirpur’s economy is hampered by the need for connections (no doubt chiefly kinship connections) to the administrative and political elite. Ballard also highlights the inhibiting effects that Mirpuri notions of honor have on land sales, as well as the negative economic effects of the flight of Mirpur’s overwhelmingly Sikh and Hindu middle class during the partition of India and Pakistan. So we at least need to consider the possibility that cultural differences might have played a significant role in the divergent economic histories of Muslim Mirpur, on the one hand, and Sikh-Hindu Jullundur, on the other.
In any case, even after granting the significance of pre-existing economic differences, Ballard stresses that in this case, a materialist explanation can only be very partial. That’s because the relative failure of British Mirpuri Muslim immigrants to assimilate is clearly linked to their distinctive pattern of family life. While post-war, immigrant, male, Sikh workers in Britain brought their families over to join them as early as the 1950s, Mirpuri Muslims men didn’t begin to transfer their families in Britain in large numbers until the late-1970s. That means it took decades longer for many Mirpuri Muslims even to begin the process of learning English and accommodating to British culture. And when Mirpuri Muslims finally did bring their wives and children from Pakistan to join them, they forged a set of inward-looking social networks that effectively insulated the Muslim community from the surrounding British culture.
Discomfort
After noting that economic factors can have only limited explanatory value in this case, Ballard goes on to highlight the influence of marriage practices on patterns of immigrant assimilation. Ballard suggests that the Muslim practice of cousin marriage may account for the formation of “far more in-turned and all-embracing” kinship networks than we find among British Sikhs, thus helping to explain the two groups’ divergent patterns of economic achievement and cultural accommodation. However, before Ballard details the inhibiting effect of Muslim social practices on the process of assimilation, he pauses to express some hesitation. This passage is worth quoting in full:
Could cultural—and more specifically, religious—variables be a partial determinant of such differences? [i.e. differential rates of economic success and assimilation in Sikh and Muslim immigrants] It is, after all, quite frequently asserted that Islam is more 'authoritarian,' and less 'open-minded,' than either Hinduism or Sikhism; and there clearly is a correlation between patterns of family and community organization on the one hand, and religion on the other. Could the relationship be causal? It is an argument that I find myself approaching with great caution, for the dangers are clear. Any explanation which rests on sweeping, and inevitably stereotypical, assertions about the allegedly 'conservative' or 'liberal' character of the two religious traditions must be rejected as unhelpful and unilluminating. Nevertheless, I have become increasingly convinced that there are some very significant issues at stake here, which are indeed broadly associated with religion; however, if the analysis is to have any validity, and stereotypes are to be avoided, all arguments must show, in a very specific way, just how difference has been precipitated.
Ballard’s desire to avoid unjustified generalization is admirable, as is his determination to tie any cultural explanation to specific mechanisms. Yet we can’t help but wonder whether the forest might get lost in the trees. Will Ballard’s concerns about ethnic stereotyping prevent him from drawing legitimate connections between the mechanisms that block Muslim assimilation in Britain, on the one hand, and large-scale features of genuine importance in many Islamic societies, on the other? In any case, exactly how does Ballard use cousin marriage to explain the relatively slow pace of Muslim assimilation in Britain? We’ll find answers to these questions, and more, in Part II of “Assimilation Studies.”
— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2QzZWM0YmMxMGZlOGFmMTQ4ZWY4MTJlNGEyMGU2M2Q=
-
Buz:
Rare to find a piece with something genuinely fresh to add to the conversation-- good find! It reminds me of the piece I saw-- I don't remember where, it might even be here on this forum-- saying that the issue was not Islam, but Arabic tribalism.
Apart from intellectual curiousity, what are the practical implications of this piece? Do any solutions come to mind?
Marc
PS: A friend from India whose comments have always impressed me as thoughtful and well-informed writes:
There are some nuances, which the author has missed and even a few inaccuracies. Hindu and Sikh Punjabis are the most outgoing and bold amongst Indians. Sikhism is a hinduism offshoot, where even in the same Hindu family it was common for one brother to become a sikh and the other remained hindu. Sikhs were the warriors historically speaking...that may explain their bold outgoing attitude. The reason for the lack of assimilation is characteristics of the religion/culture which Ballard talks about at the end of the article. Hindu Punjabi festivals are characterized by joy and energy ( e.g. Bhangra dance). Islam is a closed religion, where infidel is an everyday word. I am unaware of any celebratory muslim festival (music, dancing etc). Cousin marriage has nothing to do with it...
-
Marc,
Not sure I'm qualified to respond to your questions, seeing how I only have a couple semesters of undergrad Anthro to my credit. Liked the rigor in the piece, and the original is well annotated with links leading interesting places.
Will note that it's hard to find places where all things are equal, which makes the study of these two contemporaneous, proximate, and otherwise parallel groups so interesting. In my anectdotal wanderings I note there is assimilation variation is Muslim groups I deal with, which can be best noted in the dress and affect of the women. To what degree this difference is related to cousing marriage, explored further below, is beyond my ability to measure.
Buz
Assimilation Studies, Part II
On cousin marriage and Pakistani Muslims in Britain.
By Stanley Kurtz
The practice of cousin marriage among Pakistani immigrants has significantly slowed Muslim assimilation in Britain. Muslim cousin marriage has also facilitated a process of “reverse colonization,” in which large, culturally intact sections of Pakistani Muslim society have been effectively transferred to British soil. These conclusions emerge from the work of British South Asianist Roger Ballard — particularly from his path-breaking paper “Migration and kinship: the differential effects of marriage rules on the processes of Punjabi migration to Britain.” In the first part of “Assimilation Studies,” I laid out the background necessary to follow Ballard’s case. Here in Part II, I’ll run through the core of his argument. I’ll also explain why highlighting the significance of Muslim cousin marriage is such a difficult and controversial enterprise.
Numbers
As we’ve seen, Ballard worries that his research might validate the view that there is something illiberal or closed-minded about Islamic religious and social life. Yet statistics that Ballard himself reports show why it has been difficult for him to ignore the impact of cousin marriage on Muslim life in Britain — whatever hesitation he may have had about making such a potentially controversial case.
Ballard (who’s done extensive fieldwork in Pakistan’s Mirpur district) estimates that “over 60% of all Mirpuri marriages are contracted between first cousins.” In 2002, Ballard noted that: “At least half (and possibly as many as two-thirds) of the marriages currently being contracted by young British-based Mirpuris are still arranged with their cousins from back home.”
Rates of cousin marriage vary throughout the Muslim world, and we’ll learn more here (and in a future piece) about why the rates of cousin marriage among British Pakistani migrants are particularly high. Yet statistics alone tell only part of the story. The impact of a cultural ideal like cousin marriage goes well beyond any given statistical report. For example, Ballard notes that, “even when matches are arranged with non-relatives, they are rarely left in isolation. When followed up by further matches, two previously unconnected families can soon find themselves bound together in a single network.” So even marriages between non-kin tend over time to be roped into the larger Muslim system of endogamy.
This only begins to get at the many ways in which the significance of Muslim cousin-marriage goes beyond mere numbers. In “Marriage and the Terror War,” I discussed the difficulty modern Americans have in appreciating the pervasive significance of kinship in the non-Western world. For the greater part of human history, the political, cultural, and economic aspects of a person’s life have been inseparably bound up with customs of marriage and descent. Contemporary Muslim society is very much a part of that history. So when we learn that a high proportion of British Muslims are marrying kin, it’s not only interesting as a statistic about marriage itself, but is also a sign that many aspects of Muslim social life in Britain are being shaped and organized by the obligations of kinship.
Said
Given the frequency, impact, and prestige of cousin marriage among Muslims, it would seem a difficult phenomenon for scholars to ignore. In recent years, however, as Ballard’s own hesitation reveals, Western anthropologists have been decidedly reluctant to approach the topic. As anthropologist Carol Delaney explains in her 1991 book, The Seed and the Soil: “The introverted character of Middle Eastern–Mediterranean marriage, exuding as it does a scent of incest, may partly explain the relative reluctance of anthropologists to stick their noses into it.”
I think Delaney is correct — both in her explanation and in her sense that this explanation is merely partial. To truly understand the significance of Delaney’s pungent observation, we’ve got to learn a little something about the broader crisis into which Middle East studies have been plunged by the blistering criticisms of Edward Said, the founder of “post-colonial theory.” If the topic of Muslim cousin-marriage is now in bad odor amongst anthropologists, Edward Said has much to do with that fact.
Said famously took Bernard Lewis and other “Orientalist” scholars to task for treating Middle Eastern culture and society as somehow different from the West. This focus on cultural difference, according to Said, effectively turns Middle Easterners into exotic and implicitly irrational “Others,” over whom we supposedly-more-rational Westerners have an unspoken right to rule. Ultimately, for Said, even the most scrupulous and respectful study of cultural difference amounts to nothing more than a covert form of racist imperialism.
Said’s deeply influential political critique has had a paralyzing effect on scholars of the Middle East. Without venturing an account of social particularity, how can cross-cultural comparison take place? Western anthropologists stand condemned as neo-imperialists, whether they laud a particular social practice, criticize it, or remain scrupulously neutral. In the wake of Said’s critique, some anthropologists have abandoned cultural description and comparison altogether, producing sensitive accounts of their personal experiences in the field, or novelistic narratives of Middle Eastern lives instead. The point is less to make sense of the distinctive features of Middle Eastern society than to bring across to Westerners the common humanity of the people our foreign policy is supposedly tyrannizing. And of course, Said helped to usher in the scholarly notion that, in so far as the Middle East has distinguishing features or problems worth noting, these are largely a product of colonial oppression and American neo-imperialism, rather than of any distinctive social patterning within Middle Eastern society itself. (For more on Said and his impact, see my “Edward Said, Imperialist” and Charles Lindholm’s “The New Middle Eastern Ethnography.”)
With the field of Middle Eastern studies increasingly falling under the influence of Said and his followers, the long-standing anthropological interest in cousin marriage quickly began to fade. After all, what could be more offensive to a post-colonial theorist than the study of a feature that distinguishes the Muslim Middle East from nearly every other culture in the world — a practice that, in Delaney’s words, “exudes the scent of incest,” to boot? To look to cousin marriage for an explanation of the slow rate of Muslim assimilation in Europe — or for guidance in prosecuting the war on terror — is to bring vivid life to Edward Said’s worst nightmare. So, unfortunately (and not coincidentally), the post-colonial critique has virtually killed off the academic study of Middle Eastern kinship — at precisely the moment when such study is most needed.
It is therefore to Roger Ballard’s credit that, despite his concerns about invoking Muslim cousin-marriage as an explanation, he has moved forward nonetheless. Ballard and his British anthropological colleagues, in comparison to many American scholars, remain relatively resistant (but sadly, only relatively) to the worst excesses of post-colonial theory. All things considered, Britain remains something of a redoubt of the classic anthropological study of kinship. And with large numbers of South Asian immigrants bringing non-Western kinship practices into the heart of Britain itself, anthropologists could hardly help but take notice.
Reverse Colonization
So what exactly is Ballard explaining? What differences did Ballard find between the two big groups of British immigrants from the Punjab: Muslims from the Mirpur district of Pakistan, and Sikhs from the Jullundur district of India? Although both of these groups share a broadly similar social and cultural background, their patterns of assimilation have been strikingly different.
Think of the South Asian guest workers who began to pour into Britain during the boom years of the 1950s as being connected to their Punjabi villages of origin by invisible bands, stretched taught across the globe. At first, Punjabi Sikhs and Muslims alike lived physically in England, yet remained spiritually tethered to their South Asian homeland. Working double shifts through the night for extra pay left little time for interaction with Britons. The plan was to save as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, and return home. Wives and children were left behind in Punjab. If marriage for a worker or his child was to be arranged, it would be with someone at home.
In time, however, the paths of Sikh and Muslim workers began to diverge. By the late 1950s, the bands that tied Sikh immigrants to their Punjabi home began to stretch, weaken, even break. Sikh women and children joined their husbands and fathers in Britain, while many Sikhs shifted out of manual labor to start businesses of their own. With economic success came a move to the suburbs, where a generation of Sikh children grew up learning English from their British neighbors. This new cohort of relatively assimilated young Sikhs had a record of high academic-achievement, and they increasingly saw their marriages arranged with Sikhs living in Britain or North America, rather than with villagers back in Punjab.
-
Mirpuri Muslim workers, on the other hand, took decades longer to bring their wives and children to Britain. The common pattern was for a laborer to spend years working double shifts, accumulating savings, and then to return to Mirpur for an extended rest, perhaps using his new-found wealth to finance lavish weddings for his children. The rest period was followed by a return to Britain, with the cycle repeated several times. So the bonds that held Muslim Mirpuri migrants in Britain to their home villages in South Asia remained unbroken.
Even in the 1970s, when Mirpuri Muslim laborers finally did begin to bring their wives and children to live with them in Britain, ties to Pakistan were sustained through “chain migration.” With immigration regulations in Britain reflecting a lesser need and desire for foreign workers, villagers back in Mirpur could obtain visas only by marrying Mirpuri migrants already in Britain. Children of these couples, in turn, married and brought to England yet another generation of Mirpuri villagers, with each link in the chain of marriage migration insuring that the process of adjustment to English language and culture would begin again from scratch. These relatively unassimilated Mirpuri marriage-migrants were largely confined to the inner-city — to neighborhoods that recreated, insofar as possible, the linguistic and cultural conditions of Pakistan itself. Given their limited contact with English-speaking neighbors, Mirpuri children in these ethnic ghettos continued to have problems in school.
So, even when Mirpuri migrant men finally did reunite their families in Britain, it was less a breaking of the bonds that linked them to Pakistan than an effective transfer of a South Asian village society to Britain itself — a sort of “reverse colonization” — with marriage-driven chain migration keeping the ties between the “reverse colony” and the Punjabi homeland as strong as ever. In combination with the original post-war labor inflow, marriage-driven chain migration has now succeeded in transferring well over 50 percent of Mirpur’s original population to Britain. “We don’t cultivate wheat here any more,” one of Ballard’s Mirpuri informants commented, “we cultivate visas instead.”
Women and Funeral Rites
Ballard quickly realized that it would take more than materialist explanations to make sense of all this. In the end, he identified three cultural-religious variables that account for a large part of the difference between immigrant Sikh and Muslim paths of assimilation: marriage rules, mortuary rites, and gender rules.
When it comes to the treatment of women, Punjabi Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims share a good deal. While Muslims famously seclude women, Punjabi Hindu and Sikh women also behave with modesty before men — for example, keeping their faces covered by head-scarves in the presence of senior male relatives. So it’s all the more striking that the stricter, specifically Muslim rules of female seclusion have had such a substantial impact on divergent Sikh and Muslim paths of assimilation.
While Punjabi Sikh and Hindu women are permitted to move with circumspection around the village and into the fields when there’s work to be done, Mirpuri Muslims expect their women to avoid public places and to cover themselves almost completely when traveling.
Given these strict conventions of female seclusion, Mirpuri guest-workers, dismayed by what they viewed as the corrupting influence of British mores, were far slower to risk bringing their wives and children to live with them abroad. And when Mirpuri women finally did arrive, they were kept confined at home. In contrast, many Sikh and Hindu female immigrants to Britain took jobs that put them in touch with the language and culture of the society around them.
While admittedly not a major factor, Ballard notes that the contrast between Muslim burial practices and Sikh and Hindu cremation rites has also helped tie Mirpuri immigrants to their Pakistani base. The ashes of cremated ancestors can be immersed in any river — the Thames is much favored by British Hindus and Sikhs. Mirpuri Muslims, on the other hand, travel back to Pakistan to bury their parents in the graveyard of the patrilineage — a symbol of the unity of the in-marrying clan.
Mother-in-Law
Yet according to Ballard, of the several cultural factors shaping divergent paths of immigrant assimilation, marriage practices are the most important. Although Punjabi Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims all organize themselves into patrilineal descent groups (clans), and commonly form joint families, with sons and their in-marrying wives living together under parental authority, there is one key difference. Whereas Punjabi Sikhs and Hindus must marry outside of the patri-clan, Punjabi Muslims prefer to marry fellow clan members — especially first cousins. One effect of this difference is that the wives of Jullunduri Sikh immigrants have long been more eager than the wives of Mirpuri Muslim immigrants to join their husbands in Britain. Here’s why.
Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs marry outside the clan, but they must also marry inside the caste. In Punjab, members of a patrilineal clan tend to live together in the same village. This means that eligible marriage partners of the same caste, but a different clan, can only be found in another village. So the rule of clan exogamy forces Punjabi Hindu and Sikh brides to leave their home villages to move in with husbands who live elsewhere. Hindu and Sikh brides therefore enter their husband’s joint family as strangers. The early years of married life for a Hindu or Sikh bride are thus famously stressful, since she is not only living with and learning the ways of strangers, but also works under the difficult and unfamiliar authority of her new mother-in-law. Over time, Hindu and Sikh brides often press their husbands to leave the joint family and strike out on their own.
In contrast, when Muslim brides are cousins to their husbands, they remain in their home village, living with relatives, and often working under the supervision of a mother-in-law who is also a beloved aunt. One of the reasons Muslim cousin-marriage helps cement such intense in-group solidarity is that it builds upon and magnifies the already immensely powerful emotional bonds of early family life.
So it’s not surprising that the wives and children of Sikh laborers came to join them decades before Muslim families reunited in Britain. Even under ordinary circumstances, Sikh brides have only a limited interest in maintaining family jointness. Given the fact that these brides were working under mothers-in-law, without the protection from poor treatment commonly provided by resident husbands, they were more than willing to detach themselves from the joint family and move in with their husbands overseas. Many Muslim brides, in contrast, would have welcomed the prospect of remaining in Pakistan with a family of beloved aunts and cousins, rather than moving into conditions of lonely seclusion in Britain.
Forging the Chain
So Muslim cousin-marriage, in combination with the seclusion of women, helps explain why Sikh families were united in England, decades before similar reunions were seen among Muslim Mirpuris. Yet why, even after these family reunions, have Mirupuri Muslim immigrants continued the practice of marriage-driven chain migration, whereas Jullunduri Sikhs have not? Once again, Muslim cousin-marriage goes a long way toward explaining the difference.
As Muslim and Sikh immigrants gradually adjusted to life in Britain, it became increasingly evident that marriages arranged with villagers from back home tended to be riven with conflict. Cultural differences, the language gap, and the wide divergence in general social competence between British-raised youth and their spouses from South Asia frequently made for trouble and strife. So when the parents of British-born Sikhs were faced with the offer of an arranged marriage with a villager from Punjab, their children invariably opposed the match. In doing so, these young Sikhs had the advantage of knowing that their parents were under no obligation to accept any particular proposal of marriage. Given the Sikh practice of clan exogamy, every marriage is arranged from scratch with an outsider. In short order, therefore, the new generation of British-born Sikhs successfully pressed their parents to arrange marriages with British-born (or perhaps even North American-born) Sikh partners.
The situation was very different for children of Mirpuri Muslims. Among Mirpuris, it’s taken for granted that cousins have a virtual right-of-first-refusal in the matter of marriage. Even in the absence of immigration, it would have been entirely expected that the children of Mirpuri migrants would marry their cousins. How much more so was this the case when a marriage meant a British visa, and a vast increase in wealth — all redounding to the honor of the patriclan? Many Mirpuri migrants had only made it to Britain in the first place with economic help from a brother back in Pakistan. This practice of sharing of resources within the joint family created a powerful moral obligation to repay that financial help by arranging a marriage (and a visa) for the child of the brother who remained in Pakistan.
The British-born children of these Mirpuri Muslim migrants were perhaps a bit less apprehensive than their British Sikh counterparts about the idea of marrying villagers from back home. After all, these young Mirpuris had gotten to know their cousins on those long visits to Pakistan, and some affectionate attachments had developed. Yet the chronic problems of transnational marriages did indeed call forth opposition to such matches from many young Mirpuris. In contrast to the situation among immigrant Sikhs, however, the hands of Mirpuri parents were largely tied. To refuse a marriage with a relative back in Pakistan, when customary rights, financial obligation, and family honor were all at stake, would have been tantamount to a repudiation of siblingship itself. Such a severing of ties could bring retaliation in the form of efforts to blacken the honor of an immigrant and his family — a particularly severe sanction among Muslims.
So while Sikh immigrants increasingly broke the links of marriage-driven chain migration, the practice of Muslim cousin-marriage insured that assimilation itself would virtually begin again from scratch with each new generational infusion of Mirpuri spouses. The result has been economic stagnation and the literal transfer of more than half of Mirpur’s population to an archipelago of “reverse colonies” in the heart of Britain.
The Big Picture
Ballard is clearly concerned to avoid confirming the notion that Muslim religious or social practice is in any way closed-minded or illiberal. The solution, says Ballard, is to link Muslim cousin-marriage to the issue of assimilation only through a series of very specific mechanisms. So Ballard finally attributes the contrasting paths of Sikh and Muslim migrants to what he calls “a whole series of minor differences” — namely, funeral rites, the seclusion of women, and the many implications of divergent marriage rules.
Isn’t it interesting, however, that this whole series of “minor differences” somehow adds up to a very major difference indeed — a difference upon which the fate of Europe and the West may now hinge? Is it really the case that we can find nothing of systematic significance in a practice that transforms what might otherwise have been successful assimilation into “reverse colonization”? For Ballard: “Just why conversion [to Islam] should have precipitated such a radical change in marriage strategies [i.e. the shift to cousin marriage] is unclear.” It seems to me that Ballard’s own work suggests an answer to this mystery.
As I argued in “Marriage and the Terror War,” cousin marriage tends to wall off Muslim society from outside influences — heightening internal cohesion and insuring cultural continuity. The Muslim practice of cousin marriage stands in a reciprocal functional-relationship with Islam itself — with both sides of that relationship reinforcing a social strategy based on in-group solidarity. If several very particular aspects of cousin marriage have tended to reinforce social solidarity among Muslim immigrants in Britain, that is no coincidence; it is merely a powerful illustration of the broader tension between the organization of Muslim society and the structures of modernity.
No doubt, there are many complexities and exceptions here. Muslim society is diverse, and marriage practices are by no means uniform over the entire range of worldwide Islam. There are also similarities — even overlap — between seemingly distinctive Muslim social practices and aspects of non-Muslim cultures. Having said all that, it would be a mistake to downplay or deny the significance of the broader social pattern here. Cousin marriage tends both to reinforce in-group solidarity and to set up barriers to cultural exchange. Clearly this has huge advantages in certain social contexts. No doubt because of practices like cousin marriage, Islam has maintained enormous internal coherence and strength over huge stretches of history. Yet it must also be noted that the very pattern that yields such impressive social advantages can sometimes appear closed-off, even illiberal, by the standards of modern, Western society.
The implications in all this for Europe and America are huge, and I shall continue to explore them in this ongoing series of pieces on Muslim marriage practices.
— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzQzMjVhNzg2Nzg2ZmVkMjFhY2JiZjkwMmFjYzIwYjc=
-
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/03/wanted-counte...d-volunteers-in.html
Friday, March 23, 2007
Wanted: Counterjihad Volunteers in Kansas City
by Baron Bodissey
Most of our readers are aware of Rep. John Conyers’ efforts to pass a congressional resolution against the desecration of the Koran. One of the highest priorities of Muslim interest groups in the United States is to get this legislation and similar initiatives passed. They are following multiple strategies on these issues, lobbying for legislation that bans airport profiling, agitating for rules protecting Islamic practices in the schools, and pushing for non-legislative regulations in addition to laws and resolutions. They are seeking the expansion of the definitions of “hate crime” and “hate speech”, and a blurring of the distinction between the two.
I can’t emphasize too strongly or too often that the erosion of our freedom of speech and the encroachment of sharia in our country will come sneaking into the public discourse disguised as the protection of religious freedom. Muslim interest groups will claim — and are claiming — that all their religious practices, no matter how contrary they are to the rest of the First Amendment and the Constitution in general, are protected by the Religious Freedom Clause.
This is a pernicious strategy which is designed to turn our Constitutional liberties into a smoking ruin. And there are people in our government, both elected leaders and those within the permanent federal bureaucracy, who are all too eager to go along with this farrago.
The next skirmish in this war is taking place next week, on Thursday March 29th, in Kansas City, under the auspices of the Department of Justice. The event sounds innocuous enough — “A First Freedom Project Seminar: Federal Laws Protecting Religious Freedom” — but the significance of the occasion is revealed by the inordinate interest in it displayed by MPAC and other Muslim advocacy groups. The fact that these organizations are anxious to get their members to this meeting and intend to have an impact on it tells you a lot about what they hope to accomplish.
Meetings between the DOJ and Islamist advocacy groups that may have led to the “First Freedom” initiative are summarized at the American Muslim Perspective:
[The January 8 meeting was attended by] representatives from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Arab American Institute (AAI), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML), and the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA).
[…]
The January 8 meeting with Attorney General Gonzalez followed a similar meeting on December 4, 2006 between prominent American Muslim leaders with key senior US government officials to discuss the state of Islamophobia in America and US-Muslim relations. It was organized by the Bridging the Divide Initiative of Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. It was co-sponsored by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.
The government was represented by several participants from the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and associated agencies including Alina Romanowski, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Professional and Cultural Affairs and Dan Sutherland, the Officer for Civil Rights at the Department of Homeland Security.
American Muslim leaders included: Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, Louay Safi, the Executive Director of the ISNA leadership Development Center, Imam Mahdi Bray, the executive Director of MAS Freedom Foundation, Ahmed Younis, the National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and Muqtedar Khan of Brookings Institution.
Ambassador Martin Indyk, Director of Saban Center and Stephen Grand, the Director of the US-Islamic World program also addressed the meeting. This was the first US Government and American Muslim conference on Islamophobia.
The upshot is that Justice Department policy on religious discrimination is being guided by leaders from CAIR, ISNA, MAS Freedom Foundation (co-sponsors with ANSWER of the March 17 demonstration against the war), and MPAC.
As I’ve said before, this is a Trojan horse being rolled into the heart of the United States Constitution, and we have to make our voices heard if we want to stop it.
I’m asking members of the Counterjihad, especially bloggers, to travel to Kansas City if they possibly can and attend this meeting in order to offer a counterweight to MPAC, ISNA, and all the rest of the alphabet soup that fronts for the Umma here in the USA.
If we sleep through this one, it makes it easier for them to set the agenda for the next one, and the one after, and the one after that.
Then one day you’ll wake up and find that the Religious Freedom Clause protects the right of Muslims to have separate public swimming pools for men and women, or to be guaranteed a pork-free school lunch, or not to be deployed by the Armed Forces during a conflict with an Islamic country.
In other words, America will have become just like Eurabia.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Christine of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (the international coalition that has recently emerged from the original 910 Group network) has compiled a pdf file of background materials on the First Freedom Project and Islamic organizations. Here’s her cover note for the document:
- - - - - - - - - -
The Department of Justice’s The First Freedom Project on religious liberty, starting next week with a March 29 public meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, may be monopolized by Islamist organizations. Other seminars will be held in Tampa, Florida, on April 25, 2007 and Seattle, Washington, on May 10, 2007. If members of other religions attend these DOJ meetings, a more balanced view can be presented. Criticism of other religions should not be criminalized, including criticism of Islam or the Koran.
Meetings between the DOJ and Islamist advocacy groups that may have led to the “First Freedom” initiative are summarized here at the American Muslim Perspective.
As conservative writer Janet Levy has noted, “Muslim leaders such as Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, insist that Muslims have a right to petition for special accommodation based on their religious beliefs as mandated by the First Amendment. In truth, no requirement exists, either in state or federal statutes, requiring that such petitions be addressed or behavior adjusted accordingly.”
Below we provide background information:
1. A congratulatory email notice from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), stating that the DOJ’s First Freedom Project “is designed to provide additional enforcement tools for laws against religious discrimination and hate crimes.”
2. The press release on the First Freedom Project, as provided from the ADC.
3. A similar email notice from the Muslim Public Affairs Council on the First Freedom Project.
4. Related Legislation: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (LLEHCPA) , just introduced March 21 (text not available online on 3/22/07). See “Christian belief a ‘hate crime’ under plan”.
5. Related Legislation: The “Domestic Radicalization” Amendment to the Improving America’s Security by Implementing Unfinished Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.
6. A partial list of Kansas City events, including the March 7, 2007 charges against a Columbia, Missouri charity designated as a supporter of terrorism.
7. A list of Islamic organizations in Kansas City, ranging from local chapters of national Islamist advocacy groups, to local mosques, schools and foundations that may be moderate.
I hope you can cover this DOJ Project and encourage more people to attend to balance the views offered.
Thanks!
Regards,
Christine
Director, The Center For Vigilant Freedom
-
Shariah in Minnesota?
Radical Muslim activists go fishing in troubled waters.
BY KATHERINE KERSTEN
Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
MINNEAPOLIS--The land of 10,000 lakes and that welcoming attitude we call "Minnesota Nice"--is becoming a window on America's potential future. Here in Minneapolis, one of the nation's most livable cities, hard-line Muslim activists are injecting an element that is anything but nice.
Troubling incidents began several years ago, when taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport--about three-quarters of whom are Muslim--started refusing to transport passengers carrying alcohol. One woman, returning from France with wine, was turned away by five cabs in succession. Refusals of service now number about 100 a month, and heated altercations have erupted.
In September 2006, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) proposed a two color top-light pilot project to indicate which drivers would accept passengers with alcohol. The proposal, later dropped, would apparently have marked the first time that a government agency in the U.S. officially recognized Shariah law, and distinguished individuals who follow it from those who don't.
In November 2006, the six "flying imams" bumped the taxi drivers from the headlines. In Minneapolis for a conference, the imams were detained after engaging in what an airport police report called "suspicious" activity. Some prayed loudly in the gate area, spoke angrily about the U.S. and Saddam, switched seats and unnecessarily requested seat belt extenders with heavy buckles that could be used as weapons, according to witnesses. They were questioned and released later that day. The imams denounced the incident as racial and religious profiling. "If up to now, [Americans] don't know about prayers, this is a real problem," said Omar Shahin, one of the detained men and head of the North American Imams Federation. Twin Cities imams demanded a separate Muslim prayer room at the airport.
Earlier this month, the six imams filed suit in U.S. district court in Minneapolis against US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission, claiming discrimination and defamation. Now some Muslim cashiers at Twin Cities Target stores have begun refusing to scan pork products, like bacon and pepperoni pizza, and insisting that other cashiers or the customers themselves do it.
What's going on? It appears that both local circumstances and activists with a big-picture agenda play a role. Take the taxi drivers. Minnesota is home to tens of thousands of Somalis, most recent immigrants. Behind the scenes, moderate local Somali leaders are engaged in a power struggle with national Muslim organizations that seek to exploit this vulnerable population. Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol but not its transportation, say Somalis who reject the taxi drivers' stance. Yet in June 2006, the Muslim American Society's (MAS) Minnesota chapter issued a "fatwa" forbidding drivers here from carrying alcohol to avoid "cooperating in sin."
Hassan Mohamud, one of the fatwa signers, praised the two top-light proposal as a national model for accommodating Islam in areas ranging from housing to the workplace. But according to Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, MAS is "trying to hijack and radicalize the Somali community for their Middle East agenda."
Ahmed Samatar, a recognized expert on Somali society at Macalester College in St. Paul notes that "There is a general Islamic prohibition against drinking, but carrying alcohol for people in commercial enterprise has never been forbidden." Similarly, Islam prohibits consuming pork, but not touching or scanning it, according to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the American Society for Muslim Advancement in New York. It is, or should be, "a nonissue."
In Washington, the Democratic leadership is likely to seek passage of the End Racial Profiling Act, of which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called herself, in 2004, a "proud" cosponsor. Both MAS and CAIR are stumping for the bill, which would bar airport security personnel from disproportionately questioning Muslims or people of Middle Eastern descent. Minnesota's Keith Ellison, the nation's first Muslim Congressman, told me that the imams' situation reflects a misunderstanding of Muslim prayer and will be sorted out in court, while the other matters stem from the normal process of immigrant adjustment.
The events here suggest a larger strategy: By piggy-backing on our civil rights laws, Islamist activists aim to equate airport security with racial bigotry and to move slowly toward a two-tier legal system. Intimidation is a crucial tool. The "flying imams" lawsuit ups the ante by indicating that passengers who alerted airport authorities will be included as defendants. Activists are also perfecting their skills at manipulating the media. After a "pray-in" at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., one credulous MSNBC anchor likened the flying imams to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
The comparison is misplaced: Omar Shahin, leader of the detained imams, has helped raise money for at least two charities later shut down for supporting terrorism. From 2000 to 2003, he headed the Islamic Center of Tucson, which terrorism expert Rita Katz described in the Washington Post as holding "basically the first cell of al Qaeda in the United States." CAIR has long been controversial for alleged terrorist ties, while the Chicago Tribune has described MAS as the American arm of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which "preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic."
So far, Minnesotans have said a resolute "no" to Muslim activists' agenda; in an informal Star Tribune poll, 92% of respondents blamed the imams' own behavior for their airport detention. And Target--after unsuccessful attempts to accommodate Muslim cashiers--is reassigning them to other jobs. Still, there is a sense that we've seen just the opening skirmishes. As MAC spokesman Patrick Hogan put it, "I think people are afraid there will be a chapter two."
Ms. Kersten is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
-
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070326&s=emerson032807
One Muslim advocacy group's not-so-secret terrorist ties.
Unfit Print
by Steven Emerson
Only at TNR Online | Post date 03.28.07
This year has been a rocky one for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the self-professed "prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy" group. First, Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer rescinded an award her office had issued a CAIR official, stating that she was uncomfortable with many of the organization's positions. Then, two weeks ago, the GOP House Conference objected to the use of a Capitol facility--provided by Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell to host a CAIR forum, labeling the group "terror apologists" (based on CAIR's long track record of extremism and anti-Semitism).
Yet, just as people began to realize this and to ostracize CAIR accordingly, The New York Times arrived with a life raft. Earlier this month, Neil MacFarquhar wrote an incredibly generous profile called "Scrutiny Increases for a Group Advocating for Muslims in U.S." MacFarquhar's piece is so fraught with errors--of commission and omission--that it is a coup of CAIR propaganda.
MacFarquhar gets off on the right foot, noting, "Several federal officials said CAIR's Washington office frequently issued controversial statements that made it hard for senior government figures to be associated with the group." But he cites none of these "controversial statements." Nor does he mention the CAIR-sponsored fund-raisers and conferences featuring former neo-Nazi leader William Baker and jihadist cleric Wagdy Ghoneim. (At a 1998 CAIR event, Ghoneim sang, "No to the Jews, descendants of the apes." And, after he was deported in 2004 for overstaying his visa, Hussam Ayloush, CAIR's Southern California director, called Ghoneim's removal from the U.S. "a dent in our civil rights struggle.")
Readers of the Times wouldn't know, for example, that Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin alleged CAIR's links to terrorists; nor that Steven Pomerantz, former counterterrorism chief of the FBI, has written, "Any objective assessment of the material ... leads to the conclusion that CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups."
In airing critics' complaints about the group, MacFarquhar cites its refusal to "endorse the American government's blanket condemnations of Hezbollah and Hamas." Actually, that's only half the story. At a 2001 rally in front of the State Department, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad actually defended Hamas's murderous tactics: "The Palestinians are using legitimate means of resistance. We should not be shy about it, and we should not be apologetic about it."
The devil, however, is in the details, and MacFarquhar doesn't even bother with them. CAIR has received significant funding from the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, an outfit notorious for publishing anti-Semitic, jihadist literature. (Sample passage: "Teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews and the oppressors, and teach them that our youngsters will liberate Palestine and [Jerusalem] when they go back to Islam and make jihad for the sake of Allah.") CAIR officials also make frequent pilgrimages to the Persian Gulf to solicit funds (for a $50 million p.r. campaign and a new $24 million office building).
The Times even parrots a typical CAIR refrain--that "some pro-Israeli lobbyists" are responsible for the group's woes--and stands it up in the mouth of some unnamed government official. If MacFarquhar had dug deeper, he would have found conspiracy-mongering. A March 1998 article in the Georgetown Voice (titled "Muslim group sponsors controversial speaker; Jews Control U.S. Policy, Awad Says") reported that Awad called U.S. policy "driven in part by the Jewish origin of many Clinton administration officials." Awad continued, "Who of Clinton's advisors ... is opposing the latest agreement with Iraq? Look at their names. Look at ... their ethnic or religious or racial background. You will see that these are the same groups that belong to the same interest groups in the administration. These are the same people who are pushing the United States to go to war on behalf of a third party." And, at a Washington, D.C. rally in 2000, Awad unequivocally announced his vision for the Middle East, "They [the Jews] have been saying 'next year to Jerusalem.' We say 'next year to all Palestine.'"
While the Times did not see fit to provide its readers with any of CAIR's "controversial" statements (Awad in 1994: "I am in support of the Hamas movement"), the paper did disingenuously quote one of CAIR's most dangerous supporters. Former FBI agent Michael Rolince--who spent much of his time at the agency championing "partnership" between Islamist groups and law enforcement (and has, since his retirement, frequented the Islamist speaking and fund-raising circuit) told MacFarquhar, "Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares."
Not only is this a total falsehood, but it's also a conflict of interest. Rolince was involved in a highly controversial program, eventually de-funded and cancelled by the FBI, that would have funneled millions of dollars to a constellation of radical Muslim groups, including CAIR (to, in the words of the Times, "institutionalize bridge building"). I have met with Rolince several times, and he simply refused to read the materials on CAIR that I, and others, provided. Moreover, Mike Rolf, a retired FBI agent, disagrees with Rolince's casual acceptance of CAIR. Rolf states, "It is clear that CAIR has had a number of people in positions of power within the organization that have been directly connected to terrorism and have either been prosecuted or thrown out of the country" and has said that, despite Rolince's contention, "there are no blank stares from people working in counterterrorism in the U.S., and it is troubling that CAIR seems unable to directly and specifically condemn terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah."
In truth, as Rolince would know if he'd read what I gave him, CAIR's ties to terrorists are numerous and well-documented. For one, the group was incorporated by members of the Islamic Association for Palestine, a now defunct organization shuttered by a successful lawsuit against U.S.-based Hamas front organizations (the suit was brought by the family of an American victim of a Hamas attack).
For another, CAIR received $5,000 in 1994 from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which goes on trial later this year for funneling millions of dollars to Hamas (the Treasury Department has designated it a Hamas front group). In the days after September 11, CAIR used its website to raise money for HLF, sending people who clicked on a link--called "Donate to the NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund"--to the HLF website. Perhaps Rolince and The New York Times, when presented with such facts, would only respond with blank stares.
At one point, MacFarquhar even strays into direct Hamas propaganda, asserting that Mousa Abu Marzook is "a Hamas leader deported in 1997 after the United States failed to produce any evidence directly linking him to any attacks." Actually, in his extradition order, Judge Kevin Duffy saw reason to believe that "Abu Marzook engaged in and intended to further the aims of [a terrorist] conspiracy by his membership in and support of the Hamas organization." Duffy also concluded "that probable cause exists that Abu Marzook knew of Hamas's plan to carry out violent, murderous attacks, that he selected the leadership and supplied the money to enable the attacks to take place, and that such attacks were, therefore, a foreseeable consequence of the conspiracy."
CAIR's very public defense of Marzook--which the Times neglects to mention--is illuminating. In June 1996, CAIR signed an open letter to then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher calling for Marzook's immediate release, railing against "the injustice that has prevailed," and alleging that "our judicial system has been kidnapped by Israeli interests." Then, its 1996 report "The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States" included Marzook's arrest in its list of incidents of anti-Muslim bias and violence.
The Rolinces and MacFarquhars of the world might not lose any sleep for propping up a group that publicly supports Hamas kingpins and other anti-American terrorists, but thankfully, most people do. The Times got one thing right: Scrutiny of CAIR is on the rise, and that is something everyone should welcome.
Steven Emerson is executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and the author, most recently, of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (Free Press).
-
A Madrassa Grows in Brooklyn
By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 25, 2007
Come September, an Arabic-language public secondary school is slated to open its doors in Brooklyn. The New York City Department of Education says the Khalil Gibran International Academy, serving grades six through 12, will boast a "multicultural curriculum and intensive Arabic language instruction."
This appears to be a marvelous idea, for New York and the country need native-born Arabic speakers. They have a role in the military, diplomacy, intelligence, the courts, the press, the academy, and many other institutions — and teaching languages to the young is the ideal route to polyglotism. As someone who spent years learning Arabic, I am enthusiastic in principle about the idea of this school, one of the first of its kind in the United States.
In practice, however, I strongly oppose the KGIA and predict that its establishment will generate serious problems. I say this because Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage. Some examples:
Franck Salameh taught Arabic at the most prestigious American language school, Middlebury College in Vermont. In an article for the Middle East Quarterly, he wrote: "even as students leave Middlebury with better Arabic, they also leave indoctrinated with a tendentious Arab nationalist reading of Middle Eastern history. Permeating lectures and carefully-designed grammatical drills, Middlebury instructors push the idea that Arab identity trumps local identities and that respect for minority ethnic and sectarian communities betrays Arabism."
For an example of such grammatical drills, see the just-published book by Shukri Abed, Focus on Contemporary Arabic: Conversations with Native Speakers (Yale University Press), one chapter of which is titled "The Question of Palestine." Its intensely politicized readings would be unimaginable in a book of French or Spanish conversations.
The Islamist dimension worries me as well. An organization that lobbies for Arabic instruction, the Arabic Language Institute Foundation, claims that knowledge of Islam's holy language can help the West recover from what its leader, Akhtar H. Emon, calls its "moral decay." In other words, Muslims tend to see non-Muslims learning Arabic as a step toward an eventual conversion to Islam, an expectation I encountered while studying Arabic in Cairo in the 1970s.
Also, learning Arabic in of itself promotes an Islamic outlook, as James Coffman showed in 1995, looking at evidence from Algeria. Comparing students taught in French and in Arabic, he found that "Arabized students show decidedly greater support for the Islamist movement and greater mistrust of the West." Those Arabized students, he notes, more readily believed in "the infiltration into Algeria of Israeli women spies infected with AIDS…the mass conversion to Islam by millions of Americans," and other Islamist nonsense.
Specifics about the KGIA confirm these apprehensions, including its roster of sponsors and enthusiasts. The school's key figure, principal-designate Dhabah ("Debbie") Almontaser, has a record of extremist views, as William A. Mayer and Beila Rabinowitz have shown at PipeLineNews.org.
Arabs or Muslims, Ms. Almontaser says, are innocent of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: "I don't recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims." Instead, she blames September 11 on Washington's foreign policies, saying they "can have been triggered by the way the USA breaks its promises with countries across the world, especially in the Middle East, and the fact that it has not been a fair mediator."
At a community meeting with the New York Police Department commissioner, she berated the NYPD for using "FBI tactics" when informants were used to prevent a subway bombing, thereby polarizing the Muslim community. For Ms. Almontaser, it appears, preventing terrorism counts less than soothing Muslim sensibilities.
She calls George W. Bush a "nightmare" who is "trying to destroy the United States."
Rewarding these views, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a foreign-funded front organization, in 2005 bestowed an honor on Ms. Almontaser for her "numerous contributions" to the protection of civil liberties.
Her intentions for the KGIA should raise alarms. An Associated Press report paraphrases her saying that "the school won't shy away from sensitive topics such as colonialism and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis," and she notes that the school will "incorporate the Arabic language and Islamic culture." Islamic culture? Not what was advertised — but imbuing pan-Arabism and anti-Zionism, proselytizing for Islam, and promoting Islamist sympathies will predictably make up the school's true curriculum.
To express your concerns about this planned Arabic school, please write the New York City chancellor, Joel Klein, at JKlein@schools.nyc.gov.
-
In Defense of the Constitution
News & Analysis
013/07 May 12, 2007
CAIR: Partners With the Jihadist "Fort Dix Six"?
The recent arrest of the "Fort Dix Six" has shocked (shocked!) the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), North America's premier defender of Islamist terrorism in North America. CAIR, the only Muslim organization in North America certified by Allah to determine just who is and who is not a "True Muslim", is apparently upset that the Fort Dix Six, without permission from CAIR's Saudi taskmasters, dared to invoke Islam as justification for the planned attack on Fort Dix:
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/05/10/publiceye/entry2785624.shtml
CAIR sent a statement to the press asking:
"Media outlets and public officials refrain from linking (the Fort Dix) case to the faith of Islam."
One problem with CAIR's request is that the suspected terrorists weren't let in on CAIR's game plan. Eljvir Duka, one of the six, was heard in an FBI recording saying:
"In the end, when it comes to defending your religion, when someone attacks your religion, your way of life, then you go jihad."
"Jihad"? What faith is most closely related to this concept? Christians? Jews? Maybe the Buddhists? How about the Hindu's? No, could it be that CAIR is upset because, once again, Muslim terrorists have "gone Jihad" and violated CAIR's copyright on the word?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/08/ap/national/main2777304.shtml?source=search_story
Of course, far be it to let FACTS get in the way of CAIR's well Saudi-Oiled spin machine which put out a carefully crafted response to the arrests:
".it seems clear that a potentially deadly attack has been averted.we applaud the FBI for its efforts and repeat the American Muslim community's condemnation and repudiation of all those who would plan or carry out acts of terror while falsely claiming their actions have religious justification."
"FALSELY claiming their actions have religious justification?"
While it comes as a surprise to CAIR, 99.9% of North Americans, including non-CAIR-approved Muslims, realize that Islamic justification is not only a fact, but that it is a deadly fact that has not only murdered in the past, but that does so on a daily basis.with the blessings of CAIR's perverted version of "Allah".
CAIR's noxious propaganda falls flat on its face with the Fort Dix Six. Investor's Business Daily details some of the charges in the FBI affidavit:
"It records the men saying they were willing to die killing infidels in the name of Allah. One asks who'll take care of his family. Not to worry, another responds, "Allah will take care of your wife and kids." They watched speeches by Osama bin Laden calling for
jihad, videos of jihadi attacks, and videotaped messages from two of the 9/11 "martyrs".
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=263689615601528&status=article&id=263689615601528
The mother of one accused, Fatem Shnewer said her son, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer was targeted by the FBI, "because he's religious."
CAIR, once again, is trying doubly hard to cover up a huge, glaring fact: when some Muslims, like the Fort Dix Six, feel as if their religion is "under attack" they turn to violence as a remedy.
The larger question is why would some Muslims living in America, where the median income of Muslims is over $50,000 a year, freedom of expression, the right to peacefully assemble.the right to religious freedoms is guaranteed to all citizens, want to kill fellow Americans? Just where did the Fort Dix Six get the idea that Islam in under attack in America?
http://www.allied-media.com/AM/default.htm
One possibility is CAIR. At every opportunity, since its inception, CAIR has set forth the imagery and perception that "Islam is under attack" in the United States of America.
CAIR has gone after numerous radio talk show hosts for daring to speak frankly about Islamic terrorism. They even launched a campaign called "Hate Hurts America" to stop these radio hosts. CAIR's effort was:
".based on the premise that the increasing attacks on Islam by talk-show hosts harm the United States by creating a downward spiral of interfaith mistrust and hostility."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39651
When the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was shut down for channeling funds to Hamas, CAIR asserted that freezing HLF assets could give the perception that ".there has been a shift from a war on terrorism to an attack on Islam."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26545
Anti-CAIR revealed in court documents that CAIR was consistently banging the drum of Muslim oppression, discrimination, and victimization by Islamophobic Americans and an oppressive government. By painting American Muslims and Islam as being "under attack" in America, CAIR was, and is, intentionally playing a dangerous game:
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_029_06
The evidence will show that under Moslem law, "attacks against Islam" must be countered with violence. CAIR's intentional and repeated use of the "attack" imagery is, therefore a potential call to violence."
By warning the press not to equate the Fort Dix Six actions with religion, CAIR is trying to deflect the fact that it has been Islamist organizations like CAIR who have been fanning the flames for jihad in America, pushing the propaganda of "Islamophobia", and insisting that Muslims in America are treated unjustly and in huge numbers - as Nihad Awad recently asserted during a meeting at the Adams Center where he said:
"There were 196 cases reported by the Justice Department for Muslims in civil rights cases. There were over 1,008 cases reported by the Jewish faith. We need to do a much better job not only in recognizing our civil rights but also in reporting it to the government. [It] is very critical and very important. ... We really feel our community is more targeted. Fifty-four percent -- this is one of CAIR's surveys -- 54 percent of all Muslims surveyed said they had been subject to discrimination. Fifty-four percent, which if you put numbers down, we're talking about tens of thousands of cases, not dozens, as is reported in the Justice Department's annual report."
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20070507-102427-8093r.htm
What Awad fails to mention is that it would be far more surprising if the survey showed less than 50% discrimination, considering the kinds of Muslims that associate with CAIR.
Dr. M.Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum For Democracy makes it clear that CAIR and other radical, political Muslim groups like CAIR are a clear and present danger to America:
"Muslim organizations should understand that only Muslims hold the keys to the way to overwhelm and counter the ideology which fuels these radicals. Muslim organizations should be clamoring to expose and infiltrate the ideology and sources which drove these traitors to sprout their radical cell. We need an Islamic vaccine (the separation of spiritual Islam from political Islam) to the virus which afflicted these men. Until Muslim anti-Islamists can defeat Islamism (political Islam) as an ideology, we will not make any headway at preventing the germination of the next cell. We will only be left waiting, praying, for the FBI to help us, yet again, dodge the next bullet."
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTA5MzQzOGQyZjUzOGVmNDcxMmJhZWE4MDUwNDJ
jMTM=
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTA5MzQzOGQyZjUzOGVmNDcxMmJhZWE4MDUwND
JjMTM=&w=MQ&w=MQ==
CAIR refutes all facts that "real" Muslims would commit violence in the name of the Islamic religion - even while CAIR insists that America is growing into a horrible place to be a Muslim. So horrible in fact, that CAIR Officer and convert Ismail Royer, an original employee of CAIR, decided to wage Jihad - while working for CAIR - by aiding and abetting terrorists:
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_015_03
CAIR's response to Royer's terrorist activities was that Royer was not an employee at the time.a lie exposed by Anti-CAIR.
Anti-CAIR unfortunately predicts more such plots by Muslims in America such as the Fort Dix Six as a result of CAIR's relentless propaganda on behalf of radical Islam. Could radical Imam's and Islamist groups like CAIR be largely responsible for the Muslim terrorist attacks? Is it possible that CAIR aids and abets Islamic terrorism by both failing to condemn Muslim terrorists and apologizing for them at the same time?
Is "Islam under attack" in America?
No, it isn't; in our opinion, nothing CAIR says can change this fact that is making CAIR so uncomfortable.CAIR needs Americans to attack Islam, to burn down Mosque's, to attack peaceful Muslims and their customs in order to foment civil discourse that would further the Islamist agenda of world domination under the disgusting Wahhabi cult of Islam.
The fact remains: there is no country on the planet more welcoming, understanding, and sympathetic to Islam than the United States.and CAIR knows this to be true. No where on earth will Muslims find their civil rights better protected than here in America.and this is something that even CAIR, with all its oily millions, cannot change if we are willing to stand up to them.
Let's not allow CAIR to destroy Islam in America.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
Note:
Effective immediately, Anti-CAIR will no longer use the term "ACAIR" to describe our group. We use "Anti-Council on American-Islamic Relations" as our full name and "Anti-CAIR" as an abbreviation. We ask anyone referencing our group to use these terms.
ADVISORY:
Subscribers are warned that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) may contact your employer if CAIR believes you are using a work address to receive any material that CAIR believes may be offensive. CAIR has been known to shame employers into firing employees CAIR finds disagreeable. For that reason, we strongly suggest that corporate e-mail users NOT use a corporate e-mail account/address when communicating with ACAIR or CAIR. We make every reasonable effort to protect our mailing list, but we cannot guarantee confidentiality. ACAIR does not share, loan, sell, rent or otherwise publicize our mailing list. We respect your privacy!
TIPS:
All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. ACAIR will acknowledge receipt of all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge the source of ANY tip or lead in our Press Releases or on our web site. Exceptions are made for leading media personalities at the discretion of ACAIR and only on request of the person(s) submitting the tip or lead.
-
Londonistan Calling
The London neighborhood of the author's youth, Finsbury Park, is now one of the breeding grounds for a new phenomenon: the British jihadist. How did a nation move from cricket and fish-and-chips to burkas and shoe-bombers in a single generation?
by Christopher Hitchens June 2007
They say that the past is another country, but let me tell you that it's much more unsettling to find that the present has become another country, too. In my lost youth I lived in Finsbury Park, a shabby area of North London, roughly between the old Arsenal football ground and the Seven Sisters Road. It was a working-class neighborhood, with a good number of Irish and Cypriot immigrants. Your food choices were the inevitable fish-and-chips, plus the curry joint, plus a strong pitch from the Greek and Turkish kebab sellers. There was never much "bother," as the British say, in Finsbury Park. Greeks and Turks might be fighting in Cyprus, but they never lifted a hand to one another in London. Many of the Irish had republican allegiances, but they didn't take that out on the local Protestants. And, even though both Cyprus and Ireland had all the grievances of partitioned former British colonies, it would have seemed inconceivable—unimaginable—that any of their sons would put a bomb on the bus their neighbors used.
Returning to the old place after a long absence, I found that it was the scent of Algeria that now predominated along the main thoroughfare of Blackstock Road. This had had a good effect on the quality of the coffee and the spiciness of the grocery stores. But it felt odd, under the gray skies of London, to see women wearing the veil, and even swathed in the chador or the all-enveloping burka. Many of these Algerians, Bangladeshis, and others are also refugees from conflict in their own country. Indeed, they have often been the losers in battles against Middle Eastern and Asian regimes which they regard as insufficiently Islamic. Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence.
Until he was jailed last year on charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, a man known to the police of several countries as Abu Hamza al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque. He was a conspicuous figure because, having lost the use of an eye and both hands in an exchange of views in Afghanistan, he sported an opaque eye plus a hook to theatrical effect. Not as nice as he looked, Abu Hamza was nonetheless unfailingly generous with his hospitality. Overnight guests at his mosque's sleeping quarters have included Richard Reid, the man in whose honor we now all have to take off our shoes at the airport, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the missing team member of September 11, 2001. Other visitors included Ahmed Ressam, arrested for trying to blow up LAX for the millennium, and Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian who planned to don an explosive vest and penetrate the American Embassy in Paris. On July 7, 2005 ("7/7," as the British call it), a clutch of bombs exploded in London's transport system. It emerged that one of the suicide murderers had been influenced by the preachings of Abu Hamza, as had two of those attempting to replicate the mission two weeks later.
In fact, the British jihadist is becoming quite a feature on the international scene. In 1998, six British citizens of Pakistani and North African descent along with two other British residents were arrested by the government of Yemen and convicted of planning to kidnap a group of tourists and attack British targets in the port of Aden (scene of the near-sinking of the U.S.S. Cole two years later). One of the youths was the son of the tireless Abu Hamza, and another was his stepson. In December 2001, Richard Reid made his bid on the Paris–Miami flight. By then, two or three Britons had been killed in Afghanistan—fighting on the side of the Taliban. The following year came the video butchering of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whose abduction and murder were organized by another Briton—a former student at the London School of Economics—named Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. And the year after that, two British-passport holders, Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, took part in a suicide attack on Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv bar.
The British have always been proud of their tradition of hospitality and asylum, which has benefited Huguenots escaping persecution, European Jewry, and many political dissidents from Marx to Mazzini. But the appellation "Londonistan," which apparently originated with a sarcastic remark by a French intelligence officer, has come to describe a city which became home to people wanted for terrorist crimes as far afield as Cairo and Karachi. The capital of the United Kingdom is, in the words of Steven Simon, a former White House counterterrorism official, "the Star Wars bar scene," catering promiscuously to all manner of Islamist recruiters and fund-raisers for, and actual practitioners of, holy war.
In the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, which killed 52 civilians (including a young Afghan, Atique Sharifi, who had fled to London to escape the Taliban) and injured hundreds more, I found that American television interviewers were all asking me the same question: How can this be? Britain is the country of warm beer and cricket and rain-lashed seaside resorts, not a place of arms for exotic and morbid cults. British press coverage struck the same plaintive note. One of the murderers, Shehzad Tanweer, was a cricket enthusiast from Leeds, in Yorkshire, whose family ran a fish-and-chips shop. You can't get much more assimilated than that. Yet Britain's former head of domestic intelligence, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller (and you can't get much more British than that, either), said last year that there are more than "1,600 identified individuals" within the borders of the kingdom who are ready to follow Tanweer's example (including those in whose honor we now all have to part with our liquids and gels at the airport). And, according to Manningham-Buller, "over 100,000 of our citizens consider the July 2005 attacks in London justified."
I told those who were interviewing me to go back and review the 1997 film of Hanif Kureishi's brilliant short story "My Son the Fanatic," and then to reread Monica Ali's 2003 novel, Brick Lane. The film is set in a dilapidated Yorkshire mill town very like the ones that spawned the 7/7 bombers, and the book is named for an area of East London that is now mainly Bengali and Muslim but has been home to successive waves of Huguenot and Jewish immigration. I remember leaving the cinema after seeing My Son the Fanatic, and feeling a heavy sense of depression, along with a strong premonition of trouble to come. In the figures of Parvez, the Pakistani cabdriver, and his morose son, Farid, Kureishi had captured the generational essence of the problem. In the 1960s, many Asians moved to Britain in quest of employment and education. They worked hard, were law-abiding, and spent much of their time combating prejudice. Their mosques were more like social centers. But their children, now grown, are frequently contemptuous of what they see as their parents' passivity. Often stirred by Internet accounts of jihadists in faraway countries like Chechnya or Kashmir, they perhaps also feel the urge to prove that they have not "sold out" by living in the comfortable, consumerist West. A recent poll by the Policy Exchange think tank captures the problem in one finding: 59 percent of British Muslims would prefer to live under British law rather than Shari'a; 28 percent would choose Shari'a. But among those 55 and older, only 17 percent prefer Shari'a, whereas in the 16-to-24 age group the figure rises to 37 percent. Almost exactly the same proportions apply when the question is whether or not a Muslim who converts to another faith should be put to death …
‘They remind me of the 60s revolutionaries in some ways," said Hanif Kureishi as we sat in one of London's finest Indian restaurants. "A lot of romantic talk, but a hard-core faction who will actually volunteer to go to training camps." Making a rather sharp distinction between the new young fundamentalists and the 1960s rebels, he added that he had never met a jihadist who wasn't militantly anti-Semitic. Monica Ali, whose lovely novel also emphasizes the generational divide and captures the Third World–type pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric, independently told me the same thing. She had seen British television cave in to extremists who did not want her book made into a film, and who threatened trouble if the cameras were brought to the East End, but this did not alarm her as much as "the way that hatred of the Jews has become absolutely standard, all across the community."
It's interesting that it should be authors from Muslim backgrounds—Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, the broadcaster and co-author of the Policy Exchange report Munira Mirza—who are issuing the warnings. For the British mainstream, multiculturalism has been the official civic religion for so long that any criticism of any minority group has become the equivalent of profanity. And Islamic extremists have long understood that they need only suggest a racial bias—or a hint of the newly invented and meaningless term "Islamophobia"—in order to make the British cough and shuffle with embarrassment. Prince Charles himself, the heir to the throne and thus the heir to the headship of the Church of England, has announced his sympathy for Islam and his wish to be the head of all faiths and not just one. This may sound good, if absurd (a chinless prince who becomes head of a church because his mother dies?), but only if you forget that it was Prince Charles who encouraged the late King Fahd, of Saudi Arabia, to contribute more than a million pounds to build … the Finsbury Park Mosque! If you want my opinion, our old district was a lot better off when the crowned heads of the world were busy neglecting it.
Anyway, you can't be multicultural and preach murderous loathing of Jews, Britain's oldest and most successful (and most consistently anti-racist) minority. And you can't be multicultural and preach equally homicidal hatred of India, Britain's most important ally and friend after the United States. My colleague Henry Porter sat me down in his West London home and made me watch a documentary that he thought had received far too little attention when shown on Britain's Channel 4. It is entitled Undercover Mosque, and it shows film shot in quite mainstream Islamic centers in Birmingham and London (you can now find it easily on the Internet). And there it all is: foaming, bearded preachers calling for crucifixion of unbelievers, for homosexuals to be thrown off mountaintops, for disobedient and "deficient" women to be beaten into submission, and for Jewish and Indian property and life to be destroyed. "You have to bomb the Indian businesses, and as for the Jews, you kill them physically," as one sermonizer, calling himself Sheikh al-Faisal, so prettily puts it. This stuff is being inculcated in small children—who are also informed that the age of consent should be nine years old, in honor of the prophet Muhammad's youngest spouse. Again, these were not tin-roof storefront mosques but well-appointed and well-attended places of worship, often the beneficiaries of Saudi Arabian largesse. It's not just the mosques, either. In West London there is a school named for Prince Charles's friend King Fahd, with 650 pupils, funded and run by the government of Saudi Arabia. According to Colin Cook, a British convert to Islam (initially inspired by the former crooner Cat Stevens) who taught there for 19 years, teaching materials said that Jews "engage in witchcraft and sorcery and obey Satan," and incited pupils to list the defects of worthless heresies such as Judaism and Christianity.
What this shows is the utter futility of the soft-centered explanations of the 7/7 bombings and other outrages. It was argued for a while that the 7/7 perpetrators were victims of unemployment and poverty, until their remains were identified and it became clear that most of them came from educated and reasonably well-off backgrounds. The excuses then abruptly switched, and we were asked to believe that it was Tony Blair's policy in Iraq and Afghanistan that motivated the killers. Suppose the latter to be true. It would still be the case that they belong to a movement that hates Jews and Indians and all kuffar, or "unbelievers": a fanatical sect that believes itself entitled to use deadly violence at any time. The roots of violence, that is to say, are in the preaching of it, and the sanctification of it.
If anything, Tony Blair is far too indulgent to this phenomenon. It is his policy of encouraging "faith schools" that has written sectarianism into the very fabric of British life. A non-Muslim child who lives in a Muslim-majority area may now find herself attending a school that requires headscarves. The idea of separate schools for separate faiths—the idea that worked so beautifully in Northern Ireland—has meant that children are encouraged to think of themselves as belonging to a distinct religious "community" rather than a nation. As Undercover Mosque also shows, Blair's government has appeased leading Muslim apologists by inviting them to join "commissions" to investigate the 7/7 attacks, and thus awarding them credibility well beyond their deserts. A preposterous and sinister individual named Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain and a man with a public record of support for Osama bin Laden, was made a convener of Blair's task force on extremism despite his stated belief that the BBC and the rest of the media are "Zionist controlled."
It's impossible to exaggerate how far and how fast this situation has deteriorated. Even at the time of the Satanic Verses affair, as long ago as 1989, Muslim demonstrations may have demanded Rushdie's death, but they did so, if you like, peacefully. And they confined their lurid rhetorical attacks to Muslims who had become apostate. But at least since the time of the Danish-cartoon furor, threats have been made against non-Muslims as well as ex-Muslims (see photograph), the killing of Shiite Muslim heretics has been applauded and justified, and the general resort to indiscriminate violence has been rationalized in the name of god. Traditional Islamic law says that Muslims who live in non-Muslim societies must obey the law of the majority. But this does not restrain those who now believe that they can proselytize Islam by force, and need not obey kuffar law in the meantime. I find myself haunted by a challenge that was offered on the BBC by a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary: a man who has praised the 9/11 murders as "magnificent" and proclaimed that "Britain belongs to Allah." When asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Shari'a, he replied: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" A question that will have to be answered one way or another.
-
Rhode Island man accused of trying to extort gas station owner over fake terror ties
Associated Press - May 19, 2007 7:53 AM ET
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - A Rhode Island man is in custody on charges of attempted extortion and impersonating a federal officer over fake terror claims.
Police in Warwick (WAR'-ik), Rhode Island, say George Tabora threatened to claim that the Middle Eastern owner of a gas station was linked to al-Qaida unless the man paid him $$25,000.
The 44-year-old suspect has been in custody since Wednesday after police say they caught his teen-age son trying to retrieve the fake payoff money. Prosecutors say Tabora also his wife in the plot. She worked at the gas station and allegedly backed up the story, telling her boss she'd been contacted by a Homeland Security agent.
The gas station owner told police he had received a phone call from a man claiming to be a federal agent. The man says the caller threatened to jail him and "go after" his wife and daughters if he didn't pay.
Police say they recorded a call from Tabora's home that allegedly set up the money drop.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6539451
-
Monday, May 21, 2007
Pitch to African-Americans invokes 'martyr' Malcolm X
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Al-Qaida is aggressively recruiting black Americans for suicide operations against the homeland, say FBI analysts who have reviewed recent videotaped messages from the terror group's leaders.
A speech released May 5 by Osama bin Laden's deputy confirms earlier fears that African-Americans are the No. 1 recruiting target for the next generation of attacks. Al-Qaida has been trying to lower its Arab profile to reduce the odds that its terror cells will be subjected to security scrutiny.
"Federal and local law enforcement authorities should be aware that al-Qaida terrorists may not appear Arab," warns a recent Homeland Security intelligence report obtained by WND. "Non-Arab al-Qaida operatives could find it easier to avoid unwanted scrutiny since they may not fit typical profiles."
In the latest message, al-Qaida No. 2 Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri clearly seeks to sow political and racial discontent among African-Americans. He makes frequent references to what he calls the "martyr" Malcolm X, and says "I want blacks in America to know that we are waging jihad to lift oppression from all mankind."
Zawahiri encourages African-Americans to follow the example of Malcolm X, a.k.a. al-Hajj Malik al-Shabaaz, who he says was not afraid to sacrifice his life to fight American "oppression."
According to a transcript of the hour-long screed, Zawahiri said this is "the culture which the struggler and martyr Malcom X (may Allah have mercy upon him) fought against when he told his repressed black brothers in America, 'If you're not ready to die for it, take the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary.'"
"Freedom is something that you have to do for yourself," he quotes Malcolm X as as saying. "The price of freedom is death."
Zawahiri, again citing the teachings of Malcolm X, suggests that black Muslims who do not rise up against America are no better than "house slaves."
It's the first time al-Qaida has identified Malcolm X as a fellow Islamic "struggler and martyr," analysts say.
"Zawahiri's focus on race relations may be benefiting from the input of a U.S. citizen named Adam Yahiye Gadahn – a.k.a Azaam al-Amriki – who is a senior member of al-Qaida's media committee," said former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, now an analyst for the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank specializing in national security.
"Indeed," he added, "the deftness and political timeliness of Zawahiri's statements suggest that al-Qaida may have more than a single American advising it."
Last year, in another nearly hour-long videotaped speech, al-Qaida propaganda chief Gadahn invited blacks to convert to Islam and take revenge against a nation that enslaved their ancestors.
Gadahn, a white convert from California thought to be operating out of al-Qaida's new base in Pakistan, slammed his native America, which he said "shamelessly brought us lynch laws, Jim Crow, and a death row where only convicts of certain races are sent."
In courting African-Americans, he also encouraged them to forsake Christianity, which he claims whites have used as an excuse to abuse blacks.
"Islam rejects the Judeo-Christian doctrines concerning Eve and Ham, which the West has used to justify all manner of abuse and ill treatment of women and blacks," Gadahn said. "Islam is for everyone."
Gadahn, who is wanted by the FBI for treason, also claims that America "enslaved Africa."
Islamic terrorism analysts point out that al-Qaida's racial history lessons conveniently leave out the fact that Arab Muslim slave traders sold Africans into bondage.
"The Arab is the true master of the African," said Bill Warner, director of the Center for Study of Political Islam. "Blacks like to imagine Islam is their counterweight to white power, not that Islam has ruled them for 1,400 years."
Blacks account for the largest share of Muslims in America. A great many of them are converts to Islam. And remarkably, the religion is flourishing among African-Americans since 9/11. Analysts fear the trend plays right into bin Laden's hands.
Black converts say Islam has more in common with their African heritage than Christianity. In fact, black Muslim leaders often refer to such conversions as "reversions," claiming black "reverts" are merely returning to the Islamic faith prominent among their African forebears who were forced into slavery.
"You have African-American men seeking liberation," explained black Muslim leader Eric Erfan Vickers, "and many see Christianity as a white man's religion that continues to oppress."
Vickers, a convert to Islam, does not consider al-Qaida a terrorism group. "They are involved in a resistance movement," he contended.
Prisons have already proven to be a fertile recruiting ground for al-Qaida, spawning the likes of shoebomber Richard Reid and alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla.
Christian prison chaplains say Islam is so popular with inmates they are having a hard time competing with Muslim chaplains for their souls. Blacks are being converted by the cell block. The FBI worries blacks could be the next face of terror in America.
Since 9/11, the agency has already disrupted several homegrown terror plots involving black Muslim converts, including:
A group of black Muslim converts in Miami who allegedly conspired to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago (some had rap sheets).
A Chicago black Muslim, Derrick Shareef, who allegedly plotted to blow up a local shopping mall.
A black U.S. soldier, Hassan Abujihaad, who allegedly fed terrorists classified information about U.S. battleship movements in the Strait of Hormuz.
Black ex-con Muslims in Torrance, Calif., who allegedly planned to attack military recruiting stations and synagogues in the state. The plot was initially hatched in prison.
Still, some analysts doubt al-Qaida's pitch will resonate in today's black community beyond a handful of malcontents. They point out that African-Americans are no longer held back by institutional racism, and are growing wealthier as evidenced by the expanding black middle class.
Indeed, Zawahiri does not paint a very enticing picture in describing the sacrifices required along the path of jihad, especially for those used to the material comforts of America.
"If we continue to aspire to nothing more than diplomas, positions, salaries, pensions and the raising of our children, there will be nothing but humiliation in store for us, our children and our grandchildren," he argued. "If, on the other hand, we are happy with killing, captivity, emigration, losing one's spouse, orphanage, and losing one's wealth, homeland and beloved in the path of Allah, then with Allah's help, no power on the face of the earth can defeat us."
Zawahiri in his latest speech also made fresh threats about coming attacks on America.
He warns that a new "squadron of martyrdom-seekers" is lined up behind "hundreds" of new leaders who are following in the footsteps of captured 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
"They shall achieve more than he achieved," Zawahiri vowed. "The Americans shall pay dearly."
He says American voters had a chance to fire Bush in the last presidential election for invading Iraq, but they chose instead to reelect him. He suggests they forfeited their chance for protection from terrorism, and deserve punishment.
"The Americans deserve what they're getting," he said. "They chose this liar two times, so let them pay the price for their choice."
Gadahn has said "the streets of America shall run red with blood," later singling out Los Angeles as a target of attack.
-
Disappointing article for a number of reasons...
The title made me assume that there was a systematic, well-planned approach by AQ to convert blacks to Islam and have them join in Jihad. Instead, I am given no hard facts, no statistics, and questionable assumptions:
Blacks account for the largest share of Muslims in America. A great many of them are converts to Islam.
Conversion to a religion is a long way from martyrdom. Many people convert to Christianity every year, but I'm guessing a minuscule portion of these goes out to bomb abortion clinics. Since when did religious conversion = religious fanaticism?
Analysts fear the trend plays right into bin Laden's hands.
How?
Prisons have already proven to be a fertile recruiting ground for al-Qaida, spawning the likes of shoebomber Richard Reid and alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla.
Two examples is hardly a "fertile recruiting ground"
Christian prison chaplains say Islam is so popular with inmates they are having a hard time competing with Muslim chaplains for their souls. Blacks are being converted by the cell block.
No mention of whether these inmates are rabid fundamentalists or guys looking to polish their image for the parole board. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a majority of these "conversions" last about as long as the inmates are in prison. Of those conversions that last, do we have any proof of contact with AQ or other radical Muslim groups?
And since when did converting people to a religion become a competition?
To top it off, there are only two sentences that try to show that this "aggressive recruiting" may fall flat:
Still, some analysts doubt al-Qaida's pitch will resonate in today's black community beyond a handful of malcontents. They point out that African-Americans are no longer held back by institutional racism, and are growing wealthier as evidenced by the expanding black middle class.
How about some quotes from African-American, non-radical Muslims (maybe even some converts) that laughs in the face of AQ?
Will AQ change its tactics? Absolutely.
Will they try to change their "look". Most definitely.
Would AQ love to recruit African-Americans? Possibly.
Are they aggressively recruiting? Doubtful.
-
If one does some calculations about how many people these various %s work out to, some disconcerting numbers result.
===================================
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...sns-ap-topnews
Most U.S. Muslims Reject Suicide Bombings
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer
Originally published May 22, 2007, 10:45 AM EDT
WASHINGTON // One in four younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances, though most Muslim Americans overwhelmingly reject the tactic and are critical of Islamic extremism and al-Qaida, a poll says.
The survey by the Pew Research Center, one of the most exhaustive ever of the country's Muslims, revealed a community that in many ways blends comfortably into society. Its largely mainstream members express nearly as much happiness with their lives and communities as the general public does, show a broad willingness to adopt American customs, and have income and education levels similar to others in the U.S.
Even so, the survey revealed noteworthy pockets of discontent.
While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely.
That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely.
"It is a hair-raising number," said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which promotes the compatibility of Islam with democracy.
He said most supporters of the attacks likely assumed the context was a fight against occupation -- a term Muslims often use to describe the conflict with Israel.
U.S. Muslims have growing Internet and television access to extreme ideologies, he said, adding: "People, especially younger people, are susceptible to these ideas."
Federal officials have warned that the U.S. must be on guard against homegrown terrorism, as the British suffered with the London transit bombings of 2005.
Even so, U.S. Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In surveys Pew conducted last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France.
"We have crazies just like other faiths have them," said Eide Alawan, who directs interfaith outreach at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., one of the nation's largest mosques. He said killing innocent people contradicts Islam.
Andrew Kohut, Pew director, called support for the attacks "one of the few trouble spots" in the survey.
The question did not specify where a suicide attack might occur, who might carry it out or what was meant by using a bombing to "defend Islam."
In other findings:
_Only 5 percent of U.S. Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group al-Qaida, though about a fourth did not express an opinion.
_Six in 10 said they are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the U.S., while three in four expressed similar worries about extremism around the world.
_Yet only one in four consider the U.S. war on terrorism a sincere attempt to curtail international terror. Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
_By six to one, they say the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq, while a third say the same about Afghanistan -- far deeper than the opposition expressed by the general U.S. public.
_Just over half said it has been harder being a U.S. Muslim since the 9/11 attacks, especially the better educated, higher income, more religious and young. Nearly a third of those who flew in the past year say they underwent extra screening because they are Muslim.
The survey estimates there are roughly 2.35 million Muslim Americans. It found that among adults, two-thirds are from abroad while a fifth are U.S.-born blacks.
By law, the Census Bureau does not ask about peoples' religions.
Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,050 Muslim adults from January through April, including some in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi. Subjects were chosen at random, from a separate list of households including some with Muslim-sounding names, and from Muslim households that had participated in previous surveys.
The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
-
Disappointing article for a number of reasons...
The title made me assume that there was a systematic, well-planned approach by AQ to convert blacks to Islam and have them join in Jihad. Instead, I am given no hard facts, no statistics, and questionable assumptions:
Blacks account for the largest share of Muslims in America. A great many of them are converts to Islam.
Conversion to a religion is a long way from martyrdom. Many people convert to Christianity every year, but I'm guessing a minuscule portion of these goes out to bomb abortion clinics. Since when did religious conversion = religious fanaticism?
**When islam is involved, jihad is a core theological component. The koran and sunna, ahadith exhort "Smiting the unbelievers" unlike Buddhism or Christianity.***
Analysts fear the trend plays right into bin Laden's hands.
How?
**The idea behind al qaeda is that the muslim population globally rise up to impose the new caliphate and muslim global dominance.**
Prisons have already proven to be a fertile recruiting ground for al-Qaida, spawning the likes of shoebomber Richard Reid and alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla.
Two examples is hardly a "fertile recruiting ground"
****How many more do you need?
Drawings link prison converts to terrorism
Frank Walker
May 20, 2007
CHILLING evidence has emerged that some of the state's most dangerous prisoners have become devotees of terrorism after converting to Islam.
Drawings found in the Super Max cell of Bassam Hamzy, ringleader of 12 Islamic converts within the high-security Goulburn jail, suggest some in the gang see themselves as assassins bent on causing terror in Australia.
The Sun-Herald can reveal a hand-drawn gang logo was found in Hamzy's cell bearing the words "assassins australia FFL" with depictions of AK-47 assault rifles. Checks by Department of Corrective Services security officers found FFL stood for "Freedom Fighters Lebanon".
A handwritten note was found saying: "Solja Warrior We don fear death and sometimes we wish for it [sic]."
Guards also confiscated a photo of Osama bin Laden found in Hamzy's cell.
Critics attacked prison authorities, claiming they targeted Hamzy because he was Muslim when they revealed he had converted 11 inmates to Islam, using promises of help outside the jail. They were known as the "Super Max Jihadists".
Hamzy, 28, who is serving 21 years for the 1998 murder of an 18-year-old man, was transferred out of the Super Max jail last month.
"This is evidence that prison authorities were not targeting Hamzy because of his religion," said NSW Commissioner of Corrective Services Ron Woodham yesterday.
"Hamzy's defenders should look at this evidence closely, as he is clearly talking the rhetoric of a terrorist."
A cryptic message on another piece of paper, appearing to refer to large sums of money, said: "After 8K was given not sure what was left from 9.600."
Another said: "Courage, honour, no mercy, mercy 4 da weak, family 4 life and BFL [brother for life]."
He had even arranged a Muslim marriage for one man serving time for rape to a Muslim woman outside the jail. An imam oversaw the marriage, which was conducted over the phone. Although such a marriage has no legal status, it can be recognised by Muslims.
Six of the converts were Aboriginal prisoners serving time for murder, rape and armed robbery. The converts were caught on surveillance cameras kneeling before Hamzy and kissing his hand.
The Islamic converts had shaved their heads and grown long beards, and conducted prayers in their cells several times a day.
Hamzy is now in isolation behind seven separate security barriers in a high-security section of Lithgow prison, where he is denied contact with other prisoners.
Source: The Sun-Herald
-------------
washingtonpost.com
4 Charged With Terrorist Plot In California
By Amy Argetsinger and Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 1, 2005; A02
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31 -- Federal and local law enforcement officials said Wednesday that they had blocked a terrorist conspiracy with roots in the state prison system that had allegedly plotted to attack military facilities, synagogues and the Israeli consulate, among other Southern California targets.
A federal grand jury here indicted the head of a radical Islamic prison gang and three other men on charges of conspiracy to wage war against the U.S. government, conspiracy to kill service members and foreign officials, and other related crimes.
The conspiracy unraveled, officials said, after two of the men were arrested in early July in connection with a string of gas station robberies. A search of one suspect's home turned up jihadist literature, bulletproof vests and lists of potential targets.
"We dodged a bullet here, perhaps many bullets," said Police Chief William J. Bratton. "These individuals had devised a plan, selected targets, obtained the weapons, picked the dates," including Jewish holy days in October.
The indictments highlighted a growing area of concern -- the potential for radical movements to be nurtured within U.S. prisons, where religion is often a solace for an alienated population.
"We have a tendency to think of terrorism as something that is foreign," said U.S. Attorney Debra W. Yang, who added that there is no evidence the prison group was tied to al Qaeda or other overseas organizations. "This is a stark reminder that it can be homegrown."
Officials allege the conspiracy began with Kevin James, 29, a longtime inmate at California State Prison-Sacramento who is serving time for attempted robbery and possession of a weapon in prison. In 1997, James founded a group called Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh.
According to charging documents, James tried to recruit his fellow inmates into the group, which preached a radical version of Islam that called for members to attack any perceived enemies of the faith. Last fall, one of his alleged recruits, Levar Haney Washington, 25, was paroled from the prison and returned to Los Angeles with orders from James to recruit more followers with clean records, then acquire firearms and explosives.
In late May, Washington began the robberies along with Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, and Pakistani immigrant Hammad Riaz Samana, 21, both former college students who attended the same suburban mosque as Washington. Yang said the robberies were "designed to finance the operations of the terrorist conspiracy."
Washington remained in contact with James, according to the indictment, updating him on Patterson's and Samana's involvement. The charging documents also allege that Patterson had used the Internet to research the offices of the Israeli airline El Al at Los Angeles International Airport and the Yom Kippur events in the city this fall, while Samana had researched information about the Israeli consulate and military recruiting offices.
If convicted, all four men could face life in prison without parole, officials said.
-----------------
Islamic radicalization of Europe's jails?
Treatment of Muslim inmates varies across EU
MSNBC
Updated: 11:37 p.m. MT July 7, 2006
MILAN, Italy — "In prison you only think about waking up, cleaning your cell, and praying," said a Moroccan inmate serving time in a prison on the outskirts of this city.
During a recent visit to the Bollate prison, 25-year-old Hakimi Abd Elfattah said he was a non-observant Muslim before being incarcerated, but "there's nothing to do in here, so I learn a little of the Quran."
With no trained imams or Muslim chaplains working in the Bollate prison, the inmate offering guidance on Islam's holy book also is a prisoner.
In contrast to the Westernized Elfattah, self-designated imam Arafat Mahmoud sports a skull cap on his shaved head, a thick beard, and refuses to shake hands with women.
The 36-year-old said he was not trained at an Islamic college but knew more about Islam than the other prisoners on his floor and had taken it upon himself to instruct inmates from North Africa. Neither inmate would divulge the crimes for which they were incarcerated.
Around 30 percent of Bollate's nearly 900 inmates are Muslim, and many of them pray together in various Arabic dialects and other languages four times a day in small, carpeted cells located on each floor and wing of the prison. They pray alone in their cells at night and gather together for large Friday afternoon services.
While religion can assist prisoners in bettering their lives, there is a growing fear that radical Islamists are using jails to find recruits, with some analysts saying that al-Qaida is specifically targeting inmates for indoctrination.
Alarmed by the possibility, the European Union has made the prevention of recruitment and radicalization in prisons a counter-terrorism priority for the first time.
For her part, Bollate prison director Lucia Castellano said she has never suspected any inmates of recruiting for or planning terrorist attacks in her prison. But, she acknowledged that with so many languages spoken within the prison's walls, it would be impossible for guards to know what was being discussed.
'Criminality and Islamism'
"The connection between criminality and Islamism is very tight in Europe," said Michael Radu, a terrorism analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
"Every (terrorist) attack has converts, and most of them have criminal records and were converted within prisons," he said, noting the cases of British "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid and José Emilio Suárez Trashorras, the Spaniard who supplied the explosives used in the 2004 Madrid bombings — both of whom converted while incarcerated.
Like the young Moroccan held in the Bollate prison, analysts noted that the majority of Europe's prisoners were not actively engaged in any religion before being locked up, but their confinement often spurs a religious awakening or reawakening.
"In prison individuals are confronted with existential questions in a particularly intensive way" and religion can offer a "possibility to escape prison" at least for one's mind and spirit, said Irene Becci, who has analyzed religion in Italian and German prisons.
There are no statistics on prison conversions, but empirical evidence from British prisons shows that conversion to Islam is probably higher than to Christianity, according to sociology professor Jim Beckford.
"What's more attractive is that it's a relatively straight-forward faith in terms of what's required for someone to declare themselves to be a Muslim; people respond to that promise of an uncomplicated faith that offers security and certainty," said Beckford, who co-authored the book "Muslims In Prison; Challenges and Change in Britain and France."
In Florence, Italy, an Arabic cultural mediator said that by introducing Islam into the lives of inmates held at Tuscany's Soliciano prison, he saw a huge change in their personalities.
None of the prisoners from Islamic countries prayed when he began visiting them several years ago, but now dozens pray together and those who were using drugs, starving or mutilating themselves have all stopped, according to Mourad Abderrezak.
But, while faith can provide a path to redemption, it can also be misguided.
“In prison, a person has the right disposition to reflect on and accept what he’s taught, so you have to be careful of what message is given — either a moderate Islam, or an Islam that let’s say takes another path," Abderrezak said.
It's the other path that worries authorities. "There are very few legitimate imams serving in prisons in places like France, and self-made characters are free to operate – and these are radicals," said Radu, the terrorism analyst.
As the seeker looks for guidance, a "charismatic leader recruits them and when they're out they have a spontaneous (terrorist) cell," he said.
According to Radu, the cycle of "criminality and Islamism" is closed when the radicalized ex-prisoner re-engages in illegal activities to fund al-Qaida attacks.
Two of the men involved in Madrid's Atocha bombings fit that mold.
Incarcerated for petty crimes, Trashorras, who was a nominal Christian, and Jamal Ahmidan, a nonobservant Muslim, were both indoctrinated into radical Islam in prison and joined an al-Qaida linked Moroccan group that used drug trafficking to fund terrorist activities before taking lead roles in the deadly train bombings.
Overrepresentation in jails
The United States has not been immune to Islamic radicalization in its jails, but the situation this side of the Atlantic is underscored by the overrepresentation of Muslims in prison.
Muslims account for an estimated 50 percent of France's prison population, with some jails on the outskirts of Paris hitting 80 percent, while Muslims only account for six to ten percent of the total population. (No concrete statistics exist because it is illegal to ask a person to declare their faith in France.)
"Muslims tend not to be in prison in the U.S. because they're middle class, educated, and don't have the pathologies of the European Muslims," terrorism analyst Radu said.
By contrast, Muslims in France often live in impoverished ghettos where criminal activity is common, and the country's terrorism-related arrests date to the early 1990's when members of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front began arriving as a civil war took hold of the north African country.
In England and Wales, Muslims represent 8 percent of the inmate population, but they only account for 2 to 4 percent of the whole U.K. population (which includes Scotland and Northern Ireland).
In the cases of countries such as Italy and Spain, many Muslims are illegal economic migrants who arrive clandestinely with great hopes, but do not have the skills or legal right to work to support themselves.
"The only avenue they can follow is crime; there's nothing they can do that's legal" said Castellano, the Italian prison director.
Tackling the problem
The European Union first addressed the issue this year by holding a seminar in March on preventing recruitment and radicalization in prisons.
But, the vastly different penitentiary systems across the 25 countries make for an uphill battle.
Also, adherence to EU recommendations is “up to each member state; the EU will not enter into the situation that’s going on in prisons,” said Jesus Carmona Nunez, spokesperson for the EU counter-terrorism co-ordinator.
In the cases of Britain, which recognizes Muslims' needs and has an active chaplaincy program, and France, which employs it's policy of laïcité, or republican secularism, the problems facing Muslim inmates and those watching over them vary greatly.
In England and Wales, "prison governors are aware of the risks of radicalization," the U.K. Home Office wrote in a prepared statement.
"There is no evidence that this is widespread although we suspect some prisoners have covertly attempted to radicalize prisoners, both during their prison sentence and after release," the statement said, noting that 23 full time imams, 12 part-time imams, and 120 sessional imams who visit once a week, and who have all had vigorous security checks, "are prohibited from preaching or facilitating extremist messages and activities."
Since the 2005 London transport bombings "we have closely monitored events such as Friday prayers and all establishments are instructed to report any significant events," it said.
The program keeps an eye out for possible extremist activity, but it also sparks "curiosity and to some degree pressure from fellow inmates to take part in chaplaincy activities," said sociology professor Beckford.
While generally viewed as positive measures, special provisions such as Islamic literature, prayer halls, halal food, evening Ramadan meals, and headscarves for women, can also entice Muslims to seek advantages and separate themselves from other inmates, forming a sort of clan mentality, according to Beckford.
However, in France, which does not recognize or regulate religious activity in prisons, provisions are only offered on an ad hoc basis, dependent on the personal preferences of prison directors and wardens. Qurans are available in some prisons, but incarcerated Muslim woman are often denied the right to wear headscarves and halal food is not offered.
"In the French case, fundamentalism can be more pronounced than in Britain because it is a way for many Muslims to draw a divide between them and a society which does not tolerate Muslim habits and customs through its "laïcité" system," Farhad Khosrokhavar, another co-author of "Muslims in Prison" wrote in an email interview.
Due to the lack of trained imams or Muslim chaplains "the most radical tend to take control and organize informal types of Islamic education (in France)," Beckford said.
Meantime, most likely due to the lack of religious categorization, inmates convicted of Islamic terrorist offenses mix freely with other prisoners, according to the professor.
"There's a good network among the inmates that have been radicalized in French prisons," he said.
Deportation failures
Prisoners may be radicalized while they are incarcerated, but they only become a danger to the public when they are released. And deportation failures could be leaving Europe exposed.
In Italy, foreign prisoners are given five days to leave the country after their release, usually of their own accord. If they are caught in Italy after that time period, they are jailed for another 6 months to a year.
"It's a vicious cycle," said Castellano, the Italian prison director.
Inside the prison, inmate Elfattah said “people are in here for nothing, just for the (expulsion) law.”
“I only know Italy,” he said, lamenting the fact that upon release he must leave the country he has lived in since he was 14. “There are people in here for one year just because they didn’t leave the country; it’s not fair,” he said.
While expulsion laws present a sad situation for the ex-convict who would like to improve his status in Europe, or would leave but either doesn't have the means to do so or is afraid to return home in disgrace, the situation also poses a huge security question regarding who is and isn't in Europe, especially given the number of imprisoned foreign nationals.
Fourteen percent of Italy's prison population is Muslim, 98 percent of whom are foreign nationals, while Muslims only account for one percent of the total population.
In Britain, then home secretary, Charles Clarke, was fired in May after admitting that 1,000 foreign nationals were released from prison between 1999 and 2006 without being considered for deportation.
Yet while an unknown number of prisoners across Europe are experiencing religious revivals and possibly being radicalized, back at the Bollate prison, Elfattah appeared to take his Islamic studies and prayers somewhat less seriously.
As he looks forward to the birth of his first son this month, and rejoining his French-born Moroccan wife when he's released in October, he plans to start a new life in France.
"In prison I pray, but when I leave I won't. I won't lie to you," he said.
© 2006 MSNBC Interactive© 2006 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13733782/
-
Wahhabi Prison Fellowship: The teaching of jihad in American penitentiaries.
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Weekly Standard, Sept. 26, 2005, Volume 11, Issue 2
ON AUGUST 31, FOUR men were charged with participation in a terrorist plot hatched in a California prison. The six-count indictment describes a conspiracy to attack military and Jewish targets in the Los Angeles area, including military bases and recruitment centers, synagogues, the Israeli Consulate, and El Al airline facilities. It also spotlights a problem that has surfaced repeatedly since 9/11: that of jihadist indoctrination in prisons and jails.
The roots of this latest alleged conspiracy reach back to 1997, when Kevin James, an inmate at California State Prison, Sacramento, founded Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS), an organization promoting his radical interpretation of Islam. James required members to take an oath of obedience to him and swear not to disclose the existence of JIS. According to the indictment, James "preached the duty of JIS members to target for violent attack any enemies of Islam or 'infidels,' including the United States Government and Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel." James's teaching apparently found sympathetic ears. The plot was uncovered after former CSP-Sacramento inmate Levar Washington was arrested this July for a string of gas station robberies, and a search of his apartment turned up extremist literature and documents listing the addresses of intended terrorist targets.
While some Muslim advocacy groups deny that extremist indoctrination is occurring in prisons, the evidence continues to mount. Muktar Said Ibrahim, arrested in the attempted bombing of London's Underground on July 21, reportedly converted to Islam while incarcerated, as did attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid before him. And students of the case of former gang member Jose Padilla, accused of being part of a "dirty bomb" plot, consider relevant the time he spent behind bars just before his conversion.
Beyond these individual cases, moreover, it is a fact that radical propaganda has been distributed in U.S. prisons. Before it was shut down by the Saudi Arabian government in 2004, the Wahhabist Al Haramain Islamic Foundation distributed large numbers of extremist books worldwide, including to American prisons. Al-Haramain boasted offices in over 50 countries and received between $45 and $50 million in donations every year.
When law-enforcement agents raided the U.S. branch of Al Haramain, headquartered in Ashland, Oregon, in February 2004 as part of a money-laundering investigation, they seized copies of the literature the foundation had been distributing. They also made a remarkable find on one of the seized computers: a database that detailed where the group had sent its literature. It contained over 15,000 names. While not all recipients were prisoners, enough were that "Prisoner Number" and "Release Date" were standard fields in the database. The charity also regularly mailed bulk quantities of literature to prison chaplains, who distributed the books to inmates.
Some of the texts that Al Haramain had distributed to prisons deserve a closer look. Take Muhammad bin Jamil Zino's Islamic Guidelines for Individual and Social Reform, which was sent to an estimated 1,000 prisoners (an exact tally has not been made public). One of the book's themes is jihad. As early as page two, Zino states that Islam "commends the Halal [lawful] money in possession of a pious person who pays a share of it in charity and for Jihad (fighting in the way of Allah)." While some students of Islam argue that the term jihad is often misunderstood because it has nonmilitary meanings, Al Haramain's literature avoids any ambiguity: Zino forthrightly states that the term means fighting.
This advocacy of jihad is reinforced by repetition. Zino instructs his readers that children should be indoctrinated in the glories of jihad from an early age:
Teach your children the love of justice and revenge from the unjust like the Jews and the tyrants. Consequently our youth would know that Palestine should be freed and Jerusalem must be of the Muslims. They have to learn about Islam and Jihad as per the Qur'an and that the holy fighting for justice is supported by Allah the Almighty.
And he further specifies the objects and means of jihad: "The Jihad against the disbelievers, communists and the aggressors from Jewish-Christian nations can be either by spending on Jihad or by participating in it in person."
Indeed, the "Jewish-Christian nations" are special objects of ire throughout the literature that Al Haramain distributed to prisons. Virulent anti-Semitism and hatred of non-Muslim governments are recurring themes.
On a page headed "Act upon these Ahadith," the hadith being sayings and traditions attributed to Muhammad, Zino's very first injunction reads: "The Last Hour will not appear unless the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them." Zino also imputes conspiracies to the Jews. In a passage denouncing fortunetellers, he writes, "If they know the Unseen, let them talk about the secret schemes of the Jews so that we combat them."
More sweepingly, Zino denounces "belief in man-made destructive ideologies such as atheistic communism, Jewish masonry, Marxian socialism, secularism or nationalism" as nullifying an individual's adherence to Islam. This is in keeping with the views of another of the writers whose works Al Haramain reportedly sent to prisons: Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips. In The Fundamentals of Tawheed (Islamic Monotheism), Philips excoriates the acceptance of non-Islamic rule in place of sharia law in Muslim lands. Philips describes acquiescence to non-Islamic rule as an act of idolatry and disbelief. "Un-Islamic government," he writes, "must be sincerely hated and despised for the pleasure of God."
The Koran, of course, was widely distributed by Al Haramain--the Koran, that is, in its Wahhabi version. As Stephen Schwartz reported here a year ago, the Wahhabi translation of the Koran is suffused with contempt for non-Muslims, particularly Jews and Christians. It contains numerous interpolations not present in the Arabic, all pushing the meaning in a radical direction. Al-Haramain distributed this volume to an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 prisoners.
The Wahhabi Koran also contains explanatory material rife with calls to holy war. An early footnote, for example, states:
Al-Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah's Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihad Islam is established, Allah's Word is made superior, . . . and His Religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honour is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfil this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite.
This rules out nonmilitary interpretations of jihad, insisting on "full force of numbers and weaponry." It also endorses jihad as a means of propagating Islam, and specifies that it is required of "every Muslim."
Most chilling of all is a 22-page appendix by Saudi Arabia's former chief justice Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid found in the vast majority of the Korans that Al Haramain sent to the prisons. Entitled "The Call to Jihad (Holy Fighting in Allah's Cause) in the Qur'an," this essay is an exhortation to violence.
Bin Humaid argues at length that Muslims are obligated to wage war against non-Muslims who have not submitted to Islamic rule. He explains,
Allah . . . commanded the Muslims to fight against all the Mushrikun as well as against the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizyah (a tax levied on the non-Muslims who do not embrace Islam and are under the protection of an Islamic government) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.
Mushrikun refers to all nonbelievers who are not classified as people of the scriptures; bin Humaid thus advocates war with the entire non-Muslim world.
Once again, the essay appeals to the reader to volunteer for jihad:
Jihad is a great deed indeed and there is no deed whose reward or blessing is as that of it, and for this reason, it is the best thing that one can volunteer for. . . . t (Jihad) shows one's patience, one's devotion to Islam, one's remembrance to Allah and there are other kinds of good deeds which are present in Jihad and are not present in any other act of worship.
There is reason to believe that the literature distributed by the Al Haramain Foundation is only the tip of the iceberg of what has reached and may still be reaching U.S. prisons. For all its impressive international presence, Al Haramain had only a handful of employees at its U.S. branch, and was just one of a number of Wahhabi charities with U.S. prison-outreach programs. The focus here is on Al Haramain's literature purely because the February 2004 raid opened a window into its program of prisoner education.
More study of radical indoctrination in prisons is warranted. Earlier this year, Freedom House, the New York-based human rights organization, released a scrupulously documented report exposing the extremist contents of literature found in the libraries, publication racks, and bookstores of 15 prominent U.S. mosques. The report is entitled "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques."
A similar sampling of the Islamic literature available in federal and state prisons--both in libraries and distributed by prison chaplains--is needed to further our understanding of whatever extremist indoctrination has occurred and is occurring. A good place to start is the California prison system, where the latest plot for jihad on our soil was apparently hatched.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a counterterrorism consultant and attorney.
-
GM
Thanks for the articles. My biggest beef with the first was lack of apparent facts. Much appreciated follow-up...
-
SB,
Glad to be of assistance.
-
Today's NY Times-- Often on topical subjects, but always a suspect source:
========================
MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — Sheik Yassir Fazaga regularly uses a standard American calendar to provide inspiration for his weekly Friday sermon.
Sheik Yassir Fazaga greeting worshipers after a prayer service. He went to high school in Orange County, Calif., and now leads a mosque there.
Around Valentine’s Day this year, he talked about how the Koran endorses romantic love within certain ethical parameters. (As opposed to say, clerics in Saudi Arabia, who denounce the banned saint’s day as a Satanic ritual.)
On World AIDS Day, he criticized Muslims for making moral judgments about the disease rather than helping the afflicted, and on International Women’s Day he focused on domestic abuse.
“My main objective is to make Islam relevant,” said Sheik Fazaga, 34, who went to high school in Orange County, which includes Mission Viejo, and brings a certain American flair to his role as imam in the mosque here.
Prayer leaders, or imams, in the United States have long arrived from overseas, forced to negotiate a foreign culture along with their congregation. Older immigrants usually overlook the fact that it is an uneasy fit, particularly since imported sheiks rarely speak English. They welcome a flavor of home.
But as the first generation of American-born Muslims begins graduating from college in significant numbers, with a swelling tide behind them, some congregations are beginning to seek native imams who can talk about religious and social issues that seem relevant to young people, like dating and drugs. On an even more practical level, they want an imam who can advise them on day-to-day American matters like how to set up a 401(k) plan to funnel the charitable donations known as zakat, which Islam mandates.
“The problem is that you have a young generation whose own experience has nothing to do with where its parents came from,” said Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in the Near Eastern studies department at the University of California, Berkeley, who surveys Muslim communities.
But the underlying quandary is that American imams are hard to find, though there are a few nascent training programs. These days, many of the men leading prayers across the United States on any given Friday are volunteers, doctors or engineers who know a bit more about the Koran than everyone else. Scholars point out that one of the great strengths of Islam, particularly the Sunni version, is that there is no official hierarchy.
But this situation is fueling a debate about just how thoroughly an imam has to be schooled in Islamic jurisprudence and other religious matters before running a mosque.
The downside for Islam in America, some critics argue, is that those interpreting Islamic law often lack a command of the full scope of the traditions carried in the Koran and the hadith, the sayings of the prophet Muhammad considered sacred.
“I call it ‘hadith slinging,’ ” said Prof. Khaled Abou el Fadl, a specialist in Islamic law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “I throw a couple of hadiths at you, and you throw a couple of hadiths at me, and that is the way we do Islamic law,” he added. “It’s like any moron can do that.”
Experts say the problem is exacerbated because few immigrant parents want their children to become imams.
“Immigrant parents want their children to become doctors, engineers, computer scientists,” Dr. Bazian said. “If you suggested that they might want their kid to study to become an imam, they would hold a funeral procession.” Ultimately, in the absence of trained sheiks, good religion in many American mosques has come to be defined through rigid adherence to rituals, Professor Abou el Fadl said, adding, “It’s ritual that defines piety.”
The few imams born or at least raised in the United States who win over their congregations tend to be younger men who can play pickup basketball with the teenagers, but also have enough training in classical Arabic and Islamic jurisprudence that the older members accept their religious credentials.
Imam Ronald Smith Jr., 29, who runs the Islamic Center of Daytona Beach, Fla., converted to Islam at 14 to escape the violence in his African-American community in Atlantic City. As part of his training, he spent six years studying at the Islamic University in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
“Foreign imams, because of the culture in their countries, kind of stick to the mosque and the duties of the mosque without involving themselves much in the general community,” Imam Smith said. “The hip-hop culture is difficult to understand if you have never lived it.”
==========
(Page 2 of 2)
The foreign imams’ idea of mosque outreach, Imam Smith said, is sponsoring an evening lecture series where everyone sits around for an hour and listens to a speech about being devout or maybe world politics, which teenagers find less than compelling.
Mosque leaders say the risk is that younger Muslims, already feeling under assault in the United States because of the faith’s checkered reputation, might choose one of two extremes. They either drift away from the faith entirely if they cannot find answers, or leave the mosque for a more radical fringe.
Here in Mission Viejo, Sheik Fazaga wears street clothes much of the time, but dons traditional robes to deliver the Friday sermon at the mosque, a building distinguishable from the surrounding strip malls and low-slung office buildings mostly by its airy exterior dome of metal filigree painted sea green. It was a practice he started 10 years ago when he first returned home and kind of fell into the imam’s job around age 24, because some members considered him too young for the position.
Born in the East African nation of Eritrea, he moved to the Arab world before coming to Mission Viejo at age 15. Drawn toward Islam by college students, he enrolled in the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, a Virginia campus of al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The United States government expelled much of the faculty in 2004 as part of the crackdown on extremist Islamic rhetoric.
The school was accused of being an American outpost of the puritanical Wahhabi sect, a label Sheik Fazaga rejects. But that might be one reason he has been stopped for questioning some 20 times — every time he returns home from abroad.
“ ‘How come you don’t dress like an imam?’— that’s their favorite question,” he said with a wry grin.
Younger Muslims seek him out for guidance, he said, and the fact that he is studying for a master’s degree in psychological therapy helps. Teenagers have requested advice about being addicted to Internet pornography, he said, and about sexual orientation. He counsels adolescents — gay and straight — that sexual attraction is natural, but to act on it is wrong and that any addiction should be treated.
Previous imams would simply admonish the youths that something was a forbidden abomination, subject closed.
Gihan Zahran, 43, an Egyptian immigrant, remembers a previous Arab imam who even told a much perplexed teenager that wearing Nike shoes was “haram,” or forbidden in Arabic, without explaining why. Some Muslims consider this aloofness particularly ineffective in America, given that they are a minority faced by majority practices like drinking alcohol that clash with their faith and that teenagers confront daily.
Ms. Zahran’s sister Nermeen Zahran, 42, recently went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. She is a real estate agent, and has not veiled her hair at least partly because it might affect her livelihood in a conservative place like Orange County.
When she went on the hajj, as it is called in Arabic, a fellow pilgrim asked the Egyptian imam who accompanied them from Southern California his opinion of her not wearing the scarf afterward.
“He was so mad, so offended and said he couldn’t believe it could happen,” Nermeen Zahran recalled over a glass of orange juice in the neat condominium she shares with her sister. His basic reaction, she said, was that there was no point in seeking forgiveness for previous sins if one did not take the veil afterward.
Ms. Zahran has also consulted religious figures about periodic bouts of depression, but the usual response was that her faith lacked vigor.
Now she talks to Sheik Fazaga about it, she said. “He tries to solve the problems and doesn’t tell you that you have to accept that this is your life, this is what Allah gave you, and if you don’t then you are not a good Muslim.”
She wonders, in the end, whether a purer form of Islam will develop in the United States, with prayer leaders focused on the concerns of the community, rather than not treading on the toes of the government that supports them, as in much of the Arab world.
Mosques will probably continue to address the wishes of the immigrant population for another decade, but after that the tide will shift away from them, experts suggest.
“Islam in America is trying to create a new cultural matrix that can survive in the broader context of America,” said Prof. Sherman Jackson, who teaches Arabic and Islamic law at the University of Michigan. “It has to change for the religion to survive.”
-
Islamic Groups Named in Hamas Funding Case
BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 4, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/55778
Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.
Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.
A court filing by the government last week listed the three prominent groups among about 300 individuals or entities named as co-conspirators. The document gave scant details, but prosecutors described CAIR as a present or past member of "the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations." The government listed the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust as "entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood."
The secretary-general of the Islamic Society of North America, Muneer Fareed, said his group was surprised to be named in the Texas case. "I can tell you categorically that the current administration of ISNA, as well as its stakeholders, they have no connection to my knowledge with any Holy Land foundations," he said.
Mr. Fareed denied his group has any ties to Hamas, though he said it is difficult to police all 300 mosques under his umbrella. "We might have a kid whose dad was president of Hamas for all I know," he said. "How do you verify these things?"
The Islamic official expressed frustration at the lack of detail in the prosecution's filing. "Perhaps there's some evidence. I just don't really know what it is," he said.
Spokesmen for CAIR did not respond to messages seeking comment yesterday. Efforts to contact the North American Islamic Trust were unsuccessful.
The identification of the alleged co-conspirators could aid prosecutors when the Holy Land Foundation and five of its officials, Shukri Abu-Baker, Mohammad El-Mezain, Ghassan Elashi, Mufid Abdulqader, and Abdulraham Odeh, go to trial on July 16 in Dallas. Statements by and about co-conspirators are exempt from rules barring hearsay.
Judge A. Joe Fish will have to decide whether to accept the government's description of the alleged conspiracy.
The practice of publicly naming unindicted co-conspirators is frowned on by some in the legal community, chiefly because there is no trial or other mechanism for those named to challenge their designation. Justice Department guidelines discourage the public identification of unindicted co-conspirators by the government.
"In all public filings and proceedings, federal prosecutors should remain sensitive to the privacy and reputation interests of uncharged third-parties," the Justice Department's manual for prosecutors says. When co-conspirator lists have to be filed in court, prosecutors should seek to file them under seal, the guidelines say.
In practice, the lists are often made public. A list of co-conspirators was released in connection with the federal trial in 2005 of a former college professor, Sami Al-Arian, on terrorism support charges. However, when Enron executives went on trial last year, the list of alleged co-conspirators was kept under seal. Prosecutors on the Holy Land Foundation case could not be reached yesterday and did not respond to an e-mail.
The inclusion of the Islamic groups on the list of alleged conspirators could give ammunition to critics of the organizations. CAIR, in particular, has faced persistent claims that it is soft on terrorism. Critics note that several former CAIR officials have been convicted or deported after being charged with fraud, embargo violations, or aiding terrorist training. Spokesmen for the group have also raised eyebrows for offering generic denunciations of terrorism but refusing to condemn by name specific Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah.
In addition, one of the Holy Land Foundation defendants, Ghassan Elashi, founded CAIR's Texas chapter. CAIR's Washington office was also set up in 1994 with $5,000 in seed money from the foundation, according to congressional testimony by a researcher into Islamic extremism, Steven Emerson.
Last year, Senator Boxer of California, a Democrat, withdrew an award she gave to an official at a local CAIR chapter. She said she had concerns about statements by some CAIR officials and about claims of financial links to terrorism. Many FBI officials meet regularly with CAIR representatives and clerics from the Islamic Society of North America.
A New York Times article published in March said unidentified government officials believed that the criticism of CAIR was unwarranted. A former FBI official, Michael Rolince, said yesterday that the co-conspirator designation might prompt CAIR to be more direct in denouncing terrorism but was no reason to cut off all contact with the group.
"People could say the same thing about the FBI. They're not all choirboys," he said. "We don't go into this with blinders on."
Separately, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Steve McGonigle, is fighting the prosecution's efforts to call him as a witness at the Holy Land Foundation trial.
In filing to quash the subpoena last week, Mr. McGonigle said prosecutors want to question him about an interview that he conducted in 1999 with the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Yassin, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004, denied any connection between Holy Land Foundation and Hamas.
However, Mr. McGonigle reported that records showed that the foundation sometimes singled out the families of Hamas "martyrs" for assistance.
Mr. McGonigle's lawyer said his client could be targeted by terrorists if he forced to testify. "A journalist who is perceived to have acted as an agent for the U.S. Government will almost inevitably be placed at a substantially greater risk when on assignment in the Middle East," the attorney, Paul Watler, wrote.
-
IMHO, this piece glosses over the significance of the danger of the disconcerting large minority who believe in terrorism, jihad, etc., but it does make valid points as well.
==================================
Muslim Melting Pot
Once again, America beats Europe on assimilation.
BY IRSHAD MANJI
WSJ
Monday, June 4, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Against the backdrop of civil war, Abraham Lincoln stirred Americans by appealing to their "better angels." Now some of those angels appear in an unprecedented study about Muslims in the United States--and they may show us how to prevent civil war in Europe.
"Muslim Americans," released by the Pew Research Center, contains moments of bad news. For example, one in four respondents under the age of 30 accepts suicide bombing. As a reformed-minded Muslim, I say that honoring any religion of peace through violence is like preserving virginity through pre-marital sex. Think about it.
But the Pew report offers a lot more good news. Political Islam has not caught on in America as it has in Europe because most Muslims in the U.S. are--dare it be said--treated with dignity.
The vast majority of those surveyed like their communities and describe their lives as "pretty happy" or "very happy." Which means lobbyists do not speak for Muslim Americans when they cry that the U.S. hates Islam.
In Berlin recently, an audience buzzed nervously when I suggested that Europe can learn from America about integrating Muslims. Afterwards, several people confided to me that they know the U.S. is getting something right. What is that something? As I engage with young Muslims on both sides of the Atlantic, I see three factors: economics, diversity and faith.
• For plenty of Muslims in the United States, ambition and initiative pay off. The Pew survey reinforces this lesson, telling us that 71% of Muslim Americans believe most people in the U.S. "can make it if they are willing to work hard."
Meanwhile, in Europe, young Muslims face blatant discrimination in employment, educational and social opportunities, even when they are citizens. Many subsist on welfare, which only gives them time to stew and surf the Web for preachers who spew a rigid identity. This is the path that led Mohammed Bouyeri to murder Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
• In much of America, diversity is a reason to intermingle. The Pew study reveals that most Muslims are close friends with non-Muslims.
In much of Europe, diversity has become an excuse to self-segregate. Many of Europe's mosques, and the Muslims who attend them, refuse to communicate in the language of their new surroundings. As a result, young Muslim men drift away from moderate religious authorities and fall for online opportunists. That is how Mohammad Sidique Khan, mastermind of the London transit bombers, fell under the sway of "Sheikh Google," the collective nickname for Islamist Web sites.
• To Americans, it is not the fact of having faith that invites scrutiny, but what one is perceived to be doing with that faith. Western Europeans, still steeped in a backlash against the Catholic Church, often show suspicion or outright contempt to people of faith. Such "secular fundamentalism" leads some Muslims to believe that they will never be accepted by their adopted countries. So why integrate?
Small wonder that young Muslims in Western Europe whisper to me, "I wish I lived in the United States." The honesty doesn't end there. Muslim men, in their twenties, have complained to me that in an effort to appear sensitive, Europeans downplay shared values. This confuses many Muslim youth and creates a vacuum that radical clerics can exploit.
Translation: A common aspiration such as the American Dream is crucial to giving Muslims a sense of belonging to something larger and more dynamic than cultural enclaves.
But what about the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay? The answer always comes back that these are unfortunate and unjust exceptions. In America, they say, you can be more than a Muslim. You are a member of the wider public.
Naïve? Not according to the Pew study. More than half of Muslims in the U.S. identify themselves as Americans first, easily eclipsing patriotism among Muslims in Germany, Spain or Britain. Clearly, the U.S. has retained its genius as a nation of immigrants.
To be sure, there is a long way to go in giving non-immigrant Muslims, especially African-Americans, a sense of belonging. Most are not among the better educated, wealthier and politically influential Americans that so many South Asian, Iranian and Arab Muslims are.
However, that gap is the product of America's persistent racial battle. It has almost nothing to do with a fear of Islam.
For the all the slogans, accusations and fulminations of the Islam industry's lobbyists, fear is not what mainstream Americans feel about Muslims. Just ask the 73% of Muslims who told Pew that they have never been discriminated against in the U.S.
Europe, take notes. America, take a break from self-flagellation. Reformist Muslims, take your cue. In the U.S., you have the possibility of a voice. Islam's better angels depend on it.
Ms. Manji, a senior fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy, is author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith" (St. Martin's, 2005).
-
Be Careful What You Sue For
By FLOYD ABRAMS
June 6, 2007; Page A19
Pursuing a libel or slander suit has long been a dangerous enterprise. Oscar Wilde sued the father of his young lover Alfred Douglas for having referred to him as a "posing Somdomite" and wound up not only dropping his case but being tried, convicted and jailed for violating England's repressive laws banning homosexual conduct. Alger Hiss sued Wittaker Chambers for slander for accusing Hiss of being a member of the Communist Party with Chambers, and of illegally passing secret government documents to him for transmission to the Soviet Union. In the end, Hiss was jailed for perjury for having denied Chambers' claims before a grand jury.
More recently, British historian David Irving sued American scholar Deborah Lipstadt in England for having characterized him as a Holocaust denier and was ultimately so discredited in court that an English judge not only determined that he was indeed a Holocaust denier but an "antisemite" and "racist" as well.
On May 29 of this year, the potential vulnerability of a plaintiff that misuses the courts to sue for libel once again surfaced when the Islamic Society of Boston abandoned a libel action it had commenced against a number of Boston residents, a Boston newspaper and television station, and Steven Emerson, a recognized expert on terrorism and, in particular, extremist Islamic groups. In all, 17 defendants were named.
Those accused had publicly raised questions about a real estate transaction entered into between the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Islamic Society, which transferred to the latter a plot of land in Boston, at a price well below market value, for the construction of a mosque and other facilities. The critics urged the Boston authorities to reconsider their decision to provide the land on such favorable terms (which included promised contributions to the community by the Islamic Society, such as holding lectures and offering other teaching about Islam) to an organization whose present or former leaders had close connections with or who had otherwise supported terrorist organizations.
On the face of it, the Islamic Society was a surprising entry into the legal arena. Its founder, Abdurahman Alamoudi, had been indicted in 2003 for his role in a terrorism financing scheme, pled guilty and had been sentenced to a 23-year prison term. Another individual, Yusef Al-Qaradawi, who had been repeatedly identified by the Islamic Society as a member of its board of Trustees, had been described by a U.S. Treasury Department official as a senior Muslim Brotherhood member and had endorsed the killing of Americans in Iraq and Jews everywhere. One director of the Islamic Society, Walid Fitaihi, had written that the Jews would be "scourged" because of their "oppression, murder and rape of the worshipers of Allah," and that they had "perpetrated the worst of evils and brought the worst corruption to the earth."
The Islamic Society nonetheless sued, claiming both libel and civil-rights violations. Motions to dismiss the case were denied, and the litigants began to compel third parties to turn over documents bearing on the case. In short order, one after another of the allegations made by the Islamic Society collapsed.
Their complaint asserted that the defendants had falsely stated that monies had been sent to the Islamic Society from "Saudi/Middle Eastern sources," and that such statements and others had devastated its fund-raising efforts. But documents obtained in discovery demonstrated without ambiguity that fund-raising was (as one representative of the Islamic Society had put it) "robust," with at least $7.2 million having been wired to the Islamic Society from Middle Eastern sources, mostly from Saudi Arabia.
The Islamic Society claimed it had been libeled by a variety of expressions of concern by the defendants that it, the Society, had provided support for extremist organizations. But bank records obtained by the defendants showed that the Islamic Society had served as funder both of the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas-controlled organization that the U.S. Treasury Department had said "exists to raise money in the United States to promote terror," and of the Benevolence International Foundation, which was identified by the 9/11 Commission as an al Qaeda fund-raising arm.
The complaint maintained that any reference to recent connections between the Islamic Society and the now-imprisoned Abdurahman Alamoudi was false since it "had had no connection with him for years." But an Islamic Society check written in November 2000, two months after Alamoudi publicly proclaimed his support for Hamas and Hezbollah, was uncovered in discovery which directed money to pay for Alamoudi's travel expenses.
To top it all off, documents obtained from the Boston Redevelopment Authority itself revealed serious, almost incomprehensible, conflicts of interest in the real-estate deal. It turned out that the city agency employee in charge of negotiating the deal with the Islamic Society was at the same time a member of that group and secretly advising it about how to obtain the land at the cheapest possible price.
So the case was dropped. No money was paid by the defendants, no apologies offered, and no limits on their future speech imposed. But it is not at all as if nothing happened. The case offers two enduring lessons. The first is that those who think about suing for libel should think again before doing so. And then again once more. While all the ultimate consequences to the Islamic Society for bringing the lawsuit remain uncertain, any adverse consequences could have been avoided by not suing in the first place.
The second lesson is that in one way (and perhaps no other) we should learn from the English system and award counsel fees to the winning side in cases like this, which are brought to inhibit speech on matters of serious public import. Because all the defendants in this case were steadfast and refused to settle, they were eventually vindicated. But the real way to avoid meritless cases such as this is to have a body of law that makes clear that plaintiffs who bring them will be held financially responsible for doing so.
Mr. Abrams, a partner in the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, represented Steven Emerson in the case discussed in this op-ed.
-
Reminds me of when CAIR went after Anti-CAIR. Discovery is a bitch when you're a terrorist front group..... :-D
-
The Islamists Are Coming!
And they've got their lawyers with them.
by Dean Barnett
06/11/2007, Volume 012, Issue 37
Boston
Bill Sapers doesn't much look like the kind of guy who would find himself staring down radical Islamists or their friends. A 79-year-old accountant, approximately five-foot-six, bespectacled and soft-spoken, Sapers personifies the "distinguished gentleman." But the Islamic Society of Boston, after vainly tussling with him in court for roughly 18 months, would probably dispute that characterization.
Until the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) sued Sapers in late 2005 and gave him a small and unwanted measure of fame, he was far from a public figure. Until then, Sapers had been an anonymous businessman who busied himself with civic activities in his spare time; he has worked with the Anti-Defamation League and is a member of the foundation for Boston's Roxbury Community College.
It was in the course of his duties for the college that Sapers's path crossed that of the ISB. At a meeting of the board in 2002, a fellow board member reported a coup: "Saudi Arabia was going to build the college a garage," Sapers recalls. Sapers asked exactly what this meant, and was told that the college had been the beneficiary of a deal between the city of Boston and the ISB.
It turned out the board member had mangled some details (a garage was never part of the equation), but the deal was still an intriguing one. When Sapers first heard of it, the city had sold the Islamic Society of Boston a piece of land adjacent to Roxbury Community College at a cut-rate price. Depending on who you ask, the land had been conveyed for somewhere between 10 percent and 40 percent of its appraised value. On the plot, the ISB was going to build a $22 million mosque with a 125-foot minaret and a 75-foot dome. In exchange for the city's largesse, the ISB would provide nebulously defined services to Roxbury Community College, including an educational lecture series, and nebulously defined services to the city, including maintenance of a nearby public park.
This arrangement aroused Sapers's curiosity, and he started looking into the ISB. A cursory inspection of the organization's IRS records showed that one of the ISB's seven trustees in the late 1990s was a cleric whose name Sapers knew from his work with the Anti-Defamation League: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a notorious radical.
Although academic apologists for Islamists strangely praise al-Qaradawi as a moderate, he is a well-known figure in the global jihad who has famously vowed that Islam will conquer both Europe and the United States. According to Lebanese-born terror expert Walid Phares, "al-Qaradawi produced most of the doctrinal foundations for Jihadi radicalism since the mid-1990s, including the incitement for Jihadists to defeat the Africans in southern Sudan, the Middle East minorities, and women's movements. Al-Qaradawi [calls for the] further Talibanization of the Muslim world."
Sapers kept digging. He contacted famed terror expert Steve Emerson, who, as it turned out, had long been documenting the ISB's ties with supporters and enablers of extremism. Shortly thereafter, Charles Jacobs, another Boston resident, warmed to the scent as well. Jacobs is perhaps America's foremost activist in the fight against the human slave trade and the head of the David Project, an organization dedicated to honest reporting on the Middle East.
In 2003, this crew reached out to local media outlets. That October, the Boston Herald began publishing a withering series of articles documenting the ISB's unsavory ties. Challenged about al-Qaradawi, the ISB denied he'd been a trustee and explained his listing on the IRS forms as a clerical oversight. But then it emerged that the ISB had used a taped appearance by al-Qaradawi (by this time barred from entering the United States) as a fundraising tool in 2002.
There was more. The Herald and Fox 25, Boston's local Fox affiliate, reported on the writings of ISB trustee Walid Fitaihi, who had been one of the signatories to the city's generous land transfer. Fitaihi had decried Jews as the "murderers of prophets" and claimed that Jews "would be punished for their oppression, murder and rape of the worshippers of Allah." Fitaihi also declared his scorn for the "Zionist lobby in America . . . which has recruited many of the influential media."
Unfortunately for Sapers and Jacobs, their efforts to arouse the interest of influential media outlets met with mixed results. While the Herald and Fox 25 reported the story aggressively, the Boston Globe--with the conspicuous exception of conservative op-ed columnist Jeff Jacoby--largely ignored it, as did the other local network affiliates.
Equally unconcerned were the city of Boston and the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA). The BRA was the city authority that had made the land deal with the ISB, yet refused to answer direct questions about it. The David Project has sued the BRA to get a gander at the public documents related to that conveyance.
In late 2005, the ISB sued Sapers, Jacobs, the Herald, Emerson, Fox 25, and all the reporters who had covered the story for tortious defamation. The inclusion of Jacobs, Emerson, and Sapers was especially curious, since all these men had done was talk to reporters. The free speech issues at stake were sufficiently grave that renowned First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams agreed to represent Emerson. Attorney Jeff Robbins of the prominent Boston law firm Mintz Levin represented Jacobs and the David Project on a pro-bono basis.
Jacobs points out that the purpose of lawsuits like this (and the one brought on behalf of the Minneapolis airport's "flying imams") is to chill criticism of Islamic groups, even the airing of accurate information. Certainly, any media outlet that reports on the Islamic Society of Boston has to know that a lawsuit may well be its reward for reporting that displeases the ISB. Perhaps that explains why the Boston Globe showed little interest in the story, and, when it did cover it, seemed to bend over backwards to avoid offending the ISB or its attorneys.
As for the defendants in the case, they refused to be intimidated. The suit's transparently frivolous nature emboldened them.
The linchpin of the ISB's complaint was that all of the defendants had been negligent in relying on Steve Emerson as a terror expert. To support this notion, the suit quoted a 1991 New York Times article that disparaged Emerson. Lest this 16-year-old newspaper piece not be deemed dispositive, the complaint also cited a 1998 article from something called the Weekly Planet that said, "Emerson has no credibility left. He can't get on TV and most publications won't pick him up." In the 12 months preceding the ISB's lawsuit, Emerson had appeared on MSNBC 65 times, Fox News 78 times, and NBC 16 times including multiple appearances on the Today Show and the Nightly News.
But even if you're bound to win, being sued is taxing. Boston city councilor Jerry McDermott, who aggressively pursued the unusual land conveyance to the ISB, was threatened with a lawsuit and received menacing phone calls at home, where he lives with his wife and two young daughters.
As for near-octogenarian Bill Sapers, he declared himself "too dumb to be scared." Apparently recognizing the hopelessness of intimidating Sapers, Emerson, Jacobs, and the media outlets who were fighting its lawsuit, the ISB finally backed down, though not before securing a face-saving concession: A second lawsuit was also dropped last week, the appeal of a previously dismissed case in which a citizen had disputed the BRA's conveyance to the ISB. This allowed the ISB, however implausibly, to declare victory, even as it swallowed its supposed outrage over being defamed.
But Sapers is declaring victory, too, saying, "This case was about our attempt to bring the truth to the table and their attempt to silence us." The latter attempt failed. Still, thanks to the media's and government's indifference, the defendants' vindication rings a bit hollow. The Boston Globe's coverage of last week's developments failed to mention the ISB's ties to extremists like Qaradawi. And the City of Boston, through the BRA, continues to stonewall efforts to determine exactly how the land transfer to the ISB came about. The David Project's lawsuit against the BRA seeking access to records that should be public labors on; the BRA remains less than forthcoming. Meanwhile, construction on the new mosque is far advanced.
You have to wonder: If people like Sapers, Jacobs, and Emerson are our modern Paul Reveres sounding an alarm that needs to be heard, can they be successful if our most prominent media outlets and even our government ignore them?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/727jbsso.asp?pg=2
-
The quality of the source of the following is unknown. Read with care.
=================================================
San Diego Arab public school implements shari'a - forms taxpayer funded madrassah
June 12, 2007
Carver Elementary - San Diego Public School Bows To Sharia
June 12, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Those having doubts that New York Department of Education's proposed Arabic school - Khalil Gibran International Academy - will inevitably turn into a madrassah should consider how a similar experiment in the San Diego Unified School District is turning out.
In September Carver Elementary school [kindergarten - eighth grade] accepted nearly 100 students from a failed charter school which served a Somali Muslim constituency.
The school population now numbers approximately 400.
Though these kids are now being educated within the wall of Carver, they have not been incorporated into the main student population and operate as a school-within-a-school, segregated elite with special privileges.
The controversy became a matter of public record when a substitute teacher Mary-Frances Stevens made a report to the local school board in which she claimed that Carver's Muslim children were being led in Islamic prayer by a teacher's aide. Steven's, who subbed at the school on March 8 stated that the lesson plan she was given included the allotting of one hour for prayer.
The teacher's allegation of religious indoctrination led to an investigation.
In true multicultural fashion, the school has gone to extreme lengths to accommodate its new students; the curriculum features the teaching of Arabic - the language of the Quran - single gender classes for girls as well as organized prayer...for Muslims only.
A new dhimi class schedule - expressly designed to kow tow to Carver's new students - was instituted. It created an extra 15 minute recess period as part of an hour set aside so that Carver's Muslims can pray en-masse while in class. Additionally, the school cafeteria menu no longer serves pork or other foods which conflict with fundamentalist Muslim diet restrictions [halal].
Even Carver's "winter holiday" celebration has not escaped the wrath of this brand of extreme multiculturalism, ripping the heart out of what was formerly the Christmas holiday by injecting extraneous cultural artifacts; as the San Diego Union Tribune notes:
"The school's winter holiday celebration featuring multicultural performances was a big hit. African-American, American, Muslim and other traditions were celebrated. "Carver has always been sensitive to the different cultures and always looked at the variety of cultures we have as an enrichment, not a problem," teacher Pamela de Meules said." [source "District wants to provide options," by Helen Gao http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/e...12carver.html]
Confronted by an apparent double standard which elevates Muslims over Christian and Jewish students, school principal Kimberlee Kidd attempted to explain, "I think there are so many misconceptions."
The actions taken by Carver's officials have made them agents whereby Sharia [Muslim religious law] has been extended into a region of the public domain where heretofore an ACLU interpretation of church-state separation has prevailed.
On that note, the local ACLU is still "considering" its options in this matter…don't hold your breath.
The unequal treatment on display at Carver is manifest, especially when seen in the light of how requests by Christians who have petitioned to have their prayer needs accommodated are routinely denied by public school officials. It goes without saying that public school cafeteria menus have seldom if ever been modified to accommodate the religious needs of Orthodox Jews who also must not eat pork.
As we have noted in previous articles regarding New York's proposed Khalil Gibran International Academy [The Khalil Gibran School - Government Funded Da'wa, New York Set To Open A "Public" Jihad School, The Khalil Gibran School - Government Funded Da'wa] Islamists across the nation are taking advantage of and in some cases actually working hand in hand with public school administrators whose hostility to American traditionalism is palpable.
This explains the left's embrace of radical Muslims. The latter are intent upon shoving Sharia down the throat of the majority culture and multiculturally bound extreme liberals [which includes many school administrators] are happy to have allies which help them continue the attack on the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of America. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=sandiego61207%2Ehtm
-
A sign of good judgement from American Muslims?
=================================
CAIR membership plummets
Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has plummeted by more than 90 percent since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, hemorrhaging from more than 29,000 in 2000 to fewer than 1,700 in 2006. Income from dues at CAIR has fallen from $732,765 in 2000 to $58,750 in 2006, and the majority of the organization’s budget now comes from approximately two dozen donors.
According to M. Zuhdi Jasser, director of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, this reflects the ideological gap between CAIR and American Muslims. Jasser stated, “Post-9/11, [CAIR has] marginalized themselves by their tired exploitation of media attention for victimization issues at the expense of representing the priorities of the American Muslim population.” CAIR certainly didn’t do itself any favors by crying foul last November when six imams were removed from a US Airways flight after passengers complained of suspicious behavior. And while applauding recent arrests in the “Fort Dix Six” case, CAIR “urged Muslims to report to police any incidents of harassment or vandalism against them,” predictably warning of an anti-Muslim backlash that never materialized.
The Patriot has noted before the thinly veiled terrorist ideology of CAIR, which has repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas and Hizballah despite claims that they “condemn all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state.” Apparently, (former) members aren’t buying their line either.
PatriotPost.com
-
June 16, 2007
For Immediate Release
Contact: Joe Kaufman (info@americansagainsthate.org)
KEITH ELLISON TO SPEAK AT (UNINDICTED CO-CONSPIRATOR) CAIR BANQUET TONIGHT
AMERICANS AGAINST HATE CALLS ON ELLISON TO RESIGN
(Coral Springs, FL) Tonight, June 16, 2007, Congressman Keith Ellison will be a featured speaker at the First Annual Banquet of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Minnesota). This, after CAIR had just been named an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a Hamas financing case put forward by the United States government.
Ellison, less than three weeks ago, was the keynote speaker at the 4th Annual Convention of the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS-Minnesota). While he spoke, MAS-Minnesota had on its website material discussing waging war against non-Muslims and the murdering of Jews. The material is still located on the group’s site.
Following his appearance, Americans Against Hate (AAH) demanded that Congressman Ellison denounce MAS for its anti-Semitic and anti-Christian statements or resign from office. Ellison has remained silent on the issue.
AAH Chairman Joe Kaufman, stated, “Being that Keith Ellison refuses to denounce the Muslim American Society, and being that he is now going to be speaking at an event sponsored by a group named by the U.S. government as a co-conspirator to Hamas, we have no choice but to call on Keith Ellison to resign from his held office as United States Representative. Congressman Ellison, by openly cavorting with bigoted and pro-terrorist elements in our society, can no longer work for the best interests of our nation.”
Also speaking at the CAIR-Minnesota banquet will be CAIR’s National Executive Director, Nihad Awad, and CAIR’s National Communications Director, Ibrahim Hooper. The event will be taking place at 6:30 pm, at the Central Park Ballroom, in Woodbury, Minnesota.
Joe Kaufman is available for interview. E-mail: info@americansagainsthate.org.
-
The White House, CAIR and the OIC
By Steven Emerson
The White House has admitted to a senior government official that it did not vet the audience members in attendance at President Bush’s speech last week at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., despite having been warned of the potential presence of individuals who might have triggered national security concerns.
An informed source has told me that the White House was completely unaware that a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) representative would be present at President Bush’s speech last week for the rededication ceremony of the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., and, in fact, had no idea who the mosque leaders had invited to the event, basically surrendering the vetting process to the Islamic Center, a Saudi-funded institution with a documented history (pdf) of extremism and anti-Semitism.
Further, the source told me, “We desperately need to know what radical Islamists are doing in this country” and he was “shocked and surprised to learn that the White House would not take greater care of who was vetted to this event," adding, "this was not your typical Rotary Club invitation.” The source told me that a White House official said that it does not vet all attendees at events to which the President is invited to speak, and the Islamic Center ceremony was no exception. Additionally, the White House was warned by a senior government official that it was making a huge national security error in not vetting those in attendance at the mosque. A White House liaison has told me in the past that CAIR has been barred from attending White House events on national security grounds.
And on cue, CAIR is playing up spokesman Ibrahim Hooper’s attendance at the speech and taking full advantage of its presence to insinuate itself into the President’s agenda.
On the heels of President Bush’s strange announcement at the mosque that he would appoint a “special envoy” to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a body with a very disturbing track record (see my article published in the National Review Online, Radical Outreach: Bush coddles American apologists for radical Islam), CAIR has started lobbying for the job.
On a trip to Saudi Arabia to meet with OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ishanoglu to “discuss future CAIR-OIC projects,” CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad made his feelings on the American-OIC envoy known, telling the Saudi-based Arab News, “[w]e hope that the selection of the individual would also be representative of the Muslim community and its views,” meaning that to avoid an Awad-engineered outcry and pressure campaign, the envoy must be “CAIR-approved.”
President Bush said that the special envoy’s job would be to “listen and learn” from the OIC, and that the envoy “will share with (the OIC) America's views and values.” Unless the purpose of the envoy would be to see who can be the more radical and anti-American mouthpiece, CAIR needs to be kept as far away from this initiative as possible, lest both organizations gang up in some outrageous, Karen Hughes-approved “grievance theater” performance. CAIR and the OIC are already in lockstep on virtually all issues, especially relating to terrorism, and CAIR is in no position to share America’s views and values with anyone. In fact, someone needs to explain America’s views and values to CAIR.
As readers of this blog know, CAIR was recently officially named (pdf) as a Muslim Brotherhood organization and as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case against alleged Hamas-fundraisers, the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). Beyond that, CAIR’s lengthy history of extremism, pro-terrorist sentiments and anti-Semitism has been extensively reported and is well known.
And the Arab News article telegraphs just how useless having a CAIR-approved individual as special envoy to the OIC would be:
Muslims and Muslim organizations in the US have been criticized for not being effective in lobbying and standing up to smear campaigns compared to other US minorities. This is the most common criticism heard from the Muslim world, according to Awad, who added that Muslims in the US are heading in the right direction and that the Muslim community there is becoming more effective and gaining ground in building bridges.
So the “most common” criticism has not been that Muslim organizations in the U.S. have failed to sufficiently condemn terrorism or put forward policies and positions that condemn the targeted use of violence against civilians by such groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, but that CAIR is not “effective” in standing up to “smear campaigns” against it. Expect more of this if CAIR has any say about the President’s appointment.
The President’s plan to appoint a special envoy to the OIC was a bad idea from the start, and can only be further compounded by letting CAIR – or other Islamist groups like it - have any say in the matter.
July 5, 2007 12:33 PM Print
-
CAIR vs Anti-CAIR litigation discussed by Anti-CAIR's attorney. Excellent discussion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeRNHLhUw-c
On the other hand, in fairness one must note this CAIR denunciation of Holocaust denial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM0HHYNVPKY&mode=related&search=
The bit about "people of the book" IMO is diningenuous, and I utterly doubt the sincerity of it all given the group's track record, but still in fairness it must be noted.
-
From Anti-CAIR:
PART TWO of the Atlas Shrugs Radio Show interview (excerpts) with Anti-CAIR's Defense Attorney, Reed Rubinstein.
Discussion of how certain MEDIA directly avoids and hides CAIR's terror-ties, the cost of defending defamation lawsuits, and additional information on CAIR's history.
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utJs2WoDlYI
-
On the City funded Islamic school:
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/06/intifada-nyc/
It would appear that the initial suspicions have basis , , ,
-
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArti...71983205687357
A Muslim 'Mafia'?
Homeland Security: Forget everything you've been told about
"moderate" Muslim groups in America. New evidence that U.S. prosecutors
have revealed at a major terror trial exposes the facade.
Exhibit No. 003-0085 is the most chilling. Translated from Arabic by federal
investigators in the case against the Holy Land Foundation, an alleged
Hamas front, the secret document outlines a full-blown conspiracy by the
major Muslim groups in America — all of which are considered "mainstream"
by the media.
In fact, they are part of the "Ikhwan," or Muslim Brotherhood, the parent
organization of Hamas, al-Qaida and other major Islamic terror groups.
They have conspired to infiltrate American society with the purpose of
undermining it and turning it into an Islamic state.
Check out this quote from Page 7 of the 1991 document:
"The Ikwhan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of
grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from
within and sabotaging their miserable house by the hands of the believers
so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all
religions."
Sounds like the latest screed from Osama bin Laden. But it comes from the
Muslim establishment in America.
The secret plan lists several Saudi-backed Muslim groups as "friends" of
the conspiracy.
They include the Islamic Society of North America — the umbrella
organization — and the North American Islamic Trust, which controls most
of the mosques in America and is the forerunner to the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, this country's most visible Muslim-rights group.
All three have been cited as unindicted co-conspirators in the case, with
all three sharing membership in the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet all have
claimed, in the wake of 9/11, to be moderate, even patriotic.
Another exhibit reveals their plan to create innocuous-sounding "front
groups" to hide their radical agenda.
Many in the media and politics have fallen for their deception and helped
bring them into the mainstream.
Now everyone knows the truth.
The Muslim establishment that publicly decries the radical fringe —
represented by Hamas and al-Qaida — may actually be a part of it. The
only difference is that they use words and money instead of bombs to
accomplish their subversive goals.
Over the past two decades they have constructed, with Saudi money, an
elaborate infrastructure of support for the bad guys — right under our
noses.
They even brag about putting "beehives" (Islamic centers) in every major
city.
These exhibits — which so far have been ignored by major media outside
the Dallas area, where the trial is under way — completely blow the
mainstream Muslim NGOs' cover as pro-American moderates. Many, if not
most, aren't.
This is their real agenda, spelled out in black and white. It should help
investigators build a RICO case to dismantle the entire terror-support
network in America.
Many have suspected it, but now we have proof that there is a secret
underworld operating inside America under the cover of fronts with
legitimate-sounding names.
It even uses charities to launder money for violent hits on enemies. It's
highly organized, with its own internal bylaws and security to avoid
monitoring from law enforcement.
Sounds like the Mafia.
But unlike the mob, this syndicate is religious in nature and protected by
political correctness.
More evidence like this should put an end to such nonsense.
-
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2...01&template=printart
Article published Aug 27, 2007
U.S. sponsors Islamic convention
August 27, 2007
By Audrey Hudson - The Justice Department is co-sponsoring a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) — an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing federal terrorist funding case — a move that is raising concerns among the Justice's rank and file.
Justice lawyers have objected to the affiliation with ISNA, fearing it will undermine the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Dallas.
"There is outrage among lawyers that the Department of Justice is funding a group named as a co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case," said a Justice lawyer who spoke to The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity.
According to an e-mail from Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, acting deputy chief of the Voting Rights Division, the sponsorship will involve sending government lawyers to man a booth for the Labor Day weekend event in Illinois.
"This is an important outreach opportunity, and a chance to reach a community that is at once very much discriminated against, and very wary of the national government and its willingness to protect them," Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere said in an e-mail obtained by The Washington Times.
"It would be a great step forward to break through those barriers. And Chicago is lovely this time of year," Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere said.
ISNA is one of more than 300 unindicted co-conspirators in a case against the Holy Land Foundation, whose top officers are accused of raising money for Hamas.
Justice spokesman Erik Ablin said the agency participates in the annual convention to educate Muslims about their civil rights.
"The Civil Rights Division will have a table at the ISNA convention over Labor Day weekend to hand out literature and answer questions about the division's work. The ISNA convention attracts more than 30,000 American Muslims every year, and the division has had tables at the convention in previous years," Mr. Ablin said.
The Justice Department declined to say how much the sponsorship will cost.
"This is just staggering, it's outrageous," the lawyer said. "Lawyers from the Civil Rights Division traveling to Chicago on the federal dime. This will cost thousands of dollars."
A second lawyer responded to Mrs. Lorenzo-Giguere's e-mail questioning the participation and said it "seems like an odd time for one part of DOJ to lend credence and visible support to ISNA at the same time DOJ prosecutors will be called on to defend their decision to name ISNA as a conspirator."
"Presumably the prosecutors have determined that they might need that testimony admitted; I hope we don't undermine their position," the second lawyer said. "Needless to say, [the Holy Land Foundation trial] is a very significant case."
Mohamed Elsanousi, director of communications and community outreach for ISNA, says the annual convention is open to anyone who provides services or information of value to convention participants.
"For many years, we have welcomed representatives from U.S. government agencies who wish to share information about their services and have the opportunity to reach out to the Muslim American community," Mr. Elsanousi said.
The convention features book signings, musical entertainment and seminars on family, community service and political activism.
But the first lawyer also pointed to a morning session on "the threat and reality of U.S.-sponsored torture" as contrary to the department's mission. The Justice Department was responsible for signing off on the legality and constitutionality of interrogation techniques.
"The extensive news coverage by the U.S. and international media sources makes it all too clear that the grim abuses in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the sending of detainees to secret prisons around the world that are known to torture during interrogations, are not isolated incidents, but rather constitute policy of the U.S. government," the schedule of events said.
"This session will describe the nature of U.S.-sponsored torture, the effects of torture on its victims, the efforts of the U.S. religious community, and what you can do to help end U.S.-sponsored torture," the schedule said.
-
Muslim Patrol Quiets Crime in Shaw
By Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 28, 2007; B03
On a sidewalk in Shaw, a dozen Muslim men wearing red T-shirts gather an hour before sundown.
Half line up quietly behind an imam. Facing southeast toward Mecca, they bow their heads and read aloud verses from the Koran. The other half spread themselves out and look up and down the street. After a few minutes, they switch places.
The men have come not just to pray but to assume control over a crime-prone block.
They are part of a Muslim neighborhood watch that lately has focused its efforts on Seventh Street NW between P and Q streets, site of the long-troubled Kelsey Gardens apartment complex. Just a few weeks ago, the location was beset by drug dealers, armed assaults and random shootings.
The group is composed of Muslims who practice a more orthodox form of Islam than such groups as the Nation of Islam, says founder Leroy Thorpe.
It is a spinoff of the Citizens Organized Patrol Efforts, or COPE, a neighborhood watch established in 1988 in Shaw. Both groups dress in ample red T-shirts and red baseball hats with "COPE Patrol" written on them.
About two months ago, owners of the 35-unit Kelsey Gardens complex asked Thorpe to arrange security for the residents and crack down on drug dealers who gravitated to a parking lot in the complex, Thorpe said. The complex is slated to be razed next month and a new structure will take its place. Thorpe said that the owners want to encourage more investment in the area.
"Nobody is going to invest in a drug-infested area," said Thorpe, a former Advisory Neighborhood Commission member who also goes by the Muslim name Mahdi.
D.C. police, who say they know of no other religion-based citizens patrol operating in the District, credit the Muslims with rousting the drug dealers and restoring a measure of public safety to the neighborhood. "There was an overwhelming difference," said Officer Earl Brown of the 3rd Police District.
Patrol members carry no weapons, and several of the men said they had no training in self-defense. But their presence seems to be effective.
"You have eyes and ears in the neighborhood," said Cmdr. Larry McCoy, who heads the Third Police District. "Most people don't like to commit crimes in front of people who are going to tell the police about them."
Driven by the power of faith, the patrol has a secondary aim: to "call people to worship Allah," said Khalil Davis, the imam for the Salafi Society of D.C. mosque.
A long salt-and-pepper beard framing his thin face and dressed in a white dishdasha, the traditional Muslim men's calf-length garment, Davis handed out literature to passersby describing Islam as a religion of peace.
One leaflet contained two pictures, one of waterfalls and natural greenery, the other of a huge, smoky fireball. "You decide," it said. The group called the leaflets "Islam's anti-terror message."
"It is a therapeutic ambience to the community," Davis said of the religion.
"This creates a community that is pure and free of crimes."
But it is a message that can be difficult to spread. Davis tried to distribute the leaflets to pedestrians, but most refused to take them.
The Muslim patrol works 12-hour shifts, three nights a week: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which Thorpe said are peak nights for drug dealing.
On a patrol one recent weeknight, the men walked around the complex in pairs. They were scouting for "suspicious activity" and "undesirable people," Thorpe said.
They peered behind large trash cans in alleys, looking for drug addicts who might be hiding. They went into a parking lot between two buildings and walked between the rows of cars, hoping their presence would chase off anyone who might be lurking.
"They see us, they are going to flee," said Thorpe, who carries a cellphone to call police if he needs help.
This night was uneventful. The walkie-talkies remained mute. Residents walking out of their apartment building waved to the Muslim patrol members, who waved back.
Residents seem to recognizes the Muslim patrol by now, and the Muslims have come to recognize most of the people who live on the block. "Assalamu Alaikum," they say in greeting -- Arabic for "peace be upon you. "
The Muslim patrol group is the only one of its kind in the District, according to the police department, but several patrol members said they hope to duplicate it in other neighborhoods.
"I would love to do it in my neighborhood," said Brian Christopher, 40, who lives with his wife and two children in a neighborhood in Northeast Washington that has no citizens patrol. "But it has to start somewhere."
Several residents and local business people said they were pleased it started in Shaw.
"They are really helping out," said Tony Dolford, 38, a Kelsey Gardens resident who has lived in the neighborhood since 1993.
Everett Lucas, 66, owns the Variety Market across the street from the apartment complex. The market has been open for 34 years.
"One thing you don't see now [in the neighborhood] is drug activity," Lucas said.
"Knock on wood," McCoy said. "It's made a difference. Those planning to do wrong in the neighborhood know they are out there, and it stops them."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...082701527.html
-
Woof All:
The mission of this forum is to search for Truth. Thus, it seems right to include this URL here:
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php
I first stumbled on this site via a URL of its article about how the author was NOT offended by the Opus cartoon and have briefly skimmed it. The site seems worth taking a further look and I will be doing so.
TAC,
Marc
-
Hide Post
CAIR Revealed
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, August 31, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Trail Of Terror: We've wondered why the Council on American-Islamic Relations director has spurned Senate invitations to answer terror charges. Now we know.
Related Stories: Who Are CAIR's Paymasters? | CAIR's Fuzzy Math
For the first time, evidence in a major federal terror case puts CAIR's current executive director — Nihad Awad — at a Philadelphia meeting of alleged Hamas leaders that was secretly recorded by the FBI.
After the Associated Press last week reported the bombshell, CAIR denied claims of ties to Hamas. "That's one of those urban legends about CAIR," said Parvez Ahmed, CAIR's chairman. "It's fed by the right-wing, pro-Israeli blogosphere."
In fact, the evidence was revealed by an FBI agent who testified at the terror-financing trial under way in Dallas.
Her name is Lara Burns, and she's the lead investigator in the case against operators of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in America. CAIR, which she says received startup funding from HLF, is named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, according to court exhibits.
President Bush froze HLF's funds after 9/11. It's now accused of being a Hamas front, and its leaders — including one of CAIR's founding directors — are on trial for allegedly funneling more than $12 million to aid Palestinian suicide-bombing operations.
Burns placed both Awad and his ethnic-Palestinian pal Omar Ahmed, who founded CAIR with Awad, at a Philly meeting last decade where she says Hamas leaders and supporters hatched a plot to disguise funds for Hamas suicide operations as charity for HLF.
According to FBI wiretaps, it was decided at the Hamas summit, which took place inside a Marriott hotel, that most of the funds collected by HLF in the future would be steered to Hamas.
Awad, like Ahmad, does not talk much about his pre-CAIR days.
But before 9/11, when Muslim groups received less scrutiny in America, he made his support for Hamas publicly known. At a March 22, 1994, symposium on the Middle East at Florida's Barry University, Awad said: "After I researched the situation inside and outside Palestine, I am in support of the Hamas movement."
Three months later, he and Ahmad founded CAIR. They promote the group as a grass-roots champion of Muslim civil rights, a "Muslim NAACP." But many of the things CAIR's leaders claim and what we later learn from the factual record don't square.
For instance, they've claimed that they get no foreign support and that their funding comes from local dues. In fact, the bulk of their support comes from two Arab countries tied to 9/11 — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
They've claimed that the size of the Muslim population in America is 7 million. In fact, it's closer to 2 million.
They've claimed that they're mainstream American patriots, when in fact they've told Muslim audiences that they want the Quran to replace the Constitution as the "highest authority in America."
They've also claimed that they don't support terrorism, even as three senior employees have been jailed in terror-related cases.
And now this. CAIR claims to be the voice of American Muslims. If so, it's been an especially loud one. But it has lost its credibility to speak honestly for any legitimate cause.
-
HLF Prosecution: CAIR “affiliated with” Hamas
By Brian Hecht, IPT
On Tuesday, the prosecution in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) filed its motion in opposition to the amicus brief filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
In addition to picking apart the arguments laid out in CAIR’s brief piece by piece, the government set an important precedent, officially and definitively linking CAIR to Hamas, writing:
In the instant case, striking CAIR’s name from the attachment to the Trial Brief will not prevent its conspiratorial involvement with HLF, and others affiliated with Hamas, from becoming a matter of public record. That has already occurred as a consequence of the presentation of evidence at trial. (emphasis added)
The government also argues some legal basics, that CAIR has no standing to petition its removal from the list of unindicted co-conspirators since the list is not directly pertinent to the “actual, ongoing controversy” of HLF’s criminal trial, basically that, by filing the brief, CAIR has not acted as a “friend of the court,” but rather only out of self interest, and that, in the brief, CAIR has failed to show any injury as a result of its inclusion on the list of unindicted co-conspirators.
In arguing lack of injury, the prosecution makes similar points outlined in the August 21st blog post by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), CAIR’s Reputation and Incredibly Fluctuating Membership Roll. The motion states:
As support for its alleged injury-in-fact, CAIR provided this Court with data solely from a time period prior to the Government’s submission of its Trial Brief, a period when the alleged improper disclosure could not have affected such membership. CAIR alleges that the “negative reaction by the American public can be seen in the decline of membership rates and donations resulting from the government’s publicizing of CAIR as an unindicted coconspirator” (Amicus Br. at 10); that “the donations that they rely on for funding have suffered since the government named them as an unindicted coconspirator”( Amicus Br. at 38); and that “the government’s labeling of them as an unindicted co-conspirator has chilled their associational activity” (Amicus Br. at 51-52). In support for these assertions, however, CAIR relies upon a June 2007 article in the Washington Times, which revealed (by reviewing CAIR’s tax filings) that CAIR’s membership declined 90 percent from 2001 through 2006, down from 29,000 members to less than 1,700. ... The article provides no further factual information regarding CAIR’s declining membership since 2006. Ironically, the very same article, upon which it now relies, was publicly discredited by CAIR executive director, Nihad Awad, who claimed the article was “false and misleading."
Additionally, the motion argues that the relationship between CAIR, HLF and the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP) is already public information, as described in a footnote on page 12:
The role of CAIR founder Omar Ahmad on the Palestine Committee, and the presence of Ahmad and Nihad Awad at the 1993 meeting of the Palestine Committee in Philadelphia, were described during the public trial of Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah and Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar in November 1996 (sic). See United States v. Salah, et al., Case No. 03-978 (N.D. Ill. 2006). During that trial, defendant Ashqar was represented by William B. Moffitt, author of CAIR’s current motion for leave to file an amicus brief.
The government also argues that CAIR’s amicus brief should be denied because it lacks both timeliness and usefulness, and, as perhaps a final nail in the coffin, that the brief is wholly irrelevant since both testimony and documentary evidence admitted at trial conclusively demonstrate the conspiratorial relationship between CAIR and HLF. For some examples of such evidence, see:
CAIR: Youngest Member of Hamas Family Tree
CAIR Identified by the FBI as part of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee
CAIR Executive Director Placed at HAMAS Meeting
September 4, 2007 10:21 PM Print
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007..._affiliate.php
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/09/14/holy-land-foundation-prosecutors-savor-rich-creamy-irony/
The HLF trial has exposed CAIR for what it is.
-
I'm guessing that most of these people are Muslims, so I post this piece from yesterday's LA Times in this thread:
============
Iranians in U.S. face a choice -- to speak out, or not
Genaro Molina / LAT
USC professor Muhammad Sahimi canceled a trip to Iran after hearing Ali Shakeri was held
Some openly lobby for a change in Iran; others are cautious, preferring to be able to visit their homeland without fear of arrest.
By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 16, 2007
USC professor Muhammad Sahimi knew he risked interrogation or arrest while visiting Iran because of his outspokenness about the need for political reform in his homeland.
But it wasn't until this summer that he canceled his travel plans. He deemed a family trip to Iran too dangerous after his friend, Ali Shakeri, a mild-mannered businessman and peace activist from Lake Forest, was thrown in a Tehran prison.
"A lot of people are afraid to go to Iran," he said, "because they say if a guy like Shakeri, who always advocated peace and negotiations, gets arrested, then who is safe?"
The plight of Shakeri has created a dilemma for politically active Iranian Americans: Do they lobby for change in Iran, knowing that their words could land them in prison if they visit their homeland? Or do they keep quiet and preserve their ability to go home again?
Shakeri, 59, a businessman whose pro-democracy writings about Iran circulate on the Web, has been jailed for more than four months in Tehran. He had been on his way back from visiting his mother, who died while he was there.
Shakeri's case surprised the Iranian American community because he was seen as a moderate peace activist and a minor figure in Southern California. A board member for the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at UC Irvine, Shakeri garnered international attention when he became one of four dual Iranian American citizens detained in Iran this year. Two have since been released.
His family had been working quietly to free him until Friday, when his son, Kaveh Shakeri, broke the silence and implored authorities to release his father.
"Shakeri really sent shock waves," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based civic group. "Unlike the others, he was not a known figure on the national level. If someone like that gets taken, it becomes much more blurry who's a target and who's not."
That sentiment has rung especially true in Southern California, home to the world's largest community of Iranian emigres. Most settled in Southern California after the fall of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979. Centered in West Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and Orange County, they now number more than 500,000.
Like the Cuban exile community in South Florida and Vietnamese expatriates of Orange County's Little Saigon, many Iranian Americans in the U.S. are advocates of democratic reform in their homeland. But they have had little success against the authoritative governments.
That doesn't stop some from trying to wield their influence from a distance, often through TV broadcasts, radio shows and online periodicals.
Ali Limonadi, producer and director of IRTV, a Persian-language international television station based in Studio City, said he had changed his e-mail address three times because of the nearly 1,500 virus-ridden e-mails a day he received. He said he believed those e-mails were generated by Iranian government agents.
Limonadi said he first spoke out in 1979 because he thought Islamic rule wouldn't last long in Iran.
He came to the United States a month after the 1979 revolution and planned to stay for a year. "I just didn't think the revolution would take that long," he said.
Others, however, have kept quiet about their political convictions, doing all they can to remain invisible to Tehran and preserve their ability to travel back and forth.
"Most of us in the U.S. don't really like what's going on in Iran, but whatever we say becomes a backlash against us," said Moe, a Rancho Santa Margarita engineer and dual citizen of Iran and the U.S. who asked that his last name be withheld to avoid attracting the attention of Iranian officials.
He has vowed to not speak about politics, hoping it will guarantee that he is not harassed or detained when he visits his mother and sister in Tehran every other year.
"If my mother over there doesn't do anything against the government, and I don't raise my voice in public either, we have nothing to worry about," he said.
Friends said Shakeri had no reason to be concerned either. They describe Shakeri as a political moderate who advocated nonviolent solutions, a stance that often earned him criticism for being a regime sympathizer.
"He got it on both sides," said Hossein Hedjazi, who featured Shakeri a handful of times as a guest on Golgasht, a Persian-language political commentary radio show he hosts on KIRN-AM (670).
=============
Page 2 of 2 << back 1 2
Mohammed Ali Dadkha, a Tehran human rights lawyer who said he had been contacted by Shakeri's family and was asked to defend him, said he had not been able to meet with Shakeri to sign forms authorizing him as his lawyer and had no idea what accusations Shakeri faced.
According to Iranian law, he said, "Nobody can be detained for more than two months unless new accusations are raised against him."
A spokesman for the Iranian Judicial Branch in Tehran who declined to give his name said Saturday that Shakeri's case was still under investigation and that he could not publicize the accusations against him, because "He has not been proven to be a criminal yet.
"I do hope his dossier will be clarified in the near future, like other cases recently," he added.
The Bush administration in May called for the release of Shakeri and the other three detainees, and the U.S. State Department has called the detainment of Shakeri and other dual nationals a "disturbing pattern" of harassment under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This summer the agency issued a travel warning urging Iranian American citizens traveling to Iran to be cautious, but it has been difficult to gauge whether they have made fewer trips.
Those who have not been back to their homeland in decades -- and don't plan to return under the current regime -- serve as the most vocal critics.
"What we have now is a new reign of terror, the goal being precisely ending this bridge between Iranian intellectuals and the diaspora community that was being created," said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University.
Milani's house on campus is filled with reminders of his homeland -- Persian paintings, books and carpets. He cooks rice and kebabs for his son and listens to the Persian rock group Kiosk.
And although he dreams of returning to see the country on which he is considered a national expert, he has not been back since 1987, knowing that he might be apprehended.
"I won't buy that privilege at the price of self-censorship," he said.
Mariam Khosravani, a community services commissioner for the city of Irvine, said she made a conscious decision to enter into civic affairs in Orange County at the expense of visits home to her extended family in Tehran.
She said images like the photo that hangs in Khosravani's office in Fountain Valley -- her posing with former President Clinton at a campaign fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Clinton -- are precisely what many Iranian Americans are reluctant to be associated with.
"It's a sad feeling that you know you cannot go back to your motherland," she said. "It's not like my name is on a blacklist, but it's hard to take a chance going to a country where you can't guarantee your safety."
tony.barboza@latimes.com
Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/09/19/new-jihad-watch-footbaths-on-the-march/
Creeping sharia.
-
I hear that Iran's Ahmandinejad, freshly rejected from laying a wreath at Ground Zero of 911 in NYC, will be speaking at my alma mater , , , oy vey.
============
http://www.wcbs880.com/NYPD-Rejects-Iran-President-s-Viewing-Request/968136
NYPD Rejects Iran President's Viewing Request
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- UPDATE: NYPD is rejecting the request from the President of Iran to visit Ground Zero.
NYPD is citing security reasons for the reason of rejecting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's request to visit the old World Trade Center.
STATEMENT FROM NYPD:
A request earlier this month to permit a visit by Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Ground Zero during the United Nations General Assembly was rejected in a meeting which included NYPD, Secret Service, and Port Authority officials. The site is closed to visitors because of construction there. That was the only request. Requests for the Iranian president to visit the immediate area would also be opposed by the NYPD on security grounds.
-
I don't know how reliable this website is, but I do know that the group being discussed here has crossed by radar screen previously:
Terrorists Training in Rural America? (A lot more info on these compounds including Pictures, articles,history etc. on our website www.ChristianAction.org)
CBNNews.com - RED HOUSE, Va. - Islamic extremists in the United States have traditionally set up shop in big cities with large Muslim populations: places like New York City, Dearborn, Michigan and even Washington, DC. But one secretive group is doing just the opposite.
They call themselves Muslims of America. They’ve established compounds throughout the rural U.S. Members say they moved to the countryside to lead peaceful lives free of “Western decadence.” But others say that doesn’t tell the whole story.
“Certainly, when you’re in a rural area it enables you to better escape from the prying eyes of law enforcement,” said CBN News consultant David Gartenstein-Ross.
He says Muslims of America has close ties to a violent Pakistani group named Jamaat Al-Fuqra. Both groups are led by the same extremist cleric: Sheikh Mubarak Gilani.
“Sheikh Gilani is an extremist figure known to be very much involved in the jihads against India, also known to be very much anti-Semitic,” Gartenstein-Ross said.
Gilani’s images and messages are all over the Muslims of America Web site.
He founded the group during a visit to Brooklyn in 1980. Shoe bomber Richard Reid and Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammed are said to have been among his followers.
Gilani encouraged his U.S. pupils-mostly African Americans-to move to rural areas and establish Muslim communes. The group now has dozens of these communes nationwide.
“Al Fuqra has compounds from coast-to-coast.and what this indicates is they’re going to areas where land is plentiful–where you can get land for relatively cheap prices,” Gartenstein-Ross said.
CBN News visited the group’s 45-acre site in Red House, Virginia - a town so small you can barely find it on a map. There are no traffic lights, and the only signs of industry are a pair of convenience stores. So when a street sign popped up named after a radical Pakistani sheikh-along with men and women dressed in traditional Islamic garb- the locals took notice.
Sheikh Gilani has been on U.S. intelligence agencies’ radar for years. He’s currently under investigation for possible ties to al-Qaeda. He also trained jihadists to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
In addition, Gilani attended a 1993 jihadist conference in Sudan along with members of Hamas, Hezbollah and Osama bin Laden himself.
American journalist Daniel Pearl was on his way to interview Gilani in 2002 when he was murdered. The sheikh denies any involvement in Pearl’s killing.
CBN News spoke to a former member of Muslims of America who wishes to remain anonymous. ‘Mustafa’ says Gilani runs the group from Lahore, Pakistan.
“He’s the leader of the group. He’s a former member of the Pakistani military. His father was one of the founding fathers of Pakistan. He has great connections to Pakistani intelligence, the ISI,” he said.
Mustafa says Muslims of America serves as a cash cow for Gilani and Jamaat Al-Fuqra. Each member is required to send 30 percent of their income to Gilani. The group even had a treasurer that checked members’ pay stubs.
“He said that the 30 percent is money that God has chosen to take from you. And if you spend that 30 percent you are stealing from God,” Mustafa’ said.
Group members hand deliver thousands of dollars in cash at a time to Gilani in Pakistan.
Mustafa said, “The money got to Pakistan through the elders who traveled to Pakistan. They carried cash with them or they sent it Western Union. Since there’s Americans under Gilani’s rule who live in Pakistan, it’s like from one American name to another American name and it’s never linked to Gilani at all.”
Sheikh Gilani uses these American dollars to help fund the Taliban and other terrorist groups, according to Mustafa.
Muslims of America compounds are filled with ex-cons from rough backgrounds. Many converted to Islam in prison. Mustafa says there’s at least one semi-automatic weapon in every home.
A local law enforcement official told us he’s had no problems with Muslims of America in Red House. But the group has a long track record of violent activity on U.S. soil.
During the 80s and 90s, members firebombed Hindu and Hare Krishna temples and assassinated two rival Muslim leaders. Federal raids on the group’s Colorado compound in the early 90s turned up bombs, automatic weapons, and plans for terrorist attacks. And at least three members have been arrested on weapons charges since 9/11.
Mustafa says the group raises money through a variety of criminal activities.
“A lot of the guys will do bootlegging–you know, it’s all illegal- videotapes, CDs, clothing,” he said.
In March, federal investigators broke up a multi-state counterfeit goods ring. Local residents tell CBN News that some of those arrested lived at the Red House compound.
Mustafa said, “The counterfeiting comes in with the bootlegging. It’s all counterfeit movies not sanctioned by Paramount or MGM or things like that — they’re not legitimate.”
Law enforcement sources say they’re keeping a close eye on Muslims of America compounds.
“One of the law enforcement sources that I spoke to was concerned that you could have a Waco-type situation,” Gartenstein-Ross said.
But a video on the group’s Web site calls into question just how seriously authorities understand the group’s beliefs and intentions. The clip shows the former head of South Carolina’s FBI branch speaking at a Muslims of America-sponsored event in 2004 that honored “diversity.”
Mustafa says such “outreach” efforts are a mistake. He continues to fear for his safety since leaving the compound. But he says he’s speaking out because he considers Muslims of America a dangerous group.
A lot more about the Muslims of America compounds including articles, Pictures , History Etc. on our website www.ChristianAction.org
copy and paste this link into your browser to View the video from CBN News.
mms://sm1.cbn.org/News/Archive/HighRes/EST30 Islamic Training Camp AM v2_000030p0000621p7.wmv
-
How Many U.S. Muslims?
by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
October 29, 2001
French version of this item
Italian version of this item
Spanish version of this item
How many Muslims live in the United States?
Until now, basically, no one has had any idea. By law, the U.S. Census cannot ask questions about religion. There are also plenty of other difficulties in coming up with a number, starting with the problem of defining who is a Muslim: Does one include non-standard believers like Louis Farrakhan and the Druze?
Uncertainty has generated some wildly divergent numbers. A large 1990 demographic survey counted 1.3 million Muslims. In 1998, a Pakistani newspaper put the number at 12 million. Even the usually authoritative Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches found 527,000 American Muslims in 1996 and six times as many (3.3 million) in 1998.
Needing some kind of consensus figure, Muslim organizations came up with a self-acknowledged "guestimation" of 6 million, which this year they decided to raise to 7 million.
These numbers were so widely adopted (even by this writer) that they acquired a sheen of authority. But repetition does not transform a guess into a fact.
The trouble is a generic one; religious organizations commonly inflate their membership to enhance their voice in the public square.
Fortunately, the smog of imprecision finally lifted last week, with the appearance of two authoritative studies by highly regarded demographers. (Each study relied on respondents' religious self-identification.) Interestingly, they agreed on a very similar number, one much smaller than the old guestimate.
The American Religious Identification Survey 2001 carried out by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York polled more than 50,000 people and found the total American Muslim population to be 1.8 million.
Meanwhile, the University of Chicago's Tom Smith reviewed prior national surveys and (in a study sponsored by the American Jewish Committee) found that the best estimate puts the Muslim population in 2000 at 1,886,000. (With a nod toward figures supplied by Islamic organizations, he allowed that this number could be as high as 2,814,000 Muslims.)
In other words, two authoritative studies carried out by scholars found that American Muslims number under 2 million - less than a third of the hitherto-consensus number.
To this, the militant Islamic groups in Washington - widely but erroneously seen as representative of American Muslims - responded with predictable hyperbole. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) furiously accused Smith's report of working "to block Muslim political participation."
The American Muslim Council (AMC) charged Smith with nothing less than trying to "deny the existence of 4 1/2 million American Muslims" and blamed him for "tearing at the very heart of America."
The AMC also amusingly claimed that its own estimate of "more than 7 million" Muslims came from the 2000 Census figures - erroneously thinking that the Census asks about religion.
Oh, and that's the same AMC which in 1992 pressured a researcher named Fareed Nu'man to find 6 million Muslims in the country; Nu'man later testified that he counted just 3 million and was fired by the AMC when he refused to inflate his number above 5 million.
Why does the militant Islamic lobby insist on the 6-7 million figures? Because a larger number, even if phony, offers it enhanced access and clout. Convincing the Republican Party that Muslims number 8 million, for example, led to urgent calls from its chairman for "meeting with [Muslim] leaders," something which becomes less of a priority when the Muslim population turns out to be much smaller.
Knowing the real number of Muslims will, most immediately, likely impede two militant Islamic efforts now underway: one (pushed by The Minaret magazine) to get Americans to acknowledge that their own misdeeds partially caused the atrocities of Sept. 11; and another (led by CAIR) to halt the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. The longer-range implications will be yet more significant.
__________________
Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords.--Ben Franklin
-
Its the LA Slimes and the reporter's name appears to be Iranian (we have a lot of Iranians in LA-- many came here when the Shah fell) so read the following interesting piece with that in mind:
===========
Trials tested Muslim's faith in America
Osama Awadallah credits help from Americans, including Jews, for his acquittal on perjury charges tied to his acquaintance with two 9/11 hijackers.
By H.G. Reza, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 23, 2007
Managing a furniture store is not what Osama Awadallah had his sights on during college. But selling couches and dressers will do until an offer to develop computer information systems comes along.
His job opportunities are limited, he said, because of the notoriety from his friendship with two 9/11 hijackers. He was one of the hundreds of Muslim men jailed as material witnesses in the 9/11 investigation. After testifying before the grand jury, he was indicted on charges of perjury, and the experience caused him to question the American ideal of equal justice and democracy. At his first trial he was just one juror away from conviction and deportation. But his faith in this country was restored at the second trial when he was found not guilty in 2006.
"When I came to the United States I had these dreams about this beautiful country," Awadallah said in a recent interview. He came in 1999 as a student. "But after 9/11, I thought I was not in America. I was scared. Then I saw the goodness of the American people who believe in justice."
Sporting wire-rim glasses that blend into his round face, Awadallah tenses upon meeting strangers. The bushy beard he wore as a sign of his devotion to Islam has been cropped short, a compromise to help him get a foot in the corporate door.
Jogging and workouts have buffed up the scrawny frame he had when he was arrested in 2001.
Awadallah, 27, said his family elders did not want him to be interviewed for this article. "My family wants people to forget about me. At the same time, I want to make Americans aware of what's going on in their country. I don't think they understand their rights."
He met a reporter at the La Mesa condo of Mimi Pollack, a friend and teacher at Grossmont College in El Cajon, and was more than two hours late. After a tepid apology, he offered a brusque explanation that he is more careful now about whom he talks to because he "stopped trusting people" after his arrest.
Minutes later he began to relax and the furrowed brow was replaced by a warm grin. "Americans are great in their understanding," he said, gesturing toward Pollack.
His friendship with Pollack has endured even though she turned over to the FBI evidence that led to the two perjury counts lodged against him. Still, she believed in his innocence and was his most vocal advocate.
Despite his acquittal, Awadallah said he is still looked at with suspicion.
"There are non-Muslims who still think I had something to do with the attacks and Muslims who think I got my freedom because I'm working for the government. I can't control what people think. All I can do is move on."
Moving on means he wants to become a U.S. citizen, marry and "live like any American." Finding a woman to marry is a milepost in an American journey that for a while was like "a bad movie that turned real," he said.
He reached an important goal last year when he graduated from San Diego State with a business degree. His long-term goal is to become a doctor.
"I want to prove that I can be a good American citizen, but I can't get a job in my field because with a name like Osama, [employers] research me," he said. "They Google my name and get thousands of hits" about his trials and association with Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, who were among the hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
He was a casual acquaintance of the two terrorists in 2000. He met them at the mosque in La Mesa and worked for about a month with Alhazmi at a service station. The FBI found his old telephone number in Alhazmi's car, which was parked at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and detained him as a material witness on Sept. 21, 2001.
Authorities took him to New York City to testify before a federal grand jury. He was indicted on two counts of perjury because under questioning he said he could not remember Almihdhar's first name, though there was proof he knew it.
Awadallah had written a report about his summer for Pollack's class on English as a second language, and she gave the essay to the FBI. "One of the quietest people I have ever met is Nawaf and Khalid," he had written. He blames the contradiction in his testimony on his poor English and fear and confusion after being kept awake all night by guards.
Defense attorney Randall B. Hamud said Awadallah appeared at his bail hearing before then-federal Judge Michael Mukasey, now President Bush's nominee for attorney general, after being detained as a material witness. Bail was denied, and Hamud said he complained to Mukasey that jailers had beaten Awadallah.
"He looked at Osama and said, 'Your client looks fine to me. You can file a lawsuit if you want to,' " according to Hamud.
U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin later wrote that "many of Awadallah's allegations about his treatment during the weeks of incarceration are uncontested" and noted that government officials acknowledged he had multiple bruises on his body and a cut on his left hand.
-------
Trials tested Muslim's faith in America
September 23 2007
Page 2 of 2 << back 1 2
Awadallah said his ties to Alhazmi and Almihdhar "will fade with time," and the two hijackers "have been judged by God." The attacks were not sanctioned by Islam, he said, and there is no excuse for killing 3,000 innocent people.
Born in Venezuela, Awadallah is a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian descent. He said his family lost its property when Israel was established in 1948. Pollack described him as an "in-your-face Muslim" who engaged in passionate debates about Islam and Israel's treatment of Palestinians before his arrest.
He was also "very conflicted" about Jews, Hamud said.
Though he still criticizes Israel, Awadallah now discusses the volatile issues of the Middle East in "calmer, rational and mature" discussions, Pollack said.
If walls separate Jews and Muslims in America, they can be breached, Awadallah said.
"In America it is possible for people to work together. My case proves that," he said. "Maybe one day people will work together in Israel and there will be justice for Palestinians."
As is Pollack, many people who helped clear Awadallah were Jewish, including his three New York lawyers, several jurors, and Scheindlin, who presided over the case. She dismissed the charges against Awadallah in a 60-page opinion that said jailing him solely as a material witness was unlawful. An appeals court reinstated the charges.
Awadallah said he saw the irony of Jews' helping him.
"People like [juror] David Lipschultz knew there was justice to be served," he said. Lipschultz, a nurse, was the lone holdout for acquittal at Awadallah's first trial. "Civil rights isn't just something you read about in history," Lipschultz said in an interview.
Awadallah said his unsettling experience also had an upside; it broadened his contact with non-Muslims. Before his arrest, his life revolved mostly around mosque and school, where he kept to himself.
"The best people who treat foreigners well are Americans. So many nice people have helped me with my English, showing me places and going out together," he said. America "is still a home for freedom. I have no thoughts whatsoever that this is not a good country for Muslims."
hgreza@latimes.com
-
Sunni-vs-Shite in US?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's USA TODAY had an article on a subject that I've never seen addressed before, possible conflict between US Sunni's and Shite's.
Tension between Sunnis, Shiites emerging in USA
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
When Muslim journalist S. Hussain Zaidi toured the USA recently, he was stunned by what he saw: Shiite and Sunni Muslims, whose conflicts have fueled the war in Iraq and tension in the Middle East and beyond, were praying together in U.S. mosques.
"It is something we never see at home," says Zaidi, of India. "They want to kill each other everywhere except in the USA."
For years, Sunnis and Shiites in this country have worked together to build mosques, support charities, register voters and hold massive feasts for Eid al-Fitr (on Oct. 13 this year in the USA), the celebration at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Now there are small signs of tension emerging in America's Muslim community that are raising concerns among many of its leaders. They worry that the bitter divisions that have caused so much bloodshed abroad are beginning to have an impact here. Such concerns are rising at a time when the USA's Muslim community has grown from less than 1 million in 1990 to nearly 2.5 million today, with two of three Muslims born overseas, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.
"You have people who recently arrived from other places where things may have gotten out of hand," says Sheik Hamza Yusuf, the U.S.-born co-founder of the nation's first Muslim seminary, the Zaytuna Institute, in Berkeley, Calif. "It takes just one deranged person with a cousin back home who died in a suicide bombing to create trouble here."
Several recent incidents pointing to rising tension among Sunnis and Shiites here have led Muslim leaders to call on their followers to reach out to those in other sects. None of the incidents has been violent. But Yusuf and other leaders worry that these could be signs of increasingly cool relations between Sunnis and Shiites here or undermine other Americans' views of a religion that has been under particular scrutiny since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Among the incidents:
•Shiite mosques and businesses in the Detroit area were vandalized in January, and a Shiite restaurant owner said he'd received a threatening call mentioning his sect.
Authorities have yet to identify the vandals. But some Shiite Muslims told local news media they believe Sunnis were behind the broken windows and graffiti because Shiites had celebrated publicly when former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, was executed in December by Iraq's Shiite-led government.
•On several Muslim websites in recent months, Sunnis and Shiites from Seattle to Manhattan have traded accusations that they have been rebuffed from worshiping at each other's mosques.
Meanwhile, a small Sunni group known as the Islamic Thinkers Society, which has branded Shiites as heretics and is known for distributing provocative leaflets in New York's Times Square, has gone online to urge its followers to "avoid" contact with a range of Islamic studies scholars and theologians, several at U.S. colleges.
•Muslim Student Associations on a few campuses, such as Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and the University of Michigan at Dearborn, have disagreed so vehemently over which sect could lead prayers that students sometimes have refused to pray together.
The factionalism on those campuses has cooled recently, but many observers worry it could return. They say it's partly a reflection of the rising numbers of Muslim students. "If you have nine Muslims in one MSA, they have to get along," says Muslim sociologist Eboo Patel, 31, of Chicago. "If you have 90, there's enough to break into splinter groups."
Other Muslim activists, scholars and imams, who lead the important Friday communal prayers in the nation's 1,000 mosques, agree that the episodes partly reflect their community's growth and diversity in America.
They fear such incidents could fuel "Islamophobia" — their term for irrational prejudice against anyone Islamic.
"The sad reality is that there are extremists" who selectively misuse Islamic teachings to justify their violence, says Ingrid Mattson, a professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn., and the president of the USA's largest Muslim civic and social group, the Islamic Society of North America.
At the society's annual Labor Day weekend gathering — an event in suburban Chicago that was part academic seminar, part community rally and part reunion for more than 30,000 families — Mattson's keynote speech urged Muslims to "look beyond the seventh-century tribal society into which Islam was first revealed."
A split over succession
Sunnis and Shiites share belief in the five pillars of Islam — submission to God, daily prayer, fasting, charity and a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in any able Muslim's life. But they split over Islam's spiritual leadership.
The schism dates to the death of the prophet Mohammed in A.D. 632. Shiites believe that a relative, Ali ibn Abi Talib, had been named successor and that his son Ali, assassinated in 661, and grandson Hussein inherited the rightful imam's miraculous knowledge and powers.
Sunnis, however, believed the Muslim community should elect its leader based on scholarly merit, not heredity. They chose Abu Bakr, a companion of the prophet, instead.
By 680, the sects were at war. Hussein was killed at the battle of Karbala in modern-day Iraq that year, and to this day, Shiites mourn him and other martyred imams.
Since then, like Christians who waged religious wars across Europe for centuries over how to interpret the Bible or baptize a believer, Muslim sects and the legal schools within them have developed differing views on faith and practice, each certain that salvation is at stake.
Among the world's estimated 1.4 billion Muslims, about 85% are Sunni and about 15% are Shiite.
For all the conflicts among Muslims abroad, those in America historically not only have gotten along, but assimilated to the point that their sects have become secondary. In a 2006 survey of 1,000 Muslim registered voters, about 12% identified themselves as Shiite, 36% said they were Sunni, and 40% called themselves "just a Muslim," according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
"America gives people the unique opportunity to leave cultural, historical baggage behind," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper says. "We can serve as a model to the world of an Islam that is clear, calm, articulate, forthright and civil."
Even so, it's an opportunity a few Muslims in the USA refuse.
"I've seen people fight over how close their toes can be when they kneel in prayer. It's got to stop," says Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), which has seven mosques in the Washington, D.C., area.
ADAMS is primarily Sunni, but Magid has his own way of quelling sectarianism.
"We teach all the scholars and traditions, and we invite Shia and Sunni imams to lead prayers," says the Sudanese-born Magid. "We don't have to fight."
He says he was heartened when 10,000 people at the Islamic Society event cheered for a new Muslim Code of Honor, pledging Sunni and Shiite respect and cooperation.
The code, drafted by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a civil rights group, initially was circulated in Southern California after the Detroit vandalism incidents. It moved quickly to Michigan and then to the leadership of several major U.S. and Canadian Muslim political, social and religious groups.
In June, a half-dozen groups launched an "American Muslim Iraq Peace Initiative" intended to build harmony and make clear that "America cannot be a scene of conflict," says Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR.
-
Move toward 'big-tent Islam'
Besides the efforts to encourage dialogue, there's another phenomenon that could help ward off sectarian friction here: the inexorable force of assimilation.
At a time when rising numbers of American Protestants are attending non-denominational community churches and referring to themselves simply as Christians rather than Baptists, Methodists or Lutherans, a similar thing is happening among Muslims in the USA.
"It's a whole new era," says Patel. "The bulk of the American Muslim community is overwhelmingly young, under age 40. And they are experiencing a huge momentum toward 'big-tent Islam.' "
"We don't want to be defined by the classifications of history and the Middle East. The Quran is our authority," says Salim Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Al-Marayati, a Shiite married to a Sunni, expects to see 10,000 Muslims of all sects celebrate the Eid with the Islamic Center of Southern California next month in Los Angeles.
He calls himself "Sushi," the popular term for a combination of Sunni and Shiite. Once the glib nickname for the children of intermarried couples, it has become shorthand for Muslims who blur sectarian lines.
All that mixing and melding comes to life at the Islamic Society gathering's annual bazaar and the matrimonial meet-up events — the Islamic equivalent of speed dating for singles whose religion bans Western-style dating.
The five-acre bazaar at a convention center in Rosemont, outside Chicago, is a cacophony of blaring music and kaleidoscopic colors, with booths featuring honey, saris, music, travel, bank services, real estate, silver, shampoo, funeral services — and ideas, as well.
There were Sunni and Shiite book stands, promotions for online education programs, and booths for major Muslim political and social groups. Several federal agencies had stands just aisles away from where entrepreneurs hawked T-shirts emblazoned with slogans such as "Frisk Me, I'm Muslim."
At the adjacent Hyatt Hotel grand ballroom, a more familiar form of unity is the focus: marriage.
At each of two "matrimonial events," 200 women, ages 18 and up, were seated at 40 tables, with an empty seat between each woman so 200 men could rotate around the room, chatting with each woman for a few minutes before jumping to the next chair.
Zipping from chair to chair in the ballroom, "I don't think I even had time to ask a girl whether she was Sunni or Shia," says Faizan Arshad, a 24-year-old medical student in Chicago who's discussing a future with a woman he met that day. "To split hairs about sect did not seem the best use of my time," he says in a later e-mail.
Arshad is typical, says Patel, author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim. Patel, a Shiite, is married to a Sunni and says they want their "Sushi" child to grow up "fluent in all the multiple rituals and practices of Islam."
Or perhaps Patel's child will be more like Sarah Soliman, 17, of Cincinnati, daughter of Egyptian-born Sunni parents and a conference organizer for the Islamic Society's teen wing, Muslim Youth of North America.
"I didn't know until I was in middle school that there were any differences among us," Sarah says, "and I still don't get the split."
__________________
-
Feds Recommend Closing Saudi School in Va.
October 18, 2007 - 12:43am
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press Writer
McLEAN, Va. (AP) - A private Islamic school supported by the Saudi government should be shut down until the U.S. government can ensure the school is not fostering radical Islam, a federal panel recommends.
In a report released Thursday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom broadly criticized what it calls a lack of religious freedom in Saudi society and promotion of religious extremism at Saudi schools.
Particular criticism is leveled at the Islamic Saudi Academy, a private school serving nearly 1,000 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in northern Virginia's Fairfax County.
The commission's report says the academy hews closely to the curriculum used at Saudi schools, which they criticize for promoting hatred of and intolerance against Jews, Christians and Shiite Muslims.
"Significant concerns remain about whether what is being taught at the ISA promotes religious intolerance and may adversely affect the interests of the United States," the report states.
The commission, a creation of Congress, has no power to implement policy on its own. Instead, it makes recommendations to other agencies.
The commission does not offer specific criticism of the academy's teachings beyond its concerns that it too closely mimics a typical Saudi education.
The report recommends that the State Department prevail on the Saudi government to shut the school down until the school's textbooks can be reviewed and procedures are put in place to ensure the school's independence form the Saudi Embassy.
Messages left Wednesday with the State Department and the Saudi Embassy were not immediately returned.
Several advocacy groups in recent years have cited examples of inflammatory statements in religious textbooks in Saudi Arabia, including claims that a ninth-grade textbook reads that the hour of judgment will not come "until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them."
Saudi officials said they have worked in recent years to reform the textbooks and the curriculum, but critics say progress has been insufficient.
The school's director-general, Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, said Wednesday that he had not seen the report. But he said the academy has adjusted its curriculum in recent years and removed some of the inflammatory language that had been included in the Saudi text. The school's curriculum may now serve as a model for the Saudi government to use in continuing its reform of Saudi schools, he said.
"There is nothing in our curriculum against any religion," Al-Shabnan said.
He also said he is willing to show the school's curriculum and textbooks to anybody who wants to see them, and he expressed disappointment that the commission did not request materials directly from the school.
"We have an open policy," he said.
He also pointed out that many of the school's teachers are Christian and Jewish.
The commission based its findings in part on a the work of a delegation that traveled to Saudi Arabia this year. The commission asked embassy officials to review the textbooks used in Saudi schools generally and at the Islamic Saudi Academy specifically but did not receive a response.
Commission spokeswoman Judith Ingram said the commission did not request to speak to academy officials because that went beyond the commission's mandate.
The report also criticizes the school's administrative structure, saying it is little more than an offshoot of the Saudi Embassy, with the Saudi ambassador to the United States serving as chairman of the school's board of directors. The structure "raises serious concerns about whether it is in violation of a U.S. law restricting the activities of foreign embassies."
After the Sept. 11 attacks, critics questioned the nature of the religious education at the Saudi academy. The school again found itself in the spotlight in 2005, when a former class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was charged with joining al-Qaida while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate President Bush.
Abu Ali was convicted in federal court and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is appealing his conviction.
(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
__________________
-
Vocabulary of War
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | 10/19/2007
The Left is up in arms over the effort to hold an Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week on American college campuses. The goal of the Week is to alert Americans to the threat from Islamo-Fascism and to focus attention on the violent oppression of Muslim women under theocracies in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other Islamic states. It has been attacked as “Islamophobic” and “racist” by the Muslim Students Association, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and FoxNews Channel’s Alan Colmes. Is this not puzzling? Why would the left – which claims to be anti-fascist, anti-sexist and progressive -- oppose Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week rather than support it? Why isn’t the left outraged by the genital mutilation of women in countries such as Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, or the sanctioning of wife-beating under Islamic law in Pakistan and other Islamic states? Across America, Women’s Studies programs will teach students about the oppression of women in Peoria and Ann Arbor but not in Teheran or Riyadh. Why not?
Why isn’t the left appalled by the jihad – the holy war that has been declared against the West, and by the sanctifying of murderers as holy “martyrs” when Muslim terrorists kill innocent Americans, Christians and Jews? Perhaps it is because the left is engaged in its own jihad or holy war – and against the same targets: the Great Satan, America, and the little one in the Middle East.
As the left’s response shows, it is not only indifferent to the issues of Islamic terror and oppression, which the campus protest hopes to discuss, it is ready to declare war on anyone who wants to raise them.
We are all familiar with the way the left wages its political wars. If someone happens to disagree with its position on racial issues –if one believes, for example, that government enforced racial preferences are misguided or immoral –the left will denounce that person as a “racist.” In our culture, this is the moral equivalent of a bullet in the head. If the president of Harvard cites scientific data that women have different aptitudes for mathematics (lower) and verbal subjects (higher) than men, the left will denounce him as a “sexist,” another cultural bullet in the head. If a person believes that children should not be instructed about sex in public schools at the kindergarten level, the left will denounce her as a “homophobe” – one more mortal blow.
And, so, if students attempt to discuss the holy war that Muslim fascists have declared against the West, the left can be expected to denounce them as Islamophobes, and bigots too. To make the point, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee will send threatening letters to 100 university presidents across the country urging them to deny a platform to students who are practicing “hate speech.” And liberal TV anchors will defend the witch-hunt.
Here is an excerpt from an exchange that took place between FoxNews Channel anchor Alan Colmes and myself, over my efforts to organize Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week:
Alan Colmes: “The words, the phrase ‘Islamo-fascism’ is hate speech. It equates an entire religion with fascism. That’s what people object to. It conflates the two, and it’s wrong.” In other words, students can’t even hold a discussion about “Islamo-Fascism” because the idea itself is hateful, is forbidden.
This argument clearly doesn’t make sense. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is explicitly designed to raise public awareness about the oppression of Muslim women by Islamic radicals who abuse them. How can that be equating all Muslims with oppressors? The term “Islamo-Fascism” was itself coined by moderate Muslims in Algeria who were being slaughtered in the tens of thousands by Islamic radicals bent on jihad. How does using a term invented by Muslims to describe their oppressors equate all Muslims with the fascists?
Does the term “Italian Fascism” equate all Italians with fascism? Or does it just identify those Italians who were followers of Mussolini? Is the term “Italian Fascism” hate speech? What about the term “white racism?” By Colmes’ logic, such a term equates an entire race– including Alan Colmes – with racism, and is therefore hate speech.
Obviously, the attacks on Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week by liberals such as Colmes and radicals such as the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Muslim Students Association are based on reasoning that is absurd. Their only logic is emotional, and the character of that emotion is hatred -- hatred for those who want to raise awareness of the threats we face from radical Islam. This hatred has only one purpose, which is to put a metaphorical bullet in the head of those who oppose the jihad. The purpose is to silence them.
David Horowitz is the author of numerous books including an autobiography, Radical Son, which has been described as “the first great autobiography of his generation.” It chronicles his odyssey from radical activism in the ‘60s to his current position as the head of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and who one journalist has called "the left's most articulate nemesis." His book, The Art of Political War was described by White House political strategist Karl Rove as “The perfect guide to winning on the political battlefield.” Left Illusions is an anthology of 40 years of his writings. His latest books are The Professors, which documents the debasement of the academic curriculum by tenured leftists, The Shadow Party, which describes the radical left's control of the Democratic Party's electoral machine and Indoctrination U., which is an in-depth look at how indoctrination has taken the place of education in today's college classrooms.
__________________
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” - Winston Churchill
-
WSJ
Mistrial Hurts Bid to Thwart Funding of Extremists
By GLENN R. SIMPSON and EVAN PEREZ
October 23, 2007; Page A8
In a setback for the government's efforts to cut off fund raising for Islamic extremists, a federal judge in Dallas declared a mistrial on most charges in the largest U.S. terror-financing case.
Prosecutors are expected to retry the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and five of its leaders after an unusual courtroom dispute when three jurors disagreed with some of the acquittals being read by a jury foreman.
U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish sent the jurors back to resolve their differences, but after about an hour the jurors told him 11 of the 12 felt that a unanimous decision couldn't be reached on most of the charges. The jury had agreed on some acquittals. But on the others the judge declared a mistrial.
The Justice Department, citing a gag order by the judge, declined to comment. Defense lawyers said the mistrial showed the government's case is fatally flawed.
It isn't clear whether the collapse of the case will affect how the Justice Department handles other pending cases involving alleged terror actions. One such case involves the Islamic American/African Relief Agency, which, along with five of its employees, was indicted earlier this year on charges including money laundering and violating sanctions against Iraq, prior to the U.S. invasion. The Treasury Department designated the charity as a terror group.
The Holy Land foundation was one of the biggest Islamic charities in the U.S. before it was raided and shut down by the Treasury Department in December 2001. It said that it focused on disaster relief, and aiding Muslim children and families left homeless or poor by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
FBI agents and Israeli officials, however, testified in the two-month trial that Holy Land funneled millions of dollars to Hamas, which has carried out suicide bombings in Israel. The U.S. government designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1995, making financial transactions with it illegal. President Bush announced the seizure of Holy Land's assets in December 2001, calling the action "another step in the war on terrorism."
Prosecutors put on a lengthy, complex case alleging a wide-ranging conspiracy by Islamic militants stretching back to the 1980s. Charges included material support for a terrorist organization, money laundering, racketeering and tax violations.
Defense lawyers said the activists were seeking to provide humanitarian aid to their distressed brethren in Gaza and the West Bank, and emphasized the lack of any direct connection between money raised in the U.S. and suicide bombings in Israel.
The case was closely followed by other Islamic groups in the U.S. and the greater Islamic community, which says Muslims in this country have come under unfair scrutiny since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"It seems clear that the majority of the jury agreed with many observers of the trial who believe the charges were built on fear, not facts, " said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "This is a stunning defeat for prosecutors and a victory for America's legal system."
Prosecutors believe they may have relied too heavily on witnesses and evidence from Israel that was discounted by the jury, and that the prosecution was unnecessarily complex when the laws are written broadly enough to present various acts as clear and simple violations, according to a person familiar with their thinking.
"Conspiracy theories just don't go over well in jury cases," counterterrorism analyst Douglas Farah said.
Write to Glenn R. Simpson at glenn.simpson@wsj.com and Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com
-
Here's the NYTimes' version:
DALLAS, Oct. 22 — A federal judge declared a mistrial on Monday in what was widely seen as the government’s flagship terrorism-financing case after prosecutors failed to persuade a jury to convict five leaders of a Muslim charity on any charges, or even to reach a verdict on many of the 197 counts.
Noor Elashi, daughter of one of the defendants, Ghassan Elashi, said after the trial ended that she considered him a hero.
The case, involving the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and five of its backers, is the government’s largest and most complex legal effort to shut down what it contends is American financing for terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
President Bush announced he was freezing the charity’s assets in December 2001, saying that the radical Islamic group Hamas had “obtained much of the money it pays for murder abroad right here in the United States.”
But at the trial, the government did not accuse the foundation, which was based in a Dallas suburb, of paying directly for suicide bombings. Instead, the prosecution said, the foundation supported terrorism by sending more than $12 million to charitable groups, known as zakat committees, which build hospitals and feed the poor.
Prosecutors said the committees were controlled by Hamas and contributed to terrorism by helping Hamas spread its ideology and recruit supporters. The government relied on Israeli intelligence agents, using pseudonyms, to testify in support of this theory.
But prosecutors appeared to have made little headway in convincing the jury.
The case involved 197 counts, including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. It also involved years of investigation and preparation, almost two months of testimony and more than 1,000 exhibits, including documents, wiretaps, transcripts and videotapes dug up in a backyard in Virginia.
After 19 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted one of the five individual defendants on all but one charge, on which it deadlocked. A majority of the jurors also appeared ready to acquit two other defendants of most charges, and could not reach a verdict on charges against the two principal organizers and the foundation itself, which had been the largest Muslim charity in the United States until the government froze its assets in late 2001.
James T. Jacks, the first assistant United States attorney, said in court that the government would retry the case. Both prosecutors and defense lawyers have been barred from discussing the case in the press, and Chief Judge A. Joe Fish said that order continued in force.
The decision is “a stunning setback for the government, there’s no other way of looking at it,” said Matthew D. Orwig, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal here who was, until recently, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Texas.
“This is a message, a two-by-four in the middle of the forehead,” said Mr. Orwig, who was appointed by President Bush and served on the United States attorney general’s advisory subcommittee on terrorism and national security. “If this doesn’t get their attention, they are just in complete denial,” he said of Justice Department officials, who he said might not have recognized how difficult such cases are to prosecute.
David D. Cole, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, said the jury’s verdict called into question the government’s tactics in freezing the assets of charities using secret evidence that the charities cannot see, much less rebut. When, at trial, prosecutors “have to put their evidence on the table, they can’t convict anyone of anything,” he said. “It suggests the government is really pushing beyond where the law justifies them going.”
And Jimmy Gurulé, who was an under secretary of the Treasury when that agency froze Holy Land’s assets, described the outcome as “the continuation of what I now see as a trend of disappointing legal defeats” in terror-financing cases. Two previous cases, in Illinois and in Florida, ended with hung juries and relatively minor plea deals, he said.
In the Holy Land case, defense lawyers told the jury that their clients did not support terrorism but were humanitarians trying to lessen suffering among impoverished Palestinians. Though their clients may have expressed support for Hamas, the defense argued, that was before the United States government designated it as a terrorist organization in 1995.
The outcome of the trial emerged during a morning of confusion for jurors and those on both sides of the case, who had been waiting to hear the verdict since the jury returned it on Oct. 18. It was sealed until Monday because Chief Judge Fish had been out of town.
In the verdict, the jury said it failed to reach a decision on any of the charges against the charity and two of its main organizers, but acquitted three defendants on almost all counts.
------------
But in a highly unusual development, when the judge polled the jurors on Monday, three members said that verdict did not represent their views. He sent them off to deliberate again; after about 40 minutes, they said they could not continue. In the end, one defendant, Mohammed El-Mezain, was acquitted on all but one charge, involving conspiracy, on which the jury failed to reach a verdict. A mistrial was declared on that count, and on all the other counts involving the other defendants.
The exact nature of the jurors’ disputes, and their reasoning in the cases, remained unclear after the verdict. Chief Judge Fish barred reporters from trying to contact the jurors, although he said he would provide jurors with reporters’ telephone numbers if they wanted to discuss the case.
One juror said the panel had found little evidence against three defendants and was evenly split on charges against Shukri Abu Baker, the former charity’s president, and Ghassan Elashi, its chairman.
“I understand there’s no magical mystery check with ‘Hamas’ written on it, but over all the case was pretty weak,” said the juror, William Neal, 33, an art director from Dallas. “There really was nothing there for me, no concrete evidence.” Mr. Neal said the government should not retry the case — a call picked up by Holy Land’s supporters, who packed the courtroom during the trial, and who carried some defendants around on their shoulders outside the courthouse chanting “Praise God” in Arabic.
“The government spent 13 years and came back empty-handed,” said Khalil Meek, who is president of the Muslim Legal Fund of America and spokesman for an alliance called Hungry for Justice. “I would call that a victory — an overwhelming defeat for the government.”
Lawyers for some defendants said their clients were being prosecuted because of their family ties to Hamas leaders. One defendant, Mufid Abdulqader, is the half-brother of Khalid Mishal, a Hamas leader who has been designated as a terrorist by the United States government.
Another Hamas official and designated terrorist, Mousa abu Marzook, is married to a cousin of Mr. Elashi, who was sentenced last year to almost seven years in prison for having financial dealings with Mr. Marzook and for violating export laws.
Mr. Elashi’s daughter Noor, who was in the courtroom every day during the trial, said she considered her father a hero. “He was singled out for feeding and clothing and educating the children of Palestine,” she said. “Giving charity to the Palestinian people has become a crime in this country.”
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jersey City worker triggerman in Pakistan assassination
NY DAILY NEWS
Friday, November 2nd 2007
Akhtar Hussain Muawia worked in a Jersey City bodega following his alleged assassination of Shia leader Mahmood Shah in Pakistan in 1997.
The store, run by Muawai’s brother-in-law, is suspected of laundering money for a terror group.
A Jersey City grocery clerk had a secret life before he started stocking shelves: He was a Pakistani assassin wanted for a decade-old murder, law enforcement sources said.
Akhtar Hussain Muawia sneaked into the country under an assumed name less than a year after the murder of a top Shia leader, moved in with his sister and worked in his brother-in-law's Mashaallah Grocery, the sources said.
The NYPD unmasked Muawia several months ago when a 30-year-old civilian analyst discovered his true identity, sources said.
Muawia worshiped at the Sunni muslim mosque in Jersey City.
Muawia was arrested in May as the alleged gunman who killed Shia leader Mahmood Shah in Pakistan in 1997, sources said. He is in federal custody fighting deportation.
It's believed the three-aisle bodega laundered money for the terrorist organization Sunni Sipah-e-Sahaba/Pakistan (SSP).
Muawia was allegedly a favored assassin with the SSP, which has been blamed for the massacres of scores of Pakistani civilians as it pushed a pro-Sunni, anti-American agenda.
An SSP cell was first discovered in New York City in 2003, when investigators raided a Brooklyn apartment and found recruitment documents and membership forms, sources said.
Another SSP member was deported after being caught in 2004 photographing the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges.
Federal immigration officials arrested Muawia's brother-in-law, Mumtaz Ahmed, 47, last October, as part of a money-laundering investigation, sources said. Muawia was arrested at the same time and charged with being in the country illegally. Ahmed was eventually deported, but Muawia was let go.
Aside from his brush with immigration, Muawia remained under the radar until the NYPD analyst began piecing together his history in February last year.
By March this year, the Ivy League analyst felt he had pulled together enough information to prove the Jersey City grocery clerk was the wanted assassin.
A month later, the NYPD tracked Muawia to Jersey City, and put him under surveillance. The NYPD contacted the Newark Joint Terrorism Task Force and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which arrested him in early May.
-
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=58616
GLOBAL JIHAD
D.C. imam declares Muslim takeover-plan
Washington-based cleric working toward 'Islamic State of North America' by 2050
posted: November 10, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Art Moore
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Logo of D.C. imam's movement* -- *picture on original site
A Washington, D.C., imam states explicitly on the website for his organization that he is part of a movement working toward replacement of the U.S. government with "the Islamic State of North America" by 2050.
With branches in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Philadelphia, the group As-Sabiqun – or the Vanguard – is under the leadership of Abdul Alim Musa in the nation's capital.
Musa's declaration of his intention to help lead a takeover of America was highlighted by noted Islam observer Robert Spencer on his website Jihad Watch.
Spencer told WND that figures such as Musa should not be ignored, "Not because they have the power to succeed, but because they may commit acts of violence to achieve their purpose."
Musa's website declares: "Those who engage in this great effort require a high level of commitment and determination. We are sending out a call to the believers: Join with us in this great struggle to change the world!"
Musa launched the group in the early 1990s at the Al-Islam mosque in Philadelphia. His group says it is influenced by the writings and life work of Muslim thinkers and leaders such as Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Iranian revolutionary Ayatollah Khomenei.
The writings of Al-Banna and Qutb figured prominently in al-Qaida's formation.
Musa's organization says its leadership "has delivered numerous speeches in the United States and abroad, contributing their analyses and efforts to solve contemporary problems in the Muslim world and in urban America."
Abdul Alim Musa
"The paramount goal of the movement is the establishment of Islam as a complete way of life in America," the group declares. "This ultimate goal is predicated on the belief – shared by many Muslims worldwide – that Islam is fully capable of producing a working and just social, political, economic order."
The groups says it does not "advocate participation in the American political process as an ideal method for advancing Islamic issues in the U.S.; instead, it believes in a strong and active outreach to the people of the U.S."
Spencer told WND he does not know of any direct influence Musa has on prominent Muslim leaders or on U.S. policymakers, but he says it's "unclear how much 'mainstream' Muslim leaders harbor similar hopes – because no one dares question them about it."
As WND reported, the founder of the leading Islamic lobby group CAIR, the Council on Islamic-American Relations, reportedly told a group of Muslims in California they are in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam's rule over the country. CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper also has said, in a newspaper interview, he hopes to see an Islamic government over the U.S. some day, brought about not by violence but through "education."
In London last summer, as WND reported, Muslims gathered in front of the London Central Mosque to applaud fiery preachers prophesying the overthrow of the British government – a future vision that encompasses an Islamic takeover of the White House and the rule of the Quran over America.
Musa says he wants to avoid what he calls an "absolutist" outlook on "the advancement of Muslims."
His group's philosophy is to stress unity between the various streams of Islam "in the attainment of common goals."
Although As-Sabiqun is a Sunni movement, it has publicly voiced support for Shia movements and organizations such as the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah, which waged war on Israel in the summer of 2006.
Musa, the group says, repeatedly has "stressed that the tendency by some Muslims to focus on the differences between Sunni and Shia Islam at this juncture in history is counterproductive to the goals of the Islamic movement as a whole."
The group says it encourages social-political advancement concurrent with a program of spiritual and moral development according to the Quran and Sunnah, compilations of stories from the life of Islam's prophet Muhammad.
The group says it has a six-point plan of action which is implemented at each location where a branch of the movement is established.
Establishing a mosque "as a place to worship Allah in congregation and as a center of spiritual and moral training."
"Calling the general society" to embrace Islam.
Establishing a full-time school "that raises children with a strong Islamic identity so they can, as future Islamic leaders, effectively meet and deal with the challenges of growing up in the West."
Establishing businesses to "make the movement financially stable and independent."
Establishing "geographical integrity by encouraging Muslims of the community to live in close proximity" to the mosque.
Establishing "social welfare institutions to respond to the need for spiritual and material assistance within the community as well as the general society."
In addition to daily classes, each mosque in the movement "also provides youth mentorship, marriage counseling, a prison outreach program, and employment assistance for ex-convicts."
As-Sabiqun says its branch in Los Angeles "was instrumental in creating a free health clinic in cooperation with other Islamic groups. The headquarters branch in D.C. has developed scout programs for young members of the community."
The group says the inspiration for its name comes from Quran, 9:100:
"The vanguard (as-Sabiqun) of Islam – the first of those who forsook their homes, and of those who gave them aid, and also those who follow them in all good deeds – well-pleased is Allah with them, as are they with Him: For them hath He prepared Gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein forever: that is the supreme Felicity."
-
GET RSS FEEDS DIGG THIS
MSN Money Homepage
MSN Money Investing
advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR
1. China Freezes Lending to Curb Investing Frenzy
2. Buffett Bats for Rodriguez
3. Oil-Supply Limit May Loom, Officials Say
4. Commentary: Adieu to the 'Asean Way'
5. Chrysler Considers Cutting Dealers
MORE
PEOPLE WHO READ THIS...
Also read these stories:
People who like this also like...
Emerging-Market Strength Rewrites Rules
Crunch Worries May Go Way of Y2K
Hedge Funds Shake Off Summer Jitters
Turkey, Russia Values Beckon
Oil Hints Metal May Rise
What's This?
COMPANIES
Dow Jones, Reuters
Dow Jones & Co. Inc. (DJ)
PRICE
CHANGE
59.69
0.06
2:14p.m.
Google Inc. Cl A (GOOG)
PRICE
CHANGE
625.96
-7.67
2:19p.m.
Washington Group International Inc. (WGII)
PRICE
CHANGE
64.63
0.41
3/26
* At Market Close
Personalized Home Page Setup
Put headlines on your homepage about the companies, industries and topics that interest you most.
Why a Fund's Piety Is Now Paying Off
Islamic Principles Help
Amana Income Avoid
Banks, Other Risky Bets
By CAROLYN CUI
November 19, 2007; Page C1
The little-known mutual fund Amana Income Fund is one of this year's top performers. It can thank Islamic law for that.
The Amana fund is a specialized fund that invests based on Islamic religious principles. That means it must avoid, among other things, investing in banks or other firms that earn money by charging interest. Nor can it invest in companies carrying lots of debt.
This year these restrictions are paying off. The fund, which seeks well-established companies paying dividends, has largely avoided the mortgage-related carnage hitting the markets since the summer. The Amana Income Fund has returned 13% since the start of this year, and is ranked in the top 2% of its category. With shares of many banks and brokerage houses having plunged amid concerns over losses on mortgage-related securities, the average stock income fund is up only 3.6%, according to fund tracker Lipper Inc.
"It's good that you don't have [banks and financial companies] in periods like this year," says Nicholas Kaiser of Saturna Capital Corp., Bellingham, Wash., which manages the Amana funds. "It's great to be out of it."
Indeed, most mutual funds that invest based on Islamic principles have largely weathered the recent credit turmoil. Two Islamic funds offered by Azzad Asset Management, smaller than the Amana and its $333.1 million of assets, also are beating the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index since the start of this year, after trailing the broad market for several years.
Dow Jones Islamic Fund is up 13.3% year to date, which ranks it in the top 4% of its category of large- market-capitalization stocks. The fund, managed by Allied Asset Advisors, tracks the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index, which is a product of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
A sister Amana fund, Amana Growth Fund, isn't doing quite as well. The fund has $680 million of assets and invests in companies whose earnings are expected to rise faster than the broader market. It has returned 11.5% this year. While that beats the broader market, it still trails its growth-type peers by 1.4 percentage points.
Mr. Kaiser says the fund is basically looking for growth stocks that have such "value" characteristics as "reasonable" share price-to-earnings multiples, but this year the best performers were highflying stocks like Google Inc. "So some of our stocks didn't do well this year," he says.
Apart from financial stocks, Islamic funds, like other faith-based funds, also screen out so-called sin stocks, including alcohol, tobacco, gambling and weapons makers. They also must shun companies in pork-processing businesses and companies with a debt level higher or equal to 33%.
These rules eliminate from consideration about half of all the publicly traded stocks in the U.S. Out of the Russell 3000 Index -- which includes the 3,000 largest U.S. companies based on market capitalization and represents about 98% of U.S. stocks -- Amana has about 1,500 companies to choose from. By comparison, KLD Research & Analytics, a social-investing research firm, contains 2,100 stocks in its broad index.
Faith-based or socially conscious mutual funds -- there are numerous varieties -- tend to underperform the broader market. That is often because their blanket prohibition of certain sectors means they automatically rule out some good-performing stocks. At the same time, the added stock-picking research required by their social or religious criteria increases the cost of running such funds.
Amana funds have been a powerful rebuttal to this notion. In the past five years, both are among the top-returning funds in their respective categories, returning about 20% on an annualized basis.
Some of Amana's investment rules -- for instance, low turnover in buying and selling stocks, and aversion to debt -- make investing sense for long-term investors, says David Kathman, an analyst with Morningstar Inc.
Because of the low-debt restriction, Amana has found some good investments. Its growth fund started buying Washington Group International Inc., a construction firm, in January 2006 at $55 a share after Mr. Kaiser spotted its zero-debt level. "This looks good for us," he recalls saying. Amana recently sold the stock at $91.50 after the shares rallied on a takeover offer.
• The News: One of the top-performing mutual funds this year is Amana Income Fund, a little-known fund that adheres to Islamic principles.
• Behind the Scenes: Because Amana must avoid companies that earn money by charging interest or those with large debt loads, it has been largely spared fallout from the credit crunch.
• Bottom Line, for Now: Amana's returns belie the tendency of faith-based or socially conscious mutual funds to underperform the broader market.The Islamic rules have helped Amana dodge some bullets. Enron Corp., which then fit growth-fund criteria, was ruled out from Amana Growth Fund's holdings -- before the scandal was exposed -- because its debt level exceeded the 33% threshold, Mr. Kaiser says.
Saturna Capital uses guidelines set up and endorsed by the Fiqh Council of North America, an organization of religious scholars dealing with issues concerning Muslims in North America.
Islamic law also forbids frequent trading of shares, since that is seen as a form of gambling. As a result, the turnover in the portfolios at Amana funds averages around just 10% each year, compared with 50% or more at a typical mutual fund. Lack of turnover is a contributor to performance, since shareholders are taxed for capital gains when managers sell stocks and make gains, and because of lower trading fees.
The 61-year-old Mr. Kaiser, who isn't Muslim himself, is concerned about the subprime spillover to his funds. As a big part of the U.S. economy "is based on home buying and loans -- that's going to drop off quite a bit," he says, leading people to cut consumption in retails and gasoline. "We have a lot of [those] stocks in our portfolios. If we have a major recession, I don't think we are immune from it just because we are not in those [financial] sectors," he said.
Amana's consistent performance appears to be attracting more non-Muslim investors. In the past 18 months, the two funds have increased from $288 million in assets to more than $1 billion combined. Of course, it is impossible to know for certain the religious persuasion of any given investor in a mutual fund, but by their names "we can pretty much tell they are non-Muslims," Mr. Kaiser says. "They just went for performance."
-
CAIR Secretly Meets with Top Dem to Change Un-Indicted Co-Conspirator Designation
CAIR seeks removal of label in terrorism case
By Bill Gertz
November 21, 2007
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. has been asked by a Muslim group to pressure the Justice Department on its behalf. (Getty Images)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is seeking help from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. to pressure the Justice Department to change the group's status as a co-conspirator in a terrorism case.
CAIR officials recently met with Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, and then wrote a letter asking him to lobby the new attorney general on behalf of the group, and to hold hearings.
CAIR is among several hundred Muslim groups listed as unindicted co-conspirators in a recent federal terrorism trial in Dallas into activities by the Holy Land Foundation Inc., a group linked to funding the Palestinian Hamas terrorist group. The trial recently ended in a mistrial and prosecutors have said they plan to re-try the case. Despite its uncertain outcome, the trial has produced a large amount of information and evidence identifying U.S. and foreign groups sympathetic to or direct supporters of international Islamist terrorists. A 1991 internal memorandum from the radical Muslim Brotherhood identified 29 front groups, including the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), that are part of a covert program by the Brotherhood in the United States to subvert American society.
CAIR officials have requested that Mr. Conyers ask the Justice Department to explain why it publicly identified the 306 co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial.
"Those on the list suffer negatively as a result of the label 'unindicted co-conspirator' as it impresses upon the typical member of the American public that those listed are involved in criminal activity," the group said in a letter to Mr. Conyers. "In reality, those so named have neither been charged with a crime nor offered any recourse for challenging the allegation."
The group said the conspirator designation is being used by counterterrorism advocates to block government funds from being used to conduct outreach programs to Muslim groups. Pending fiscal 2008 legislation would block the Justice Department from using any funds for participation in conferences sponsored by a group or person identified by the government as a criminal unindicted co-conspirator. Critics in Congress opposed the Justice Department's involvement in a conference sponsored by ISNA in September because the group was linked to the Holy Land Foundation case.
CAIR's letter to Mr. Conyers said that "you remember many of these abusive practices from the McCarthy era and the civil rights movement."
Melanie Roussell, a spokeswoman for the Judiciary Committee, had no comment.
CAIR recently petitioned U.S. District Court Chief Judge A. Joe Fish in a "friend of the court" motion to remove it from the listing, saying it caused a decline in membership and fundraising. After the mistrial, Judge Fish forwarded CAIR's request to U.S. Judge Jorge A. Solis, who has not yet issued a ruling. The group stated in its appeal that linkage to the Holy Land Foundation has "impeded its ability to collect donations" because donors fear contributing to a terrorist group.
Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said the secret collaboration between CAIR and Mr. Conyers raises concerns over the lawmaker's support for "a group unambiguously proven to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas infrastructure."
"This combination demonstrates the degree to which radical Islamic groups have insinuated themselves into the highest reaches of the U.S. government by using deceit," he said.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, citing a gag order issued in the case.
• Audrey Hudson contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/artic...111210046/1002
-
News & Analysis
019/07 November 22, 2007
CAIR: "Labeled"
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has petitioned a court to have the label of "un-indicted co-conspirator" removed. CAIR, among many other Islamist groups, was labeled an un-indicted co-conspirator in the recent Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial held in Texas.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071121/NATION/111210046/1002
CAIR wrote to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers asking for help in pressuring the Justice Department to remove the designation. CAIR is also asking why the Justice Department publicly named all 306 co-conspirators in the HLF indictment.
CAIR, the nation's premier apologist for Islamist terror and Islamist terrorists, is upset because the government made the very obvious connection between CAIR and terrorism.
The only mystery here is why it took the government so long to acknowledge what has been common knowledge for many years.
CAIR goes on to complain that the designation of un-indicted co-conspirator interferes with its ability to qualify for government funds for outreach programs as pending 2008 legislation would block the Justice Department from providing funds to any group or person identified as a criminal un-indicted co-conspirator.
Imagine that! It will take a federal law to implement common sense - that the government should not be providing money to a criminal un-indicted co-conspirator. Is this to mean that current law allows the Justice Department to provide funds to such groups or persons?
CAIR's letter to Conyers alluded to a civil rights connection by saying, ".you remember many of these abusive practices from the McCarthy era and the civil rights movement."
CAIR, once again, attempts to tie Muslims into the America's Civil Rights era, completely overlooking the fact that Muslims in America come in all colors and that the Civil Rights era was a justified struggle by black Americans for civil rights. Is CAIR being disingenuous by preying on Congressman Conyers African-American Ancestry?
Let's hope that Conyers rightfully rejects CAIR's ridiculous comparison.
While it may be too soon to figure out what Representative Conyers will do on behalf of CAIR, perhaps he will listen to the words of Sue Myrick, Representative of North Carolina, when she responded to some questions put to her by noted author Paul Sperry in the on-line edition of Investor's Business Daily:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1502&status=article&id=280364244485437
(Note: Rep. Myrick is founder of the House Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus, a group made up of 118 Democrat and Republican Representatives)
IBD: What persuaded you to start the Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus, and what do you hope to accomplish?
Myrick: I decided to start the caucus out of a deep frustration, because President Bush does not talk to the American people about the long-term threat of radical Islamofascism infiltration in America. Since 9/11, I've tried to get the president and several members of his administration to talk to the American people about the dangerous enemy that we're facing.
IBD: Are there any Muslim groups with which federal or other government officials - as well as businesses and nonprofits - should think twice about doing outreach or interfaith activities?
Myrick: I know of some Muslim nongovernmental organizations that are doing good things, such as the Islamic Supreme Council of America, the American Islamic Congress and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
However, groups such as Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and others have a proven record of senior officials being indicted and either imprisoned or deported from the U.S. Just to name a few: Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR, is serving 80 months in prison; Randall "Ismail" Royer, the communications director for CAIR, is serving 20 years in prison; and Bassam Khafagi, the director of CAIR's community relations, has been arrested and deported.
There was a lot of evidence presented at the recent Holy Land Foundation trial, which exposed CAIR, ISNA and others as front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood.
What does Myrick know that Conyers may not?
Let's hope that Myrick makes the time to bring Conyers up to speed about CAIR and CAIR's ties to Islamist terrorists and terrorist groups.
Congressman Conyers should do the right thing and place CAIR's letter where it belongs, in the trash can. CAIR is not deserving of a response from a member of the People's Congress on stationary paid for by the people.
We're sure we speak for the majority of Americans when we say we look forward to the day when the "un" is removed from CAIR's well-deserved title of "un-indicted criminal co-conspirator".
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
-
Its the NY Times, so caveat lector:
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: November 28, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS — Sometimes when Asma Haidara, a 12-year-old Somali immigrant, wants to shop at Target or ride the Minneapolis light-rail system, she puts her Girl Scout sash over her everyday clothes, which usually include a long skirt worn over pants as well as a swirling head scarf.
Girls from predominantly Muslim Troop 3119 in Minneapolis at an indoor cookout on a rainy day.
She has discovered that the trademark green sash — with its American flag, troop number (3009) and colorful merit badges — reduces the number of glowering looks she draws from people otherwise bothered by her traditional Muslim dress.
“When you say you are a girl scout, they say, ‘Oh, my daughter is a girl scout, too,’ and then they don’t think of you as a person from another planet,” said Asma, a slight, serious girl with a bright smile. “They are more comfortable about sitting next to me on the train.”
Scattered Muslim communities across the United States are forming Girl Scout troops as a sort of assimilation tool to help girls who often feel alienated from the mainstream culture, and to give Muslims a neighborly aura. Boy Scout troops are organized with the same inspiration, but often the leap for girls is greater because many come from conservative cultures that frown upon their participating in public physical activity.
By teaching girls to roast hot dogs or fix a flat bicycle tire, Farheen Hakeem, one troop leader here, strives to help them escape the perception of many non-Muslims that they are different.
Scouting is a way of celebrating being American without being any less Muslim, Ms. Hakeem said.
“I don’t want them to see themselves as Muslim girls doing this ‘Look at us, we are trying to be American,’ ” she said. “No, no, no, they are American. It is not an issue of trying.”
The exact number of Muslim girl scouts is unknown, especially since, organizers say, most Muslim scouts belong to predominantly non-Muslim troops. Minneapolis is something of an exception, because a few years ago the Girl Scout Council here surveyed its shrinking enrollment and established special outreach coordinators for various minorities. Some 280 Muslim girls have joined about 10 predominantly Muslim troops here, said Hodan Farah, who until September was the Scout coordinator for the Islamic community.
Nationally, the Boy Scouts of America count about 1,500 youths in 100 clubs of either Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts sponsored by Islamic organizations, said Gregg Shields, a spokesman for the organization.
The Girl Scouts’ national organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., has become flexible in recent years about the old trappings associated with suburban, white, middle-class Christian scouting. Many troops have done away with traditions like saying grace before dinner at camp, and even the Girl Scout Promise can be retooled as needed.
“On my honor I will try to serve Allah and my country, to help people and live by the Girl Scout law,” eight girls from predominantly Muslim Troop 3119 in Minneapolis recited on one recent rainy Sunday before setting off for a cookout in a local park.
Some differences were readily apparent, of course. At the cookout, Ms. Hakeem, a former Green Party candidate for mayor, negotiated briefly with one sixth grader, Asha Gardaad, who was fasting for the holy month of Ramadan.
“If you break your fast, will your mother get mad at me?” Ms. Hakeem asked. Asha shook her head emphatically no.
The troop leader distributed supplies: hot dogs followed by s’mores for dessert. All was halal — that is, in adherence with the dietary requirements of Islamic law — with the hot dogs made of beef rather than pork.
It was Asha’s first s’more. “It’s delicious!” she exclaimed, licking sticky goop off her fingers as thunder crashed outside the park shelter with its roaring fire. “It’s a good way to break my fast!”
Women trying to organize Girl Scout troops in Muslim communities often face resistance from parents, particularly immigrants from an Islamic culture like that of Somalia, where tradition dictates that girls do housework after school.
In Nashville, where Ellisha King of Catholic Charities helps run a Girl Scout troop on a shoestring to assist Somali children with acculturation, most parents vetoed a camping trip, for example. They figured years spent as refugees in tents was enough camping, Ms. King recalled.
But a more common concern among parents is that the Girl Scouts will somehow dilute Islamic traditions.
1
2
===============
To Muslim Girls, Scouts Offer a Chance to Fit In
Published: November 28, 2007
(Page 2 of 2)
“They are afraid you are going to become a blue-eyed, blond-haired Barbie doll,” said Asma, the girl who at times makes her sash everyday attire. Asma noted that her mother had asked whether she was joining some Christian cabal. “She was afraid that if we hang out with Americans too much,” the young immigrant said, “it will change our culture or who we are.”
Farheen Hakeem, troop leader, led girls in the reciting of the Girl Scout Promise.
Troop leaders win over parents by explaining that various activities incorporate Muslim traditions. In Minneapolis, for instance, Ms. Hakeem helped develop the Khadija Club, named for the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, which exposes older girls to the history of prominent Muslim women.
Suboohi Khan, 10, won her Bismallah (in the name of God) ribbon by writing 4 of God’s 99 names in Arabic calligraphy and decorating them, as well as memorizing the Koran’s last verse, used for protection against gossips and goblins. Otherwise, she said, her favorite badge involved learning “how to make body glitter and to see which colors look good on us” and “how to clean up our nails.”
Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. does not issue religious badges, but endorses those established by independent groups. Gulafshan K. Alavi started one such group, the Islamic Committee on Girl Scouting, in Stamford, Conn., in 1990. The demand for information about Muslim badges, Mrs. Alavi said, has grown to the point where this year she had the pamphlet listing her club’s requirements printed rather than sending out a photocopied flier. She also shipped up to 400 patches awarded to girls who study Ramadan traditions, she said, the most ever.
Predominantly Muslim troops do accept non-Muslim members. In Minneapolis, Alexis Eastlund, 10, said other friends sometimes pestered her about belonging to a mostly Muslim troop, although she has known many of its members half her life.
“I never really thought of them as different,” Alexis said. “But other girls think that it is weird that I am Christian and hang out with a bunch of Muslim girls. I explain to them that they are the same except they have to wear a hijab on their heads.”
Ms. Farah, who served as an outreach coordinator in Minneapolis and remains active in the Scouts, said she used the organization as a platform to try to ease tensions in the community. Scraps between African-American and Somali girls prompted her to start a research project demonstrating to them that their ancestors all came from roughly the same place.
Ms. Hakeem, the troop leader, said she tried to find projects to improve the girls’ self-esteem, like going through the Eddie Bauer catalog to cut out long skirts and other items that adhere to Islamic dress codes.
All in all, scouting gives the girls a rare sense of belonging, troop leaders and members say.
“It is kind of cool to say that you are a girl scout,” Asma said. “It is good to have something to associate yourself with other Americans. I don’t want people to think that I am a hermit, that I live in a cave, isolated and afraid of change. I like to be part of society. I like being able to say that I am a girl scout just like any other normal girl.”
-
I've seen the number that this site uses of 7 million Muslims in the US number plausibly challenged, but overall some interesting data in here.
http://www.allied-media.com/AM/default.htm
-
Katherine Kersten: Normandale's 'meditation room' is home to a single faith
By Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune
Last update: December 16, 2007 - 8:53 PM
Last week, I visited a Muslim place of worship. A schedule for Islam's five daily prayers was posted at the entrance, near a sign requesting that shoes be removed. Inside, a barrier divided men's and women's prayer space, an arrow informed worshippers of the direction of Mecca, and literature urged women to cover their faces.
Sound like a mosque?
The place I'm describing is the "meditation room" at Normandale Community College, a 9,200-student public institution in Bloomington.
Until recently, the room was the school's only usable racquetball court. College administrators converted the court into a meditation room when construction forced closure of the previous meditation room.
A row of chest-high barriers splits the room into sex-segregated sections. In the smaller, enclosed area for women sits a pile of shawls and head-coverings. Literature titled "Hijaab [covering] and Modesty" was prominently placed there, instructing women on proper Islamic behavior.
They should cover their faces and stay at home, it said, and their speech should not "be such that it is heard."
"Enter into Islaam completely and accept all the rulings of Islaam," the tract read in part. "It should not be that you accept what entertains your desires and leave what opposes your desires; this is from the manners of the Jews."
"[T]he Jews and the Christians" are described as "the enemies of Allaah's religion." The document adds: "Remember that you will never succeed while you follow these people."
A poster on the room's door advertised a local lecture on "marriage from an Islamic perspective," with "useful tips for marital harmony from the Prophet's ... life." Other fliers invited students to join the Normandale Islamic Forum, or participate in Ramadan celebrations.
One thing was missing from the meditation room: evidence of any faith but Islam. No Bible, no crucifix, no Torah.
Normandale's administration is facilitating the room's Islamization. The college's building crew erected the barrier separating men's and women's sections, according to Ralph Anderson, dean of student affairs. College officials also posted signs at the room's entrance asking students to remove shoes -- a Muslim custom before prayers. This was "basically a courtesy to Muslim students," Anderson said.
Despite the room's Islamic atmosphere, Anderson says it "is open to everyone."
Why is the meditation room segregated by sex? "Muslim students prefer that areas be divided into male and female," he said. "Other students don't care."
Doesn't sex-segregation present a constitutional problem in a public educational institution? "I don't want to comment on that," he said.
And the literature regarding Jews and Christians? "I would probably take it out if I knew it was in there," said Anderson.
Normandale's zealous effort to accommodate Muslim students is not new. Chad Lunaas, a former student who works at the college part time, cites examples.
Last year on Fridays, he says, he often entered the bathroom to find that "every sink and toilet stall had someone washing his feet." Other students couldn't use the bathroom at these times, and those who tried felt awkward.
Lunaas finally expressed his concerns to a Muslim student who "seemed to be in charge."
"His attitude was, 'We don't have to listen to you, we can do whatever we want,' " he said.
Confrontations also erupted in the sex-segregated meditation room, according to Lunaas. "Muslim students just took it over. They made people who were not of the Muslim religion feel very uncomfortable, especially if they were female."
One female student tried to use the room when Muslim students were in it, said Lunaas. "She believed she should be treated equally. They were telling her to leave, to take off her shoes, to go to the other side of the divider."
Anderson says he met several times with concerned students. But "the whole thing was just basically swept aside," according to Lunaas.
Anderson said that in the incident involving the young woman, "both sides were probably out of line."
Howard Odor, who advises the college's Somali Student Association, said he has not been aware of "any issues" since the meditation room has been in the racquetball court. "I can guarantee that college policy is that anyone who wants to go in there and pray or meditate can do so."
But many at the college see a bigger issue.
"For all practical purposes, this meditation room is essentially a Muslim prayer room," said Chuck Chalberg of Normandale's history faculty. "Something this unprecedented goes beyond religious toleration."
Katherine Kersten • kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, Think Again, which can be found at www.startribune.com/thinkagain.
http://www.startribune.com/featuredC.../12551256.html
-
Muhammad and Mrs. Jones - Kenny Gamble's Philadelphia Muslim Enclave
By Beila Rabinowitz
January 1, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Kenny Gamble is best known for being "the architect of the Philly Soul Sound." His catalog of hits includes "Me and Mrs. Jones" and he and longtime collaborator Leon Huff are slated to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year. But Gamble is also the architect of a planned stealth Islamist enclave in Philadelphia where he is better known in Muslim circles as Brother Luqman Abdul Haqq.
Gamble has admitted that he intends to bring about the Muslim community in South Philadelphia through his "Universal Companies" and proclaims that his state and federally subsidized funded building endeavors are part of an Islamist blueprint, "We are not down here just for Universal-we are down here for Islam."
In 1975 after a personal crisis Gamble converted to Islam and took the name of Luqman Abdul Haqq. Founding an organization called "The United Muslim Movement," he opened a masjid of the same name. In 1993 he formed the "Universal Companies" specializing in urban revitalization projects. Both UMM and UC's mission statements are virtually identical.
Recently the United Muslim Masjid which Gamble founded and built "hosted" a conference call from Jamil Al Amin, the former H. Rap Brown, now serving a life sentence for murdering a police officer:
"...A highlight of one meeting, for example, was when we had Imam Jamil Al-Amin on speaker phone talking to us from his Georgia prison. MANA and its members have raised and donated several thousands of dollars to his family and legal defense team. Imam Jamil has recently been transferred to a "supermax" prison in Colorado, and we ask that you make du'a for him." [source, http://www.mana-net.org/pages.php?ID=&NUM=164]
Gamble is also a member of the Majlis Ash Shura Council of MANA, the Muslim Alliance in North America, which is led by Siraj Wahhaj. MANA was created to support cop killer Al Amin. Siraj Wahhaj is perhaps most infamous as having been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 by Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White.
"The catalyst for the founding of MANA was the arrest of Imam Jamil in March, 2000. Imam Jamil's arrest placed Al-Ummah (Imam Jamil?s organization) under intense pressure. In April, 2000 the leadership of Al-Ummah met in Philadelphia and decided that they needed to expand the base of the organization and to get more people involved to help in the efforts to free Imam Jamil and in the efforts of dawah and other Islamic work...On April 21 an executive committee was elected, which included: Imam Siraj and Imam Talib, in addition to Luqman Abdul Haqq, Asim Abdur Rashid, Amir al-Islam, Ihsan Bagby, Zaid Shakir and Hamza Yusuf…We ask Allah (SWT) to increase the good efforts of Universal Companies, United Muslim Movement, MANA, and others committed to helping our people, our communities and society-at-large." [source, http://www.wrmea.com/archives/july01/0107082.html]
It's hard to imagine how such a problematic proposal has gone this far without intense public scrutiny. Aside from considering the wisdom of creating what might amount to a little Somalia in a major urban center, there are the obvious questions regarding government funding - under the transparent guise of urban renewal - of what is clearly a hard-core Muslim da'wa [faith spreading] program.
Everything about Gamble's stealth plan for a government subsidized Muslim ghetto - "one of the best kept secrets of Muslim America" - suggests a need for concern; indeed one wonders if Pennsylvania taxpayers are even aware that their tax dollars are going to help Gamble's plans to build "jihad central" while calling it "a neighborhood transformation initiative," a so-far effective strategy, having garnered $1.6 billion in government and private grants and funding.
Now that the secret is out, it's time that Pennsylvanians move to stop Gamble's participation in this project. His motives are self-serving, thoroughly inconsistent with the concept of the American melting pot and obliterate the separation between church and state.
© 1999-2008 PipeLineNews.org LLC, Beila Rabinowitz, all rights reserved.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cf...le01.01.08.htm
-
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/01/04/the-pentagons-muslim-tug-of-war-ends-in-defeat/
Infidel smited.
-
GM:
Here's more on the dhimmitude in the Pentagon:
http://newt.org/EditNewt/MediaArchives/tabid/217/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/3105/Newts-Reaction-to-the-Iowa-Caucus.aspx
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2008/01/019465print.html
January 5, 2008
"The termination of Stephen Coughlin on the Joint Staff is an act of intellectual cowardice"
LTC Joseph C. Myers, Army Advisor to the Air Command and Staff College, speaks out about the firing of Stephen Coughlin:
MAJ (USAR) Stephen Coughlin is to my knowledge the only Islamic Law scholar on the Joint Staff...
He is a lawyer by training and a reserve Military Intelligence Officer. His first interface with Islamic Law began in Pakistan where he was investigating and prosecuting an intellectual property rights case about 10 years ago. Reviewing Pakistani property rights law, he kept seeing footnoted references to the Quran and sharia law...
I have long argued and wondered why our military from senior leaders down to tactical level are so unread and unstudied on Islam, jihad in Islam, even the topic of terrorism. I have often contrasted this unconscionable wartime state of affairs, with the due diligence the US military showed since I was a cadet at West Point 30 years ago, where we lived, ate, slept and drank Soviet warfighting doctrine...it was the threat we oriented on and we developed our own doctrine around -- "AirLand Battle" in the early 1980's.
Can anyone show me where the equivalent of the Soviet threat doctrine series for the global war on terror is published?
It has not been done.
Yet today we are in the process of prosecuting war, that from doctrinal perspective, we fundamentally do not understand. Over two years I have had 90 of the Army's top majors come through ACSC, across all branches including MI and special operations forces, and only one had read a book with the title Understanding Terror Networks, that by Marc Sageman...
Just before Christmas I presented a lecture on Understanding Terrorist and Insurgent Support Systems to an interagency audience at the Joint Special Operations University, that included Joint Staff and Joint Command officers, DIA and other IC reps, DHS and law enforcement... there, two people had read Sageman's work...two out of the special ops community. The third individual was Sageman himself.
More importantly we have not studied Islamic Law and few have seen or heard of even the English translation of it that has been in print for years, none had at JSOU or had read a work titled Understanding Jihad, War and Peace in the Law of Islam or even The Quranic Concept of War...I can go on but let me be frank.
This failure of intellectual preparation is a leadership failure, and it is as the 9-11 Commission warned, a failure of vision.
We have spent much intellectual capitol revamping and analyzing our own doctrine as it relates to counterinsurgency...it's time we do our homework on the threat.
Coughlin has briefed senior Marine Corps leaders and staff and has presented his thesis in various military educational venues...by all accounts the veil of ignorance is lifted for all but only a few who are afraid to face what Islamic Law, doctrinal Islam, says and means with respect to jihad and how it plays out across the Islamic world from al Qaida, to the Saudi government, to Pakistan to the Muslim Brotherhood...
What Coughlin did was provide the epiphany in his over 300-page Joint Military Intelligence College thesis titled, "To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad" that is meticulously documented and powerfully argued.
In short, he argues we have in fact intellectually pre-empted our military decision making process and intelligence preparation of the battlefield process, the critical step 3-"evaluate the threat." Strategically we have failed to do that by substituting policy for military analysis, for substituting cliché for competent decision processes.
We began on September 12, 2001 with "Islam is a religion of peace," which soothed ideological sentiments of many but has failed us strategically, short-stopped the objective, sytstemic evaluation of the threat doctrine.
"Islam is a religion of peace" is fine for public policy statements, but is not and cannot be the point of departure for competent military or intelligence analysis...it is in fact a logical flaw under any professional research methodology...you have stated the conclusion before you have done the analysis.
If one has studied the implication of the Holy Land Foundation trial discovery documents as I have, as a former DIA senior military analyst, and understanding as even Bill Gertz has written in his book Enemies about the dismal record of our counter-intelligence one has to wonder and question the extent we are in fact penetrated in government and academia by foreign agents of influence, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamists and those who truly in essence do not share our social compact.
The termination of Stephen Coughlin on the Joint Staff is an act of intellectual cowardice.
We can only hope he can be positioned in his next venue to continue to educate our military for the fight we are in -- if we don't understand the war and the enemy we are engaged against we remain vulnerable and we cannot win.
No victory in the war on terror.
-
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19227412&BRD=1304&PAG=461&dept_id= 180486&rfi=6
Muslim opening prayer at Iowa Statehouse raises concerns
By: Erin Ballou, Pilot Tribune Staff January 24, 2008
The Iowa Legislature started just over a week ago and some people were upset before the first issue was every addressed.
When the session began, a Muslim Imam began the prayer in the Iowa Legislature. This is where the controversy begins.
The prayer asked of "Victory over those who disbelieve," and "Protection from the great Satan" among other things.
Pastor Steve Smith of the Evangelical Free Church in Albert City is among those concerned about the Muslim prayer. Rev. Smith admits that he doesn't know about all the levels of Muslim but knows that the Jihadists believe those in the U.S. are the great Satan.
Rev. Smith also wants to point out the mention of "victory over those who disbelieve." He feels "this is a request in the Iowa Legislature for God to grant the Muslims victory over every non-muslim. Not a request for salvation." Smith takes it as a gesture not of prayer but more as a political statement, especially with the wars that have been going on in the Middle East.
"I'm not concerned about a Muslim Imam opening the Legislature in prayer but it concerns me with the statements that were made. He interpreted this prayer from his understanding of Islam."
Here is the text of the opening prayer, as transcribed by Radio Iowa:
Imam Muhammad Khan of the Islamic Center of Des Moines spoke first in Arabic.
"I seek refuge in God against the accursed Satan in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful," Khan said in English. Khan made no specific mention of the war in Iraq or foreign affairs, but he called God the "master of the day of judgment" and asked for "victory over those who disbelieve."
"As we begin this new year...in a world with trials and tribulations, we ask you to open the hearts of our legislators and policy makers to make the right decisions for the people of Iowa," Khan said. "...We ask that you guide our legislators and give them the wisdom and knowledge to tackle the difficult problems that face us today in order to eliminate the senseless crimes on humanity. Help them, Lord, to solve the complicated problems in the State of Iowa so that we can be a model to the world."
Khan's prayer lasted about four minutes and he closed with a few words for legislators.
"On behalf of the Muslim community of Des Moines and Iowa, I wish you all the success in this year for making the right decisions for us," Khan said. Khan was the guest of State Representative Ako Abdul Samad of Des Moines, who is also a local Muslim leader.
Rev. Smith has urged others who may be concerned to contact their representative.
When asked about the prayer, Senator Steve Kettering replied in an e-mail that he had not heard the prayer, which did not take place in the Senate chambers.
"I cannot tell you what was said. I have received e-mail regarding this, but since it did not occur on the Senate side I do not have much information," Kettering said. " I should point out that the senate had a Catholic priest for their opening."
Representative Gary Worthan of Storm Lake said that he agrees with the concern being shown over the Muslim prayer.
He said that he has registered his concerns with the proper authorities.
As the father of two sons who have fought terrorism in the military, Worthan said the phrases mentioned earlier also jumped out at him and he said he shares concern for the same reasons as the constituents he is hearing from.
-
TORONTO - A Toronto-area man has been posting messages on the Internet supporting attacks against Canadian soldiers on Canadian soil, drawing the attention of RCMP national security investigators.
Police have advised the Bangladeshi-Canadian that he is under investigation for incitement and facilitating terrorism after he repeatedly called the killing of Canadian troops in Canada "legitimate" and "well deserved."
No charges have been laid, but counterterrorism officers are apparently taking it seriously, and the case has set off a debate inside government over where to draw the line between free expression and incitement.
"The promotion of hate and violence has no place in Canadian society, and it is an offence under the Criminal Code," Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Safety, responded when shown a sample of the postings. "Our government carefully balances the right to freedom of expression with our duty to protect Canadians from harm."
Alarm bells about the online writings went off last September after German authorities arrested three Islamic militants accused of planning to bomb the Ramstein Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport.
That same day, Salman Hossain posted several messages about the plot on the comment board of a Toronto-based Internet site where he is a frequent contributor.
Although Mr. Hossain claimed in one of his communications with the National Post that he made the comments in a private online chat room, the messages can easily be viewed by anyone using a simple Google search.
"I hope the German brothers were gonna blow up US-German bases in their country. We should do that here in Canada as well. Kill as many western soldiers as well so that they think twice before entering foreign countries on behalf of their Jew masters," he wrote.
"Any and all Western soldiers getting prepared to enter Muslim nations like Afghanistan or Iraq should be legitimate targets by any and all Islamic militants either in the attacked nations or in the western nations --if there were any planned attacks against Canadian/ American soldiers by 'Muslim militants' in Canadian soil, I'd support it," he added.
"Canadian soldiers in Canadian soil who are training to go to Afghanistan or Iraq are legitimate targets to be killed. … Now it is POSSIBLE AND LEGITIMATE!! ... believe me, if we could have enough of our soldiers killed, then we'd be forced to withdrawn from Afghanistan."
In addition, he singles out Jews, writing: "When do I get to shoot a few Jews down for attempting to blow up dozens of mosques in America right after 9-11 … why f---ing target the Americans when the Jews are better?"
The author of the messages is a Mississauga university student in his mid-twenties who claims to know the infamous Khadr family and several of the men arrested in Toronto in June, 2006, on terrorism conspiracy charges. He confirmed to the National Post that he was the author of the postings but later declined to comment further on the advice of his lawyer. While he writes that he approves of attacking Canadian troops, he also says he would not do so himself.
Despite being visited by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP and told he was under investigation, Mr. Hossain has continued to post messages approving of attacks on Canadian troops.
Saying anti-war protests "will do sh$$," he describes a "mass casualty" attack on the home-front as "a well considered option" and "the best way to compel western soldiers to get out of Afghanistan/Iraq."
Such an attack "would be fantastic and would get the job done," he writes. "If someone gets the bright idea of committing such a wonderful act, it's NOT my responsibility in any way, shape or form."
He wrote, "I enjoy watching the blood flow from the western troops," and during Defence Minister Peter MacKay's Christmas week visit to Kandahar, he wrote: "I pray that the Taliban kill our Mackay motherf---er."
In other postings, he wishes "a merry 9-11, and I wish y'all many more merry 9-11s"; says "the Jews are literally the most treacherous nation on the face of the Earth"; says "I hate the Jews"; and claims "the filthy Jews carried out 9-11."
He rails at police, saying "you can't charge me for possessing a thought" and writes that he "honestly got a kick outta pissing off the RCMP … HAHAHA … i was laughing my ass off for provoking the RCMP."
The case comes as Canadian security agencies are struggling to deal with extremism among a minority of Muslim Canadians, particularly youths. Intelligence analysts believe much of this radicalization is occurring on the Internet.
"So what we are in the presence of is a ranter, informed by the usual conspiratorial views that are unfortunately part and parcel of extremist Islamist thought -- especially the core anti-Semitic notion of a giant Jewish conspiracy," said Professor Wesley Wark, a Canadian security expert.
But he said while the language is violent and crude, it is probably harmless venting. "On the other hand, there is always a worry that such speech could tip over into action by this person or others of like mind."
The RCMP would not comment on the probe, saying sensitive matters of national security were involved, but spokeswoman Corporal Cathy McCrory said the government was "committed to ensuring the safety and security of citizens and we will not tolerate those that seek to harm Canadians."
Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) does not specifically outlaw incitement of terrorism, although such a measure has been discussed by MPs.
Prof. Work, visiting research professor at the University of Ottawa School of Public and International Affair, said a debate on the topic is needed.
"It's high time we had a proper public airing of the pros and cons of further reforms to the ATA, including an incitement clause, and a public airing of the nature of legal powers needed to ensure prompt and effective monitoring of potentially harmful Internet traffic."
A few days after Mr. Hossain wrote that "we should do" a Ramstein-type plot in Canada, the RCMP contacted him. He spoke to them on Sept. 18 at his lawyer's office.
He later posted messages saying he was under police investigation, but he said that "cheerleading" for Muslim insurgents in Afghanistan "is every Muslim's right."
Although he did not tone down his rhetoric, he did make one change: His comments are now sometimes followed by a disclaimer that says he is not inciting violence but merely "suggesting" scenarios and he is not responsible if they actually happen.
"I don't see how the right to free speech includes deliberate
incitement to violence," said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor and a leading international expert on terrorism, after reading the postings.
"One would think that [Canadian soldiers] are owed more than, 'Well, I don't think we can secure a conviction.' How demoralizing is it for soldiers to find out that people are openly advocating terrorism against them and yet the government who they serve won't do anything about it because it's either too much trouble or there's no guarantee they're going to succeed?"
Prof. Hoffman said the postings remind him of the material that incited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. "Reading those, I was wondering, is there any Western country that would tolerate people posting things talking about staging attacks like this?"
He said that while there was no guarantee a criminal case would succeed, prosecutors might want to go ahead anyway, if only to send a message that "you can't openly advocate the murder of Canadian soldiers.
Four months after he met RCMP officers at his lawyer's office, the Mississauga man continues to make provocative postings. On Jan. 17, he wrote that, "If the Taliban had the capability to attack our troops in our own soil, which I personally hope they do in the future, then these pussies will be dead scared of sending any more troops in2 Afghanistan."
sbell@nationalpost.com
__________________
-
Complaint Filed Against Three Men of Columbia, Tennessee for Vandalizing Islamic Center
Newswire
WASHINGTON, Feb 12, 2008
PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- A federal felony criminal complaint was filed in Nashville, Tenn., today against three men for their roles in burning down and vandalizing the Islamic Center of Columbia in Columbia, Tenn., announced Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Edward M. Yarbrough, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, James M. Cavanaugh, Special Agent in Charge of the Nashville Division of the ATF, My Harrison, Special Agent in Charge of the Memphis Division of the FBI, and Barry Crotzner, Chief of the Columbia Police Department.
The complaint charges the three men, Eric Ian Baker, Michael Corey Golden, and Jonathan Edward Stone, all of Columbia, with unlawful possession of a destructive device.
According to the complaint, Baker, Golden and Stone had planned for approximately one week to burn down the Islamic Center. On Feb. 9, 2008, the defendants used gasoline, rags and empty beer bottles to fashion incendiary devices. They went to the Islamic Center, where Baker spray-painted three swastikas onto the walls of the building, along with the phrases "We run the world" and "White Power." Golden and Stone then broke into the building, ignited the incendiary devices and used them to ignite the Islamic Center. The Islamic Center was severely damaged by the fire.
"The Department of Justice takes hate crimes very seriously, and the U.S. Attorney's Office will prosecute such crimes vigorously and to the fullest extent of the law," said U.S. Attorney Yarbrough.
"Three individuals who are accused of fire bombing a place of worship face federal charges today. Today begins a court process to hold the individuals accountable for an act which destroyed religious property and shocked a community," said Special Agent Cavanaugh. "We are fortunate despite the loss of property and a sense of sadness, that no one was killed or injured from the incident."
If convicted, defendants Baker, Golden and Stone face a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of up to $250,000.
A federal felony criminal complaint is merely an accusation and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
This case remains under investigation by the ATF, the FBI and the Columbia Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal McDonough of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee and Trial Attorney Jonathan Skrmetti of the Criminal Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice
http://www.USDOJ.gov
-
It appears those three are unaware of the long alliance between islam and nazism. Red on red.
-
I just stumbled across this piece from 20 months ago:
==============
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/08/amiruddin08062006.html
Teacher witnessed transformation of some bomb-plot suspects
Last Updated Thu, 08 Jun 2006 18:06:10 EDT
CBC News
A Muslim religious leader in Toronto who knows some of those charged in the
suspected bomb plot says the young men underwent rapid transformations from
normal Canadian teenagers to radicalized introverts.
Alleged bomb-plot suspects in a Brampton courtroom on Tuesday. (John
Mantha/CBC)
Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin got to know Saad Khalid, 19, and some of the other
alleged conspirators at a local mosque.
Khalid was arrested last Friday at a warehouse, where he and another suspect
allegedly took delivery of what they thought was ammonium nitrate, a
fertilizer, and the same substance used in the deadly Oklahoma City bombing
in 1995.
Fifteen others are also facing charges connected to the alleged plot.
Entered mosque to pray
Amiruddin says Khalid used to come to his mosque to pray, sometimes in the
company of Zakaria Amara and Fahim Ahmad, two of the alleged ringleaders.
"They would enter into the mosque to pray, and they would pray in a very
aggressive manner, and they would come in military fatigues and military
touques and stuff. It looked to me that they were watching a lot of those
Chechnyan jihad videos online and stuff."
Amiruddin is a teacher of Sufism, a traditional brand of Islam that rejects
the ideology of jihad. Amiruddin says the group was seduced by hardline
propaganda financed by the Saudi government and promoting a strict, Wahhabi
brand of Islam.
He says the Saudis have flooded Canada with free Qur'ans, laced with
jihadist commentary.
"In the back of these Qur'ans that are being published in Saudi Arabia, you
have basically essays on the need for offensive jihad and the legitimacy of
offensive jihad and things like that. Very alarming stuff," he said.
Amiruddin said many mainstream Muslim organizations in Canada are really
part of the problem, standing by as extremist propaganda spreads in the
mosques.
He cites the Al-Rahman centre in Mississauga, Ont., which he links to the
Al-Maghrib Institute, which runs a popular educational website. It's
nominally run out of Ottawa, but Amiruddin says it's really a Saudi
operation.
Recruiting young teens
Amiruddin says Khalid underwent a rapid transition from a clean-cut Canadian
teenager to a long-haired, radicalized introvert.
He says the young men would pray by themselves, and try to recruit younger
teens to the fundamentalist Wahhabi view.
Amiruddin says Khalid stopped coming to the mosque after he befriended
43-year-old Qayyum Abdul Jamal, another key suspect, who once preached that
Canadian forces were in Afghanistan to rape Muslim women.
Amiruddin also has a theory as to why Khalid may have been open to such
influences.
"His mother passed away and let's say within the first month of his mom
passing away, his girlfriend, who was not Muslim, dumped him. And then from
that within a year you have this radical turnaround right? Even Fahim
Ahmad, he was in love with a girl who constantly rejected him, right? Maybe
he was just looking for love? I can't say for certain, but this was
something I found common with these young guys."
-
This is exactly the sort of subject where the NYT can be at its most disingenuous, but we search for Truth, so caveat lector.
======================
SAN JOSE — Amir Mertaban vividly recalls sitting at his university’s recruitment table for the Muslim Students Association a few years ago when an attractive undergraduate flounced up in a decidedly un-Islamic miniskirt, saying “Salamu aleykum,” or “Peace be upon you,” a standard Arabic greeting, and asked to sign up.
Amir Mertaban has pointed out that hypocrisy can factor into some conservative responses by association members.
Mr. Mertaban also recalls that his fellow recruiter surveyed the young woman with disdain, arguing later that she should not be admitted because her skirt clearly signaled that she would corrupt the Islamic values of the other members.
“I knew that brother, I knew him very well; he used to smoke weed on a regular basis,” said Mr. Mertaban, now 25, who was president of the Muslim student group at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, from 2003 to 2005.
Pointing out the hypocrisy, Mr. Mertaban won the argument that the group could no longer reject potential members based on rigid standards of Islamic practice.
The intense debate over whether organizations for Muslim students should be inclusive or strict is playing out on college campuses across the United States, where there are now more than 200 Muslim Students Association chapters.
Gender issues, specifically the extent to which men and women should mingle, are the most fraught topic as Muslim students wrestle with the yawning gap between American college traditions and those of Islam.
“There is this constant tension between becoming a mainstream student organization versus appealing to students who have a more conservative or stricter interpretation of Islam,” said Hadia Mubarak, the first woman to serve as president of the national association, from 2004 to 2005.
Each chapter enjoys relative autonomy in setting its rules. Broadly, those at private colleges tend to be more liberal because they draw from a more geographically dispersed population, and the smaller numbers prompt Muslim students to play down their differences.
Chapters at state colleges, on the other hand, often pull from the community, attracting students from conservative families who do not want their children too far afield.
At Yale, for example, Sunnis and Shiites mix easily and male and female students shocked parents in the audience by kissing during the annual awards ceremony. Contrast that with the University of California, Irvine, which has the reputation for being the most conservative chapter in the country, its president saying that to an outsider its ranks of bearded young men and veiled women might come across as “way Muslim” or even extremist.
But arguments erupt virtually everywhere. At the University of California, Davis, last year, in their effort to make the Muslim association more “cool,” board members organized a large alcohol-free barbecue. Men and women ate separately, but mingled in a mock jail for a charity drive.
The next day the chapter president, Khalida Fazel, said she fielded complaints that unmarried men and women were physically bumping into one other. Ms. Fazel now calls the event a mistake.
At George Washington University, a dodge ball game pitting men against women after Friday prayers drew such protests from Muslim alumni and a few members that the board felt compelled to seek a religious ruling stating that Islamic traditions accept such an event.
Members acknowledge that the tone of the Muslim associations often drives away students. Several presidents said that if they thought members were being too lax, guest imams would deliver prayer sermons about the evils of alcohol or premarital sex.
Judgment can also come swiftly. Ghayth Adhami, a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, recalled how a young student who showed up at a university recruitment meeting in a Budweiser T-shirt faced a few comments about un-Islamic dress. The student never came back.
Some members push against the rigidity. Fatima Hassan, 22, a senior at the Davis campus, organized a coed road trip to Reno, Nev., two hours away, to play the slot machines last Halloween. In Islam, Ms. Hassan concedes, gambling is “really bad,” but it was men and women sharing the same car that shocked some fellow association members.
Page 2 of 2)
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Ms. Hassan said. “I am chill about that whole coed thing. I understand that in a Muslim context we are not supposed to hang out with the opposite sex, but it just happens and there is nothing you can do.”
But as Saif Inam, the vice president of the chapter at George Washington put it, “At the end of the day, I don’t want God asking me, ‘O.K. Saif, why did you organize events in which people could do un-Islamic things in big numbers?’ ”
The debate boils down to whether upholding gender segregation is forcing something artificial and vaguely hypocritical in an American context.
“As American Islam gets its own identity, it is going to have to shed some of these notions that are distant from American culture,” said Rafia Zakaria, a student at Indiana University. “The tension is between what forms of tradition are essential and what forms are open to innovation.”
American law says men and women are equal, whereas Muslim religious texts say they “complement” each other, Ms. Zakaria said. “If the law says they are equal, it’s hard to see how in their spiritual lives they will accept a whole different identity.”
The entire shift of the association from a foreign-run organization to an American one took place over arguments like this.
The Americans won out partly because the number of Muslim American college students hit a critical mass in the late 1990s, and then, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, foreign students, fearful of their visas being revoked, started avoiding a group that was increasingly political.
Some critics view strict interpretation of the faith as part of the association’s DNA. Organized in the 1960s by foreign students who wanted collective prayers where there were no mosques, the associations were basically little slices of Saudi Arabia. Women were banned. Only Muslim men who prayed, fasted and avoided alcohol and dating were welcomed. Meetings, even idle conversations, were in Arabic.
Donations from Saudi Arabia largely financed the group, and its leaders pushed the kingdom’s puritan, Wahhabi strain of Islam. Prof. Hamid Algar of the University of California, Berkeley, said that in the 1960s and 1970s, chapters advocated theological and political positions derived from radical Islamist organizations and would brook no criticism of Saudi Arabia.
That past has given the associations a reputation in some official quarters as a possible font of extremism, but experts in American Islam believe college campuses have become too diverse and are under too much scrutiny for the groups to foster radicals.
Zareena Grewal, a professor of religion and American studies at Yale, pointed to several things that would repel extremists. Members are trying to become more involved in the American political system, Professor Grewal said, and the heavy presence of women in the leadership would also deter them. Members “are not sitting around reading ‘How to Bomb Your Campus for Dummies,’ ” she said.
Its leaders think the organization is gradually relaxing a bit as it seeks to maintain its status as the main player for Muslim students.
“There were drunkards in the Prophet Muhammad’s community; there were fornicators and people who committed adultery in his community, and he didn’t reject them,” Mr. Mertaban said. “I think M.S.A.’s are beginning to understand this point that every person has ups and downs.”
-
Its the NY Times, so caveat lector
==========================
Despite a 2002 promise from President Bush to put citizenship applications for immigrant members of the military on a fast track, some are finding themselves waiting months, or even years, because of bureaucratic backlogs. One, Sgt. Kendell K. Frederick of the Army, who had tried three times to file for citizenship, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq as he returned from submitting fingerprints for his application.
Reach of War
Alan Zale for The New York Times
Abdool Habibullah, an ex-marine, is waiting to hear about his application. “If what I’ve done for this country isn’t enough for me to be a citizen, then I don’t know what is,” he said.
About 7,200 service members or people who have been recently discharged have citizenship applications pending, but neither the Department of Defense nor Citizenship and Immigration Services keeps track of how long they have been waiting. Immigration lawyers and politicians say they have received a significant number of complaints about delays because of background checks, misplaced paperwork, confusion about deployments and other problems.
“I’ve pretty much given up on finding out where my paperwork is, what’s gone wrong, what happened to it,” said Abdool Habibullah, 27, a Guyanese immigrant who first applied for citizenship in 2005 upon returning from a tour in Iraq and was honorably discharged from the Marines as a sergeant. “If what I’ve done for this country isn’t enough for me to be a citizen, then I don’t know what is.”
The long waits are part of a broader problem plaguing the immigration service, which was flooded with 2.5 million applications for citizenship and visas last summer — twice as many as the previous year — in the face of 66 percent fee increases that took effect July 30. Officials have estimated that it will take an average of 18 months to process citizenship applications from legal immigrants through 2010, up from seven months last year.
But service members and veterans are supposed to go to the head of the line. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush signed an executive order allowing noncitizens on active duty to file for citizenship right away, instead of having to first complete three years in the military. The federal government has since taken several steps to speed up the process, including training military officers to help service members fill out forms, assigning special teams to handle the paperwork, and allowing citizenship tests, interviews and ceremonies to take place overseas.
At the same time, post-9/11 security measures, including tougher guidelines for background checks that are part of the naturalization process, have slowed things down.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which checks the names of citizenship applicants against those in its more than 86 million investigative files, has been overwhelmed, handling an average of 90,000 name-check requests a week. In the fiscal year that ended in September, the F.B.I. was asked to check 4.1 million names, at least half of them for citizenship and green card applicants, a spokesman said.
“Most soldiers clear the checks within 30 to 60 days, or 60 to 90 days,” said Leslie B. Lord, the Army’s liaison to Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that processes citizenship applications. “But even the soldier with the cleanest of records, if he has a name that’s very similar to one that’s in the F.B.I. bad-boy and bad-girl list, things get delayed.”
Such explanations are why Mr. Habibullah has decided that once he does become a citizen — if he ever becomes a citizen — he will change his name.
“I figured that’s part of the reason things got delayed,” he said. “You know, that I have a Muslim name.”
Thousands of Muslim civilians have also found themselves waiting months or years for background checks, and have filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Denver. But advocates for the immigrant service members said that those with pending applications are from a variety of backgrounds and that they do not suspect a pattern of discrimination against Muslims.
Some 31,200 members of the military were sworn in as citizens between October 2002 and December 2007, according to the immigration service, but a spokeswoman, Chris Rhatigan, said she could not determine how long it took for them to be naturalized since the agency does not maintain a database tracking military cases.
================
Page 2 of 2)
Over all, 312,000 citizenship or green card applications are pending name checks, including 140,000 that have been waiting more than six months, immigration officials said. This month, immigration authorities eased background-check requirements for green cards, saying that if applicants had been waiting more than six months, they could be approved without an F.B.I. check, and approvals could be revoked later “in the unlikely event” that troubling information was found.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Mr. Mohammed on duty in Iraq, where he was in the Army.
Reach of War
Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times
Michelle Murphy, whose son Sgt. Kendell K. Frederick was killed in Iraq before his citizenship application was approved.
After hearing complaints from at least half a dozen service members over the past three months, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York has drafted a bill to create a special clearinghouse to ensure that applications from active and returning members of the military are processed quickly and smoothly. A spokesman said several other lawmakers reported hearing many similar stories.
“These are men and women who are risking their lives for us,” Mr. Schumer said in a telephone interview. “They’ve met all the requirements for citizenship, they have certainly proved their commitment to our country, and yet they could lose their lives while waiting for a bureaucratic snafu to untangle.”
In interviews, immigration lawyers and military officials said that in general, the naturalization process takes service members between six months and a year, which is about half the current average wait for civilians. But some cases drag on much longer because of background-check delays or because applications are misplaced, or notices are mailed to stateside addresses after an applicant has been deployed, causing appointments to be missed.
“You try to resolve these things amicably, reaching out to the military, reaching out to immigration officials, but you hit roadblock after roadblock,” said David E. Piver, a Pennsylvania lawyer who filed at least six petitions in federal court over the past five years on behalf of service members experiencing longer than usual delays on their citizenship applications.
“It’s usually not any substantive issue that’s causing those delays,” he said. “What it boils down to are bureaucratic snafus.”
Feyad Mohammed, an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago who lives with his parents in Richmond Hill, Queens, was naturalized last month — four years after he filed the first of four citizenship applications, and six months after his honorable discharge from the Army as a sergeant.
Mr. Mohammed first applied in 2004, after he returned from the first of his two tours in Iraq. But the application seemed to have been lost; when he checked after a few months, he said, no one at the immigration service could tell him where it was or even if it had been received. He filed again in 2005, but missed his interview several months later; it had been scheduled in Iraq, during his second combat tour, but he was home on leave on the appointed day.
After he was discharged in July 2007, Mr. Mohammed filed another application. The paperwork was returned because he had not included a check covering the processing fee, he said, ignoring a Bush administration initiative that exempts combat veterans from application fees for up to a year after discharge. It was then that Mr. Mohammed reached out to Senator Schumer’s office, which helped him file a fourth, and final, time.
When he was sworn in Jan. 25 at the federal courthouse in Downtown Brooklyn, Mr. Mohammed said, he felt “relieved.”
“I was a citizen,” he said. “I could finally move on with my life.”
But Sergeant Frederick, a 21-year-old immigrant from Trinidad, would be awarded citizenship only posthumously, on the day of his burial. He is one of more than 90 immigrant service members to be naturalized after losing their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sergeant Frederick’s mother, Michelle Murphy, said that he had filed his citizenship application a year before he was deployed to Iraq in 2005, but that his application was sent back to her Maryland home three times — once because of incomplete biographical information, again because he had left a box unchecked, and once more because he had not paid the fee.
Finally, Ms. Murphy said, Sergeant Frederick received a letter saying that the fingerprints he had included with his application could not be read and that he needed to submit new ones. She contacted immigration officials, who arranged for him to submit a new set of fingerprints on Oct. 19, 2005, near his base in Tikrit. On the way back from the appointment, his convoy hit a roadside bomb.
“If somebody is fighting for a country, if he’s deployed, if he’s in the middle of a war, it shouldn’t be that hard for them to become a citizen,” Ms. Murphy, 42, said in a telephone interview.
After his death, the immigration service began accepting enlistment fingerprints with service members’ citizenship applications, provided applicants authorized the military to share their files with immigration officials. A bill to make such sharing automatic has been passed by the House and is pending a final Senate vote.
In the meantime, Mr. Habibullah is working as an aircraft hydraulics mechanic in Connecticut, though he hopes to get a better-paying job in the federal government once he is naturalized. In October, Mr. Habibullah’s father and grandmother became citizens in separate ceremonies, though they applied fully two years after he did.
Mr. Habibullah has passed the citizenship test and been interviewed, and he said he does not know what to do to move his application through the backlog faster.
“Every time I ask about it, I get the same answer: it’s pending the background check,” Mr. Habibullah said as he looked over his military medals, which are displayed on a wall in the Mount Vernon, N.Y., apartment he shares with his wife and 1-month-old son. “I’m at the point right now that I’ve almost given up on it.”
-
**Let's see what the New Duranty Times didn't find newsworthy about the Muslim Student Association....**
Islamism's Campus Club
By Jonathan Dowd-Gailey
Middle East Quarterly | 6/2/2004
The northern Virginia-based Muslim Students' Association (MSA) might easily be taken for a benign student religious group. It promotes itself as a benevolent, non-political entity devoted to the simple virtue of celebrating Islam and providing college students a healthy venue to develop their faith and engage in philanthropy. Along these lines, its constitution declares the MSA's mission as serving "the best interest of Islam and Muslims in the United States and Canada so as to enable them to practice Islam as a complete way of life."[1]
Today, over 150 MSA chapters exist on American college campuses (divided into five regional chapters), easily establishing this organization as the most extensive Muslim student organization in North America. A Washington, D.C.-based national office assists in the establishment of constituent chapters and oversees fundraising and conferences while steering a plethora of special committees and "Political Action Task Forces."
Yet consider some of these recent activities of the MSA:
· At a meeting in Queensborough Community College in New York in March 2003, a guest speaker named Faheed declared, "We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it ... Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah."[2]
· During an October 2000 anti-Israeli protest, former MSA president Ahmed Shama at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) stood before the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, shouting "Victory to Islam! Death to the Jews!" MSA West president Sohail Shakr declared at the same rally, "the biggest impediment to peace [in the Middle East] has been the existence of the Zionist entity in the middle of the Muslim world."[3]
· Prior to September 11, 2001, the MSA formally assisted three Islamic charities in fundraising: the Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief, and Benevolence Foundation. After that date, all three were accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of having serious links to terrorism and were ordered closed. The MSA issued a formal statement of protest: "How three of the nation's largest Muslim charities could be made inoperable at the peak of the giving season of Ramadan seemed unbelievable."[4]
This is only the tip of the iceberg. There is overwhelming evidence that the MSA, far from being a benign student society, is an overtly political organization seeking to create a single Muslim voice on U.S. campuses-a voice espousing Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.
A Saudi Creation
On its website, the MSA describes its emergence as spontaneous and disavows any link to foreign governments.[5] In fact, the creation of the MSA resulted from Saudi-backed efforts to found Islamic bodies internationally in the 1960s. Alex Alexiev of the Center for Security Policy states, "The Saudis over the years set up a number of large front organizations, such as the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the Al Haramain Foundation, and a great number of Islamic "charities." While invariably claiming that they were private, all of these groups were tightly controlled and financed by the Saudi government and the Wahhabi clergy."[6]
In the United States, two leading Saudi-backed organizations were the MSA and the Islamic Society of North America (the MSA's adult counterpart), both of which received major funding, direction, and influence from Riyadh.
Personnel, money, and institutional linkages bound these organizations together from their inception, and all roads led eventually to Riyadh. Ahmad Totonji, an MSA co-founder, later served as vice-president for the notorious Saudi SAAR Foundation (a network of charities named after Saudi benefactor Sulayman 'Abd al-'Aziz ar-Rajhi), which closed down in 2001 after federal agents discovered links to terrorist groups.[7] Another MSA co-founder, Ahmad Sakr, served on a number of Saudi-affiliated organizations, such as the World Council of Mosques. The MSA is very much a result of Saudi "petro-Islam" diplomacy.
Current estimates suggest that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spends $4 billion annually on international aid, with two-thirds of that sum devoted to strictly Islamic development. Much of this largesse has ended up at Islamist organizations like MSA. Funded through private donations or through foundations and charities (only some of which the MSA officially reports),[8] MSA offers its Saudi benefactors a powerful tool. However, until the MSA's tax records are made public (on January 14, 2004, the Senate Finance Committee publicized a list of Islamic organizations whose financial records are sought, including the MSA),[9] the exact extent of foreign funding for the organization cannot be known.
But even without the tax records, there is plenty of evidence for the MSA's strident advocacy of the Saudi-style Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. In "Wahhabism: A Critical Essay," Hamid Algar of the University of California-Berkeley writes, "Some Muslim student organizations have functioned at times as Saudi-supported channels for the propagation of Wahhabism abroad, especially in the United States ... Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, no criticism of Saudi Arabia would be tolerated at the annual conventions of the MSA. The organization has, in fact, consistently advocated theological and political positions derived from radical Islamist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaati Islam."[10]
The MSA has played a major role in spreading Wahhabism. "Its numerous local chapters," Algar explains, "would make available at every Friday prayer large stacks of the [Mecca-based] World Muslim League's publications, in both English and Arabic. Although the MSA progressively diversified its connections with Arab states, official approval of Wahhabism remained strong."[11]
Stephen Schwartz goes further, stating in his June 2003 testimony to the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, "Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslim community leaders estimate that 80 percent of American mosques out of a total ranging between an official estimate of 1,200 and an unofficial figure of 4-6,000 are under Wahhabi control ... Wahhabi control over mosques means control of property, buildings, appointment of imams, training of imams, content of preaching including faxing of Friday sermons from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and of literature distributed in mosques and mosque bookstores, notices on bulletin boards, and organizational and charitable solicitation ... The main organizations that have carried out this campaign are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which originated in the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)."[12]
The MSA reflects a prime characteristic of militant Islamic groups: a refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of secular society and personal spirituality. The MSA's Starters Guide contains an open call to Islamicize campus politics: "It should be the long-term goal of every MSA to Islamicize the politics of their respective university ... the politicization of the MSA means to make the MSA more of a force on internal campus politics. The MSA needs to be a more "In-your-face" association."[13]
All of this, the guide explains, results from the MSA's duty "to bring morality back into the campus" and to convince students to practice Islam "as a complete way of life."
In the process, the MSA preaches a creed of "special treatment" and "self-segregation" that sounds reminiscent of, and may actually borrow from, Afro-centric campus politics of the 1990s. Demanding that universities be more "Muslim-friendly," the MSA's newly established National Religious Accommodations Task Force (RATF) directs local MSA chapters to insist that universities provide separate housing and meals for Muslims only.[14]
The politics of segregation practiced by the MSA have included blanket marginalization of its own female members. Shabana Mir, writing for the American Muslim, summarizes the plight of Muslim women on campus: "It is particularly important to know what is happening with Muslim women pursuing higher education. Many Muslim women in MSAs are working toward the justice and the equality that Islam ordains for humankind. A survey of sisters' participation in MSAs conducted in 1994 shows that women's activism in MSAs is at an abysmally low level due in large part to "brother domination." A related problem is "there is a common attitude that strict segregation should exist between the genders and that sisters should not appear in public!" On an MSA mailing list, a popular article gives a long list of conditions that women must fulfill to gain access to the mosque. These include obtaining permission from her male guardian, wearing hijab [veil], not wearing "fancy clothes" or perfume, not mixing with men, leaving immediately after the prayer, and so on!" [15]
Political Monopoly
Just as the MSA promotes a single theology, it similarly projects a monolithic political voice, one openly antagonistic to Muslim American diversity and in complete opposition to existing U.S. foreign policy. Although Muslim students in the United States exhibit the full range of political views found in America today, the MSA invariably adopts lopsided adversarial positions, as in these three cases:
Patriot Act: The MSA categorically opposes this legislation, describing it as "infamous." Chapters across the country have agitated against it, as well as against virtually every other security initiative since 9/11. At an MSA rally at the University of Pennsylvania, the co-chair of Muslims for Justice declared, "the Patriot Act is sending us in a backwards spiral, where the destination is chaos."[16]
Afghanistan: The MSA opposed the military intervention against the Taliban regime, instead calling for a "police investigation." MSA National further advised that the entire matter would be best addressed at the International Criminal Tribunal. MSA chapters organized rallies demanding a ceasefire and held "Solidarity Fasts" to honor Afghans who, the MSA charged, would face massive starvation as a result of the war.
Iraq: Even before the crisis of 2003, the MSA opposed every U.S. policy towards Iraq over the last twelve years. It strongly opposed the United Nations (U.N.)-authorized sanctions, claiming that the sanctions were "nothing short of a systematic genocide being carried out against civilian people."[17] The MSA condemned former president Clinton's 1998 strike against Iraq following Saddam Hussein's ouster of U.N. weapons inspectors, declaring that its "brothers and sisters in Iraq are once again being terrorized by the self-appointed champions of democracy."[18]
MSA National consistently pledges support for the war on terror and claims to merely "represent" student views. But it maintains control of the political agenda, leaving the chapters simply to mobilize support. Its chapters pointedly ignored the New York Shi'ites who held vigils for their Iraqi brethren and the Michigan Kurds who rallied for Hussein's ouster. The MSA's decision to mobilize against the Bush administration took place without public debate and with no attempt at representing diverse views within the MSA. This approach is in keeping with the MSA's goal, as its official literature states, that the student body "be convinced that there is such a thing as a Muslim-bloc."[19]
Muslim students who refuse to submit to the MSA's position often find themselves harassed by their MSA peers. Oubai Shahbandar, an Arizona State University (ASU) student, expressed support for the Iraqi invasion and suffered condemnation from MSA members. Shahbandar states, "When I, a proud American of Arab descent and Muslim faith, took a stand on behalf of the liberation of my oppressed Iraqi brethren, the ASU Muslim Students' Association personally attacked me for not being a real Muslim and announced to the ASU student body in editorials in the student paper that I, Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar, was a hater of Arabs and Muslims."
Shahbandar also explains what the MSA preaches on his campus: "We are told America's foreign policy is based on racist neo-imperialism; we are taught that national security is a foul epithet to be reviled; we are told the Jews and Israel are to blame for the hatred against us."[20]
Playing the Victim
The MSA's adoption of the politics of victimization is reminiscent of wider campus trends of the 1990s. In the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the MSA stated, "In light of the Bush administration's casting blame for the attack on Osama Bin Laden, MSA National recognizes that Muslim students on college campuses will be subject to backlash."
Ominously, an "awareness" document describes post 9/11 Homeland Security policies in the same terms as do extremist Muslims abroad-that is, as an assault explicitly against Islam. America: Post 9/11, an MSA document, states, "Soon after [9/11], the attacks against our religion began at the hands of the media and the political establishment."[21]
Not surprisingly, the MSA has expressed resistance, outrage, and cynicism with virtually every high-profile arrest of Muslim Americans charged with conspiring with terrorists. When former University of South Florida (USF) professor Sami al-Arian was arrested for directing U.S. operations for the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Florida campus MSA chapter held a press conference and stated: "We come before you today on behalf of the Muslim Student Association at USF as well as the National Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and Canada to express our shock, deep concern, and plea for justice regarding the recent arrests of two USF professors, Dr. Sami al-Arian and Sameeh Hammoudeh ... we are concerned that the USF professors were arrested for their political views."
The problem is that the MSA has been unable or unwilling to recognize that some Muslims, including its members, have crossed the line between political advocacy and material support for jihadist activities. In fact, MSA members and activities have repeatedly surfaced in police investigations. Some of these arrests received national media coverage, including the following:
· In February 2003, former head of the MSA chapter at the University of Idaho, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was arrested with an indictment that he raised over $300,000 for the Islamic Assembly of North America, a group under federal investigation for funding terrorist groups. FBI agents believed Hussayen was communicating with two radical clerics, nicknamed the "awakening sheikhs," known for inspiring young Muslims to pursue the path of jihad and credited as major ideological mentors to Osama bin Laden.[22]
· In April 2003, the home of Arizona State University MSA president Hassan Alrafea was raided by the FBI, whose agents confiscated his computer and unspecified documents.[23]
-
In 2002, when the number of anti-Semitic attacks in Europe hit a twelve-year high, French Jewish leader Roger Cukierman observed a peculiar phenomenon on the European street -a loose fusing of extreme Left, Right, and Muslim political forces-what Cukierman terms the "brown-green-red alliance."[24] The three disparate constituencies have incompatible ideologies, but all three have a shared hatred for the pluralized world order, globalized market economies, U.S. preponderance, and the state of Israel. Cukierman has observed these forces forming an alliance of convenience in the post-9/11 world with potentially dangerous results.
The same pattern is also emerging in the United States with groups of the extreme Left forging bonds with specific Muslim organizations, and here again we find the MSA figures prominently. Given the MSA's propensity for radical politics in a campus environment, it is no surprise that it has become arguably the Muslim organization most enmeshed with American leftists. Consider the following:
· Perhaps as a reward for its total opposition to every U.S. policy since the September 2001 attacks, the MSA has been given a seat on the steering committee for International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). ANSWER is an organization dedicated to defending rogue states and fighting "U.S. imperialism," and has been distinguished by its ability to organize the largest peace demonstrations in North America. ANSWER was formed by International Action Center, a communist organization that supports Stalinist regimes worldwide, including North Korea and Hussein's Iraq. [25]
· In its aggressive protest activities against recent Middle East wars, the MSA has developed strong working ties with numerous activist groups of the extreme Left. Among them: Free Palestine Alliance, Nicaragua Network, Kensington Welfare Rights Union, Mexico Solidarity Network, Korea Truth Commission, Young Communist League, Young Peoples' Socialist League, and Black Radical Congress.
As these examples suggest, the MSA boasts institutional ties with a host of radical issue-specific activist groups, all of them vehemently opposed to U.S. policy, and many of them openly anti-American.
The Center for Security Policy's Alex Alexiev argues, "The majority of Muslim Student Associations at U.S. colleges are dominated by Islamist and anti-American agendas, as are most of the numerous Islamic centers and schools financed by the Saudis. Intolerance and outright rejection of American values and democratic ideals are often taught also in the growing number of Deobandi schools that are frequently subsidized by the Saudis."[26]
The following examples illustrate both the degree and pervasiveness of hate-America vitriol that characterize the MSA:
· Taliban propaganda is featured on the website of the University of Southern California MSA chapter.[27]
· One featured article in Al-Talib (a magazine developed by the UCLA chapter of the MSA and not affiliated with the Taliban of Afghanistan) entitled, "The Spirit of Jihad," praised Osama bin Laden as a "prominent Muslim activist." The article goes on to say, "When we hear someone refer to the great mujahideen Osama bin Laden as a 'terrorist,' we should defend our brother and refer to him as a freedom fighter; someone who has forsaken wealth and power to fight in Allah's cause and speak out against oppressors." [28]
· Another Al-Talib article entitled "Americanization" states, "A dangerous weapon has once again been unfurled by the U.S. military in this War on Terrorism ... This weapon comes in the form of cultural warfare ... In this new War on Terrorism, the colossal brunt of this production machine is now squarely targeted at the Muslim population." [29]
· At an Al-Talib event to offer support for Imam Jamil al-Amin, convicted of killing a policeman, guest speaker Imam Abdul-Alim Musa said, "When you fight [the U.S.] you are fighting someone that is superior in criminality and Nazism ... the American criminalizer is the most skillful oppressor the world has ever known ...They beat the British at everything, isn't that right? They are a better colonizer, a better murderer, a better killer, a better liar, a better thief, a better infiltrator than old British." [30]
This anti-Americanism blends together almost seamlessly with a virulent discourse against the Jews and Israel. Consider the following:
· At the 2001 MSA West conference, hosted by UCLA, cleric Imam Muhammad al-Asi stated, "Israel is as racist as apartheid could ever be ... you can take a Jew out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew."[31]
· The MSA continues to celebrate violence against Israel on its websites. At the MSA Northwest site, for example, images of Hamas suicide squads and child soldiers are proudly displayed above jihadist poetry, whose verse (erratically capitalized) celebrates violence: "...two soldiers spotted me in their sight ... i had to blast 4 shots hitting each one in the face and waist. a trace of blood drips from my arm as i make my away thru streets with an injured zionist as a hostage ... seen a group of israeli soldiers run out and began pulling the trigger when sounds of rounds began playing a deadly melody. Each gun dropped two ..." [32]
· In 2002, the MSA at the University of Michigan helped host the Second National Student Conference for Palestine Solidarity Movement. At that conference, one of the guest speakers was ex-University of Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who is now awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges.
Self-Defeating
Ironically, although one of the founding missions of the MSA is to increase favorable awareness of Muslim life among non-Muslims, the effect of the MSA's activities is the opposite: they confirm the worst suspicions of American society at large. The MSA's refusal to identify jihadists and jihadist sympathizers within its ranks, its indiscriminate opposition to U.S. policies following the September 11 attacks, its vitriolic anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric, and its solidarity with "Leftover Left" radical activist organizations, together reinforce an image that the MSA, and by extension, Muslim college students, are a divisive, angry, and potentially violent group on our campuses. By monopolizing the Muslim student voice in America with "radical chic" to create a "single Muslim bloc," an opportunity to forge a healthy discourse on the diverse attitudes of Muslim students is lost to the confrontational language of radical dissent and resistance.
Universities that host student organizations have an obligation to enforce basic standards of conduct, standards that the MSA has clearly breached. At the very least, MSA's most egregious behavior must face censure from those responsible for monitoring student conduct. University administrators must unchain themselves from cultural relativism and the ideology of "validation" and deal squarely with such misdeeds.
More importantly, however, the problem of the Muslim Students' Association illustrates the great question that confronts the West today: how does it cultivate liberalism in Muslim communities living at home and abroad? Just as the U.S. policy of détente with the Arab world collapsed after September 11, to be replaced by a "forward strategy of democracy," it may be time to adopt a "forward strategy" within U.S. borders, focused on promoting moderate voices in mosques and campuses. To improve campus life for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, universities should work with moderate students to inaugurate a new Muslim students' organization, one that eschews the radical politics of the "old world" in favor of authenticity, diversity, and integration. A new Muslim student organization would return to the primary mission of religiously-based campus groups-to celebrate and share in the fellowship of faith.
*
Notes:
[1] "The Constitution of the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada," Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/about/constitution.html.
[2] WorldNetDaily, Mar. 18, 2003, at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31571.
[3] Frontpage Magazine, Apr. 4, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7098.
[4] Sakeena Mirza and Ameena Qazi, "Robbing the Poor," al-Talib, vol. 12, no. 3, at http://www.al-talib.com/articles/v12_i3_a04.htm.
[5] "A Little Taste of History," Muslim Students' Association of U.S. and Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/about/history.html.
[6] Alex Alexiev, "The Missing Link in the War on Terror: Confronting Saudi Subversion," Center for Security Policy, at http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=alexiev.
[7] FrontPage Magazine, Apr. 23, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7395.
[8] "List of Organizations that Donate Islamic Books and Da'wah Materials," Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-natl.org/resources/Donation_Books.html.
[9] "Senators Request Tax Information on Muslim Charities for Probe," Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, Jan. 14, 2003, at http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=January&x=20040114155543zemogb0.8868524&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html. For details, see http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/164.
[10] Hamid Algar, "Wahhabism: A Critical Essay," in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Adair T. Lummis, eds., Islamic Values in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 124.
[11] Ibid..
[12] Stephen Schwartz, "Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States," testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, June 26, 2003, at http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2003_h/030626-schwartz.htm.
[13] MSA Starter's Guide: A Guide on How to Run a Successful MSA, 1st ed. (Washington, D.C.: Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada, Mar. 1996), at http://www.msa-natl.org/publications/startersguide.html.
[14] "Religious Accommodations Task Force," Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/taskforces/religious.html.
[15] Shabana Mir, "Gender-based Exclusionism at a Muslim Student Association, Part I," The American Muslim, July/Aug. 2003, at http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/2003jul_comments.php?id=347_0_21_0_C.
[16] "Rally against the Patriot Act," University of Pennsylvania Muslim Students' Association, at http://www.upenn-msa.org/subcommittees/pmj/patriotact.html.
[17] "MSA National Demands an Immediate End to the Inhumane U.N. Sanctions," Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., Apr. 6, 2001, at http://www.msa-national.org/media/pressreleases/040601.html.
[18] "Muslim Students Condemn U.S. Attack on Iraq," Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., Dec. 17, 1998 at http://www.msa-national.org/media/pressreleases/121798.html.
[19] MSA Starter's Guide, at http://www.msa-natl.org/publications/startersguide.html.
[20] Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar, "Open Letter from an Arab-American Student," FrontPage Magazine, June 2, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=8143.
[21] "MSA National Political Action Task Force, America: Post 9/11," Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/media/actionalerts/political.pdf.
[22] The Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2003.
[23] Oubai Shahbandar, "U.S. Muslims as Patriots," The Arizona Republic, Oct. 11, 2003.
[24] Quoted by Mark Strauss, "Anti-Globalism's Jewish Problem," Foreign Policy, Nov./Dec. 2003.
[25] "National Conference against War, Colonial Occupation and Imperialism, May 17-18, New York City," ANSWER, at http://www.internationalanswer.org/news/update/041203m17conf.html.
[26] Alexiev, "This Missing Link on the War on Terror," at http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=alexiev.
[27] Syed Rahmatullah Hashimi, "Taliban in Afghanistan," University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Mar. 10, 2001, at http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/Taliban/talebanlec.html.
[28] Al-Talib, July 1999, quoted in FrontPageMagazine.com, Apr. 23, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7113. Al-Talib is listed as an official MSA Project by the UCLA chapter of MSA, at http://www.msa-ucla.com/projects.htm.
[29] Ghaith Mahmood, "Americanization: Solutions for a Small Planet?" al-Talib, vol. 12, no. 3, at http://www.al-talib.com/articles/v12_i3_a05.htm.
[30] Erick Stakelbeck, "Islamic Radicals on Campus," FrontPage Magazine, Apr. 23, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7395.
[31]"UCLA Sponsors of Terrorism," FrontPage Magazine, Apr. 4, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7098.
[32] Atlantiz Miztery, "Palestine in War," South Seattle Community College Muslim Students' Association, at http://sscc.msanw.org/forum.htm.
-
WND is not always the most reliable of sites. That said, this does raise concerns:
==========
3 in 4 US Mosque preach anti Western extremism
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The WorldNetDaily story below is a MUST-READ, for two reasons. First, the study reported in the story confirms what a Freedom House study of a few years ago found – that a high percentage of mosques in the United States are promoting hatred, violence, jihad, and the goal of sharia law to replace American constitutional law.
Second, that there is no, we repeat, no systematic U.S. government effort to investigate these mosques. Stunning!
Please forward this email to as many people as possible.
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Study: 3 in 4 U.S. mosques preach anti-West extremism
Secret survey exposes widespread radicalism
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND has learned [emphasis added].
The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.
"So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist," an official familiar with the project said [emphasis added].
Many of the Islamic centers are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt.
Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Center for Security Policy, says the results of the survey have not yet been published. But he confirmed that "the vast majority" are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.
The project, headed by David Yerushalmi, a lawyer and expert on sharia law, has finished collecting data from the first cohort of 102 mosques and schools. Preliminary findings indicate that almost 80 percent of the group exhibit a high level of sharia-compliance and jihadi threat, including:
Ultra-orthodox worship in which women are separated from men in the prayer hall and must enter the mosque from a separate, usually back, entrance; and are required to wear hijabs.
Sermons that preach women are inferior to men and can be beaten for disobedience; that non-Muslims, particularly Jews, are infidels and inferior to Muslims; that jihad or support of jihad is not only a Muslim's duty but the noblest way, and suicide bombers and other so-called "martyrs" are worthy of the highest praise; and that an Islamic caliphate should one day encompass the U.S. [emphasis added].
Solicitation of financial support for jihad [emphasis added].
Bookstores that sell books, CDs and DVDs promoting jihad and glorifying martyrdom.
Though not all mosques in America are radicalized, many have tended to serve as safe havens and meeting points for Islamic terrorist groups. Experts say there are at least 40 episodes of extremists and terrorists being connected to mosques in the past decade alone.
Some of the 9/11 hijackers, in fact, received aid and counsel from one of the largest mosques in the Washington, D.C., area. Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center is one of the mosques identified by undercover investigators as a hive of terrorist activity and other extremism.
It was founded and is currently run by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Imams there preach what is called "jihad qital," which means physical jihad, and incite violence and hatred against the U.S.
Dar al-Hijrah's ultimate goal, investigators say, is to turn the U.S. into an Islamic state governed by sharia law [emphasis added].
Another D.C.-area mosque, the ADAMS Center, was founded and financed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been one of the top distributors of Wahhabist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma.
Even with such radical mosques operating in its backyard, the U.S. government has not undertaken its own systematic investigation of U.S. mosques [emphasis added].
In contrast, European Union security officials are analyzing member-state mosques, examining the training and funding sources of imams, in a large-scale project.
Some U.S. lawmakers want the U.S. to conduct its own investigation.
"We have too many mosques in this country," said Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y. "There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACT for America
P.O. Box 6884
Virginia Beach, VA 23456
www.actforamerica.org
ACT for America is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing the most powerful grassroots citizen action network in America, a grassroots network committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam. We are only as strong as our supporters, and your volunteer and financial support is essential to our success. Thank you for helping us make America safer and more secure.
-
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334390,00.html
In response to a request by female Muslim students, Harvard University has created women-only workout hours at one of its campus gyms. The decision has angered some students at the Ivy League university.
Since Jan. 28, the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center has been open only to women from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays.
The change was prompted by a request from the Harvard College Women's Center, which was approached by six female Muslim students, said Robert Mitchell, communications director of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
"It was done for religious purposes, but it's not closed to other women who may want to participate," he said.
Ola Aljawhary, a student and a member of the Harvard Islamic Society, said the women-only gym is needed.
"These hours are necessary because there is a segment of the Harvard female population that is not found in gyms, not because they don't want to work out, but because for them working out in a co-ed gym is uncomfortable, awkward or problematic in some way," she told Boston University's Daily Free Press.
/**/
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in Washington D.C., said modesty may prevent some Muslim women from exercising in a co-ed environment.
"If the women are dressed in a manner that makes it more comfortable to exercise, they may not feel it’s appropriate for them to be viewed by men in that particular attire," he said.
But the change has angered students like Nicholas Wells, a junior who called the change a "lose-lose" situation in an opinion article he wrote for the Harvard Crimson newspaper.
"It is an unreasonable policy that is unjust to men and useless to women," he wrote.
"Rather than a genuine attempt to provide comfortable workout hours for women and religious observers who might be uncomfortable working out around men, this policy beats around the bush by offering the least utilized and the most inconvenient hours and gym space," he said. "No one benefits from women’s only hours."
The Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center is one of three large recreational facilities on the Cambridge, Mass., campus, though most of the 12 residential houses also have workout facilities, Mitchell said. A large Harvard athletic center is also available for use on the Boston side of the St. Charles River.
Harvard has made many accommodations for students' religious needs, Mitchell said. Those include prayer areas for Hindu and Muslim students as well as the rescheduling of exams to accommodate religious holidays.
"This is just yet another of what we thought was a reasonable request for some special times because of religion, not because of gender," Mitchell said.
The women-only hours are being tested on a trial basis and will be evaluated at the end of the semester, he said.
Reports of the Harvard decision have sparked discussion in student publications across the country, including the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where an athletics department spokesman said such a measure would be "hard to pull off" in the campus' primary gym.
-
In Defense of the Constitution
News & Analysis
003/08 March 26, 2008
CAIR: The Treason from Within; Another CAIR Official Indicted
On Wednesday, 26 March, a Grand Jury indictment against Muthanna Al-Hanooti was unsealed in Michigan. The indictment accuses Al-Hanooti of violations of 18 and 50 United States Code. The specifics include allegations that Al-Hanooti provided information on members of the congress who were of interest to the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), acted under direction of the IIS, accepted payments in oil (two million barrels) from the Iraqi government for acting as its agent, and provided a written brief to the Iraqi government outlining methods that could be used to lift the sanctions then in place against Iraq.
The indictment may be read here (PDF): http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/112.pdf
Al-Hanooti was the executive director of CAIR’s then-new regional office in Michigan at the time he committed the alleged crimes. Once again, we see the dirty black hand of CAIR connected to yet another arguably traitorous individual who apparently sold out “his” country for 30 pieces of silver.
For over a decade, we Americans have allowed CAIR to dictate to us how we should behave, believe, and react to Islam in our country. We have kow-towed to CAIR’s demands for special rights based on Islam; watched our law enforcement genuflect at the feet of radical Islamists; observed our president and other elected leaders contort our language to comport with CAIR’s demands, and we have, for the most part, remained silent.
Silent, no more!
How many CAIR connected radical Muslims will we tolerate before we DEMAND of our President that he close down CAIR as he did the Holy Land Foundation? How many treasonous acts are too many? What is the tipping point for CAIR-connected crimes against our country? How many of our brave warriors must die in the war on terror before we close down what is arguably the Embassy for Hamas in North America - CAIR?
The day has finally come when we Americans can no longer say about CAIR that “we didn’t know”.
CAIR has told us, numerous times, that they are here to defend radical Islam, that they want the United States to become an Islamic dictatorship, and that they approve of the actions of many Islamist terrorist groups and individuals; including those that terror-murder on an almost daily basis women and children.
Why aren’t we listening...?
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
Additional Links:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/626
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/NEWS03/80326063
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/METRO/803260441/1361
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/17/MNGJ477FCK1.DTL
-
Wall of silence broken at state's Muslim public school
By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune
Last update: April 9, 2008 - 12:45 PM
Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.
Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.
TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.
Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law -- and "Islamic Studies" is offered at the end of the school day.
Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, "due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing." But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond -- even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.
Now, however, an eyewitness has stepped forward. Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher. She worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14. Her experience suggests that school-sponsored religious activity plays an integral role at TIZA.
Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day's schedule included a "school assembly" in the gym after lunch.
Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."
Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."
"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."
Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. "When I arrived, I was told 'after school we have Islamic Studies,' and I might have to stay for hall duty," Getz said. "The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one -- the board said the kids were studying the Qu'ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."
After school, Getz's fifth-graders stayed in their classroom and the man in white who had led prayer in the gym came in to teach Islamic Studies. TIZA has in effect extended the school day -- buses leave only after Islamic Studies is over. Getz did not see evidence of other extra-curricular activity, except for a group of small children playing outside. Significantly, 77 percent of TIZA parents say that their "main reason for choosing TIZA ... was because of after-school programs conducted by various non-profit organizations at the end of the school period in the school building," according to a TIZA report. TIZA may be the only school in Minnesota with this distinction.
Why does the Minnesota Department of Education allow this sort of religious activity at a public school? According to Zaman, the department inspects TIZA regularly -- and has done so "numerous times" -- to ensure that it is not a religious school.
But the department's records document only three site visits to TIZA in five years -- two in 2003-04 and one in 2007, according to Assistant Commissioner Morgan Brown. None of the visits focused specifically on religious practices.
The department is set up to operate on a "complaint basis," and "since 2004, we haven't gotten a single complaint about TIZA," Brown said. In 2004, he sent two letters to the school inquiring about religious activity reported by visiting department staffers and in a news article. Brown was satisfied with Zaman's assurance that prayer is "voluntary" and "student-led," he said. The department did not attempt to confirm this independently, and did not ask how 5- to 11-year-olds could be initiating prayer. (At the time, TIZA was a K-5 school.)
Zaman agreed to respond by e-mail to concerns raised about the school's practices. Student "prayer is not mandated by TIZA," he wrote, and so is legal. On Friday afternoons, "students are released ... to either join a parent-led service or for study hall." Islamic Studies is provided by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, and other "nonsectarian" after-school options are available, he added.
Yet prayer at TIZA does not appear to be spontaneously initiated by students, but rather scheduled, organized and promoted by school authorities.
Request for volunteers
Until recently, TIZA's website included a request for volunteers to help with "Friday prayers." In an e-mail, Zaman explained this as an attempt to ensure that "no TIZA staff members were involved in organizing the Friday prayers."
But an end run of this kind cannot remove the fact of school sponsorship of prayer services, which take place in the school building during school hours. Zaman does not deny that "some" Muslim teachers "probably" attend. According to federal guidelines on prayer in schools, teachers at a public school cannot participate in prayer with students.
In addition, schools cannot favor one religion by offering services for only its adherents, or promote after-school religious instruction for only one group. The ACLU of Minnesota has launched an investigation of TIZA, and the Minnesota Department of Education has also begun a review.
TIZA's operation as a public, taxpayer-funded school is troubling on several fronts. TIZA is skirting the law by operating what is essentially an Islamic school at taxpayer expense. The Department of Education has failed to provide the oversight necessary to catch these illegalities, and appears to lack the tools to do so. In addition, there's a double standard at work here -- if TIZA were a Christian school, it would likely be gone in a heartbeat.
TIZA is now being held up as a national model for a new kind of charter school. If it passes legal muster, Minnesota taxpayers may soon find themselves footing the bill for a separate system of education for Muslims.
http://www.startribune.com/local/17406054.html
-
In Defense of the Constitution
News & Analysis
005/08 April 20, 2008
CAIR: Non-Profit?
In an article carried by MyrtleBeachOnline.com, Rep. Sue Myrick says she wants America to "wake up" and do something about terrorism.
To that end, Rep. Myrick has introduced a ten-points plan apparently designed to both alert Americans to the threat of terrorism and also lay out a blue-print for taking action now to hopefully prevent incidents in future.
Among Myrick's points (Wake Up America") is a call for examining the tax exempt status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a Washington, D.C. based front group that supports Islamist terrorism and Islamist terrorists in North America .
When Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR spokesman, was asked about Myrick's plan, he attempted to tie in valid concerns about CAIR to "anti-Muslim hate sites" on the internet:
"It sounds like your usual laundry list of talking points you can see on anti-Muslim hate sites on the Internet"
Typical of Hoopers disingenuous attempt to paint CAIR as the innocent victim, he completely failed to explain why CAIR shouldn't be investigated.
For instance, can Hooper:
- Deny that CAIR receives foreign funding?
- Refute accusations that CAIR actively supports Islamist terrorists and terrorist groups?
- Show that CAIR is not in America as part of a plan to overthrow the government and replace it with an Islamic theocracy?
- Explain just how CAIR should retain its tax exempt status in light of CAIR's dirty hands?
Hooper can't credibly defend CAIR from any of these accusations and he knows it.
So, he does the next best thing which is to play the "woe is us" card.
It looks like Rep. Myrick is one of those few in the Congress who "gets it" when it comes to radical Islam.
We wish her luck in her investigation of CAIR and we have no doubt that if she is able to fully investigate CAIR that not only will CAIR's tax exempt status be in jeopardy, perhaps the whole organization will be as well.
Additional reading:
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/422373.html
http://cairhateandterror.blogspot.com/2008/04/doj-cair-conspired-to-support.html
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=B6744280-4203-4F79-8741-9DD581E15D93
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5509965B-87BE-4C20-83F4-88265DC72BD7
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/AhmadDenied
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58885
http://www.thebulletin.us/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2737&dept_id=576361&newsid=18257792
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_012_07.html
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/08/war_is_deception_1.php
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
-
Reliability of source unknown.
=======================
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Gaubatz: Islamic Manual in Falls Church, Virginia Calls on Muslims to Attack Olympians, Kill Priests and Nuns, Wage War on All Christians
Dave Gaubatz has posted a very distrubing discovery regarding a Jihad manual being sold at the Halalco Supermarket in Falls Church, Virginia. As Dave explains it on his Kids&Terrorism Blog:
"On 29 April 2008, I shopped at Halalco to verify the book is still available. It is located in the "Jihad" section of the bookstore. The manager 'Tariq' can show you the book and it is available for $12.95.
Following are some of the quotes:
1. "It is, in short, time to identify the enemy and declare the Jihad. Identify the enemy. Declare the Jihad. define its parameters. Indicate its opening statements. Delineate its outcome and indicate its end".
2. "The enemy is not merely a personnel but a method, a deen, with its Temples, the banks; with its holy places, the Stock Exchanges of the world; and its false scriptures, the data banks of figures, these magical millions and billions that hold the world's poor to ransom for the sake of a small elite of kafir power brokers, their core jewish, their allies the lawless Christians. It is with these the war must be waged".
3. "He who equips a fighter in the way of Allah, or looks after a fighters family at home is as good as one who fought".
4. "Priests in their churches, unlike recluse worshipping monks, should, of course be killed without any exception. Nuns along with Monks, deserve killing even more".
5. "No one has yet contemplated the impact of one destroyed Stock Exchange or Central Bank Archive".
6. "Not taking the jews and Christians as friends, not following their deen, not submitting to bid'a, neither its holidays (National Days, etc), nor in habits, not entering their places of worship, nor participating in their festivals-all this is vital in the prelude to the attack of a new Jihad."
7. "Strike at the time least expected. It follows that one should also strike at the place not expected. By extension, in light of the current situation, one may strike at several centres all at the same time, thus causing havoc in the enemy and in their response".
8. "One thing is certain-if the kuffar accept us and approve of us and claim they can live alongside us, then we have lost our Islam. The whole body-worshipping mushrik cult of Olympic fire worshipping sport is something unacceptable"."
ACT for America
P.O. Box 6884
Virginia Beach, VA 23456
www.actforamerica.org
ACT for America is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing the most powerful grassroots citizen action network in America, a grassroots network committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam. We are only as strong as our supporters, and your volunteer and financial support is essential to our success. Thank you for helping us make America safer and more secure.
-
May 04, 2008
Strategic Collapse in the War on Terror
By Joseph Myers
Words matter, and in the global war on terror we are losing the battle of words, in a self-inflicted defeat. The consequences could not be more profound.
Recent government policy memoranda, circulating through the national counter-terrorism and diplomatic community, establishes a new "speech code" for the lexicon in the war on terror, as reported by the Associated Press and now available in the public domain .
These new "speech codes" recommended that analysts and policy makers avoid the terms jihad or jihadist or mujhadid or "al-Qaida movement" and replace them with "extremists" and by extension other non-specific terms.
The use of these "new words" and rejection of the "old words" is ostensibly designed to avoid legitimating al-Qaida and its followers while mollifying the sensitivities of the larger Muslim community.
This culmination of previous trends does not surprise me at all.
This is more than simply dancing on the pinhead of cultural sensitivity-words have meaning, ideas have consequences.
This policy is a strategic collapse.
It does nothing to improve our strategic comprehension of the threat or improve our foreign strategic communications; in fact it reinforces existing conceptual problems and risks confusing our messaging with our own actual knowledge of the jihadist threat.
It is a failure of commission, a collapse of competency and reason. It is a collapse of precision and possibly the most profound setback in the war on terror since 9-11, when the global jihad brought itself to our attention.
Clausewitz noted that in war the moral factors are perhaps the most important, and we have just demonstrated we neither have the moral clarity or moral fortitude to comprehend the nature of the war we are in. Dr. Antulio Echevarria of the Army's Strategic Studies Institute stated once that the "US military does not have a doctrine for war as much as it has a doctrine for operations and battles" and we have just demonstrated we don't have the comprehension of this war as much as we can comprehend its operations and battles.
The AP report highlights a level of ignorance and hubris by the functionaries speaking to this topic so grave that is raises my concern about the actual extent that our government is in fact co-opted by our enemies.
War is a complex endeavor, there are no silver-bullet weapons, theories, words or phrases that will disarm our enemies or shape the cultural attitudes of the jihadists or other fellow Muslims. Only how the Islamic world doctrinally perceives and receives the claims of legitimacy of al-Qaida and the rest of the global Islamic movement will determine that outcome -- not any mincing of words by the West.
But it is important that we use the right words so that the West and the American people can understand the nature of our global challenge in this war as much as anyone else.
No Global Threat Model
Over the last several years, there have been numerous examples of incredible malfeasance and lack of due diligence in homeland security, prediction and investigations evidenced by the reporting of, for example, Patrick Poole in his Hometown Jihad series.
Also the schizophrenic activities of our government in dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood in America that has declared itself engaged in "civilizational jihadist process" to destroy our way of life and replace it with an Islamic model, and repeated examples of one arm of the government attempting to prosecute elements of the Brotherhood while the other half vets their actions and cultural sensitivity programs against the same organizations. Or recall the DHS booth placed next to the Islamic revolutionary organization of Hizb ut-Tahrir at another Islamic conference.
National security strategy is policy and policy implies a theory -- a theory for action. To date we have no concrete theory of action because we have no fully articulated global threat model. We are seven years into a global war with armed combat and many dead and wounded, and yet still lack a common analytic paradigm to describe and model the enemy. It is a stunning failure to propel the country to war without a fully elaborated threat model that clarifies and specifies the enemy and makes clear our true objectives.
The lack of a threat model and a theory for action explains our schizophrenia, our failures and homeland security shortcomings.
Understanding the enemy -- "the threat," his threat doctrine and the authoritative statements, sources and philosophy undergirding that doctrine is a primary duty. That is the first step in developing a threat model. It is the vital step in the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield
process, to template enemy doctrine by laying it over the terrain: the physical, human and cultural terrain to understand its manifestations in reality. These are the first relevant questions to be answered for US national security analysis.
Our enemy says he is fighting jihad warfare to extend the Islamic faith; the basis of that claim rests on his exegesis of Quranic and Islamic Law injunctions. Irrespective of whether we or other Muslims accept or deny the legitimacy of his claim, if that is his stated doctrine, then that is the doctrine we must study and comprehend. That is the doctrine that will provide the indicators and warnings of future threats, that is the basis of our threat model.
That fact that other Muslims do not engage in violent jihad bears no relevance to our problem set or the analysis of those who do; it is a distraction and ancillary information that does not contribute to the threat model or understanding the enemy.
The fact is we have already so nuanced this war that we have failed to complete those required analyses. Our national security strategies and plans are so nuanced now as to be useless in terms of understanding the threat, defining it, clarifying it, modeling it. Read them, see if you can distill the enemy and orient on a clear objective. Even in our own strategic planning documents we admit to ourselves that we don't agree on the threat.
This completely contrasts with our well-developed threat model in the Cold War, beginning with NSC-68 and the containment policy, national security courses that taught Soviet ideology and world-view, the Soviet threat doctrine series published by DIA, and then wargaming against it at our military schools.. We understood them intellectually, philosophically, doctrinally from the very top down to the tactical bottom.
Seven years into this war we cannot say the same for the global jihad and have failed the same analytic and policy rigor. That is a serious error of omission.
Submission to Multiculturalism
Dr. Bernard Lewis, speaking recently at a luncheon and conference in Washington DC, noted that the two greatest shortcomings to understanding the Middle East are the "orthodoxy" of "political correctness and multiculturalism" and the reality that in the face of those driving ideologies, too many sworn to defend have proven themselves wilting lilies.
This new "no jihad policy" is the greatest of example.
Let's dissect the government message to show not only its folly, but factual errors that point to a lack of strategic comprehension and due diligence amounting to the level of an ethical failing.
An MSNBC article discussing this policy said this on the meaning of Jihad:
"For example, while Americans may understand "jihad" to mean "holy war," it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public."
That is wrong; it is in error. It is incompetently derived information.
Recall Patton famous exclamation: "Rommel I read your damn book".
This is the book our counter-terrorism communicators need to read. This is what sacred Islamic Law says on jihad:
"o9.0 - Jihad. Jihad means to wage war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion. [italic emphasis in original]"... The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus (def: b7) is such Koranic verses as: (1) "Fighting is prescribed for you" (Koran 2:216); (2) "Slay them wherever you find them" (Koran 4:89); (3) "Fight the idolators utterly" (Koran 9:36); ... I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for rights of Islam over them. (Umdat al-Salik p.599)"
Irrespective of the polemics, this is the only definition of jihad in Islamic law, this is the only controlling and binding definition of jihad for any Muslim.
So are we now to deduce from the media reporting that the US government, expects for example, those in military service to accept that waging "war against non-Muslims ...to establish the religion" is a "struggle to do good." Does our government consider jihad a "good" thing. Am I to accept that jihad is good for America?
Is this how far we have come with multiculturalism?
The Islamic Law of Nations
Al-Shaybani's Siyar, known as The Islamic Law of Nations, was drafted in the 9th century. It is described by Rudolf Peters as the first major Muslim work "devoted exclusively to Islamic law dealing with relations with non-Muslims." It is a body of law that Dr. Majid Khadduri noted,
"Muslims declared to be binding upon themselves, regardless of whether non-Muslims accept it."
Khadduri adds for context:
"The Islamic Law of Nations, however, is not a system separate from Islamic law. It is merely an extension of the sacred law."
And with respect to jihad, after discussing that the world is divided into two camps the dar-al Islam [house of submission] and the dar al-harb [the house of war] Khadduri elaborates the Siyar:
"The territory of war was the object, not the subject of the Islamic legal system and it was the duty of Muslim rulers to bring it under Islamic sovereignty whenever the strength was theirs to do so." The state of war existing between the dar al Islam and the dar al harb, however, does not necessarily means that actual hostilities must occur. The instrument which would transform the dar al-harb into the dar al Islam was the jihad. The jihad was not merely a duty to be fulfilled by each individual; it was also above all a political obligation imposed collectively on the subject of the states so as to achieve Islam's ultimate aim-the universalization of the faith and the establishment of God's sovereignty over the world. Thus the jihad was an individual duty, especially in the defense of Islam, as well as the collective duty on the community as a whole, and failure to fulfill it would constitute a gross error.
The jihad, in the broad sense of the term, did not necessarily call for violence or fighting, even though a state of war existed between Islamic and non-Islamic territories since Islam might achieve its ultimate goal by peaceful as well as by violent means. This participation might be fulfilled by the heart, the tongue or the hands, as well as by the sword. The jihad was accordingly a form of religious propaganda carried out by spiritual as well as by material means. (pp. 12-16)
Peace does not supersede the state of war, for the jihad is a legal duty prescribed by the law; peace means the grant of security or protection to the non-Muslims for certain specified purposes...Muslim authorities concluded peace treaties with the enemy only when it was to the advantage of Islam." (p. 54)
Additionally,
"It was Shafi'i [founder of the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence] who first formulated the doctrine that the jihad had for its intent the waging of war on unbelievers for their disbelief and not merely when they entered into conflict with Islam's. The jihad was thereby transformed into a collective duty enjoined on Muslim to fight the unbelievers "wherever you may find them."(p. 58)
So does the United States government also now considers [fighting] the unbelievers "wherever you may find them"(Quran 9.5) to be more "broadly" a "struggle to do good"?
"In Islamic legal theory, the jihad was a permanent obligation upon the believers to carried out by continuous process of warfare, psychological and political, if not strictly military. (p.16)
It is interesting to consider the "continuous process" of "psychological warfare": what better way to prosecute a war against your adversary than convincing those with whom you are at war with that you are not at war with them; to convince them not to use the language and the logic of the war.
No America they are not "jihadist" you face but "extremists".... miscreants, "evil-doers," murderers, "cultists," just really bad people.
Do the speech code writers understand the concept of "masking terrain" in war?
Finally Khadduri makes two additional points:
"If a Muslim entered the dar al-harb... he was under obligation to respect [and] observe its laws...but if conflicts arose between his own law and that of the territory, no doubt existed where his choice would lie."(p.14)
"The jihad is the Islamic bellum justum and [is] the very basis of Islam's relations with other nations." (p. xi)
If you appreciate the above concepts then you understand their strategic ramifications and our challenge with respect to the "extremists."
-
al-Ijma and Quranic Warfare
That is why Brigadier S K Malik's Quranic Concept of War described jihad in terms of "grand strategy" and "total war" because it applies every element of force and suasion, every stratagem, every inducement and every coercion to submit the world to Islam. The "philosophy of war ... is an integral part of the total Quranic ideology" Malik stated. Note too, Malik was no Wahhabi or Salafist, he was a Pakistani general in 1979.
Importantly, Khadduri before is not merely waxing historical platitudes because he follows by saying:
"Jurists who came afterward, up unto the very decline of Muslim power, merely introduced refinements and elaborations of these basic principals. No essential difference among the leading jurist is to be found on this fundamental duty [of jihad], whether in orthodox or heterodox doctrine."(p.58 and 16 )
Do these wordsmiths understand the implication of what Khadduri is describing?
It means the jurists agree.
It means ulemic consensus.
It means al-ijma and that means that this legal obligation of jihad is "unquestionable truth" it cannot be ignored, abrogated, or contravened and for a Muslim to willingly deny the truth of jihad or of the religion "thereby becomes an unbeliever (kafir) and is executed for his unbelief. (Umdat al-Salik p. 109)
It means this applies today, now, tomorrow.
Do not doubt the jihadists of al-Qaida, and the al Qaida “movement” and the Muslim Brotherhood “movement” and Hizb ut-Tahrir, Lakshar e-Taiba, Jamaat-e-Islami,
and Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Salah Sultan and Abdurahman Alamoudi, Sami al-Arian, Esam Omeish and Niwad Awad and all the rest of the affiliated Ikhwan front groups in America and mujtahid of the “global Islamic movement” fully understand this. Do not doubt that any schooled Muslim does not understand these tenets of jihad as well whether they adhere to them or not.
The Homeland Security policy stated:
U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report.
This cannot be documented as fact.
Can the drafter and the approval authority of that Homeland Security report cite where the terrorists "lack moral and religious legitimacy?" Can they cite their incontrovertible sourcing? If so I want to see it; I have searched for it.
The closest I can come would be the Spanish fatwa, whose import in the rest of the Islamic world was questioned, while most readers would not understand the legal nuance of "innocence" in Islamic law. The fiqh council of North America, itself tainted as a Muslim Brotherhood entity, also issued its own fatwa that was in fact challenged as non-specific and fraudulent,
Can the memo-writers point to any universal ulemic denunciations against al-Qaida or denouncement from the major Islamic centers or key muftis across the Middle East?
Shmuel Bar noted its absence in his "Jihadist Ideology in Light of Current Fatwas":
"[This] is a one-sided battle; the radicals are on the offensive, whereas counter-attacks of moderates are few and far between. Fatwas commanding terror can only be countered by a clear opposing consensus (ijma') of mainstream ‘ulama. Such a consensus does not exist. This is due, inter alia, to the deference that mainstream ‘ulama feel towards the radicals as the quintessential believers, and the sense that they are competing with the radicals over the same constituency. Such deference is strengthened in Islam by orthodox Islam's aversion to declarations of heresy (takfir) and the fear of igniting internal conflict (fitnah). It is in the home field of this presumed silent majority that the main battle is taking place, and as long as it does not enter the fray, the battle cannot be won."
It is the silence that is the consent and legitimacy.
No Jihad means No War of Ideas
From the NCTC guidelines:
"We suggest you avoid the term 'al-Qaida movement,' which implies a degree of political legitimacy (e.g., 'labor movement,' 'civil rights movement,' 'women's movement:'. . .). There is no legitimacy to al-Qaida's activities."
This is ahistorical.
First the roots of al-Qaida lie in the in the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the international "global Islamic movement." See the Holy Land Foundation documents at the NEFA Foundation and even Dr. Marc Sageman's first book, Understanding Terrorist Networks. The al-Qaida ideology and jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood constitute a movement, and it is moving right past the competency of the drafters of this claptrap.
Secondly, the recommendation begs the question by claiming "there is no legitimacy to al-Qaida's activities." Who says so? Produce the quantitative demographic analysis and ulemic rulings to substantiate that claim.
But maybe this is how we win the war of ideas; declare there is no ideological movement and it all goes away sort of like calling "gangs" a "crew".
So, considering last year's anniversary 9-11 Senate hearing on global threats, one can imagine this year's carrying on the same thinking:
Senator Lieberman- "What is your strategy for the war of ideas?" FBI Director Mueller- "Sir, there is no war of ideas."
Lieberman- "No? What do you mean?" Mueller- "I'm not sure how to express it; because we can't use the words therefore I have no ideas."
Again the NCTC:
"Do not use 'ummah' to mean 'the Muslim world.' It is not a sociological term, rather, it is a theological construct not used in everyday life."
Wrong.
"[We] should recall that Islam is not merely a set of religious ideas and practices but also a political community (the umma)," Dr. Majid Khadduri reminds us. "The umma, composed of all those who profess the Islamic faith, is the immediate point of reference for every believer." It seems our "experts" disagree about the concept of umma in everyday Muslim life.
From the NCTC Memo:
"Don't Take the Bait: When Osama bin Ladin or others try to draw the USG into a debate, we should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world."
Osama bin Ladin is not debating us. If he is debating anyone it is his fellow Muslims over the mandate of jihad and the doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity.
And another:
"In Arabic, jihad means "striving in the path of God" and is used in many contexts beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes their actions."
That is a non-sequitur; it presumes a cause and effect based on our word choices in the West. Again, al-Qaida is legitimate or illegitimate based on what the Muslim ulema say about al-Qaida not us; but more importantly, in any language and in Islamic law jihad means "warfare to establish the faith."
And this:
"Avoid the term 'caliphate,' which has positive connotations for Muslims, to describe the goal of al-Qaida and associated groups. The best description of what they really want to create is a 'global totalitarian state.'"
You say "caliphate" I say a "global totalitarian state." Maybe the crafters of nuance don't realize how loaded their rejoinder is.
Finally this analysis from Jeffrey Imm Writing in the Counter Terrorism Blog, he notes the 9-11 Commission Report on the topic of jihad:
"The 9/11 Commission Report uses the term "jihad" in referencing the enemy 79 times and specifically defines "jihad" as a "holy war" executed by Osama Bin Laden and his compatriots (Section 2.3, Paragraph #302 on page 55), as well as defining "mujahideen" as "holy warriors" (Paragraph #302, same page). The 9/11 Commission Report refers to such "mujahideen" 22 times.
The 9/11 Commission Report refers to the term "jihadist" 31 times, including the references to the "worldwide jihadist community" (Section 5.1, Paragraph #691 on page 148), to "Islamist Jihadists" (Section 5.3, Paragraph #741 on page 158), to "Islamist and jihadist movements" (Section 6.3, Paragraph #887 on page 191), and multiple references to an NSC memo on "Jihadist Networks".
Most importantly, the 9/11 Commission Report provides the definition of "Islamist terrorism" as being based on the ideology of "Islamism" (Notes, Part 12, Note 3: "Islamism", page 562)."
In light of the NCTC and State Department GWOT lexicon guidelines one must surmise that the 9-11 Commission Report should now be withdrawn from public consumption and all must stop referencing it.
I submit the people advocating this line of argument are either unstudied as to what they are saying, or if the sourcing for these lines of argument can be traced to their original roots, then I would wager those roots are in the strategic disinformation of the "global Islamic movement."
One must also question if those recommending and making these decisions have a doctrinal understanding of any of the original lexicon, much less intellectual preparation to change it to something else. Has anyone considered that maybe our perceptions are being shaped by the jihadists as much as we think we are shaping foreign perceptions?
Caution reminds us that to the extent we outsource our knowledge base we outsource our decisions. To the extent we do this with our knowledge of Islam and Islamic jihad we do so at risk.
This lexicon change represents systemic organizational failure: a professional failure and the failure to know is a failure of leadership.
As Dr. Bernard Lewis asked last week, "where does ignorance end and falsehood begin."
Joseph C. Myers writes and speaks on terrorism and homeland security issues and is completing his PhD in public policy. He recently presented a paper for the Association of scholars for the Study of Middle East and Africa.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/strategic_collapse_in_the_war.html at May 04, 2008 - 10:11:27 AM EDT
-
Islamic Divorce Ruled Not Valid in Maryland
Custom Allowing Men to End Marriage With Oral Declaration Lacks 'Due Process'
By Ruben Castaneda
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 8, 2008; B02
After his wife of more than two decades filed for divorce in Montgomery County Circuit Court, Irfan Aleem responded in writing in 2003, and not just in court.
Aleem went to the Pakistani Embassy in the District, where he executed a written document that asserted he was divorcing Farah Aleem. He performed "talaq," exercising a provision of Islamic religious and Pakistani secular law that allows husbands to divorce their wives by declaring "I divorce thee" three times. In Muslim countries, men have used talaq to leave their wives for centuries.
But they can't use it in Maryland, the state's highest court decided this week.
The state Court of Appeals issued a unanimous 21-page opinion Tuesday declaring that talaq is contrary to Maryland's constitutional provisions providing equal rights to men and women.
"Talaq lacks any significant 'due process' for the wife, its use, moreover, directly deprives the wife of the 'due process' she is entitled to when she initiates divorce litigation in this state. The lack and deprivation of due process is itself contrary to this state's public policy," the court wrote.
The decision affirms a 2007 ruling by the Court of Special Appeals, the state's intermediate appellate court, which also said that talaq does not apply in the Free State.
Under Islamic traditions, talaq can be invoked only by a husband, unless he grants his wife the same right.
According to the Court of Appeals' opinion, Irfan Aleem, who worked for years as an economist with the World Bank, is worth about $2 million, half of which Farah Aleem is entitled to under Maryland law. When Irfan Aleem tried to divorce his wife under the concept of talaq, a sum of $2,500 was mentioned as a "full and final" settlement, according to the appellate decision.
That amount was written into the marriage contract Farah Aleem signed the day she married him in their native Pakistan in 1980, according to the appellate decision. The contract was in accordance with Pakistani custom. At the time, he was 29 and she was 18. The couple moved to the Washington area in 1985.
"I don't even know how to express how happy I am. I am ecstatic, relieved," Farah Aleem, 46, said yesterday.
Over the years, a lack of financial support from her ex-husband caused hardship for her and her son and daughter, who are in college, she said. "All I ever wanted was my fair share, not a penny more," said Aleem, who lives in the Washington area, works full time for an accounting firm and is pursuing an accounting degree at night.
At the direction of the judge who presided over the Aleems' divorce proceedings, the couple's Potomac home was sold, and half the proceeds -- about $200,000 -- went to Farah Aleem, said Susan Friedman, her attorney.
Friedman said she thinks that Irfan Aleem, who retired in recent years, invoked talaq to avoid paying Farah half of his World Bank pension, which provides him with $90,000 annually, the attorney said.
"It will be very pleasant when [Farah] gets her share of that," Friedman said. "She's delighted about that."
Friedman said she will serve papers on the World Bank showing that the original order from the Circuit Court -- that Farah Aleem is entitled to half her ex-husband's pension -- is now final and that the bank has to give her half.
Irfan Aleem, who is in his late 50s, lives in Pakistan, Friedman said.
His attorney, Priya R. Aryar, said, "We're very disappointed with the decision. We think this could have adverse ramifications for a whole bunch of people who reside in the D.C. area under diplomatic visas and assume that their family law rights and obligations are governed by the laws of their country of citizenship."
A legal scholar and an Islamic leader said the appellate court's decision was not surprising.
"For the most part, Muslims expected this kind of ruling," said Muneer Fareed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America in Plainfield, Ind. "The contrary would be a surprise to them. They do not expect the U.S. legal system to give full recognition of talaq."
Julie Macfarlane, a legal scholar who is researching a book about Islamic divorces in North America, said the decision was not surprising. "There's no legal enforceability [for talaq] in U.S. courts," said Macfarlane, a professor at the University of Windsor in Canada.
-
Second post of the day:
CAIR-OH banquet speaker: 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspirator Siraj Wahhaj
Later today CAIR-Ohio will host their 10th annual fundraising banquet here in Columbus. This week, we've revisited some of the more infamous moments in CAIR-OH history:
1999 CAIR-OH banquet speaker: convicted terrorist and bin Laden operative, Abdurahman Alamoudi
CAIR-OH revisited, 2001: CAIR-OH holds fundraiser for notorious cop killer, Jamal Al-Amin
CAIR-OH revisited, 1999: CAIR-OH rushes to aid pre-9/11 dry-run hijackers
But the appearance of Siraj Wahhaj, who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as the keynote speaker for the 2006 CAIR-OH annual banquet has to rank among one of the most despicable acts in that group's ten years of existence.
And following the banquet featuring Wahhaj, CAIR-OH bragged in a press release how the Wahhaj fundraiser had netted them more than $100,000 in one evening to help spread their hate speech and terror apologies. Here is the CAIR press release following the event (click to enlarge):
In a March 2006 article, "CAIR's Blood Money", I prefaced my evaluation of CAIR-OH's activities with this historical reflection:
At 12:17 pm on February 26, 1993, a 1,500lb urea-nitrate fuel-oil bomb hidden inside a rental van caused a massive explosion that ripped through the parking garage of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring another 1,042 – the first large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil by Islamic extremists. The terrorists had intended to topple one of the buildings onto the other, potentially killing tens of thousands of innocent Americans. Sadly, the fourteenth anniversary of that event passed last week with very little discussion by major media outlets, even though that lethal attack by Islamic terrorists ominously foreshadowed the unspeakable horror of 9/11.
At 8:00 pm on June 6, 2006, the Ohio affiliate of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OH) honored one of the unindicted conspirators in that 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn, NY imam that had also served as a defense witness at the trial of one of the men convicted for that terrorist attack, the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman (a conviction that CAIR has labeled “a travesty of justice”). More than 400 CAIR-OH supporters gathered at this fundraising banquet.
Read the whole article. And consider the terrible legacy of hatred and terrorist support that CAIR-OH has wrought over the past decade.
Posted by Patrick Poole at 2:19 AM
Labels: CAIR-OH, Siraj Wahhaj
__________________
-
History textbooks promoting Islam
New report says Muslim activists 'succeeding' in expunging criticism
Posted: May 10, 2008
12:30 am Eastern
World Net Daily does hyperventilate sometimes, but it also goes where others fear to tread.
=============================================================
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
History textbooks being used by hundreds of thousands of students across the U.S. are blatantly promoting Islam, according to a new report by an independent organization that researches and reviews textbooks.
WND has reported several times on issues involving the promotion of Islam in public school texts, including a recent situation in which California parents complained their children were being taught that "jihad" to Muslims means "doing good works."
The new report is from the American Textbook Council, which was established in 1989 as an independent national research organization to review social textbooks and advance the quality of instructional materials in history.
In the two-year project, whose report was authored by Gilbert T. Sewall, the ATC reviewed five junior and five high school world and texts, concluding:
"Many political and religious groups try to use the textbook process to their advantage, but the deficiencies in Islam-related lessons are uniquely disturbing. History textbooks present an incomplete and confected view of Islam that misrepresents its foundations and challenges to international security."
The report finds that the texts present "disputed definitions and claims [regarding Islam] … as established facts."
"Islamic activists use multiculturalism and ready-made American-made political movements, especially those on campus, to advance and justify the makeover of Islam-related textbook content," the report continued.
"Particular fault rests with the publishing corporations, boards of directors, and executives who decide what editorial policies their companies will pursue," the report said.
Reviewed were:
<LI dbPHh="0" wiRFj="0">Medieval and Early Modern Times by Jackson J. Spielvogal
<LI dbPHh="0" wiRFj="0">Medieval to Early Modern Times by Stanley M. Bernstein and Richard Shek
World Medieval and Early Modern Times by Douglas Carnine, Carlos Cortes, Kenneth R. Curtis and Anita T. Robinson
Medieval and Early Modern Times by Dianne Hart
History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond by Bert Bower and Jim Lobdell
World History: The Modern World by Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler
World History: Modern Times by Jackson J. Spielvogel
America: Pathways to the Present by Andrew Cayton and others
The American Vision: Moder Times by Joyce Appelby and others and
The Americans: Reconstruction to the Twenty-first Century by Gerald A. Danzer
The report noted that several of the textbooks have found harsh critics among parents and others, and "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" published by the privately held Curriculum Institute has been criticized repeatedly.
In Lodi, Calif., parents "were not objecting to a word or two that they took out of context but to a textbook long on chapters filled with adulatory lessons on Islam."
This was the same book cited by parents who contacted WND with their concerns about such indoctrination.
A parent whose child has been handed the text in a Sacramento district at that time accused the publisher of a pro-Muslim bias to the point that Islamic theology has been incorporated into the public teachings.
"It makes an attempt to seem like an egalitarian world history book, but on closer inspection you find that seven (not all are titled so) of the chapters deal with Islam or Muslim subjects," wrote the parent, whose name was being withheld, in a letter to WND.
"The upsetting part is not only do they go into the history (which would be acceptable) but also the teaching of Islam," she said. "This book does not really go into Christianity or the teachings of Christ, nor does it address religious doctrine elsewhere to the degree it does Islam."
She said the book's one page referencing Jews "is only to convey that they were tortured by Crusaders to get them to convert to 'Christianity.' (It fails to mention that the biggest persecutors of Jews throughout history and still today are Arab Muslims). It gives four other one-liner references to the Jews being blamed for the plagues and problems in the land. It does not talk about the Jews as making a significant impact on the culture at large."
Bert Bower, founder of TCI, told WND at that time not only did his company have experts review the book, but the state of California also reviewed it, and has approved it for use in public schools.
"Keep in mind when looking at this particular book scholars from all over California (reviewed it)," he said.
One of those experts who contributed to the text, according to the ATC, which earlier released a scathing indictment of that specific project, was Ayad Al-Qazzaz.
"Al-Qazzaz is a Muslim apologist, a frequent speaker in Northern California school districts promoting Islam and Arab causes," the ATC review said. "Al-Qazzaz also co-wrote AWAIR's 'Arab World Notebook.' AWAIR stands for Arab World and Islamic Resources, an opaque, proselytizing 'non-profit organization' that conducts teacher workshops and sells supplementary materials to schools."
===========
The newest report cited the same issue raised by parents.
"In a passage meant to explain jihad, they encountered this: 'Muslims should fulfill jihad with the heart, tongue, and hand. Muslims use the heart in their struggle to resist evil. The tongue may convince others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research. Hands may perform good works and correct wrongs,'" the new report said.
The ATC report noted a complicating factor is a ban in California, to whose standards most textbook publishers align their work, on "adverse reflection" on religion inGeorgia.
"Whatever 'adverse reflection' is, such a mandate may be conceptually at odds with historical and geopolitical actuality," the study said.
"None of this is accidental. Islamic organizations, willing to [provide] misinformation, are active in curriculum politics. These activists are eager to expunge any critical thought about Islam from textbook and all public discourse. They are succeeding, assisted by partisan scholars and associations… It is alarming that so many individuals with the power to shape the curriculum are willfully blind to or openly sympathetic to these efforts," the report said.
Regarding the TCI book, the report said its lessons contain "stilted language that seem scripted or borrowed from devotional, not historical, material." Also, the "Medieval to Early Modern Times" book features a two-page prayer to Allah "the Merciful."
"Among the textbooks examined, the editorial caution that marks coverage of Christian and Jewish beliefs vanishes in presenting Islam's foundations. With materials laden with angels, revelations, miracles, prayers, and sacred exclamations; the story of the Zamzam well; and the titles 'Messenger of God' and 'Prophet of Islam' the seventh-grade textbooks cross the line into something other than history, that is, scripture or myth."
Among the lessons public school students must learn from the various books:
Muhammad "taught equality"
Fasting reminds Muslims of people who struggle to get enough food
Muhammad told his followers to make sure guests never left a table hungry
Arab traditions include being kind to strangers and helping needy
"These effusive formulations stop just short of invention and raise questions about the sources of information," the report said.
The books' praises of Islam continues, the report said. "TCI devotes 13 text-heavy pages to textiles, calligraphy, design, books, city building, architecture, mathematics, medicine, polo, and chess, some of it spun like cotton candy," the report said.
For example, the book reports: "Singing was an essential part of Muslim Spain's musical culture. … Although this music is lost today, it undoubtedly influenced later musical forms in Europe and North Africa."
"Undoubtedly, the TCI volume declares. Yet the book acknowledges the music is lost and the claims are speculative. Empty text dilates Islamic achievements," the report said.
Glossing over the actual physical conquering of some peoples, the "World History: Medieval and Early Modern Times" says people were converted to Islam because they were "attracted by Islam's message of equality and hope for salvation," the report said.
Another book teaches: "Q: How did the caliphs who expanded the Muslim Empire treat those they conquered? A: They treated them with tolerance."
"At a time when intolerance marks Islamic cultures worldwide and multiculturalism is a ruling idea in U.S. schools, these 'wonderland-of-tolerance' tropes constitute a major content distortion," the report said.
The books teach the Crusades were "religious wars launched against Muslims by European Christians."
"When … Muslims groups attack Christian peoples, kill them, and take their lands, the process is referred to as 'building' an empire. Christian attempts to restore those lands are labeled as 'violent attacks' or 'massacres,'" the report said.
Some of the books are rife with other errors. In the TCI book, it says the Crusaders wore red crosses. "No. Only Templars did," said the report.
"While Christian belligerence is magnified, Islamic inequality, subjugation, and enslavement get the airbrush," said the report, which also found inaccuracies in teaching about sharia religious law, women's rights and terrorism, especially the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, which killed nearly 3,000.
"The Modern World" says, "On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, teams of terrorists hijacked four airplanes on the East Coast. Passengers challenged the hijackers on one flight, which they crashed on the way to its target. But one plane plunged into the Pentagon in Virginia, and two others slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York…"
"The flatness and brevity of this passage are dismaying. In terms of content, so much is left unanswered. Who were the teams of terrorists and what did they want to do? What were their political ends? Since 'The Modern World' avoids any hint of the connection between this unnamed terrorism and jihad, why September 11 happened is hard to understand," the report said.
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63872
-
On Mother's Day: 2nd Largest Mosque in North America Honors . . .
By Debbie Schlussel
. . . a woman who proudly proclaims she's embarrassed to be an American, and is the "mother" of thousands of Muslim anchor babies she helped get delivered here through Medicaid fraud.
That's right, for its Mother's Day program, last night, the Islamic House of Wisdom--Dar Al-Hikma--the 2nd largest mosque in North America, is honoring Najah Bazzy, about whom I've written a great deal.
Ms. Bazzy--the Muslim Nurse Ratched--is a very interesting candidate for Muslims to pick as their "Mother of the Year." You see, as head transcultural nurse for Dearbornistan's Oakwood Hospital, she was intimately involved in Medicaid fraud, in which she served as translator and co-conspirator for pregnant Muslim aliens who used phony social security numbers to get Medicaid to cover the births of their babies (they also got U.S. citizenship for those babies--citizenship which can be traded on the open market, since there are no hard-and-fast identifying items on the birth certificate but for the gender).
Najah Bazzy:Embarrassed to Be American; Not Embarrassed About Medicaid FraudIn addition to that, Najah Bazzy told participants in a 2004 CAIR-Michigan political event, "I'm embarrassed to be an American." As I always say, we're embarrassed you're an American, too, Najah Bazzy. Bazzy was excoriated by Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter who was shocked that any Muslim born and raised in America would say such a thing. I wasn't shocked. That's their usual proclamation when they think they are "among friends."
And finally, Najah Bazzy, was the proud donor of an interesting "exhibit" at the Arab American National Museum--a propaganda videotape, which lies about Israel's conduct in Jenin during the height of Muslim homicide bombings in Israel. As we all know, even the pan-Palestinian U.N. reports that only about 26 people died--not the 500 claimed on the baloney-tape--at Jenin, and most of those deaths were attributable to causes--natural and Palestinian--other than the Israelis.
And you might remember Najah Bazzy from her whining press conference, last year, demanding that Northwest Airlines reimburse Muslims who missed their flights returning from the Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia), even though they arrived late. She and the other whiners, predictably, succeeded in getting Dhimmi Airline, Northwest, to reimburse them AND start a whole new round of Muslim sensitivity training taught by CAIR.
No shocker that the Islamic House of Wisdom is featuring her for its Mother's Day event, since--as I've repeatedly noted--this mosque is headed by Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi, former spiritual leader of Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian Navy, and longtime buddy of Hezbollah spiritual leaders Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.
Yep, this is the "Mother of the Year" for Shi'ite Muslims in America. Well they got one part right. She's definitely, as they say, a "Mother" . . . . And, yes, sadly, she has kids who share her unique brand of hatred, phoniness, and anti-American politics.
Like I said, more Americans than Ms. Bazzy are embarrassed she's an American.
I think I like the way Cosa Nostra celebrates Mother's Day a whole lot better than the way Shi'ite Muslims do.
Posted by Debbie at May 11, 2008 01:59 PM
==================================
SCSU student leaves training at Technical High School
By Dave Aeikens • daeikens@stcloudtimes.com • May 12, 2008
A St. Cloud State University student in a teacher-training program at Technical High School left the school in late April because he says he feared for the safety of his service dog.
The school district calls it a misunderstanding, and officials there say they hoped Tyler Hurd, a 23-year-old junior from Mahtomedi who aspires to teach special education, would continue his training in the district.
Hurd said a student threatened to kill his service dog named Emmitt. The black lab is trained to protect Hurd when he has seizures.
The seizures, which can occur weekly, are from a childhood injury.
The dog has a pouch on his side that assists those who stop to help Hurd.
Hurd said he was unable to finish his 50 hours of field training at Tech. The university waived the remaining 10 hours, he said. He plans to do his student teaching outside a high school setting.
“We came up with a solution because I felt threatened by it," Hurd said.
The school district and university are working to make sure a similar situation doesn't happen.
Kate Steffens, dean of the college of education at St. Cloud State, and Tech assistant principal Lori Lockhart met Thursday.
The threat came from a Somali student who is Muslim, according to Hurd, St. Cloud State and school district officials.
The Muslim faith, which is the dominant faith of Somali immigrants, forbids the touching of dogs.
Hurd trained at Talahi Community School and Tech. He said his experience at Talahi was good. The Somali students there warmed to the dog and eventually petted him using paper to keep their hands off his fur, Hurd said.
Things didn't go as well at Tech, Hurd said. Students there taunted his dog, and he finally felt he had to leave after he was told a student made a threat. Hurd met with Lockhart but said he did not feel comfortable continuing.
Julia Espe, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for St. Cloud school district, said the school needed to do a better job communicating.
“I think it was a misunderstanding where we didn't really prepare either side for possible implications," Espe said.
Espe said the school's investigation determined the student did not make a direct threat.
“We certainly welcome (Hurd) in our district, and we hope we can get this all resolved so he feels welcome and his dog is welcome," Espe said.
St. Cloud State places about 1,000 students in 240 schools to help prepare them for careers in education.
In St. Cloud school district, 330 are in the field training program Hurd was in and 94 are in student teaching.
Steffens said it is important to respect different cultures and the rights of disabled students.
“I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse," Steffens said.
Steffens called Hurd a good student and committed young man.
Gary Loch, who is the diversity coordinator for the district, said the situation was an unfortunate case of miscommunication.
“I'm not quite sure where the breakdown comes into play here," Loch said.
http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll...WS01/105120058
-
TV news crew attacked by officials at tax-funded Muslim school
Posted at: 05/19/2008 02:54:48 PM
By: Nicole Muehlhausen, Web Producer
News crew confronted during report at TiZA charter school
In an attempt to report about the new findings from the Department of Education Monday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS went to Tarik ibn Zayad Academy in Inver Grove Heights. While on school grounds, our crew was confronted by school officials. Our photographer was injured while wrestling with the two men over the camera. Our photographer was examined by paramedics and suffered minor shoulder and back injuries.
The state education department on Monday directed the charter school to "correct" two areas related to religion at the school on Monday.
Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a mosque with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, came under fire after a teacher alleged that the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students.
"The Minnesota Department of Education goes to great lengths to make clear to charter schools and their sponsors that, while schools should appropriately accomodate students' religious beliefs, they must be 'nonsectarian' under the state's charter school law," said the state's education Deputy Commissioner Chas Anderson.
The allegations first surfaced after an article by a columnist for the Star Tribune. The Education Department subsequently began a review of the south metro school and released its findings Monday. The agency said it was concerned about the school, with about 300 students, accommodating communal prayer and providing transportation to an after-school religious program.
"We have directed the school to take appropriate corrective actions regarding these matters and will continue to provide oversight to ensure that the school is in compliance with state and federal law," Anderson said.
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S449649.shtml?cat=1
You can watch the attack on the news channel web site.
You Tube has it as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=895U5aVbU7k
=================
To avoid blurring the line between religion and public education, a Twin Cities charter school must undertake "corrective actions," the state Department of Education said Monday.
Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, which teaches hundreds of Muslim students at its Inver Grove Heights and Blaine campuses, should modify its communal prayers on Fridays to make sure students aren't missing too much school, according to the state report.
The report also recommends the school provide after-school busing at different times for students who aren't participating in religious activities.
State officials did not have any concerns with the school's instruction or curriculum.
"With regard to the areas reviewed, most of TiZA's operations are in compliance with state and federal law," Deputy Commissioner Chas Anderson said in a statement.
The state's most important finding is that TiZA is not teaching Islam to students, said Asad Zaman, the school's executive director.
"When something is illegal, it's illegal," he said. "We have done nothing illegal."
He called the state's concerns minor but said the K-8 school will cooperate with the department to propose alternative schedules.
Many TiZA students take five minutes Monday through Thursday to pray, and this causes little interruption, according to the report. But on Fridays — the Muslim holy day — a 30-minute chunk of time is set aside for students to pray. The department is concerned that students
who pray that day may not fulfill the state's minimum hourly attendance requirement, that the prayer takes place in a public school building, and that younger students may not understand that teachers who decide to pray with them are not promoting Islam.
Zaman, who does not participate in the prayer time, said community volunteers run the Friday prayer in the school gymnasium. The state's other concern is with the school's transportation schedule: School is dismissed around 3:30 p.m.,
but no busing is provided until about 4:30 p.m. — when after-school activities end.
According to the report, some Inver Grove Heights students participate in a Muslim studies class that the adjacent Muslim American Society of Minnesota runs. The school said it does not track the number of students enrolled in the class.
Meanwhile, about 30 percent to 40 percent of the school's 400 or so students participate in the school's free program called CARE, which teaches students about empathy-building, problem-solving and anger management.
The school also offers Girl Scouts, Boys Scouts and community volunteer activities.
The bus arrives at the later hour to accommodate families, said Zaman, who added that it was preferred by 98 percent of parents.
It's also a financial move, because it is nearly $100,000 more expensive to bus students at 3:30 p.m., Zaman said.
The school already has discussed several scheduling solutions, Zaman said.
"We cannot solve everything right away," he said. "But this is not an unsolvable problem."
A columnist for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Katherine Kersten, sparked the investigation after she wrote that the school mixed the roles of religion and public education. Her column aired a substitute teacher's allegations that school officials promoted Islam in the classroom.
The school has received numerous threats and installed a new security system as a result of the column, Zaman said. State officials acknowledged that TiZA has received threatening messages and thanked school staff for cooperating at a time when students and employees were concerned for their safety.
The controversy has sparked national and local media attention, and on Monday, a KSTP-TV photographer had his camera briefly confiscated after he walked onto school property and began filming students as classes let out. Inver Grove Heights police officials said they were called to the scene, but as of Monday evening, no arrests had been made or citations handed out.
Joe Nathan, director for the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute, said the controversy surrounding the school has diverted attention from the school's success in working with students from first-generation immigrant families.
Zaman agrees.
"We will continue to follow the law," he said. "It's in the best interest of the children and community." Bao Ong can be reached at 651-228-5435.
http://www.twincities.com/ci_9315800...e=most_emailed
===============
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0btQTDwHJiU&feature=related
-
This appeals to my deranged sense of humor. I am not without sympathy for the man.
===================
Muslim man threatens to sue driving school for sending transsexual instructor to teach his wife
By Chris Brooke
Last updated at 9:45 AM on 21st May 2008
For the past 12 months, she had proudly taken to the road as part of an all-female driving school.
But Emma Sherdley is not exactly all woman.
Until a few years ago she was a married father-of-two called Andrew.
She is, though, in the middle of treatment to change gender and has the legal paperwork to prove it.
But that wasn't enough to satisfy one client who claimed he had been shortchanged when he booked a female instructor to teach his wife how to drive.
He phoned the Laugh 'n' Pass driving school threatening to sue after Miss Sherdley, 42, turned up for the lesson.
'You have sent me a man. Send me a proper female. How dare you send a man with a deep voice,' he told Joanne Dixon, who runs the school in West Yorkshire.
The man, a Muslim from the Meadowhall district of Sheffield who has not been named, claimed the company deliberately sent a man disguised as a woman.
'His attitude and behaviour was outrageous and has upset me and Emma and everyone else who works here,' Miss Dixon said.
'We are not racist. We are not sexist-If anyone was being so it was that man.'
She said no other learners had complained about being taught by Miss Sherdley, an experienced instructor.
As for Miss Sherdley, she is trying to develop a thicker skin.
She said the man's comments had been 'hurtful, offensive and deeply upsetting' and had even made her think of quitting her job.
His wife had apparently cut their two-hour lesson short after an hour, claiming she had to go home to breastfeed her baby.
Miss Sherdley said: 'I always knew as a child that I was a woman stuck in a man's body.
'I tried hard to be a man, getting married and having children but it never worked and never would.
'For the past six years I have been what is correctly called "transitioned". I still have to undergo final surgery but legally I am a woman.
That is what my birth certificate says and that is what the gender recognition certificate proves. For that prejudiced and biased man to threaten to sue me and the driving school is totally and utterly wrong.'
There are currently 32 female pupils on the books at the school. Miss Dixon employs 20 female instructors who teach learners throughout Yorkshire.
The school, which has been running for ten years, boasts a high pass rate.
'We say each of our female instructors promise to be friendly, professional and patient - that is exactly what Emma is,' Miss Dixon said.
'For her to be subjected to abuse and threats is simply intolerable.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...each-wife.html
-
Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe's actions.
Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it "unacceptable."
"The failure of the principal of Friendswood Junior High to respect simple procedures requiring parental notification for such a potentially controversial subject, to not only approve but participate personally in a religious indoctrination session led by representatives of a group with well-known links to terrorist organizations and her cavalier response when confronted, raises serious questions about her fitness to serve in that role," the pastors' organization said. According to a parent, whose name was withheld, the children were given the Islamic indoctrination during time that was supposed to be used for a physical education class.
The rest here:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65659
-
John Turley-Ewart: Sharia by stealth — Ontario turns a blind eye to polygamy
Posted: May 29, 2008, 4:07 PM by John Turley-Ewart
It’s an issue the Liberal government of Ontario, led by Premier Dalton McGuinty, doesn’t want to deal with — polygamy in the Muslim community. Last week the Toronto Star told the story of Safa Rigby, a 35-year-old mother of five children who recently learned her husband of 14 years had two other wives. Ms. Rigby’s life is in tatters. She followed her husband’s advice that she leave Toronto and live in Egypt for a year on the grounds that it would be better for their children to spend more time in a Muslim country. Now she knows it was a ruse. He used her time there to marry two other women.
Ms. Rigby does not support polygamy, which has been illegal in Canada for more than a century. But Toronto Imam Aly Hindy, who runs the Toronto Salahuddin Islamic Centre, does. He married Ms. Rigby’s husband knowing he already had a wife and counselled him to keep the marriage secret from Ms. Rigby for as long as possible. Hindy has by his own admission performed 30 ceremonies in which men were married who already had wives. When Ms. Rigby confronted Hindy his response was reportedly cold and unsympathetic: “You will have to stand beside him in these difficult times,” Hindy told her. “You should stop causing problems to (sic) him. You will not get anything by divorce except destroying your life” he went on to say.
For Hindy this is not about Ms. Rigby or her husband’s desire to marry another woman — but making a broader political point.
Hindy is using polygamy as a proxy for his fundamentalist version of Islam, something he wants to see legitimized in Canadian society as a whole. It is part of an attempt at empire building, a bid that if successful will enhance his influence within the Muslim and demonstrate that Ontario and Canada is too ignorant and too afraid of Islam to uphold its own laws. He has admitted as much, challenging Ontario’s government to dare stop him. “If the laws of the country conflict with Islamic law, if one goes against the other, then I am going to follow Islamic law, simple as that,” he told the Star. Interviewed after the Star story appeared on the John Oakley Show on AM 640Toronto, Hindy was not apologetic and argued that freedom of religion in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms trumped prohibitions against polygamous marriages.
When he and another Imam from Toronto, Steve Rockwell, were challenged on the appropriateness of polygamy by a Muslim caller to the Oakley Show, the caller was immediately attacked and his identity as a true Muslim questioned because he did not follow Hindy’s view that polygamy is a foundational pillar of Islam that grows out of Sharia Law. This speaks to a troubling absolutist interpretation of Islamic law, which runs against the reality that Sharia law is much more flexible that Hindy allows for, a fact well documented by Anver Emon, a specialist in Islamic law at the University of Toronto. Moreover, as noted in the Star article on Ms. Rigby, there is grave doubt that the Charter protects Islamic polygamy, as Hindy believes. Nik Bala, who teaches family law at Queen’s University, points out that “Islam permits polygamy, but doesn’t require it to be a practising Muslim.” This is key, and may mean Hindy’s attempt to find shelter behind the Charter will fail. Moreover, the impact polygamy has on women's equality and children could also sway the courts to uphold Canada's ban on polygamy.
But there is little chance at the moment that this will become a Charter issue down the road. Dalton McGuinty’s government has responded to the revelations about polygamy in the Muslim community by denying its existence. On Wednesday Liberal MPP Ted McMeekin responded to a question on the issue in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario saying:
“Polygamy is a serious crime in Ontario . It’s not something that’s tolerated. As you know, the best advice I can give the honourable member opposite is that if she has any evidence that someone is engaging in multiple marriages, she should report it, because our Registrar General and our official reporting mechanisms have no evidence that that’s happening. As you know, Mr. Speaker, marriage is a contract. A contract require a licence, and once a marriage occurs, it has to be registered. There are no multiple marriages being registered in the province of Ontario.”
Mr. McMeekin’s response is a shameful twisting of the law. The criminal code is clear. Section 293. (1) reads: “Every one who
(a) practises or enters into or in any manner agrees or consents to practise or enter into
(i) any form of polygamy, or
(ii) any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time,
whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage, or
(b) celebrates, assists or is a party to a rite, ceremony, contract or consent that purports to sanction a relationship mentioned in subparagraph (a)(i) or (ii),
is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.”
There is no provision in the law, contrary to Mr. McMeekin’s assertion in the Ontario Legislature, that a polygamous marriage has to be registered before the government can act. The opposite is in fact true.
By turning a blind eye to polygamy, Premier McGuinty is giving licence to Sharia by stealth.
In 2005 Ontario’s premier rightly ruled out Sharia family courts, conceding that Muslim women may well fair poorly if such a system was allowed to be established. The same concern exists today, yet Ontario’s Liberals sit on their hands.
Muslim women like Ms. Rigby are being victimized as are her children. Imam Hindy has told her to put up with her husband’s desire for other wives. She has properly said no and has now obtained a divorce. When will Premier McGuinty’s government say no and enforce the law it is bound to uphold?
jturley-ewart@nationalpost.com
-
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/uc-irvine-or-uc-intifada/
Bruce Blumberg, who is the chair of the Academic Senate Council on Student Experience at the University of California-Irvine, wasn’t happy about a recent PJM article I co-wrote with Jonathan Movroydis. In the piece, we make the claim that UCI administrators have capitulated to the university’s radical Muslim Student Union (MSU), whose members regularly voice support for terrorist groups and denounce America and Israel.
In an email posted by Jerry Pournelle, Blumberg writes that “no one” in the “media or on campus” is aware of the inaction on the part of the administration and the UCI Police Department that is alleged in the article. It appears that Blumberg, like most of the UCI faculty and administration, will never come the defense of students who can think for themselves, will stand up for their civil liberties, and won’t flock with the rest of the sheep.
During the academic year at UCI, the MSU holds several hateful events, including an annual anti-Israel week. Although MSU events certainly fall within the bounds of “free speech,” freedom of speech and expression does not include the right of MSU members to engage in blatant harassment. Nor should it enable UCI administrators to restrict the freedoms of other individuals at the university campus.
For example, student journalist Jonathan Movroydis and his brother were harassed out of an auditorium for simply recording a lecture by the radical imam Amir Abdel Malik-Ali in 2007. University officials allowed for members of the MSU to police their own event and allowed the group to prohibit filming at a public university event. Fortunately, California Assemblyman Chuck Devore was able to convince UCI Chancellor Michael Drake to reverse the campus taping policy. The administration, however, has been unwilling to fully enforce this new rule.
Moreover, UC Irvine police officers will stand idly while intimidation occurs, and administrators continue efforts to censor certain groups and people on the campus. I learned this firsthand last year, when I had a camera shoved in my face by a member of the MSU. At the scene a police officer refused to take a statement from me. Because I was appalled and could not believe that shoving a camera in someone’s face would be considered lawful behavior, I could not let such a matter fall. After several phone calls and e-mails, I was finally able to schedule a meeting with Edgar Dormitorio, Dean of Judicial Affairs at UCI, and given the opportunity to file a complaint with the police department on campus. I had the perpetrator’s face on camera and witnesses. However, no action has yet been taken against the student.
While I studied at UCI, I witnessed an affirmative action bake sale being shut down by administrators. Because a group of students wanted to sell cupcakes at different suggested prices for various racial groups in order to demonstrate what they felt were the injustices of affirmative action, the administration decided to completely shut down the event for what appeared to be “sensitivity” issues. Regardless of one’s position on affirmative action, it is outrageous that one’s view on a college campus, which so often promotes itself as the marketplace of different ideas, would be restricted by the administration.
Interestingly enough, when the Muslim Student Union brings speakers who have called for genocidal actions against Jews and Israelis, the administration refuses to speak out against this blatant hate speech.
MSU’s right to free speech does not require the administration to be silent when the group’s members call for the destruction of Israel and threaten students who are Israel supporters . At the very least, administrators should uphold the rights of all students and make certain that individuals have the right to film and protest. The university should refrain from selective enforcement of its rules and regulations.
Thus far the administration at UCI has been extremely negligent. An independent task force investigation recently issued findings that clearly suggest anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, and pro-terror speech is well documented at UC Irvine. The full report can be read here.
According to this independent investigation, harassment and intimidation has occurred on campus and the administration has not worked to alleviate the problems that plague the campus. Instead, the administration’s lack of response and selective enforcement of policy has aided groups like the MSU in vilifying other students and groups.
For instance, when an anti-hate rally took place after a cardboard “apartheid wall” put up on campus by the MSU was vandalized in 2004, Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez refused to invite Jewish organizations. In a more recent incident, a non-Jewish student described the atmosphere at UCI as dominated by a philosophy that looks at the United States and Israel as enemies, while supporting terror organizations. The same student had a professor who had a picture of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on her computer. She also recounts an argument with an Iranian student who said “f- Israel” and pulled down his trousers to show his swastika tattoo.
In his email, Blumberg implies that the situation at UCI is a “pro-Israel” and “pro-Palestine” issue with mistreatment on both sides. With all due respect to Dr. Blumberg, he has got to venture outside his office a bit more. If the Academic Senate Council really supports the freedoms of all students and believes that UCI is truly a beacon of “free speech,” they are doing a poor job of showing it. They could learn a thing or two from Democratic Representative Brad Sherman, who recently urged Chancellor Drake to “publicly denounce” the MSU’s hate speech.
As a recent alumnus of the university, I will continue to advise my friends and family members not to attend UC Irvine unless changes are made.
-
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=806eac30-5d99-4355-b3d6-3acf433eec22
Saturday » June 7 » 2008
Court hears accused terrorists' ideology
Men talk of imperative to retaliate, in wiretaps played at the trial of a 20-year-old man
Melissa Leong
Canwest News Service
Friday, June 06, 2008
BRAMPTON, Ont. -- For the first time since the arrests of 18 terrorism suspects in 2006, a court heard on Thursday the men describe the ideology behind their alleged scheme to attack Canada.
In wiretaps played at the trial of a 20-year-old man, his co-accused spoke at length about their "global fight" to "get rid of the oppressors." They discussed the benefits of martyrdom and the need to retaliate against foreign soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, even if on Western soil. "You harm one Muslim, the whole Muslim [nation] has to defend that person," the accused leader of the group said.
None of the suspects can be identified because of a publication ban.
In another recorded conversation, the alleged leader explained, "If they're your enemy, they're your enemy everywhere you see them." He continued: "So, if the Jews are your enemy in Israel, it doesn't mean Jews are not your enemy here. Every single Jew is your enemy."
If that rule applies, someone might think you could just kill any Jewish man walking down the street, another group member said. "If the guy walking down the street says, pro Zion, pro Zion . . . wears a big Jewish thing saying, yeah, pro Israeli state . . . okay, now you're a target. "If you are to do . . . to that guy you wouldn't be held accountable like, by 'Allah' or anything . . . and you would be rewarded for it because he is an enemy."
The alleged leader said in one wiretap that he was planning something on a "greater scale" than the 2005 London bombings.
The court heard that he had spent "every last penny" -- or about $4,000 -- on a shipment of 13 firearms from Mexico.
The total cost of $10,000 was due at the end of March or the supplier would have to sell them on the street, he said in a wire-tap. To raise money, he met a man who was running an elaborate bank scam. The fraudster, identified as Talib, was using "white," "blond," women, possibly "crack heads," to take out bank loans with fraudulent information. They would cash the cheques at a payday lending store.
-
http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/oc-task-force-investigation-finds-anti-semitism-at-university-of-california-irvine-and-reviews-findings-of-doe’s-office-for-civil-rights/
February 13, 2008
OC Task Force Investigation Finds Anti-Semitism at University of California, Irvine and Reviews Findings of DOE’s Office for Civil Rights
Filed under: Press Release — Tags: OCR, report, UCI — rabbiyonah @ 6:38 am
Dowload the Full OC Independent Task Force Report
Huntington Beach, CA –February 12, 2008 –The Orange County Independent Task Force released its Findings and Recommendations (Report), concerning alleged incidents of anti-Semitism at The University of California, Irvine (UCI). The investigation began in February 2007 and lasted approximately one year. Over the course of the investigation Task Force members interviewed, students, faculty and community members and visited the campus on many occasions. Over 80 hours of interviews and numerous documents, articles, and written complaints were used in the compilation of the Report.
Among its findings, The Task Force investigation has concluded the following:
• The existence of: physical and verbal harassment, hate speech directed at Jews by guest speakers, hate events sponsored by the Muslim Student Union (MSU), disruptive behavior on the part of Muslim students when pro-Israeli speakers appear on campus, anti-Israeli classroom environments, and an unresponsive, if not a hostile, administration.
• Hate speakers have targeted “Zionist Jews” at MSU events; that MSU has defiled Jewish symbols, often using depiction of anti-Semitic stereotypes; and that Jewish students were targets of intimidation.
• There has been a lack of response by the administration that has selectively enforced University rules and regulations.
• The Chancellor has refused to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitic speech although other college/university presidents have spoke clearly and decisively against this form of hate speech.
• For the most part, Jewish organizations in Orange County have been ineffective in dealing with anti-Semitism at UCI.
Some of the major recommendations include: UCI should be held accountable for its actions and inaction by community leaders, Jewish organizations, and donors. Students with a strong Jewish identity should consider not attending UCI until tangible changes are made. The Board of Regents should investigate the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs in his capacity as an impartial arbiter of University Rules and Regulations.
The Task Force had initially decided to release its Report and Recommendations in December 2007. The release was delayed in order to study the report(s) issued by the United States Department of Education Office, Office for Civil Rights (OCR)
On November 30, 2007, (OCR) issued two reports contained in separate letters written to Dr. Michael V. Drake, Chancellor of UCI, and to Ms. Susan B. Tuchman of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). ZOA initiated the complaint in 2004 on behalf of students at UCI. These two letter/findings are not identical and do not contain exactly the same listed allegations. The reason why OCR issued two separate letter/findings is unclear. For example, the letter to Ms. Tuchman deals with a total of 26 allegations while the letter to Chancellor Drake deals with only 13 allegations.
In addition:
• Certain allegations were dismissed because they were not “related to the national origin of any of the Jewish students who complained”.
• Several other allegations were dismissed as “untimely filed”.
• The University was excused from any wrongdoing based on minimal action it did after these events occurred.
• Key administration figures were not interviewed by OCR investigators until late September 2006, nearly two years after the initial complaint was filed by ZOA on October 11, 2004.
The OCR investigation does not deny that these “allegations” of anti-Semitism occurred. In fact, OCR’s investigation and report(s) substantiates this Task Force’s findings that significant anti-Semitic activities have existed UCI for some period of time and that, while the University administration may not have done anything illegal in this regard, the University has done little if anything, except for token actions after each incident, to help prevent, discourage, curtail or punish the perpetrators of these anti-Semitic activities on campus.
-
In Defense of the Constitution
News & Analysis
009/08 June 8, 2008
CAIR: Intimidating Public School?
On 31 May, Erica Mellon posted a blog entry to the "School Zone" titled
"Friendswood superintendent: Islam presentation not meant for students".
(The "School Zone" blog is sponsored by the Houston Chronicle; Ms. Mellon is the
Chronicle's education reporter.)
http://blogs.chron.com/schoolzone/2008/05/friendswood_superintendent_isl_1.html
In the blog post, Ms. Mellon quotes a letter by Trish Hanks, Friendswood Independent
School District Superintendent. From the letter:
"In response to an incident that occurred between students at Friendswood Junior
High School and the perception and fear that it caused to some involved, Robin Lowe,
principal, was contacted by the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and
told that they considered the incident a hate crime and had reported it to the FBI.
Mrs. Lowe and Sherry Green, Deputy Superintendent, attended a meeting with
representatives of CAIR."
An unexplained "hate crime" has, according to CAIR, been committed and CAIR has
reported the crime to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
End of story?
No. Apparently, a report to the FBI isn't good enough. From the letter:
"At the meeting, CAIR requested an opportunity to present factual and basic
information about Muslims to students at Friendswood Junior High School since the
school is predominantly Anglo Christian."
Did CAIR intimidate the principal and deputy superintendent? CAIR representatives
report a "hate crime" and request time to do a presentation on Islam; no connection?
Further confusing the issue, the Galveston Daily News reports that Asmara Siddiqi
denies that CAIR contacted the FBI because "...the school decided to resolve the
issue".
http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=d9065ae58304177f&-session=TheDailyNews:42F9434F0eb30395F9TyP44292B6
This raises two questions:
1) Is CAIR now threatening school administrators to gain secret access to American
school children?
2) Why was CAIR, with a proven track record of supporting Islamic terrorism,
invited to the school in the first place?
The Friendswood School invited representatives of an Islamic-terrorist supporting
organization to make a presentation to the most vulnerable of our citizens: our
children. What could these children possibly learn from a hateful organization like
CAIR, one that is on record praising Islamic terrorist groups that have and continue
to target and terror-murder innocent school children?
No representative of CAIR should be allowed access to any student, in any school, at
any time, for any reason. The insanity of allowing CAIR representatives into
schools must end, now. No administrator, at any level, should have the authority to
grant CAIR access to children under any circumstances.
Period.
The principal of Friendswood School has been reassigned.
http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8434780&nav=1TjD
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a well-known expert in the field of Islamist extremism, has
commented on this case. For his thoughts:
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/12/cair-active-in-schools.html
***********************************************************************
If you come across information regarding CAIR in the public/private schools, please
let us know. Include as much information as you have; name of school, presentation
offered, when offered, who was/will be in attendance, dates/times, etc. Our goal is
to report any interaction between CAIR and school students/staff and hopefully work
toward the day when all schools will, as a matter of course, refuse CAIR access to
students or staff.
CAIR has no legitimate reason to meet with school students or staff; help us make
this a reality.
***********************************************************************
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
-
Council: Mongtomery schools cave to pressue with Islam book
Jun 7, 2008 7:21 AM (1 day ago) by Leah Fabel, The Examiner
» 1 day ago: Council: Mongtomery schools cave to pressue with Islam book «
Map data ©2008 LeadDog Consulting, Tele Atlas - Terms of UseMapSatelliteHybrid
# 1 of 5,322
Filed under: Washington, D.C. , Leah Fabel , Textbooks
Washington, D.C. (Map, News) -
A new report issued by the American Textbook Council says books approved for use in local school districts for teaching middle and high school students about Islam caved in to political correctness and dumbed down the topic at a critical moment in its history.
"Textbook editors try to avoid any subject that could turn into a political grenade," wrote Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, who railed against five popular history texts for "adjust[ing] the definition of jihad or sharia or remov[ing] these words from lessons to avoid inconvenient truths."
Sewall complains the word jihad has gone through an "amazing cultural reorchestration" in textbooks, losing any connotation of violence. He cites Houghton Mifflin's popular middle school text, "Across the Centuries," which has been approved for use in Montgomery County Schools. It defines "jihad" as a struggle "to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil."
"But that is, literally, the translation of jihad," said Reza Aslan, a religion scholar and acclaimed author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam." Aslan explained that the definition does not preclude a militant interpretation.
EXAMINER.COM RELATED ARTICLES
D.C., Montgomery public workers most likely to earn more than $100K
Immigrant advocacy agency reports threatening calls
State joins lawsuit accusing EPA of loose ozone pollution standards
Numbers from the Democratic presidential nominating contests
Toll Brothers swings to hefty 2Q loss on write-downs "How you interpret [jihad] is based on whatever your particular ideology, or world viewpoint, or even prejudice is," Aslan said. "But how you define jihad is set in stone."
A statement from Montgomery County Public Schools said that all text used by teachers had been properly vetted and were appropriate for classroom uses.
Aslan said groups like Sewall's are often more concerned about advancing their own interpretation of Islam than they are about defining its parts and then allowing interpretation to happen at the classroom level.
Sewall's report blames publishing companies for allowing the influence of groups like the California-based Council on Islamic Education to serve throughout the editorial process as "screeners" for textbooks, softening or deleting potentially unflattering topics within the faith.
"Fundamentally I'm worried about dumbing down textbooks," he said, "by groups that come to state education officials saying we want this and that - and publishers need to find a happy medium."
Maryland state delegate Saqib Ali refrained from joining the fray. "The job of assigning curriculum is best left to educators and the school board, and I trust their judgment," he said.
lfabel@dcexaminer.com
http://www.examiner.com/a-1429570~Council__Mongtomery_schools_cave_to_pressue_with_Islam_book.html?cid=temp-popular
-
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/19/tv-news-crew-attacked-at-minneapolis-tax-funded-muslim-school/
More stealth-jihad in the schools.
-
VIRGINIA BRIEFING
Washington Post, Thursday, June 12, 2008
Group Criticizes Texts at Saudi Academy
A study has found that some textbooks at a private Islamic school in Northern Virginia teach that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam.
The Islamic Saudi Academy receives much of its funding from the Saudi government and teaches about 900 students from kindergarten to 12th grade at two Fairfax County campuses.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said yesterday it obtained 17 academy textbooks and found several disturbing passages.
A 12th-grade text says that apostates -- those who leave Islam -- and adulterers may be permissibly killed. A social studies text states that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people."
The academy has said it promotes tolerance and revises Saudi textbooks as needed. A telephone call yesterday afternoon to the school's main office was not immediately returned.
-- Associated Press
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2008/06/021366print.html
June 12, 2008
Shock horror! Mainstream Islamic teaching taught at Virginia Islamic school: adulterers and apostates should be killed
What do you expect? The idea that adulterers and apostates should be killed isn't "extremist" or "hijacked" Islam. It's mainstream Islamic teaching, taught in the Sunnah and all the schools of Islamic law. I know that pointing that out will earn me more charges of "Islamophobia," but reality is reality, fellows. This is just Islamorealism.
Oh, and by the way, the 1999 valedictorian of the Islamic Saudi Academy was Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who is now doing 30 years in the pen for joining an Al-Qaeda plot to kill Bush. Surprised?
"Review: Troubling passages in texts at Va. school," by Matthew Barakat for AP, June 11 (thanks to all who sent this in):
McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday.
Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists."
Here is a hadith from Bukhari (the hadith collection Muslims consider most reliable) in which the Jews conspire to murder Muhammad. There are plenty more where that one came from. Here is a hadith from Bukhari in which Muhammad says that the lives and property of unbelievers are safe from him as long as they convert to Islam -- implying that if they don't, their lives and property are fair game.
The passages were found in selected textbooks used during the 2007-08 school year by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax and receives much of its funding from the Saudi government.
The academy has come under scrutiny from critics who allege that it fosters an intolerant brand of Islam similar to that taught in the conservative Saudi kingdom. In the review, the panel recommended that the school make all of its textbooks available to the State Department so changes can be made before the next school year.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a panel formed by Congress, last year recommended that the school be closed amid concerns that it promotes violence and too closely mimics the conservative Saudi educational system.
The commission made its recommendation last year to close the school even though it had not reviewed the textbooks. Now that some have been reviewed, "we feel more confident that the potential problems we flagged before really are there," said the commission's spokeswoman, Judith Ingram.
School officials have long denied that the academy fosters intolerance. It has acknowledged that some of the Saudi textbooks contain harsh language, but says that the texts have improved in recent years and are revised as needed by the academy before being distributed to students....
The commission said it obtained 17 of the academy's textbooks through a variety of channels, including from members of Congress. The texts did appear to contain numerous revisions, including pages that were removed or passages that were whited out, but numerous troubling passages remained, according to the panel:
_ The authors of a 12th-grade text on Koranic interpretation state that apostates (those who convert from Islam), adulterers and people who murder Muslims can be permissibly killed.
Muhammad said, "If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him."
_ The authors of a 12th-grade text on monotheism write that "(m)ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible," meaning that a Muslim can take with impunity the life and property of someone believed guilty of polytheism. According to the panel, the strict Saudi interpretation of polytheism includes Shiite and Sufi Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.
See above.
_ A social studies text offers the view that Jews were responsible for the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims: "The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated (the Muslims)."
Typical paranoid Jew-hatred.
More generally, the panel found that the academy textbooks hold the view that the Muslim world was strong when united under a single caliph, the Arabic language and the Sunni creed, and that Muslims have grown weak because of foreign influence and internal divisions.
The commission's findings issued come a month after the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to extend the academy's lease for its main campus, which sits on county property.
The county conducted its own study of the textbooks last year at the request of Supervisor Gerald Hyland, whose district encompasses the academy.
Hyland and the county never released results of what they had found, but Hyland said in approving the lease that he is comfortable with the school's teachings, though he did so with a qualification.
"I would be less than frank if I didn't tell you that the curriculum does contain references to the Quran, which, if taken out of context and read literally, would cause come concern," Hyland said at the meeting at which the lease was extended.
Ah yes, those Qur'an quotes are only incendiary when "taken out of context and read literally." Of course. When one puts them in context and reads them figuratively, they're all peace and love. One would think Hyland would hesitate to claim that an Islamic school, staffed by people who know the Qur'an far better than he does, was misreading the Qur'an, but he feels compelled to jump into the PC lockstep, no matter how absurd it makes him look.
When will authorities face the implications of the fact that such teachings are essentially mainstream Islam? I'm inclined to think never.
Posted at June 12, 2008 7:27 AM
-
Charter Schools Shouldn't Promote Islam
By KATHERINE KERSTEN
June 14, 2008
Minneapolis
At what point does a publicly funded charter school with strong Islamic ties cross the line and inappropriately promote religion?
That's a question now facing us in Minnesota. For the past five years, the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., has operated in close connection with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. The school accepts public funds, and thus the broader constitutional requirements placed on all public schools. Nonetheless, in many ways it behaves like a religious school.
AP
A teacher talks to her students at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, Oct. 12, 2004.
The school is named for the Muslim general who conquered Spain in the eighth century. It shares a building with a mosque and the headquarters of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. The cafeteria serves Halal food. Arabic is a required subject. There is a break for midday prayers.
On Fridays, many students join with Muslim teachers and attend religious services in the school's gym. There are voluntary Islamic Studies classes held "after" school, but before the buses leave to take the school's 400 students home. Most of the students are the children of low-income Muslim immigrants.
In March, substitute teacher Amanda Getz happened to be at the school on a Friday. She has said publicly that she was instructed to take her fifth-grade students to the bathroom for "ritual washing" and then to the gym for a prayer service. In the classroom where she assisted, an Islamic Studies assignment was written on the blackboard. Students were told to copy it into their planners. "That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other," she said afterward.
Since starting the school five years ago, Asad Zaman and co-founder Hesham Hussein – both imams – have held top positions with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, and also with the school. The Muslim American Society, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, is the American branch of the international Muslim Brotherhood, "the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group."
Mr. Zaman is the school's principal, and Mr. Hussein was chairman of its governing board until he was killed in a car crash in Saudi Arabia in January. In 2004, Mr. Zaman told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that when students have family problems, he can call on a "network" of imams for help. "Children feel comfortable here asking questions about their own religion," a teacher told a reporter at the time.
If the school is promoting Islam, it would be in keeping with the mission of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. Last year, the society featured Shaykh Khalid Yasin at its annual convention. Mr. Yasin is well-known for preaching that husbands can beat disobedient wives, among other inflammatory messages. When he spoke at the society's convention, his topic was "Building a Successful Muslim Community in Minnesota." And until I wrote about the issue in my column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in March and April, the society also had "beneficial and enlightening information" about Islam on its Web site, including "Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr."
I've written just two columns critical of the school for the Star Tribune. But that was enough for State Rep. Mindy Greiling, the chairman of the Minnesota House of Representatives' K-12 Finance Committee, to publicly call for me to be fired from the newspaper.
After my columns appeared, the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union began an investigation, which is still underway. The Minnesota Department of Education also investigated. Its report, released last month, concluded that the school is breaking the law by holding Friday religious services on school grounds; that it should stop Muslim teachers' practice of praying with students at that service; and that it must provide bus transportation home before Islamic Studies classes let out.
But the report was flawed in important respects. Most significantly, it was silent about the school's close entanglement with the religious organization with which it is affiliated.
It's a safe bet that if the school in question here were essentially a Catholic school, this wouldn't be a debate. Imagine a public charter located in the headquarters building of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Its principal is a priest and its board chairman is the archbishop. Catholic students there "are comfortable asking questions about their own religion." Latin is required, and the cafeteria serves fish during Lent. Students break for prayer and attend Mass during the school day, and buses leave only when after-school Catholic Catechism classes are over. Such a school would never open.
But with Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy we have something different. It's held up as a model, "religiously sensitive" public school. It is justified in terms of culture and "religious accommodation."
Minnesota education officials need both the backbone and the oversight tools necessary to prevent the blurring of lines between Islam and the public schools. If they continue their tepid response, a separate system of taxpayer-financed education for Muslims may take root here. Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy could be the first of many.
Ms. Kersten is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
-
How I nearly lost my business after refusing to hire a Muslim hair stylist who wouldn't show her hair
By Natasha Courtenay-Smith
Last updated at 10:10 PM on 17th June 2008
It seems too lunatic to be true. But here a hair salon boss reveals how she was driven to the brink of ruin - and forced to pay £4,000 for 'hurt feelings' - after refusing to hire a Muslim stylist who wouldn't show her hair at work
For Sarah Desrosiers, meeting Bushra Noah was not a moment in her life that she would describe as especially memorable.
Not only was it brief - lasting little more than ten minutes - but it was rapidly obvious to Sarah that Bushra was not the person for the junior stylist position she was trying to fill at her hairdressing salon.
Sarah's reasoning? Quite simply that Bushra, a Muslim who wears a headscarf for religions reasons, had made it clear she would not be removing the garment even while at work.
Sarah Desrosiers says she did nothing wrong by not employing Bushra Noah and would have done the same if an employee refused to remove a baseball cap. Sarah felt that a job requirement of any hairdresser was that the stylist's hair would provide clients with a showcase of different looks. Especially one working in a salon such as hers, which specialises in alternative cuts and colours. Yet the ten minutes during which Sarah's world collided with Bushra's has resulted in an extraordinary employment battle, in which she was accused of 'direct' and 'indirect' discrimination. For a year, Sarah has been facing financial ruin, due to a compensation claim for £34,000 brought by Bushra, 19, who has maintained she is due that figure after being turned down for a job at the Wedge salon in London's King's Cross.
In the event, the tribunal ruled this week that while Bushra's claim of direct discrimination failed, her claim for indirect discrimination had succeeded. Sarah has therefore been ordered to pay £4,000 compensation by way of 'injury to feelings'. Although this is a smaller sum than she'd feared she might have to hand over, Sarah, 32, is still outraged.
'I am a small business and the bottom line is that this is not a woman who worked for me,' says Sarah.
E
Bushra Noah says that Sarah Desrosiers 'hurt her feelings' by not employing her after a ten minute interview
'She is simply someone I met for a job interview, who, for a host of reasons, was not right for the job. I cannot see how she deserves £4,000. As for the notion that I've injured her feelings - well, people's feelings get injured every day. I dread to think the sorts of things that people will try to claim injured feelings for now that this precedent has been set.'
In its ruling, the tribunal said it was 'satisfied that Bushra was not treated less favourably than Sarah would have treated any woman who, whether Muslim or not, wears a hair covering at all times when at work'.
Accordingly, the claim of direct discrimination failed.
But with regard to the issue of indirect discrimination, they found that Sarah had pursued a 'legitimate aim - that aim being to promote the image of the business'. However, the burden of proof was on Sarah to prove that her means of achieving that legitimate aim was proportionate. She was not able to prove her contention that employing someone with a headscarf would have the negative impact on her business's stylistic integrity that she feared.
Since the judgment, Bushra, who is of Syrian descent and has worn a headscarf since she was 13, has, so far at least, chosen not to comment. But, speaking last year, she admitted she had attended 25 interviews for hairdressing jobs without success. But Sarah, she told the tribunal, had upset her the most.
She said: 'I felt so down and got so depressed. I thought: "If I am not going to defend myself, who is?" Hairdressing has been what I've wanted to do ever since I was at high school.
'This has ruined my ambitions. Wearing a headscarf is essential to my beliefs.'
Bushra had a job in a salon in London, where her tasks included cutting hair, highlighting, tinting and perming, before she left to get married in Syria in 2006.
But on her return to Britain, she was unable to find work. She has given up her ambitions to become a hairdresser and is studying travel and tourism at Hammersmith and West London College while working part-time in a shop. At the tribunal, Bushra was asked if Sarah had made derogatory remarks about her headscarf.
She replied: 'She did not. She just asked me if I wore it all the time, or whether I'd take it off.'
Although Bushra is believed to have been acting alone, in the past similar cases have been championed by Muslim traditionalist groups.
In 2006, the Law Lords overturned a court ruling that teenager Shabina Begum's human rights were violated when she was banned from wearing full Islamic dress at school.
Enlarge
Sarah in her salon - Wedge - located in north London says that the discrimination case against her almost ruined her business
The extremist Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir later admitted that it had 'advised her'.
Meanwhile, Sarah Desrosiers is wondering how to raise the £4,000 she has been ordered to pay Bushra. She has spent her savings on her legal battle and simply has no money left.
'I am a one-woman band, and am already in debt due to the set-up costs of opening my own salon,' says Sarah. 'I dread to think how many haircuts I'm going to have to do to earn the £4,000 I have to pay Bushra. This has, without doubt, been the worst year of my life.'
Such a messy set of circumstances, let alone the strain of having the case bought against her, was certainly not what Sarah expected when she started out on her career aged 17. From the outset, she had grand ambitions, telling her mother that she would one day have her own salon.
'Even back then, I realised how important your own hair is to the job,' says Sarah. 'I went into hairdressing a rather plain brunette, but within a few weeks I had a bright red crop. I wanted to provide clients with inspiration through my own hair. Whether they're in a conventional High Street salon, or something slightly different like my salon, customers expect to see the stylists with hair that is on trend, striking and can give them ideas for their own look.'
In 1997, Sarah got a job at a salon on London's Portobello Road, where she remained for almost a decade. In March 2006, feeling ready to spread her wings, she wrote a business plan, secured a loan and invested £5,000 of her savings into the lease on a small salon on Caledonian Road. She named it Wedge, and planned to specialise in 'urban and edgy' cuts, rather like the cerise colour she often dyes her own hair.
'I'd never felt as proud as I did on the day I picked up the keys to my salon,' says Sarah. 'I was prepared to put my heart and soul into my business in order to make ends meet, and for the first few months, I worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, all by myself. I barely saw daylight, but I didn't mind because I was fulfilling my ambition. Of course, there were a few nerve-racking moments, such as when another salon opened a few doors away. But that is part of owning your own business, and I felt proud of all I was achieving.'
By March 2007, the business was doing so well that Sarah needed to take on another stylist. To minimise her overheads, she decided the best way to do this would be by renting out a chair in her salon to an experienced stylist - who would take a share of her profits - and employ a junior to work for both of them.
Sarah received dozens of applications for the junior position, one of which was from Bushra Noah.
'Her CV didn't stand out because I was looking for someone who lived locally - something I'd specified in the advert so that I could call them in as and when required - and she lived several miles away in Acton,' says Sarah.
=========
'One day she rang up to see if I'd got her CV and begged me for an interview. I told her I had concerns about where she lived, but she sounded so desperate that I agreed she could come in for a chat.'
A few days later, Bushra duly arrived at the salon.
'I have to say I didn't take to her,' says Sarah. 'She waltzed into the salon and hung up her coat as though she already had the job.
'Naturally, I noticed her headscarf. But I presumed that, as she's a hairdresser, she'd take if off when she was working. In 16 years, I've never known any stylist cover their hair with a headscarf. And this particular headscarf came all the way down to her eyebrows and covered her entire hairline.'
Sarah broached the subject with Bushra, who said she would not be removing the garment. After ten minutes, with the interview complete, Sarah said she would come back to Bushra about the vacancy.
'As she left, Bushra turned to me and said that she'd been turned down for jobs before,' says Sarah. 'And I admit I thought: "Well, what do you expect? It was not a religious matter. If she'd come in wearing a baseball cap and saying she wouldn't take it off for work, then she wouldn't have got the job either.'
One morning in the second week of June 2007, an innocuous white envelope landed on Sarah's doormat. It contained a letter saying that she was being sued for £15,000 for indirect and direct discrimination by Bushra Noah. This, the letter stated, related to compensation for injury to her feelings and lost earnings. Later, that figure was increased to £34,000.
'I read it and re-read it and stood there dumbfounded,' says Sarah. 'I remembered Bushra, and I guessed straight away that the claim related to the headscarf. In my mind I was saying "But I wasn't discriminating, it's just a part of the job", over and over again. I dialled the number at the top of the letter and was told I needed to get a solicitor, but that because I worked, I wasn't entitled to Legal Aid. I thought: "This is it - my business is over." I was devastated.'
Using her savings of £2,000, Sarah employed a lawyer who helped her draft a statement about her meeting with Bushra. But with his fees at £280 an hour, she knew she couldn't afford to fight a satisfactory legal battle. Her parents - her mother is a nurse, and her father is retired - weren't in a position to help her out financially either.
'I was at my wits' end, and I had no idea how I was going to pay for my legal fees,' says Sarah. 'I was virtually being accused of racism, which is ridiculous. I've cut the hair of people from all walks of life, including transsexuals, and you can hardly run an alternative salon if you are prejudiced.'
Help came when a friend tipped off a reporter about what was happening, and Sarah's case gained publicity, first locally, then nationally. Since then, she has received support from hundreds of people in the hairdressing industry, including black celebrity stylist Errol Douglas. Still, the wave of support did little to ease the stress as she fought to clear her name.
'For months, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I felt as though my whole life was on hold. All I could see was that I'd be forced into bankruptcy and lose my business.'
In the course of preparing for her trial, Sarah estimates she has lost £40,000 of her salon's annual income. She also faced a further blow when it emerged that Bushra had increased the figure to £34,000 to compensate for hate mail she had received following Press coverage of the trial. In March, Sarah faced a three- day employment tribunal, and endured four hours of cross-examination.
'I managed to defend myself and not cry, but it was incredibly difficult,' she says. 'I'd even had to ask my accountant, who is a Muslim, and another Muslim friend to write letters confirming that I am not racist. The whole experience was so humiliating and, most importantly, unnecessary. I kept thinking: "I've worked hard all my life - how can it be possible that someone can come into my shop, talk to me for ten minutes and then sue me for £34,000? How is that possibly fair?".'
As she reels from the verdict, Sarah is contemplating her next move. While part of her is tempted to pay, simply to close the door on this unpleasant episode, she also feels she should fight to clear her name. Her lawyers are advising her on whether or not she can appeal.
'Because of this there will be a black mark against my name for the rest of my life,' she says. 'I feel I have not done anything wrong, and this is a terrible price to pay for a meeting that lasted ten minutes.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...ldnt-hair.html
-
In Defense of the Constitution
Anti-CAIR
News & Analysis
012/08 August 4, 2008
CAIR's Corey Saylor: Hiding The Bloody Truth Of Islamofascism
Corey Saylor, national legislative director for the terrorist front organization, CAIR, recently wrote an op-ed in hopes of fooling the public that an amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act offered by Rep. Pete Hoekstra:
"may unintentionally legitimize Al Qaeda and other anti-American forces"
Saylor, a key member of CAIR; an organization founded by members of the anti-American Islamic terrorist group Hamas, says the amendment, which passed by a 249-180 vote, needs to be reconsidered.
Why?
Apparently, Saylor believes that terms like, 'jihadist,' 'jihad,' 'Islamofascism,' 'caliphate,' 'Islamist,' or 'Islamic terrorist' should instead be replaced by language that describes Islamic terrorists as 'thugs" and 'criminals'.
Could it be that Saylor's leash-holders in Hamas find the terms used in the amendment just a bit too close to describing the Islamist ideology? Or is it more likely that CAIR members and officers have been known to share the ideals and goals of the "Islamofascists" of Hamas.and since the imposition of an Islamic "caliphate" is odious to North Americans.Saylor wants to obscure this from the public?
However, Saylor is obviously not conversant with his own organizations history.
Witness: CAIR founder Omar Ahmad, appearing at the Islamic Association of Palestine's third annual convention in Chicago, praised suicide bombers:
"Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam -- that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam"
Is Saylor repudiating the actions of those "fighting for freedom.(those who) kill themselves for Islam"? And what would Ahmad have to say about Saylor implying that these so-called "freedom fighters" are "thugs" and "criminals"?
Did not Ahmad praise Saylor's "thugs" and "criminals" as "heroes"? Who is right? Saylor describing those who terror-murder in the name of Islam as "thugs" and "criminals" is insulting to all self-respecting thugs and criminals who don't use religion to justify their crimes.
Pete Hoekstra's amendement preserves the terms that perfectly describe the religious ideology of Hamas terrorists.
Corey Saylor - CAIR terrorist sympathizer - can't handle this truth.
But then again, when could any CAIR lap dog ever handle the truth ...?
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
Article Links:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080801/OPINION02/808010333
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080723/POLITICS/807230375
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F1767654-CDFB-4E21-A908-99A5001BD215
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178020746583&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=9446CA77-BD91-4D8B-8AA6-00FCC2F0F8CA
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2004/mar/16/20040316-085118-1135r/
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56169
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E10573A8-988C-44E4-A600-C650E59E2B14
-
**Submission**
- Roger L. Simon - http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon -
Shades of the Danish Cartoons: Random House in disgrace
August 6, 2008 - by Roger L Simon
Although it has for some time been a division of German media giant Bertelsmann, Random House has been one of the distinguished names in American publishing since the halcyon days of Bennett Cerf. So it is particularly repugnant to see the company knuckling under to essentially the same reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-free speech forces that repressed the Danish cartoons. As we learned in the [1] Wall Street Journal today, the company has decided not to publish Sherry Jones’ historical novel “The Jewel of Medina” about Mohammed’s child bride Aisha. The book was part of a $100,000 two-book contract with the [2] author.
Shame on Random House! This act of abject cowardice and de facto censorship is one of the most disgraceful incidents I can think of in the history of American publishing. As Asra Q. Nomani writes in the WSJ: Random House feared the book would become a new “Satanic Verses,” the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book’s Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones’s novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it “disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now.” He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”
The “credible” source was one Denise Spellberg, a University of Texas academic who, on receipt of Jones’ galleys, started tattling like a six-year old to Muslims Spellberg felt would be angry with the work. Perry and his cronies simply caved in. That the publishers reference the “Satanic Verses” in their defence is yet more despicable. In the early 1990s, when I was president of West Coast Branch of PEN, we did everything in our power to defend Rushdie against the attempts to suppress his freedom of speech. Random House does nothing for its own authors. The natural conclusion of their behavior in this instance is that nothing critical of Islam could ever be written.
PEN and the Authors’ Guild should launch an investigation into this situation and if the allegations are true, should urge a boycott of Random House until it changes its policy. If I were Jones, I would sue the publishing house for all they’re worth.
[Full disclosure: I had three novels published by a division of Random House in the 1980s - Villard Books. At that point, I was very satisfied with the publisher and could not imagine them rejecting a manuscript for the reasons they are now. It’s a different world.]
UPDATE: Some commenters have pointed out that Random House’s behavior is not strictly speaking censorship because the company is not an organ of the state. They are correct. But I submit that that a publishing house the size of Random House has a certain level of public trust. And I would imagine they would agree. One of the key measures of public trust in the United States is the protection of free speech. Yes, as one commenter stated, this is cowardice but not censorship, but it is a form of cowardice with immense social ramifications about which we should all be concerned.
Article printed from Roger L. Simon: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2008/08/06/shades-of-the-danish-cartoons-random-house-in-disgrace/
URLs in this post:
[1] Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121797979078815073.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
[2] author.: http://sherryjones.blogspot.com/
-
In an ironic bit of synchronicity, amazon.com just emailed me to let me know my backordered copy of "Sayed Qutb (Author) "Milestones" [Paperback]
Estimated arrival date: 09/11/2008"
Kind of creepy.
-
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,406702,00.html
Tuesday , August 19, 2008
By Steve Brown
This is part of the America's Future series airing on FOX News Channel, looking at the challenges facing the country in the 21st century.
BRANTFORD, Ontario — Once home to inventor Alexander Graham Bell and hockey great Wayne Gretzky, the small Canadian city of Brantford is now home to a terrorist — and the Canadian government might not do anything about it.
Forty years ago, Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, a former teacher, joined the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
On Dec. 26, 1968, Mohammad and another gunman launched an attack on an El Al airliner at Athens International Airport. The two ran up on the tarmac firing guns and, throwing grenades at the passenger jet, wounded a flight attendant as she opened an emergency exit and killed a 50-year-old passenger, Leon Shirdan.
The gunmen were captured, tried and convicted in Greek court, and they were sentenced in 1970 to serve 17 years in prison. But they were released just months later after the PFLP hijacked an Olympic Airways flight and demanded their release as part of a hostage exchange.
In 1987, when a much grayer Mohammad arrived at Canada's doorstep, his entry visa made no mention of his terrorist act. Canadian authorities later determined Mohammad was a convicted terrorist, and they ordered him out of the country.
Yet Mohammad, having repeatedly appealed government orders for his expulsion, has extended his stay for 20 years. He still resides in the same house in Brantford.
"You have many sources to know what you want to know, but don't ask me anything," Mohammad, now 65, said when confronted by FOX News.
The Canadian government has also played a large part in Mohammad's stay; Canada will not send its deportees — even convicted terrorists and murderers — just anywhere .
"The rule is you can't send someone back to [face] torture," said Lorne Waldman, Mohammad's former attorney.
Mohammad's family left for Lebanon after the state of Israel was formed, and despite a government recommendation that he be sent to Lebanon, the Canadian government believes he may be tortured or ill-treated if returned there. Canada will not send him to Israel, and no other country has stepped forward to take him.
These days, Mohammad lives in his Brantford home, tending the fruit trees in his back yard. Despite the terrorist attack he launched in 1968, he is not deemed a threat to public safety.
When asked by FOX News whether he regretted his crime, he would not answer.
"[It's] not your business. [It's] not your business," he said. "This is not your business."
Mohammad calls himself a freedom fighter, not a terrorist. Either way, he is living free in Canada, which doesn't seem to bother his neighbors.
"No, I'm not concerned," said Gayle Cunningham, who lives nearby. "Maybe I should be. Should I be? I don't know."
-
OBAMAS FAVORITE MOSLEM
Written by Alex Alexiev
Thursday, 28 August 2008
As the Democrat Convention's carefully-scripted coronation of perhaps the least qualified major party presidential candidate in recent American history builds up to its climax, few have noticed that the convention's most pregnant political message may have already been delivered before it officially started.
It came in the form of a decision by Obama's campaign to feature the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Ms. Ingrid Mattson, at an "Interfaith Gathering" of Leftist religious luminaries the day before the convention opened (8/24).
In doing that, Obama and the Democrat leadership rather demonstratively bestowed their seal of approval on the largest and most important front organization of the American Muslim Brotherhood, a conspiratorial Islamist revolutionary movement dedicated, in their own words, to "a grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands."
The implications of this political legitimization of a group dedicated to the destruction of our constitutional order are so profoundly disturbing that some background on what exactly ISNA and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) or Ikhwan Muslimi are is in order.
The Ikhwan beachhead in America was first established by a Saudi-funded group of Muslim Brothers in 1963 at the University of Illinois that became known as the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA).
This was only a year after the founding in Saudi Arabia of the main instrument for export of the violent Wahhabi/Salafi creed, the Muslim World League (MWL). The MWL, like other similar organizations that followed, were the fruit of the symbiotic nexus between Ikhwan organizational talent and Saudi financial muscle, a key synergy that is the single most important determinant of the vast inroads radical Islamism has made in the West since then.
Acting according to the MB's principle of a unitary Islamic movement operating through many fronts, the MSA promptly spawned numerous Islamist professional, educational and publishing spinoffs, before founding the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) in 1973, an ingenious Saudi-funded vehicle for control of American Islam through interest-free financing and holding the title of many Muslim institutions.
Finally, in 1981, the Brotherhood and its Wahhabi patrons felt the need to set up yet another instrument of control of the proliferating American Islamist networks by incorporating ISNA in Indiana as an umbrella organization of these networks. In the process, numerous front organizations that preceded ISNA by many years, including the MSA itself and NAIT, became ISNA constituent organizations.
What never changed was the unremitting hostility of the organization to fundamental American values like democracy, separation of church and state and human rights and its dedication to the ultimate objective of establishing a world-wide Islamic rule under barbaric shariah law.
Under the guidance of well-known Islamist zealots like Muzamil Siddiqui, Jamal Badawi, Abdalla Idris Ali, Iqbal Unus, Ihsan Bagby and many others, ISNA has through the years aided and abetted all manner of extremist and terrorist causes, while mouthing disingenuous calls for interfaith dialog.
While it has been able to fool numerous politically correct useful idiots, ISNA has been less successful with U.S. law enforcement authorities who listed it (and its affiliate NAIT) as an unindicted co-conspirator in a recent terrorism funding case.
Moreover, attempts to have its name expunged from that list were tersely rejected by the U.S. government citing numerous evidentiary exhibits establishing ISNA's "intimate relationship" with the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist organizations.
ISNA is intimately involved in yet another major Islamist effort to undermine American society that has so far escaped public scrutiny. Through its affiliate NAIT, it owns and runs the IMAN shariah finance mutual fund which is part of the global financial Jihad effort aiming to legitimize a medieval doctrine that mandates violent jihad against non-Muslims and the killing of adulterers and homosexuals.
Interestingly, the IMAN fund was known as the Dow Jones Islamic Fund until last March when it was revealed that the chairman of its shariah advisory board, Mufti Taqi Usmani, had long called for violence against infidels and sanctioned suicide terrorism.
No less puzzling is the fact that NAIT, which owns most shares of the for-profit multi-million dollar mutual fund and on whose board Ingrid Mattson sits, does not file tax returns since it ostensibly makes less than $25,000 per year.
Perhaps the best evidence of what ISNA really stands for is provided by its own poll of the attitudes of its membership conducted in 2006. By nearly a 3 to 1 margin ISNA members believed that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks and allowed them to happen and a majority did not believe that the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks and the July 7, 2005 bombings in London were Moslem.
Despite such overwhelming evidence of ISNA"s subversive nature, many are willing to give it the benefit of doubt. This is at least partly due to the fact that Ingrid Mattson is the first woman head of a major Islamic organization and is especially skillful in beating the bogus interfaith dialog drums.
For the Obama campaign and more than a few others, this has by itself provided the needed proof that ISNA is a picture of moderation.
Indeed, how can all the lurid tales of Islamist misogyny, gay-bashing and hate-spewing against Christians and Jews be true when ISNA now has a leader that is seemingly an emancipated and enlightened woman dedicated to multiculturalism and understanding? A fair question, it seems, until one starts digging behind the headlines.
It doesn't take long to discover that far from being a new emancipated leader, Ms. Mattson is little more than a useful prop serving the Islamist agenda.
Shortly after she was elected ISNA president in August 2006, the organization's secretary-general Sayyid Syeed announced that this does not change the prohibition against women leading mixed-gender prayer and that Mattson will only be allowed to lead "ritual worship for women." Mattson herself promptly opined that Moslem women are quite content with their segregated prayer space in the mosque.
Nor has she raised even the slightest objection to numerous misogynist statements by her fellow-ISNA executives and Islamist ideologues, Muzammil Siddiqui and Jamal Badawi, who have openly supported shariah restrictions on women traveling by themselves, socialization between men and women, or making friends with non-Muslims and endorsed polygamy and the husband's right to beat his wife.
Or, for that matter, their implicit endorsement of the death penalty for homosexuality. Not to mention ISNA's vituperative anti-Semitism, rejection of basic American norms such as the separation of church and state and its support for the imposition of shariah law in Muslim communities in the West.
It would be interesting to find out whether key democratic constituencies such as feminists and gay and lesbian groups are aware of the real agenda of this newly anointed partner of the Obama coalition for change. Just as it would be for rank and file Americans to learn that as far as ISNA's leadership is concerned American Moslems "should not melt in any pot except the Muslim Brotherhood pot."
In the interest of fairness, the Obama campaign is not the only one to buy uncritically ISNA's deceitful protestations. The Bush Administration, which has had seven years to figure it out, is even guiltier in failing to understand the deeply subversive nature of the Muslim Brotherhood networks and has often acted as a willing dupe to the Islamists.
The number two man at the Pentagon, Gordon England, for instance, followed the advice of a likely Islamist plant in his office - who had lied about his background - in terminating Stephen Coughlin, one of the few genuine experts in the U.S. government on shariah law. Not surprisingly, Mr. England had earlier legitimized through his presence an ISNA convention which teemed with radical Islamist speakers and messages, making himself a useful idiot par excellence in the process.
Not to be overdone, the Administration's former public diplomacy czar, Karen Hughes, whose impeccable credentials as a close personal friend of President Bush were only exceeded by her impeccable cluelessness about radical Islam, proudly declared ISNA members to be her frontline troops in public diplomacy.
The documented failure of the outgoing administration to come to terms with the existence of a well-organized Islamist fifth column in America does not make the democrats? new infatuation with a key part of this fifth column any less serious. Especially because, as the party has veered sharply to the left, parts of it have increasingly embraced radical Islam as a new ally. These have ranged from the ACLU, which has openly allied itself with organizations like ISNA and CAIR, to the Greens who have lately been debating whether to engage radical Islam in a joint struggle to destroy capitalism.
These feelings are fully reciprocated on the other side as the Islamists increasingly see the Left as a potential ally in its quest to undermine Western civilization and replace it with shariah rule.
Following the Democrat mid-term election victories in 2006, the Muslim Brotherhood website ikhwanweb argued that the Democrat victory will work in favor of Moslems and the Muslim Brotherhood inside and outside the U.S. and expressed the hope that the democrats will begin dealing directly with "moderate Islamists."
The Democrat Convention's legitimization of Ingrid Mattson and ISNA would seem to justify such hopes further. One can only hope that the majority of patriotic Democrat voters would soon start asking questions about Obama's new Islamist partners.
Alex Alexiev was for 20 years a senior analyst with the national security division of the Rand Corporation, directing numerous research projects for the Department of Defense and other agencies. Currently vice-president for research at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, his next book is Jihad on Wall Street: Shariah Finance in the War Against America.
[Note on "Moslem" vs. "Muslim". Until recently, the normal transliteration for "one who submits" was Moslem. Somehow, this became politically incorrect, with those-who-submit demanding a spelling of Muslim. Since Arabic has no written vowels, the actual transliteration from Arabic into English should be "Mslm." TTP will always opt for the politically incorrect - so in every case other than the actual title of an organization - it will render Mslm as Moslem, never Muslim.]
-
This could have gone in the Immigration thread as well. As with most things from the NYT, caveat lector:
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Like many workers at the meatpacking plant here, Raul A. Garcia, a Mexican-American, has watched with some discomfort as hundreds of Somali immigrants have moved to town in the past couple of years, many of them to fill jobs once held by Latino workers taken away in immigration raids.
Immigrant vs. Immigrant
This is the fourth article in a series that explores efforts by government and others to compel illegal immigrants to leave the United States.
Mr. Garcia has been particularly troubled by the Somalis’ demand that they be allowed special breaks for prayers that are obligatory for devout Muslims. The breaks, he said, would inconvenience everyone else.
“The Latino is very humble,” said Mr. Garcia, 73, who has worked at the plant, owned by JBS U.S.A. Inc., since 1994. “But they are arrogant,” he said of the Somali workers. “They act like the United States owes them.”
Mr. Garcia was among more than 1,000 Latino and other workers who protested a decision last month by the plant’s management to cut their work day — and their pay — by 15 minutes to give scores of Somali workers time for evening prayers.
After several days of strikes and disruptions, the plant’s management abandoned the plan.
But the dispute peeled back a layer of civility in this southern Nebraska city of 47,000, revealing slow-burning racial and ethnic tensions that have been an unexpected aftermath of the enforcement raids at workplaces by federal immigration authorities.
Grand Island is among a half dozen or so cities where discord has arisen with the arrival of Somali workers, many of whom were recruited by employers from elsewhere in the United States after immigration raids sharply reduced their Latino work forces.
The Somalis are by and large in this country legally as political refugees and therefore are not singled out by immigration authorities.
In some of these places, including Grand Island, this newest wave of immigrant workers has had the effect of unifying the other ethnic populations against the Somalis and has also diverted some of the longstanding hostility toward Latino immigrants among some native-born residents.
“Every wave of immigrants has had to struggle to get assimilated,” said Margaret Hornady, the mayor of Grand Island and a longtime resident of Nebraska. “Right now, it’s so volatile.”
The federal immigration crackdown has hit meat- and poultry-packing plants particularly hard, with more than 2,000 immigrant workers in at least nine places detained since 2006 in major raids, most on immigration violations.
Struggling to fill the grueling low-wage jobs that attract few American workers, the plants have placed advertisements in immigrant newspapers and circulated fliers in immigrant neighborhoods.
Some companies, like Swift & Company, which owned the plant in Grand Island until being bought up by the Brazilian conglomerate JBS last year, have made a particular pitch for Somalis because of their legal status. Tens of thousands of Somali refugees fleeing civil war have settled in the United States since the 1990s, with the largest concentration in Minnesota.
But the companies are learning that in trying to solve one problem they have created another.
Early last month, about 220 Somali Muslims walked off the job at a JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colo., saying the company had prevented them from observing their prayer schedule. (More than 100 of the workers were later fired.)
Days later, a poultry company in Minnesota agreed to allow Muslim workers prayer breaks and the right to refuse handling pork products, settling a lawsuit filed by nine Somali workers.
In August, the management of a Tyson chicken plant in Shelbyville, Tenn., designated a Muslim holy day as a paid holiday, acceding to a demand by Somali workers. The plant had originally agreed to substitute the Muslim holy day for Labor Day, but reinstated Labor Day after a barrage of criticism from non-Muslims.
In some workplaces, newly arrived Somali Muslims have not protested their working conditions. That has been the case at Agriprocessors, a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. About 150 Somali Muslims have found jobs there, most of them recruited by a staffing company after the plant lost about half its work force in an immigration raid in May.
Jack Shandley, a senior vice president for JBS U.S.A., said in an e-mail message that “integrating persons of diverse backgrounds regularly presents new and different issues.”
“Religious accommodation is only one workplace diversity issue that has been addressed,” Mr. Shandley said.
Nationwide, employment discrimination complaints by Muslim workers have more than doubled in the past decade, to 607 in the 2007 fiscal year, from 285 in the 1998 fiscal year, according to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has sent representatives to Grand Island to interview Somali workers.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employers to discriminate based on religion and says that employers must “reasonably accommodate” religious practices. But the act offers some exceptions, including instances when adjustments would cause “undue hardship” on the company’s business interests.
=========
(Page 2 of 3)
The new tensions here extend well beyond the walls of the plant. Scratch beneath Grand Island’s surface and there is resentment, discomfort and mistrust everywhere, some residents say — between the white community and the various immigrant communities; between the older immigrant communities, like the Latinos, and the newer ones, namely the Somalis and the Sudanese, another refugee community that has grown here in recent years; and between the Somalis, who are largely Muslim, and the Sudanese, who are largely Christian.
In dozens of interviews here, white, Latino and other residents seemed mostly bewildered, if not downright suspicious, of the Somalis, very few of whom speak English.
“I kind of admire all the effort they make to follow that religion, but sometimes you have to adapt to the workplace,” said Fidencio Sandoval, a plant worker born in Mexico who has become an American citizen. “A new culture comes in with their demands and says, ‘This is what we want.’ This is kind of new for me.”
Ms. Hornady, the mayor, suggested somewhat apologetically that she had been having difficulty adjusting to the presence of Somalis. She said she found the sight of Somali women, many of whom wear Muslim headdresses, or hijabs, “startling.”
“I’m sorry, but after 9/11, it gives some of us a turn,” she said.
Not only do the hijabs suggest female subjugation, Ms. Hornady said, but the sight of Muslims in town made her think of Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the United States.
“I know that that’s horrible and that’s prejudice,” she said. “I’m working very hard on it.”
She added, “Aren’t a lot of thoughtful Americans struggling with this?”
For their part, the Somalis say they feel aggrieved and not particularly welcome.
“A lot of people look at you weird — they judge you,” said Abdisamad Jama, 22, a Somali who moved to Grand Island two years ago to work as an interpreter at the plant and now freelances. “Or sometimes they will say, ‘Go back to your country.’ ”
Founded in the mid-19th century by German immigrants, Grand Island gradually became more diverse in the mid- and late-20th century with the arrival of Latino workers, mainly Mexicans.
The Latinos came at first to work in the agricultural fields; later arrivals found employment in the meatpacking plant. Refugees from Laos and, in the past few years, Sudan followed, and many of them also found work in the plant, which is now the city’s largest employer, with about 2,700 workers.
In December 2006, in an event that would deeply affect the city and alter its uneasy balance of ethnicities, immigration authorities raided the plant and took away more than 200 illegal Latino workers. Another 200 or so workers quit soon afterward.
The raid was one of six sweeps by federal agents at plants owned by Swift, gutting the company of about 1,200 workers in one day and forcing the plants to slow their operations.
Many of the Somalis who eventually arrived to fill those jobs were practicing Muslims and their faith obliges them to pray at five fixed times every day. In Grand Island, the workers would grab prayer time whenever they could, during scheduled rest periods or on restroom breaks. But during the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims fast in daylight hours and break their fast in a ritualistic ceremony at sundown. A more formal accommodation of their needs was necessary, the Somali workers said.
Last year, the Somalis here demanded time off for the Ramadan ceremony. The company refused, saying it could not afford to let so many workers step away from the production line at one time. Dozens of Somalis quit, though they eventually returned to work.
The situation repeated itself last month. Dennis Sydow, the plant’s vice president and general manager, said a delegation of Somali workers approached him on Sept. 10 about allowing them to take their dinner break at 7:30 p.m., near sundown, rather than at the normal time of 8 to 8:30.
Mr. Sydow rejected the request, saying the production line would slow to a crawl and the Somalis’ co-workers would unfairly have to take up the slack.
The Somalis said their co-workers did not offer a lot of support. “Latinos were sometimes saying, ‘Don’t pray, don’t pray,’ ” said Abdifatah Warsame, 21.
=======
e 3 of 3)
After the Somalis went out on strike on Sept. 15, the plant’s management and the union brokered a deal the next day that would have shifted the dinner break to 7:45 p.m., close enough to sundown to satisfy the Somalis. Because of the plant’s complex scheduling rules, the new dinner break would have also required an earlier end to the shift, potentially cutting the work day by 15 minutes.
Word of the accord spread quickly throughout the non-Somali work force, though the reports were infected with false rumors of pay raises for the Somalis and more severe cuts in the work day for everyone.
In a counterprotest on Sept. 17, more than 1,000 Latino and Sudanese workers lined up alongside white workers in opposition to the concessions to the Somalis.
“We had complaints from the whites, Hispanics and Sudanese,” said Abdalla Omar, 26, one of the Somali strikers.
The union and the plant management backed down, reverting to the original dinner schedule. More than 70 Somalis, including Mr. Omar and Mr. Warsame, stormed out of the plant and did not return; they either quit or were fired.
Since then, Ramadan has ended and work has returned to normal at the plant, but most everyone — management, the union and the employees — says the root causes of the disturbances have not been fully addressed. A sizeable Somali contingent remains employed at the factory — Somali leaders say the number is about 100; the union puts the figure at more than 300, making similar disruptions possible next year.
“Right now, this is a real kindling box,” said Daniel O. Hoppes, president of the local chapter of the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers.
Xawa Ahmed, 48, a Somali, moved to Grand Island from Minnesota last month to help organize the Somali community. A big part of her work, Ms. Ahmed said, will be to help demystify the Somalis who remain.
“We’re trying to make people understand why we do these things, why we practice this religion, why we live in America,” she said. “There’s a lot of misunderstanding.”
-
I´m on the road and so have not had the time to surf this site thoroughly, but my initial impression is "If only there were more like it!"
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/10/whose-afraid-to-say-honor-killing.html
-
Cair officials served in the middle of a banquet!!!
This promises to be interesting , , , :-D
http://wnd.com:80/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81863
-
**I guess they don't want to make CAIR angry by showing the true face of islam.**
The Case of the Missing Honor Killing
By Phyllis Chesler
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, November 24, 2008
Psychologically, we tend to believe that what we see with our own eyes, especially if it is "acted out" for us, is the "truth." Our brains are wired so that visual images assume a permanent reality--even if that reality is a computer-generated or photo-shopped Big Lie. Mohammed al-Dura did not die in his fathers' arms even though that carefully staged image was seen round the world. Israel did not massacre anyone in Jenin even though that Big Lie has also taken on a life of its own.
I'm glad that America's Most Wanted chose to dramatize the honor killing of Sarah and Amina Said in Dallas on Jan 1, 2008 by their father Yaser Abdul Said, who has been missing ever since. I hope the program helps aid in his capture. I applaud on-camera narrator John Walsh, who has turned his own grief at the loss of his child into something positive for so many others.
However, the dramatization was oddly, perhaps even purposefully misleading. Key figures were either fatally mischaracterized or were entirely missing in action. Malevolent motives, which had no basis in fact, were attributed to the innocent girls and yet their mother, Patricia, was not presented as the collaborator in their murder which she surely was. Their older brother, Islam, a foul-mouthed man who bullied his mother, harassed and monitored his sisters, and ultimately justified their being honor murdered, was not in the TV picture
Why would America's Most Wanted do this?
Patricia, the girls' mother, is and was a white, blonde, blue-eyed Texas-born Christian woman, a child really, when Yaser first married her. The dramatization chose to portray her as an Arab- or Hispanic-looking woman. Although the program has an on-camera interview with the real Patricia, their choice of an Arab-looking actress to play Patricia accomplishes the following:
Viewers might think that the girls really were rebelling against their culture when, in fact, their mother and her extended family are Christian-Americans whose customs the girls were choosing. Second, by failing to show the real Patricia as she enticed her daughters to come home, promised them that their father only wanted to make up, the program blurs, renders indistinct, the fact that this was a classic honor killing, one which always involves a family collaboration. That is probably why they did not include the girls' older brother Islam. He would have also visually and verbally confirmed the concept that an honor killing is characterized by family collaboration. Of course, Islam may also have cursed the producers and threatened to kill or sue them if he was included. Nice guy.
In other words folks, the producers did not want to inflame any white "ethnic" or "racist" passion by showing an Arab Muslim male tyrant dominating a white Christian American woman (his wife) and their daughters. The program wanted no part of the long, historical stench which has attended the usually false, but sometimes true allegations about "Indians" or "blacks" raping white women, and the terrible lynchings that have occurred thereafter.
But, even more: The producers did not want to be charged with 'Islamophobia" by showing what a real, full-blown honor killing looks like. Further, they wanted to appear and present a "balanced" re-creation even if they had to make things up in order to do so. Thus, they showed the two girls as plotting revenge or preemptive self-defense against their father. If only Sarah and Amina had followed through on this imaginary course of action, they might be alive today. But, knowing how American law works, they might also be in jail for life.
While the program tried to pack a lot of information into a limited amount of time, they did not show how brutally and continuously Yaser physically and verbally assaulted his daughters, tapped their phone lines, monitored their computers, watched them and had them watched.
Finally, to be extra careful, the program chose an exceptionally soft-spoken Muslim boy, Zohair Zaid, the girls' friend, who said some strong, true things but who also presented such a peaceful face of Islam. It does exist and yet--what a perfect foil to Yaser Said's cold-blooded murderousness. One cancels the other out and we are left with ... confusion.
Zohair advised the girls to take their fathers' threat to kill them seriously and to go to the police. He also told them that "once you run away, you can never come back. He will become totally insane once he's lost control of you...His honor and dignity (will be) scarred."
What a shame they did not listen to Zohair but instead listened to their murderous mother. On camera, a subdued, soft-spoken Patricia, actually defends Yaser. She says that when she would punish or ground the girls, that Yaser would try to protect them, go easy on them. When she was asked whether Yaser was upset when he discovered that his daughters were dating Christian boyfriends, Patricia says: "I don't think so. He always said that we could work (everything) out as a family."
Either Patricia is dull-witted, exceptionally passive, even mentally retarded; was battered, brainwashed, primed to turn against her own daughters; is one hellava cunning criminal; or, long ago, converted to Yaser's brand of Arabian-Egyptian Islamism, shares Yaser's view that disobedient daughters should be punished, even killed. A typical Islamist mother.
I want to know why the police have not arrested her and why America's Most Wanted has failed to portray her accurately.
I asked Gail Gartrell, the girls' great-aunt, what she thought of the program. Viewing it made her angry and it broke her heart. Gartrell feels that the program failed to present this double homicide as a full-blown honor killing. She quotes John Walsh who said: "Some people say this was an honor killing. But, there's no honor in this."
How dare he. I have worked hard to educate and get the word out about honor killings and he diminished what honor killings entail. You know, they are usually well planned out in advance and others in the family involve themselves as well.
How about this? Yaser shoots the girls, gets out of the cab without a single drop of blood on him, after 11 shots were fired at close range, and simply walks away. Who picked him up? He did not leave there on foot. Someone picked him up and fled with him.
How about it? Who could have driven Yaser away?
I have to give them credit for one thing. They had the means (Was it money? Or attention?) to get the otherwise reclusive Patricia to talk to them on camera. Check her out for yourselves. As I said she's soft-spoken, passive, subdued.
But this is also how an honor killer looks.
Perhaps this is also another face of jihad. Think about it. What if an American-despising Yaser was also interested in marrying Patricia in order to get a green card, become a citizen--and biologically produce American citizen jihadists? Might the fifth column we have long feared, come from such a source? Yaser is known to have owned many knives and guns, known to have taken his family to "Jihad military camps." At least, they are posed wearing keffiyehs and brandishing weapons. Maybe he was only joking. Maybe his annual visit back home to Egypt was only to visit another wife and family. Maybe Yaser is just a petty criminal and woman-hater.
But what if Yaser married as a form of jihad? What if his daughters were in turn expected to marry other Egyptian jihadists who would pay dowries for them?
I hope the FBI is considering all these questions.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler is the well known author of classic works, including the bestseller Women and Madness (1972) and The New Anti-Semitism (2003). She has just published The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan), as well as an updated and revised edition of Women and Madness. She is an Emerita Professor of psychology and women's studies, the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969) and the National Women's Health Network (1976). Her website is www.phyllis-chesler.com.
-
Jury finds US-based Muslim charity guilty of funding terrorism
DALLAS, Texas (AFP) — The leaders of what was once the largest Muslim charity in the United States were found guilty Monday of acting as a front for Palestinian militants in the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history.
It was a major victory in the White House's legal "war on terror" and comes after a mistrial was declared last year in the case involving the now defunct Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, charged with funneling 12 million dollars to Hamas.
Family members could be heard sobbing in the Dallas courtroom as guilty verdicts were read on all 108 charges of providing material support to terrorists, money laundering and tax fraud.
One woman cried out: "My dad is not a criminal! He's a human!"
Holy Land was one of several Muslim organizations the Bush administration closed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks for allegedly raising money for overseas Islamic extremists.
Muslim charities that remain open have reported significant drops in contributions because of fears of prosecution even as juries rendered acquittals or convictions of lesser charges in two other high-profile terror financing cases in Florida and Chicago. The US Justice Department vowed in October 2007 to retry the five former charity organizers in the Holy Land case after jurors could not agree on verdicts on nearly 200 charges and a new jury was seated in mid-September.
Over the past two months, the government has presented largely the same evidence, hoping to prove that Holy Land was created in the late 1980s to gather donations from deep-pocketed American Muslims to support the then-newly formed Hamas movement resisting the Israeli occupation.
Hamas -- a multi-faceted Islamist political, social and armed movement which now controls the Gaza Strip -- was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 1995 and the trial centered over whether Holy Land continued to support the group after this point.
Prosecutors did not accuse the charity of directly financing or being involved in terrorist activity. Instead, they said humanitarian aid was used to promote Hamas and allow it to divert existing funds to militant activities.
"The government showed in a streamlined case that where special assistance to the families of terrorists is concerned, cash is the moral equivalent of a car bomb," Peter Margulies, a Roger Williams University law professor who studies terrorism financing cases.
"Going forward, however, the government must be more pro-active about furnishing guidance to Muslim-Americans who merely wish to fulfill their religious obligations."
Defense attorneys said the charity was a non-political organization which operated legally to get much-needed aid to Palestinians living in squalor under the Israeli occupation, and argued that the chief reasons their clients were on trial are family ties.
Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' political leader in Syria, is the brother of defendant Mufid Abdulqader, a top Holy Land fundraiser whose Palestinian band played at the charity's events and now faces up to 55 years in jail.
Meshaal's deputy, Mousa Abu Marzook, is a cousin of defendant Mohammad el-Mezain, a foundation co-founder, and is married to the cousin of defendant Ghassan Elashi, former Holy Land board chairman. Mezain faces up to 15 years in prison while Elashi, who is already serving six and a half years for export law violations, faces up to life in prison. The brother of defendant Shukri Abu Baker, Holy Land's former chief executive officer, is Jamal Issa, former Hamas leader in Sudan and its current head in Yemen. Baker, the former chief executive officer of Holy Land, faces up to life in prison. A fifth defendant is Abdulrahman Odeh, Holy Land's New Jersey representative, who faces up to 55 years in jail.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...YKGSp5jw-BCgEQ
-
Westerners Welcome Harems
By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | 11/25/2008
A Scottish judge recently bent the law to benefit a polygamous household. The case involved a Muslim male who drove 64 miles per hour in a 30 mph zone – usually grounds for an automatic loss of one's driving license. The defendant's lawyer explained his client's need to speed: "He has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow and sleeps with one one night and stays with the other the next on an alternate basis. Without his driving licence he would be unable to do this on a regular basis." Sympathetic to the polygamist's plight, the judge permitted him to retain his license.
Monogamy, this ruling suggests, long a foundation of Western civilization, is silently eroding under the challenge of Islamic law. Should current trends continue, polygamy could soon be commonplace.
Since the 1950s, Muslim populations have grown in Western Europe and North America via immigration and conversion; with their presence has grown the Islamic form of polygyny (one man married to more than one woman). Estimates find 2,000 or more British polygamous men, 14,000 or 15,000-20,000 harems in Italy, 30,000 harems in France, and 50,000-100,000 polygamists in the United States.
Some imams openly acknowledge conducting polygamous marriage ceremonies: Khalil Chami reports that he is asked almost weekly to conduct such ceremonies in Sydney. Aly Hindy reports having "blessed" more than 30 such nuptials in Toronto.
Social acceptance is also growing. Academics justify it, while politicians blithely meet with polygamists or declare that Westerners should "find a way to live with it" and journalists describe polygamy with empathy, sympathy, and compassion. Islamists argue polygamy's virtues and call for its official recognition.
Polygamy has made key legal advances in 2008. (For fuller details, see my blog, "Harems Accepted in the West.") At least six Western jurisdictions now permit harems on the condition that these were contracted in jurisdictions where polygamy is legal, including India and Muslim-majority countries from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia to Morocco.
United Kingdom: Bigamy is punishable by up to seven years in jail but the law recognizes harems already formed in polygamy-tolerant countries. The Department of Work and Pensions pays couples up to £92.80 (US$140) a week in social benefits, and each multiculturally-named "additional spouse" receives £33.65. The Treasury states that "Where a man and a woman are married under a law which permits polygamy, and either of them has an additional spouse, the Tax Credits (Polygamous Marriages) Regulations 2003 allow them to claim tax credits as a polygamous unit." Additionally, harems may be eligible for additional housing benefits to reflect their need for larger properties.
The Netherlands: The Dutch justice minister, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, has announced that polygamous Muslim marriages should not be dealt with through the legal system but via dialogue.
Belgium: The Constitutional Court took steps to ease the reunification of harems formed outside the country.
Italy: A court in Bologna allowed a Muslim male immigrant to bring the mothers of his two children into the country on the grounds that the polygamous marriages had been legally contracted.
Australia: The Australian newspaper reports "it is illegal to enter into a polygamous marriage. But the federal government, like Britain, recognises relationships that have been legally recognised overseas, including polygamous marriages. This allows second wives and children to claim welfare and benefits."
Ontario, Canada: Canadian law calls for polygamy to be punished by a prison term but the Ontario Family Law Act accepts "a marriage that is actually or potentially polygamous, if it was celebrated in a jurisdiction whose system of law recognizes it as valid."
Thus, for the cost of two airplane tickets, Muslims potentially can evade Western laws. (One wonders when Mormons will also wake to this gambit.) Rare countries (such as Ireland) still reject harems; generally, as David Rusin of Islamist Watch notes, "governments tend to look the other way as the conjugal mores of seventh-century Arabia … take root in our backyards."
At a time when Western marriage norms are already under challenge, Muslims are testing legal loopholes and even seeking taxpayer support for multiple brides. This development has vast significance: just as the concept of one man, one woman marriage has shaped the West's economic, cultural, and political development, the advance of Islamic law (Shari‘a) will profoundly change life as we know it.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=9E19891D-FDB4-4413-9545-467B8921DC17
-
A Scottish judge recently bent the law to benefit a polygamous household. The case involved a Muslim male who drove 64 miles per hour in a 30 mph zone – usually grounds for an automatic loss of one's driving license. The defendant's lawyer explained his client's need to speed: "He has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow and sleeps with one one night and stays with the other the next on an alternate basis. Without his driving licence he would be unable to do this on a regular basis." Sympathetic to the polygamist's plight, the judge permitted him to retain his license.
Gotta love the Judge; he does have a sense of humor.
But on a serious note, BBG what do you think? Is polygamy so bad? Should it be illegal? Or do you think it should it be allowed between consenting adults regardless of their religious affiliation?
-
But on a serious note, BBG what do you think? Is polygamy so bad? Should it be illegal? Or do you think it should it be allowed between consenting adults regardless of their religious affiliation?
One sec, let me ask my wife. . . .
Rats, she's opposed to my nominees.
As stated elsewhere, I care not at all what consenting adults do behind closed doors. With that said, any policy should be consistent (yo, Mormons), should not be used as an immigration dodge, should be good for goose or gander, and shouldn't be a vehicle to get lots of folks on the public dole. As also stated elsewhere, I'm pretty uncomfortable with patriarchal systems claiming free choice as they keep their women segregated in veils behind locked doors. Choice should be in the Western sense, instead of the choose any option off this list of one we've discussed elsewhere.
-
Your wife? I think it's all in the presentation or your lack thereof; I think that Muslim in Scotland had it right. Keep them in separate towns
and drive fast! :-)
As for your comments I basically agree; what's the big deal. Consenting adults... but keep them off the dole...
-
posted in this thread because of the last two pictures.
-
Bad CAIR Day
Shutting down an engine for stealth jihad.
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) had a rough 24 hours earlier this week. Given the organization’s ties to the seditious Muslim Brotherhood and specifically its role in advancing the stealth jihad used to insinuate into this country the totalitarian program authoritative Islam calls “sharia,” though, any bad CAIR day is a good day for America.
The problems for CAIR started a week ago Sunday night when its co-founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, was served with a court summons during his group’s annual fund-raising dinner in Arlington, Va. In front of some 700 people and the one Muslim member of Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), Awad and several other CAIR officials were formally put on notice that they and their organization were being sued for racketeering and fraud by four former clients. The suit seeks, in addition to damages, to shut CAIR down and to enjoin the defendants from engaging in public-interest legal work in the future.
According to the plaintiffs, they were defrauded by Morris Days, a purported “Resident Attorney” and “Manager for Civil Rights” at CAIR’s now-disestablished Maryland/Virginia chapter in Herndon, Virginia. As the complaint details, he was not, in fact, an attorney and allegedly failed to provide the plaintiffs with legal services for which they had paid. According to internal CAIR documents referenced in the complaint, there may be hundreds of other members who were injured by this CAIR-Days fraud.
If so, the other victims may be unaware of what has been perpetrated upon them since CAIR allegedly covered up its failure to check on Days’s background and his misconduct while in its employ. The organization is alleged not only to have concealed this massive fraud from their clients. It also failed to notify law-enforcement authorities, the relevant bar associations, or the public about the wrongdoing.
Instead, according to the complaint, when confronted with members angry about Days’s non-performance, the organization compounded its misdeeds by engaging in a cover-up. CAIR claimed that the “attorney” had not actually been in its employ and concealed the fact that Days had been terminated for engaging in criminal fraud.
Worse yet, the plaintiffs allege that CAIR National officials compelled their clients seeking to have their legal fees refunded to sign a release precluding any revelation of this fraud to the appropriate authorities or the press — on pain of being sued by CAIR for up to $25,000. According to a press release issued by the plaintiff’s counsel, my friend and colleague David Yerushalmi: “This enforced code of silence left hundreds of CAIR client-victims in the dark such that to this day they have not learned that Days is not an attorney and that he had not filed the legal actions on their behalf for which Days and CAIR publicly claimed credit.”
Joining Nihad Awad as named defendants in the federal lawsuit against CAIR are: Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the organization’s board during the period of the alleged misconduct; Tahra Goraya, at the time, the national director of CAIR; manager of the “civil rights” division of CAIR, Khadijah Athman; Nadhira al-Khalili, CAIR’s in-house legal counsel; and Ibrahim Hooper and Amina Rubin, respectively the group’s director and coordinator of communications.
If allegations that CAIR exploits and abuses Muslims in America — rather than, as it endlessly claims, serving and protecting their rights — were not bad enough, a federal jury in Dallas dealt the organization another, potentially devastating, body blow. Jurors found principals of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development guilty as charged in a terrorism-financing conspiracy. CAIR had been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in that case.
Indeed, in the course of the original trial last year and the just-concluded retrial, the prosecution introduced into evidence damning information about CAIR’s ties not only to the Holy Land Foundation but to the Muslim Brotherhood. The precursor to CAIR was the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), itself a front for Hamas. IAP was listed as one of a large number of associated groups in a 1991 internal Brotherhood memorandum. The memo laid out the MB’s work in America as a “kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
As Steven Emerson’s invaluable Investigative Project on Terrorism has observed:
In June 2007, federal prosecutors…designate[d] CAIR as a co-conspirator because of its associations with the US Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. Prosecutors say that the Palestine Committee was created specifically to help Hamas through financial and political support in the United States. CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad (its current chairman emeritus) is listed as an individual committee member and is an unindicted co-conspirator, too. In other cases, CAIR employees have been prosecuted for engaging in their own conspiracies.
The allegations about CAIR’s conduct in the Days’ affair and the guilty verdict rendered against its co-conspirators in the Holy Land case point up a central reality: In the words of a wise lawyer, shady organizations, even stealth ones, invariably engage in culpable conduct no matter how sophisticated they are because there are too many loose ends and you cannot control all of them. It appears that that is what happened with respect to the Muslim Brotherhood’s stealth jihad operatives at CAIR.
Armed with the verdict of the Holy Land Foundation trial, it is high time for federal prosecutors to turn their sights on CAIR beyond simply naming them as an unindicted co-conspirator. By opening up their own investigation based on the evidence already proven in the HLF trial and the troubling allegations in the civil lawsuit, the government may soon turn a bad CAIR day into curtains for this Muslim Brotherhood engine for stealth jihad.
— Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a contributor to NRO.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODU1OWJhNmMxMDUxZjA2NTYwNzBkNDM5N2UzNDcyZDk=
-
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/12/floridastan-isl.html
Yes, this is in America. Be horrified and be warned.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Xl68kP4wo
More from Floridistan.
-
Anyone got any footage of the "vast majority of peaceful muslims" protesting Mumbai in the US?
**Cricket sounds**
-
Anyone got any footage of the "vast majority of peaceful muslims" protesting Mumbai in the US?
**Cricket sounds**
Unfortunately I have not seen ANY footage of the "vast majority of peaceful muslims" protesting ANY of the violence instigated by Muslims.
I seem to be the designated "liberal" aka "bleeding heart" on this forum, however you raise a valid point. Their silence says more than words.
-
There's hope for you yet JDN :lol: :-D
-
There was one protest in India, by Indian muslims, regarding Mumbai. After 9/11, Iranian students protested in Iran, aside from those protests, the muslim world can only be bothered to protest Mohammed cartoons or Israel refusing to be rocketed any longer.
Thank you for recognizing this point, JDN.
-
All visibly Jewish people and places in North America and worldwide need to enhance their security. Attacks will be coming, from the cells of "non-state actors" and "lone wolves".
-
- Pajamas Media - http://pajamasmedia.com -
Top American Islamic Cleric Threatens U.S. on Egyptian TV
Posted By Patrick Poole On January 7, 2009 @ 12:00 am
Homeland Security, Israel, Middle East, US News, World News
Islamic cleric Salah Sultan appeared on Egypt’s Al-Nas TV last week and delivered a warning of death and destruction for America. Not only did he attack the U.S. for its military support of Israel in its fight against the Hamas terrorist organization, but he vowed retaliation such that more Americans would be killed than those Palestinians (and, presumably, Hamas terrorists) killed in the present conflict in Gaza, emphasizing that this would take place “soon”:
America, which gave [Israel] everything it needed in these battles, will suffer economic stagnation, ruin, destruction, and crime, which will surpass what is happening in Gaza. One of these days, the U.S. will suffer more deaths than all those killed in this third Gaza holocaust. This will happen soon.
He also invoked a notorious Islamic hadith on the inevitable annihilation of the Jews by Muslims:
The stone, which is thrown at the Jews, hates these Jews, these Zionists, because Allah foretold, via His Prophet Muhammad, that Judgment Day will not come before the Jew and the Muslim fight. The Jew will hide behind stones and trees, and the stone and the tree will speak, saying: “Oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” The only exception will be the Gharqad tree.
This harangue would be nothing new on television in the Islamic world; in fact, it is commonplace. What is unique about Sultan’s threats against America is that he holds U.S. permanent residency status and, according to one federal law enforcement official, travels regularly on a U.S. passport. And as I have reported [1] elsewhere, Sultan is pursuing U.S. citizenship (the status of his application is unknown due to federal privacy laws). Thus, Salah Sultan has lived quite comfortably for more than a decade under the protections of the very country he now threatens with death and destruction.
It should be noted that Salah Sultan is not some obscure figure in the American Islamic world. He serves as a member of the [2] Fiqh Council of North America. Touted as the top Islamic governing body in the U.S., the Fiqh Council is an arm of the Islamic Society of North America. Sultan founded and served as president of the [3] Islamic American University in Southfield, Michigan; he was the national director of tarbiyah (Islamic instruction) for the Muslim American Society; and he continues to operate the [4] American Council for Islamic Research, based in my hometown of Hilliard, Ohio.
Sultan’s Al-Nas TV appearance last week was [5] recorded and [6] translated by the indispensable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Curiously, as soon as MEMRI published the video clips of Sultan’s harangue, references to Sultan’s membership with the Fiqh Council were scrubbed from its website. His name has been removed from its [7] list of council members, even though he appeared there as recently as early last week. However, Sultan is still listed as a member on the Fiqh Council’s [8] brochure posted online (no doubt that will be remedied as soon as they are informed of this report).
This is not the first time that Sultan has been the subject of a MEMRI report for his statements made and activities conducted outside of the U.S. In July 2007, [9] MEMRI reported on a conference held in Doha, Qatar, in honor of Hamas spiritual leader Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who has been banned from the U.S. since 1999 for his active support of Islamic terrorism. One of the conference’s keynote speakers was Hamas head Khaled Mash’al, a “specially designated global terrorist” by the U.S. government who praised the terror cleric for his fatwa endorsing Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Sitting beside Mash’al and Qaradawi on the [10] speaker’s dais was none other than Salah Sultan, who gave two separate addresses during the conference honoring his mentor, Qaradawi.
This appearance by Sultan with two terrorist leaders directly violates the much-ballyhooed 2005 anti-terrorism fatwa issued by the Fiqh Council and signed by Sultan himself prohibiting such contact. Sultan also spoke at a July 2006 [11] pro-Hamas rally in Istanbul held by the extremist Saadet Party, which also featured an address by Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh — again, a glaring violation of the Fiqh Council’s terrorism fatwa.
But with several former Fiqh Council members in prison on terrorism-related charges (former council trustee Abdurahman Alamoudi, currently serving a 23-year prison sentence), deported for concealing their terrorism ties (Fawaz Damra), fingered in illegal terrorist fundraising (current member Muhammad Al-Hanooti), and named as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism trials (former chairman Taha Jaber Al-Awani), it should be apparent that the group is not rigorous in the fatwa’s enforcement. The Investigative Project has published a [12] dossier on the extensive roster of Fiqh Council members tied to the international Islamic terrorist network.
May 2006 saw Salah Sultan’s first starring role in a MEMRI report when [13] he was recorded on Al-Risala TV saying the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 terror attacks, which he claimed were then used to declare war on Muslims worldwide, and also praising Osama bin Laden mentor and “specially designated global terrorist” Abd-al-Magid Al-Zindani (see the MEMRI [14] video clip and [15] transcript of Sultan’s Al-Risala interview). These comments were made just two weeks after the Columbus Dispatch published a [16] lengthy defense of Sultan as a moderate and the Central Ohio Islamic school that he was religious director of at the time.
Sultan’s Middle East media appearances also caught the eye of the Los Angeles Times in July 2007. The paper [17] cited him by name in an article by Borzou Daragahi on a group of Islamic clerics who “share the outlook of al-Qaeda” and who were “glorifying holy war” on Bahraini TV. Sultan was a regular guest on a program hosted by Muslim Brotherhood cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, who was expelled from the U.S. in December 2004 and banned from reentering for his ties to Islamic terrorism. As noted by Bahraini blogger and journalist Mahmoud Al-Yousif, their television program was [18] shut down by the Bahraini government after extensive criticism by members of parliament and the media.
Considering Salah Sultan’s lengthy résumé of Islamic extremism and regular association with designated terrorist leaders — much of it captured on video — you might think that the Department of Homeland Security would take some action with respect to his permanent residency status (despite owning a home in Ohio, he spends most of his time in Bahrain, disqualifying him for permanent residency), if not ban him completely from the country. You would be wrong, however. In fact, Sultan spent most of December touring mosques in Central Ohio before jetting off to Egypt last weekend for his Al-Nas interview.
But now that Salah Sultan is publicly inciting violence against the U.S. and predicting the deaths of hundreds or even thousands of our citizens through foreign media outlets, on what basis can Homeland Security officials continue to ignore this very real and extensively documented terror threat, his connections to leading U.S. Islamic groups notwithstanding? That remains to be seen.
Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/top-american-islamic-cleric-threatens-us-on-egyptian-tv/
URLs in this post:
[1] elsewhere: http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=7FBDEF74-2DAC-401C-87BF-5D3E3E102047
[2] Fiqh Council of North America: http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/
[3] Islamic American University: http://www.islamicau.org/
[4] American Council for Islamic Research,: http://salahsoltan.com/main/26.0.0.1.0.0.phtml
[5] recorded: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1965.htm
[6] translated: http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1965.htm
[7] list of council members: http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/AboutUs/tabid/175/Default.aspx
[8] brochure: http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/Portals/4/FCNABrochure.pdf
[9] MEMRI reported: http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP167207
[10] speaker’s dais: http://ohioagainstterror.blogspot.com/2007/10/former-hilliard-hamas-cleric-pictured.html
[11] pro-Hamas rally: http://ohioagainstterror.blogspot.com/2007/05/hilliard-hamas-muslim-brotherhood.html
[12] dossier: http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html
[13] he was recorded on Al-Risala TV: http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP116806
[14] video clip: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1143.htm
[15] transcript: http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1143.htm
[16] lengthy defense: http://dispatch.com/live/contentbe/dispatch/2006/05/05/20060505-C1-00.html
[17] cited him by name: http://ohioagainstterror.blogspot.com/2007/08/la-times-hilliard-holy-war-homeboy.html
[18] shut down: http://mahmood.tv/2007/06/13/crybabies-wont-leave
-
http://zombietime.com/gaza_war_protest/
Must-see footage of jihadists and their leftist useful idiots in San Fran-sicko.
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2009/01/024405print.html
January 15, 2009
Head of Muslim group with admitted Hamas ties to offer prayer at Obama inauguration
Mattson
Federal prosecutors last summer rejected claims that ISNA was unfairly named an unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case.
ISNA has admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood is waging, in its own words, "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
And the head of ISNA is going to offer a prayer at Obama's inauguration.
"Muslim woman, rabbis to pray at inaugural service," by Rachel Zoll for AP, January 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):
...A prayer will be offered at the National Cathedral by Ingrid Mattson, the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The Islamic Society, based in Indiana, is the nation's largest Muslim group....
Posted at January 15, 2009 9:03 AM
-
WASHINGTON -- A Muslim scholar chosen to speak at President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural prayer service Wednesday is the leader of a group that federal prosecutors say has ties to terrorists.
Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, is one of many religious leaders scheduled to speak at the prayer service at Washington's National Cathedral.
Mattson has been the guest of honor at State Department dinners and has met with senior Pentagon officials during the Bush administration. She also spoke at a prayer service at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Mattson, who was elected president of the society in 2006, is a professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn.
But in 2007 and as recently as last July, federal prosecutors in Dallas filed court documents linking the Plainfield, Ind.-based Islamic society to the group Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.
Neither Mattson nor her organization have been charged. But prosecutors wrote in July that they had "a wide array of testimonial and documentary evidence expressly linking" the group to Hamas and other radical groups.
Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for Obama's inaugural committee, would not discuss the case or say whether the committee knew about it.
"She has a stellar reputation in the faith community," Douglass said Saturday night.
The existence of the court documents was first reported by Politico.
The Islamic Society of North America, which describes itself as "the nation's largest mainstream Muslim community-based organization," is fighting its inclusion on a list of coconspirators in the Dallas terrorism case against the Holy Land Foundation. In court documents, Mattson's group says it does not condone terrorism.
The court documents represent a complicated picture of the group.
Law enforcement agencies have used the organization's annual convention as part of its outreach to the Muslim community. The group has provided religious training to the FBI, according to court documents. Karen Hughes, a former Bush confidant and under secretary of state, called Mattson "a wonderful leader and role model for many, many people."
All this was going on while officials in the law enforcement and intelligence community apparently had evidence that the Islamic Society of North America had ties to terrorists and to the Holy Land Foundation. That foundation and five of its former leaders were convicted at a retrial in November of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas.
Mark Pelavin, director of inter-religious affairs for the Union for Reform Judaism - another organization participating in the prayer service - called Mattson "a really important voice denouncing terrorism."
"Clearly, Dr. Mattson has been welcome throughout the government," he said. "I haven't found anyone anywhere who's found anything Dr. Mattson has said that's anything other than clearly denouncing terrorism in quite explicit Islamic terms."
Pelavin's group has a partnership with the Islamic Society to encourage members of mosques and synagogues to build ties nationwide.
Attorneys for Mattson's group wrote in court documents that it is not a subject or target of the Holy Land investigation. The group has worked with the Bush administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, according to court documents.
According to e-mails filed in the court case, one of the prosecutors seemed willing to ask the judge to remove the group from the list.
"I am sorry for the problems for your clients," Assistant U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks wrote in July 2007. "I hope to get something to you or file something with the court as soon as possible."
The Islamic Society helps certify Muslim chaplains for federal prisons. Mattson leads a program at the Hartford Seminary that trains Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military.
Mattson was one of about three dozen leaders, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and two former Republican congressmen, Vin Weber and Steve Bartlett, who developed a report released last fall on how the U.S. can fight extremism in the Muslim world.
AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed to this report
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2009/01/024447print.html
January 17, 2009
U.S. War College member insists Islam does not "promote kidnappings, beheadings and other unlicensed hostile actions"
After posting a report regarding the U.S. Army War College's failure to examine Islam's war doctrines, including a faculty member's (Sherifa Zuhur's) assertions that Hamas has been "villainized" by the media, I received several e-mails from concerned people questioning Ms. Zuhur's "credentials" -- some alluded to her sincerity and intentions, or lack thereof -- to teach at the War College. One e-mail sent the following, rather telling, response made by Zuhur, after being asked to, "Tell us about your recent monographs on Islamic Rulings on Warfare and on Saudi Arabia":
I wrote Islamic Rulings on Warfare with my co-author Youssef Aboul-Enein to counteract the idea that Islam promotes kidnappings, beheadings and other unlicensed hostile actions as a matter of course.
We explored the literature on jihad and other forms of fighting, their ethical and tactical aspects, how these appear in modernist, revisionist views and are manipulated by extremists. My monograph, Saudi Arabia: Islamic Threat, Political Reform, and the Global War on Terror, examines the factors leading up to calls for political reform in the Kingdom, and the campaign against al-Qa`ida fi Jazirat al-`Arabiyyah which has been operating there. I call into question the grand strategy of the global war on terror, but conclude that its recommendation of increasing freedom and political participation has value.
Interesting. One must wonder, however, about some of her blanket assertions: Islam does not "promote" kidnappings? What about the inconvenient fact that the founder of Islam, Muhammad, whose sunna, or "example," must be literally adhered, regularly kidnapped people -- particularly women? As Serge Trifkovic reminds us:
Having established himself as the ruler of Medina, Muhammad attacked the Jewish tribe of Banu-‘l-Mustaliq in December of A.D. 626. His followers slaughtered many Jewish tribesmen and looted thousands of their camels and sheep. They also kidnapped 500 of their women. The night after the battle Muhammad and his brigands staged an orgy of rape. As one of the brigands, Abu Sa’id Khudri, later remembered, a legal problem needed to be resolved first: In order to obtain ransom from the surviving Jews for the captive women, Muslims had pledged not to violate them:
We were lusting after women and chastity had become too hard for us, but we wanted to get the ransom money for our prisoners. So we wanted to use the Azl [coitus interruptus]. We asked the Prophet about it and he said: "You are not under any obligation not to do it like that [contained in Sahih Bukhari, second only to the Koran in authority]."
More to the point, Koran 4:3 legitimizes forceful concubinage -- that is, forcefully kidnapping women and making them sex-slaves -- slaves who are counted as animals at that.
As for beheadings, perhaps Zuhur is not familiar with Koranic verses 5:33, 8:12, and 47:4 -- all of which sanction beheading the infidel? Koran 47:4 simply states “Therefore, when ye meet the infidels, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives."
As for "other unlicensed hostile action," where does one begin? Here's one: Muhammad had assassins go to the home of a matron figure named Umm Qirfa, tie each of her legs to a different camel, and then drive the camels in separate directions until the old woman was split asunder (see Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari). He also ordered the assassination of an old poet, and legitimized lying and deception to do so -- whence the famous Islamic maxim, "War is Deceit."
One therefore has no choice but to conclude that Ms Zuhur is being either disingenuous (taqiyya/kitman) or ignorant (sign of the times), or blindly utopian (typical academic) or all of the above -- either way, not fit to instruct post-9/11 America's forthcoming guardians. It's bad enough that this sort of fluff counts as "authoritative" around government types; but that it has also come to permeate one of the last bastions of American security, the U.S. Army War College -- just consider its name -- is beyond ominous.
Posted at January 17, 2009 8:08 PM
-
In the interest of fairness...
If the opening quote said,
U.S. War College member insists Judaism (Israel) does not "promote kidnappings, beheadings and other unlicensed hostile actions"
what would you say? Would you answer, "that's true?" And similar to this author, but instead of the Koran, would you refer to the Bible as your source document?
Yet, if you read the Old Testament in the Bible, you will find rape, slavery, mass slaughter and looting; wonton extermination of everyone in entire villages and towns,
etc. committed by Israel against enemies of Israel. The Old Testament, like the Koran is actually quite violent and often without mercy.
-
I'm not much of a scholar in these things, so please help me out.
Exactly where does the old Testament advocate/grant the right to rape? etc?
And exactly where do we find any Jews advocating this today because God says so?
-
Yet, if you read the Old Testament in the Bible, you will find rape, slavery, mass slaughter and looting; wonton extermination of everyone in entire villages and towns,
etc. committed by Israel against enemies of Israel. The Old Testament, like the Koran is actually quite violent and often without mercy.
And both Judaism and Christianity have since undergone reformations and refute Old Testament of barbarism. Islam, alas, has not, but that doesn't keep some of those around here from carrying water for those whose highest aspiration is to return humanity to that dark age.
-
My only point in my previous post was that both the Koran AND the Old Testament of the Bible have a dark side.
Body-by-Guinness then said;
"And both Judaism and Christianity have since undergone reformations and refute Old Testament of barbarism. Islam, alas, has not, but that doesn't keep some of those around here from carrying water for those whose highest aspiration is to return humanity to that dark age."
You are right; that is the crux of the matter. Terrible acts were committed and condoned, but Judaism and Christianity have moved on and now refute barbarism. And you are also right; "Islam, alas, has not...". Rather, as you pointed out, they seem to want to return humanity to the dark age. That is a huge irreconcilable difference.
-
My only point in my previous post was that both the Koran AND the Old Testament of the Bible have a dark side.
You so relentlessly pursue moral equivalence I assumed you were at it again. Now that you've acknowledged Islam's dark side, do you think it's perhaps time to stop carrying water for those who most militantly seek to impose that darkness here and now?
-
"My only point in my previous post was that both the Koran AND the Old Testament of the Bible have a dark side."
Ummm, was this ever really an issue?
Or given your belief that " Judaism and Christianity have moved on and now refute barbarism. Islam , , , seem(s) to want to return humanity to the dark age. That is a huge irreconcilable difference"--- what on earth was the relevance of these repeated references to the rejected negatives of the Old Testament?
-
BbyG; yes, I will try to stop carrying water for "those who most militantly seek to impose that darkness here and now". I am still "sympathetic" for lack of a better word
for "innocent" Muslims, although GM made a point a while ago to which I agreed, that those who are "good" Muslims are awfully quiet, aren't they? Perhaps they need
to speak a little louder.
Crafty, as for my point, GM posted a criticism of a U.S. War College faculty member. The author's criticism was based upon many examples of "unlicensed hostile action"
demonstrated in the Koran. In fairness, I merely pointed out that in the Old Testament, perhaps an equal number of "unlicensed hostile actions" took place. Both "books" i.e. both
faiths, Islam and Judaism committed atrocities. BbyG correctly pointed out that Judaism and Christianity have evolved; Islam has not. Rather Islam seems to have regressed.
-
http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=4c68e13b-fb18-4706-9e11-853eb2a8e2ea
Hillel, Jewish organizations heighten security measures
By: Christina Salter
Posted: 1/22/09
Recent threats made to Chicago-area synagogues have motivated several Evanston and Northwestern Jewish organizations to increase security measures.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, two synagogues and a Jewish school were vandalized on Jan. 10. The graffiti included hate messages directed at Israel for its invasion of the Gaza Strip.
A week before, bomb threats were made to several Chicago-area Jewish schools. And on Dec. 29, a man threw a Molotov cocktail at the outside wall of Temple Sholom of Chicago, 3480 N. Lake Shore Drive.
The string of events in the area, combined with the ongoing conflicts between Israel and Palestine, sparked conversation over security practices at Jewish centers and synagogues in Evanston. The Fiedler Hillel Center, 629 Foster St., implemented new measures starting this week, said assistant director Cydney Topaz.
Hillel will now use a buzzer system at the front door, requiring any person entering the building to be buzzed in. In addition, any visitors will need to identify themselves while entering the building, Topaz said.
"We definitely wanted to be proactive," she said. "Our main goal is to ensure the safety of the students."
Hillel staff made the decision to up security after conversations with community partners, students and board members, Topaz said. Hillel also worked with University Police to make the changes, which will be permanent.
Student workers at Hillel were trained for the new security measures Sunday, and first implemented the procedure Monday, said Lindsey Traiman, a Hillel student staff member. The buzzer system hasn't bothered students at all, the Weinberg freshman said.
"It's definitely important to do, and in no way a hassle," Traiman said.
Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein, director of the Tannenbaum Chabad House, 2014 Orrington Ave., said that in light of the recent attacks in Israel and Gaza, and incidents in Chicago, he is thankful nothing has occurred in the immediate area. NU cultural and religious groups value a "high level of discourse," which has prevented any hostilities from arising on campus, he said.
The Chabad House already had "very good" security measures in place, including a buzzer system, Klein said. Klein is also the senior police chaplain with the Evanston Police Department, and said he has always been aware of necessary security measures year-round.
The only recent change concerning the Chabad House has been a heightened police presence, which has occurred at many Jewish facilities in Evanston, Klein said.
"The vigilance of the Evanston and NU police departments has helped keep security up in this area," he said.
Area synagogues have noticed the increased police presence, too.
The Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, 303 Dodge Ave., has had a buzzer and security camera system in place for years, said Jill Persin, administrative assistant to the clergy. The synagogue is now putting in place additional security at events, she said.
"There's only so much you can do," Persin said. "We're just keeping our eyes certainly wider and we're just fortunate that the Evanston Police Department is in tune with it."
c-salter@northwestern.edu
-
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3830
Chabad Lubavitch headquarters threatened with attack by NY based radical Muslim group
January 22, 2009
MIM: The Chabad Lubavitch movement posted this information on their website.
Threats Made Against 770
Tuesday, there was a huge police presence following threats that were made against the community on a Muslim blog • This morning, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly made a phone call to Chanina Sperlin from the inauguration ceremony in Washington DC, to discuss threats against 770 • Last week, the Department of Homeland Security sponsored the installation of security systems in and around 770 • Report & Photos
Along with the expected stir Inauguration day caused across the nation on Tuesday morning, Crown Heights residents saw a tremendous visible police presence following threats that were made against the community on a Muslim blog. This morning, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly made a phone call to Chanina Sperlin, vice president of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council from the inauguration ceremony in Washington DC, to discuss threats against 770.
The Commissioner is looking into the situation," said Sperlin, "The Crown Heights community was considered a target in the past, and whether or not this is serious remains to be seen." Sperlin also received phone calls from members of the joint terrorism task force and FBI, who assured him that the community does not have to worry, the FBI and NYPD are working together to ensure a major security presence is located in and around Crown Heights.
The site, www.revolutionmuslim.com which featured the threat is run by Yousef Al-Khattab, a New York City cab driver who operates the extremist Islamic anti-American Web site that features violent images on a daily basis: From the Statue of Liberty, with an ax blade cutting through her side; to a video mocking the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, entitled "Daniel Pearl I am Happy Your Dead "; or the latest speech from Sheikh Abdullah Faisal, an extremist Muslim cleric convicted in the UK and later deported for soliciting the murder of non-Muslims.
The latest - a cartoon-like image depicting 770 Eastern Parkway, Lubavitch World Headquarters, as a target in retaliation for Israel's attacks on Gaza.
Formerly known as Joseph Cohen, al-Khattab is an American-born Jew who converted to Islam after attending an Orthodox Rabbinical school, which he later described as a "racist cult."
The 39-year-old New York taxi driver launched RevolutionMuslim.com with the mission of "preserving Islamic culture," "calling people to the oneness of G-d" and asking them to "support the beloved Sheik Abdullah Faisal, who's preaching the religion of Islam and serving as a spiritual guide."
A mobile command center was be stationed in front of 770, and many more cops are being sent to patrol the neighborhood streets.
Alert blogger notifies authorities
According to the TheCoolJew, a Lubavitcher blogger, he got an e-mail from Devorah who runs the blog ShiratDevorah. "She sent us a link to a post she found about a Muslim who wants to attack 770". The blogger took this very seriously and forwarded the E-mail to the proper authorities.
Security Systems Installed in 770
Unrelated to this specific threat, work to install security systems in and around 770, was commenced last week. The security systems, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security includes many high tech video cameras, and other systems which Chabad.info was told not to publish for obvious reasons.
In the first stage of the new initiative to revamp security at 770, consultants, including representatives of the F.B.I. as well as a group from the Israeli embassy surveyed the perimeter of 770, and produced a proposal for measures to be taken to further secure the building.
Four cameras have already been installed in different spots around the building.
http://chabad.info/index_old.php?url=article_en&id=13655
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MIM: The Board of Directors of Revolution Muslim with a picture and phone number of Youssef Al-Khattab aka Joseph Cohen.
Shaikh Abdullah El-Faisal Imam and Spiritual Advisor
2 Yousef Al-Khattab Amir and Chief Executive Officer
3 Younus Abdullah Muhammad Executive Officer for Media and Marketing
4 Sipa Salar Executive Officer for Research and Development
http://www.revolutionmuslim.com/directors
718-312-8203
http://www.revolutionmuslim.com/yousef-al-khattab/22-josephcohenakayusufkhattabajewconvertedtoislam
MIM: The mission statement of Revolution Muslim.
Allah says in the Quran:
"Let there rise from amongst you group(s) who invite others to the khair(Islam), command the good, and forbid the evil, and they are the ones who are successful." [3:104]
Revolution Muslim is a message and movement grounded in the sayings, deeds, actions and understanding of Ahlus Sunnah wal jama'ah (The collective body of those Muslims that adhere to the ways of the Prophet (SAWS) and the first four generations of Muslims). Revolution Muslim's purpose is to invite people to proper Islam (Aqeedah (creed) + Shariah (path)) and command the good (justice and peace), while forbidding the falsehood (lies and deceptions) of society. Our mission is to one day see the Muslims united under one Khalifah and under the commands of Allah (SWT). We focus on educating Muslims and Non-Muslims alike about the actuality of the religion and thereby work to preserve traditional Islamic values for Muslims across the globe. We pray that we may witness the dismantlement of western, secular dominance across the world as we hold it to be pagan and idolatrous in the majority of its presumptions. We seek a resurrection of the just example set forth by centuries of Islamic rule throughout the ages and we hold it to be self evident for the objective soul and mind that Allah is One and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah is His Prophet and that the religion offers the solution to all of the world's ills and afflictions.
Allah says:
They wish to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will not agree except that He will perfect His light, even if the disbelievers hate it. It is He Who has sent His Noble Messenger with guidance and the true deen (way of life), in order that it may prevail over all other ways of life - even though the polytheists hate it. [9:32-33]
Our mission is to preserve actual Islamic culture by presenting it to the society and entering it into the hearts and minds of the people. Islam is a great religion of monotheism founded on the principles of increased knowledge, justice, charity and public service. Unfortunately, much of the rich history of the religion has been obscured. We hypothesize that the aforementioned reality is largely the result of changing cultural states, and a weakness never before witnessed in the ummah. Our activities include but are not limited to:
1) To call people to the Oneness of Allah (God), the Creator and the religion of Islam.
2) To support the dawa of our beloved Sheikh Abdullah Al-Faisal, recently released from prison and secure in Jamaica preaching the religion and serving as our spiritual guide
3) To educate Muslims and Non-Muslims alike about Islamic religious, social, political, economic, and cultural history and traditions in an effort to preserve cultural identity, religious affiliation, and neighborhood understanding.
4) To distribute physical, mental and spiritual charity to the poor and underprivileged people of New York City but especially to the immigrant Muslim population who may be largely unaware of the social service system of the city.
5) To produce a literary journal and other bodies of literature that explore and examine present Islamic issues.
6) To establish a community center where the aforementioned purposes may be better realized and lectures, conferences, presentations and other educational and religious gatherings may occur. http://www.revolutionmuslim.com/mission
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3830
-
Video footage posted on a website shows police officers running way from chanting demonstrators who took part in a violent protest in London against Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip.
The ten-minute amateur film shows 30 officers being chased by a crowd of up to 3,000 people who broke away from an official protest march last month.
The video, posted on YouTube, shows protesters chanting 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Greatest) and 'Fatwa', a death threat under Islamic law.
Watch the protesters chase the police...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1133120/Police-ran-away-jeering-Gaza-demonstrators.html
-
That is simply extraordinay Huss :-o
In its own way, this too is extraordinary:
Beware Of CAIR
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Homeland Security: You'd think the Council on American-Islamic Relations would be savoring the results of an election that favors its agenda. Instead, it's having to do major damage control.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read More: Global War On Terror
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the past several months, the Washington-based pressure group has suffered a series of punishing blows to its reputation as a self-proclaimed "moderate" voice for Muslim-Americans. In the latest setback, a "Dear Colleague" letter sent out to every House member warns lawmakers and their staffs to "think twice" about meeting with CAIR officials.
"The FBI has cut ties with them," the letter says. "There are indications" CAIR has links to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group.
The letter, signed by five Republicans, including the head of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, is attached to an article by a homeland-security news service. It reports that the FBI has been canceling outreach events across the country with CAIR, following a recent directive from headquarters to cut ties with the group.
It's a major policy shift at the FBI, which has appeased the notoriously litigious CAIR since 9/11. The group aggressively attacks critics with threats of boycotts and discrimination lawsuits.
The marginalization of CAIR, which has enjoyed astonishing access to official Washington, comes after the successful prosecution of leaders of a U.S. Muslim charity that funneled millions to Hamas terrorists. CAIR and its co-founder Omar Ahmed were named unindicted co-conspirators in that Holy Land Foundation case.
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, moreover, was caught on tape participating in a meeting with Hamas leaders to disguise payments as charity. During the trial, the FBI described CAIR as a front group for Islamic extremists.
It just gets worse for CAIR. Former clients of the group are suing it for fraud. The Muslims say CAIR, which claims to be an advocate for Muslim rights, extorted thousands of dollars from them in a scam in which CAIR said it would help them get U.S. citizenship.
According to the federal lawsuit, CAIR directed an unlicensed lawyer to handle their immigration cases. The phony lawyer shook them down for their life savings and bungled their paperwork. When the victims said they would go to the media, the suit charges, CAIR's board threatened to sue them and forced them to sign releases.
Such aggressive tactics are typical of CAIR. The group has threatened CEOs who don't kowtow to its demands to Islamize the workplace and airlines trying to protect passengers from terrorism. It's bullied, as well, scores of critics on TV and talk radio, even getting some hosts fired. Thankfully, the threats are no longer working.
-
February 1, 2009
Canadian woman held against her will in Saudi Arabia by her husband -- "under Saudi law, she is his property"
I've often noted that Islamic law relegates women to the status of commodities, and have been called "Islamophobic" as a result. But in this story, we're told that "under Saudi law, she is his property because she is the mother of his children." And Saudi law, of course, strictly adheres to the norms of Islamic Sharia. Does that mean that Islamic law is "Islamophobic"?
"Canada intervenes in Saudi marital dispute," from the Canwest News Service, January 30 (thanks to Twostellas):
MONTREAL — A high-level representative of the federal government has met with Nathalie Morin, a 24-year-old Quebec woman who claims she is being held against her will in Saudi Arabia.
Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, met with Morin and her Saudi husband, Abdallah Ramthi Al-Bishi, in Saudi Arabia on Dec. 22 to mediate in the couple’s dispute, a Foreign Affairs spokesperson told Canwest News Service last night.
He could not say what the next step might be. Ottawa has said in the past that Canadians in Saudi Arabia are subject to its laws. Morin met Al-Bishi in Montreal when she was 17 and when he was a Concordia University student....
Morin’s mother has said her daughter is unable to leave because, under Saudi law, she is his property because she is the mother of his children....
Posted by Robert at February 1, 2009 3:05 PM
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/024671.php
-
February 02, 2009
You have GOT to be Frickin' Kidding Me! - UK Police Adopt Hijab Uniform
When I first saw the title of the below news article - I thought that this MUST be a joke - surely not serious. But, to my dismay, the article is true - Police in (the once) Great Britain have dhimmified-up enough so that they now offer a HIJAB UNIFORM for female muslim police.
Sughra Ahmed says ""There may also be women who are already with the force who do not wear the scarf but choose to later. Again, this will be positive for them." --------Oh let's be sure we encourage hijab wearing -- plus you can be sure those muslim women who have chosen to not wear the veil will soon receive "pressure" from the Islamo-Sharia-police to do so. (Despite his prior comment)
For in-depth discussion of Muslim women and the veil - go to HERE
Some quick questions:
1) So if a hijabbed up muslim female policewoman is in pursuit of a criminal or helping another police officer or victim during or immediately after a crime & her veil falls off - does she have to stop ? Has this woman committed a crime against Islam for being seen without her veil. If so - Which court would she have to go to - British court OR the "local" Sharia court?
2) If someone either intentionally or accidentally pulls off the muslim policewoman's hijab - will they be charged with a crime? What crime would that be? And which court will they go to - British court OR the "local" Sharia Court??
3) If I am either the victim, bystander or veil stealing culprit and see the muslim policewoman without her hijab - have I/we committed a crime? And again which court will judge me - British court OR the "local" Sharia court?
4) Can these muslim policewomen even be around men? - what if she touches or is touched by a infidel or muslim man (not her husband) - Something tells me that's a "no-no". Yep - it's a BIG no-no according to HERE - So which court will the offender(s) go - British court OR the "local" Sharia court?
I'm betting Sharia court on both #1 - #2 - #3 & #4.
Of course all of the above begs the question if these are problems - just what do "devout" muslim women DO in the police and why they heck are they there to begin with?? Oops - guess that's just more of the (myth of) Islamophobia.
That is how far the Islamization of Great Britain has gone -the hijab is mainstream.
(One wonders when the full face veil - or niqab - will make it into the official British police uniform line-up - can't be too long now.)
Article in full - just in case it "disappears" (as they so often do) and you all think I'm barking mad. Link in title.
Police adopt uniform hijab
Saturday, January 31, 2009, 09:30
Police have opened the door to female Muslim recruits by incorporating the hijab into the uniform.
The force has become the latest to approve a design for a headscarf suitable for officers on patrol.
Senior officers believe the lack of the option has deterred applications from the considerable number of Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab.
The police hijab is plain black and made of a flame-retardant material.
Officers will be able to wear a standard police hat on top of it.
Metropolitan police officers wearing a uniform hijab
A small number of forces nationwide have taken a similar step, including Thames Valley and the Metropolitan police.
Superintendent Geoff Feavyour, who leads the Leicestershire Constabulary recruitment team, compared the development to the incorporation of the turban several years ago, which removed a barrier to the recruitment of male Sikhs.
The police's annual report for 2007/08 showed women made up about 23 per cent of the force's officers.
The number of officers from black and Asian communities stood at about six per cent – short of the 15 per cent target.
Mr Feavyour said: "Clearly, we want people from all walks of life to join the force and the fact we have the hijab available now shows our commitment to that. It's an extension to our uniform which will, hopefully, show people they are welcome.
"It is very important to us that the force reflects the community it serves."
The move has also been welcomed by officers, including the Leicestershire branch of the National Association of Muslim Police.
Sgt Yakub Ismail, chairman of the branch, said: "Leicestershire Constabulary is always understanding and supportive of the religious needs of its staff.
"It has always encouraged applicants from all communities and religious denominations.
"I firmly believe neighbourhood policing can only be truly achieved by having officers from within those neighbourhoods being part of the police family."
Sughra Ahmed, a research fellow at the Islamic Foundation, in Markfield, said: "Not every Muslim woman who wants to join the police would want to wear the hijab, but that choice is there now and that is a very important step.
"There may also be women who are already with the force who do not wear the scarf but choose to later. Again, this will be positive for them."
Sabrina Khan, a 19-year-old student from Evington, Leicester, said: "I don't wear the veil, but a lot of my family and friends do.
"I have seen Sikh officers wearing turbans and if I saw a female officer wearing the hijab, I would feel that the police respected the Muslim faith."
Osob Osman, an 18-year-old student from North Evington, said: "The hijab has had a lot of bad press during the past couple of years.
"This will give women more career opportunities and, hopefully, change people's attitudes to Muslim people."
Police spoke to community groups, including the Leicestershire Federation of Muslim Organisations, when they were developing the garment.
Suleman Nagdi, spokesman for the federation, said: "It's a wonderful move and it will help the police encompass a wider range of people in its recruitment."
Resham Singh Sandhu, chairman of the Sikh Welfare and Cultural Society and a trustee of Leicester Council of Faiths, said: "This is a positive step forward for religious people who want to serve the community as police officers."
http://theopinionator.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/02/you-have-got-to-be-frickin-kidding-me-uk-police-adopt-hijab-uniform.html
-
Huss:
Fascinating stuff.
Please forgive me for being a bit anal, but please note there are several "Islam in , , ," threads. There is this one, one for Europe, one for Islamic countries, one for Asia etc.
Thanks,
Marc
-
Huss:
Fascinating stuff.
Please forgive me for being a bit anal, but please note there are several "Islam in , , ," threads. There is this one, one for Europe, one for Islamic countries, one for Asia etc.
Thanks,
Marc
I put it in this thread because its relevant as to why its a bad idea for western woman to marry into islam.
-
I got that :-D-- I was referring to the hijab LEO uniforms in the UK.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UatySUUOJYM
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UatySUUOJYM
Just a quick glimpse into europe's future.
-
GLOBAL JIHAD
U.S. Jewish targets listed on Muslim website
'Give them the Islamic message,' demands New York-based extremist
Posted: February 05, 2009
5:03 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
JERUSALEM – A U.S. jihadi website has issued a series of videos targeting the New York headquarters of Chabad, a Jewish outreach movement, just two months after the group was rocked by a deadly terrorist attack in Mumbai, India.
The videos also ask viewers to "give the Islamic message" to Yeshiva University, a Manhattan-based Jewish college, as well as "Jewish Federation buildings all over the U.S." in response to the institutions' purported funding for Israel amid its recent offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic threats already resulted in a New York Police Department investigation and a beefed-up police presence outside the Chabad headquarters, WND has learned.
"When an atrocity is done like what was done in Gaza, indiscriminately killing women and children, we know who the source is," stated Yousef Al-Khattab, the CEO of RevolutionMuslim.com in a video address posted on the website.
"These are definitely the sources," Khattab stated, citing Chabad and the other Jewish institutions.
"We think it's imperative to hold these people responsible, speak in front of their homes, give them the Islamic message. Leave them the message of Islam. That's not a threat, that's what it is," Khattab said in the video.
While Khattab, who spoke to WND today, claimed his website is not issuing threats against Jewish groups, a second video posted on the site contains what can easily be interpreted as lightly veiled threats of violence against Chabad.
The video features a slideshow of images of wounded Palestinians and then repeatedly switches to pictures of Chabad's main headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It then presents a picture of a blood-stained Jewish prayer book taken from inside a Jerusalem seminary following a deadly shooting massacre there last March that killed eight Jews.
The video ends with the sound of gunshots.
Asked whether the video montage was implying Chabad's headquarters should be targeted by Islamic violence, Khattab told WND, "It is what it is."
Khattab said he did not have the authority to issue a directive to carry out specific attacks.
Further petitioned to explain the intended meaning of the blood-soaked prayer book interspersed with images of Chabad's headquarters, Khattab replied, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
He told WND he supports Hamas' suicide bombings against Israelis, including attacks targeting cafes, restaurants and nightclubs.
"There is no such thing as Israeli civilian," he said. "I pray to Allah for the complete destruction of Israel."
In a video on his website, Khattab states he normally advises others to "just ignore [the Jews]. That's not racist. We don't like to deal with them ... but when there is a terrorist war of destruction, killing of kids ... [Israeli] genocide, then we have to take to the forefront."
Security bolstered at Chabad headquarters
Motti Seligson, a spokesman for Chabad, told WND although not all threats are serious, his organization is "work[ing] closely with law enforcement to ensure that all threats are handled properly, as safety is of paramount concern."
Immediately following RevolutionMuslim's first posting about Chabad two weeks ago, the NYPD stationed a large police presence, including NYPD vans, outside the Jewish group's headquarters.
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelley called Chanina Sperlin, vice president of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, to assure him the police were looking into the situation and were taking any threats seriously.
Khattab said he was questioned by NYPD investigators.
Expert: Take threats seriously
One Chabad official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was not particularly concerned about the alleged threats.
But U.S. terrorism expert Steve Emerson said videos like those posted on RevolutionMuslim.com should be taken seriously.
"Any site that advocates violence or provides incitement to violence has to be taken seriously," he told WND.
'We appreciate support of American progressives'
Realizing his statement may attract the attention of U.S. law enforcement agencies, Khattab delivered a direct message to the NYPD, CIA and FBI: "You can put me in jail for the rest of my life. As long as I got that information out there for people, I did something. I didn't sit on my behind."
Khattab also lashed out against any website that may pick up on his statement.
"It just attracts Drudge, the JAWA report, Atlas Shrugs (blog), and Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch blog) and just other whining little queers and stuff like that."
But he celebrated what he said is his website's non-Muslim following of "progressive Americans, socialists, anarchists, communists ... people who can really contribute, they give us dialogue and send us nice e-mails."
Khattab, a 39-year-old New York taxi driver who converted to Islam from Judaism, said he launched RevolutionMuslim.com with the mission of "preserving Islamic culture," "calling people to the oneness of God" and asking them to "support the beloved Sheik Abdullah Faisal, who's preaching the religion of Islam and serving as a spiritual guide.
He told WND his site's main goal is to establish worldwide Islamic dominance. He runs the site from his home in Queens, N.Y., and even advertises his personal phone number.
Faisal, the website's spiritual adviser, was convicted in the UK in 2003 for urging his followers to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners. In videotaped recordings, Faisal was taped delivering sermons calling on Muslims to use chemical weapons to "exterminate unbelievers" and "cut the throat of the Kaffars (nonbelievers) with (a) machete."
FoxNews.com previously reported Faisal's sermons may have influenced "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who attended mosques where Faisal preached.
Khattab's website is no stranger to controversy. In the past it featured a video praising al-Qaida's beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl under the banner "Daniel Pearl I am Happy Your Dead :)," and a puppet show making light of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.
-
First time I've encountered this source. Though I have questions about the source extensively quoted in the piece--seems a lot of tea is made of her perceptions--I've long felt the impact our culture is one of our best tools for battling Islamic Fundamentalism.
Debunking Muslim Myths
American Muslims are diverse, women highly educated, and many politically moderate.
By Galia Myron
March 16, 2009
Gallup’s first national poll of randomly selected Muslims in America revealed that this community is the most racially diverse religious group in the United States, that most consider themselves as religious as many Christians do, and that Muslim women are among the most educated females in the country, earning salaries on par with their male counterparts.
Which ethnic group makes up the largest number of American Muslims? Over one-third of American Muslims are African-American (35 percent), while more than a quarter of Muslims are white (28 percent). Less than one in five is Asian (18 percent), along with other races (18 percent). Most of the other religious groups in America are far less diverse, with 88 percent of Protestants, more than three-quarters of Catholics, 91 percent of Mormons, and 93 percent of Jews listed as white. These numbers indicate that followers of Islam are the most ethnically diverse religious group in the country, Gallup says.
Compared with the general U.S. population, Muslim Americans are more highly educated, second only to Jewish Americans. Slightly more Muslim women report having a college degree or higher (42 percent) than their male counterparts (39 percent), while more than half of Jewish American females (58 percent) and nearly two-thirds of Jewish American males (64 percent) report the same high educational levels as their Muslim cohorts. By contrast, less than a third (29 percent) of overall Americans hold a college degree or higher.
Mormons report the greatest gender discrepancy in terms of education, with 28 percent of women and 35 percent of men holding a college degree or higher, a seven-point difference. Catholics report the lowest gender discrepancy, with a two-point difference, as less than a third of men (30 percent) and 28 percent of women report holding a college degree or higher. However, the gender gap between Muslim men and women is a mere three-point difference, (42 versus 39), a number which challenges sex stereotypes about gender equality.
“The findings go a long way towards dispelling the stereotype about ‘Islam is a religion which oppresses women,’ says author Dilara Hafiz, who co-wrote The American Muslim Teenager’s Handbook, with her two children, Imran and Yasmine.
“While the religion clearly advocates equality of the sexes, sadly, many Muslim-majority countries are unable or unwilling to ensure this equality due to poor governance, socio-economic factors, or cultural interpretation—I have hope that this situation will redress itself as global economic advancement continues to raise standards of living in these countries,” Hafiz tells demo dirt.
Perhaps due to equal educational levels, Muslim American women fare equally as well economically as do their male counterparts, both at the upper and lower income levels. Reported monthly household incomes indicate that among the general U.S. population, about one-third of men (33 percent) make $5,000 or more, compared with about one-quarter of women (24 percent) who report the same, a nine-point difference. On the lower end of the economic spectrum, less than a quarter of women in the general U.S. population report making less than $1,999 a month (22 percent) versus less than one in five men who make the same income (17 percent), a five-point difference.
By contrast, one quarter of Muslim women (25 percent) and the same number of men (25 percent) report a monthly household income of $1,999 or less, while there is only a five-point gender gap at the higher end of the spectrum. About one-third of Muslim American men report a monthly income of $5,000 or more (about the same as the national average for men) and a quarter of Muslim women report the same (25 percent).
What do results stating that Muslim women and men are not only enjoying the same levels of education, but also are on par with one another economically, mean to Muslim Americans? Hafiz says that it means that American Muslim women are far more relatable to their Jewish, Christian, and other peers than previously given credit.
“American Muslim women can certainly be role models for women all over the world—regardless of faith! Education, personal accountability, and social justice are all important elements of Islam which I believe can be applied in productive manners to enhance one’s own economic standing,” she contends.
While gender equality and education are important issues within the young American Muslim community (ages 18 to 29), civic engagement is relatively low, as only half the members of this group are registered to vote (51 percent), while the national average indicates a number closer to two-thirds (65 percent). The number of voter registered American Muslims falls far behind the number of Protestants (78 percent), Jews (73 percent), Mormons (69 percent) and Catholics (56 percent).
Why are young American Muslims seemingly the least civically engaged, and is theirs the only age group that lacks political activity? “First-generation Muslims may be loathe to participate in the election process due to the disillusionment they may have felt towards the political system in their home country—many Muslim majority countries are still struggling to overcome the effects of colonization which led to institutionalized corruption or dubious ‘free’ elections,” Hafiz explains.
Politically, most young American Muslims define themselves as moderate (39 percent), while more than a quarter (28 percent) call themselves liberal or very liberal. Only one in five (20 percent) consider themselves conservative.
“I do believe that over time, American Muslims will fully participate in the US voting process—Islam is fully compatible with the principles of democracy—there is no inherent religious reason which is preventing Muslims from participating, simply inexperience or lack of vision in terms of seeing themselves as a coherent voting bloc,” she says.
Muslims in America are less likely than fellow cohorts to feel that their group is “thriving,” the Gallup poll says. Participants were asked to evaluate their lives as well as their expectations of where they think they will be in five years using a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10, where "0" indicates the worst possible life and "10" indicates the best possible life. “Thriving” was defined by Gallup as seeing oneself on at least step 7 on the ladder, with an expectation to be on step 8 or higher five years from now.
By this measure, well under half of American Muslims were found to consider themselves thriving in society (41 percent), making this the religious group as the least likely to see themselves this way, even falling below the U.S. general population average (46 percent). More than half of Jews (56 percent) and Mormons (51 percent) see themselves as thriving, followed by Protestants (48 percent) and Catholics (45 percent), with Muslims placing last.
Could this sentiment among American Muslims be connected to the relative lack of civic involvement? Hafiz says that feelings of alienation, isolation, and invisibility are contributing factors.
“One of the challenges facing American Muslims is the simultaneous desire to become fully integrated and accepted into America, while also remaining true to their faith,” Hafiz explains. “They need to engage in more interfaith dialogue in order to counter the rising tide of Islamophobia which is based upon ignorance, and in some cases, malicious misunderstanding of the basics of Islam.”
“Another challenge facing modern American Muslims today is responding to an institutional alienation of Islam in the United States. Firstly, American Muslims must deal with people who claim that Islam is not, in its essence, truly American,” she says. “Muslims have been a presence in the United States of America ever since the country was founded. The other part of this that American Muslims must deal with is ‘immigrant’ Islam, namely, the idea that immigrants from other countries know Islam better than Muslims in the United States.”
While the Muslim community in America is diverse, Hafiz says that the media’s tendency to group all Muslims together and stereotype their political, religious and social views is frustrating and hurtful to many.
“There is so much discussion and diversity within the Muslim community, yet somehow the media tends to portray all Muslims as part of a monolithic group who all hold exactly the same opinions—completely untrue!” she maintains. “I think American Muslims feel both ‘invisible’ in terms of how they see themselves inaccurately portrayed [and] stereotyped by the media, while simultaneously feeling ‘magnified’ in terms of Islam being mentioned so negatively to the exclusion of one’s nationality, professional standing, educational attainments [and so on]—we’re between a rock and a hard place and it’s extremely stressful! Living life on the defensive is wearying.”
Finally, just how devout are Muslims in America? Gallup results indicate that Muslims in the U.S. are as religious as their Christian counterparts: 41 percent of Muslims and Protestants state that they attend their houses of worship once a week, as do 37 percent of Catholic Americans. Of all the religious groups polled, only Mormons were more likely than Muslims to state that religion plays a key role in their everyday lives (85 percent versus 80 percent, respectively); by contrast, only 39 percent of Jews agreed with that statement, as did 65 percent of the general population.
But for Muslims, what does it mean to say that religion plays a key role every day? What tenets of Islam do Muslims observe most and consider being daily connections to the religion? Is it following call to prayer? Is it following halal dietary laws? Is it giving to the poor?
“This poll conclusion is actually the one which I most question, [because] perhaps people of faith don’t want to ‘let their side down’ by admitting that they’re less observant than they want people to think!” Hafiz says. “I think these findings suggest that the central tenet of Islam—the belief in the one God—is certainly a belief which most Muslims would adhere to, regardless of whether they pray regularly or fast during the month of Ramadan [and so on].”
Again, it is difficult to speak for such a diverse group, although there are basic traditions that are generally followed. “There’s a wide variety of observance within the Muslim community, but I think it’s safe to say that most Muslims believe and actively participate in charitable acts and donations, personal prayer, and general avoidance of alcohol and pork consumption,” she adds.
Hafiz also notes that religious identification may be influenced by world events and political situations. “I also believe that if this poll had been taken prior to 9/11, the results would have shown that American Muslims considered themselves less religious than these results,” she says. “9/11 has forced American Muslims to view themselves in terms of their religion because American society [and the] media overwhelmingly focused on the religion of the hijackers rather than their nationality!”
Notably, Gallup states that American Muslim women are as likely as their male peers to attend mosque once a week, while foreign Muslim females are less likely than their male counterparts to do so.
Overall, the Gallup poll indicates that the American Muslim community is diverse, gender equality and education are priorities, and that to feel less alienated, it is important to become more civically engaged. Hafiz hopes that increased education and awareness will eradicate the fear that has been previously associated with the religion.
“Islam is already incorporated into the American culture, as Islam seeks to promote the Abrahamic values of justice, freedom, and equality that America was founded upon,” she explains. “Unfortunately, moderate Muslims have felt ignored or marginalized—it’s not easy to make headlines when your message is peace at a time when people are swayed by fear.”
News relevant to demographic trends--such as the generational trends of Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Matures--is posted several times a week on www.demodirt.com and demo dirt GOLD. To contact the editor, please email Galia Myron.
http://www.demodirt.com/us-demographic-trends/debunking-muslim-myths090316
-
An interesting read, but some of it leaves me wondering-- e.g.
"—Islam is fully compatible with the principles of democracy"
Is this really so?
-
Yeah, it's a pat response and one can't but wonder how much misdirections is involved. I work with a lot of Muslim 20 somethings, and most of 'em will tell you--perhaps soto voce--that they don't have a lot of use for what the fundamentalists are selling. I think the young women in particular realize the cloisters they avoid while living in the West.
-
An interesting read, but some of it leaves me wondering-- e.g.
"—Islam is fully compatible with the principles of democracy"
Is this really so?
Look at all the islamic democracies across the planet. There is your answer.
-
Turkey?
post Bush 1-Gulf War Kuwait?
, , , Post Bush 2--Iraq?
-
Look at all the islamic democracies across the planet. There is your answer.
There was a time when that could be said about Eastern Europe, Asia, and so on. I think our response needs to be two pronged: take on the zealots and encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation. The last thing we need to be is as myopic as our opponent.
-
BbG said, "I think our response needs to be two pronged: take on the zealots and encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation. The last thing we need to be is as myopic as our opponent."
It has been awhile :-D but I agree with you. A lot of time and discussion has been spent "taking on the zealots" and I too support aggressive measures towards zealots, but what do you suggest or what have you read that is interesting and persuasive that will "encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation." I think it was GM who commented about the noted silence of these "good" Muslims assuming GM believes there are any "good" muslims :-) He has a point; I too noted their silence. So what can be done to encourage that moderates take the path toward reformation?
-
Nice turn of conversation!
Lets take this to
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1280.0
-
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,509839,00.html
Source: 'Several' Missing Somali-Americans Back in U.S. After Overseas Terror Mission
Thursday , March 19, 2009
By Mike Levine
Many of the Somali-American men who were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group overseas have returned to the United States, according to a source familiar with an FBI investigation into the matter — but the FBI still has not revealed publicly if it is pursuing arrests in the case.
"Some of the guys who were missing aren't missing anymore," the source said. "Some of them got blown up and some of them came back, and some of them are still there [in Somalia]."
For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area who traveled to war-torn Somalia, where some of them trained and fought with an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group known as al-Shabaab, according to counterterrorism officials.
Asked to characterize how many of those men are now back on American soil, the source would only say that "several" have returned. Federal authorities believe the men went to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.
Usama bin Laden weighed in Thursday on the battle. In an audiotape posted online, the Al Qaeda leader urged Somalis to fight against the Somali government, insisting, "The war which has been taking place on your soil these past years is a war between Islam and the international crusade."
At a Senate hearing in Washington last week, counterterrorism officials said there is no intelligence to indicate that Somali-Americans who traveled to Somalia are planning attacks inside the United States.
“We do not have a credible body of reporting right now to lead us to believe that these American recruits are being trained and instructed to come back to the United States for terrorist attacks,” said Philip Mudd, a top-ranking official with the FBI’s National Security Branch. “Yet, obviously, we remain concerned about that, and watchful for it.”
Minneapolis has become the hub — and the media focus — of the FBI's investigation. But the FBI is casting a wide and growing net across the country, even in places hundreds of miles away from Minneapolis.
Testimony from counterterrorism officials and others at the Senate hearing last week suggested that the FBI investigation is active in Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; Boston; Seattle; and San Diego.
"The FBI will follow leads wherever they takes us," said Rich Kolko, the chief of the FBI's National Press Office.
In fact, the FBI Field Office in San Diego has already interviewed "dozens" of people from the Somali-American community there, according to a local attorney.
The lawyer, Mahir Sherif, said he knows many of those who were interviewed, and he said the FBI often asked the same questions: Do you know anyone who has left the United States for Somalia? What are your feelings about Somalia? What are your feelings about Barack Obama? Do you know anyone who has committed an act of terrorism?
Sherif also said he knows at least one Somali-American who has received a subpoena to appear before a San Diego grand jury in the next couple of weeks. Sherif wouldn't identify the person but described him as a naturalized U.S. citizen in his 30s. Sherif said the person "consulted" with him after receiving the subpoena. The person recently traveled to the Middle East, which may have raised a red flag with authorities, according to Sherif. He did not say where in the Middle East the person visited.
Last week, a Muslim leader in the Minneapolis area told FOX News that at least 10 people in the Somali community there had been subpoenaed to testify before a Minneapolis grand jury, and another 40 had been interviewed by the FBI.
In cases like this, the field office leading the investigation — with help from FBI headquarters in Washington — "outlines" an investigative plan that is then implemented by other field offices, according to Kevin Donovan, a former FBI Assistant Director with the New York Field office.
"The lead field office basically sends out assignments in field offices across the U.S. and even around the world," he said.
It's unclear exactly what the FBI or any grand jury in San Diego would be investigating. A former Justice Department official said an FBI or grand jury investigation could be looking into something as clear-cut as a group of men from San Diego who joined al-Shabaab in Somalia, or they could be investigating whether someone from the San Diego area helped finance the Minneapolis men's travel overseas.
Either way, the former official said, "there has to be some kind of link to the Southern District of California."
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials tell FOX News that federal authorities in Seattle have been keeping track of a group of men in Washington state with alleged ties to Somali-American terrorists.
Authorities in Seattle recently arrested a Muslim convert the FBI believes had been in contact with Ruben Shumpert, one of the first Americans to join Islamic militants in Somalia. Shumpert, also a convert to Islam, was killed in Somalia last year.
Two weeks ago federal authorities charged Jimmy Lee King with drug and weapons-related offenses stemming from an incident in late November, according to court documents. An FBI official said King had been on the FBI's radar for some time, first gaining the FBI's attention after "assocating" with Shumpert. It's unclear whether the FBI has interviewed King in its investigation of Somali-linked terrorism, but court documents filed two weeks ago by the Joint Terrorism Task Force say King talked with the FBI "on several previous occasions regarding matters unrelated to the [November incident]."
The FBI official said King is believed to be involved in gang activity in Seattle, but the FBI is still trying to determine exactly how strong of a connection — if any — he has to international terrorism.
Donovan, the former FBI official, said charging a suspect with "lesser charges" when that suspect may have information relevant to a bigger investigation is "prudent."
"Many times it would be absolutely critical using lesser charges ... to get deeper into an organization," he said.
Dan Springer contributed to this report from Seattle
“We do not have a credible body of reporting right now to lead us to believe that these American recruits are being trained and instructed to come back to the United States for terrorist attacks,” said Philip Mudd, a top-ranking official with the FBI’s National Security Branch. “Yet, obviously, we remain concerned about that, and watchful for it.”
-
BbG said, "I think our response needs to be two pronged: take on the zealots and encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation. The last thing we need to be is as myopic as our opponent."
It has been awhile :-D but I agree with you. A lot of time and discussion has been spent "taking on the zealots" and I too support aggressive measures towards zealots, but what do you suggest or what have you read that is interesting and persuasive that will "encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation." I think it was GM who commented about the noted silence of these "good" Muslims assuming GM believes there are any "good" muslims :-) He has a point; I too noted their silence. So what can be done to encourage that moderates take the path toward reformation?
Those that wish to reform islam tend to hide as those that go public tend to be killed or live under police protection from their fellow muslims.
Aside from that, the core theological issue preventing the islamic reformation is changing the words and conduct of Muhammad. If he is the final prophet of allah and the perfect embodiment of humanity and the qu'aran is the direct word of allah, then how do you ignore the verses commanding that non-muslims be forced to submit to islam via jihad?
-
THAT is the key question!!!
-
I'm not sure. I think GM makes a good point about "those that go public tend to be killed or ...."
However, on the second point, let's substitute Christianity and Jesus. If "Jesus" is the final prophet (son of God) and is the perfect embodiment of humanity and the "Bible" is the
direct word of God, then how do you ignore verses commanding that the non "Christians" be forced to submit to.... God. The Bible, especially the old testament is full of versus stating in essence, kill the infidels.
Not much different than a jihad.
Yet, on another post (I forget by whom) it was mentioned that Christianity has "evolved". I and I think most people will agree. So isn't this possible for Islam? And as BbyG pointed out, how do we "encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation?"
-
I'm not sure. I think GM makes a good point about "those that go public tend to be killed or ...."
However, on the second point, let's substitute Christianity and Jesus. If "Jesus" is the final prophet (son of God) and is the perfect embodiment of humanity and the "Bible" is the
direct word of God, then how do you ignore verses commanding that the non "Christians" be forced to submit to.... God.
**The old testament had the Israelites waging war in a specific place and time. There is no part of the torah that Jewish theologians interpret as commanding Jews to wage war forever. The same with Christian theology and the old and new testaments. Not one endorses eternal war against non-believers. Jesus absolutely refused to be a political leader and taught "Render unto Caesar...."**
The Bible, especially the old testament is full of versus stating in essence, kill the infidels.
Not much different than a jihad.
**Very different, as I previously pointed out.**
Yet, on another post (I forget by whom) it was mentioned that Christianity has "evolved". I and I think most people will agree. So isn't this possible for Islam? And as BbyG pointed out, how do we "encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation?"
Well, to start we protect free speech. Unfortunately, the left allies it's self with jihadists to use "hate speech" laws to silence those that would scrutinize islam in the same way judaism and christianity are deconstructed.
-
http://www.meforum.org/395/the-rushdie-rules
Start here, JDN.
-
Thread coherence nazi here. The last 5 posts (including one by me :oops: ) belong on Islam vs. Free Speech or the Communicating with Islam threads.
-
The Old Testament Bible is full of "Holy Wars". Battles fought, entire cities full of infidels destroyed, etc. in the name of and/or at the direction of the Lord.
Much later, as you look at the Crusades; look at the deep hostility of Christians towards non believers throughout the Middle Ages and after,
it is not hard to find the deep animosity of Christians against other faiths.
But as I mentioned and as someone else pointed out, Christianity has evolved in a positive way.
My hope is for Islam will do the same.
The question is how do we "encourage moderates to take the path toward reformation".
There will always be zealots, but this silent majority needs to wake up and participate.
GM; I do agree free speech is essential. But somehow we need encourage moderates to speak out and organize.
-
The crusades happened after 300 years of muslim invasion and oppression in europe.
-
Amazing how the Crusades being a REACTION to Muslim conquest has been forgotten by so many , , ,
-
http://www.irshadmanji.com/
A Canadian feminist, openly lesbian muslim trying to spur a reform in islam. She faces constant threats, and it ain't from rednecks in pickups.
-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/irshad-manji-islams-marked-woman-562225.html
May 5, 2004
Irshad Manji: Islam's marked woman
Irshad Manji is a lesbian Muslim who says her religion is stuck in the Middle Ages. The outspoken author tells Johann Hari how she became a target for assassination
The death threats began six months ago. One morning,Irshad Manji opened her e-mail and read the first ofmany pledges to kill her. "It contained some prettyconcrete details that showed a lot of thought had beenput into the death-threat," she explains now,unblinking. She can't say how many she's received -"The police tell me not to talk about this stuff" -but she admits that "they are becoming pretty up-closeand personal."
"One story that I can tell you," she says, "a storythat I have the permission from the police to tellyou, is that I was in an airport in North Americarecently and somebody at the airport recognised me. Ihad a conversation with them. While I was engaged inconversation with a very portly, very sweetfifty-something man and his wife, an Arab guy came upto my travel companion and said, 'You are luckier thanyour friend.' As a nice polite Canadian she asked,'What do you mean?' and he didn't say anything. Heturned his hand in to the shape of a gun and he pulledthe make-believe trigger towards my head. She didn'tknow what to make of this, so she asked him to clarifyhis intentions. He said 'Not now, you will find outlater,' and then he was gone."
Sitting with Irshad in a London boardroom, it would behard for anybody to guess that she is the starattraction on jihadist death-lists. She has the small,slender body of a ballet-dancer, and a Concorde-speedCanadian voice that makes her sound more like acharacter in a Woody Allen movie than an enemy ofOsama Bin Laden's. So what has she done to earn abullet in the head?
Irshad is a key figure in the civil war withintwenty-first century Islam. She is the Saladin ofprogressive Muslims, an out-rider for the notion thatyou can be both a faithful Muslim and a mouthy,fiercely democratic Canadian lesbian. As one Americanjournalist put it, "Irshad Manji does not drinkalcohol and she does not eat pork. In every otherrespect, she is Osama Bin Laden's worst nightmare."
"What I want is an Islamic reformation," she says,leaning forward, her palms open. "Christianity did itin the sixteenth century. Now we are long overdue. Ifthere was ever a moment for our reformation, it's now,when Muslim countries are in poverty and despair. Forthe love of God, what are we doing about it?"
We are all going to have to learn about this battlefor an Islamic reformation, because it will be raging- and occasionally blasting its way onto our citystreets - for the rest of our lives. Manji'sbest-selling book, 'The Trouble With Islam - a Wake-UpCall For Honesty and Change', is both a crash coursein its terminology and a manifesto for the progressiveside. The core concept in Maji's thought - and that ofall progressive Muslims - is 'itjihad'. It's a simpleidea, and devastatingly powerful. Itjihad is theapplication of reason and reinterpretation to themessage of the Koran. It allows every Muslim toreconsider the message of the Koran for the changedcircumstances of the twenty-first century. "What wastrue for ninth century Mecca and Medina may not be thebest interpretation of Allah's message today", Irshadexplains.
This seems obvious to post-religious European ears,but it is (literally) heresy to conservative and evenmost mainstream Muslims. "At this stage, reform isn'tabout telling ordinary Muslims what not to think. It'sabout giving them permission to think. We can't beafraid to ask: what if the Koran isn't perfect? Whatif it's not a completely God-authored book? What ifit's riddled with human biases?"
"We Muslims have to understand our own history," shesays. "Itjihad isn't some wacky new idea. When Muslimswere at their most prosperous, their most innovative,their most respected, it was when we practiseditjihad, in Islam's golden age from 750 to 1250 CE.The greatest Muslim philosopher, Ibn Rushd, championedthe freedom to reason."
"It was the closing of the gates of itjihad that ledto disaster for Muslims, not the Crusdaers or the Westor anything else. Sure, they were all bad, but thedecline started with us," Irshad says. "It's therefusal to believe in independent reason that hascontributed to a totalitarian culture in the Muslimworld. Of course if Muslims can't reason forthemselves, they become dependent on Mullahs andoutside authorities. Of course if you think all truthis contained in one book and all you have to do isreturn to it - a belief I call 'foundationalism' -then you won't be dynamic and seek new solutions fornew problems. Others have responsibilities as well,but we Muslims closed the gates of itjihad onourselves. We need to take responsibility for that,and turn it around."
It was in the twelfth century that Baghdad scholars"formed a consensus to freeze debate within Islam,"she explains, and "we live with the consequences ofthis thousand-year old strategy. They did it to keepthe Islamic empire from imploding - they thought allthis dissent and disagreement would lead us to fallapart. But I've got news for you: The Islamic empireno longer exists, and our minds still remain closed."
In case this sounds cerebral - how could this aridintellectual debate have such a drastic effect on theworld? - Irshad is quick to underline its practicaleffects. From the mass-murder of democrats in Algeriato the uprising of students against the Mullahs inIran, from the mosques of Finsbury Park to the ethniccleansing being perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalistsin Sudan, "this is the fight between progressive Islamand the Islamofascists."
Irshad does not just rant against Islamicfundamentalism. She offers a constructive long-termprogramme for undermining it, which she dubs'Operation Itjihad.' The solution lies with Muslimwomen. "At the moment, half the resources of Muslimsocieties - the women - are squandered. Yet investingin women makes amazing sense. Educate a Muslim boy andyou've educated a boy. Educate a Muslim woman andyou've educated a whole family. The multiplier effectof helping Muslim women is amazing."
So 'Operation Itjihad' would require us to redeploy alarge chunk of our aid and national security budgetsto small business loans for Muslim women."Micro-lending has an extraordinary 30year-track-record. For example, in Bangladesh theGrameen ('Village') Bank loans tiny amounts of moneyto people whom standard lenders consider untouchable -especially landless women. They have helped 31million people, and they have a staggering repaymentrate of 98%. Helping women achieve financialindependence en masse butresses their existing, oftenunderground, attempts to become literate. They won'tneed the oracles of the big boys if they can reachtheir own conclusions about what the Koran says.
"Empowering women is the way to awaken the Muslimworld," she continues. "If you are serious aboutundermining the culture that created al-Quaeda, thisis the way to do it. When women have money they haveearned themselves, they are far more likely to beginthe crucial task of questioning their lot. It willtransform a culture of hate and stagnation." Thisfeminism shouldn't be alien to good Muslims, she adds."Mohammed's beloved first wife Khadija was a self-mademerchant for whom the Prophet worked for many years. Isometimes point out to Muslim men that if they areserious about emulating the Prophet, then they shouldgo work for their wives." What do they say? "There isa dour, sour silence."
"Then I remind them that it was Ibn Rushd who said -way ahead of any European feminists - that the reasoncivilisations are poor is that they do not know yet,the ability, the full ability, of their women," shecontinues. So how did Islam get so entwined with amisogynist culture? "I think you have to distinguishbetween Islam and the Arabic culture of the ninth andtenth centuries that very quickly became entwined withit. We have to disentangle Islam from the norms of thedesert. Desert Islam was always opposed to thepluralistic, haggling life of the el-haraa - the urbanalleyway bazaars. It is fanatic. Islam was meant tomove the Arabs beyond tribe. Instead, tribe has movedthe Arabs beyond Islam."
Irshad is needlingly, constantly aware that she couldnot even begin to enjoy the freedom she currentlyenjoys in any Muslim society. Her family were refugeesfrom Idi Amin's West African tyranny, and the familywashed up in Canada when Irshad was four years old. "Iam also aware it wasn't Islam that fostered my beliefin the dignity of every individual. It was thedemocratic environment to which I and my familymigrated. In this part of the world, as a Muslimwoman, I have the freedom to express myself withoutfear of being maimed or tortured or raped or murderedat the hands of the state. You know, as corny as thismay sound, as a refugee to the West, I wake up everyday, thanking God that I wound up here."
She grew up with "a miserable father who despised joy"and exhibited the worst of the Mullah mentality. Thenin her local mosque - as an inquisitive, open-mindedgirl - she became aware of an attempt to "close mymind. It was a 'shut up and believe' mentality," shesays. "Even in a free society where nobody was goingto challenge us or hurt us for asking questions, eventhen our minds were still slammed shut. A crude, cruelstrain within Islam continues to exist in even themost cosmopolitan of cities. That shows it isn't justexternal evil influences that have done this. We have- I repeat - done it to ourselves."
Irshad knows that she is dragging into the open anargument many Western Muslims have confined to theirown minds for a very long time. She is critical ofthe "reflexive identification some Muslims in the Westunthinkingly offer to groups like Hamas or theTaliban. I met one person [like that] at OxfordUniversity last night. I asked, 'Do these womenrealise that the very groups and individuals whom theyare defending are the very people who, if they were inpower here, would frankly their daughters particularlyof their right to be at Oxford at all?'"
She is frustrated that more moderate Muslims do notfight. "At all of the public events I've done topromote this book, not once have I seen a moderateMuslim stand up and look an extremist in the eye andsay, 'I'm Muslim too. I disagree with yourperspective. Now let's hash it out publicly.' Yes,after the event people tip-toe up to me and say,'Thank you for what you are doing.' And there aretimes when I really want to say, 'Where was yoursupport when it mattered? Not for my ego. But to showthe extremists that they are not going to walk awaywith the show.'"
"It's insane that I get sometimes accused of'Islamophobia', or offering comfort to people who hateIslam," she quickly adds, anticipating my nextquestion. "I like to respond to that by talking aboutMatthew Shepherd [a young gay man who was recentcrucified and burned to death in Texas]. I say to mygood-hearted liberal friends, would you have let theseyahoos get away with insisting that gay-bashing ispart of their culture and as a result they deserveimmunity from scrutiny on that front? Well, why ismisogyny and homophobia in Saudi Arabia any different?No, it's up to us Muslims in the West to dropreactionary charges of racism against thewhistleblowers of Islam - people like me and yourheroic colleague Yasmin Alibhai-Brown - and lead thecharge for change."
She believes we are falling for a false kind of moralequivalence between democratic societies andtyrannies. "For example, the next time you hear anIslamo-fetishist, an imam of the ninth-century school,wax eloquent that Muslim societies today have theirown forms of democracy thank you very much, we don'tneed to take any lessons, right there, ask him a fewquestions. What rights do women and religiousminorities actually exercise in these democracies? Notin theory, but in actuality. Don't tell me what theKoran says, because the Koran, like every other holybook, is all over the map, ok. No, tell me what ishappening on the ground."
She continues, her voice hard and rhythmic, "Tell mewhen your people vote in free elections. Tell me howmany free uncensored newspapers there are in your'democracy'. There is I believe, such a thing as thesoft racism of low expectations. And I believe thatthere is more virtue in expecting Muslims like anybodyelse, to rise above low expectations, because you knowwhat? We're capable of it."
It will not ultimately be Western bombs or Westernmarkets that defeat Islamic fundamentalism. It will bewomen like Irshad, refusing to allow their religion tobe dominated by fanatics. But there are a lot ofpeople who want to stop her. "I actually don't live mylife in fear, no not at all," she says, not entirelyconvincingly. "In fact I'll tell you right now, Ideliberately did not bring my bodyguard to Britainwith me against the better judgement of many peoplewho want to see me alive."
"If I am going to convince young Muslims in particularthat it is possible to dissent, and live, I can't besending the mixed message of having the bodyguardshadowing me wherever I go," she says, her voice nowuncharacteristically low and soft. "Even if somethingterrible happens, I stand by the decision, because Ithink at this stage it is far more important to giveyoung people hope, to give them a sense of realoptimism that there is room to be unorthodox."
-
Obama seeks Muslims for Whtie House posts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama is conducting his own affirmative action program to get more Muslims in the White House.
The move began with Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn, who took his oath of office with a hand on the Quran, to solicit the resume of what he considered to be the nation’s most qualified adherents of Islam.
According to the Denver Post, when White House officials heard about the program, it was put on overdrive.
So far, 45 Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and government officials have been submitted for consideration.
J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, sifted through more than 300 names as part of the search.
“It was mostly under the radar,” Williams said. “We thought it would put (the president) in a precarious position. We didn’t know how closely he wanted to appear to be working with the Muslim American community.”
Ellison is serious about his faith. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca with the sponsorship of the Muslim American Society, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 1991, Mohamed Akram wrote a memo for the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood that explained its work in America as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ’sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
-
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511361,00.html
Islamic Law's Influence in America a Growing Concern
Sunday, March 29, 2009
By David Lewkowict
Print ShareThisAs America's Muslim population grows, so too does the influence of Islamic law, or Shariah, in daily life in the U.S.
"Shariah Law is the totality of the Muslim's obligation," said Abdullahi An-Na'im, a professor of law at Emory University in Atlanta. According to An-Na'im, Shariah is similar to Jewish Talmudic Law or Catholic Canon Law in that it guides an adherent's moral conduct.
"As a citizen, I am a subject of the United States," An-Na'im said. "I owe allegiance to the United States, to the Constitution of the United States. That is not inconsistent with observing a religious code in terms of my own personal behavior."
While many view this as a testament to the "great American melting pot," others see Islamic law's growing influence as a threat. Shariah's critics point to cases such as the airport in Minneapolis, where some Shariah-adherent taxi drivers made headlines in 2006 for refusing to pick up passengers they suspected of carrying liquor. The drivers' aversion to alcohol stemmed from a verse in the Qur'an that describes "intoxicants and gambling" as "an abomination of Satan's handiwork."
Last year, a Tyson Foods plant in Shelbyville, Tenn. replaced its traditional Labor Day holiday with paid time off on Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival — marking the end of fasting during Ramadan. A labor union had requested the change on behalf of hundreds of Muslim employees— many of them were immigrants from Somalia.
But public outcry over the decision to dismiss Labor Day quickly prompted the company and union to negotiate a new contract that makes accommodations for both holidays.
In 2007, the University of Michigan installed ritual foot baths to accommodate Islamic tradition. "These things are beginning to percolate up as Shariah-adherent Muslims insist that their preferences and practices be accommodated by the rest of the population," said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy — a Washington think tank.
Gaffney predicted the U.S. could soon face problems similar to some Western European countries, where the religious values of Muslim immigrants sometimes clash with their highly secular host cultures.
But Professor An-Na'im believes it will be different in America. "The variety of American secularism — which is much more receptive of public displays of religion and a public role for religion — is, in fact, more conducive for Muslims to be citizens and to be comfortable with their religious values and citizenship than European countries," An-Na'im said.
-
"As a citizen, I am a subject of the United States," An-Na'im said. "I owe allegiance to the United States, to the Constitution of the United States. That is not inconsistent with observing a religious code in terms of my own personal behavior."
Sounds reasonable...
A good friend (Welsh - Episcopalian) sends his children to an expensive, but superb private school near Los Angeles. The majority of the students are of the Jewish faith therefore
Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, and other Christian holidays are minimized or eliminated yet quite a few Jewish holidays are celebrated and school is often
closed on these Jewish religious days. Yet no one complains very much about religious values of Jewish families sometimes clashing with the host culture. Nor should anyone
complain. Why are a Muslim's religious values any different?
According to the article Tyson Foods labor union had requested the change. It seems Tyson a privately owned business negotiated a holiday schedule in good faith hoping to please the
majority of their workers at their Tenn. plant. Odd, non employees i.e. the "public" objected and Tyson had to accommodate their outcry.
Why does the "public" care which holidays Tyson and their employees agree upon in their collective
bargaining agreement?
-
Because of concerns of which as a reader of this thread you know well. :lol:
-
Because of concerns of which as a reader of this thread you know well. :lol:
For real. The concerns isn't about individual and voluntary practice of religion, the concern is about religious tenets being imposed on a non-voluntary basis. Your Welsh friend voluntarily enrolled a child in a Jewish school and could vote with his feet if he so elected. Though some may claim that a cloistered, burqa wearing, woman in an arranged marriage who can't drive because doing so violates an article of religious law voluntarily entered into that arrangement, I would beg to disagree. Practice it, no problem. Impose it on others, big problem.
-
There is also the matter of those parts of Islam that are a fascist political ideology: It seeks superiority of Islam and submission of others to it. It opposes freedom of choice, freedom of speech, and seeks to merge church and state. I too wish it were as easy as you do JDN, but denial is denial.
-
Actually, my Welsh friend did not enroll his children in a "Jewish school"; it just so happens that the majority of the students are from very affluent Jewish families.
And while he doesn't object, his wife doesn't appreciate that Christmas and Easter are minimized yet Jewish Holidays are celebrated to the fullest extent; these Jewish school holidays
and religious tenets are being "imposed" upon her children. And yes, he "could vote with his feet if he so elected." As can the Muslim, albeit more difficult (discussed some time
ago on another forum; please not again) vote with her feet.
The article posted by Crafty referenced the Tyson plant. The employees voluntarily voted to honor the muslim holiday versus labor day; the "public" imposed
upon the corporation demanding that the Labor Day be honored... Why can't the group voluntarily chose?
-
Crafty as I said before I have absolutely no sympathy for the zealots, "those parts of Islam that are a fascist political ideology."
However, I started my comments on this post by agreeing and quoting An-Na'lm, the Muslim referenced and quoted in you post.
While acknowledging his Muslim faith, he seems quite reasonable. And I like his statement, "I owe allegiance to the United States,
to the Constitution of the United States."
-
As a person who thinks religion is, for the most part, superstitious twaddle I have a general disdain for some of the machinations embraced by those who want to honor imaginary omnipotent friends, omnipotent friends that allow all manner of savage behavior to occur in their name. I suppose if some employees opted to deify eggplants and enact company holidays around the vegetable's ascension that's their option, but I see little reason to support this sort of silliness. Indeed, the left is generally all about preventing the imposition of a religion upon others, witness all the ACLU suits against nativity scenes and Ten Commandment references. Guess if the religion isn't Christianity the rules change.
I would like to know by what route you think the woman in the burqa could vote with her feet without being, say, whipped or worse, as it appears the last iteration of the discussion didn't disabuse you of the notion of that choice being available to many Muslim women in traditional societies.
-
Unfortunately, I acknowledge few choices are available to many Muslim women in traditional societies.
However, the issue in these recent posts (in response to Crafty's post) is Islam in America. I would like to think that Muslim women although
perhaps facing rejection and possibly being ostracized by their group, still would never face "whipping or worse" in America. They could "vote with their feet".
America offers freedom of choice and freedom of speech to all people. And I expect America will protect those physically threatened with "whipping or worse".
Also, I would hope that the ACLU would file suit against ANY religion that tried to impose religion upon others in a public place.
-
JDN:
And I acknowledge that An Na'lm's statement is lined up correctly.
My concern is fourfold:
a) lying-- e.g. one can find similar statements from seditious organizations such as CAIR
b) even when such statements are genuinely American (i.e. the speaker would stand with America against Islamic fascism) I wonder if there are even more who say similar things but who ultimately are unwilling to act against the fascists in their midst
c) such statements and beliefs may become less common as Muslim numbers increase
d) political correctness/political cowardice will use statement's such as An Na'lm's to avoid the hard questions and hard answers, and harder yet actions necessary to deal with the fascist element.
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/016829.php
June 9, 2007
Fitzgerald: No public funds for Islamic footbaths
DEARBORN -- The University of Michigan-Dearborn plans to spend $25,000 for foot-washing stations, making it easier for Muslim students to practice their religion but sparking questions about the separation of church and state.
The university claims the stations are needed to accommodate Muslim students, who must ritually wash their bodies -- including the feet -- up to five times each day before prayers. But critics hit conservative blogs and radio airwaves Monday to argue public money shouldn't cover the cost. -- from this article
I have been in airport bathrooms when someone will come up, paying no attention to right or left, and start performing his wudu, while water flies all over the place as that person places his feet, one after the other, in the sink and washes them. While these -- to many -- nauseating public ablutions take place, most people hasten away without going near even the empty sinks.
There is no god-given right to come to other countries and inflict one's behavior, in fulfilling some kind of faith-based mandate, in public places. The nurses who were arrested for singing Christmas carols behind closed doors, in their own apartments in Western apartment complexes, in Saudi Arabia, were not inflicting this on anyone: it was the religious police checking up, as they do everywhere they can. But, for example, the slitting of a sheep's throat, and letting it bleed to death on the street, can and should be banned -- whether or not this is considered "part of Islam."
If Muslim students wish to have foot-washing sinks available, then they can certainly pay for them. After all, there is hardly a mosque or a madrasa in this country that does not receive, when it needs it, all kinds of financial support from those who, across the seas, batten on the unmerited oil trillions, and by this point have used, collectively, more than one hundred billion of it (the estimate for Saudi Arabia alone) to pay for mosques, madrasas, armies of Western hirelings, and propaganda of every sort.
A mere $25,000 shouldn't faze the Saudis. And you might argue that $25,000 is so little -- why not spend it ourselves? But it is a symbolic act, an act that will be, and is, taken by Muslims not as a kind act, an act of accommodation (as those behind it might naturally think, for they think in terms of sweet reason, and compromise, and all that), but instead is taken in quite a different spirit, as one more indication (see the postings at Jihad Watch of the commenter who calls herself “Naseem,” passim) that Islam Is On the March, that here and there, little by little, the Infidels are yielding. It is of great symbolic value to Muslims. And it will not result in gratitude, but merely in a swelling of the sense that obstacles, one by one, to the spread of Islam are being removed. And that, after all, is what Jihad is partly about: the removing of those obstacles, and of obstacles of all kinds wherever they are, so that Islam may spread and dominate, and eventually Muslims come to rule. The dismissal of this as merely an alarmist fantasy shows that the dismisser has not been paying attention -- not to the tenets of Islam, not to 1350 years of Islamic history and the subjugation of non-Muslims, and certainly not to what has happened, over just the last 2-3 decades, in the lands of Western Europe.
Every concession, every misuse of public funds, every Muslim employee of city or state government who has been permitted undiscovered or unpunished to be relentlessly pushing for special deals in order to promote Islam or to make sure that fellow Muslims are hired here, and here, and here -- all of this, every single act, needs to be noisily (and also quietly) opposed. (See that Boston Redevelopment Authority employee, working to get city-owned land sold in a sweetheart deal for a mosque, and see what else that employee did on his still-unexplained trip or trips to Saudi Arabia.) "We must fight them over here so we don't have to fight them over there" would be an apter description of what needs to be done, although in truth there is no place where such "fighting" (not necessarily of the conventional, military variety) will not have to take place.
-
Power Line Blog: John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Paul Mirengoff
http://www.powerlineblog.com
Doing that wudu that they do so well
June 19, 2007 Posted by Scott at 6:08 AM
The Detroit News reports from Dearborn on the University of Michigan's plan to spend $25,000 for the installation of footbaths on campus: "Muslims won't fund footbaths." The article reports that "Muslim leaders in metro Detroit have decided not to raise private money to pay for two footbaths" on campus. For them, it clearly seems less to be about religious observance than about the submission of public authorities to their observance. If you've followed our series on wudu you know, to paraphrase Creedence Clearwater Revival, that there's a bad dhimmitude rising.
The Detroit News also reports that the ACLU finds nothing constitutionally objectionable in public support for the footbaths. Just in case you were wondering, Detroit ACLU director Kary Moss explains:
"We view it as an attempt to deal with a problem, not an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray," said Moss, who likened the plan to paying for added police during religious events with huge turnouts.
"There's no intent to promote religion."
The unholy alliance between the radical left and radical Islam continues unabated.
-
So, as usual, the American Criminal Liberties Union will only use it's resources to undercut America while assisting the global jihad.
-
Islam's doctrines of deception
by Raymond Ibrahim
Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst
October 2008
http://www.meforum.org/2095/islams-doctrines-of-deception
To better understand Islam, one must appreciate the thoroughly legalistic nature of the religion. According to sharia (Islamic law) every conceivable human act is categorised as being either forbidden, discouraged, permissible, recommended, or obligatory.
"Common sense" or "universal opinion" has little to do with Islam's notions of right and wrong. Only what Allah (through the Quran) and his prophet Muhammad (through the Hadith) have to say about any given issue matters; and how Islam's greatest theologians and jurists – collectively known as the ulema, literally, "they who know" – have articulated it.
According to sharia, in certain situations, deception – also known as 'taqiyya', based on Quranic terminology, – is not only permitted but sometimes obligatory. For instance, contrary to early Christian history, Muslims who must choose between either recanting Islam or being put to death are not only permitted to lie by pretending to have apostatised, but many jurists have decreed that, according to Quran 4:29, Muslims are obligated to lie in such instances.
Origins of taqiyya
As a doctrine, taqiyya was first codified by Shia Muslims, primarily as a result of their historical experience. Long insisting that the caliphate rightly belonged to the prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali (and subsequently his descendents), the Shia were a vocal and powerful branch of Islam that emerged following Muhammad's death. After the internal Islamic Fitna wars from the years 656 AD to 661 AD, however, the Shia became a minority branch, persecuted by mainstream Muslims or Sunnis – so-called because they follow the example or 'sunna' of Muhammad and his companions. Taqiyya became pivotal to Shia survival.
Interspersed among the much more numerous Sunnis, who currently make up approximately 90 per cent of the Islamic world, the Shia often performed taqiyya by pretending to be Sunnis externally, while maintaining Shia beliefs internally, as permitted by Quranic verse 16:106. Even today, especially in those Muslim states where there is little religious freedom, the Shia still practice taqiyya. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, Shias are deemed by many of the Sunni majority to be heretics, traitors and infidels and like other non-Sunni Muslims they are often persecuted.
Several of Saudi Arabia's highest clerics have even issued fatwas sanctioning the killing of Shias. As a result, figures on the Arabian kingdom's Shia population vary wildly from as low as 1 per cent to nearly 20 per cent. Many Shias living there obviously choose to conceal their religious identity. As a result of some 1,400 years of Shia taqiyya, the Sunnis often accuse the Shias of being habitual liars, insisting that taqiyya is ingrained in Shia culture.
Conversely, the Sunnis have historically had little reason to dissemble or conceal any aspect of their faith, which would have been deemed dishonorable, especially when dealing with their historic competitors and enemies, the Christians. From the start, Islam burst out of Arabia subjugating much of the known world, and, throughout the Middle Ages, threatened to engulf all of Christendom. In a world where might made right, the Sunnis had nothing to apologise for, much less to hide from the 'infidel'.
Paradoxically, however, today many Sunnis are finding themselves in the Shias' place: living as minorities in Western countries surrounded and governed by their traditional foes. The primary difference is that, extremist Sunnis and Shia tend to reject each other outright, as evidenced by the ongoing Sunni-Shia struggle in Iraq, whereas, in the West, where freedom of religion is guaranteed, Sunnis need only dissemble over a few aspects of their faith.
Articulation of taqiyya
According to the authoritative Arabic text, Al-Taqiyya Fi Al-Islam: "Taqiyya [deception] is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it. We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream...Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era."
The primary Quranic verse sanctioning deception with respect to non-Muslims states: "Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah – unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions." (Quran 3:28; see also 2:173; 2:185; 4:29; 22:78; 40:28.)
Al-Tabari's (838-923 AD) Tafsir, or Quranic exegeses, is essentially a standard reference in the entire Muslim world. Regarding 3:28, he wrote: "If you [Muslims] are under their [infidels'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them, with your tongue, while harbouring inner animosity for them... Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels in place of believers – except when infidels are above them [in authority]. In such a scenario, let them act friendly towards them."
Regarding 3:28, the Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir (1301-1373) wrote: "Whoever at any time or place fears their [infidels'] evil, may protect himself through outward show."
As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad's companions. Abu Darda said: "Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them." Al-Hassan said: "Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the day of judgment [in perpetuity]."
Other prominent ulema, such as al- Qurtubi , al-Razi, and al-Arabi have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. Muslims can behave like infidels – from bowing down and worshipping idols and crosses to even exposing fellow Muslims' "weak spots" to the infidel enemy – anything short of actually killing a fellow Muslim.
War is deceit
None of this should be surprising considering that Muhammad himself, whose example as the "most perfect human" is to be tenaciously followed, took an expedient view on the issue of deception. For instance, Muhammad permitted deceit in three situations: to reconcile two or more quarreling parties; husband to wife and vice-versa; and in war (See Sahih Muslim B32N6303, deemed an "authentic" hadith).
During the Battle of the Trench (627 AD), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against several non-Muslim tribes collectively known as "the Confederates", a Confederate called Naim bin Masud went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam. When Muhammad discovered the Confederates were unaware of Masud's conversion, he counseled him to return and try somehow to get his tribesmen to abandon the siege. "For war is deceit," Muhammad assured him.
Masud returned to the Confederates without their knowledge that he had switched sides and began giving his former kin and allies bad advice. He also went to great lengths to instigate quarrels between the various tribes until, thoroughly distrusting each other, they disbanded and lifted the siege. According to this account, deceit saved Islam during its embryonic stage (see Al-Taqiyya Fi Al-Islam; also, Ibn Ishaq's Sira, the earliest biography of Muhammad).
More demonstrative of the legitimacy of deception with respect to non-Muslims is the following account. A poet, Kab bin al-Ashruf, had offended Muhammad by making derogatory verse about Muslim women. Muhammad exclaimed in front of his followers: "Who will kill this man who has hurt Allah and his prophet?"
A young Muslim named Muhammad bin Maslama volunteered, but with the caveat that, in order to get close enough to Kab to assassinate him, he be allowed to lie to the poet. Muhammad agreed.
Maslama traveled to Kab and began denigrating Islam and Muhammad, carrying on this way till his disaffection became convincing enough for Kab to take him into his confidences. Soon thereafter, Maslama appeared with another Muslim and, while Kab's guard was down, they assaulted and killed him. They ran to Muhammad with Kab's head, to which the latter cried: "Allahu akbar" or "God is great" (see the hadith accounts of Sahih Bukhari and Ibn Sad).
The entire sequence of Quranic revelations are a testimony to taqiyya and, since Allah is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he ultimately is seen as the perpetrator of deceit. This is not surprising since Allah himself is often described in the Quran as the "best deceiver" or "schemer." (see 3:54, 8:30, 10:21). This phenomenon revolves around the fact that the Quran contains both peaceful and tolerant verses, as well as violent and intolerant ones.
The ulema were uncertain which verses to codify into sharia's worldview. For instance, should they use the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims until they either convert or at least submit to Islam (9:5, 9:29)? To solve this quandary, they developed the doctrine of abrogation – naskh, supported by Quran 2:105. This essentially states that verses "revealed" later in Muhammad's career take precedence over those revealed earlier whenever there is a discrepancy.
Why the contradiction in the first place? The standard answer has been that, because Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by the infidels in the early years of Islam, a message of peace and co-existence was in order. However, after Muhammad migrated to Medina and grew in military strength and numbers, the militant or intolerant verses were revealed, urging Muslims to go on the offensive.
According to this standard view, circumstance dictates which verses are to be implemented. When Muslims are weak, they should preach and behave according to the Meccan verses; when strong, they should go on the offensive, according to the Medinan verses. Many Islamic books extensively deal with the doctrine of abrogation, or Al-Nasikh Wa Al-Mansukh.
War is eternal
The fact that Islam legitimises deceit during war cannot be all that surprising; strategist Sun Tzu (c. 722-221 BC), Italian political philosopher Machiavelli (1469-1527) and English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) all justified deceit in war.
However, according to all four recognised schools of Sunni jurisprudence, war against the infidel goes on in perpetuity, until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Quran 8:39). According to the definitive Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online edition): "The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily. Furthermore there can be no question of genuine peace treaties with these nations; only truces, whose duration ought not, in principle, to exceed ten years, are authorised. But even such truces are precarious, inasmuch as they can, before they expire, be repudiated unilaterally should it appear more profitable for Islam to resume the conflict."
The concept of obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam's dichotomised worldview that pits Dar al Islam (House of Islam) against Dar al Harb (House of War or non-Muslims) until the former subsumes the latter. Muslim historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun (1332- 1406), articulated this division by saying: "In the Muslim community, holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defence. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."
This concept is highlighted by the fact that, based on the ten-year treaty of Hudaibiya , ratified between Muhammad and his Quraish opponents in Mecca (628), ten years is theoretically the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels (as indicated earlier by the Encyclopaedia of Islam). Based on Muhammad's example of breaking the treaty after two years, by citing a Quraish infraction, the sole function of the "peace-treaty" (hudna) is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup for a renewed offensive. Muhammad is quoted in the Hadith saying: "If I take an oath and later find something else better, I do what is better and break my oath (see Sahih Bukhari V7B67N427)."
This might be what former PLO leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat meant when, after negotiating a peace treaty criticised by his opponents as conceding too much to Israel, he said in a mosque: "I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish in Mecca."
On several occasions Hamas has made it clear that its ultimate aspiration is to see Israel destroyed. Under what context would it want to initiate a "temporary" peace with the Jewish state? When Osama bin Laden offered the US a truce, stressing that "we [Muslims] are a people that Allah has forbidden from double-crossing and lying," what was his ultimate intention?
Based on the above, these are instances of Muslim extremists feigning openness to the idea of peace simply in order to bide time.
If Islam must be in a constant state of war with the non-Muslim world – which need not be physical, as radicals among the ulema have classified several non-literal forms of jihad, such as "jihad-of-the-pen" (propaganda), and "money-jihad" (economic) – and if Muslims are permitted to lie and feign loyalty to the infidel to further their war efforts, offers of peace, tolerance or dialogue from extremist Muslim corners are called into question.
Religious obligation?
Following the terrorist attacks on the United States of 11 September 2001, a group of prominent Muslims wrote a letter to Americans saying that Islam is a tolerant religion that seeks to coexist with others.
Bin Laden castigated them, saying: "As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarised by the Most High's Word: 'We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us – till you believe in Allah alone' [Quran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility – that is battle – ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [a dhimmi – a non-Muslim subject living as a "second-class" citizen in an Islamic state in accordance to Quran 9:29], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable [a circumstance under which taqiyya applies]. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity and hatred, directed from the Muslim to the infidel, is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them."
This hostile world view is traceable to Islam's schools of jurisprudence. When addressing Western audiences, however, Bin Laden's tone significantly changes. He lists any number of grievances as reasons for fighting the West – from Israeli policies towards Palestinians to the Western exploitation of women and US failure to sign the Kyoto protocol – never alluding to fighting the US simply because it is an infidel entity that must be subjugated. He often initiates his messages to the West by saying: "Reciprocal treatment is part of justice."
This is a clear instance of taqiyya, as Bin Laden is not only waging a physical jihad, but one of propaganda. Convincing the West that the current conflict is entirely its fault garners him and his cause more sympathy. Conversely, he also knows that if his Western audiences were to realise that, all real or imagined political grievances aside, according to the Islamic worldview delineated earlier, which bin Laden does accept, nothing short of their submission to Islam can ever bring peace, his propaganda campaign would be compromised. As a result there is constant lying, "for war is deceit".
If Bin Laden's words and actions represent an individual case of taqiyya, they raise questions about Saudi Arabia's recent initiatives for "dialogue". Saudi Arabia closely follows sharia. For instance, the Saudi government will not allow the construction of churches or synagogues on its land; Bibles are banned and burned. Christians engaged in any kind of missionary activity are arrested, tortured, and sometimes killed. Muslim converts to Christianity can be put to death in the kingdom.
Despite such limitations on religious freedom, the Saudis have been pushing for more dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims. At the most recent inter-faith conference in Madrid in July 2008, King Abdullah asserted: "Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance, a message that calls for constructive dialogue among followers of all religions."
Days later, it was revealed that Saudi children's textbooks still call Christians and Jews "infidels", "hated enemies" and "pigs and swine". A multiple-choice test in a book for fourth-graders asks: "Who is a 'true' Muslim?" The correct answer is not the man who prays and fasts, but rather: "A man who worships God alone, loves the believers and hates the infidels". These infidels are the same people the Saudis want dialogue with. This raises the question of whether, when Saudis call for dialogue, they are merely following Muhammad's companion Abu Darda's advice: "Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them"?
There is also a philosophical – more particularly, epistemological – problem with taqiyya. Anyone who truly believes that no less an authority than God justifies and, through his prophet's example, sometimes even encourages deception, will not experience any ethical qualms or dilemmas about lying. This is especially true if the human mind is indeed a tabula rasa shaped by environment and education. Deception becomes second nature.
Consider the case of former Al-Qaeda operative, Ali Mohammad. Despite being entrenched in the highest echelons of the terrorism network, Mohammed's confidence at dissembling enabled him to become a CIA agent and FBI informant for years. People who knew him regarded him "with fear and awe for his incredible self-confidence, his inability to be intimidated, absolute ruthless determination to destroy the enemies of Islam, and his zealous belief in the tenets of militant Islamic fundamentalism", according to Steven Emerson. Indeed, this sentiment sums it all up: for a zealous belief in Islam's tenets, which, as has been described above, legitimises deception, will certainly go a long way in creating incredible self-confidence when deceiving one's enemies.
Exposing a doctrine
All of the above is an exposition on doctrine and its various manifestations, not an assertion on the actual practices of the average Muslim. The deciding question is how literally any given Muslim follows sharia and its worldview.
So-called "moderate" Muslims – or, more specifically, secularised Muslims – do not closely adhere to sharia, and therefore have little to dissemble about. On the other hand, "radical" Muslims who closely observe sharia law, which splits the world into two perpetually warring halves, will always have a "divinely sanctioned" right to deceive, until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Quran 8:39).
-
In Defense Of The Constitution
News & Analysis
April 14, 2009
CAIR: Defending Muslim Student “rights”?
When Americans send their children to school, it is assumed that the school will reasonably protect the student from harm; this includes college. What if this harm is inflicted by an agency of the federal government; an agency that has as part of its mission the protection of individual rights? What if that agency were the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)?
LeHighvalleylive.com reports that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is claiming that local colleges are not protecting the rights of predominantly Somali Muslim college students. CAIR claims that it has received “numerous reports” by Muslim students that they are being “interrogated” by FBI agents. The students are being questioned as part of an on-going investigation into the whereabouts of several male Somali students whom have gone missing and are suspected of leaving the US to fight in Somalia’s long-running civil war.
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-1/12393293616770.xml&storylist=national&thispage=1
In an article titled, “Pressure by FBI puts Somalis in bind” CAIR’s Minnesota chapter civil rights director Taneeza Islam claims “Students' legal rights need to be upheld and they aren't currently being afforded the only true legal protection they have when talking to the law enforcement-an attorney."
Islam’s concern is confirmed by this example of the FBI’s brutal interrogation methods involving a Muslim student: “In December, one of her friends who works for the University of Minnesota police approached her, saying the FBI would like to talk about her organization. The agent, she said, was polite and made it clear she could refuse to talk. "He wanted to know how we got funded and what activities we do," she said of the 20-minute interview. He also wanted to know "how some of the missing boys were involved in the organization," she said, adding she never felt pressured.”
So, the FBI agent explained she didn’t have to talk and the student stated the agent was polite. Where is the coercion? What “rights” did the FBI agent not explain?
Considering CAIR’s reputation when it comes to providing legal advice; buyer beware. In addition to the numerous proven allegations that CAIR is directly tied to Islamic terrorism and individual Islamic terrorists, CAIR has also been accused of providing shoddy legal advice to the very North American Muslim population it claims to represent and protect.
http://www.saneworks.us/uploads/news/applications/27.pdf
What does it say about CAIR when they apparently set off to deliberately commit fraud against American Muslims?
So why would the Somali Muslim students turn to CAIR for legal advice? The simple answer, from the article, is that they didn’t. Nowhere in the article does CAIR make the claim that CAIR supplied any legal advice to any of the students.
Why? Would it be outside the realm of possibility that CAIR completely fabricated that claim that “numerous” students filed complaints with them?
We also learn from the article that apparently none of the students interviewed for the article had anything bad to say about the FBI, except CAIR. None of the students stated that they were abused, denied rights, or forced to answer any questions. None were taken into custody.
For instance, the opening line from the article: “When the FBI approached the young women at the University of Minnesota, they said they didn't mind talking.” Does this sound like abuse, or a case where Muslim Somali students are responding to legitimate FBI concerns?
And:
From the article, “But the women, both second-year students who don't want their names used because they fear for their safety, said the investigation into whether missing Somali men from Minnesota have been recruited by terrorists to fight in their homeland has left many students caught between wanting to help investigators find the truth and facing scorn from some in their community.”
Where is the abuse? Actually, from the statements of the Muslim women, it sounds as if they have more to fear from their own Muslim community than they do from the FBI. Why doesn’t CAIR step up and demand that local law enforcement provide protection to those who want to cooperate in the investigation? Once again, CAIR selectively focus’s “outrage” against not only the college, FBI, but against Muslim students who see nothing wrong with providing information that may help locate fellow missing students.
Just what is CAIR’s game? CAIR recently announced that it is severing ties with the FBI because the FBI, rightly, cut off contact with the terrorist supporting “civil rights” group.
http://www.investigativeproject.org/985/fbi-cuts-off-cair-over-hamas-questions
The truth of CAIR’s disdain for the FBI is summed up by Islam’s statement regarding the FBI cut off of contact with CAIR; from the article: “Islam added the FBI’s decision to discontinue its outreach efforts through CAIR “is a huge loss for them”.” However, can anyone remember when CAIR has ever provided genuine, actionable information to the FBI or any other law enforcement agency that resulted in the prevention of a radical Islamic action?
It took the FBI over ten years to end its association with CAIR; an association that contributed absolutely nothing to the FBI’s understanding of peaceful Islam and CAIR calls it a “huge loss for them”. This would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.
We can take heart that it appears that none of the students approached CAIR for assistance or took any of CAIR’s “legal” advice. Apparently, the Somali Muslim students simply aren’t aware that the FBI is as bad as CAIR claims them to be. What is left unanswered by CAIR is, “if the FBI is so bad regarding Muslim civil rights, why does CAIR complain about ties being severed?”
This article was an excellent example of CAIR’s waning influence and inability to attract attention to yet another non-event involving American Muslims having their rights “violated”.
It didn’t happen, CAIR knows it, and the students did not support even one of CAIR’s claims.
Perhaps the Somali Muslim students understand the threat of radical Islam and want to do what they can to assist their adopted country in the battle against radical Islam. Maybe they understand, as others do not, exactly how bad radical Islam in practice really is and want no part of it in the USA?
Either way, it is a great win for the FBI and a smack in the face to CAIR’s attempts to butt in where they aren’t wanted or needed.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
-
Next US terrorist attack - Juval Aviv recent NYC lecture & good advice on preparation
Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie Munich ' was based.He was Golda Meir's bodyguard.
She appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage
and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games. In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that EVERY American needs to know -- but that our government has not yet shared with us.
He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News, stating publicly that it would happen=2 0within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred. Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East ) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 ,ONE MONTH before it occurred. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. Congress has since hired him as a security consultant.These are his future predictions:
The next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people on board will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are
truly effective. For example:
(1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal,and the new explosives are made of plastic.
(2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their
shoes. One group tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary.'
(3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates. Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport. Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate.
(i. e., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities (New York,San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also includeshopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc.,as well as rural America this time (Wyoming, Montana, etc.).
The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas , they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away. Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U. S. government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts. The world is quickly going to become 'a different place', and issues like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant. On an encouraging note, he says that Americans don't have to be concerned about being nuked. Aviv says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny'.
He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'homegrown' -- having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them. Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only have a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact SOON.
So, what can America do to protect itself?From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needsto stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel 's, Ireland 's and England 's hands-on examples of human
intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U. S.government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies'. Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake. Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out.
In fact, in Chicago , someone tried to steal the briefcase! In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained' that
an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag!'
The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves.But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurtenough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism. Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about our schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City , this was days, in some cases!) He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terrorist emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel .. Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow. Aviv says that the U .. S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off Everyone's ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated. How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan.
-
HONOLULU -- Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate "Islam Day" -- over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.
The Senate's two Republicans argued that a minority of Islamic extremists have killed many innocents in terrorist attacks.
"I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilized people of all religions should remember," said Republican Sen. Fred Hemmings to the applause of more than 100 people gathered in the Senate to oppose a separate issue -- same-sex civil unions.
The resolution to proclaim Sept. 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote. It had previously passed the House and now goes to Republican Gov. Linda Lingle.
The bill seeks to recognize "the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions" that Islam and the Islamic world have made. It does not call for any spending or organized celebration of Islam Day.
"We are a state of tolerance. We understand that people have different beliefs," said Sen. Will Espero, a Democrat. "We may not all agree on every single item and issue out there, but to say and highlight the negativity of the Islamic people is an insult to the majority" of believers "who are good law-abiding citizens of the world."
But Republican Sen. Sam Slom argued that the United States has become too sympathetic toward Islamic extremists.
"I don't think there's any country in the history of the world that has been more tolerant than the United States of America, and because of that tolerance, we've looked the other way a lot of times, and many thousands of our citizens have been killed by terrorists," said Slom, a Republican.
The lone Democrat voting against the bill opposed it on church-state separation fears.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...ate-islam-day/
-
"The lone Democrat voting against the bill opposed it [Islam Day] on church-state separation fears."
That makes sense. While we struggle to build a conservative party, it would be nice if the ruling party would exercise a little common sense and respect for the history of this country.
-
Denounce Muslim group, UC Irvine chancellor urged
May 12, 2009
NEW YORK (JTA) -- Nearly 2,700 people have signed an online petition encouraging a California university chancellor to publicly condemn an annual Muslim student event.
The document urges University of California, Irvine's Michael Drake to denounce the Muslim Student Union's "Israel: The Politics of Genocide" event, which began May 5 and runs through May 21.
"As an American, you have the right to speak out and explicitly denounce anti-Semitism, especially when it occurs on your campus," the petition reads. "As an educational leader, you have the moral obligation to speak out."
The petition also calls on Drake to condemn the Muslim group as a whole, alleging that it consistently violates a campus pledge to create "a learning climate free from expressions of bigotry."
The Irvine campus has been a hotbed of pro-Palestinian activism, and Drake himself has drawn fire in the past from some Jewish groups who have urged him to publicly denounce activity that is said to cross the line into anti-Semitism. Drake thus far has declined to denounce specific activities, speaking out only against hate speech in general.
The two-week program features lectures from noted Palestinian activists such as British Parliament member George Galloway and former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, among other events, according to the Orange County Weekly.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/05/12/1005098/petitiion-calls-on-irvine-chancellor-to-denounce-muslim-group
-
Trouble Brewing for AIG and Federal Government; Challenge of AIG Bailout Allowed to Proceed
May 27, 2009
http://www.thomasmore.org/qry/page.taf?id=19
ANN ARBOR, MI – Proclaiming that times of crisis do not justify departure from the Constitution, Federal District Court Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff allowed the lawsuit against Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Federal Reserve Board challenging the AIG bailout to proceed. The lawsuit was filed last December by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and attorney David Yerushalmi, an expert in security transactions and Shariah-compliant financing.
In his well-written and detailed analysis issued yesterday, Judge Zatkoff denied the request by the Obama administration’s Department of Justice to dismiss the lawsuit. The request was filed on behalf of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Federal Reserve Board – the named defendants in the case. In his ruling, the judge held that the lawsuit sufficiently alleged a federal constitutional challenge to the use of taxpayer money to fund AIG’s Islamic religious activities.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “It is outrageous that AIG has been using taxpayer money to promote Islam and Shariah law, which potentially provides support for terrorist activities aimed at killing Americans. Shariah law is the same law championed by Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. It is the same law that prompted the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our soil that killed thousands of innocent Americans. We won this skirmish. But the war to stop the federal government from funding Islam and Shariah-compliant financing is far from over.”
In its request to dismiss the lawsuit, the DOJ argued that the plaintiff in the case, Kevin Murray, who is a former Marine and a federal taxpayer, lacked standing to bring the action. And even if he did have standing, DOJ argued that the use of the bailout money to fund AIG’s operations did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The court disagreed, noting, in relevant part, the following:
In this case, the fact that AIG is largely a secular entity is not dispositive: The question in an as-applied challenge is not whether the entity is of a religious character, but how it spends its grant. The circumstances of this case are historic, and the pressure upon the government to navigate this financial crisis is unfathomable. Times of crisis, however, do not justify departure from the Constitution. In this case, the United States government has a majority interest in AIG. AIG utilizes consolidated financing whereby all funds flow through a single port to support all of its activities, including Sharia-compliant financing. Pursuant to the EESA, the government has injected AIG with tens of billions of dollars, without restricting or tracking how this considerable sum of money is spent. At least two of AIG’s subsidiary companies practice Sharia-compliant financing, one of which was unveiled after the influx of government cash. After using the $40 billion from the government to pay down the $85 billion credit facility, the credit facility retained $60 billion in available credit, suggesting that AIG did not use all $40 billion consistent with its press release. Finally, after the government acquired a majority interest in AIG and contributed substantial funds to AIG for operational purposes, the government co-sponsored a forum entitled “Islamic Finance 101.” These facts, taken together, raise a question of whether the government’s involvement with AIG has created the effect of promoting religion and sufficiently raise Plaintiff’s claim beyond the speculative level, warranting dismissal inappropriate at this stage in the proceedings.
Click here to read Judge Zatkoff’s entire ruling.
The lawsuit, which was filed in December of last year in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, is a constitutional challenge to that portion of the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008” (EESA) that appropriated $40 billion in taxpayer money to fund and financially support the federal government’s majority ownership interest in AIG, which engages in Shariah-based Islamic religious activities that are anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish.
According to the lawsuit, “The use of these taxpayer funds to approve, promote, endorse, support, and fund these Shariah-based Islamic religious activities violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Murray, a former Marine who served honorably in harm’s way in Iraq to defend our country against Islamic terrorists. Murray objects to being forced as a taxpayer to contribute to the propagation of Islamic beliefs and practices predicated upon Shariah law, which is hostile to his Christian religion. He is being represented by Thomas More Law Center Trial Counsel Robert Muise and by David Yerushalmi, an associated attorney who is an expert in Shariah law and Shariah-compliant financing, as well as general counsel to the Center for Security Policy.
According to the lawsuit, through the use of taxpayer funds, the federal government acquired a majority ownership interest (nearly 80%) in AIG, and as part of the bailout, Congress appropriated and expended an additional $40 billion of taxpayer money to fund and financially support AIG and its financial activities. AIG, which is now a government owned company, engages in Shariah-compliant financing which subjects certain financial activities, including investments, to the dictates of Islamic law and the Islamic religion. This specifically includes any profits or interest obtained through such financial activities. AIG itself describes “Sharia” as “Islamic law based on the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet [Mohammed].”
With the aid of taxpayer funds provided by Congress, AIG employs a “Shariah Supervisory Committee,” which is comprised of the following members: Sheikh Nizam Yaquby from Bahrain, Dr. Mohammed Ali Elgari from Saudi Arabia, and Dr. Muhammed Imran Ashraf Usmani from Pakistan. Dr. Usmani is the son, student, and dedicated disciple of Mufti Taqi Usmani, who is the leading Shariah authority for Shariah-compliant finance in the world and the author of a book translated into English in 1999 that includes an entire chapter dedicated to explaining why a Western Muslim must engage in violent jihad against his own country or government. According to AIG, the role of its Shariah authority “is to review our operations, supervise its development of Islamic products, and determine Shariah compliance of these products and our investments.”
An important element of Shariah-compliant financing is a form of obligatory charitable contribution called zakat, which is a religious tax for assisting those that “struggle [jihad] for Allah.” The amount of this tax is between 2.5% and 20%, depending upon the source of the wealth. The zakat religious tax is used to financially support Islamic “charities,” some of which have ties to terrorist organizations that are hostile to the United States and all other “infidels,” which includes Christians and Jews.
The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, an example of an Islamic “charity” that qualifies for receipt of the zakat, was recently convicted by a federal jury for providing millions of dollars to Islamic terrorist organizations. As a direct consequence of the taxpayer funds appropriated and expended to purchase and financially support AIG, the federal government is now the owner of a corporation engaged in the business of collecting religious taxes to fund interests adverse to the United States, Christians, Jews, and all other “infidels” under Islamic law.
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026380.php
June 1, 2009
Arkansas recruiting center jihadist killer studied jihad in Yemen
The jihadist, back from Yemen
I have learned from a well-placed source that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who killed one soldier and wounded another at a a Little Rock military recruiting center today, and who faces charges of terrorism as well as first-degree murder, has recently returned from Yemen, where he studied jihad with an Islamic scholar there.
Apparently the Islamic scholar under whom this American convert to Islam studied was yet another misunderstander of Islam's true, peaceful teachings.
More on this as it develops.
-
Recruiter shot dead outside Army office
By William M. Welch, USA TODAY
A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military shot two soldiers outside an Arkansas recruiting station, killing one, police said Monday.
"This individual appears to have been upset with the military, the Army in particular, and that's why he did what he did," Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said in a phone interview.
"He has converted to (Islam) here in the past few years," Hastings said. "We're not completely clear on what he was upset about. He had never been in the military.
"He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them. That's what he said."
Hastings identified the man in custody as Carlos Bledsoe, 24, of Little Rock, who goes by the name of Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad.
Police Chief Stuart Thomas said William Long, 24, of Conway was killed. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville was wounded and in stable condition, Thomas said.
The soldiers wore fatigues, had recently completed basic training and volunteered to help attract others to the military, Thomas said. He said the gunman targeted the military but was not believed to be part of a broader scheme.
Thomas said Muhammad would be charged with first-degree murder, plus 15 counts of committing a terroristic act. He said those counts result from the gunfire occurring near other people.
Hastings said the attacker pulled up in a car outside the Army-Navy recruiting office around 10:30 a.m. CT and fired at the soldiers outside.
According to the Associated Press, the vehicle was stopped on Interstate 630 a short time later, and the suspect was taken into custody. Police found an assault rifle in the vehicle.
The recruiting office is part of a shopping center at a commercialized intersection.
Jim Richardson, the manager at a drug store around the corner from the Army-Navy center, said people at the store didn't realize anything was amiss until they heard sirens outside. "Nobody heard any gunshots," Richardson said.
Lt. Col. Thomas Artis of the Oklahoma City Recruiting Battalion, which oversees the Little Rock office, said the victims were not regular recruiters. He said they were serving two weeks in the Little Rock office.
As part of the Hometown Recruiting Assistance Program, the soldiers were sent to "talk to friends, folks in the local area. They can show the example, 'Here's where I was, and here is where I am,' " Artis said.
Artis said neither of the soldiers had been deployed for combat.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-06-01-army-recruiter-killed_N.htm?csp=34
-
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,524833,00.html
Source: More Targets Found on Arkansas Shooting Suspect's Computer
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
A senior U.S. official tells FOX News that more targets were found on the computer of a man charged in the fatal shooting at a military recruiting center in Arkansas — suggesting the accused gunman may have been part of a larger plot to attack military targets and may not have been acting alone.
Officers found maps to Jewish organizations, a Baptist church, a child care center, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S., New York and Philadelphia, according to a joint FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press.
After Monday's attack outside the Army-Navy Career Center in Little Rock, detectives searched a computer linked to suspect Abdulhakim Muhammad, and discovered research into multiple sites in different states, according to the memo.
Muhammad, 23, a Muslim convert who previously was known as Carlos Bledsoe, pleaded not guilty to capital murder in the deadly suburban shopping complex shooting.
Authorities said he targeted soldiers "because of what they had done to Muslims in the past."
Private William Long, 23, was killed and Private Quinton I. Ezeagwula, 18, was wounded. Both completed basic training within the past two weeks and had never seen combat. Ezeagwula was in stable condition at a hospital.
The latest information seemed to contradict a local police official's denial earlier Tuesday that the shooting was part of a larger conspiracy, though details of possible accomplices and their involvement weren't immediately disclosed.
Muhammad is being held without bond and is due to make his first court appearance Wednesday.
Muhammad, a U.S. citizen, is accused of carrying out a targeted attack against U.S. forces because of "political and religious motives" and already had been under investigation by the FBI at the time of the shootings.
An FBI joint terrorism task force based in the southern U.S. reportedly had been tracking Muhammad after he traveled to Yemen and was arrested and jailed there for using a Somali passport, an official told The Associated Press. The probe had been in its early stages and based on Muhammad's trip to Yemen, ABC News reported.
While there, Muhammad, who was born and raised in Tennessee, studied jihad with an Islamic scholar, according to Jihadwatch.org. He moved to Little Rock in April.
At Tuesday's court hearing, Deputy Prosecutor Scott Duncan said Muhammad told investigators that "he would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot."
Long and Ezeagwula were targeted as they stood outside the recruiting center smoking cigarettes.
Muhammad, wearing a dark blue jail uniform with brown plastic sandals, sat with his hands in his lap before Little Rock District Judge Alice Lightle. He did not say anything during the brief hearing.
Investigators described the killing as one motivated by politics and religion: A Muslim convert upset with the U.S. military drove to a recruiting center and opened fire.
Muhammad was not part of any organized terrorist group, nor was his attack part of a larger conspiracy, Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas said on Tuesday.
Interviews with police show that the suspect "probably had political and religious motives for the attack," Thomas said. "We believe that it's associated with his disagreement over the military operations."
Muhammad told authorities that he approached the recruiting center in Little Rock by car on Monday and started shooting at two soldiers in uniform, according to a police report.
"He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them," Lt. Terry Hastings told the AP. "That's what he said."
The two victims had completed basic training within the past two weeks and were not regular recruiters, said Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis of the Oklahoma City Recruiting Battalion, which oversees the Little Rock office.
Witnesses told police that a man inside a black vehicle pulled up outside the recruiting center and opened fire about 10:30 a.m. Long fell onto the sidewalk outside the center, while Ezeagwula was able to crawl toward its door.
Muhammad was arrested along an interstate highway moments after the shootings, authorities said.
Police said an assault rifle and other weapons were found in Muhammad's car when he was arrested.
The accused shooter's father, Melvin Bledsoe, hung up on a reporter who called about his son's arrest Monday night.
FOX News' Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
-
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/11683
Sorry Barack, but there were no Muslims on the Mayflower
Paul Williams Bio
Email Article
By Paul Williams Friday, June 5, 2009
- The Last Crusade
Speaking at the University of Cairo, President Barack Hussein Obama said that Americans are indebted to Islam for the great contributions Muslims have made to the history and development of the United States.
“I know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” Mr. Obama told the throng of unenlightened Muslims. “The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. . . And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States.”
Mr. Obama went on to say: “They [Muslims] have fought in our wars. They have served in our government. They have stood for civil rights. They have started businesses. They have taught at our universities. They’ve excelled in our sports arenas. They’ve won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building and lit the Olympic torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same holy Koran that one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, kept in his personal library.”
No one at the Egyptian University or the international media took issue with the President’s bizarre interpretation of American history, let alone his confusion of the Nation of Islam (the religion of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X) that bears scant similarity to orthodox Islam. The Nation of Islam teach that Allah in the flesh was a bona fide nutcase named Wallace Fard and that Eli Muhammad, a conman with a tested IQ of 70 and not the Prophet Muhammad, was the true last prophet of Allah.
Let’s set the record straight once and for all.
Sorry, Barack Hussein, but there were no Muslims among the passengers on the Mayflower or the settlers at Jamestown. Muslims were conspicuously absent from the ranks of George Washington’s Army of the Revolution and played no role in the creation of the American republic - - save for the fact that the new country’s first declaration of war was against the forces of Islam in the form of the Barbary pirates.1
Despite popular folklore, few Muslims numbered among the 12 million black Africans who were shipped to the New World from the 17th to 19th centuries. The Muslims, in fact, were not the slaves but the slave traders. Senegalese educator Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow has written that in 1587 a shipload of Moriscos (Spanish Moors) landed in a coastal area of South Carolina. The Moors, he contends, migrated to the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina where they established colonies.2 In reality, this is pure speculation. There is not a scintilla of archival or archaeological evidence to support this claim.
This is not to say that no Muslim slaves were transported to the colonies. Two such slaves - - Ayuiba Suleiman Diallo and Omar ibn Said - - were brought to America is 1731 but both were returned to Africa in 1734.3 In a Herculean effort to materialize at least one Muslim living in America before the Civil War, Muslims in America, an Islamic website, point to the name of Mahomet, the great grandson of Uncas, the founder of the Mohegan tribe, on a gravestone in Norwich, Connecticut.4 The name of this Native America, they argue, resembles that of the prophet, and, therefore, he must have been a convert to Islam.
In a similar example of straining at gnats, the compilers of The Collections and Stories of American Muslims, a non-profit organization, claim that Peter Salem, a former slave who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, must have been a Muslim since “Salem” bears an etymological resemblance to “Salaam,” the Arabic word for peace.5
For additional proof, the compilers turn to folklore, such as the story of Old Tom, a slave at a plantation in Georgia, who allegedly uttered, “Allah is God and Mohammed his Prophet” on his death-bed - - and the apocryphal tale of “Old Lizzy,” a slave from Edgefield County, who reportedly said, “Christ built His first church in Mecca.”6
Surprisingly, there is no record of any Islamic American among the enlisted and conscripted forces of World War I, let alone among the blue and grey armies of the Civil War. The great migrations that lasted from 1865 to 1925 brought 35,000,000 people to the New World: 4,500,000 from Ireland, 4,000,000 from Great Britain, 6,000,000 from central Europe, 2,000,000 from the Scandinavian countries, 5,000,000 from Italy, 8,000,000 from Eastern Europe, and 3,000,000 from the Balkans. But the number of Muslims who came here from the Middle East was statistically nil.7
In 1960, aside from the temples of the Nation of Islam, the only mosques in the United States were in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Dearborn, Michigan, and Washington DC (which opened in 1957) - - and all three professed less than 200 active members. Four other cities contained miniature mosques with less than fifty members.8
Oh, yes, Jefferson did possess a copy of the Koran which Keith Ellison, our first Muslim Congressman, used to make his oath of office. But what was Jefferson opinion of Islam? Did he believe the Muslim religion represented a salubrious influence in world affairs? Far from it. In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, then US ambassador to France, and John Adams, then US Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty with the Barbary Pirates based on Congress’ vote of funding. To the US Congress these two future Presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
“...that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
Jefferson had it right.
Obama has it wrong.
-
Days after statement, DOJ files suit against NJ county on behalf of Muslim
By creeping
When was the last time the Department of inJustice filed a suit on behalf of say, Christianity or Judaism…just a day after announcing on its website it would protect that specific religion while not mentioning anything about any other religion.
“The President’s pledge for a new beginning between the United States and the Muslim community takes root here in the Justice Department where we are committed to using criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans. A top priority of this Justice Department is a return to robust civil rights enforcement and outreach in defending religious freedoms and other fundamental rights of all of our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the housing market, in our schools and in the voting booth.
According to FBI crime statistics from 2007, the last data set available, it’s not Muslims who are most in need of favored status and protection from the DOJ:
Bias motivation Total victims
Year 2,006 2,007
Religion (total): 1,750 1,628
Anti-Jewish 1,144 1,127
Anti-Other Religion 147 148
Anti-Islamic 208 142
Anti-Christian 151 137
Anti-Multiple Religions, Group 92 66
Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. 8 8
*Source: FBI Uniform Crime Statistics
NEWARK, N.J. – The U.S. Justice Department has sued Essex County over its firing of a corrections officer for wearing religious headwear.
The suit was filed in federal court in Newark on Monday on behalf of Yvette Beshier.
It claims Beshier was first suspended and then fired by the county for wearing a khimar, or Muslim head scarf.
The suit seeks monetary damages and also to require Essex County to adopt a policy that accommodates the religious observances and practices of employees.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin or religion.
A county spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit.
via Suit claims NJ woman fired for wearing Muslim garb | AP | 06/08/2009.
-
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Napolitano adds adviser with ties to terror backers
Swears in leader of Arab group that hailed jihadists as 'heroes'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: June 07, 2009
9:27 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Kareem Shora
JERUSALEM – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in to her official advisory council the head of an Arab American organization whose officials have labeled deadly anti-U.S. jihadists as "heroes" and opposed referring to Hamas as a terrorist organization.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, also has close ties to anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, whose association with President Obama – first exposed by WND – stirred controversy during last year's presidential campaign.
The ADC also leads the opposition to domestic anti-terrorism measures taken after the 9-11 attacks, such as watch lists, background check delays for visas and an initiative meant to more comprehensively screen visitors from select Mideast countries or specific individuals labeled as possible national security threats.
Last week, Napolitano swore in Damascus-born Kareem Shora, the ADC's national executive director, to a position on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, an outside-the-department group of national security experts that advises the secretary. Shora is the first Arab rights advocate on the panel.
At the ceremony in Albequrque, Shora reportedly recounted how he watched with his immigrant father Obama's address last week to the Muslim world. Shora said his father cried when he heard Obama's message of reconciliation.
ADC glorifies terrorism
The ADC takes an openly anti-Israel line. Its official material has accused the Jewish state of "apartheid" and "atrocities" against the Palestinians. In 2006, a local ADC group drew up a petition calling on the U.S. to stop providing Israel with weapons.
Scores of senior ADC officials have expressed positive views toward terrorist organizations.
In 1994, during one of the main peaks of Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, then-ADC President Hamzi Moghrabi said, "I will not call [Hamas] a terrorist organization. I mean, I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable. … I don't believe Hamas, as an organization, is a violent organization."
Discover the Networks notes that two years later, Moghrabi's successor, Hala Maksoud, defended the Hezbollah terrorist group.
"I find it shocking," Maksoud said, "that [one] would include Hezbollah in … [an] inventory of Middle East 'terrorist' groups."
In 2000, new ADC President Hussein Ibish characterized Hezbollah as "a disciplined and responsible liberation force."
When Israel released Hezbollah prisoners in early 2004, Imad Hamad, ADC's Midwest Regional Director, openly celebrated the freedom of "the heroes."
Besides its deadly terrorism against Israel, Hezbollah distinguishes itself as second only to al-Qaida among terror groups responsible for killing the most Americans. It's responsible for such deadly attacks as the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which killed 299 servicemen, including 220 U.S. Marines.
ADC linked to Khalidi
The ADC is linked to Columbia University's Khalidi, who spoke at several of the organization's events. At one speech, in June 2002, the New York Sun documented how Khalidi appeared to condone the killing of armed Israelis.
"Killing civilians is a war crime. It's a violation of international law. They are not soldiers. They're civilians, they're unarmed," Khalidi said in a recorded address. "The ones who are armed, the ones who are soldiers, the ones who are in occupation, that's different. That's resistance."
The ADC also has collaborated on numerous projects with the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, an organization founded by Khalidi's wife Mona, and which WND first reported received start-up funds from a nonprofit, the Woods Fund, on which Obama served as a paid director.
The AAAN, headquartered in the heart of Chicago's Palestinian immigrant community, worked on projects supporting open boarders and education for illegal aliens. Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The organization co-sponsored anti-Israel projects and exhibits.
Khalidi, an apologist for PLO terrorism, holds the position of Columbia's Edward Said professorship of Arab Studies. Said, a well-known far-leftist intellectual and apologist for Palestinian terrorism, served on an advisory counsel to the ADC.
ADC opposes anti-terrorism screening
According to the ADC charter, the organization seeks to "empower Arab Americans; defend the civil rights of all people of Arab heritage in the U.S.; promote civic participation; and encourage a balanced U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East."
The organization has actively lobbied against the Patriot Act and was reportedly instrumental in scaling back some of the restrictions of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System program, or NSEERS. Shora was personally involved in those efforts.
The NSEERS required persons whose nationality identifies them as a possible security risk to submit to control processes governed by the Department of Justice. NSEERS also targeted specific individuals labeled as possible national security threats, at times making them undergo fingerprinting, photographing and registration.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Wg3j6MTJg
So, who are these folks?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5H79kwO128&NR=1
-
This is who they are:
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/230
-
You beat me to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Wg3j6MTJg
So, who are these folks?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5H79kwO128&NR=1
-
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2009/07/special-report-sharia-comes-to-dearborn.html
-
More Info on the conference
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443871649&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Islamists gather at Chicago Hilton
Jul. 21, 2009
DANIELA FELDMAN , THE JERUSALEM POST
A global Islamic extremist political organization hosted its first organized conference in the United States on Sunday. Hosted by the group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the conference, titled "Fall of Capitalism and Rise of Islam," was hosted at a Hilton hotel in Chicago.
The conference was free to the public and attracted some 700 people, according to a report by Chicago's CBS 2 network.
The organization, whose name means The Liberation Party, is known for being a political, non-violent Sunni movement formed as a reaction to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The party was established in Jerusalem in 1953 by Palestinian intellectuals. The leader at the time, Taqiuddin an-Nabhani, established the organization as an ideological political party striving to create an Islamic caliphate, i.e. an ideal, unified Muslim state.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir is "a political party whose ideology is Islam," according to the group's official Web site.
The group is the "first Islamic radical organization to adopt a global policy," said Reuven Paz, the director of Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (PRISM). The party has established centers across the world, but has been banned in much of the Arab world and central Asia because the group has been seen as an opposition to Islamic governments already in place, he explained in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Paz said that though the organization has a strong base in London, the US branch was created in the 1970s in states with large Muslim populations.
Kamran Bokhari, STRATFOR's director of Middle East analysis, explained that until this conference, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir has been largely dormant in the US, but he believes the group is trying to make a comeback and reestablish a presence.
"They are trying to make use of the financial crisis and show that capitalism is in decline and Islam is the answer," he said. "They decided it's the right time to come back - the hunt against Islam is not as intense as it used to be."
He explained that the organization is serious about theology, idealogy and methodology. "Unlike organizations like al-Qaeda, they do not use force. They are more into doing conferences and holding study circles to shape public opinion," he said.
Paz explained that the conference is taking place in the United States because the group is taking advantage of freedom of speech. Most of the members are young intellectual elites, he said.
Though anti-Israel, anti-Shi'ite and anti-Western, the organization is not at all violent, but is seen as a threat for having unique doctrines and attracting followers to demonstrations, said Paz.
"The group is a minority in the Muslim world, but they are very vocal. They can be very extreme, but never violent," Paz said. "They are far from the present doctrines of al-Qaeda."
In a phone interview with CBS News, conference deputy spokesman Reza Imam stressed that Hizb ut-Tahrir does not call for violence or spread radical ideas. He said the group has not been accused of being tied to violent activities.
According to the organization's Web site, Hizb-ut-Tahrir aims to educate Muslims as an "entity that seeks to change people's thoughts through intelligent discussion and debate," and "does not accept forcing people or societies to change by means of violence and terror."
Imam said the conference was hosted to highlight the disintegration of capitalism during the global financial crisis.
"Our organization is an intellectual organization, so anybody who subscribes to its ideas is a member," said Imam. "Our currency is ideas...it is not a card-carrying type of organization," he added.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has no headquarters in the US and no leader, said Imam, adding that it has a strong presence in Chicago.
The conference was originally scheduled to be held at Al Aqsa Islamic School in Bridgeview, Ill., but the school canceled the event. According to CBS News, school officials felt the group misrepresented their goals when they asked to use the venue.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443871649&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
-
Giving Ramadan a Drumroll in Brooklyn at 4 A.M.
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Mohammad Boota has been drumming in Brooklyn to wake Muslim worshipers during Ramadan since 2002.
Published: September 12, 2009
A few hours before dawn, when most New Yorkers are fast asleep, a middle-aged man rolls out of bed in Brooklyn, dons a billowy red outfit and matching turban, climbs into his Lincoln Town Car, drives 15 minutes, pulls out a big drum and — there on the sidewalk of a residential neighborhood — starts to play.
Mohammad Boota plays in 20-second bursts outside Pakistani businesses in Brooklyn, as he did at Bismillah Food last month. He has learned that not everyone appreciates his services.
The man, Mohammad Boota, is a Ramadan drummer. Every morning during the holy month, which ends on Sept. 21, drummers stroll the streets of Muslim communities around the world, waking worshipers so they can eat a meal before the day’s fasting begins.
But New York City, renowned for welcoming all manner of cultural traditions, has limits to its hospitality. And so Mr. Boota, a Pakistani immigrant, has spent the past several years learning uncomfortable lessons about noise-complaint hot lines, American profanity and the particular crankiness of non-Muslims rousted from sleep at 3:30 a.m.
“Everywhere they complain,” he said. “People go, like, ‘What the hell? What you doing, man?’ They never know it’s Ramadan.”
Mr. Boota, 53, who immigrated in 1992 and earns his living as a limousine driver, began waking Brooklynites in 2002. At first he moved freely around the borough, picking a neighborhood to work each Ramadan morning.
Not everyone was thrilled, he said. People would throw open their windows and yell at him, or call the police, who, he said, advised him kindly to move along.
As the years went by, he and his barrel drum were effectively banned from one neighborhood after another. He now restricts himself to a short stretch of Coney Island Avenue where many Pakistanis live.
Fearing that even that limited turf may be threatened real estate for him, he has modified his approach even further — playing at well below his customary volume, for only about 15 to 20 seconds in each location, and only once every three or four days.
The complaints have stopped, he said. But as he reflected on his early years of drumming in the streets of New York — before he knew better — wistfulness seeped into his voice. He rattled off the places he used to play, however briefly: “Avenue C, Newkirk Avenue, Ditmas, Foster, Avenue H, I, J and Neptune Avenue.”
“You know,” he reluctantly concluded, “in the United States you can’t do anything without a permit.”
Mr. Boota wants to be a good American, and a good Muslim. “I don’t want to bother other communities’ people,” he said. “Just the Pakistani people.”
Several prominent Muslim organizations in New York said they knew of no other drummers who played on Ramadan mornings. But while the custom’s usefulness has been largely eclipsed by the invention of the alarm clock, it has hung on in many places. Indeed, Mr. Boota said he continues the practice, in spite of the challenges and resistance, as much to keep a tradition alive as to feed a cultural yen of his countrymen.
“They’re waiting for me,” he said.
The daily Ramadan fast runs from the start of dawn to dusk. So shortly after 3 one recent morning, Mr. Boota left his wife, Mumtaz, as she prepared a predawn meal in their Coney Island apartment. About 15 minutes later he pulled his Lincoln to a stop in front of Bismillah Food, a small Pakistani grocery store on Coney Island Avenue, near Foster Avenue. Several men were inside; taxicabs parked outside suggested their occupation.
In one fluid motion, Mr. Boota popped the trunk, cut the motor, leapt out, hoisted the drum’s strap over his shoulder, greeted the owner — “Salaam aleikum” — and, standing in the sidewalk penumbra of the shop’s fluorescent light, began playing.
The men came to the door. “He’s a very popular man here,” one of them said, nodding at Mr. Boota, who wore his usual performance attire: a traditional shalwar kameez, a loose two-piece outfit, elaborately embroidered with gold thread.
Mr. Boota wielded his two drumsticks in a galloping clangor that echoed off the facades of the darkened buildings.
After about 20 seconds, he ended his performance with a punctuative smack of the taut drum heads. There was an exchange of mumbled pleasantries in Arabic, the men moved back inside the store, and as quickly as he had arrived, Mr. Boota was behind the wheel of his car again, driving a block south to another Pakistani-owned business.
“A few seconds,” he said, as he cut the engine again. “Ten, 15 seconds, and bye-bye.”
For the next 20 minutes, he repeated this drill outside three Pakistani restaurants, four convenience and grocery stores and a service station.
No one complained — audibly, at least. And a close watch on nearby windows along the street revealed no annoyed, or even curious, residents.
“You see, nobody yelling at you,” Mr. Boota said cheerily. “Everybody happy to see you.”
He added, “I don’t want people unhappy.”
Drumming, Mr. Boota said, is a family tradition. He is a seventh-generation ceremonial drummer and is now training his 20-year-old son, Sher, one of eight children. In addition to his Ramadan reveilles, Mr. Boota plays at Pakistani weddings, birthday parties, graduation celebrations and other events.
“A lot of happiness hours!” he exclaimed.
During his rounds the next night, he stopped at a Pakistani-run service station and wandered with his drum into the service bay. He wanted to demonstrate the full capacity of his instrument. One of the mechanics slid the heavy doors shut, and Mr. Boota started to play at full volume, unleashing deafening sheets of sound. For three solid minutes he pounded out relentless, churning polyrhythms that filled the space like smoke.
Mr. Boota was obviously reveling in the power of his drum after a week of frustrated Ramadan duty. As the ringing in the listeners’ ears faded, he headed back to his car.
“It’s a great noise,” he said.
Majeed Babar contributed reporting.
-
I am unfamiliar with this source. Caveat lector:
========================================
Islamic Coming-Out Party Set for September 25
Muslims to mount massive march on Washington
By Dr. Paul L. Williams Wednesday, September 16, 2009
‘Islam is coming to America the same way Christianity came to Rome… whether they like it or not. We talk about the Islamic State of North America by 2050… The people of Hamas and Hizbullah are good people; they don’t deserve condemnation, they do good things.” – Imam Abdul Musa of Washington, D.C.
“Our time has come!” proclaims Islam on Capitol Hill, a new non-profit, tax-exempt corporation that is seeking millions in sponsorship.
And the time for the coming out party for Muslims in America is September 25, when over 50,000 adherents of the fabled “religion of peace” are expected to gather on the west front of the U.S. Capitol for a national prayer gathering.
The organizers of the event – - called “the Day of Islamic Unity” – - are expecting a crowd of 50,000 from mosques throughout the country, including a Muslim contingency from Alaska.
The Muslims are expected to pray for “the soul of America” from 4:00 AM until 7:00 PM with state-of-the-art audio amplifiers, so that their cries will resonate throughout the Lincoln and Washington memorials and the halls of Congress.
The first national gathering of Muslims will take place by the site where U.S. Presidents have been inaugurated since 1981.
Key planners of the event, including Hassen Abdellah, say that the inspiration for the event came from Barack Obama’s speech at the University of Cairo in which U.S. President said that Islam is an integral part of American society.
“For the first time in my lifetime,” Mr. Abdellah says of the Obama speech. “I heard someone of his stature speaking about Islam and Muslims not in an adversarial sense, but in the sense of being welcome and acknowledging we are integral citizens in the society — that we’re gainfully employed; we’re educated.”
The Traditional Values Coalition has decried the gathering by saying: “The Day of Islamic Unity is a dangerous event because it will galvanize Islamists into an army that will subvert our institutions and our way of life. Islam isn’t simply a religion; it is a totalitarian geo-political system that seeks total world domination. It seeks to impose Shariah Law on all peoples – by the sword.”
Dr. Paul L. Williams Most recent columns
Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., is the author of such best-selling books as The Day of Islam, The Al Qaeda Connection, Osama’s Revenge: The Next 9/11, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Crusades and The Vatican Exposed. An award-winning journalist, he is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Williams operates from his
-
Well the organizers of this "event" are known anit-semites, anti- Christians, defenders of suicide bombers, defenders of terrorists acts on the US, and not interested in peace as much as they claim.
I doubt they condemn terrorist acts, killing murdering and bigotry coming from their side like they do when they criticize us.
I have some Muslim patients who blend in with the rest of us and seem to all appearances to be American, but I dont know about some of the more "radical" ones.
For example:
Abdul Alim Musa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Imam Abdul Alim Musa (born 1945; Clarence Reams) is a Muslim activist and director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington, D.C.. He is a member of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) and a well-known speaker around the world. He is founder and director of As-Sabiqun.
Reams was born in Arkansas in 1945 but grew up in Oakland, California during the 1960s. It was during this period that he associated with H. Rap Brown (Imam Jamil Al-Amin), who later converted to Islam.
Having set up a drug dealing operation operation in Colombia, Musa was arrested on charges including heroin smuggling, currency smuggling and assaulting a federal agent. After evading the authorities for several years, Musa fled to Algeria, where he came in contact with several exiled Black Panther leaders such as Eldridge Cleaver. After returning to the US, he turned himself in and was eventually incarcerated at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., among other institutions.[1]
While in prison, Musa converted to orthodox Islam. Musa suported the 1979 Iranian revolution, believing that it would lead to the revival of Islam.[1]
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Musa publicly expressed his support for the Islamic Republic and its leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Since the early 1980s he made several visits to Iran as a representative of Muslims in the United States and a supporter of the Islamic revival. He made connections with a wide array of Muslim leaders during the decade - both Sunni and Shia - and stressed that unity was a primary objective for the Islamic movements success. His references the writings of Malcolm X, Ayatollah Khomeini, Sayyid Qutb, Maulana Maududi, and Kalim Siddiqui. New members of the group are encouraged to individually familiarize themselves with the works of these political Islamic thinkers in addition to daily classes and lectures on classical Islamic studies, Arabic, hadith and Quran.
[edit] Antisemitism
According to the Anti-Defamation League, Musa "propagates a radical and anti-Semitic ideology." They quote him as saying “Who ran the slave trade…who funded [it]? You’ll study and you will find out: the Jews…It was the Jewish bankers…in Vienna, with pockets full of money, funding and insuring, that’s who did it…. you can’t tell us about no holocaust. Between the African Americans and the Native Americans, everybody else’s stuff was small potatoes.” [2]
According to Benjamin Ginsberg, student groups The Associated Students of the University of Washignton and the Black Students Commission sponsored "a vehemently Anti-semitic" speech by Musa, in which he asserted that America was controlled by Jews and that "Yahuds are the enemy of humanity." [3]
Critics have suggested that he promotes anti-Semitism in his speeches, which he defends are directed at Zionist supporters of Israel and not at Jewish people in general, although some of his statements suggest otherwise, such as: “Al-Amin [a convicted murderer] …turned his ideas, his belief in Islam, into practical solutions for society. And they can’t stand that. Just like our brother said: the Zionist are the same today as they was then. In those days [in Arabia before the ascendance of Islam] they controlled the liquor market in Madina… and the Zionists kept the Arab leaders broke and drunk…the yahud [Jew, in Arabic] were seating back and had each one of them [Arab clans] fighting each other because the leaders was both drunken and they was all in owe (sic) to the same Yahud… he was manipulating the Arabs…then Islam came [and abolished riba, or interest]."[4]
[edit] Recent Activities
During a rally in July 1999 Musa displayed a cashier's check made out to "Hamas, Palestine," to protest the 1996 U.S. law which declared Hamas a terrorist organization.[5] Musa said that "I would love to have a case in court with the FBI. I would love for them to arrest me on any trumped-up charges." Musa later commented that "I tried to get a case several years ago. We had a demonstration. I waved a check for Hamas, cashier's check, by the way. And I said, 'I'm donating this to Hamas.' Then I waited for them to arrest me. They didn't arrest me. So I put the thing back in the bank."[1]
At the January 21, 2001 event titled Shaping Our Perspective: Our Role in a Changing World, sponsored by Muslim Students Association at UCLA, Musa is quoted as stating: "If you were to say that the Soviet Union was wiped off the face of the earth . . . people would have thought you were crazy, right? The people of Afghanistan didn’t have the intellect or historical knowledge to know that they wasn’t supposed to wipe out the Soviet Union, is that right? . . . We saw the fall of one so-called superpower, Old Sam (the United States) is next."[citation needed]
On October 6, 2002 he spoke on Muhammad's model of leadership and its modern applications at the ICIT Seerah Conference in Sri Lanka.[6] On July 7, 2000 Musa, while in the company of his wife and daughter, witnessed the Metropolitan Police (Washington, DC) beating a citizen. He attempted to intervene by approaching the officers and telling them to stop. They continued until Musa grabbed one of the officers and was consequently arrested for assaulting the police. He spent two nights in jail before appearing before a judge on July 10. In court, the police reduced the charge against him to a misdemeanor.[7]
Musa has made a number of controversial statements:
Zionist American agents blew up the World Trade Center;
Palestinian suicide bombers are heroes;
the U.S. government saturated U.S. cities with heroin in the 1960s to snuff out blacks' rebellion;
that the United States should become an Islamic state[1]
In a video aired by Fox News, Musa stated, from behind a podium at the University of California at Irvine on Sept. 9, 2001, that "If you don't stay out of our way and leave us alone, we're going to burn America down." Musa later stated that he was simply paraphrasing Jamil Al-Amin, formerly H. Rap Brown, a prominent Black Panther in the 1960s. Musa never threatened to burn the United States down, according to a longer video and transcript of the speech posted on the Web site of the The Investigative Project.[8] [1]
Musa has stated that "the American ship is going down. And it's clowns like that [President George W. Bush] that's driving it down. We don't have to do nothing. Just step back, pray, fast, do good deeds, and stuff like that. And let that guy go. . . . When he finishes, nobody will love, nobody will trust, and nobody will believe anything coming from the United States of America."[1]
[edit] Banning from the UK
In April 2009 Musa's name was released to the press as one of 22 people banned from entering the United Kingdom in October 2008. The UK government said this was due to him being "Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by fomenting and glorifying terrorist violence in furtherance of his particular beliefs and seeking to provoke others to terrorist acts." [9][10]
-
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=33638
The Fate of Rifqa Bary
by John Guandolo
Posted 09/22/2009 ET
Fathima Rifqa Bary may not be a household name to most Americans, but she may soon be the international symbol of society’s willful blindness to the dangers of Islamic radicalism already present.
Bary, a seventeen year-old high school student who previously lived in the Columbus, Ohio area, is of Sri Lankan decent and was raised in a Muslim home with her family in Ohio. Over the last few years, Rifqa, as she is known among friends, was introduced to and chose to secretly convert to Christianity.
During this summer, she saw growing threats to her safety developing within her family and within the local Muslim community of Columbus, and she fled Ohio to Florida, taking refuge with a pastor and his wife. Rifqa Bary is a minor who continues to reside in Florida following the ruling of a Florida judge until further investigations can be conducted.
This case has become a significant matter for both Ohio and Florida officials who are required to uphold the law and promote justice within the legal systems of the respective states. In doing so, all parties involved are required to take an unconstrained look at the facts of the matter in order to make objective and lawful decisions about the fate of this young American girl.
The facts are these: (1) Rifqa Bary left Islam and converted to Christianity; (2) Ms. Bary has provided statements to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) that her parents and others have threatened her life because she left Islam; (3) Ms. Bary claims there are requirements in Islamic Law calling for her killing as an apostate; (4) a due diligence search reveals authoritative English translations of Islamic Law are available to investigators seeking to review it; (5) a review of Islamic Law reveals there are requirements and rules as to how apostates from Islam are to be dealt with (for instance, see The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, "Umdat al-Salik" also known as "Reliance of the Traveller" -- publicly available in English); and (6) Rifqa Bary’s parents appear to adhere to Islamic Law -- which is considered the “law of the land” in Islamic communities.
An objective and fact-based analysis of this information logically and necessarily will lead to the conclusion that further investigation into this matter is required. However, no such reviews or investigations have been conducted to date into the facts of the matter as described above. Since these facts are ascertainable and knowable, the question must be asked: “Why do law enforcement entities and prosecutors in Florida not understand this?”
Have they, and we as a society, lost the ability to take an unconstrained look at objective facts and make decisions based on these facts?
Rifqa Bary’s parents directly told FDLE officials investigating the threat allegations there are no provisions in Islamic Law for “honor killings” for apostasy. This statement seems to have been taken at face value without a due diligence effort to discover the knowable facts about this matter.
The issues of “honor killings” and apostates -- those who leave Islam -- are discussed in detail within Islamic Law, and are two different subjects that should not be confused. While it appears the phrase “honor killing” has been most prevalent in media and web reports on this matter, Rifqa Bary’s issue revolves around her decision to leave Islam, which has now been publicly declared -- making her an apostate under Islamic Law, which prescribes the penalty of death. “Honor killings” -- a different Islamic concept -- applies to the public misbehavior of women. So Bary’s family is correct: there are no “honor killings” of apostates: their death penalty is separately imposed and automatically so.
Further complicating this matter is the fact that the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Columbus (Ohio) and the Staff Attorney for CAIR were present during the interview of Mr. Bary by FDLE Investigators. This raises serious questions since the FDLE report was silent on the fact that CAIR is a known Muslim Brotherhood entity and an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history - the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, which proved HLF is a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States. The Muslim Brotherhood's (MB) creed is "Allah is our goal; the Messenger is our guide: the Koran is our constitution; Jihad is our means; and martyrdom in the way of Allah is our highest inspiration," and their stated objective in America is a "Civilization-Jihad" to destroy the United States from within in order to implement Islamic Law here.
All of these material facts are relevant for two critical reasons. First, they should be made known to all officials involved in this case as a matter of course. Secondly, it raises the question as to why law enforcement officials would allow the CAIR officials into the interview at all, in light of the fact they represent an organization objectively known to be hostile towards to the United States and unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history. A review of the Muslim Brotherhood writings and approved Islamic legal texts also reveals the MB has strong positions on how apostates from Islam should be dealt with, and the requirements of Islam in these matters.
Apostasy is specifically addressed in Peace and the Limits of War, written by Louay Safi, the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of North America's (ISNA) Leadership Development Council. ISNA is a known Muslim Brotherhood entity and is an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history - HLF. Safi is also the former Executive Director of IIIT (Malaysia) and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists -- both known Muslim Brotherhood entities. The book was published by IIIT and was approved by the Secretary General of ISNA. In it, Mr. Safi notes that individual apostates cannot be killed for a "quiet desertion of personal Islamic duties," but can be put to death as "just punishment" when the apostate deserts Islam publicly (p. 31).
As a matter of professional responsibility, anyone investigating this matter must seek out and understand these facts, and must remain open-minded in conducting an unconstrained analysis of these facts. That is the professional responsibility of all men and women who are charged with the duties within the ranks of law enforcement, as well as those charged with prosecuting violations of U.S. and state law. We take an oath to the Constitution which binds us to these duties, and we must be faithful to this oath. Truth must prevail.
Mr. Guandolo is a 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a former active duty Infantry/Reconnaissance Officer in the United States Marine Corps, and a former Special Agent of the FBI in Washington, D.C. for over 12 years. He currently advises the government on a variety of issues.
-
Six months into his stint as a guard at Guantánamo, Terry Holdbrooks converted to Islam. What made him do it, asks Sarfraz Manzoor
Sarfraz Manzoor
The Guardian
Wednesday 7 October 2009
Terry Holdbrooks arrived at Guantánamo detention camp in the summer of 2003 as a godless 19-year-old with a love of drinking, hard rock music and tattoos. By the time he left Cuba the following year, he had alienated his army colleagues, won the respect of the detainees and, most astonishingly, converted to Islam in a midnight ceremony in the presence of one of the detainees, who had become his mentor.
When I meet Holdbrooks, now 26 and named Mustafa Abdullah, he is wearing a black Muslim cap, a thick beard and long-sleeved traditional robes that almost obscure the tattoo on his right arm that reads "by demons be driven".
Holdbrooks grew up in Arizona, the only son of junkie parents who split up when he was seven years old. He was raised by his ex-hippie grandparents. Tired of being poor, determined not to follow in his parents' footsteps and keen to see the world, Holdbrooks signed up for the military. He was stationed with the 253rd Military Police Company, mostly doing administrative support work, when he was told he was to be deployed to Guantánamo.
During a two-week training course, the new guards took it in turns to act as detainees, and were also taken to Ground Zero. "We were not taught anything about Islam," he says. "We were shown videos of 11 September and all we kept being told was that the detainees were the worst of the worst – they were Bin Laden's drivers, Bin Laden's cooks, and these people will kill you the first chance they get."
Holdbrooks skims over the words, as if he is quoting from his forthcoming memoir, Traitor? "I was questioning things from day one," he says. "The first thing I saw was a kid who is all of 16 who had never seen the ocean, didn't know the world was round. I am sitting there thinking, what can he possibly know about the war on terror, what could he possibly know?"
Holdbrooks' duties at Guantánamo including cleaning, collecting rubbish, walking up and down the block to ensure detainees weren't passing anything between cells and ferrying them to and from interrogations. There were plenty of opportunities for communication. Holdbrooks's friendliness towards the detainees – they called him "the nice guard" – earned him unwelcome attention from his fellow guards.
"I didn't have a very high impression of my colleagues," he says. Many of them were "ridiculous Budweiser-drinking, cornbread-fed, tobacco-chewing drunks, racists and bigots" who blindly followed orders, and within months he had stopped talking to them altogether. There were frequent physical altercations: "One time one of them said to me, 'Hey, Holdbrooks, you know what we are going to do today? We are going to skull-fuck the Taliban out of you – you're a sympathiser and we don't like that." That led to another fist fight."
While the guards indulged in alcohol, porn and sports, Holdbrooks says he needed to learn how the detainees could endure abuse and still smile, while he was utterly miserable.
"I knew nothing about Islam prior to Guantánamo," he says, "so this was a complete culture shock to me. I wanted to learn as much I could, so I started talking to the detainees about politics, ethics and morals, and about their lives and cultural differences – we would talk all the time." What began as curiosity turned to disciplined study, with Holdbrooks spending at least an hour a day learning about Islam and talking in chatrooms online. Among those he talked to were the Tipton trio of British Muslims who featured in Michael Winterbottom's docudrama, The Road to Guantánamo; another was a man the other detainees referred to as the General – Moroccan-born Ahmed Errachidi, who had lived in Britain for 18 years, working as a chef, and spent five and a half years in Guantánamo accused of attending al-Qaida training camps. (He was later released and cleared of any wrongdoing.)
"We'd talk for hours and hours," Holdbrooks says. "We'd talk about books, about music, about philosophy: we would stay up all night and talk about religion."
Finally, six months into his time at Guantánamo, Holdbrooks was ready. On 29 December 2003, in the presence of Errachidi, he repeated the shahada, the statement of faith that is the sole requirement for converting to Islam: "There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet". The Guantánamo guard was now a Muslim.
He stopped drinking and even gave up music, because his interpretation of Islam suggested that this, too, was unacceptable. "It was not easy praying five times a day without my colleagues finding out," he says. "I told them I had to go the bathroom a lot."
Converting to Islam made Holdbrooks even more unhappy about his work – he felt he was worse off than the detainees. "They were having a lot more fun than I was. The Tipton trio were always playing tricks on the guards and the interrogators. The detainees had a lot of freedom in their confinement: I had all the freedoms they didn't have, but I was a slave to what the army wanted me to do."
This claim sounds implausible, but Holdbrooks says he is referring to their freedom of thought: he was impressed by the independence he saw in the detainees, compared to his fellow guards. This still seems a rather self-pitying analysis, particularly when he goes on to describe how he had seen detainees being tortured. "It was my job to take prisoners to interrogations, so sometimes I would sit and watch," he says. "I would see detainees who would be locked up for hours in horrible positions – for hours upon hours upon hours, in a room that might be 50 degrees or 60 degrees.
"There was one man who had defecated on himself and this ogre of an interrogator would douse water on him and then ask him if he was going to talk, and he would say he had nothing to talk about, and I remember thinking, what good is this going to accomplish? You cannot abuse and torture people and expect to get results that are accurate and credible."
In the summer of 2004, Holdbrooks left Guantánamo and was later discharged from the army on the grounds of a "general personality disorder". The alcohol problem that had plagued him before enlisting returned, and when his marriage dissolved, he sought solace in the old comforts of drinking, casual sex and music. "I was having nightmares about my time in Guantánamo," he says, "and I spent the best part of three years just trying to drink Guantánamo out of my mind."
Today, Holdbrooks is a practising Muslim again, but he does not seem to be at peace. There is a blankness in his gaze that hints at the scars his childhood and Guantánamo have left on him.
Why had this hard-living Arizona boy embraced Islam? The question needles me throughout our conversation. It is only when, towards the end, Holdbrooks reveals that his favourite words are "structure", "order" and "discipline" that the pieces fall into place. Holdbrooks's life had been a search for order: the regimentation of army life had appeared to offer structure, and when it let him down, he turned to religion.
Holdbrooks has more in common with his former colleagues than he realises: their allegiance to the army is matched by his adherence to faith. "Islam is a very disciplined, regimented faith and it requires a great deal of effort and conviction," he says. "I've had an unbelievable fascination with structure and order for as long as I can remember: structure, order and discipline – I just love them."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...namo-bay-islam
-
Sent to me by a friend:
============
The office of the Governor in FL : 850-488-4441 Please call and tell them you're asking the Governor to stop Rifqa from being taken out of the state.
Here is latest on the story from Pamela Geller - it is sickening:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/10/rifqa-barys-interview-with-florida-law-enforcement.html
-
Imam Who Led Radical Islam Group Killed in FBI Raid
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feds: Imam Who Led Radical Islam Group Killed in FBI Raid
DETROIT — A man described as a leader of a radical Sunni Islam group in the U.S. was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon while resisting arrest and exchanging gunfire with federal agents, authorities said.
Agents at a warehouse in Dearborn were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Ten followers listed in a criminal complaint were also being rounded up in the area.
Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents, FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said.
In a court filing, the FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam of a Black Muslim radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the United States.
No one was charged with terrorism. But Abdullah was "advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States," FBI agent Gary Leone said in an affidavit.
"He regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric," Leone said. "Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms, and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting."
Leone said members of the national group mostly are black and some converted to Islam while in prisons across the United States.
"Abdullah preaches that every Muslim should have a weapon, and should not be scared to use their weapon when needed," Leone wrote.
It was not immediately clear how many of the other 10 suspects were in custody.
The group believes that a separate Islamic state in the U.S. would be controlled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado for shooting two police officers in Georgia in 2000, Leone said. Al-Amin, a veteran of the black power movement, started the group after he converted to Islam in prison.
"They're not taking their cues from overseas," said Jimmy Jones, a professor of world religions at Manhattanville College and a longtime Muslim prison chaplain. "This group is very much American born and bred."
The movement at one time was believed to include a couple of dozen mosques around the country. Ummah is now dwarfed in numbers and influence by other African-American Muslim groups, particularly the mainstream Sunnis who were led by Imam W.D. Mohammed, who recently died.
By evening, authorities still were working the scene near the Detroit-Dearborn border and the warehouse was surrounded by police tape.
The U.S. attorney's office said an FBI dog was also killed during the shootout.
Abdullah's mosque is in a brick duplex on a quiet, residential street in Detroit. A sign on the door in English and Arabic reads, in part, "There is no God but Allah."
Several men congregated on the porch Wednesday night and subsequently attacked a photographer from The Detroit News who was taking pictures from across the street. Ricardo Thomas had his camera equipment smashed and had a bloody lip from the attack.
Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, said the FBI had briefed him about Wednesday's raids and told him they were the result of a two-year investigation.
"We know that this is not something to be projected as something against Muslims," Hamad said.
-
October 28, 2009 http://detnews.com/article/20091028/METRO/910280436
Detroit mosque leader killed in FBI raids
PAUL EGAN
The Detroit News
Detroit -- The leader of a Detroit mosque who allegedly espoused violence and separatism was shot and killed Wednesday in an FBI gun battle at a Dearborn warehouse.
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, was being arrested on a raft of federal charges including conspiracy, receipt of stolen goods, and firearms offenses.
Charges were also filed against 11 of Abdullah's followers. Eight were in custody Wednesday night awaiting detention hearings today; three remained at large.
A federal complaint filed Wednesday identified Abdullah, 53, also known as Christopher Thomas, as "a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group." His black Muslim group calls itself "Ummah," or the brotherhood, and wants to establish a separate state within the United States governed by Sharia law, Interim U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg and Andrew Arena, FBI special agent in charge in Detroit, said in a joint statement.
"He regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric," an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit. "Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms, and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting."
The Ummah is headed nationally by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a state sentence for the murder of two police officers in Georgia.
Early Wednesday afternoon, FBI agents and local police from the Joint Terrorism Task Force surrounded a warehouse and trucking firm on Miller Road near Michigan Avenue where Abdullah and four of his followers were hiding, said Special Agent Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Detroit.
When agents entered the warehouse, four of the men obeyed orders to surrender but Abdullah opened fire and was shot to death, Berchtold said. An FBI dog was also shot and killed, she said.
Through a 45-page complaint filed in the case alleges Abdullah "calls his followers to an offensive jihad" and preaches that every Muslim should "have a weapon and should not be scared to use their weapon when needed," charges in the case to not include terrorism or national security crimes.
The complaint further alleged that an armed group known as the "Sutra team" protected the mosque.
In January, when members were evicted from a building on Joy Road for non-payment of property taxes, Detroit police confiscated two firearms, about 40 knives and martial arts weapons from Abdullah's apartment, the complaint alleged.
The mosque then relocated to Clairmount in Detroit, the complaint says.
According to the complaint, Abdullah told an informant that if the FBI came to get him: "I'll just strap a bomb on and blow up everybody." On another occasion, he said: "We've got to take out the U.S. government," the complaint alleges.
David Nu'man of Detroit, who considered himself a friend of Abdullah, said he is skeptical about the allegations.
"It doesn't seem to be of his character," said Nu'man, who had attended the mosque on Joy Road but was not a member.
Ihsan Bagby, the general secretary of the Muslim Alliance of North America, said Abdullah was a member of the Lexington, K.Y. based group, and his shooting shocked the African American Muslim community nationwide.
"We want to know what happened," said Bagby. "We had no inkling of any kind of criminal activity. This is a complete shock to all of us."
The others charged are:
Mohammad Abdul Salaam, also known as Gregory Stone, 45, of Detroit with conspiracy to commit federal crimes and sale or receipt of stolen goods.
Abdullah Beard, also known as Detric Lamont Driver, 37, of Detroit with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
Abdul Saboor, also known as Dwayne Edward Davis, 37, of Detroit with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
Mujahid Carswell, also known as Mujahid Abdullah, 30, of Detroit and Ontario, Canada, with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
Adam Ibraheem, 38, of Detroit with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
Gary Laverne Porter, 59, of Detroit with conspiracy to commit federal crimes and possession of firearms by a convicted felon.
Ali Abdul Raqib, 57, of Detroit with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
Mohammad Alsahi, also known as Mohammad Palestine, 33, of Ontario, Canada, with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
Yassir Ali Khan, 30, of Ontario, Canada, and Warren, with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.
Mohammad Abdul Bassir, also known as Franklin D. Roosevelt Williams, 50, of Ojibway Correctional Facility with conspiracy to commit federal crimes, sale or receipt of stolen goods, mail fraud, supplying firearms to felons, possession of weapons by a felon, and altering or removing motor vehicle identification numbers.
A.C. Pusha, charged in a separate complaint late Wednesday with conspiracy to receive and sell stolen goods.
Salaam, Saboor, Porter, Beard, Ibraheem, Raqib, and Pusha all appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit late Wednesday afternoon. Bassir is in state custody. Others charged are still at large.
Prior to the gunfight in Dearborn, the FBI executed search warrants at 4467 Tireman and 9278 Genesee in Detroit, officials said.
Yellow police tape was put up outside the Dearborn warehouse and a Dearborn police car was parked outside.
pegan@detnews.com">pegan@detnews.com (313) 222-2069 David Josar, Charlie LeDuff, Oralandar Brand-Williams and George Hunter contributed.
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/arizona-police-hunt-for-dad.html
Arizona: Muslim ran down daughter for being "too Westernized," Islamic apologist hauls out usual denial and deception
Denial and deception instead of any honest effort to come to grips with the root causes of honor killing. "Arizona Police Hunt for Dad Accused of Running Over Daughter: Police Say Faleh Hassan Almaleki Believed His Daughter Was 'Too Westernized,'" by Sarah Netter for ABC News, October 22 (thanks to James):
Police in Arizona are hunting for an Iraqi-American father who they say ran over his daughter with his car to punish her for becoming "too Westernized" and rebuffing the conservative ways he valued.
Memo to ABC News: "conservatives" don't generally run over their daughters with their cars for any reason at all.
Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, was last seen fleeing the parking lot of the Department of Economic Development in Peoria, Ariz., Tuesday after hitting his 20-year-old daughter and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Noor Faleh Almaleki is in "life-threatening condition," Peoria Police spokesman Mike Tellef told ABCNews.com today. Her boyfriend's mother, 43-year-old Amal Edan Khalaf, is also still hospitalized, but with non-life threatening injuries. "It occured because her not following traditional family values. We've been told that by everybody," Tellef said. "He felt she was becoming too westernized and he didn't like that." [...]
Not "traditional family values." Western non-Muslims who adhere to "traditional family values" do not generally run down their wayward daughters with their cars.
Noor Almaleki had backed out of an arranged marriage about a year ago, police learned, and had been living with Khalaf and her son in a nearby town.
Tellef said the young woman dressed in American clothing and was wearing typical Western attire when she was struck.
The family were all American citizens, though Tallef believes the parents were born in Iraq.
He said it was unclear if Faleh Almaleki intended to kill his daughter, but "it was definitely intentional that he ran them down." [...]
While Tellef had heard of so-called "honor killings" in other parts of the United States, this was the first such crime in Peoria.
Ibrahim Ramey, human and civil rights director for the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, told ABCNews.com that whenever this type of crime involves a Muslim it can serve to elevate the fears of people who may already harbor misconceptions about Islam.
Typical denial and deception.
In the first place, what is the Muslim American Society?
"In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members." -- Chicago Tribune, 2004.
And what is the Muslim Brotherhood?
The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.
And secondly, instead of worrying about people getting "misconceptions of Islam," he should be working in the Islamic community to root out the assumptions that lead to honor killing. But you'll notice that he says nothing about that.
"It's reprehensible," he said of honor killings. "It's wrong."
Ramey pointed out that a verse in the Koran specifically states that there is no compulsion in religion, meaning that people can not be compelled or coerced into being Muslim or adhering to a certain set of rules.
"People have to obey or adhere to Islam ... according to the dictates of their own conscience," he said.
Yet despite the fact that Koran 2:256 -- "There is no compulsion in religion" -- is in the Koran, honor killing is broadly tolerated in the Islamic world. No one, of course, dares to confront the root of the problem by pointing out such inconvenient truths as the fact that a manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).
In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In accord with this, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."
Then this ABC story drags in Rifqa Bary:
Honor Killings Unfairly Cast Negative Light on Islam
The notion of an honor killing -- Muslim men murdering female relatives for dishonoring the family by violating Islamic tenets -- made the news over the summer when 17-year-old Rifqa Bary ran away from her parents in Ohio and turned up in the Florida home of Christian pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz. Rafqa Barry [sic] claimed that her Muslim father had threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity.
Rifqa made tearful television appearance, crying on the Lorenzes shoulders, describing how she had to sneak around to attend church.
"They have to kill me because I'm a Christian. It's an honor [killing]. If they love me more than God, then they have to kill me," she told ABC's Orlando affiliate WFTV last month.
Blake Lorenz pointed to other honor killings, including the January 2008 murders of two Texas sisters who were believed to have been murdered by their Muslim father in a religion-fueld [sic] rage.
But Rifqa's father, Mohamed Bary, denied the accusation and said that while he preferred his daughter be a Muslim, she was free to practice whatever religion she chose.
"I don't believe my daughter would say this," Bary told "Good Morning America." "She's completely being coached -- I mean trained, influenced by these people. It's so sad."
An assertion without evidence, contradicted by the fact that she was a Christian for several years before she met those who allegedly coached her.
A Florida judge this month said he planned to send Rifqa back to Ohio after determining there was no evidence that her life was in danger.
See here for the facts.
Ramey said it's expected that incidents such as these will cause some backlash against the Muslim community, especially among Americans who have become fearful of Islam in the years since the war on terror and conflicts in places like Somalia.
But they can also open a door for discussion and questions so the community can understand that Islam is not a violent religion.
"It's certainly not part of the religion," he said," to run people down with vehicles."
That is merely a statement about the manner of killing, not about the killing itself.
-
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YjVmN2E4MjQwZTZkMDgyNTZiMTIxNzhjYzcxZTAxNzI=
As usual, Mark Steyn is exactly right.
-
Irshad Manji - a fairly well know ( at least in Canada) Canadian-Pakistani Lesbian Muslim Journalist
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/lets-analyze-fort-hood-not-sanitize-it/article1357062/
--------------------------------------------------
Irshad Manji
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, Nov. 09, 2009 5:35PM EST
Last updated on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 4:09AM EST
.Only hours after news broke of a mass shooting at Fort Hood, the largest military base in the United States, I began receiving e-mails from agonized Americans. “What does it mean that the suspect has a Muslim name?” asked one.
“Does it matter that he seems to be a Muslim?” asked another. Overnight, more such messages poured in, their tone being confused instead of confrontational.
The fact that these Americans are posing questions rather than rushing to judgment is a sign they're not all bigots. They're genuinely wrestling with how to react beyond immediate shock and grief.
The grappling surely intensified after reports that Major Nidal Malik Hasan visited radical Islamist websites, chatted approvingly of suicide bombers and shouted “Allahu akbar” as he let loose on comrades. Video of him roaming a convenience store in traditional Arab garb, days after having told the store clerk he didn't want to fight fellow Muslims, offers another reason to reflect on the role of religious affinity.
Let's be clear: If an alleged criminal merely happens to be a Muslim, then religion may well be immaterial. But if his crime is committed in the name of Islam, then religion serves to motivate. In that case, the suspect's Muslim identity absolutely matters. Words, gestures and images should be analyzed – fully, openly and honestly.
Not just in America. Three years ago, police arrested young Muslim Canadians for reportedly plotting to blow up Parliament and behead the PM. The Toronto 17, soon to number 18, dubbed their campaign Operation Badr. This refers to the Battle of Badr, the first decisive military victory achieved by the Prophet Mohammed and his ragtag followers, who were outmanned and outarmed by the other side.
The seventh-century story of triumph against all odds is the stuff of legend in Islam – proof, we Muslims are often reminded, that God intended the Prophet to be a warrior and not merely a statesman. As Iranians could attest during their war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Badr provides potent religious inspiration to generations of Muslim soldiers the world over.
Admittedly, this is uncomfortable for millions of Canadians to hear. So uncomfortable that, on arresting the Toronto 17, police didn't once refer to “Islam” or “Muslims” during a press briefing. At a second presser, police boasted about avoiding the words “Islam” and “Muslims.” They characterized their omission as an exercise in sensitivity. I considered it an exercise in denial about the role of religion in the alleged plot.
Later, when I raised my concern at an RCMP conference on communication, assorted staff and members of the force confided that their lawyers prevented them from mentioning the offending words.
Of course, Canada is hardly alone in avoiding this most public of questions. Some European countries are electing ultra-right politicians precisely because mainstream elites fear touching the “Muslim problem,” thereby creating a vacuum for vulgar populists to fill.
Media are among the worst culprits. In the wake of the 2005 London transit bombings, respectable journalists repeatedly quoted ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan railing against British foreign policy. But, in the same video, he emphasized that “Islam is our religion” and “the Prophet is our role model.” Tellingly, he made these statements before bringing up the invasion of Iraq.
Religious mythology also manifests in unexpected ways. Consider Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch-born Moroccan Muslim who murdered artist-turned-satirist Theo van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam in 2004. Mr. Bouyeri pumped several bullets into Mr. van Gogh's body. Knowing this would be enough to finish him off, why didn't he stop there? Why did he pull out a blade to decapitate Mr. van Gogh?
Yet again, we must face the religious dimension. The blade – or sword – is an implement associated with seventh-century tribal warfare. Using it thus becomes a tribute to the founding moment of Islam. Even the note stabbed into Mr. van Gogh's body, though scrawled in Dutch, had the unmistakable rhythms of Arabic poetry. Small wonder that, at his trial, Mr. Bouyeri proudly confessed to being animated by “religious conviction.”
The past few days have revealed much about the complex Major Hasan: a patriotic American dissenter, a brooding recluse, yet a kind neighbour, occasionally taunted by fellow soldiers but more frequently haunted by his conscience and the religious direction in which it turned. While we should be careful not to reduce the story to Islam, let us be equally alert not to erase Islam altogether. Understanding is served by analyzing, not sanitizing.
Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble with Islam Today, is a scholar with New York University and the European Foundation for Democracy.
-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/irshad-manji-islams-marked-woman-562225.html
Irshad Manji: Islam's marked woman
Irshad Manji is a lesbian Muslim who says her religion is stuck in the Middle Ages. The outspoken author tells Johann Hari how she became a target for assassination
Wednesday, 5 May 2004
The death threats began six months ago. One morning,Irshad Manji opened her e-mail and read the first ofmany pledges to kill her. "It contained some prettyconcrete details that showed a lot of thought had beenput into the death-threat," she explains now,unblinking. She can't say how many she's received -"The police tell me not to talk about this stuff" -but she admits that "they are becoming pretty up-closeand personal."
"One story that I can tell you," she says, "a storythat I have the permission from the police to tellyou, is that I was in an airport in North Americarecently and somebody at the airport recognised me. Ihad a conversation with them. While I was engaged inconversation with a very portly, very sweetfifty-something man and his wife, an Arab guy came upto my travel companion and said, 'You are luckier thanyour friend.' As a nice polite Canadian she asked,'What do you mean?' and he didn't say anything. Heturned his hand in to the shape of a gun and he pulledthe make-believe trigger towards my head. She didn'tknow what to make of this, so she asked him to clarifyhis intentions. He said 'Not now, you will find outlater,' and then he was gone."
**Gee, I wonder if the "I" word has anything to do with the motivations of those that threaten Ms. Manji. Let's not rush to judgement.**
-
Fitzgerald: Irshad Manji, Islam, and mental illness
Some keep telling us that Nidal Malik Hasan's act "had nothing to do with being a Muslim." And there is a variant on this, used by those who, though they may have reservations about Islam, offer us a false alternative. One such Offeror of False Alternatives is that publicity-hound the henna-haired Irshad Manji, Brave Young Reformer Of Islam, who "speaks truth to (Muslim) power etc. etc." and who should never be confused with the real, full-fledged, non-apologist apostates, though she keeps being confused with them, a confusion she encourages.
This is what Irshad Manji has posted at her blog:
You've probably heard about the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas - America's biggest military base. The main suspect has a Muslim name. Does this matter? If he did it in the name of Islam, then religion is a motivation. In that case, his Muslim identity is relevant. But if he did it out of other motives - say, mental illness - then his Muslim ID means nothing. That's my take. Yours?
Notice how she has set this up.
This man, this "main suspect," "has a Muslim name." Is that really the only thing that with such studied casualness connects this man to Islam, and not his ever-present Qur'an, not his history, over several years, of publicly denouncing Infidels and otherwise showing his deep devotion to the most bloodcurdling parts - see Sura 9 - of the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the Sira, not his postings on the Internet about killing 100 Infidel soldiers, not anything at all except that "Muslim name"?
Did he do it out of some quite unspecified Muslim motive? Or was his "motive"--not exactly a correct use of English, but perhaps we are expecting too much from the excitable likes of Irshad Manji - "mental illness"?
But isn't there a third possibility? Even if you do not accept what I insist makes the most sense - to see this killer as a Muslim intent on Jihad - there is another way to look at this. Nidal Hasan was unwilling to use other, less violent means to conduct Jihad in this country, for now, given the balance of forces and the far greater apprehension, by Muslims, that the Infidels in this country are not quite as yielding as those in the countries of Western Europe have proved so far (but for how long?) to be. But if you wish, for the sake of argument or out of belief, to think that Nidal Hasan was unusually ferocious in his fervor, more than many Muslims, so that you might wish to console yourself with at least a nod to "depression" or "mental illness" or some such, that is really no consolation at all. In fact, given that in modern industrial societies a great many people suffer from Durkheimian anomie and economic insecurity and loneliness, and so on, given that a great many people at any one time suffer from depression, should we not ask ourselves instead a different question? And that question is: what happens when a non-Muslim becomes depressed, and what happens when a Muslim, living within a society of non-Muslims, becomes depressed?
I have written about this before many times, and choose here simply to repost a piece - "Fitzgerald: Anything To Do With Terrorism?" that appeared here two years ago:
There has been much discussion lately of whether or not this or that case has anything to do with "terrorism." The Salt Lake mall shooter and the Nashville would-be murderer by taxicab spring immediately to mind. The word "terrorism" may not quite fit if the FBI takes it to mean some kind of organized conspiracy, something done by a group. What should be made clear is that Islam supplies a pre-fabricated mental grid or, to vary the metaphor, a prism through which to view the universe. And on that grid, or through that prism, there is always an Identifiable Enemy, and that Enemy is Always the Infidel.
Feeling bad? Feeling blue? Feeling things aren't going right for you? It happens to all of us. We blame our parents, our siblings, our children, The System, Amerika with a "k," Capitalism, fate, the stars, our serotonin level, our cholesterol level. Even, at times, we may blame ourselves. That's if you are an ordinary Infidel.
What if you are a Muslim? You don't have to blame your parents, your siblings, or anyone or anything else except: the Infidel. And you don't need to be part of Al-Qaeda, or Islamic Jihad, or Jaish-e-Muhammad. You don't even have to have been a faithful attender of a mosque. You can be Intel engineer "Mike" (Muhammad) Hawash, married to an American, with Little-League-attending children, earning $360,000 a year. And when the banality and boredom of life assails you, you can return to that Old-Time Religion, that is to Islam, and start reading, and re-reading, with the effects we all know, the Qur'an. Then you can light out for the territories, in this case those territories being Western China, and thence, you hope, to Afghanistan, in order to kill Americans. Yes, you are technically an "American" yourself, but the categories and the loyalties of the Infidel nation-state mean nothing to you: you are a Muslim, and that is the only Category that counts, Muslim as opposed to Infidel.
All that one need have asked in the case of Sulejman Talovic was why he went out to a mall, and not in a sudden mental raptus, and quietly and calmly proceeded to kill as many people as he could. Did he see it as killing Infidel after Infidel after Infidel? No one need have asked if he had a collaborator, to be guilty of violent Jihad. No one need have asked if he wrote it out. All one needed to do was find out what his worldview was: did he, or did he not, see the world as divided, as so many Muslims are taught to see it, between Believer and Infidel? Did FBI agents determine this before they dismissed "terrorism" in this case? The answer to that question is not known.
If FBI agents are still ignorant of Islam, then the country is endangered. Anyone running for President should assure us that he, or she, will make sure that "all of our security services, all of those who are in the army and the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. and the local police, will be fully informed of the nature of the ideology that menaces us, and does more than menace us." If you wish, if you don't dare utter the word "Islam," then call it "Islamism" or "fanatical Islam" or some other such term.
But more and more, those even in government have a duty to approach the truth asymptotically, so that the uninformed or insufficiently informed will come to locate, accurately, the menace for all Infidels in the immutable texts of Islam, not in the teachings supposed invented by the proponents of "Wahhabi" Islam, or of "Islamism," or of "extremist" Islam, but mainstream Islam.
And those who are not in government have no excuse for using terms such as "Islamism." No, those without official positions have a stark and unwavering duty not to add to the confusion that currently prevails among Americans and Westerners in general, but instead to constantly clarify whatever others at the moment may now deem necessary to obscure.
One may hope, of course, that they may deem this obscuring action to be necessary only on a temporary basis, if they are fully aware of the real, disturbing, frightening truth.
To Irshad Manji's false dichotomy - was it because he was mentally ill (was mental illness, in her comical solecism, the "motive"?), or because he was a Muslim? I think he met the definition of a fervent Muslim, convinced of the rightness of his beliefs and willing, as so many Muslims in other countries over many years have shown themselves willing, to act on them. They act upon them without delay and without calculating the possible consequences to the long-term interests of Islam, as its adherents are still in the process of establishing themselves in the Western world, and are hoping to continue to do so with no disruptions from Infidels waking from a deep dream of interfaith peace. But even if we were to grant - I don't - that he met the definition of "mentally ill," we must also look, as my 2007 article says, at the pre-fabricated mental grid, or rather the ideological prism through which the world is apprehended by Muslims, and in which world, the blameworthy are always the Infidels. You don't blame your parents, your siblings, your spouse, your children, fate, Amerikkka, The System, the stars, your serotonin level, your cholesterol level, the malfunctioning of your dopamine receptors. No, those possibilities are open to Infidels. But for you, the Muslim suffering mental disarray (that kind which does not come from being a Muslim, living in a non-Muslim society and furious that Muslims do not yet rule, and must smile, and be outwardly nice to Infidels, and appear to accept things that are contra naturam in your view, where Infidels still appear unafraid and even call most of the shots), your enemy is always and everywhere the Infidel.
And that is what Irshad Manji ignores. So do others who are trying to deflect attention from the perfectly explicable behavior of a deep Believer, not a "moderate" who has managed to ignore or pretend to ignore some or much of what Islam inculcates. Manji, by focusing on "mental illness," ignores the fact that such an explanation, for us, the potential victims of those Muslims who suffer depression or other forms of such mental illness, misses the point -- that such Muslims turn their fury, almost inevitably, on us, the undifferentiated enemy Infidels.
Given the high rates of mental illness in the modern industrialized world, that is no consolation at all.
-
Richard T. Antoun, a respected Binghamton University anthropology professor
who grew up in Shrewsbury, spent his entire career seeking peace. His work
focused on bridging the divide between religions and cultures, particularly
in the Middle East.
But the 77-year-old professor's life ended violently Friday when he was
stabbed multiple times in his campus office, allegedly by a graduate student
whom he was advising on his doctoral thesis.
The student, Abdulsalam S. al-Zahrani, 46, was from Saudi Arabia. Mr. Antoun
was serving on the dissertation committee for Mr. Zahrani's graduate thesis
and apparently had known him for quite some time, according to news reports.
The university's Web site says Mr. Zahrani's doctoral thesis is called
"Sacred Voice, Profane Sight: The Senses, Cosmology, and Epistemology in
Early Arabic Culture."
Mr. Zahrani was immediately arrested and charged with second-degree murder
and is being held without bail. The motive for the attack is unclear.
Linda Miller of Holden, Mr. Antoun's youngest sister, said she has many
positive memories of her brother, a man who strove for peace in all things.
"He was interested in bringing forth understanding between different
cultures and religions," she said. "He tried to explain and help people
understand current events, particularly in the Middle East."
Mr. Antoun was "a sociocultural anthropologist who has conducted research
among peasants in Jordan, urbanites in Lebanon, peasant-farmers in Iran, and
migrants in Texas and Greece," according to the Web site for Binghamton
University, which is part of the State University of New York system. He
taught at the University of Chicago, Manchester University in England and
Cairo University, according to his résumé, which is also posted on the site.
Mr. Antoun had written six books focusing on the Middle East, and spent much
of his long career educating people about the region and its people. His
2001 book, "Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Muslim and Jewish
Movements," was particularly timely, coming out just before the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He retired from teaching at Binghamton University
in 1999, but remained active on campus and within the anthropology
department.
Mrs. Miller said she last saw her brother in November, when he and his son
Nicholas stayed at the Holden home she shares with her husband, David. Mr.
Antoun and his son had dinner, and the next day attended a New England
Patriots game. It was a ritual they performed every year.
She last spoke to her brother on Thanksgiving.
"There is going to be a big hole," she said of his death. "I am bent on
keeping his memory alive."
Mr. Antoun returned to his hometown regularly to visit family and speak
about events in the Middle East.
Speaking in 2001 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Worcester, where
David Miller is minister emeritus, Mr. Antoun said that religious
fundamentalism thrives when a government fails to provide for its people.
"One reason fundamentalists are winning out is they are providing services
the government is not," he said. The only way Afghans obtained an education,
he said, was to go to a Taliban school, where they would not only receive an
Islamic education but were fed as well.
Mrs. Miller said her brother was scheduled to give a lecture at Assumption
College in the spring, part of a course being offered by Worcester Institute
for Senior Education. The course is called "Islam: Religion, History and
Culture, an Overview." Mr. Antoun was scheduled to speak about the role of
women in Islam, and then would be chairman of a panel discussion following
the course.
Born in Worcester, Mr. Antoun grew up in Shrewsbury, graduating from
Shrewsbury High School in 1949. He attended Williams College, and earned a
doctorate from Harvard University in 1963.
Mrs. Miller said her older brother had an unquenchable passion for baseball,
following the Boston Braves until they left for Milwaukee, and then the
Boston Red Sox. She remembers quizzing him for hours on the statistics
printed on the backs of his numerous baseball cards - information that never
left her and has helped her to solve countless crossword puzzles.
"He was an incredibly loving older brother, he nurtured me in that sense,"
she said. When she was in high school, he would pull her essays apart to
improve them. When she spent a semester abroad at 19, she went to Manchester
University in England in part because her older brother was teaching there.
"It's been a lifelong, supportive, happy relationship," she said.
He leaves behind his wife of 17 years, Rosalyn, as well as two of her sons,
his 40-year-old son, Nicholas, and their shared grandchildren.
A memorial service for Mr. Antoun will be held on Friday at the Unitarian
Universalist Church sanctuary in Binghamton, N.Y.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just google "Zahrani Emails" to get a picture of the motive. Another sudden jihadi.
-
Just goes to show how incredibly stupid those "Coexist" bumper stickers are.
-
New Cases Test Optimism on Extremism by U.S. Muslims
Sargodha Police Department, via Associated Press
The Americans arrested Wednesday in Pakistan were, from left, Waqar Khan, Ramy Zamzam, Umer Farooq, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, and Aman Hassan Yemer.
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 11, 2009
WASHINGTON — As the years passed after Sept. 11, 2001, without another major attack on American soil and with no sign of hidden terrorist cells, many counterterrorism specialists reached a comforting conclusion: Muslims in the United States were not very vulnerable to radicalization.
American Muslims, the reasoning went, were well assimilated in diverse communities with room for advancement. They showed little of the alienation often on display among their European counterparts, let alone attraction to extremist violence.
But with a rash of recent cases in which Americans have been accused of being drawn into terrorist scheming, the rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., last month and now the alarming account of five young Virginia men who went to Pakistan and are suspected of seeking jihad, the notion that the United States has some immunity against homegrown terrorists is coming under new scrutiny.
It is a concern that President Obama noted in passing in his address on the decision to send 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan, and one that has grown as the Afghan war and the hunt for Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan intensifies.
“These events certainly call the consensus into question,” said Robert S. Leiken, who studies terrorism at the Nixon Center, a Washington policy institute, and wrote the forthcoming book “Europe’s Angry Muslims.”
“The notion of a difference between Europe and United States remains relevant,” Mr. Leiken said. But the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the American operations like drone strikes in Pakistan, are fueling radicalization at home, he said.
“Just the length of U.S. involvement in these countries is provoking more Muslim Americans to react,” Mr. Leiken said.
Concern over the recent cases has profoundly affected Muslim organizations in the United States, which have renewed pledges to campaign against extremist thinking.
“Among leaders, there’s a recognition that there’s a challenge within our community that needs to be addressed,” said Alejandro J. Beutel, government liaison at the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington, and main author of a report by the council on radicalization and how to combat it.
Mr. Beutel, a Muslim convert from New Jersey, said the council started a grass-roots counterradicalization effort in 2005, but acknowledged that “for a while it was on the back burner.” He said, “Now we’re going to revive it.”
F.B.I. investigators were in Pakistan on Friday questioning the five Virginia men. But it remained unclear whether the men would be deported to the United States, and whether they had broken any laws in either Pakistan or the United States.
At a news conference Friday at the small Virginia mosque where the men had been youth group regulars, mosque officials expressed bewilderment at claims that the men wanted to join the jihad against American troops in Afghanistan.
“I never observed any extreme behavior from them,” said Mustafa Maryam, who runs the youth group and said he had known the young men since 2006. “They were fun-loving, career-focused children. They had a bright future before them.”
Also at the press briefing, asked about reports that the five men had contacted a Pakistani militant via the Web, Mahdi Bray, the head of the Freedom Foundation of the Muslim American Society, told reporters that YouTube and social networking sites had become a dangerous recruiting tool for militants.
“We are determined not to let religious extremists exploit the vulnerability of our children through this slick, seductive propaganda on the Internet,” said Mr. Bray, who is organizing a youth meeting later this month in Chicago to address the issue.
“Silence in cyberspace is not an option for us,” he said.
The detention of the Virginia men — ranging in age from late teens to mid-20s — would have prompted soul-searching no matter when it occurred. But it comes after a series of disturbing cases that already had terror experts speculating about a trend.
There were the November shootings that took 13 lives at Fort Hood, with murder charges pending against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim and an Army psychiatrist.
There was the arrest of Najibullah Zazi, born in Afghanistan but the seeming model of the striving immigrant as a popular coffee vendor in Manhattan, accused of going to Pakistan for explosives training with the intention of attacking in the United States.
There was David Coleman Headley, (why does no one mention his name change from a Muslim name ?) a Pakistani-American living in Chicago, accused of helping plan the killings in Mumbai, India, last year and of plotting attacks in Denmark.
=============
Page 2 of 2)
There was Bryant Neal Vinas, a Muslim convert from Long Island who participated in a rocket attack on American troops in Afghanistan and used his knowledge of commuter trains in New York to advise Al Qaeda about potential targets.
There were the Somali-Americans from Minnesota who had traveled to Somalia to join a violent Islamist movement.
And there were cases of would-be terrorists who plotted attacks in Texas, Illinois and North Carolina with conspirators who turned out to be F.B.I. informants.
Bruce Hoffman, who studies terrorism at Georgetown University, said the recent cases only confirmed that it was “myopic” to believe “we could insulate ourselves from the currents affecting young Muslims everywhere else.”
Like many other specialists, Mr. Hoffman pointed to the United States’ combat in Muslim lands as the only obvious spur to many of the recent cases, especially those with a Pakistani connection.
“The longer we’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, “the more some susceptible young men are coming to believe that it’s their duty to take up arms to defend their fellow Muslims.”
A few analysts, in fact, argue that Mr. Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan — intended to prevent a terrorist haven there — could backfire.
Robert A. Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist, contends that suicide attacks are almost always prompted by resentment of foreign troops, and that escalation in Afghanistan will fuel more plots.
“This new deployment increases the risk of the next 9/11,” he said. “It will not make this country safer.”
Yet amid the concern about the five Virginia men and the impact of the wars on Muslim opinion, Audrey Kurth Cronin of the National War College in Washington said she found something to take comfort in.
“To me, the most interesting thing about the five guys is that it was their parents that went immediately to the F.B.I.,” she said. “It was members of the American Muslim community that put a stop to whatever those men may have been planning.”
-
Muslims at West Point
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8409270.stm
-
Haq convicted on all counts in Jewish Federation shootings
A King County jury this morning found Naveed Haq guilty of aggravated murder in the 2006 shootings at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.
By Jennifer Sullivan and Steve Miletich
Seattle Times staff reporters
A King County jury this morning found Naveed Haq guilty of eight counts, including aggravated first-degree murder, in the 2006 shootings at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. The murder verdict carries an automatic life sentence for Haq.
The jury also found Haq, 34, guilty of five counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of unlawful imprisonment and one count of malicious harassment, the state's hate-crime law.
Haq showed no reaction as the verdicts were read, but several people in the courtroom tearfully hugged.
The jury had been weighing eight criminal counts against Haq since Thursday after seven weeks of testimony. This was Haq's second trial on the shootings. His first trial ended in a mistrial.
"We are grateful that justice for this heinous hate crime has finally been served," Richard Fruchter, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation, said in a statement issued after the verdicts were announced. "Our hearts go out to the survivors of this shooting and their families, who bravely endured not only the shooting but two trials."
Several of the victims were seated in the courtroom this morning as the verdicts were read. They testified during both trials, reliving what happened when Haq walked into the federation offices on July 28, 2006, and started shooting indiscriminately at employees. Killed was Pamela Waechter, 58, and wounded were Cheryl Stumbo, Carol Goldman, Dayna Klein, Christina Rexroad and Layla Bush.
Prosecutors said he was driven by a hatred for Israel.
One of the jurors, John Bennett, 60, of Carnation, said he watched the victims as the verdicts were read.
"I had to feel good there was a closing for them," he said.
During a news conference after the verdicts were announced, Goldman said Waechter "finally got the justice she deserved."
Erin Ehlert, senior deputy prosecutor, also spoke on behalf of the victims. "I feel a lot of finality for a lot of people ... a calming peace that the right thing was done."
"I'm happy it's over," added Seattle police Detective Dana Duffy, who helped investigate the shootings. "I'm happy with the verdict."
Haq's first trial ended in a mistrial in June 2008, when jurors announced after nearly two weeks of deliberations that they were deadlocked on all but one of the 15 criminal counts. Prosecutors immediately announced they would retry Haq. Prosecutors reduced the number of charges to simplify deliberations for jurors in the second trial. They eliminated seven of the charges from Haq's case, including one count of first-degree burglary, five counts of malicious harassment and one count of kidnapping.
The second jury deliberated on eight counts — one count of aggravated first-degree murder; five counts of attempted first-degree murder; one count of unlawful imprisonment; and one count of malicious harassment, the state's hate-crime law.
The focus of the second trial was Haq's mental state at the time of the attack. The defense did not dispute that Haq carried out the shootings, but argued that he was legally insane at the time.
Haq pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and the defense produced several mental-health experts who testified that he was mentally ill. Defense attorneys had asked that Haq be sent to a state mental hospital rather than prison.
Prosecutors agreed that Haq has a mental illness, but contended that he was sane when he entered the federation and opened fire.
"He wanted to kill these women," Ehlert, the prosecutor, told the jury during her closing argument on Thursday. "He knew exactly what his intent was when he walked in there. He planned this."
Bennett, the juror, said the jury approached the case with an open mind. He said jurors were "waiting for someone to tell us [Haq] was insane, and we never saw it."
Bennett said he wished that Haq had testified.
The defense declined to comment after the verdict.
Prosecutors also introduced as evidence audio recordings from 10 phone calls Haq placed to his family after his arrest. In the calls, recorded by the King County Jail, Haq told his mother he was "a soldier of Islam."
The recordings were not introduced during Haq's first trial.
The guilty verdict to aggravated murder means Haq will be imprisoned for life without parole.
Witnesses testified that Haq, who is of Pakistani heritage, railed against Jews and U.S.-Israeli policies as he opened fire in the Jewish Federation, an umbrella organization for the local Jewish community that raises money for social-welfare organizations, runs youth and adult educational programs, and engages in efforts in support of Israel.
Haq surrendered after talking with a 911 dispatcher.
On the 911 tape, which the prosecution played for jurors on Oct. 21, the opening day of the trial, Haq said he was tired of the world ignoring the Muslim point of view.
"I don't care if I die," Haq said to the dispatcher. "This is just to make a point."
Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010513073_webhaq15m.html
-
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22129881/detail.html#
Sweatshirt Sparks School Controversy
Hoodie Contains Image Of World Trade Center Towers
POSTED: Tuesday, January 5, 2010
UPDATED: 6:24 pm EST January 5, 2010
DEARBORN, Mich. -- About 15 Arab-American students at Edsel Ford High School are in trouble over a class sweatshirt they had made over the holiday break.
The class of 2011 sweatshirt has the number 11 made to look like the World Trade Center Towers. The school's mascot, a Thunderbird, is seen flying toward the number.
Watch: Sweatshirts Sparks Controversy
Under the graphic, a tagline reads, "You can't bring us down."
The students wore the hooded sweatshirts to school Monday. They were immediately sent to the principal's office.
The sweatshirts were confiscated.
“What took place here today was an inappropriate, distasteful act,” said David Mustonen, a spokesman for Dearborn Schools. “(It was) totally inappropriate, totally disrespectful, and they just were not thinking.”
The students told the principal they didn’t mean any harm by having the sweatshirts made.
Other students who heard about and saw the shirts said they were disgusted.
“I found them very offensive and I didn’t think it was funny or fun at all,” said Brittany Johnson, a senior at Edsel Ford High.
The school has not said what disciplinary action will be taken against the students.
“If I was in charge, I would have them expelled,” said Lindsey Winstrand. “But I think suspension is the least they can do.”
The students told the principal they had the sweatshirts made at the Gibraltar Trade Center for about $25 each.
-
Possible story to watch. Minneapolis only had 19 murders last year. Last night 3 Somalis were gunned down in public at a neighborhood market. The shooters are loose, armed and dangerous. VERY unusual that police or media disclose ethnicity: "[Chief] says the killers are also believed to be Somali." Sounded like a botched robbery, but a couple of problems with that. If rank amateurs shoot 3 people, they probably wouldn't all die instantly. And if pros rob a convenience store for money, they probably don't want it to escalate to mass murder. This looks like a multiple public execution, (just speculating) something to do with war back home in the land of al Qaida, Civil War, Blackhawk Down and piracy. (Michael Yon gets detained and these thugs use the airport express lane with the revolving door!)
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=834911&catid=14
Police look for 2 in slaying of 3 Somalis at store
MINNEAPOLIS -- Police appealed to the public for tips Thursday about an attack at a corner market that left three Somali businessmen dead, and they backed away from describing it as an attempted robbery gone bad.
"The people in any part of this city should not only have great sympathy for the family of the victims but be outraged and stirred to actions that these people will be brought to justice," Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said.
Investigators were searching for two people who, police said, entered Seward Market and Halal Meats Wednesday night and killed three adult men.
Police Chief Tim Dolan is calling the shooters "cold-blooded killers" and warns they are very dangerous. At a Thursday morning news conference, Dolan urged anyone with information about Wednesday night's killings at Seward Market and Halal Meats to come forward.
Police say they don't know the motive behind the killings. The initial call came in as a robbery, but on Thursday authorities backed away from saying it was an attempted robbery. Instead, they say there are looking at several scenarios.
"We have some suspected motives but we won't get into the details on that, we are just not sure," Dolan said.
Dolan says there are a large number of security cameras in the store, and that surveillance video is excellent. He also says there were a number of witnesses to the crime, and that they are cooperating.
The three victims, all adult men, were members of the city's large community of Somali immigrants. Dolan says the killers are also believed to be Somali.
The triple homicide happend around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday night at Seward Market & Halal Meat located near 24th and Franklin Avenues.
The store is in an area south of downtown with a significant population of Somali immigrants. Although police have not confirmed the identities of the victims, leaders in the local Somali community say they are all Somali men who worked in the store, including its owner. The men are described by a local Somali spokesman as decent members of the community who had nothing to do with gangs.
"We've never seen in Minneapolis that three Somali young guys were shot and killed at the same time on the same spot," Somali spokesman Omar Jamal said. "So there is an investigation going now. And we're asking the community to tell the police if they saw anything. Therefore those guys will be brought to justice."
Police Sgt. William Palmer said no suspects are in custody for the homicides.
Seward Market and Halal Meat, is in the city's Seward neighborhood, a middle-class area south of downtown with a significant population of Somali immigrants. Sgt. Palmer decribes the area as "a good neighborhood."
Rybak said Thursday, "I think it's a specific tragedy to a community that has come here to escape violence now has lost three members to violence."
Rybak and Dolan had planned to toute the decline of crime in the city at a news conference Thursday.
Minnesota has the largest population of Somali immigrants of any U.S. state.
-
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225826570886
Chaplain smuggled bo'x-cutter into jail'(sic)
A MUSLIM chaplain for the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) was arrested today for allegedly trying to smuggle three box-cutters into a lower Manhattan jail.
The imam, Imam Zul-Quarnain Shahid, has worked as a DOC jail chaplain for three years, according to department sources.
Several sources said Shahid was caught attempting to bring three box-cutters into the jail, known as the Tombs, during a visit there. It was not known why he was visiting the jail.
A DOC spokesman had no immediate comment.
and again at:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/m...#ixzz0eVCefyjJ
Muslim chaplain 'smuggled' box cutters into jail
By REUVEN BLAU and DAN MANGAN
Last Updated: 4:09 PM, February 3, 2010
Posted: 2:11 PM, February 3, 2010
A Muslim chaplain for the city Department of Correction was arrested this morning for allegedly trying to smuggle in three box-cutter razor blades to a lower Manhattan jail, The Post has learned.
The chaplain, Zul-Qarnain Shahid, has worked as a DOC jail chaplain for the past three years, department sources said.
Several sources said Shahid was caught this morning attempting to bring the three blades into the jail known as the Tombs during a visit there. It was not known why the Muslim cleric, who has the title imam, was visiting the jail.
A DOC spokesman had no immediate comment.
According to New York State Corrections Department records, a now-58-year-old man with the same name as Shahid was sentenced to 15-years-to-life in prison for second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in 1979. That man was paroled in 1993 after serving nearly 14 years, and remained on parole until August 2001.
A DOC chaplain assigned to the Tombs – politically connected rabbi Leib Glanz – resigned last year after The Post exclusively revealed that he had organized a bar mitzvah party within the jail’s walls for the son of an inmate. The bar mitzvah featured catered food and a live band, as well as dozens of non-inmate guests.
A Department of Investigation probe into that incident has dragged on for months, with no official result.
-
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22129881/detail.html#
Sweatshirt Sparks School Controversy
Hoodie Contains Image Of World Trade Center Towers
POSTED: Tuesday, January 5, 2010
UPDATED: 6:24 pm EST January 5, 2010
DEARBORN, Mich. -- About 15 Arab-American students at Edsel Ford High School are in trouble over a class sweatshirt they had made over the holiday break.
The class of 2011 sweatshirt has the number 11 made to look like the World Trade Center Towers. The school's mascot, a Thunderbird, is seen flying toward the number.
Watch: Sweatshirts Sparks Controversy
Under the graphic, a tagline reads, "You can't bring us down."
The students wore the hooded sweatshirts to school Monday. They were immediately sent to the principal's office.
The sweatshirts were confiscated.
“What took place here today was an inappropriate, distasteful act,” said David Mustonen, a spokesman for Dearborn Schools. “(It was) totally inappropriate, totally disrespectful, and they just were not thinking.”
The students told the principal they didn’t mean any harm by having the sweatshirts made.
Other students who heard about and saw the shirts said they were disgusted.
“I found them very offensive and I didn’t think it was funny or fun at all,” said Brittany Johnson, a senior at Edsel Ford High.
The school has not said what disciplinary action will be taken against the students.
“If I was in charge, I would have them expelled,” said Lindsey Winstrand. “But I think suspension is the least they can do.”
The students told the principal they had the sweatshirts made at the Gibraltar Trade Center for about $25 each.
Freedom of Speech. Everyone has overreacted, the kids were just using Icons they are familiar with. "they can't bring us down" looks like a positive message. What other info changes it into a "bad" requiring a suspension or even confiscation of their shirts?
-
In Defense Of The Constitution
Anti-CAIR
News & Analysis
March 5, 2010
CAIR: Defending Kifah Mustapha, The Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Holy Land Foundation
On Wednesday, March 3, Chicago's WLS-TV I-Team reported that the Illinois State Police have reconsidered the appointment of Kifah Mustapha as a Muslim Chaplain. Terrorism expert Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is identified as the leading cause of Mustapha's reconsideration.
Apparently, Kifah Mustapha was slated to become the State Police’s first Muslim Chaplain after completing a course he paid for himself. Completing the course, he was issued a state police ID card and bulletproof vest as part of his uniform package for use in the field and on ride-alongs.
According to Ahmed Rehab of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): "He was admitted to the post. He went through the training and the vetting and the selection process. Everything was hunky dory."
Everything was "hunky dory" until Steve Emerson alerted the State Police: "First I thought there was another Kifah Mustapha. I could not believe that it could have been the same Kifah Mustapha who was associated with a terrorist organization and who was listed a year just a year and a half ago and was an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist case that the government won.” "His appointment in Illinois is one of the most shocking developments and demonstrations of government ineptitude that I have ever seen.”
A state police statement followed: "in early January, the ISP became aware that Mr. Mustapha was potentially identified as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. An immediate review of our background process began."
It didn’t take long for CAIR’s Ahmed Rehab to gin up the smear machine and use standard CAIR stylebook verbiage to attack: "Our concern is that the Illinois State Police is kowtowing to articles online published by notorious anti-Muslims who have been in the business of smearing Muslim activists leaders and Imams for the longest time."
And note what Ahmed Rehab does not say. He never once states that anything Emerson claims about Kifah Mustapha isn’t true. He does not deny the accuracy of any of Emerson’s statements because Emerson's statements are absolutely correct and Rehab knows it.
According to Emerson’s investigation, Kifah Mustapha is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and is, according to federal prosecutors, a fund-raiser for Hamas. While the federal prosecutors are right in that Hamas is “committed to the globalization of Islam and violent jihad”, much of the violence committed by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is unknown to the average American.
Kifah Mustapha is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. However, Christina Abraham, CAIR’s civil rights director, had this to say about the unindicted co-conspirator list: "The unindicted co-conspirator list-which by the way is not usually made public by the Dept. of Justice and in this case for some inexplicable reason was. It is not a conviction.”
Abraham then describes Mustapha’s admission that he was a “registered agent for Holy Land Foundation in Illinois...soliciting money” until its closure by authorities: "It is essentially guilt by association.”
Christina Abraham is absolutely correct, it is guilt by association. When you promote, work for, speak on behalf of, a suspect organization, you shouldn’t be surprised when you receive extra scrutiny. When you associate with known terrorists, you shouldn’t be surprised if you are labeled one as well.
Abraham claims that the Illinois State Police have no “legal basis” to deny Mustapha the Chaplains position.
Really? The Illinois State Police do not have wide latitude on who may serve as a volunteer chaplain? Would Abraham care to file a lawsuit on behalf of Kifah Mustapha?
The better question might be, “Can Kifah Mustapha stand up to discovery?” The answer, if the history of political Islam in America is any guide, is “No, he can’t”.
CAIR and Kifah Mustapha won’t file a lawsuit because they can’t win.
Steve Emerson says it all: "The fact that a man who has been fully associated with an Islamic terrorist organization that specialized in suicide bombing is made chaplain of the state police in Illinois is absolutely horrifying.”
Indeed.
CAIR’s Ahmed Rehab see’s it another way: "It is very important to us that the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim community be based on mutual trust where the accepted leaders of this community do not have to be second guessed as a result of some notorious, dubious individual on the Internet.”
“Accepted leader” Kifah Mustapha? Keep in mind the countless victims of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas and one has to wonder, just what is Kifah Mustapha the leader of, and what is the mindset of the people who fill the "community" Rehab refers to?
There is no second-guessing involved. Kifah Mustapha is what he is; a supporter of Islamic supremacist terror groups who promote or engage in assassination and terrorist bombings to advance their perverted Islamist principles. If CAIR can show otherwise, why not just take Steve Emerson to court and make him produce his facts?
Kifah Mustapha, a normally outspoken person, has asked CAIR to "speak for him" until this matter is resolved. Anti-CAIR strongly supports Mustapha's decision; we believe there is no better organization to speak on behalf of radical political Islamists in the United States than the Hamas supporting fascists of CAIR.
Kifah Mustapha’s decision to call in CAIR for support should skewer his chances of becoming a Chaplain for the Illinois State Police.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
Story Links:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=7309866
http://www.investigativeproject.org/
http://www.investigativeproject.org/search.php?cx=007811315508120065319%3Avf7yhgtccei&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=hamas&sa=Search#922
http://www.investigativeproject.org/search.php?cx=007811315508120065319%3Avf7yhgtccei&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=muslim+brotherhood&sa=Search#985
http://www.danielpipes.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3Asmatd4mj-v4&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=hamas&sa=Search#905
http://www.danielpipes.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3Asmatd4mj-v4&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=muslim+brotherhood&sa=Search#933
http://www.danielpipes.org/77/the-danger-within-militant-islam-in-america
http://www.danielpipes.org/rr/blog_32.pdf
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/FBItiesCAIRHamas
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4734
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/CAIRMuslimsTruth.html
http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/01/radical-fundraiser-becomes-illinois-police
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/CAIRMuslimMafia.html
ADVISORY:
Please use a non-corporate/non-work e-mail address if you contact CAIR or Anti-CAIR or receive our material. CAIR may attempt to shame your employer into terminating you if they believe you are receiving "objectionable" material. We make every reasonable effort to protect our mailing list, but we cannot guarantee confidentiality. Anti-CAIR does not share, loan, sell, rent or otherwise publicize our mailing list. We respect your privacy!
TIPS:
All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. Anti-CAIR will acknowledge receipt of all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge the source of ANY tip or lead in our Press Releases or on our web site. Exceptions are made for leading media personalities at the discretion of Anti-CAIR and only on request of the person(s) submitting the tip or lead.
_____________________________
Change email address / Leave mailing list: http://ymlp200.com/u.php?YMLPID=gwsjhmgsguwswg
-
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
It can't have come as a surprise that one of the now entrenched myths about America—namely, its ongoing victimization of Muslims—should have been voiced again by a leading citizen of our myth-producing capital, Hollywood. The citizen was Tom Hanks, and the occasion his March interview in Time Magazine in which he declared that our battle with Japan in World War II was one of "racism and terror." And that, he noted, should remind us of our current wars.
The comments caused a furor. But Mr. Hanks, who had made them during a publicity tour—he's the producer of the HBO series, "The Pacific"—saw the issue in perfectly clear terms, which he went on to explain several times more in subsequent media appearances. We can only ponder the joy this must have brought to the hearts of HBO executives.
The Hanks mini-seminar was only one of the many distortions of our still unbearably raw recent history—never mind World War II—encouraging Americans to view themselves as oppressors and racists. The latest reflection of this trend, grown steadily since the attacks of Sept. 11, came with a three-page spread in the Washington Post on March 24 about the tribulations of a Muslim soldier who reported being subjected to slurs, various other insults, and also a threatening note. His commander suggested he might do well to move to housing off base. The base in question was Fort Hood, where, last November, army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan murdered 13 fellow American soldiers.
The pain of these confrontations was undoubtedly great, as such treatment always is. Ask the members of religious and racial minorities who served, say, in World War II, when it wasn't unusual to hear slurs like "kike" and such hurled at them. Ask black Americans who had the incomparably worse experience of serving in a racially segregated military, where they were relegated to the worst duties. Not to mention being made witness—in parts of the country—to the sight of German POWs held in the U.S. eating in restaurants barred to black Americans in uniform, and otherwise being accorded respect that those Americans could not hope to receive.
Still, there were no instances of those enduring this treatment undertaking mass murder of other American servicemen. There was rage, and there were some riots, but no cases of U.S. soldiers enlisting in the service of the enemy as Maj. Hasan had. (Hasan, it was explained after he had cut down those unarmed servicemen and women packed into that room in Ft. Hood, had suffered prejudice-related pressures as a Muslim in the armed services.)
There were, in World War II, no watchdog groups like the ones cited in the Washington Post story, no agencies keeping lists of harassment complaints, or name-calling suffered by members of the U.S. military, or of the number of soldiers, like those mentioned in the story, who called crying on the phone. There were back then plenty of officers given to convenient cover-ups. But, it's a good bet, few like Maj. Hasan's superiors—so addled by raised consciousness and worries about appearing insensitive to Muslims in the service that they ignored even the most extreme expressions of his enmity to the United States and its military, his praise of suicide bombers, his jihadi contacts.
View Full Image
Getty Images
Maj. Nidal Hasan was the recipient of too much sympathy.
.Since the events of Sept. 11, we've seen the growth of a view that American Muslims became prime victims of those terror attacks—isolated, fearful, targets of hostility. President George W. Bush, who went to Washington D.C's Islamic Center a few days after the terror assaults, told his audience that Islam was about peace and warned that the nation's Muslims must be free to go about without fear or intimidation by other Americans—remarks he doubtless thought were called for under the circumstances.
It had not, of course, been necessary to remind Americans of who they were and were not. No menacing hordes, then or later, ever threatened American Muslims—and it has been an insult to the nation to have been lectured to the same way after every attempted terror attack, as though wild mobs of citizens might actually run through the streets attacking Muslims. Even as the ruins of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still smoldered, countless Americans had reached out to their Muslim neighbors to reassure them.
No matter. Every report of any activity bearing resemblance to anti-Muslim sentiment became, in short order, essential news. Every actual incident, every report of a nasty sign, fitted the all-consuming theme taken up by large sectors of mainstream media: that the country's Muslims were now hapless targets, not only of the national rage at the atrocities committed by Islamic fundamentalists, but also of racism. It was a view especially well in accord with those of a generation schooled in colleges and universities where pathological extremes of sensitivity to claims of racial, religious or sexual insult or charges of gender bias are considered perfectly normal and right.
Reporters ran with the theme in part because the media's appetite for victim stories of any kind is inexhaustible. But this was, in addition, the kind journalists pride themselves on as socially responsible. It was also one that didn't lack for willing subjects. For American Muslims in considerable numbers apparently subscribed to the view that theirs was the abiding suffering that had been inflicted by the 9/11 attacks. There was no missing the steady supply of Muslims available to tell inquiring reporters of their feelings of alienation and persecution.
Each FBI terrorist sting that went awry or seemed to, each wild goose chase of a home-grown jihadi threat, spurred a new portrait of besieged American Muslims. When such plots turned out to be true, and their threat enormous—most recently in the case of Najubullah Zazi, a jihadist who planned to set explosives off in the New York subway—the portrait and the theme remained the same. Since alienated American Muslims were forced to live in fear as second-class citizens, it was explained, more and more of them chose extremism and violence. In short, whether the charges of terrorist activity were false or whether they were true, American society was to blame.
There are other faces of Muslim America. Five years or so after the terrorists drove their planes and passengers into the twin towers and the Pentagon, a cab driver from Pakistan remarked, as we drove past the rubble where the towers had stood, that he could never pass this place without trying to see them again in his mind. A painful effort, for all that it brought back. What was not painful, he added, was the memory of certain people in his neighborhood—a mixed but mostly white area of Queens, with many Italian-Americans, some Jews, and he thought some Irish. After the attacks, some of the men had come to him.
"My wife doesn't go out without a head cover," he explained. The men had come to tell him that if anyone bothered her, or his family, he must come to them.
"I must tell them and must not be afraid. Do you know," he said, in a voice suddenly sharp, "what would have happened if Americans had done this kind of attack in my country? Every American—every Christian, every non-Muslim—would have been slaughtered, blood would have run in the streets. I know the kind of country this is. Thanks be to God I can give this to my children."
Countless American Muslims would, like generations of immigrants of all kinds, say the same. Theirs, of course, is not the face of Muslim America suitable for the continuing chronicle of the victimized American Muslim.
Ms. Rabinowitz, a member of the Journal's editorial board, is the author of "No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusations, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times" (Free Press, 2003).
-
This is just the sort of subject matter where Pravda on the Hudson (POTH) can be at its most deceptive. Still, the subject matter matters AND we do want good Muslim-Americans treated fairly. Nonetheless, caveat lector-- its POTH at work:
====================
White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S.
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
Published: April 18, 2010
When President Obama took the stage in Cairo last June, promising a new relationship with the Islamic world, Muslims in America wondered only half-jokingly whether the overture included them. After all, Mr. Obama had kept his distance during the campaign, never visiting an American mosque and describing the false claim that he was Muslim as a “smear” on his Web site.
Tariq Ramadan, who was barred from the United States under President George W. Bush, spoke to a New York audience in April.
Nearly a year later, Mr. Obama has yet to set foot in an American mosque. And he still has not met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders. But less publicly, his administration has reached out to this politically isolated constituency in a sustained and widening effort that has left even skeptics surprised.
Muslim and Arab-American advocates have participated in policy discussions and received briefings from top White House aides and other officials on health care legislation, foreign policy, the economy, immigration and national security. They have met privately with a senior White House adviser, Valerie Jarrett, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to discuss civil liberties concerns and counterterrorism strategy.
The impact of this continuing dialogue is difficult to measure, but White House officials cited several recent government actions that were influenced, in part, by the discussions. The meeting with Ms. Napolitano was among many factors that contributed to the government’s decision this month to end a policy subjecting passengers from 14 countries, most of them Muslim, to additional scrutiny at airports, the officials said.
That emergency directive, enacted after a failed Dec. 25 bombing plot, has been replaced with a new set of intelligence-based protocols that law enforcement officials consider more effective.
Also this month, Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim academic, visited the United States for the first time in six years after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reversed a decision by the Bush administration, which had barred Mr. Ramadan from entering the country, initially citing the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Mrs. Clinton also cleared the way for another well-known Muslim professor, Adam Habib, who had been denied entry under similar circumstances.
Arab-American and Muslim leaders said they had yet to see substantive changes on a variety of issues, including what they describe as excessive airport screening, policies that have chilled Muslim charitable giving and invasive F.B.I. surveillance guidelines. But they are encouraged by the extent of their consultation by the White House and governmental agencies.
“For the first time in eight years, we have the opportunity to meet, engage, discuss, disagree, but have an impact on policy,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. “We’re being made to feel a part of that process and that there is somebody listening.”
In the post-9/11 era, Muslims and Arab-Americans have posed something of a conundrum for the government: they are seen as a political liability but also, increasingly, as an important partner in countering the threat of homegrown terrorism. Under President George W. Bush, leaders of these groups met with government representatives from time to time, but said they had limited interaction with senior officials. While Mr. Obama has yet to hold the kind of high-profile meeting that Muslims and Arab-Americans seek, there is a consensus among his policymakers that engagement is no longer optional.
The administration’s approach has been understated. Many meetings have been private; others were publicized only after the fact. A visit to New York University in February by John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, drew little news coverage, but caused a stir among Muslims around the country. Speaking to Muslim students, activists and others, Mr. Brennan acknowledged many of their grievances, including “surveillance that has been excessive,” “overinclusive no-fly lists” and “an unhelpful atmosphere around many Muslim charities.”
“These are challenges we face together as Americans,” said Mr. Brennan, who momentarily showed off his Arabic to hearty applause. He and other officials have made a point of disassociating Islam from terrorism in public comments, using the phrase “violent extremism” in place of words like “jihad” and “Islamic terrorism.”
While the administration’s solicitation of Muslims and Arab-Americans has drawn little fanfare, it has not escaped criticism. A small but vocal group of research analysts, bloggers and others complain that the government is reaching out to Muslim leaders and organizations with an Islamist agenda or ties to extremist groups abroad.
They point out that Ms. Jarrett gave the keynote address at the annual convention for the Islamic Society of North America. The group was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Texas-based charity whose leaders were convicted in 2008 of funneling money to Hamas. The society denies any links to terrorism.
“I think dialogue is good, but it has to be with genuine moderates,” said Steven Emerson, a terrorism analyst who advises government officials. “These are the wrong groups to legitimize.” Mr. Emerson and others have also objected to the political appointments of several American Muslims, including Rashad Hussain.
In February, the president chose Mr. Hussain, a 31-year-old White House lawyer, to become the United States’ special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The position, a kind of ambassador at large to Muslim countries, was created by Mr. Bush. In a video address, Mr. Obama highlighted Mr. Hussain’s status as a “close and trusted member of my White House staff” and “a hafiz,” a person who has memorized the Koran.
Within days of the announcement, news reports surfaced about comments Mr. Hussain had made on a panel in 2004, while he was a student at Yale Law School, in which he referred to several domestic terrorism prosecutions as “politically motivated.” Among the cases he criticized was that of Sami Al-Arian, a former computer-science professor in Florida who pleaded guilty to aiding members of a Palestinian terrorist group.
=========
Page 2 of 2)
At first, the White House said Mr. Hussain did not recall making the comments, which had been removed from the Web version of a 2004 article published by a small Washington magazine. When Politico obtained a recording of the panel, Mr. Hussain acknowledged criticizing the prosecutions but said he believed the magazine quoted him inaccurately, prompting him to ask its editor to remove the comments. On Feb. 22, The Washington Examiner ran an editorial with the headline “Obama Selects a Voice of Radical Islam.”
Muslim leaders watched carefully as the story migrated to Fox News. They had grown accustomed to close scrutiny, many said in interviews, but were nonetheless surprised. In 2008, Mr. Hussain had co-authored a paper for the Brookings Institution arguing that the government should use the peaceful teachings of Islam to fight terrorism.
“Rashad Hussain is about as squeaky clean as you get,” said Representative Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who is Muslim. Mr. Ellison and others wondered whether the administration would buckle under the pressure and were relieved when the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, defended Mr. Hussain.
“The fact that the president and the administration have appointed Muslims to positions and have stood by them when they’ve been attacked is the best we can hope for,” said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America.
It was notably different during Mr. Obama’s run for office. In June 2008, volunteers of his campaign barred two Muslim women in headscarves from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit, eliciting widespread criticism. The campaign promptly recruited Mazen Asbahi, a 36-year-old corporate lawyer and popular Muslim activist from Chicago, to become its liaison to Muslims and Arab-Americans.
Bloggers began researching Mr. Asbahi’s background. For a brief time in 2000, he had sat on the board of an Islamic investment fund, along with Sheikh Jamal Said, a Chicago imam who was later named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. Mr. Asbahi said in an interview that he had left the board after three weeks because he wanted no association with the imam.
Shortly after his appointment to the Obama campaign, Mr. Asbahi said, a Wall Street Journal reporter began asking questions about his connection to the imam. Campaign officials became concerned that news coverage would give critics ammunition to link the imam to Mr. Obama, Mr. Asbahi recalled. On their recommendation, Mr. Asbahi agreed to resign from the campaign, he said.
He is still unsettled by the power of his detractors. “To be in the midst of this campaign of change and hope and to have it stripped away over nothing,” he said. “It hurts.”
From the moment Mr. Obama took office, he seemed eager to change the tenor of America’s relationship with Muslims worldwide. He gave his first interview to Al Arabiya, the Arabic-language television station based in Dubai. Muslims cautiously welcomed his ban on torture and his pledge to close Guantánamo within a year. In his Cairo address, he laid out his vision for “a new beginning” with Muslims: while America would continue to fight terrorism, he said, terrorism would no longer define America’s approach to Muslims.
Back at home, Muslim and Arab-American leaders remained skeptical. But they took note when, a few weeks later, Mohamed Magid, a prominent imam from Sterling, Va., and Rami Nashashibi, a Muslim activist from Chicago, joined the president at a White-House meeting about fatherhood. Also that month, Dr. Faisal Qazi, a board member of American Muslim Health Professionals, began meeting with administration officials to discuss health care reform.
The invitations were aimed at expanding the government’s relationship with Muslims and Arab-Americans to areas beyond security, said Mr. Hussain, the White House’s special envoy. Mr. Hussain began advising the president on issues related to Islam after joining the White House counsel’s office in January 2009. He helped draft Mr. Obama’s Cairo speech and accompanied him on the trip. “The president realizes that you cannot engage one-fourth of the world’s population based on the erroneous beliefs of a fringe few,” Mr. Hussain said.
Other government offices followed the lead of the White House. In October, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke met with Arab-Americans and Muslims in Dearborn, Mich., to discuss challenges facing small-business owners. Also last fall, Farah Pandith was sworn in as the State Department’s first special representative to Muslim communities. While Ms. Pandith works mostly with Muslims abroad, she said she had also consulted with American Muslims because Mrs. Clinton believes “they can add value overseas.”
Despite this, American actions abroad — including civilian deaths from drone strikes in Pakistan and the failure to close Guantánamo — have drawn the anger of Muslims and Arab-Americans.
Even though their involvement with the administration has broadened, they remain most concerned about security-related policies. In January, when the Department of Homeland Security hosted a two-day meeting with Muslim, Arab-American, South Asian and Sikh leaders, the group expressed concern about the emergency directive subjecting passengers from a group of Muslim countries to additional screening.
Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, pointed out that the policy would never have caught the attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid, who is British. “It almost sends the signal that the government is going to treat nationals of powerless countries differently from countries that are powerful,” Ms. Khera recalled saying as community leaders around the table nodded their heads.
Ms. Napolitano, who sat with the group for more than an hour, committed to meeting with them more frequently. Ms. Khera said she left feeling somewhat hopeful.
“I think our message is finally starting to get through,” she said.
-
They took their places in the wood-paneled courtroom, 58 people from 32 countries. They listened as a federal magistrate banged the gavel and said it was “a wonderful day for the United States”— the day they would become Americans.
The magistrate talked about Thomas Jefferson and told the group that they could run for office — only the presidency and the vice presidency were off limits, according to a tape recording of the proceedings in a Bridgeport, Conn., courtroom last year, on April 17. On her instructions, they raised their right hands and repeated the oath of citizenship.
One man in the group was the Pakistani-born Faisal Shahzad, whose father or grandfather was a Pakistani military official and who, at 29, had spent a decade in the United States, collecting a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree and landing a job with a Connecticut financial marketing company.
He had obtained citizenship through marriage to a woman who was born in Colorado — the authorities say she and their two young children are still in Pakistan, where they believe he was trained in making bombs last year in Waziristan, a tribal area that is a haven for militants.
On Saturday, the authorities said, Mr. Shahzad drove a Nissan Pathfinder packed with explosives and detonators, leaving it in Times Square.
About 7 p.m., as a robot from the bomb squad was being summoned to the S.U.V., Mr. Shahzad called his landlord from the train to Connecticut and said he had lost his keys; in a criminal complaint filed on Tuesday, the authorities said the keys had been locked inside the Pathfinder.
The landlord met him at the apartment that night to let him in. “He looked nervous,” said the landlord, Stanislaw Chomiak, who had rented him a two-bedroom apartment in Bridgeport since Feb. 15. “But I thought, of course he’s nervous, he just lost his keys.”
In nearly a dozen years in this country, Mr. Shahzad had gone to school, held steady jobs, bought and sold real estate, and kept his immigration status in good order, giving no sign to those he interacted with that he had connections to terrorists in Pakistan. Nor was there any indication that he would try to wreak havoc in one of the world’s most crowded places, Times Square.
His neighbors in Connecticut said the things neighbors always say about someone who suddenly turns up in the headlines — he was quiet, he was polite, he went jogging late at night. Like so many others, he lost a house to foreclosure — a real estate broker who helped him buy the house, in Shelton, Conn., in 2004 remembered that Mr. Shahzad did not like President George W. Bush or the Iraq war.
“I didn’t take it for much,” said the broker, Igor Djuric, “because around that time not many people did.”
George LaMonica, a 35-year-old computer consultant, said he bought his two-bedroom condominium in Norwalk, Conn., from Mr. Shahzad for $261,000 in May 2004. A few weeks after he moved in, Mr. LaMonica said, investigators from the national Joint Terrorism Task Force interviewed him, asking for details of the transaction and for information about Mr. Shahzad. It struck Mr. LaMonica as unusual, but he said detectives told him they were simply “checking everything out.”
Mr. Shahzad was born in Pakistan in 1979, though there is some confusion over where. Officials in Pakistan said it was in Nowshera, an area in northern Pakistan known for its Afghan refugee camps. But on a university application that Mr. Shahzad had filled out and that was found in the maggot-covered garbage outside the Shelton house on Tuesday, he listed Karachi.
Pakistani officials said Mr. Shahzad was either a son or a grandson of Baharul Haq, who retired as a vice air marshal in 1992 and then joined the Civil Aviation Authority.
A Pakistani official said Mr. Shahzad might have had affiliations with Ilyas Kashmiri, a militant linked to Al Qaeda who was formerly associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India militant group once nurtured by the Pakistani state. But friends said the family was well respected and nonpolitical.
“Neither Faisal nor his family has ever had any links with any jihadist or religious organization,” one friend said. Another, a lawyer, said that “the family is in a state of shock,” adding, “They believe that their son has been implicated in a fake case.”
Mr. Shahzad apparently went back and forth to Pakistan often, returning most recently in February after what he said was five months visiting his family, prosecutors said. A Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Mr. Shahzad had traveled with three passports, two from Pakistan and one from the United States; he last secured a Pakistani passport in 2000, describing his nationality as “Kashmiri.”
Mr. Shahzad’s generation grew up in a Pakistan where alcohol had been banned and Islam had been forced into schools and communities as a doctrine and a national glue.
-
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/05/16/jumanah-imad-albahri-speaks-and-im-not-buying-it/
Jihad much?
-
http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/entertainment/2010/05/10/miss-usa-topless-lingerie/#slide=4
The muslim woman I can really support! :evil:
-
o==8 :lol:
-
.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c52SY_MTu70[/youtube]
NYC Ground Zero Mosque Founder Exposed...?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-UDl3j8WZQ[/youtube]
-
On why Christians should try to convert Muslims
May 21, 2010 by macleans.ca
Photograph by Steve Simon
Born Muslim in Somalia, Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya, fleeing to the Netherlands at the age of 22 to escape an arranged marriage. Ten years later, she was elected to the Dutch parliament. A prominent feminist and critic of Islam, she received numerous death threats when she renounced her faith following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In 2004, Theo van Gogh, the director of a short film she wrote protesting Islam’s treatment of women, was murdered in Amsterdam by a Muslim extremist who threatened that she would be next. Since 2007, the bestselling author of Infidel, a memoir, has lived in the U.S., where she is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. In her new book, Nomad, Hirsi Ali writes about her struggle to assimilate into Western society and proposes remedies to help other immigrants resist the appeal of Islamic fundamentalism.
Q: Are you, after eight years with a security detail, inured to death threats? It’s hard to imagine you could continue to function if you felt constant fear.
A: It’s not a great way of leading your life, but like everything else, you get used to it. Presidents, members of royal families, diplomats—anybody who’s subjected to live under a security protocol does function. And I’m not the only one [with a fatwa]. There’s a whole class of people who live this way. I think, look, they can kill me physically—or I could die of a heart attack or whatever. Life is short. What they cannot kill are my ideas. The fact my books have been published and are out there—there are limits to silencing.
Q: Journalists frequently comment on your courage. Is “brave” how you think of yourself?
A: No. I think of all of us as being potential victims of the jihadist threat. I mean, look at the Times Square attack that was foiled. If it had succeeded, and on that Saturday night you were going to the theatre, you would’ve been injured if not killed. It’s not a question of who’s brave and who’s not, it’s an attack we all are under. Every time you take a train, step into your car, walk into the shopping mall, go to the airport—every single time, something could happen. That’s how terrorism works.
Q: You view the West as being at war not only with terrorists but with Islam itself. Who do you think will win?
A: The West will be victorious because the ideas of life are just far superior to the ideas of death. The question is what price we want to pay to win. How many people should die before victory? How much money and resources should we spend? We’re just not being effective now because we are being nice and avoiding the subject of Islam. We need to talk about Islam, about what’s in the Quran. The debate right now among Westerners is very defensive; all people want to prove is that they’re not Islamophobes.
Q: Consequently, according to Paul Berman in his new book The Flight of the Intellectuals, you’ve received “dreadful treatment” from, and have been trivialized by, the intelligentsia. Do you agree?
A: He’s addressing a debate within liberalism. He is, just like me and I think many others, surprised—and that’s an understatement—that some liberals choose to defend ideas that are very illiberal and choose to look away from practices that are even more illiberal. Why are they excusing radical Islam? That fascinates Berman and it also fascinates me, what the presence of Islam does to the liberal psyche in the West.
Q: What does Islam do to the liberal psyche?
A: Confuses it. The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals. They’ve convinced themselves that the best way to do that in general is to defend the cultures that are non-white. But what they forget, and what they’re being confronted with, is that non-white cultures contain misogynistic, collectivist, tribal, gay-unfriendly and female-hostile traditions. And so they’re confused: on the one hand, they’re looking at minorities as groups they need to save and speak up for, and on the other hand, they’re confronted with the ideas and practices of individuals within those minorities that are very undemocratic and appalling, really.
Q: You believe there is no such thing as moderate Islam. If that’s true, why do so many Muslims in the West say they’re horrified by violence perpetrated in the name of Islam?
A: I haven’t heard anybody say they’re horrified. Just to compare, many Americans, Canadians and Europeans protested the war on Iraq; they gathered themselves, they sent lots of emails, there was a lot of activism, they marched against this war. I haven’t seen that kind of thing from Muslims saying, “We’re against the numerous terrorist attacks all over the world carried out in the name of Islam.” No marches, no organizations, nothing. There are individuals, like Irshad Manji, like me, born into Islam, who stand up and say, “Hey, we don’t like this.” But we haven’t seen any kind of institutionalized protest by Muslims. That is the big question mark: are Muslims silent because they agree with the terrorist attacks? Or because they don’t know how to express themselves?
Q: One of your arguments in Nomad is that European countries have enabled homegrown jihadists by not insisting Muslims assimilate. I assume you support the proposed burka bans in Belgium and France?
A: I think to demand to cover your face in a public place in an era of terrorism is preposterous. For the French government, and other governments, to say, “You can wear whatever you like, but we would like to see your face”—I think that’s reasonable. I’m not talking about the face covering as a manifestation of religion, just in terms of safety. Every time I go through an airport I have to remove my shoes, my belt, my coat. After the attempted underwear bombing in the name of Islam, we have to go through a machine that scans us. So for someone to come around from that religion and say, “I demand that I cover myself”—it’s unreal.
Q: Are Muslims in North America better assimilated than in Europe?
A: Yes and no. Economically and in terms of education, yes. But I haven’t seen any hard data to prove that Canadian and American Muslims are more patriotic than Dutch and German Muslims.
Q: Do you think Barack Obama has moved the U.S. forward in terms of engaging constructively with Muslim countries?
A: Muslim populations and countries don’t like us any more than they did under Bush. In Obama’s administration so far, there have been more terrorist attempts than under eight years of the Bush administration, not including the 9/11 attack. The problem is clearly growing. The argument of, “Okay, they do this because they are poor”—that doesn’t apply anymore. In Western democracies, the young men wanting to kill themselves and kill others to get to the Muslim paradise are middle-class, well-educated and have the potential for a good future. The argument that Muslims are persecuted in North America is also not true. Muslims want to be in North America; they get jobs, they can have businesses and live wherever they want. If you just look at that argument empirically, you see that Muslims lead a life that is free and they can do whatever they want. As you go through these arguments, you see it’s not really about which administration is in the White House, it’s about convictions, not just the convictions of individuals but of states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, which have, as their constitution, the Quran.
Q: One of your more startling arguments in Nomad is that Christian churches should proselytize in immigrant communities to try to convert Muslims.
A: Look at the amount of money Saudi Arabia spends on coming into Muslim communities in America and Europe, building schools and also taking leaders and training them in Mecca and Medina, then replanting them. It’s surprising that no other group of people is targeting the same communities. If you look at Western civilization, at the institutions [and movements] that were engaged in changing people’s hearts and minds—the Christian Church, humanists, feminists—they are doing next to nothing in these Muslim communities. When I was in Holland [recently], I heard about a Christian mission that had been proselytizing in Morocco. The government kicked them out and sent them back to Holland. I thought, “You don’t have to stop proselytizing—just go to the Muslim community in Amsterdam west and carry on there.” But of course there, they’re not only going to face the radical Muslims as opponents, they’re also going to face the multicultural opponents, saying they’re not supposed to be telling people to leave their religion.
Q: So how would they do it?
A: Next to every mosque, build a Christian centre, an enlightenment centre, a feminist centre. There are tons of websites, financed with Saudi money, promoting Wahabism. We need to set up our own websites—Christian, feminist, humanist—trying to target the same people, saying, we have an alternative moral framework to Islam. We have better ideas.
Q: But you also argue that children are indoctrinated very early in Islam. How would you even get them to listen to such a message?
A: They only get indoctrinated if they go to Muslim schools. I would, if I had the power, abolish Muslim schools. Children born to Muslim parents in North America or anywhere else in the West would get Islamic teachings at home, which is fine. But when they go to school, they would get the regular education that’s going to enable them to be absorbed into our society and become law-abiding, well-established citizens.
Q: In a multicultural and democratic society, how could we ban Muslim schools?
A: It depends how we weigh this problem of jihadism and terrorism. If we think it’s a chronic disease we have to live with, and I think that is actually the dominant opinion, people will take more trouble to look at what is going on in these schools and abolish them. If we think of these children as kids who, when they finish school, will be hostile to our society, then I can compile a whole host of arguments why they can and should be abolished.
Q: Let me ask a question you once posed. You said, “Western civilization is a celebration of life—everybody’s life, even your enemy’s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?”
A: That is the big question for the open society today. We want to be distinct from closed societies, have less authoritarianism, allow people to make their own choices. And what we’re seeing now is that as far as that applies to an Islamic subset of society, there are other factors at work that are frightening. To have a whole generation of people just indoctrinated with this jidhadist mentality and for us to do nothing about it, and then every time there’s a terrorist attack, we panic—it’s not viable.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/21/why-christians-should-try-to-convert-muslims/
-
we are all going to musilms soon.NOT! check out the guys T shirt at the 2 min 22 sec point , very telling.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj2i3IwiAAc[/youtube]
Boyo
-
A Mosque Maligned
By ROBERT WRIGHT
Robert Wright on culture, politics and world affairs.(Marc: He is the author of two outstanding books on evolutionary biology/psychology: The Moral Animal and Non-Zero Sum)
Just to show you how naïve I am: When I first heard about the plan to build a mosque and community center two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks, I didn’t envision any real opposition to it.
Sure, I can understand how some people traumatized by 9/11 — firefighters who survived it, or people whose loved ones didn’t — might not like the idea. But I’d have thought that opinion leaders of all ideological stripes could reach consensus by applying a basic rule of thumb: Just ask, “What would Osama bin Laden want?” and then do the opposite.
Bin Laden would love to be able to say that in America you can build a church or synagogue anywhere you want, but not a mosque. That fits perfectly with his recruiting pitch — that America has declared war on Islam. And bin Laden would thrill to the claim that a mosque near ground zero dishonors the victims of 9/11, because the unspoken premise is that the attacks really were, as he claims, a valid expression of Islam.
Apparently I was wrong. Two New York politicians — Representative Peter King and Rick Lazio, a candidate for governor — are ginning up opposition to the project, as is the Weekly Standard.
Their strategy is to ask dark questions about the motivations behind the project (known as Park51 because of its address on Park Place). Those motivations reside in an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement, the project’s co-sponsors. So far as I can tell, Rauf is a good person who genuinely wants to build a more peaceful world. (I met him briefly last year at a venue where we had both been asked to give talks about compassion — his from an Islamic perspective, mine from a secular perspective. Here’s the talk he gave.)
But if you think Rauf’s good intentions are going to keep him safe from the Weekly Standard, you underestimate that magazine’s creative powers. Its latest issue features an article about Park51 chock full of angles that never would have occurred to me if some magazine had asked me to write an assessment of the project’s ideological underpinnings. For example: Rauf’s wife, who often speaks in support of the project and during one talk reflected proudly on her Islamic heritage, “failed to mention another feature of her background: She is the niece of Dr. Farooq Khan, formerly a leader of the Westbury Mosque on Long Island, which is a center for Islamic radicals and links on its Web site to the paramilitary Islamic Circle of North America (I.C.N.A.), the front on American soil for the Pakistani jihadist Jamaat e-Islami.”
Got that? Rauf’s wife has an uncle who used to be “a leader” of a mosque that now has a Web site that links to the Web site of an allegedly radical organization. (I’ll get back to the claim that the Westbury Mosque is itself a “center for Islamic radicals.”)
The odd thing is that the author of this piece, Stephen Schwartz, is a self-described neoconservative whose parents were, by his own account, communists. You’d think he might harbor doubts about how confidently we can infer people’s ideologies from the ideologies of their older relatives. You’d also think he might disdain McCarthyite guilt-by-association tactics.
You’d be wrong. Schwartz’s piece goes on and on, weaving webs of association so engrossing that you have to keep reminding yourself that they have nothing to do with Rauf. At one point Schwartz spends several paragraphs damning someone whose connection to Park51 seems to consist of having spoken favorably about it.
If we are going to stigmatize everyone who in any sense supports Hamas, we are going to be tarring with a pretty broad brush.
.As for the views of Rauf himself: In Schwartz’s universe, Rauf’s expressions of opposition to terrorism are themselves grounds for suspicion. Rauf, says Schwartz, has “cloaked the Cordoba effort in the rhetoric of reconciliation, describing himself and his colleagues as ‘the anti-terrorists.’”
Rauf has been the imam at a Manhattan mosque for a quarter of a century, so you’d think that, if he actually had radical views, there would be some evidence of that by now. Just to give you some idea of what solid evidence of radicalism looks like: Representative King, who shares the Weekly Standard’s grave suspicions about Rauf, supported the Irish Republican Army back when it was killing lots of innocent civilians. He raised money for the I.R.A. and said it was “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland” and praised the “brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry” and in various other ways backed this terrorist group. If Rauf’s past looked like King’s past, there would indeed be cause for concern.
A big question when reading any Weekly Standard piece about nefarious Muslims is: What is the operative definition of “radical”? This question is worth spending some time on, because if the Standard is defining the term loosely, then the six-degrees-of-separation chains it uses to link people to radicalism are even less relevant than they seem.
Apparently one Weekly Standard criterion for radicalism is support for Hamas. Thus, Schwartz notes that the real estate developer for the project has a business partner who has an uncle (you still with us?) who dramatically affirmed his support for Hamas after the recent blockade-running flotilla incident.
Now, there are a lot of Arabs and Muslims, including Americans, who don’t consider Hamas evil incarnate. You might divide Hamas “supporters” into two camps:
“Hard” supporters say that Palestinians were wrongly dispossessed of their land six decades ago and that brutal tactics are therefore warranted. So what I call a terrorist they consider a freedom fighter.
“Soft” supporters may not approve of all Hamas tactics, but they note the following: In 2006, Hamas, with American and Israeli approval, participated in a Palestinian election and won — and, right after this victory, there were signs that Hamas might be willing to abandon terrorism, at least provisionally. But Israel and the United States decided that, while it was fine for Hamas to participate in elections, winning was unacceptable, and Hamas wouldn’t be allowed to govern. So Hamas seized control of Gaza, and Israel then subjected the people of Gaza to a crippling economic blockade (which, even after the post-flotilla “loosening,” doesn’t let Gaza export anything to speak of). Forced to choose between Israel and Hamas in this standoff, these “soft” supporters side with Hamas.
I can see how Israelis would have a different view of Hamas, which not so long ago pursued a concerted strategy of killing Israeli civilians, and could revive that strategy any day and still hasn’t accepted Israel’s right to exist. It’s understandable that Israelis hate Hamas, and Americans, including the people at the Weekly Standard, have every right to share this hatred.
Still, the point is that, whether the Weekly Standard likes it or not, there are a number of Arabs and Muslims, including Americans, who in one sense or another support Hamas and who aren’t dangerously radical from an American perspective; they didn’t support the 9/11 attacks or the Fort Hood shooting or the would-be underwear bombing. So if we are going to stigmatize everyone who in any sense supports Hamas — or even associates with someone whose uncle supports Hamas — we are going to be tarring with a pretty broad brush, excluding from a crucial American dialogue too many people for the dialogue to be productive. (Thomas Friedman recently made a similar argument in criticizing CNN’s reflexive firing of an editor who tweeted something favorable about a leader of Hezbollah after he died.)
So when Schwartz asserts that a Long Island mosque is a “center for Islamic radicals,” I personally have to suspend judgment until I hear from someone who has researched the matter and has a more useful definition of radicalism than Schwartz does. Meanwhile, I’ll just remind myself that this mosque has nothing to do with Rauf anyway.
One thing Peter King and Rick Lazio demand is that Rauf unequivocally denounce Hamas. In other words, they want him to go beyond just not being a professed supporter of Hamas and, in effect, criticize everyone who supports Hamas in even the “soft” sense.
No doubt Osama bin Laden, if apprised of the situation, would hope that Rauf will cave in to these demands and ritually denounce Hamas. Because the Muslims who are most vulnerable to bin Laden’s recruiting pitch are, it’s safe to say, at least somewhat sympathetic to Hamas. And if moderate Muslims like Rauf can be pressured into adopting Israel’s position, and thus be depicted by truly radical Muslims as Zionist tools, that will make them less effective in their tug of war with bin Laden for the hearts and minds of the vulnerable.
Pathetically, Rick Lazio seems to have made his demand for an “investigation” into Park51 the centerpiece-du-jour of his gubernatorial campaign. Happily, Mayor Bloomberg has shown true moral leadership and opposed Lazio’s demands in clear language. “Government should never — never — be in the business of telling people how they should pray, or where they can pray,” Bloomberg said last week. “We want to make sure that everybody from around the world feels comfortable coming here, living here and praying the way they want to pray.” Amen.
-
Robert Wright: Useful idiot for the Muslim Brotherhood
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/pamela-geller-vs-ibrahim-ramey-of-the-muslim-brotherhoods-muslim-american-society.html
-
http://bigpeace.com/fgaffney/2010/07/28/newt-takes-on-shariah-and-ground-zero-mosque/
-
An influential Jewish organization on Friday announced its opposition to a proposed Islamic center and mosque two blocks north of ground zero in Lower Manhattan, intensifying a fierce national debate about the limits of religious freedom and the meaning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The decision by the group, the Anti-Defamation League, touched off angry reactions from a range of religious groups, which argued that the country would show its tolerance and values by welcoming the center near the site where radical Muslims killed about 2,750 people.
But the unexpected move by the ADL, a mainstream group that has denounced what it saw as bigoted attacks on plans for the Muslim center, could well be a turning point in the battle over the project.
In New York, where ground zero has slowly blended back into the fabric of the city, government officials appear poised to approve plans for the sprawling complex, which would have as many as 15 stories and would house a prayer space, a performing arts center, a pool and a restaurant.
But around the country opposition is mounting, fueled in part by Republican leaders and conservative pundits. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, has urged “peace-seeking Muslims” to reject the center, branding it an “unnecessary provocation.” A Republican political action committee has produced a television commercial assailing the proposal. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has decried it in speeches.
The complex’s rapid evolution from a local zoning dispute into a national referendum highlights the intense and unsettled emotions that still surround the World Trade Center site nine years after the attacks.
To many New Yorkers, especially in Manhattan, it is a construction zone, passed during the daily commute or glimpsed through office windows. To some outside of the city, though, it stands as a hallowed battlefield that must be shielded and memorialized.
Those who are fighting the project argue that building a house of Muslim worship so close to ground zero is at best an affront to the families of those who died there and at worst an act of aggression that would, they say, mark the place where radical Islam achieved a blow against the United States.
“The World Trade Center is the largest loss of American life on our soil since the Civil War,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And we have not rebuilt it, which drives people crazy. And in that setting, we are told, why don’t we have a 13-story mosque and community center?”
He added: “The average American just thinks this is a political statement. It’s not about religion, and is clearly an aggressive act that is offensive.”
Several family members of victims at the World Trade Center have weighed in against the plan, saying it would desecrate what amounts to a graveyard. “When I look over there and see a mosque, it’s going to hurt,” C. Lee Hanson, whose son, Peter, was killed in the attacks, said at a recent public hearing. “Build it someplace else.”
Those who support it seem mystified and flustered by the heated opposition. They contend that the project, with an estimated cost of $100 million, is intended to span the divide between Muslim and non-Muslim, not widen it.
Oz Sultan, the programming director for the center, said the complex was based on Jewish community centers and Y.M.C.A.’s in Manhattan. It is to have a board composed of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders and is intended to create a national model of moderate Islam.
“We are looking to build bridges between faiths,” Mr. Sultan said in an interview.
City officials, particularly Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, have forcefully defended the project on the grounds of religious freedom, saying that government has no place dictating where a house of worship is located. The local community board has given overwhelming backing to the project, and the city’s landmarks commission is expected to do the same on Tuesday.
“What is great about America, and particularly New York, is we welcome everybody, and if we are so afraid of something like this, what does that say about us?” Mr. Bloomberg asked recently.
“Democracy is stronger than this,” he added. “And for us to just say no is just, I think — not appropriate is a nice way to phrase it.”
Still, the arguments against the Muslim center appear to be resonating. Polling shows that a majority of Americans oppose building it near ground zero.
============
Page 2 of 2)
Resistance is particularly strong among some national Republican leaders. In stump speeches, Twitter messages and op-ed articles, they have turned angry denunciations of the plan into a political rallying cry that they say has surprising potency.
The two major Republican candidates for governor of New York, Rick A. Lazio and Carl Paladino, are making it a central issue in their campaigns, attacking the state’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, who is also the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, for not aggressively investigating the project’s finances..
In North Carolina, Ilario Pantano, a former Marine and a Republican candidate for Congress, has also campaigned on the issue, and says it is stirring voters in his rural district, some 600 miles away from ground zero.
A few days ago, at a roadside pizza shop in the small town of Salemburg, he attacked the proposal before an enthusiastic crowd of hog farmers and military veterans.
“Uniformly, there was disgust and disdain in the room for the idea,” Mr. Pantano said.
The issue was wrenching for the Anti-Defamation League, which in the past has spoken out against anti-Islamic sentiment. But its national director, Abraham H. Foxman, said in an interview on Friday that the organization came to the conclusion that the location was offensive to families of victims of Sept. 11, and he suggested that the center’s backers should look for a site “a mile away.”
“It’s the wrong place,” Mr. Foxman said. “Find another place.”
Asked why the opposition of the families was so pivotal in the decision, Mr. Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, said they were entitled to their emotions.
“Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational,” he said. Referring to the loved ones of Sept. 11 victims, he said, “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s statement drew criticism almost immediately.
“The ADL should be ashamed of itself,” said Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, which promotes interethnic and interfaith dialogue. Speaking of the imam behind the proposed center, Feisal Abdul Rauf, he said, “Here, we ask the moderate leaders of the Muslim community to step forward, and when one of them does, he is treated with suspicion.”
C. Welton Gaddy, the president of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington group that emphasizes religious freedom, called the decision “disappointing,” and said he read about it “with a great deal of sorrow.”
On Friday, Mr. Sultan, the programming director for the proposed Muslim center, expressed surprise and sadness at the news. Told of Mr. Foxman’s remarks about the families of Sept. 11 victims, he said, “That response is just not well thought out.” He said that Muslims had also died on Sept. 11, either because they worked in the twin towers, or responded to the scene.
“The ADL has always been antibigotry,” he said. “This just does not seem consistent with their message.”
-
If you are a minority in a country with a majority that has some issues with your outlook on life, you do not do provocative things, unless.......... If we (for example) blew up the Taj Mahal and wanted to build a church on/ near the site, regardless of culture, we know that would be inflammatory to the local population right? It would be a way for the religious folks to stake a flag "Don't mess with Jesus" wouldn't it? If there was land available on the other end of town, cheaper we could build on? If we had to enlist local leaders to try and use psychobable for this to work?
If it looks fishy looking through your side of the looking glass...............
If you are really about building bridges, you would accept that discretion may gain you more in the long run. Exposure to your religion in an atmosphere that would allow for a more open mindset, rather than one that tends to close it. (A shinto shrine built on the shore next to the Arizona?! riiigghhhtt.....)
-
The mosque is nothing more than a victory lap for the jihadists.
-
From where is the money paying for it coming? Saudi Arabia?
-
in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Rauf told the newspaper that funding would come from Muslims in the United States and from overseas.
"Imam Abdul Rauf . . . told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Islamic center will be financed through contributions from Muslims in the US, as well as by donations from Arab and Islamic countries," the newspaper reported.
Rauf did not return a call for comment.
In interviews with US media, Rauf has insisted funds would be raised here.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/foreign_mosque_money_OSkAG6ucmWz6yPAJU61cTO?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME#ixzz0vYcJGKjZ
-
Okay, are we talking the bingo club is providing financing- or some more "active group" like Christian Identity? If the money is coming from local sources then they would KNOW what kind of crap they were pulling.........
-
Saudi/Wahabi money has financed a shockingly large % of mosques in the US (the number slips my mind). And in the rare cases that someone has invested the time and money to get the Arabic materials used translated and read, it usually reveals the worst of Wahabbi Islam being taught despite the previous promises made in English.
-
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/30/imam-faisal-ground-zero-mosque-money-opinions-columnists-claudia-rosett.html
Claudia Rosett does some great work here.
-
Hmmm, definately looks fishy. Too bad there aren't better details, which is the point. No details, so this easily could be something more like a Templar Priory instead of a more sedate sect..........
-
OK erudite one, please save me having to look it up. What is/was "Templar Priory"?
-
The Templars were a military/ mlitant order in the days of the crusades. A priory would have bacically been a fortified outpost watching an important piece of terrain.
-
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38673
Glad he's doing "outreach" on our dime. Thanks Obama!
-
A Test of Tolerance
The "Ground Zero mosque" debate is about tolerance—and a whole lot more.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 23, 2010, at 2:01 PM ET
Two weeks ago, I wrote that the arguments against the construction of the Cordoba Initiative center in lower Manhattan were so stupid and demagogic as to be beneath notice. Things have only gone further south since then, with Newt Gingrich's comparison to a Nazi sign outside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum or (take your pick from the grab bag of hysteria) a Japanese cultural center at Pearl Harbor. The first of those pseudo-analogies is wrong in every possible way, in that the Holocaust museum already contains one of the most coolly comprehensive guides to the theory and practice of the Nazi regime in existence, including special exhibits on race theory and party ideology and objective studies of the conditions that brought the party to power. As for the second, there has long been a significant Japanese-American population in Hawaii, and I can't see any reason why it should not place a cultural center anywhere on the islands that it chooses.
From the beginning, though, I pointed out that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was no great bargain and that his Cordoba Initiative was full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy. I mentioned his sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza. The more one reads through his statements, the more alarming it gets. For example, here is Rauf's editorial on the upheaval that followed the brutal hijacking of the Iranian elections in 2009. Regarding President Obama, he advised that:
He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution—to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.
Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs. Under this dispensation, "the will of the people" is a meaningless expression, because "the people" are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader, whose rule is impervious to elections and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.
I do not find myself reassured by the fact that Imam Rauf publicly endorses the most extreme and repressive version of Muslim theocracy. The letterhead of the statement, incidentally, describes him as the Cordoba Initiative's "Founder and Visionary." Why does that not delight me, either?
Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …
As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.
From my window, I can see the beautiful minaret of the Washington, D.C., mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. It is situated at the heart of the capital city's diplomatic quarter, and it is where President Bush went immediately after 9/11 to make his gesture toward the "religion of peace." A short while ago, the wife of a new ambassador told me that she had been taking her dog for a walk when a bearded man accosted her and brusquely warned her not to take the animal so close to the sacred precincts. Muslim cabdrivers in other American cities have already refused to take passengers with "unclean" canines.
Another feature of my local mosque that I don't entirely like is the display of flags outside, purportedly showing all those nations that are already Muslim. Some of these flags are of countries like Malaysia, where Islam barely has a majority, or of Turkey, which still has a secular constitution. At the United Nations, the voting bloc of the Organization of the Islamic Conference nations is already proposing a resolution that would circumscribe any criticism of religion in general and of Islam in particular. So, before he is used by our State Department on any more goodwill missions overseas, I would like to see Imam Rauf asked a few searching questions about his support for clerical dictatorship in, just for now, Iran. Let us by all means make the "Ground Zero" debate a test of tolerance. But this will be a one-way street unless it is to be a test of Muslim tolerance as well.
http://www.slate.com/id/2264770
-
Laura Ingram said it best last night while subbing for Hannity.
"Tolerance only works one way with the Muslims."
The USA must tolerate them. Not the other way around.
Hence we have a woman suing Disney because of their dress code claiming it discriminates against her religious rights.
Our enemies have learned well how to beat this country and make us look like fools.
-
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/08/26/ground-zero-mosque-supporter-to-holocaust-survivor-obviously-he-didnt-learn-his-lesson/
The mask slips.
-
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/manhattan/mosque-investors-donation-investigation-20100902
Shocking! :roll:
-
Those who don't listent to history are doomed to repeat it:
""We were expecting Islam to adapt to France and it is France adapting to Islam," Robin said"
If the Bloomberg's of the country have their way it will happen here too.
****'Islamization' of Paris a Warning to the West
By Dale Hurd
CBN News Sr. ReporterSaturday, September 04, 2010RSSPodcasts
The latest version of Adobe Flash Player is required to watch this video. Please click on the link below to download the latest version. Thanks!
Embed: Link:
Ad Feedback PARIS - Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force.
This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene.
It shows that even though some in the French government want to get tough with Muslims and ban the burqa, other parts of the French government continue to give Islam a privileged status.
An ordinary French citizen who has been watching the Islamization of Paris decided that the world needed to see what was happening to his city. He used a hidden camera to start posting videos on YouTube. His life has been threatened and so he uses the alias of "Maxime Lepante. "
Lepante's View
His camera shows that Muslims "are blocking the streets with barriers. They are praying on the ground. And the inhabitants of this district cannot leave their homes, nor go into their homes during those prayers."
"The Muslims taking over those streets do not have any authorization. They do not go to the police headquarters, so it's completely illegal," he says.
The Muslims in the street have been granted unofficial rights that no Christian group is likely to get under France's Laicite', or secularism law.
"It says people have the right to share any belief they want, any religion," Lepante explained. "But they have to practice at home or in the mosque, synagogues, churches and so on."
Some say Muslims must pray in the street because they need a larger mosque. But Lepante has observed cars coming from other parts of Paris, and he believes it is a weekly display of growing Muslim power.
"They are coming there to show that they can take over some French streets to show that they can conquer a part of the French territory," he said.
France's Islamic Future?
If France faces an Islamic future, a Russian author has already written about it. The novel is called "The Mosque of Notre Dame, 2048," a bestseller in Russia, not in France.
French publisher Jean Robin said the French media ignored the book because it was politically incorrect.
"Islam is seen as the religion of the poor people, so you can't say to the poor people, 'You're wrong,' otherwise, you're a fascist," Robin explained.
The book lays out a dark future when France has become a Muslim nation, and the famous cathedral has been turned into a mosque.
Whether that plot is farfetched depends on whom you ask. Muslims are said to be no more than 10 percent of the French population, although no one knows for sure because French law prohibits population counts by religion.
But the Muslim birthrate is significantly higher than for the native French. Some Muslim men practice polygamy, with each extra wife having children and collecting a welfare check.
"The problem of Islam is more than a problem of numbers," said French philosopher Radu Stoenescu, an Islamic expert who debates Muslim leaders on French TV. "The problem is one of principles. It's an open question. Is Islam an ideology or just a creed?"
"It doesn't matter how many there are," he aded. "The problem is the people who follow Islam; they're somehow in a political party, which has a political agenda, which means basically implementing Sharia and building an Islamic state."
In Denial or Fed Up
From the 1980s until recently, criticizing or opposing Islam was considered a social taboo, and so the government and media effectively helped Islam spread throughout France.
"We were expecting Islam to adapt to France and it is France adapting to Islam," Robin said.
About the burqa controversy, one French Muslim man told a reporter that Europeans should respect Muslim dress. One Parisian woman wearing a headscarf said "the veil is in the Koran" and "we only submit to God and nobody else."
But even if many government elites are in France are in denial over Islam, the people in the streets increasingly are not. Some have become fed up with what they see as the growing Islamization of France.
They've started staging pork and wine "aperitifs," or cocktail parties in the street. They're patriotic demonstrations meant to strike back against Islam. Another national demonstration is planned for Saturday, Sept. 4.
A Warning to the West
The French parliament is expected to debate the burqa law in September. Jean-Francois Cope, president of the Union for a Popular Movement political party, has a warning for the West and for America.
"We cannot accept the development of such practice because it's not compatible with the life in a modern society, you see," he said. "And this question is not only a French question. You will all have to face this challenge. "
For more insight on the slide toward a post-Christian Western society, check out Dale Hurd's blog Hurd on the Web.
For more insight on 'Islamization' around the world, check out Stakelbeck on Terror.
**Originally published September 1, 2010.****
-
For nine years after the attacks of Sept. 11, many American Muslims made concerted efforts to build relationships with non-Muslims, to make it clear they abhor terrorism, to educate people about Islam and to participate in interfaith service projects. They took satisfaction in the observations by many scholars that Muslims in America were more successful and assimilated than Muslims in Europe.
Eboo Patel, the director of an interfaith youth group, said some politicians were whipping up fear and hatred of Muslims.
Now, many of those same Muslims say that all of those years of work are being rapidly undone by the fierce opposition to a Muslim cultural center near ground zero that has unleashed a torrent of anti-Muslim sentiments and a spate of vandalism. The knifing of a Muslim cab driver in New York City has also alarmed many American Muslims.
“We worry: Will we ever be really completely accepted in American society?” said Dr. Ferhan Asghar, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Cincinnati and the father of two young girls. “In no other country could we have such freedoms — that’s why so many Muslims choose to make this country their own. But we do wonder whether it will get to the point where people don’t want Muslims here anymore.”
Eboo Patel, a founder and director of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based community service program that tries to reduce religious conflict, said, “I am more scared than I’ve ever been — more scared than I was after Sept. 11.”
That was a refrain echoed by many American Muslims in interviews last week. They said they were scared not as much for their safety as to learn that the suspicion, ignorance and even hatred of Muslims is so widespread. This is not the trajectory toward integration and acceptance that Muslims thought they were on.
Some American Muslims said they were especially on edge as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches. The pastor of a small church in Florida has promised to burn a pile of Korans that day. Muslim leaders are telling their followers that the stunt has been widely condemned by Christian and other religious groups and should be ignored. But they said some young American Muslims were questioning how they could simply sit by and watch the promised desecration.
They liken their situation to that of other scapegoats in American history: Irish Roman Catholics before the nativist riots in the 1800s, the Japanese before they were put in internment camps during World War II.
Muslims sit in their living rooms, aghast as pundits assert over and over that Islam is not a religion at all but a political cult, that Muslims cannot be good Americans and that mosques are fronts for extremist jihadis. To address what it calls a “growing tide of fear and intolerance,” the Islamic Society of North America plans to convene a summit of Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in Washington on Tuesday.
Young American Muslims who are trying to figure out their place and their goals in life are particularly troubled, said Imam Abdullah T. Antepli, the Muslim chaplain at Duke University.
“People are discussing what is the alternative if we don’t belong here,” he said. “There are jokes: When are we moving to Canada, when are we moving to Sydney? Nobody will go anywhere, but there is hopelessness, there is helplessness, there is real grief.”
Mr. Antepli just returned from a trip last month with a rabbi and other American Muslim leaders to Poland and Germany, where they studied the Holocaust and the events that led up to it (the group issued a denunciation of Holocaust denial on its return).
“Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,” he said. “It’s really scary.”
American Muslims were anticipating a particularly joyful Ramadan this year. For the first time in decades, the monthlong holiday fell mostly during summer vacation, allowing children to stay up late each night for the celebratory iftar dinner, breaking the fast, with family and friends.
But the season turned sour.
The great mosque debate seems to have unleashed a flurry of vandalism and harassment directed at mosques: construction equipment set afire at a mosque site in Murfreesboro, Tenn; a plastic pig with graffiti thrown into a mosque in Madera, Calif.; teenagers shooting outside a mosque in upstate New York during Ramadan prayers. It is too soon to tell whether hate crimes against Muslims are rising or are on pace with previous years, experts said. But it is possible that other episodes are going unreported right now.
“Victims are reluctant to go public with these kinds of hate incidents because they fear further harassment or attack,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “They’re hoping all this will just blow over.”
Some Muslims said their situation felt more precarious now — under a president who is perceived as not only friendly to Muslims but is wrongly believed by many Americans to be Muslim himself — than it was under President George W. Bush.
Mr. Patel explained, “After Sept. 11, we had a Republican president who had the confidence and trust of red America, who went to a mosque and said, ‘Islam means peace,’ and who said ‘Muslims are our neighbors and friends,’ and who distinguished between terrorism and Islam.”
Now, unlike Mr. Bush then, the politicians with sway in red state America are the ones whipping up fear and hatred of Muslims, Mr. Patel said.
“There is simply the desire to paint an entire religion as the enemy,” he said. Referring to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed Muslim center near ground zero, “What they did to Imam Feisal was highly strategic. The signal was, we can Swift Boat your most moderate leaders.”
Several American Muslims said in interviews that they were stunned that what provoked the anti-Muslim backlash was not even another terrorist attack but a plan by an imam known for his work with leaders of other faiths to build a Muslim community center.
This year, Sept. 11 coincides with the celebration of Eid, the finale to Ramadan, which usually lasts three days (most Muslims will begin observing Eid this year on Sept. 10). But Muslim leaders, in this climate, said they wanted to avoid appearing to be celebrating on the anniversary of 9/11. Several major Muslim organizations have urged mosques to use the day to participate in commemoration events and community service.
Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, said many American Muslims were still hoping to salvage the spirit of Ramadan.
“In Ramadan, you’re really not supposed to be focused on yourself,” she said. “It’s about looking out for the suffering of other people. Somehow it feels bad to be so worried about our own situation and our own security, when it should be about empathy towards others.”
-
second post of the day:
In the Heat of Camp, the Hunger of Faith
By PAT BORZI
Published: September 5, 2010
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — For Minnesota Vikings defensive back Husain Abdullah, the most important clock inside the Metrodome was not the one keeping time for his team’s recent preseason game with the Seattle Seahawks. Another, showing the time of day, held greater significance for him and for the Vikings’ training staff.
Husain Abdullah in action against the San Francisco 49ers last month. In 2008, as a rookie, he fasted without telling anyone.
Abdullah, a third-year safety, is a Muslim who keeps the traditional fast during the holy month of Ramadan; he cannot eat or drink from sunup to sundown. So while his teammates slugged down water and sports drinks on the sideline during the first quarter, Abdullah had to abstain until sunset, at 7:57 p.m. Abdullah went by the clock because the game was indoors.
“So I told them, as soon as it’s 8 o’clock, remind me so I can pour some down,” Abdullah said. “We did a kickoff, had a long drive on defense, and then they scored a field goal. On the sideline they said: ‘It’s 8 o’clock. Start pounding.’ ”
The physical demands of an N.F.L. training camp, which entail two practices on some days, can tax even the best-hydrated and well-fed players. Yet Abdullah, 25, and his brother Hamza, a 27-year-old defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals, are committed to fasting throughout Ramadan, which ends at sundown Thursday — the night the Vikings open the season in New Orleans.
An N.F.L. spokesman was not aware of any other Muslim players who were fasting.
The fast is not required if a person is ill or it poses an undue hardship, according to Hamza Abdullah, who skipped several days in 2008 because of an injured hip and made them up later. Denver offensive tackle Ryan Harris, a converted Muslim and Hamza Abdullah’s former teammate, is not fasting, according to a Broncos spokesman.
“It’s hard to be a professional athlete, and it’s hard to fast,” Hamza Abdullah said in a telephone interview from the Cardinals’ complex in the Phoenix area.
But it means so much to Husain Abdullah that he has fasted every year since he was 7, even during football season while at Washington State and with Minnesota. That reflects the influence of his parents, who raised 12 children in the Muslim faith in Southern California. All are fasting, Hamza Abdullah said.
“A lot of people may look at things differently, but I feel it is required for us to fast,” Husain Abdullah said, basing his conviction on his reading of the Koran. “And we’ve been fasting my whole life, pretty much. I try to protect my fasting because it really means a lot to me.”
To do so, Abdullah needed help from the Vikings because Ramadan coincided with training camp. Abdullah fasted as a rookie in 2008, when Ramadan began and ended in September, but he never told anyone in the organization.
“I’m a quiet person,” said Abdullah, who led the Vikings in special teams tackles as an undrafted free agent.
Last year, Ramadan started Aug. 22, the day after the Vikings’ second preseason game. Abdullah told only Derek Mason, the assistant defensive backs coach, about his fasting. Coach Brad Childress learned about it in early September, when he wondered why Abdullah lacked energy and could not keep up his weight. The 6-foot Abdullah usually plays at 200 to 202 pounds, he said, but dropped to 194 during Ramadan.
So last April, the team’s nutrition consultant, Carrie Peterson, devised a Ramadan meal plan for Abdullah, based on a 3,800-calorie diet.
Every day, Abdullah wakes briefly at 2 a.m. to consume a protein and carbohydrate shake.
“I hate to make the guy get up at 2 a.m., but that’s about 400 calories he’s getting,” Peterson said. “That’s about a pound a week he’d lose if he didn’t get up to have that shake.”
He rises again at 5 with his wife, Zhavon, to pray and eat a predawn meal, known as suhoor. Dietary choices include scrambled eggs with vegetables, a nonpork breakfast meat (pork is forbidden in a Muslim diet), oatmeal with fruit and various liquids. Abdullah tops it off with another shake. Then nothing until the evening meal at sundown.
“My weight has always fluctuated, but of course during Ramadan, it fluctuates a little more,” he said after a recent practice. “When I come out here and work out, I probably lose two or three pounds during a practice. During Ramadan, it’s probably around four or so.
“Even if I tap out, drain myself, the next morning, after I’ve eaten at night and eaten in the morning, I’m right back to my normal weight. I weighed in today at 200.
“This year, I’m doing a whole lot better maintaining with the plan I put in place.”
The Vikings’ defensive backs coach, Joe Woods, said he never coached a fasting Muslim before Abdullah, a versatile athlete who fills in at both safety positions and at nickel back.
“It’s hard to imagine somebody being able to do that, out here practicing, 50 reps a day, and not have any water,” Woods said. “But he’s done it. He has a very good plan.”
Both Abdullahs say their teammates have been supportive and inquisitive. Muslims traditionally break the daily fast by eating a date, and Hamza Abdullah said a bag of dates he brought to a night practice this summer drew puzzled looks.
“Some of my teammates were looking at the bag, like, what is that weird-looking fruit?” he said. “It was pretty funny.”
To those who know Husain Abdullah, his commitment to fasting is nothing to joke about. “It’s really a testament to how important his religion is in his life,” Peterson said. “It’s amazing. He’s kind of an inspiration to me in a lot of ways.”
-
**In Crafty's first post, the puff piece fails to point out the jihadist links various "spokespeople"/islamic organizations have. Kind of important, no?**
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2116/jihads-ugly-american-face
http://www.investigativeproject.org/732/isna-admits-hamas-ties
http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/172
http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/174
http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/168
http://www.investigativeproject.org/1341/the-creeping-homegrown-threat
-
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/09/05/original-owners-of-gz-mosque-site-rejected-18m-sold-property-for-4-8m/
-
Building on Faith
By FEISAL ABDUL RAUF
Published: September 7, 2010
AS my flight approached America last weekend, my mind circled back to the furor that has broken out over plans to build Cordoba House, a community center in Lower Manhattan.I have been away from home for two months, speaking abroad about cooperation among people from different religions. Every day, including the past two weeks spent representing my country on a State Department tour in the Middle East, I have been struck by how the controversy has riveted the attention of Americans, as well as nearly everyone I met in my travels.
We have all been awed by how inflamed and emotional the issue of the proposed community center has become. The level of attention reflects the degree to which people care about the very American values under debate: recognition of the rights of others, tolerance and freedom of worship.
Many people wondered why I did not speak out more, and sooner, about this project. I felt that it would not be right to comment from abroad. It would be better if I addressed these issues once I returned home to America, and after I could confer with leaders of other faiths who have been deliberating with us over this project. My life’s work has been focused on building bridges between religious groups and never has that been as important as it is now.
We are proceeding with the community center, Cordoba House. More important, we are doing so with the support of the downtown community, government at all levels and leaders from across the religious spectrum, who will be our partners. I am convinced that it is the right thing to do for many reasons.
Above all, the project will amplify the multifaith approach that the Cordoba Initiative has deployed in concrete ways for years. Our name, Cordoba, was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims. Our initiative is intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures.
Our broader mission — to strengthen relations between the Western and Muslim worlds and to help counter radical ideology — lies not in skirting the margins of issues that have polarized relations within the Muslim world and between non-Muslims and Muslims. It lies in confronting them as a joint multifaith, multinational effort.
From the political conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians to the building of a community center in Lower Manhattan, Muslims and members of all faiths must work together if we are ever going to succeed in fostering understanding and peace.
At Cordoba House, we envision shared space for community activities, like a swimming pool, classrooms and a play space for children. There will be separate prayer spaces for Muslims, Christians, Jews and men and women of other faiths. The center will also include a multifaith memorial dedicated to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
I am very sensitive to the feelings of the families of victims of 9/11, as are my fellow leaders of many faiths. We will accordingly seek the support of those families, and the support of our vibrant neighborhood, as we consider the ultimate plans for the community center. Our objective has always been to make this a center for unification and healing.
Cordoba House will be built on the two fundamental commandments common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam: to love the Lord our creator with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength; and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We want to foster a culture of worship authentic to each religious tradition, and also a culture of forging personal bonds across religious traditions.
I do not underestimate the challenges that will be involved in bringing our work to completion. (Construction has not even begun yet.) I know there will be interest in our financing, and so we will clearly identify all of our financial backers.
Lost amid the commotion is the good that has come out of the recent discussion. I want to draw attention, specifically, to the open, law-based and tolerant actions that have taken place, and that are particularly striking for Muslims.
President Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg both spoke out in support of our project. As I traveled overseas, I saw firsthand how their words and actions made a tremendous impact on the Muslim street and on Muslim leaders. It was striking: a Christian president and a Jewish mayor of New York supporting the rights of Muslims. Their statements sent a powerful message about what America stands for, and will be remembered as a milestone in improving American-Muslim relations.
The wonderful outpouring of support for our right to build this community center from across the social, religious and political spectrum seriously undermines the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith. These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide. This is why Americans must not back away from completion of this project. If we do, we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides. The paradigm of a clash between the West and the Muslim world will continue, as it has in recent decades at terrible cost. It is a paradigm we must shift.
From those who recognize our rights, from grassroots organizers to heads of state, I sense a global desire to build on this positive momentum and to be part of a global movement to heal relations and bring peace. This is an opportunity we must grasp.
I therefore call upon all Americans to rise to this challenge. Let us commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 by pausing to reflect and meditate and tone down the vitriol and rhetoric that serves only to strengthen the radicals and weaken our friends’ belief in our values.
The very word “islam” comes from a word cognate to shalom, which means peace in Hebrew. The Koran declares in its 36th chapter, regarded by the Prophet Muhammad as the heart of the Koran, in a verse deemed the heart of this chapter, “Peace is a word spoken from a merciful Lord.”
How better to commemorate 9/11 than to urge our fellow Muslims, fellow Christians and fellow Jews to follow the fundamental common impulse of our great faith traditions?
Feisal Abdul Rauf is the chairman of the Cordoba Initiative and the imam of the Farah mosque in Lower Manhattan.
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/ground-zero-mosque-imam-rauf-in-a-true-peace-israel-will-in-our-lifetimes-become-one-more-arab-count.html
"Moderate" Ground Zero mosque Imam Rauf: "In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority"
Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's "moderate" facade continues to be exposed as the exercise in deception that it is. He has said of Israel, according to audio revealed by Pamela Geller, that "a one-state solution is...more coherent...than a two-state solution."
By that, of course, he meant a Sharia state with Muslims holding all the political power and Jews relegated to the institutionalized discrimination of dhimmi status. Any doubt of that was dispelled when he said: "In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure. . . . In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority."
Moderate!
-
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012845682_eidcelebrations09m.html
-
The muslim celebrations of 9/11 in the US will be even more subdued and covert.
-
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/09/17/students-praying-in-school-bad-students-being-taught-to-pray-to-allah-on-field-trips-good/
"Oh yeah, didn’t you hear? Separation of church and state only applies to Christianity."
-
By TAMMY AUDI
BELL, Calif.—Infuriated residents of this small southern California city made a national name for themselves when they ousted three municipal officials after revelations of high six-figure salaries. Lesser known is that Bell's citizen revolution is being run from an Islamic community center.
Taxpayer outrage has washed away the wariness that once separated the working-class Roman Catholic and Protestant Latinos who make up Bell's majority and a quietly flourishing minority of Shi'ite Muslims. The nascent unity in Bell—where 100 people meet regularly at the El-Hussein Center about the ongoing scandal—comes amid controversies in other U.S. cities over the construction or expansion of Islamic institutions.
More than 100 residents met last week in Bell, Calif.'s El-Hussein center. The banner in back, in Arabic, proclaims love for and acceptance of God.
"We're all victims here," said Ali Saleh, a Muslim resident and member of the Bell Association to Stop the Abuse, which hosts the community meetings. "Sad to say, but that's what's bringing us together."
A Pew Research report released last month showed 30% of Americans have a positive view of Islam, compared with 42% who held a positive view in 2005. Muslim-American leaders have urged Muslims to counter that image by becoming more visibly involved in political life, but with limited success. Bell has the potential to become the kind of turnaround Muslim-Americans are after as the nation debates their place in American society.
Bell's former city manager, one of the officials forced out, took home nearly $800,000 a year in pay, and some part-time city council members earned $100,000. Alleging fraud and conspiracy, the state is suing current and former Bell officials.
Tightly packed across just two square miles, Bell is among several small cities tucked amid the sprawling industrial areas southeast of Los Angeles. It's wedged between four freeways, commercial railway lines and a concrete-lined stretch of the Los Angeles River. In the 1950s and '60s, Bell's population exploded.
Longtime Bell residents say white residents began to leave Bell in the 1960s for more spacious suburbs in neighboring Orange County. Race riots in Los Angeles drove more whites away. By 2000, says the U.S. Census, 90% of Bell's 37,000 population identified as Latino.
For most Bell residents, the community meetings that started at the Islamic center in early August are the first real contact they've had with a Muslim community that has been in the city for at least four decades.
"Since I was a little girl, I remember going to school with the Muslim children and they really kept to themselves," said Cynthia Rodriguez, a 29-year-old mother and lifelong resident of Bell.
She was nervous the first day she walked into the El-Hussein Center, unsettled by the unfamiliar images and Arabic writing. But "disgust and fury" at city officials outweighed her fear.
Then someone offered her a chair. Now, she attends every meeting and is getting to know some of her Muslim neighbors for the first time.
Bell's Muslims, numbering between 1,000 and 2,000, are Lebanese immigrants who fled civil war in their country in the 1970s and began arriving from the same village, called Yaroun.
They took jobs in the garment industry, bought homes, and built the mosque and community center. Some Lebanese immigrants opened clothing shops in the area and picked up Spanish to communicate with their largely Latino customer base.
Bell's Muslims said they felt an affinity with their Latino neighbors, if not a closeness. Both groups are immigrants who worked at low-wage jobs or opened small businesses, and both groups sent money to family in their home countries. Even soccer connected them "They work hard, we work hard. Everybody is just working and taking care of their kids" said Mr. Saleh. Bell's Muslims didn't get involved with local politics because "we just concentrated on our families and work," Mr. Saleh said.
But some began to feel it was time for a change in Bell. Last year, another local Muslim named Ali Saleh ran for city council. Then anonymous fliers appeared with images of the candidate's head on the body of a radical Muslim cleric, with New York's burning Twin Towers and a message: "Vote NO Muslims." Mr. Saleh lost.
At a recent city council meeting, the 35-year-old Mr. Saleh, who was born and raised in Bell, stood in front of the city council and a packed house of rowdy Bell residents.
"You told me you were running to protect your people from people like me," Mr. Saleh said, addressing Luis Artiga, a former opponent in the city council race who won the seat. "Let me tell you, these are all my people!" Mr. Saleh shouted to sustained cheering and applause. "Whether they're Arab, whether they're Mexican, whether they Salvadoran, Guatamalan, we are all one." He then repeated his words in Spanish.
After attending the most recent meeting at the El-Hussein Center, Mr. Artiga, a local pastor of a Southern Baptist church, said he regretted what he said during the campaign and that he had nothing to do with the fliers portraying Mr. Saleh as a terrorist. He and Mr. Saleh shook hands.
The new unity in Bell may soon be tested, however. The community association faces some criticism for its political ties and motives.
But as they have opened up to Bell, Muslim community members said, the response has been mostly positive. Recently a local grocer that caters to Latinos called the Islamic center to ask about stocking Halal items— food that meets Islamic dietary standards.
Muslim leaders say no one has bothered them about their mosque or community center until recently, when they received a letter that read "All I need to know about Islam I learned from 9-11"—from an anonymous sender in Texas.
The meetings at the center are conducted in Spanish and English, with the doors to the center thrown open to the evening air. At a recent meeting, more than 150 residents filled rows of green plastic chairs. Their bored children fidgeted in the back of the room, munching on churros and sipping hot chocolate under stacks of the Quran.
Meanwhile, 76-year-old Robert Mackin, who has lived in Bell since 1941, angry that city council members hadn't stepped down, shouted at the interim city attorney: "What about the crooks you still work for?"
Unsatisfied, Mr. Mackin walked toward a row of bearded Muslim men and shook their hands. "Good question, good question," one of the men told him.
Mr. Mackin said he has learned a few things about Islam as he had attended the meetings at the community center. He said he wasn't sure about one photograph on the wall until one young Muslim man told him it was Mecca. The same young man had asked him whether he was "Christian or Catholic."
"Well I laughed and said 'I'm Catholic but Catholics are Christians'," recalled Mr. Mackin. "He was young, and I guess he didn't know. Anyway, we're all learning."
Write to Tammy Audi at Tamara.Audi@wsj.com
-
Islam's Encounters With America
A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, saw 58% object to the building of the WTC mosque.
By FOUAD AJAMI
From his recent travels to the Persian Gulf—sponsored and paid for by the State Department—Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf returned with a none-too-subtle threat. His project, the Ground Zero Mosque, would have to go on. Its cancellation would risk putting "our soldiers, our troops, our embassies and citizens under attack in the Muslim world."
Leave aside the attempt to make this project a matter of national security. The self-appointed bridge between America and the Arab-Islamic world is a false witness to the sentiments in Islamic lands.
Deputy Editorial Page Editor Bret Stephens and Editorial Board member Matthew Kaminski on the plan for a 'Mosque at Ground Zero,' and Senior Editorial Writer Joseph Rago reports on the Missouri results.
The truth is that the trajectory of Islam in America (and Europe for that matter) is at variance with the play of things in Islam's main habitat. A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, gave a decided edge to those who objected to the building of this mosque—58% saw it as a project of folly.
Elaph was at it again in the aftermath of Pastor Terry Jones's threat to burn copies of the Quran: It queried its readers as to whether America was a "tolerant" or a "bigoted" society. The split was 63% to 37% in favor of those who accepted the good faith and pluralism of this country.
This is remarkable. The ground burned in the Arab-Islamic world over the last three decades. Sly preachers and their foot soldiers "weaponized" the faith and all but devoured what modernists had tried to build in the face of difficult odds. The fury has not burned out. Self-styled imams continue to issue fatwas that have made it all but impossible for Arabs and Muslims to partake of the modern world. But from this ruinous history, there has settled upon countless Muslims and Arabs the recognition that the wells are poisoned in their midst, that the faith has to be reined in or that the faith will kill, and that the economic and cultural prospects of modern Islam hang in the balance.
To this kind of sobriety, Muslim activists and preachers in the diaspora—in Patterson, N.J., and Minneapolis, in Copenhagen and Amsterdam—appear to be largely indifferent. They are forever on the look-out for the smallest slight.
Islam in America is of recent vintage. This country can't be "Islamic." Its foundations are deep in the Puritan religious tradition. The waves of immigrants who came to these shores understood the need for discretion, and for patience.
It wasn't belligerence that carried the Catholics and the Jews into the great American mainstream. It was the swarm of daily life—the grocery store, the assembly line, the garment industry, the public schools, and the big wars that knit the American communities together—and tore down the religious and ethnic barriers.
There is no gain to be had, no hearts and minds to be won, in Imam Rauf insisting that Ground Zero can't be hallowed ground because there is a strip joint and an off-track betting office nearby. This may be true, but it is irrelevant.
A terrible deed took place on that ground nine years ago. Nineteen young Arabs brought death and ruin onto American soil, and discretion has a place of pride in the way the aftermath is handled. "Islam" didn't commit these crimes, but young Arabs and Muslims did.
There is no use for the incantation that Islam is a religion of peace. The incantation is false; Islam, like other religions, is theologically a religion of war and a religion of peace. In our time, it is a religion in distress, fought over, hijacked at times, by a militant breed at war with the modern world.
Again, from Elaph, here are the thoughts of an Arab writer, Ahmed Abu Mattar, who sees through the militancy of the religious radicals. He dismisses outright the anger over the "foolish and deranged" Pastor Terry Jones who threatened to burn copies of the Quran. "Where is the anger in the face of dictatorships which dominate the lives of Arabs from the cradle to the grave? Would the Prophet Muhammad look with favor on the prisons in our midst which outnumber the universities and hospitals? Would he take comfort in the rate of illiteracy among the Arabs which exceeds 60%? Would he be satisfied with the backwardness that renders us a burden on other nations?"
The first Arabs who came to America arrived during the time of the Great Migration (1880-1920). Their story is told by Gregory Orfalea in his book, "The Arab Americans: A History" (2006). The pioneers were mostly Christians on the run from the hunger and the privations of a dying Ottoman empire. One such pioneer who fled Lebanon for America said he wanted to leave his homeland and "go to the land of justice." Ellis Island was fondly named bayt al-hurriya (the house of freedom). It was New York, in the larger neighborhood of Wall Street, that was the first home of the immigrants.
Restrictive quotas and the Great Depression reduced the migration to a trickle. This would change drastically in the 1950s and '60s. The time of Islam in America had begun.
It was in 1965, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf tells us, that he made his way to America as a young man. He and a vast migration would be here as American identity would undergo a drastic metamorphosis.
The prudence of days past was now a distant memory. These activists who came in the 1990s—the time of multiculturalism and of what the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called the "disuniting of America"—would insist on a full-scale revision of the American creed. American liberalism had broken with American patriotism, and the self-styled activists would give themselves over to a militancy that would have shocked their forerunners. It is out of that larger history that this project at Ground Zero is born.
There is a great Arab and Islamic tale. It happened in the early years of Islam, but it speaks to this controversy. It took place in A.D. 638, the time of Islam's triumphs.
The second successor to the Prophet, the Caliph Omar—to orthodox Muslims the most revered of the four Guided Caliphs for the great conquests that took place during his reign—had come to Jerusalem to accept the city's surrender. Patriarch Sophronius, the city's chief magistrate, is by his side for the ceremony of surrender. Prayer time comes for Omar while the patriarch is showing him the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The conqueror asks where he could spread out his prayer rug. Sophronius tells him that he could stay where he was. Omar refuses, because his followers, he said, might then claim for Islam the holy shrine of the Christians. Omar stepped outside for his prayer.
We don't always assert all the "rights" that we can get away with. The faith is honored when the faith bends to necessity and discretion.
Mr. Ajami is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
-
Why did Obama go to Church? To Listen to a Muslim Speak!
September 21, 2010 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Islam
4 Comments
And embrace your future!
So, why do you think Barack Obama and family really went to church on
Sunday?
The mainstream media won't tell you, but Obama went to St. John's Episcopal
Church to hear a MUSLIM GUEST SPEAKER!
via Bare Naked Islam ( you are the best! )
The Post Email Yesterday, on Sunday, September 19, 2010, the Obama family
attended church for only the third time in a year. They went on foot to the
St. John's Episcopal Church situated across the Lafayette Park.
But what is widely not reported by the White House and the MSM is that on
that particular Sunday in that particular church, Dr. Ziad Asali, M.D., a
Muslim, founder and president of the American Task Force on Palestine, was
the guest speaker. He was there to speak on the subject of "Prospects of the
two-state solution in the Middle-East."
According to the website of the American Task Force on Palestine, it is a
"non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, DC." The
organization describes itself as "dedicated to advocating that it is in the
American national interest to promote an end to the conflict in the Middle
East through a negotiated agreement that provides for two states - Israel
and Palestine - living side by side in peace and security."
Dr. Ziad J. Asali is described as "a long-time activist on Middle East
issues" who has testified to both chambers of Congress about Palestinian
interests, increased U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, and "Israel's
disproportionate use of force" in Gaza. A retired physician, Asali received
his early medical training at the American University of Beirut. He
previously served as President of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee (ADC) and Chairman of the American Committee on Jerusalem (ACJ),
which he also co-founded He also served as the President of the
Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG). H/T Another Infidel
http://www.chroniclewatch.com/2010/09/21/why-did-obama-go-to-church-to-listen-to-a-muslim-speak/
-
Two faiths, two women and their friendship
In the film, Arranged, shared values bridge the faith divide in an unexpected way.
Jennifer S. Bryson is Director of the Islam and Civil Society Project at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. Her article is reproduced here with the permission of The Public Discourse.
“I heard that the Muslims want to kill all the Jews,” says a fourth-grade student to his Muslim teacher while an Orthodox Jewish teacher sits with them in the classroom. Just about any way one looks at this it sounds like a recipe for disaster.
And yet, by this point in the film Arranged the students’ Muslim teacher, Nasira, and the Orthodox Jewish special education teacher, Rochel, have begun to suspect that they may have more in common with each other as religious women than with anyone else in the secular environment of their Brooklyn public school.
The lunchtime chit-chat of the other female school teachers is about parties and sleeping with guys. Nasira and Rochel have, however, opted for a different approach to life. This means eating lunch alone instead—until they discover each other, that is.
There are those who would like to get Nasira and Rochel to abandon their “backward” ways. In the view of the school principal, for example, the religiosity and consequent modesty of Nasira and Rochel are outdated and irrational. At a workshop to instruct teachers about tolerance, the principal simply assumes and then goes on to tell the whole group that she thinks Nasira wears a headscarf because her father forces her to do so. Nasira, however, refuses to let this snide remark pass and shares with the group an eloquent explanation of her personal choice to follow her religious faith and how this informs her understanding of feminine modesty. She does so gracefully and confidently, not angrily or bitterly. This piques Rochel’s interest. Rochel discovers that Nasira too is facing the challenge of trying to fit in but not give in to the culture at their school.
Nasira’s explanation of why she chooses to wear the hijab does, however, not alleviate the principal’s crusade to ‘enlighten’ and ‘liberate’ Nasira and Rochel with her own brand of feminism.
The principal’s enthusiasm for diversity and tolerance wanes when it comes to the modest attire these young women have chosen out of their religious convictions. The principal considers these women among her two best teachers in the school, but for her that’s not enough. She tells them, “You’re successful participants in the modern world, except for this religious thing. You know I mean—the rules, the regulations, the way you dress… I mean come on we’re in the 21st century here for crying out loud. There was a women’s movement!” Nasira and Rochel try to be polite, but clearly they feel more irritation than liberation at hearing this. The principal, on the other hand, is so flustered by Nasira and Rochel’s calm, confident disinterest in the type of free-for-all feminism she promotes that she finally resorts to offering them her own personal money for them to go out and buy some “designer” clothes as a replacement for “those farkakte outfits” (which seems to be a Yiddish nod, from the secular Jewish principal, to the line from the Blues Brothers, “What are you guys gonna do? The same act? Wearing the same farkakte suits?”). Nasira and Rochel decline and walk out of her office.
This is a delightful film with a positive, substantive message. It deserves more viewers than its somewhat confusing title might attract. Arranged, as in arranged marriage, conjures up for many images of child marriage and forced marriage. This film does not attempt to downplay the abusiveness of such practices. Rather, in this film the “arranging” of marriage refers to family engagement in the process of searching for a suitable spouse.
(In fact, it is worth noting that today there are devout Muslims and Jews working to protect women and men from potential abuses resulting from distorted concepts of marriage. For example, this Fall the Muslim chaplain at New York University, Imam Khalid Latif, devoted a Friday sermon to differentiating between marriage and forced marriage.)
Nasira and Rochel discover they are both exploring the possibility of getting married, and that both of them are from devout religious families with cultural traditions of parents’ involvement in suggesting and getting to know eligible bachelors.
At the same time, even with a role for their families in seeking a suitable spouse, each woman has veto authority over any of the proposed suitors. And they exercise it.
But when Rochel spots a handsome, single Orthodox Jewish student with kind, bright eyes in a university study group with Nasira’s brother, some dreaming and scheming ensue. The most helpful person along the way proves to be her Muslim friend Nasira, who comes up with a humorous ploy to bring him to the attention of the women helping Rochel find a husband.
In a day and age in America when public discussion of marriage tends to be limited to either vicious fighting or depressing divorce statistics, Arranged provides a welcome respite from this. The film offers instead a focus on the centrality of relationship, commitment, and family in marriage.
This story—devout Muslim and Orthodox Jewish women discovering common ground in valuing feminine dignity and family—is not just some fictional tale of unrealistic wishful-thinking. Arranged is based on the real life account of an Orthodox Jewish woman, a teacher in the New York public schools, and her experiences getting to know the Pakistani-American Muslim mother of one of her pupils.
These filmmakers are not naïve. As one of them explains in an interview about the making of the film, included on the DVD, Israel and Lebanon were at war during the shooting of this movie. Challenges abound and they are very real. And in the film Nasira and Rochel have to maneuver their budding friendship through the obstacles of family members’ skepticism and even opposition to their Muslim-Jewish friendship. But even so, real friendships are also possible, and alliances to protect religious freedom can cross unexpected lines.
(For example, in Montreal the Orthodox Jewish community is fighting against a bill which would ban the Muslim facial veil, niqab, in Quebec for women seeking government services. The Orthodox Jewish community there has expressed concern about the government trying to regulate the attire of religious believers and doing so by targeting one minority.)
Shared values provide a bridge for Nasira and Rochel. They are women with humble self-dignity in a world not disposed to support integrity or family. What these women learn is that kindness begets friendship, and genuine friendship can handle differences. They don’t have to deny their difference to get along. The bridge they build proves to be stronger than cross-currents around them. Friendship, and healthy relationships, ensue and grow.
Jennifer S. Bryson is Director of the Islam and Civil Society Project at The Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, NJ.
Copyright 2010 the Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.
-
Worth noting is that the Portland wannabe was first brought to the FBI's attention by his father.
-
Its POTH, so caveat lector:
Terror Cases Strain Ties With Some Who Can Help
By WILLIAM YARDLEY and JESSE McKINLEY
Published: November 30, 2010
PORTLAND, Ore. — The arrest in a plot to bomb a popular Christmas tree-lighting ceremony here has renewed focus on the crucial but often fragile relationship that many Muslim communities have with federal law enforcement agencies.
Many Muslim leaders nationwide say they are committed to working with the authorities to fight terrorist threats and applauded the work in Portland. But some say cases like the one in Oregon, in which undercover agents said they helped a teenager plan the attack, risk undermining the trust of Muslim communities that federal agents say is essential to doing their jobs.
The failed Portland plot is one of several recent cases, from California to Washington, D.C., in which undercover agents helped suspects pursue terrorist plans. Some Muslims say the government appears to be enabling and even sensationalizing threats that can lead to backlashes against Muslim communities.
On Sunday, a mosque in Corvallis, Ore., was firebombed. It had been attended by the Portland suspect, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized American citizen from Somalia.
“Unlike the so-called plot at Pioneer Square, that was a real terrorist attack, against a house of worship,” said a man who attends the Islamic Center of Portland and Masjed As-Saber, another mosque where Mr. Mohamud worshiped.
“What the F.B.I. did can be seen in Corvallis,” the man said, one of several people who spoke with a reporter but refused to give their names out of concern that they would bring negative attention to the mosque.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. defended the Oregon investigation and others this week as part of what he called a “forward-leaning way” that law enforcement is “trying to find people who are bound and determined to harm Americans and American interests around the world.”
Hussam Ayloush, the executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said law enforcement was going too far.
“ ‘Forward-leaning’ seems to be basically if someone has not crossed the bridge, we will push them forward, we will tip them over the edge,” he said. “And that is not how a government should be treating its citizens.”
“My worry would be that the F.B.I. is pushing to a point where it becomes difficult to trust the F.B.I.,” said Mr. Ayloush, who added that he was a graduate of an F.B.I. Citizens’ Academy. “When people start doubting, then they might feel like, ‘Well, maybe it might make things worse if I call,’ and we don’t want this.”
Amid the tension, Muslim leaders say their communities are doing more than ever to help in investigations — a fact they say is overlooked by many Americans.
A November report by the Muslim Public Affairs Council said Muslim communities had helped law enforcement agencies foil almost 4 of every 10 Qaeda-related terrorism plots since the Sept. 11 attacks. The report is based on information the group draws from news media accounts, affidavits, academic studies and other sources.
“There is an enormous countertrend that has emerged within the last few years,” said Alejandro Beutel, the author of the report. “People are saying: ‘This is a serious issue, and we are dealing with this. We are not tolerating this.’ ”
Even as federal law enforcement officials have been criticized, they say their investigations have been strengthened by their outreach efforts and good relations with Muslims, including here in Oregon.
Leaders of mosques, including those attended by Mr. Mohamud, regularly attend meetings with law enforcement officials. And Mr. Mohamud’s father, Osman Barre, provided information before his son’s arrest about his increasing radicalization, officials have said.
Dwight C. Holton, the United States attorney for Oregon, said he would travel to Washington next week to meet with Mr. Holder to discuss Oregon’s participation in a new Justice Department program called Enhanced Muslim Community Outreach.
“The minute I heard about this program, I signed Oregon up,” Mr. Holton said, adding that the meeting was scheduled before Mr. Mohamud’s arrest. “It’s so important to do this outreach, and this program will allow us to do even more work, to do more face-to-face meetings with not just the community leaders but with members of the community.”
The events in Oregon have put many Muslims in unexpected and uncomfortable roles.
Shahriar Ahmed is a jovial 55-year-old engineer and a self-described member of a group of “nerdy folks” with postgraduate degrees living in suburban Portland. He is also the president of his local mosque, Bilal Masjid, with skills that he said leaned more toward fund-raising than faith-building.
“I’m not a theologian by trade,” said Mr. Ahmed, who knows only enough Arabic to get through his prayers. “I’m just good at begging for money.”
But with the arrest of Mr. Mohamud and then the fire in Corvallis, Mr. Ahmed has been fielding questions on topics ranging from Islam in general to how the aftermath could affect worshipers at his mosque. For him, the broader questions are not necessarily the most pressing.
“My 11-year-old son started crying in the back of the car,” Mr. Ahmed said, recalling a conversation about the fire. “I could not make him stop. He was saying: ‘Is our mosque going to get burned? Is our mosque going to get burned?’ ”
Colin Miner contributed reporting from Portland, Ore.; Isolde Raftery from Eugene, Ore.; and Malia Wollan from San Francisco.
-
"Muslim leaders express concern at backlash from tomorrow's terror attack." :roll:
-
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/12/ny-mayor-bloomberg-was-in-cahoots-with.html
NY Mayor Bloomberg Was " In Cahoots" With Planners of Ground Zero Mosque
This past summer it seemed as if every day Michael Bloomberg, the arrogant, out of touch Mayor of New York was making another speech implying that the opponents of the ground-zero mosque were either stupid or bigoted. And when he wasn't calling the mosque opponents names, he was proclaiming there should be no compromise. What the Arrogant Mayor neglected to mention during any of his many rants is that the Ground Zero Mosque fight was fixed from the beginning. The Mayor had his top aides helping the mosque planners, writing letters for them and helping them politically navigate around the anti-mosque forces.
Emails released due to a FOIA lawsuit by The American Center for Law and Justice reveal
...City Hall had direct communications with the Mosque’s developers, explicitly tried to assist with the political process, and was involved with discussions between the developers and the Community Board 1. An email from the developers’ attorney, Shelly Friedman, also acknowledged that Robert Tierney, the Chairman of the LPC, was seeking “political cover” from politicians in order not to landmark the building.
The emails released by City Hall revealed the coaching Bloomberg's brass gave to the imam pushing to build the mosque, Feisal Abdul Rauf. At one point, Community Affairs Commissioner Nazli Parvizi even drafted a letter for Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, to send to Community Board 1, which was voting on the project.
"As a Muslim-American and a New Yorker, I take my role in keeping New York the greatest City in the world serious," the draft said. Parvizi also provided the contact information for the board.
In a email sent in May, Shelly Friedman, the organizers' lawyer, wrote that Manhattan Community Board 1's vote in support of the project would be helpful as organizers urged landmark commission Chairman Robert Tierney and other panel members to reject landmark status for the building currently on the site. "I do know that chairman Tierney was looking forward to having the 'political cover' their support would bring him," Ms. Friedman wrote.
Parvizi also sent the Imam an email advising Rauf not to go back to Community Board 1 for approval for the project after the Landmarks Preservation Commission gave the project the green light.
"Hi Feisal," the letter begins. "I know that [Community Board 1 President] Julie [Menin] is incredibly anxious to get the letter and she was really upset to hear that such a landmarking issue exists and was not even mentioned.
"My recommendation is given you mau [sic] have to go up to the community board again to discuss this issue, send the letter to julie asap and keep her on your good side. Tommorow or monday am at the latest.
"I would at this point keep the issues separate. What the letter will do I hope is get the media attention off everyone's backs and give you guys time to regroup on your strategy, as discussed."
Another email reveals that Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Fatima Shama expedited a temporary public assembly permit for the group to conduct prayers in January at Park 51
In another letter, Shama congratulated the group after the project was approved by CB1's finance committee, writing,
"Sharif, Daisy, Iman Faisal,
Again—congratulations!!! This is very exciting for all of you and our community at large!"
The Mayor's office contends that they get behind everyone's projects just as much:
City Hall says it is the job of the community and immigrant affairs commissioners to assist community groups, including drafting letters for them. Officials noted Bloomberg has always been in favor of building the mosque near Ground Zero.
"The Community Affairs Unit exists to help groups navigate city government, and from helping prepare for a Papal visit to expediting approval of a Sukkah in a midtown Manhattan park, this kind of assistance is typical of its regular work," said Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser.
It seems that these emails show more than the usual amount of support coming from the mayor's office. In fact they reveal another example of Mayor Bloomberg's contempt for the vast majority of people of his own city, indeed the people of the United States. While people worked so hard to protect what they see as hallowed grounds, the Mayor's office was sneaking behind their backs to fight against them.
Sources: NY Observer, Wall Street Journal, NY Post and The ACLJ
-
In Defense Of The Constitution
News & Analysis
January 5, 2011
CAIR: “We Are First Defenders Offenders Of The Constitution”
On December 23, Ibrahim Hooper, Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was interviewed on Press TV. Press TV is an English language TV station controlled by the Iranian government through Republic of Iran Broadcasting. Hooper complained about law enforcement authorities training programs and went on to say: "I’m talking about twenty-five percent to 1/3 of Americans having an active hostility toward Islam and Muslims."
What are the facts regarding “anti-Muslim bias” in America? From the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) (2009) the following “hate crime” percentages are reported:
Year Religious Group
2009 Islam 9.3% Jewish 70.1%
2008 Islam 7.7% Jewish 65.7%
2007 Islam 9.0 Jewish 68.4
The numbers of “victims” of anti-Muslim “hate crimes” is fairly unchanged from 2007 – 2009. The largest group is, unsurprisingly, Jewish. Although Jews are victims of “hate crimes” far more often than Muslims, we do not see any mainstream Jewish groups giving interviews for TV stations controlled by governments that are state sponsors of terrorism. Nor do we see Jewish groups railing against Law Enforcement or the American people for harboring an anti-Jewish sentiment or bias.
Is CAIR defending our Constitution when so many “Anti-Muslim hate crimes” CAIR pushes are revealed to be committed by Muslims or fabricated in an attempt to either cover up criminal activity or to falsely demonstrate that Islam and Muslims are under "attack" in the United States?
In the interview, Hooper's claim that “We are first defenders of the Constitution” is a pathetic joke and Hooper knows it. Consider CAIR-San Fransico's Director Zahra Billoo proudly claiming to be a "Muslim Anarchist" on her Twitter page and it can be fairly put to rest that any CAIR official has even a modicum of respect for the U.S. Constitution.
CAIR is either at the throat of law enforcement officials or kissing their feet, depending on the mood du jour at CAIR headquarters. This is a confusion ploy and it can work very well. The threat of being branded an "Islamophobe" can make some people turn away from the facts. FOX's Bill O’Reilly even considered CAIR-Chicago supremacist Ahmed Rehab a “stand up guy” and long ago gave up any idea of investigating CAIR or CAIR’s connections to Islamist terrorists.
CAIR often defensively whines over the violent actions of common street thugs and Islamic militants who have plotted, committed, or openly declared violent jihad against us. Hooper has the nerve to make the outrageous claim that 1/3 of Americans have an "active hostility" toward Muslims yet CAIR is demonstratively apathetic that 10-15% of One Billion Muslims actively support militant Jihadists.
In New York City, CAIR pushed authorities to levy “hate crime” charges against two men involved in a 3AM brawl with “Imam” Rod Peterson. This “Imam” or “religious leader” has a record of arrests for burglary, robbery, and illegal gun possession. Why is it that Muslim “religious leaders” CAIR shills for seem to have rap sheets or a history of taking part in odious crimes? One man involved in the brawl was completely cleared of any wrongdoing and the other had charges reduced to misdemeanors. Once again, CAIR failed to add another statistic in its miserable campaign to claim that Americans hate Muslims. Despite CAIR’s tireless efforts to create discord, in 2009 CAIR could only squeak out 11 “hate crimes” against Muslims in New York City. The Jews? Once again, they lead the pack in the Big Apple with over 250. Perhaps it's safer to be a Muslim in New York than a Jew?
The only thing that keeps civil people from pointing at CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper in public and exposing his obvious character flaws and outright lying nature is the fact that he calls himself a Muslim. If Hooper weren’t claiming to be Muslim, he’d have been labeled just another has-been kook representing a supremacist fringe group that has pretensions of greatness based on religious bigotry.
Knowledge is power. CAIR works hard to hide the facts of radical Islam from ordinary Americans. If the majority of Americans ever wake up to the truth of CAIR, we can be sure that the call for CAIR’s removal from our shores would ring so loud that every local, state, and national law enforcement agency would be forced to act.
The large majority of Muslims in America and around the world know that fascist, political Islam is not compatible with our Constitution and it never will be. This is what attracts many to our shores. They know that fanatical religious police cannot bother them here, that accusations of blasphemy will not result in stoning, or that their body parts cannot be cut off for theft, real or imagined. They are Free.
CAIR and Hooper have breathlessly pushed the lie of "Islamophobia" and continuously fail to prove it actually exists. Where CAIR finds "Islamophobia", the reality is often nothing more than Americans showing concern for radical Islamist groups involving themselves in endeavors that are designed to weaken our Constitution or promote the ideals of Islamist supremacy. Hooper can thank himself, his organization, and his fellow travelers for any “misunderstandings” Americans have regarding Islam.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
Story Links:
http://globalmbreport.com/?p=3691
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/156831.html
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2009/incidents.html
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8559
http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/suspect-in-mosque-arson-566659.html
http://annarborchronicle.com/2010/08/15/hate-crime-rhetoric-not-supported-by-facts/comment-page-1/?scrollTo=comment-50801
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/AhmadStateScanned.pdf
http://ztruth.typepad.com/ztruth/2011/01/cair-anarchist-chapter-director-zahra-billoo.html
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2438/dawud-walid-unhinged
http://www.americansagainsthate.org/press_releases/PR-Bill_O%27Reilly_CAIR_2.php
http://www.danielpipes.org/1883/dr-pipes-views-on-islamic-terrorism-and-turkey
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/man_cleared_in_alleged_hate_attack_3AAEiYw3zz1VW3kpdnp8QI
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ny_sees_surge_in_hate_IM7xmcNGdI0pEowrCRZZII
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/12/09/2010-12-09_two_men_accused_in_subway_imam_attack_hit_with_hate_crime_charges.html
http://www.pressandguide.com/articles/2009/11/21/news/doc4b0818b4eca66900481903.txt?viewmode=fullstory
http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/18/american-muslims-respond-to-al-awlakis-call-for-jihad/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/02/free-gaza-youth-manifesto-palestinian
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/mosque_unbecoming_QmXgG4QyGgz4ATF9v7cBDM
-
By QANTA A. AHMED
When New York Rep. Peter King, the new chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called for congressional hearings on radical Islam in America this fall, the reaction from the official Muslim community was swift. Ibrahim Hooper, president of the Council on American- Islamic Relations, said he feared the hearings would become an "anti-Muslim witch hunt." Abed A. Ayoub of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee asserted that Mr. King's proposal had "bigoted intentions."
While Mr. King has a reputation for adopting polarizing positions—particularly when it comes to immigration—his hearings deserve serious consideration. "There has to be an honest discussion of the role of the Muslim community—what they are doing, what they're not doing," he explained to the New York Observer in a Nov. 30 article. "I talk to law enforcement people across the country; they will tell me. . . . They don't feel any sense of cooperation."
These concerns are reasonable. Histrionic objections to them only deter Muslims from fulfilling a fundamental Islamic obligation: Meeting our duty to the society in which we live.
According to Islamic law, Muslims are obligated to three entities: the self, God and society. This last has been overlooked too often by Muslims and their adopted societies.
Similar to the Christian obligation to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," the Quran and the derived corpus of Islamic jurisprudence support Muslims' engagement with those to whom power is entrusted. Chapter 4, verse 59 of the Quran reads: "Verily, Allah commands you to give over the trusts to those entitled to them, and that, when you judge between men, you judge with justice."
That patriotic majority has a duty not only to follow the laws of the United States, but to make sure that their fellow Muslims do the same. Islam calls this duty "commanding the right and forbidding the wrong." It is an obligation that is sourced widely in Islamic scripture, beginning with the Quran. The scriptures even underline that this duty is shared by both men and women.
In one verse, Muslims are instructed: "Let there be one community of you, calling good and commanding right and forbidding wrong" (3:110). Another instructs: "Believers, the men and the women, are friends of one another; they command right, and forbid wrong" (9:71). Impartiality is critical to fulfilling this duty. As it is written: "And let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice" (5:8).
The holy texts of Islam emphasize that one's greatest allegiance should be to justice—superseding family and co-religionist ties. "Be strict in observing justice, and be witness for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or against your parents or kindred," the Quran says in chapter 4, verse 36.
Justice is the cornerstone of Islamic life—despite the appalling reality of many Muslim-majority countries today. Every faithful Muslim must contribute to the preservation of justice within their society.
How we respond to possible hearings on radicalism will reveal our own commitment to Islam. Cooperation can take the form of expert testimony, informing on radical entities, and perhaps foremost, educating ourselves about our religion. Lest any doubt remain as to how Muslims must respond to Mr. King's call, an anecdote from the hadith (the Prophet's sayings) makes it explicit.
Marwan, a twice-appointed Muslim governor of Medina in the seventh century, performed two actions considered religiously unorthodox by his contemporaries: He brought out a pulpit, even though it was a feast day, and then delivered a sermon before leading prayer.
These ritual infractions precipitated an outcry, compelling one congregant to speak up: "Marwan, you've gone against sunna [a normative practice demonstrated by the Prophet]!" A companion of the Prophet, Abu Sa'id Al Khudri, observing the scene, supported this public admonition and turned to the objector: "You have done your duty." Promptly, he quoted the Prophet, "Whoever sees a wrong and is able to put it right with his hand, let him do so; if he can't, then with his tongue; if he can't, then in his heart, and that is the bare minimum of faith."
Exposing nefarious forces at play within our community is a Muslim responsibility—the "bare minimum of faith" for every Muslim man and woman.
Dr. Ahmed is author of "In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom" (Sourcebooks, 2008).
-
Nice sentiments from Dr. Ahmed, however the koran doesn't teach what the good doctor says it does.
"Let there be one community of you, calling good and commanding right and forbidding wrong" (3:110)
003.110
YUSUFALI: Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors.
PICKTHAL: Ye are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah. And if the People of the Scripture had believed it had been better for them. Some of them are believers; but most of them are evil-livers.
SHAKIR: You are the best of the nations raised up for (the benefit of) men; you enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and believe in Allah; and if the followers of the Book had believed it would have been better for them; of them (some) are believers and most of them are transgressors.
003.111
YUSUFALI: They will do you no harm, barring a trifling annoyance; if they come out to fight you, they will show you their backs, and no help shall they get.
PICKTHAL: They will not harm you save a trifling hurt, and if they fight against you they will turn and flee. And afterward they will not be helped.
SHAKIR: They shall by no means harm you but with a slight evil; and if they fight with you they shall turn (their) backs to you, then shall they not be helped.
003.112
YUSUFALI: Shame is pitched over them (Like a tent) wherever they are found, except when under a covenant (of protection) from Allah and from men; they draw on themselves wrath from Allah, and pitched over them is (the tent of) destitution. This because they rejected the Signs of Allah, and slew the prophets in defiance of right; this because they rebelled and transgressed beyond bounds.
PICKTHAL: Ignominy shall be their portion wheresoever they are found save (where they grasp) a rope from Allah and a rope from men. They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them. That is because they used to disbelieve the revelations of Allah, and slew the prophets wrongfully. That is because they were rebellious and used to transgress.
SHAKIR: Abasement is made to cleave to them wherever they are found, except under a covenant with Allah and a covenant with men, and they have become deserving of wrath from Allah, and humiliation is made to cleave to them; this is because they disbelieved in the communications of Allah and slew the prophets unjustly; this is because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits.
-
"Believers, the men and the women, are friends of one another; they command right, and forbid wrong" (9:71)
009.005
YUSUFALI: But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
PICKTHAL: Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
SHAKIR: So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
009.023
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! take not for protectors your fathers and your brothers if they love infidelity above Faith: if any of you do so, they do wrong.
PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Choose not your fathers nor your brethren for friends if they take pleasure in disbelief rather than faith. Whoso of you taketh them for friends, such are wrong-doers.
SHAKIR: O you who believe! do not take your fathers and your brothers for guardians if they love unbelief more than belief; and whoever of you takes them for a guardian, these it is that are the unjust.
009.038
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter.
PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! What aileth you that when it is said unto you: Go forth in the way of Allah, ye are bowed down to the ground with heaviness. Take ye pleasure in the life of the world rather than in the Hereafter? The comfort of the life of the world is but little in the Hereafter.
SHAKIR: O you who believe! What (excuse) have you that when it is said to you: Go forth in Allah's way, you should incline heavily to earth; are you contented with this world's life instead of the hereafter? But the provision of this world's life compared with the hereafter is but little.
009.039
YUSUFALI: Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.
PICKTHAL: If ye go not forth He will afflict you with a painful doom, and will choose instead of you a folk other than you. Ye cannot harm Him at all. Allah is Able to do all things.
SHAKIR: If you do not go forth, He will chastise you with a painful chastisement and bring in your place a people other than you, and you will do Him no harm; and Allah has power over all things.
009.040
YUSUFALI: If ye help not (your leader), (it is no matter): for Allah did indeed help him, when the Unbelievers drove him out: he had no more than one companion; they two were in the cave, and he said to his companion, "Have no fear, for Allah is with us": then Allah sent down His peace upon him, and strengthened him with forces which ye saw not, and humbled to the depths the word of the Unbelievers. But the word of Allah is exalted to the heights: for Allah is Exalted in might, Wise.
PICKTHAL: If ye help him not, still Allah helped him when those who disbelieve drove him forth, the second of two; when they two were in the cave, when he said unto his comrade: Grieve not. Lo! Allah is with us. Then Allah caused His peace of reassurance to descend upon him and supported him with hosts ye cannot see, and made the word of those who disbelieved the nethermost, while Allah's Word it was that became the uppermost. Allah is Mighty, Wise.
SHAKIR: If you will not aid him, Allah certainly aided him when those who disbelieved expelled him, he being the second of the two, when they were both in the cave, when he said to his companion: Grieve not, surely Allah is with us. So Allah sent down His tranquillity upon him and strengthened him with hosts which you did not see, and made lowest the word of those who disbelieved; and the word of Allah, that is the highest; and Allah is Mighty, Wise.
009.041
YUSUFALI: Go ye forth, (whether equipped) lightly or heavily, and strive and struggle, with your goods and your persons, in the cause of Allah. That is best for you, if ye (but) knew.
PICKTHAL: Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew.
SHAKIR: Go forth light and heavy, and strive hard in Allah's way with your property and your persons; this is better for you, if you know.
009.042
YUSUFALI: If there had been immediate gain (in sight), and the journey easy, they would (all) without doubt have followed thee, but the distance was long, (and weighed) on them. They would indeed swear by Allah, "If we only could, we should certainly have come out with you": They would destroy their own souls; for Allah doth know that they are certainly lying.
PICKTHAL: Had it been a near adventure and an easy journey they had followed thee, but the distance seemed too far for them. Yet will they swear by Allah (saying): If we had been able we would surely have set out with you. They destroy their souls, and Allah knoweth that they verily are liars.
SHAKIR: Had it been a near advantage and a short journey, they would certainly have followed you, but the tedious journey was too long for them; and they swear by Allah: If we had been able, we would certainly have gone forth with you; they cause their own souls to perish, and Allah knows that they are most surely
009.043
YUSUFALI: Allah give thee grace! why didst thou grant them until those who told the truth were seen by thee in a clear light, and thou hadst proved the liars?
PICKTHAL: Allah forgive thee (O Muhammad)! Wherefor didst thou grant them leave ere those who told the truth were manifest to thee and thou didst know the liars?
SHAKIR: Allah pardon you! Why did you give them leave until those who spoke the truth had become manifest to you and you had known the liars?
009.044
YUSUFALI: Those who believe in Allah and the Last Day ask thee for no exemption from fighting with their goods and persons. And Allah knoweth well those who do their duty.
PICKTHAL: Those who believe in Allah and the Last Day ask no leave of thee lest they should strive with their wealth and their lives. Allah is Aware of those who keep their duty (unto Him).
SHAKIR: They do not ask leave of you who believe in Allah and the latter day (to stay away) from striving hard with their property and their persons, and Allah knows those who guard (against evil).
009.068
YUSUFALI: Allah hath promised the Hypocrites men and women, and the rejecters, of Faith, the fire of Hell: Therein shall they dwell: Sufficient is it for them: for them is the curse of Allah, and an enduring punishment,-
PICKTHAL: Allah promiseth the hypocrites, both men and women, and the disbelievers fire of hell for their abode. It will suffice them. Allah curseth them, and theirs is lasting torment.
SHAKIR: Allah has promised the hypocritical men and the hypocritical women and the unbelievers the fire of hell to abide therein; it is enough for them; and Allah has cursed them and they shall have lasting punishment.
009.069
YUSUFALI: As in the case of those before you: they were mightier than you in power, and more flourishing in wealth and children. They had their enjoyment of their portion: and ye have of yours, as did those before you; and ye indulge in idle talk as they did. They!- their work are fruitless in this world and in the Hereafter, and they will lose (all spiritual good).
PICKTHAL: Even as those before you who were mightier than you in strength, and more affluent than you in wealth and children. They enjoyed their lot awhile, so ye enjoy your lot awhile even as those before you did enjoy their lot awhile. And ye prate even as they prated. Such are they whose works have perished in the world and the Hereafter. Such are they who are the losers.
SHAKIR: Like those before you; they were stronger than you in power and more abundant in wealth and children, so they enjoyed their portion; thus have you enjoyed your portion as those before you enjoyed their portion; and you entered into vain discourses like the vain discourses in which entered those before you. These are they whose works are null in this world and the hereafter, and these are they who are the losers.
009.070
YUSUFALI: Hath not the story reached them of those before them?- the People of Noah, and 'Ad, and Thamud; the People of Abraham, the men of Midian, and the cities overthrown. To them came their messengers with clear signs. It is not Allah Who wrongs them, but they wrong their own souls.
PICKTHAL: Hath not the fame of those before them reached them - the folk of Noah, A'ad, Thamud, the folk of Abraham, the dwellers of Midian and the disasters (which befell them)? Their messengers (from Allah) came unto them with proofs (of Allah's Sovereignty). So Allah surely wronged them not, but they did wrong themselves.
SHAKIR: Has not the news of those before them come to them; of the people of Nuh and Ad and Samood, and the people of Ibrahim and the dwellers of Madyan and the overthrown cities; their messengers came to them with clear arguments; so it was not Allah Who should do them injustice, but they were unjust to themselves.
009.071
YUSUFALI: The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise.
PICKTHAL: And the believers, men and women, are protecting friends one of another; they enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and they establish worship and they pay the poor-due, and they obey Allah and His messenger. As for these, Allah will have mercy on them. Lo! Allah is Mighty, Wise.
SHAKIR: And (as for) the believing men and the believing women, they are guardians of each other; they enjoin good and forbid evil and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, and obey Allah and His Messenger; (as for) these, Allah will show mercy to them; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise.
009.072
YUSUFALI: Allah hath promised to Believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein, and beautiful mansions in gardens of everlasting bliss. But the greatest bliss is the good pleasure of Allah: that is the supreme felicity.
PICKTHAL: Allah promiseth to the believers, men and women, Gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they will abide - blessed dwellings in Gardens of Eden. And - greater (far)! - acceptance from Allah. That is the supreme triumph.
SHAKIR: Allah has promised to the believing men and the believing women gardens, beneath which rivers flow, to abide in them, and goodly dwellings in gardens of perpetual abode; and best of all is Allah's goodly pleasure; that is the grand achievement.
009.073
YUSUFALI: O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge indeed.
PICKTHAL: O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites! Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey's end.
SHAKIR: O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/cair-promises-to-remove-image-warning-of-cooperation-with-the-fbi/
-
The court battle for control of the mosque has turned ugly, with each side using inflammatory rhetoric, claiming to be more assimilated and alleging that it has been threatened or assaulted.
By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times
January 31, 2011
On a Friday afternoon in October, men in black security T-shirts and matching cargo pants roamed the parking lot and perimeter of the Islamic Center of Northridge as worshipers arrived for weekly prayers.
Several Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars were parked nearby as officers kept a watchful eye on a demonstration out front. About 30 men yelled and held up signs. One waved a small American flag as another denounced the mosque's religious leader as a devil.
Worshipers, looking uncomfortable, hurried past and into the building.
, , , In a scene reminiscent of others across the country where new and existing mosques have faced heated opposition in recent months. But the protests at the Islamic Center's main mosque in Granada Hills are different, not demonstrations by anti-Islamic groups but a struggle between rival Muslim groups over control of the institution.
The two sides, each made up mainly of Pakistani and Afghan immigrants, are battling in court over leadership elections and greater openness at the Granada Hills mosque and an older satellite center in Northridge. The dispute has taken on an ugly, ethnically charged tone, including heated rhetoric about which group is more American in dress, accent and behavior.
The parties have traded accusations of radicalism as each side tries to discredit the other, sometimes using comparisons and accusations that American Muslims are more accustomed to hearing from critics outside their communities.
In one lawsuit, a dissident group accuses the mosque leaders of methods that "resemble Taliban-style tactics one might presume to exist only outside the boundaries of the United States."
The suit also quotes a threatening, profane voicemail message it says was left for one of the plaintiffs, in which the caller allegedly said, "Don't … with us. We are Pashtuns. We will kill you."
Mitchell Young, formerly an attorney for the mosque's leaders, said the quarrel seems "tribal" at times. "The underpinnings of this conflict are very different than the particulars of the lawsuit," he said.
Such jockeying over who is more American is not uncommon in immigrant communities, said Kamal Sadiq, a UC Irvine political science professor who studies South Asian communities. Proving who is more assimilated is a way of establishing who has a bigger claim on the mosque, he said.
The legal case centers on specifics of California law governing nonprofit corporations, including board elections, open membership and financial transparency.
The plaintiffs, including former board members and their supporters, say some have been barred from membership at the mosque. A spokesman would not say how many members it has.
At a pre-trial hearing in Los Angeles this month, Superior Court Judge Michelle Rosenblatt ordered court-supervised elections for the mosque's board, a victory for those challenging the current leadership. A trial is set for Feb. 7.
The defendants in the case are the Islamic Center's two imams, Qazi Fazlullah and Qari Yousuf, along with board members and supporters, many of whom emigrated from Afghanistan or Pakistan's Pashtun region. The plaintiffs are mainly from Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, and from the country's Punjab region.
Manzar Qureshi, a former board member at the mosque who is acting as a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said many Pakistanis tend to blame those from the Pashtun region, which abuts Afghanistan, for the terrorism-related problems in Pakistan. Qureshi, a native of Karachi, acknowledged that the regional tensions have contributed to the dispute.
Fazlullah, a former member of Pakistan's parliament, has led the San Fernando Valley mosque since 1997. A spokesman said the imam would not comment on the dispute.
The struggle has divided the area's Muslim community and led some who feel uncomfortable with such vitriol at a religious institution to cut back their attendance or seek services elsewhere. The plaintiffs said some of their supporters were prevented from praying at the mosque during a recent religious holiday. They now hold their own services in a rented room at the nearby Granada Hills Masonic Center.
Mosque spokesman Mahmood Payind denied that attendance, which numbers in the hundreds, has dipped because of the dispute. But at two recent Friday prayer services, the parking lot seemed less crowded than it was last fall.
Payind, who is from Afghanistan, said the accusatory language used by the plaintiffs is geared toward gaining support for their case, especially in an American courtroom.
It's easy to say someone "looks like so and so with the beard," the spokesman said, referring to Osama bin Laden. "They're trying to poison the well because of Islamophobia. They are like the Bill O'Reilly of this community."
Indeed, much of the rhetoric appears aimed at swaying public opinion in a case that could go before a jury. After a judge denied emergency motions filed by the plaintiffs to gain control of the mosque's finances, insurance policy and keys, one plaintiff suggested that the center's leaders were sending money overseas — an allegation Young, the former attorney, said was equivalent to an accusation of supporting terrorism.
"If you put us in a room, you can compare who has more of an accent," mosque spokesman Payind said. "We play basketball, we go to the movies, we play soccer. I myself am married to an American woman, so where is my Taliban style? Why they are playing that is because it is inflammatory words or because they can use that card: Muslim terrorist."
But the plaintiffs say the language they use is a result of the violent behavior of the defendants in trying to silence dissent.
"Unfortunately the defendants … are engaged in a series of patterns of conduct which is not very befitting in America," the plaintiffs' attorney Omar Siddiqui said. "It just seems like a lot of these people have brought their Third World ideas into the Valley."
Qureshi says he was once threatened in the mosque parking lot and another time was locked in its office while his two young sons waited outside. In a related lawsuit, another plaintiff alleges that he was assaulted and wrongfully imprisoned by the mosque's security guards in an August incident after Friday prayers. The defendants deny the allegations.
Since the conflict escalated about a year ago, police have been called several times to each of the mosque's locations. The officers took reports on accusations of battery, witness intimidation, trespassing, verbal threats and disturbing the peace, but the city attorney's office has declined to file charges, saying nothing has risen to a criminal act, said Lt. Tom Murrell, formerly of the LAPD's Devonshire division.
Each side also has made accusations to the department's counterterrorism division, Deputy Chief Michael Downing confirmed, but he said the conflict was being handled locally by the Devonshire division. Complaints have also been made to the FBI, the plaintiffs said. A spokeswoman said she could not confirm whether the bureau was investigating.
Murrell, the former commander of Devonshire's detective division who is now in the LAPD's Information Technology Division, said detectives had hoped that the case would be referred to a city attorney hearing, equivalent to dispute resolution.
"But in this case there are some cultural, religious things which are beyond what the civil commissioners can grasp," he said.
Each side in the case claims to have the support of the Valley's Muslim community. But many clearly feel torn.
One man who has attended the mosque since 2002, and who did not want to be identified for fear of being seen as taking sides, said he has cut back his attendance because of the controversy. "I don't feel comfortable going into the mosque and seeing cops around and the security guards," he said.
The man, who lives in nearby Sylmar, said he is inclined to believe the plaintiffs but hasn't spoken to Fazlullah to hear his views. He said, though, that a religious scholar like Fazlullah should be treated with more respect.
"I still would like a mosque that doesn't have this propaganda," he said. "I just listen and try to pray for both sides, because it makes us look bad in front of the [American] community."
raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
-
http://shariah4america.com/Shariah/The-Supremacy-of-the-Infrastructure-of-the-Islamic
-
"To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character." --Alexander Hamilton
Editorial Exegesis
Maybe there's a reason for being aware of radical Islam"Rep. Peter King, New York Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, will hold hearings this week on Muslim extremism in the United States. The Obama administration and other pro-Islamic activists argue that because the vast majority of American Muslims aren't violent extremists, Congress has no business examining the growing numbers who are. This redirection is tantamount to saying that because most people are law-abiding, the police should ignore the study of criminal psychology. Mr. King's planned hearings will shine a bright light on a challenge the Obama administration has studiously ignored, with fatal results. Overlooking the motives of Muslim terrorists has become an O Force obsession. ... The Obama administration persistently has stricken the concept of Islamic extremism -- whether foreign or domestic -- from U.S. public policy. In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security drafted a Domestic Extremist Lexicon that listed Jewish extremism as a threat and described various strands of purportedly dangerous Christian extremism but made no mention of any form of Muslim extremism. This document was pulled along with other questionable Homeland Security publications once their contents became public. The February 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review discussed terrorism and violent extremism but didn't refer to radical Islam in any context. Likewise, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review avoids any terminology related to Islam. Mr. King's hearings are a useful step toward opening up the debate on the pressing problem of domestic Islamic extremism. Mr. Obama's inexplicable tendency to turn aside from the question has harmed the ability of the United States to deal with this threat." --The Washington Times
=========
By EVAN PEREZ
An Obama administration strategy for building contacts in Muslim communities is taking heat from the left and the right, amid increasing concerns about homegrown Islamic terrorism.
Under the program, which extends one begun under President George W. Bush, U.S. law-enforcement officials meet frequently with Muslim groups to discuss their concerns about discrimination. The hope is that such outreach prevents extremist recruitment of young men by showing good will alongside efforts to investigate plots.
"Striking the right tone in countering violent extremism is something we have to be very careful about," said B. Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis, who undertakes activities such as attending Ramadan fast-breaking dinners and helping Muslim Americans navigate the immigration bureaucracy.
Many conservatives blast the efforts as ineffective and even dangerous. "There's a whole political correctness that has suppressed discussion" of Islamic radicalization, said Steven Emerson, whose Investigative Project on Terrorism has published articles on radicalization among U.S. Muslims.
Thursday's Schedule for King Hearing
Rep. Keith Ellison (D. Minn.),believed to be first Muslim member of Congress.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.,), active on religious and terrorism issues.
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, physician and former Navy officer.
Abdirizak Bihi, director, Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center, whose nephew traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab and was killed.
Melvin Bledsoe, whose son, a Muslim convert, allegedly killed a soldier in a shooting attack at an Arkansas military-recruiting center.
Leroy Baca, Los Angeles County Sheriff, active on outreach efforts in Muslim communities.
Source: House Homeland Security Committee
.Some Muslims, meanwhile, think the outreach is cover for recruiting spiesand doesn't fit with harder-edged tactics such as sting operations. "The FBI's activities are sending a troubling mixed message to the community," said Farhana Khera, president of a San Francisco legal group called Muslim Advocates, which warns Muslim Americans against speaking to law enforcement without a lawyer present.
The program is likely to come up at a House hearing Thursday on Muslim radicalization. Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.), who is overseeing the hearing, said he largely supported the outreach efforts and that the "overwhelming number of Muslims are good Americans." But he said he was concerned by what he described as a general lack of cooperation with federal law enforcement in Muslim communities.
The administration argues that even as it investigates alleged plots it must show an effort to address Muslim grievances—in part to undercut propaganda from radical groups overseas that say the U.S. is conducting a war on Islam. Mr. Jones, who helps coordinate efforts with agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security, speaks of a balancing act between pursuing potential terrorists and showing goodwill toward a suspicious community.
In Minneapolis, the Somali community became a focus of concern after 20 young Somali-American men allegedly traveled to Somalia to join the al Shabaab Islamist group. Young Somalis in particular are "a little more cynical," Mr. Jones said. "They see an opportunity for the government to develop them as massive snitch networks." He said one way to avoid spying concerns is to "wall off" his investigative attorneys from the outreach efforts.
In Michigan, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said meeting with local Muslim groups had helped federal officials send the message that they're here "to protect your rights." Last year, she met with Yemeni-American community leaders to explain how to pack airplane luggage, after two Michigan men of Yemeni descent taped bottles of Pepto-Bismol to cellphones in their checked bags—apparently for tidiness—, inadvertently triggering fears of a bombing plot.
Ms. McQuade brought Muslim American speakers to a meeting with federal immigration agents to educate the agents about potential cultural misunderstandings. One lesson, she said, was that "if someone is averting eye contact, it's not [necessarily] that they are trying to avoid questions or are guilty of something. It's that in their culture, making eye contact is not polite."
Robert Spencer, who runs Jihad Watch, which focuses on Islamic extremism, critiques the outreach effort as "completely fruitless," saying it hasn't resulted "in any significant Islamic efforts to rein in radicals in their community." The program also gets a measure of criticism from some counter-radicalization experts who support outreach but say it shouldn't be led by law-enforcement agencies. Maajid Nawaz, a former jihadist sympathizer in the U.K. who now campaigns against radicalization, says Western countries should reduce their reliance on security agencies to break through to suspicious Muslim communities. "Securitizing a counter-radicalization strategy is unhelpful," Mr. Nawad said at a January speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Officials admit the balancing act can be tricky. At a December dinner in Portland, Ore., Attorney General Eric Holder combined warm words for Ms. Khera of Muslim Advocates and a pledge to defend Muslims against hate crimes with a defense of a sting operation that had led to the arrest of a Somali-American accused of plotting to bomb a Christmas-tree lighting ceremony held in the city. "Those who characterize the FBI's activities in this case as 'entrapment' simply do not have their facts straight," he said at the dinner.
The Justice Department says there have been 49 U.S. citizens, mostly Muslims, charged in international terrorism probes since the beginning of 2009. U.S. officials are especially worried about recruitment by international terror groups of citizens whose U.S. passports allow them easy access to other countries and re-entry to the U.S.
Under pressure from conservative lawmakers, the FBI cut off most contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim advocacy group. Federal investigators had found ties between the group's officials and several men convicted in 2008 of providing funds to the Palestinian group Hamas, which the U.S. calls a terrorist group. The council disputes the allegations of terrorism ties and says it is a mainstream body.
-
Counterterrorism and intelligence sources from the NYPD and FBI say law enforcement faces the same problem with the Mafia, drug cartels and the MS-13 gang.
"Criminals are criminals. It gets dicier because Muslim extremists wrap their work in religion, but the smokescreens, the silence and intimidation are similar," an FBI source said.
"What's different is the risk - the extent of the damage, the number of innocent people who can be hurt."
King has outraged many Muslim-Americans by convening hearings into homegrown radical Islamists and claiming the community has stonewalled terror investigations.
They say the Long Island Republican is on a witch hunt, and some critics have pointed out that he's gone to bat for members of the Irish Republican Army in the past.
He said his probe is no different than a hearing into the Mafia or another ethnicity-based group and that the U.S. must uncover the extent of jihadist recruitment on American soil.
As an example, he cited Queens-born terrorist Bryant Neal Vinas, who allegedly spoke at Long Island mosques about jihadist aspirations. No one told cops, and Vinas admitted to participating in Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. soldiers after his 2008 arrest in Pakistan.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/03/08/2011-03-08_muslims_as_mum_as_any_other_group_say_fed_agents.html#ixzz1GD6tsZI8
-
Never in my entire career in Washington have I encountered the hype and scare tactics of those opposing the hearings into Islamic radicalization by Rep. Pete King. A classic example was a headline on MSNBC.com: "Inquiry by congressional committee looks like inquisition to many Muslims."
The line of attack is now familiar: If King (R-L.I.) were truly interested in violent extremism, his hearings would focus on a wide range of groups that wreak havoc on America, including neo-Nazis and others; by focusing solely on Muslim extremism, the argument goes, he is betraying his bias.
This is utterly ridiculous. Our organization, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, recently did an analysis of all terrorism convictions based on statistics released by the Justice Department. These stats show that more than 80% of all convictions tied to international terrorist groups and homegrown terrorism since 9/11 involve defendants driven by a radical Islamist agenda. Though Muslims represent less than 1% of the American population, they constitute defendants in 186 of the 228 cases the Justice Department lists.
The figures confirm that there is a disproportionate problem of Islamic militancy and terrorism among the American Muslim population.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/03/10/2011-03-10_muslim_american_groups_not_rep_pete_king_are_the_ones_fomenting_hysteria.html#ixzz1GDSAca74
**Funny how this happens, given that islam is a religion of peace, or so I've been told.
-
On every single MSM coverage of King's hearings the use the adjective, "controversial".
The "controversial hearings". It is clearly a liberal jornolist strategy going viral on MSM.
-
CCP: "Controversial" hearings. Thanks for that. One powerful feature of 'right wing radio' is the MSM montage. It is amazing how so many shows/ newscasts at so many 'different' outlets use the exact same words within minutes to tell one side of a story, with repetition ad nauseum.
'Controversial' in the Peter King hearings might be to take a closer look at Rep. Keith Ellison's past, calling for violence in the streets of Minneapolis: "We don't get no justice, you don't get no peace." Not exactly a role model. http://www.nysun.com/national/historic-primary-takes-shape-in-minnesota/39030/
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/194947/re-keith-ellison-where-are-you-andrew-c-mccarthy
""We don't get no justice, you don't get no peace," Mr. Ellison reportedly said at a 1993 rally on behalf of defendants on trial for the murder of a Minneapolis police officer, Jerome Haaf."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2006/09/015165.php
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/764obcsx.asp
I sympathize with the post in the Afghan topic (Kunduz) pointing out there are many, many, many peaceful Muslims. I see them about town here harming no one. Meanwhile, behind what is visible, I see that the FBI had 24 al Qaeda related arrests in Minneapolis last year. How can anyone especially the peaceful Muslims object to at least the concept of trying to find out where terrorism recruiting and the planning of violence on innocents is taking place - and to get it stopped.
-
Doug,
Keep in mind that they are many forms of jihad, not just the bombers/shooters/headcutters. There are those who wage the jihad of the pen and tongue, those that raise money and support the jihad in other ways.
-
"Keep in mind that they are many forms of jihad, not just the bombers/shooters/headcutters. There are those who wage the jihad of the pen and tongue, those that raise money and support the jihad in other ways."
You are correct. Also the public in areas where they stone a rape victim. How does that happen? Still, whatever the numbers are, 1.5 billion Muslims. then that is a fact. Roughly 1.5 billion of those are not actively trying to attack us. Question is - what now? How do we sort it out, how do we root it out and how do we keep people favoring peaceful Islam, like Kundoz, in the discussion?
-
For the record, if I am not mistaken, Kundoz is an American convert.
-
Most don't have the ability to attack us directly. Thus they are busy attacking other muslims, christians, buddhists, hindus and others within reach. Show me a muslim populations and there is someone being oppressed/killed to the cry of "allah akbar"!
-
Former Muslims Excluded From King Hearings
Posted By Nonie Darwish On March 17, 2011 @ 12:20 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 23 Comments
I have admiration and respect for Congressman Peter King and I salute him for holding hearings on the “Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.” However, as a former Muslim I have not seen anyone testifying on our behalf in the hearings. At least one former Muslims should have been there to tell America of our plight. To tell them why we left Islam right here in America. How we had to choose between Islam and loving America. How radicals and jihadists followed us right here after we immigrated to the US to try to force us back into the same old culture of jihad, hatred and anti-Semitism — that we had escaped from in the first place. How radicals who want to deny us our freedom of religion under the US constitution threaten our lives and civil rights daily.
Most former Muslims in the US started by going to mosques but we soon discovered a political and jihadist agenda. In mosques I was told not to assimilate in America, to have more children and to wear Islamic clothes even though I never wore it in the Middle East before coming to the US. We were encouraged to pray wherever we wanted and do that with assertion even if we have to inconvenience others at airports, baseball games or at work. We soon found out that many mosques in America, as they are in the Middle East, are more of a political organization than a place of worship. We noticed that the more pious Muslims in the mosque were the ones seeking confrontation with American culture, such as getting offended if Americans have dogs or alcohol when riding cabs with Muslim taxi drivers.
Muslims are told openly in mosques that they have a mission in America and that is to make Islam the law of the land. Lying to America and getting offended to cover up the jihadist aspiration was encouraged, and became a perfected art and a religious obligation, which further alienated Muslims from American culture.
Many of us former Muslims have left the religion precisely because of the radicalization we confronted in America. But when we dared to stop going to mosques and left Islam altogether our lives turned into a nightmare. Many former Muslims contact me looking for shelter after their lives have been threatened. Just a couple of days ago I was contacted by a young 21 year old Muslim man telling me he left Islam years ago and has to hide the Bible from his family and friends after his own brother told him he was going to kill him if he does not return to Islam.
I receive testimony after testimony of former Muslims, some of whom are American converts who decided to leave Islam and are afraid for their lives. Many of us have to move from one apartment to another so we are not found by those who threaten our lives. Just last year, we all heard of the plight of the 17 year old apostate Rifqa Bary who had to flee her home after her life was threatened by her father and her local mosque. There are many Rifqa Barys in America where radical Islam is working under the radar to silence and force some of us to return to Islam or else.
I am also in contact with apostates in the Middle East. A student from Yemen told me that when he applied for a scholarship to come to the US, financed by Saudi Arabia, his application was rejected because he believes he was not radical in his Islamic views enough. He complained to me that the ones who won the scholarship were extreme Islamists and that tells us something about the kind of people we are giving student visas to.
How can former Muslims live in peace in America when there are Muslim scriptures sold and bought in all mosques telling Muslims that it is OK to kill apostates, meaning those who left Islam? The tragedy of apostasy from Islam has taken the lives of some in the West and caused mental and physical abuse for many and is never documented as a religious hate crime. Part of the jihad doctrine obliges Muslims to do internal jihad, by forcing Sharia on Muslim citizens. Sharia books in mosques across the US tell Muslims they will be forgiven for murder of an apostate and an adulterer, thus making vigilante street justice and honor killing acceptable religiously.
Muslim groups and their American appeasers are up in arms against the King hearings and are claiming that their civil rights are being violated. I wonder whose civil rights are violated in America? Is it Muslims or former Muslims?
Nonie Darwish is the author of “Cruel and Usual Punishment; the Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law” and founder of Former Muslims United.
-
Ex-CAIR Official Faces Sentencing
IPT News
March 16, 2011
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2692/ex-cair-official-faces-sentencing
Update: A federal judge sentenced Al-Hanooti to one year and one day in prison on March 18.
A Michigan man accused of spying for Saddam Hussein's regime faces nearly four years in prison when he is sentenced on a related charge in federal court Friday.
Muthanna Al-Hanooti pleaded guilty last June to one count of violating an executive order prohibiting people from doing any business with Iraq and imposing sanctions. He had a deal with senior Iraqi officials to control 2 million barrels of oil. By transferring that to a third party, Al-Hanooti stood to make $100,000, a prosecution sentencing memo said.
Al-Hanooti was identified as executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) Michigan office in 2000. But the charges against him deal with his work with a charity called Life for Relief and Development (LIFE) and its spinoff group, called Focus on American and Arab Interests and Relations (FAAIR). He worked for LIFE from 1995-2006, the sentencing memo said, noting the organization was "created after the first Gulf War in response to the economic sanctions that the United States imposed on Iraq."
In addition to charitable work, the sentencing memo said, Al-Hanooti told the FBI that FAAIR was created "to lobby against the sanctions that were imposed on Iraq during the Saddam Hussein regime and to promote good relations between the U.S. and Iraq."
U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson (CA), Jim McDermott (WA) and David Bonior (MI) in Basra in 2002. Taken from Spring 2003 FAAIR Newsletter.
According to the 2008 indictment, Iraqi intelligence officials targeted LIFE and FAAIR "to cooperate with and serve" them in trying to get rid of the sanctions. He allegedly provided them with names of sympathetic congressmen and organized a 2002 delegation to Iraq that included Democratic Reps. David Bonior of Michigan, Jim McDermott of Washington and Mike Thompson of California. While the trip was paid for by Life for Relief and Development, the money actually came from Iraqi intelligence after being routed through an intermediary, the indictment alleged.
Al-Hanooti's work put him in contact with other powerful political leaders in Washington, and he was photographed with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The case was prosecuted by the Department of Justice's National Security Division and many court filings appear to be under seal, including Al-Hanooti's plea agreement.
Al-Hanooti was born in Iraq and came to America in 1980. He was naturalized as a citizen in 1995.
But prosecutors cast him as maintaining loyalty to his native land over his adopted one. As he struck the oil deal in late 2002, "war between the United States and Iraq was imminent," prosecutors wrote. Al-Hanooti "chose to ignore the national emergency that had been declared with respect to Iraq and, instead, consummate for his own benefit a significant financial transaction with the highest levels of the Saddam Hussein regime."
Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2692/ex-cair-official-faces-sentencing
-
Words you can’t say at the Pentagon
Stewart Baker • February 20, 2011 6:23 pm
The Ft. Hood shooting has finally been the subject of a careful after-action analysis — a study that DOD should have done but didn’t. The analysis was done instead in a bipartisan report by Senators Lieberman and Collins, who lead the Homeland Security committee. Their report reveals few new facts but offers disturbing insights into DOD’s cultural dysfunctions.
On November 5, 2009, witnesses say, Maj. Nidal Hasan leaped on a desk at a Ft. Hood readiness center, shouted “Allahu Akbar” and began executing the unarmed soldiers all around him. Thirteen people were dead and thirty-two wounded before an armed police officer managed to shoot Hasan five times. Now confined to a wheelchair, Hasan is expected to go on trial shortly.
Anyone who paid attention to news coverage after the rampage knows that the Army had plenty of warning about Hasan’s Islamist views. Classmates say that he questioned whether he could fight against other Muslims and made presentations justifying the murder of non-Muslims, suggesting that Muslim-Americans in the armed forces might kill other servicemembers, defending Osama bin Laden, and justifying suicide bombers. The servicemembers in the audience were so appalled that the instructor finally stopped one of Hasan’s presentations. Off the record, it seems, everyone thought Hasan was dangerous, a nutjob, or an Islamist, and perhaps all three.
On the record, though, no one would criticize him. You don’t rise in the armed forces if you can’t read your superiors. And the rising officers who met Hasan knew what their superiors wanted without having to be told. Islam was a religion of peace, and Muslims in the Army were a welcome sign of diversity. Treating Hasan as a dangerous Islamist would put those messages at risk.
And that might be bad for their careers. So instead they spun Hasan’s rants into gold. His 2007–2008 evaluation praises Hasan for having “focused his efforts on illuminating the role of culture and Islamic faith within the Global War on Terrorism.” It adds that his “work in this area has extraordinary potential to inform national policy and military strategy. … His unique interests have captured the interest and attention of peers and mentors alike.”
The next year was the same, full of praise for Hasan’s “keen interest in Islamic culture and faith and his shown capacity to contribute to our psychological understanding of Islamic nationalism and how it may relate to events of national security and Army interest.”
So far, no surprises. It was clear within a few days of the shootings that political correctness had played a role in Hasan’s promotion and retention. What the Lieberman-Collins report tells us, though, is how big a role political correctness played even after the government discovered through intercepts that Hasan was corresponding with the Yemeni-American Islamist, Anwar al-Awlaki. (Awlaki’s name is redacted from the report but has been widely reported in the press.)
The intercepted correspondence went to the FBI’s San Diego office. According to the Lieberman-Collins report, Hasan’s initial correspondence wasn’t conclusive proof that he was a risk, but it begged for investigation. His messages, it says, “meandered in a ‘stream of consciousness,’ hinted at the answer Hasan wanted to hear, and had content that contravened officership standards.” According to the report, “The communications on their face raised questions of whether Hasan was a potential counterinteligence or counterterrorism threat.” That’s how the FBI office in San Diego saw it too. Because Hasan was stationed at Walter Reed medical center, San Diego asked the FBI’s Washington field office to follow up.
The Washington field office booted the assignment. It waited until the 90-day deadline for responding to inquiries was nearly up. Then a detailee spent four hours looking at Hasan’s records. The detailee found no mention of Hasan in terrorism databases but he did find the evaluation reports in which Hasan’s public displays of radicalization were cleverly repackaged as praiseworthy research into the “role of culture and Islamic faith within the Global War on Terrorism.”
So, put yourself in the place of the agent assigned to this problem. You’ve got an Army major sending weird but not quite damning emails to al-Awlaki. The Army seems to know he’s working in the area of Islam and terrorism, and he isn’t in the suspected terrorist database. You could go talk to him, or send an official request for information to the Army. If you do, though, there’s a chance you’ll be accused of trying to wreck Hasan’s career on flimsy evidence — on the basis of his protected religious and political speech, no less. In addition to constitutional violations, you could be slammed for racism, or Islamophobia, or cultural insensitivity. After all, this is happening in May of 2009, and the Justice Department is under new management, management that is sending very different signals about its priorities in dealing with terrorism and Islam.
Meanwhile, the evaluation reports are staring you in the face. They offer an easy way out of the dilemma. “Research, yeah, that’s the ticket,” I imagine the agent saying to himself, “Hasan could be doing research.” So he blows off San Diego’s concern without interviewing Hasan or doing anything else that might cause waves. San Diego complains. Washington fires back. And neither office does enough followup to discover the rest of Hasan’s correspondence with Awlaki. (There’s a long and interesting inside-baseball story about that, and the FBI’s relationship with other agencies, in the report that I may discuss in another post.)
Next thing the FBI in San Diego knows, there are thirteen dead and 32 wounded at Ft. Hood. As the reports hit the wire, one San Diego agent points and says to another, ““You know who that is? That’ s our boy!”
It was indeed. You’d think a loss like that would cure DOD of political correctness.
You’d be wrong.
DOD quickly stood up an independent review of the Ft. Hood shooting by former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Togo West and retired admiral Vern Clark. A staff of full-time contractors and military personnel served West and Clark, who were asked to look hard at internal threats to the military. The result of all this effort is a model of politically correct mush — a classic of contractor-speak, in fact.
Fifty members of the military community were gunned down, their ears still ringing with “Allahu Akbar!” shouted by a man wearing their own uniform. And the official DOD report on the attack never mentions Islam once. In contrast, it touches on the threat posed by “low self-esteem” four times.
The closest the report comes to blaming Islamic extremism for the attack is a single sentence identifying the sources of domestic terrorism. In case you’re wondering, they include “animal rights, environmentalism, nationalism, white supremacy, religious causes, and right-wing politics.”
So there you are. I can’t help wondering if Secretary West and Adm. Clark expect the Pentagon to take on the threats in that order. That way, DOD would first stem the threat of excessive nationalism in the military; then it could turn to the threat posed by “religious causes.” And maybe, just to avoid discrimination, it could do the religions alphabetically — getting to Islamic extremism after it mops up Episcopalian extremism and just before tackling Jehovah’s Witness extremism.
Okay, that’s a little unfair to Secretary West and Adm. Clark. But only a little. In its delicate sidestepping of Hasan’s obvious motivation, and its irresponsible sidestepping of the shocking PCness epitomized by Hasan’s evaluations, the West/Clark report is part of DOD’s problem. It stands in stark contrast to the aggressive DOD action in 1996, when two Army soldiers carried out a racially motivated murder of an African-American couple. Then, the Army had no trouble adopting a policy on extremist activities that forthrightly named white supremacist activities as a basis for disciplining soldiers.
When it comes to jihad, though, the mealy-mouthed West/Clark report tells us everything we need to know about DOD’s thinking. As the Lieberman-Collins report makes clear, the Army had all the tools it needed to deal with Hasan’s radicalization; it had used them recently and to good effect against racist and white supremacist groups in the Army. As the Lieberman/Collins report makes clear, however, Islamic supremacy is an ideology that DOD refuses to acknowledge:
Neither of Secretary Gates’ two memoranda directing implementation of particular West/Clark recommendations mentions violent Islamist extremism explicitly. Both memoranda continue to down play the unique threat of violent Islamist extremism by portraying it as a subset of a more general threat — either workplace violence or undefined “extremism” more generally. We remain concerned that DoD will not appropriately revise policies to address violent Islamist extremism among servicemembers and that DoD personnel will not be specifically trained concerning violent Islamist extremism.
That sounds like a safe bet to me. But it’s a bet likely to be measured in deaths not dollars.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in government, it’s that intellectual climate matters. The 9/11 attacks were aided greatly by an intellectual climate in which privacy and civil liberties had far more practical value than preventing terrorist attacks. And a climate in which Islamic radicalization is described only in euphemisms didn’t just protect Hasan from scrutiny. It help the next recruit as well.
That’s why efforts to shut the Overton window on inquiries into domestic radicalization are not just wooly-minded. They’re dangerous. This time, political correctness runs the risk of getting Americans killed – by discouraging counterterrorism officials from doing their jobs properly.
Senators Lieberman and Collins deserve credit for their courage in holding the window open.
http://volokh.com/2011/02/20/words-you-cant-say-at-the-pentagon/
-
According to POTH the Turkish charter schools in question are of a moderate form of Islam:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/education/07charter.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
I've read only the first of 7 pages so far.
-
By way of Powerline, this is a very refreshing look at what immigrants can become and appreciate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3NsXtDMaMk&feature=player_embedded
2 minutes and 40 seconds well spent. First Muslim, first immigrant Miss USA honors Ronald Reagan.
-
Thank you for this.
-
A pole-dancing, bikini clad hottie who celebrates christmas and loves Reagan is my kind of muslim.
-
This came to me from the Patriot Post, which I regard as reliable. I have no idea who the columnist in question is, but this sure sounds like a matter for our GM's best google fu skills!
"Far more disturbing than the salacious details of [Anthony] Weiner's dalliances is the fact that apparently his mother-in-law is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, [his wife] Huma Abedin's brother, Hassan, 'is listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members.' Hassan works at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University. The Egyptian Al-Azhar University, well-known for a curriculum that encourages extremism and terrorism, is active in establishing links with OCIS. ... Is the Weiner scandal really covering up a far more disturbing scenario whereby jihadists continue to infiltrate and influence American universities, military installations, homeland security, even local police forces, all while the press ignores the steady encroachment of these radicals who seek to overturn and destroy America?" --columnist Eileen F. Toplansky
-
This came to me from the Patriot Post, which I regard as reliable. I have no idea who the columnist in question is, but this sure sounds like a matter for our GM's best google fu skills!
"Far more disturbing than the salacious details of [Anthony] Weiner's dalliances is the fact that apparently his mother-in-law is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, [his wife] Huma Abedin's brother, Hassan, 'is listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members.' Hassan works at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University. The Egyptian Al-Azhar University, well-known for a curriculum that encourages extremism and terrorism, is active in establishing links with OCIS. ... Is the Weiner scandal really covering up a far more disturbing scenario whereby jihadists continue to infiltrate and influence American universities, military installations, homeland security, even local police forces, all while the press ignores the steady encroachment of these radicals who seek to overturn and destroy America?" --columnist Eileen F. Toplansky
- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com -
Why Is Weiner’s Muslim Brotherhood Wife Not Resigning?
Posted By Arnold Ahlert On June 17, 2011 @ 12:59 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 183 Comments
[Editor's note: See also our blockbuster feature: Abedin/Weiner: A Marriage Made by Hillary Clinton and the Muslim Brotherhood?]
Anthony Weiner resigned yesterday, unable to withstand the relentless pressure put on him for his sexting extravaganzas. Yet if an article written by former PLO terrorist-turned-Christian and Israel supporter Walid Shoebat (along with KTEM radio host Ben Barrack) is any indication, it may very well be that the wrong member of the family resigned. According to Arabic sources translated by Mr. Shoebat, Huma Abedin’s mother and brother are both associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ms. Abedin’s mother, Saleha Mahmoud Abdeen, is reportedly part of a special woman’s unit known as the Muslim Sisterhood or the International Women’s Organization (IWO) which, according to a counter-terrorism report obtained by the Terrorism Committee of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, operates within the Brotherhood in Egypt and possibly other Arab nations as well. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Dostor confirms that the Sisterhood includes 63 international members in 16 different countries.
The group is being portrayed by Western media in a benign fashion, as noted in Der Spiegel and on its Facebook page. But a report by the Egyptian opposition newspaper Al-Liwa Al-Arabi paints a far more ominous picture. It reveals that these women, who are “the wives of some of the highest-ranking leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood” are being recruited to:
muggle secret documents for the members since women go undetected by security surveillance…to spread the Brotherhood’s ideology by infiltrating universities, schools and homes…to lay the plans for the Sisterhood to work at the state level…[and]…to fulfill the interests of the Brotherhood and also to benefit from international women’s conferences and unify all efforts to benefit the Brotherhood globally.
Furthermore, the Sisterhood’s mission includes:
- rganiz[ing] projects which will penetrate its prohibited ideology into the decision making in the West and in an indirect way under the guise of “general needs of women”…through the university and the state capitals and institutions and is done in accordance to the project Al-Islam Huwa Al-Hal (Islam is the solution).
The newspaper then lists the names of the women who belong to the organization on a country-by-country basis. There are a dozen members of the Sisterhood from Saudi Arabia. Saleha Mahmoud Abdeen (Abedin) is one of them.
It has also been revealed in the Arab media that Huma Abedin’s brother Hassan is a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University in England. A number of Muslim Brotherhood members sit on the board, including Qatari cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has incited violence against Jews and Israel on numerous occasions. In 2009, Qaradawi’s role at Oxford and the Muslim Brotherhood was supported by Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, one of 90 Muslim leaders who, in the same year, signed a pact in support of Hamas and for military action against the British Navy if it stopped an arms shipment headed for Gaza. Another member of the OCIS is Abdullah Omar Naseef, who founded the Rabita Trust, which was included in the first post-9/11 list of al-Qaeda supporters whose financial assets could be frozen. Naseef is chairman of the board of OCIS.
Not that the radicalization of English universities is anything new. In 2007, Professor Anthony Glees, professor of politics and director of the Center for Security and Intelligence Studies at Buckingham University, warned that British universities, “including Cambridge and Oxford” had been infiltrated by Islamic extremists. ”We must accept this problem is widespread and underestimated. Unless clear and decisive action against campus extremism is taken, the security situation in the UK can only deteriorate,” he said. Glees stated that as many as 46 other schools had been infiltrated as well.
Hassan Abedin himself has expressed an interest in spreading Islam in the West, meeting with billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Alwaleed is one of the largest shareholders in both Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Citigroup. He is also the same prince Alwaleed whose $10 million dollar check for post 9/11 disaster relief was rejected by then-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani when the prince suggested U.S. policies in the Middle East contributed to the attacks.
It is up for debate to what extent Hassan Abedin’s associations with the Muslim Brotherhood, OCIS and Prince Alwaleed could be construed as “innocent.” But one thing is certain: as Abdul Rahim Ali, Director of the Arab Center for Research and Studies pointed out in a speech at the International Center for Future and Strategic Studies (ICFS) in Cairo on Wednesday, January 27, 2010, the next generation of al-Qaeda and other Islamist organizations “will be better educated and more adopted to using technological means, particularly communications and modern weapons,” noting that they are “born in the West, flamboyant, multilingual, well-traveled, and eager for personal notoriety in addition to excelling in modern technology, physics and chemistry.” This sentiment was echoed in Senate testimony by the former leaders of the 9-11 Commission, Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, both of whom noted that the United States hadn’t done enough to protect itself from an “ever evolving” terrorist threat.
Which brings us to Anthony Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, who is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. Ms. Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, MI, but moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at the age of 2, before returning to the United States 16 years later to attend college. A detailed report from 2007 shows that the aforementioned Abdullah Omar Naseef was instrumental in the Abedin family’s move around 1977 — the same year that the Muslim Sisterhood was established. Huma Abedin has been working for Mrs. Clinton since 1996. Between that job and being married to a Congressman — in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton — Ms. Abedin is privy to sensitive and secret information. Walid Shoebat explains the significance: “Huma Abedin is a practicing Muslim and is still well-connected to her family. She also has access to highly sensitive State secrets–admitted by Hillary herself–as well as significant influence in the Obama administration.”
This brings us to a curious sidebar: how it is possible for a “practicing Muslim” woman to be married to a Jewish American? Islamic scholarship and Sharia law forbid Muslims from marrying non-believers. Mr. Shoebat translated the Al-Marsid newspaper, which reported on the Weiner/Abedin marriage specifically:
Dr. Anwar Shoeb of the faculty of Islamic law in Kuwait declared that the marriage between Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin is null and void, considering it adultery as confirmed in the Sharia position, prohibiting the marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim, regardless of whether he is a Jew or a Christian. In this case, he assured the invalidity of the marriage certificate between them.
Yet far more importantly, how is it that Huma Abedin’s mother’s and brother’s associations with the Muslim Brotherhood, direct and indirect respectively, have remained beyond scrutiny? As for Ms. Abedin herself, it strains credulity to assume that she is unaware of those associations, just as it is impossible that Mrs. Clinton doesn’t know. NPR reported that Mrs. Clinton visited Dar al-Hekma college last Tuesday, where Saleha Mahmoud Abdeen is a vice dean and the school’s co-founder. Yet it took an Arabic news report translated by Shoebat to confirm the obvious:
Saleha Abedin spoke after Shuheir Qureshi (another member of the Muslim Sisterhood) and beamed in the presence of Secretary Clinton. Saleha’s speech preceded the former First Lady’s. Then Hillary stood. She donned a broad smile as she approached the podium… Clinton started with a strong word and she spent a long time complimenting Dr. Saleha Abedin regarding her daughter. Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office. She ended her speech by speaking of Saleha Abedin’s daughter (Huma), that a person must be happy if mentioned in a positive light but there is no happiness that equals the compliment given to children in front of a parent.
So, we essentially have a parent who is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood, and a daughter who holds an “important and sensitive position” in one of the highest echelons of the federal government. In this context, would it really be that out of line to suggest that the real scandal in the Weiner family has less to do with Anthony, and far more to do with his wife Huma and her apparent enabler, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? And just how much of an enabler? In 2008, Dr. Mumen Muhammad wrote about why Huma promised to stay with Clinton even if she were to lose the presidential nomination to Barack Obama:
Abedin assures in press releases of her continuance on the path with Hillary Clinton, even if Clinton failed as a candidate. The candidate’s aids and other influential figures in the Democratic Party assure that they do not disregard Abedin running for election or taking her position in the political arena with the help in successive political administrations of the Clinton family itself.
If one good thing has come from the Weiner scandal, it is that this deeply troubling association has been brought to light. A thorough investigation and intense media scrutiny are immediately needed.
Arnold Ahlert is a contributing columnist to the conservative website JewishWorldReview.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/17/why-is-weiners-muslim-brotherhood-wife-not-resigning/
-
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/revealed-weiners-in-laws-secret-muslim-brotherhood-connections/?singlepage=true
Revealed: Weiner’s In-Laws’ Secret Muslim Brotherhood Connections
How deep do the ties go?
June 16, 2011 - 11:14 am - by Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack
Was Huma Abedin — wife of Anthony Weiner and deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton — unaware that her mother was reported as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood? Did Western media miss what has been revealed in several Arab newspapers and left secret in American government circles?
Al-Liwa Al-Arabi (translated here) claims to have leaked an extensive list, partially published by Al-Jazeera and several other major Arab newspapers, that includes Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, in the Brotherhood’s secret women’s division — known as the Muslim Sisterhood or International Women’s Organization (IWO).
Information about the IWO can readily be found at the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website. An excerpt from its goal, translated from the Arabic, states:
The Women Organization’s goal, in accordance with the Muslim Brotherhood rules, is to gain and acquire a unified global perception in every nation in the world regarding the position of women, and the necessity of advocacy work at all levels in accordance with the message of the Brotherhood, as written in Women in Muslim Society, and the rearing of women throughout the different stages of life [emphasis added].
The Egyptian paper Al-Dostor revealed that the Sisterhood includes 63 international members across 16 different countries — a claim confirmed by the Arab Center for Studies, headed by researcher Abdul Rahim Ali.
Neither Huma nor any major Western media outlets even mention this bit of common knowledge in the Arab world.
But there is more. Also confirmed by Arab sources is that Huma Abedin has a brother who works at Oxford University named Hassan Abedin. Oxford, which has long been infiltrated by Islamists who founded the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), has Huma’s brother listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members on the Board — including al-Qaeda associate Omar Naseef and the notorious Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. Both have been listed as OCIS trustees. Naseef continues to serve as Board chairman.
In 2009, Qaradawi’s role within Oxford and the Muslim Brotherhood was championed by the notorious Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi of Al-Nahda – a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate now active in Tunisia. OCIS has even presented an award for great scholarly achievement to Brotherhood member Shaykh Abd Al-Fattah Abu Gudda, whose personal history goes back to the Brotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna.
Even the Sunday Times acknowledges that the cradle of Islamic jihad — Al-Azhar University — actively attempts to establish links with OCIS, where Huma’s brother serves.
Was Huma unaware of all this as she accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia? Huma’s mother is co-founder and vice dean at the college and an active missionary on issues regarding Muslim women.
Another member listed as belonging to the Sisterhood mentioned by Al-Jazeera is Suheir Qureshi. Alongside Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was brought in due to her connection with Huma, Qureshi spoke on issues of women in Muslim society. An Arabic news report of what happened during Hillary’s visit stated that:
Suheir Qureshi spoke of how elated she was of Hillary’s historic visit…. Saleha Abedin spoke after Suheir Qureshi and beamed in the presence of Secretary Clinton. Saleha’s speech preceded the former first lady’s. Then Hillary stood. She donned a broad smile as she approached the podium….Clinton started with a strong word and she spent a long time complimenting Dr. Saleha Abedin regarding her daughter. Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office. She ended her speech by speaking of Saleha Abedin’s daughter (Huma), that a person must be happy if mentioned in a positive light but there is no happiness that equals the compliment given to children in front of a parent [emphasis added].
It is sacrilege in Islam for Huma’s mother to accept the reality that her daughter is married to a Jew. Yet neither Saleha nor Huma’s brother Hassan denounces her marriage to Weiner, especially when it was considered null and void by some of the highest authorities on Islamic Sharia rulings.
Huma’s brother has been key in furthering the Islamic agenda and has worked with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on a program of “spreading Islam to the west.” A detailed report from 2007 shows that Naseef was identified as the likely force behind the Abedin family’s departure from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, circa 1977 – the same year that the Muslim Sisterhood was established.
In 2008, Dr. Mumen Muhammad wrote about why Huma vowed to stay with Hillary even if the latter were to lose the presidential nomination to Obama:
Abedin assures in press releases of her continuance on the path with Hillary Clinton, even if Clinton failed as a candidate. The candidate’s aides and other influential figures in the Democratic Party assure that they do not disregard Abedin running for election or taking her position in the political arena with the help in successive political administrations of the Clinton family itself [emphasis added].
Hillary Clinton signed a document less than one month prior to her trip to Saudi Arabia with Huma that lifted the ban on Tariq Ramadan, allowing him entry into the United States. (Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, and has ties to Islamic terrorist groups.) The Clinton family played a key role in promoting Fethullah Gülen, the extremely powerful Turkish imam and notorious Islamist conspirator, as he fled Turkey for the United States after attempting to overthrow Turkey’s secular government. (He was indicted on this charge in 2000.) In 2008, the former president heaped praise on Gülen, giving him a clean slate. Gülen has been given refuge and has even had sermons aired on Turkish television during which he explained to his followers how to best seize power from the Turkish government:
You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe….Until that time, any step taken would be too early — like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside [emphasis added].
Gülen expressed this sentiment in another sermon as well:
The philosophy of our service is that we open a house somewhere and, with the patience of a spider, we lay our web to wait for people to get caught in the web; and we teach those who do [emphasis added].
Serving with Huma’s brother as an Oxford Centre trustee is Abdullah Gül, Turkey’s president himself. He considers himself a follower of Fethullah Gülen, according to Wikileaks.
Huma Abedin’s charm, family connections, and access to highly sensitive state secrets — as admitted by Hillary herself — can have significant consequences. What absolutely must be known is if this circle of public servants was made aware of all these ties to potential enemies of the state.
Walid Shoebat is the Author of God's War on Terror. He has accurately translated and exposed much of the doublespeak by Islamists and was key in exposing the Ground Zero Mosque Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf by translating what the Imam truly believed as stated in the Arabic language. Shoebat.com Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas. He maintains a website at benbarrack.com
-
This also could belong under Homeland (In)Security:
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/24/the-dark-muslim-brotherhood-world-of-huma-abedin/print/
-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Wv3_OSsOs&feature=player_embedded#at=25
-
The Tipping Point: Embracing the Muslim Brotherhood
Frank j. gaffney, jr.
The Obama administration chose the eve of the holiday marking our Nation's birth to acknowledge publicly behavior in which it has long been stealthily engaged to the United States' extreme detriment: Its officials now admit that they are embracing the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic). That would be the same international Islamist organization that has the destruction of the United States, Israel and all other parts of the Free World as its explicit objective.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to downplay the momentousness of this major policy shift by portraying it during a stopover in Budapest as follows: "The Obama administration is continuing the approach of limited contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood that have existed on and off for about five or six years." In fact, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out in a characteristically brilliant, and scathing, dissection of this announcement, Team Obama's official, open legitimation of the Brotherhood marks a dramatic break from the U.S. government's historical refusal to deal formally with the Ikhwan.
To understand why the Obama administration's embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood is so ominous, consider three insights into the organization's nature and ambitions:
First, here's the MB's creed: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." (Source: Husain Haqqani and Hillel Fradkin, "Islamist Parties: Going Back to the Origins.")
Second, here's the Ikwhan's mission in America:
"A kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, sabotaging its miserable house with their [i.e., Americans'] hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." (Source: Muslim Brotherhood's "Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goals of the Group," entered into evidence by the Department of Justice in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-finance trial. Archived at the NEFA Foundation.)
Third, here are excerpts from the Muslim Brotherhood's "phased plan" for accomplishing that mission:
Phase One: Discreet and secret establishment of leadership.
Phase Two: Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities. It greatly succeeded in implementing this stage. It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government.
Phase Three: Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media. Currently in progress.
Phase Four: Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. It has noticeable activities in this regard.
Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united. (Source: Undated Muslim Brotherhood Paper entitled, "Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan." Archived at Shariah: The Threat to America.)
In short, the Muslim Brotherhood is deadly serious about waging what it calls "civilization jihad" against the United States and other freedom-loving nations in order to secure their submission to the Islamic totalitarian political-military-legal doctrine called shariah. The MB's goal in this country is to replace our Constitution with theirs, namely the Koran. And they regard this task as one commanded by none other than Allah. (For more details on the nature, ambitions and modus operandi of the Ikhwan, see the Team B II Report, Shariah: The Threat to America). To this end, as Andy McCarthy notes in the aforementioned essay, the MB's senior official, Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi, has effectively declared war on the United States.
Were there any doubt that legitimacy is what the Ikhwan is taking away from this gambit, consider this assessment from an expert in Islamic groups, Ammar Ali Hassan, cited by Associated Press: "...The Brotherhood will likely try to float ‘conditions' or ‘reservations' on any dialogue to avoid a perception that it is allowing the U.S. to meddle in Egypt's internal affairs. But in the end, the talks will give a boost to the group, he said, by easing worries some in the Brotherhood and the public have of a backlash if the Brotherhood becomes the dominant player in Egypt. ‘Now the Muslim Brotherhood will not have to worry [about] moving forward toward taking over power,' Hassan said."
Unfortunately, the U.S. government's dangerous outreach to the Ikhwan is not confined to Egypt but is systematically practiced inside the United States, as well. For example:
Muslim-American organizations identified in court by the U.S. government - and, in many cases, by the Muslim Brotherhood itself - as MB fronts are routinely cultivated by federal, state and local officials. Representatives of homeland security, Pentagon, intelligence and law enforcement agencies frequently meet with and attend functions sponsored by such groups.
MB-associated individuals are sent as our country's "goodwill ambassadors" to foreign Muslim nations and communities. MB-favored initiatives to insinuate shariah into the United States - notably, the Ground Zero Mosque and shariah-compliant finance, conscientious objector status for Muslim servicemen and stifling of free speech in accordance with shariah "blasphemy" laws - are endorsed and/or enabled by official institutions.
A blind eye is turned to the presence across the country of shariah-adherent mosques that incubate jihadism. A peer-reviewed study published last month in Middle East Quarterly determined that 81% of a random sample of 100 mosques exhibited such qualities - constituting an infrastructure for recruitment, indoctrination and training consistent with the Brotherhood's phased plan.
Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, individuals with family and other ties to the Muslim Brotherhood have actually given senior government positions. The most recent of these to come to light is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin (who also happens to be former Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife).
It seems a safe bet that, as Team Obama legitimates Muslim Brotherhood organizations and groups overseas, it will feel ever less constrained about further empowering their counterparts in the United States. If so, the MB will come to exercise even greater influence over what our government does and does not do about the threat posed by shariah, both abroad and here.
The absolutely predictable effect will be to undermine U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East and further catalyze the Brotherhood's campaign to insinuate shariah in the United States and, ultimately, to supplant the Constitution with Islamic law. Consequently, the Obama administration's efforts to "engage" the Muslim Brotherhood are not just reckless. They are wholly incompatible with the President's oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" and the similar commitment made by his subordinates.
These officials' now-open embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a geo-strategic tipping point, one that must catalyze an urgent national debate on this question: Does such conduct violate their oath of office by endangering the Constitution they have undertaken to uphold?
At a minimum, such a debate would afford a much-needed opportunity to examine alternatives to the administration's present course - as well as the real risks associated with that its intensifying pursuit. For instance, one of the most astute American authorities on the Middle East in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, Dr. Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a posting at The American blog yesterday:
"Rather than embrace the Brotherhood, the Obama administration should be seeking to ensure that the group cannot dominate Egypt. Most analysts agree that the Muslim Brotherhood is by far the best organized group in Egypt, but that it only enjoys perhaps 25 or 30 percent support. The secular opposition remains weak and fractured. If the Obama administration wishes to remain engaged in Egypt's future and shape the best possible outcome for both U.S. national security and the Egyptian people, it should be pushing for electoral reform to change Egypt's dysfunctional system to a proportional representation model in which the secular majority can form a coalition to check a Muslim Brotherhood minority for which true democracy is anathema."
The same goes for the enemy within. Instead of relying upon - let alone hiring - Muslim Brotherhood operatives and associates, the United States government should be shutting down their fronts, shariah-adherent, jihad-incubating "community centers" and insidious influence operations in America. By recognizing these enterprises for what they are, namely vehicles for fulfilling the seditious goals of the MB's civilization jihad, they can and must be treated as prosecutable subversive enterprises, not protected religious ones under the U.S. Constitution.
Let the debate begin.
This article can be found here:
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18757.xml
-
The Daily Caller – Thu, Aug 11, 2011tweet3Share0EmailPrintThe White House’s published guest list for this year’s Ramadan Iftar dinner was much shorter than previous years’ roster. It excluded the names of several controversial advocates who have attended the event in the past, including some who The Daily Caller can confirm did attend on Wednesday night.
“It was a squeaky clean list,” said Durriya Badani, director of the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, an annual event organized by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center and the Qatari government. The guests on the published list are “not controversial at all,” said Badani, whose name is on the list the White House provided to reporters.
“It was a lot more low-key … It was a more intimate event this year,” said Haris Tarin, the Washington director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, whose invitation was kept off the published list. “I have no idea why they didn’t publish [MPAC’s invite] … I’m going to learn about that a little bit more,” he told The Daily Caller.
Mohamed Magid also attended but did not appear on the White House’s publish list. Magid is imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society mosque in Northern Virginia and the current president of the Islamic Society of North America. Along with MPAC, Magid’s two organizations have drawn criticism from a loose network of online critics who claim they are sympathetic to Islamist groups.
Whether intentional or not, the shorter list limited the risk of a political embarrassment for the White House because it downplayed the attendance of several ideological Islamist groups, including MPAC, said Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a pro-Western Muslim group. But the White House also failed to invite any of the 25 pro-liberty American Muslim groups and individuals in Jasser’s American Islamic Leadership Coalition, he said.
Iftar is the evening meal when Muslims break their fast during the month of Ramadan.
At last year’s event, President Obama publicly endorsed the planned construction of a mosque at the Ground Zero site in New York City. But Obama avoided controversial topics in his short speech Wednesday night. (RELATED: Obama gives Small Business Admin. the coal shoulder)
The president lauded American Muslims who reacted to the 9/11 attack. “How do we honor these patriots, those who died and those who served? … The answer is the same as it was ten Septembers ago. We must be the America they lived for, … An America that doesn’t simply tolerate people of different backgrounds and beliefs, but an America where we are enriched by our diversity.”
The public guest list did include ambassadors from Muslim-majority democratic countries, such as Iraq and Bangladesh, as well as the ambassador of Israel, roughly 20 percent of whose population is Muslim. Also included were numerous ambassadors from Islamic countries that do not accept democracy or welcome non-Islamic religions. These included Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and both Yemen and Bahrain, whose governments have violently suppressed public demonstrations this year.
Obama, Jasser complained, “has not been clear on what America stands for, on the freedom agenda in the Middle East, [so] he ends up at an Iftar dinner that panders to ambassadors” who oppose American’s vision of freedom, Jasser said.
The list also excluded a few controversial attendees, such as Tarin from MPAC and Mohamed Magid, who is the imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society mosque in Northern Virginia and the current president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
Critics of Tarin’s and Magid’s organizations — including the Investigative Project on Terrorism — use the Internet to publish court records, translate Arab-language media reports, and record information released by Muslim advocacy groups in the United States and overseas. For example, court records now available online show that the federal government designated ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator during the 2008 trial of Texas Muslims who smuggled money to the Hamas terror group.
Hamas is the branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, and has stated that its goal is to violently destroy the Jewish state of Israel. Tarin denies any ties to the Islamist groups and the brotherhood. “We’re critical of the Muslim Brotherhood ourselves,” he told TheDC.
Asked about MPAC’s welcome for the 2010 U.S. tour of Tariq Ramadan, who is one of Europe’s foremost Muslim Brotherhood advocates, Tarin said MPAC supports “robust discourse and discussion.”
Tarin says the White House’s omission of his name from the Iftar invitation list remains unexplained. He told TheDC that he received a personal phone call from Obama several weeks ago. That would not have happened, he added, “if they wanted to stay away politically, and avoid criticism.”
While White House officials excluded MPAC’s leader from its published invitation list, Jasser believes the Obama administration continues to engage with the group in its political outreach because “they don’t have the political will to hold MPAC accountable for their ideology.”
According to a recent Gallup study of American voters, just 3.5 percent of U.S. Muslims said the MPAC most represented their interests. Almost half, or 48.5 percent, of Muslim respondents declined to name a Muslim advocacy group that most represented their interests.
White House officials, Jasser offered, should reach out to the Muslim groups in his coalition and invite them to the 2012 Iftar. With this approach, he said, the White House would “empower the liberty-minded, Western-minded anti-Islamists.”
This year’s White House Iftar was more sparsely attended than last’s year’s. Officials working for President George W. Bush also pruned their invite list following several embarrassing episodes, including a September 2001 appearance that placed Bush alongside Abdul Alamoudi and Nihad Awad.
Alamoudi founded the American Muslim Council, was a prominent Islamist advocate in D.C., and raised funds for both Democrats and Republicans until 2004. That’s when he pled guilty to several terror offenses and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Awad is the founding director of the Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR and ISNA were both named as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 Hamas trial.
As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack approaches, Badani said, White House officials “need to be very careful.”
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-iftar-guest-list-omits-controversial-attendees-202005815.html (http://news.yahoo.com/obama-iftar-guest-list-omits-controversial-attendees-202005815.html)
P.C.
-
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Group: The death threat comes after Letterman jokes about a terror leader's death
Ilyas Kashmiri, referred to as al Qaeda's "military brain," reportedly died in a drone strike
The death threat urges jihadist followers to cut off Letterman's tongue and "shut it forever"
RELATED TOPICS
David Letterman
Television
Terrorism
(CNN) -- A jihadist website is urging its American followers to kill comedian David Letterman, saying his tongue deserves to be cut over his remarks about a terror leader, an online intelligence group said.
The writer posted the death threat after he got upset by a Letterman joke about an al Qaeda leader killed in Pakistan, according to SITE intelligence group, which monitors and translates online terror activity.
Ilyas Kashmiri, described as al Qaeda's "military brain," died in a drone strike in June, his jihadist group said at the time.
Letterman cracked jokes about the killing, and dragged his finger across his neck to show "the way of the slaughter," the message on the jihadist site said.
He then said Kashmiri joins terror leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan in May, according to the message posted Wednesday.
"This despicable person mocked the leaders of the mujahideen," the post says.
The death threat urges jihadist followers to cut off Letterman's tongue and "shut it forever."
CNN could not independently confirm the message.
A spokesman for the FBI said the agency is looking into the death threats.
"In the post 9/11 world , we take all of these threats seriously," spokesman Peter Donald said.
A federal law enforcement official said such threats are common.
"We see these kinds of threats frequently against people in business and media. Usually nothing comes of them, but we check them all out," the official said.
Letterman's publicist declined to comment.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/17/letterman.threat/index.html?iref=24hours
P.C.
-
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/26/the-islamic-supremacist-propaganda-machine-cranks-out-another-islamophobia-report/print/
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/so-what-do-muslim-americans-think-about-anti-terror-policies/
-
Well, its the Left Angeles Times, so caveat lector:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/september11/la-na-911-muslim-america-20110904,0,2495732.story
-
From Robert Spencer today:
FBI Under Fire For Teaching the Truth
Posted By Robert Spencer On September 19, 2011
The FBI came under fire again Wednesday from hard-Left journalist Spencer Ackerman in Wired, who has been conducting a campaign for some time to get the bureau to purge its terrorism training seminars of any hint of the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism.
Ackerman reported with breathless self-righteous indignation that “the FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that ‘main stream’ [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a ‘cult leader’; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a ‘funding mechanism for combat.’ At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more ‘devout’ a Muslim, the more likely he is to be ‘violent.’ Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: ‘Any war against non-believers is justified’ under Muslim law; a ‘moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.’”
Like virtually all Leftist and Islamic supremacist critiques of anti-jihad and anti-terror material, Ackerman’s piece takes for granted that such assertions are false, without bothering to explain how or why. Apparently Ackerman believes that their falsity is so self-evident as to require no demonstration; unfortunately for him, however, no one else has provided any proof of this, either. And there is considerable evidence that what this FBI training material asserts is true.
Are mainstream American Muslims “likely to be terrorist sympathizers”? Certainly all the mainstream Muslim organizations condemn al-Qaeda and 9/11; however, some of the foremost of those organizations, such as the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim Students Association, and the Council of American-Islamic Relations, and others, have links of various kinds to the jihad terrorist group Hamas and its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated to imposing Islamic law around the world. A mainstream Muslim spokesman in the U.S., the Ground Zero Mosque Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, refused to condemn Hamas until it became too politically damaging for him not to do so; another, CAIR’s Nihad Awad, openly declared his support for Hamas in 1994. Another mainstream Muslim spokesman in this country, Reza Aslan, has praised another jihad terrorist group, Hizballah, and called on the U.S. to negotiate with Hamas. Other mainstream Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. such as Obama’s ambassador to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Rashad Hussain, and media gadfly Hussein Ibish, have praised and defended the confessed leader of another jihad terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Sami al-Arian.
Do these men and organizations represent a tiny minority of extremists that actually does not express the opinions of the broad mainstream of Muslims in this country? Maybe, but if so, they simply do not have any counterparts of comparable size or influence who have not expressed sympathy for some form of Islamic terror.
Was Muhammad a “cult leader”? Certainly one definition of a cult is that members are not free to opt out if they choose to do so – and it was Muhammad who enunciated Islam’s notorious death penalty for apostasy by saying, ““Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him.” (Bukhari 9.84.57). Also, there are several celebrated incidents in which Muhammad lashed out violently against his opponents, ordering the murder of several people for the crime of making fun of him — including the poet Abu ‘Afak, who was over one hundred years old, and the poetess ‘Asma bint Marwan. Abu ‘Afak was killed in his sleep, in response to Muhammad’s question, “Who will avenge me on this scoundrel?” Similarly, Muhammad on another occasion cried out, “Will no one rid me of this daughter of Marwan?” One of his followers, ‘Umayr ibn ‘Adi, went to her house that night, where he found her sleeping next to her children. The youngest, a nursing babe, was in her arms. But that didn’t stop ‘Umayr from murdering her and the baby as well. Muhammad commended him: “You have done a great service to Allah and His Messenger, ‘Umayr!” (Ibn Ishaq, 674-676).
Is the “Islamic practice of giving charity” no more than a “‘funding mechanism for combat’”? If not, one wonders why so many Islamic charities in the United States and around the world have been shut down for funding terrorism, including what was once the largest Islamic charity in the United States, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), as well as the Global Relief Foundation (GRF), the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), and many others.
Is it true that “the more ‘devout’ a Muslim, the more likely he is to be ‘violent,’” and is it also true that “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah”? While certainly not all devout Muslims are terrorists, virtually all Islamic terrorists are devout Muslims. In recent years, not only Osama bin Laden but also devout Muslims such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would-be Times Square bomber Feisal Shahzad, Arkansas jihad murderer Abdulhakim Muhammad, and other jihad terror plotters such as Khalid Aldawsari, Baitullah Mehsud, and Roshonara Choudhry, among many others, reference Islamic teachings to justify violence against unbelievers. Just this week, Detroit underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab declared in court that Muslims should only be judged by the Qur’an.
Can “any war against non-believers” really be “‘justified’ under Muslim law”? Majid Khadduri, an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:
The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)
Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.
A Shafi’i manual of Islamic law endorsed by the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, says that the leader of the Muslims “makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax,” and cites Qur’an 9:29 in support of this idea: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o9.8)
Are there wars against unbelievers that cannot be justified by Islamic law? Certainly. But there is also a broad mandate for such wars – broad enough to have served as a justification for wars between Muslims and non-Muslims throughout history. During World War I, the crumbling Ottoman Empire even tried to shore up support for its war against the Allies by declaring it a jihad.
In the face of Ackerman’s reports, the FBI is in full retreat. It announced after an earlier report that it had banned use of my book The Truth About Muhammad, which is simply a biography of Muhammad based on the earliest Muslim sources. And this latest report quickly drove the bureau further into Lysenkoism; it quickly announced late Thursday that it was dropping the latest program that Ackerman had zeroed in on as well.
Lysenkoism was ideologically biased junk science regarding biology and agriculture that was adopted as official policy by the Soviet Union under Stalin. The real scientists who told the truth were sent to the gulag.
It is no surprise that in an official environment that refuses to speak about “Islam” and “terrorism” in the same sentence — a policy which must involve quite a lot of mental and verbal gymnastics when jihad terrorists start quoting Qur’an and other Islamic sources — that the truth about Islam would come under fire whenever it appears as part of counterterrorism studies. It is no surprise that in an official environment that thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular” and that jihad is a wholly positive interior spiritual struggle would get nervous at revelations that somewhere the truth about Islam and jihad was getting through.
As Lysenkoism grows more entrenched and the FBI’s heads planted more firmly in the sand, Spencer Ackerman’s responsibility for the next jihad attack in the U.S. grows apace.
-
Amazing how deeply entrenched denial is in our culture.
-
http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/09/29/hate-crime-arab-attacked-for-supporting-israel/
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/muslim-high-school-student-remains-true-to-islamic-modesty-code-even-on-the-soccer-field/
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/muslim-high-school-student-remains-true-to-islamic-modesty-code-even-on-the-soccer-field/
Yes, it's important that we support oppression when the oppressed has been conditioned to internalize the oppression.
At least that garb could have saved some teenaged females in Saudi Arabia that were locked inside a burning school by the Saudi religious police because they weren't dressed modestly and thus could not be allowed outside.
-
The Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrates the GOP
Posted By Jamie Glazov On November 8, 2011 @ 12:27 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Paul Sperry, a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of Infiltration and Muslim Mafia. The latter, co-authored with P. David Gaubatz, exposes the radical Muslim Brotherhood and its fronts in the United States.
FP: Paul Sperry, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Sperry: Always a pleasure, Jamie. Quick congratulations on another commendable work, Showdown With Evil.
FP: Thank you Paul.
I would like to talk to you today about how the Muslim Brotherhood penetrates the Republican Party and especially the latest disturbing evidence you have on Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan in this context. As you know, David Horowitz called out both Khan and Norquist on this issue in his speech at CPAC on Feb. 12, 2011.
First, let’s begin with your knowledge of the Muslim Brotherhood’s penetration of the United States in general and what you know about it its front groups on our soil.
Sperry: Thanks Jamie.
As you know, the Brotherhood is a worldwide jihadist movement based in Cairo. It’s the parent of Hamas and al-Qaida and the source of most of the jihadist ideology and related terror throughout the world today. After 9/11, FBI agents discovered the founding archives of its U.S. operations during a raid of a terrorist suspect’s home in Annandale, Va. The secret papers revealed that the Brotherhood, which was set up in America with millions in Saudi cash, has a plan to “destroy” America and other Western nations “from within,” and is using its agents and front groups in the U.S. to carry out that strategy.
The secret papers also revealed that virtually every major Muslim group in America is a front for the radical Brotherhood, and they’ve raised millions of dollars for Hamas and al-Qaida right here inside America. They also control most of the major mosques, including the 9/11 mosque just outside Washington that found housing for some of the hijackers and helped prepare them for their martyrdom operation.
FP: What’s been done about them?
Sperry: Until recent years, their leaders operated with virtual impunity. But 9/11 broke the PC handcuffs on investigators. Several major U.S. Brotherhood figures — including Abdurahman Alamoudi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad El-Mezain, Anwar Awlaki, Sami al-Arian — are now either behind bars or dead. Major front groups have been blacklisted as unindicted co-conspirators. And a key front, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), which we expose in our book, has been banned by the FBI from outreach functions and stripped by the IRS of its nonprofit status following our investigation. But the handcuffs haven’t come off completely.
FP: How haven¹t the handcuffs come off completely?
Sperry: The Islamic Society of North America is the leading edge of the Brotherhood movement here, yet it remains a formal outreach partner of the government even though ISNA was implicated in a criminal scheme to funnel over $12 million to Hamas terrorists. Its president, in fact, just spoke at a Justice Department conference on “post-9/11 discrimination.” Mohamed Magid also prayed with Obama in the White House. It’s not just Obama though. I’ve seen the matrix with all the names of the leaders in the U.S. Brotherhood’s Shurah Council. They include people Bush prayed with after 9/11. The enemy has been inside the wire for quite some time. It’s just making deeper inroads now.
FP: Ok let’s get to Suhail Khan and Grover Norquist. What information do you have on them?
Sperry: Let me start with some background regarding Norquist. Though he’s known as the Beltway’s top antitax lobbyist, he’s also a paid lobbyist for enemies of the United States. Prior to 9/11, he was bankrolled by the General Masul of the U.S. Brotherhood — the same Alamoudi I mentioned earlier — who also happened to be al-Qaida’s top bagman in America.
FP: Evidence?
Sperry: A July 14, 2005, U.S. Treasury Department press release stated: “According to information available to the U.S. government, the September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to al-Qaida, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with al-Qaida and had raised money for al-Qaida in the United States.”
In addition, I asked an FBI official who worked the Alamoudi case to elaborate on the information cited in the Treasury statement. He told me (as I reported in Muslim Mafia) that at the time of Alamoudi’s arrest, U.S. intelligence had intercepted al-Qaida chatter out of Saudi Arabia lamenting that “one of our main financiers has been taken out.”
I have no evidence Norquist knew Alamoudi was laundering Saudi cash for al-Qaida at the time he was taking his own cash from him. But he knew Alamoudi was, at a minimum, making statements in support of terrorists. Now his financier and silent partner is sitting behind bars as a convicted terrorist.
FP: What kind of money changed hands?
Sperry: As I reported in my first book, “Infiltration,” Norquist’s old lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt, was a registered agent for Alamoudi, and received some $40,000 from that dubious client. (Norquist and his Muslim partner at the firm also represented the Pakistani government on military aid.) In addition, Alamoudi gave Norquist at least $20,000 in seed money to start up an outwardly Republican front for the Brotherhood called the Islamic Free Market Institute, which was run by Alamoudi’s deputy and later appeared on a JTTF threat matrix.
FP: And that’s when Khan enters the picture?
Sperry: Right. Alamoudi sponsored Khan — Khan being the eldest son of one of the founding fathers of the Brotherhood in America. Norquist got Khan into the Bush White House as the gatekeeper for Muslims, whereupon he got al-Arian and other senior Brotherhood figures past security.
FP: What were they trying to do?
Sperry: The top of their agenda was convincing the president to eliminate the Justice Department’s use of undisclosed evidence in deportation cases against Arabs suspected of terrorism. On the eve of 9/11, Norquist personally went to the Hill and lobbied to, in his words, “get rid of the secret evidence laws which have been used to discriminate against Muslims and Arabs in this country.” After 9/11, he and his Islamic Institute lobbied against the Patriot Act. He didn’t miss a beat trying to deny law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on Muslim terrorists, even after they slaughtered 3,000 Americans and attacked the Pentagon.
FP: Where’s Khan now?
Sperry: Thanks to Norquist’s sponsorship, Khan has also been able to infiltrate other Republican circles, including the American Conservative Union. Meanwhile, he’s teamed up with Imam Mohamed Magid, Obama’s Muslim outreach partner, to do interfaith outreach with evangelical Christian leaders in the South.
FP: How is that possible?
Sperry: What Norquist does, and this is truly sinister business, is dress up Brotherhood agents who underwrite him as patriotic conservatives in order to give them political cover and gain the trust of the GOP establishment. Then with the backing of duped party leaders secured, he promotes these neo-Islamists to positions of power inside government.
His latest project is Imad “David” Ramadan.
FP: Tell us about him.
Sperry: Well, he’s running for the Virginia state legislature with breathless boosterism from Norquist, which is your first red flag. Last year, Ramadan signed an open letter to Republicans in support of the Ground Zero mosque. He signed it with Khan and Norquist’s wife, who happens to be a Palestinian Muslim.
There are other red flags. Ramadan, who’s a Lebanese immigrant, is a shadowy figure with suspicious holes in his resume. He says he’s involved in various “consulting” businesses in the Middle East. He also processes U.S. visas and green cards for Muslim immigrants. But the source of his sudden wealth is largely unknown for someone who declared bankruptcy. He’s given large sums of cash to GOP officials, to shore up their support, as well as to his own campaign.
Based on who’s been donating to his campaign, Ramadan would represent the interests of Islamists should he win the Northern Virginia seat he’s running for. Of particular note from the long list of his Muslim contributors is a $5,000 political donation he received from something called the Virginia Muslim PAC. Its president is Mukit Hossain. Turns out Hossain also runs a charitable front for the Muslim Brotherhood in Herndon, Va., called FAITH. A few years ago, Wachovia bank closed FAITH’s accounts due to suspicious activity related to possible money-laundering. A year earlier, the so-called charity received a $150,000 donation from Brotherhood leader and Saudi bagman M. Yacub Mirza, whose home and offices were raided by the feds after 9/11. Hossain keeps his FAITH office in the same raided building. Hossain’s benefactor was close to Alamoudi before Alamoudi landed in the slammer.
FP: The evidence?
Sperry: According to a federal affidavit (unsealed Oct 2003) for a search warrant of Mirza’s Herndon, Va., residence and offices, Mirza is president of SAAR Foundation, a suspected charitable front for al-Qaida founded by Saudi billionaire Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al-Rajhi (S.A.A.R.), one of the original Golden Chain sponsors of bin Laden.
According to page 53 of the affidavit, written by special agent David C. Kane: “I believe that one source of funds flowing through (Mirza’s offices) is from the wealthy Al-Rajhi family in Saudi Arabia.” He cites one transaction of $3,388,000, along with others in the millions. The affidavit says Mirza has “signatory authority” over the bank accounts. SAAR had an active account with Wachovia before closing it within weeks of the 9/11 attacks. Some checks also were drawn on a bank account in the name of Al-Rajhi Banking and Investment Corp., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Now let’s tie it all together: Hossain serves on the board of a nearby mosque run by imam Magid, the ISNA chief working with Khan and Obama. This Ramadan donor is also active in the Muslim American Society, which prosecutors say is a key node in the Muslim Brotherhood’s network here.
Another Muslim listed as a donor to Ramadan’s campaign is Norquist protege Ali Tulbah, who replaced Khan at the White House when Khan landed a high-level spot at the Transportation Department. Tulbah’s father helps run a Brotherhood mosque in Houston.
FP: So Ramadan is part of the same Islamist influence operation run out of Grover’s office?
Sperry: You got it.
FP: How dangerous is Grover Norquist?
Sperry: Very dangerous. Here you have a “conservative” who built the Trojan Horse that the enemy is using to infiltrate, sabotage and destroy the U.S. from within. Norquist is helping the U.S. Brotherhood accomplish the “Grand Jihad” spelled out in its founding archives. In fact, he’s helping pull them through the gates. I think it’s fairly plain now that he knows he’s undermining U.S. security, and that he’s doing so in a time of war.
FP: So why is he still accepted in conservative circles?
Sperry: Some Republican leaders are starting to speak out publicly against him, lawmakers like Coburn and Wolf (although Wolf endorsed his protégé Ramadan after Ramadan gave him $4,700 in campaign cash). But others still see him as just a small-government libertarian who wants to widen the GOP tent. Make no mistake: Norquist is not some random deficit hawk eyeing the bloated defense budget for cuts. Nor is he some innocuous misguided Ron Paul dove. He’s something far different, far more pernicious. He’s virulently anti-military, anti-borders, anti-security. He’s a saboteur aiding and abetting groups hostile to U.S. interests. And now that he’s married to a Muslim, I doubt money is the only motivating factor behind his decidedly anti-American behavior.
If by now Republicans can’t smell a rat — a Pied Piper of rats, no less — they have failed miserably in their constitutional duty to “defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.” If the Republican Party can’t stop an Islamist Fifth Column within its own ranks, my word, we’re all doomed.
FP: What’s the status of CAIR’s “trespassing” suit against your co-author and his son, Chris, who snuck behind enemy lines as a CAIR intern and walked out with boxes of incriminating evidence that CAIR ordered him to shred?
Sperry: The most extraordinary thing about that complaint — and so far only Politico.com has picked up on this angle — is that CAIR never defends itself against the book’s claims, never alleges libel. It stipulates everything in “Muslim Mafia” to be true — which is why in its complaint, it seeks to confiscate all copies of “Muslim Mafia” in an attempt to censor the book. Of course, it cannot dispute its own internal documents, which are so damning that federal prosecutors have seized them, several boxes full, as part of a grand jury investigation of CAIR. Still, it’s highly newsworthy given the seriousness of the charges in the book.
CAIR has hit several potholes in filing its case. First it filed under a false name and had to refile. Then it ran out of money and had to replace its outside lawyers with a CAIR legal staffer who has a glaring personal conflict, given her role in overseeing the destruction of evidence Chris tried to preserve while working inside CAIR’s offices. Then CAIR failed to produce for the court a confidentiality agreement it claims Chris signed. Even so, the Clinton-appointed judge, who has ruled in favor of Gitmo detainees, has let the case go forward, and the defense is looking forward to deposing CAIR leaders. It will be the first time Nihad Awad, for one, will have to explain, under oath, why he attended a secret meeting with Hamas leaders in Philly just months before forming CAIR.
What’s more, CAIR’s executive director will have to explain why CAIR, if it’s not Hamas, would appear on a Hamas meeting agenda. The smoking-gun exhibit is reproduced in the appendix of “Muslim Mafia.” It’s a 1994 meeting agenda listing CAIR among member “organizations” of the U.S. “Palestine Committee” of Hamas. CAIR was put in charge of “coordination” among the Hamas front groups.
This document — in addition to others, including ones unearthed from CAIR’s own files – speaks materially to CAIR being founded by Hamas, controlled by Hamas, and carrying out Hamas’ agenda inside the United States. So stay tuned for the deposition transcripts.
FP: Paul Sperry, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
-
Funny that an unelected low tax advocate citizen who discusses tax issues with some conservatives is married to a Muslim and has alleged ties to CAIR is a threat to the Republic:
"If by now Republicans can’t smell a rat — a Pied Piper of rats, no less — they have failed miserably in their constitutional duty to “defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.” "
But from where I post, it was the elected representative of the people in Congress who was the keynote speaker for CAIR. http://www.cairchicago.org/tag/keith-ellison/ He is in Washington voting on every issue, not just a voter with suspicious connections talking with candidates about tax concerns.
-
As it happens, Norquist worked to help get Ellison elected. Norquist is nothing less than a stealth jihadist who is actively working to infiltrate the U.S. government with Islamist sympathizers. Re-read the interview by Glazov I posted earlier in this thread and that fact is immediately evident. He is married to a Pakistani Muslim woman, and has consistently refused to answer questions about his religious affiliation. However, we know that apostasy is punishable by death according to Sharia law. So any Muslim woman who would dare to marry a non-Muslim man would be disowned by her family. She would face the death penalty in a country governed by Sharia. This has not happened to Norquist's wife. She has no problem traveling to Pakistan or other Islamic countries. David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy have had the courage to expose Norquist and call him out. Few others have. Notably - Grover has never directly repudiated any of the allegations any of them have made. His response has essentially been limited to "it's not worth my time to respond to that," in so many words.
This man is a dangerous enabler of enemy sympathizers. We ignore that fact at our peril. Robert Spencer has done yeoman's work in exposing the deception explicitly sanctioned by Islam, and how many of its practitioners in the United States are pursuing this doctrine of "Taqiyya" in his excellent book Stealth Jihad. Pamela Geller regularly writes about the activities of Islamic jihadis on our soil. Her book Stop the Islamization of America is a must-read. I might add that both Spencer and Geller have repeatedly called out Norquist and his traitorous activities.
-
"As it happens, Norquist worked to help get Ellison elected."
That doesn't make any sense to me but I am all ears if you have something on that. For one thing, with 70% of the vote and about a 3 to 1 advantage over his nearest opponent, Ellison didn't need much outside help.
Here is a story from July 6th (2011) speeches at the Campus Progress national conference where Jobs Czar Van Jones and Rep. Keith Ellison were trashing a statement made by Norquist:
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/07/12/pregnant-barefoot-and-drowning
Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota also jumped on the anti-Norquist bandwagon at the conference. Referencing Jones' speech, Ellison charged, "These same people who want to shrink government 'till you can drown it in a bathtub also want...mom...to get back in the kitchen and take her shoes off and get pregnant..."
-
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2003/12/005314.php
Posted on December 10, 2003 by Scott Johnson
The lies of Grover Norquist
Hugh Hewitt kindly invited me on his show this afternoon together with Edward Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters to discuss the Frank Gaffney/Grover Norquist controversy. The discussion was occasioned by Gaffney’s FrontPage essay on America’s Islamist fifth column, “A troubling influence.” I flagged Gaffney’s essay yesterday morning in this post and gave my impressions of Hugh’s one-hour interview with Gaffney and Norquist yesterday in this post.
I reread Gaffney’s article to prepare for Hugh, and tracked down a couple of other pieces as well: Franklin Foer’s New Republic article “Fevered pitch: Grover Norquist’s strange alliance with radical Islam,” and Byron York’s National Review Online article “Fight on the right.”
Gaffney’s article is a tremendous piece of work. It may err in some details, but it portrays the operations of America’s Islamist fifth column in the Wahhabi lobby with insight and care. Gaffney relies not only on journalistic sources but also provides his own valuable eyewitness testimony. His criticism of Norquist in the article is impersonal and principled.
Norquist’s reponse, on the other hand, is personal and evasive. He attacks Gaffney as racist and bigoted; not a trace of evidence in the public record supports these charges. I heard Norquist respond to Gaffney in this manner at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this past January. He did not deign to respond to Gaffney’s remarks in substance.
Hugh replayed his one-hour interview of Gaffney and Norquist on the show tonight and I took the opportunity to listen to it again. Having just reread the materials cited above, I was able to weigh the substance of Norquist’s responses to Hugh’s questions more carefully than the first time around. One particular exchange struck me as illustrative of Norquist’s deceit and evasiveness.
Hugh asked Norquist to respond to the charge that an indicted (indicted as a bagman for Muhammar Khadaffy) Islamist — Abdurahman Alamoudi — had contributed $10,000 by personal check to help set up the Islamic Institute under Norquist’s auspices. He stated that the check had been returned; he didn’t say whether it had been cashed or when it had been returned. (In a footnote, Gaffney cites a source quoting Norquist’s colleague Khaled Saffuri to the effect that the check was returned in October 2001.)
Norquist further stated that the institute was founded by Khaled Saffuri, as though that answered Hugh’s question regarding Alamoudi’s role in funding the institute. The institute is run by Saffuri, who, according to Gaffney, is one of Alamoudi’s former deputies; Norquist never responded to Gaffney’s charge that Saffuri is Alamoudi’s former deputy. In other words, Norquist in effect conceded that Alamoudi in fact contributed substantial funds to Norquist’s Islamic Institute and Norquist never disputed Gaffney’s point about Saffuri’s relationship to Alamoudi.
Norquist’s themes are those of the Islamist apologist organizations like CAIR and the American Muslim Council: informed critics of Islamofascism and advocates of American interests like Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney are portrayed as bigots, and key law enforcement tools against domestic terrorism are alleged to be nefarious infringments of civil rights. When Norquist attempted to enlist James Woolsey to his cause on the latter score, Gaffney powerfully established that Norquist was all but lying.
Finally, except when attacking Gaffney personally, the tone of Norquist’s remarks was insouciant and unserious. Norquist’s response to the merits of Gaffney’s charges was by turns evasive, deceitful, and flip. In defending himself from Gaffney’s chages, Grover Norquist is an advocate with a fool for a client.
-
DMG: I stand corrected, and have stricken that sentence from my earlier post. I was confusing Ellison with someone else. Ellison has actually been quite critical of Norquist's calls for smaller government, as any good Democrat would be. However, I don't trust anything he says until/unless I see it backed up by actions. Taqiyya is actively employed by Muslims in non-Muslim countries precisely to infiltrate themselves and sabotage non-Sharia-compliant governments from within. Whether this is being done by someone calling themselves a Democrat or a Republican is irrelevant. CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood are clearly working within both major parties to advance their agenda of undermining the U.S. Constitution.
-
Tune in to Press TV, the Iranian government's English-language broadcast outlet, and you will see reports of the pervasive evil represented by the United States. It seeks war. It fabricated an international report on Iran's nuclear weapons program. It leads an elaborate "Iranophobic" conspiracy aimed at invading Iran and "plundering its natural resources."
Watch long enough and you'll also see a parade of American Muslim activists, all lamenting their problems with government policies and decrying the plight of life here for Muslims.
In the past 12 months, representatives of American Islamist groups have appeared on Press TV for interviews more than 35 times, the most recent example taking place Tuesday. Most of those included representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who appeared at least 29 times. Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) officials appeared at least six times.
Both groups claim to stand for civil rights and against terrorism, but their appearances feed into the narrative of the Iranian regime, which is a designated state sponsor of terrorism and a notorious human and civil rights violator.
A review of the appearances finds not one which included any criticisms of the Iranian regime for its oppression of its own people or for its support for terrorist groups. That is not surprising, given that the groups fail to make critical statements about Iran even to American audiences.
When positive things were said about religious freedom in America during Press TV appearances, it was always outweighed by claims Muslims are being singled out for scrutiny or having their rights abused.
"The American Muslims are free to practice their faith," CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said in an Aug. 3 interview. "We live in a free society; there are many good things about being an American Muslim. But there is also a sense of being under siege from these hate mongers that are constantly trying to demonize our faith."
Later that month, Hooper expressed distrust of law enforcement, accusing the New York Police Department of blackmailing Muslims to become informants.
"We get calls all the time from individuals who are being coerced to be informants on the American Muslim community and the coercion usually takes the form of immigration issues, tax issues and other personal issues, financial issues that can be brought to bear to force people to become a spy in their own faith community," Hooper said.
MPAC government and policy analyst Alejandro Beutel appeared in a March 11 Press TV segment criticizing the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on radicalization in American Muslim communities.
"It spoke to a lot of the feelings that I think many Muslim Americans have with respect to their position here in America post-9/11," Beutel said. "We are loyal citizens to this nation and we are trying to do everything we can to keep it safe and secure. And yet even when we're doing the right things and in many cases, laying our lives down on the line for our nation, we still get stigmatized."
MPAC's profile in Washington has grown dramatically, especially when it comes to outreach directly from the White House. MPAC officials attended the White House Iftar Dinner, President Obama's 9/11 Memorial at the Kennedy Center, and Secretary Hillary Clinton's Eid ul-Fitr reception at the State Department, which was planned to commemorate the conclusion of the month of Ramadan.
On July 13, President Obama even called Haris Tarin, head of MPAC's Washington office, to commend his organization's work with the Muslim American community and the nation as a whole.
Both CAIR and MPAC have a long history of denouncing U.S. counter-terrorism efforts and particularly of accusing the FBI and law enforcement of entrapment and lying to Muslims to secure their help in locating terror suspects. For examples, see here, here, or here.
There is no denying anyone's right to appear on any program. But invitations can be declined. It's a mystery what officials of either of these organizations hope to accomplish by criticizing their own country on an official arm of a hostile Iranian regime.
Hooper again criticized the FBI on Oct. 25. That was two weeks after law enforcement disrupted an alleged Iranian-driven assassination plot on U.S. soil targeting the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington. And he appeared again on Tuesday, discussing new FBI hate crime data from 2010 showing an increase in anti-Muslim attacks.
The problem, Hooper said, is a conspiracy to issue a constant barrage of bigotry from "a coordinated, well-financed group" against Muslims in America.
"You cannot help but be aware of the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric in our society," he said. "You can't turn on a talk radio program, you cannot read the comments on articles online related to Islam and Muslims, you cannot watch the right-wing cable news programs without seeing, reading and hearing anti-Muslim rhetoric on a daily basis."
If supposedly "mainstream" groups like MPAC and CAIR are comfortable on Press TV, it is no wonder more openly extremist groups embrace the chance to appear on camera.
As-Sabiqun, a Washington, D.C.-based Islamist organization that has openly called for an Islamic state in America by 2050, has provided interview subjects for Press TV five times in 2011. In them, the group's leader Imam Abdul Alim Musa has accused the United States of "fighting a global war against Islam," and entrapping innocent Muslims.
"Americans have become obese and very lazy people, Musa said during a July appearance. "Americans have become addicted to television, internet, and they sit at home. But here is the thing, what we call the fall, and the decline of the American empire is in process. The American empire is so vast that it is an empire that will crumble in on itself. This is happening right now, we don't have to worry about an external rebellion, or an internal rebellion, the US economy is dead. The US military has lost all respect, not only Afghanistan, Iraq and lately Libya."
Representatives from the Muslim American Society (MAS), which was founded as the U.S. chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, appeared twice on Press TV in the past year. Like its counterparts, they said nothing of Iranian misdeeds but they did defend a convicted terrorist, Sami Al-Arian, and also accused President Obama of contributing to rising "Islamophobia" by failing to close Guantanamo Bay.
Musa also appeared with Shaker Elsayed, imam of Northern Virginia's Dar al-Hijrah mosque, in repeating the FBI entrapment allegation. Dar al-Hijrah representatives made at least two Press TV appearances this year.
FBI agents "are not investigating to see if the individual is engaged, they are engaging the person in terrorist activities, in conspiracies, in plotting," Elsayed said. "Our experience here at al-Hijrah was very positive with the FBI leadership in Washington Field Office, until we found out that getting very close to the FBI came at a very serious price," he added.
On its website, Press TV identifies part of its vision as being "heeding the often neglected voices and perspectives of a great portion of the world" and "embracing and building bridges of cultural understanding."
But Press TV has come under fire before. In January, Britain's National Westminster Bank froze its bank account, presumably as part of an effort to cut off funding for Iranian government enterprises and force the country to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
At the time, writer Shiraz Maher applauded the act as "a welcome development," noting that Press TV "has a long track record in producing agitprop for the Iranian state, including the lie that Neda Soltan's murder by the regime was a hoax."
Iran's leadership again finds itself in the spotlight following the release of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report which finds that Iran is progressing toward making nuclear weapons.
Commenting on the report, Press TV echoed the recent accusation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the director general of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, is an American "pawn" reporting what the U.S. government tells him to say.
"In an atmosphere of cringing obedience to Washington, Mr. Amano cannot choose but to play into the hands of the US officials who look over his shoulders and observe with diligence what he puts to paper in the report he writes about Iran," a Press TV article Nov. 8 noted.
Press TV's message today is that America is a terrorist state, and that its actions – from the allegations in the Saudi assassination plot to the saber-rattling over Iran's nuclear program – are either manipulated by Israel or direct favors to the Jewish state.
By making frequent appearances critical of the United States, American Islamists reinforce a propaganda machine sowing hatred and distrust.
-
By JEFF KAROUB
updated 12/17/2011 6:25:14 PM ET 2011-12-17T23:25:14
ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Protesters descended on a Lowe's store in one of the country's largest Arab-American communities on Saturday, calling for a boycott after the home improvement chain pulled its ads from a reality television show about five Muslim families living in Michigan.
About 100 people gathered outside the store in Allen Park, a Detroit suburb adjacent to the city where "All-American Muslim" is filmed. Lowe's said this week that the TLC show had become a "lightning rod" for complaints, following an email campaign by a conservative Christian group.
Protesters including Christian clergy and lawmakers called for unity and held signs that read "Boycott Bigotry" and chanted "God Bless America, shame on Lowe's" during the rally, which was organized by a coalition of Christian, Muslim and civil rights groups.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Detroit Democrat and the first Muslim woman elected to the Michigan Legislature, said it was "disgusting" for Lowe's to stop supporting a show that reflects America — the conservatives, liberals and even "the Kim Kardashians" in the Muslim community, she said.
"We're asking the company to change their mind," said protester Ray Holman, a legislative liaison for a United Auto Workers local. He said he was dismayed that the retailer "pulled sponsorship of a positive program."
A local rabbi extended his support to clergy at the protest and local Arab Americans, saying he and other Jews would have been at the protest had it not fallen during the Jewish Sabbath.
"I hope that they would likewise stand up and demonstrate should something outrageous like this take place against another religion," Rabbi Jason Miller said in a statement.
Lowe's spokeswoman Karen Cobb said Saturday that the company respected the protesters' opinion.
"We appreciate and respect everyone's right to express their opinion peacefully," she said.
The show premiered last month and chronicles the lives of families living in and around Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit at the heart of one of the largest Arab-American populations outside the Middle East.
Dearborn is home to the Islamic Center of America, one of the largest mosques in North America. Overall, the Detroit area has about 150,000 Muslims of many different ethnicities and is served by about 40 mosques.
It airs Sundays and ends its first season Jan. 8.
The Florida Family Association has said more than 60 companies it emailed, from Amazon to McDonalds, pulled their ads from the show, but Lowe's is the only major company so far to confirm that it had done so. The group accused the show of being "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values."
The travel planning site Kayak.com also pulled its ads, though its marketing chief said the decision was made because the company was dissatisfied by the show's quality and TLC wasn't upfront with advertisers about how the show would be presented.
Saturday's rally was met by about 20 counter-protesters including John White, who lives in nearby Livonia and called those protesting against Lowe's "terribly misdirected." He acknowledged that he hadn't watched the show, saying he'd seen previews and read about it, but believed the company made a decision based on business, not bigotry.
An interfaith group of Muslim, Baptist and other religious leaders picket a Lowe's home improvement store to protest the chain' action in pulling its advertising from the "All-American Muslim" TV reality show. "Americans are not suspicious ... of baseball-playing, apple-pie eating Muslims," he said. "It's the ones you see on the news."
The manager of the Lowe's store, Doug Casey, said the company wasn't influenced by any outside group or ideology. He said those who criticized Lowe's have a right to their opinion, but that "it's not the opinion of most of the customers I spoke to in the store today."
"I'm deeply sorry if it's caused any divide in our community," he said. "It was never our intention to offend or alienate anyone."
The hubbub didn't keep people from shopping at the store. Keith Rissman, who was buying finishing boards for windows he's installing in his mother's garage, said he supported the company.
"It's a decision they're allowed to make," the 57-year-old said. "If (people) don't want to shop here, they don't have to."
Karen Lundquist, 65, came to the store with her son even though she didn't support Lowe's decision. "It just seems like they yielded to a Christian hate group," she said.
P.C.
-
Karen Lundquist, 65, came to the store with her son even though she didn't support Lowe's decision. "It just seems like they yielded to a Christian hate group," she said.
P.C.
Yes, muslims have a bad image because of others. :roll:
Is "All American Muslim" going to have a episode featuring the "All American Jihadists" that have killed their fellow Americans in the name of allah?
-
(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/46685000/jpg/_46685966_008239233-1.jpg)
Major Nidal Malik Hasan
Born in Virginia
-
(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/faNKVO4e3_8hVy_IptPX7A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MTQ5NTtjcj0xO2N3PTIwMDA7ZHg9MDtkeT0wO2ZpPXVsY3JvcDtoPTE0MztxPTg1O3c9MTkw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/1b56a5b1fa033b15fa0e6a7067004c3b.jpg)
Anwar al-Awlaki
Born in New Mexico
-
(http://www.investigativeproject.org/pics/profiles/102_main_large.jpg)
Adam Gadahn
Born in Oregon
-
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/John_Allen_Muhammad.jpg)
John Allen Muhammad
Born in Louisiana
-
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Yaser_Esam_Hamdi_in_Camp_X-ray%2C_Guant%C3%A1namo_Bay%2C_Cuba_-_20020404.jpg/240px-Yaser_Esam_Hamdi_in_Camp_X-ray%2C_Guant%C3%A1namo_Bay%2C_Cuba_-_20020404.jpg)
Yaser Esam Hamdi
Born in Louisiana
-
www.jihadwatch.org/2011/12/muslims-pulled-off-flight-on-their-way-to-islamophobia-conference-suing-for-discrimination.html
=============
University Mum on Radical Chaplain
IPT News
December 21, 2011
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3352/university-mum-on-radical-chaplain
Northeastern University isn't commenting about concerns regarding its Muslim chaplain, despite his recorded statements praising an attempted attack on American forces in Afghanistan as "brave" and his earlier call for Muslims to "grab on to the gun and the sword" to fight injustice.
On Monday, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported on remarks Abdullah Faaruuq made during a Dec. 8 fundraiser for Aafia Siddiqui, also known as "Lady al-Qaida." Siddiqui, an MIT-educated neuroscientist, was arrested by Afghan officials in 2008, who found notes about mass casualty attacks in her possession. During questioning by U.S. officials, she grabbed an Army officer's M-4 rifle and fired it at the Americans.
"What a brave woman she is," Faaruuq said at the fundraiser. "What a brave woman she continues to be, and how much her bravery and her faith and her belief warrants our support at this time." Had his mother been in Siddiqui's shoes, "she would have took (sic) her West Indian machete and cut her way through those kafirs [unbelievers]."
Siddiqui was convicted of attempted murder and is serving an 86-year prison sentence.
The IPT contacted university spokesmenMonday afternoon, asking whether Faaruuq's endorsement of Siddiqui's actions and other radical statements make him an appropriate person to provide spiritual counseling to Northeastern students. The university has not responded.
Jurors in Boston on Tuesday added another entry to the list of convicted terrorists Faaruuq supports. Tarek Mehanna was convicted on four counts related to his desire to provide support to al-Qaida and three counts of lying to federal investigators. Faaruuq serves on a Free Tarek Mehanna committee.
A former friend who struck a deal with prosecutors testified about a 2004 trip he and Mehanna made to Yemen in hopes of attending a terrorist training camp. They planned to go to Iraq after that to fight American troops.
When that didn't work, Mehanna came back to the United States and translated jihadi videos, including al-Qaida's "39 Ways to Make Jihad." Defense attorneys argued the work was protected free speech. But prosecutor Aloke Chakravarty told jurors the translations provided terrorists "training material to get ready to serve and participate in that fight."
Siddiqui and Mehanna are "Muslims who are being oppressed," Faaruuq said at the recent fundraiser. "And you might well be one of those too if you don't pay careful attention this evening to what I am going to say to you."
Northeastern "should remove him from the position [as chaplain] and ban him from the University for teaching students
radical, hateful ideas," said Charles Jacobs, president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, which has tracked Faaruuq's actions.
That includes a March 2010 recording urging Muslims to "grab on to the gun and the sword" as part of the struggle for justice. At the fundraiser earlier this month, Faaruuq denied he was urging violence if peaceful measures failed. "And now we know there are other ways of fighting other than picking up a sword," he said, "like spending your time and your money, like spending your time and your money."
In an email, Jacobs said Faaruuq crossed a line from unpopular speech to "fund raising for a convicted terrorist, and praising her for grabbing a machine gun to murder people."
"Has the university informed the parents of the Muslim students that they are being spiritually led by someone who supports terrorism, who gleefully states that if his mother would have been with the terrorist Aafia Sadiqui, she would have picked up a machete and attacked those kaffirs?" Jacobs wrote. "Is this what N.E. University wants its Muslim students to learn? This is a spiritual advisor?"
Regardless of his opinions on the Siddiqui and Mehanna cases, Faaruuq should be shocked that people he knew from the community turned so radical, Jacobs said. A moderate chaplain would "be very worried that such radical, hateful, anti-American teachings are getting into his moderate community. He'd have a plan to monitor that and to stop it."
Faaruuq's introduction at the fundraiser also indicated that he was a prison chaplain in Massachusetts for nine years.
Despite a global population of more than 1 billion, Muslims are "cowering at the hand of the disbeliever," he told the Dec. 8 fundraiser. Siddiqui's case is an example.
"And I say they call this the land of the free and the home of the brave," Faaruuq said. "And I call it the land of the coward and the home of the slave."
-
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-muslim-christmas-20111224,0,2439877.story
-
"Islamophobia" filmmaker refuses to answer questions
As I noted here, Dean Obeidallah is making a film about the trumped-up concept of "Islamophobia," and he would really like to interview me for it. So after I wrote this yesterday, we had another exchange, and I thought there might be an opportunity for some honest dialogue. So I asked Obeidallah to answer these questions, and told him I'd be interviewed for his film if he did so:
1. True or false: No comedy show, no matter how clever or winning, is going to eradicate the suspicion that many Americans have of Muslims. This is because Americans are concerned about Islam not because of the work of greasy Islamophobes, but because of Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and many others like them who have plotted and/or committed mass murder in the name of Islam and motivated by its texts and teachings -- all in the U.S. in the last couple of years.
2. True or false: The fact that there are other Muslims not fighting jihad is just great, but it doesn't mean that the jihad isn't happening. This comedy show simply doesn't address the problem of jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism.
3. What do you make of the fact that Islamic supremacists from the Muslim Brotherhood invented the term "Islamophobia" in order to deflect attention away from jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, and intimidate opponents thereof?
4. What do you have to say about the fact that FBI statistics show that there is no "Islamophobia"?
5. What do you have to say about the fact that many "anti-Muslim hate crimes" have been faked by Muslims, and that Jews are eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate attacks.
6. True or false? Since the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within," one easy way to do that would be to guilt-trip non-Muslims into being ashamed of resisting jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, for fear of being accused of "Islamophobia."
7. True or false: Negin Farsad, with her "eye-catching mini dresses," etc., has more to worry about from observant Muslims than she does from "Islamophobes."
8. What do you think of this: When you call Geller (and by implication, me) a "Muslim hater," I believe that you are ascribing people's legitimate concerns about jihad and Islamic supremacism to "hate," and that the only effect of this will be to make people who have those legitimate concerns to be even more suspicious of Muslims, which will only lead to more of what you call "Islamophobia."
9. Is there a plan behind your demonizing and smearing of all anti-jihadists? Do you want to create "Islamophobia" in order to claim privileged victim status for Muslims and exempt them from reasonable law enforcement scrutiny?
10. What kind of work have you done to raise awareness about the escalating persecution of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim societies, which is far worse in Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere than Muslims have it here? Why not?
11. On what basis do you imply that those who are defending freedom against jihad are "exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this nation"? What have you done to resist the Muslim Brotherhood's stated agenda of "sabotaging" this nation "from within"?
12. Aside from the murder of a Sikh by an idiot shortly after 9/11, what evidence do you have of any backlash against Muslims to which you refer so off-handedly in the WaPo? Where are Muslims suffering violence, discrimination, harassment of any kind? Even you expected far worse than you got when you went to the South -- and the level of harassment you did get was no worse than what I get in my email every day. So why the overblown claims about it?
13. And yes, what do you think about these recommendations?
Do Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah really want to eradicate "Islamophobia"? As long as Islamic jihad and supremacism continue, a comedy tour will never do the trick. But here is an easy way. They can call on Muslims in the U.S. to do these things:
1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively, sincerely, honestly, and in deeds, not just in comforting words, not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people, teaching accordingly in mosques and Islamic schools, and behaving in accord with these new teachings.
3. Teach, again sincerely and honestly, in transparent and verifiable ways in mosques and Islamic schools, the imperative of Muslims coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, and act accordingly.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach sincerely against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively and honestly work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.
Obeidallah refused to answer the questions. And so I put it to you: why not? Is there something wrong with them? Why do Islamic supremacists always refuse to engage in an actual give-and-take with people with whom they disagree?
Posted by Robert on December 29, 2011 6:16 PM
-
CAIR's Manipulation Tactics in Tampa
IPT News
January 11, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3381/cair-manipulation-tactics-in-tampa
Print
Send
Comment
RSS
Share:
Be the first of your friends to like this.
As news of a terrorist plot by a radical Islamist in Tampa emerged Monday, the propaganda machine that is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) launched into action, repeating its mantra of accusations against the FBI and offering excuses for the plotter. It's a common pattern for an organization that positions itself between the public, government, and terrorist suspects, trying to control dialogue about Islamist terrorism suspects and cynically manipulating its own relationship with the government.
Local media played into CAIR's plan, with the Tampa and St. Petersburg daily newspapers and television affiliates turning to the group for reaction, despite its own tainted record.
Early responses to Sami Osmakac's plot from two of CAIR's non-Florida representatives showed a disdain for the government's arrest of another "innocent" Muslim suspect.
Executive Director of CAIR San Francisco Zahra Billoo, stated that she was "wondering how much of the thwarted terror plot in Florida was seeded by the FBI, [a]ppreciating that even the MSM mentioned the informants." Dawud Walid, Executive Director of CAIR-Michigan, released a tweet saying, "It is not the job of civil rights groups to be commending the FBI on their use of informants, given the FBI's history."
CAIR's Tampa Executive Director Hassan Shibly, both cast doubt on the government and tried to pretend violence doesn't exist in radical Islamist ideologies.
"The weapons and explosives were provided by the government. Was he just a troubled individual, or did he pose a real threat?" Shibly asked Monday. He backed off Tuesday, saying "It doesn't look like something we would pursue" in part because the Muslim community alerted authorities in the first place.
He also cast the role of the Muslim community as critical, while claiming that the community's trust was violated by the actions of the government. "I mean he seemed to be a disturbed individual. He was actually an outcast from the Muslim community. He was banned from several of the mosques and it was the mosque that brought him to the attention of the FBI," Shibly said in an interview with the local Fox News outlet, in contradiction to the criminal complaint that shows an informant tipped off the government. He likewise expressed "concern about a perception of entrapment," even while saying that Osmakac was "no friend or supporter of the Muslim community."
"I think the fear at the point is that he was just mentally disturbed...I think that community members hoped that by reporting him, he could get the proper assistance," Shibly told an interviewer.
Apart from casting doubt on whether Osmakac was truly a threat, Shibly also repeated the mantra that religion should be ignored as a factor in the radicalization the terrorism suspect. When asked about Osmakac's statement that he wanted his death to be in an Islamic way, Shibly parried and claimed Osmakac had nothing to do with Islam.
"For me it's meaningless. It is very disturbing you know [the suspect's statement] "to die in an Islamic way," Shibly told FOX Tampa Bay. "Again, that is completely meaningless for me as a Muslim. You know Islam teaches peace and justice. It does not teach wanton violence which is what this guy was allegedly promoting."
The affiliate did not push back when Shibly expressed concerns over whether the FBI "edged on" Osmakac into a violent plot he otherwise would not have pursued. It's a standard CAIR line used to undermine public confidence in a terror-prosecution even though it has never held up in court. (For more on Shibly, click here.)
Other cases reflect the usual pattern of manipulation by CAIR.
Billoo, who immediately cast doubt on the Tampa case, reacted to the December 2010 arrest of a man who wanted to blow up a Portland Christmas tree lighting event by accusing the FBI of exaggerating the threat because it was "looking for a sensational story." Last fall, CAIR-Michigan chief Dawud Walid downplayed an arrest in an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington because a Drug Enforcement Administration informant played a key role. "If Holder hadn't announced so many 'foiled' plots that were really FBI provocateur led, I'd be more inclined to believe this #Iran plot biz," Walid said in a Twitter post.
Deadline pressure is never easy and reporters know that CAIR rarely turn away a microphone or a chance at appearing in the newspaper. But it's mystifying to see reporters routinely ignore CAIR's duplicity about law enforcement support, coupled with its own documented history in a terrorist-financing network, to accept the group's talking points so blindly.
===========
-
U.S. News Send to a Friend Printable View
From US private school student to al-Qaida agent
CHRIS BRUMMITT
From Associated Press
January 18, 2012 8:33 AM EST
Moeed Abdul Salam didn't descend into radical Islam for lack of other options. He grew up in a well-off Texas household, attended a pricey boarding school and graduated from one of the state's most respected universities.
But the most unlikely thing about his recruitment was his family: Two generations had spent years promoting interfaith harmony and combating Muslim stereotypes in their hometown and even on national television.
Salam rejected his relatives' moderate faith and comfortable life, choosing instead a path that led him to work for al-Qaida. His odyssey ended late last year in a middle-of-the-night explosion in Pakistan. The 37-year-old father of four was dead after paramilitary troops stormed his apartment.
Officers said Salam committed suicide with a grenade. An Islamic media group said the troops killed him.
Salam's Nov. 19 death went largely unnoticed in the U.S. and rated only limited attention in Pakistan. But the circumstances threatened to overshadow the work of an American family devoted to religious understanding. And his mysterious evolution presented a reminder of the attraction Pakistan still holds for Islamic militants, especially well-educated Westerners whose Internet and language skills make them useful converts for jihad.
"There are things that we don't want to happen but we have to accept, things that we don't want to know but we have to learn, and a loved one we can't live without but have to let go," Salam's mother, Hasna Shaheen Salam, wrote last month on her Facebook page.
The violence didn't stop after Salam died. Weeks after his death, fellow militants killed three soldiers with a roadside bomb to avenge the raid.
It is not clear to what extent Salam's family knew of his radicalism, but on his Facebook page the month before he died, he posted an image of Anwar al-Awalki, the American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, beside a burning American flag. He had also recently linked to a document praising al-Awalki's martyrdom and to a message urging Muslims to rejoice "in this time when you see the mujahideen all over the world victorious."
After his death, the Global Islamic Media Forum, a propaganda group for al-Qaida and its allies, hailed Salam as a martyr, explaining in an online posting that he had overseen a unit that produced propaganda in Urdu and other South Asian languages.
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Salam's role had expanded over the years beyond propaganda to being an operative. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
The family, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the U.S. decades ago. Salam's father was a pilot for a Saudi airline, and the family eventually settled in the Dallas suburb of Plano. Their cream-colored brick home, assessed at nearly $400,000, stands on a corner lot in a quiet, upper-class neighborhood.
The family obtained American citizenship in 1986. Salam attended Suffield Academy in Connecticut, a private high school where tuition and board currently run $46,500. He graduated in 1992.
A classmate, Wadiya Wynn, of Laurel, Md., recalled that Salam played varsity golf, sang in an a cappella group and in the chamber choir, and that he hung out with a small group of "hippie-ish" friends. She thought he was a mediocre student, but noted that just being admitted to Suffield was highly competitive.
Salam went on to study history at the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 1996. His Facebook profile indicated he moved to Saudi Arabia by 2003 and began working as a translator, writer and editor for websites about Islam.
"Anyone can pick up a gun, but there aren't as many people who can code html and understand the use of proxies," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior partner a Flashpoint Global Partners, which tracks radical Muslim propaganda.
Salam, who had apparently been active in militant circles for as long as nine years, arrived three years ago in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, and became an important link between al-Qaida, the Taliban and other extremists groups, according to an al-Qaida operative in Karachi who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is wanted by authorities.
Salam traveled to the tribal areas close to the Afghan border three or four times for meetings with senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders, the operative said. He would handle money and logistics in the city and deliver instructions from other members of the network.
Back in the United States, Salam's mother is a prominent resident of Plano, where she is co-chairwoman of a city advisory group called the Plano Multicultural Outreach Roundtable, as well as a former president of the Texas Muslim Women's Foundation.
The founder of the latter group, Hind Jarrah, said Shaheen and her husband are too upset to speak with anyone.
"She's a committed American citizen. She's a hard worker," Jarrah said, calling her "one of the nicest, most committed, most open-minded" women she had ever met.
Salam's brother, Monem Salam, has traveled the country speaking about Islam, seeking to correct misconceptions following the 9/11 attacks. He works for Saturna Capital, where he manages funds that invest according to Islamic principles — for example, in companies that do not profit from alcohol or pork. He recently moved from the company's Bellingham, Wash., headquarters to head its office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
After the 2001 attacks, he and his wife made a public-television documentary about his efforts as a Muslim man to obtain a pilot's license. They also wrote a column for The Bellingham Herald newspaper that answered readers' questions about Islam.
Both Salam's parents and his brother declined numerous interview requests from The Associated Press.
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, dozens of U.S. citizens have been accused of participating in terrorism activities, including several prominent al-Qaida propagandists, such as al-Awalaki and Samir Khan, who was killed alongside him. Perhaps best known is Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman believed to be in Pakistan.
Of 46 cases of "homegrown terrorism" in the U.S. since 2001, 16 have a connection to Pakistan, according to a recent RAND Corporation study. Salam's background as college-educated and from a prosperous family isn't unusual among them.
Salam divorced his wife in October, but was contesting custody of their three sons and one daughter. The children were staying with him in the third-floor apartment when a squad of paramilitary troops known as Rangers arrived around 3:30 a.m.
Officers said they pushed through the flimsy door, and Salam killed himself with a grenade when he realized he was surrounded.
The Islamic media group and the al-Qaida contact in Karachi disputed that account, saying Salam was killed by the troops.
Through the windows, blood splatter and shrapnel marks were visible on the wall close to the dining table. There were boxes of unpacked luggage, a treadmill and two large stereo speakers. Residents said Moeed had only been living there for five days.
Neighbor Syed Mohammad Farooq was woken by an explosion. Minutes later, one of the troops asked him to go inside the apartment and see what had happened, he said.
"He was lying on the floor with blood pooling around him. One of his arms had been blown off. I couldn't look for long. He was moaning and seemed to be reciting verses from the Koran," he said. "I could hear the children crying, but I couldn't see them."
Hours later, Salam's wife and father-in-law, a lawyer in the city, came to collect the children from the apartment in Gulistane Jauhar, a middle-class area of Karachi, Farooq said. On the night he died, Salam led evening prayers at the small mosque on the ground floor of the apartment building.
"His Koranic recitation was very good," said Karim Baloch, who prayed behind him that night. "It was like that of an Arab."
___
Johnson reported from Bellingham, Wash., and can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle. Brummitt reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and can be reached at https://twitter.com/cjbrummitt.
___
AP news researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report, along with reporters Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Pakistan; Zarar Khan in Islamabad; Adam Goldman in Washington; Danny Robbins and Linda Stewart Ball in Plano, Texas; and Paul Weber and Will Weissert in Austin, Texas.
-
Ohio Fire Illuminates CAIR's Inconsistency
IPT News
January 20, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3391/ohio-fire-illuminates-cair-inconsistency
Print
Send
Comment
RSS
Share:
Be the first of your friends to like this.
Can a hate peddler be the victim of a hate crime?
The people at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) seem to think so. It
is not clear whether they agree that Salah Soltan, a former leader in the Columbus,
Ohio Muslim community who is hailed by some Islamists as an influential scholar, is
a hate monger. He has issued fatwas sanctioning the murder of Zionists, and who has
said the 9/11 attacks were "planned within the U.S., in order to enable the U.S. to
control and terrorize the entire world."
Soltan's home in Hilliard was nearly destroyed early Monday morning in a fire
described as arson by local investigators. Soltan's adult son and a roommate escaped
without injuries. CAIR issued a statement asking the FBI to investigate the fire as
a hate crime, noting two recent incidents in which anti-Muslim graffiti was painted
on the house.
This is not to minimize the severity of the crime, which thankfully resulted in no
injuries, but the case serves as an example of how dangerous radicalism like
Soltan's gets sugar-coated by his supporters and by the media.
CAIR's release about the fire makes no mention of his history of incitement, or of
the fact that it worked with Soltan, who also helped establish the Muslim American
Society and spent years in Ohio running the American Center for Islamic Research and
lecturing at the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus. There is no record of CAIR
condemning Soltan's radicalism when he lived in Ohio or since he left the country
for Bahrain about five years ago.
Soltan signed CAIR's 2005 fatwa against terrorism. But he has repeatedly praised
Hamas, endorsing "the creed of Jihad and Resistance" while rejecting the very
concept of a peaceful settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He serves on
the board of trustees for influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian Yusuf
al-Qaradawi's International Union for Muslim Scholars.
Media reports from Columbus news outlets refer to Soltan as a "controversial Islamic
scholar."
Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes again was controversial. College football's
system of declaring a champion is controversial. But Soltan is more than
"controversial:" by his words and actions, he has spread the most virulent
anti-Semitism and endorsed violence.
In August, Soltan issued a fatwa during a rally in Cairo saying "whoever meets a
Zionist in Egypt, it is his right to kill him."
During the Jewish holiday of Passover in 2010, Soltan appeared on the
Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa television station in Gaza where he invoked the blood libel
against Jews. Zionists killed a French doctor and his nurse, Soltan claimed, "Then
they kneaded the matzos with the blood of Dr. Toma and his nurse. They do this every
year."
Osama bin Laden's terrorism, Soltan said last year, is not as bad as American
terrorism because bin Laden acted "in the defense of Islam and the resistance
against the occupiers," while the United States acts only "in defense of hegemony,
oppression, and tyranny."
CAIR, which has a record of touting alleged hate crimes which do not turn out to be
right, does not allow consideration that Soltan may not have been targeted solely
for his faith; the house that was set on fire also is the listed address for
Soltan's former research center.
Soltan may have returned to the United States in the wake of the fire. Egypt's
Al-Ahram newspaper reports that officials there wanted to question him regarding
insults he may have made toward the Egyptian army, but that was postponed "to allow
him to travel urgently to the US."
An article on Soltan's website blamed "the Zionist entity" for the fire, vowing that
"such brutal attacks will not deter us from continuing our struggle and jihad in the
way of God Almighty in order to achieve the liberation of al Aqsa, the prisoners
Jerusalem and Palestine."
Rather than believing two wrongs don't make a right, Soltan took the destruction of
his property to call for jihad against Israel.
The FBI defines a hate crime as a regular offense "with an added element of bias"
including race, religion, sexuality and other factors. In other words, because the
victims are black, or gay, or Muslim, they are targeted for the crime.
If Salah's home was targeted, it likely wasn't merely due to his faith. That doesn't
make it any less deplorable. But neither is it a hate crime.
Read More: Salah Soltan, blood libel, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Hamas, The Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental
agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative
Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All
donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project
on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
-
Of Mosques and Men
IPT News
February 7, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3433/of-mosques-and-men
There are times when an unfortunate name can come back to haunt someone even when he or she had nothing to do with the original moniker. Think of Rick Perry's ranch, or a Florida mosque named for a terrorist icon.
The Islamic Community of Tampa, also known as the al-Qassam mosque, hosts an ironic event Friday evening with the local Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter. The open house aims to advance "understanding Islam." Speakers will discuss Muslim beliefs and try to clear up "misconceptions about Islam, and Islam's condemnation of terrorism," a promotional release said.
That's a difficult sell when the mosque exalts Izzedin al-Qassam, who remains an inspirational figure to Palestinian terrorists. Hamas named its terrorist operations branch for al-Qassam. Most rockets fired from Gaza toward Israeli homes and schools are called Qassam rockets.
"The [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad's supporters have elevated him almost to a saintly status," wrote Palestinian academic Ziad Abu Amr in his book Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza. It was al-Qassam who merged religion and violence, advocating "God's book in one hand, and the rifle in the other."
Echoing Al-Qassam, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have charters rejecting any peaceful resolution to the conflict with Israel. Islamic Jihad calls for "The creation of a state of terror, instability and panic in the souls of Zionists and especially the groups of settlers, and force them to leave their houses." Hamas dismisses peace talks as a game beneath Palestinian dignity. "There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. The Palestinian people are too noble to have their future, their right and their destiny submitted to a vain game."
It is fairly rare for a mosque to be named for an individual. A plaque outside the mosque hails al-Qassam as the one who "declared Jihad against the British and Zionist invasion of Palestine. He was martyred on November 19, 1935 in Yabrod, Palestine. Al-Qassam has become a symbol of heroism, resistance, occupation, and invasion of steadfast Palestine."
The mosque's name changed in 1989 when it was run by Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida computer scientist who secretly served on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's shura council, or governing board. Al-Arian sheltered other board members, including Secretary General Ramadan Shallah. Shallah took over the Islamic Jihad in 1995, just six months after leaving Tampa.
A year earlier, when evidence shows Al-Arian was fighting to keep the Islamic Jihad alive in the face of a financial crisis, Al-Arian wrote to immigration officials on Al-Qassam Mosque letterhead seeking a work visa for Shallah to be the mosque's imam.
In interviews for Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson's "Jihad in America" documentary and a subsequent newspaper investigation, Al-Arian denied the mosque's name indicated any bond with the Jihad or other terrorists. Al-Qassam "became a symbol in Palestine of the first to resist and fight for freedom," he said in 1995. "He was strengthened by religion and devotion to God."
Federal agents arrested Al-Arian nine years ago and he has not been back to the mosque since. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to the Islamic Jihad and records make clear his prominent role in the organization. In all those years, however, mosque leaders have not thought to rid their house of worship of Al-Qassam's name.
But they plan to welcome the public Friday evening to persuade the public they stand for the opposite of al-Qassam's message of "God's book in one hand, and the rifle in the other."
It would be like hosting a forum on the South's historic embrace of integration at the Church of the Martyr Bull Connor.
Both the mosque and CAIR seem oblivious.
"Ignorance leads to misunderstanding, which in turn leads to fear, hatred, discrimination, and even violence," said CAIR-Tampa executive director Hassan Shibly in the release. "By reaching out and getting to know each other, we can love each other as a community and recognize that our differences need not divide us."
But violence was at the heart of al-Qassam's message. Jihad, he said, was the only path to freedom. According to a booklet issued by the Islamic Association for Palestine, an arm in a Hamas-support network, al-Qassam instructed followers that "Jihad is a religious obligation till the Judgement (sic) Day. We all need to do Jihad in the name of God to free our countries from the colonialist to become Islamic States that apply God's laws.
"Arm yourself no matter what are the circumstances. Sell everything you have and buy weapons to fight the occupation."
The mosque maintains a significant link to the Al-Arian era through its president, Noor Salhab. In the early 1990s, Salhab leased his home to Al-Arian as office space for a think-tank called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, where Shallah was a director.
Years later, another tenant drew scrutiny from federal law enforcement. Ahmed Mohamed was arrested by police in South Carolina with a trunk load of explosive material and a laptop containing jihadi videos. Mohamed posted one such video to Youtube, showing would-be jihadists how to make remote-controlled bombs "to be used against those who fight for the United States" since he considered them and their allies fighting in Arab countries to be "invaders."
Federal agents searched the house in 2007, looking for bomb-making ingredients including PVC pipes, chemicals, hacksaws and soldering irons. Mohamed is serving 15 years after pleading guilty to providing material support to terrorists.
Salhab is not responsible for his tenants' behavior. And leasing a house to two separate people implicated in terror-support cases could happen to anyone, right? But if the mosque and its partners in CAIR truly are interested in correcting misconceptions about their faith, they might start by removing the name as a show of sincerity.
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
You are subscribed to this list as craftydog@dogbrothers.com.
To edit subscription options: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_edit.php
To unsubscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_unsubscribe.php
To subscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_subscribe.php
The Investigative Project on Terrorism
202-363-8602 - main
202-966-5191 - fax
-
South Park Plea Exposes Network of Homegrown Radicals
IPT News
February 9, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3438/south-park-plea-exposes-network-of-homegrown
Many homegrown Islamist terrorists labeled as "lone wolves" may not have been so lone after all, court papers filed Thursday in Virginia show.
Jesse Morton, a founder of the radical website Revolution Muslim, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and two counts related to communicating threats. The charges stem from threats posted on Revolution Muslim against producers of the animated comedy "South Park" after an April 2010 episode featured a character that was supposed to be the prophet Mohammed fully concealed in a bear suit.
The reference was meant to lampoon the violent reaction some Muslims have to images of the prophet.
A statement of facts filed with the plea shows that Morton had contact with several "lone wolf" terrorists, and that others were subscribers to the site. CNN, citing an unnamed senior counter-terrorism official, reported that "Investigations had revealed that Revolution Muslim was the 'top catalyst for radicalization for violence in the United States' over the last several years."
For example, after one reader reached out to him last April, Morton advised him to be wary that someone helping "start a jihad group to kill U.S. Army veterans in the United States" may be working for the FBI. Jose Pimentel may not have heeded Morton's advice. He was arrested by New York police six months later as he assembled a pipe bomb in his home that he intended to use to kill soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Morton also endorsed Rezwan Ferdaus's desire to wage jihad. Ferdaus reached out to Morton early in 2010, asking if martyrdom operations were acceptable in Islam. It depends on the motivation, Morton wrote back. "[E]very act is judged by intention and so we reserve an opinion on this matter. We can however say that these operations have apparent detractions, but also enormous benfits (sic) in a war of attrition."
Ferdaus was arrested in Massachusetts last September in connection with a plot to use remote-controlled planes to fly bombs into the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. He also made switches to detonate explosive devices that he intended to supply to al-Qaida terrorists targeting American troops.
The statement of facts in Morton's plea ties him and the Revolution Muslim website to:
o Colleen LaRose, also known as "Jihad Jane," who admits to plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who drew images of the prophet Muhammad, and to recruiting people to wage terrorist attacks.
o Antonio Martinez, who pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a Maryland military recruiting center.
o Carlos Almonte and Mohamed Alessa, who entered guilty pleas last March to conspiring to join the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab to kill civilians "whose beliefs and practices did not align with their extremist ideology."
"We may never know all of those who were inspired to engage in terrorism because of Revolution Muslim," said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride, "but the string of recent terrorism cases with ties to Morton's organization demonstrates the threat it posed to our national security."
In addition, the statement of facts shows that Morton communicated with Samir Khan, an American al-Qaida propagandist credited with publishing the group's English-language magazine, Inspire. Khan is believed to have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen that also killed American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Morton and Chesser also let radical British cleric Bilal Ahmad post directly to the Revolution Muslim site.
In November 2010, Ahmad posted on the Revolution Muslim website praise for Roshanara Choudhry after she tried to kill Member of Parliament Stephen Timms for supporting the Iraq war. Ahmad then posted the names of all members of Parliament who supported the war, with a prayer that her actions "inspire Muslims to raise the knife of jihad against those who voted for the countless rapes, murders, pillages, and torture of Muslim civilians as a direct consequence of their vote."
Morton and his colleague Zachary Chesser followed the teachings of Awlaki and Abdullah Faisal, a radical Jamaican sheikh who preached the need to kill non-believers. Faisal's sermons calling for Muslims to kill the "enemies of Islam," including Jews, Americans and Hindus, led to his 2003 conviction in the United Kingdom for soliciting to murder.
Their postings on Revolution Muslim often sounded similar themes, the statement of facts said, and they republished Inspire, which contained calls to violence and instructions on carrying it out.
Chesser is serving a 25-year sentence after pleading guilty to related charges.
In the "South Park" case, Morton told investigators in October that the decision to post the threats was made without seeing the program. It turned out that the show never depicted the prophet, just someone in a bear suit who other characters called "Mohammed."
"He said that he would have pulled the South Park post made by Chesser in April 2010 if he had known that the episode really didn't depict the Muhammad as he thought it was going to."
When the show aired, Chesser told Morton that Iran's fatwa calling for author Salman Rushdie's murder following his publication of The Satanic Verses inspired radical European Muslims. Threats against "South Park's" Trey Stone and Matt Parker could have the same galvanizing effect in America.
Morton also posted a threat against a Washington woman who advocated having an "everyone Draw Muhammad Day" in response to the "South Park" threats.
"Morton asserted that Islam's position is that those that insult the Prophet may be killed under Shariah law just as if they were fighting with a weapon," the statement of facts said. "Morton exhorted his listeners to fight the 'disbelievers near you.'"
Morton, 33, could be imprisoned for up to five years for each of the three counts in his plea when he is sentenced in May.
-
http://news.yahoo.com/uzbek-man-guilty-threatening-kill-obama-210951270.html
Uzbek man guilty of plotting to kill President Obama
By Verna Gates | Reuters – 17 hrs ago...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - A man from Uzbekistan living illegally in the United States pleaded guilty on Friday to terrorism and weapons charges involving a plot to kill President Barack Obama.
According to court evidence, defendant Ulugbek Kodirov believed he was acting on behalf of an Islamist militant group in his homeland and was plotting to shoot Obama while the president campaigned for re-election this year.
Kodirov 22, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, to three charges as part of an agreement that spares him from a potential life sentence.
He still faced up to 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines for providing material support for terrorist activity, being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and threatening to assassinate the president.
Four other charges against him were dropped, and mainly involved additional threats to kill Obama.
U.S. District Judge Abdul Kallon set sentencing for May 17.
Kodirov came to the United States in 2009 to study medicine and his student visa was revoked in April 2010 after he failed to enroll in school, investigators said.
He "self-radicalized" through Internet research and sought like-minded individuals, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said.
Kodirov met a mentor he called "Emir," whom he believed to be a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an Islamist militant group the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
Kodirov conversed with the man and decided to kill the president, according to court evidence.
He determined that the upcoming 2012 campaign would be an opportune time to either shoot the president with a sniper's rifle or shoot him up close, according to evidence read by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Whisonant.
"He did not care if he got shot and killed as long as he killed the president," Whisonant said.
Kodirov was arrested in July at an Alabama motel where he had obtained a fully automatic machine gun and four hand grenades from an undercover agent. "He was attempting to obtain weapons and explosives that he intended to use to kill the President of the United States," Vance said.
-
http://news.yahoo.com/uzbek-man-guilty-threatening-kill-obama-210951270.html
Uzbek man guilty of plotting to kill President Obama
By Verna Gates | Reuters – 17 hrs ago...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - A man from Uzbekistan living illegally in the United States pleaded guilty on Friday to terrorism and weapons charges involving a plot to kill President Barack Obama.
According to court evidence, defendant Ulugbek Kodirov believed he was acting on behalf of an Islamist militant group in his homeland and was plotting to shoot Obama while the president campaigned for re-election this year.
Kodirov 22, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, to three charges as part of an agreement that spares him from a potential life sentence.
He still faced up to 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines for providing material support for terrorist activity, being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and threatening to assassinate the president.
Wait, I thought calling someone an illegal alien wasn't allowed anymore. The dem phrase of choice was "undocumented American", right?
-
It would take a dislocated Uzbek to not know that turning control of the United States of America over to Joe Biden is a really bad idea friend and foe alike.
-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/user/ClarionProductions[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/user/ClarionProductions
-
www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/nypd-monitored-muslim-students-all-over-northeast-muslim-brotherhood-linked-msa-and-media-enablers-i.html
-
Why We Don’t Need Words Like ‘Islamist’
Posted By Robert Spencer On February 20, 2012
Since I previously had an exchange with Andy McCarthy about the utility of the term “Islamist” (article here; video with transcript here); I read Raymond Ibrahim’s new piece, “Why We Need Words Like ‘Islamist,’” with great interest.
Raymond initially states the controversy this way:
Is the problem Islam or Islamism? Muslims or Islamists?These and related questions regularly foster debate (see the exchange between Robert Spencer and Andrew McCarthy for a recent example). The greatest obstacle on the road to consensus is what such words imply; namely, that Islamism and Islamists are “bad,” and Islam and Muslims are good (or simply neutral).
That is a bit caricatured, but it does express what is essentially the disagreement: is Islam a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists (the “Islamists,”) or are supremacism and violence part of the core and mainstream teachings of Islam, in all its various sects and manifestations?
Several factors make the question more complicated: one is that many analysts use the term “Islamist” to mean an adherent of the tenets of political Islam. And certainly, as Raymond points out in his piece here, some term is needed for such people: for example, a follower of Mubarak in Egypt would likely be a Muslim but not an “Islamist”: i.e., not a proponent of Sharia rule. But because of the baggage that is attached to the word “Islamist,” and the misleading way it is used in order to deny or downplay the violence, hatred, and supremacism that is in core Islamic texts and teachings, I generally use “Islamic supremacist” instead for the adherents of Sharia and political Islam.
Andy McCarthy, meanwhile, acknowledges the violence in Islamic texts and teachings but uses the term “Islamist” for those acting upon that violence, so as not to discourage moderate Muslim reformers. This is a strange tactic, since genuine reform cannot proceed without an honest acknowledgment of the fact that there is something that needs reforming, and yet McCarthy’s usage is intended to distance the problem within Islam from Islam itself — a comforting fiction that will only discourage genuine reform and make it more difficult.
Here again, the problem with the terms “Islamist” and “Islamism” is that they mislead the uninformed into thinking that the problem of jihad and Islamic supremacism is not as large as it really is, not as deeply rooted within Islam as it really is, and more easily solved than it really is.
Raymond goes on:
Islamism is a distinct phenomenon and, to an extent, different from historic Islam. The staunch literalness of today’s Islamists is so artificial and anachronistic that, if only in this way, it contradicts the practices of medieval Muslims, which often came natural and better fit their historical context.
There is some truth to this, but here again, one would be in dangerous waters if one takes Raymond’s statement that “Islamism is a distinct phenomenon and, to an extent, different from historic Islam” as meaning that Islam in its various mainstream forms has not always been political and supremacist. Take, for instance, the medieval Muslim Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, who was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”
Another medieval Muslim, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”
In light of that, whether or not they are, as Raymond goes on to argue, “influenced by Westernization,” even before these Westernizing influences entered in, they were energized by an imperative to make war against and subjugate unbelievers.
Raymond thus quite rightly goes on to point out that “Islam proper” is not “trouble-free.” I agree with those whose views he characterizes this way: “one might argue that use of words like ‘Islamist,’ while valid, are ultimately academic and have the potential further to confuse the layman.” He then goes on to argue for the need for a term for the adherents of political Islam — and there again, I propose the term “Islamic supremacist,” which does not have the baggage of “Islamist,” and leads no one to believe that Islam itself is “trouble-free.”
Raymond concludes: “why insist on a language that is easily misunderstood and even has the potential to backfire?”
Indeed. And that’s why I reject the term “Islamist.”
-
Penn Judge: Muslims Allowed to Attack People for Insulting Mohammad
By Mark Whittington
PostsWebsiteBy Mark Whittington | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 6 COMMENTARY | Jonathon Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, reports on a disturbing case in which a state judge in Pennsylvania threw out an assault case involving a Muslim attacking an atheist for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Judge Mark Martin, an Iraq war veteran and a convert to Islam, threw the case out in what appears to be an invocation of Sharia law.
The incident occurred at the Mechanicsburg, Pa., Halloween parade where Ernie Perce, an atheist activist, marched as a zombie Muhammad. Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim, attacked Perce, and he was arrested by police.
Judge Martin threw the case out on the grounds that Elbayomy was obligated to attack Perce because of his culture and religion. Judge Martin stated that the First Amendment of the Constitution does not permit people to provoke other people. He also called Perce, the plaintiff in the case, a "doofus." In effect, Perce was the perpetrator of the assault, in Judge Martin's view, and Elbayomy the innocent. The Sharia law that the Muslim attacker followed trumped the First Amendment.
Words almost fail.
The Washington Post recently reported on an appeals court decision to maintain an injunction to stop the implementation of an amendment to the Oklahoma state constitution that bans the use of Sharia law in state courts. The excuse the court gave was that there was no documented case of Sharia law being invoked in an American court. Judge Martin would seem to have provided that example, which should provide fodder for the argument as the case goes through the federal courts.
The text of the First Amendment could not be clearer. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof-" It does not say "unless somebody, especially a Muslim, is angered." Indeed Judge Martin specifically decided to respect the establishment of a religion, in this case Islam.
That Judge Martin should be removed from the bench and severely sanctioned goes almost without saying. He clearly had no business hearing the case in the first place, since he seems to carry an emotional bias. He also needs to retake a constitutional law course. Otherwise, a real can of worms has been opened up, permitting violence against people exercising free speech.
It should be noted that another atheist, dressed as a Zombie Pope, was marching beside the Zombie Muhammad. No outraged Catholics attacked him.
P.C.
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577297371335370072.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
By NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
Los Angeles
Earlier this month, the TLC network announced that it will cancel the reality show "All-American Muslim" due to low ratings. Critics had complained that the show whitewashed the problem of Islamic radicalism in the U.S. by not portraying Muslim extremists, which led major sponsors such as the retailer Lowe's to drop their support.
But the show's producers were closer to portraying reality than critics asserted. The story of Islam in America today is a story of rapid assimilation and even secularization, not growing radicalism.
Jihad Turk, director of religious studies at LA's Islamic Center of Southern California, says that of the roughly 750,000 Muslims living in Southern California, just 30,000, or about 4%, regularly attend Friday prayer. And when I interview members of the center's offshoot, the Muslim Establishing Communities of America (MECA), whose target demographic is unaffiliated young adults, they say there are few Muslim institutions where they feel comfortable.
Younger Muslims say they don't like the gender segregation at prayers and the imams imported from other countries who repeat the same Friday sermons, known as Khutbahs, week after week. (There are only so many times I want to hear the hadith about how smiling is a kind of charity, one woman told me.) They question the religious education they received growing up, where they learned enough Arabic to recite prayers or Koranic verses but not enough to understand what they were saying. Many say they have disaffected friends who have fallen away from the faith.
Mosque attendance is not the only measure of religious observance, but Muslims are experiencing other signs of secularization as well. They are intermarrying at rates comparable to those of other religious groups in America. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimates that about one in five Muslims is wedded to someone of another faith.
Muslim men are allowed by religious law to marry Jewish or Christian women so long as they raise the children Muslim. But in America, where mothers tend to be more responsible for a child's religious education, the products of Muslim interfaith couples are often raised in another religion.
Some Muslim women insist that their partners of other faiths convert before marriage. But Munira Ezzeldine, the author of "Before the Wedding: 150 Questions for Muslims to Ask Before Getting Married," says that many of these are "fly-by-night Shahaadas," professions of faith that are not sincere and are simply made to please the families or religious authorities. Indeed, one of the women on "All-American Muslim" tells her siblings that her Catholic fiancé converted only for the sake of marriage.
According to Pew, there are about 2.8 million Muslims in the U.S., and 63% are immigrants. Not surprisingly, their children and grandchildren feel more American and say they are stifled by religious communities dominated by the rules of a particular culture.
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
Prayer in Irvine, Calif.
.Even those I speak to who are more religiously oriented say they care more about the faith than about cultural traditions brought over from the old country. These sentiments echo those of America's previous waves of immigrants—Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics or German Jews and Russian Jews who, after a generation or two in the U.S., stopped drawing the ethnic distinctions of their parents and grandparents.
The challenge of L.A.'s Islamic Center, in its view, is to help American Muslims assimilate without betraying the tenets of Islam. "How do we carry forth the charge to speak for truth . . . and live life based on a moral foundation?" Mr. Turk asked his congregation on a recent Friday. "If we find ourselves caught up in the rat race, we won't have fulfilled our religious commitment."
Mr. Turk advises parents "to turn off the TV and eat dinner as a family." And he expresses concern that young adults are putting off marriage too long and are marrying outside the faith. He also notes that constructing bigger institutions is not the answer to strengthening Islam in America. The focus should be passing on the faith: "Otherwise we will possess buildings of great size and great emptiness."
Raising children with moral foundations, encouraging marriage, avoiding the distractions of too many worldly things: If it seems like these are the messages that one might hear at thousands of churches and synagogues on a given weekend, they are.
The news this week that a Muslim Frenchman, a jihadist trained by al Qaeda, shot and killed seven people is yet another reminder of the dangers of radical Islam in the West. This strain of Islam no doubt exists in America too. But that is not the experience of most American Muslims or their religious leaders. As Mazen Hashem, a sociologist at Cal State Northridge and a longtime attendee of the Islamic Center, says, "Everything that's true of middle-class Americans is true of Muslims."
Ms. Riley, a former Journal editor, is writing a book about interfaith marriage, to be published by Oxford University Press next year.
A version of this article appeared Mar. 23, 2012, on page A13 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Defining the 'All-American Muslim'.
-
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46845257/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/iraqi-woman-critically-beaten-calif-threat-note-left-scene/
-
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46845257/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/iraqi-woman-critically-beaten-calif-threat-note-left-scene/
I'd get a handwriting exemplar from the husband to start with.
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/us/killing-of-iraqi-woman-leaves-immigrant-community-shaken.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120328
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/us/killing-of-iraqi-woman-leaves-immigrant-community-shaken.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120328
I wonder if the tire iron happens to be from the same make/model of the family car?
-
The Myth of Self-Radicalization
by Patrick Dunleavy
Special to IPT News
April 4, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3520/the-myth-of-self-radicalization
When seven people are killed including 3 children, who is responsible? When a van carrying Hasidic students is attacked by automatic weapon fire, killing one and wounding several others, who is held accountable?
It would seem according to some reports that the victims fell prey to the "lone terrorist" or "self-radicalized" individual. Is this an accurate description of what took place?
Recent studies and statements by several government officials, including the director of the FBI and the secretary of Homeland Security, tell us that the greatest threat facing us post 9-11 is the individual terrorist.
But in looking at two specific cases of Islamic terrorist attacks we may find that definition an over-simplified version of what actually took place.
The first is the case of Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old French / Algerian in Toulouse, France who shot three French paratroopers and four Jewish civilians, three of whom were young children.
The profile coming out initially said he was self-radicalized because of the economic poverty he grew up in. A victim of high unemployment and discrimination against an immigrant minority caused the anger that fueled the fire in him. If that is true, where did the $26,000 found on him come from? Not to mention the cache of weapons and the expenditures necessary for him to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan? Who provided the funds, the contacts, and the weapons?
The second description said he "self-radicalized in prison." Is that possible? Is prison a place where you can be left to yourself to evolve into something?
As someone who has worked in the criminal justice system for 26 years and a considerable amount of that time in the prison system, I can tell you emphatically that Merah's radicalization was much more than self-induced. One does not become "self-radicalized" in prison. The constant interaction that occurs within a prison negates that. There is always a facilitator, an influence, or a catalyst. Be that literature, another cellmate, or a clergy. What was the integer in this case?
French authorities had known for some time that mixing convicted Islamic terrorists with low-level criminals in the prison's general population contributed to radicalization.
Who were his cellmates? Who visited him? What literature did he have access to?
The second case is that of Rashid Baz, the Lebanese/Palestinian immigrant known as "the Brooklyn Bridge Shooter" responsible for the death of Hasidic student Ari Halberstam in 1994. The case was initially thought to be "road rage." It wasn't until 1999 when US Attorney Mary Jo White opened an investigation into the crime and found it was indeed a terrorist act that it was reclassified.
Yet, despite the evidence, it was declared that Baz acted alone. The final report stated, "Baz acted on his own ... and there appear to be no unpunished co-conspirators." He was by definition a "lone wolf" terrorist. And since then he has been free to move about the general population of the prison influencing other inmates and even working as the chaplain's clerk in the prison mosque.
Now, from his prison cell in Attica 18 years later, Baz admitted that he had intentionally targeted Jews on that fateful day in March. Why? Was no one else involved?
Looking back at the evidence, the answer is disturbing. Two relatives helped him hide the weapons he used in their house. When the guns and ammunition were found, they said that they knew nothing of his involvement in the crime nor did they share his radical hatred for Jewish people.
Phone records obtained by police show just the opposite. The family members were in contact with a member of an Islamic terrorist organization, Hamas.
Hamas is sworn to the destruction of Israel by any means including killing Jewish civilians.
In addition, at least two witnesses testified that, just prior to going on a rampage, Baz attended a service at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. There, he heard a fiery sermon preached calling for revenge on Jews for an incident that had recently occurred in Hebron. That was Feb. 25, on the eve of the first anniversary of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 by radical Islamic fundamentalists.
One of the witnesses testified that Baz was enraged after the speech, determined to act. Was this the catalyst that sent him over the edge?
To this day, neither the imam nor the mosque president has been held accountable for that. Why?
Yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater is not freedom of speech, nor is promoting a message, either spoken, written, or on the internet, that instructs someone to kill others in the name of God.
A terrorist is not hatched overnight, nor are they produced solely in the dark vacuum of self.
Even the National Counter Terrorism Center acknowledges this in its definition of radicalism. "Radicalism is a dynamic and multi-layered process involving several factors that interact with one another to influence an individual," it says.
Instilling grievances, preaching and religious dogma all play a role.
When we say that a person was self-taught or self-motivated, we look at them in a positive light.
When used in recent descriptions of Islamic terrorists it has quite the opposite effect.
It tends to triteness and absolves anyone else of complicity in the act. There is an overuse of the word, a diluting of the meaning, a deliberate misuse in an attempt to simplify the issue of radicalization.
Those who contributed to the radicalization process must be held accountable.
Patrick Dunleavy is the former Deputy Inspector General for New York State Department of Corrections and author of The Fertile Soil of Jihad.
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/04/mainstream-media-finally-notices-honor-killing.html
-
EL CAJON, Calif. -- An Iraqi-American woman beaten to death in her southern California home last month was planning to divorce her husband and move to Texas, her brother revealed Friday, as the search continued for the woman's killer.
Mother-of-five Shaima Alawadi, 32, was bashed with a blunt object before her body was discovered by her daughter -- 17-year-old Fatima Alhimidi -- in the dining room of the family's home in El Cajon, Calif., on March 21, alongside a note saying, "go back to your country, you terrorist." She was taken off life support three days later.
Hess Alawadi told the San Diego Union-Tribune that his sister was planning to move to Texas with her children after divorcing her husband, Kassim Alhimidi. He said Alhimidi knew of his wife's plans.
Authorities found divorce papers in the woman's car as they began their investigation.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/murdered_iraqi_american_woman_brother_rgMWNBrdha1mk6H3VOCXwM
-
Al-Arian Surfaces With Self-Serving Skype
IPT News
April 20, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3548/al-arian-surfaces-with-self-serving-skype
Print
Send
Comment
RSS
Share:
Be the first of your friends to like this.
He's been on house arrest for nearly four years, but the inability to be in the
spotlight may constitute cruel and unusual punishment for Palestinian Islamic Jihad
(PIJ) operative Sami Al-Arian.
A website called The Islamist posted what it says is the complete text of a
statement the former University of South Florida professor and PIJ governing board
member made via Skype Wednesday. In it, the man who created and ran the "active arm"
of the terrorist group in North America and sheltered its current leader, decries
his "persecution" and lamenting the plight of others convicted of supporting
terrorist groups such as Hamas and al-Qaida.
The speech marks "my first public address in the U. S. in over nine years," he says,
and comes despite attorneys' advice not to make public statements. "Nothing short of
our very survival as free people living in a free and democratic society is at
stake," he says, casting America as a security state in the wake of 9/11 law
enforcement actions.
"We, as a community, are at the forefront in the fight to reclaim the foundations
and principles that established this great country."
Al-Arian still faces a criminal contempt indictment issued in June 2008, after he
repeatedly refused to testify before a federal grand jury investigating terror
financing in northern Virginia. His argument that his 2006 guilty plea to providing
goods and services to the PIJ meant he would never have to provide information to
the government, be it voluntarily or under court order. The judge who sentenced him
in Tampa, along with a separate judge in Alexandria and their respective circuit
courts of appeal, all rejected that claim.
His attorneys have never produced any written evidence backing up the claim. It is
not mentioned in his plea agreement, and when asked at in a hearing whether his plea
was based on any additional promises, he said, "I don't recall anything else."
"You think anybody has attempted to trick you?" the judge asked.
"No," Al-Arian said.
The case has been frozen in limbo, however, by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema's
refusal to rule on defense motions to dismiss the contempt case despite repeated
promises to deliver a written order as far back as the spring of 2009.
This week's remarks include an appeal for the National Coalition to Protect Civil
Freedoms. He said he speaks "(o)n behalf of all victims of injustice" in seeking
support for the group. Then he recites a list of people he says were unjustly
convicted on terror charges.
"Today Ali Al-Tamimi is serving life for giving a religious fatwa. Tarek Mehanna is
serving 17 years for translating a document. Mufid Abdel Kader is serving 20 years
because he had a beautiful voice and sang for Palestine. Ghassan El-Ashi and Shukri
Abu Baker are serving 65 years each for feeding and clothing hungry Palestinian
children ... Aafi (sic) Siddqui was sentenced to 86 years after she was shot and
nearly died."
Al-Tamimi's fatwa urged followers to wage war against American troops and help the
Taliban. Mehanna was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to
al-Qaida, providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to commit murder
in a foreign country. Abdel Kader, Elashi and Baker each were convicted for their
work with the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which illegally
routed more than $12 million to Hamas before being shut down in 2001.
Aafia Siddiqui was apprehended in Afghanistan in possession of plans for a "mass
casualty attack" in the United States, including a list of New York City landmarks.
Prosecutors say she grabbed an Army officer's M-4 rifle and fired it at another
officer and other members of a U.S. interview team at an Afghan police compound in
July 2008.
To Al-Arian, they remain "Innocent people [who] are targeted and their families are
suffering because of their beliefs, opinions, associations, and advocacy. All first
amendment activities- supposedly guaranteed by the US constitution.
President Obama said if he had a son he would have looked like Trayvon Martin. Let
me tell you, all our sons look like Ahmad Abu Ali, Ziad Yaghi, and Tarek Mehanna."
Despite his record of lies and support for murderers, Al-Arian remains a popular
figure in the media and among academics. The Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times
(now Tampa Bay Times) provided sympathetic coverage. Georgetown University's John
Esposito continues to consider Al-Arian a "very close friend" and "a man of
conscience with a strong commitment to peace and social justice."
American Islamist groups, led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
never wavered in supporting Al-Arian.
Related Topics: Prosecutions, Sami Al-Arian
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental
agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative
Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All
donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project
on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
You are subscribed to this list as craftydog@dogbrothers.com.
To edit subscription options: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_edit.php
To unsubscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_unsubscribe.php
To subscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_subscribe.php
-
IPT Featured Article: ICNA's Radicalization Continues
Steven Emerson, Executive Director
April 25, 2012
Articles by IPT | IPT in the News | IPT Blog | Profiles | Multimedia | Donate |
Contact Us
ICNA's Radicalization Continues
IPT News
April 25, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3554/icna-radicalization-continues
Print
Send
Comment
RSS
Share:
Be the first of your friends to like this.
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is leading a pro-Sharia public relations
campaign, aimed at persuading Americans that these beliefs aren't something to fear
or leading to domination.
As it does this, however, it continues to guide followers toward texts that go in a
starkly contrasting direction. It has pushed underground a series of curricula
detailing its adult radicalization program, but more extremist materials pop up in
youth events, the group's bookstore, and elsewhere.
ICNA has long been involved in the radicalization of its members, with an
indoctrination process into South Asian and Muslim Brotherhood extremist texts. Many
of those titles disappeared from ICNA and the ICNA Sisters' web pages after a series
of articles by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
That doesn't mean that ICNA has changed its tune. A recent investigation by the
Toronto Sun revealed that the organization has marketed pro-violence and
pro-Islamist texts, particularly by South Asian extremist Sayyid Abu 'Ala Maududi,
through its Canadian bookstore. These texts, according to Canadian Muslim moderate
Tarek Fatah, have a profound effect on the Muslim youth.
"This sort of literature lays the seeds into their minds that the West is the enemy,
and they are the troopers who have to fight that enemy," Fatah told the Sun.
"Maududi, in his books, is asking for young Muslim men to wage war."
Required reading of some of Maududi's books is also still part of ICNA's membership
process, especially for youth. This year's annual "Quiz Competition on Islamic
Knowledge and Skills" tested 11th and 12th graders throughout the country on their
knowledge of one of his masterpieces, Towards Understanding Islam.
"The greatest sacrifice made in the way of God is jihad. In it man sacrifices not
only his own life and belongings, but destroys those of others as well," Maududi
teaches in the text, which is posted on ICNA's youth website. "What comparison would
the loss of some lives - even if it were thousands or more be to the calamity that
would befall mankind as the result of the victory of evil over good. What comparison
would it be to the tremendous anguish mankind would suffer if falsehood overtook
truth, and if aggressive atheism won over the religion of God," he says, arguing
that Islam must dominate all other political and social philosophies.
"Not only would the religion of God be eliminated, but the world would become the
abode of evil, corruption, and perversion. Life would be disrupted from within and
without. In order to prevent this greater evil, God has commanded us to sacrifice
our lives and property for His pleasure." he adds.
Maududi explains that Islam should not be viewed like other religions, as a sphere
of human life which plays a part in societal organization but does not control it.
Rather, it is a "system encompassing all fields of living" including politics,
economics, and legislation.
The same text was a recommended reading for 7th-10th graders participating in ICNA's
Southern California branches for the 2010 quiz and debate program. Other recommended
books include Maududi's A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam and
Abdullah al-Ahsan's The History of Al-Khalifah Ar-Rashidah.
A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam says that Islamic revival
demands that Muslims "determine exactly where to strike the blow so as to break the
power of un-Islam and enable Islam to take hold of life as a whole." It also demands
that the revivalist know when "to wrest authority from the hands of un-Islam and
practically re-establish government on the system described as 'Caliphate after the
pattern of Prophethood' by the Holy Prophet."
The need for a caliphate, an Islamic theological empire, is reinforced in The
History of Al-Khalifah Ar-Rashidah. The book discusses rule of law and governance in
the historical caliphate period, during Islam's early history from its founding
until the Mongol Invasion, including the "principles [that] embody the archetypical
Islamic state."
These events further serve as a way of involving more mosques in ICNA's radicalism.
According to an ICNA report, a quiz event brought participants from across
unaffiliated mosques and schools across the Dallas/Ft. Worth metro area, and
encouraged the selling of Maududi's extremist literature in local Muslim bookshops.
Radicalism also hasn't disappeared from the group's conferences, despite apologies
and excuses from ICNA over past anti-Semitic and pro-violence statements.
At the group's latest conference last December, Egyptian Islamist Ragheb Elsergany
envisioned a day soon when "all of Palestine" would be liberated. Elsergany said the
rise of Islamist governments in the Middle East and North Africa was clearing the
way for "the Zionist entity" to "vanish absolutely."
While one-time extremist statements might be viewed as a fluke, Elsergany was at the
center of controversy for ICNA's 2009 conference, for making similar comments. These
statements made by Elsergany and others, were picked up by organizations monitoring
hate speech. The conference was even labeled "a platform for extremist rhetoric" by
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
In response, ICNA claimed that the inflammatory rhetoric was unexpected and not
representative of the rest of the conference.
"In response to the ADL's statement, both MAS and ICNA categorically state that our
organizations do not affirm any statements that reflect hatred of the Jewish people,
or any other religious or ethnic community, or that call for the destruction of
Israel. If any such unfortunate statements were made by any speakers at our
conference in Chicago, we deeply regret them and affirm that such individuals will
not be invited to future conferences," they claimed.
But not only did ICNA invite Elsergany back, his picture was featured in a scrolling
montage of speakers on the conference website's home page.
In 2009, Elsergany explicitly endorsed jihad and told Muslims it is their duty to
help finance it.
"It is required to act in ways to please Allah, and one of the greatest of them is
jihad in the way of Allah, and one of the greatest of them is supporting the
fighters, and the mujahideen [Islamic warriors] and the besieged, and those in need
there in Palestine," he said in an Arabic session entitled "The Gaza Struggle."
Elsergany then pushed people to donate money to the cause. "Allah has entrusted us
with the money for our brothers and sisters, to confer upon the people of Palestine
the surplus of our money. This is their right," he said. "They are the ones who face
the Zionists with their chests, their nerves, their lives, their children, their
holy places and their sacred places. They are the ones standing [in] front of us and
we are standing behind them. You Muslims are abandoning this role."
In the 2011 conference, Elsergany also preached "liberation" of all the battlefronts
of jihad throughout the world.
"We have lived under and now after the dawning of the light [the Egyptian
Revolution], soon there will be a greater dawning with the liberation of Palestine,
the liberation of Chechnya, the liberation of Kashmir, the liberation of Turkestan,
the liberation of South Sudan, of all the lands usurped from the Muslims. If God
wills, it is coming," he said.
The continuation of extremist rhetoric, and the invitation of the very same hateful
speakers to national conferences, begs the question of how serious ICNA is about the
"rejection of extremism."
Related Topics: The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental
agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative
Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All
donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project
on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
You are subscribed to this list as craftydog@dogbrothers.com.
To edit subscription options: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_edit.php
To unsubscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_unsubscribe.php
To subscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_subscribe.php
The Investigative Project on Terrorism
202-363-8602 - main
202-966-5191 - fax
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/hamtramck-high-holds-all-girl-prom.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120502
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — The prom countdown was nearly complete, the do-it-yourself Greek columns, pink and white tulle bows and plastic flutes with the “Once Upon a Dream” logo awaiting the evening of evenings.
.But as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, her one-shoulder lavender gown matching the elaborate hijab that framed her face in a cascade of flowers — a style learned on YouTube — Tharima Ahmed knew that what lay ahead was more than simply a prom.
As organizer of Hamtramck High School’s first all-girl prom, which conforms to religious beliefs forbidding dating, dancing with boys or appearing without a head scarf in front of males, Tharima, 17, was forging a new rite of passage for every teenage Muslim girl who had ever spent prom night at home, wistfully watching the limousines roll by.
“Hi, guys — I mean girls!” Tharima, a Bangladeshi-American, exuded into the microphone as 100 girls — Yemeni-American, Polish-American, Palestinian-American, Bosnian-American and African-American — began pouring into the hall on Bangladesh Avenue.
This was prom, Hamtramck-style: the dense scrappy working-class city of 22,500 encircled by Detroit, once predominantly German and Polish, has become one of the most diverse small cities in America. Its new soul lay in the music playlist embedded in Rukeih Malik’s iPhone: Lady Gaga, Cobra Starship, the Belgrade-born singer Ana Kokic and The Bilz, a Canadian-South Asian band, singing “2 Step Bhangra.”
In this season of wobbly heels and cleavage, the bittersweet transformation of teenagers in jeans and T-shirts into elegant adults barely recognizable to their friends is an anticipated tradition.
But at the all-girl prom, there were double double-takes, as some of Tharima’s classmates, normally concealed in a chrysalis of hijab and abaya, the traditional Muslim cloak, literally let their hair down in public for the first time.
Eman Ashabi, a Yemeni-American who helped organize the event, arrived in a ruffled pink gown, her black hair falling in perfect waves, thanks to a curling iron. Like many here, she stunned her friends.
“It’s ‘Oh my god!’ ” said Simone Alhagri, a Yemeni-American junior who was wearing a tight shirred dress. “This is how you look underneath!”
The dance was the denouement of seven months of feverish planning in which a committee raised $2,500, mostly through bake sales. Ignoring the naysayers who could not imagine anyone coming to a prom without boys, Tharima and her friends approached their task systematically, taking a survey of all the girls at Hamtramck High. They found that 65 percent were not able to attend the coed prom because of cultural and religious beliefs. After discussion, the school supported the student-driven alternative.
In addition to Muslim girls (and alumnae who never got the opportunity), non-Muslim students wanted to go, too. “I want to support all my girls,” said Sylwia Stanko, who was born in Poland and whose friends are mostly Bengali-American or Arab-American. “I know how important it is to them.”
The prom promised “music all night, except during dinner and five minutes for prayer.” A former Knights of Columbus hall was transformed into princess-pink perfection.
Tharima placed a huge order for decorations with PromNite.com, including a light-up fountain to which the girls added pink food coloring.
Tharima had dreamed of prom night since her freshman year, squirreling away photographs of ballrooms and ads for tiaras.
As Tharima prepared for her big night, her mother, Roushanara Ahmed, recalled the fancy pink sari she wore to an all-girls party in what is now Bangladesh. “I was in high school,” she said, her voice low, eyes softening. “I know her feelings.”
Like the prom, the city of Hamtramck is a mixer of a different kind. Along Joseph Campau Street, a monumental statue of Pope John Paul II presides over Pope Park, with its festive mural of Krakow. A poster for the television program “Bosnian Idol” is displayed in the Albanian Euro Mini Mart, known for homemade yogurt and burek, traditional spinach and meat pies. During her English class, Tharima can hear the call to prayer over loudspeakers from the Islah Islamic Center a few blocks from school.
Diversity was hard-won: The mosque, one of five in the city, was the subject of controversy in 2004, when some people strenuously objected to the city’s decision to allow it to broadcast prayers five times a day; the city ultimately prevailed, regulating the hours when the call may be sounded.
In sharp contrast to earlier immigrants, drawn by the once-thriving auto industry, a quarter of the residents now live below the federal poverty level.
CONT.
-
Awlaki Acknowledges His Radical Past
IPT News
May 4, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3568/awlaki-acknowledges-his-radical-past
When Anwar al-Awlaki emerged as the clear inspiration behind a series of terror plots in 2009, his former associates in America insisted he was radicalized well after leaving the United States in 2002.
But in what might be his last published work, Awlaki explains that his involvement in violent jihad dated back to 1991, and that he hated the American government as far back as his college days.
"Spilling out the Beans: Al Awlaki Revealing His Side of the Story," appeared this week in the final edition of al-Qaida's English-language magazine Inspire.
The clarification flies in the face of claims by American Muslim leaders that he had been radicalized by Islamophobia after the 9/11 attacks, and motivated to violence following his 18 month imprisonment in Yemen, starting in 2006. At the heart of some Muslim leaders' argument was a desire to distance themselves from Awlaki's new public radicalism, and to twist the debate to focus on America's role in creating a vengeful monster.
"While employed at Dar Al-Hijrah, Imam Al-Awlaki was known for his interfaith outreach, civic engagement and tolerance in the Northern Virginia community," a statement from the imam's former mosque in northern Virginia said after Awlaki died in a U.S. drone strike last fall. "However, after Mr. Al-Awlaki's departure from the mosque in 2002 he was arrested by Yemeni authorities and allegedly tortured. It was then that Al-Awlaki began preaching violence," they claimed, while condemning America's assassination of Awlaki in a drone strike.
These claims were echoed by major outlets like the New York Times and National Public Radio. They portrayed Awlaki as a victim of his circumstances, and accepted the moderation of the "eloquent" preacher who claimed he could have been "a bridge between Americans and one billion Muslims worldwide."
But that image has not jibed with other accounts of Awlaki's life. Quotes from his early American speeches, accounts of his family life, and personal insights from friends show someone who idolized the Afghani jihad and Osama bin Laden's mentor Abdullah Azzam. Long before Awlaki preached America's destruction, he already believed that jihad was a key point of Islam and that America was against Muslims.
Spilling the Beans
In the Inspire article, Awlaki weaved the events of his life into a consistent narrative of hate.
"I have had experiences with the US government at quite a young age that most of you would not have in a lifetime. I have seen the other face of America," Awlaki wrote. From the beginning, Awlaki struggled with his relationship with America, while holding his own views close to heart.
Awlaki was born in the United States, but moved with his family to Yemen when he was 7. His father, a university professor in the capital Sana'a, became the country's agriculture minister. His father's clout helped him obtain college scholarships meant for foreign students even though he was an American citizen. Awlaki was influenced by his local environment to a much greater degree than previously believed. A New York Times biographical article states that the Afghani jihad against the Soviet Union was at the top of many people's minds in Yemen in the 1980s and early 90s, but not the Awlakis'. They were focused on using contacts to get a scholarship for their son.
But in his Inspire article, Awlaki wrote he already harbored pro-jihad sentiments and feared the United States saw him as a potential asset.
"Even though I was not fully practicing back then … I had an extreme dislike to the US government and was very wary of anything concerning intelligence services or secret orders," he wrote. "Thus, I was cold when it came to my relationship with the Office of International Students (which in my belief is a front for recruitment of international students for the government and is also a front from spying on them and reporting on them to the authorities). I also received an invitation to join the Rotary Club which I turned down."
The 1991 Gulf War in Kuwait triggered his hatred while a student back in the United States. "That is when I started taking my religion more seriously and I took the step of traveling to Afghanistan to fight," he wrote. "I spent a winter there and returned with the intention of finishing up in the US and leaving to Afghanistan for good. My plan was to travel back in summer, however, Kabul was opened by the mujahideen and I saw that the war was over and ended up staying in the US."
That account differs sharply from a 2010Time magazine profile. Awlaki wasn't interested in al-Qaida or Afghanistan after visiting in 1993, Time reports, and he "was depressed by poverty and hunger in the homes where he stayed."
Solidifying His Views
After returning to America, Awlaki claimed that he lost his scholarship in part due to his grades and because of what he called his fighting role and service as a Muslim Student Association president. Regardless, he now considered himself a fundamentalist and took up a new position reflecting this status when he moved from Denver to San Diego.
When Awlaki returned from Afghanistan he wore clothes popular with the mujahideen and often quoted Abdullah Azzam. He was also accused by a member of his Denver mosque of encouraging a Saudi youth to join jihad in Chechnya, shortly before he left for San Diego.
There, he became imam for the mosque Masjid al Ribat al Islami in 1996, chosen by "a group of students from Saudi [Arabia] and the Gulf states who formed their own mosque because they "were not happy with how things were run" at the moderate San Diego Islamic Center. Awlaki claimed that his conservatism and good fit with the community was important, because the government actively tried to infiltrate the mosque and recruit him to spy on his community, which he helped to prevent. He also claimed this was the reason why he was "falsely" arrested for soliciting prostitutes.
By 1998, Awlaki was fed up with the United States and ready to leave, but it took "three years and September 11" to "unwind" himself from the United States. During this time, Awlaki solidified his views of America and jihad.
Awlaki began preaching about the glories of jihad and the enemies of Islam in a lecture series from the late 1990s called "Lives of the Prophets." Evil surrounds Muslims in the West, he said, arguing that U.S. foreign and domestic policy are controlled by "the strong Jewish lobbyists." His disdain of Jews, whom he terms "the enemy from Day 1 to the Day of Judgment," is a common theme.
In one sermon, Awlaki prayed to Allah to "free" the al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site of Islam, from what he terms "the Jewish terrorists" who he claims "have taken (it) over" and "give it back to the Ummah of Islam." He called for the broad institution of Sharia law as the basis for society. "Justice is in the heart of the judge," he said, "and that is why we can only have justice through a true Islamic system."
In another, Awlaki preached patience and persistence in pursuit of victory, saying people can get "fired up fast" by "a very hot" sermon about jihad and be "ready to go on the battlefield."
But those emotions can be lost "by the time you step your foot out of the masjid … Very easily fired up, and very easily we cool down," he lamented.
In the "Lives of the Prophets" lectures, well before 9/11 and before his time in a Yemeni prison, he called for a sustained commitment to jihad:
"Talking big is easy, but the sacrifice, and especially long-term sacrifice which jihad needs, that is difficult. Jihad is not only sacrifice, but it is a long term sacrifice. And that is where people fail. If you are asked to sacrifice in one time, you could be fired up by a speech, and then you would give out your money, for example, and you would sacrifice. That could happen. But when you're asked to sacrifice for a long period, then you're suffering hardship for a long time, that is what causes people to fail"
Sacrifice, he said, could take many forms and people should be willing to do whatever is required: "It could be your life, your time, your money, your family, it could even be the Islamic family or brothers that you are with, it could be the scholars that you love. Anything is possible."
Although his language became more direct in later sermons, calling for unlimited attacks on Americans, Awlaki proved that he already embraced violent jihad as a fundamental part of his worldview.
-
American Islamists Push Negative American Image
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
May 9, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3571/american-islamists-push-negative-american-image
Traveling in Bangladesh last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was confronted with a question she said "hurts me so much."
Why, she was asked, is there "a common perception held by many young people that the U.S. is anti-Muslim?"
"I mean, it's a painful perception to hear about, Clinton said, "and I deeply regret that anyone believes that or propagates it."
There may be discrimination, but that cuts across racial, religious and ethnic lines, she said. American law and culture "has gone probably farther than anywhere else in the world in trying to guarantee legal protections for people."
Claims that America is anti-Muslim come from people "who, for their own reasons, try to politicize what the United States has done in a way that I think is unfortunate and unfair," she said.
In many cases, however, the message that America is hostile toward Muslims is promoted by the same people Clinton's State Department and other Cabinet-level agencies turn to as outreach partners. We've noted repeatedly how national Islamist groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Muslim Advocates and others have pushed the notion that America's legal and military war on terror amounts to a war on Islam.
It's an irresponsible message for two reasons. It is wrong. And it has been proven to be among the most effective messages in radicalizing young Muslims. Yet the same groups who perpetuate it in America find themselves embraced by the government. Officials legitimize and empower them by attending and speaking at their events rather than building the profile of Muslim voices who tout the freedom and opportunity their families find here.
Most recently, Cyrus McGoldrick, civil rights director for CAIR's New York chapter, told a newspaper that a spate of arson attacks by a lone suspect on mosques was driven by bigotry even though police say personal vendettas were in play. In one case, a mosque had refused to let the suspect use its restroom.
"It was only a matter of time before the war abroad became a war at home," McGoldrick said. "Fearmongering about Islam and other American minorities have ripped this country apart. Warmongering politicians and willing media confirm this narrative, the warrantless incomprehensive surveillance of the Muslim community by the NYPD confirms this narrative and the destruction of the Constitution in the name of the war on terror confirms this narrative."
McGoldrick was angered by disclosures of New York Police Department surveillance of public settings and its review of web pages as part of its efforts to identify pockets of radicalization among the local Muslim community. His organization joined 15 other groups, including the Muslim American Society and Islamic Circle of North America in sponsoring a rally against "NYPD and CIA Repression" last November. During that event, Shahina Parveen Siraj, whose son Shahwar Matin Siraj was convicted of plotting to bomb New York's Herald Square subway station, said, "In addition to the wars abroad, there are wars here against Muslims, African Americans, immigrants and the poor." Siraj's claim of entrapment was rejected on appeal.
Shahina Siraj's claims were echoed by DePaul University Professor Laith Saud, a frequent host of CAIR-Chicago events. "But neo-cons and neo-liberals are more interested in promoting war against the entire Muslim world and our own interests for inexplicable reasons," Saud said.
The State Department has sent CAIR officials abroad on goodwill missions, including at least two by Michigan director Dawud Walid. During a 2010 trip to Mali, Walid depicted American law enforcement as inherently hostile toward Muslims. "Since the tragedy of September 11, 2001 American Muslims have been subjected to increased discrimination from racial and religious profiling by law enforcement."
CAIR officials have no problem routinely appearing on Press TV, Iran's state-controlled English-language outlet, to criticize American treatment of Muslims. But CAIR is far from alone in fueling an international perception of anti-Muslim bias that was raised by Clinton's questioner.
Muslim Advocates, a group of attorneys, joined in sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder accusing the NYPD of trampling the civil rights of Muslims and other minorities. "As a result," it said, "Muslims are being sent the message that the government officials entrusted with protecting their rights will not do so, and furthermore, these officials will not investigate allegations of police misconduct."
Muslim Advocates Executive Director Farhana Khera has visited the White House several times in the past two years and been influential in pushing government officials to purge training material about Islam that the group didn't like.
She has been less effective arguing against FBI counter-terrorism sting operations that she dismisses as forms of entrapment. Holder directly rebuffed the argument during a December 2010 speech at a Muslim Advocates event.
"Those who characterize the FBI's activities in this case as 'entrapment' simply do not have their facts straight or do not have a full understanding of the law," Holder said.
But one of the administration's chief advisers on Muslim issues also has pushed the idea that America has treated its Muslim citizens unfairly. Dalia Mogahed, a pollster by trade, said in 2009 that Islamophobia "presents a grave danger to America as a whole."
A year earlier, she lamented a "witch-hunt" against Muslim groups in America. "There is a concerted effort to silence, you know, institution building among Muslims. And the way to do it is malign these groups" such as CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), she told a Religious Newswriters Association conference in Washington.
CAIR and ISNA were maligned, but by their officials' actions, evidenced in exhibits in a federal terror-financing prosecution, and not by politicians or pundits. Those exhibits showed ISNA provided early service to a Hamas-support network in the United States and that CAIR is the progeny of that Muslim Brotherhood-directed effort.
For all the noise, Clinton's response that America "has gone probably farther than anywhere else in the world" in protecting religious liberty is supported by a few key figures. More than 900 new mosques have opened in the United States since 2000. The Muslim population is expected to double here by 2030, reaching 6.2 million people.
Such signs of a robust and growing community don't mesh with national Islamist activists who depict Muslims as under siege. On the other hand, those groups routinely smear Muslim voices who proclaim loudest that America is the best place for a Muslim to practice his/her faith.
If the Secretary of State truly is hurt by the perception, she might consider embracing those voices who trumpet American freedoms and challenging those administration allies who foment ill will. Ostracizing Islamist groups who, despite their embrace throughout the Obama administration as "allies" in the war against terrorism, is necessary to stop the perpetuation of hate against the United States. No matter what the Obama administration claims about its achievements in defeating terrorism, it is actually enabling of Islamic terrorism by embracing radical Islamist groups who issue the same hateful narrative against the United States that Secretary Clinton has decried overseas as "painful."
To quote Pogo, we have met the enemy and he is us.
-
Sent by an internet friend:
THIS GUY DIDN'T SEPARATE FROM THE GROUND ZERO MOSQUE PROJECT VOLUNTARILY AS HE CLAIMS HERE. HE WAS KICKED OFF BECAUSE PAMELA AND ROBERT SPENCER REPORTED THE TRUTH ABOUT HIM WHICH NO ONE ELSE IN THE MEDIA WOULD - AND HE BECAME A LIABILITY FOR THE BACKERS OF THIS MOSQUE.
SHAME on you - Bill O'Reilly - for helping this anti-American fraud promote his book. See below - watch the interview and then read Pamela's story:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/05/bull-oreilly-shills-for-ground-zero-mosque-radical-rauf.html
-
Woof,
By Kevin Murphy | Reuters – 7 hrs agoKANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Kansas lawmakers have passed legislation intended to prevent the state courts or agencies from using Islamic or other non-U.S. laws in making decisions, a measure critics have blasted as an embarrassment to the state.
The legislation, which passed 33-3 in the state Senate on Friday and 120-0 previously in the House, is widely known in Kansas as the "Sharia bill," because the perceived goal of supporters is to keep Islamic code from being recognized in Kansas.
The bill was sent to Republican Governor Sam Brownback, who has not indicated whether he will sign it.
In interviews on Saturday, a supporter of the bill said it reassured foreigners in Kansas that state laws and the U.S. Constitution will protect them. But an opponent said the bill's real purpose is to hold Islam out for ridicule.
Kansas Representative Peggy Mast, a lead sponsor of the bill for the past two years, said the goal was to make sure there was no confusion that American laws prevailed on American soil.
Mast said research showed more than 50 cases around the United States where courts or government agencies took laws from Sharia or other legal systems into account in decision-making.
Commonly, they involved divorce, child custody, property division or other cases where the woman was treated unfairly, Mast said.
"I want people of other cultures, when they come to the United States, to know the freedoms they have in regard to women's and children's rights," said Mast, a Republican. "An important part of this bill would be to educate them."
State Senator Tim Owens, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said there was no need for legislation reaffirming American laws that already exist. All the proposed legislation does, he said, was target one particular group - Muslims - for discrimination.
'UTTER NONSENSE'
"It's based on fear, it's based on intolerance and it is not based on understanding of the Constitution," said Owens, a Republican, who said the measure is an embarrassment to Kansas.
"People will ask, 'How narrow has that state become?'" Owens said. "How unwelcoming is this state?"
He said non-U.S. companies may be unwilling to do business in a state whose residents object to "anything different than what they think is appropriate."
Roughly 20 states have considered legislation similar to what has passed in Kansas, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. Some state legislatures, including Kansas, have passed laws that do not mention Sharia by name, he said.
Hooper said there was a movement by conservative-leaning state legislatures to introduce anti-Islam bills that have no legal foundation.
"Really, the goal seems to be (to demonize) Islam and (to marginalize) American Muslims," Hooper said. "Some (states) have passed these watered-down bills and declared a great victory. It's utter nonsense, but if your goal is to promote intolerance, I guess you won."
After Oklahoma voters approved a law in 2010 barring state judges from considering Sharia law specifically in making decisions, federal courts granted an injunction preventing the law from taking effect.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the injunction, ruling the law unfairly discriminated against a particular religion.
Sharia, or Islamic law, covers all aspects of Muslim life including religious obligations and financial dealings, and opponents of state bans say they could nullify wills or legal contracts between Muslims.
A report earlier this year showed that nearly a third of Americans believed American Muslims want to establish Sharia law in the United States.
The same report, by the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute, showed 88 percent of Americans acknowledged knowing little about Muslim beliefs.
(Editing By Andrew Stern and Todd Eastham)
P.C.
-
Ibrahim Cooper of CAIR is a dishonest guy leading a dishonest organization.
-
"It's utter nonsense, but if your goal is to promote intolerance, I guess you won."
This law, if signed by the governor, like the OK case, will be ruled discriminatory by the Courts.
It's ridiculous.
-
"a supporter of the bill said it reassured foreigners in Kansas that state laws and the U.S. Constitution will protect them."
Sounds like a rational basis (and that would be the standard of review, yes?) to me , , ,
-
Actually the courts ruled OK's law was discriminatory. So I guess your are right, the Constitution protected them from this discriminatory law. :-) The same will happen
in KS. It's all for show. Rather sad actually.
"It's based on fear, it's based on intolerance and it is not based on understanding of the Constitution," said Owens, a Republican, who said the measure is an embarrassment to Kansas."
-
Umm , , , OK named one particular religion's law (Sharia) and KS does not.
-
"The acknowledged intent behind the measure, as many who voted for it stated, is to block the use of Islamic law being used in making legal decisions here in the US."
They are trying to focus on one religious group. That's simply wrong IMHO.
We've had this discussion before. People IMHO should be entitled to freely draw up contracts, within reason, that both parties agree to in advance and sign. Whether the agreement is
based on Mormon Law, Christian Law, Jewish Law, or Sharia Law; if both parties agree that seems fair. If I'm Jewish and you are Jewish, and we both want a Rabbi to adjudicate our civil disagreement based upon Jewish Law, what's the problem if we both agree to abide by the agreement? It's similar to mandatory arbitration agreements in many contracts. Or a pre-nuptial agreement; that too supersedes usual state distribution laws and gives most if not all the money to one party. Again, it is perhaps "unfair", but it was agreed upon voluntarily in advance so what's the issue?
If you don't like the terms, don't do the deal.
-
Crafty's point is crucial IMO, Oklahoma's law referenced singled out a particular religion and was struck down. The Kansas law does not.
JDN says freedom you should have a freedom to freely draw up contracts; great idea, but that is not true in any other area of law. In housing, I cannot write provisions such as a longer term to return a deposit than is specified in state law if both parties agree, or set a faster, easier reversion process for default in mortgage in exchange for a lower interest rate if all parties agree. Loan sharks and usury are another example or prostitution and narcotics; you simply cannot do these deals.
If you want more freedom to make enforceable, consensual, private contracts, the starting point should be smaller government. Get active to oppose these laws but don't expect a court to strike them all down. MHO.
-
Doug, I understand your point, and I'm not an attorney, but if in many instances, mandatory arbitration hearings are allowed, prenuptial agreements are allowed, etc. so what is wrong with basing the agreement that was mutually agreed upon in advance allowing a binding third party "Judge" whether that "Judge" be an Arbitrator, a Rabbi's decision, a Priest's decision, or Sharia Law? Frankly, while I acknowledge your point, arbitration does not apply in those instances. But where it does.....
Worse, the KS law as are many of these new laws intent is to focus on Islam and Sharia Law. Because you and I don't agree with their rules, we wouldn't sign an agreement to be bound by them either. However if we were both Muslim, we might. But that doesn't make them "wrong" or "right". We simply have no "faith" in their rules therefore we wouldn't agree. But others do, just as you probably have faith in the Catholic rules and I have faith in the Lutheran rules.
As for religious laws, Halakha courts are already functioning within the legal system of the U.S. Jewish divorce cases are sometimes handled by the Beth Din of America, the Jewish Religious Court who can issue a Get or Jewish permission for divorce. “Under American law the procedures and rulings of Jewish law courts are treated just as any other produced by a legal arbitration hearing.”
Many, if not most of the contracts we sign on a daily basis have an Arbitration Clause. My doctor requires one, my insurance company, Credit Card Companies, Facebook, Apple Computer, etc.
In the United States, the federal government has expressed a policy of support of arbitration clauses, because they reduce the burden on court systems to resolve disputes. This support is found in the Federal Arbitration Act, which permits compulsory and binding arbitration, under which parties give up the right to appeal an arbitrator's decision to a court.
If I agree, but later I don't like it; well too bad. As Chief Justice Roberts says in a recent case, "Roberts steps in to say of arbitration that if you are "in for a penny, you're in for a pound. If you agree to arbitrate, then it's at least for the arbitrator to decide particular provisions, whether they are unconscionable."
No one is suggesting changing criminal laws. Only civil matters are addressed in Arbitration. Frankly, as noted, the courts push Arbitration.
I suppose if you simply say, "No Arbitration" that would be fine. But no state wants to do that; therefore IMHO this law is discriminatory focusing on Sharia Law. Therefore wrong.
-
Worse, the KS law as are many of these new laws intent is to focus on Islam and Sharia Law.
Lets be precise here. That is not what the article said. What it said was
"But an opponent said the bill's real purpose is to hold Islam out for ridicule."
I think, as has been amply illustrated and discussed on the US Sovereignty thread, and even in the SCOTUS thread (e.g. Justice Ginsburg's-- and other justices-- attitudes towards bringing int'l law into US law, even US C'l law) there is considerable basis for being concerned about progressivism seeking to sabotage American law and from what I know so far there is more than a rational basis for a law blocking non-American laws.
-
In this matter, the purpose IS to focus on Islam and Sharia Law. No one seems to deny that. Many lawmakers in KS have said specifically said that is why they passed the law. It's not an issue of sovereignty. It's anti Islamic.
For that matter, I don't think Sharia Law is a "non-American Law", rather it is one based upon religion.
Isn't Beth Din the same? Based upon Jewish Law?
We are talking civil matters here; what is the difference between if we both agree to let our Rabbi or Mullah or neighborhood Priest adjudicate our disagreement? Or if we mutually
agree to let our French next door neighbor Arbitrate our disagreement? Each has their own bias. But we agreed in advance; we knew that. That is the issue here; Binding Arbitration.
The true issue in KS or like OK before, isn't about foreign law or sovereignty, it's all about keeping Sharia Religious Law out. That, IMHO is discrimination.
-
Accepting your premise for a moment, the problem is the Sharia Law is anti-American in its values. It does not respect free speech, freedom of religion, legal equality between the sexes-- indeed the Koran describes how a husband may beat his wife etc and honor killings mean that the reality is that the freedom of contract you assume is a fiction-- and much more. Do they get to hack off a little girl's clitoris in the name of religious freedom? Do they get to deny her the right to go to school in the name of religious freedom? Do they get to beat (or kill!) their daughters for seeing non-muslim boys? These things are parts of Islam in some parts of the world, and some of them here.
For the record, I'd be against the Aztec religion (you know, the one that sacrificed humans to the Sun God) too
-
It's an emotional subject, but don't confuse criminal with civil; you know better than that. Further, you know arbitration law. My premise is correct. You, along with many other people
simply don't like Muslims; I acknowledge that there are valid reasons. That is your personal prerogative. However, they should have the same rights before the law in America as anyone else of any other faith.
As you point out, it may well be that terrible violence in the name of Sharia Law is allowed in "some parts of the world". But not here. Their country, their rules. In America, the "reality" is it's criminal to do honor killings, etc. Simply call the police; there is no "contract" or "arbitration agreement" that supersedes murder. That included Islam and the Aztec religion and any other religion for that matter. We make our own criminal laws. But you know that too therefore all those accusation of Islam violence in America because of Sharia Law are hyperbole.
The law is discriminatory.
-
JDN: My sense of this is that it is the sort of thing about which you will go on endlessly and in part not particularly responsively, so this will probably be my last post.
1) First and foremost, this law is about ALL foreign law, not just Sharia. Therefore it is not discriminatory. As I have already noted and various threads on this forum have discussed in more than a little detail, there is ample reason to be concerned forces within the American legal and political systems tying down and or replacing American law. In a democratic republic such as are, the people may do as they have done here and vote to block this. Just because you and the courts don't like that the final straw in this regard MAY have been the dislike of a particular form of law seeking to insinuate its way into our legal system, does/should not mean that the courts get to overturn the people's will.
2) Coincidentally enough, my wife was watching a FOX piece last night, "Honor Killings in America" with focus on a horrific case. One of the points the piece brought home was that with honor killings, typically many family members support the murder of their daughters and that the whole concept of honor killings only makes sense in the context of a community that shares the same values. In such a context, to pretend that a woman is voluntarily signing and arbitration agreement is simply quite disingenuous.
" the problem is the Sharia Law is anti-American in its values. It does not respect free speech, freedom of religion, legal equality between the sexes-- indeed the Koran describes how a husband may beat his wife etc and honor killings mean that the reality is that the freedom of contract you assume is a fiction-- and much more. Do they get to hack off a little girl's clitoris in the name of religious freedom? Do they get to deny her the right to go to school in the name of religious freedom? Do they get to beat (or kill!) their daughters for seeing non-muslim boys? These things are parts of Islam in some parts of the world, AND SOME OF THEM HERE."
What of a Sharia court "arbitrating" a domestic abuse case? Is it OK with you that the court say the husband has the right to beat his wife? How likely is a muslim woman in fear of her safety and/or fear of her daughter's safety, to hire a lawyer to legally challenge a pre-nuptial agreement specifying that marital and family matters are to be arbitrated a sharia court?
3) "You, along with many other people simply don't like Muslims; I acknowledge that there are valid reasons."
NO, there are many Muslims who are good people (they tend to disagree with certain tenets of Islam), people whom I like so please do NOT say that "You don't like Muslims". It is ISLAM and some of its anti-American values that I have profound problems with. I will go further and say that there are things about Islam that I do like.
I will add that Islam is not the only religion with which I have problems. For example, I have profound problems with the Catholic Church's many, many vast conspiracies protecting the pedophiles within its ranks-- conspiracies which apparently go to the highest levels of the Church's hierarchy.
4) "That is your personal prerogative."
And so it appears that you too think people have the right to discriminate , , , :lol:
-
America is a melting pot. If you come here Muslim or convert to Islam you have the same rights to participate in making our laws and to be governed by our laws as everyone else. The Kansas law quoted below really is saying what is already the law, you cannot contract away your constitutional rights and liberties.
Already well-answered, but the "simply don't like Muslims" comment was way out of line for people who truly believe in freedom of religion. That freedom ends at some of those extreme acts, already illegal here. I've read a lot of posts here and never found someone who opposed peaceful prayer because a person worships a different religion. The part of Islam we don't like is when and where they teach hatred, vow to destroy others and recruit their young to come kill us, forcing our response. That is NOT what this issue is about. (P.S. CINO: Catholic in name only, there is nothing Catholic or Christian about abusing children or covering it up, though most certainly it happened. They also are not entitled to be judged by a separate set of laws, prohibited in the Kansas law.)
Kansas House Bill (Substitute for SENATE BILL No. 79)
AN ACT concerning the protection of rights and privileges granted under
the United States or Kansas constitutions.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:
Section 1. While the legislature fully recognizes the right to contract
freely under the laws of this state, it also recognizes that this right may be
reasonably and rationally circumscribed pursuant to the state’s interest to
protect and promote rights and privileges granted under the United States
or Kansas constitution.
Sec. 2. As used in this act, "foreign law," "legal code" or "system"
means any law, legal code or system of a jurisdiction outside of any state
or territory of the United States, including, but not limited to, international
organizations and tribunals and applied by that jurisdiction’s courts,
administrative bodies or other formal or informal tribunals.
Sec. 3. Any court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency ruling
or decision shall violate the public policy of this state and be void and
unenforceable if the court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency
bases its rulings or decisions in the matter at issue in whole or in part on
any foreign law, legal code or system that would not grant the parties
affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights
and privileges granted under the United States and Kansas constitutions.
Sec. 4. A contract or contractual provision, if capable of segregation,
which provides for the choice of a foreign law, legal code or system to
govern some or all of the disputes between the parties adjudicated by a
court of law or by an arbitration panel arising from the contract mutually
agreed upon shall violate the public policy of this state and be void and
unenforceable if the foreign law, legal code or system chosen includes or
incorporates any substantive or procedural law, as applied to the dispute at
issue, that would not grant the parties the same fundamental liberties,
rights and privileges granted under the United States and Kansas
constitutions.
Sec. 5. (a) A contract or contractual provision, if capable of
segregation, which provides for a jurisdiction for purposes of granting the
courts or arbitration panels in personam jurisdiction over the parties to
adjudicate any disputes between parties arising from the contract mutually
agreed upon shall violate the public policy of this state and be void and
unenforceable if the jurisdiction chosen includes any foreign law, legal
code or system, as applied to the dispute at issue, that would not grant the
parties the same fundamental liberties, rights and privileges granted under
the United States and Kansas constitutions.
(b) If a resident of this state, subject to personal jurisdiction in this
state, seeks to maintain litigation, arbitration, agency or similarly binding
proceedings in this state and if the courts of this state find that granting a
claim of forum non conveniens or a related claim violates or would likely
violate the fundamental liberties, rights and privileges granted under the
United States and Kansas constitutions of the nonclaimant in the foreign
forum with respect to the matter in dispute, then it is the public policy of
this state that the claim shall be denied.
Sec. 6. Nothing in this act shall be construed to disapprove of or
abrogate any appellate decision previously rendered by the supreme court
of Kansas.
Sec. 7. Nothing in this act shall be construed to allow a court to: (a)
Adjudicate or prohibit any religious organization from deciding upon
ecclesiastical matters of a religious organization, including, but not limited
to, the selection, appointment, calling, discipline, dismissal, removal or
excommunication of a member, member of the clergy, or other person who
performs ministerial functions; or (b) determine or interpret the doctrine of
a religious organization, including, but not limited to, where adjudication
by a court would violate the prohibitions of the religion clauses of the first
amendment to the constitution of the United States, or violate the
constitution of the state of Kansas.
http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2011_12/measures/documents/sb79_01_0000.pdf
-
Doug, thank you for providing the text of the law. I assume Beth Din arbitration will now be prohibited as well. I am curious to see if this law
will be challenged in the courts and the outcome. Again, as in the OK case, I disagree with the opinion of others on this forum.
As for my comment, "simply don't like Muslims" I apologize. I was wrong. It was not my intent to imply a personal hatred by anyone. That said,
polls show, and as I said, perhaps for valid reasons, many, if not most Americans have a mistrust or dislike in general of Muslims.
As for the discriminatory nature of the law, as I pointed out twice before, numerous lawmakers in KS specifically said this law is pointed at
Sharia. I doubt KS state legislators are truly concerned about our sovereignty and international tribunals. "The Kansas law quoted below really is saying what is already the law, you cannot contract away your constitutional rights and liberties." That's a given; you don't need a new law to do that. But what we are really talking about, sorry to keep repeating myself, but there is a difference, is civil law and arbitration.
As for "honor killings" obviously it's wrong. Then again, killing is wrong therefore I assume the perpetrators in America were charged with a crime
and if found guilty, sent to jail for a long time. It's not different than any other murder or crime. Nor is it any different than any other woman
who fears for her life; she calls the police and gets a restraining order. Sometimes successful, and sadly sometimes not; it sadly happens in all
cultures and walks of life, perhaps more so in some cultures than others, but that never makes it right in America.
And yes, I do agree it is your personal prerogative to dislike Muslims (not saying you do; I apologized). That is discriminatory, but (perhaps we should move this to another forum where you said it's ok to discriminate) IMHO if I choose not to date Muslim women for example, or women with blond hair, but keep my choice to myself and thereby not affect anyone else or group with my discriminatory opinion, that's my choice. I may even prefer that my daughter marry a Christian rather than someone who is devoted to another faith. But when my opinion become public, rather than personal, and affects others than myself or family, be it at work or society in general, then I find that wrong.
-
"The Kansas law quoted below really is saying what is already the law, you cannot contract away your constitutional rights and liberties."
So the elected officials in Kansas took time to make illegal an illegal act? Is this the Department of Redundancy Department? Big government?
-
"But when my opinion become public, rather than personal, and affects others than myself or family, be it at work or society in general, then I find that wrong."
And illegal. Restating your proposistion here: We are free to think something as long as we don't say it. The First Amendment does not apply.
============
Riffing further with the phrase on which BD has key in:
""The Kansas law quoted below really is saying what is already the law, you cannot contract away your constitutional rights and liberties."" and therefore it is discriminatory and should be overturned by the courts.
-
Yes, redundancy is what I read into it also. Those of us who believe our rights have already been taken do not take our rights for granted. A current vote that the constitution still applies and our rights still exist is very far from the worst I see coming out of legislatures. I am not always quick enough to catch all of BD's insight or humor; if you see more than that written into the Kansas law, please advise.
The redundant "Department of Redundancy Department" lol
We have far worse here. I take my orders from the Department of Oxymorons.
-
IPT News
May 14, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3576/mainstream-islamist-group-attacks-law-enforcement
Few organizations in the United States have been as consistent in attacking law enforcement as the Muslim Public Affairs Council and its president, Salam al-Marayati.
Marayati, who attended last year's White House Iftar Dinner during Ramadan, has suggested that Muslim Americans are at war with both al-Qaeda and the FBI. "We in the Muslim American community have been battling the corrupt and bankrupt ideas of cults such as Al Qaeda," he wrote in October in the Los Angeles Times." Now it seems we also have to battle pseudo-experts in the FBI and the Department of Justice."
Marayati was incensed over reports that the FBI and one U.S. Attorney's office had used training materials "revealing a deep anti-Muslim sentiment within the U.S. government." One example was a 2010 presentation by an analyst working for a U.S. Attorney in Pennsylvania which warned of a civilizational jihad that is "waged today in the U.S. by 'civilians, juries, lawyers, media, and charities'" who "threaten our values."
Marayati warned that if U.S. law enforcement continues to use such "incorrect and divisive" literature, the "partnership" between Muslim Americans and law enforcement "will slowly disintegrate."
"Such baseless and inflammatory claims shall best be left to those few who share Al Qaeda's agenda," Marayati wrote. "In other words, the rhetoric of Al Qaeda and those law enforcement trainers are opposite sides of the same coin of hate."
But the concept of civilization-jihad is not something conjured up by a consultant as a pretext to oppress Muslims. During the 2008 Hamas-financing prosecution of five former officials of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), FBI Agent Lara Burns testified about a 1991 internal memorandum outlining the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood-connected "Palestine Committee" which was created to advance the Hamas agenda in the United States.
"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means," the memo read. "The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
The five HLF officials were convicted on all charges by a federal jury in Dallas and sentenced to long prison terms.
Despite its long record of attacking law enforcement efforts to protect the American people from jihadist violence, MPAC has gained influence within the Obama administration. The group's Washington office director, Haris Tarin, has frequently attended White House events, including its Iftar Dinner last Ramadan and President Obama's 9/11 Memorial at the Kennedy Center. In July, Obama personally telephoned Tarin to commend him for MPAC's work.
And in recent months, MPAC, working in tandem with other Islamist organizations, has repeatedly pushed in order to bend U.S. government policies to its will.
In February, MPAC joined the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and other groups in meeting with FBI Director Robert Mueller to discuss purportedly anti-Muslim materials in Bureau training manuals.
MPAC's website linked to an article which said the FBI had destroyed hundreds of terrorism documents in an effort to root out "Islamophobia." The purged materials included articles and PowerPoint presentations defining jihad as "holy war" and describing the Brotherhood's efforts to achieve world domination.
In April, MPAC and Muslim Advocates sprung into action after White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan expressed "his full confidence that the NYPD is doing things consistent with the law, and it's something that again has been responsible for keeping this city safe over the past decade."
MPAC responded to Brennan's statement with a call for "immediate public clarification" along with a threat. Much as Marayati did in the Los Angeles Times op-ed cited above, Tarin suggested Muslims would cease cooperating with law enforcement if surveillance policies were not changed to MPAC's satisfaction.
"There are plenty of robust partnership models that both communities and the government have invested in and those partnerships will be jeopardized if NYPD's current tactics are not halted, and its programs are not adjusted to more successful initiatives," Tarin warned.
Four days after MPAC laid down the law, the Obama administration caved and issued a clarification of Brennan's comments. The counterterrorism chief had "never approved of described press accounts of alleged NYPD surveillance," a White House official said.
In earlier comments praising the police department, Brennan "wasn't referring to the NYPD surveillance" that had come under attack from Islamist groups like MPAC and Muslim Advocates, the official added. "Rather, he was stating that everyone in the counterterrorism and law enforcement community must make sure we are doing things consistent with the law."
Non-Islamist Muslims like Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy are a top target of MPAC attacks.
A first-generation American Muslim whose parents fled Syria's Ba'athist dictatorship in the 1960s, Jasser served 11 years as a U.S. Navy medical officer. He believes that the jihadist terror threat cannot be addressed without addressing the role of "political Islam" as practiced by groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Jasser has called on Muslims to oppose people like Muslim Brotherhood-linked cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has said it is permissible to kill apostates, and Jamal Badawi of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), who has said apostates should be "punished." According to Jasser, the jihadists won't be defeated until Muslims start to realize that they are on a "slippery slope" toward radicalism.
This kind of talk has earned Jasser the enmity of groups like MPAC, which sent out a March "action alert" urging supporters to protest his appointment to the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), calling it "an affront to all Muslims." The group directed its Twitter followers to a petition circulated by Islamist groups, copying its claim that "Zuhdi Jasser does not belong on the USCIRF."
While it treats fellow Muslim Americans like Jasser with contempt and works to marginalize them, MPAC is frequently deferential to rogue states and terrorists.
Last month, it reposted an article suggesting that convicted terrorist Tarek Mehanna was only exercising his freedom of speech when he translated and posted al-Qaida recruitment videos, and that Muslims have the right to kill American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. The article, published in Britain's Guardian newspaper, was linked from MPAC's Twitter feed and Facebook page.
The writer, Marine veteran Ross Caputi, argues that Mehanna, "is being punished for his ideas, and the case against him stinks of a lynch-mob mentality." Describing Mehanna, now serving a 17-year prison term, as a "victim" of a " hysterical witch-hunt for 'radical' Muslims," Caputi agrees with the convicted terrorist "that much of what the US military has done in Iraq and Afghanistan can be characterized as terrorism, and I support Afghans and Iraqis who fight back against us."
In February, MPAC reposted on its Twitter and Facebook pages an article in which Iran's repressive regime gloated over the fact that an Iranian film won an Oscar, defeating an Israeli film in the same category.
In a Feb. 29 appearance on Russia Today's Cross Talk program, al-Marayati depicted Iran (which is flouting international law with its illicit nuclear-weapons program) as the victim in the current diplomatic crisis.
"With other countries, we utilize the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), we use multilateral instruments to deal with the nuclear problem," al-Marayati said. "In this case with Iran, there is no dialogue, there is (sic) no negotiations , it is all confrontational policies that is part of a war-mongering mentality here in the U.S. and they're just waiting for the tripwire and then the machinery of war will begin."
Al-Marayati also suggested that the United States was in trouble for doing "dirty work" for Israel.
"The other point here, which is very important historically, the United States has done a lot of dirty work that has served the interests of Israel," he said. "It destroyed Iraq. It supported the destruction and crippling of Egypt. It has crippled the Gulf. And now, it is looking to Iran as the next target for crippling and destroying. I think this is madness. Who is driving our foreign policy? President Obama or Prime Minister Netanyahu?"
MPAC officials have also appeared on Press TV, the Iranian regime's English-language propaganda outlet, at least six times since November 2010, always criticizing U.S. government policies or complaining about the plight of Muslims in the U.S.
MPAC has a history of excusing terrorist attacks against Americans and questioning U.S. government actions against terrorists and their financiers.
In a 1999 paper, it called Hizballah's bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, in which more than 280 American servicemen were killed as they slept, "a military operation, producing no civilian casualties – exactly the kind of attack that Americans might have lauded had it been directed against Washington's enemies." Other MPAC policy papers have criticized the presence of Hizballah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on the U.S. list of terror groups.
MPAC questioned Washington's targeting of U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida ideologue and facilitator of attacks against America. After Awlaki was killed in a Sept. 30 drone strike, MPAC rejected his message of violence while questioning his killing "without a trial and due process."
In 2001, MPAC blasted the Treasury Department for designating the HLF for its Hamas fundraising activities. It accused Washington of "taking food out of the mouths of Palestinian orphans" and "succumbing to politically-motivated smear campaigns by those who would perpetuate Israel's brutal occupation."
At a MPAC's December 2010 annual conference, senior MPAC official Maher Hathout portrayed critics of radical Islam as "Muslim bashers." Ignoring a slew of homegrown terror plots targeting the United States that year, Hathout tried to whitewash the connection between jihad and violence – even though terrorists themselves invoke Islam to justify their violent jihad.
"I am so protective of the word and concept of jihad," Hathout said. "We define what jihad is, not anyone else, and jihad has nothing to do with what they are talking about."
He made this comment shortly after Awlaki took to the pages of al-Qaida's Inspire magazine to argue that Western Muslims must wage violent jihad in order to topple non-believers.
-
Morris continues to flog his book, but the basic point is correct. Indeed, it fails to mention how Wahhabi money is the main source of funding for many/most? US mosques. Also, I did not realize the specifics of Saudi money tainting US academic integrity.
====================
In Screwed!, we reveal that the Saudi Monarchy, which we defended in the Gulf War with American blood, is the source of 90 percent of the global funding for radical Islamist mosques and schools throughout the world. Our oil dollars at work!
Lawrence Wright, author of the Looming Tower, estimates that the Saudis have spent $75 billion on spreading global jihad.
Dr. Sahr Muhammad Hatam, himself a graduate of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi schools, describes what they are like: “The mentality of each one of us was programmed upon entering the school as a child [to believe] that anyone who is not a Muslim is our enemy and that the west means enfeeblement, licentiousness, and a lack of values. Anyone who escapes this programming in school encounters it at the mosque or through the media or preachers lurking in every corner.”
In Screwed!, we lay out a plan to stop buying Saudi oil and to help the Europeans and Japan stop as well. We are at the cusp of genuine energy independence thanks technological breakthroughs in deep sea drilling and hydraulic fracking (where pressurized water is shot into shale deposits hundreds of feet below the surface, breaking up the rock and releasing oil and gas). U.S. oil production will increase by two million barrels per day and Canada will generate one million more by 2016. This increase will allow us to stop buying Saudi oil (we now buy one million barrels daily). We can also stop buying oil from Venezuela (one million), Algeria (400,000) and Russia (600,000).
So we can stop sending our oil money to our enemies in three years!
Notice how our campuses have become anti-Israeli? In Screwed, we explain how the Saudis stoke hatred for Israel by spreading their oil dollars around liberally. For example, Harvard gets $20 million from Saudi Arabia. In return, the University has established a Center for Middle Eastern Studies headed by Paul Beran, a dedicated opponent of Israel who has pushed the campaign to boycott its products and divest of its assets. Cornell gets $10 million, Georgetown gets $20 million, and British universities get $460 million – including $39 million to Oxford.
In Screwed!, read the full story of the Saudi threat to the West and our strategy for neutralizing their influence.
-
http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/nj-gov-christie-courting-islamist-cleric
-
http://pjmedia.com/blog/muslim-journalist-challenges-sharia-gets-accused-of-hate/?singlepage=true
-
A Top Cops Partner With Islamists
IPT News
June 1, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3603/la-top-cops-partner-with-islamists
Few local law-enforcement officials in the United States have proven themselves more Islamist-friendly than Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, whose department has been dogged by allegations of malfeasance in office, and the Los Angeles Police Department's top deputy handling counterterrorism issues, Michael Downing.
Downing has expressed a benign view of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian-based fundamentalist movement which seeks a global Islamic Caliphate as its ultimate objective. During a May 2011 town hall meeting, he acknowledged the group is operating in the United States, but his biggest concern was "not to demonize the Brotherhood here."
Downing has expressed a much darker view of American critics of Islamism and shariah law, suggesting they pose a threat analogous to that of Islamic jihadists. In remarks to the "Festival of Interfaith Unity" meeting last year, Downing railed against Shariah, the Threat to America, apparently referring to this book produced by the Center for Security Policy.
"One of my greatest challenges this year is this idea of two sides of extremism: The side of fanaticism and those who want to do violence on innocent people," Downing told attendees. "And the other side of the equation that want to instill fear in the hearts of the American people because they don't tell the truth."
Baca won adulation in 2010, when he testified before a congressional panel, exploding at a question about the wisdom of his close relationship with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization with documented ties to a Hamas-support network.
"CAIR is not a terrorist-supporting organization," he said. Anyone who says different is an "amateur intelligence officer."
He has equally warm views toward the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group which routinely minimizes the threat posed by Muslim extremists in the United States and criticizes FBI sting operations against would-be terrorists.
Baca praised MPAC boss Salam al-Marayati during a March 2010 town hall as "a great man of thinking and wisdom," telling him: "Thank you very much. You've been an incredibly important friend to me." Baca credited Marayati with "helping me improve my thinking."
Now those sympathies are being realized in policies which some veteran law enforcement officials warn are equally misguided.
Baca and Downing won plaudits from Islamist groups like CAIR and MPAC in recent weeks, with Downing getting praise for surveillance "reforms" that may limit law enforcement's ability to investigate suspected radical activity and Baca for making a deal with MPAC and like-minded groups on recruiting Muslim chaplains to work in county correctional facilities.
A retired federal law enforcement officer who consults with local police agencies expressed concern that the surveillance agreement between Downing and MPAC could have a "chilling effect" on monitoring radical activities. He noted that MPAC issued a statement claiming that "Any reporting of incidents by law enforcement on individuals or groups must be connected to criminal activity."
Pointing to the case of Nidal Hasan, who massacred 13 people at Fort Hood Texas in 2009, the retired official noted that radicals often try to avoid criminal activity before attempting to carry out acts of jihad. Prior to the rampage, Hasan's most troubling activities largely involved radical presentations to colleagues and postings on jihadist websites – activities protected by the First Amendment.
If the new rules agreed to by Downing have the effect of preventing investigations of such activities, "the results could be catastrophic," the retired officer told the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
Patrick Dunleavy, formerly a senior official with the New York State Corrections Department, says he is troubled by unanswered questions about vetting of jail chaplains as well as Baca's admission that he didn't know what was going on in jails he is responsible for overseeing.
Baca's department has been under investigation by the Justice Department and the FBI over inmate beatings and other misconduct by deputies. Adding to his troubles, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that Baca can be held personally liable because he was told about the jail violence and took no action to prevent it.
Baca complained that his commanders kept him in the dark about the problems. "I wasn't ignoring the jails. I just didn't know," he told the Los Angeles Times. "People can say, 'What the hell kind of leader is that?' The truth is I should've known."
Baca's administration of the jail "has been fraught with corruption and mismanagement of security," Dunleavy observed. "In light of the Justice Department investigation of systemic abuses, can we really trust his administration to conduct proper vetting of religious workers or volunteers?"
The sheriff needs to explain who should be responsible for vetting organizations and individuals who want to come into Los Angeles County jails to work with Muslim inmates, Dunleavy said. He noted that Baca has vehemently defended CAIR even though the FBI cut off relations with the group, saying "until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."
That decision was based on evidence including the presence of CAIR founders on an internal telephone list for a Hamas support network called the Palestine Committee, and CAIR's inclusion on a meeting agenda involving the committee's front organizations.
If Baca doesn't accept the FBI's word about CAIR, then "who will he accept? Would you accept the word of MPAC?" in deciding who is suitable to work with Muslim inmates, Dunleavy asked. Given the apparent disarray in Baca's department, unsuitable applicants could be "rubber stamped," he said. That's something he saw happen with Warith Deen Umar, former New York State Corrections department chaplain.
Baca's statements, including his rabid support for CAIR, raise questions about his ability to recognize radicals. He has included Iran on a list of Islamic countries that are not interested in supporting terrorism.
"The truth is that no Islamic country that I've been to" in the Middle East "is interested in supporting terrorism, including Iran," Baca said at a February 2011 MPAC Capitol Hill forum. The State Department has long expressed a very different view, calling it the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism."
At the MPAC forum, Baca stressed the need to work with Islamist groups as "our way of saying that Muslim Americans, at least in Southern California, are part of the protected fabric of America. "
These organizations had joined in forming a local "Congress" of Muslims, Baca said, alluding to the Muslim American Homeland Security Congress (MAHSC). The group's "core values" are "justice, moderation, education, peace and cooperation."
And Islamists in Southern California have embraced Baca. He "is our champion, is our hero in defending our country and in defending us against McCarthyism in our era," Marayati said at the same meeting.
Marayati's MPAC colleague, Maher Hathout, gushed that when Baca defended CAIR, "he actually was defending democracy of America."
Hussam Ayloush, director of CAIR's Los Angeles office, apparently quoting Baca's aggressive defense of CAIR in congressional testimony, stated: "These were amazing, amazing words. We commend the sheriff for standing up for American values. We commend him for that. I know he also stood for what protects our country. He refused to play politics into (sic) national security."
Like Baca, Downing, is also an advocate of "outreach" to Islamists. Speaking at an April 2011 LAPD-Muslim Forum, Downing boasted of his efforts to ignore the role of Islam as a motivating factor in jihadist efforts to attack the United States.
"I've been talking for 20 minutes and I never used the term 'radical Islam.' The terms that I use are 'violent extremists,'" Downing said. "You can be as extreme as you like. But when it turns violent, then it does break the law. And I did not use [the term] 'radical Islam.'"
Downing received MPAC's Community Leadership Award at its annual convention in December 2010. It "honors individuals and institutions whose relentless work has contributed to the empowerment of the Muslim American Community and the society at large," MPAC's Haris Tarin said. "It is this tireless work of these individuals and institutions who partner with MPAC on a daily basis that allow us to amplify and strengthen our message."
In the May 2011 interview in which Downing cautioned against demonizing the Brotherhood, he portrayed the group as a politically diverse organization, likening it to the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. "Just like Republicans and Democrats have a more conservative and more liberal [ideology], that's what we have" with the Brotherhood, he said.
Not everyone shares Downing's benign perspective regarding the Muslim Brotherhood's "diversity." Just days after he made these comments, it issued a statement in Arabic criticizing Osama bin Laden's death in a U.S. military operation as an "assassination" and hit the United States for not bringing the terrorist leader to trial. The same statement defended "resistance" (violent jihad) as necessary for innocent people to defend themselves against "oppression," as "is the case of the Palestinian people and Israel's Zionists."
Kemal Helbawy, at the time a senior Brotherhood official based in Britain, praised bin Laden and suggested he was falsely accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks, which Helbawy said were actually "planned" by Americans.
The Quilliam Foundation, a British research group dominated by former Islamists, said the reaction to bin Laden's death "is a reminder that the Muslim Brotherhood is a deeply problematic organization whose attitude to mass-murder and terrorism is problematic at best."
In Quilliam's view, the Brotherhood's "diversity" (touted by Downing) has been little more than a trick aimed at deceiving the West:
"Helbawy's statements are the latest example of senior Muslim Brotherhood members giving different messages to different audiences. When speaking to mainstream audiences Helbawy presents himself as a moderate reformer; when speaking to Islamists he praises Osama bin Laden. This doublespeak undermines trust between Muslims and non-Muslims and hinders genuine efforts to tackle extremism and terrorism."
Downing's comments came at a time when the Brotherhood behaved in an increasingly aggressive fashion, contradicting earlier assurances that it would not attempt to dominate Egypt politically. For example, after pledging not to contest more than a third of seats in Egypt's first free parliamentary election in more than 30 years, some Brotherhood officials spoke of targeting half or more of the seats in Parliament. There were also reports that the group would form an alliance with hard-line Salafist groups – which contrasted sharply with earlier talk of adopting a more moderate, inclusive approach.
Brotherhood representatives (who had previously indicated the organization would respect the peace accord with Israel) dropped the pretense of moderation. "The Egyptian nation believes that normalization of relations with the Zionist regime is among the most important issues which should be stopped completely," senior Brotherhood official Mohammed Habib told Iran's Fars News. "The Egyptian nation believes the Zionist regime is a danger threatening the national security of not just Egypt, but also other Arab countries."
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal traveled to Cairo in May 2011, where he visited the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters and sat shoulder to shoulder in a display of unity with Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, who said Egypt should move toward "continued unity against the 'Zionist' occupation."
It wasn't clear whether Downing was aware of any of this when he likened the Muslim Brotherhood's disinformation efforts to Democratic vs. Republican ideological battles in the United States. In the same interview, Downing boasts about his knowledge of the Muslim Brotherhood. But he seemed to have been caught off-guard by a question about a Muslim Brotherhood document about a "civilization jihad" aimed at "changing life as we know it" in the West.
Downing responded with a rambling discourse mentioning Brotherhood founder Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim Student Association and the fall of the Turkish Empire but ignored the substance of the question. At the 2008 terror-finance prosecution of five former officials of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, prosecutors introduced a 1991 internal memorandum outlining the agenda of the Brotherhood-linked Palestine Committee, which created to advance the Hamas cause in the U.S.
The document spoke of a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" in which Muslims in America work to advance "a kind of grand Jihad" aimed at "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."
Downing and Baca are not the only senior law-enforcement officials in the county who appear to have a soft spot for local Islamists. In October, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck met with Muslim community leaders, including Muzzamil Siddiqui, president of the Fiqh Council of North America. The council issued a fatwa, which appeared on the LAPD website, declaring that Muslims would respect U.S. law, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, "so long as there is no conflict with Muslims obligation for obedience to God."
-
Sent out today from ACT! for America:
What would happen to a business owner who failed to institute a safety policy and an employee was injured as a result? Asked another way, how quickly would a lawsuit be filed?
Muslim employees at a Minnesota business have gone to CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) asking for help in their opposition to just such a safety-inspired policy. (See the KSMP-TV story below.)
They claim the policy infringes on their beliefs.
But what if one of them got injured if the owner did NOT institute the safety policy? They would sue the owner!
A few years ago Muslim organizations in the UK protested a policy that required surgical staff to thoroughly sterilize up to their elbows. They protested because they said it required Muslim women to expose their arms.
The policy was rescinded. Accommodating unreasonable Muslim demands trumped sound public health policies, putting patients at risk.
Now these Minnesota Muslim employees are demanding that the business owner be put in an impossible situation—rescind the safety requirement and risk being sued if someone is injured, or keep the requirement and get slapped with a discrimination lawsuit.
LE CENTER, Minn. (KMSP) –
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/18716382/2012/06/06/burqa-ban-prompts-somali-walk-out-from-minn-business
More than 30 Somali employees walked out in protest of dress code changes at a privately-owned business in Le Center, Minn.
The former employees of Dianne's Fine Desserts claim a new uniform policy was instituted to force them off the job because of their Islamic beliefs.
The owner of the bakery, Mike Knowles, told the Faribault Daily News a woman's long dress recently got caught in a boot washer and the new guidelines were instated over safety concerns.
Knowles, who bought the business just 11 days before the accident, said the company leaders went out of their way to try to work with the Somali Community. Originally, they had recommended knee-high skirts but later agreed to boot-high or mid-calf skirts before making the policy public at a meeting on Friday.
On Monday, many devout women reported back to work in their full-length attire, saying the new dress code conflicts with their religious beliefs. They were then given the option adjust their skirt lengths or leave.
Eleven women walked out and were joined by about 20 Somali men.
The workers have asked the Council on American-Islamic Relations to intercede, and CAIR has previously helped 25 Muslim employees who were terminated in December 2010.
At the time, the business was called Dianne's Gourmet Desserts and was under a different owner who fired the employees after the break schedule was altered into conflict with employees' prayer schedule, but employees prayed anyway. A complaint was forwarded to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the workers were reinstated.
The walk-off has also been brought to the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union.
-
Conservatives for Shariah
Center for Security Policy | Jun 18, 2012
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East has caused many Americans to reflect on that group's stated ambition to impose worldwide the totalitarian,supremacist Islamic doctrine known as shariah. Particularly unsettling is evidence of the group's goal in America, namely of "destroying Western civilization from within," as documented in the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas in 2008.
But for some prominent conservatives, such facts are not just inconvenient. They - and any who point them out - must be denied, ignored or suppressed.
The latest examples involve a pair of articles published in two of the Right's most prominent online outlets: Townhall and National Review Online. The former recently distributed an essay by Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman (http://townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/2012/06/10/the_bogus_threat_from_shariah_law/page/2). He was joined on June 13 by Matthew Schmitz in NRO (http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/302280). Both caricatured the "bogus" threat of "creeping shariah" as a figment of the superheated imagination of its American opponents.
Schmitz went further, wrongly describing shariah as "not one rigid legal system but rather an immensely varied set of legal, cultural, and ethical understandings." In fact, shariah as practiced by mainstream Islam is, indeed, one very rigid legal system that has simply been enforced to varying degrees around the Muslim world. Its Brotherhood and other adherents are now aggressively seeking to impose conformity with all of its tenets in Egypt, in Iraq, in Indonesia and, in due course, here. Schmitz even went so far as to describe those determined to resist that last prospect as "anti-Muslim bigots" who are "undermin[ing] our national security."
Specifically, Messrs. Chapman and Schmitz find fault with those of us supporting state-level legislation aimed at countering stealthy civilization jihad in U.S. courts. It is known as American Law for American Courts (ALAC) - a statute already enacted in four states and under consideration in many more. ALAC prevents foreign laws, including but not limited to shariah, from being used in court to deny constitutional rights. Incredibly, the authors contend that such laws are a threat to religious freedom in this country.
Unfortunately, these pundits are not the only conservatives hostile to admonitions about shariah's advent in America. As documented in a new Center for Security Policy online curriculum entitled "The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within" (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com), some are actually enabling the Brotherhood's influence operations. This is done through sponsorship of its operatives, facilitating their access toother conservatives and promotion of their agendas.
Sadly, still other conservatives appear determined to remain willfully blind to such behavior. They have engaged in purges from some of the Right's conclaves. They have also sought to suppress warnings and assiduously deny that the Brotherhood is "inside the wire" - including, in at least one instance, a formal condemnation for raising the alarm.
The good news is that five leading Members of Congress have recently joined theranks of those determined to expose the Muslim Brotherhood's influence operations and counter their effect on government policy and the danger they pose to our Constitution and freedoms. They are: Rep. Michele Bachmann, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Chairwoman of the House Tea Party Caucus; Rep. Louie Gohmert,Vice Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security; Rep. Trent Franks, Chairman of the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on the Constitution a member of the House Armed Services Committee and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee's Oversight Subcommittee; and Rep. Tom Rooney, Deputy Majority Whip and member of the House Armed Services Committee.
In a joint press release (http://bachmann.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=299447) dated June 13, each of these influential legislators made clear their view that the Muslim Brotherhood represents a serious threat here in America. They expressed a determination to establish the nature and extent of the Brotherhood's "civilization jihad" inside the United States and to counter it.
To that end, the Members of Congress last week drew on evidence presented in the Center for Security Policy's course to ask the Inspectors General of the Departments of State, Judiciary, Defense and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to investigate the extent and impact of Muslim Brotherhood penetration of their agencies. They requested that the IGs provide their findings within ninety days.
In addition, Congressman Frank Wolf, Chairman of the House Appropriations State, Commerce and Justice Subcommittee, is pressing the Department of Justice toensure compliance with the FBI's stated policy of not dealing in non-investigative contexts with one of the Muslim Brotherhood's most notorious fronts, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). This effort took on even greater urgency in light of the revelation earlier this month by a White House official that the administration had had "hundreds of meetings" with CAIR.
Conservatives and other Republicans face, in short, a time of choosing. Are they going to ignore the real and present danger posed by shariah and its adherents like the Muslim Brotherhood? Will they therefore be recorded by history as having enabled, whether directly or indirectly, such stealthy threats to our republic and its government society?
Or are prominent conservatives going to help our countrymen of all political stripes understand the challenge we face and lead in developing and executing strategies for defeating it?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.
-
Jesus Akbar
Bill Warner - Center for the Study of Political Islam
Recently a Yale theologian, Miroslav Volf, came to a Christian school, Lipscomb University, and talked about how Islam and Christianity can live in harmony and respect. He is part of a new industry in America, Christians constructing beautiful lies about Islam. Fundamentally, he says that we all worship the same god.
Volf says, “one of the best ways for people of different faiths to get along is to study their scriptures together.”
If we want to get along, then looking at looking at scriptures is indeed a most excellent way to get to know each other. The problem is that the only scripture Volf wants to study is the Koran. Any time that someone wants to explain Islam by the Koran, you are dealing with someone who is ignorant or a deceiver.
The Koran proclaims in 91 verses that every Muslim is to model their life after the example (Sunna) of Mohammed, but the Sunna of Mohammed is found only in the Sira and the Hadith. The Koran is only 14% of the Islamic sacred texts. Mohammed, not Allah, is 86% of the textual doctrine. Volf, however, ignores Mohammed and only wants to talk about Allah. There is a very good reason for this. Allah is so conveniently abstract that he can construct his Allah-equals-the-Trinity-god by cherry-picking verses and muddle through as if he were in a dormitory philosophy bull session.
While Volf is comparing scriptures, he should point out that the Koran says that Jesus of the Bible is a fraud and that the Gospels, Psalms and Torah are corrupt. That inconvenient Koranic detail was not mentioned.
Volf ignores a 1400 year history of Islam and Christianity and all other religions. The jihad doctrine found in the Koran is the foundation for the murder of 270 million Kafirs (non-Muslims, including Christians). He also ignores the over 18,000 Islamic terror attacks since September 11, 2001. Why refer to a 1400 year history of continuous persecution if it gets in the way of your arguments? What are ugly facts in the face of a beautiful lie?
Volf: Two faiths, worshipping the same God, can work toward the common good under a single government.
Hello, the only government that Allah wants is the Sharia. The place for Christianity and Judaism in the Sharia is as the dhimmi, a semi-slave. History is very clear that when the Sharia is put into place, Christianity dies. It takes centuries, but Christianity is annihilated. Christianity can survive Communism and Nazism, but it cannot survive the Sharia. When Islam invaded what is now Turkey and installed Sharia, it was 100% Christian. Here is a graph of what Sharia law did to the Christian population.
Volf : Allah offers a constructive way forward by reversing the “our God vs. their God” premise that destroys bridges between neighbors and nations, magnifies fears, and creates strife.
Mohammed, the prophet of Allah, did not just destroy bridges, he destroyed civilizations. Mohammed attacked each and every neighbor until the day he died. That is the Sunna of Mohammed (perfect example of a sacred life). After he died, his Companions (Abu Baker, Umar and Uthman) followed his Sunna just as he demonstrated, and they killed Christians as fast as they could and placed them under Sharia law as dhimmis. By the time the Companion caliphs died, they had destroyed the classical civilization of the Greeks and Romans that was the matrix of Christianity. The classical church in the Middle East with its incredible variety of Christianity was annihilated by Mohammed and his personal students of jihad. The Christianity of today is a stump of the Christianity of the year 630 AD when jihad began. Whole forms of early Christianity were annihilated by Islamic jihad.
And the Koran spoke wonderfully of Mohammed’s jihad. In the Koran written in Medina, about 24% is devoted to “fighting in Allah’s cause”, jihad.
Volf said, “Faith is often misused for political ends, which frequently leads to violence.”
Mohammed preached the religion of Islam for 13 years and garnered 150 converts. After he turned to politics and jihad and when he died every Arab was a Muslim. It was politics and jihad which made him successful.
The moral demand on Muslims is to practice jihad, deceive Kafirs and impose Sharia law. Islamic morality is dualistic. Islamic ethics have one set of rules for Muslims and a second set of rules for Kafirs. Ethics based on the Golden Rule have only one set of rules.
Thick spirituality, Volf said, is faith combined with morality, which treats all people as equal in God’s sight.
Yet we have Allah who hates Kafirs and who does not have a Golden Rule. Only the Golden Rule makes people equal in God’s sight. Allah denies the Golden Rule. Go ahead, plow through the Koran and find the Golden Rule. Do the same for the Sira and the Hadith. No, the way Mohammed treated you depended upon who you are. A Muslim is treated well, and a Kafir is treated to murder, rape, enslavement and deceit.
A religion of the Golden Rule can lead to peace. A religion of jihad and political Sharia leads to war. Islam will not admit to any fault or take any credit for 270,000,000 dead over the last 1400 years. Look at Islamic Turkey—Turkish Muslims murdered a million Armenians in 20th century, but will not admit to this annihilation and genocide.
Lipscomb professor David Fleer, one of the conference organizers, said that Volf’s experiences in Yugoslavia and his scholarship made him the perfect speaker to address how religion and reconciliation intersect. “He set forth the theological foundation for us,” Fleer said.
Exactly why is this man an expert? An expert is made only by studying the Sira, Hadith, Koran and Sharia—not his zip code. There is one, and only one criteria for being expert on Islam—knowledge about Allah and Mohammed. Volf only talks about Allah.
But the real tragedy is that a religion professor thinks that Volf’s inventions are a solid foundation. Contemporary Christian and Jewish theology has become mere philosophy and has its foundation in Leftist social justice doctrine, not scriptures.
Volf said one of the keys to people of different faiths getting along is for each side to admit that those of other faiths are real members of the community. “It’s not just creating space for them physically,” he said. “You have to create space for them in your own cultural self-perception.”
But Islam insists that Kafirs are not part of the umma (Islamic community) which is pure Islamic doctrine. There are 11 verses in the Koran that say that a Muslim is not even the friend of a Kafir, much less a member of the community.
Islam comes into our civilization and demands the political Sharia. Notice that the accommodation is that we submit to the political Sharia and we have to create a space for it in our culture. And the political Sharia has a definite space for the Kafir, called dhimmi. What is disgusting is that Volf makes submitting to political Sharia seem like a blessing to us and our country.
There is a certain class consciousness in the article, Volf’s Yale elitism is all over the copy. Why is it that the elites are such believers? Why do those who understand the threat of Islam and Sharia called “haters” by the media? The elites control the venue. There is no space in the print media, except for Islam and its apologists. The knowledgeable opposition never gets to debate, is never invited to the party. The elites have ruled that the only views that are legal are Muslims and apologists. Those who disagree are immoral bigots and Islamophobes.
Here is the final test of the “we-all-worship-the-same-god” school of theology. What was the last time that a Christian yelled, “Jesus Akbar” before he blew himself up? What was the last time that a Muslim yelled, “Allahu Akbar”, before he murdered a Kafir?
Sure, all gods are the same.
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
Permalink https://www.politicalislam.com/blog/a-kafir-brotherhood/
copyright (c) CBSX, LLC, politicalislam.com
-
How do you win a war, When you Have no Answers?
May 2, 2012
By admin
Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, and the rest of the FAILED “moderate Islam” campaign.
For over 10 years I have been speaking out against the threat of Islam. When I first started though, I remember numerous non-Muslims telling me that I should not say Islam itself is the problem. To use the term “Islamofascism” (which I admittedly did use for a short period of time), or “radical Islam”. Another popular term is “Islamism”. I did not really care for using the term “Islamofascism”, as in the back of my mind I knew Islam itself was the problem.
After a short while I decided to go against the wishes of many friends and go with the truth. The truth being that Islam itself is the problem. My line of thinking is, how can we defeat an enemy if we cannot even bring ourselves to name that enemy? Now it is over a decade later and the situation with Islam in America has gotten worse, much worse.
There is some good news though, and that is that the voices of non-Muslims are on the rise. But after that there is a major problem. The voices of most of the “leaders” on this issue do not get to the root of the problem, and have no real long term answers. Apparently the best they can do is continue to fantasize about “moderate” Muslims/Islam coming to the rescue. Ignoring the fact that “moderates” did not save Europe and that more and more aspects of Sharia are seeping into America. In other words, what is being done is not working.
As many of you know, for over a year I have been exposing the weak kneed stance of the “leaders” of ACT!, their support of so called “moderate” Muslim Zuhdi Jasser, and Muslim immigration. Unfortunately ACT! is not the only cheerleader of Jasser. There are other big names in this battle that are also living in the “moderates” are going to save the day fantasy.
5. Clarion Fund: Over a year ago they asked me to remove them from my email list. I asked them why, and they never responded. Here is what they have to say about Jasser.
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser Founder and President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). Jasser is a devout practicing Muslim practicing internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix. He is the immediate-Past President of the Arizona Medical Association.
Reading such a comment leads me to believe that they are ignorant on Islam itself. Because Muslims want Sharia. I receive occasional emails from their founder Raphael Shore. I politely asked him if he has ever read a Koran and Sahih Ahadith. He will not respond. I guess the truth is too much for them to deal with.
4. Walid Phares: Sometime within the last year he defriended me on Facebook, and then ran to the hills when I asked why he did so. Phares is frequently on the news, but is another one who has his Jasser pom poms out. Only Phares is so foolish, that he actually wants Jasser who tries to cover for Islam, in our government.
(Click on picture to enlarge)
Just what we need….Jasser getting more politicians to believe that Islam itself is not the problem, and “moderates” are coming to the rescue.
3. Steve Emerson: Emerson does a good job exposing the threat of Islamic terrorism, but does not seem to have any long term answers on the legal jihad that is taking place across America. Earlier I stated that ACT! was in favor of Muslim immigration. Emerson is no better, as he even supports Mosques being built is America!
Steve Emerson: Jasser is a Muslim. Though he opposed the proposed Ground Zero mosque, his record and that of his family has been in helping build mosques in Wisconsin and Arizona.
Maybe Emerson and the rest of the Jasser cheer leaders would like to explain how adding more Islam is going to help defeat Islam?! Oh I forgot, I am not supposed to say Islam itself is the problem….
2. Daniel Pipes: Looking at Pipes we see the ultimate failure of the “moderate” Muslim campaign.
Calling Islamism the Enemy
by Daniel Pipes
December 1, 2001
President Bush and others were properly careful not to foster or be seen as fostering the idea that Islam—a faith observed by more than one billion people across the world—was our enemy.
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
November 23, 2004
There is good news to report: The idea that “militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution” is finding greater acceptance over time.
We also see that Pipes does not care that he is misleading America, as he is carrying the same message today!
APRIL 20, 2012 12:00 A.M.
Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes has said, “The problem is radical Islam. The solution is moderate Islam.”
1. The Capo of the “moderate” Muslim campaign,Mr Frank Gaffney himself. Gaffney has been telling America that “moderates” are coming to the rescue since at least 2007.
Frank Gaffney, one of the summit panelists and the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, was the most explicit proponent of this view. Gaffney used Ronald Reagan’s strategy in bringing down the Berlin Wall as a model for how we should engage the Muslims today, saying that, like Reagan’s empowerment of natural allies within Communism, “we must empower our allies within Islam.”
Well Frank, those within Islam stand with Islam.
In 2008 Frank had presented his “hero” Jasser with a “Defender of the Home Front” award. Under Gaffney’s and Pipes’ watch things have gotten worse, much worse.How much more of America has to be changed to suit Islam, before Gaffney and his puppets stop misleading America?
Gaffney also makes the following bold statement:
Gaffney replied that such wasn’t the case and that he knows that there are millions of Muslims who don’t want to live under sharia — Muslims who came to the U.S. to get away from sharia-based governments.
So Frank, are you saying that about half the Muslims here do not want it? (Technically if they do not want Sharia they have apostated, but I will give you a pass on that for now.) Where is your proof? You are starting to sound like a Muslim sympathizer like ACT!’s Guy Rodgers.
What is so ludicrous about the “moderate” Muslim campaign is that it is being lead by mostly non-Muslims. Did any of the above ever ask themselves why Jasser spends so much time with non-Muslims, instead of Muslims?
I proudly stand with colleagues Pamela Geller and Mr. Spencer on the issue of “moderate Islam”.
Pamela Geller: I have long derided the “moderate Islam” meme as a theory with no basis in reality or history. It’s wishful thinking, dangerous, and suicidal.
Robert Spencer:I recently participated in a FrontPage Symposium, “The World’s Most Wanted: A ‘Moderate Islam,’” about that great unicorn in which everyone believes and depends upon but which no one has ever actually seen, moderate Islam. (R.S.)
I entitled this article “How do you win a war, When you Have no Answers?” because, “moderate” Muslims/Islam is not an answer. It is a fantasy! Either we end up dealing with Muslim immigration, and Islam, or it is just a matter of time until we lose this war. As they will never stop pushing.
Coming up next on Logan’s Warning: Europe: The Rise of the Anti-Islam Campaign… something Gaffney and his friends might want to pay attention to.
-
Islam itself is NOT the problem.
"In his speech on November 27th, Pope Urban used highly abusive language when referring to the Muslims, calling them an 'acursed race' who defiled holy places and abused Christians. He implored the men of Europe to leave their families and possessions and go to the Holy Land to fight for its liberation from Muslim control. If they did so, they would become a living sacrifice to God. He promised that God would grant them a full remission of their sins if they died while on crusade.
The results of the Pope's call had quick and long lasting results. Filled with zeal at the prospect of liberating the Holy Land and motivated by the promise of instant entry into heaven, thousands of men responded to the call. A series of crusades were sent to the Holy Land. It was an orgy of killing. Emperor Alexius had hoped only a few mercenary troops would be sent, however, the enormity of the response created new problems as Alexius was unable to keep the Crusaders under his control.
After short-lived 'people's crusades' which only succeeded in turning the opinion of Eastern Christians against the Western ones, the First Crusade succeeded in conquering Jerusalem and setting up four small Christian states. After these initial successes, the Crusader's fortunes dwindled until they lost the Holy Land entirely."
-
JDN:
I strongly disagree. There are no present-day Christian crusades (which were, by the way a justified response to MUSLIM aggression which threatened to eradicate Christendom at the time) - and there is nothing in either the Old or New Testaments which exhorts believers to "slay the unbelievers wherever you find them." Clearly you have not educated yourself on the Qu'ran, aHadith, and Sira if you are drawing any sort of moral equivalency between Christianity or Judaism and Islam.
-
I agree, there are no "present day Christian crusades". But did you read the promises the Pope made? No virgins, but He promised that God would grant them a full remission of their sins if they died while on crusade. It was an orgy of death. Yet I don't hold all Christians to blame.
I am not "trying to draw any moral equivalency between Christianity or Judaism and Islam." I am merely pointing out that I disagree with your article; IMHO Islam itself is NOT the problem. Radicals in any religion are the problem.
And you are right, I know little of the Islamic books, nor am I particularly interested, but I do know my Bible.
Maybe you couldn't find them, but here a just a few passages saying, "slay the unbelievers wherever you find them." I found a lot more, the number was rather overwhelming. :-)
Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)
Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)
If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)
-
JDN:
If you have no interest in learning about these books you are by definition willfully ignorant about Islam. If you educated yourself, you would see that the article I posted is 100% correct.
As far as your Old Testament citations, I misstated my point - what I meant to say is that there is currently no major Christian denomination or Judaic one, for that matter - which teaches that it is the duty of Jews or Christians to go out and murder unbelievers. EVERY major school of Islam teaches this. This is a simple fact.
You ARE, btw drawing a moral equivalency when you point out "atrocities" committed by Christians in the past as evidence that Islam itself is not the problem we face. Any "Muslim" who is not following Sharia is an apostate - which btw, according to Islamic teaching of ALL major schools - carries the death penalty.
You sir are speaking from ignorance.
-
JDN, Where you find a couple of apparent contradictions in translation from the words written thousands of years ago, I notice you did not quote "Thou Shalt Not Kill" written / spoken with extreme clarity, the contradictions today are resolved in Judeo-Christianity 100% on the side of peace. Islam needs to do that. I don't know how.
Either way, we are not at war with a billion people. Only with those at war with us.
-
Perhaps you are missing the point.
Islam is not the problem we face. Most, millions upon millions of Islamics are peace loving. I think it is you, not I, who is speaking from ignorance if you criticize all Muslims.
And yes, you did and continue to mistake your Biblical point; while "currently, no major Christian denomination or Judaic one, for that matter - which teaches that it is the duty of Jews or Christians to go out and murder unbelievers" those versus are in the Bible which as Christians we hold as true.
Yet as I have posted elsewhere, I like to think that Christians and most religions have "progressed". Islam's progress seems a little slower. :-)
Doug, "In the Bible, thou shalt not kill" in many cases doesn't seem to apply to non believers. According to God that seems to be the exception. However, I do understand your point.
I also agree, there is no reason to hate or be at war with a billion people, i.e. Muslims; only those individuals or specific groups at war with us. That is exactly my point too.
-
JDN and DougMacG:
NOWHERE did I state that all Muslims are the problem or that we are or should be at war with all Muslims. Neither did the article which I first posted which started this discussion. ISLAM is the problem. Clearly there are many who consider themselves Muslim who are not inclined to follow Islamic law. However - Islamic jurisprudence is what it is - and by definition re: The Qu'ran, aHadith and Sira - it is NON-SUBJECT to revision or change. This is what both of you are missing and why I say that anyone who believes in a "Moderate Islam" is ignorant and/or living in fantasy land. There is no such thing. Yes - there are peace-loving Muslims, but they are not the problem. As a good friend of mine says - they are infinitely superior morally to the man who - again by Islamic definition - is the supreme model of moral behavior - the "prophet" Muhammad.
ISLAM teaches that there are only three ways to deal with infidels: 1) Forced conversion to Islam 2)Permanent "dhimmi" or second-class status with no equality to Muslims in society in terms of treatment of the law, or 3) Payment of the "jizzya" or "infidel tax" which in effect accomplishes #2. There are no other options.
There are also NO MOSQUES that teach this so-called "moderate Islam." Not all of those calling themselves Muslim may be aware of these mandates, or wish to impose them on the rest of the world - but this IS official Islamic doctrine. Therefore Islam IS the problem. Not "Islamofascism" or " Islamic extremism" or "Islamic terrorism." Islam is the problem - just as Nazism and Communism are problems intrinsically. They are anti-freedom, anti-individualist totalitarian ideologies. Referring to "moderate Islam" is as laughable as speaking of "moderate Nazism." It not only doesn't exist - it never has.
-
Ojjectivist1; perhaps it is semantics, but, they are the same, because people who believe in Islam are called Muslims. Islam is a religion while Muslims are people who believe in it. "The followers of Islam are called Muslims. For example those who follow Christianity are called Christian and those who follows Buddhism are called Buddhists."
The terms are inseparable.
Your misleading and IMHO untrue article that you posted goes to great lengths trying to prove that there cannot be a moderate Islam; aka a moderate Muslim; I beg to differ.
You posted:
"Gaffney also makes the following bold statement:
Gaffney replied that such wasn’t the case and that he knows that there are millions of Muslims who don’t want to live under sharia — Muslims who came to the U.S. to get away from sharia-based governments.
So Frank, are you saying that about half the Muslims here do not want it? (Technically if they do not want Sharia they have apostated, but I will give you a pass on that for now.) Where is your proof? You are starting to sound like a Muslim sympathizer like ACT!’s Guy Rodgers.
I proudly stand with colleagues Pamela Geller and Mr. Spencer on the issue of “moderate Islam”.
Pamela Geller: I have long derided the “moderate Islam” meme as a theory with no basis in reality or history. It’s wishful thinking, dangerous, and suicidal."
While you say, "there are NO MOSQUES that teach moderate Islam, that there are "no other options", I find it incongruent that the majority of the billion Muslims, followers of Islam are peace loving and moderate. They are not our enemy.
Just like there are many Christians and Jews who choose not to follow strict old testament law. I am one of those; I consider myself a Christian, a follower of Christianity, a "moderate" so to speak versus old testament fire and brimstone. I have devoted Jewish friends who also don't follow all the original rules. No different than a moderate Muslim who is a follower of Islam but perhaps doesn't insist that one's arm be cut off for stealing.
Bottom line? Islam is NOT the problem. Nor is being a Muslim - a follower of Islam. Only radical elements; specifically as Doug pointed out, "those at war with us".
-
I think I've made my point as clearly as is possible in my previous post. Either you accept that Islam inherently teaches these things or you don't. If you don't - you are clearly ignorant of the holy books of Islam, Islamic jurisprudence, and the teachings of every major school of Islam on the planet.
I didn't say that there can NEVER BE a "moderate Islam," only that it doesn't exist now. Frankly, given the fact that all current Muslim leaders agree that there can be no deviation from the current teaching - I am not optimistic about this "moderate Islam" developing any time soon. Did the world wait for a "moderate Nazism" to evolve? No - any rational person at the time thought that - rightly - to be suicidal.
And make no mistake - Islam is not simply a religion - it is a comprehensive totalitarian ideology dictating every aspect of its subjects' lives and governance. It is a socio-political system every bit as much as Communism or Nazism. That you fail to understand this is simply illustrative of your ignorance of the subject.
Therefore we are left with the simple fact that Islam itself is the problem. Conflating the explicit official teachings of Islam with those who call themselves Muslims but in fact may be either entirely ignorant of these teachings or simply practicing taqiyya - an official doctrine of sanctioned deception to infidels - is simply not valid.
As I said before - there is no mainstream Christian or Jewish denomination that teaches the inherent incompatibility of individual freedom with its doctrine. Islam does EXACTLY THIS. Until you understand the nature of Islam and its explicit teachings - for example that approximately 85% of the Qu'ran deals with how to treat UNBELIEVERS - not Muslims - and it isn't pretty - you will continue to labor in your fog of ignorance. I find it amazing that there is such resistance among those who claim to want to defend individual freedom to learning about a doctrine - Islam - that is diametrically opposed to that principle.
Frankly, it is eerily analogous to the behavior of the Jews in Germany who chose to live in denial of what Hitler had in store for them until it was too late. At least they could be partly forgiven due to the fact that Hitler did not openly advertise his "final solution." Muslim leaders around the world ROUTINELY call for the annihilation of Israel and the United States.
-
Objectivist1; I too think I have made my point clearly as possible; that you choose to blindly ignore that the majority of one billion followers, the 100's of millions of of Muslims that follow Islam are law abiding peaceful people refutes your "logic". Only the radicals, those very few as a percentage wage war on us, are deemed to be our enemy. Or do these these hundreds of millions of peace loving moderate followers of Islam "continue to labor in a fog of ignorance" too? :?
Islam itself is NOT the problem; that is the only "fact" on the table. Followers of Islam, Muslims have equal rights, no more no less than all Americans. Further, they are deserving of the same respect. Obviously you disagree. Let's leave it there. Your arguments have become absurd and illogical.
-
Daniel Greenfield, on his excellent blog "Sultan Knish," makes my earlier point that Islam itself is in fact the problem eloquently below:
"A Dark and Vengeful God"
Daniel Greenfield - Wednesday, June 20, 2012
At the beginning of Sweeney Todd, the chorus of his murdered victims sings, "He served a dark and a vengeful god." In Egypt, an Islamic Sweeney butchered his wife after an argument, cut her up and sold her mutilated body as lamb chops.
Around the same time as Mohammed Sweeney was selling pieces of his wife to customers stocking up on meat before Ramadan, Egyptian voters made their own offering to the dark and vengeful god by voting for Mohammed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose offshoots such as Hamas and Al-Qaeda have a murder toll that beggars anything the real or fictional Sweeney could have aspired to.
Morsi's election platform was ending the last light of freedom in Egypt by implementing full Islamic law and in a country where 84 percent believe that heretics should be killed, 82 percent believe that adulterers should be stoned and 77 percent believe that thieves should have their hands cut off, the candidate of Allah, the dark and vengeful god of Islam, was bound to win any democratic election.
As a god, Allah does not appear to be much of a lifegiver. Egypt has six times the infant mortality rate of the "Zionist Entity", five times that of the "Great Satan" and ten times that of the Japanese infidels. Indeed the country with the world's highest infant mortality rate is the devout home of the Taliban, Afghanistan, which has an infant mortality rate that is 50 percent higher than Rwanda.
Is Sharia law going to bring Egypt's infant mortality rate closer to that of Japan or Afghanistan? It isn't any good at that, but it will be good for beheading all sorts of people that the followers of the dark and vengeful god disprove of. Beginning with heretics.
Indonesia just sentenced a man to 2 years in jail for writing, "Allah doesn't exist" on Facebook. Thanks to Western innovation, Indonesia has Facebook. But it also has blasphemy laws, because if people started doubting the dark god, they might start asking why Indonesia has an infant mortality rate that is 13 times that of neighboring Singapore.
It's not that the Muslim world doesn't have doctors. They just tend to be doing other things, like Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a surgeon and the leader of Al-Qaeda; Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a surgeon and co-founder of Hamas; Dr. Fathi Shaqaqi, the co-founder of Islamic Jihad; and Dr. Abdel Rantissi, a pediatrician and co-founder of Hamas, who boasted, "We will kill Jews everywhere."
Who has the time to waste on pediatrics when you worship a dark and vengeful god who gave you a mission to kill as many infidels as possible? The only infant mortality rates they care about are the ones that they inflict.
The Taliban in North Waziristan, Pakistan have offered to allow polio vaccinations for their children only if the drone campaign against terrorists ends. This isn't the first time that Muslim terrorists have used children as human shields, though perhaps it's the first time that they used 161,000 children as human shields. The human shield principle depends on the Muslim knowledge that we care more about their children than they do.
Pakistan has nuclear weapons and an infant mortality rate that is higher than that of Haiti, the Congo, Papua and some of the poorest and most desperate places in the world, as does Egypt.
The Egyptians could have gone into this election asking themselves why an Israeli child across the border is six times more likely to survive his birth than one of their children is. Instead they went into the election asking themselves how they could see more people beheaded for questioning their dark god. If they gave any thought to evening up the difference in infant mortality rates in the 264-mile distance between Cairo and Jerusalem, it was only by invading Israel or by supporting Hamas terrorists.
That is how followers of a dark and vengeful god think. They don't wonder how they can save the lives of their children, but how they can even the cosmic score by taking the lives of someone else's children. They don't think in terms of making their lives better, but their minds are fixed on the dark goal of making other people's lives worse.
Sweeney Todd was his own dark and vengeful god. So is Islam. Todd killed in his own name and Islam kills in its own name. Draw a mocking cartoon of Mohammed or burn a Koran and in a few hours there will be blood spilled in the streets of Muslim cities. Most of it will be their own blood, but that is what happens when you worship the dark and vengeful god inside you. When you bow before the rage churning in your own heart, then your sacrifice yourself to the hatred within.
Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, presented a slideshow explaining Jihad with the words, "We love death more than you love life." "The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them," Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah proclaimed. "We are going to win, because they love life and we love death." “We love death,” Adis Medunjanin, convicted of plotting to bomb the New York City subway, screeched at a 911 operator. "You love your life! There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger!”
When you worship death, then loving life becomes a sin, a blasphemy against the god of death whose worship is death.
"The Jihad is our way and death for Allah is our most exalted wish" are the words of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement at the top of the Egyptian power pyramid, which is as obsessed with death as the ancient Pharaohs were. But the pyramids that the Muslim Brotherhood and other Muslim groups construct are not tombs, but pyramids of corpses-- giant funerary chambers of bodies, those of their own Muslim martyrs and those of their non-Muslim victims, to transport themselves to paradise.
"Sweeney wishes the world away, Sweeney's weeping for yesterday," the chorus sings, "Hugging the blade, waiting the years, hearing the music that nobody hears." But these days everyone can hear the music and feel the blade. The Muslim Brotherhood has been waiting for years to cut away the world and bring back the golden oldies of yesteryear. The greatest hits collection of albums from the invasions and subjugations, the genocides and exterminations of non-Muslims around the world.
Cults of death don't look to the present or the future, they look to the past, to the realm of the dead. They worship it and plot to bring it back. They despise the vitality of the living and the future, choosing instead the dirt and ash of the grave, the poisonous hatreds that never die, living on long after Mohammed rasped his last breath after telling his followers to drive out Christians and Jews from the Arabian Peninsula.
Why bother lowering infant mortality rates when you can bring back the glorious past? Why care about the infants at all if their only purpose is to die in the way of Jihad? So what if they die when they're a few days old, instead of twenty years old. It saves time and their martyrdom can be blamed on the West, which is the source of all ills.
"The Prophet said, 'A single endeavor of fighting in Allah's Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it.'" And that includes the children. It includes skyscrapers, paintings and books. It includes life itself. And then what's left except death?
By voting for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian people proclaimed that they love death more than life, that they love death more than the lives of their children. The ancient worshipers of Moloch passed their children between the flames, and the modern worshipers of Allah pass their children between the flames of Jihad.
The Egyptians have joined the Tunisians in the democracy of death, at the dark altar of the ballot box into which they drop their offerings that say, "We love death. More than life. More than our children. More than thoughts, books, freedom and civilization." And the world still does not understand what it is witnessing behind the outpourings of propaganda, the jubilant mobs and the analysts spluttering on behind the plastic desks and glowing logos of cable news shows.
It is easy to analyze politics but difficult to analyze evil. Talk about a cult of death has no place in the modern world, where it is a firm article of faith that everyone wants two turkeys in every pot and a car in every Cairo garage. Every intelligent person knows that all religions are the same. That democracy is good because all people are good. Leaders like Mubarak may be bad, but an entire people can't be bad. All religions celebrate life, and no matter how often they say, "We love death while you love life", they can't possibly mean it.
But what if they do? What if the dark and vengeful god that the vast majority of Egyptians want to see executing blasphemers and mutilating thieves has been set loose by the ballot box? What if Allah is the dark half that civilized people and governments keep locked away. The part that tells butchers to chop up their wives and sell them to their customers, that tells merchants to turn into bandits, that tells Meccans to rape the wives of their neighbors and that commands a thousand other atrocities?
What if all our democracy promotion efforts unlocked that dark side, let the beast out of its cage and set it loose to kill? What if Islam's dark and vengeful god is a chimera made out of the worst parts of his followers, their murderous instincts, their self-despite, their hatreds, lusts and obsessions? What does it say about a people that proclaim their darkest selves to be their god?
"We love death" is the anthem of Jihad. It was the anthem of a butcher who chopped up his wife and served her corpse to his customers. It is the song of millions of Egyptians who chose death over life once they were given the freedom to do it. The death of life for the worship of the dark god who dwells in the darkest places of the human heart.
-
Congressman Calls for Hearings on ‘Radicalization’ of White Christian Women
Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On June 25, 2012
During a Homeland Security committee hearing last week on the “Radicalization of Muslim-Americans,” Texas Congressman Al Green (D) criticized the hearings as biased and unfair to Muslims, suggesting that the only way to justify such hearings is if Congress would also conduct a “hearing on the radicalization of Christians.”
Though his position may seem plausible and balanced, in fact, it reveals a dangerous mix of irrationality, moral relativism, and emotionalism—all disastrous traits in a U.S. Congressman. Consider some of Green’s assertions:
I don’t think that most people oppose hearings on radicalization. I do not, not — N-O-T — oppose hearings on radicalization. I do oppose hearings that don’t focus on the entirety of radicalization…. [W]hy not have a hearing on the radicalization of Christians?… People who see the hearings and never hear about the hearing on the radicalization of Christianity have to ask themselves, “Why is this missing?”
Fair question—“Why not have a hearing on the radicalization of Christians?” Before responding, we must acknowledge that the word “radicalization” simply means “to go to the root or origin of something,” in this case, religion: a Muslim radical goes to the root teachings of Islam; a Christian radical goes to the root teachings of Christianity. Accordingly, there are certainly “Christian radicals” in America. The question is, do they pose the same risks to America as Muslim radicals?
Green and all moral relativists naturally do not want to pursue such a question, pretending that any form of “radicalization”—regardless of the “root teachings”—is evil. They are certainly not interested in determining the root teachings of Christianity and Islam, and whether they are equally prone to violence, terrorism, conquest, etc. While this is not the place to contrast modern Christianity’s apolitical and largely passive nature with modern Islam’s political and largely aggressive nature—a theme elaboratedhere—suffice it to say that, while thousands of modern-day Muslim leaders are on record quoting Islamic scriptures to justify violence and hate, one is hard pressed to find examples of Christian leaders preaching violence and hate—and justifying it through scripture.
The Saudi Grand Mufti, the highest religious official of Saudi Arabia, Islam’s holiest nation, called on the destruction of all regional churches, quoting Islamic texts. Can Green find an example of an equally authoritative Christian leader calling for the destruction of mosques—and supporting it through the Bible?
Green went on to ask “Why don’t we go to the next step and ask, how is that a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, white female in the United States of America can become radicalized to the point of wanting to do harm to this country? We don’t have that type of hearing. That’s the problem.”
Thus, not only does the Congressman irrationally conflate the teachings of all religions together, he also conflates religion with race and gender, implying that the only reason there are hearings on Muslim radicalization is because Muslims are not white, whereas those “equally-dangerous” blue-eyed, blond-haired female Christian “radicals” apparently get a free pass to terrorize America.
This logic is flawed on many levels. Islam is not a race; there are Muslims of all colors, just like there are Christians of all colors. Moreover, there are indeed “blue-eyed, blond-haired” terrorists in the world, including females—yet these, too, are overwhelmingly Muslim. It is dishonest for Green to try to take the focus off of Islamic radicalization and pin it on that all-purpose bogeyman, “racism.”
Regardless, this argument that Islam is a race is popular and was, for example, used by Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who also called these hearings “racist.” Likewise, a former American soldier discussing the Fort Hood shootings lamented that “When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal. But when a Muslim [namely, Nidal Hasan] does it, they call it jihad.”
Notice the confusion; as if a “white guy” and a “Muslim” represent different races. Of course, if a person of any color goes on a random shooting spree, it would be racist to pin it on his race. But if a person of any color goes on a shooting spree—while waving the Koran, screaming the jihadi paean “Allahu Akbar!” or otherwise rationalizing his actions in Islamic terms, as did Nidal Hasan—then we are talking about a shooting spree motivated by a learned ideology or worldview that has nothing to do with the murderer’s race.
Finally, from beginning to end, Green—like his congressman colleague Keith Ellison, whose objection to these hearings culminated in ateary-eyed breakdown—relied on emotionalism to make his point: he opened his statement by offering the Islamic greeting assalama alikum to Muslims present, dreamily observing: “Isn’t it wonderful that the grandson of a Christian minister can sit on the Homeland Security Committee and say assalama alikum?”—a meaningless point that does not change the fact that in Islam, Muslims are only allowed to say “Peace upon you” to fellow Muslims, never to non-Muslim infidels.
Likewise, he concluded his sanctimonious attack by saying “I do know what it feels like to look like a Muslim in the minds of some people and to be demeaned in a public venue…. I look forward to the day that we’ll have that hearing that deals with the radicalization of Christians in America”—again, all meaningless race-related rhetoric and moral relativism, the sole value of which is to obfuscate the issue at hand: the “radicalization of Muslim-Americans.”
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
-
Investigate Radical Christianity!
Posted By Robert Spencer On June 25, 2012
During last week’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing on “The Radicalization of Muslim-Americans,” Congressman Al Green (D-TX) took issue [1] with the hearing’s focus on Islam and Muslims, asking the witnesses testifying before the Committee: “If you agree that radicalization exists within all religions to some extent, would you kindly extend a hand into the air.” Noting triumphantly that “all the hands are raised,” Green then asked: “Why not have a hearing on the radicalization of Christians?”
The immediate answer is obvious. On the one hand we have recent jihad plotters in the U.S., including Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Nidal Hasan, the successful Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber.
All of them and many others invoked the Qur’an and Sunnah to explain and justify their deeds.
And on the other hand, we have recent “radical Christian” acts of violence committed by people who invoked the Bible and Church teaching to explain and justify their deeds, including — no one at all. Not one. Even the much-vaunted abortion clinic bombers number only a handful, versus nearly 19,000 jihad attacks around the world since 9/11, and have been repudiated by all Christian sects and leaders — as opposed to the many Islamic authorities that teach jihad warfare against unbelievers and exhort their faithful to commit acts of violent jihad.
Rosie O’Donnell enunciated the idea memorably a few years ago: “radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam.” Since then, this has become a commonplace of mainstream media political discourse — remarkably enough, since it has absolutely no evidence to back it up.
Emblematic of how hard it is to find a “radical Christian” — that is, someone driven to violence by the teachings of Christianity, as opposed to genuinely radical Christians like Mother Teresa and the Amish — is that when Green spoke about “the radicalization of Christianity,” he was actually referring to Islamic jihadists, not to Christians at all.
This became clear when he said: “I do not, not — N-O-T — oppose hearings on radicalization. I do oppose hearings that don’t focus on the entirety of radicalization. And if you agree that we have Christians, as has been mentioned by more than one member, Christians who become radicalized, they become part of Islam and they become radicalized as is being said, why not have a hearing on the radicalization of Christians?”
Green’s statement is fundamentally incoherent. “Christians who become radicalized” and “become part of Islam” are not Christians at all, but converts to Islam. Thus a hearing on the radicalization of Muslims, and possibly of converts to Islam, would be needed, not a hearing on the radicalization of Christians. Green himself made this clear, after a fashion, as he continued, digging himself an ever-deeper hole: “I do think that it is a problem of perception. People who see the hearings and never hear about the hearing on the radicalization of Christianity have to ask themselves, ‘Why is this missing?’ Why don’t we go to the next step and ask, how is that a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, white female in the United States of America can become radicalized to the point of wanting to do harm to this country? We don’t have that type of hearing. That’s the problem.”
Green was apparently referring to Colleen LaRose, aka “Jihad Jane [2],” a convert to Islam from Pennsylvania who plotted to murder a Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, for drawing a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. If LaRose had remained a Christian, of course, she never would have been moved to kill by a cartoon of Muhammad; her crime has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with Islam. And so here again, the moral equivalence that Rosie O’Donnell stated baldly and that Green was apparently reaching for founders on the facts.
Yet Green soldiered on, concluding: “I do know what it feels like to look like a Muslim in the minds of some people and to be demeaned in a public venue. I look forward to the day that we’ll have that hearing that deals with the radicalization of Christians in America.”
So do I, in fact. Investigate radical Christianity! If such a hearing were held with any degree of honesty, it couldn’t help but shed light on the fact that Islam has a unique capacity to incite its adherents to violence today, in a way that neither Christianity nor any other religion shares. And that realization, contrary as it is to official government and media assumptions, could go a long way toward focusing law enforcement upon the real problem the nation faces today, instead of upon politically correct fictions. Much as that prospect may infuriate Congressman Al Green.
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/california-filmmaker-switches-positions-on-controversial-tenn-mega-mosque/
-
This is vital information that Americans need to pay attention to. It is
not being covered by the major news media:
www.globalinfidel.tv/page/abdou-kattih
As always - for pertinent news regarding Islamic activity in the U.S. and
around the world, consult these two excellent web sites:
www.jihadwatch.org (Robert Spencer)
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ (Pamela Geller)
-
Objectivist1 - really, do you believe that garbage on those sites? :-o I hope not....
Islam is a religion; or at least a billion a so people seem to think so. Most by far are peace loving.
Who cares who is paying for the Mosque? If some rich donor from Saudi Arabia wants to pay, so what?
There is no rule churches must be built with local money. Lot's of churches have been built with money from out of town.
Using the same stupid analogy, that's like saying the Wisconsin elections weren't fair because most of the Republican money came from out of state.
As for the size, again so what; 25 years ago they built a 15 acre huge Buddhist temple (Hsi Lai Temple) in Hacienda Heights a small, mostly Christian (at that time) community near Los Angeles.
http://www.hsilai.org/en/index.html
Note, it was built only a few years after we had our butt kicked by Vietnam, a predominately Buddhist nation. Maybe there was some sinister relevancy like your silly sites try to draw? :?
People were opposed then like there are to this Muslim house of worship. Traffic, etc. but probably racial and religious hatred too.
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-28/news/hl-9819_1_hsi-lai-temple
Now everyone seems rather happy. Hopefully, this Mosque will also be center for people to learn about Islam.
-
JDN:
Evidently it's YOU who need to learn about Islam, as I have already stated. The information on the sites I cited in my previous post are backed by solid evidence and are 100% reliable sources of information. You choose to ignore and/or dismiss them as "silly" at your peril. Again I stand in amazement as someone who admits he has not read, and has no interest in investigating the holy books of Islam wants to argue with me out of his admitted ignorance. Until you can specifically address the factual statements I have made about Islam with facts and evidence, I have no interest in continuing this dialogue with you. If you're not interested, that is your choice - but then keep your mouth shut and don't attempt to argue with someone who IS interested and has done his research.
-
Please don't tell me to "keep my mouth shut". :roll: :roll: :roll:
You don't address the questions or the facts; rather you regurgitate nonsense. For example, "Islam is not a religion". :?
I think a billion+ people disagree with you. And those are just the ones practicing Islam. Most Christians and Jews I know acknowledge Islam
as a religion.
I haven't read the Hindu or Buddhist holy books either yet I respect their right to practice their faith. Our Constitution guarantees them, all religions,
the right to practice their faith.
Your web sites that you posted "are 100% reliable sources of information." Surely you joke? :roll:
Most consider these blogger's quacks. As your own web page quoted,
At the Huffington Post, Linda Milazzo wrote that as a Jew she was one who opposed Geller’s speech.
She wrote that, “While there is a small, non-majority percent of American Jews who may agree with Geller on certain issues, her presentation is so hate-filled and vulgar, she diminishes her opportunity for coalition and allegiance.”
-
I would state the matter as "Islam is both a religion and a theocratic political theory". The latter is contrary to the American Creed.
-
Marc is correct. NOWHERE did I state that Islam is not a religion. I said it is not SIMPLY a religion. JDN misquotes me and then attacks a straw man. Clearly JDN has not read many of the posts on this thread which amply demonstrate the points I have made. He isn't interested in facts, nor in any information that might contradict his predetermined idea of what Islam is.
-
I would state the matter as "Islam is both a religion and a theocratic political theory". The latter is contrary to the American Creed.
I too agree, "Islam is both a religion and a theocratic political theory" but then that can be said about a lot of RELIGIONS to varying degrees. Yet all are protected
by our Constitution.
Objectivist1; you don't post "facts" you post gibberish that few believe and has no basis for fact. I've never misquoted you or your absurd, ridiculous "sources".
-
"that can be said about a lot of RELIGIONS to varying degrees. Yet all are protected
by our Constitution."
Ummm , , , NO. To seek to replace our Constitutional order with a theocratic state is seditious. It is NOT protected.
-
Their right to worship is protected.
And their desire to change the laws in accordance with their faith, if done legally, is also protected.
Many religions have political views. Catholics for example have recently had strong opinions on birth control.
I may not entirely agree, but I respect their right to express their opinion and dictate to their members.
-
C'mon JDN, you're evading the point. No one's talking about political positions e.g. pro-life. There's no problem there. The problem comes when death fatwas and so forth are issued for drawing cartoons or mobs running other religious groups out of the neighborhood (while the police stand by) such as was shown by Obj.
Not related to this conversation is this:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/philadelphia-and-the-burqa-bandits/
-
If Muslims disobey our laws, arrest them! I still contend that the vast majority of one billion plus Muslims are law abiding good citizens and deserve the same respect as any other religion.
-
So then, why were you so negative with the clip from Obj. of the Dearborn mob running off the Christians with threats and the throwing of various objects while the police stood by?
-
So then, why were you so negative with the clip from Obj. of the Dearborn mob running off the Christians with threats and the throwing of various objects while the police stood by?
I'm sorry, I did search various ways and I could not find where I was negative towards a specific clip from Obj. regarding the Dearborn mob running off Christians while police stood by.
Could you give me a reference or link? Thank you.
-
I was thinking of your comment the other day calling the clip and the sites that posted it "garbage" , , ,
-
Yes, in general I did say the site was "garbage". It's terribly biased, filed with innuendo and not good reporting.
I never did address the issue if Dearborn Muslims Christians and the Police. Nor did I even watch the specific video.
However, while I don't know the truth, and I do believe in free speech, yet it should be recognized that he Christians were much at fault.
A few were even arrested. The Police blamed the Christians for the problem; if I remember 4 Christians were arrested. How you present
a story is important. It seems other than a few right wing blogs, few if any news reporters actually blamed the Muslims.
There is two two sides to the story. The largest newspaper in Detroit reported as follows.
http://www.freep.com/article/20120616/NEWS05/120616015/1001/rss01
-
"I never did address the issue if Dearborn Muslims Christians and the Police."
Why not? It was the question presented.
"Nor did I even watch the specific video."
Why not? And not having watched, how is it that you have an opinion?
-
"I never did address the issue if Dearborn Muslims Christians and the Police."
It was the question presented.
It was? Objectivist! referred to "vital information" on these websites and their being "two excellent web sites". There was lots of "information". No specific mention by him of Dearborn. The sites themselves had lots of information; much, the majority is terribly biased and frankly "garbage". I provided a quote by a respected Jewish woman criticizing Ms. Geller.
"Nor did I even watch the specific video."
Why not? And not having watched, how is it that you have an opinion?
I often don't often watch "news" videos. I prefer the written word. Videos often only provide a snippet of information; it's too easy to slant the perspective. I did go at and watch the video after you referred me. I also did research on the subject and found the Chief of Police blames the Christians in this instance for the problem. Four Christians were arrested; obviously they did something wrong. But my main point is that these two sites were "garbage" with nothing specific asked nor responded to by me regarding Dearborn.
-
I stand corrected. I misremembered that post as having a clip about 20 minutes long of the Dearborn interaction. Obj, do you have it handy?
-
Here is a story from The Blaze on this incident:
www.theblaze.com/stories/allahu-akbar-shock-video-shows-muslims-allegedly-stoning-christian-protesters-in-michigan/
I will add that JDN's characterization of www.jihadwatch.org and http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ as "garbage" is laughable. He cites no "evidence" for this other than a quote by a Jewish woman criticizing Pamela Geller. Well now, it hardly needs pointing out - though I will for JDN's benefit - that anyone can characterize anyone else as "bigoted," "racist," "a hatemonger" or use any other ad hominem attack one wishes to cite. Stating it doesn't make it so. Both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer deal in truth. That many apologists for Islam hate them both and regularly attack them using such epithets has no relevance regarding the truth or accuracy of what either of them report on their respective sites. As Pamela Geller has rightly stated on many occasions: "Truth has become the new hate speech when it comes to Islam."
-
Actually Geller is a Wacko.
"Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center on Extremism, said in an interview on June 22 that while his group and others have concerns about radical Muslim individuals and groups, Geller goes further, to the point of xenophobia.
“The difference between [Geller and] legitimate criticism about the very serious threat of radical Islam,” Segal said, “is that she vilifies the entire Islamic faith by making assertions that there are conspiracies against American values inherent in Islam.”
Source: Jewish Journal
Those two sites posted by objectivist1remind me of UFO or Loch Ness Monster sightings sites; "garbage", albeit entertaining.
-
I'm not sure that I would take the very progressive ADL as the definitive word on this , , ,
-
I'm not an expert on the ADL, but I've heard good things overall. No group is perfect all the time. But....
"The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency, ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all."
Not a bad goal....
-
No argument from me there! But my sense is the ADL not infrequently wanders rather far afield from what you cite there on a progressive mission.
-
Both are reporters of truth and of the highest character. Their web sites - far from being "garbage" or "UFO-type sites" as JDN describes them, are among the most informative and accurate sources of information regarding Islam available anywhere.
I urge readers to investigate and judge for yourselves - JDN clearly doesn't know what he is talking about and has preconceived ideas about Islam which he is unwilling to examine. Further - quoting Abraham Foxman, Oren Segal or anyone else at the Anti-Defamation League with regard to the accuracy of information about Islam is almost as bad as consulting an Arab Mufti. This organization, led by Abe Foxman, actually defended the liars and thugs involved with the Ground Zero Mosque, joining with NYC Mayor Bloomberg, for God's sake! That they despise Geller and Spencer is no secret. Crafty is correct that the ADL has become laughably "progressive" to the point of working with those who seek to eradicate Israel (though the ADL and its lackeys are so stupid as to not realize this.)
Here again are the URLs for these two SUPERB web sites:
www.jihadwatch.org
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
-
I read a good joke
How to get people to buy/believe your product.
Two places, ADL and Geller, have competing restaurants next door to each other downtown.
Naturally, they both advertise quality.
ADL's establishment is highly successful with long queues of customers who can't get enough of the quality.
On the other hand, Geller's business is struggling badly. On the rare occasion a customer ventures in for food he never comes back a second time.
Geller is despairing that she can't make a living. But she has a bright idea.
She arranges for her cousin to take a job in the restaurant of the ADL, his mission - to find out the ingredients that go into these highly popular dishes.
After a week, the cousin returns declaring triumphantly that he has the information.
"Well, out with it already, what do they put in those dishes?" asks Geller.
"I'll tell you", "it's 50% camel dung and 50% meat!"
"Aha!" shrieks Geller, "so that's his secret,....ADL adds meat!"
Geller's product is all camel dung! :-D
-
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/07/05/louisiana-republican-when-i-voted-for-state-funds-to-go-to-religious-schools-i-didnt-mean-muslim-ones/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
-
Exclusive: ADC's Misleading Sob Story on Elashi Brothers
IPT News
July 13, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3677/exclusive-adc-misleading-sob-story-on-elashi
.
The news release from the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) depicts a family torn apart by a heartless bureaucracy. Two brothers, stateless Palestinians, were "taken by ICE and the U.S. Air Marshalls (sic) from their children in Texas and sent to Egypt," where they are not welcome.
The release conveyed the ADC's "extreme disappointment" over the move. "The actions of DHS and ICE are alarming, troubling, and intolerable. ADC has demanded, and will continue to demand, a clear explanation as to why these brothers were deported," said ADC Legal Director Abed Ayoub.
The brothers are never named. If they were, the explanation would be quite clear.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has confirmed that the men deported last week are Bayan and Basman Elashi. Both are convicted felons tied to a terror-financing network based out of Dallas. And both had final orders of deportation issued against them in 2008 and 2009 that were never appealed, immigration records show.
Yet another brother, Ghassan Elashi, was a founder and chairman of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), an American fundraising arm for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. HLF was part of the "Palestine Committee," an umbrella organization created by the Muslim Brotherhood in America to help Hamas politically and financially. Basman Elashi, along with brothers Ghassan and Hazim, also appears on a telephone list of Palestine Committee members. Basman's entry is just above Nihad Awad, founder and executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The Elashi brothers also worked for Infocom, a webhosting company in Richardson Tex. Prosecutors say the company received $250,000 from Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who was indicted in the case.
Bayan Elashi was Infocom's chief executive officer. Basman was its logistics and credit manager. In 2004, each was convicted of money laundering, export violations to Libya and Syria involving computer shipments and making false statements to federal officials. In a separate trial a year later, Bayan Elashi was convicted on 10 counts of dealing in the property of a Specially Designated Terrorist for transactions with Marzook, while Basman was convicted on one count.
Bayan Elashi was sentenced to 84 months in prison, while Bayan was sentenced to 80 months. Brother Hazim Elashi, Infocom's manager of personal computer systems, was sentenced to 66 months after being convicted in the case, and was deported from the United States in April 2008.
Ghassan Elashi is serving a 65-year sentence after being convicted in the HLF case.
The ADC did not find any of this information significant enough to mention. Rather, it claimed that the deportation was done clumsily, with the Elashis essentially dumped on a tarmac with no place to go.
"The brothers do not have permission to stay in Egypt. Further, due to the blockade of Gaza and Israeli polices they cannot enter Palestine. The brothers are currently detained at the airport in Cairo, and appear likely to be detained indefinitely."
Standard procedure in any deportation case is for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to work with the host country before the person is sent back. It isn't clear whether the claims about the Elashis being detained at the airport are true.
However, the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza is open five days each week, and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh expressed confidence Thursday that the new Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt soon will open it permanently, allowing them to cross into Palestinian territory.
In addition, Ayoub decried "the deplorable living conditions in Gaza resulting from an illegal blockade," and questioned why the Elashis would be sent there. Israel's blockade of Gaza, stemming from Hamas's takeover of the territory and subsequent campaign of rocket fire at Israeli civilian communities, was declared legal by a United Nations review because "Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza." In addition, while Gaza is economically in turmoil, the Red Cross has said there is no humanitarian crisis there. In fact, some aspects of life appear relatively comfortable.
The ADC is considered a respectable organization. President Obama took the time to deliver a recorded message for the group's recent convention.
In this case, however, it has issued an alert that seems deliberately misleading in order to take a shot at the Department of Homeland Security and cast the plight of the Elashis in a sympathetic tone that doesn't match their records.
-
Contrast that with this:
Guest Column: Muslims Combating Islamism
Exercising the Bare Minimum of Faith in an Age of Political Correctness
by Qanta Ahmed
Special to IPT News
July 11, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3671/guest-column-muslims-combating-islamism
There were many reasons why, when called to do so, I testified in the investigative hearings held by the House Committee on Homeland Security examining radicalization within the Muslim American community.
I testified because, as an anti-Islamist Muslim, I believe exposing a wrong is the bare minimum of my faith. I testified because I have seen the full spectrum of radicalization: from silent approval, to overt sympathies for Islamist ideologies, to the end point of suicidal violence among Pakistani child militants. But most of all, I testified because of my patients here in New York.
At Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, I am part of a team that attends the World Trade Center First Responder patient population of Nassau County. Long Island is home to 6,000 of the nation's 40,000 first responders, many of whom feel long forgotten by America. Each year, Winthrop cares for 2,500 of these Americans, relieved of the financial burden of their health costs by the James Zadroga bill, spearheaded by Congressman Peter King, R-N.Y., who is also chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Rescuers by profession, my patients are members of the NYPD, the FBI, the FDNY, the New York Federal Crime Bureau and other law enforcement agencies. Some are retired, others still work, and many are now disabled because of their service to our nation. Sadly, these Americans have granted me painful insights into the indiscriminate burden of radical Islamist acts, insights to which few will ever be privy.
I thought often about these men and women when I visited Pakistan this spring to see "Sabaoon," a school in the Northwest Frontier town of Malakand. There, working with a highly skilled mental health team, Dr. Feriha Peracha deprograms Pakistani child Taliban operatives by rebuilding their psyches.
One boy stands out in my memory in particular. Dressed in a brand new cricket strip, sporting Pakistan's bottle-green 'Boom Boom' jersey popular nationwide and glowing from the match he had just played with other Sabaoon students, he looked much as my own brothers did at his age – active, animated and well looked after.
Later, I learned he was hoping to join a cricket academy to pursue his passion. But within moments, the illusion of confidence fell away as this 18-year-old boy described to me his seduction into, and near annihilation by the Pakistani Taliban. Speaking to me in Urdu, the account was unnervingly intimate.
He was 15 when it began, the eldest of five, and the son of a father who supported the family with his meager earnings at a small government post. He lived in a four-roomed mud-walled house with his siblings and parents. Gradually lured by an older Pakistani boy with tales of a purer, "more noble" Islam during his long walks to his village school, the boy soon ran away to join the Taliban, dreaming of a higher divine mission.
A Taliban scout told him that the group had purified Pakistan of drugs and alcohol and was leading the country toward a "purer" and "true" Islam. That message appealed to him. Convinced he was serving Islam, the boy found himself immediately relocated from concealed site to concealed site, sometimes spending nights in the open air in Pakistan's harsh but beautiful Swat valley, other times being sequestered in squalid hostels and other such 'markaz' (centers). He never spent more than one night in each locale. This situation made it nearly impossible for his family to find him, and stopped him from making new friends who might influence him away from the Taliban.
He participated in minor missions at first, and then major ones. But it wasn't until he expressed homesickness one Eid holiday and a desire to see his mother that his career as a leader among Taliban was redirected into becoming a suicide operative. The boy was too much of a risk should he break away and become an informer.
He talked about his "tarbiyyat," or religious training, in detail. I imagined rote memorization of the Quran. Instead, he learned the correct use of a handgun, the deployment of a grenade and the successful detonation of a suicide jacket. He even had training in rocket launchers, AK47s and LMGs (light machine guns). As I sat opposite him, he carefully demonstrated this knowledge to me, miming the relevant gestures to me, a novice when it comes to weapons. He explained the strategy behind his training: that when approaching his final target, he may be confronted by a police officer and would have to fend him off with his pistol. Law enforcement thus dispatched, he knew to throw the grenade, kept at arm's length in his shalwar (trouser) pocket, into a packed crowd, and, as he watched the crowd flee from the grenade, he would then run into the same panicked masses as he detonated his suicide jacket, achieving maximum carnage.
Finally, he described his ultimate surrender moments from detonation in a local Shia mosque. As he entered and assessed the surroundings of Muslim men in prayer, he recognized these people. His targets "were Muslim too," he said. He suddenly feared for his own spiritual salvation. His voice lowered as he explained the relief he felt when he turned himself in to the lone, unwary police officer nearby and revealed his weapons. He endured a vicious beating to the heart with the butt of the policeman's rifle and then months of detention by Pakistan's secret police, the ISI.
Though he had given himself up some years earlier, seduced by the Islamist narrative at the age of 15, I discovered he had already wrought extraordinary destruction.
He had participated in a previous attack that killed five Pakistani Frontier Corpsmen and had helped kidnap 11 others in a raid on a military camp. The Taliban took the hostages. He had been part of a separate raid in which more than 100 people from a local tribal court were executed.
Americans susceptible
The King investigative hearings on radical Islam showed how the same narratives that drove the young Pakistani to violence are alive in the United States today, thriving amid similarly vulnerable, disconnected and indoctrinated youth. Such Islamist radicalization is ongoing in our civilian, military and prison community, as repeated findings from the investigative hearings have uncovered.
Unfortunately, where there should be uproar and carefully targeted actions in response to these critically important findings, we remain mired in political correctness by refusing to identify our enemies' driving ideology.
Islamists distract the discussion from the root of the problem by focusing our attention on what they call "Islamophobia," arguing that the world is using a broad brush to describe Muslims.
Attorney General Eric Holder demonstrated this pandering in his May 2010 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, when he attempted to discuss failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad's potential motives, while avoiding the term "radical Islam." Holder's agonizing dance around the issue demonstrates just how difficult it has become to talk about the ideology fueling so many terror plots, now that the highest levels of government have banned any discussion of the role of radical religious interpretation. While political correctness may be cloyingly comfortable, reassuring even, it can prove all too deadly, as testimonies in these investigative hearings on radical Islam have shown.
In one of the House radicalization hearings, retired Marine Corps veteran Daris Long testified how political correctness masked Islamist extremism. His son, Army Pvt. William Long, was killed in an Islamist terrorist attack on his recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark. – yet the military refused to name it as such, and the shooter was tried in state court rather than on federal terrorism charges.
"The blatant masking and disregard of the facts not only endanger American citizens of non-Muslim faith but also those of Muslim heritage who do not adhere to the extremist beliefs demonstrated by a militant and political form of jihad," Long said.
Melvin Bledsoe testified to the 'brainwashing' of his son – a Muslim convert – who murdered Pvt. Long and injured another in what I, as a Muslim, call an act of terror.
"This was a Jihadi attack on infidel forces," Carlos Bledsoe, the shooter, wrote in a letter to the judge in his case.
As the politically correct rail against the sound intelligence identifying plots in evolution, (and the necessary counter-measures also deemed politically incorrect), they collude with the violent and non-violent Islamists in their foil as Muslims. Masquerading as the 'peaceful' translators and 'owners' of Islam, Islamists exploit political correctness and, by brandishing the charge of Islamophobia, deter vital scrutiny.
Most recently, pseudo-advocacy groups purportedly representing mainstream American Muslims lobbied the Obama administration to 'sanitize' intelligence language used within the FBI to purge references to Islam. This approach only limits debate, scrutiny and examination of Islamist ideologies, both violent and nonviolent.
Our leadership has bowed to such pressures. The 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review never mentions "Islamist" or "Islamic terrorism" in 108 pages. This is in keeping with President Obama's vision which, according to then Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman, "made it clear as we are looking at counterterrorism that our principal focus is al Qaeda and global violent extremism, and that is the terminology and language that has been articulated" by President Obama and his advisers.
In contrast, Pakistan, a nation fighting the highest prevalence of Islamist radicalization, has no such qualms. In fact, the deprogramming at Sabaoon specifically addresses religious scholarship as an area of counter extremism – identifying and dismantling disordered beliefs and replacing them with healthy, nonviolent Islamic ideals.
This goal cannot be accomplished by shying away from religiously charged language.
Political correctness is a serious obstacle in articulating the Islamist threat here in the United States. Refusing to accurately name it will not make the threat go away. Simplifying complex ideas distilling political Islamism and Islam into one sensitive taboo, rather than building clarity, inflames sentiments and drives polarity.
In this climate, Muslims like me – those who accept Islam yet revile Islamists – are rendered voiceless. I am not alone in my practice of Islam, an Islam which values and cherishes other faiths as equally legitimate, and indeed, reminds the Muslim that to each believer is sent his own Law and his own Way, whether a follower of Jesus, Moses, Siddartha, or others. As a Muslim, my Islam reminds me, that according to our Maker we cannot place judgment on the belief systems of fellow People of the Book. They must only judge themselves by their own laws and ways and not by the Quran.
My Islam particularly condemns the rampant exercise of violence on the non combatant civilians which includes all nonmilitary personnel, all children, women, elderly and disabled and further identifies no war as ever Holy, only just or unjust. We also understand that jihad has far greater meaning as an internal struggle for self improvement and relief of personal and community suffering than frank warfare for political or military gain. By these standards which Islam gives me, I as a Muslim can repudiate radical Islamism (which relies on the condemnation of all non Muslim elements and all Muslims who dare to balk at their extreme ideology) without wavering in my belief in Islam or failing in my duty as a Muslim.
The government's adherence to political correctness doesn't make room for this distinction because it avoids any reference to radical Islamism.
By avoiding nuance, we fuel simplification. By banning U.S. law enforcement agencies from using the word 'Islamist' and other charged language which correctly identifies a manufactured fictional Islam as the origins for Islamist ideology, we have compelled our agencies to kowtow to political correctness. Even their Saudi counterterrorism colleagues, in the cradle of Islam, refer to Islamist terrorists as "Jihadists." This term implicitly identifies their ideological roots within Islam, albeit a distortion of the faith. While discourse in America is hampered by such "propriety," the Saudis, calling a spade a spade, don't stand on such futile ceremony.
Blindfolded by political correctness, we remain vulnerable. Counter warfare on ideological battlefields begins with widening the debate, both on Capitol Hill in congressional committee hearing rooms and on the nation's opinion pages which are increasingly reluctant to host this debate. Without doubt, these investigative hearings are the first public foray examining the divide between Islam and Islamism in contemporary America and as Muslims naming this divide we embrace an Islamic duty. As the Prophet Mohammed (SAW) once said:
"Whoever sees a wrong and is able to put it right with his hand, let him do so; if he can't, then with his tongue, if he can't, then with his heart. That is the bare minimum of faith."
It's that simple for a Muslim. Because I see a wrong, and because I am Muslim, combating Islamism asks me for the bare minimum of my faith, as it does for all Muslims in America if their actions are to match their words as believers in Islam.
Qanta Ahmed is a physician and author of In the Land of Invisible Women; Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow in Science and Religion; @MissDiagnosis; www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/
-
Canadian journalist Michael Coren masterfully rips the mask from Imam Faisal Rauf and exposes his deception. Be sure to watch Coren's discussion with Robert Spencer afterward:
www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/michael-coren-exposes-ground-zero-mosque-imam-rauf-robert-spencer-gives-postgame-analysis.html
-
That was quite good. 8-)
-
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/13/quebec-woman-who-fought-against-muslim-stereotypes-charged-with-terrorism-in-alleged-hezbollah-weapons-smuggling-plot/
-
Pamela Geller: Confronting the Huffington Post
Robert Spencer - Jihadwatch.org - July 16, 2012
In PJ Media today I wrote about the mainstream media's eagerness to carry water for Islamic supremacists, and have noted several times recently the tendency of Ahmadi spokesmen in the U.S. to defend those who are persecuting and killing their people in Pakistan and Indonesia. This story combines both: a clearly unscrupulous and dishonest Ahmadi, Harris Zafar, attacking not the persecutors of the Ahmadis, but Pamela Geller and me in the Huffington Post, which of course eagerly gave him space, but when Geller sent in a rebuttal piece, the HuffPo, true to form, dragged its feet about publishing it and finally put it up today only as an addendum to Zafar's dishonest screed, and only after receiving an avalanche of tweets and emails from Atlas Shrugs readers.
The whole incident is typical of the Leftist media's and the Ahmadiyya's odd and ultimately suicidal willingness to front for Islamic supremacists and jihadists.
"Confronting Harris Zafar," by Pamela Geller, Huffington Post (via Atlas Shrugs), July 16:
The Huffington Post received a response to Harris Zafar from Pamela Geller, which was published below in full on July 16, 2012.
Confronting Harris Zafar
By Pamela Geller
Typical of the dishonesty and disingenuousness of Harris Zafar's attack piece on me in the Huffington Post is his opening claim that "Geller takes exception with Islam's acceptance of the prophethood of Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ." He complains that "paradoxically, her ignorance has no problem granting Christians the right to invoke Moses and Abraham without delegitimizing Judaism." He does not mention that while Christianity acknowledges the Jewishness of Moses, Abraham, and the other Jewish prophets, Islam denies it: "No; Abraham in truth was not a Jew, neither a Christian; but he was a Muslim and one pure of faith; certainly he was never of the idolaters." (Quran 3:67).
Zafar never explains that Islam doesn't just "accept the prophethood of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Christ," but completely recasts them as Muslim prophets who decisively rejected the basic tenets of Judaism and Christianity: the Quran even depicts Jesus rejecting the core Christian belief of the divinity of Christ (5:116). Islam thereby completely delegitimizes Judaism and Christianity and presents itself as the true religion of the Biblical prophets -- but instead of admitting this, Harris Zafar blames me for noting it.
And in the rest of his piece, he doesn't get any more honest. While affecting a posture of wounded sanctimony, he levies vicious attacks against my work ("mostly outrageous and irrational") and claims to know my motives: "Geller searched for reasons to loathe the Islamic faith." He is no more objective regarding others he identifies as my influences, particularly the world-renowned historian Bat Ye'or, whom he characterizes as "a Jewish-Egyptian French writer who imputes Christian and Jewish suffering to the theological beliefs of Islam," without mentioning that the Muslims who cause Christian and Jewish suffering invoked the theological beliefs of Islam to explain and justify their actions.
Zafar then offers a list of what he calls my "outlandish statements," which he makes outlandish by misrepresenting, distorting, and outright lying about.
"She has falsely claimed that President Obama is a Muslim with the aim of fostering America's submission to Islam": actually, I have never claimed Obama was a Muslim, and just recently published an article in which I pointed out that "the reason why people think Obama is a Muslim is because of how he acts" -- in other words, because of his policies, which have been consistently pro-Islam, not because of his personal faith.
Zafar says I claimed that "Arabic is not a language but 'the spearhead of an ideological project that is deeply opposed to the United States.'" In reality, I have never said that "Arabic is not a language"; Zafar has to resort to outright lies to make his case that my work is "outrageous and irrational." Here is the actual quote: "Arabic is not just another language like French or Italian, it is the spearhead of an ideological project that is deeply opposed to the United States." And who said it? Not I, but Mark Steyn. That's right: so desperate is Zafar to smear me that he is attributing statements by other people to me.
Zafar claims that I say that "Hitler and Nazism were inspired by Islam (therefore 'devout Muslims should be prohibited from military service')." In reality, that quote comes from an article I wrote that touched on the Fort Hood jihad murderer and the devout Muslim faith of jihadists worldwide. Never do I say that devout Muslims should be excluded from the military because of Hitler, but because so many devout Muslims commit violent attacks against infidels without any warning.
And were Hitler and the Nazis inspired by Islam? Don't believe me, believe Eichmann's assistant, Dieter Wisliczeny, who testified at Nuremberg that the Mufti of Jerusalem was a central figure in the planning of the genocide of the Jews: "The Grand Mufti has repeatedly suggested to the Nazi authorities -- including Hitler, von Ribbentrop and Himmler -- the extermination of European Jewry. ... The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan."
Zafar says that I say that "Islam is the most anti-Semitic, genocidal ideology in the world." Maybe Zafar can name another ideology whose founder, leader and guide said something as anti-Semitic and genocidal as this, but I can't top this from Muhammad, Zafar's beloved prophet: "The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him." (Sahih Muslim 6985).
Zafar says I "called for the removal of the Dome of the Rock from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem," and I stand by that. But once again he doesn't give you all the information: I never said it should be removed by violence, and I said this in response to repeated jihadi attacks on Muslims at the Temple Mount. Zafar never bothers to condemn those attacks or even mention them.
Zafar says I "bought bus ads offering Muslims an opportunity to leave Islam." In reality, my bus ads offered help to ex-Muslims threatened with death for leaving Islam -- help Zafar's group has never offered, despite his claim to reject Islam's death penalty for apostasy.
Zafar says I "called for boycotts of both Campbell's soup and Butterball turkeys for offering a certified halaal food line." In reality, I called for the Campbell's boycott not because of that halal line as such but because Campbell's was using a Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood group, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to certify its halal line. Regarding Butterball, my complaint was that all its turkeys are halal, but aren't labelled as such, so consumers can't make informed choices.
After all those distortions, fabrications, and lies about my writings and activities, it's no wonder that Zafar says that my "claims are so bizarre that one struggles to understand whether they are worthy of a response." But only by dishonesty can Zafar get there.
Zafar then goes on to claim that "one common allegation the two [Robert Spencer and I] have advanced together is that Islam prescribes a death penalty for apostasy" -- as if we made this up. Then he claims that "there is nothing contained within the Holy Quran -- the highest authoritative source in Islam -- that sanctions any punishment for apostasy," and that "the Quran contains at least 10 verses about those who leave Islam, none of which sanction death in response." He never mentions that all the schools of Islamic law mandate death for apostasy, and that many Muslims base this on Quran 4:89, which tells Muslims to kill those who "emigrate in the way of God" -- that is, become Muslim and move to a Muslim land -- "if they turn their backs," i.e., leave Islam.
Then Zafar claims that "Muhammad never ordered any person to be killed for apostasy," but ignores that Muhammad said "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57). Nor does Zafar mention that in one tradition, a Muslim leader, Muadh Jabal, refused to sit down until an apostate brought before him had been killed "in accordance with the decision of Allah and of His Apostle." He doesn't mention the Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Quran, which says:
Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent.
Zafar claims that "no punishment exists for apostasy" -- in other words, he thinks that all the schools of Islamic law and all the sects of Islam other than Zafar's own Ahmadi sect, which is violently persecuted as heretical by Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia, got Islamic teaching on apostasy wrong, and only his group has gotten it right. He claims that the death penalty for apostasy is an example of "radical interpretations of Islam" and implies it originated with the twentieth century Islamic leader Maududi -- but he must know about these traditions of Muhammad and understandings of the Quran, even if he rejects them. Thus this is more evidence of his dishonesty.
By now it is clear that Zafar's words on taqiyya, Islamic religious deception, can't be trusted any more than the rest of what he claims. He again acts as if I have originated the idea that it is "the practice of lying to non-Muslims in order to advance the cause of Islam" and claims that "no verse from the Quran is provided" in my writings or Spencer's "as a clear instruction for this practice." In reality, Spencer has written this:
Qur'an 3:28 warns believers not to take unbelievers as "friends or helpers" (َأَوْلِيَا -- a word that means more than casual friendship, but something like alliance), "unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them." This is a foundation of the idea that believers may legitimately deceive unbelievers when under pressure. The word used for "guard" in the Arabic is tuqātan (تُقَاةً), the verbal noun from taqiyyatan -- hence the familiar term taqiyya.
The renowned Qur'an commentator Ibn Kathir says that the phrase "unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them" means that "believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers" may "show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda' said, 'We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.' Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, 'The Tuqyah [taqiyya] is allowed until the Day of Resurrection." While many Muslim spokesmen today maintain that taqiyya is solely a Shi'ite doctrine, shunned by Sunnis, the great Islamic scholar Ignaz Goldziher points out that while it was formulated by Shi'ites, "it is accepted as legitimate by other Muslims as well, on the authority of Quran 3:28." The Sunnis of Al-Qaeda practice it today.
After that, Zafar's hit piece gets really bizarre: he likens Robert Spencer and me to Abu Lahab and his wife, early foes of Muhammad "driven by their fiery hatred of Islam and its Prophet." Zafar says that "fittingly, Chapter 111 of the Quran (entitled al-Lahab) predicts that the plotting of such nefarious enemies of Islam would appear but ultimately fail miserably, and their wealth will not avail them." Once again, he whitewashes Islam: Zafar doesn't mention that that chapter says that Abu Lahab and his wife are burning in hellfire.
Zafar ends his crudely deceptive and dishonest screed by claiming that I am "practicing deception" and saying he wants to debate me. The worst part about his piece is that Zafar's Ahmadi brethren are being viciously persecuted by Muslims who deem them heretics. I have spoken out in their defense, and instead of thanking me, Zafar sides with his persecutors. He should be debating the mainstream Muslims whom he claims have misunderstood Islam, not me. But clearly he is suffering from a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Posted by Robert on July 16, 2012
-
Ahhh Ms. Geller again.
"Her claims are so bizarre that one struggles to understand whether they are worthy of a response. Indeed, one can understand why Charles Johnson, who runs the blog Little Green Footballs, where Geller used to write, said about her: "That would be Ms. Geller. She has a very long record of absolute lunacy, mixed with bigotry and racism and I am far from the only person to point this out."
Geller's modus operandi is to use head-turning statements to merely draw attention to the message of Robert Spencer. The two of them co-founded an organization (Stop Islamization of America) whose actions the Anti-Defamation League concluded "promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam."
Geller has become hysterical with delusions of grandeur, coupled with paranoia of an imaginary global conspiracy.
I think that pretty well sums Geller up. Yet Objectivist1, rather than quoting academic scholars or respected individuals, you continue to quote this "lunatic zealot". Is that the best you can do?
For those who want to read both sides of the story, here is the original post by Harris Zafar.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harris-zafar/confronting-pamela-geller_b_1668089.html
-
As JDN snidely suggests below. It will become quickly evident who is telling the truth, and who is dealing in misrepresentation, distortion, and outright lies.
Pamela Geller defends herself quite effectively against Zafar's dishonest hit piece in the response I originally posted. Yes, DO read "both sides." One is truth - the other is falsehood.
-
I'm in no position to enter a discussion on the merits, but the Little Green Footballs blog is not some whiny pre-emptive dhimmitude operation like the ADL , , , That said, my sense of things is that Geller does play hard near the edge, which given the slings and slanders that come the way of those who are willing to take on Islamic Fascism and call a spade a spade, on a human level I find rather understandable. I'm glad that there are people like Spencer and her willing to tread the lonely path in search of Truth.
-
The search for truth is always a noble endeavor. That said, if one is seeking truth it would be nice if reliable sources other than Geller and Spencer could be found. Otherwise it seems like the aimless rants of a "lunatic" is the only source available.
-
Yes it would be nice if so many people discussing this subject were not engaged in denial and other forms of cranial rectal interface and ad hominem attacks.
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/lawmaker-new-fort-hood-report-faults-fbi-for-sitting-on-intelligence-about-known-terrorist/2012/07/18/gJQAJDvbuW_story.html
-
Nice to see the painfully obvious officially recognized.
-
As a member of Congress, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better. Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard working,loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior.
"These allegations about Huma, and the report from which they are drawn, are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant," McCain said.
"When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it," he added.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/18/bachmann-former-campaign-chief-shame-on-michele/
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/19/boehner-calls-bachmann-accusations-pretty-dangerous/
-
Well certainly Ed Rolling has solid credentials as a good pro-American Republican so by the criteria of compurgation, he carries weight. (OTOH a hack lack Boener WHO HASN'T EVEN READ THE LETTER IN QUESTION carries little to no weight)
That said, if it is true that she has four close family members with Islamo Fascist connections in a world dedicated to the search for Truth, that is worth noting. This woman sits at the right hand of the Secretary of State for the United States for America as she deals with challenges created by people such as this woman's family.
I dunno if Michele is playing fair here or not (and certainly I did not respect everything she did in her presidential bid) but the day after a report faulting the FBI for pre-emptive dhimmitude viz an obvious Islamo Fascist whackocame out, well I'm reserving judgment for now.
-
Note that the full text of Bachman's letter in the form of a pdf file can be found here. Bachmann is spot-on with her analysis here. Again I urge all readers to read the letter, check her references, and draw your own conclusions:
www.sctimes.com/assets/pdf/DR192062714.PDF
GOP Blasts Bachmann for Attack on Abedin
House Speaker John Boehner defended a senior adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after five members of his caucus claimed her relatives had ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters in Washington today that while he doesn’t know Huma Abedin personally, his impression is that she has a “sterling character.” The accusations made against her in a June 13 letter to the State Department were “pretty dangerous,” the speaker said.
A day earlier Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., criticized five House Republicans, including former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, who sent the letter alleging Abedin’s family had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and questioning whether she promoted the organization’s cause within the U.S. government.
McCain, in a Senate floor speech yesterday, called the allegations “an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant.”
“When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it,” McCain said, adding that he has known Abedin for more than a decade.
In the letter, Bachmann and the other House Republicans cited a report from the Center for Security Policy, a Washington policy group, claiming that Abedin’s mother, brother and late father had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. It is Egypt’s largest Islamist organization, from whose ranks the country’s new president, Mohamed Mursi, was selected.
The letter said Abedin’s position “affords her routine access to the secretary and to policymaking” and that the State Department has “taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”
Bachmann yesterday said she stood by her inquiries, which she said “are unfortunately being distorted.”
“The intention of the letters was to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical groups’ access to top Obama administration officials,” she said in a statement.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a potential running mate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said today in an interview with National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm that he didn’t “share the feelings that are in that letter.”
“I am very, very careful and cautious about ever making accusations like that about anybody,” said Rubio, a Tea Party- backed member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Abedin, the wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D.-NY, has been an aide to Clinton since 1996.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters yesterday, “The secretary very much values her wise counsel and support, and we think that these allegations are preposterous.”
Weiner resigned from Congress in June 2011 after a lewd picture of himself that he had sent to another woman was posted on the Internet.
Weiner, Abedin and their six-month-old son were featured in a July 18 People Magazine article in which the former congressman said he was “very happy” and “not doing anything to plan a campaign” for future public office.
© 2012 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.
-
Robert Spencer is interviewed by the superb Mark Levin on his national radio show this past Friday:
www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/robert-spencer-on-mark-levin-speaks-about-bachmann-mccain-and-the-muslim-brotherhood.html
-
Andy McCarthy of National Review defends Bachmann's line of inquiry:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/310198/questions-about-huma-abedin-andrew-c-mccarthy?pg=1
-----------------
Paul Mirengoff of Powerline has a pretty good take on this, it is liberal infiltration more than Muslim Brotherhood infiltration that has led to the slant of State Dept. policy decisions in favor of Islamic extremist groups.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/07/the-problem-with-michele-bachmanns-letter-to-the-state-department.php
"I would speculate that the State Department’s tilt towards the Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with Abedin. The State Department is prone to want to hitch U.S. policy to anti-Western extremists, claiming they aren’t as bad as they look (and talk). This tendency predates the Obama administration. Once Mubarak fell in Egypt, it was probably inevitable that an Obama State Department would follow this tradition in dealing with the Brotherhood. The policy, then, appears to be the product of the liberal imagination, not Brotherhood infiltration.
Of course, this is just speculation. But so is the thrust of the opening portion of Bachmann’s letter. To that extent, the language of the letter is unfortunate, and has tended to undermine its worthy goal of raising legitimate and serious concerns about the substance of State Department policy."
-
This is the type of threat Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller routinely deal with from these savages. They are both to be commended for their courage:
www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/if-you-ever-disrespect-islam-ever-again-im-going-to-personally-find-you-all-okyoull-fucking-die.html
-
ALL DEATH THREATS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL
The Huffington Post has written an entire article on Ground Zero mosque imam Rauf's claim that he got a threat during the mega-mosque controversy at Ground Zero (which we soundly defeated).
"Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Public Face Of 'Ground Zero Mosque,' Says Life Was Threatened"
Really, puff hos?
I have a file of death threats two inches thick. My peers like Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Walid Shoebat, Nonie Darwish, et al have death threats that could fill a library. Just ask Salman Rushdie and Asia Bibi.
Is the Puffington Ho kidding?
The Puff Hos suffer from extreme bigotry and islamophobia, since they obviously expect Muslims to be violent and make death threats; therefore, it's not news. But radical Rauf gets one (and honestly, who believes this serial liar?) and they are all over it like maggots on dead flesh.
Posted by Pamela Geller on Wednesday, July 11, 2012
-
Objectionist1; I have a suggestion. This is the Islam in America Thread; not the Pam Geller lunatic rag. Surely to make your point you can quote another source, someone with intelligence and reasonableness? Or is she the best you can do? :evil:
I think nearly all, except perhaps you, agree with Charles Johnson, who runs the blog Little Green Footballs:
"That would be Ms. Geller. She has a very long record of absolute lunacy, mixed with bigotry and racism and I am far from the only person to point this out."
The fact that even various Jewish Organizations also think she is a wacko says something too.
-
Anderson Cooper Crosses the Line
Center for Security Policy | Jul 30, 2012
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
Anderson Cooper closed one of five segments of his weeknightly CNN show that he recently devoted to attacking principally Rep. Michele Bachmann with a genuflection towards an iconic newsman, Edward R. Murrow. He deployed against her the gauntlet Murrow threw down to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in March 1954: “The line between investigating and persecuting is a [very] fine one.” If anyone has stepped over that line, however, it is Cooper himself, rather than the Minnesota congresswoman.
Night after night during the week of July 16th, the host of “Anderson Cooper 360” failed to meet even the most basic standards of investigative journalism. The irony is that, in his ill-concealed persecution of Mrs. Bachmann, Cooper has serially engaged in precisely the practices he pillories her and others for allegedly using, by his account, to destroy the reputation of the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Muslim-American woman named Huma Abedin. Let us count the ways:
Anderson Cooper insists that Michele Bachmann (who he singles out for most of his criticism, despite the fact that she was but one of five Members of Congress to raise concerns not only about Ms. Abedin’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, but those of a number of others the Obama administration has enlisted as officials, advisors and/or liaisons to “the Muslim community”) failed to do her homework. Yet, Cooper repeatedly showed his ignorance of the extensive evidence cited by the legislators, even as he mentioned the website where some of it resides: the Center for Security Policy’s online video course at www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com.
As he accused Rep. Bachmann of playing fast and loose with the facts, Cooper repeatedly mischaracterized the nature of the legislators’ request for five federal inspectors general to conduct investigations. He or his echo-chamber of exclusively like-minded guests complained that Ms. Abedin is accused of being a “spy” and engaging in “treason” and that she has been subjected to a groundless, bigoted and McCarthyite witch-hunt. Several of the reporters and interested parties who added color commentary (sometimes repeatedly) further demeaned Congresswoman Bachmann by asserting that she is simply engaging in partisan politics and fund-raising for her reelection campaign.
As with the Congresswoman and to a lesser extent her colleagues, Cooper also made a point of going after this columnist. If anyone is guilty of “McCarthyism,” though, it is the journalistic poseur who specializes in shooting the messenger and buying into and tendentiously proclaiming that there are “no facts” supporting the unwanted message – rather than rigorously examining and accurately reporting on the vast amount of evidence that inconveniently does exist.
While portraying Huma Abedin as an innocent victim of smears, Cooper engaged in his own smearing – occasionally through his rants on the subject, often by citing others who have indulged in ad hominem attacks against the congresswoman and her team. He repeatedly showcased such attacks by individuals in her own party, even though they were clearly were unfamiliar with the actual nature of the legislators’ concerns and the abundant grounds for raising them.
One of the prominent figures in this televised persecution of Michele Bachmann was the man who kicked it off: Her colleague, Rep. Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota and the first Muslim Member of Congress. As it happens, according to the public record (recently brilliantly distilled by counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole at PJ Media http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/21/rep-keith-ellison-rewrites-history-on-his-muslim-brotherhood-cair-ties/), Mr. Ellison has himself been closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood – a natty problem Rep. Bachmann has noted, to Cooper’s horror.
So, the “360” host had Keith Ellison on to help deflect that charge. When the congressman blithely denied that he was a Muslim Brother or, for that matter, that he even knew very much about the Brotherhood, well, that was good enough for crack investigative journalist Anderson Cooper. Back to the persecution of Michele Bachmann, with Cooper egging on Minnesota’s Muslim congressman.
Anderson Cooper further discredited his claim to be an independent, let alone exacting, journalist by taking at face value the FBI’s assurances that it had not dealt with Muslim Brothers or other “extremists” in the recent purge of its training materials and files. The evidence of that falsehood is readily available. Yet, the FBI statement was taken – and presented – as though gospel by a credulous host whose only skepticism was reserved for why Michele Bachmann had been charged by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers with investigating the extent of the Brotherhood’s influence operations inside the Bureau.]
Perhaps most distressing was the service Anderson Cooper has provided to the Islamists by promoting the meme that inquiries about specific Muslims with demonstrable ties to the Muslim Brotherhood amount to attacks on all Muslims. This plays into the victimhood mantra Islamists use to justify their jihadism undertaken ostensibly for the purpose of defending beleaguered co-religionists.
Applying Cooper’s logic, every Muslim – even those whose associations (personal, familial, professional or other) with an organization like the Brotherhood that is sworn to our destruction clearly violate the government’s own guidelines for security clearances, to say nothing of the oath of office to support the Constitution and defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic – are to be given an automatic pass. That may also be the view of the Obama administration, but it is a formula for disaster for the country.
There is a particular irony to Anderson Cooper’s, well, jihad against those who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood. For an avowedly gay man, Anderson Cooper is rooting for the wrong team. If the Islamists have their way here, he will not simply be on the wrong side of the line. He’ll be toast.
-
Frank Gaffney has some credibility with me. The line at the end looks a bit like a cheap shot, an avowedly gay man rooting for the wrong team, but it is quite odd and dangerous as he points out that gay activism is politically aligned in this country with Islamic extremism. No, we aren't going to pass an Islamic law tomorrow to stone all gays to death, but that is only because we do not accept the basic tenets of Islamic law in civilized society.
Interesting that Muslim congressman Keith Ellison supports gay marriage. That plays well in Minneapolis, but I did not hear him say that on his trip to Mecca.
You don't see that many Catholic pro-abortion activists. Maybe Islam is more tolerant.
-
Frank Gaffney has TREMENDOUS credibility with me - I've met and spoken with him on several occasions, and his work is exemplary in this area. He has done yeoman's work in exposing and trying to publicize Grover Norquist's Islamist ties and assistance in getting stealth jihadists into government positions of influence. As for the comment about Anderson Cooper being a "cheap shot," I disagree completely. It's a very valid point, and one that is played out within most of the gay community, where like within much of the black community, "groupthink" is encouraged and conservatives are considered traitors. Unfortunately, like Jews in 1930's Germany who failed to see the serious nature of Hitler's threats, many gays in this country mindlessly defend Islam, completely ignorant of the fact that Islamic law explicitly condemns homosexuals to death. These executions are routinely carried out in Iran and other Islamic countries. It's even more obscene in my opinion with regard to gay support of Islam, because Islamic clerics make no secret of their belief that gays ought to be executed. At least Hitler kept his "final solution" secret as long as he was able.
As for Keith Ellison "supporting" gay marriage - Islam is MOST DEFINITELY NOT more tolerant on this issue than any other religion - it is more OPPRESSIVE. There is a doctrine in Islam known as taqiyya, which is exactly what Ellison is now practicing. It states that it is not only permissible, but a DUTY of Muslims to lie to and deceive non-believers for the purpose of gaining power and influence over their institutions to destroy them from within. Ellison's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are very well-documented and beyond argument. He is a bald-faced liar.
-
This was posted today by Chris Logan at his excellent blog - www.loganswarning.com:
“Conservative” Bloggers and Political Commentators Surrendering Their Free Speech to Islam
July 31, 2012
By Chris Logan
The other day I was alerted to an article that my anti-Sharia sister Pamela Geller, had written which mentioned Logan’s Warning. Basically the article was on the issue of some big name bloggers and political commentators who have already surrendered their freedom of speech to Islam. Some of what Pamela stated was a bit surprising. I was not aware how some of the most popular bloggers had run away from her and Robert Spencer. (Please click HERE to see the article on Atlas Shrugs.) Apparently the heat is either too much for them, or the money they bring in by toeing the politically correct line is more important than saving their future generations from Islamic rule. I would just like to add a few things to Pamela’s article. In regards to Weasel Zippers: They used to be on my email list, and approximately a year and a half ago I received an email from them asking me to remove them from my list. I asked why, and was never sent a response. Is it just for money? Is it because of my friendship with Pamela? Or maybe they just run from people who are not afraid to speak about the actual tough answers that are needed to win this war? Either way, this goes for everyone mentioned in her article who has abandoned them. Pamela and Mr. Spencer have had some major victories recently, can you say the same?
This is a war, and in order to win it we are going to have to take some heat. That means we should be supporting Pamela and Mr. Spencer. Not running to make some extra money, or running because of some verbal attacks on you. Big deal, toughen up! This is a war!
Coming up next: I will name some more “conservatives” who have run from this issue.
-
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/07/why-the-right-wing-blogosphere-doesnt-cover-islam.html
-
ICNA Embraces America's Favorite Salafi Preacher
IPT News
August 1, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3692/icna-embraces-america-favorite-salafi-preacher
Yasir Qadhi, billed by the New York Times as "one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam," recently told one of the nation's largest Islamic conferences that the Quran "destroys" American capitalism.
"Who amongst us would have predicted five years ago that this nation would despise and hate the very [economic] system that they used to claim was the reason for their success?" he asked hundreds at a session of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)'s national conference in late May. "Now the system has been destroyed and demolished. Now 99 percent of America is saying Occupy Wall Street."
"This is a Pharonic society that we enjoy the pyramids, but you cannot enjoy pyramids without millions of slaves. And this is what this society has become," Qadhi said, repeating a classic Muslim metaphor for a society filled with corruption. Although his speech was intended to introduce a Somali charity worker, Qadhi used his time to call for converting America and radically altering its culture.
Qadhi's invitation to speak at the ICNA conference is puzzling, given the group's campaign to cast itself as a moderate religious group whose values are fully compatible with life in America, and given Qadhi's record of espousing a diametrically opposed viewpoint. The convention's theme, "Defending Religious Freedom, Understanding Shariah," mirrors a national public relations campaign ICNA is waging.
Qadhi didn't limit his comments to attacking America's economic system. He argued that had the Muslims engaged OWS protesters, they might have taken control of the movement and made huge gains in converts.
"Brothers and sisters, where were we at the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement to simply tell them, 'Oh fellow Americans, our lord has told us in the Quran that this system is not a good system, that this system will collapse?" he said. "This Ayah [Quranic verse] is the strongest Ayah criticizing the capitalist system as it exists in America. In five words, Allah demolishes this version of capitalism." His calls were greeted with shouts of "Allahu Akbar" and excitement by the crowd.
As the dean of academic affairs for the United States' largest Muslim academic institution, Houston-based AlMaghrib Institute, Qadhi's words reach more impressionable minds than most other American clerics. AlMaghrib partners with mosques, student organizations, and larger organizations nationwide to provide a conservative education for young Muslims. With this powerful influence, the preacher sets the standard for America's young Muslims, particularly on controversial issues like gender roles and Muslim/non-Muslim relations.
While the Times described Qadhi as "uniquely deft at balancing the edicts of orthodox Islam with the mores of contemporary America" and as someone who only used to "spout a harder line," several of his recent statements show that the charismatic preacher hasn't changed from his hardline Salafi roots.
In a video posted to YouTube last November, Qadhi advocated Saudi Arabian-style restrictions on Muslim women in the United States to protect them from Western "wolves and predators."
"Well the question arises, would I recommend a job for any [Muslim] sister and the answer is in general, in general no," Qadhi said.
"No one has liberated you from the wolves that are men more than Allah and the Sharia [law] of Allah. So if you stick to the Sharia, you will keep your honor and dignity and liberty," he said. "And if you go beyond the Sharia this is where the wolves and the predators will come and try to get you."
The average Muslim woman doesn't need to leave the home, Qadhi said. That kind of theology resembles Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive and require a male guardian's approval to engage in many day-to-day activities. Qadhi received his undergraduate education from the nation's conservative Islamic University of Medinah.
To Qadhi, working women destroy families. The rise of "women's liberation" in the 1920s started the undermining of traditional values, which had been strong "even in kaffir [disbeliever] societies," he said. The problem arises when, "women are trying to encroach on men's roles and vice versa. If each one did their job properly then there is no point of competition."
His only exceptions to this rule are those jobs that deal with other females, like teachers at girls' schools and gynecologists. These positions are permissible because they stop men and women from interacting.
However, even those jobs are permitted only "if her husband allows her; or if she is not married and her father wishes her to, allows her to work; she may work as long the environment is permissible; and she is doing something which she needs to do; and she's not interacting with men."
"Allah has told you that this is your best role [as mothers and wives], that this is what you are most capable of doing. He has protected you from the wolves of society, stay at your house, your food and drink will come to you," he said in the YouTube video. "What more do you want?"
Professional fields are out of the question. "I don't see the need for women in many other fields," Qadhi said. "There are only a few fields, like for example in engineering, as I said, I don't see the need. We have men, they're doing the job. We don't need women in this field where they're going to interact with men. What's the point?"
God's Law Trumps Man's Law
Qadhi claims that he isn't promoting chauvinism; we're just predisposed to think of such sentiments that way because of the influence of Western culture. It's the weakness and dastardliness of men that is the danger, he says, so women shouldn't feel negative about staying at home and taking subservient roles.
Qadhi has also called for Islamic theocracy to replace democracy, and expressed blind hatred against non-Muslims.
"Here in these verses [of the Quran], Surat Maida, verses 49-50, Allah categorizes all types of laws into two categories, the law of Allah and the laws from others. And he calls the laws of Allah a fair and just law, and he calls all others Jahiliya, ignorant laws," he said in another speech. "It is not my right to legislate or your right to legislate. No supreme court, no system of government, no democracy where they vote. Can you believe it, a group of people coming together and voting, and the majority vote will then be the law of the land. What gives you the right to prohibit something or allow something?"
"To believe that it is permissible to follow a way of life, to follow a system of laws other than the Sharia, negates one's testimony of Islam," he said in another speech.
"This type of thinking is clear kufr, clear disbelief, to believe that you know better, or any system of government knows better, any democracy, or any … whether it be communism or socialism, any type of philosophy is better than Islam, or it is allowed legitimately, it is allowed to follow this system, this is a profession of the fact that you believe that Allah is not All-Knowledgeable," he said.
These quotes, part of the series "Fundamentals of Faith," were broadcast on the popular British Muslim TV 'Islam Channel' and other English-language Islamic channels.
In other speeches, he described an eternal conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. "And this is the Sunnah [Practice] of Allah that the Kafir [disbeliever] will always hate the Muslim - the Jews and the Christians and the Hindus and every single non-Muslim," he said in an undated sermon. "He might allow every other religious minority or any other religion inside of his society and culture, but when it comes to Islam, because it is the religion of truth, he will find it inside of him to hate it. You cannot just be neutral when it comes to Islam; you are either a Muslim or you are a Kaffir that hates Islam."
We've written at length about ICNA's extreme theology, as evidenced by the curriculum it requires its members to follow. In 2009, the group assured Americans that "[e]xtremism has no place in Islam, and ICNA works tirelessly to oppose extremist and violent ideology."
Officials forgot about that statement when they invited Qadhi to speak about the demise of capitalism.
-
http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/huma-abedin-associate-editor-islamist-journal
-
Glad to see this posted, Crafty. I also am acquainted with the author of this article - Ryan Mauro - and know him to be a very credible and thorough source. You beat me to the punch by posting his article. My own Congressman, who is supposedly a conservative Republican, dismissed Bachmann's and her co-signers' letter along with Boehner and John McCain. They all took the knee-jerk, ignorant position of assuming this is some sort of religious bigotry. These folks need to be voted out of their jobs sooner rather than later. Unfortunately Rob Woodall - my Congressman - survived his primary challenge on Tuesday, but the good news is that about 30% of the votes went to his challenger - who was expected to garner less than 5%. The rumors of the death of the Tea Party have been greatly exaggerated, I assure you.
-
http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/huma-abedin-associate-editor-islamist-journal
I guess the question is did Ms. Huma Abedein, Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Clinton ever hide her family or affiliation?
No doubt she was vetted.
Has she done anything secretive or wrong?
And so far the answer is a resounding "NO".
It's a witch hunt.
-
Yeah, I bet Maj. Hussan in Texas was vetted too , , ,
-
"Has she done anything secretive or wrong?"...
"And so far the answer is a resounding "NO".
- Uh, we don't know that. The question that was raised is how well was she vetted. I assume Sec State Clinton has extremely high security clearance. Huma I assume is in the room when the most secret of secrets is being revealed and discussed. She very innocently could be talking with these relatives in question about bithdays and graduations in the family from her cell phone in a car immediately after a high clearance meeting. She may very well be doing nothing wrong. But SOMEONE IS LEAKING. The point of the Bachmann et al letter is to pose the question, not the answer, about how well she was vetted and where is the firewall between her exposure to national secrets and her exposure one or two steps removed to national enemies. That is a rational and appropriate national security question.
Some of those who find this line of inquiry out of bounds publicly and repeatedly accused the Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney of having more loyalty to his former employer Haliburton than to his country that he was sworn to serve.
The question of how well she was vetted was asked in private. It was the opponents of the inquiry who made it public, as I understand it. Get back behind closed doors with congressional oversight and find out how well she was vetted. Go after the sources of the other leaks and stop the illegal and deceitful blockage of information to congressional oversight on other issues and maybe the clouds of suspicion would not be so thick.
------------
"Yeah, I bet Maj. Hussan in Texas was vetted too , , ,"
Yes. We are making mistakes in security and intelligence all the time, long before Obama. We should be re-visiting and re-checking these kinds of decisions all the time.
Who knew that a military base was a gun free zone. Everyone, especially Wikileaks and the NY Times, knows the State Dept. leaks like a sieve. Check it and check it again.
My guess (already posted) is that it is extreme liberalism, not ties to Islamic radicalism, that has caused us to side with our enemies instead of our allies on major foreign policy decisions of the last 3 1/2 years. We can only fix that at the ballot box.
-
I'm thinking: extreme liberalism, extremely reckless leaking, AND extremely damaging intel getting passed.
All in all, extremely bad , , , and extremely frustrating that someone trying to say "We need to look at this more closely" gets leaked and lambasted.
-
http://pjmedia.com/blog/my-neighbor-the-hamas-leader/?singlepage=true
August 3, 2012 - 12:00 am Back in March, my friend and colleague Erick Stakelbeck of CBN News emailed me a link to an article in Tablet Magazine and asked: “Hey — isn’t that your neighbor with the head of Hamas?” Sure enough, it was. My former neighbor Salah Sultan was standing right beside Ismail Haniyeh — the Hamas “prime minister” of Gaza — as Haniyeh left a meeting with Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Cairo (purple shirt):
Stakelbeck knew about my neighbor Sultan because Erick and I had worked together on a video segment highlighting Sultan’s activity and residence in my hometown of Hilliard, Ohio, back in 2007. That was more than a year after I had first written about returning home to Ohio to discover that I had an internationally known Hamas cleric living about a mile from my own house. Not only that, but Sultan was the religious director at the local Islamic school, Sunrise Academy, which had taken over the former public library building in town. Sultan was also the resident scholar of the newly built Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Hilliard.
AdvertisementAs I later recounted, the Columbus Dispatch attacked me as a racist and a bigot, characterizing me as a Christianist Neo-Nazi. This after I had identified Sultan’s rabidly anti-Jewish remarks, his calls for violent jihad, his open support for Hamas, his ties to Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, and his association with international Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
The Dispatch article encouraged readers to attend an open house set up in response to my article at the local Islamic school. The relevant section of the Dispatch article responding to my claims was titled “Hostile Assertions”:
The condemnations not only came from my local paper, but also from the “interfaith leaders” in town — namely the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio – who had arranged the Dispatch hit piece. They also came from local residents, who felt free to vent their fury in phone calls made to my family members. One local columnist wrote an article titled “Muslim Basher, Patrick Poole, Preys on People’s Fears.”
Two weeks after the Dispatch article appeared defending Salah Sultan as a well-respected Islamic scholar and local interfaith leader (curiously, the Dispatch article can no longer be found on their website), he appeared on Al-Risala TV where he claimed that the 9/11 attacks were a U.S. government plot to victimize Muslims. He also defended designated terrorist and al-Qaeda cleric Abdul Majid al-Zindani:
Needless to say, the Dispatch never followed up, even after I sent the reporter and editors a copy of Sultan’s video translated by MEMRI.
Last year at PJ Media, I revisited some of Salah Sultan’s activities since that time. I was driven to do so after he appeared last August on Al-Jazeera issuing a fatwa authorizing the assassination of any Israeli in Egypt. I titled that review “Yes, my neighbor really was a racist, terror-supporting Muslim Brotherhood cleric.”
As a demonstration of how correct I was, take note of the picture below of Sultan being chummy with Khaled Meshaal –the head of Hamas and a specially designated global terrorist according to the U.S. government — that was posted on Sultan’s Facebook page on May 6 this year:
In law enforcement circles, this is what is known as an “investigative clue.”
In case the folks at the Columbus Dispatch still have any doubts about his Hamas connections, here Sultan is again with Ismail Haniyeh in March, just days after the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) — where Sultan sits on the board – greeted Haniyeh as a member:
But what about my prior claims about Sultan’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood? Well — Sultan was actively involved in the Egyptian elections, appearing regularly with the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi (who, I noted here, first became a Muslim Brotherhood member while in the United States studying at the University of Southern California).
Here’s a picture of Sultan and Morsi at a campaign event dated May 13:
Here is one of Morsi’s campaign flyers noting Sultan’s support (top row, second from the left):
In case there was any remaining uncertainty about Sultan’s ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Sultan led a Muslim Brotherhood rally and gave a fiery speech in Tahrir Square on a live June 21 broadcast on Al-Jazeera:
No doubt officials at the Columbus Dispatch will say I’m an Islamophobe for mentioning Sultan’s exercise of democracy on behalf of his preferred political party in his native homeland of Egypt.
What about my previous claims of his anti-Semitic racism? Funny you should ask. Again, I would note his aforementioned fatwa broadcast on Al-Jazeera, where he authorized the killing of any “Zionist” in Egypt.
Also, in November Sultan was the organizer of a “March Against the Judaization of Jerusalem” (here is an English-language report noting his leadership in the event), which is rather remarkable, as the Jews have been living in Jerusalem for more than 3,000 years. During events related to the march, reports indicate that speakers railed against “those treacherous Jews.”
At a November 25 rally at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Sultan can be seen marshaling religious leaders invoking the notorious Islamic hadith about the end times, when the stones and trees will say “O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come kill him.”
As noted by an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report, in February Sultan gave a speech at an IUMS meeting in Cairo where he blamed violence against Egyptian Christians on “acts of Jews.” At the event, the crowd was led in a chant: “To Jerusalem we are going as martyrs in millions.”
In May, the ADL reported that Sultan was the host of a new live television program on the Al-Risala network:
The program also featured live call-ins from viewers, including several who used the platform to make anti-Semitic remarks. One caller from Egypt said:
“It will be impossible for the Jews, those sons of apes and pigs, no way … no way … that they can achieve their goal in building their alleged temple. Inshallah and God’s willing this will never happen. We will raise our young children, the seven-year-old ones, the five-year-old ones, and the four-years-old to fight the Jews and have war with the Jews.”
Sultan responded, “God willing.”
A report last month by MEMRI stated that one of Sultan’s friends is the director of Al-Risala, Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood leader Tareq al-Suwaidan. They published pictures of the pair and noted Suwaidan’s anti-Jewish rhetoric, endorsement for the reestablishment of the global Islamic caliphate, and calls for violent jihad.
The MEMRI report also indicates that Suwaidan is a graduate of both the University of Oklahoma and Penn State.
One of the other issues that the Columbus Dispatch took me to task for was my connecting Sultan to international Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, whom the ADL describes at the “Theologian of Terror” for — among other things — his religious endorsement of suicide bombings by Hamas as “martyrdom” (he was the first major Sunni cleric to do so), and by Iraqi insurgents targeting American soldiers and contractors.
As far back as 2008 I noted the close relationship between Qaradawi and Sultan, including the appearance of Sultan at a July 2007 conference in Doha, Qatar (Qaradawi’s base), where Sultan praised Qaradawi as his teacher and mentor. Sultan later appeared on the main speakers’ dais with Qaradawi and Khaled Meshaal.
As Qaradawi reaches his late 80s, Sultan appears to be assuming his mentor’s mantle. Here is one recent picture of the pair:
And another:
Sultan’s increasing role in Qaradawi’s orbit is attested to in a February 10 article in the Khaleej Times reporting on a visit by leaders of the Syrian National Council — dominated and controlled by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood — with Qaradawi. During the meeting, Sultan (identified in the article as part of Qaradawi’s group) called for armed jihad against the Assad regime:
Another leading member of Qaradawi’s grouping, Salahudin Sultan, appealed to Gulf leaders to arm rebel fighters in Syria and send troops to back them.
“King of Saudi Arabia, emir of Qatar, take out the weapons and hand them over to those free people,” Sultan said.
“As you sent your Peninsula Shield Force into Bahrain, move them towards Syria,” he added, referring to the Gulf military force deployed to member state Bahrain last March to help the kingdom’s Sunni rulers put down Shiite-led pro-democracy protests.
It’s not just the Assad regime or the “Zionists” that are the targets of Sultan’s calls for violent jihad. In December 2008 I reported at PJ Media about one of Sultan’s appearances on Al-Nas TV, where he warned of the immediate destruction of America and invoked the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
This is a theme he returned to recently on Sada al-Balad TV back in February (translated by MEMRI), where he responded to a question about whether war with Israel would lead to war with the U.S. He responded: “Why not?”, approvingly cited The Protocols once again, and recalled a sermon he had previously given in Dallas where he likened the days of destruction with Noah and the looming wrath for the U.S.:
MEMRI also translated a January 17 interview with Sultan in which he encouraged Muslim youth to take up sports such as karate in preparation to fight for the liberation of Palestine:
I call upon young people to practice sports, and to strengthen their bodies in preparation for jihad. Practice Karate, practice Taekwondo, practice all the sports that make your body extremely strong. Lift weights, and then dream, day and night. Turn your faces towards the heavens. If the young turn their faces to the heavens in a desire to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it will be liberated soon, Allah willing.
Whatever happened to the respected Islamic scholar and interfaith moderate Salah Sultan, for whom the Columbus Dispatch was driven to publicly castigate me for daring to call him a terror-loving, terrorist-associating, racist Muslim Brotherhood leader?
He was a figment of the newspaper’s imagination, fed to them by their friends in the local Islamic community and by Sultan himself, and aided in no small measure by soothing narratives of interfaith peace and harmony many hold to despite all the conflicting evidence.
All along, he really was who I said he was. But it’s doubtful that the local media will correct the record.
But why does the record need to be corrected? Since his activity is entirely outside the U.S. now (he’s been banned from reentering the country), surely there’s really no relation between what happens over there and our communities here? Even though everything I said about Salah Sultan going back to April 2006 has been verified, my stated fears of a “hometown jihad” are nothing more than the paranoid fantasies of a raging, racist Islamophobe, right?
I’ll answer that question here at PJ Media shortly.
-
Lest there be any doubt about the legitimacy of the concerns expressed regarding Hillary Clinton's advisor Huma Abedin:
Huma Abedin’s Brotherhood Ties Are Not Just a Family Affair
Posted By Andrew C. McCarthy On July 27, 2012
Senator John McCain’s claim that concerns about Huma Abedin are a smear based on “a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations” proves more embarrassing by the day. In fact, to the extent it addressed Ms. Abedin, the letter sent to the State Department’s inspector general by five House conservatives actually understated the case.
The letter averred that Abedin “has three family members — her late father, her mother and her brother — connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.” It turns out, however, that Abedin herself is directly connected to Abdullah Omar Naseef, a major Muslim Brotherhood figure involved in the financing of al-Qaeda. Abedin worked for a number of years at the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs as assistant editor of its journal. The IMMA was founded by Naseef, who remained active in it for decades, overlapping for several years with Abedin. Naseef was also secretary general of the Muslim World League in Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most significant Muslim Brotherhood organization in the world. In that connection, he founded the Rabita Trust, which is formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization under American law due to its support of al-Qaeda.
You ought to be able to stop right there.
A person is not required to have done anything wrong to be denied a high-ranking government position, or more immediately, the security clearance allowing access to classified information that is necessary to function in such a job. There simply need be associations, allegiances, or interests that establish a potential conflict of interest.
Government jobs and access to the nation’s secrets are privileges, not rights. That is why the potential conflict needn’t stem from one’s own associations with hostile foreign countries, organizations, or persons. Vicarious associations, such as one’s parents’ connections to troublesome persons and organizations, are sufficient to create a potential conflict.
In this instance, however, before you even start probing the extensive, disturbing Brotherhood ties of her family members, Huma Abedin should have been ineligible for any significant government position based on her own personal and longstanding connection to Naseef’s organization.
Specifically, Ms. Abedeen was affiliated with the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, where she was assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. The journal was the IMMA’s raison d’etre. Abedin held the position of assistant editor from 1996 through 2008 — from when she began working as an intern in the Clinton White House until shortly before she took her current position as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff.
The IMMA was founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Omar Naseef, who was then the vice president of the prestigious King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. The IMMA’s chief product was to be its journal. For the important position of managing editor, Naseef recruited his fellow academic Zyed Abedin, who had been a visiting professor at the university in the early 1970s.
To join the IMMA, Dr. Abedin moved his family, including infant daughter Huma (born in 1976), to Saudi Arabia from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Zyed’s wife, Saleha Mahmood Abedin (Huma’s mother), is also an academic and worked for the journal from its inception. She would eventually take it over after her husband died in 1993, and she remains its editor to this day. Huma Abedin’s brother Hassan, another academic, is an associate editor at the journal.
The journal began publishing in 1979. For its initial edition, Abdullah Omar Naseef — identified in the masthead as “Chairman, Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs” — penned a brief introduction relating the IMMA’s vision for the journal. Zyed Abedin appeared as managing editor in the journal’s second edition in 1979, proclaiming in a short introduction his “deep appreciation to H.E. Dr. Abdullah O. Naseef, President, King Abdulaziz University, for his continued guidance, support, and encouragement.” (I am indebted to the Center for Security Policy, which obtained some copies of the journal, going back many years.)
Not long after the journal started, Naseef became the secretary general of the Muslim World League, the Saudi-financed global propagation enterprise by which the Muslim Brotherhood’s virulently anti-Western brand of Islamist ideology is seeded throughout the world, very much including in the United States.
We are not talking here about some random imam in the dizzying alphabet soup of Islamist entities. In the pantheon of Islamic supremacism, there are few positions more critical than secretary general of the Muslim World League. In fact, one of the MWL’s founders was Sa’id Ramadan, the right-hand and son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood’s legendary founder.
The MWL manages the “civilization jihad” — the Brotherhood’s commitment to destroy the West from within, and to “conquer” it by sharia proselytism (or dawa), as Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s top sharia jurist, puts it.
Nevertheless, the MWL has a long history of deep involvement in violent jihad as well.
It was under MWL auspices in 1988 that Naseef created a “charity” called the Rabita Trust. The scare-quotes around “charity” are intentional. To direct the Rabita Trust, Naseef selected Wael Hamza Jalaidan. A few years earlier, Jalaidan had joined with Osama bin Laden to form al-Qaeda.
This would surprise you only if you waste your time listening to John McCain, Version 2012 — as opposed to John McCain, Version 2011, who professed himself “unalterably opposed” to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Under the Brotherhood’s interpretation of sharia, which is explained in such works as Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, all Muslims are supposed to donate a portion of their income. This obligation, known as zakat, is usually referred to as “charity” by Islamists and their Western pom-pom waivers. But it is not charity; it is fortification of the ummah – the notional global community of Muslims.
As Reliance instructs, zakat can only be given to Muslims, and one-eighth of it is supposed to be donated to “those fighting for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army roster.” Remember that the next time you hear the ubiquitous claim that Muslim charities are being misused as “fronts” for terrorism. This is not a “misuse” and they are not “fronts.” Under sharia, the streaming of donations to violent jihadists is quite intentional.
A month after the 9/11 attacks, Naseef’s Rabitah Trust was formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States government. Ultimately, branches of the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the International Islamic Relief Organization – other “charities” with roots in the MWL — were also designated as foreign terrorist organizations under federal law. This, too, should have not been a surprise. In 2003, in connection with a terrorism prosecution in Chicago, the Justice Department proffered that Osama bin Laden had told his aide Jamal al-Fadl that the Muslim World League was one of al-Qaeda’s three top funding sources. (Fadl later renounced al-Qaeda and cooperated with federal prosecutors.)
Throughout the time that he ran the MWL and the Rabita Trust, Naseef kept his hand in at the IMMA. In fact, he continued to be listed on the masthead as a member of the “advisory editorial board” at the IMMA’s journal until 2003. We might hazard a guess why his name disappeared after that: in 2004, he was named as a defendant in the civil case brought by victims of the 9/11 atrocities. (In 2010, a federal court dropped him from the suit — not because he was found uninvolved, but because a judge reasoned the American court lacked personal jurisdiction over him.)
Huma Abedin was affiliated with the IMMA’s journal for a dozen years, from 1996 through 2008. She overlapped with its founder, Naseef, for at least seven years — it could be more, but I am assuming for argument’s sake that Naseef had no further involvement in his institute once his name was removed from the masthead.
The case against Ms. Abedin’s suitability for a high-level position with access to the nation’s secrets gets much worse if you add in her family ties.
To summarize what I’ve already outlined here at Ordered Liberty: her parents were recruited by Naseef to head up the IMMA; her mother is an active member of Muslim Brotherhood organizations — including the Muslim Sisterhood and two entities that are part of Sheikh Qaradawi’s Union of Good, another designated terrorist organization; there is persuasive evidence that her father was a member of the Brotherhood — e.g., the intimate tie to Naseef and his widow’s membership in the Muslim Sisterhood (which is substantially comprised of wives and female relatives of prominent Muslim Brothers); her mother is a tireless advocate of sharia law as preached by Qaradawi and the Brotherhood; and her brother, who is also affiliated with the IMMA’s journal, was a fellow at an Islamist institute (the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies) on whose board sat both Naseef and Qaradawi.
Nevertheless, the family ties to the Brotherhood only further elucidate what is already patent: Huma Abedin’s connection to Abdullah Omar Naseef, by itself, would have been more than enough justification to deny her a security clearance. That would have made it inconceivable that she could serve as deputy chief of staff to the secretary of state.
Ms. Abedin has very disturbing connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. Though she is not a policymaker, she is an important adviser, and during her three-year tenure, federal government policy has radically shifted in the Brotherhood’s favor, to the point that the Obama administration is not only embracing the previously shunned Brotherhood but issuing visas to members of formally designated terrorist organizations.
The question is not whether the five House conservatives were off-base in asking for an investigation into ties between administration officials and Islamist organizations. The question is why the other 430 members of the House haven’t joined them — and why John McCain, John Boehner, and other Republican establishment luminaries are championing the Muslim Brotherhood’s side of the dispute.
Article printed from Ordered Liberty: http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy
-
Former Federal Prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy Briefs on
Muslim Brotherhood Influence Operations
When: 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m., August 8, 2012
Where: Edward R. Murrow Room, National Press Club
529 14th Street Northwest, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045
Who: Andrew C. McCarthy: Prosecutor of the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman
What: A presentation of new information concerning Muslim Brotherhood influence operations inside and aimed at the Obama administration and their impact on U.S. policy. The briefing will include additional revelations concerning Huma Abedin, Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Ever since five Members of Congress – Representatives Michele Bachmann (MN) Louie Gohmert (TX), Trent Franks (AZ), Lynn Montgomery (GA) and Tom Rooney (FL) – were attacked by their colleague, Rep. Keith Ellison (MN), for asking the Inspectors General of federal departments to investigate evidence of Muslim Brotherhood influence operations within the U.S. government, there has been much heat and relatively little light on the subject. The group that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has dubbed “the National Security Five” has been subjected to character assassination, had its motives and integrity impugned and been ridiculed for acting irresponsibly, without any basis for its request to the IGs. In fact, it has been the five legislators’ critics of both parties who have failed to do their homework.
Fortunately one of the Nation’s most knowledgeable and respected authorities regarding the Muslim Brotherhood’s “civilization jihad” - former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy - has done his due diligence. In successive articles at National Review Online and PJMedia, Mr. McCarthy has explored some of the evidence that individuals with ties to the Brotherhood are working inside or advising the Obama administration. He shares – and, with his characteristic rigor, further validates – the concerns expressed by Mrs. Bachmann et al. that American policy may be influenced by such officials, advisors and “liaisons” to the Muslim-American community.
Mr. McCarthy’s briefing will address several examples of this phenomenon, including additional information developed in recent days concerning Huma Abedin’s associations with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Please RSVP to Adam Savit, savit@securefreedom.org or 202-719-2413.
The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public.
For more information visit www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org.
-
The Blue Belt in Olympic Judo
By Robert Spencer - 8-5-2012
Now the whole story of the Saudi girl who got Olympic rules changed so she could compete in judo wearing a hijab has finally come out. Wojdan Shaherkani, who forced a rule change in the Olympics so she could compete in judo while wearing a hijab, which previously had been banned for safety reasons, has only been practicing judo for two years, and is only a blue belt. She was only in the Olympics by special invitation.
This is like grabbing some guy from the local karate school, some guy who has been stopping in on Fridays for awhile to get back into shape, and throwing him into the Olympics. Shaherkani demonstrated this by lasting only 82 seconds in her Olympic bout. Nothing could have illustrated more vividly that the purpose of this pudgy girl’s Olympic appearance was not to bring home a medal to happy Saudi judo fans.
The purpose of Wojdan Shaherkani's Olympic appearance was twofold: to comply with International Olympic Committee (IOC) pressure for female athletes from Sharia states like Saudi Arabia, and to turn that situation into a victory by pressuring the IOC for a concession on hijabs, thereby reinforcing the principle that wherever Islamic law and Infidel laws and practices conflict, it is Infidel laws and practices that must give way. Throwing this unprepared girl into Olympic competition was a cynical ploy to show yet again that the West must submit to the demands of Muslims and of Islamic law.
It was to reinforce Islamic supremacism that the world was treated to the spectacle of an inexperienced blue belt competing in Olympic judo. This is in line with long-standing initiatives in Europe, Canada, and the United States, where groups of Muslims are increasingly demanding that local custom accommodate to them, rather than the other way around, and are doing so based on the proposition that Islamic culture is superior to Western culture, and that Western culture must ultimately give way to it.
One notorious example came last October, when the Obama Department of Justice settled a Muslim woman’s religious discrimination lawsuit against the Berkeley School District. The DoJ forced the school district to pay Safoorah Khan $75,000 for denying her nearly three weeks of vacation during the school year so that she could go on the hajj.
Safoorah Khan asked for "almost three weeks of unpaid leave" so that she could go on the hajj. She wrote that "based on her religious beliefs, she could not justify delaying performing hajj," although since a Muslim has his or her entire lifetime to perform the hajj, it's unclear what would have made it impossible for her to justify delaying doing so -- was she in imminent danger of death?
If she wasn't, there was no reason why she had to go on the hajj at that time. And since the Islamic calendar is a lunar one with a year of 355 days, the time to perform the hajj moves by ten days every year. All she had to do was wait until the time for the hajj fell during summer vacation, and then there would have been no problem.
But instead, she demanded three weeks of leave. Yet three weeks of leave, even unpaid, out of the school year is a significant chunk of time -- after all, the school year is only about nine months long. So she is essentially demanding to keep her job despite being away for nearly a tenth of the time during which the job is to be performed.
Yet Obama's Justice Department, ever accommodating to Islamic demands, is forcing the school district to make a big payout to her. And you can be sure there will be more cases like this one. Said Khan: "I’m glad that we settled and I hope this does set a precedent...I hope this helps people and their employers to accommodate Muslims and their requests."
Oh, it certainly will. For the current guardians of Western culture and civilization are all too willing to comply with these “requests,” having been convinced after years of mainstream media indoctrination that not to do so would be to would constitute an unacceptable “racism,” “bigotry,” and “Islamophobia.” They are unable or unwilling to see that the outcome of the myriad small accommodations to a supremacist and intolerant ideology will be the destruction of the very basis of their tolerance and openness. But by then it will be too late.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book, Did Muhammad Exist?, is now available.
-
The Abedin Family’s Pro-Jihadist Journal
August 6th, 2012 by Andrew Bostom |
Steadily burgeoning evidence indicates that one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest aides, Huma Abedin, despite Ms. Clinton’s protestation, was inadequately vetted for either family, or personal ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Diligent, open source investigation has already uncovered and documented numerous alarming connections. One can reasonably infer that a serious, formal Congressional investigation of the overall extent of Muslim Brotherhood influence operations—as requested by Representatives Bachmann, Gohmert, Franks, Westmoreland, and Rooney—might yield even more disturbing findings.
Pending these sorely needed Congressional inquiries—replete with their probing investigative tools—much can still be gleaned from the public record. For example, over the past 33 years, Huma Abedin’s family has been responsible for the editorial production of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA)’s academic journal, known as Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Journal, from 1979-1995, and Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs [JMMA], from 1996. till now, starting with family patriarch Syed Z. Abedin’s, and Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin’s, founding involvement since 1979, and subsequently joined by Huma’s brother Hassan Abedin (1996 to present), Huma herself (1996 to 2008), and Huma’s sister, Heba (married name Khalid, or Khaled; 2002 to present).
Syed Abedin, in the inaugural edition of the IMMA journal, gives an effusive tribute to one of his IMMA co-founders, Dr. Abdullah Omar Nasseef, Chairman of the IMMA. During his concurrent tenure as Secretary-General of the Muslim World League—a combined Saudi Wahhabi, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated organization—in July, 1988, Naseef also created the Rabita Trust, and became its chairman. On October 12, 2001, then President George W. Bush’s Executive Order named Rabita Trust as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity, and the US Treasury Department froze its assets, while Naseef was still serving as the Trust’s chairman. Nasseef remained on the IMMA journal Editorial Board through 2003, overlapping Huma Abedin’s tenure for 7-years (i.e., 1996-2003).
The current (April/May 2012) issue of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs journal (JMMA) features two essays, introduced with lavish praise by Editor Saleha Abedin, which champion, unabashedly:
The global hegemonic aspirations of major 20th century Muslim Brotherhood jihadist ideologues, such as the eminent Muslim Brotherhood theoretician, Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), and Abul Hasan Nadwi (d. 1999)
The more expansive application of Sharia within Muslim minority communities residing in the West, with the goal of replacing these non-Muslim governing systems, as advocated by contemporary Muslim Brotherhood jihadist ideologues, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and Taha Jabir al-Alwani
One of these JMMA essays repeats, approvingly, Qutb’s pejorative characterization of the West as a “disastrous combination of avid materialism, and egoistic individualism.” Abul Hasan Nadwi, was a founding member of the Muslim World League, a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (now Cooperation), a member of the World Supreme Council of Mosques, and a member of the Fiqh Council of Rabita. In a triumphal 1951 manifesto extolling Islamic supremacism, Nadwi had proclaimed “Behold the world of man looking with rapture at the world of Islam as its savior, and behold the world of Islam fixing its gaze on the Arab world as its secular and spiritual leader. Will the world of Islam realize the hope of the world of men? And will the Arab world realize the hope of the Muslim world?” Citing Nadwi with admiration, the same JMMA article opines, “[T]he confrontation has taken the shape of an ‘Islamic project’ in the Muslim world against Western modernity…. The war that has been declared against Western modernity now seeks a new modernity…unlike Western modernity.”
Another featured essay from the current issue of the JMMA is a fitting complement to the journal’s endorsement of the global Islamic supremacist agenda. This essay endorses the so-called “innovative” application of the “Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities,” living, for example, in the West, whose stated purpose is, “enforcement of shari’ah on the Muslim communities.” However, by the essay’s own expressed standard: “The theory of the Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities is most easily clarified by shedding light on its founders.”
The two founders of this legal doctrine, as the essay notes, are Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Qatar, and Taha Jabir al-Alwani of Virginia, USA.
Qaradawi has publicly advocated:
The re-creation of a formal transnational United Islamic State (Islamic Caliphate)
The jihad conquests of Europe, and the Americas
Universal application of the Sharia, including Islamic blasphemy law, and the hadd punishments (for example, notably, executing so-called “apostates” from Islam)
Al-Alwani, writing as president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a think tank created by the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, stated, regarding a (then) new English translation of the classic Shafiite manual of Islamic jurisprudence Reliance of the Traveller, “from a purely academic point of view, this translation is superior to anything produced by orientalists in the way of translations of major Islamic works.” Notwithstanding al-Alwani’s glowing tribute, Reliance of the Traveller sanctions open-ended jihadism to subjugate the world to a totalitarian Islamic Caliphate; rejection of bedrock Western liberties—including freedom of conscience and speech—enforced by imprisonment, beating, or death; discriminatory relegation of non-Muslims to outcast, vulnerable pariahs, and even Muslim women to subservient chattel (who must be segregated and undergo female genital mutilation); and barbaric punishments which violate human dignity, such as amputation for theft, stoning for adultery, and lashing for alcohol consumption. Moreover,
Al-Alwani wished Islamized Spain had conquered America and spread Islam in our hemisphere, not Christianity. He stated, “Perhaps some of them [Muslims from Spain] would have been the ones who discovered America, not someone else, and America could have possibly been today among the lands of the Muslims”
Al-Alwani was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Sami Al-Arian who pled guilty to conspiracy to aid the terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
al-Alwani published an essay online, discovered (and translated from Arabic to English) in July 2011, entitled “The Great Haughtiness”, which promoted conspiratorial Islamic Jew-hatred replete with Koranic references, conjoined to modern “Zionist conspiracies”
The Abedin family “academic” journal is a thinly veiled mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sharia-supremacist agenda. One can now add this conclusive, public record evidence to a host of other bona fide justifications for the Congressional inquiry demanded by Representative Bachmann, and her four intrepid colleagues.
All Articles Copyright © 2007-2012 Dr. Andrew Bostom | All Rights Reserved
Printing is allowed for personal use only | Commercial usage(For Profit) is a copyright violation and written permission must be granted first.
-
It's a witch hunt going nowhere.
"Grover Norquist, a prominent Republican strategist, who like others, has been attacked by Gaffney for alleged ties to radical Islamist groups during President George W. Bush’s administration, dismissing Gaffney as a “sick, little bigot.”"
Wow; I guess that sums it up rather well. :-D No one seems to care except you Objectionist1. :evil:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/bachmann-affair-against-clinton-aide-huma-abedin-is-a-wake-up-call/2012/07/26/gJQAFHP4BX_blog.html
-
Worth noting is the provenance of your posted piece:
"John L. Esposito is founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin TalalCenter for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University."
In other words, he's on the Saudi Wahhabi payroll. No doubt the family in question is, as he says, educated, but so too is Morsi of Egypt and lots of other MB people. It still doesn't change what they are about.
Worth remembering is the extreme sensitivity of the access to secrets that this position entails and the attendant standards that need to be applied. I'll readily agree that MB sometimes is casual in her approach to factual accuracy, but it seems to me Obj is offering substance in support of what he says whereas the Exposito piece does not address the substance and seeks merely to make his point via compurgation.
-
Also worth noting is that JDN makes absolutely NO attempt to refute anything contained in the Andrew McCarthy piece I posted earlier in this thread, which effectively destroys his laughable claim that this is simply a "witch hunt." There are plenty of FACTS in that piece. JDN evidently isn't interested in facts - only in character assassination.
-
"No one seems to care except you Objectionist1"
- This statement is categorically false. Read the thread.
"JDN makes absolutely NO attempt to refute anything contained in the Andrew McCarthy piece I posted earlier in this thread, which effectively destroys his laughable claim that this is simply a "witch hunt." There are plenty of FACTS in that piece. JDN evidently isn't interested in facts - only in character assassination."
- This statement is true.
An honest difference of opinion debated passionately would be perfect for the question at hand. Unfortunately one side of the argument hasn't shown up yet.
Let me help frame an answer for the character assassin. Inquiry and oversight into the question of how highest level staff with at least indirectly ties to terror organizations were vetted is not warranted because ________________________.
-
Actually Doug, my statement is true.
No one does seem to care, from conservatives like Rollins to McCord on the Senate Floor. Except for wackos and right wings, no one, including respected Republicans
are criticizing Abedin; in fact, many are openly supporting her. Objectivist1, note, these are people with character. :-)
And I did refute the Andrew McCarthy piece; or I should say the piece I posted by the esteemed Professor from Georgetown Dr. Esposito in the Washington Post (often quoted here and primarily a right wing publication) tore McCarthy's piece to shreds. "John Esposito is University Professor, Professor of Religion and International Affairs, and Professor of Islamic Studies. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Muslim/Christian Understanding, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Dr. Esposito has served as President of the Middle East Studies Association, the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, and Vice Chair of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. He has also worked as a consultant to governments, multinational corporations, and the media worldwide. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford History of Islam, and The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. His more than 25 books include: Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam; What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam; The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality; Islam and Politics; and Islam and Democracy. "
And Doug, she was vetted. Vetted enough that the leading Republicans, not to mention the Democrats think she is qualified and NOT a threat. No on of any substance is criticizing Abedin. It's a sick, partisan witch hunt; there is no substance to any charges. Odd that Andrew McCarthy's last name is McCarthy.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/the-banality-of-american-islamophobia.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-alexander-muslim-sikh-20120810,0,6114417.story
As for character assassination, well Objectivist1 if you would post someone with character, I wouldn't have to assassinate them. :-D
Geller is a well known wacko and Grover Norquist, a prominent Republican strategist, dismissed Gaffney as a “sick, little bigot.”
-
Quoting JDN: "Geller is a well known wacko and Grover Norquist, a prominent Republican strategist, dismissed Gaffney as a “sick, little bigot.”
Calling someone names, regardless of who makes the charge - doesn't make it so. It's also worth pointing out that I haven't seen JDN - or anyone else on this forum, refute anything that Pamela Geller has said that I have posted. Call her a "wacko" if you like - let's see the evidence.
As for Grover Norquist calling Frank Gaffney a "sick, little bigot," the same applies. Gaffney has attacked Norquist repeatedly over his documented Islamist connections. It's not surprising that Norquist wouldn't be pleased with this - however - Norquist hasn't refuted ANY of the charges Gaffney has made about him.
Again - I say - let's see the evidence that either of these individuals is making false charges. What no one ACTUALLY cares to entertain on this forum is baseless name-calling. Kindly present your evidence and engage in an honest debate, or stop wasting others' time here. You'll simply be ignored going forward.
-
Objectivist1; it goes to credibility.
This isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue. Or liberal versus conservative. I'm not biased.
When even the respected conservative blog "Little Green Footballs" calls Geller a wacko, I listen. Not to mention prominent and RESPECTED Jewish individuals and organizations agree.
The same point applies to Abedin. Prominent and RESPECTED conservatives support her and ridicule her critics.
You are not posting "evidence" but rather baseless rumors filled with innuendo. It's like reading a fictional novel only you call it "truth". :?
It's your sources Ojectivist1; they are a joke. No one, or maybe you do :-o believes them. It's a non sequitur; it does not follow.
You should post in the humor thread. Your posts are that funny. :-D
Or find some respected and credible sources.
Or can't you? :evil:
-
AFDI/SIOA Islamorealism ads up in New York!
See here: www.jihadwatch.org/2012/08/afdisioa-islamorealism-ads-up-in-new-york.html#comments
I am very pleased to report that for once the freedom of speech and the truth have triumphed over political correctness and submission to the Islamic supremacist agenda. Our AFDI/SIOA Islamorealism ads are up in New York Metropolitan Transit Authority stations from White Plains to the Bronx. I'm particularly proud of this as "Islamorealism" is a word I coined.
All kudos go to Pamela Geller, who originated this ad and all our brilliant AFDI/SIOA Islamic supremacist awareness ads, and who keeps pushing the politically correct establishment to grant us our free speech rights.
Posted by Robert on August 10, 2012 5:17 AM
-
Cyrus McGoldrick of Hamas-linked CAIR calls for vandalism of AFDI pro-Israel ads
Robert Spencer - August 12, 2012
"I almost don't want to protest/vandalize them. But then again...."
Pamela Geller has the story http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/08/hamas-cair-ny-incites-fb-forums-to-vandalize-pro-israel-ads-.html
Cyrus McGoldrick is "Civil Rights Manager" of Hamas-CAIR, NY. He is urging anti-semitic violence and vandalism of our pro-Israel bus ads that just went up in California after our historic free speech win in court.
The scores of anti-Israel bus and subway campaigns that have run thoughout the United States were never met with calls for violence and destruction.
Indeed. But Hamas-linked CAIR has never shrunk from thuggish attempts to obstruct and deny the freedom of speech. http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/07/brave-sir-ahmed-ran-away-hamas-linked-cair-op-passed-up-a-chance-to-be-on-ala-panel-and-now-crows-ab.html
-
Frankly, I bet a lot of other people are calling for vandalism too. Calling the Palestinians "savages" doesn't seem like a positive step forward to a long term solution. The only "savages" aka wackos might be Geller and Spencer.
By the way, Ojectivist1, do you work for atlasshrugs2000 or jihadwatch?
I mean it seems like it's the ONLY source you are able to reference. Why is that?
No one else cares? :evil:
-
Christie Hosts Hamas-linked radical Imam
Radicalislam.org - Sunday, July 29, 2012
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie hasn’t commented on the case of Imam Mohammed Qatanani since the issue started getting attention, leaving open the question of whether he still stands by the radical imam that the Department of Homeland Security wants to deport. We now know the answer. On July 24, Christie invited Qatanani to a Ramadan dinner at the Governor’s Mansion and he reaffirmed his support for the cleric, calling him a “friend.”
“In all my interactions with the imam, he has attempted to be a force for good in his community, in our state with law enforcement, with those of us who have gotten to know him for the years,” Christie said at the event in Princeton. He continued:
“I hope that what you see is a constant strain of conduct for me. I will judge people based upon their relationships with me and the way I observe them conduct themselves, and while there may be other issues at play and I will certainly consider those if other facts come in, I will tell you the folks who are my friends will continue to be my friends as long as they continue to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty and faith in common value and the things that make our state a better place.”
This development isn’t terribly surprising, especially since RadicalIslam.org reported that when Christie’s Attorney General met with Qatanani, Mohamed el-Filali, the executive director of Qatanani’s mosque and an official from the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ N.J. chapter.
A July 29, 2008 court filing said Qatanani was guilty of “material misrepresentation,” “has engaged in terrorist activity” and “engaging in unauthorized employment…by allowing an out-of-status alien to reside with him.”
“It is certainly suspicious when a person who has been convicted of being a member of, and providing services, to Hamas, who has personal ties to a Hamas militant leader, and a Hamas fundraiser also sends undisclosed cash to the West Bank,” the document reads.
Qatanani’s next hearing is scheduled for November 26.
For more background information on Imam Qatanani and his relationship with Governor Christie, read RadicalIslam.org’s previous reports by clicking here, here and here.
-
Objectivist1; kudos to you!
You not only posted a piece not from Geller/Spence, but one that criticized a Republican.
That seems rather fair; thank you.
That said, I'm not sure how serious this is; "Qatanani was guilty of “material misrepresentation,” “has engaged in terrorist activity” and “engaging in unauthorized employment…by allowing an out-of-status alien to reside with him.”
Except of course "terrorist activity". If THAT is serious, then this is not good. As for "material misrepresentation" well, that doesn't sound too serious, and "unauthorized employment" well, again, not too serious.
What is "terrorist activity"?
-
Well, Whaddya know? Huma Abedin was a Muslim Students Association Board Member
by Walid Shoebat - August 15, 2012 - www.shoebat.com
———————
Well, well, well… In addition to Huma Abedin returning to the United States circa 1996 and landing a job with both Hillary Clinton and the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), she also joined the Muslim Students Association (MSA) Executive Board at George Washington University.
The following screen shot is courtesy of Wayback Machine and shows that in 1997, Huma Abedin served on the MSA Executive Board as the Head of Social Committee.
We now know that while Huma was serving on the IMMA Board with al-Qaeda financier Abdullah Omar Naseef, she was also serving on the Board of a Muslim Brotherhood front group – the MSA – as identified by the 1991 document introduced into evidence during the Holy Land Foundation trial. In 1997, that document was only six years old.
Remember, both Wolf Blitzer and Dana Milbank said that arguing Muslim Brotherhood infiltration has merit; Huma Abedin was a Board member of the MSA, a Muslim Brotherhood organization.
Wolf? Dana?
-
The Elephant in the Room: Is Muslim Brotherhood Paying Huma and Weiner Rent for $3.3M Apartment?
August 14, 2012
www.maggiesnotebook.com
Former Congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin have moved into a $3.3 MILLION apartment in New York City. How are they paying for this tony piece of real estate when Weiner still doesn’t have a real job that anyone knows about – maybe some consulting and such, but that’s about it. Or maybe he had a re-election war chest when he resigned? His wife’s income is reportedly $155,000 annually. Let’s cut to the chase – give the elephant a glance: is the Muslim Brotherhood paying for Huma Abedin’s convenient access to Hillary Clinton’s brain, computer and power?
The residence is a 2,120-square-foot, four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom apartment, according to the Post, and the paper notes the property curiously came off the market at the same time Weiner sold his residence last year. Source: Breitbart
Weiner resigned his US Congressional seat for New York…in disgrace, after tweeting lewd photos of himself, while his wife was pregnant with their first child. A Clinton spokesperson told Breitbart.com that Weiner and wife are a “two-income” family, so maybe he’s tapping his 401K or Government pension, or whatever, but it sounds like he’s a stay-at-home Dad. Huma is Hillary Clinton’s close personal friend and her Deputy Chief of Staff. They met in Saudia Arabia and Abedin’s parents are well-documented Muslim Brotherhood supporters:
1. Huma Abedin’s mother, Dr. Saleha S. Mahmood Abedin (hereafter, Saleha Abedin), is an influential member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s division for women, the Muslim Sisterhood. She is also a zealous advocate of sharia law’s oppression of women — which McCain himself condemned in a 2011 interview with Der Spiegel.
2. Not only that: Saleha Abedin is a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief. The IICDR has been long banned in Israel for supporting Hamas. It is also part of the Union for Good, which is a formally designated international terrorist organization under federal law. The Union for Good is led by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the chief sharia jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is the world’s most influential Islamic cleric, and has issued fatwas endorsing suicide bombings against Israel and terrorist attacks against American forces in Iraq.
3. Moreover, it turns out that Huma Abedin herself was, until late 2008, a member of another of her mother’s Islamist organizations, the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Read more at PJ Media
If that’s not enough, remember the hammer dropped on Rep. Michele Bachmann for bringing attention to Abedin’s background? Walid Shoebat is ready to tell more:
That news concerns Huma’s alleged ties to Abdullah Omar Nasseef, a “financier” of terrorism with whom Huma was associated when she was part of his organization, the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), until taking her position with Sec. of State Clinton.
Shoebat is also prepared to show the alleged ties between the Abedin family and Yusuf Qaradawi, “the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Shoebat’s focus on Qaradawi is critical, because many that have dismissed Bachmann’s concerns about Huma have done so based on the fact that Huma’s husband, former Rep. Anthony Wiener, is Jewish. Source: Breitbart
The apartment, which is owned by a Clinton supporter, is judged to rent for $12,000 – $14,000 per month. If family income is only $12,916 gross monthly, the verboten question: how much is it worth to have an operative at the highest levels of the U.S. State Department? Read much more on Huma Abedin at The Camp of the Saints.
AskMarion links and has much more background and current news on Abedin, including a White House Iftar dinner and her place at the table.
-
In a world with the attention span of a television commercial, your sustained focus and attention to detail on this is appreciated Obj.
-
The Grand Deflection
Center for Security Policy | Aug 13, 2012
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
A magician typically succeeds when the attention of the audience is diverted from his main activity onto some distraction. President Obama has raised this sort of deflection into a political art form.
Take, for example, the matter of revelations by five Members of Congress and the Center for Security Policy that there appear to be a number individuals working for or with the Obama administration with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The possibility that their influence may be helping to shape U.S. policy in ways that increasingly align it with the demands, ambitions and goals of the Brotherhood and other Islamists is a national security problem of the first order. That is especially true at a moment when Muslim Brothers are consolidating their hold on power in Egypt with the cashiering of two top generals at the hands of the Brotherhood's newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi.
Yet, Team Obama and its allies in the elite media have aggressively worked to deflect the focus away from these realities. At first, they did so by viciously attacking Congresswoman Michele Bachmann - even though she was just one of five legislators who asked for investigations into these seeming influence operations by inspectors general of five federal agencies.
Then, they sought to portray as a victim of racism and bigotry just one of those about whom the Members of Congress raised legitimate questions: Huma Abedin, the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Journalists like CNN's Anderson Cooper repeated uncritically - and unprofessionally - assurances that there was no factual basis for linking Ms. Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood. Where compelled to acknowledge that members of her family do have ties to Brotherhood-connected organizations, the administration and its allies denounced such concerns as "guilt by association" and "McCarthyism."
Then, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, former Muslim Brother Walid Shoebat and other researchers established a direct tie between Huma Abedin and a Muslim Brotherhood front, the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). IMMA was established essentially as an Abedin family business by Abdullah Omar Naseef, an officially designated al Qaeda financier.
Shortly after IMMA was founded under his chairmanship, Naseef became the secretary general of the Muslim World League (MWL) which Mr. McCarthy described in an August 8th speech in Washington sponsored by the Center for Security Policy as: "the Saudi-financed global propagation enterprise by which the Muslim Brotherhood's virulently anti-Western brand of Islamist ideology is seeded throughout the world, very much including in the United States."
It happens that Huma Abedin was listed for twelve years on the masthead of the IMMA's journal as an associate editor. For at least seven of those years, Omar Naseef was also listed as a member of the editorial advisory board.
In his remarks last week, former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney McCarthy directly spoke to charges that Huma Abedin was being unfairly challenged by virtue of these various ties to the Muslim Brotherhood: "‘Guilt by association' has nothing to do with fitness for high public office. High public office is a privilege, not a right. Access to classified information is a privilege, not a right. You need not have done anything wrong to be deemed unfit for these privileges."
Andrew McCarthy added pointedly: "It is not a question of your patriotism or your trustworthiness. It is about whether you would be burdened by such obvious conflicts of interest that you would be tempted to act on those interests, rather than in the best interests of the United States."
Nonetheless, two days later, the Deflector-in-Chief used the occasion of remarks at his fourth annual White House Iftar dinner - a ceremony marking the breaking of the Ramadan fast - to provide a shout-out to one of his guests, Huma Abedin. Mr. Obama pronounced: "Huma is an American patriot, and an example of what we need in this country - more public servants with her sense of decency, her grace and her generosity of spirit. So, on behalf of all Americans, we thank you so much." Nothing to see here folks, move along.
Not only does Ms. Abedin's relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood and involvement in policies favorable to its interests warrant close official scrutiny. There are at least six other individuals with Brotherhood ties whose involvement in Obama administration "Muslim outreach" and/or related policy-making also deserve investigation by the IGs and the Congress:
Rashad Hussain, Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation;
Dalia Mogahed, an advisor to President Obama;
Mohamed Elibiary, a member of Homeland Security Department's Advisory Council;
Mohamed Magid, a member of the Homeland Security Department's Countering-Violent Extremism Working Group;
Louay Safi, until recently the credentialing authority for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military and now a leader of the Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council; and
Kifah Mustapha, a Hamas-fundraiser and graduate of the FBI's ‘Citizens Academy'
The American people are entitled to know who is shaping the policies that are increasingly empowering, enriching and emboldening the Muslim Brotherhood - an organization sworn to our destruction. Under no circumstances should legitimate and well-grounded congressional requests for formal investigations be deflected, let alone suppressed.
And the results of those investigations must be available to inform the critical choice American voters have to make this November. It just might make all the difference in the outcome - which is presumably why the grand deflection is being pursued with such determination.
-
In a world with the attention span of a television commercial, your sustained focus and attention to detail on this is appreciated Obj.
I too like your new approach with references more qualified (although I disagree with them) than gelled/spencer.
I particularly liked your post about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Imam Mohammed Qatanani. Wow, he was arrested
for terrorism? That's really serious. Maybe Christie should be investigated?
As for Abedin, it's all smoke and no substance. She was a member of the Muslim Student Association? Wow, maybe it's because
she is Muslim? I know a lot of Mexicans who are members of the Mexican Student Association too. Doesn't mean they
are bad.
As for their new apartment, ALL financial dealings of Abedin are reviewed. This one is no secret. The apartment is owned by
Mr. Rosen, a wealthy, Jewish friend of Clinton. It seems they are living there rent free. Maybe her loyalty is being bought
by the Jewish lobby. But I doubt it; I think Abedin is just a hard working, very bright, talented individual who is doing a job
and serving America.
http://nypress.com/weiner-and-wife-move-into-plush-3-3-million-pad/
-
Norquist Repudiates Romney-Ryan on Defense
Posted By Frank Gaffney On August 17, 2012
On Monday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, were sharply criticized over their commitment to reverse massive budget cuts Team Obama is making at the expense of our military capabilities and national security.
What made this attack notable – and potentially very damaging to the GOP standard-bearers – is that it came, not from the Democrats, but from a prominent Republican political operative, Grover Norquist. It is hard to see how his contention that Messrs. Romney and Ryan can’t be trusted to spend wisely on defense will help anybody but their opponents.
In remarks to the bipartisan Center for the National Interest, Norquist threw down the gauntlet to the Republican ticket. He declared he would fight defense spending increases, or even relief from the next, debilitating round of cuts. These amount to a further half-a-trillion dollars in across-the-board cuts over ten years under what has been called a “doomsday mechanism” known on Capitol Hill as “sequestration.” What makes matters much worse is that these cuts come on top of nearly $800 billion in Pentagon budget reductions already in the pipeline – a fact the anti-tax activist studiously ignores.
For a guy whose ostensible expertise is domestic economic matters, it is doubly surprising that Grover Norquist fails to recognize another disastrous effect these enormous reductions in defense spending will have – on employment and communities all over the country. Estimates run as high as 1 million jobs lost and $59 billion in direct lost earnings and $86.4 billion in gross state product in the first year alone. (For a detailed analysis of the impact by congressional district, see the Defense Breakdown Reports at www.FortheCommonDefense.org/reports.)
What Norquist did do, however, is directly take on the GOP ticket by opining that “Other people need to lead the argument on how can conservatives lead a fight to have a serious national defense without wasting money,” Norquist said. “I wouldn’t ask Ryan to be the reformer of the defense establishment.”
The question occurs: Just who does Grover Norquist think would be better suited to be stewards of the “defense establishment” and the national security it is charged with providing? Having no expertise on these matters himself, in whom does he have more confidence than the people the Republican Party hopes will lead this nation for the next four years?
Based on Grover Norquist’s past history advising the last Republican administration (see www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com), several candidates come to mind, as noted in this CSPAN interview with moderate Muslim Stephen Suleyman Schwartz:
Abdurahman Alamoudi: Alamoudi is a top Muslim Brotherhood operative and al Qaeda financier with whom Grover Norquist joined forces in 1998 to launch a Brotherhood front called the Islamic Free Market Institute. Alamoudi’s purpose was, with Norquist’s considerable help, to run influence operations inside the conservative movement and Republican circles, including notably the George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign. Alamoudi should be available to help reorder our defenses as he is currently serving hard time in Supermax on terrorism-related charges.
Sami al-Arian: Al-Arian also went to federal prison, in his case for running a designated terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, from his professor’s office at the University of South Florida. But not before Grover Norquist helped him meet with Candidate Bush in March 2000 and subsequently extract from Mr. Bush a public commitment that, if elected, he would work to eliminate a key counter-terrorism tool: the confidential use of classified information in deportation proceedings against illegal aliens (like al-Arian’s brother-in-law, Mazen al-Najjar) so as to protect such intelligence from compromise.
Nihad Awad: The co-founder of an aggressive Muslim Brotherhood front and Hamas fund-raising vehicle, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) also benefitted from Norquist’s help in gaining access to and running influence operations against the Bush ’43 team. CAIR was listed in 2008 as an unindicted co-conspirator in the criminal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation on charges of providing material for terrorism.
Muzammil Siddiqi: To conclude this partial listing, Grover Norquist could surely also call for assistance on Siddiqi, yet another top Muslim Brotherhood leader and an influential Islamist cleric. After all, Siddiqi owes him: Norquist aided in securing for him the role of representative of the Muslim faith at the national ecumenical 9/11 memorial service on September 14, 2001. The Norquist-Alamoudi team also arranged later that month for Siddiqi to present President Bush with a Quran on the occasion of a private meeting at the White House. Such legitimation advanced considerably the subversive agenda Siddiqi and his comrades pursued as part of what they call “civilization jihad” against America.
Or perhaps Grover Norquist would turn to people like Trita Parsi, who even the state-controlled Iranian media have depicted as part of the “Iran Lobby” in America. He certainly did before: In 2007, Norquist created with the help of his Palestinian-American wife, Samah, an anti-defense group called the American Conservative Defense Alliance (ACDA). (Samah served on ACDA’s board of directors and as its corporate secretary). And ACDA, in turn, was a founder of the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran (CNAPI). ACDA’s address was that of Norquist’s ATR group, where CNAPI meetings were also held.
By 2008, CNAPI’s coalition was made up of more than 40 groups including: Parsi’s National Iranian American Council (NIAC), CAIR and other Islamists; many George Soros-funded radical leftist groups; and the Norquists’ vehicle for undermining the conservative stance on national security, ACDA. Their common goals: to eliminate U.S. support for the democracy activists opposed to the Tehran regime, to block economic sanctions and to prevent any military action.
All these Norquist allies could, of course, be relied upon to back him in pressing for substantial cuts in U.S. defense expenditures. They would presumably be happy, as Norquist put it Monday night, to join him in getting “the Republican Party…[to] reexamine the actual defense needs and then work from there to determine how much to spend.”
To be sure, a reexamination of those requirements as defined by Barack Obama is in order. And our defense needs should indeed determine the resources applied to meet them. But the nation – and most especially the Romney-Ryan campaign – can ill-afford to take advice from Grover Norquist and his friends, especially as it would obviously be predicated on dramatically reducing such military requirements. It would also have the practical effect of making Obama’s ravaging of the nation’s defenses seem responsible.
At issue is not so much whether this Islamist-tied libertarian trusts Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to manage the nation’s national security needs. What we need to know is whether the GOP candidates trust Grover Norquist – and will they henceforth open their doors to him and the bad company he keeps?
-
The Huma Abedin-House of Saud Connection Exposed
Posted By Jamie Glazov On August 17, 2012
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist and Muslim Brotherhood activist who is the author of For God or For Tyranny.
FP: Walid Shoebat, welcome back to Frontpage. The interview we did last year, The Dark Muslim Brotherhood World of Huma Abedin, has become extremely relevant and I would like to discuss your new highly disturbing findings with you.
Shoebat: Thanks for having me again Jamie.
FP: Last Friday, President Obama voiced strong support for Huma Abedin during the Iftar dinner, saying the top aide to Secretary of State Hillary has been “nothing less than extraordinary in representing our country and the democratic values that we hold dear.”
Yet you have presented a 37-page dossier and WTC 1993 prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has linked the Abedins [here] and [here] to two terror supporting supervisors: al-Qaeda financier Abdullah Naseef and the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradwi. Moreover, you have now made a discovery that links the Abedins’ Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs enterprise to a sinister Wahhabist Saudi agenda called Muslim Minority Affairs. Kindly share your new discovery with us.
Shoebat: President Obama needs to refute the facts and provide answers that are void of rhetoric. He can’t and he won’t. My findings all started as I was researching Huma’s father “Sayed Zaynul Abedin” in Arabic looking for further clues and suddenly there it was, an unbelievable document commissioned by the late King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz which can be downloaded [here] and [here]. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It had a long grandiose and fanciful title: The Efforts of the Servant of the Two Holy Places to Support The Muslim Minorities. It included Huma’s father and his work Muslim Minorities in the West published in 1998 as part of 29 works to construct this conspiratorial manifesto. (#11. P. 134) It explained the Muslim Minority Affairs (hereafter MMA) not simply as a title or as a religious or social entity but as a Saudi foreign policy of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
It is an entire management system using MMA as the vehicle to catapult MMA to gain specific goals:
1—Recruit individual Muslims that live in non-Muslim lands and transform them as a collective unit by establishing centers, educational programs, mosques and organizations like ISNA and MSA in order to stop Muslim assimilation in non-Muslim host nations.
2—These then can influence the non-Muslim host nations by shifting the demographic scale due to their population growth in favor of the Saudi agenda.
3—A gradual implementation of Sharia will ensue by becoming a major revolutionary powerhouse.
4—This will tilt the host nation in favor of Muslims due to their increase as a population.
5—By this, a transformation then ensues in the host nation to gradually begin to implement a Wahhabi style Sharia.
6—The host state then will join the Muslim commonwealth.
Amazed, I began to research the Abedins’ Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (hereafter IMMA) from historical accounts and testimonies. The two connected perfectly and what emerged was extremely troubling from a national security perspective: the Abedins for decades were actually serving a foreign entity, the government of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs and not American Democracy as President Obama stated. The Abedins’ IMMA is a Saudi-based branch implemented, commissioned and stationed through the same entity that produced this policy to serve Saudi Arabia’s and not American interests.
FP: Ok, but how exactly can you connect the Abedins’ IMMA to the Saudi MMA?
Shoebat: Easily, we have:
[1] Testimonies.
[2] The hierarchical construct of the Abedins’ IMMA fits the Saudi manifesto MMA chain of command.
and
[3] We have historical references showing IMMA was officially under these authorized organizations that were set up by Saudi Arabia.
These make an ironclad case. Here is an example; the manifesto states that:
“It [MMA] will work under the umbrella of the Muslim World League (MWL) and International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and others” (P. 6, also see P. 23)
The Arabic Dictionary on Media Icons by Zarkali confirms the above plan fits IMMA:
“Sayed Z. Abedin is a specialist on Muslim Minority Affairs issues… In the early 1970′s, Sayed Z. Abedin went to Saudi Arabia for one year as a visiting professor. He was welcomed by King Abdulaziz University, which provided him the means to create a scholarly program regarding Muslim Minorities. Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, the Dean of King Abdulaziz University then envisioned the creation of an academic entity called the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), under the management of Ahmad Bahafzallah, who was the General Trustee for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). Professor Sayed Z. Abedin was encouraged to supervise the Muslim Minority Affairs and served as IMMA’s chief editor.” (Al-I’lam by Zarkali, is an encyclopedia on major figures in the Arabic-Muslim Media, P.p. 218)
Abdullah Ghazi, a graduate of Harvard University in Comparative Religion, provides additional testimony as he reminisces about how he met the Abedins:
“Later we shifted to Gary in Indiana State, 40 kms from Chicago. In 1976, I met Rabita (MWL) chief Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef and Dr. Zainul Abedin of Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs. They encouraged me to take up this venture. The first book to come out was Our Prophet, an assignment from King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah at Dr. Naseef’s behest…”
The history of the Abedins’ IMMA and of the Saudi manifesto’s hierarchy for MMA perfectly match. As we see, it was the Muslim World League (MWL) with Abdullah Omar Naseef, a Wahhabist who created IMMA under Ahmad Bahafzallah of World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) to supervise the Abedins.
FP: What proof can you provide from the manifesto itself regarding the goals you mentioned?
Shoebat: We provided several snapshots from the manifesto itself:
This snapshot in English says:
“The Muslim societies in all continents of the world exist as either ‘Muslim Nation’ or ‘Muslim Minorities’. The assessment to determine what constitutes ‘state’ from a ‘minority state’ is done based on a number of measures. First the numbers scale, which is, if a nation has Muslims exceed half the population and its Constitution states that Islam is its official religion or that Islamic Sharia is its source of law, this state is then considered an Islamic state.” (p.29) “Since the number of Muslims has risen greatly in the last years where they became 1.3 billion Muslims. From these we have (900) million already in Muslim nations. The 400 million live as communities and as Muslim Minority” (p. 31) “… In Africa resides (250) million Muslims and in Europe resides (60) million Muslims and in North America and South America resides (10) million Muslims. So, according to these statistics it is expected that the number of Muslims will reach 2.6 billion six hundred thousand within a short span of time. The Muslims then will become a mighty and effective power in the world, of course, due to the increase in their numbers—then these will shift the demographic balance in their favor.” (p. 32).
It actually maps out with statistics and demographic analysis every nation where Muslim minorities exist. Remember, Huma’s mother is an expert on demography and world populations and contributed greatly to that effect in the JMMA journal. Regardless how small the numbers, these are expected to advance Wahhabist ideology.
FP: Ok, what about this “Wahhabist” link? Can you provide proof?
Shoebat: The document pulls no punches. It mentions “puritan Islam” as directed by “Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab,” the father of Wahhabism:
“Allah destined this region [Saudi Arabia] for a historic role. So He commissioned the two Imams—Muhammad bin Saud and Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, may Allah have mercy upon them. But the times have passed on Imam Muhammad bin Saud by the emergence of the reformer—Muhammad bin AbdulWahhab. So the two Imams cooperated together to judge by what Allah brought forth, to fight against heresy and to bring Muslims back to puritan Islam.” (p. 8 )
FP: Is the United States mentioned in the plan?
Shoebat: Indeed, all over it, it discusses accomplishments in ISNA, MSA, banking, centers and even names the mosques designated to fulfill the plan in the United States, except there are obstacles. The United States is the home of the main obstacle that hinders their agenda—the Jews. There the manifesto shifts, sounding more like an Arab version of Mein Kampf. Here I include the original snapshot from the document itself and translated it to English:
“The greatest challenge that faces Muslims in the United States and Canada are the Jews who take advantage of their material ability and their media to distort the image of Islam and Muslims there by spreading their lies and distortions in the minds of the people in these countries. The Jews employ their efforts and direct their material wealth and their high positions to serve Zionist interests in the Arab region. They [the Jews] take advantage of situations to distort the image of Arabs and Muslims. The Zionist organizations spend enormous efforts to obstruct the spread of Islam in these areas.” (P. 79-80)
FP: This is scary stuff, and our media and government are completely silent and blind.
Let’s continue: how can we know that the MMA is not some isolated issue or something simply on paper?
Shoebat: McCarthy’s The Grand Jihad perhaps can provide a better analysis as to the billions spent by Saudi Arabia in the U.S. to advance their agendas. I am here to provide missing links, the proclamations from the Arabic texts that westerners don’t review, things considered taboos to discuss and translate, an insight from a defector who switched sides. That’s what I do.
As to the MMA concept, it is not isolated to the Abedins or even the Saudis. Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood support the same concept, they even link to each other with the same title: “the Jurisprudence of Muslim Minority Affairs.”
In other words, the IMMA is not simply a name of an outfit; it represents a definition, a jurisprudence rooted in a sinister doctrine with short and long-term goals. Qaradawi has a similar manifesto for the Brotherhood. MMA scholars across the board have an obsession using this jurisprudence steering Muslims into this theocratic collective revolution.
FP: Give us some examples.
Shoebat: No problem. Take Europe’s Abdul-Majid al-Najjar, Assistant Secretary-General of the European Council for Fatwa and Research. While working on supposed building relations with the West, he adheres, in Arabic, to the same collectivist concept. In his “Creating a Fundamentalist Jurisprudence of the Muslim Minorities in the West,” he states:
“Islamic Sharia ruling is for every circumstance, time and place and in all circumstances… It was ordained that Islam was assigned the mission to inherit the globe. It is a mission possible through only the collective religious performance and mission impossible through individual religiosity.”
Let’s take Taha Jaber al-Alwani who is an ardent anti-Semite who, by the way, runs the United States Department of Defense program (out of all places) for training Muslim military chaplains in the U.S. military. This is the first time we translated this:
“… it [MMA] is a Jurisprudence for a group confined to its special circumstances which is allowed what others are not. Its exercise needs an understanding of social sciences, especially sociology, economics, political science and international relations… for the fundamentals of success for the Muslim Minority Jurisprudence it must adhere to the collective earth concept.” [here]
Alwani, a man commissioned by our government, even calls for a soon-to-be military conquest and provides an official fatwa permitting and preparing for the use of force:
“Commitment to the Quranic concept of Geography: The land belongs to Allah, his religion is Islam, and every country is already in the House of Islam—now in the present time—since they will be in the House of Islam by force in the near future. The whole of humanity is a Muslim Nation: it is either ‘the religion of the nation’ which has embraced this religion [Islam], or a ‘proselyte nation’ we are obliged to conquer.” (Alwani, The Jurisprudence of Muslim Minority Affairs. No. 7)
This is no mirage; it’s real and it is why we see people like Nidal Malik Hasan attacking military personnel and military installations from within; he snapped and couldn’t wait.
FP: So it’s on all levels, military and civil?
Shoebat: Yes. In America, even the Director of the Islamic Center of Lubbock Texas Mohammed bin Mukhtar Shanqeeti agrees:
“The Muslim Minority Jurisprudence is not a heresy or a novel, it’s an ancient doctrine filled with the provisions for Muslims living in Dar al-Kufr (House of the Heathen) or Dar Al-Harb (House of War).” [link, here]
Even the Abedins’ Journal for Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA ) confirms that their program stems from these same extremist sources: “The theory of the Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities is most easily clarified by shedding light on its founders” which the notes state are none other than Muslim Brotherhood “Yusuf al-Qaradawi” and “Taha Jabir al-Alwani”.
In a nutshell, The Muslim Minority Affairs program is part of a grand plan to destroy America from within, exactly as what the Muslim Brotherhood planned, which was exposed in the Holy Land Foundation trials.
FP: Tell us a bit more on the provisions for Muslims living in the House of the Heathen.
Shoebat: Now you are entering into how the plan combines two Jurisprudences; the Minority Affairs Jurisprudence and the Jurisprudence of Muruna (Flexibility). Muruna is the “process of permitting evils” specifically for Muslim Minorities that is “sanctioning prohibitions for the sake of an interest”. You can learn all about it [here]. This jurisprudence permits “reversing Sharia rulings” in order to “gain interests.”
So the rulings on marriage with non-Muslims as we have with Huma and Anthony Weiner now become sanctioned even if Sharia prohibits it.
While the media argues that Huma married a Jew as evidence for her assimilation, in actuality it’s more the reason for suspicion, especially since that her mother is a Muslim Brotherhood leader who never denounced the marriage. That with Huma’s years of service as part of a Wahhabi scheme provides reasonable concerns.
FP: You keep referring to this character from Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Omar Naseef, as an al-Qaeda affiliate. What is the evidence that he is tied to al-Qaeda?
Shoebat: Besides much evidence reported on Abdullah Omar Naseef contributions for al-Qaeda, we have the WTC vs. Al Baraka, et. al. (see pp.384-386), It mentions Naseef, who arranged to meet Osama bin Laden and launch what seems like a major attack, right from one of Naseef’s Muslim World League (MWL) offices:
“…a Memo on IIRO [International Islamic Relief Organization] / MWL letterhead detailed a meeting between Abu Abdallah (Osama bin Laden), Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, Sheik Abdel Majeed Zindani, and Dhiaul Haq, in which it is stated that, ‘the attacks will be launched from them (these offices)… You must pursue finding an umbrella which you can stay under…and I prefer the name of the League (most likely, Muslim World League) because Dr. Naseef is one of the brothers…’”
While these statements were only in the preliminary documents that were removed in later documents, possibly since they are regarding older operations prior to 9/11, yet, Naseef, according to this, was in direct communication with Osama bin Laden; this might shed a different light on the matter of Huma Abedin. For years, she had close ties with Naseef. But despite this, Naseef was proven to have been an al-Qaeda financier. The Naseef-Huma connection has no degrees of separation as many claimed. These statements made by the media were simply false.
Andrew McCarthy wrote that Naseef could have escaped the civil lawsuits on a technicality:
“…he was named as a defendant in the civil case brought by victims of the 9/11 atrocities. (In 2010, a federal court dropped him from the suit — not because he was found to be uninvolved, but because a judge reasoned the American court lacked personal jurisdiction over him.)”
The Abedins went back and forth, setting foothold in India, where Huma’s parents worked during 1978 with Maulana Muhammad Yousuf of Jamaat-e-Islami. Yusuf came after Abu Al-Ala Maududi, who was key in the Tabligh in the Indian subcontinent’s equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood. It has extensive ties to Wahhabists, including Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They represent an extremist Salafist brand. Then somehow they were in Saudi Arabia working with Naseef who spearheaded IMMA and commissioned the Abedins from Saudi Arabia to launch the program is the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Do you think they circulated the earth promoting this program solely by themselves as part of an American dream?
FP: What can we do about this?
Shoebat: Here are some things citizens can do immediately:
1—Petition to bring Huma’s ex-boss Naseef to face American justice.
2—Connect the dots between the Saudi Wahhabist plans and the Abedins’ IMMA, only then can we begin to unravel why the Abedin family works with nefarious characters like Naseef and Qaradawi.
3—Understand how interlinked these organizations are, their layers and sub-layers.
4—IMMA was a family affair under Saudi management, a foreign entity that intends to do harm to United States interests.
5—Ask politicians why is it a taboo to discuss Huma Abedin, and demand they refute the facts and provide answers that are void of rhetoric.
6—Support these courageous Congressmen. These are heroes, not slanderers as McCain says. They represent the interest of the people and not the policy of silence. McCain says to question Abedin’s loyalty is “dangerous” when it is silence that is, in fact, dangerous.
FP: Thank you Walid for sharing this very important information with us.
Shoebat: My pleasure.
-
http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-biggest-d-c-spy-scandal-you-havent-heard-about-part-two/?singlepage=true
-
Jihad At the DNC
Posted By Robert Spencer On August 22, 2012
It is no surprise, after four years of Obama Administration pandering, Muslim groups have a prominent role at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. The Charlotte Observer reports that organizers expect as many as 20,000 Muslims to attend the “Jumah at the DNC” series of events being organized by the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs (BIMA). Among these events is an all-day “Islamic Cultural & Fun Fest,” which will include a “TownHall Issues Conference” that will address “issues such as Islamaphobia, Anti-Shariah, Middle Eastern Crisis, Patriot Act, National Defense Authorization Act and more.”
There is no doubt whatsoever that this “TownHall Issues Conference” will not include any discussion of Islamic jihad terror plotting in the U.S., or of how Muslim groups have tried to exaggerate the problem of “Islamophobia” by faking hate crimes. It is likewise certain that the “Anti-Shariah” issue will be portrayed as an attempt by bigoted Americans to restrict Muslim religious freedom, when in reality it is solely an attempt to prevent the political and supremacist aspects of Islamic law that are at variance with constitutional freedoms from gaining a foothold here. Certain also is that the discussions of the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act will focus on how these measures are supposedly excessive and unfairly target Muslims.
The overall thrust of the entire “TownHall Issues Conference,” as is clear from its stated agenda, is to portray Muslims as the innocent victims of a bigoted, racist and “Islamophobic” government and law enforcement establishment that is unfairly scapegoating Muslims as a whole for the misguided deeds of a few on September 11, 2001. It will include no discussion of the many attempted jihad attacks against the U.S. since then, or of the successful ones, such as Nidal Malik Hasan’s massacre at Fort Hood or Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad’s murders outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas. Any and all scrutiny of the Muslim community in the U.S. will be portrayed as gratuitous and unwarranted. The assembled Democrats, meanwhile, will be falling all over themselves to promise that whatever domestic counter-terror apparatus the Obama administration has failed to dismantle during its first term will go under the knife during its second.
But the most disturbing aspect of the entire “Jumah at the DNC” is not the obvious victimhood-mongering of its agenda, but the people involved. The Democrats are playing host to an unsavory gang of Islamic supremacists with numerous ties to jihad groups. Even this is not surprising, but it should be a matter of concern to any Americans who are more aware of the jihad threat than the average politically correct Democrat pol.
Take, for example, BIMA spokesman Jibril Hough. Hough’s mosque, the Islamic Center of Charlotte, is owned by a Muslim Brotherhood group, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case. When confronted about this on a radio show, Hough first professed not to be aware of the charges against NAIT, and then refused to disavow the organization, saying only that he himself was “not necessarily” a member of NAIT and: “I was not involved in the decision to allow NAIT to be the [title] holder.”
Meanwhile, the “Grand Imam” for Jumah at the DNC is none other than Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj is one of the most sought-after speakers on the Muslim circuit, and has addressed audiences all over the country; in 1991, he even became the first Muslim to give an invocation to the U.S. Congress. After 9/11, his renown as a moderate Muslim grew when he declared: “I now feel responsible to preach, actually to go on a jihad against extremism.” But as with so many other Muslim leaders in the U.S., Siraj Wahhaj is not as moderate as he may appear at first glance.
Wahhaj was several years ago designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He himself has denounced this designation as essentially meaningless, but he didn’t earn it by doing nothing. In the early 1990s he squired the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, all around New York City and New Jersey, sponsoring talks by him in area mosques. The Blind Sheikh, of course, is now serving a life sentence for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, as well as in jihad plots to blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels.
When Wahhaj was traveling around with the Blind Sheikh, was Rahman “moderate,” and then became “radicalized” later? Or did Rahman and Wahhaj share a supremacist and violent view of Islam, but Wahhaj is going about his jihad in a way that is less likely than Rahman’s to draw law enforcement scrutiny? No one ever asks Wahhaj such questions – least of all Democrat Party politicians.
Nor is Wahhaj’s association with the Blind Sheikh the only blot on his reputation as a “moderate.” He has warned that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has also asserted that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”
So why is such a man acting as the “Grand Imam” at “Jumah at the DNC”? The Democrats are so in thrall to multiculturalism that it is likely that few, if any, DNC organizers know or care about Wahhaj’s Islamic supremacist statements and ties. To raise any concerns about such a speaker would be “Islamophobic,” violating every rule of the anti-American, anti-Western ethos that prevails among so many Democrats today.
The worst thing about Siraj Wahhaj’s appearance at “Jumah at the DNC” is that it is so thoroughly unsurprising. What would be genuinely shocking would be if the DNC anywhere, at anytime, featured a speaker who spoke realistically about the jihad threat. But there is about as much chance of that as there is of the Democrats ditching Obama and nominating David Horowitz as their candidate for President of the United States.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
-
Huma Abedin, Islamist Connections and Willful Blindness
Posted By Jamie Glazov On August 22, 2012
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and New York Times bestselling author who put the Blind Sheik behind bars in the first World Trade Center bombing. He is the author of Willful Blindness and, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.
FP: Hi Andy, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.
You are carefully following the controversy over Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, and her ties to Islamic supremacism. Give us an update on your findings. Walid Shoebat has discovered something quit startling lately, yes?
McCarthy: Thanks, Jamie, it’s a pleasure to be back.
You’re right, Walid Shoebat – who has done essential research in this area – did indeed come up with an eye-opening discovery. He has detailed it here, and I wrote about it here. It is an Arabic document that outlines the Saudi government’s efforts to propagate the Kingdom’s fundamentalist version of Islam and sharia (Islam’s legal system and framework for society). The document is called The Efforts of the Servant of the Two Holy Places, King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, to Support the Muslim Minorities. Walid has described it as a “manifesto.”
It bears on the present controversy because Huma Abedin served for a dozen years as the assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, publication of which was the main business of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Both the institute and the journal were founded by Abdullah Omar Naseef, a wealthy and influential Saudi academic who became a financier of the al Qaeda terror network as well as the secretary-general of Muslim World League – one of the most significant joint ventures of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi government in terms of spreading Islamic supremacist ideology. Naseef recruited Huma Abedin’s parents to run the journal when it started in the late seventies, and it has been an Abedin family venture since that time, with Naseef remaining closely involved.
FP: Why “Muslim Minority Affairs”?
McCarthy: Well, that’s really the salience of Walid’s latest find. From the Saudi and Brotherhood perspective, “Muslim Minority Affairs” is not merely a title for an institute or a journal. It is a strategy and a jurisprudence of building the global Islamist movement by integrating into the West, resisting assimilation, establishing enclaves of Islamic supremacism, and pressuring host governments both to accommodate what become growing Muslim demands and to indulge the rule of sharia in these enclaves – which sets a precedent that facilitates the gradual incorporation of sharia elements in the law and culture of the host country.
This design, of course, has to be considered in context with what else we know about the Muslim Brotherhood. It has been brazen about its intention to “conquer America” and “conquer Europe” by dawa – the aggressive form of proselytism that pressures non-Muslim societies to adopt sharia incrementally. And in the Brotherhood’s private communications, as I explain in The Grand Jihad, it has described its work in America as a “grand jihad” or a “civilization jihad” to “eliminate and destroy Western civilization from within” by “sabotage.”
As I outlined in a speech at the National Press Club about two weeks ago, the overarching Saudi/Brotherhood design, coupled with Naseef’s key involvement and the substance of what one reads in the journal (a subject on which Andrew Bostom has done important work), underscores that the direct link between Ms. Abedin and Naseef is very troubling. Indeed, the intimate connection of the Abedin family with Naseef, their ties to such other Brotherhood luminaries as Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, and the connections not only to the Brotherhood but to organizations that have been formally designated as facilitators of terrorism, powerfully demonstrates that the five conservative members of the House of Representatives were absolutely right to raise concerns about Islamist influence in our government.
FP: So one would think that a lot of people owe Michelle Bachmann an apology, including the media. Where is the apology?
McCarthy: Congresswoman Bachmann knows Washington well enough not to be holding her breath waiting for an apology. What is really stunning and demoralizing to me, though, is that only five members of Congress – five out of 535 if you count both chambers – have had the conscientiousness and courage to stand up and be counted on this. We have an obvious national security problem, and it goes way beyond Huma Abedin. We not only have several people with significant Islamist ties being consulted by our government on foreign and domestic policy, including counterterrorism policy. We are simultaneously seeing American policy shift dramatically in a direction that favors the Muslim Brotherhood, an avowed, incorrigible enemy of America and the West. Yet, we can’t even get one percent of our elected federal representatives to raise an eyebrow? I’ll tell you what. I speak to a lot of people around the country, and a lot more than one percent of them are worried about what’s happening.
FP: Share with us a bit about Huma’s involvement with the MSA and what that signifies.
McCarthy: Yes, that’s disturbing, too. In 1997, Ms. Abedin was on the executive board of the Muslim Students Association at George Washington University in Washington – while she was an intern at the Clinton White House and while she was an assistant editor at Naseef’s journal. The Muslim Students Association is the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s infrastructure – an infrastructure that the Brotherhood has quite intentionally constructed for the purpose of executing the “Muslim Minority Affairs” strategy of giving like-minded Muslims the space and fortitude to resist assimilation and demand accommodation. As I explained in The Grand Jihad, this strategy is also aptly described as “voluntary apartheid,” and one of its most influential proponents in Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s chief sharia jurist.
The Brotherhood started the MSA in the early sixties and there are now hundreds of chapters at colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada. Of course, thousands of students have been involved in these organizations. Many of them join for innocuous social reasons – to make friends with people of similar cultural background, etc. You have to be careful about over-generalizing: not everyone who is or ever has been part of a MSA chapter harbors sympathies for the Brotherhood and its ideology. Indeed, some MSA chapters – especially the ones that are not formally connected to the national organization (I should perhaps say the “continental” organization, since Canada is included) – reflect the debates about reform that are extraordinarily important and very much a part of Islam in the West.
Nevertheless, it is simply a fact that, as a whole, the MSA is a bastion of the Brotherhood’s brand of Islamic supremacism and that, as night follows day, the MSA has an alarming track record of its alumni going on not only to Islamist activism but even to violent jihad. Patrick Poole’s account here is a real eye-opener. And he makes the important point that many of the MSA members who’ve gotten involved in jihadism had leadership positions in their chapters. That is, the more immersed a young Muslim becomes in this Brotherhood enterprise, the more likely it is that he or she will become a committed agent in terms of aggressively spreading Islamist ideology.
The GWU chapter in which Ms. Abedin served on the executive board has a history worth noting here. Its chaplain in 2001 was Anwar al-Awlaki, the now notorious al Qaeda figure who was, back then, ministering to some of the 9/11 hijackers.
Futhermore, at Walid Shoebat’s website, Ben Barrack has pointed out that Mohamed Omeish was also a chaplain at GWU’s MSA chapter. He headed the International Islamic Relief Organization, which has been tied to the funding of al Qaeda. Omeish’s brother, Esam, headed the Muslim American Society, which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s quasi-official branch in the United States. (The Brotherhood has many affiliated organizations in which members participate, but the MAS was actually formed to be the Brotherhood’s formal presence here – although many Brothers have been ambivalent about whether a formal presence was needed or desirable.)
The Omeish brothers were closely associated with Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was once regarded as Washington’s model Muslim moderate by many of the same bipartisan Beltway elites who’ve taken shots at Michele Bachmann and her four conservative colleagues. Of course, Alamoudi is now serving a lengthy jail sentence, and we’ve learned that he was a major financial backer of al Qaeda and Hamas. As Paul Sperry has recounted at Frontpage, it was Esam Omeish who brought Awlaki in to be the imam at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Virginia (I’ve written about that mosque, in The Grand Jihad and in this column). Awlaki and Mohammed Omeish overlapped for a time as chaplains and advisers to the MSA chapter at GWU. And as Ben Barrack points out, citing this Fox News report, Secretary of State Clinton – with Ms. Abedin as one of her top advisers – somehow managed to invite Esam Omeish to participate in a conference call the State Department organized for the purpose of discussing relations between our government and the Muslim community. By then, as I recount in The Grand Jihad, Esam Omeish was a fairly notorious figure in Washington: He had had to resign from a Virginia immigration panel to which he’d been appointed by the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, because videos surfaced in which he had praised the Palestinians for resorting to “the jihad way” so that “Palestine” could be “liberated.”
On that score, it is worth noting that Esam Omeish, like many Islamists of the Brotherhood stripe, is also a hard Left political activist – again, see Paul Sperry’s article on Omeish, which begins with him speaking at a Cindy Sheehan antiwar rally. The alliance between Islamists and Leftists is one of the major themes of my aforementioned book, The Grand Jihad.
FP: Share with us what you know and think about the overall Brotherhood influence on our government and our society’s willful blindness about it.
McCarthy: I think our society is becoming increasingly less willfully blind about it, which is one of its major disconnects with Washington.
As far as the federal government is concerned, it is worth remembering why we have a legal concept known as “conscious avoidance” or “willful blindness” (the latter, as you’ve been kind enough to mention, is the title of my first book, a memoir of the Blind Sheikh investigation). When people irresponsibly put their head in the sand, when they go out of their way to avoid, or at least pretend to avoid, knowledge of facts that bear critically upon their actions, the law no longer accepts their claims of ignorance – they are held accountable. If someone you have every reason to know is involved in the drug business pays you to transport a package across town to someone else you have every reason to know is involved in the drug business, you don’t get off the hook by claiming, “Well, gee, I never looked inside the package, I didn’t know there was heroin in it.” That is the stage we are at with government officials.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates are being consulted on counterterrorism policy – to the point that our federal agencies are purging their training materials of references to Islam. The Obama administration recently issued a visa to a member of formally designated terrorist organization (the Blind Sheikh’s “Islamic Group” – Gama’at al-Islamia) and hosted him for talks at the White House about the future of Egypt – something that would be felony material support to terrorism if an ordinary American citizen did it. When the administration was called on it, the Homeland Security Secretary responded that we can expect more of the same in the future. The government is aligning with Brotherhood organizations across the region – in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria. The administration has formed a “counterterrorism forum” with Turkey and other Islamist countries – excluding Israel (the world’s number one terrorism target) and essentially adopting the Muslim Brotherhood’s claims that terror attacks against Israel are not really “terrorism” (they are “resistance’ against an illegitimate “occupying” power). The administration is also colluding with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in an effort to impose unconstitutional restrictions on free speech that would make it difficult, if not legally impossible, to engage in frank discussions about the obvious nexus between Islamic supremacist ideology and sharia aggression (of both the violent and non-violent varieties).
The general public is much more agitated about the trajectory we are on than Washington is, and it expects the officials responsible to be held accountable. People are becoming informed, and once you’re informed, you have no tolerance for willful blindness.
FP: Andy McCarthy, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview. And thank you for your brave fight for the defense of our nation and civilization.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
-
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist and Muslim Brotherhood activist
Gee, with a resume like that, why wouldn't I blindly believe him? :-o
Is there any RESPECTED conservative, much less a liberal who is critical of Abedin? EVERYONE in leadership positions seems to think
she is a fine person. It's a witch hunt with no substance. Time to move on.
As for the other sources...., oh yeah, Objectivist1, you said you know and respect Gaffney,
So what is Bachmann’s source? Every one of her letters prominently cites Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan defense official who has become one of the country’s most prominent anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists. Gaffney heads the Center for Security Policy and has for years been preaching to anyone who will listen that the Muslim Brotherhood is secretly infiltrating every aspect of American life in a grand scheme to impose Shariah law when we least expect it. For Gaffney, everyone is an agent of the Brotherhood, including CPAC, the big annual gathering of conservatives in Washington, D.C., and Grover Norquist, the prominent anti-tax activist who is married to a Muslim woman.
Gaffney’s persistent attacks against fellow conservatives got him booted from the American Conservative Union, the organization that puts on CPAC and includes notable hawks like former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. As Ellison explained in his letter, “Mr. Gaffney’s views have been widely discredited, including by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and conservative organizations … After the ACU board conducted a full investigation of Mr. Gaffney’s accusations against Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan, the board found Mr. Gaffney’s accusations ‘reprehensible,’ ‘baseless’ and ‘false and unfounded.’ The ACU even barred Mr. Gaffney’s participation from CPAC in 2011.”
-
Note well how JDN conveniently fails to address any of the allegations presented IN GREAT DETAIL by these sources in the posts below. The best defense he can evidently muster for his rather mindless and drone-like repetition of the term "witch-hunt" is to attack the sources themselves. Nothing to see here - the sources are all lunatics - let's move on, shall we?
Furthermore, JDN presents no evidence in support of these ad-hominem attacks other than hearsay, or third-party condemnations.
Rather pathetic and transparent attempts to avoid an actual substantive discussion, if you ask me.
-
Objectivist1; you don't get it.
They are "allegations". No facts....
Your Sources? Wacko's and a "former" terrorist.
In contrast, I refer to individuals who have publicly defended Huma Abedin – respected Republican politicians like John McCain, John Boehner, Scott Brown, Marco Rubio, Jim Sensenbrenner, and Mike Simpson who all have strongly and unequivocally defended Ms. Abedin.
I could quote numerous Democrats too but I don't want to be accused of being political or biased. :evil:
Who are you going to believe Objectivist1? Your rogue band of rejects or McCain, Rubio, et al....?
We can have a discussion on the little Martian that visited you last night too, I'm suppose you could find a few lunatics to support your position,
but that doesn't make it factual or believable.
If you ask me, I do suggest you move on before you are laughed off the page.
Or move it to the humor page at least so we can all have a good laugh.
-
Unless I missed it JDN you did not address the McCarthy charges. His creds seem pretty good to me. As for being Obj being laughed off the page as the host of this page I would point out I'm not laughing.
-
Unless I missed it JDN you did not address the McCarthy charges. His creds seem pretty good to me. As for being Obj being laughed off the page as the host of this page I would point out I'm not laughing.
Perhaps you need to develope a sense of humor. :-D
Fact: Objectivist1 references are incompetents and wakos. Geller and Spencer? :? A former terrorist? :-o His friend Gaffney? This is a joke. As for the the McCarthy charges, as I said McCain, Rubio, et al (senior Republicans) think he's full of camel dung. As for the others objectivists1 quotes, they truly are Camel dung. Truly, the odds of Objectivist1 finding a credible source saying he had a visit from Mars is more credible and believable. I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt here and call it a joke, let's laugh at the humor. Have you read the dung the Objectivest1 has posted on this subject? No one can be that stupid to believe this stuff. Republican leaders don't believe this dung. No one who is credible believes this stuff. So yeah I think you should laugh.
-
This thread has some 545 posts which have over 75,000 reads total. That is a ratio of roughly 150 reads per post, which is one of the highest ratios on this forum. The contents of this forum have definitely helped lead me to evolve my perspective over time to where I now consider plausible things that it would terrify John McCain to say.
While on occasion I find Geller to get , , , a bit imprecise, Spencer seems to me pretty serious, Shoebat to be as one might expect one who has had the profound inner conversion that he has had whereas you find the notion , , , laughable.
Given the kind of courage it takes to take on the liberal fascist machine at its most Orwellian, I can understand that in the context of the existential frustrations of being a Cassandra for any of these people.
-
A Disturbing Event: The American Conservative Union Embraces an Islamist
Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On August 27, 2012
The conservative movement appears to be at a crossroads in its approach to the threat of Islamic supremacism—not only abroad but at home. Does the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood as the dominant force of the “Arab Spring” bode ill for America? Or is the Brotherhood merely another “political actor” as the Obama administration would have us believe? Is Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, a potential security risk worth investigating, as Representative Michele Bachmann and four conservative congressmen have suggested? Or is the mere raising of this question a witch-hunt, as Senator John McCain and Speaker John Boehner and numerous Democrats maintain?
A few months ago, these questions reached another flashpoint in an unlikely setting. The incident took place at an irregular board meeting of the American Conservative Union, an organization usually intent on keeping wobbly Republicans honest. The rump group in attendance — several key board members told Frontpage they were not even aware the meeting had been called – voted “unanimously” to dismiss long-standing accusations against two ACU board members. The accusations had been made by Center for Security Policy head, Frank Gaffney. Their focus was on the activities of Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan, two prominent ACU board members, whom Gaffney claims are influential agents of Islamist agendas. The ACU’s dismissal of Gaffney’s claims was contained in a memo written by attorney Cleta Mitchell, who called them “reprehensible” — terms no less damning than McCain’s slap down of Michele Bachmann.
Frank Gaffney is a former defense official in the Reagan administration and first made these claims public in 2003 in an article, “A Troubling Influence,” which was published on this site. In introducing the article, Frontpage editor David Horowitz acknowledged that Norquist had played an important role in the conservative movement, but also described Gaffney’s claims as “the most disturbing that we at frontpagemag.com have ever published.” He further characterized them as “the most complete documentation extant of Grover Norquist’s activities in behalf of the Islamist Fifth Column.”
The Frontpage article documented Norquist’s links to supporters of Hamas and other Islamist organizations dedicated to “destroying the American civilization from within” in the words of a Muslim Brotherhood document, and its Israeli ally. These figures included Abdurahman Alamoudi—who is currently serving a lengthy sentence for his involvement in a terrorist plot—and Sami Al-Arian, who was the finance head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a terrorist organization responsible for over a hundred suicide bombings in the Middle East. Before Alamoudi and Al-Arian were arrested, Norquist and Khan served as key facilitators between them and the Bush White House. Now that both have been convicted of terrorist activities, there can no longer be any doubt that they were working on behalf of America’s terrorist enemies.
Among the Norquist-sponsored initiatives furthering the Islamist agenda, according to Gaffney, was his effort to abolish the use of classified national defense intelligence evidence in terrorism cases. Islamist organizations and Norquist himself typically refer to this as “secret” evidence and suggest that the use of it offends the Constitution. But as former U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy explains, the cases in which it is normally used are immigration proceedings, not criminal prosecutions. Unlike American citizens, aliens do not have the right to be in the United States in the first place, and should not be able to force disclosure of the nation’s defense secrets as the price tag for demanding that they leave. Sami Al-Arian was the prime-mover of the “secret evidence” campaign, which he launched to protect his brother-in-law, a member of his terror network, from a pending deportation.
In addition, Gaffney charges, Norquist used his own organization, Americans for Tax Reform, to circulate and promote a letter from Republican Muslims attacking conservatives opposed to the controversial “Ground Zero Mosque.” He also campaigned to protect the Iranian regime from sanctions, from its domestic opposition, and from military action against its nuclear program – all the while demanding draconian cuts in U.S. defense spending.
The other subject of Gaffney’s concerns is Suhail Khan, a Norquist protégé with longstanding personal and professional ties to a variety of Islamist movements. Khan’s father, the late Mahboob Khan, was a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the founders, in the 1960s, of the Muslim Students Association, the cornerstone of the Brotherhood’s American infrastructure. As Daniel Greenfield documents in his pamphlet, Muslim Hate Groups on Campus, the Muslim Students Association has been instrumental in indoctrinating young Muslims in Islamist ideology, and has an alarming legacy of senior members – Anwar Awlaki most prominent among them – graduating to positions of prominence in al Qaeda and other terrorist networks. In the 1980s, Mahboob Khan was instrumental in creating an MSA spinoff, the Islamic Society of North America or ISNA. ISNA became so deeply enmeshed in the funding of Hamas that it was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation. [For more information on how the Muslim Brotherhood has targeted the United States for subversion, see Robert Spencer’s pamphlet, Muslim Brotherhood in America.]
Suhail Khan’s mother, Malika Khan, was a close partner in her late husband’s work, and is a long-time leader of another Brotherhood front, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was created out of the Brotherhood’s Hamas-support network. Its parent organization was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. Malika Khan currently serves on the Executive Committee of CAIR’s San Francisco chapter, which distinguished itself in 2011 by promoting a conference that urged Muslims not to co-operate with FBI investigations.
These familial activities are not incidental because Suhail has publicly embraced his parents’ “legacy,” and done so before Brotherhood audiences. Despite this background and thanks to Grover Norquist’s patronage, Suhail was able to gain access to the Bush 2000 campaign, and was then appointed to a position in the Bush administration. According to Gaffney, while working at the White House, Khan helped craft and disseminate deceptive notions such as “Islam means peace,” al Qaeda “hijacked” Islam, and jihad is only a “personal struggle,” never a holy war against infidels.
In 2001, Khan appeared on a platform with about-to-be-convicted terrorist and top Muslim Brotherhood figure, Abdurahman Alamoudi. The setting was an American Muslim Council conference in Washington. Alamoudi is the founder of the Council, and once explained to a Brotherhood audience: “I think, if we are outside this country, we can say ‘O Allah, destroy America.” But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it….”
A video tape of the 2001 event shows Alamoudi heaping praise on Suhail and his father (see here from 5:38 on). At the time, Khan was serving as the Muslim gatekeeper in the White House Office of Public Liaison, a role he used to afford access to Muslim Brotherhood guests. Introducing him, Alamoudi expressed the hope that Khan was preparing for higher office:
We have with us a dear brother, a pioneer, somebody who really started political activism in the Muslim community …. When it was a taboo for the Muslim community, no doubt about it. When Suhail Khan started not too many people were aware that we had to do something….Some of you saw him today in the White House, but inshallah soon you will see him in better places in the White House, inshallah. Maybe sometime as vicepresident soon, inshallah. Allahu Akbar!
The terrorist, Alamoudi, also had praise for Suhail’s father:
Suhail Khan is the son of a dear, dear brother who was a pioneer of Islam work himself. Many of you know his late father … who was part of all kinds of work … Suhail inherited from his father not only being a Muslim and a Muslim activist, but also being a Muslim political activist. [emphasis added]
After effusively thanking Alamoudi for these words, Suhail said: “Many of you, of course, knew my father. He was someone who dedicated his life to the community and I’ve always felt that I have to work in the same – those footsteps.”
The footsteps of Mahboob Khan have been traced to some un-reassuring places. Shortly after 9/11, the Washington Post reported that Mahboob Khan had played host to Ayman Zawahiri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, who had entered the U.S. in the mid-nineties to obtain funds and recruits for al Qaeda. One of his stops was at the al-Noor Mosque in California, a mosque founded by Mahboob Khan.
After 9/11, Suhail Khan had to give up his role at the White House as a result of the fallout from his Brotherhood associations. Yet with the support of Norquist, he managed to land on his feet and was given a political appointment in the Office of the Secretary of Transportation.
Aside from Khan’s multiple Islamist connections, Gaffney charges he has also been actively engaged in agendas championed by the Brotherhood, including trying to undo the statute making material support for terror a crime. That law was put into place in part because large sums of zakat—Islamic “charity” monies – were regularly going to fund the terrorist activities of Hamas and al Qaeda.
Is there validity, then, to Gaffney’s charges? In discussing Gaffney’s original article, David Horowitz told me:
What disturbed me most—and ultimately persuaded me that Frank was on to something—was the fact that Grover didn’t respond to Gaffney’s charges although I invited him to do so in Frontpage. Then when I caught up with Grover at a CPAC conference, and said he really needed to answer the charges, he brushed me off saying he didn’t have time – he was ‘too busy with the revolution,’ were the words he used, a reference to his conservative crusades. Then I spoke to Suhail, who had called me to complain about the claims Frank had made about his father. In this conversation, Suhail flat out denied them, saying his father was only a member of the mosque rather than its founder, and that he couldn’t remember an event with Zawahiri. When I asked Frank for his sources for these claims, he sent me the Washington Post article, which described Mahboob Khan’s role in founding the mosque and hosting Zawahiri. I sent this to Suhail for a reply, but never heard from him again. That made me realize there was something to be concerned about.
Khan was not so reticent – or in such denial — about his father’s Muslim Brotherhood activities when he appeared before audiences of the faithful, however. At a 1999 conference of the Islamic Society of North America, Suhail told those in attendance:
It is a special honor for me to be here before you today because I am always reminded of the legacy of my father, Dr. Mahboob Khan, an early founder of the Muslim Students Association in the mid-nineties and an active member of the organization through its growth and development in the Islamic Society of North America.
Despite these disturbing manifestations of Khan’s allegiances, Norquist sponsored Suhail to become a member of the board of the American Conservative Union in 2010. At this point, Gaffney’s concerns intensified. With Grover’s help, the Muslim Brotherhood was infiltrating the very heart of the conservative movement. By this time, however, Gaffney’s access to the ACU’s audiences was restricted. Because of his charges against Norquist, a very powerful member of the ACU Board, Gaffney had long since been barred from speaking at its annual CPAC gathering. But Horowitz, who was not a Washington insider like Gaffney, was a different story, and he was invited to keynote the 2011 CPAC conference. Horowitz used the occasion to address the issues raised by Norquist’s activities and Khan’s presence on the ACU Board, and to put them in historical context:
Over the last ten years, the influence of the Brotherhood has spread throughout our government. There is nothing new in this sad reality. In 1938, Whittaker Chambers attempted to warn President Roosevelt that one of his White House advisers, Alger Hiss, was a Soviet agent. When Roosevelt was given Chambers’ information, he laughed and disregarded it. Alger Hiss remained as the president’s adviser until the House Un-American Activities Committee flushed him out….
Frank Gaffney has been the courageous bringer of the bad news about Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan to the board of the American Conservative Union. Many good conservatives on the board have refused to believe the evidence of Suhail Khan’s Brotherhood allegiances and agendas. They are of the opinion that Suhail’s public appearances with Alamoudi and the Muslim Brotherhood fronts took place a decade ago, and that he doesn’t promote violent agendas. I understand this. My parents were Communists in the heyday of Stalin. The Party’s slogan was not “Bring on the dictatorship of the Proletariat” or “Revolution Now.” But that is what they believed. The slogan of the Communist Party was “Peace, Jobs and Democracy.”
The ACU’s response to Horowitz’s remarks was to withdraw his invitation to speak at CPAC events, although he had been a regular speaker over many years.
Earlier this year, Gaffney and his organization put together a ten-part video course called “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within.” Featured in the course were the roles played by Norquist (Parts 3-7) and Khan (Part 4) in promoting and enabling Brotherhood influence operations. The Khan segment includes a clip (starting at 4:28) from the speech that Khan gave at a 1999 ISNA conference. In the speech, Khan embraces the well-known Muslim Brotherhood ethos:
The earliest defenders of Islam would defend [against] their more numerous and better equipped oppressors, because the early Muslims loved death—dying for the sake of Allah Almighty—more than the oppressors of Muslims love life. This must be the case when we are fighting life’s other battles [i.e., politics]. What are our oppressors going to do with people like us? We are prepared to give our lives for the cause of Islam. I have pledged my life’s work, inspired by my dear father’s shining legacy, and inspired further by my mother’s loving protection and support, to work for the ummah.
This is classic jihadist rhetoric. (“We love death, the U.S. loves life; that is the big difference between us,” explained Osama bin Laden in one of his fatwas.) In effect, Khan praised history’s earliest jihadists, portraying them as “defenders” and their victims as “oppressors,” just as al Qaeda does in its present-day fatwas. Khan used the same language that glorifies “martyrdom” (or suicide-attacks) on behalf of Islam. (“Death in the service of Allah is our highest aspiration” is part of the Muslim Brotherhood motto.) Khan then praised his father’s Muslim Brotherhood “legacy,” and pledged his life’s work to the Muslim umma, which translated means the “Islamic nation.”
Are these remarks merely a “youthful” indiscretion? Horowitz, whose biography makes him something of an authority on second thoughts, answered the question during his keynote address at the 2011 CPAC event:
As for the question of whether Suhail Khan believes now what he openly said then, my answer is this: When an honest person has been a member of a destructive movement and leaves it, he will feel compelled to repudiate it publicly and to warn others of the dangers it poses. This is a sure test of whether someone has left the Muslim Brotherhood or not.
Suhail Khan has never repudiated his father’s Muslim Brotherhood legacy or the patronage of the convicted terrorist, Abdurahman Alamoudi. Nor has he disavowed his praise for Islamic martyrdom, nor has he taken steps to warn his fellow Americans of the Islamist threat posed by his past and present associates (part 4 of Gaffney’s videos documents Khan’s continuing involvement with Mohamed Magid, Muzammil Siddiqi, Nihad Awad and other top Muslim Brotherhood figures and organizations.) Instead, he has denied that the Muslim Brotherhood even operates in America.
On September 21, 2011, the ACU finally took up the issue of Frank’s charges. The occasion was an unusual meeting of the ACU board, which normally meets only twice a year – in Washington and via teleconference. This particular meeting took place in Orlando, Florida, where an ACU event was being held. Because of the unusual venue, far away from ACU headquarters, most of the ACU board members did not attend, including several whom Frontpage talked to who had not been informed of the meeting and who were not in sympathy with its result. When the rump board met, they voted unanimously to adopt a resolution that dismissed Gaffney’s charges out of hand, and declared their “complete confidence in the loyalty of Suhail Khan and Grover Norquist to the United States,” and “welcome[d] their continued participation in the work of ACU and of the American conservative movement.” In adopting this resolution, the board members also declared that they “profoundly regret and reject as unwarranted the past and on-going attacks upon their patriotism and character.”
In making its decision, the board appears to have relied entirely on a memorandum provided by one of its members, Cleta Mitchell, a well-known and widely admired conservative lawyer. In her memorandum, and despite its sweeping conclusions, Mitchell addressed the specifics of only one of Gaffney’s many findings, while categorically dismissing them all: “There is absolutely nothing contained in any of the materials” presented by Gaffney, she wrote, “that in any way linked Suhail (or Grover) to such [‘Muslim extremist’] organizations or their activities.”
The one specific that Mitchell took issue with was an unlikely one given her categorical statement there was absolutely nothing that in any way linked Suhail to Islamist organizations or their activities. This was the video of Khan’s 1999 address to the Islamic Society of North America featured in Gaffney’s video course. ISNA is the principal Muslim Brotherhood organization in the United States; it was founded by Suhail Khan’s own parents; and before this audience Khan spoke in the ritualistic language of the Muslim Brotherhood about how Muslim warriors love death more than their opponents love life, about his devotion to the Muslim nation, and his readiness to die for Allah. Mitchell dismissed his comments in these words: “Yet, even in that speech, there is nothing that suggests Suhail is unpatriotic or subversive. The clip from the speech is simply (in my view) rhetoric that is, quite frankly, meaningless in terms of substantiating any of Mr. Gaffney’s allegations.” But is it meaningless to paraphrase the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood to a meeting of the most important Muslim Brotherhood organization in the United States, and embrace it as one’s own aspiration?
Mitchell rests her case against Gaffney and in behalf of Khan on a single point: “Suhail was subject to FBI background checks and cleared to work directly for the President and Vice-President? How would the FBI have ‘missed’ ties to such groups if those ties existed?”
In fact, as Gaffney observes — under the right circumstances, and with the right sponsors — it would have overlooked them quite easily. “The fact that Suhail Khan received a security clearance during his time in government is an indictment of the clearance process, not evidence that his background is problem-free: Ali Mohammad—Osama bin Laden’s ‘first trainer’ and longtime al Qaeda operative—also went through a background check and received a security clearance to work with the federal government. Major Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood killer, not only obtained a clearance, he was even promoted from captain to major despite his monitored communications with al Qaeda leader Anwar Awlaki, and the fact that in the course of his military education, he announced during a lecture that it was the duty of Muslims under shariah to kill infidels preparing to attack other Muslims (i.e., U.S. soldiers awaiting deployment to Afghanistan).
Horowitz agrees. He points to the fact that Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, has a top security clearance, notwithstanding the undisputed fact that her closest family members have been Muslim Brotherhood leaders and that for twelve years prior to being hired by the State Department, she worked for an Islamist organization founded and run by Abdullah Omar Naseef, a top funder of Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network, and a Muslim Brotherhood eminence.
Given these well-known facts, Khan’s security clearance seems a pretty thin reed on which to base so sweeping a dismissal of Gaffney’s concerns, let alone refer to them as “reprehensible.” To understand her position better, I tried to interview Mitchell, but she declined to comment, saying by email “I am precluded from talking to anyone about this because of the confidentiality provisions of the boards on which I serve which have been dealing with Frank Gaffney issues.”
That confidentiality, however, had been already breached when someone on the ACU board leaked the details of its Orlando meeting and the contents of Mitchell’s letter – and leaked them not to conservatives but to the left-wing organization “ThinkProgress.” One of the things I wanted to ask Mitchell was how she thought this letter might have been leaked and by whom (Norquist? Khan?). Accompanying ThinkProgress’s release of the Mitchell letter was this summary on its website of what had transpired:
Gaffney … was unanimously condemned by the one of the most powerful conservative organizations in America, as two documents obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress this week show. Last September, the board of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which puts on CPAC and includes top leaders of various factions of the conservative movement, unanimously passed a resolution (read it here) condemning the “false and unfounded” attacks Gaffney had made against Norquist and Khan, both board members, after having another board member, Cleta Mitchell, look into Gaffney’s serious charges of sedition and abetting an enemy. In a letter to the ACU board (read it here), Mitchell, a prominent and very conservative attorney, said that after reviewing the “evidence” Gaffney presented (including a lengthy PowerPoint presentation and DVDs video laying out the case against Norquist and Khan), she found his “ceaseless war” to be “reprehensible.”
Another issue I wanted to ask Mitchell about was what she thought of the fact that her sweeping memo along with the leak had given powerful ammunition to the Brotherhood and its agents in their campaign to silence critics of Islamism. ThinkProgress had previously published a “report” on “Islamophobia” (following an earlier one by CAIR on the same subject). As David Horowitz and Robert Spencer demonstrate in their pamphlet, Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future, Islamophobia is a term actually invented by the Muslim Brotherhood to silence its critics. The ThinkProgress report on Islamophobia attacked a dozen leading conservative critics of the Islamic jihad (also singled out by CAIR), including Frank Gaffney, as “bigots” and “racists.” Future editions of the report and future left-wing attacks will undoubtedly draw on the testimony of ACU board.
When asked about these events, Gaffney noted the irregular nature of the board meeting that condemned him, and deplored its lack of due-diligence that led to its categorical dismissal of the readily available evidence. He stated:
By acting solely on the basis of Mitchell’s defamatory and superficial memorandum, and then through the deliberate leak to a Soros-funded leftwing organization, the leadership of the American Conservative Union has discredited itself and given ammunition to those who want to prevent legitimate inquiries into Islamist influences in Washington.
This seems a more than reasonable concern. Since many prominent ACU board members were not present to conduct this auto-da-fé, there appears to be ample basis for it to seek a second opinion in regard to the case of Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan. Should it fail to do so, the ACU board will simply reinforce suspicions that it has been successfully infiltrated and subjected to an influence operation by those opposed to everything for which the conservative movement stands.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
-
This is referenced in the article I posted previously. Definitely worth watching:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jDjdggtA-M&feature=player_embedded
-
Objectivist1; as your article points out;
"Gaffney … was unanimously condemned by the one of the most powerful conservative organizations in America"
Note, I didn't say "liberal".
ANOTHER conservative group, so it seems one well known and RESPECTED Republican after another seems to be defending Abedin. I suppose i could
list the Democrats who support Abedin as well, but I don't want to overwhelm you. :evil:
-
The threat isn't Islam, "Statistics show that nearly two decades after the Oklahoma City bombing, right-wing extremism — not Muslim-led terrorism — is a growing threat."
"The Islamophobia that led Breivik to his ruinous binge, for example, came from his digestion of the writings of several anti-Muslim activists, including bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who head the group Stop the Islamization of America. Breivik mentioned them in his 1,500-page manifesto, posted online. The pair has agitated some of the country's nastiest displays of prejudice. Their bus advertisements equating the Palestinian cause with jihad created a stir in New York and San Francisco, and they fanned the flames of the uproar over the Park51 Islamic Community Center in 2010.
Damningly, they see their mission as Breivik saw his: They call themselves "freedom fighters" on a valorous journey to save the world from Muslims. But when it was publicized that the Norway killer mentioned Spencer and Geller in his writings, they cried foul. "Clearly this individual is insane," Spencer wrote on his blog. After Breivik's initial psychological evaluation Geller expressed relief, writing, that Breivik was "declared certifiably insane, which was evident by his actions and his ten-years-in-the-making manifesto."
The magnitude of Breivik's butchery was apparently sufficient evidence of his psychosis. No normal person, in Geller and Spencer's view, would ever do such a thing. But only if that person is not a Muslim. When Muslims engage in violence, they are represented by Islamophobes as ordinary believers acting in a way that aligns with tenets of their faith, not fringe lunatics whose delusional religious interpretations lead them to a monstrous end. Though Spencer and Geller denounced Breivik's violence, they never rejected his anti-Muslim ideas. And that is a problem."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lean-breivik-hate-groups-u.s.-20120826,0,7942204.story
-
Objectivits1 These are the Muslims in America. Overall, peace loving good people.
"A day of typical camp activities awaits: scavenger hunts, a "pirates and princesses" dress-up play and water-balloon tosses. But there is a difference here: Those activities are sandwiched between Koran recital, the Dzhur afternoon prayer and story time that includes tales about Mecca and Muhammad."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-muslim-summer-camp-20120826,0,5712040.story
-
It's impossible not to notice that JDN has a considerable emotional investment in dismissing the idea of Islamic stealth jihad. Robert Spencer has written an entire book on the subject (Stealth Jihad), and both Raymond Ibrahim and David Horowitz underline the myriad causes for concern here. The mere fact that certain "respected conservatives" are crying foul can't erase the evidence. I urge all readers of this thread to read the Ibrahim article and watch Horowitz's speech and form your own opinions. As Ibrahim correctly observes, this wouldn't be the first time that massive infiltration of the U.S. government has occurred and gone unnoticed with the exception of a few lone voices in the wilderness, who were later proven correct despite having been roundly condemned at the time.
Crafty's description of them as "Cassandras" is quite apt.
-
JDN once again demonstrates his complete ignorance (or intentional misrepresentation) of the facts by posting Nathan Lean's Los Angeles Times diatribe against Spencer and Geller.
Read this response to Lean's piece by his two targets and judge for yourself:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/08/-los-angeles-times-calls-for-restrictions-on-freedom-of-speech-of-counter-jihadists-traffics-in-smea.html
-
Yes, please form your own opinion. :-D
As Crafty even said, "While on occasion I find Geller to get , , , a bit imprecise"
In this case, that's code or a euphemism for "wacko".
I guess it says a lot that Objectivist1 is not able to find any respected individuals from respected sources other that Geller who has been discarded
by conservatives as being a "racist".
Conservative Web site Little Green Footballs pretty well sums up Pam Geller; "Deranged" "right wing ranter" "rabidly Islamaphobic hate harpie". In particular, I think "ugly racism-drenched rants" pretty well sums up Pam Geller et al words. It's all garbage.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/lgf-search.php?searchkey=lgf&searchString=pam+geller
Odd Objectivist1 that you can't seem to find any credible sources for your tirades. Oh,that's right, you can't huh? So maybe it's all garbage. :evil:
Yes, form your own opinion. :-o
-
Not sure why JDN delights in citing this blog and implying that it is somehow "conservative." It's run by Charles Johnson, who has publicly distanced himself from the "American right."
Per Wikipedia:
On November 30, 2009, Johnson blogged that he was disassociating himself with "the right", claiming that "The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff. I won’t be going over the cliff with them." He has been heavily critical of conservatives and libertarians since then. (emphasis mine)
-
Actually after I quoted the ADL and Little Green Footballs some time ago Crafty implied that he respected Little Green Footballs. Most people do.
But if you prefer, how about Ed Rollins? I presume his credentials are gold plated conservative?
"The harshest rebuke came not from any of Rep. Bachmann’s colleagues on the hill, but from her former campaign manager, Ed Rollins, who guided her to victory in the Iowa caucuses. Rollins called her charges “extreme and dishonest,” and expressed personal shock at Bachmann’s distortions.
Rollins went so further to say: “Having worked for Congressman Bachman’s campaign for President, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level.”
Or how about Marco Rubio? Or do you question his conservative credentials too? :-o
He too publically spoke out against the accusations. “Everyone I talk to who has dealt with her, says she is a professional and hardworking and patriotic American who loves her country and in the service of her country is serving it.”
And the list of quality people goes on and on and on....
The one thing they all seem to agree upon is that Geller et al are garbage. :-o
I'm curious; don't YOU objectivist1 have ANY quality sources? Or are they all found out back? :evil:
-
This digressed into just shoot the messenger. Posts of no substance. How about JDN you post your oponion and best sources and let Obj post his. Refute points of substance if you want, like a discussion, or a forum.
A legitimate question was asked, quite a long ways back in the thread, with no answer forthcoming.
-
This is a difficult subject. All good Americans believe in freedom of religion so naturally many of us have difficulty in articulating when a religion is not OK-- my favorite example being the human sacrificing Aztecs. Add in the pressures of political correctness and the disingenuous motivations of the Pravdas, and it is understandable that many politicians, even relatively bold ones, may figure this to be one fight where they don't want to be leading the charge. Add in the natural human desire for cranial-rectal interface ("If I can't see it or hear it, it isn't there) and well, , , , you have what we have. How else to explain that President Bush couldn't even name the enemy and instead named the war after a particular tactic often used by this enemy , , , as well as other enemies. Fertile soil indeed for conceptual confusion!
For those not familiar with the facts presented by worthy Cassandras (and not all are worthy) it can be easy to assume that simple bigotry is at work.
My thoughts on the conversation here: I think Obj. has made numerous posts which argue on the merits, whereas IMHO JDN tends to reason by compurgation.
Certainly Ed Rollins has served the conversative cause well as a political operative, but this particular subject is well outside his area of competence. It is understandable that he would tend to view Michelle Bachman via his own experiences with her-- and I sense his opinion to overlap with mine-- she is quite capable of cheap shots. She is also quite capable of taking principles stands that are not popular with the in-crowd of Washington and the Pravdas-- so for me her getting slammed does not rule out that she may be quite right.
Marco Rubio's creds are first rate with me, but I suspect that he is like I was a few years ago when I faced off, in friendly fashion, on another forum with someone who was rather like our GM-- quite full of relevant material that forced me to re-evaluate my thinking. I search for Truth and when the facts prove me wrong, I change my mind.
JDN, time to move beyond compurgation. Time to address the substance of the arguments.
-
Yes, this is a difficult subject, yet worthy of attention. But the post is called "Islam in America"; not "Bash all Muslims" through absurd lies and accusations. Why don't we try to post (I did)
a few good things about Islam in America? Most of the millions if Muslims in America are law abiding good citizens. Rather than Muslims in America, it's our far right zealots who seem to be creating the murders and terror lately. Maybe we should start a new thread?
A lot can and has been learned on this forum: I have. However, recently Ojectivist1 has not been posting credible sources. I think nearly everyone (Objectivist1 excepted) think Geller is a true Wacko.
So what happens is similar to if your neighborhood five year old said a Martian was hiding behind every tree, you really wouldn't pay much attention or give it any credibility. If the child
kept it up, you would tell him to stop his absurd comments. Yet, if JPL here in Pasadena said the same thing, I would start to pay attention. Moreover, I would check further into it. It's
a matter of credibility. The same applies to economics. While I respect Doug's opinion, I respect him even more (even though I might not always agree) because he backs up his opinion
with very credible and respected sources. That is important.
Objectivist1 hasn't posted any arguments from a source that deserves attention more than that five year old child crying "The Martians are coming". In contrast, if you do read my respected references,
they debunk the accusations. For example Objectivist1 implied that the Muslim Brotherhood was paying for Abedin's new million dollar apartment. But that's like the Martians are coming; reality,
as I posted, is a Jewish man, a friend of the Clinton's, owns the house and is giving it to them either free or at a reduced rate. Further, everyone knows that these matters are carefully reviewed by
government. If I had to guess the disclosure form is over 50 pages long. Of course she notified her superiors of her pending move; given the FACTS, there was no problem.
That's the issue. Objectivist1 has no FACTS. His posts are just rumor, baseless accusations, and slime, etc. And most of his sources are vile and no bodies; individuals with no credibility. In contrast, I've tried to quote senior Republican individuals and sources. I suppose I could quote Democrats too, but that would be too easy to refute Objectivist1. :-) No one, at least no one with any credibility believes that
the accusations posted by Objectivist1 have any merit.
So just like the little child yelling, "The Martians are coming" I either ignore him or try to point him to reliable sources. But how can you argue with an ignorant little child if they truly are seeing Martians
behind every tree? :-D
-
"For example Objectivist1 implied that the Muslim Brotherhood was paying for Abedin's new million dollar apartment. But that's like the Martians are coming; reality, as I posted, is a Jewish man, a friend of the Clinton's, owns the house and is giving it to them either free or at a reduced rate. Further, everyone knows that these matters are carefully reviewed by government. If I had to guess the disclosure form is over 50 pages long. Of course she notified her superiors of her pending move; given the FACTS, there was no problem."
Over to you Obj.
-
I posted here (on August 16, 2012 - Reply #531 in this thread) an article which raised questions regarding how Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin can afford to pay the rent for their new $3.3 million Manhattan residence. It posited that the source of the funds might be the Muslim Brotherhood. The article goes on to list the reasons for this concern, which are several, and include Abedin's documented connections to Muslim Brotherhood front organizations. JDN chooses nevertheless to ignore the remainder of the article and all of these points, attempting an intellectual sleight-of-hand by pretending they don't exist, and then asserting:
"reality, as I posted, is a Jewish man, a friend of the Clinton's, owns the house and is giving it to them either free or at a reduced rate. Further, everyone knows that these matters are carefully reviewed by government. If I had to guess the disclosure form is over 50 pages long. Of course she notified her superiors of her pending move; given the FACTS, there was no problem." - JDN
Hmmmm - let's examine this assertion. JDN's "evidence" to support this claim as to how Weiner and Abedin can afford to live in the aforementioned apartment is contained in an article he linked to from the New York Press (an online publication). It is reproduced verbatim below:
Anthony Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin moved into a $3.3 million Manhattan apartment on Park Avenue owned by a wealthy Democratic donor Jack Rosen, according to NY Post reports.
After leaving the congressional seat that earned Weiner $174,000 a year due to his notorious sexting scandal, the couple made the drastic upgrade from their 875-square foot two-bedroom condo in Forest Hills worth $430,000 to their new 2,210 square-foot, four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom home.
Weiner is jobless and Abedin makes about $155,000 a year as a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so many are surprised that the couple can afford the rent on the place located at 254 Park Avenue South at East 20th Street. Real-estate experts say that the couple pays at least $12,000 to $14,000 per month while a Democratic fund-raising source speculates to the NY Post that the couple may be living there gratis, as Rosen is a close friend of the Clintons. Rosen has given money into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s election campaigns for years, even flying the Clintons in his private plane. He has also contributed thousands of dollars to Weiner’s financial reserves.
Abedin’s job forces her to face restrictions on receiving gifts and must disclose any financial dealings so her decision-making is not swayed by private interests. But an official who knows the couple denies the notion that Rosen would try to affect Abedin who could then influence Clinton. (emphasis mine)
So - JDN asserts that I am ignoring reality by posting an article which explicitly states that A DEMOCRATIC FUND-RAISING SOURCE IS MERELY SPECULATING THAT THE COUPLE IS LIVING THERE RENT-FREE. To repeat - this doesn't even address the issue of Abedin's documented connections to Muslim Brotherhood front organizations and the obvious concern that this ought to raise.
JDN further fatuously states: "everyone knows that these matters are carefully reviewed by government." I dare say that few of the posters or readers of this forum share JDN's evident confidence that this administration's vetting process is sound. Exhibit A to the contrary might be Van Jones. I could cite several others, but it's rather late, and frankly I don't much relish wasting time rebutting frivolous arguments which seem to always boil down to ad hominem attacks, compurgation, refusal to acknowledge relevant evidence, and obfuscation.
-
I posted here (on August 16, 2012 - Reply #531 in this thread) an article which raised questions regarding how Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin can afford to pay the rent for their new $3.3 million Manhattan residence. It posited that the source of the funds might be the Muslim Brotherhood. The article goes on to list the reasons for this concern, which are several, and include Abedin's documented connections to Muslim Brotherhood front organizations. JDN chooses nevertheless to ignore the remainder of the article and all of these points, attempting an intellectual sleight-of-hand by pretending they don't exist, and then asserting:
Objectivist1; you don't know when to pack your bag and fold them.
Never once Objectivist1 did your article tie Abedin identify ANY improper financial payment from the Muslim Brotherhood to either Abedin or Rosen nor did your post identify ANY wrongdoing by Abedin. The article and the implication was merely to smear Abedin, maligning a fine public servant because of her heritage and religion. Your truth is no closer than my neighborhood ignorant child yelling, "The Martians are coming.".
"reality, as I posted, is a Jewish man, a friend of the Clinton's, owns the house and is giving it to them either free or at a reduced rate. Further, everyone knows that these matters are carefully reviewed by government. If I had to guess the disclosure form is over 50 pages long. Of course she notified her superiors of her pending move; given the FACTS, there was no problem." - JDN
Hmmmm - let's examine this assertion. JDN's "evidence" to support this claim as to how Weiner and Abedin can afford to live in the aforementioned apartment is contained in an article he linked to from the New York Press (an online publication). It is reproduced verbatim below:
Anthony Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin moved into a $3.3 million Manhattan apartment on Park Avenue owned by a wealthy Democratic donor Jack Rosen, according to NY Post reports.
After leaving the congressional seat that earned Weiner $174,000 a year due to his notorious sexting scandal, the couple made the drastic upgrade from their 875-square foot two-bedroom condo in Forest Hills worth $430,000 to their new 2,210 square-foot, four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom home.
Weiner is jobless and Abedin makes about $155,000 a year as a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so many are surprised that the couple can afford the rent on the place located at 254 Park Avenue South at East 20th Street. Real-estate experts say that the couple pays at least $12,000 to $14,000 per month while a Democratic fund-raising source speculates to the NY Post that the couple may be living there gratis, as Rosen is a close friend of the Clintons. Rosen has given money into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s election campaigns for years, even flying the Clintons in his private plane. He has also contributed thousands of dollars to Weiner’s financial reserves.
So NOW Objectivist1 are you saying that Mr. Jack Rosen, a close wealthy friend of Clinton (Abedin's boss and friend) and who is also a close friend of Israel (he's Chairman of The American Jewish Congress) is secretly taking payment from the Muslim Brotherhood? Or was the Muslim Brotherhood just a lie; a smear of Ms. Abedin? Or are you saying Mr. Rosen did this so he can influence the Clinton's directly? What are you saying Objectivist1? I can hear my neighborhood ignorant boy yelling Martians. :-o
Abedin’s job forces her to face restrictions on receiving gifts and must disclose any financial dealings so her decision-making is not swayed by private interests. But an official who knows the couple denies the notion that Rosen would try to affect Abedin who could then influence Clinton. (emphasis mine)
So - JDN asserts that I am ignoring reality by posting an article which explicitly states that A DEMOCRATIC FUND-RAISING SOURCE IS MERELY SPECULATING THAT THE COUPLE IS LIVING THERE RENT-FREE. To repeat - this doesn't even address the issue of Abedin's documented connections to Muslim Brotherhood front organizations and the obvious concern that this ought to raise.
JDN further fatuously states: "everyone knows that these matters are carefully reviewed by government." I dare say that few of the posters or readers of this forum share JDN's evident confidence that this administration's vetting process is sound. Exhibit A to the contrary might be Van Jones. I could cite several others, but it's rather late, and frankly I don't much relish wasting time rebutting frivolous arguments which seem to always boil down to ad hominem attacks, compurgation, refusal to acknowledge relevant evidence, and obfuscation.
As for the vetting process, are you really suggesting that the State Department doesn't know about this apartment? This apartment that has been all over the press? Or that they don't know the income
of Ms. Abedin and her husband? And do you doubt that they have provided full disclosure? Oh that's right, Objectivist1 still believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is providing the money for
Abedin to live in this house. Truly, I hope you are not that ignorant Objectivist1. Or are you? :evil:
McCarthy was a dark time in our history. Like you Objectivist1 without FACTS, only rumors and smear, he maligned innocent people. That's wrong.
-
I get that both theories can't be true, but why is it irresponsible to mention alternative explanations and why is it scurrilous to wonder how the hell a woman with such relationships in her background got the security clearance to sit at the elbow of the Sec. of State?
Concerning confidence in the government's vetting processes, does the name Maj. Nisan of Fort Hood fame ring a bell?
-
I get that both theories can't be true, but why is it irresponsible to mention alternative explanations and why is it scurrilous to wonder how the hell a woman with such relationships in her background got the security clearance to sit at the elbow of the Sec. of State?
Concerning confidence in the government's vetting processes, does the name Maj. Nisan of Fort Hood fame ring a bell?
Crafty, I am NOT saying the government's vetting process is full proof. Maj. Nisan does ring a bell. HOWEVER, given Ms. Abedin's position, her visibility compared to Maj. Nisan, I think there IS a huge difference.
Nor has Ms. Abedin hid her move to a new apartment; it's all over the newspapers. Surely you are not implying that the vetting process didn't include a inquiry as to how she is paying for this place?
Yes, both theories cannot be true, but my point is that there is absolutely NO evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has given money to pay for Ms. Abedin's new apartment. That is just smear.
Whether Mr. Rosen is helping out I don't know to what extent. But given the situation and facts, Mr. Rosen does own the apartment and he is a friend of the Clinton's, therefore he is likely to be one one helping Ms. Abedin. Odd, Ms. Abedin is accused by Ojectivist1 for taking money from the Muslim Brotherhood (being disloyal) to pay for her new apartment, isn't it ironic that rather, it is probable that she is the beneficiary of Mr. Rosen, the Chairman of the American Jewish Congress! :-) Maybe next Objectivist1 will attack Ms. Abedin and say she is a secret Israeli spy? :-D
-
And LOOK! They sure did a GREAT job of vetting this guy!
Democrats Embrace Siraj Wahhaj: Supporter of Cop-Killer, Al Qaeda and Hamas, Part II
Posted By Laura L. Rubenfeld On August 30, 2012 - frontpagemag.com
In just a few days, the Democratic National Convention “Kick off events”week will include its first ever “Jumah (gathering) at the DNC” – three Islam-centered events beginning with a Friday prayer and sermon, an evening Islamic banquet and an all day Islamic festival.
Many of the individuals scheduled to speak during the DNC week have extremely spurious backgrounds, including support for Al Qaeda and the U.S. State Department designated terrorist organization, HAMAS. Brooklyn-based Imam Siraj Wahhaj will headline the Muslim portion of the convention.
This is part two of an in-depth study of a man who will have the ear of thousands planning to attend the DNC Convention, thanks to Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ DNC. [To see Part I, click here]
Wahhaj Supports Islamic Extremism in Sudan
Hassan Al-Turabi was the leader of the National Islamic Front (NIF) political party in Sudan In the 1980’s. It was then that shari’ah law was implemented nationwide to Muslim and non-Muslim people alike. The criminal code was changed to include such barbaric punishments as cross amputation (cutting off the left hand and right foot), stoning, flogging, and death sentences for apostasy and blasphemy. The prominent Islam reformer, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (“Taha”) was executed in 1981 for apostasy. [ii] Siraj Wahhaj supports Al-Turabi’s draconian shari’ah as it was enforced. In one sermon at his mosque, Wahhaj proclaimed “I would cut off the hands of my own daughter (if she stole) because Allah stands for Justice.” [iii]
Sudan became a safe-haven for terrorists i.e. Osama Bin Laden and HAMAS, under Al- Turabi, And in 1993, after the World Trade Center bombing, Sudan was named by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terror. [iv]
Siraj Wahhaj made these statements at the time Sudan was listed as a state sponsor of terror:
May Allah bless Sudan…these are people who want to establish the Shari’ah, establish Quran, and Sunnah, they want to establish the religion and therefore hated by the government of the U.S.A…I’m not going to make you comfortable because our book, the book we believe in, is not Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends and Influence People; But it’s the Quran.
Wahhaj Joins ISNA in Support for HAMAS and the National Islamic Front (NIF)
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) calls itself the largest Islamic organization in the U.S.. The leaders of two terror groups Sami Al-Arian – Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Mousa Abu Marzook- HAMAS “helped establish” ISNA in 1981.[v]
Wahhaj became a member of the ISNA Advisory Council in 1987. 10 years later, HAMAS leader, Mousa Abu Marzook who had been deported from Jordan for his terror related activities[vi], wrote a thank you to many organizations in The Washington Report Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) for their support of him.. One of the organizations he thanked was ISNA. It was at that time, Wahhaj was ISNA Vice President, having been named to that position the same year, in 1997. [vii]
In the Spring 2001 edition of the ISNA publication, Islamic Horizons, the Sudanese leader Hassan Al Turabi, of the NIF, stated: “I do not think that it is only a dream, but there is a possibility not only for America to be Islamized, but also in fact to develop as the role model of Islam.” [viii] This ISNA article was published while Sudan was listed as a state sponsor of terror.
When asked, Siraj Wahhaj refuses to condemn HAMAS. [ix]
Siraj Wahhaj and CAIR
Not only were Marzook and Al-Arian co-founders of ISNA, they were also co-founders of an Islamist organization, which evolved into the Council for American- Islamic Relations (CAIR). Marzook and Al-Arian co-founded the precursor to the Council for American Islamic Relations, a U.S. front group for HAMAS.
Article Eight of the 1988 HAMAS Charter proclaims:
“Allah is its goal; the Prophet is its model, the Quran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
Omar Ahmed, who co-founded the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), was caught just a few years after CAIR’s incorporation publicly stating similar goals:
Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth. [xi]
Siraj Wahhaj has been on CAIR’s Advisory Board, [xii] and for over the last decade has been the designated fundraiser at many CAIR fundraiser banquets. Wahhaj has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for CAIR. [xiii] At a recent CAIR San Francisco fundraiser, where Siraj Wahhaj was listed as fundraiser, CAIR’s guest speakers included the attorney for Sami Al-Arian, Linda Moreno.[xiv]
Wahhaj and the North American Islamic Trust
One subsidiary of ISNA is the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). NAIT was the first U.S. Islamic financial trust. [xv]
ISNA and NAIT are included in “A list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends” of the Muslim Brotherhood in a 1991 memorandum[xvi] written by Mohamed Akram, a top HAMAS Operative living in the United States at that time. The document is dated May 22, 1991. Siraj Wahhaj’s own bio says he was on NAIT’s Board of Advisors from 1989-1993, which puts his service with NAIT and ISNA squarely during the same period this document was written. This Muslim Brotherhood memorandum reads much like Wahhaj’s sermons and lectures:
The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. [xvii]
Siraj Wahhaj Supports Convicted Cop Killer, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly known as H. Rap Brown), an African-American convert to Islam, is a former Black Panther with a forty year history of violence who’s been listed twice on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list. [xviii] Al-Amin once said, “I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.”[xix] Al-Amin was arrested for murdering one deputy sheriff and injuring another in 2000. The shooting was not racially motivated as both deputies were Black. Al-Amin murdered the Deputy Sheriff In cold blood– walking over to the already injured deputy and shot the man three more times. [xx]
Siraj Wahhaj founded Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA) in 2001 to defend Al-Amin. [xxi] On MANA’s website, Al Amin is listed as an Islamic scholar. The site even publishes an article by Al Amin directed to Muslim clerics, titled, “Advice for Imams.” In 2004, the Georgia court denied Al-Amin’s appeal, “Al-Amin’s guilt was overwhelmingly established through the eyewitness identification by [the] Deputies, as well … as by the vast amount of physical evidence tying defendant to the crimes.” [xxii]
Al-Amin was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The DNC is celebrating a man who supported a cop-killer!
Siraj Wahhaj’s Support for Hizb ut-Tahrir
The Hizb ut-Tahrir international movement which campaigns for the establishment of a global Islamic state, or Caliphate (Khalifah) governed by Islamic (shari’ah) law. Although, legally permitted inside the United States, Hizb ut-Tahrir has been described as a “conveyor belt” of terror. [xxiii] Hizb ut-Tahrir former members include Al- Qaeda architect of 9/11 , Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and the former leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. On a Hizb ut-Tahrir draft Islamic constitution, it advocated for separate and distinct laws for non-Muslims based on Islamic doctrine, death for apostasy, and waging jihad as a top priority for the government. [xxiv]
Siraj Wahhaj has been a long time supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 1994, he attended a conference in London. During the conference, the Islamists called for jihad, attacked democracy as a system of government, and declared that “the Islamic system is the only alternative for mankind.” [xxv] Less than a week later, back in the U.S., Wahhaj celebrated the Hizb ut-Tahrir as “scholarly brothers, knowledgeable brothers in the din” (understanding that Islam is not just a religion, but a complete way of life) with “good insight.” Wahhaj specifically stated that the group “is right in their pushing for the Khilafah (Caliphate).” [xxvi]
Conclusion
Given the massive documentation, going back decades, of his support for radicalism, violence, cop-killing, the worst Islamic extremism, and the overthrow of the Constitution, as well as his use of positions of leadership to pursue these goals, it is time to demand an explanation from the DNC about their embrace of Siraj Wahhaj.
Notes:
Andrew C. McCarthy, Willful Blindness: a Memoir of the Jihad, (New York, NY: Encounter Books, 2008), 213.
[ii] “Profile: Sudan’s Islamist leader,” BBC News, January 15, 2009, (accessed 7.16.11)
[iii] Audio, Siraj Wahhaj, “Stand for Justice,” May 8, 1992
[iv] Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” U.S. Dept. of State, May 19, 2011, (accessed 8.5.11)
[v] Steven Emerson, “ISNA’s Lies unchallenged again,” Counterterrorism Blog, August 11, 2007.
[vi] “Abu Marzouk: Damascus Welcomed Expelled Hamas Leaders, as Visitors,” ArabicNews.com, November 23, 1999, (accessed August 23, 2011)
[vii] ISNA “Speakers Information: Short Biographies.”
[viii] Interview with Hassan Al-Turabi, ISNA’s Islamic Horizons, March/April 2001.
[ix] “Speaker on Islam Won’t Condemn Hamas, al-Qaeda at UCF,” March 3, 2011, (accessed 7.22.11).
- US v. Holy Land Foundation, Case 3:04-CR-00240-P “Memorandum Opinion Order,” (Page 15-20).
[xi] http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/109.pdf
[xii] CAIR “Who are We?” Management and Staff, Archive, December, 7, 2001.
[xiii] For Example: CAIR Fundraiser, Vienna, Virginia, October 7, 2001, CAIR Fundraiser, Orange County, California, October 19, 2002, CAIR Fundraiser, Anaheim, California, October 4, 2003, CAIR- Fundraiser Southern California, October 9, 2004, CAIR- San Jose Fundraiser 11.7.10, CAIR Fundraiser – Orange County, California 10.30.10, CAIR – Anaheim 11.1.08, CAIR Fundraiser Anaheim 11.10.07, CAIR Fundraiser 11.18.06, CAIR-San Francisco 9.17.06, CAIR New York Fundraiser, July 7, 2008, CAIR San Diego Ist Annual Fundraising Banquet, September 17, 2006
[xiv] CAIR- CA, “Thank You for Your Generous Support of CAIR’s Work: More Than 750 Turn Out for CAIR-SFBA Banquet,” Dec 09, 2010, (accessed 8.11.11).
[xv] Steven Merley, “The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” Hudson Institute, April 2009, (accessed 8.15.11).
[xvi] Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” May 22, 1991, Government Exhibit 003-0085, U.S. vs. HLF, et al. (P. 7 of 18).
[xvii] Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” May 22, 1991, Government Exhibit 003-0085, U.S. vs. HLF, et al. (P. 7 of 18).
[xviii] Muhammed Abdullah Ahari, “The Islamic Community In The United States: Historical Development,” undated, Islam for Today, (accessed 4.9.11).
[xix] Susy Buchanan, “End of Watch: Ricky Leon Kinchen, 35,” Southern Poverty Center, Intelligence Report, Fall 2005, Issue 119, (accessed 7.11.11).
[xx] Ibid.
[xxi] Joe Kaufman, “Islamist Payola in the City of Brotherly Love,” FrontPageMagazine, January 03, 2008, (accessed 8.23.11).
[xxii] Al-Amin v. State, 278 Ga. 74, 88(18)(a), 597 S.E.2d 332 (2004) (citation and punctuation omitted).
[xxiii] Shiv Malik, “The Conveyor Belt of Extremism,” New Statesman, 18 July 2005, http://www.newstatesman.com/200507180005
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Video Sajjad Khan, Hizb ut Tahrir: International Khilafa Conference August 7, 1994, Wembley Arena, London, England
[xxvi] Audio Siraj Wahhaj, Somewhere on August 13, 1994.
-
Nathan Lean responds:
My Los Angeles Times Op-Ed article on Islamophobia and the Anders Behring Breivik verdict sparked a lively debate. And that's a good thing. Conversations like this belong in the pages of prominent newspapers, not on the blogs of hate group leaders.
Shapiro falsely asserts that I prescribed censorship to combat a growing discourse of hate. Instead, what I advocated was that reasonable voices within the population should publicly shame bigots and marginalize their harmful messages so that there is a well-considered and persuasive counterpoint that drowns out their hate. If thoughtful people more frequently and more forcefully speak out against individuals who provided Breivik with his ideological underpinnings, one day, hopefully, they will be treated with the same derision as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups.
Shapiro belittles my claim that right-wing terrorism is of great concern. He psychoanalyzes domestic terrorists like McVeigh and Koresh as "obsessed" or "paranoid," discounting their violence as somehow less concerning than that carried out by Muslim terrorists, whose violence he views as a normal part of their ideological makeup. For those predisposed to judge Islam in this light, if violence is committed by a Christian or someone of another preferred identity, then he is an aberrant mental case, but if it is performed by a Muslim, then that is just how those people are.
This week's news of a plot by four Georgia-based members of the U.S. military to blow up several bases and other targets around the country and assassinate President Obama apparently did not calculate in his logic. Though some may believe otherwise, it's not the Muslim Brotherhood that's planning attacks or infiltrating America's corridors of power.
Just as many peace-loving Muslim imams condemn un-Islamic extremism and violence, it is incumbent on reasonable Americans to condemn the hateful extremism of our own fellow citizens. Nothing good can come from this mindless anti-Muslim rhetoric. Those who listen to it regularly and digest it will become violent.
I choose to stand on the side of pluralism and tolerance rather than bandy about prejudice and hate.
-
Los Angeles Times calls for restrictions on freedom of speech of counter-jihadists
Robert Spencer - www.jihadwatch.org - August 26, 2012
Before reading Nathan Lean's call for the restriction of the freedom of speech of critics of jihad and Islamic supremacism in the Los Angeles Times, it is illuminating to bear a few things in mind.
First: Nathan Lean, the editor-in-chief of Aslan Media, is a thug who has sent me numerous veiled threats. For security reasons, I maintain several offices and mailboxes in different parts of the country, and don't actually live near any of them or check the mail in them myself. Nathan Lean got hold of one of the addresses, and several months ago tweeted me, in a complete non-sequitur, the name of the state it is in. A week later, he sent me another tweet including the name of the city where one of these mailboxes is located. Four months after that, he sent me an email calling me a "dumb fuck" and adding "But, having a look at this, I kind of pity you," which was followed by a link containing a photo of a woman in the same city. The woman has the same surname as mine; apparently Lean thought she was my wife.
Now, the purpose of these tweets and emails is unmistakable: Nathan Lean was signaling to me that he thought he knew my whereabouts (and that of my family), despite my attempts to conceal them. And why would he want me to think that he knew where I was? So that I would be frightened into silence, afraid that one of his many violence-inclined allies might do me in if I continued to speak out for freedom and human rights. I therefore duly forwarded all these communications to the FBI, and they've informed me that they're keeping on eye on Nathan Lean.
Yet this gutter thug still remains in the employ of Islamic supremacist hate propagandist Reza Aslan, and is published in the Los Angeles Times, which tells you a great deal about Reza Aslan and the Los Angeles Times.
Second, by publishing this thug's screed calling for restriction of the freedom of speech, the Los Angeles Times is cutting its own throat. For my opinions are certainly politically incorrect today, but if Lean succeeds in getting them criminalized, his patrons at the LA Times might find one day that they, too, hold an opinion unacceptable to those in power, but the precedent to silence them will already have been set, with their willing help.
"Anders Behring Breivik: Norway's sane killer," by Nathan Lean in the Los Angeles Times, August 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):
...The Islamophobia that led Breivik to his ruinous binge, for example, came from his digestion of the writings of several anti-Muslim activists, including bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who head the group Stop the Islamization of America. Breivik mentioned them in his 1,500-page manifesto, posted online.
Nathan Lean must get up every morning and thank Allah for Anders Behring Breivik; after all, where would he be without him? In any case, as long as Lean keeps repeating his libel, I will keep telling the truth: while he'd like you to believe that Breivik's "manifesto" is just Geller and me through and through, actually Breivik cited many, many people, including Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Thomas Jefferson -- who are just three of the many who are never blamed for his murders. Also swept under the rug is the fact that whether he is sane or not, Breivik's manifesto is actually quite ideologically incoherent -- so far was he from being a doctrinaire counter-jihadist that he wanted to aid Hamas and ally with jihad groups. I am no more responsible for Breivik than the Beatles are for Charles Manson.
Indeed, the whole attempt to smear Pamela Geller and me with Breivik's murders rests on several leaps of illogic and unstated assumptions. Even if Breivik's views really were exactly the same as ours, as Lean wants you to think, would the Los Angeles Times or Nathan Lean (well, maybe he would) really stand behind the idea that if someone commits violence in the name of an idea, that idea is thereby discredited and must be driven out of the public discourse? In that case, precious few ideas would be left, since people at one time or another have committed violence in the name of virtually every cause under the sun.
In any case, if ideas that were deemed to lead to violence really were silenced, the proponents of a supposedly peaceful Islam that Nathan Lean is so anxious to protect and defend would be silenced as well. After all, Lean admits below that Geller and I denounced Breivik's violence. But that is not enough for him: the whole thrust of his piece here is the claim that what we say and do inspires other people to do violence. Now, that is not in the slightest degree true of what Pamela Geller and I say and do, but it is certainly true of the many, many imams worldwide who openly teach that Muslims should wage war against unbelievers, and also true of those who don't teach violence openly, but do teach hatred and contempt of those outside the accepted circle (which, incidentally, Nathan Lean teaches as well). And if we denounce violence but must nevertheless be silenced, then so also must peaceful Muslims such as Nathan Lean's boss Reza Aslan, who supposedly denounces Islamic violence but has written favorably many times about the violent jihad terror groups Hamas and Hizballah.
The pair has agitated some of the country's nastiest displays of prejudice. Their bus advertisements equating the Palestinian cause with jihad created a stir in New York and San Francisco, and they fanned the flames of the uproar over the Park51 Islamic Community Center in 2010.
This one made me laugh: Pamela Geller and I are "equating the Palestinian cause with jihad"! No one ever thought to do it before we did! Apparently Nathan Lean hopes his hapless Times readers know nothing about Ahlam Tamimi, who praised Allah for the murders of Israelis in a pizza parlor (murders in which she participated), or about the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has called for jihad to liberate "Palestine,"; or about Jordanian Muslim cleric Riyadh al-Bustanji, who said recently: "I have brought my daughter to Gaza, so that she can learn from the women of Gaza how to bring up her children on Jihad, martyrdom-seeking, and the love of Palestine," or thousands of other Muslims worldwide who have called the Israel/"Palestinian" conflict a jihad. No! It is all just a nasty display of prejudice by Geller and Spencer!
Damningly, they see their mission as Breivik saw his: They call themselves "freedom fighters" on a valorous journey to save the world from Muslims.
Like his boss Reza Aslan, Nathan Lean can't even be honest or decent enough to characterize his foes' views accurately. In reality, we are not trying to "save the world from Muslims," but from a radically repressive, supremacist political ideology that denies the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law. If Muslims sincerely renounce these aspects of Islamic law and work against their spread, they are welcome to join us, as I have said repeatedly throughout my public work.
But when it was publicized that the Norway killer mentioned Spencer and Geller in his writings, they cried foul. "Clearly this individual is insane," Spencer wrote on his blog. After Breivik's initial psychological evaluation Geller expressed relief, writing, that Breivik was "declared certifiably insane, which was evident by his actions and his ten-years-in-the-making manifesto."
The magnitude of Breivik's butchery was apparently sufficient evidence of his psychosis. No normal person, in Geller and Spencer's view, would ever do such a thing. But only if that person is not a Muslim. When Muslims engage in violence, they are represented by Islamophobes as ordinary believers acting in a way that aligns with tenets of their faith, not fringe lunatics whose delusional religious interpretations lead them to a monstrous end. Though Spencer and Geller denounced Breivik's violence, they never rejected his anti-Muslim ideas. And that is a problem.
Here again, Lean ignores the extremely inconvenient fact that when Muslims engage in violence, they repeatedly justify that violence by reference to mainstream Muslim understandings of Islamic texts and teachings, and peaceful Muslims have not mounted any large-scale movement to oppose them or interpret those texts and teachings in a different way. He pretends instead that it is we who have equated Islam with violence. A few thousand imams preaching from the Qur'an and Sunnah would beg to differ.
The Norwegian court's verdict, which means that Breivik will spend at least 21 years behind bars (and probably much more), underscores the need for society to address those who promote hatred and jabber about the evils of multiculturalism and the looming clash of civilizations. It proves that amplified racism, which carves society into fragments and pits them against one another, has real consequences and reaches the minds of rational thinkers who absorb such narratives and take them to their logical conclusions.
Trying to wish away intolerance and bigotry may be convenient but it is costly. During Breivik's trial, a right-wing extremist testified that he knew of nearly 100 other people who share the killer's views and supported his massacre....
The discourse of hate must be stopped before it affects other extremists quietly waiting for an opportunity to be lauded as heroes.
Here we come to the heart of Lean's argument: he wants "society" to take action against those who stand for freedom and human rights against jihad, Sharia and Islamic supremacism, for we "must be stopped." This is a veiled but clear call for restrictions on our freedom of speech -- as clear as his threats against me. Lean, like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), wants speech critical of Islam to be criminalized. And the Los Angeles Times, to its everlasting discredit, publishes this.
That fact is the worst part of Lean's article: that he is given ready entree to mainstream media outlets to publish his hateful libels and calls for the restriction of our Constitutional rights, but we are not allowed any space for rebuttal of his false charges. When the Breivik libel first began appearing, Pamela Geller and I submitted a rebuttal op-ed to the chief places that had smeared us: the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the rest. None even had the courtesy to answer. But this enabler of Islamic supremacist oppression and hatred has easy access to the largest forums for influencing public opinion.
Nonetheless, because he stands for nothing but lies and hatred, Nathan Lean's cynical attempt to monetize the hysteria about "Islamophobia" is doomed to fail. If, however, he somehow does succeed in silencing those who are defending the freedom of speech and other basic human rights, his children and his children's children, having endured the devastation that his Islamic supremacist masters have wrought upon the West, will rise up and curse his name.
I'd rather fail in defending freedom than succeed with a legacy like that.
Posted by Robert on August 26, 2012
-
Ahhh Pam Geller's website again; that's the best, the ONLY response you ever have Objectivist1 :-o
Can't you find ANY source besides Pam Geller's website? :-o
Do you even read anything else? :-)
By the way, I thought you wrote an eloquent piece yesterday, saying you were not going to respond to my postings; :-o
"Henceforth (and I've broken this rule too many times already with regard to him) I will not waste any time responding to "arguments" - from JDN or others"
yet you responded to this one in less than 5 minutes.
Do you miss me? :evil:
-
Ummm , , , the piece is by Robert Spencer. Is he too on your "I'm gonna ignore him" list?
-
Actually Crafty, Robert Spencer's Website jihadwatch.org primary guest/alternative spokesperson is Pam Geller; it's like two peas in a pod.
Objectivist1 himself seems to alternate between Spencer/Geller.
I guess it's easier for him to go to the same website. :-)
That said, I agree, Robert Spencer seems more "reasonable" than Geller who is a complete Wacko. I don't ignore Spencer, but I do take him with a grain of salt. He's hardly a respected scholar on the matter.
Robert Spencer does not possess any scholarly credentials. He doesn't have any rudimentary academic education in the field in which one is claiming scholarship. First year students in Ph.D. programs have published far more academic articles than Robert Spencer ever has. Spencer has published no such articles, contenting himself with reproducing work in non-academic and populist publications. Spencer does not even possess a Master’s Degree in anything related to Islam, let alone a Ph.D. and post-doctoral fellowship but calls himself a scholar and expert.
Besides who needs peer-reviewed papers, Spencer seems content to receive rave reviews from Weasel Zippers, Nice Doggie, Atlas Shrugs, Muslims are Terrorists, et al. :evil:
So I guess I'm saying, yeah, it would be nice if Objectivist1 could broaden his cite list with a few "respected" souces. :-o
But that's right, he's not going to respond to me. :-D
-
Spencer seems quite knowledgeable to me.
-
"Jumah at the DNC" Event Fizzles
by MICHAEL PATRICK LEAHY 1 Sep 2012 www.breitbart.com
Organizers at the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs anticipated crowds at yesterday's "Jumah at the DNC" event in Charlotte, North Carolina would reach 20,000. Instead, only 300 Muslims showed up for the open air prayer ceremony.
The event had been listed on the schedule of events that were part of the officially sanctioned DNC/Charlotte in 2012 Host Committee's website. But less than 24 hours before "Jumah at the DNC" was held, nervous officials at the Host Committee quietly removed it from the list of officially sanctioned DNC pre-convention events.
As Jim Hoft reported at TownHall.com last night:
[T]he Jumah event was removed from the DNC web site calendar, and there is no reference at all to the event. A supporter noted in an e-mail, “It was still there 5.30 PM on 8/30/2012 and at 6.30 PM it was gone! I looked everywhere but it’s not listed anymore.”
Readers can see the cleaned up version of the scrubbed August 31 schedule of events here.
Officials at the Host Commitee confirmed that the event was removed. As NBC reported late yesterday:
"This event, like many others on the page, was user generated," a senior Host Committee official told NBC News on Friday. "Upon further review, and because speakers for the event and statements and positions from event organizers were not appropriate and relevant to the Host Committee, Charlotte in 2012 has decided to remove the event from our events calendar."
One of the event organizers, radical Islamist Imam Jibril Hough, bristled at the Host Committee's actions:
"This is about caving in to fear and ignorance," said Hough.
The radical Islamist nature of the BIMA organization was highlighted by the topics addressed at yesterday's "Jumah at the DNC" --Islamophobia and opposition to Anti-Sharia laws. The featured speakers were also controversial:
-- Jibril Hough, who claims Muslims lived in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Hough is listed as a "spokesman" for BIMA, and his views are reflected in the "indigenous Muslims" claim included in the group's title.
--Retired Army Muslim Chaplain, Captain James Yee, who was charged with sedition but not prosecuted since to do so would have revealed national security secrets.
-- Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
It was a disappointing turn of events for the event's sponsor, the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs, an obscure radical Islamist organization. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on Tuesday, Ibrahim Jaaber, son of BIMA Executive Director Muhammad Jaaber, said that the DNC "reached out" to the Muslim organization and invited it to hold the two hour prayer service as one of the officially sanctioned pre-convention events that began yesterday. In addition to the "Jumah at the DNC" event yesterday afternoon, BIMA was scheduled to host the DNC/Charlotte in 2012 Host Committee officially sanctioned "Islamic Regal Dinner" last night.
But with the convention scheduled to kick off on Monday, the negative publicity surrounding the radical Islamist speaking and organizing "Jumah at the DNC" became too much for the Host Committee to tolerate, and both the "Jumah at the DNC" and "Islamic Regal Dinner" events officially disappeared from the organization's website late Thursday.
The Host Committee is described on its website as "a non-profit, non-partisan organization established by the city of Charlotte to fulfill obligations of the master contract with the Democratic National Convention Committee." It is run by three Democratic Party stalwarts and a politically ambitious CEO based in Charlotte. North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue and North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan serve as honorary co-chairs, and Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx and Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers serve as co-chairs. Rogers has contributed to Senate candidates of both parties, but most recently donated $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2010, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Native Americans, who can properly claim to be "indigenous" to the United States, were upset that prior to the scrubbing of the event from the DNC/Charlotte in 2012 website, the Democratic Party had apparently recognized the Orwellian interpretation of "indigenous" set forward by BIMA.
As Miki Booth wrote last week:
Native Americans are very angry to learn that Muslims in the United States of America are being touted as “indigenous”, a complete falsehood. The fact is, American Indians are the indigenous people of North America, as Hawai’ians are to Hawai’i and the Aborigine to Australia. Organizations like BIMA marginalize native Americans in favor of Muslims, and Indians are not pleased. Speaking with many tribal friends and associates here in northeast Oklahoma, it is clear that the support Obama received from native American Democrats in 2008 is waning.
The controversy surrounding the initial Democrats' embrace of BIMA's incorrect use of the term "indigenous" to describe American born Muslims is expected to further diminish the party's standing among Native Americans. The Democratic Party is already on the defensive with Native Americans because its Massachusetts Senate nominee, Elizabeth Warren, has come under heavy criticism for falsely claiming to have Native American ancestry.
The BIMA website says the organization is "a non profit organization seeking status with the United Nations as a non governmental organization (NGO). BIMA was founded in 1992 by the late Hajj Heshaam Jaaber. The objective of BIMA is to provide social and economic development to indigenous Muslims in the United States of America." Heshaam Jaaber was Executive Director Muhammad Jaaber's father and Ibrahim Jaaber's grandfather.
Ibrahim Jaaber is a 2007 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an All-Ivy League basketball player. He told Breitbart News that his role in his father's BIMA organization is to provide media management services. Two months ago he purchased the "muslimbureau.com" domain name which BIMA uses for its website. Prior to that time, BIMA had no web presence.
It remains unclear if BIMA is an actual organization or a recently established "shell corporation" opportunistically set up by a small group of radical Islamists to take advantage of the Democratic Party's ideological desire to appeal to politically correct diversity. Indeed, other than spokesman Hough, the entirety of the BIMA organization seems to be limited to Executive Director Muhammad Jaaber and his two sons.
One son, Yusuf, is listed as the organization's press contact. Ibrahim, the second son who owns the organization's domain name and describes his role in the organization as a person responsible for media management, is involved with BIMA on a part time basis. Since his graduation from Penn, he has played basketball professionally in Bulgaria and Italy. He has had several NBA tryouts, including one with the Houston Rockets in 2011, and told Breitbart News he is hoping for a tryout this coming season with either the Indiana Pacers or the San Antonio Spurs. Some time after 2007, he became a citizen of Bulgaria, which allows him to play basketball on the Bulgarian national team. He was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and maintains his American citizenship as well.
-
What Is Right About Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer
Posted By Eric Allen Bell On March 1, 2012 - www.frontpagemag.com
[Editor's note: The article below is written by Eric Allen Bell, a filmmaker who was recently banned from blogging at the “Daily Kos” because he wrote three articles that ran afoul of the mindset there, specifically naming “Loonwatch.com” as a “terrorist spin control network.” Don't miss Eric Bell on Frontpage's television program, The Glazov Gang. Visit his Facebook page: http://www.Facebook.com/EricAllenBell.]
I write this mainly for the benefit of so many of my Liberal friends. I know you have good hearts, but have been badly deceived by your peers and leaders when it comes to the threat of Jihad, and the character of those few brave individuals, who have had the courage to risk everything, to stand up for liberty and human rights…
BACKGROUND:
In the summer of 2010 I was invited to write an article for Michael Moore. I was in production on a documentary I was calling “Not Welcome” regarding the backlash against construction of a 53,000 square foot mega mosque in the middle of the American Bible Belt. His endorsement gave me a huge boost with the Hollywood crowd. Having worked in the entertainment industry for years, this was not my first film, but it was to be my first documentary. So when I went on to write a few more articles for MichaelMoore.com the wheels were greased for me to get into a room with the right people, and secure the finishing funds I needed to complete post production. And if there is one thing Hollywood loves (almost as much as congratulating itself), it’s the story of an innocent minority group being wrongly persecuted, preferably in the South, especially if the antagonist happens to be the Religious Right. And as my editor and I assembled the first 25 minutes, of the 300 hours of footage shot, this film promised to deliver just that. “Wow, I really wasn’t expecting this. I would like to thank the members of the Academy, Michael Moore and the Prophet Mohammed for making all of this possible…”
But then the winds changed direction. It seems that fate had issued a Fatwa against my perfect plan. The Arab Spring sprang into action and ruined everything, as it degenerated disappointingly into the Islamist Winter. It was as if I had been slapped upside the head by reality, thus knocking off my blinders and causing me to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. I was left wondering if there was perhaps more to the story of so-called “revolution” than what had been portrayed on Al Jazeera and “Democracy Now with Amy Goodman”. You can read more about this in an article I wrote for Front Page Magazine here: “The High Price of Telling the Truth About Islam”.
I took a second and more critical look inside Islamic scripture, comparing and contrasting the countless acts of Islamic terrorism, with specific commands to carry out these violent and barbaric attacks on innocent infidels as ordered in the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sunnah. And after much difficult soul searching I had realized I was making more than just a documentary. I was making a terrible mistake. So I went back to my backers and told them how I had changed the outline of the documentary, to include a critical examination of the violent dimension that informed so much of the Islamic world today, and throughout history, and how desperately this story needed to be told, and I consequently lost the backing to my film.
As a writer who had written over a hundred articles for The Daily Kos, a liberal blog which receives about a million visitors a day, I wrote 3 articles outlining what I had learned about Islam, it’s execution of homosexuals and how hundreds of millions of women around the world were living under Islamic gender apartheid. I called attention to this as a human rights issue, human rights being in theory a big concern among Liberal audiences. The warm reception that followed included being labeled a “bigot” a “right winger” and an “Islamophobe” in the hundreds of subsequent reader comments, demanding that my “hate speech” be banned. And after that the Islamophobia watchdog site, Loonwatch.com created a link for readers to write directly to the editors of DKOS, demanding my voice be silenced. And I was immediately banned from ever writing for The Daily Kos.
In the weeks that passed I received many “goodbye” texts and emails from friends letting me know that we were no longer friends. I saw my name get smeared in print – lies, misquotes, distortions, character assassination. Loonwatch.com named me the “Loon At Large”
(UPDATE: Since appearing on the Michael Coren show and telling my story about how Loonwatch put my name out on the street in the Islamic world, Loonwatch has since pulled that article from their site. Thank you very much Michael Coren!).
My friend count on Facebook took a hit. My blog, which has had over 23 million visitors and usually receives at least a million visitors per month, got hacked over and over for weeks before my traffic rebounded. And, many of my subscribers left the site, telling me that I was “spreading intolerance and ignorance”. On donations and ad revenue I took a massive financial hit. For so many who had known me for so long, I had become nothing more than an “intolerant hate monger”
PAMELA GELLER:
In the process of defending myself from all of these accusations, in a desperate attempt to distance myself from those names that had become synonymous with “Islamophobia” at least in my circle, I made critical remarks about Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller – comments meant to distinguish myself from the real “hate mongers” but comments that turned out to be uninformed and just simply just not true. I thought they were true at the time. But having only recently sipped from the well of knowledge, I had not yet flushed all of the Kool Aid out of my system.
For example, in a Daily Kos piece (before my excommunication for blasphemy) I wrongly lumped Pamela Geller in with Pastor Terry Jones, a religious zealot who preaches burning the Koran. A simple YouTube search will yield no shortage of remarks made by Geller, stating she opposes the burning of books, all books, and that furthermore she is not anti-Muslim, does not advocate persecution or hatred of Muslims, and even goes so far as to point out that it is in fact Muslims themselves, who are the biggest victims of Islamic violence. The number of times she has spoken out for the hundreds of millions of Muslim women, who suffer under gender apartheid alone, is evidence that Pamela Geller is not a hate monger, but rather a fearless advocate for human rights – including the rights of Muslims.
It is amazing, the human capacity for seeing only what we want to see. And it is especially humbling, I can tell you, when one identifies that unattractive quality within oneself. But the freedom that comes with trading in your cozy conclusions for difficult questions is well worth the cost. Everything is up for grabs. You evolve.
In taking the time to really get to know who Pamela Geller is and what she has done to earn this sensational media status, as some sort of evil hate monger, this intolerant fanatic who opposes religious freedom, I finally did some long overdue research of my own. And soon after simply scratching the surface, it was immediately clear that the bold stance Pamela Geller took publicly against the Ground Zero Mosque was absolutely right. Spot on, in fact damned near clairvoyant.
This shameless shrine, this 13 story Islamic gloating tower was to be financed with $100 million from the “Cordoba Initiative” an organization with very questionable ties to Jihadi interests – to be ran by Imam Raouf and promoted by his wife Daisy Khan (pronounced “Con”).
Cordoba, by the way was at one time the capital of an Islamic Caliphate and the city where Muslims had converted a Cordoba church into the third largest mosque in the world – an inconvenient truth that those of us in the Liberal world were told was simply misunderstood. But when the spin doctors at CAIR failed to convince the skeptics, this mysterious $100 million Islamic fund rebranded the name of the victory mosque, to simply “Park 51”. It kind of sounds like an exclusive night club from the seventies, except without the liquor or cocaine, and where the women must throw a sheet over their heads and keep their mouths shut.
No matter how the Cordoba Initiative tried to spin this story, Pamela Geller kept on insisting this was a mosque. According to press releases parroted by left leaning media outlets, “Park 51” was more like a YMCA, where old people could play bingo or shuffle board or whatever they do. There would be Mommy and Me classes and the center just happened to have a prayer room on the top two floors for Muslims to pray. (also known as a mosque). Never mind that this mosque would overlook the site of the collapsed World Trade Center, where thousands of innocent people lost their lives after Islamic terrorists struck on 9/11. And never mind that construction of a mosque this close to Ground Zero was perfectly consistent with 1,400 years of Islamic conquest. This was to be a victory mosque the whole family could enjoy. And if you don’t like it, then you’re a racist and a bigot and a right wing Islamophobe. Did I mention that the new facility was designed to “bring the whole community together”?
As an advocate for cultural sensitivity for the American people (we could use more of those), Pamela Geller gave numerous television interviews. She was hammered and grilled mercilessly as an intolerant fanatic by a highly biased media, but she did not back down. She kept her cool and she stuck to the facts. For instance, fragments of a hijacked airliner had reportedly landed on the Burlington Coat Factory (the piece of Ground Zero real estate which was swooped up using questionable sources, to become the Victory Mosque). She asserted that the proposed site was in fact sacred ground, a war memorial, and not at all an appropriate place to build a $100 million “shrine to the very ideology that inspired the attacks of 9/11”.
I used to think that this was too broad a statement to make. I used to think that connecting Islam to 9/11 was somehow unfair. I used to not think, and think that I was thinking. And it seems for many of us Gen X’ers “educated” in government run schools, this type of not thinking was how we were taught to think. And the institutions of “education” told us that this type of not thinking was called “tolerance”. Applied evenly, one could learn to tolerate Communism, Nazism or even the President of Iran. See Oliver Stone’s son and recent convert to Shia Islam as Exhibit “A”.
So why did Pamela Geller call Islam an “Ideology” and not a religion? Perhaps this was because Islam is only a small part religion. In large part Islam is a tyrannical political system, and very much a barbaric legal system (the Sharia) practiced by hundreds of millions of Muslims in Islamic countries around the world and growing. And all three components go together to form what is known as “Islam” the so-called “religion of peace”. And yet so many in the mainstream media twisted Ms. Geller’s words to make it sound as if she were a crackpot, who actually thought that a mosque was going to be built on the site of the actual Twin Towers, while ignoring her valid points, or else cutting her off before she could finish making a valid point. And this is what so many of us wanted to believe, what we needed to believe – because the alternative meant that maybe she was right, and this went against a culture that raised us to believe all belief systems are of equal value and must be respected equally because anything less was unfair.
A huge portion of American culture is dominated by a naïve and usually well-intentioned view – that one must always side with the perceived victim in any conflict. And terrorist-linked organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have done a masterful job of manipulating this predisposition in painting a picture of Islam in America as the victim. Never mind the fact that Islam itself is perhaps the greatest victimizer in the world today. The perception that Islam is the underdog in America has allowed CAIR to bully and infiltrate the media, either by calling them out whenever they feel that Islam has been slighted or, more recently, creating an atmosphere where media outlets such as the New York Times are voluntarily censoring themselves.
For a religion that is so easily offended by the simplest slight, such as drawing a cartoon or burning a book, one would hope that a Muslim cleric with a hundred million dollars behind him could find another location – one that does not offend millions of Americans. And this was a point that Pamela Geller never backed down from, even though she knew that she could be risking her life.
ROBERT SPENCER:
There were two defining incidents that caused me to eventually do a full 180 on my views concerning Islam as a mostly peaceful religion with a few bad apples. The first one I have already mentioned in “The High Cost of Telling the Truth About Islam”. Briefly:
“I flew back to Nashville to shoot a conference on whether or not Islam was conducive with Democratic Values and on the way to my hotel room I learned that my cab driver was from Egypt. I asked him how he felt about the fall of Mubarak, a dictator worth over $70 billion dollars while so much of his country was living in poverty and he told me he was concerned. Concerned? Wasn’t this good news? The cab driver was a Coptic Christian and he told me that he feared for his family back home. “If the Muslims take control, and they will, it will be very dangerous for my parents and my sisters. I’m scared for them right now”. After that conversation, I started to pay more attention to the news coming from the Islamic world in the Middle East. Over the coming months I watched as the Muslim Brotherhood gained political power in Egypt. I saw that cab driver’s worst fears come true as Coptic Christians were attacked by Islamic mobs. I saw Tunisia institute Sharia, the brutal Islamic Law. After Libya fell, the Transitional Council also instituted Islamic Law. The nuclear armed Islamic government of Pakistan arrested and punished those who cooperated with the United States in killing Osama Bin Laden. A woman under the Islamic government of Afghanistan faced execution for the crime of being raped. Similar news stories emerged from Iran. A man who typed “there is no god” as his Facebook status in Indonesia, the largest Islamic country in the world, was arrested for blasphemy.”
Also, I read a book by Robert Spencer called “The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion”. I knew his reputation for being an “Islamophobe” as I had been a reader of Loonwatch.com for over a year – a site which is obsessed with Robert Spencer, and is aligned with another site called SpencerWatch.com – both of which go to great lengths to depict him as the worst human being in the world.
When I picked up “The Truth About Mohammed” I kept waiting for that moment when he would reveal himself to be the “Loon” they said he was and I could stop reading. But that moment never came. As it turns out, all of these horrible things I was reading about Mohammed could not possibly be “Islamophobic” because they were all coming directly from Islamic scripture. Everything he said was based on what Islamic sources, the Koran, the Hadith and the Sunnah, were saying about Mohammed. There was very little editorializing. Spencer was merely reporting in a very non-sensational way, what Muslims are taught about the life of their prophet.
I checked this out for myself. Not only did I want to disbelieve what I was reading, but I needed to disbelieve it. If what Robert Spencer was saying about Mohammed was true, then I had to rework my entire documentary, rethink my entire worldview, possibly lose backing (that hurt) and even have to go back and admit to my readers that I had it all wrong. I really, really wanted Robert Spencer to turn out to be a “Loon”. But he simply is not.
In fact, Robert Spencer is one of the only people out there telling the truth about Mohammed and successfully getting through to a significant number of people. And although I had seen him appear on news shows that I don’t like, being interviewed by people that I don’t agree with, there was absolutely nothing in his book that promoted his religion or promoted a partisan political point of view. He was simply stating the facts. And if I could detect any kind of agenda from this at all, any hint of this being in any way personal for him, it was pretty clear that his concerns had to do with protecting human rights.
From there I watched a documentary that Robert Spencer was featured prominently in (which I very highly recommend) called “Islam: What the West Needs to Know”. Again, I did my homework and it all checks out. From that point I watched nearly everything I could find on YouTube with Robert Spencer in it. Then I read “The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran”.
Since first sharing my change in perspective on Daily Kos and later on Front Page Magazine, I had the honor of speaking with Robert Spencer on a number of occasions. In fact it was he who reached out to me when my articles on Daily Kos got me banned. We have since been on radio programs together and I receive his JihadWatch.com email regularly. In keeping with the style of his books, Jihad Watch merely reports the facts concerning all the many acts of Jihad that have happened that day or week, with plenty of links to independent news sources from around the world, to substantiate what is being said. JihadWatch.com more than anything has been, and continues to be, incredibly eye-opening and an excellent source of reference material, for anyone who is serious about understanding the very real threat of Jihad – including Stealth Jihad, both here at home and around the world.
Countless millions of people fall victim to Jihadists every single day. This is perhaps the worst human rights nightmare facing the world in our time. And, there are tragically so very few people out there who are risking their neck, quite literally, to bring us accurate information concerning this. Quite frankly I find most (but certainly not all) of the sites that are critical of Islam to be either hateful or else too religiously motivated for me. And my sense is that this has a lot to do with maintaining the false perception that the Counter Jihad movement is partisan or religiously motivated. JihadWatch.com is the best, as far as I am concerned, when it comes to getting the facts in a reliable, non-partisan, non-proselytizing format.
SUMMARY:
So why would I have had such a wrong perception about Spencer and Geller? In the Liberal world, the world I now mostly just see in my rear view mirror when it comes to many issues I am reconsidering, there is not much tolerance for a diversity of opinion – something which was made abundantly clear when I was 86’d from Daily Kos, as punishment for not singing off the same sheet of music, when it comes to Islamic Supremacy. So I wrongly and naively thought that the Conservative world must work the same way. Huge mistake. The truth is, not only are there a wide range of views within the Conservative world, but even in the subculture of Counter Jihad there are many points of view as to what exactly the threat is and what to do about it.
This simply does not exist so much on the Left. And that is unfortunate, because I believe that America could benefit from having a healthy dialogue between those who are more cautious, respectful of traditional values and those who question whether the way we have always done things is the best way to move forward.
Perhaps no Americans understand better the threat of Jihad more than our brave men and women in uniform. Today as I write this article, in places such as Afghanistan, our troops face the very real threat of being shot in the back by a Muslim ally in uniform who is willing to murder them in cold blood because someone, somewhere burned a book. A book!
What we are seeing is an escalating battle between the civilized world and uncivilized fanatical masses, shaking their fists yelling “Death to America! Death Israel” burning our flags, storming our embassies, beheading our journalists, developing nuclear bombs to point at our ally, Israel and blowing themselves up yelling “Allahu Akbar!” while killing innocent children because they are Jewish.
I often wonder if there are more Islamic Supremacists in the Middle East today who want to see the Jewish race exterminated than there were Germans who wanted the same thing during World War II. This is how serious the threat is from Orthodox Islam. And it is only getting worse.
A new holocaust is brewing and it’s coming from Hamas, Hezbollah, state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and it finds its roots in the history and the teachings of Orthodox Islam. And this is being taught in the Islamic schools of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Palestinian territories – but even more disconcerting is that the hatred of Jews is found in literature sent over to far too many American mosques, from Egypt and Saudi Arabia and published by the Muslim Brotherhood. Anyone who is not concerned about this, anyone who is saying nothing, doing nothing – anyone who thinks this whole thing is an overreaction, ask yourself, “How did Hitler pull off the Holocaust?” and then look in the mirror.
My fellow infidels, you are right to be concerned. No, you are not a bigot or an “Islamophobe” if you speak out. Yes, there are lots of peaceful Muslims all over the world who share our concerns – who are our partners in this effort, who tell their stories and love their children and love America just like we do. You do not need to hate or fear Muslims. Information is the number one enemy of Islamic Supremacy. Spread it!
Whatever I’ve lost, whatever I’ve endured is nothing at all compared to what Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer courageously endure, day after day, year after year, nonstop as they are pummeled by the media, their words distorted, their characters assassinated, portrayed as hate mongers, fear mongers, bigots and fanatics – their pictures pasted onto Islamic websites all over the world, constantly, with the very clear message that these people are the “enemies of Allah” and have “insulted Islam”.
Whether protecting the rights of people abroad – their right to free speech, their right to leave their religion without facing the penalty of execution, the right not to be falsely imprisoned, the right to report if you have been raped and not be punished for it, by being stoned to death or forced to marry your rapist – make no mistake about it – these two courageous truth tellers are risking everything to protect what we all hold dear.
They will most likely have to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders, given the amount of violence so far that has been perpetrated on those who have been murdered in the past for simply speaking out against “the religion of peace”. And they risk their lives for you and for me, and for the liberty and the protection of human rights for billions of people around the world, every single day, year after year.
And although there are many people who are fighting this fight every day, many unsung heroes, when it comes to speaking out in the media, no one has lead the charge more effectively, with moral clarity and courage than Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.
What is right About Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer – is what is right about America.
Peace,
Eric Allen Bell
Eric@BellMedia.org
-
Over to you JDN :-D
-
http://spencerwatch.com/2012/07/03/jihadwatch-zombie-eric-allen-bell-thinks-he-hit-it-big-on-eric-bolling-show/
-
Watch and decide if you think Geller is being unreasonable in her arguments here (3.5 minutes):
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fv9LxyhZ7pY
-
Siding with Savages
Posted By Mark Tapson On September 6, 2012 @ www.frontpagemag.com
Atlas Shrugs blogger Pamela Geller, lightning rod for the hateful fury of the unholy alliance of Islamists and the radical left, is under attack again for daring to run a pro-Israel advertising campaign in New York and San Francisco.
Ms. Geller is executive director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), in addition to being the author of Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance and The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America (with Robert Spencer). For Islamists and the multiculturalist progressives who have bought into the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy of demonizing its opposition as “Muslim-hating,” Geller is the most public face of the mythical “Islamophobia” in America.
Geller’s AFDI advertisements in San Francisco read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.” In New York, the ads read, “19,250 deadly Islamic attacks since 9/11/01. And counting. It’s not Islamophobia, it’s Islamorealism.”
Some public officials in both cities are taking unprecedented steps to denounce and distance themselves from the ads. As Ms. Geller related in a FrontPage Magazine interview, Greenburgh, New York Town Supervisor Paul Feiner announced that he wanted Metro-North to warn passengers that the ads could be upsetting and don’t represent Metro-North’s views or that of the community. Muslims, he said, “should not be discriminated against. The posters encourage hatred, discrimination and do not help the efforts to fight hate crimes.” Peter Swiderski, the mayor of Hastings-on-Hudson, and the Board of Trustees sent out a letter to the village asking residents to write to the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) expressing dismay that the ad was not deemed hate speech. The letter also read,
While the Board respects everyone’s right to free speech, we categorically condemn the bigotry and innuendo expressed by this billboard message. To tar a faith and its followers because of the actions of a few is deplorable, hateful and morally repugnant.
Except that the ad doesn’t refer to all Muslims. It doesn’t even “tar” Islam, which jihadists themselves already do a spectacularly good job of tarring. The ad merely notes the 19,250 deadly attacks (a number that has since risen dramatically) since 9/11/01 carried out in the name of Islam. It underscores the “Islamorealism” that people like Feiner and Swiderski, in their politically correct bubble, prefer to deny and ascribe instead to “Islamophobia.” It refers to jihadists, who have no compunction about killing less fanatical Muslims. Apparently Feiner and Swiderski are more outraged that the ad “could be upsetting” to jihadists than they are about the Muslim victims of their co-religionists. How tolerant of them.
Geller countered by responding to Swiderski and asking why no such mailing went out concerning recent anti-Israel ads run by the MTA. “This speaks to a systemic, institutionalized anti-Semitism prevalent in your administration and among the Board. Care to comment?” Geller posed a rhetorical question to FrontPage Mag interviewer Jamie Glazov, “Why didn’t he react as viscerally when the same kiosks had vicious blood libels posted about Israel?
San Francisco, the city that proudly champions every America- and Israel-hating radical nutball or movement you can name, was of course horrified by what it deemed to be racist hate speech from “notorious anti-Muslim hate blogger” Geller and AFDI (the AFDI has been stamped as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose mission is to designate as such everyone who disagrees with the well-funded progressive agenda).
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, reluctant to open itself up to an AFDI lawsuit for suppressing its free speech, did not refuse Geller’s ad but added a disclaimer: “SFMTA Policy Prohibits Discrimination Based On National Origin, Religion and Other Characteristics and Condemns Statements That Describe Any Group As Savages.”
Not content with posting the disclaimer alongside the ad itself, SFMTA Board of Directors chairman Tom Nolan felt compelled to announce publicly that “the recent ad has no value in facilitating constructive dialogue or advancing the cause of peace and justice.”
Actually, the ad concisely offers the only possible support for “the cause of peace and justice” – siding with civilization over barbarism. There can be no “constructive dialogue” with, for example, a fundamentalist regime whose most fanatical desire is to wipe you from the face of the earth. Nothing has been less constructive in terms of derailing the Iranian Ayatollahs and their lust for nuclear weapons than the West’s decades-long effort to engage them in “constructive dialogue.” Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs have merely used that as a delaying tactic to string us along while they steamroll ahead with their genocidal plans.
The only people who would find the AFDI ads offensive are those who don’t think twice about disparaging Israel as a genocidal apartheid state propped up by the racist, imperialist United States of AmeriKKKa. These willfully blind hypocrites believe Israel and America are the greatest threat to world peace and that jihad is nothing more than “inner struggle.” Funny how Western multiculturalists leap to the defense of a culture they don’t understand and whose supremacist atrocities they whitewash, while readily denouncing their own culture as the fount of all evil.
Let me be perfectly clear, as our President is fond of saying: Islamic fundamentalists are savages. Israel celebrates life; Islamists love death. Israel gives medical care even to Palestinian failed suicide bombers, sends emergency relief teams worldwide, and makes life-giving scientific advancements. Jihadists behead captive soldiers, partygoers, and children; frame mentally challenged Christian children for blasphemy, the punishment for which is death; hang homosexuals from cranes; crucify suspected spies in Yemen and dissidents in Egypt; wage genocide against Christianity minority communities in the wake of the “Arab Spring”; and celebrate the murderers of children. If that doesn’t validate Ms. Geller’s framing of this conflict as a Clash of Civilization and Savagery, I don’t know what does.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGwtG8nVpUU&feature=related
-
Washington Times - Friday, September 7, 2012
Robert Spencer
Eleven years have passed since the jihad terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and terrorism appears to many to be yesterday's issue. There hasn't been a catastrophic jihad attack on American soil since that fateful day, and neither presidential campaign has done much more than pay lip service to national security issues regarding jihad terrorism. Yet there are numerous indications that the Islamic jihad against the United States is far from over.
President Obama's response to that jihad, however, has been to support the Arab Spring uprisings that have installed Islamic supremacist pro-Shariah regimes in North Africa and to dedicate his Justice Department to gaining special accommodation for Muslims in American businesses and educational institutions.
Osama bin Laden said in his October 2002 letter to the American people that "the first thing that we are calling you to is Islam." He could look with satisfaction at how Islamic law is rapidly becoming the sole law of the land in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and at how the American political establishment is so warmly disposed toward even Islam's political and supremacist elements that a call simply to investigate Muslim Brotherhood influence in the government met with scorn and charges of McCarthyism.
So pervasive is the unreality about the jihad threat, in fact, that the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, has attributed the rapid rise in attacks by Afghan troops on their American trainers to a lack of affection on the Americans' part. He explained that on one occasion, "one of our battalion commanders publicly and openly hugged his Afghan battalion counterpart. And that solved the problem right on the spot."
In fact, these "green-on-blue" murders keep happening because there is no reliable way to distinguish an Afghan Muslim who supports American troops from one who wants to murder them, and political correctness prevents authorities from making any attempt to do so anyway because it would suggest that Islam is not a religion of peace. So ever more U.S. troops are sacrificed to this madness.
Meanwhile, Mr. Obama has just expressed his enthusiasm for Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood regime by forgiving $1 billion in Egyptian debt despite the fact that that regime has moved with startling rapidity to dismantle what there was of Egyptian democracy and secure its place in power for decades to come. Egypt's Arab Spring has ushered into power a regime that clearly is dedicated to ramping up the country's already virulent persecution of Christians, imposing principles of Islamic law that will subject women and non-Muslims to institutionalized discrimination and setting Egypt on a path toward open war with Israel.
Mr. Obama is set to repeat the same mistake in Syria, where a post-Assad government is almost certain to contain significant Muslim Brotherhood elements. Yet numerous analysts and pundits want the United States to rush into military action against President Bashar Assad, with no consideration of the likely nature of the regime that would replace him. Mr. Assad is terrible, to be sure. His successors are almost certain to be worse.
Meanwhile, domestically, Mr. Obama's Justice Department has joined lawsuits by Muslims demanding special accommodation in the workplace, forcing American businesses to change their long-standing practices and reinforcing the Islamic supremacist principle that wherever Islamic law and practice conflict with American law and practice, it is the latter that must give way. The Obama administration has not only shown no interest in Muslim Brotherhood organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) that are advancing the Brotherhood's stated goal (according to a captured internal document) of "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house," but even has partnered with several of those organizations on numerous occasions.
While all this is happening, however, jihad plots and attacks against the United States continue, even as the fog of denial and appeasement grows thicker than ever. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is accused of murdering 13 Americans at Fort Hood in 2009 in the name of Islam, but the government classified his jihad attack as "workplace violence." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted recently: "The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land . A new Middle East will definitely be formed. With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists." In response, the United States hastened to assure the Iranians that it would not support an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Eleven years after Sept. 11, the U.S. government is thoroughly compromised and naively trying to appease the Islamic jihadists who have vowed to destroy us. Bin Laden, though dead, appears to be emerging as the victor.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of "Did Muhammad Exist?" (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012).
-
Getting Over 9/11
Posted By Mark Tapson On September 11, 2012 www.frontpagemag.com
Eleven years ago, nineteen fanatical Muslims turned hijacked aircraft carrying hundreds of terrified passengers into missiles targeting symbols of American economic might. Nearly 3000 innocents died horribly that day, including hundreds of courageous, selfless first responders making a superhuman effort to rescue their fellow citizens. And for years, when the anniversary of that day rolls around, progressives and their Islamic allies have been rolling their eyes and urging Americans to “get over it.”
They’re weary of being bummed out by reminders of 9/11. They wish we’d forgive and forget that it happened. Stop bringing it up and “harshing their buzz.” Move on, move forward. Some of those people simply don’t grasp that we must not forget because we are still at war with the enemy that attacked us that morning; the rest are very much aware that we are still at war, and they want us to forget because they are siding with that enemy.
It may seem impossible for many to believe that that morning could be forgotten – just as it once seemed impossible to believe that our government could erase words like “jihad” and “Islamist” from our national security lexicon, preventing us from even naming or describing the enemy; or that our government could deem a terror attack on our own soil to be “workplace violence” and whitewash it of its Islamic motivation; or that an American President could announce that one of his duties was to “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear”; or that he could proclaim us one of the world’s largest Muslim countries.
President Obama signed a proclamation last week designating Friday, September 7 through Sunday, September 9, 2012 National Days of Prayer and Remembrance. “Those who attacked us sought to deprive our Nation of the very ideals for which we stand,” the proclamation states. He is referring to al Qaeda, but the Muslim Brotherhood too seeks to deprive us of our ideals. The Brotherhood seeks the end of a free, capitalist, democratic America no less than al Qaeda does. And yet the President has literally invited them into our White House and has supported them in Egypt throughout the Arab Spring, including a $1 billion aid package to the new Egyptian regime.
So September 7-9 are National Days of Prayer and Remembrance. What about 9/11 itself? In a quiet, seemingly innocuous gesture three years ago, President Obama designated 9/11 as “The National Day of Service and Remembrance.” But the “Remembrance” part seems to be an afterthought, because the idea was to get Americans to “engage in meaningful service to create change… in four key areas”: education, health, energy/environment and community renewal. None of those seems to have anything to do with honoring 9/11, but that was the point: Muslim-American playwright Wajahat Ali (and one of the writers behind the Soros-funded “Fear, Inc.” report that smeared anti-jihadists as Islamophobic bigots) wrote in the Huffington Post at that time that “we are trying to move away from focusing on 9/11 as a day of horror, and instead make it a day to recommit ourselves to national service.”
Why? Because in order for Islamists and the radical left to advance their agenda of dismantling American exceptionalism and recasting America as the villain in our history books, they need Americans to put 9/11 behind us, let the victims slip from our memories, ignore that we are still at war with an enemy that danced in the streets to celebrate the attacks, and turn a blind eye to the fact that our civilization is under assault by a subversive stealth jihad.
Americans can commit themselves to public service any or every other day of the year; 9/11 should be reserved for solemn remembrance and renewed commitment to preserving American security, values and sovereignty. Greening your neighborhood? What does “green” have to do with 9/11? Only that it’s the color of Islam. Education? Fine – educate yourself and your children about 9/11 and the continuing threats of stealth jihad and “creeping sharia.” Environment and community renewal? Great – beautify your block by flying the Stars and Stripes on 9/11. It sends a simple message to the enemy and their useful idiots that you believe that making this day about installing fluorescent light bulbs trivializes the memory of 9/11′s victims, and that you will never let their deaths be erased from history.
How do things stand on this 9/11, eleven years later? Among other highlights, we captured 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a SEAL team took out bin Laden (no thanks to the resistance of Obama, despite all the crowing about his “gutsy” choice to green-light the mission). To his credit, Obama has green-lit drones that continue to take out key al Qaeda terrorists, such as the traitorous Anwar al-Awlaki. We have foiled dozens of attempted terrorist attacks on our own soil. All to the good.
Now for the bad. We have a president who embraces the Muslim Brotherhood. His Secretary of State is actively facilitating the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s goal to criminalize “Islamophobia.” Our Dept. of Homeland Security has to be waterboarded before it will even mention the word “Islam.” We are dumping the problem of a nuclear Iran on our erstwhile ally Israel. We have a military leadership that would consider a lack of diversity to be the most tragic result of the Ft. Hood shooting. We are throwing our troops in Afghanistan under the bus in a chimeric effort to win the hearts and minds of people who have neither. Our news and entertainment media collude with the Brotherhood front group CAIR to perpetuate the victimhood myth that Muslim-Americans have suffered a terrible backlash ever since 9/11. This is a recipe for cultural suicide.
But perhaps the 9/11 complainers are onto something. Maybe Americans should get over 9/11. Here’s how I recommend we do that. The best way this country can “get over” 9/11 and honor the memory of the dead and their families is to crush Islamic fundamentalism out of existence, the way we crushed Japanese imperialism and Nazism. Lay waste to the ideology that threatens the fundamental values that America and the West hold dear. Stamp out threats to our freedoms, to human rights, to our hard-won civilization. When we have eradicated sharia law and its proponents from the face of the earth, then Americans can truly and freely “get over” 9/11. Until then, the unholy alliance of progressives and Islamists should be forewarned that true Americans will never forgive, never forget.
-
While catching up on emails I found this about the credentials of some of the folks Obj cites:
"You might want to point out the different standard JDN has for an unrepentant terrorist that started Barrack's political career and a repentant terrorist such as Shoebat. Also, Spencer is a scholar who is fluent in Arabic and McCarthy is a former Deputy US Marshal, former Assistant US Attorney who was part of the prosecution team that went after the first WTC jihadists, If I recall correctly."
-
Actually, while I may not agree with McCarthy, I have never criticized his credentials.
As for Spencer, I think you are using the term "scholar" loosely, merely, if in fact he does (I couldn't find confirmation) speak Arabic hardly makes him a "scholar". I know a few people who speak Arabic; I speak Japanese, but none of us are "scholars" on the subject. He has no advance degrees in the subject nor has he published in any scholarly journals or "respected" publications.
As for Shoebat versus Obama and his "friends", well, I'm not quite sure I agree with you; Obama's "friends" CV are rather impressive versus Shoebat's only claim to fame, "former terrorist" however, in the interest of truth (and getting along) :-) if you notice, I have never quoted or referenced one of them to make a point.
-
I can't find the URL, but Pravda on the Beach reports that bout 60 Muslims held a vigil yesterday for our slain embassador in Tustin, Orange County, CA.
-
I can't find the URL, but Pravda on the Beach reports that bout 60 Muslims held a vigil yesterday for our slain embassador in Tustin, Orange County, CA.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-anti-muslim-film-20120915,0,7929906.story
-
By Brian McLaren
I was raised as an evangelical Christian in America, and any discussion of Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations around the world must include the phenomenon of American Islamophobia, for which large sectors of evangelical Christianity in America serve as a greenhouse.
At a time when U.S. embassies are being attacked and when people are getting killed over an offensive, adolescent and puerile film targeting Islam - beyond pathetic in its tawdriness – we must begin to own up to the reality of evangelical Islamaphobia.
Many of my own relatives receive and forward pious-sounding and alarm-bell-ringing e-mails that trumpet (IN LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS!) the evils of Islam, that call their fellow evangelicals and charismatics to prayer and “spiritual warfare” against those alleged evils, and that often - truth be told - contain lots of downright lies.
For example, one recent e-mail claimed “Egyptian Christians in Grave Danger as Muslim Brotherhood Crucifies Opponents." Of course, that claim has been thoroughly debunked, but the sender’s website still (as of Friday) claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has “crucified those opposing" Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy "naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”
Many sincere and good-hearted evangelicals have never yet had a real Muslim friend, and now they probably never will because their minds have been so prejudiced by Islamophobic broadcasts on so-called Christian television and radio.
Janet Parshall, for example, a popular talk show host on the Moody Radio Network, frequently hosts Walid Shoebat, a Muslim-evangelical convert whose anti-Muslim claims, along with claims about his own biography, are frequently questioned. John Hagee, a popular televangelist, also hosts Shoebat as an expert on Islam, as does the 700 Club.
Many Christian bookstores that (used to) sell my books, still sell books such as Paul Sperry’s "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" (Thomas Nelson, 2008). In so doing, they fuel conspiracy theories such as the ones U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, promoted earlier this year.
In recent days, we’ve seen how irresponsible Muslim media outlets used the tawdry 13-minute video created by a tiny handful of fringe Christian extremists to create a disgusting caricature of all Christians - and all Americans - in Muslim minds. But too few Americans realize how frequently American Christian media personalities in the U.S. similarly prejudice their hearers’ minds with mirror-image stereotypes of Muslims.
Ambassador's killing shines light on Muslim sensitivities around Prophet Mohammed
Meanwhile, many who are pastors and leaders in evangelicalism hide their heads in the current issue of Christianity Today or World Magazine, acting as if the kinds of people who host Islamophobic sentiments swim in a tiny sidestream, not in the mainstream, of our common heritage. I wish that were true.
The events of this past week, if we let them, could mark a turning point - a hitting bottom, if you will - in the complicity of evangelicalism in Islamophobia. If enough evangelicals watch or try to watch the film trailer that has sparked such outrage in the Middle East, they may move beyond the tipping point.
I tried to watch it, but I couldn’t make it halfway to the 13-minute mark. Everything about it was tawdry, pathetic, even pornographic. All but the most fundamentalist believers from my evangelical Christian tribe who watch that video will be appalled and ashamed to be associated with it.
It is hate speech. It is no different from the anti-Semitic garbage that has been all too common in Western Christian history. It is sub-Christian - beneath the dignity of anyone with a functioning moral compass.
Islamophobic evangelical Christians - and the neo-conservative Catholics and even some Jewish folks who are their unlikely political bedfellows of late - must choose.
Will they press on in their current path, letting Islamophobia spread even further amongst them? Or will they stop, rethink and seek to a more charitable approach to our Muslim neighbors? Will they realize that evangelical religious identity is under assault, not by Shariah law, not by the liberal media, not by secular humanism from the outside, but by forces within the evangelical community that infect that religious identity with hostility?
If I could get one message through to my evangelical friends, it would be this: The greatest threat to evangelicalism is evangelicals who tolerate hate and who promote hate camouflaged as piety. (emphasis added).
No one can serve two masters. You can’t serve God and greed, nor can you serve God and fear, nor God and hate.
The broad highway of us-them thinking and the offense-outrage-revenge reaction cycle leads to self-destruction. There is a better way, the way of Christ who, when reviled, did not revile in return, who when insulted, did not insult in return, and who taught his followers to love even those who define themselves as enemies.
Yes, “they” – the tiny minority of Muslims who turn piety into violence – have big problems of their own. But the way of Christ requires all who claim to be Christians to examine our own eyes for planks before trying to perform first aid on the eyes of others. We must admit that we have our own tiny minority whose message and methods we have not firmly, unitedly and publicly repudiated and rejected.
To choose the way of Christ is not appeasement. It is not being a “sympathizer.”
The way of Christ is a gentle strength that transcends the vicious cycles of offense-outrage-revenge.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Brian D. McLaren.
-
CAIR Rep: Violence Shows It's America That Needs to Change
IPT News
September 18, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3752/cair-rep-violence-shows-it-america-that-needs-to
Anti-American violence throughout the Muslim world, ostensibly over a cheap Internet film denigrating the Muslim prophet Muhammad, may be misguided, but it's a result of "the lack of dignity, the lack of respect that they're being shown." And it's up to America to change policies to calm things. That's the message a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) official brought to a television interview Sunday.
And that's not the worst thing about Cyrus McGoldrick's comments.
McGoldrick's interview was on Press TV, an Iranian government-controlled English-language news outlet. He never condemned the violence outright, saying "We're very sensitive to the loss of life" and "people's lives are always to be mourned." The angry mobs show "no real understanding of nuance" because the American government neither financed the film nor had anything to do with its distribution.
Few protestors likely even saw the video, said McGoldrick, civil rights director for CAIR's New York chapter. "And I don't think it's about the film at all, really, I think that people are tired. People have had enough of what is seen by them, what looks to them like America's war on Islam. And this is one of the symptoms of that."
That "war on Islam" narrative is acknowledged to be among the most effective messages in radicalizing Muslims. Even the White House acknowledges this. In the past week, a federal judge sentenced a 29-year-old to 30 years in prison after he plotted to detonate a suicide bomb inside the United States Capitol and arrested an 18-year-old in Chicago who thought he was detonating a car bomb outside a bar.
Both Amine El-Khalifi and Adel Daoud thought America was waging war on Islam. McGoldrick could have told his Iranian network interviewer that such a perception is not only wrong, but dangerous. He could have pointed out that Muslims in America, especially Shia, are freer to practice their faith than in most Sunni Muslim nations.
But he didn't. Instead, he raised doubt over the most fundamental American freedom. Americans enjoy "allegedly a freedom of speech, a freedom of expression –political expression and religious expression," he explained. "And of course, that comes with it some rights, but also, of course, some responsibilities."
The recent violence, including the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, might have be seen as "the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of Muslims' patience with American and Western intervention," McGoldrick said.
That puts the onus on the United States "to very critically think about how much more weight will we put on the Muslim world? How many more attacks? How many more drone strikes? How many more coups … until we realize that we need to take a principled stand, and a just stand, to make sure that we respect human rights, sovereignty and dignity all over the world."
McGoldrick is among a number of CAIR officials who routinely appear on Press TV, usually to denigrate American politics or policy. But McGoldrick's affinity with the Iranian regime runs deeper. He promoted the August 17 "al-Quds Day" rally in New York, advertising and marketing virulent anti-Israel rhetoric at the Iranian-inspired event. Quds Day is a creation of the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini and a frequent vehicle for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to call for Israel's elimination and to publicly delegitimize the West. Its organizers have adapted resolutions that endorse Hamas, and dismiss Palestinian terrorism as simple "side issues." McGoldrick promoted the al-Quds New York rally through twitter posts and even the CAIR-NY website.
Claims of Jewish control of the media and American politics, and alleged war-mongering by Israel and America radiated prominently this year through similar rallies held in Washington D.C., Chicago and Detroit. McGoldrick, of Iranian and Irish heritage, touted similar rhetoric at the New York rally, denying that he is anti-Semitic but boasting he "most definitely" is anti-Zionist. He accused Israel of theft and murder, and instructed the "oppressed" to stand up to the "oppressor."
"See because today, all of us we are given the opportunity because today Zionist entities stand accused of theft ... Today, Zionist entities stand accused of murder. And if we don't make sure that we detach ourselves from that oppression, than we are accused of the same," McGoldrick said.
McGoldrick also discouraged attendees from financing pro-Israel companies.
"Make sure that when you leave here you don't pay your money to Zionist companies. Make sure you don't fund Zionists oppression. Make sure you don't fund the IDF. That you don't fund the massacres that are happening right now on our tax dime. Make sure that you are not complicit in the oppression that is happening here today."
McGoldrick's statements were not unique to al-Quds Day. In a Twitter post last month, he blasted the New York Police Department for being "Thuggish, criminal, violent, abusive, even genocidal. This is the #NYPD. How many more have to die?"
He spoke at the 2011 Quds Day rally, too, where he also mocked the NYPD and boasted that Quds Day had become "a powerful event." During a spoken word performance, he smiled as he said he's "just out here to Islamicize America, 'Cause more peace shouldn't make them so hysterical."
It's a line he used again in greater detail during a March appearance at the New York Institute of Technology.
In a program entitled "The Muslim American Identity," McGoldrick said America can be more peaceful and decent if it is more Islamic.
"We should not reinforce this distinction or between Islam and the West, as if they're mutually exclusive. We need to make sure that – oh, the camera's gonna love this one – we need to Islamicize America … That's, but you gotta say it with a smile on. You can't just be like – I'm here to Islamicize, you have to – I'm here to Islamicize America you know. There's nothing wrong with that. You know and that shouldn't scare anybody. I'm not forcing any rules on people. Islam is a mercy to us to improve ourselves. You know so if we're working, an Islamic society is a decent society, you know and you're not compelling anybody to do anything, just lead by example, that's all."
In the same speech, McGoldrick lamented the convictions of two Muslims who worked to aid al-Qaida during an appearance at the New York Institute of Technology. Aafia Siddiqui was convicted of attempting to murder Americans who detained her in Afghanistan, while Tarek Mehanna was convicted of conspiracy to provide material, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, and making false statements to law enforcement. He went to Yemen in 2004 hoping to be trained at a terrorist camp with the goal of plotting jihad against American troops stationed in Iraq. When that didn't work, he came back to the United States and launched his own online al-Qaida "media wing" to translate and distribute publications by the terrorist group.
To McGoldrick, these cases prove that the government is out to get Muslims for thought crimes.
"This is, it's like 'Minority Report' on crack. Like we have two cases, you know Tarek Mehanna up in Boston, we have Aafia Siddiqui in New York, who these people were convicted with no physical evidence of a crime whatsoever. The prosecution didn't even bother. They basically made the case – well these people don't like America, so oogie oogie boogie, and jury gave them like, they jury gave them 86 years to Dr. Aafia, and Tarek Mehanna he convicted I think, I'm not sure if he's been sentenced yet, but it's not gonna be a few months. The, it's amazing, you know the level of thought now has been criminalized. And that's what it comes down to – thought."
Last month, McGoldrick linked to a 1991 video from his Twitter account showing Siddiqui as a school girl. "Can't watch this without tearing up," he wrote. "May God free our sister Aafia."
CAIR-NY encouraged its followers through a Twitter post to support Siddiqui at her appeal last February. McGoldrick personally and publically offered Siddiqui his prayers.
As he showed on Press TV, McGoldrick also possesses a knack for peddling propaganda that America is engaged in a "War on Islam." In January, McGoldrick told the Queens Chronicle that a wave of arson attacks by a lone suspect on mosques was driven by racism, even though police determined personal vendettas were in play. In one case, a mosque had refused to let the suspect use its restroom. McGoldrick capitalized on the moment.
"It was only a matter of time before the war abroad became a war at home," McGoldrick said. "Fearmongering about Islam and other American minorities have ripped this country apart. Warmongering politicians and willing media confirm this narrative, the warrantless incomprehensive surveillance of the Muslim community by the NYPD confirms this narrative and the destruction of the Constitution in the name of the war on terror confirms this narrative."
McGoldrick also advocated for the Muslim Brotherhood political ascension in Egypt, blaming Israel for any effort by the military to prevent that result.
"My heart is with Egypt after yesterday's military coup," McGoldrick wrote in a Twitter post. "May Allah protect the revolution & people from the military doing Israel's bidding."
McGoldrick joined CAIR-NY in December 2010 and has a robust history of incendiary statements since, including his comments on an Iranian network.
Because CAIR employs McGoldrick, it is accountable for his actions and incendiary statements. Government agencies and elected officials should take note that CAIR does nothing to rein in young extremists like McGoldrick, who promote Iranian-inspired hate rallies and make false statements about law enforcement.
But most of McGoldrick's rhetoric falls neatly in line with that asserted by his CAIR bosses. That's something the State Department should consider the next time it taps a CAIR official for travel abroad, or as a dialogue partner. The FBI has found CAIR is not "an appropriate liaison partner." McGoldrick's actions only reinforce the reasons why.
-
All too familiar. CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood front. It was founded by the MB and is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation "charity" operation which was shut down by the Federal government - the largest terrorist financing prosecution in U.S. history. Note how it is always the non-Muslim who must give up his freedom of speech in order to "respect Islam." CAIR is part of the stealth jihad movement in the United States - in fact, it is the most visible example of it.
Those non-Muslims who continue to apologize for "offensive" speech, cartoons, literature, etc. are simply enabling their own destruction. That includes our present Commander In Chief. The fruits of this appeasement are in plain view all across the Middle East today as angry Islamic mobs chant "Death to America" and "Obama - We are all Osama now." Of course, to say such a thing is, in the eyes of the politically-correct fool, "bigoted and hateful." No - it is simply the truth - and unfortunately when it comes to Islam - truth is the new "hate speech."
-
Objectvist1, what is an "unindicted co-conspirator"?
Is it sort of like "almost pregnant"? :?
-
The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration
Posted By David Horowitz On September 14, 2012 - www.frontpagemag.com
If anyone needed evidence that Hillary Clinton is in the pocket of the Muslim Brotherhood, the events of the last few days should be more than sufficient. On the anniversary of 9/11, on what should be a day of shame for the Muslim world, the US Embassy in Cairo issued a statement condemning critics of Islamofascism in language appropriate to the office of propaganda for the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamofascists launched violent attacks on Americans, repeating the outrages in miniature of the World Trade Center attacks 11 years ago. In the face of these outrages the posture of the U.S. government is one that would make Neville Chamberlain blush. In four years Barack Obama has managed to turn the entire Middle East over to America’s enemies. So that our readers can understand how this has happened and how far advanced the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the Obama administration has progressed, we are publishing this pamphlet by Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, called The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration. We are printing 200,000 copies to distribute to concerned Americans. We are selling them at cost if you buy 25 or more to share with your friends.—David Horowitz
Read the pamphlet or order your copy by clicking here: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frank-gaffney/the-muslim-brotherhood-in-the-obama-administration/
-
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/09/fox-news-anti-jihad-ads-free-speech-or-offensive.html
-
Chris Christie's friend, New Jersey Imam Mohammed Qatanani, wants Sharia blasphemy laws criminalizing criticism of Islam in the U.S.
Robert Spencer - September 22, 2012 - www.jihadwatch.org
Chris Christie quite recently called Qatanani his "friend." Will he explain to his friend about the importance of the freedom of speech now?
Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield reports that “despite the fact that Mohammed Qatanani was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that is behind both al-Qaeda and Hamas, despite his own guilty plea to being a member of Hamas, and despite the fact that even in the United States, he had defended a charity that provided funds to children of suicide bombers (this is done as an incentive to reassure terrorists that if they die their families will be taken care of), Qatanani was not deported.”
"Free Speech That Mocks Islam Is National Security Threat for U.S., Prominent NJ Imam Tells TheBlaze," by Tiffany Gabbay for The Blaze, September 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):
...In fact, so grave is mockery of the prophet considered, that the cleric – Mohammad Qatanani, who leads one of the largest mosques in New Jersey – even believes free speech that criticizes Islam poses a national security threat to the U.S. and that those responsible should be investigated by the Department of Homeland Security.
“We, as Americans, have to put limits and borders [on] freedom of speech,” Qatanani, leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), told TheBlaze. He explained that while Americans may ”have the freedom“ to speak their mind, ultimately, they “have no right to [talk about Muslim] holy issues“ as it will incite ”hatred or war among people.”
Qatanani said he thinks agitators who slander Islam, or, more specifically, the Prophet Muhammad, incite violence and hence, pose a national security risk that threatens the safety of Americans at home and abroad. Thus, America should disregard its First Amendment as it is typically applied and instead act in accordance with sharia law for the ultimate “good” of society.
In an exclusive interview with TheBlaze, the cleric, who was nearly deported in 2008 for failing to disclose his former ties to the terrorist organization Hamas on a 1996 Green Card application, explained that Muslims are required by Islam to respect the law of the land in their host-countries. He followed up that statement, however, with a treatise on how those who slander the prophet be pursued legally.
While some leaders within the Muslim community have spoken out against the anti-America driven violence in the Middle East, many have qualified their condemnation with moral equivalence, treating a film dubbed “Innocence of Muslims” (which some claim served as the catalyst for the attacks), with even harsher disdain than they do murder. Qatanani said the Obama White House should take legal action against the filmmakers.
“My position is that White House has to say strong in its condemnation [of the filmmakers] and take this person to court. If he is innocent, we will accept that… The government has strong case against this person.”
When asked what can be done to prevent future attacks, Qatanani invoked Homeland Security again, suggesting that the department actually step-in to prevent artists, composers, movie-makers, or satirists (among others), from producing works critical of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. He believes it is in America’s best interest to quell this kind of free speech as it “ruins” America’s image abroad and will ultimately hurt people.
Qatanani’s statements make it appear that, in so many words, the cleric is advocating for the U.S. to operate by sharia law – the religious law of Islam – when it comes to freedom of speech as it relates to Islam. If so, it would seem to echo comments in a previous report on TheBlaze outlining Islamists’ “10-year plan” to make slandering Islam unlawful on an international level.
American freedom versus Islamic freedom
One of the most revealing insights made by the controversial faith leader came when he juxtaposed American freedom with the type of freedom permitted under sharia law.
The imam acknowledged that observant Muslims view freedom only through the lens of that which is permitted by the Quran and Sunnah, the two sacred texts of Islam, and is therefore much different from the way Americans view freedom.
“They [Muslims] think our [American] freedoms are too much,” Qatanani said. “The freedom of the American people is so different from their [Muslims'] freedoms. We believe freedoms have limits and rules, otherwise we will get people into trouble…Freedom according to Islam must be according to the Quran and Sunnah. You can do [anything] you like within the teachings of these two resources. This is the difference and main reason [for the conflict].”
A different standard of freedom?
“People there [in the Middle East] don’t understand the American Constitution and freedom of speech,” Qatanani said. We have to understand each other because misunderstanding is a killing issue… The issue of Prophet Muhammad is very delicate – they [Muslims] will not accept in any way, anybody who talks badly about Muhammad.”...
Posted by Robert on September 22, 2012 1:47 PM
-
What this man so eloquently speaks of has not happened here in the U.S. - yet. It will however, if our politicians continue to listen to and accommodate the complaints of CAIR and their ilk. Those of us who simply want to prevent this from happening are labeled as "anti-Muslim bigots" by the left (which includes most of the media) in this country:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCXHPKhRCVg&feature=player_profilepage
-
http://pjmedia.com/blog/u-s-imams-call-for-restricting-free-speech/?singlepage=true
U.S. Imams Call for Restricting Free Speech
All-American Muslim imam Sheikh Husham al-Husainy: "They should put a law not to insult a spiritual leader." by
Robert Spencer
Bio
September 24, 2012 - 1:33 pm
As the Muhammad movie riots continued into a second week, two imams based in the United States joined the calls from the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim Brotherhood for the U.S. to criminalize criticism of Islam.
Sheikh Husham al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, Michigan, said about the worldwide Muslim riots that “the only solution is to replace the hate with love.” And “love,” in his mind, meant that “they should put a law not to insult a spiritual leader.”
Meanwhile, Imam Mohammad Qatanani of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, New Jersey, said that “we, as Americans, have to put limits and borders [on] freedom of speech,” for while Americans do indeed have the freedom of speech, they have “no right” to talk about topics holy to Muslims, for to do so will lead to “hatred or war among people.”
Al-Husainy and Qatanani are not marginal, fringe characters. Al-Husainy last year was the featured cleric on All-American Muslim, a reality showed that aired on The Learning Channel and was dedicated to countering the chimerical threat of “Islamophobia” by showing Muslims as ordinary folks leading ordinary lives. Yet, according to Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack, he is also “a signatory to the Jerusalem Document of 2009, which reads more like Mein Kampf. It refers to the war on Zionism as a war between “good and evil.” Zionism is considered an “aggression” that is infecting “the entire human race.” Muslims are told to “get ready for the holy Jihad.” The document also expresses support for a jihad terrorist group: “We remind our sons to get ready to carry out their duty in Holy Jihad and continue the path which our young valiant men in Hezbollah began in Southern Lebanon.”
Al-Husainy also gave an invocation at the Democratic National Committee’s Annual Winter Meeting in 2007. Al-Husainy prayed:
Through you, God, we unite. So guide us to the right path. The path of the people you bless, not the path of the people you doom. … And help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation.
He was echoing the Fatiha, the first sura of the Qur’an and most common prayer of Islam. It asks Allah: “Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favoured; not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.” The traditional and mainstream Islamic understanding of this is that the “straight path” is Islam, while the path of those who have earned Allah’s anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians. Thus al-Husainy was condemning Judaism and Christianity right under the bowed heads of the assembled Democrats. And his reference to “occupation” was clearly, coming from this supporter of Hezbollah, a dig at Israel.
As for Qatanani, investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield reports that,
despite the fact that Mohammed Qatanani was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that is behind both al-Qaeda and Hamas, despite his own guilty plea to being a member of Hamas, and despite the fact that even in the United States, he had defended a charity that provided funds to children of suicide bombers (this is done as an incentive to reassure terrorists that if they die their families will be taken care of), Qatanani was not deported.
Yet New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently had Qatanani at the governor’s mansion for his Ramadan Iftar dinner. Christie was glad to see him, calling him his “friend” and telling him before the audience: “I’m glad to have you here.” Of Qatanani, he said: “In all my interactions with the imam, he has attempted to be a force for good in his community, in our state with law enforcement, with those of us who have gotten to know him for the years.” Will Christie now explain to his friend about the importance of the freedom of speech?
The striking thing about the statements from al-Husainy and Qatanani is not that they called for restriction of the freedom of speech. After all, they are mainstream Muslims, and Islamic law, both Sunni (Qatanani) and Shi’ite (al-Husainy), denies the freedom of speech and forbids criticism of Allah or Muhammad on pain of death. What is striking is that despite their obvious attachment to Sharia in its traditional and mainstream form, as well as their support for the jihad terror groups Hamas (Qatanani) and Hezbollah (al-Husainy), both clerics continue to enjoy a reputation as “moderates.” Qatanani has the fervent allegiance of a state governor and prominent player in national politics, and al-Husainy is featured at gatherings of a major party and on national television.
It is certain that if al-Husainy and Qatanani were evangelical Christian pastors who had expressed support for the Ku Klux Klan and called for repeal of the First Amendment, Chris Christie, the Democratic National Committee, and The Learning Channel would be nowhere near them, except to issue condemnations wherever necessary. But when it comes to Muslims, the rules are different: so avid are politicians and the mainstream media to find “moderates” and feature them, thereby proving that they are not “Islamophobic,” that they uncritically embrace any Muslim leader who smiles and talks of peace.
What’s even worse is that when these “moderates” are exposed as not quite so moderate as all that, no one cares. No supporter of al-Husainy or Qatanani is going to rebuke either one for their opposition to the First Amendment – not even Chris Christie. More’s the pity.
-
www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/savaged-for-daring-to-name-savagery-pamela-gellers-point-made-by-critics-of-free-speech/2012/09/24/0/
-
http://pjmedia.com/blog/radical-speech-at-ny-muslim-parade-prompts-on-stage-walk-off/
-
Objectivist1; Geller again huh? :oops:
But I am curious, while the supposed "anti-Jewish ads seem rather benign (they are not anti-Jewish) albeit controversial,
"This ad shows two smiling dads – one Israeli, one “Palestinian,” with their young daughters. The ad copy: “Be on our side. We’re on the side of peace and Justice. End U.S. military aid to Israel.”
It hardly is blatantly offensive like hers.
Imagine for a moment if the ad on buses running through town said,
IN ANY WAR
BETWEEN THE
CIVILIZED MAN
AND THE SAVAGE,
SUPPORT THE
CIVILIZED MAN.
SUPPORT PALESTINIANS
DEFEAT RACISM.
Now I don't agree with that ad, but are you saying that the Palestinians should be able to buy ad space on buses and run this ad?
-
Objectivist1; Geller again huh? :oops:
But I am curious, while the supposed "anti-Jewish ads seem rather benign (they are not anti-Jewish) albeit controversial,
"This ad shows two smiling dads – one Israeli, one “Palestinian,” with their young daughters. The ad copy: “Be on our side. We’re on the side of peace and Justice. End U.S. military aid to Israel.”
It hardly is blatantly offensive like hers.
Imagine for a moment if the ad on buses running through town said,
IN ANY WAR
BETWEEN THE
CIVILIZED MAN
AND THE SAVAGE,
SUPPORT THE
CIVILIZED MAN.
SUPPORT PALESTINIANS
DEFEAT RACISM.
Now I don't agree with that ad, but are you saying that the Palestinians should be able to buy ad space on buses and run this ad?
The so-called "palestinians" are our common enemy. They ae evil savages as well.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZvbYJMvU[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZvbYJMvU
-
http://pjmedia.com/blog/stunner-turkey-infiltrating-native-american-tribes-%e2%80%94-and-may-get-congressional-help/?singlepage=true
-
Very disturbing, indeed. Stealth jihad is an ugly reality, and we Americans (and our elected leaders) had damn well better take it seriously, or we will be destroyed from within. These jihadists are cunning and extremely well-organized. They are also patient and determined. We ignore them at our peril. Anyone who wants to understand the the depth and seriousness of this problem would benefit from reading Robert Spencer's 2008 book, "Stealth Jihad." I can't recommend it highly enough.
Glenn Beck's recent documentary "The Project," (a full year in the making, and just released last week) illustrates just how far this infiltration has progressed within our institutions in the four years since the publication of Spencer's book. The 2-hour documentary can be viewed at www.theblaze.com/theproject/
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/army-instructor-ousted-over-muslim-groups-complaints-about-bigoted-teachings-on-radical-islam-fights-back/
-
Al-Marayati's Dangerous "Diplomatic" Ideas
IPT News
October 11, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3768/al-marayati-dangerous-diplomatic-ideas
The State Department is vociferously defending its decision to send Muslim Public Affairs Council boss Salam al-Marayati to represent the United States at a recent 10-day human rights conference in Poland. He "has been involved in U.S. government initiatives for almost 10 years and has been a valued and highly credible interlocutor on issues affecting Muslim communities," a State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon, adding that al-Marayati was invited to participate in the meeting "as a reflection of the wide diversity of backgrounds of the American people."
If the al-Marayati choice is any indication, that "diversity" apparently extends to anti-Israel ideologues who attack U.S. terrorism prosecutions, whitewash Hamas war crimes, and portray Iran as a victim of U.S. perfidy. And he runs an organization which opposes key elements of American counter-terror policies, including the drone strike which killed American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the closing of terror-supporting charities and sting operations against would-be homegrown terrorists.
A year ago, al-Marayati even threatened to sever ties with the U.S. government in a strongly-worded Los Angeles Times op-ed column. Expressing anger over the use of "anti-Muslim" training materials by the FBI and a U.S. Attorney's office, al-Marayati wrote: "If this matter is not immediately addressed, it will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community—another example of the ineptitude and/or apathy undermining bridges built with care over decades."
In spite of MPAC's hostile view of government policies, administration officials routinely turn to MPAC for policy advice, including the training materials al-Marayati ranted about in the Times. In February, MPAC officials met with FBI Director Robert Mueller to discuss training materials about Islam. That same month, MPAC officials met with top Pentagon leaders to receive an apology over a recent incident involving Quran burnings in Afghanistan.
In 2010, the State Department sent al-Marayati to Paris and Geneva to speak to United Nations groups about religious freedom and free speech.
Don't take our word for it when it comes to al-Marayati's extreme views toward Israel, U.S. policy and law enforcement. Watch and listen to the following examples from al-Marayati's mouth:
• In a January 2012 appearance on Russia TV's "Cross Talk," al-Marayati depicted Iran as the victim in the diplomatic crisis over its illicit nuclear program.
"The problem in the case of Iran is that it is singled out as the threat. We [the U.S.] don't want to deal with North Korea the same way we deal with Iran," he said. "With other countries, we utilize the IAEA, we use multilateral instruments to deal with the nuclear problem. In this case of Iran, there is no dialogue, there is (sic) no negotiations, it is all confrontational policies that is (sic) part of a war-mongering mentality here in the U.S. and they're just waiting for the tripwire and then the machinery of war will begin."
Al-Marayati also suggested that Israel is controlling U.S. foreign policy. "The other point here, which is very important historically, the United States has done a lot of dirty work that has served the interests of Israel," he said. "It destroyed Iraq. It supported the destruction and crippling of Egypt. It has crippled the Gulf. And now, it is looking to Iran as the next target for crippling and destroying. I think this is madness. Who is driving our foreign policy - President Obama or Prime Minister Netanyahu?"
• In July 2006 during the Israel-Hizballah war, al-Marayati declared that the Holocaust was no excuse for Israeli "dehumanization" of Arab peoples:
"We're against Holocaust denial, but we're also against people who exploit that as a way of shoving this kind of war propaganda and dehumanization of the Arab peoples and the Muslim peoples as if they have to pay the price for what Nazi Germany did to the Jews back in the 20th century."
Al-Marayati has harshly criticized U.S. terrorism prosecutions.
• At a March 12, 2006 fundraising dinner for Sami Al-Arian, he likened the prosecution to the detention of innocent Japanese civilians in the U.S. during World War II. Al-Marayati suggested that "we are being dictated upon, not only on terminology, but dictated upon on who speaks for us, and our organizations, our charities, are shut down one by one. Therefore, brothers and sisters, there is a storm that it is coming. That storm is going to be worse than Japanese internment."
Al-Marayati called Al-Arian "the gentleman who defied the odds in a system that is unfair, and there is no way you can get a fair trial in view of any of these issues today. But regardless, he was able to defy the odds and he was acquitted of all the terrorism charges that were levied against him."
One month later, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law.
"You laughed when you heard about the bombings" carried out by the PIJ, U.S. District Judge James Moody told Al-Arian in pronouncing sentence, calling him a "master manipulator."
• Speaking to a Dallas audience in 2005, al-Marayati attacked law enforcement's use of informants in terrorism investigations. He blasted the government for using informants in the case against Umer and Hamid Hayat, a father and son living in Lodi, Calif. "The disaster of Lodi is that Muslims were reporting each other to the authorities, saying: 'Oh, this person is an extremist.' ... This is the model not to follow."
This disaster resulted in the convictions of the Hayats on charges of providing material support to al-Qaida and making false statements. Hamid Hayat was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
• After federal authorities in May 2009 disrupted a plot to bomb synagogues and fire missiles at U.S. military aircraft, al-Marayati criticized the prosecution. "These were individuals who were either petty criminals or gullible people who were guilty of stupidity. They were not imminent threats to our country, as the FBI has stated," al-Marayati told Fox News.
The four men convicted in the plot were convicted and sentenced to 25-year prison terms.
At a minimum, Marayati's long record of whitewashing terrorism, trivializing the Holocaust, and denigrating law enforcement's work in protecting Americans from jihadist terror raises serious questions about the State Department's judgment in deciding who should represent the United States abroad. Making taxpayers foot the bill to send the likes of Marayati overseas is the height of folly and legitimizes an official and his organization that often works against the same government that legitimizes it with such significant access.
-
This is obscene. I agree with Spencer that Hasan's religion should be given no accommodation whatsoever:
www.jihadwatch.org/2012/10/army-appeals-court-considering-whether-military-judge-exceeded-his-authority-by-ordering-fort-hood-j.html
-
Choose Love: Defeat Jihad
WEDNESDAY, 10 OCTOBER 2012 BY PAMELA GELLER
There are now three separate ad campaigns devoted to opposing my pro-Israel ad in New York subways, and more are coming.
My ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” Some Jewish and Christian groups have called this message hateful, and have decided to put up counter-ads that they say are more “loving.”
One of these ads says, “Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.” Another: “Love your Muslim neighbor.” And a third: “Support peace in word and deed.” Rabbi Jill Jacobs of Rabbis for Human Rights explained: “We, as an organization of rabbis want to make it clear to new york and to the U.S. that neither rabbis nor the mainstream Jewish community support this dehumanization, but in fact we value partnership with our muslim neighbors and muslim organizations.”
These rabbis have good intentions. But is my ad really “bigoted” and “dehumanizing”? Or does it just state unpleasant facts? The jihad against Israel is a jihad against innocent civilians, and the targeting of civilians is indeed savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The torture of hostage Gilad Shalit was savage. The bloody hacking to death of the Fogel family was savage. The Munich Olympic massacre was savage. The unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) Are savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage. The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The list is endless.
I am all for countering hate. The ad speaks to the defense of freedom and individual rights for all. There’s nothing hateful about it. 9/11 was hate. 3/11 in Madrid was hate. 7/7 in London was hate. The Fort Hood jihadi was hate. The Christmas underwear bomber was hate. The Fort Dix Six was hate. Pushing back against such hate is not hate.
I doubt that the rabbis in rabbis for human rights know anything about the jihad doctrine that relentlessly seeks to violently impose Islamic law and pursues jihad against non-Muslims, or about the Islamic antisemitism that is deeply ingrained in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and that identifies the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (Qur’an 5:82) and under Allah’s curse (Qur’an 9:30). When have they spoken out against that hate, because of which Jews suffer daily? When have they called upon Muslim leaders to reform the Qur’an and expunge its virulently antisemitic texts, which are routinely quoted on Palestinian authority TV as justifying endless warfare against the state of Israel and Jews everywhere? What topsy-turvy moral compass have they employed to come to the conclusion that the “hater” is not the imams who routinely preach violence and antisemitism in mosques and on TV in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but me when i try to call attention to the barbaric cruelty of the jihad against Israel?
And that barbaric cruelty is a constant of Muslim history. Don’t believe me – take it from Rambam, Moses Maimonides, the preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He wrote about the “people of Ishmael,” that is, the Muslims, “whose oppressiveness is firmly upon us and they connive to do us wrong and despicably downgrade us as the Almighty decreed against us (Deuteronomy 32:31, ‘Your enemies shall judge you’)… There never came against Israel a more antagonistic nation. They oppress us with the most oppressive measures to lessen our number, reduce us, and make us as despicable as they themselves are.”
Will these rabbis condemn Maimonides as a “bigot”? Or will they recognize that he was speaking out of the reality of his experience, and that Muslim behavior toward the Jews in Israel shows that many Muslims still believe the same way as did the Muslims whom Maimonides encountered?
Leading Jewish voices like Caroline Glick, Martin Sherman, Paul Schnee, Steve Goldberg and Lori Lowenthal-Marcus support my ad. So this shows the diversity of opinion within Judaism, which is a notable contrast to the Muslim community – where are the moderate Muslims speaking out in support of my ad?
It is also important to remember that these “faith groups” that are opposing my ad say nothing in the face of the mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing of their own people at the hands of savage Muslim jihadis. When have these interfaith groups spoken out against the virulent antisemitic and genocidal rhetoric coming from Iran and jihad groups arrayed against Israel? When have they spoken out against the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere? When have they spoken up for Hindus in Bangladesh, Bahais in Iran, and other persecuted religious minorities?
Their moral myopia is immense. They are confusing resistance to hatred with actual hatred.
Wake up. I am not the problem. You want to fight against “hate,” fight against the barbaric jihadis who glory in the torture and murder of children, not against me.
___________________________________________________________________
Pamela Geller is the publisher of atlasshrugs.com and the author of the wnd books title Stop The Islamization Of America: A Practical Guide To The Resistance.
-
"Bangladeshi man arrested after allegedly trying to blow up Fed building in NYC," from Fox News, October 17:
DEVELOPING: Federal authorities arrested a Bangladeshi national Wednesday morning for allegedly plotting to blow up a Federal Reserve building in New York City's lower Manhattan, mere blocks away from the site of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.
The 21-year-old suspect, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, attempted to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb in front of the Fed building on Liberty Street, but the device was a fake supplied to him by undercover FBI agents who had been tracking his activity, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force said Wednesday afternoon.
The supposed explosives posed no threat to the public, the FBI said.
A criminal complaint accuses Nafis of having overseas connections to Al Qaeda and travelling to the U.S. in January to recruit individuals to form a terrorist cell and conduct an attack on American soil. But one of Nafis' potential recruits was an FBI source, who alerted authorities, the FBI said.
A federal law enforcement official told Fox News that there was no evidence Nafis was directed by Al Qaeda to carry out this attack, though he appears to have thought he was working for the terrorist group.
At one point, according to criminal complaint, Nafis told undercover agents: "I don't want something that's like, small. I just want something big. Something very big ... that will shake the whole country, that will make America, not one step ahead, change of policy, and make one step ahead, for the Muslims ... that will make us one step closer to run the whole world."
A U.S. official told Fox News that President Obama was Nafis' first target, but the criminal complaint only refers to "a high-ranking official." The complaint also mentions the New York Stock Exchange as a proposed target....
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly noted that there have been 15 terrorist plots targeting the city since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Al Qaeda operatives and those they have inspired have tried time and again to make New York City their killing field," Kelly said. "After 11 years without a successful attack, it's understandable if the public becomes complacent. But that's a luxury law enforcement can't afford."
-
http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/army-sacks-lt-colonel-course-radical-islam/#fm
Army Bows to Islamists, Sacks Lt. Colonel
Thu, October 18, 2012
by Meira Svirsky
Lt.Col. Matthew DooleyLieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley’s career has been effectively destroyed by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, various complicit members of the Pentagon and the military and, most of all, political correctness on the part of the U.S. government.
Col. Dooley, who was awarded the Bronze Star, the fourth-highest combat decoration, is a West Point graduate and highly rated armor officer who served in Iraq, Germany, Bosnia and Kuwait. He was, until recently, the instructor of a course to fellow officers on the dangers of radical Islam at the Joint Forces Staff College (part of the National Defense University).
His downfall came at the hands of 57 Islamic groups who began complaining a year ago that the U.S. military and intelligence counter-terrorism training instructors and materials were anti-Islam.
Included the group of complainers was both CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America). Both CAIR and ISNA were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Terror Funding Trial, largest ever terror-funding trial in U.S. history. Both are listed by the Muslim Brotherhood -- whose publicized doctrine is to destroy American from within -- as two of it “working organizations.”
As a direct result of the complaints by the Islamic groups, the U.S. government instituted broad, sweeping reviews and eventual purges of its counter-terrorism training materials. Islamic groups were allowed into the FBI and other institutions to approved or disapprove the materials. The Pentagon complied with the review, as did all of the branches of U.S. armed forces.
At that time, the Pentagon found no fault in any of its courses or instructors. Col. Dooley’s course, which he began teaching in 2010, had been taught the same way since 2004. All the material for the course was approved by the university. In his evaluations from last year, Col. Dooley was referred to as a superb officer.
Yet changes were being made. RepresentativesDooley in combat from the government, including John Brennon, the chief counter terrorism advisor, instituted new terminology in the "War on Terror." No longer were Al Qaeda fighters called "Islamic extremists;" they became simply “extremists.” Gone was any mention of the ideology driving their "extremism."
The Islamic groups also demanded that employees who promoted (in their opinion) "biased" training about these "extremists" be "effectively disciplined."
However, Col. Dooley’s course was not singled out until close to six months later when one of his students lodged a complaint to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. It was then that Col. Dooley’s course was suspended. Ironically, the complaint was not even about Col. Dooley, but about a guest lecturer he had brought in.
The guest lecturer had been talking about "what if" scenarios, a common way the military strategizes: Envision a potential scenario and figure out how to deal with it.
In this case, the guest lecturer asked what would happen if Islamic extremists gained control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and began destroying U.S. cities. How should the U.S. respond?
The faculty handbook at the university where Col. Dooley was teaching his course says that students and faculty are to express opinions "free of limitations, restraints or coercion by the university or external environment." Further, it states that "no subject or issue is considered taboo."
In a particularly telling passage, the handbook says that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (i.e., Gen. Demsey) directs the university to "establish a Gen. Martin Dempseyclimate of academic freedom within the university to foster thorough and lively academic debate, and to examine national security issues. To continue to craft the best possible national security policy for the United States and offer the best possible advice to U.S. leaders and students, the faculty of the university must be free to examine policy from all viewpoints."
Still, a new review of the government’s counter-terrorism training materials and instructors was ordered by Gen. Dempsey on April 24, 2012. At a press conference the next day, a spokesman singled out Col. Dooley and told reporters that his course was "inflammatory."
In May, an internet site called Wired "broke" the story about the government’s focus on Islamic terrorists in their counter-terrorism training materials. They had obtained some of Col. Dooley’s course materials and accused him of advocating a "total war" against Islam. In the article, Marine Lt. General George Flynn, Gen. Dempsy’s deputy for joint force training, told Wired that Dooley’s course was teaching that "Islam had already declared war on the West. It was inflammatory."
The site published a briefing by Col. Dooley in which he said, "Political Correctness is killing us: How can we properly identify the enemy, analyze his weaknesses, and defeat him, if we are never permitted to examine him from the most basic doctrinal level?"
The same day the Wired story broke, Gen. Dempsey excoriated Col. Dooley at a press conference, referring to him as "the individual."
At the press conference, Gen. Dempsey said, "It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound … academically irresponsible."
One month later, a general on Demspey’s staff at the Penatgon ordered Dooley to be removed as an instructor "for cause." The university was ordered to produce a negative officer evaluation report on Dooley.
In the military, this is known as a "career ender."
Dooley hired Richard Thompson, president of the non-profit Thomas More Law Center, to represent him in an appeal against the negative report.
In an interview with the Washinton Times, Thompson said the Pentagon is trying to appease the Muslim Brotherhood.
"What happened here was this whole idea of political correctness deterred the ability of our military to speak frankly about the identity of the enemy. Once you allow political correctness to overwhelm our military, then we are really going to have an impact on our national security," Thompson is quoted as saying.
The Times reports that the negative officer evaluation report, issued on August 29, prompted two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to send a letter to Gen. Dempsey last week asking why such harsh action was taken.
The newspaper obtained a copy of the letter which read, "Since [the Depart. Of Defense] had already directed [National Defense University] to cancel the [course], and LTC Dooley was then relieved as its instructor, we would like to know why the [Defense Dept.] was compelled to further discipline LTC Dooley by jeopardizing his reputation and his future in the service. It is our understanding that LTC Dooley did not violate any established University practices, policies or [Defense Dept.] regulations to merit a negative [officer evaluation report]."
The letter was signed by Reps. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla) and Duncan Hunter (R-Ca).
Further, Thompson told the Times that Dooley had made it clear that the presentations were not official U.S. policy. Thompson also said that he is considering filing a civil suit in the U.S. District Court against Gen. Dempsey.
Meira Svirsky is the content coordinator of RadicalIslam.org, the former managing editor of The Daily Texan and the former editor of UTmost magazine.
-
A Red Carpet for Radicals at the White House
by Steve Emerson and John Rossomando
IPT News
October 21, 2012
A more extensive version of our report is available here:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3777/a-red-carpet-for-radicals-at-the-white-house
A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials. Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations. The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors' names with lists of known radical Islamists. Among the visitors were officials representing groups which have:
• Been designated by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorist trials; Extolled Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas and Hizballah;
• Obstructed terrorist investigations by instructing their followers not to cooperate with law enforcement;
• Promoted the incendiary conspiratorial allegation that the United States is engaged in a "war against Islam"— a leading tool in recruiting Muslims to carry out acts of terror;
• Repeatedly claimed that many of the Islamic terrorists convicted since 9-11 were framed by the U.S government as part of an anti-Muslim profiling campaign.
Individuals from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) visited the White House at least 20 times starting in 2009. In 2008, CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist money laundering case in U.S. history – the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in which five HLF officials were convicted of funneling money to Hamas.
U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis later ruled that, "The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the association" of CAIR to Hamas, upholding their designations as unindicted co-conspirators. In 2008, the FBI formally ended all contact with CAIR because of its ties to Hamas.
In January 2004, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR's Los Angeles office, publicly defended Palestinian terror attacks in comments before Muslim students at the University of California – Los Angeles, saying that terrorists were exercising their "legitimate right" to defend themselves against Israeli occupation.
Ayloush, who was a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., casts the United States as controlled by Israeli interests. At a 2008 CAIR banquet in San Diego, he imagined "an America that respects and humanizes religion. It's an America that is free to act on its values and not on the interests of any foreign lobby." In 2004, he said that the war on terror had become a "war on Muslims." Ayloush attended at least two White House meetings.
The logs show Ayloush met with Paul Monteiro, associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement on July 8, 2011 and Amanda Brown, assistant to the White House director of political affairs Patrick Gaspard, on June 6, 2009.
According to reliable sources, Monteiro was White House liaison for secret contacts with CAIR, especially with Ayloush. IPT has learned that the White House logs curiously have omitted Ayloush's three meetings with two other senior White House officials.
Louay Safi, formerly executive director of the Islamic Society of North America, visited the White House twice – meeting in intimate settings with Paul Monteiro on June 29, 2011 and July 8, 2011.
Law enforcement first noticed Safi in 1995 when his voice was captured in an FBI wiretap of now-convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian. At the time of his conversation with Al-Arian, Safi served as executive director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, an organization listed in law-enforcement and in internal Muslim Brotherhood documents as one of the movement's top front groups in North America.
Safi also wrote for the Middle East Affairs Journal, produced by the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). That group was established by Hamas deputy political leader Mousa Abu Marzook and part of the Hamas-support network called the "Palestine Committee."
Safi has repeatedly expressed understanding for the underlying causes that provoke terrorism: "Terrorism cannot be fought by…ignoring its root causes. The first step…is to examine the conditions that give rise to the anger, frustration, and desperation that fuel all terrorist acts." He also called Palestinian terrorists "freedom" fighters.
Esam Omeish, former head of the Muslim Brotherhood-created Muslim American Society, visited the White House three times.
In 2000, Omeish personally hired the late terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki to be the imam of Falls Church, VA, Dar al-Hijrah mosque. According to IPT analysis, more terrorists have been linked to Dar al-Hijrah since 9/11 than to any other mosque in America.
Omeish publicly mourned the Israeli airstrike that killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin at an April 10, 2004, MAS conference.
Click to hear audio
According to video captured by IPT, Omeish went a step further at the December 22, 2000, Jerusalem Day rally in Washington's Lafayette Park, praising Palestinian terror groups, saying they had learned "the jihad way" to "liberate" Palestine.
In a sermon at Dar al-Hijrah in 2009, Omeish called for "an American Islamic movement that transforms our status, that impacts our society, and that brings forth the change that we want to see."
Click to hear audio
Last month, Omeish attended a reception for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi during Morsi's United Nations visit. Morsi is a longtime Egyptian Brotherhood leader. Omeish posted a picture of the event on his Facebook page and noted: "His Excellency provided great insights and we share important perspectives."
-
This is just one of many reminders that Romney is FAR from the ideal candidate - as most forum members will acknowledge. We have to deal with this reality. As Mark Levin has repeatedly said: "Our fight will be only beginning - as we struggle to constantly hold Romney's feet to the fire. He is not a true conservative."
Mitt Romney's Embrace of Kenny Gamble
David J. Rusin - October 23, 2012 - www.frontpagemag.com
Mitt Romney's embrace of Kenny Gamble, an operator of Philadelphia charter schools who doubles as a prominent suit-and-tie Islamist calling himself Luqman Abdul Haqq, raises questions about a potential Romney administration's readiness to identify and steer clear of smooth-talking radicals. The Republican candidate should treat this blunder as a learning opportunity. The lesson: never make the mistake of promoting a Muslim leader without properly vetting him first.
The story begins on May 24, when Romney's desire to push his education policies and reach out to urban voters prompted a visit to West Philadelphia's Universal Bluford Charter School, one of several managed by Gamble's conglomerate, Universal Companies. According to an ABC News report, Romney "had heard about Universal … and asked for an invitation." Gamble claimed as much in a radio interview.
Seated beside Gamble, Romney joined other local figures for a roundtable (video here) in which he discussed ideas for attracting good teachers, involving parents, and boosting achievement. Romney generously praised Gamble, at one point turning to him and saying, "I'd like to get your experience from the front lines and first salute you for the investment you've made, financial and personal, in establishing a pathway for hundreds, thousands of young people to have changed lives." Gamble led Romney on a tour of the facilities as well.
No less disconcerting, the Romney campaign appears not to have done any serious follow-up on Gamble despite drawing criticism from bloggers for the trip to an "Islamist-owned charter school." Thus, Romney compounded the previous error by eagerly dropping Gamble's name multiple times during NBC's Education Nation summit in New York on September 25.
"I saw a school in the inner city of Philadelphia," Romney explained. "And I understand that the school was closed down, that 90 percent of the kids in that school were not reading at grade level. … A guy named Kenny Gamble … put in place a charter school." After recounting his surprise at the art, music, and computer instructors there, Romney touted how Gamble runs it "like a business." He continued: "As I recall, almost 90 percent of the students there now are reading at grade level. And it's the same students." (Note, however, that Universal's education record is very much a mixed bag.)
Wherever Romney originally heard about Gamble and Universal, it probably was not from the websites of Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, Islamist Watch, or Militant Islam Monitor, which for years have documented Gamble's troubling agenda — a history that should make him toxic to any politician knowledgeable about stealth jihad.
An African-American music and real estate mogul, Gamble has long been listed — under his alternate name, Luqman Abdul Haqq — as part of the governing council of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), which is among the most radical U.S. Muslim groups. Its formation was inspired by Jamil al-Amin, a convicted cop killer and Islamic separatist who dreams of a Shari'a-run state; he enjoys MANA's support to this day and even has phoned into MANA meetings from prison. Gamble's other MANA colleagues have included Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who preached jihad against the U.S. and was shot to death after initiating a gunfight with federal agents in 2009, and Siraj Wahhaj, one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Just as several MANA leaders have championed the building of closed Islamic communities, Gamble outlined his own "model" for them during an interview on Saudi television. Worse, he is suspected of actually using his enormous South Philadelphia real estate holdings to assemble what has been dubbed a "black Muslim enclave." Confronted in 2007, Gamble responded with a rant portraying segregation as natural. "It's like cats," he insisted. "They're all cats. But you don't see the lion with the tiger. You don't see the tiger with the panther." Equally alarming are Gamble's intimate ties to the Jawala Scouts (photos here), aptly described as an "Islamic paramilitary boys group" featuring "hand-to-hand combat, firearms training, and survival tactics."
Additional background is available in an Islamist Watch article from 2008, published after Gamble left his fingerprints on that year's election by hosting an Obama office. Alternatively, a simple online search yields plentiful data.
What makes the Romney-Gamble flirtation so unsettling is the apparent lack of due diligence in determining who does and does not get endorsed by the man who could be the next leader of the free world. Ten minutes on Google should suffice to raise red flags, but did anyone from the campaign bother to look? More disturbing is the possibility that uncomfortable facts turned up but were dismissed as tangential to Gamble's work in education.
"Saluting" somebody like Gamble for one facet of his life while ignoring the rest imparts an aura of respectability to the individual as a whole, easing the path for his less savory projects. This seems to be understood for every group except Muslims. Imagine, for example, a senior figure in a radical Christian organization whose luminaries have been linked to violence and terrorism, a man who has shrugged off charges of constructing a "white Christian enclave" and been involved with a youth movement whose participants march in fatigues and brandish weapons. Regardless of his other accomplishments, would this person be asked to share camera time with a presidential hopeful? The question answers itself.
The role of the media is significant here. Though they would hammer any candidate who bolstered the analogous Christian radical, mainstream news sources that covered Romney's Bluford visit made no mention of the skeletons in Gamble's closet, illustrating that their see-no-evil mentality vis-à-vis Islamism trumps even their instinct to shame Republicans. Indeed, the obvious hypersensitivity and double standards protecting Islamists can foster complacency among politicians of both parties, who assume that they will not be held accountable for palling around with them.
This certainly has been the case in Philadelphia, where Mayor Michael Nutter has suffered no ill effects from having Gamble on his inaugural committee, personally presenting the sign to rename a block in Gamble's honor, and headlining the dedication ceremony for a taxpayer-supported mural that lauds him. Such legitimization has paved the way for Gamble to build his Islamist-tinged empire through massive government assistance, including dirt-cheap property from the city, sweetheart deals with the School Reform Commission when it was chaired by a onetime Universal board member, and regular feedings at public troughs that span the municipal, state, and federal levels.
Rather than provide a "they do it too" excuse for politicians caught befriending Islamists, the Philadelphia establishment's cozy relations with Gamble only underscore the importance of a critical eye and the will to act on it — in other words, real leadership. As radical Muslims aggressively seek similar openings to win undeserved respect and influence governments both nationally and internationally, a president capable of recognizing and shunning them is more vital than ever. Washington's colossal and bipartisan failures in Muslim outreach — most recently seen in the mind-boggling selection of an Islamist to represent the U.S. at a conference on human rights — have done enough damage already.
Islamists have grown adept at hiding in plain sight, so great care must be taken when choosing which Muslims to engage and extol. With luck, airing the embarrassing facts behind his unfortunate promotion of Kenny Gamble / Luqman Abdul Haqq will be the wake-up call that Mitt Romney needs to learn this lesson now and, should he prevail on November 6, be in a better position to succeed where past presidents have faltered.
David J. Rusin is a research fellow at Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
-
Stealth Islamist Charter Schools Under Investigation
Posted By Arnold Ahlert On November 1, 2012 - www.frontpagemag.com
The charter school movement associated with Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen is under federal investigation
If one believes that the battle for the nation’s soul is occurring, not just in Washington, D.C., but in schools across the nation, the steady advance of Turkish-Gulen Charter Schools may be cause for alarm. Fethullah Gulen is a Turkish Islamic cleric who fled his native country in 1998, after being charged with seeking to overthrow the secular Turkish government. He currently lives in exile at a 28-acre mountain complex in the Pocono Mountains, with more than $25 billion of assets at his command. The 135 charter schools associated with the Gulen Movement (GM) enroll more than 45,000 students and comprise the largest charter school network in the United States — all of which are fully funded by American taxpayers. Fethullah Gulen has been under investigation by the government since 2011.
That investigation, carried out by FBI and the Departments of Labor and Education, is centered around charter school employees who are allegedly engaged in kicking back part of their salaries to the Muslim movement also known as Hizmet (service to others), founded by Gulen. Gulen initiated his movement in Izmir, a city on Turkey’s Aegean coast, more than 40 years ago, preaching impassioned sermons to his followers, who may now number as many as six million. In Turkey, the Gulen Movement has been accused of pushing for a hardline Islamic state. Despite this reality, government officials investigating the kickback scheme are apparently satisfied that there is no religious agenda being disseminated in America. Their investigation is centered around the hundreds of Turkish teachers, administrators, and other staffers employed under the H1B visa program, who may or may not be misusing taxpayer money.
This would appear to be a stunningly naive approach to the issue. H1B visas allow US employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations on a temporary basis. “Specialty occupations” are defined as “requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor.” Gulen schools are among the nation’s largest users of the H1B visas. In 2009, they received government approvals for 684 visas. The Harmony School, a Gulen-related institution, has applied for more H1B visas than any educational institution in the country.
GM officials at some of the charter schools that ostensibly specialize in math and science, claim they need to fill teaching spots with Turkish teachers. At the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School in State College, Ruth Hocker, former president of the parents’ group, grew suspicious when certified American teachers began to be replaced by uncertified Turks with limited English-speaking skills who, despite that limitation, commanded higher salaries. Parents pointed out that these uncertified teachers were moved from one charter to another when their “emergency” credentials expired. They also spoke about a pattern of sudden turnovers of Turkish business managers, administrators, and board members.
Similar complaints arose in Texas, where it was revealed that hundreds of Turkish teachers and administrators were also working with H1B visas. In addition, the Harmony School group was using taxpayer money to fund Gulen’s movement via school construction and renovation projects. Despite assertions that the bidding process on those projects was fair, records showed that virtually all of the work has been done by Turkish-owned contractors, according to the New York Times.
A former teacher from Turkey revealed an ominous development, reportedly telling the FBI that the Gulen Movement had divided the United States into five regions, with a general manager in each who coordinates the activities of the schools, and related foundations and cultural centers.
All of the above raises the obvious question: if these schools are traditional American charter schools that do nothing more than “follow the state curriculum,” as Tansu Cidav, the acting CEO of the Truebright Science Academy in North Philadelphia contends, why is it necessary to hire foreign teachers and coordinate activities nationwide?
A federal document released in 2011 may provide the answer. It posits that Gulen’s charter schools may in fact be madrassahs, where students are “brain-washed” to serve as proponents of the New Islamic World Order Gulen purportedly seeks to create.
Former Muslim Brotherhood member Walid Shoebat illuminates the bigger picture. Shoebat, who was highly critical of a CBS “60 Minutes” report on Gulen (who refused to be interviewed for the piece), likens the cleric’s movement to the leftist Center for American Progress (CAP) And radical billionaire George Soros. “Both men are extremely wealthy, use that money to surreptitiously spread their ideologies, and like to operate behind the scenes as much as possible,” writes Shoebat.
The American Thinker’s Janet Levy takes it one step further. After noting that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan belongs to the AKP political party founded by Gulen upon his arrival in Pennsylvania, she points out that “Turkey is reverting to its historical Ottoman Empire-inspired Islamic fundamentalism,” even as “it is pursuing a stealth or cultural jihad against the West, in large part through the efforts of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic theologian.” In a 1999 video, Gulen himself spoke of a surreptitious plan for taking over the Turkish government: ”You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe … The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it[.]”
The movement is well on its way towards achieving that aim. GM is now active in 140 countries. Aside from its charter school empire, other interests including boarding schools, universities, banks, media companies, newspapers, charities, and think tanks.
60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl took the typically leftist, see-no-Islamist-evil approach towards complaints about the Gulen schools advancing an Islamic agenda in America, assuring viewers that he promotes “tolerance, inter-faith dialogue and, above all, he promotes education.” Yet even Stahl was forced to acknowledge that while Gulen “invites conspiracy theories that he’s running Turkey from the Poconos and is bent on global Muslim domination,” his movement “does lack transparency: its funding, hierarchy, and ambitions remain hidden–leading our State Department to wonder in cables between Ankara and Washington if Gulen has an ‘insidious political agenda.’”
This is not the first investigation conducted of Gulen’s empire. In 2008, members of the Netherlands’ Christian Democrat, Labor, and Conservative parties agreed to cut several million euros in government funding for organizations affiliated with Gulen. An investigation ensued when Erik Jan Zürcher, director of the Amsterdam-based International Institute for Social History, along with five former followers who had worked for Gulen, told Dutch television that the Gulen community was moving step-by-step to topple the secular order.
In Pennsylvania, neighbors of Gulen’s fortress retreat complain of hearing automatic gunfire and the drone of a surveillance helicopter that constantly searches for intruders. 100 Turkish guards stand watch over the property as well. If this man and his movement–which continues to expand–have nothing to hide, they have a remarkable way of showing it.
As a Turkish observer speaking to the New Republic noted, “No society would tolerate this big of an organization being this untransparent.” The FBI’s new investigation against Gulen’s organization brings us one step closer to exposing what goes on behind the closed doors of Gulen’s empire.
-
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/02/pelosi-holds-secret-fundraiser-with-islamists-hamas-linked-groups/
====================================
Dems Tap Radical Islamists for Cash
by STEVEN EMERSON AND JOHN ROSSOMANDO
IPT News
November 1, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3792/dems-tap-radical-islamists-for-cash
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Democratic Party fundraiser with leaders of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood front groups in May of this year.
The invitation-only fundraiser was sponsored by Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; Andre Carson, D-Ind.; and Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and took place on the evening of May 16, 2012, at the W Hotel in Washington D.C.
In attendance were about 20 members of a Syrian dissident group and 10 officials representing Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas front groups. Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad was perhaps the most prominent attendee and played a key role in organizing the event.
CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation Hamas money-laundering trials, was described in FBI testimony as having been created by Hamas. In a 2007 federal court filing, prosecutors described CAIR as conspiring with other branches of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists.
The FBI officially severed relations with CAIR in 2008 because of its ties to Hamas.
Awad has openly championed Hamas and defended suicide bombings as "legitimate resistance."
Also in attendance was Jamal Barzinji, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood in America and co-founder of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), an incubator for Islamic radicalism in North America. MSA was the forerunner of Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).
Barzinji was named in a federal affidavit as being closely associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. His name appears in a global phone book of Muslim Brotherhood members recovered by Italian and Swiss authorities in Nov. 2001 from the home of Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano founder Youssef Nada, one of the leaders of the international Muslim Brotherhood.
During the fundraiser, Pelosi sat at the same table with Awad and Barzinji.
Speaking to the attendees in her 10-minute address, she said the Democratic Party should become the natural home of Muslim-Americans, because Republicans fan the flames of "Islamophobia." She focused exclusively on Islamophobia, a term devised by radical Islamists and their apologists to silence critics, while avoiding any mention of terrorism carried out by Islamists in the United States.
Also speaking were Israel, Ellison, Carson, and Reps Alyson Schwartz, D-Pa., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn. Israel and Murphy were said to have been the most vehement among the members of Congress in attendance in terms of their incendiary accusations of Republican-incited Islamophobia. One observer said that it was striking that "there was not a scintilla of comments in defense of U.S. national security." However, they welcomed each of the Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood front groups represented at the event into the "Democratic community" without any mention of their well-documented terror links.
Following the speeches, a prominent attorney, Mazen Asbahi publicly rose to announce the creation of a new organization called the National Muslim Democratic Council (NMDC). Asbahi was Obama's 2008 Muslim outreach director but was forced to step down when his prior association with a radical Muslim cleric, Jamal Said, became public. Said was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial.
The NMDC seeks to "maximize American Muslim support for Democratic candidates and policies."
The IPT has obtained a memo detailing the creation and agenda of the National Muslim Democratic Council that is marked "CONFIDENTIAL; NOT FOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION" In the section marked "2012 election strategy" the group specifically spelled out detailed plans to support the Democrats and target Republicans in "key races where American Muslims can make a difference."
According to the document, these races included:
• Defeating Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., in his race against Patrick Murphy, D-Fla.;
• Supporting former Gov. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in his race against former Sen. George Allen, R-Va., in the race for Virginia's vacant Senate seat;
• Supporting Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., in her bid for re-election against former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.;
• And, supporting Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, in her bid to capture the state's 3rd congressional district.
The confidential NMDC document was signed by several known radical Islamists such as Asbahi, CAIR's Basim Elkarra; Jihad Saleh Williams of Islamic Relief USA; and Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York.
These individuals have a documented history of radical statements and associations. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., went so far as to strip Elkarra of an award after she became aware of his affiliation with CAIR and its documented extremism. Saleh Williams' organization Islamic Relief USA, Is an offshoot of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), found to be providing financial and other assistance to the terrorist group Hamas. Sarsour is an outspoken radical who has called for a "one state solution" in Palestine, believes that the underwear bomber was a CIA plant, and believes that NYPD informants "actually manufacture" cases against Muslims. "Stand up and say no. Stop spying and harassing and intimidating the Muslim community" she demands of the NYPD.
The DCCC fundraiser exemplifies the deep inroads that Islamist radicals, like those mentioned above, have made in the Democratic Party over the past few years to the exclusion of more moderate elements in the American Muslim community.
These inroads may already be creating internal tension within the Democratic Party. This was on full display during the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., after pro-Israel language from the party platform was omitted, including expressions of support for recognition of Jerusalem as the nation's undivided capital.
Awad told Al-Jazeera the change marked a new course for the Democratic Party and that it would likely not be the last dust-up on such issues.
"This is an indication that the Democratic Party's political platform with regard to the Middle East is developing," Awad said.
Senior Democratic Party establishment figures seem intent on engaging and accommodating these new and sometimes radical elements in their party as an up-and-coming new constituency and money source. Most mainstream Democrats, have yet to grasp the full extent of their party's infiltration.
-
Four Islamists on Gov. Christie’s Muslim Outreach Committee
Ryan Mauro - www.radicalislam.org - November 15, 2012.
A RadicalIslam.org investigation has discovered that at least four Islamists sit on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Muslim outreach committee, which was formed after Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa concluded in May that NYPD intelligence-gathering operations in New Jersey did not break any laws.
All of the information about the Islamist backgrounds of these four committee members is publicly available, yet the Christie Administration picked them to serve as liaisons to the Muslim community of the state. As a result, they are having private meetings with N.J.’s top security officials. This is just the latest example of Christie’s embrace of Islamists that should be shunned, not exalted.
The discovery that the Islamists were on the committee was made when RadicalIslam.org obtained a previously unreleased list of committee members present at a September 5, 2012 meeting at the Leroy Smith Building in Newark.
The four committee members of concern are:
Imam Mohammad Qatanani, whose deportation is sought by the Department of Homeland Security for not disclosing on his green card application that he was arrested and convicted by Israel in 1993 for his involvement with Hamas;
Ahmed Shedeed, a fervent supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and President of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, a mosque with a history of Islamist leadership. Its website currently contains disturbing statements about jihad, the West, wife beating and polygamy;
Mohammed Younes, the President of the American Muslim Union, a group with Islamist leadership and close ties to Qatanani’s mosque, which was founded by a Hamas fundraiser; and
Imam Abdul Basit of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, a mosque founded by a radical cleric. In July, it held a Brotherhood-linked seminar featuring multiple extremist speakers.
Addressing the committee were: Attorney General Chiesa, NJ State Police Superintendent Colonel Rick Fuentes and the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Director Edward Dickson. These addresses were followed by dialogue with committee members.
Other NJ officials that were present at the meeting were: First Assistant Attorney General Calcagni, Special Assistant Christopher Iu, Special Assistant Paul Salvatoriello, State Police Major Gerald Lewis and Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Community Affairs Chief John Paige.
Profiles of the Four Islamist Committee Members
Imam Mohammad Qatanani
The most notorious of the committee members is Mohammad Qatanani. He was arrested in Israel in 1993 because of his links to Hamas, including the fact that his brother-in-law was a Hamas official in the West Bank. Qatanani told the Israelis that he had been a member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood but left in 1991 because he had limited time for this project. The Israeli government says he admitted to being a Hamas member and was convicted, but he was released as part of a plea bargain. The Department of Homeland Security is seeking his deportation for failing to disclose this on his green card application.
In 1994, Qatanani moved to NJ to lead the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, a mosque founded in 1989 by Hamas fundraiser Mohammed El-Mezain. In November 1994, El-Mezain stated that ICPC was collecting money for Hamas, according to an FBI report. The two men jointly led the ICPC and lived together as El-Mezain raised money for terrorism until he stepped down in 1999. In July 2006, the Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings against Qatanani.
The DHS says Qatanani “engaged in terrorist activity” and is guilty of “material misrepresentation” and “engaging in unauthorized employment … by allowing an out-of-status alien to reside with him.” It also describes a “highly dubious” transfer of thousands of dollars to the West Bank.
“It is certainly suspicious when a person who has been convicted of being a member of, and providing services, to Hamas, who has personal ties to a Hamas militant leader, and a Hamas fundraiser also sends undisclosed cash to the West Bank,” the 2008 DHS court filing states.
Qatanani is the only Hamas supporter identified by name in a July 2008 NJ Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness intelligence report about the Hamas network in the state. His preaching between 2007 and 2009 reflected his radical views, as shown in translations made by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. For example, he prayed for the defeat of “occupation and oppression” in Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya in 2007. The enemies of Islam are the U.S., Israel and Russia in this context.
He also preached that Jews and Christians “will be swiftly punished by Allah” and that Muslims should not speak poorly of Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a top Muslim Brotherhood cleric that endorses suicide bombings and Hamas. He also defended donations to the families of suicide bombers. Just this September, Qatanani said the U.S. should outlaw criticism of Islam.
Under Qatanani’s leadership, the ICPC has held various Islamist speakers, such as Hamas-supporter Imam Reda Shata, Hamas-linked activist Abdelhaleem Ashqar (who is now in prison for refusing to testify about the Hamas network in the U.S.) and Wagdy Ghoneim, who was voluntarily deported from the country in 2005 for his terror ties and now preaches extremism in Egypt.
In April 2004, a former chairman of the ICPC’s board, Esam Omeish, praised Palestinians who “[understand] that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land,” pointing out the “beloved” founder of Hamas as an example to follow. He also supports the Muslim Brotherhood as a “moderate” force and once was the president of the Muslim American Society, a Brotherhood front. He also “likes” Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi on Facebook.
Despite this record, Christie defended Qatanani against the DHS in 2008, calling him a “man of great goodwill.” His Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna was as a character witness for him during the trial. The immigration judge granted Qatanani permanent residency, but the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the ruling. The next deportation hearing is scheduled for November 26.
In May, Attorney General Chiesa met with Qatanani after he cleared the NYPD of breaking state laws. On July 24, Qatanani attended an Iftar dinner at the Governor’s Mansion. During his address, Christie pointed out Qatanani, calling him a “friend” and attacking his critics as anti-Muslim “bigots.”
Mohammed Younes
The President of the American Muslim Union, Mohammed Younes, is also on the Muslim outreach committee. This organization is very closely tied to the Hamas-linked Islamic Center of Passaic County led by Imam Qatanani, having had five common officials as of 2004. For example, Younes has served on the mosque’s board of trustees.
Younes sounds sympathetic to the cause of Hamas. He said in 2001, “I put myself in the Palestinians’ shoes, the suffering, the pain, the hunger. I don’t know what I would do. Are they dogs? Are they garbage? I don’t want to see anyone killed. But you can’t be selective.” He called the U.S. hypocritical for condemning Hamas but not Israel. However, he said he would not donate to Hamas because “they are killers,” but supports giving aid to the children of killed Hamas operatives.
During Qatanani’s deportation trial, Prosecutor Alan Wolf said that a pamphlet was found at the ICPC after the 9/11 attacks that explained what Muslims should not tell the police. Wolf also mentioned that a newspaper quoted Younes in 2002 where he advised against giving personal information to law enforcement. As he left, Younes complained, “The FBI is abusing us.”
Younes seems to have a pattern of defending guilty Islamists while accusing the government of misconduct. He defended the ICPC by saying it “did not know everywhere their money was going, and they would have not meant to give it to Hamas.” As mentioned, El-Mezain publicly stated that the fundraising was for Hamas. When five Muslims were convicted of planning to attack Fort Dix, Younes said, “I don’t think they actually meant to do anything. I think they were acting stupid, like they thought the whole thing was a joke.”
One common official between AMU and ICPC is Mohamed El-Filali. Media reports have titled him the executive director of ICPC, but the mosque’s website says he is the Outreach Director. IslamWeb described him as an AMU official in 2002. Joel Mowbray writes that the Associated Press identified him as an “Executive Committee member” of AMU around the time he led a rally that said Israeli Prime Minister Sharon is equivalent to Hitler. He refused to condemn suicide bombings, saying “I am not in their shoes. My house has not been destroyed; my brother has not been shot dead.” El-Filali met with Attorney General Chiesa after he cleared the NYPD.
Another concerning AMU official is Magdy Mahmoud. He was on the executive board of the Muslim Arab Youth Association at the same time as the FBI learned of extremist rhetoric at its events. In 1994, Hamas fundraiser Mohammed El-Mezain spoke for the group. He spoke after an individual that the audience was told led the “Hamas military wing.” An FBI report documents the speaker saying, “I’ve been told to restrict or restrain what I say … I hope no one is recording me or taking any pictures, as none are allowed … because I’m going to speak the truth to you. It’s simple. Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all! Exterminate them! No peace ever!”
Mahmoud was the chairman of the AMU’s Chapters Committee from 1999 to 2001. He is also the co-founder and a former president of the NJ chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), another unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-funding trial. The federal government says CAIR is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. A CAIR-NJ official met with Attorney General Chiesa after he cleared the NYPD.
Another official is Waheed Khalid, who is the chairman of AMU’s Bergen County chapter and the former president of Dar ul-Islah Mosque in Teaneck, N.J. In May 1998, he expressed sympathy for Hamas, saying, “They are trying to get the occupiers out of their home.” In 2002, he refused to comment on the authenticity of the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion but suggested it has credibility by saying that most people believe it. He also defended an Egyptian television show based on it, saying, “They have the right to show it, and I think it is news, and it is quite interesting to know what it says.”
In 2002, AMU sponsored a rally with the Muslim American Society, a Brotherhood front, and the pro-Hamas Islamic Association for Palestine, another Brotherhood front. The event demanded the indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a war criminal and that the U.S. cut off aid to Israel. In contrast, the AMU did not endorse the 2005 “Free Muslims March Against Terror” that condemned all terrorist groups including Hamas, according to Discover the Networks.
In 2004, AMU’s online newsletter said a “Zionist commando orchestrated the 9-11 terrorist attacks” and praised Neturei Karta, a Jewish extremist group that supports Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the elimination of the state of Israel.
Governor Christie picked the AMU’s general counsel, Sohail Mohammed, to be a Superior Court Judge in 2011. Mohammed was the attorney for Imam Qatanani and also defended Sami al-Arian, who was convicted of being a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader in the U.S. Christie reacted to the controversy over his appointment by saying, “This Sharia Law business is crap. It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background.”
Ahmed Shedeed
Muslim Brotherhood supporter Ahmed Shedeed is the president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, an Islamist mosque. His Facebook page has a photo of him at a rally in New York City for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi. He also “likes” the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and three Arabic pages that have Morsi as their main photo, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Circle of North America. Shedeed repeatedly shares Brotherhood-themed photos on his page.
According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, the Islamic Center of Jersey City has a history of links to extremism. Its director from 1978 to 1990, Mohammed Al-Hanooti, was the president of a pro-Hamas group called the Islamic Association for Palestine from 1984 to 1986. The American Muslim Brotherhood’s internal files identify it as one of its fronts. He also attended a secret Brotherhood-organized meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia in 1993. In the late 1990s, he served as the imam of the radical Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia, which has extensive Brotherhood and Hamas ties.
According to his biography from the website of an Islamist conference to be held in Chicago this month, al-Hanooti left the Islamic Center of Jersey City to serve as an imam at Qatanani’s ICPC from 1990 to 1995. From 1995 to 1999, he served as the imam of the radical Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia, another mosque with extensive Brotherhood and Hamas ties. From 2000 to 2001, he was the imam of the Islamic Center of Capital District in Albany, New York.
Mohammad Salameh, a terrorist convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, often attended the mosque in the early 1990s. Al-Hanooti was also named a “possible unindicted co-conspirator” in the Trade Center plot.
In 2000, the mosque’s imam, Sayyid Askar, said that “jihad is an absolute obligation upon those land has been occupied, and all Muslims have to stand together to repulse the enemy.”
The Islamic Center of Jersey City’s website features Islamist preaching. It advises Muslims to respond to questions about jihad by attacking U.S. foreign policy:
“Why should we be on the defensive? Why don’t we adopt a more assertive attitude? If they confront us on one question, we should respond with ten of our own. If they ask us about jihad, we should ask them about America’s openly aggressive policies in many parts of the world, not to mention all of their covert operations.”
It also justifies jihad as a fight against oppression (which it previously accused the U.S. of being guilty of) and “worldly” rule:
“The Islamic teachings about jihad are what uproots oppression and guarantees people the freedom to think and to choose their religion for themselves without being under any compulsion. Islam seeks to have people freely submit themselves to their Creator and not be placed under the subjugation of any worldly dictator, race, tribe, or nationality.”
It preaches that the West is racist:
“We can stress how Islam teaches equality between all people. There is no preference for anyone over anyone else except by a person’s piety and virtue. This is the way to do away with the problem of racism that people in the West suffer from.”
It justifies polygamy:
“If they ask you about polygamy, ask them about the sexual promiscuity that is rife in their societies that has brought humiliation to so many women and allowed men to absolve themselves of their responsibilities towards them and towards their children?”
The ICJC’s website also links to an article asking the question, “Does Islam Allow Wife Beating?” The answer is yes, as long as it is warranted, the face is not touched and no marks are left. It explains, drawing upon the teaching of former Islamic Society of North America President Muzammil Siddiqi:
“However, in some cases, a husband may use some light disciplinary action in order to correct the moral infraction of his wife, but this is only applicable in extreme cases and it should be resorted to if one is sure it would improve the situation.”
“The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) explained it ‘dharban ghayra mubarrih’ which means ‘a light tap that leaves no mark.’ He further said that face must be avoided. Some other scholars are of the view that it is no more than a light touch by siwak, or toothbrush.”
“It is also important to note that even this "light strike" mentioned in the verse is not to be used to correct some minor problem, but it is permissible to resort to only in a situation of some serious moral misconduct when admonishing the wife fails, and avoiding from sleeping with her would not help. If this disciplinary action can correct a situation and save the marriage, then one should use it."
It then quotes from Jamal Badawi, another Islamic Society of North America official:
"There are cases, however, in which a wife persists in bad habits and showing contempt of her husband and disregard for her marital obligations. Instead of divorce, the husband may resort to another measure that may save the marriage, at least in some cases. Such a measure is more accurately described as a gentle tap on the body, but never on the face, making it more of a symbolic measure than a punitive one.”
“Based on Quran and Hadith, this measure may be used in the cases of lewdness on the part of the wife or extreme refraction and rejection of the husband's reasonable requests on a consistent basis (nushuz). Even then, other measures, such as exhortation, should be tried first.”
“As defined by Hadith, it is not permissible to strike anyone's face, cause any bodily harm or even be harsh. What the Hadith qualifies as ‘dharban ghayra mubarrih,’ or light striking, was interpreted by early jurists as a (symbolic) use of siwak! They further qualified permissible ‘striking’ as that which leaves no mark on the body.”
Imam Abdul Basit
Qari Abdul Basit is the imam of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, a mosque founded in 1987 by the Islamist cleric Zaid Shakir, who continues to be a guest lecturer. In 2006, the New York Times reported that Shakir said “he still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law.”
Shakir legitimizes attacks on U.S. troops, specifically the hijacking of airplanes transporting soldiers. He argues that the 1983 Marine barracks bombing by Hezbollah was not an act of terrorism. In April, he wrote a poem about how U.S. soldiers rape girls and murder Muslim civilians. In September, he coupled his condemnation of the murder of U.S. Ambassador Stevens with a condemnation of how four Afghan women, in his view, were “brutally murdered by NATO bombs.”
Shakir believes in 9/11 conspiracy theories and accuses the U.S. of “demonizing” Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and Hugo Chavez, while characterizing Al-Qaeda, Hamas and other Islamist terrorists as fighters against oppression, though he condemns some of their tactics. In 2003, he preached that the U.S. is waging a war on Islam and Muslim-Americans should wage jihad through institution-building.
The Center has gotten funding from Saudi King Fahd. The Saudi government promotes a radical version of Islam often called “Wahhabism.” On July 7, the New Brunswick Islamic Center hosted an Islamic Society of North America seminar about Sharia. FBI investigators identified ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood front as early as 1987. A U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategy document from 1991 lists ISNA among “organizations and the organizations of our friends.” ISNA was also designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation affair, the largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S. history. The federal government said is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
The ISNA event at Imam Abdul Basit’s New Brunswick Islamic Center featured numerous Islamists. This includes the aforementioned Muzammil Siddiqi who explained the limitations of wife-beating. In 2001, he expressed his hope that Sharia law, including its criminal law, would one day be implemented in the U.S. He also supports Muslim countries that have the death penalty for homosexuals and suggests that Muslims were not involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Siddiqi taught about worshipping Allah and community engagement. Joining him in the latter session was Saffet Catovic, who used to be the New York representative of Benevolence International, a charity shut down for its ties to Al-Qaeda. In 1992, Catovic spoke at an Islamic Association for Palestine conference (a Brotherhood entity) where he said the “long-range” goal is building an Islamic Caliphate. He also spoke at a military-themed “Jihad Camp” in 2001.
Teaching about Sharia was Imam Qatanani and Jamal Badawi. Badawi is another unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial because he raised funds for the Hamas front. His name is in a 1992 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood phone directory. He has justified suicide bombings and refers to Hamas terrorists as “martyrs.” He also explicitly endorsed Palestinian “combative jihad” in 2010. Badawi also spoke about how Muslims can implement Sharia in their own lives.
Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org's National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.
-
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-muslim-wives-20121125,0,3868912.story
-
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-muslim-wives-20121125,0,3868912.story
What if your daughter dresses immodestly, so your husband wants to killer her, but you wish just to cut her nose off?
-
As I read this article GM, that's not fair. Did you catch the part about taking advice from Dr. Laura? (who is Jewish btw) IMHO I respect that they are seeking to maintain values based around building strong families/homes.
-
With all due respect, Crafty - accepting the premise of this article requires that one have a massive ignorance of Islamic teaching with regard to women and their virtual slave-status with regard to men - PARTICULARLY within the context of marriage. Islam itself is inherently misogynist. G.M. is right on target with his sarcastic comment. The writer of this story is either staggeringly ignorant about Islamic jurisprudence (along with the woman who started this support group herself), or is actively, knowingly dissembling in order to present a "kindler, gentler" version of Islam which does not exist - for the purpose of persuading non-Muslims that Shariah is benign. This is the essence of taqiyya and stealth jihad. I strongly advise that you read Wafa Sultan's book "A God Who Hates" www.amazon.com/God-Who-Hates-Courageous-Inflamed/dp/0312538367/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354004162&sr=8-1&keywords=a+god+who+hates Also superb is Nonie Darwish's book "Cruel and Unusual Punishment" www.amazon.com/Cruel-Usual-Punishment-Terrifying-Implications/dp/1595551611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354004776&sr=8-1&keywords=nonie+darwish Both women are former Muslims who have experienced the reality of Islamic law and its horrific treatment of women first-hand.
-
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46845257/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/iraqi-woman-critically-beaten-calif-threat-note-left-scene/
I'd get a handwriting exemplar from the husband to start with.
Husband arrested in Iraqi woman’s killing
By Debbi Baker, Kristina Davis
Originally published November 9, 2012 at 12:18 p.m., updated November 9, 2012 at 7:33 p.m.
EL CAJON — The eight-month investigation into the beating death of an Iraqi woman in her El Cajon dining room has led to the arrest of her husband, police announced Friday, putting to rest any notion that the mother of five was the victim of a hate crime.
Kassim Alhimidi, 48, was arrested at the El Cajon police station Thursday evening and booked into jail on one count of murder in the slaying of Shaima Alawadi.
He is being held without bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.
Alawadi, 32, was apparently planning to divorce her husband and move with her children to Texas, her brother, Hass Alawadi, told U-T San Diego. He said the husband had known about her plans to divorce for quite some time.
“After months of hard work, ... we determined this homicide was the result of domestic violence and not a hate crime,” El Cajon Police Chief Jim Redman said at a news conference Friday.
Investigators did not discuss possible motive or evidence in the case. No other arrests have been made, Redman said.
Alawadi was attacked at the family’s Skyview Street home March 21, when her husband had reportedly left to take their four younger children to school. She was struck on the head at least six times and suffered four skull fractures, according to court records. She was taken off of life support three days later.
A threatening note that called the family terrorists and told them to go back where they came from was found near her body. The handwritten note turned out to be a copy, not an original, according to court records. The family said a similar note had been left on their door weeks earlier, but they did not report the incident to police or keep the note.
The early implications that the slaying was a possible hate crime spawned international attention, especially among the Muslim community. Peace rallies and candlelight vigils promoting unity and a Muslim woman’s right to wear a head scarf spread throughout the world.
Alhimidi and his children gave tearful interviews to the media in the days following the slaying, and the widower was seen crying over his wife’s casket during her funeral in Iraq, at one point fainting.
In an interview a week after the killing, her husband told the Arabic Al Arabiya News: “My wife was a victim of xenophobia.”
But court records obtained at El Cajon Superior Court showed a family in turmoil.
Police who searched the home after the slaying found court paperwork to file for divorce in Alawadi’s Ford Explorer. The packet was still blank, but a form requesting a wavier of court fees was filled out in handwriting with Alawadi’s name, address and phone number.
The couple hailed from the same city of al-Samawa in southern Iraq, and they married in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia before moving to the U.S., Alhimidi told Al Arabiya. The husband, who had suffered health problems, was on disability and hadn’t worked in years, and his wife was a homemaker.
The couple’s 17-year-old daughter, Fatima Alhimidi, was also distraught about a pending arranged marriage to a cousin, the court documents show. She had attempted suicide five months earlier by jumping out of her mother’s moving car.
According to police, the fatal attack on Alawadi occurred about 11 a.m., when only Alawadi and Fatima were reportedly home.
Fatima told police she was in her bedroom when she heard her mother squeal, and about 10 seconds later heard the sound of glass breaking, according to a search warrant affidavit. She thought maybe her mom had dropped a plate.
When she went downstairs 10 minutes later, she found her mother lying unconscious on the ground, in the dining room near a computer, and called 911. A window was broken nearby.
An autopsy report described the assault as “extremely violent” and said the injuries may have been caused by a tire iron.
A neighbor reported seeing a skinny dark-skinned young man running in the area west of the family’s home after the slaying. He was carrying a brown doughnut-shaped box.
While Fatima was being interviewed by police the afternoon of her mother’s beating, a text message was sent from her phone to an unknown person, reading: “The detective will find out tell them cnt talk,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators have not revealed who may have sent the text, or to whom.
A week after the killing, police were still working on confirming the husband’s whereabouts at the time of the attack.
The widower and his eldest children traveled to Iraq for the funeral, staying for several weeks. Chief Redman said the husband was not considered a suspect at that time and could not be legally stopped from leaving the United States.
When the family returned to San Diego, they moved from their home on Skyview into a townhouse. Alhimidi tried to get his children’s lives back to normal, with school, prayer and sports, a family friend said at the time.
Police released no updates on the case in the ensuing months, frustrating Alawadi’s family in Texas and deepening the mystery.
“There were many aspects of this case that needed to be looked into, there were cultural issues that needed to be looked into, there were many witnesses,” the police chief said of the eight months of investigation. “Sometimes homicide investigations just take time. We were diligent in the investigation, and it culminated with an arrest.”
In jailhouse interviews with news stations Friday, Alhimidi denied any involvement in his wife’s slaying and insisted it was still a hate crime. Police told him that pings from his cellphone put him near the home at the time of the assault, he told 10News.
The couple’s four youngest children are in protective custody, the chief said.
Alawadi’s cousin, Hussain Alawadi, said news of the arrest surprised the family, and he commended police on their investigation.
“We are very happy to hear they arrested him,” he said. “We were stressed. We need to know who’s doing these things.”
Family friend Nazanin Wahid, who had been following the case closely, was also shocked.
“There were so many twists and turns to this case, it’s hard to know what to believe,” Wahid said.
Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on Islamic-American Relations said, “Since the beginning our ultimate goal was to get justice for Sister Shaima Alawadi.”
He referred to the case as “a family tragedy,” and said that domestic violence “has no place in our faith.”
“She has been a piece of our heart,” Mohebi said of Alawadi. “We need to do what we can to bring about justice.”
-
Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on Islamic-American Relations said, “Since the beginning our ultimate goal was to get justice for Sister Shaima Alawadi.”
He referred to the case as “a family tragedy,” and said that domestic violence “has no place in our faith.”
“She has been a piece of our heart,” Mohebi said of Alawadi. “We need to do what we can to bring about justice.”
This is the typical lying engaged in by CAIR - which is trying to appear sympathetic to the victim in order to appear reasonable to non-Muslims in this country. The reality is that Mohebi MOST LIKELY KNEW FROM THE START that this was very likely an attack by the husband on the wife to "salvage his honor." This is all-too-common in Islamic countries, and is becoming common here in the U.S., although it is only in the last year or two that it has been reported widely - largely thanks to people such as Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Jamie Glazov, Robert Spencer, and yes - Pamela Geller - who are demanding that these incidents be exposed for what they truly are. Framing the murder as a "hate crime" is a common tactic used by Muslim family members and CAIR to hide the truth about these honor killiings.
-
James M. Arlandson: Domestic Violence In Early Islam
Domestic Violence In Early Islam
Can Modern Islam Stop the Abuse?
by James M. Arlandson, Ph.D.
This series of articles about Islamic shariah law is written for journalists, educators, lawyers, judges, city council members, legislators, government bureaucrats, think tank fellows, TV and radio talk show hosts, and anyone else who occupies the “check points” in society. They initiate the national dialogue and shape the flow of the conversation. They are the policy and decision makers.
They have heard the critics of shariah and conclude that the critics are exaggerating (and maybe some have overstated things). The critics may even be “Islamophobes.” Islam is a world religion and deserves respect, after all.
Yet the intellectual elites may also have a private, gnawing doubt about shariah, for they have heard accounts of abuse in the Islamic world, even in the Muslim community within their own country. But they say to themselves that Islam is being hijacked by extremists.
Online articles and websites have sprung up that communicate, among others things, an essential message: there is nothing wrong with shariah.
For example, Summer Hathout is a prosecutor in Los Angeles, an activist for women’s rights, and a Muslim. She belongs to the Muslim Women’s League, USA. She denies that shariah promotes domestic violence, concluding in her short online article:
To those of us who know Islam and the Quran, violence against women is so antithetical to the teachings of Islam that we look at those who use our religion against us as misguided, misinformed or malevolent.[1]
But what does the other side in Islam say?
Saudi Iqraa TV aired a talk show that discussed this issue.[2] Jasem Muhammad Al-Mutawah, a scholar on family issues, holds a sample rod that husbands may use to hit their wives. He says:
There is a wife with whom using hard words is useful, and there is a wife with whom it is not. There is a wife with whom using quiet, good words is useful, in contrast, there is a wife with whom if you use hard words her obstinacy will only increase, and thus the problem will get worse. In contrast, there is a wife with whom the situation is the opposite: If you use calm words with her, she will not grasp them, and the problem will continue… We all know that Allah has given authority to the man, including admonishing and guiding the wife in cases of disobedience, banishing her from the bed, and then – the beatings.[3]
Both statements are by Muslims. Has the Saudi scholar hijacked true Islam? Where is the truth between the two opinions?
And if original Islamic shariah permits wife beating, can modern Islam rescue women from the abuse?
THE QURAN
THE HADITH AND ONE OTHER SOURCE
Green Skin
No Sex after Beating
Not with Severity
What Muhammad Did
Change of Mind
Beating for Disobedience
Not on the Face
Umar’s OpinionCLASSICAL ISLAMMODERN ISLAM
Traditional Interpretations
Moderate Interpretations
CONCLUSION
THE QURAN
Quran 4:34, which should be read carefully, says that husbands may hit or beat their wives.
34 Husbands should take full care of their wives, with [the bounties] God has given to some more than others and with what they spend out of their own money. Righteous wives are devout and guard what God would have them guard in the husbands’ absence. If you fear high-handedness from your wives, remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. God is most high and great.[4] (Quran 4:34)
In the next translation of the verse, Abdullah Yusuf Ali adds notes in parenthesis, which are not original to the Arabic. The sequence of steps and the implied soft meaning of “beat them (lightly)” are as follows:
34 ... As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly)... (Quran 4:34)
The third version of the verse by Ahmed Ali translates the relevant line by adding parenthetic glosses not originally found in Arabic. Worse, he badly mistranslates the Arabic word for hitting or beating:
34... As for women you feel are averse, talk to them suasively; then leave them alone in bed (without molesting them) and go to bed with them (when they are willing)[5]. . . (Quran 4:34)
Thus the word for hitting or beating has vanished. This latter translation flatly contradicts the two cited above and many others: “beat” (Fakhry); “scourge” (Pickthall); “beat” (Dawood); “beat (lightly)” (Hilali and Khan); “chastise” (Maulana); “chastise” (Khan); “beat” (translator of Maududi); “beat” (translators of Sayyid Qutb); “beat” (Committee of Muslim translators of Ibn Kathir); “beat” (Shakir); “chastise” (Khalifa); “beat” (Sher Ali); and “beat” (Asad).
The word they are translating is daraba (root is d-r-b). Hathout comments erroneously, “The Quran itself uses daraba 16 times, and in nine of those instances, the meaning is to separate or depart.”[6] However, it is used about 58 times, and the context determines its meaning. Sometimes it can mean, for example, “to strike a similitude or example”; or “strike out on a journey.” [7]
According to the hadith in the next section, daraba in 4:34 can only mean to “hit” or “beat.” Husbands are not striking their wives with a similitude or out on a journey. None of those two meanings make sense in the context of v. 34. In contrast, Ahmed Ali’s wording, which the activist and attorney Hathout latches on to despite the numerous translators who disagree with Ali and her, distorts the plain meaning of the words by a clever linguistic sleight-of-hand (see below, Modern Islam).[8]
Since this verse is so controversial we should look at the historical and literary contexts, which can be summarized by Sayyid Abdul A’la Maududi (d. 1979), who was an Indo-Pakistani scholar who wrote a multivolume commentary on the Quran. He says that Chapter 4, itself titled “Women,” was revealed at different times, but still in the timeframe of A.D. 625 to 626.[9]
Muhammad is establishing his Muslim community in Medina in the face of opposition and adverse circumstances, though Islam manages to overcome them. Verse 34 fits into the framework of vv. 1-35, which sees the specific establishment of rules for the family. For instance, in the aftermath of the Battle of Uhud in 625, in which the Muslims lost a lot of men, Muhammad says that orphans should be given their property and not to replace their good things with bad, which means to deal fairly and wisely with their assets (vv. 1-6).
Also, Muhammad discusses the rules for inheriting property, such as one son having the share equal to two daughters or that a husband should inherent half of his wife’s property, unless they have children, in which case he inherits one-fourth (vv. 11-14). Then, if women or men in a segment of Muslim society commit lewd acts, they should be punished, unless they repent (vv. 15-18). Next, a large section deals with marriage rules, like not marrying mothers, daughters, sisters and so on (vv. 19-28). Finally, he lays down rules against greed and murder, and again returns to a law of inheritance (vv. 29-33).
Thus, it is in this family environment that the targeted v. 34 is located, and Muhammad lays out yet one more rule in v. 34 – how to deal with an unruly or rebellious wife.
THE HADITH AND ONE OTHER SOURCE
The hadith are the narrations or traditions about the words and deeds of Muhammad and his companions outside of the Quran. Sunni Islam takes them very seriously. For more discussion of the hadith, see the article in this series, titled What Is Shariah? We also include early biographer Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) as the other source. He is considered reliable by modern historians (except for the miracles and some chronology).
All the sources, together, form a coherent picture about domestic violence in original Islam.
Green Skin
Bukhari (d. 870) reports this incident about widespread spousal abuse in the early Muslim community in the context of marital confusion:
Rifa'a divorced his wife whereupon 'Abdur Rahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi married her. Aisha said that the lady (came), wearing a green veil (and complained to her [Aisha] of her husband and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating). It was the habit of ladies to support each other, so when Allah's Apostle came, 'Aisha said, "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!"[10]
One of the frequent claims about Islam is that it improved women’s life compared with the so-called Time of Ignorance before Islam arrived on the scene. But Aisha says she never saw suffering as much as the believing (Muslim) women suffer.
No Sex after Beating
In the next hadith Muhammad says that a man should not beat his wife like a slave and expect to have sex with her later that night.
Narrated Abdullah bin Zama: The Prophets said, "None of you should flog his wife as he flogs a slave and then have sexual intercourse with her in the last part of the day."[11]
The main point is that the wife is better than a slave, so her husband should not hit her as if she were one – severely – if he wants sex later. But he can still beat her.[12]
Not with Severity
Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) was a biographer of Muhammad and not a hadith collector. He confirms that husbands should not beat their wives with severity. He summarizes this part of one of Muhammad’s sermon, which was delivered during his last pilgrimage to Mecca and heard by thousands:
You have rights over your wives and they have rights over you. You have the right that they should not defile your bed and that they should not behave with open unseemliness. If they do, God allows you to put them in separate rooms and to beat them but not with severity. If they refrain from these things, they have the right to their food and clothing with kindness. Lay injunctions on women kindly, for they are prisoners with you having no control of their own persons.[13]
This sermon reveals that Muhammad sees the hitting of wives only in egregious circumstances, like “open unseemliness.” It also repeats the counsel that husbands should at first separate from such wives and only afterwards apply physical force. Nonetheless, the sermon affirms that wives are like prisoners and have no control over their own persons.
The next hadith from Muslim’s hadith collection shows Muhammad matter-of-factly sizing up three men for a recent divorcee to marry. One of them is a “great beater of women.” Muhammad does imply that the man’s excessive hitting does not make him the best choice for the divorcee. However, what is of interest is that Muhammad does nothing to control him.
Fatima bint Qais... reported that her husband divorced her with three pronouncements and Allah's Messenger... made no provision for her lodging and maintenance allowance. She (further said): Allah's Messenger... said to me: When your period of 'Idda is over, inform me. So I informed him. (By that time) Muawiya. Abu Jahm and Usama b. Zaid had given her the proposal of marriage. Allah's Messenger... said: So far as Muawiya is concerned he is a poor man without any property. So far as Abu Jahm is concerned, he is a great beater of women but Usama b. Zaid... She pointed with her hand (that she did not approve of the idea of marrying) Usama. But Allah's Messenger... said: Obedience to Allah and obedience to His Messenger is better for thee. She said: So I married him, and I became an object of envy.[14]
What Muhammad Did
The following report is narrated by Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite young girl-wife. The context shows Muhammad going out of the house to visit a graveyard and pray over the dead. Aisha followed him. She returned just before he did, but he noticed she was out of breath and asked her why.
...He [Muhammad] came (to the house) and I [Aisha] also came (to the house). I, however, preceded him and I entered (the house), and as I lay down in the bed, he (the Holy Prophet) entered the (house), and said: Why is it, Aisha, that you are out of breath? I said: There is nothing. He said: Tell me or the Subtle and the Aware would inform me. I said: Messenger of Allah, may my father and mother be ransom for you, and then I told him (the whole story). He said: Was it the darkness (of your shadow) that I saw in front of me? I said: Yes. He struck me on the chest which caused me pain.[15]...
The last clause is the key. He struck her on the chest and caused her pain.
Change of Mind
The next passage from Abu Dawud’s collection records Muhammad at first saying that husbands should not beat their wives. But Umar, one of his chief companions and the future second caliph, informed him that the wives were becoming “emboldened towards their husbands.” So now Muhammad changes his mind and allows husbands to hit:
Iyas b. Abd Allah b. Abi Dhubab reported the Apostle of Allah... as saying: Do not beat Allah's handmaidens, but when Umar [the future second caliph] came to the Apostle of Allah... and said: Women have become emboldened towards their husbands, he (the Prophet) gave permission to beat them. Then many women came round the family of the Apostle of Allah... complaining against their husbands. So the Apostle of Allah... said: Many women have gone round Muhammad's family complaining against their husbands. They are not the best among you.[16]
The men are not the best for beating their wives, so that offers a little hope for the wives. But what is disappointing is that Muhammad did not put a stop to the violence immediately.
Beating for Disobedience
Then a woman complains that her husband beats her because she recites two chapters in the Quran while she is praying. Her husband prohibited it, but she did it anyway. Muhammad said to recite only one chapter.
Abu Said said: A woman came to the Prophet... while we were with him. She said: Apostle of Allah, my husband Safwan b. al-Muattai beats me when I pray, and makes me break my fast when I keep fast, and he does not offer dawn prayer until the sun rises.· He asked Safwan who was present there about what she said. He replied: Apostle of Allah, as for her statement "he beats me when I pray," she recites two suras [chapters in the Quran] (during prayer) and I have prohibited her (to do so). He (the Prophet) said: If one sura is recited (during prayer), that is sufficient for the people.[17]...
The hadith goes on to show Muhammad conforming to the husband’s wishes in the wife’s complaints against him about his making her break her fast and his not praying early in the morning. The husband has absolute control. And why would Muhammad forbid him from hitting her when the Quran permits it? But why does the Quran permit it? Devout Muslim scholars say Allah revealed it. The rest of us are doubtful.
Not on the Face
This one in Abu Dawud’s collection says not to hit her on the face:
Narrated Mu'awiyah al-Qushayri: Mu'awiyah asked: Apostle of Allah, what is the right of the wife of one of us over him? He replied: That you should give her food when you eat, clothe her when you clothe yourself, do not strike her on the face, do not revile her or separate yourself from her except in the house.[18]
And this parallel hadith says not to beat the wives.
Narrated Mu'awiyah al-Qushayri: I went to the Apostle of Allah … and asked him: What do you say (command) about our wives? He replied: Give them food what you have for yourself, and clothe them by which you clothe yourself, and do not beat them, and do not revile them.[19]
Clearly, the second one is intended to be clarified by the first – not on the face. But the second one does give a glimmer of hope to reform, even though, as written, the hadith contradicts the Quran.
Umar’s Opinion
Before leaving Sunan Abu Dawud, we should look at a short hadith, which says:
Umar b. al-Kattab reported the Prophet... as saying: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.[20]
Umar was soon to become the second caliph after Muhammad’s death in A.D. 632. Umar reigned from 634-644. The hadith is not exactly clear unless we are overlooking the obvious. The permission to beat will be so well known throughout the Muslim community that no one will question it. Or does Umar believe that beating will become so rare that no one will ask about it (an unrealistic prediction)? Either way, hitting is still in the Quran and in real life, especially when Umar was alive. He even recommended it (see below in the Classical Law section)[21]
CLASSICAL LAW
This body of law is founded on the Quran and hadith, as jurists searched through both to make rulings on various issues. For more discussion, see the article titled, What Is Shariah? in the series.
Only a fraction of classical Islamic law books has been translated into English, and the ones that have do not cover wife beating, except two. The jurists would have the need to rule on the topic in a family court, if the wife lodged a complaint. The reason for the oversight in the translated ones can only be guessed at, but it is probable that the Quran is so clear about wife beating that there was no need for the jurists to debate the matter.
Whatever the reason, we can be confident that the two translated law books book examined here represent the views of the other schools of law, precisely because, as mentioned, the Quran is so clear.
Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri’s (d. 1368) Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law summarizes rulings in the Shafi’i School of law. Misri and two later scholars opine:
When a husband notices signs of rebelliousness in his wife... (O: whether in words, as when she answers him coldly when she used to do so politely. or he asks her to come to bed and she refuses, contrary to her usual habit; or whether in acts, as when he finds her averse to him when she was previously kind and cheerful), he warns her in words (O: without keeping from her or hitting her, for it may be that she has an excuse. The warning could be to tell her, "Fear Allah concerning the rights you owe to me," or it could be to explain that rebelliousness nullifies his obligation to support her and give her a turn amongst other wives, or it could be to inform her, "Your obeying me... is religiously obligatory"). If she commits rebelliousness, he keeps from sleeping (O: and having sex) with her without words, and may hit her, but not in a way that injures her, meaning he may not (A: bruise her,) break bones, wound her, or cause blood to flow. (O: It is unlawful to strike another's face.) He may hit her whether she is rebellious only once or whether more than once, though a weaker opinion holds that he may not hit her unless there is repeated rebelliousness.[22]
Those opinions put limits on the husband’s permission to hit his wife: he may not break bones, wound, cause bleeding, or strike her face.
The above opinion says that husbands may hit their wives if they rebel. Misri and later scholars define rebellion as follows:
The Prophet... said: (1) "Allah will not look at a woman who is ungrateful to her husband, while unable to do without him." (2) "When a man calls his wife to his bed and she will not come, and he spends the night angry with her, the angels curse her until morning." (3) "It is not lawful for a woman to fast when her husband is present, save by his leave, nor to permit anyone into his house except with his permission." (4) "Whoever leaves her husband's house [A: without his permission], the angels curse her until she returns or repents." (Khalil Nahlawi:) It is a condition for the permissibility of her going out... that she takes no measures to enhance her beauty, and that her figure is concealed or altered to a form unlikely to draw looks from men or attract them. Allah Most High says, "Remain in your homes and do not display your beauty as women did in the pre-Islamic period of ignorance." (Quran 33:33)[23]
Malik (d. 795), a founder of a major school of law and also a reliable hadith collector and editor, records a hadith that shows Umar, the second caliph (r. 634-644), commanding a husband to beat his wife because she tried to stop her husband from having sex with his slave girl; the wife thought she could stop him by establishing a too-close relationship with the slave girl. The wife got suckled; that is, the wife got nursed by the slave girl. Then the slave would become a foster relative, like a foster mother of sorts, and so sex between her husband and the slave girl would become illegal.
Yahya related to me from Malik that Abdullah ibn Dinar said, "A man came to Abdullah ibn Umar when I was with him at the place where judgments were given and asked him about the suckling of an older person. Abdullah ibn Umar replied, 'A man came to Umar ibn al-Khattab and said, “I have a slave girl and I used to have intercourse with her. My wife went to her and suckled her. When I went to the girl, my wife told me to watch out because she had suckled her!”’ Umar told him to beat his wife and to go to his slave-girl because kinship by suckling was only by the suckling of the young."[24]
The wife went to extreme measures to get her husband to stop having sex with his slave girl. But Islam allowed it. Please see the article in this series about slavery.
-
GM, Obj:
As witnessed by my ample posts on this very thread and throughout this forum thoroughly witness, I am well aware of what you post.
However, I stand by my notion that what is relevant here is THIS woman and HER actions. Though the source, Pravda on the Beach (a.k.a. The Left Angeles Times) is suspect, I submit that there is nothing in this article to suggest it is other than as presented.
If we judge individuals by generalities, then we are off course.
Marc
-
Pro-Islamist Losing Grip on Republican Party
Arnold Ahlert - November 28, 2012 - www.radicalislam.org
Anti-tax promoter Grover Norquist is losing his vice-like grip on the Republican party. The head of Americans for Tax Reform, who as recently as last year counted 238 members of the House and 41 members of the Senate among those who had signed his anti-tax pledge, has seen those numbers decline to 217 in the House, one shy of the 218 needed for a majority, and 39 in the Senate.
Both totals represent an all-time low. Last Wednesday, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) disavowed his pledge not to raise taxes, even as he acknowledged doing so could hurt his reelection chances in 2014. ”I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country,” he said. “I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.” Americans might not like seeing their taxes go up, but Grover Norquist’s fall from grace has its benefits: As he goes down, so goes his pro-Islamist agenda.
That agenda was laid bare by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) in a speech on the House floor, October 4, 2011. “My conscience has compelled me to come to the floor today to voice concerns I have with the influence Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, has on the political process in Washington,” said Wolf. “My issue is not with ATR’s goal of keeping taxes low ... My concern is with the other individuals, groups and causes with whom Mr. Norquist is associated that have nothing to do with keeping taxes low.”
Wolf mentioned Norquist’s “association and representation” of terrorist financier and vocal Hamas supporter Abdurahman Alamoudi and terrorist financier Sami Al-Arian.
In 2004, Alamoudi, one of the most prominent and influential Muslim Brothers in the United States, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for supporting terror. Alamoudi, a self-described supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, had cultivated ties with the Clinton White House that eventually enabled him and his associates to select, train and certify Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military.
Fearing a loss by Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, Alamoudi befriended Norquist to ensure his access to senior levels of the U.S. government would be maintained if Republicans took charge. He gave Norquist $20,000 to establish the Islamic Free Market Institute and Alamoudi’s longtime deputy, Khaled Saffuri, became the founding director.
Norquist and Saffuri eventually became an integral part of the Bush administration’s Muslim outreach efforts during the 2000 campaign, with Saffuri named as Muslim Outreach Coordinator. During that campaign, Bush was also introduced to Sami Al-Arian. In 2006, Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to provide support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Wolf illuminated the bigger picture of that relationship, noting that Norquist was an “outspoken supporter of Al-Arian’s effort to end the use of classified evidence in terror trials.”
Al-Arian ran the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF), and Norquist supported their efforts to weaken or repeal the Patriot Act as well, despite the terrorist atrocities perpetrated on 9/11.
Wolf also revealed that Norquist “was scheduled to lead a delegation to the White House on September 11, 2001, that included a convicted felon and some who would later be identified by federal law enforcement as suspected terrorist financiers.” One of the members of that delegation was Omar Ahmed, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR was named an un-indicted co-conspirator when the Holy Land Foundation was convicted of sending million of dollars in funding to Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations.
Another relationship Norquist cultivated was with Suhail Khan, who has ties to a variety of Islamist movements. Khan’s father, the late Mahboob Khan, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the founders of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), whose anti-Semitic activities at American colleges has been documented on numerous occasions, including their latest attempt to organize a divestment campaign against Israel at the University of California, Irvine.
In 2007, Norquist promoted Suhail Khan’s candidacy for election to the American Conservative Union’s (ACU) board of directors. He was subsequently appointed. In 2012, at an irregular meeting of that organization, the board voted to dismiss accusations made against both Khan and Norquist by Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy and a former defense official in the Reagan administration.
Gaffney has been hammered by the ACU and others for suggesting that the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood reached the highest levels of the U.S. government despite the reality that it was Gaffney who drew attention to Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian, both of whom ended up as convicted felons for their terrorist activity. Yet it is Gaffney’s credibility that has been called into question for daring to draw attention to Norquist’s unseemly activity.
Wolf also pointed out that Norquist was “an outspoken advocate for moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States,” and “led a public campaign to undermine Republican-led efforts to block the Obama Administration’s transfer of 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheik Mohammed to New York City” in 2009.
In 2010, Norquist inserted himself into the Ground Zero Mosque controversy, which he characterized as a “Monica Lewinsky ploy,” distracting from the core Republican message heading into the 2010 elections. Yet according to Wolf, Norquist “used Americans for Tax Reform to circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’” completely undermining his own contention that the issue was a distraction.
For years, Grover Norquist’s reputation as a staunch anti-tax advocate has overshadowed his dubious associations with Islamists, and anyone who has dared to criticize him for those associations has drawn rebuke from both sides of the aisle.
Thus, it is more than a little ironic that his ability to influence Republicans with respect to taxes is waning, even as Islamists, most notably Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who are attempting to establish a dictatorship in Egypt, are becoming ever more powerful.
Sen. Chambliss isn’t the only Republican distancing himself from Norquist. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) has referred to him as “some random person.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) noted that “fewer and fewer people are signing this, quote, pledge.” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK.) called the pledge a “tortured vision of tax purity.” House newcomer Rep. Ted Yoho, (R-FL), who declined to sign the pledge, was sarcastic. “I’ll pledge allegiance to the flag. I’ll pledge to be faithful to my wife,” he quipped.
Yet it was Rep. Peter King (R-NY) who best summed up the growing rebellion. “A pledge is good at the time you sign it,” he said. “In 1941, I would have voted to declare war on Japan. But each Congress is a new Congress. And I don’t think you can have a rule that you’re never going to raise taxes or that you’re never going to lower taxes. I don’t want to rule anything out.”
Republicans can resist raising taxes without signing a pledge should they choose to do so for the good of the nation. Yet without the pledge Grover Norquist has long wielded like a hammer, his leverage among Republicans is precipitously diminished. Considering his dubious ties to Islamists and their agenda, that’s more than a reasonable tradeoff.
Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net
Copyright © 2009 Clarion Fund, Inc. All rights reserved.
-
Any article that discusses women in islam and doesn't mention the very real issues women face under islamic oppression both in the islamic world and here in the US, is nothing more than a CAIR propaganda piece and worthy of disdain.
GM, Obj:
As witnessed by my ample posts on this very thread and throughout this forum thoroughly witness, I am well aware of what you post.
However, I stand by my notion that what is relevant here is THIS woman and HER actions. Though the source, Pravda on the Beach (a.k.a. The Left Angeles Times) is suspect, I submit that there is nothing in this article to suggest it is other than as presented.
If we judge individuals by generalities, then we are off course.
Marc
-
DOJ: City must allow big mosque in residential neighborhood
http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/cry-islamophobia-and-win/#fm
Officer must attend
http://www.radicalislam.org/news/judge-rules-against-policer-officer-who-refused-attend-islamic-proselytizing-event/#fm
CAIR and virulent anti-semite leader of MB
http://www.radicalislam.org/news/cair-teams/#fm
-
CAIR Protests Saudi Radical's Exclusion From U.S.
IPT News
December 27, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3864/cair-protests-saudi-radical-exclusion-from-us
The head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) vows to complain to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials after they blocked a radical Saudi cleric from entering the country this week to attend a national Islamist conference in Chicago.
Sheikh Ayed al-Qarni was scheduled to speak twice during the Muslim American-Society (MAS)/Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) national convention Dec. 22-25. But a statement released during the convention expressed "the unpleasant and saddening news" that al-Qarni had been removed from his flight from Saudi Arabia despite having a visa from the U.S. embassy, and that he appears to be on the U.S. "no-fly list." Al-Qarni is described as "one of our great speakers" and as someone known "for his logical discourse and balanced views, he promotes understanding and collaboration between all people, regardless of their faith, background, or language."
Al-Qarni has advocated jihad in the past and his preaching on the subject has been described as influential among al-Qaida followers.
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad told an Arabic news outlet that he would protest al-Qarni's exclusion with DHS and State Department officials. "We defend all Muslims who are subject to arbitrary measure, and by this logic, we will act but not formally plead, unless we obtain authorization from him."
It's an ironic protest to make in light of a public relations campaign orchestrated by CAIR's Chicago chapter. "MyJihad" aims to show non-Muslims that the term jihad is more about peaceful, personal attempts at overcoming challenges than about calls for violence and terror.
Through Awad, also a listed speaker at the convention, CAIR is fighting to bring a Saudi cleric into the United States who has argued the exact opposite message. During a 2005 sermon flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), al-Qarni called the jihad against American forces in Fallujah "a source of pride … downing their planes, destroying equipment, slaughtering them, taking them hostage, and proclaiming 'Allah Akhbar' from the mosques, and the worshippers and the preacher cursing them in their prayers, and then come others begging for forgiveness, and requesting a dialogue and a ceasefire and negotiations. Who can say even one word against this true Jihad against these colonialist occupiers?" [Emphasis added]
He belittled Muslims who failed to take action, including "harming the Jews." He invoked Israel's targeted killings of Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, saying he prayed that Allah "will destroy the Jews and their helpers from among the Christians and the Communists, and that He will turn them into the Muslims' spoils. I praise the Jihad, the sacrifice, and the resistance against the occupiers in Iraq. We curse them all of them every night and pray that Allah will annihilate them, tear them apart, and grant us victory over them..."
"Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered," al-Qarni said. "This is the path to victory, to shahada, and to sacrifice."
This was no one-time rant.
A 2005 interview published in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi March 2005 quoted Nasir Ahmad Nasir Abdallah al-Bahri, one of Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguards, saying al-Qarni was among the Saudi clerics whose preaching influenced bin Laden's followers.
"We were also influenced by the sermons delivered by some speakers in the mosques in Jedda about jihad in Afghanistan. The cassettes on jihad that influenced us most were those by Shaykh A'id [Ayed] al-Qarni, especially the first cassette, titled 'Nights in Afghanistan,' and the second cassette, 'The Afghanistan I saw. Al-Qarni used to speak, enjoin, and call for jihad in an astonishing way."
Al-Qarni also attracted Western attention in 2004 when he called it a sin for women to drive cars in Saudi Arabia. The practice would spread corruption and lead to "mingling between the sexes, men being alone with women and the destruction of the family and society in whole."
On top of all that, he has been accused of intellectual dishonesty. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Culture and Information fined al-Qarni 300,000 Saudi riyals earlier this year for allegedly plagiarizing chapters from a book by a Saudi woman.
But even with al-Qarni's absence, the MAS-ICNA conference still featured speakers who advocate violent jihad. Among them, Kifah Mustapha spoke at, and promoted the event, saying, "It's about learning from the scholars and the teachers who are coming from all over the world to be with you in these few days."
Mustapha was a paid fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which in 2008 was convicted of funneling more than $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas. He also performed at HLF and other events in a singing troupe known as the al-Sakhra band. In one video among many similar ones entered into evidence at the trial, Mustapha joins in singing:
O mother, Hamas called for Jihad.
Over mosques' loudspeakers, with freedom.
Every day it resists with stones and the dagger.
Tomorrow, with God's help, it will be with a
machine gun and a rifle.
Other exhibits – internal records seized by FBI agents – showed that officials from both CAIR and the Holy Land Foundation were part of an umbrella group known as the "Palestine Committee." That group, records show, was created by the Muslim Brotherhood in America to help the Hamas terrorist group politically and financially.
MAS, one of the convention sponsors, also has direct ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, as documented by the Chicago Tribune in 2004, and as described in sworn testimony last spring by Abdurrahman Alamoudi, once the nation's most influential Islamist activists, who is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in a terrorism financing case.
In addition, convention speaker Jamal Badawi is a MAS founder and is listed on the first page of a 1992 telephone directory of Brotherhood members admitted into evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial.
Badawi praised the jihad of Gaza-based terrorists during a February 2009 speech on "Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom," at the Chebucto Mosque in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He also criticized Muslims who considered attacks on Israelis to be terrorism.
"They [moderate Muslims] made this accusation, but they did not even stop at accusations, they did cooperate with the enemies of humanity, to kill their own brothers and sisters," he said.
He led an Islamonline.net dialogue session three years earlier called "Martyrdom in Islam: Let's Discuss it." In it, he compared suicide bombers to "freedom fighters" fighting the Nazis or the Japanese kamikazes fighting the Americans.
He also has openly questioned whether Islam and democracy are compatible. "The Qur'an and Prophetic tradition are the ultimate constitution," he wrote in 2004.
Yet another MAS-ICNA convention speaker urged Muslims to help finance jihad. Ragheb Elsergany's past convention speeches were so extreme, organizers promised not to invite him back. But this year's appearance is at least the second since that pledge was made.
During the 2009 conference, Elsergany spoke of jihad as one of the greatest acts to please Allah, "and one of the greatest of them is supporting the fighters, and the mujahideen [Islamic warriors] and the besieged, and those in need there in Palestine," he said in an Arabic session entitled "The Gaza Struggle."
Elsergany then pushed people to donate money to the cause. "Allah has entrusted us with the money for our brothers and sisters, to confer upon the people of Palestine the surplus of our money. This is their right," he said. "They are the ones who face the Zionists with their chests, their nerves, their lives, their children, their holy places and their sacred places. They are the ones standing [in] front of us and we are standing behind them. You Muslims are abandoning this role."
In the 2011 conference, Elsergany predicted a day when "all of Palestine" would be liberated. The rise of Islamist governments in the Middle East and North Africa was clearing the way for "the Zionist entity" to "vanish absolutely," he said.
The United States government may have kept al-Qarni out of the country, but the MAS-ICNA convention still featured speakers who have called for the destruction of an existing nation, who have praised jihad as the use of violence to praise Allah, and who have documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Awad's pledge to take al-Qarni's case to decision-makers in Washington so far has been made only in Arabic media with no accompanying release for U.S. audiences. It's no wonder.
-
Bronx Woman Charged With Murder as a Hate Crime in Subway Attack
A 31-year-old woman was being held by the police on Saturday in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of a Queens subway station and crushed by an oncoming train.
The woman, Erica Menendez of the Bronx, is being charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, according to the Queens district attorney’s office. Ms. Menendez was taken into custody by the police early Saturday morning and made comments implicating herself in the crime when questioned by detectives, according to Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department.
A law enforcement official said that Ms. Menendez had “told the cops it was an act against Muslims,” and cited the Sept. 11 attack.
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na
-
Bronx Woman Charged With Murder as a Hate Crime in Subway Attack
A 31-year-old woman was being held by the police on Saturday in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of a Queens subway station and crushed by an oncoming train.
The woman, Erica Menendez of the Bronx, is being charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, according to the Queens district attorney’s office. Ms. Menendez was taken into custody by the police early Saturday morning and made comments implicating herself in the crime when questioned by detectives, according to Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department.
A law enforcement official said that Ms. Menendez had “told the cops it was an act against Muslims,” and cited the Sept. 11 attack.
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na
I think it's long overdue we address NYC's "subway culture" and outlaw weapons of mass transit destruction. If it saves just one life....
-
Al Gore Profits from the Stealth Jihad
Center for Security Policy | Jan 07, 2013
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
Let's call it Al Goreera. That seems a fitting title for the new network that former Vice President Al Gore is launching with the jihadists' favorite television outlet: Al Jazeera. The effect will be to create vast new opportunities for our enemies to propagandize the American people, a key ingredient of their "civilization jihad" against our country.
It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this treachery. Imagine the furor that would have erupted if, during the Cold War, one of the United States' most prominent former leaders had enriched himself to the tune of $100 million by giving the Soviet Union's intelligence service, the KGB, a vehicle for engaging in information and political warfare in some 40 million homes across this land. If anything, the danger posed by Al-Goreera today is even greater since most of us -- and especially our elites -- are unaware that such warfare is even afoot.
Yet it is. In the Holy Land Foundation trial -- the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history -- the government introduced into evidence the Muslim Brotherhood's strategic plan for its operations in America. This 1991 document, entitled "The Explanatory Memorandum on the Strategic Goal of the Group," established that the Brothers' mission here is "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within...by their hands [meaning ours] and the hands of the Believers so that God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
Toward this end, Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood employ various subversive techniques. Among the most important are those aimed at achieving what the military calls "information dominance." Al Jazeera is used by jihadists the world over -- including its Wahhabi owner, the Emir of Qatar -- to promote their narratives of hatred of the infidel West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular.
The Washington Free Beacon recently identified (http://freebeacon.com/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-al-jazeera/) seven illustrative examples of the network's regular dissemination of praise for terrorists and their sponsors. These include the likes of the late Yemini-American al Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Sudan's genocidal dictator, Omar al-Bashir. The virulently shariah-promoting, Qatari-based cleric Yousef al-Qaradawi even has a regular show on Al Jazeera's programming for Muslim consumption. He uses it to sanction murderous holy war against American soldiers and Israelis, including women and children.
Of course, those promoting the network's penetration of the United States -- among them Mr. Gore, who will get a board seat on the new network to be formally known as Al Jazeera America -- tend to pooh-pooh concerns about the Arabic-language mother ship's service to the jihadi cause. In any event, these apologists insist that the programming in English is objective and fair, claiming that Colin Powell says it is the only network he watches. Who knows, given their appalling predilections, it may also be the favorite of President Obama's newest nominees, Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel and CIA Director-designate John Brennan.
The truth, however, is that over time if not immediately, the dictates of the owner and the editorial board in Doha will ensure that the content of Al Goreera helps obscure, rather than illuminate, the ominous nature of civilization jihad and promotes the shariah doctrine it seeks to insinuate into this country.
Regrettably, the Federal Communications Commission has washed its hands of this transaction claiming, in the words of a spokesman, it "doesn't have regulatory oversight of transactions relating to ownership of cable networks." It's a safe bet that the deeply Islamist-penetrated Department of Justice (see Part 9 of www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com) won't intervene, either. In light of the stakes, Congress must inject itself into the matter.
At the very least, Al Jazeera America should be obliged to register as a foreign agent. That term is defined by the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) as individuals or entities that are wholly owned by a foreign government, that take instruction from the owners or their agents and that attempt to influence public opinion and policy in America. Al Goreera would certainly fit that description, and Congress should ensure that its broadcasts are identified accordingly.
The larger point was illuminated recently in an important essay by Jonathan Tobin at Commentary Magazine's blog (www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/04/the-al-jazeera-liberals-al-gore/): "The real issue here is not a false argument about diversity [in the U.S. media]. It is instead one about what it means to be a liberal in today's media environment....Gore refused to sell his channel to conservative Glenn Beck saying that he didn't wish to see his vanity project fall into the hands of those who disagreed with his politics. Fair enough. But the fact that Gore sees Al Jazeera as a good match for his brand of American liberalism speaks volumes about the nature of that set of beliefs."
With his spawning of Al Goreera, the former Vice President has offered proof positive of the Left's readiness tomake common cause with our enemies. Al Gore and his ilk must be held accountable -- not just for the affinity they feel for jihadists, but for enabling the latters' undermining of America. For a man who was once a heartbeat and then some 500 votes away from the presidency to enrich himself by selling out his country in this fashion is not just contemptible. It is a threat to the national security.
-
http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/man-shot-head-pellet-gun
-
Why Michele Bachmann Is Right About Keith Ellison
Posted By Robert Spencer On January 16, 2013
Editors’ note: While Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been vindicated for suggesting that Muslim Brotherhood elements have infiltrated the U.S. government, the left-wing activist group, People For the American Way (PFAW), has launched a petition drive against Rep. Bachmann in an effort to remove her from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Frontpage editors felt this was an opportune time to put a spotlight on other attackers of the Congresswoman and their troubling associations, and so we deemed it important to rerun Robert Spencer’s article, “Why Michele Bachmann Is Right About Keith Ellison,” from our July 23, 2012 issue, below:
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has accused Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) of having a “long record of being associated” with the Hamas-linked Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Evoking the days of McCarthyism, a common charge being leveled at Bachmann these days, Ellison responded: “I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.” He accused Bachmann of religious bigotry:
“I think she has a very narrowly prescribed definition of who belongs and who doesn’t. And there’s a whole bloc of people she don’t like. I think she thinks that we’re evil because we don’t understand God the way she does….It’s also about marginalizing and alienating a certain group of Americans who she does not view are American enough.”
Not content with that, he accused her of petty attention-seeking:
“But you have to ask yourself, you know, why did she make this so public? Why did she seem to be seeking public attention for these allegations she was making? If she really had actionable intelligence, why wouldn’t she go to the agencies that investigate these things? I think the answer is clear that she wanted attention. That was her goal all along.”
The only problem with Ellison’s wounded-martyr stance toward Bachmann’s accusations is that what she said is true: Ellison really does have a “long record of being associated” with Hamas-linked CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.
As long ago as 2006, Ellison’s closeness to Nihad Awad, co-founder of Hamas-linked CAIR, was a matter of public record. Awad, who notoriously said in 1994 that he was “in support of the Hamas movement,” spoke at fundraisers for Ellison, raising considerable sums for his first Congressional race. According to investigative journalist Patrick Poole, Ellison has appeared frequently at CAIR events since then, despite the fact that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.
Poole explains that “according to Justice Department, Awad is a longtime Hamas operative. Multiple statements made by federal prosecutors identify Awad as one of the attendees at a 1993 meeting of US Muslim Brotherhood Palestine Committee leaders in Philadelphia that was wiretapped by the FBI under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant. The topic of discussion during that 1993 meeting was how to help Hamas by working in the U.S. to help sabotage the Oslo Peace Accords.” But none of that fazed Ellison.
CAIR is also linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Awad and CAIR’s cofounder, Omar Ahmad, were officials of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) before founding CAIR. A captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document lists the IAP as one of the Brotherhood’s allied groups in the U.S.
And as for the Muslim Brotherhood itself, in 2008 Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. What is the Muslim American Society? The Muslim Brotherhood. “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” So reported the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language website, Ikhwanweb. The Muslim American Society, according to Steven Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “is the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. The agenda of the MAS is to … impose Islamic law in the U.S., to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy.”
Weirdly, Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, denied that MAS had funded Ellison’s hajj: “Keith Ellison is a member of Congress who knows that congressmen don’t take trips sponsored by nonprofits. That would be a breach of congressional ethics.” Bray apparently failed to check with Ellison’s office before issuing this statement, as his office issued its own statement saying: “The trip, funded by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, was fully reviewed and approved in advance by the House Ethics Committee.”
Imagine if a conservative Congressman had taken a trip that had been paid for by a Christian group that was, according to one of its own internal documents, dedicated to “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house” so that Christian law would replace the U.S. Constitution. I expect we would hear more of an outcry than we ever heard about Ellison’s Brotherhood-funded hajj.
Ellison has also retailed the Muslim Brotherhood-invented concept of “Islamophobia,” which was cooked up in a Brotherhood think tank, the International Institute of Islamic Thought, as a weapon to intimidate Americans into being afraid to resist jihad terror and Islamic supremacism. And in March 2011 he famously began weeping during Congressman Peter King’s (R-NY) first hearings on Islamic jihad terrorism, as he read what turned about to be a false report about a Muslim who went missing on 9/11 and was suspected of terror ties until he turned out to have been killed in the jihad attacks of that day. Ellison’s crocodile tears stole the show on that day, and successfully diverted media attention from what should have been the focus of the hearing: Islamic jihad activity in the United States.
Michele Bachmann is right: Keith Ellison’s Brotherhood ties should be investigated. That he and so many others on the Left have had such a furious reaction to her mere call for an investigation is only an indication that they have something to hide. John Boehner and the rest of the Republican Congressional leadership should be defending her and joining her call for investigations into Muslim Brotherhood influence in the Government. Instead, to their shame, they have joined Ellison in throwing her to the wolves, demonstrating that mainstream Republicans are no better than mainstream Democrats in confronting the threat of Islamic supremacism. And meanwhile, the Islamic supremacists continue to advance.
-
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/muslim-brotherhood-group-to-connect-all-u-s-schools/
-
This is really rather sickening to watch - CNN and others promoting puff pieces about the "This is my jihad" campaign (Propaganda campaign led by CAIR - essentially the Muslim Brotherhood.) This is a naked attempt to conceal and mislead the American public about what Islam teaches. Pamela has her own series of counter-ads pointing out the fact that jihad is traditionally understood as making war on "infidels" (non-Muslims.) Her ads - to which she links in this piece - contain actual quotations from the Koran. I encourage you to support her campaign with a donation if you are able:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/02/big-medias-myjihad.html
-
For The Record - The IPT Blog
Latest Posts | Archive |
'Ground Zero Mosque' Imam Sued for Fraud
by IPT News • Feb 6, 2013 at 4:04 pm
The face of 2010's controversy over a proposed mega-mosque and community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan has been accused of defrauding donors in a lawsuit filed in New York state court this week.
Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan bought "a luxury sports car, personal real estate" and traveled on money that was donated for specific projects at Rauf's Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), the lawsuit says. It was filed by Robert Leslie Deak, whose family foundation donated $167,000 to Rauf's "Shariah Index" project from 2006-08. The money was supposed to be used for Islamic scholars to work to reduce anti-Muslim sentiment.
In addition, the lawsuit claims, Rauf failed to report $3 million in donations from the Malaysian government on his non-profits' tax forms and that Rauf also used the money on personal spending. The lawsuit seeks $5 million in punitive damages.
Rauf's attorney denied the allegations. This is not the first litigation between the two sides. Rauf and Khan sued Deak and his wife in 2010, alleging the Deaks sold them a Washington, D.C. apartment at a grossly inflated price. The apartment was to house Cordoba's national office. But, as columnist Juan Gonzalez notes, the sale price was $1.5 million, and Cordoba's tax returns indicate the initiative spent $792,000 that year.
"How do you manage to pay $1.5 million for a D.C. office the same year your organization claims it only spent half as much money in all?" Gonzalez wonders.
During the Ground Zero mosque controversy in 2010, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that other donations to ASMA and Cordoba were not listed in tax returns. A review of IRS forms also found that ASMA secured its non-profit status in 1998 by promising to serve as a house of worship to up to 500 people per day. But the group gave an address of New York apartment that had no communal space and Rauf's only prayer services took place at other mosques in New York.
ASMA also told the IRS in 1998 that it had a school "for the religious instruction of the young," but the group's website made no reference to its operating a school.
In addition, Cordoba's application for non-profit status claimed the group was not an outgrowth of, or connected to, other organizations. That was contradicted by a 2009 ASMA financial statement that said "ASMA is acting as a fiscal agent and is developing Cordoba's ability to function independently."
Rauf's group never had the financing to realize its grand ambition of a $100 million mosque and community center. The disputed location remains largely unchanged, although prayer services do take place inside. Rauf left the mosque group in 2011.
-
Regarding the story Crafty posted below - Note well how many fawning pieces/interviews with Rauf the media broadcast. Including 60 Minutes. It is truly sickening. No hard questions, no investigation of his shady background or incendiary statements in Arabic in his book (which of course were stricken from the U.S. version) The only person that gave him even a bit of a hard interview was Sean Hannity on Fox News - and Rauf lied his way through that from start to finish. In my opinion Hannity was much too easy on him, giving him the benefit of the doubt, when it was clear that he was lying, if Hannity or his staff had done their homework. The same goes for Bill O'Reilly - even worse. O'Reilly didn't even challenge Rauf at all.
We are truly witnessing a successful stealth jihad campaign which the Muslim Brotherhood is waging, in its own words, according to documents seized during the "Holy Land" foundation investigation - "To infiltrate and destroy Western civilization from within." Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller - labeled "extremists" by all mainstream media except Fox News - have repeatedly pointed this out - but no matter - the jihad goes on. AND the pro-jihad propaganda campaign with signs on buses in New York (and soon in other cities) suggesting that jihad means working out in a gym in the morning, or doing something charitable for your neighbor goes on without any questions from the media. What crap. No one other than a handful of courageous heroes like Spencer, Geller, David Horowitz and Frank Gaffney are drawing attention to any of this. As a result, millions of gullible Americans who get their news from the mainstream media, and don't bother to do any research on their own are fooled by this propaganda campaign.
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/opinion/sunday/spying-on-law-abiding-muslim-citizens.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130210
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/opinion/sunday/spying-on-law-abiding-muslim-citizens.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130210
Was Maj. Hasan unavailable for comment ?
-
Check this out - I'd appreciate it (as would Robert) if you will sign the
petition to the bishop below:
www.ipetitions.com/petition/diocese-of-worcester-should-let-robert-spencer/?
utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend
Here is more detail as to what exactly happened. This bishop is allowing Islamic supremacists to intimidate him into silencing Robert's truth-telling at this conference:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/02/worcester-bishop-spencers-talk-about-extreme-militant-islamists-and-the-atrocities-that-they-have-pe.html
-
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Muslim Brotherhood) visits Somalia
Posted on Feb. 19, 2013 by Robert Spencer at www.jihadwatch.org
In 2008 Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” That's from the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language website, Ikhwanweb. The Muslim American Society, according to Steven Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “is the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. The agenda of the MAS is to … impose Islamic law in the U.S., to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy.”
And now he is in Somalia, apparently to help facilitate transfers of money from Somali Muslims in Minnesota to their friends and relatives back in Somalia -- transfers that have often been used to finance jihad.
"Minnesota congressman arrives in Mogadishu," by Abdi Guled for the Associated Press, February 19 (thanks to Maxwell):
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A U.S. congressman visited Somalia's capital on Tuesday, the first visit in years by a member of Congress to what until recently was considered one of the world's most dangerous cities.
Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, said his visit to Mogadishu fulfills a request from his constituents with ties to Somalia. Minnesota has one of the largest populations of Somali-Americans in the U.S.
Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, noted that the U.S. government recently recognized the Somali government for the first time since the country fell into anarchy in 1991. President Barack Obama's administration formally recognized the Somali government on Jan. 17.
"I told my constituency I would come here and work for the United States and Somalia relationship, and I am doing that in today's visit," Ellison told a news conference in Mogadishu.
Ellison was greeted by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The president said that Ellison's visit was a big day for Somalia.
Mogadishu has experienced about 18 months of relative peace, after the August 2011 ouster of the Islamic extremists of al-Shabab from the capital by African Union forces.
Ellison said his meetings with Somali officials would focus on financial remittances most often sent by Somalis in the U.S. back to family members in Somalia. Such remittances have become harder to make over fears that people sending money could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization such as al-Shabab.
So will Ellison be trying to make them easier? Will he do so with any regard for the financing of jihad terror?
-
"financial remittances most often sent by Somalis in the U.S. back to family members in Somalia. Such remittances have become harder to make over fears that people sending money could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization such as al-Shabab."
-----------------
To the 'professional journalist' who wrote this for the AP: The scrutiny is not over "fears". It followed dozens of arrests and multiple convictions of Somali Americans in the Minneapolis metro on terrorism related charges including financial support to known, listed terrorist organizations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/us/24terror.html?_r=0
The [FBI's] first public account of a recruitment operation that it says has largely focused on Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area. Those young men included Shirwa Ahmed, 26, who carried out a suicide attack in northern Somalia in October 2008, becoming the first known American suicide bomber. Since then, at least five other recruits have been killed in Somalia, relatives and friends say, and four defendants have entered guilty pleas.
http://www.npr.org/series/102787287/the-somali-minneapolis-terrorist-axis
8 Charged In Terrorism Probe Of Missing Somalis
Prosecutors allege that the suspects provided financial support to young men from the Somali community in Minneapolis to go to Somalia and fight on behalf of al-Shabab, a group on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. Five of the Minnesotans have been killed.
Does the FBI have "fears that people sending money could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization"?
Besides a Somali magnet, Minneapolis is also a leading gay rights district. Maybe Rep. Ellison can give a public lectures in Somalia about gay rights - and women's rights - while he is there. Can't we all just get along? I hope the Jihadists don't find out about his Catholic upbringing or his inconsistent Mosque attendance record.
-
I bet Ellison is against the FBI surveilling potential shabab recruits, especially with drones! :wink:
-
Putting Politics Over Public Safety
Posted by Frank Gaffney - Center for Security Policy - March 4, 2013
An ominous pattern has been developing, particularly of late: The Obama administration seems determined to subordinate public safety to political expediency. If a course-correction is not effected promptly, the result is predictable. Americans will be needlessly harmed, and perhaps killed.
The most recent and obvious example was the release last week of hundreds of reportedly dangerous illegal aliens from federal detention. The rationale given was that the sequestration-dictated budget cuts made their incarceration unaffordable. The White House has disavowed any involvement in this reckless decision. But it was certainly in keeping with the President’s erstwhile mantra that extremely dire repercussions – including the disruption of critical public services – would flow from a fiscal train-wreck that he has refused either to acknowledge devising or to stave off.
Even more worrying is the erosion of public safety inherent in the administration’s “fundamental transformation” of our national security. Mr. Obama’s own civilian and military leaders have warned that the effect of the $500 billion cut over ten years impelled by sequestration, coming on top of the nearly $800 billion in reductions in Pentagon spending that have been previously ordered, will be to “hollow out” the military. History teaches that when we disarm in this fashion, others respond aggressively – at the expense of our vital interests and at huge costs, both in fiscal terms and in a much more precious currency: lives.
Then, there are the reductions Mr. Obama seems determined to make, unilaterally if necessary, in our nuclear deterrent forces. The President fancies that he is “leading from in front” in this instance, but not one other nuclear power is following him towards a “world without nuclear weapons.” In fact, in the absence of a safe, reliable and credible American “nuclear umbrella,” it is inevitable that global proliferation and instability will increase. That will scarcely enhance our public safety.
The poster child for putting political considerations ahead of prudent security practice is John Brennan, the President’s homeland security and counter-terrorism advisor whom he hopes the Senate will shortly approve as the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nothing could be more ill-advised.
The case against Brennan’s nomination has numerous elements. Members of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee have been rightly concerned about his apparent involvement in myriad leaks of highly classified information. These include the compromise of a most sensitive joint UK-Saudi intelligence operation that prevented a sophisticated terrorist attack and the sharing with Hollywood filmmakers of sensitive details concerning the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Brennan also seems to have been party to lying to legislators, for whom he has ill-concealed contempt. Notably, it seems he was involved with an interagency “Deputies Committee” that, in the immediate aftermath of the murderous September 11th terrorist attack in Benghazi, reworked after-action briefers’ “talking points” – resulting in the unfounded claim that it was precipitated by an offensive video, not the attackers’ lust for jihad.
Speaking of jihad, John Brennan’s failure to comprehend this term is emblematic of the most important reason for the Senate to regard the prospect of him leading the CIA as a prescription for still further endangering of public safety. In a May 2010 address, Brennan declared that: “Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”
In fact, Muslims who adhere to the orthodox and totalitarian Islamic doctrine they call shariah know jihad to be a legitimate tenet of their belief system, alright, but that it means holy war against the unbelievers. They understand “purification” to be about ensuring the triumph of shariah, both locally and globally.
Further egregious strategic errors flow from this fundamental, and potentially fatal, misjudgment by John Brennan and the administration he serves: The avowedly jihadist and shariah-imposing Muslim Brotherhood has been legitimated, empowered, funded, armed and emboldened. On Brennan’s watch, training materials and trainers that make clear such Islamists are unalterably our enemies have been purged government-wide. And Muslim Brothers have effectively been made the arbiters of who and what shall be used in future training to “counter violent extremism” underwritten by federal funds. The peril to public safety posed by such decisions is obvious.
John Brennan is, at best, willfully blind about the most immediate national security threat of our time. At worst, he has spent the past four years enabling its ascendancy abroad and its growth andinfluence operations here at home.
The Brennan nomination has engendered bipartisan opposition on other counts. The Left opposes his past involvement in so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” and his current role in the lethal use of drones. With respect to the former, the Intelligence Committee should carefully consider the CIA’s impending response to a controversial $40 million study commissioned by that panel’s majority before bringing Brennan’s confirmation to a vote. And with respect to the latter, Republicansupport for such drone strikes should not obscure – or be allowed to minimize – the unacceptability of the nominee’s myriad other defects.
President Obama’s record of putting his partisan political interests ahead of the best interests and even the safety of the American people is unconscionable. The Senate must not condone this practice, let alone contribute to it, by confirming one of its prime-movers, John Brennan, as the next CIA Director.
TAGGED WITH → John Brennan • Muslim Brotherhood • nuclear weapons • Sequestration
AUTHOR
Frank Gaffney, Jr.
Frank Gaffney is the Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. Under Mr. Gaffney's leadership, the Center has been nationally and internationally recognized as a resource for timely, informed and penetrating analyses of foreign and defense policy matters. Mr. Gaffney formerly acted as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson.
-
Jihad? What Jihad? Media Shrug At Islamic Threat
Posted 03/01/2013 06:44 PM ET - Investor's Business Daily
Homeland Insecurity: The attorney general says the threat from local jihadists is now worse than terrorist plots hatched overseas. He warned Americans not to grow "complacent." Tell it to the media.
The major news gatekeepers have ignored the jihadist element in no fewer than four recent cases of sensational killings of non-Muslims by mostly young Muslim men inside the U.S., including:
• Yusuf Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Egyptian immigrant who on Feb. 5 allegedly beheaded two Coptic Christians living in New Jersey.
• Ali Syed, a 20-year-old Muslim who allegedly randomly killed three people in Southern California on Feb. 18 before killing himself.
• Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, a 26-year-old reported black Muslim convert who on Feb. 21 is said to have killed three people in Las Vegas.
• Ali Salim, a 44-year-old Pakistan-born doctor who is accused of raping and killing a pregnant woman and her 9-month-old fetus last year in his Ohio office.
This rash of homicides by Muslims has triggered a giant media yawn, despite telltale signs of jihadist motive. Jihad? What jihad? Reporters seemed to be collectively shrugging in another fit of extreme PC.
Here's another key piece of information denied the average American watching the evening news: the majority of convicted terrorists in the U.S. are American citizens. A study found the terrorist threat is increasingly in our backyard.
Equally stunning, more than half of the 171 terror convicts analyzed by the London-based Henry Jackson Society are college-educated. Many are black converts. Nearly half were born and raised here, according to the report prefaced by former CIA director Mike Hayden.
Yet they want to kill fellow Americans simply because they believe that's what their creed tells them to do. But instead of confronting this homegrown threat, our society is fig-leafing it, even glorifying it.
Even in red-state Texas, educators are indoctrinating kids into the Islamic faith. At Lumberton High School, a geography class was recently told to dress up in Islamic garb — including burqas — and refer to the 9/11 hijackers not as terrorists but as "freedom fighters."
This isn't an isolated event. There's a coordinated effort by leftist do-gooders and multiculturalists to de-link Islam from violence and terror and rewrite history.
When educators, journalists and politicians hear no Islamic violence, see no Islamic violence and report no Islamic violence, beware, it's Sept. 10, 2001, again.
-
This just in - Spencer will in fact NOT be allowed to receive the award for favorite blog site. Contains very salient details about Norquist and Khan which many here may not be aware of:
www.jihadwatch.org/2013/03/the-grovers-choice-award-jihad-watch-wins-cpac-award-barred-from-receiving-it.html
-
http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/christie-attorney-general-visits-hamas-linked-mosque/#fm
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/local-citizens-rally-behind-teacher-attacked-cair/#fm
-
www.jihadwatch.org/2013/04/free-speech-victory-pamela-geller-defies-leftist-and-islamic-supremacist-defamation-speaks-at-two-sy.html
-
Jihad in Boston
Posted By Robert Spencer On April 19, 2013
It has now been revealed that the Boston Marathon bombers were two Muslims from southern Russia near Chechnya: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a firefight with Massachusetts police early this morning, and his brother Dzhokhar, who as of this writing is still at large.
As more and more material comes to light about the pair, their motivations become clear. On a Russian-language social media page, Dzhokhar features a drawing of a bomb under the heading “send a gift,” and just above links to sites about Islam. Tamerlan’s YouTube page features two videos by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed. According to a report published in The Australian in January 2007, in a video that came to the attention of authorities at the time, Mohammed “urges Muslims to kill the enemies of Islam and praises martyrs with a violent interpretation of jihad.”
Tamerlan also says, “I’m very religious.” He notes that he does not drink alcohol because Allah forbids it: “God said no alcohol,” and that his Italian girlfriend has converted to Islam. Even his name indicates the world from which he comes: Tamerlan Tsarnaev is apparently named for the Muslim warrior Tamerlane. Andrew Bostom wrote in 2005 that “Osama bin Laden was far from the first jihadist to kill infidels as an expression of religious piety….Osama lacks both Tamerlane’s sophisticated (for his time) military forces and his brilliance as a strategist. But both are or were pious Muslims who paid homage to religious leaders, and both had the goal of making jihad a global force.”
Combine all that with the fact that the bombs were similar to IED’s that jihadis use in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a jihad car bomb in Times Square jihad car bomber, used a similar bomb, and that instructions for making such a bomb have been published in al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine, and the motivations of the Tsarnaev brothers are abundantly clear. It is increasingly likely also that they were tied in somehow to the international jihad network, as is indicated by how they fought off Boston police early on Friday with military-grade explosives – where did they get those? And where did they get the military training that they reportedly have, and displayed in several ways during the fight Friday morning?
Yet despite all this, the mainstream media continues to obfuscate the truth. NBC doesn’t see fit to mention any of the brothers’ connections to Islam in their profile of them. CNN warns that “it should not be assumed that either brother was radicalized because of their Chechen origins.” And this, of course, follows days of speculation about how the bombings appeared to be the work of “right-wing extremists,” “Tea Partiers,” and the like. According to Victor Medina in the Examiner, “Esquire Magazine’s Charles P. Pierce attempted to link the bombings to right wing extremists similar to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. In another, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen speculated that the type of bomb device could link it to right wing extremist groups.” Salon hoped that the bomber would turn out to be a “white American.”
Will Pierce, Bergen, and all the others who offered similar analyses apologize now? They almost certainly will not – and even worse, they will not be held accountable. No matter how often mainstream analysts are wrong, they never get questioned or jettisoned.
But in one sense, they were right: the bombers were indeed white, if not American. That demonstrates once and for all the vacuity of the mainstream media and Islamic supremacist claim that opposing jihad and Islamic supremacism is “racism.” Islam is not a race, and the massacre of innocent civilians is not a race. Opposing jihad is not racism, but the defense of freedom. The Tsarnaev brothers have confirmed that. However, nothing is more certain than that next week, Islamic supremacist and Leftist spokesmen will be featured on NBC and CNN decrying “racism” and an imagined “backlash” against innocent Muslims, which is always a feature of mainstream media coverage after a jihad attack, even though the “backlash” itself never actually materializes.
And there will be no accountability for that nonsense, either. Nowadays, it’s much more of a path to success to be politically correct than to be correct.
-
http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/26/us-imam-calls-on-muslims-in-us-to-wage-jihad/
-
By Tim Furnish, Ph.D. - Islamic history:
From my article on the topic: "A number of analysts and commentators have opined about the Tsarnaevs’ “self-radicalizing.” However, self-radicalization” is a fatuous concept. First, what does “radical” mean in this context? I would submit that it means to accept, internalize and, ultimately, act upon the belief that violence in the name of Islam is not only justified but mandated. This is not a “radical” concept in Islam, because the Qur’an itself clearly spells this out (Sura al-Tawbah [IX]:5; Sura Muhammad [XLVII]:3; Sura al-Baqarah [II]:191ff; etc.), Muhammad lived it, many hadiths reinforce it, and Islamic history is rife with jihad and conquest....More than any other world religion Islam lionizes violence, even in the modern world -- a major reason why 31 of 51 transnational terrorist groups are Islamic. Indeed, it’s probably more accurate to call Muslims who eschew violence “radical,” since the ones who engage in it are, in a very real sense, simply fulfilling the Qur’anic rubrics literally. Thus, no Muslim terrorist “radicalizes” himself but, rather -- as we see with Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- is more prone to engaging in terrorism and violence as he (or, less frequently, she) becomes more observant of traditional (in particular, Sunni) Islam and then falls under the influence of Internet teachers like Feiz Muhammad or Anwar al-Awlaki or their ilk, who encourage such pious young men to wage jihad fi sabil Allah. But make no mistake: if the religion were as peaceful and opposed to violence as apologists and (most) analysts allege, then no amount of YouTube sermons or editions of AQ’s “Inspire” magazine would have any effect, and would instead fall on deaf ears. And note: the Arabic name of this magazine is actually al-Malahim, which means not “inspire” but, rather, “slaughters, massacres, epic struggles” -- something one never hears explained on CNN or even FNC, much less by government analysts."
-
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/23/boston-mosque-radicals/2101411/
Mosque that Boston suspects attended has radical ties
Oren Dorell, USA TODAY10:47 a.m. EDT April 24, 2013
Terror suspects, fugitives and radical speakers have passed through the Cambridge mosque that the Tsarnaev brothers are known to have visited.
NFW! :-o
I guess we better get more "Coexist" bumperstickers and Andrew to explain to them that "jihad" really means warm woolen mittens and kittens with whiskers...
-
If Obama is not a Muslim, he certainly gives a damn good imitation of it:
AP Scrubs ‘Muslim’ from Obama’s Self-Referential Joke
Robert Spencer - April 30, 2013
Warner Todd Huston reported at Breitbart Monday that “in some of its reports on Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD), the Associated Press failed to include one of President Obama’s own gags.”
Obama said: “These days I look in the mirror and have to admit, I’m not the strapping young Muslim Socialist that I used to be.” But, noted Huston, “in one version of the night’s story (as seen at Huffington Post, Time Magazine, Breitbart Wires, the Ottawa Citizen, and The Columbian to name a few), the AP’s Bradley Klapper forgot one part of the President’s joke,” reporting his words as “I’m not the strapping young Socialist that I used to be,”
Why? Did they think it had too much of a ring of truth?
Why did some editors at AP or at the publications that picked up the AP story think it necessary to run interference for Obama on this point?
By mocking the idea that he is a Muslim (and a Socialist), Obama is trying to render these things too ridiculous for serious public discussion. Fine. His personal beliefs are of no moment, except insofar as they influence his public stances. And the direction of his public policies is obvious. He has maintained a consistent foreign policy line that has enabled the establishment of several Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia states in North Africa and the Middle East, and a domestic policy that has enabled the advance of the Islamic supremacist agenda to assert the primacy of Islamic law over American law and practice wherever they conflict. No amount of mockery will obscure that.
The record is clear. As demonstrations and revolts swept the Muslim world during Obama’s first term, he was enthusiastic. He had encouraging words for the “Arab Spring” demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia, and even gave military assistance to their Libyan counterparts. During the third and last debate of the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney and Obama sparred over which could express support for the Syrian rebels (who are dominated by Islamic jihadists) more strongly, and as Obama’s second term began, his administration was inching ever closer to military aid for those rebels. Yet there were two large-scale demonstrations in Muslim countries that Obama did not support – and those two exceptions are extraordinarily revealing about his disposition, as well as his policy, toward Islam.
The two pro-democracy revolts that Obama refused to support were arguably the only two that were genuinely worthy of the pro-democracy label: the demonstrations against the Islamic regime in Iran in 2009, and the anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations in Egypt in winter 2013. There is a common thread between these two that distinguishes them from all the others: in Egypt in late 2012 and early 2013, as well as in Iran in 2009, the demonstrators were protesting against Islamic states; all the other demonstrations led to the establishment of Islamic states. To be sure, the Iranian demonstrators in 2009 contained many pro-Sharia elements that simply objected to the way the Islamic Republic was enforcing Sharia, but they also included many who wanted to reestablish the relatively secular society that prevailed under the last Shah. Whether the Sharia or the democratic forces would have won out in the end is a question that will never be answered – in no small part thanks to Barack Obama.
In every case Barack Obama has been consistent: in response to the demonstrations and uprisings in the Islamic world, he has without exception acted in the service of Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia regimes. For whatever complex of personal affinity and political calculation, he has steered the United States, in the words of the Egyptian newspaper Rose el-Youssef, “from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The transformation of U.S. foreign and domestic policy is the most significant manifestation of Obama’s warmly positive stance toward Islam. Speaking at the Pentagon in 2010 on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Barack Obama returned to a recurring theme of his presidency: that the attacks on Americans and the war that has been declared against the West have nothing do with Islam. “As Americans, we will not and never will be at war with Islam,” Obama declared, echoing almost verbatim words he used in his June 2009 Cairo address, and then adding: “It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda, a sorry band of men, which perverts religion.”
George W. Bush had affirmed that the U.S. was not at war with Islam, but Obama drove home the point in numerous ways: purging military and intelligence training materials of any mention of Islam in connection with terrorism; employing the might of the Justice Department to win special accommodation for Muslims in workplaces and schools; and lending the prestige and power of his administration to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s efforts to compel Western states to criminalize criticism of Islam.
Not a bad record for a self-described “Muslim Socialist,” however facetiously he meant the appellation. No wonder AP was embarrassed for him.
-
Another of countless examples where both Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have been proven correct after the controversy has blown over - but of course very few "conservative" blogs report this:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/governor-rick-perry-partnered-with.html
-
More Secrets From Huma Abedin
Posted By Arnold Ahlert On May 20, 2013 - www.frontpagemag.com
To order the Freedom Center’s pamphlet, “The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration” by Frank Gaffney, click here.
Huma Abedin, former Secretary of State Hillary’s Clinton’s long time aide with extensive ties to Muslim Brotherhood groups, was granted an arrangement by the State Department to do outside consulting work, even as she remained a top advisor in the Department. Abedin did not disclose either the arrangement, or how much she earned from it, on her financial report, despite a requirement that public officials must disclose significant sources of income. Clinton advisor Philippe Reines contended she was under no obligation to do so.
Abedin, who has served Clinton for 15 years, became a “special government employee” when she returned from maternity leave in June 2012, according to an unidentified source familiar with the arrangement. According to several sources who spoke to Politico, Abedin did work for outside clients, and one of her friends confirmed they totaled four entities in all: the State Department, Hillary Clinton, the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and Teneo, a firm co-founded by Doug Band, a former counselor for Bill Clinton.
Teneo, which promotes itself as a company that “brings together the disciplines of government and public affairs, investor and public relations and investment banking advisory in an integrated approach that allows us to provide clients with unparalleled strategic counsel and operational support,” has advised clients such as Coca Cola and MF Global, the brokerage firm that went bankrupt while it was being run by Jon Corzine, former Governor of New Jersey, and big-donor “bundler” for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
The disclosure was revealed as Abedin’s husband, disgraced former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, has begun preparations for a New York City mayoral run next year in an attempt to resuscitate his career. The city’s Conflict of Interest Board requires mayoral candidates to disclose personal financial information, including spousal sources of income, but that part of a candidate’s filing is not made public. Furthermore, because Abedin relinquished her job as deputy chief of staff last June, that change abrogated her requirement to disclose private earnings for the rest of the year on her own disclosure forms. The change of Abedin’s employment status was done so quietly, she continued to be identified in news reports as employed in her former job. On March 1, Abedin was tapped to run Clinton’s post-State Department transition team, comprised of a six-person “transition office” located in Washington.
Good government groups have questioned the potential conflict of interest that representing the public, while maintaining private clients, suggests. “If she was being held out as a deputy chief of staff, it would be highly unusual for her to be a part-time employee or a consultant,” said Melanie Sloane, executive director of CREW, an ethics watchdog group. “Being a deputy chief of staff at the State Department is generally considered more than a full-time job.”
It is not clear what role, if any, Hillary Clinton played in approving Abedin’s transition to her new job. State Department officials, as well as people who work with the Clintons, refused to talk on the record about the arrangement. And while Weiner released a copy of the couple’s 2012 tax return revealing income of more than $490,000, he also declined to discuss what portion of that income was earned by Abedin apart from her job at State, which paid her around $135,000 for the year. The remaining amount of approximately $365,000 combines consulting fees for both husband and wife, sources said.
The change in Abedin’s status permitted her to work from home in New York, rather than at the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., allowing her to spend more time with her husband and child. While Abedin was pregnant, Weiner was forced to resign from his congressional seat when it was discovered that he had Tweeted sexually charged messages, as well as nude photos of himself, to several women. Weiner vehemently denied the allegations at first, saying his account had been hacked. But mounting political pressure forced him to admit the truth and abruptly resign.
Abedin’s arrangement is similar to those of other Clinton loyalists who received compensation for their work on Clinton’s government staff, and her political action committee, while she was a U.S. Senator from New York. Furthermore, while there is no exact number of State Department officials who have a similar arrangement, a Department source told Politico it was “not uncommon.”
Perhaps not. But Abedin is anything but a common government employee. While the mainstream media remains temporarily focused on Abedin’s role with regard to her husband’s political campaign, it remains calculatingly incurious about her work with the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, and the tens of millions of dollars in donations it has received from such entities as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the governments of Kuwait and Qatar, Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid, who has close ties to the Saudi royal family, Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi, reputed to be one of the richest men in the world, and a group called Friends of Saudi Arabia and the Dubai Foundation.
Abedin’s earlier career also remains below the radar as well. She began working with Hillary Clinton in 1996, as the then-First Lady’s intern. She remained a loyal staffer as Clinton transitioned to the Senate, and the State Department.
During part of that time, Abedin had another job as well. From 1996-2008, she also worked as assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA), a publication founded by Abdullah Omar Naseef.
Naseef was also secretary general of the Muslim World League in Saudi Arabia, a highly significant Muslim Brotherhood organization Osama Bin Laden once characterized as one of his terrorist group’s chief funding sources.
Using that connection, Naseef founded the Rabita Trust, a designated terrorist organization. In the late seventies, he hired Abedin’s parents to run his newly formed Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). Editing its journal has remained a family enterprise to this day, and Naseef’s tenure as a member of the journal’s advisory editorial board, seven years of which coincided with Huma’s Abedin’s tenure there, lasted until 2003–the same year he was named as a defendant in a civil case brought by victims of 9/11. Naseef was dropped from the suit in 2010, when a court decided it lacked jurisdiction over him.
Dr. Saleha Abedin, Huma’s mother, still edits the JMMA. She took over when Huma’s father, Syed Zainul Abedin, passed away. Both of Abedin’s parents, as well as her brother, Hassan Abedin, have deep, documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, her mother runs the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child, which is part of yet another terror-designated organization known as the Union of Good.
It remains impossible to understand how Abedin received security clearance to work at the State Department, which allows her access to top-secret documents. Even if one makes the case that she should not be tainted by the dubious relationships maintained by her family members, it is impossible to disassociate her from her own relationship with Abdullah Omar Naseef and his organization.
Yet in a testament to the power of PC-inspired denial, when these and other sordid relationships were documented in a letter sent by Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), and Tom Rooney (R-FL) to the State Department’s Deputy Inspector General, politicians in both parties, as well as the mainstream media, accused Bachmann of engaging in a McCarthy-esque smear campaign.
The letter to the Inspector General was sent in June, the same month Abedin relinquished her position as deputy chief of staff. Whether one assumes this to be a mere coincidence or not, there is no denying that Abedin’s change in status was kept secret for nearly a year. The Obama administration could quickly put an end to this controversy by revealing the contents of Abedin’s responses contained in Standard Form 86, a “Questionnaire for National Security Positions.” That questionnaire should have been completed prior to Abedin serving in her capacity at State beginning in 2009.
No doubt a State Department up to its neck in the Benghazi scandal is too busy to respond.
-
This deserves ease in finding down the road Obj.
Please post in the Intel Matters thread as well.
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/turkey-stakes-claim-america-100-million-mega-mosque
But don't worry, Erdogan and Baraq share tips on raising their daughters.
-
This is a VERY serious problem. IMHO the building of these mosques ought not be allowed period, unless the U.S. government can verify that anti-American and even terrorist propaganda is not being preached there. This should be subject to monitoring as well. Better yet - put an immediate freeze on all new mosque building and require investigations regarding their sponsors before approving them. Let CAIR and the other pro-Muslim groups and the media squeal like stuck pigs all they want. This is quite literally war - and it needs to be treated as such. ISLAM is not simply a "religion" which deserves Constitutional protection. It is a totalitarian ideology that is explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-American. It happens to operate under the guise of a religion so that CAIR and other pro-Islamic organizations can hide behind our Constitutional protections with false claims of rights abuses. It's time to call them on it and STOP IT. They are quite literally "destroying Western civilization from within" as an official document from the Muslim Brotherhood states as its ultimate goal.
-
You'd have to convince the Obama administration that they were advocating the US Constitution and limited government in the mosques to get them to do that, Obj.
-
(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/bos041513/s_b08_53227478.jpg)
"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." Tamerlan Tsarnaev Barack Hussein Obama
-
"That pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood, and the bombing of the Boston Marathon."
Baraq Hussein Obama
-
Funny, his administration pushed the "workplace violence" label onto Ft. Hood. The Boston bombers were off the FBI'S radar while the force of the federal government was focused on certain conservative groups.
-
When are enough citizens going to get angry enough about all this to DEMAND Congress do something about it??? I'm FURIOUS. This is not an abstract discussion, as GM's last posted photo shows. American citizens are DYING because of this administration's warped policies. Meanwhile this president and his criminal cronies are persecuting and obstructing his political enemies. What has to happen? Do we need to show up on the White House lawn en masse with torches and pitchforks and force him out?
-
I like to think that our efforts here make a difference. Look at the reads per post ratio on the relevant threads. I suspect most people who read this forum to be well above average IQ and education and likely to be influential in their respective social and business circles.
-
Of course this is done by other groups too, but one wonders if some of the passages of the Koran about how one can treat infidels and infidel women has something to do with this , , ,
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2011/01/15/now-muslims-have-set-up-child-prostitution-rings-in-the-u-s/
-
Judge Ends Imam's Lawsuit Triggered by IPT Report
IPT News
June 25, 2013
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4054/judge-ends-imam-lawsuit-triggered-by-ipt-report
A federal judge in Chicago has dismissed an imam's claim that the Illinois State Police (ISP) discriminated against him when it rescinded the imam's appointment to be a volunteer chaplain.
Kifah Mustapha's appointment as the ISP's first Muslim chaplain was reversed after the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported in January 2010 that he was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas financing trial which ended with sweeping convictions in November of 2008. Mustapha was identified as a member of a Muslim Brotherhood-run Hamas support network in the United States, and was a paid employee of the network's official fundraising arm, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. Records show he spent five years as the charity's "sole employee in its Illinois office."
Mustapha, an imam at the Mosque Foundation in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, did not tell the state police about his Holy Land Foundation connections when he originally applied for the chaplain's post. He passed an initial review and announced his appointment.
But state police officials took a second look after reading the IPT report. They verified the information about Mustapha's Holy Land Foundation work and saw a videotape entered into evidence which showed Mustapha singing a song praising Hamas and jihad.
An FBI official told state police that Mustapha would not pass their background check for a similar position. The ISP rescinded Mustapha's appointment, and he sued. He tried to attack the IPT's credibility as part of his litigation.
He also claimed "that he condemns Hamas and any suicide bombings, and instead he teaches against terrorism," U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman wrote in his order granting the state summary judgment.
During a deposition, Mustapha claimed the video, showing a child holding a machine gun on stage as Mustapha and others sing, "O Hamas, raise the banner of Jihad … through it or through martyrdom," was not an endorsement of the terrorist group, but actually meant something quite benign. When the singers name Hamas, he said, they were "referring to the Palestinian people, that Hamas means 'excitement' in Arabic and the use of the word 'jihad' in the song related to the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom and equality," Guzman wrote. Mustapha "acknowledged that others might interpret the invocation of 'Hamas' as referring to the terrorist organization."
But the ISP saw the video quite differently.
"We saw this particular candidate, you know, up on the stage singing about Jihad and martyrdom, and . . . with children in view of the camera and they're passing around the rifle and dancing and kind of celebrating the rifle and appearing to celebrate . . . Jihad and martyrdom," former state police Acting Director Jonathon Monken said during a deposition.
While Guzman wrote he was not judging the facts of the case, he found that concerns about hiring Mustapha by the state police were "well-founded given the [IPT's] earlier blog entry posted soon after Plaintiff went through chaplain orientation criticizing the ISP for selecting Plaintiff given his purported ties to terrorism."
Mustapha also claimed he was discriminated against due to his religion and ethnicity. But, Guzman noted, the state police originally hired Mustapha knowing his heritage and that he is a Muslim. "It was only after finding out about Plaintiff's past conduct, i.e., that he had been employed by HLF, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism trial, appeared in a video in which individuals are toting guns and chanting 'O, Hamas, teach us the rifle' and 'O, Hamas, raise the banner of jihad,' and learned that Plaintiff would not pass the background check to be a volunteer chaplain with the FBI that the ISP decided not to retain Plaintiff as a volunteer chaplain."
Mustapha was represented by attorneys for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which similarly was implicated in the Holy Land case as part of a Muslim Brotherhood-orchestrated Hamas support network in the United States. Internal documents show CAIR was a member of the Palestine Committee, and two CAIR founders appeared on a Palestine Committee telephone list.
Mustapha continues to help CAIR raise money, leading the fundraising portion of the CAIR-Chicago chapter's annual banquet last month.
Their filings claimed Mustapha had no knowledge of what the Holy Land Foundation did with its money, that the original IPT report was a dubious source, and that Mustapha – despite the court evidence – is a peaceful man who preaches against terrorism. Letters of support from Arab and Muslim organizations that Guzman reviewed portray Mustapha as "one of the most influential Islamic leaders in Illinois and a role model to Muslim youth and adults."
Those groups appear to have put all their eggs in Mustapha's basket, despite the record.
If the ISP still has no Muslim chaplain, it is not for lack of effort, Guzman wrote. After determining Mustapha was unacceptable, state police sought other candidates. No one applied, "and the only responses the ISP received in response to requests for additional candidates made to Muslim organizations throughout Illinois were recommendations in support of" Mustapha.
-
second post
EXCLUSIVE: Deputy of banned suicide-bomb-endorsing cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi had White House meeting with National Security Council staff
by David Martosko
The Daily Mail
June 25, 2013
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4056/exclusive-deputy-of-banned-suicide-bomb-endorsing
The White House's National Security Council has confirmed that staffers held a June 13 meeting with Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, an Islamist cleric who shares leadership of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, where he is vice-president and the terror supporter Yusuf al-Qaradawi is president. The meeting occurred on the same day the Obama administration announced plans to arm Syria's rebel factions, in the wake of a determination that President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism, which released a report Late Tuesday covering the circumstances of the meeting, wrote that bin Bayyah has referred to the anti-Semitic Islamist al-Qaradawi 'as "a mountain upon whose peak there is light" and as "a great reformer" who "spreads knowledge and wisdom."'
MailOnline saw a late draft of that report.
'Like many in the global Muslim Brotherhood movement who pose as moderates to the press and to liberal intellectuals by issuing condemnations of al-Qaida,' it read in part, 'Bin Bayyah refuses to label the acts of groups such as Hamas, Hizballah or Palestinian Islamic Jihad as terrorism.'
He has also issued 'an endorsement of the push by Muslim intellectuals to criminalize blasphemy against the Muslim prophet Muhammad and Islam,' the group reported.
Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy at the National Security Council, met with Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah on June 13
Bin Bayyah (2nd L) released this photo on his website, showing the June 13 meeting with Obama administration officials including Gayle Smith (2nd R) and Rashad Hussain (4th L)
Bin Bayyah wrote on his website in the days following that meeting that he 'visited the White House where he met with Ms. Gayle Smith, a senior aide to President Barack Obama, and Mr. Rashad Hussain, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.'
'He also met with a number of experts,' that claim continued, 'including the director of public relations in the White House, the national security adviser, and representatives from seven government agencies.'
Smith is Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy at the National Security Council. Hussain is the lawyer tapped to implement the 'new beginning with Muslims around the world' which President Obama promised during a June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, Egypt.
Bin Bayyah cultivates an image as a Muslim moderate despite his views. Al-Qaradawi, meanwhile, is a more vocal proponent of Muslim suicide bombers killing Jews, especially in portions of Israel that Palestinians claim as their territory.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi (R), shown with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (L), leads the International Union of Muslim Scholars. His second-in-command, Abdallah bin Bayyah, was welcomed into the White House on June 13. Al-Qaradawi is generally considered the leading Islamic scholar affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He has called openly for the destruction of Israel and the deaths of all Jews, called Adolf Hitler a divine punishment for the 'misdeeds of the Jews' and claimed the Nazi Holocaust has been popularly exaggerated.
Al-Qaradawi has also said he wants to die 'in the service of jihad' by blowing himself up in Israel and killing Jews in the process.
'I have supported [suicide bombings] for the past 20 years,' he said in 2008.
'I do not automatically support martyrdom operations,' he continued. "I permit them under specific constraints, when necessary, like in the case of our Palestinian brothers who are forced to defend themselves by turning themselves into bombs.'
The two clerics' close association has caused reputational trouble for bin Bayyah among Western governments, and the U.S. State Department has denied al-Qaradawi entry into the country since 1999. But the Obama administration welcomed bin Bayyah into the White House.
Bin Bayyah's own views about Palestinian terror attacks on Israeli targets may have made inviting him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a difficult call.
Barack Obama has made overtures to the Israel lobby since the days of his first presidential candidacy, but members of his national security team met secretly with the vice president of a leading anti-Israel group this month
Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, circled in red, is shown at the December 2012 International Union of Muslim Scholars' board meeting in Doha, Qatar. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is shown to his left (camera-right). The meeting ended with a call for the destruction of the state of Israel
'That the Obama Administration would invite to the United States a radical Muslim cleric whose organization supports terrorism and whose leaders have issued fatwas calling for the killing of Americans and Jews is beyond comprehension.,' Investigative Project on Terrorism executive director Steve Emerson told MailOnline.
Emerson called on Congress to investigate 'immediately.'
'In my 30 years of covering terrorism, I have never in my life been so appalled and outraged at what can only be called criminal behavior by this administration,' he said.
NSC communications director Caitlin Hayden told MailOnline in an email that she was 'unfamiliar with this meeting,' but later allowed that she was 'not disputing it.'
Separately, a senior administration official confirmed to MailOnline that 'Gayle Smith and members of the National Security Staff met with Shaykh Bin Bayyah to discuss a wide range of issues including poverty, global health efforts, and Bin Bayyah's efforts to counter the al Qaeda narrative. Ms. Smith stated that she looked forward to working with him, and with other faith leaders on issues of mutual interest.'
Abdallah bin Bayyah's English-language website initially reported that 'the national security adviser' of the U.S., Tom Donilon, was a participant in the June 13 meeting
After MailOnline inquired with the White House, but before bin Bayyah's organization was approached, the 'national security adviser' language disappeared
Yusuf al-Qaradawi praises Hitler
Yusuf al-Qaradawi claimed in 2009 that the Nazi Holocaust was a 'divine punishment' directed at Jews. Abdallah bin Bayyah, who met with National Security Council staff in the White House, is al-Qaradawi's deputy as vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which al-Qaradawi leads
The account of the meeting on bin Bayyah's website also mentions that he 'called for the protection of the Syrian people and the Muslim minority in Myanmar.'
But less than 12 hours after MailOnline made inquiries with the NSC, that account was altered to remove any reference to National Security Adviser Tom Donilon having attended the meeting. The site still claims 'the director of public relations in the White House' - likely a reference to communications director Jennifer Palmieri - did attend.
There has been no confirmation from the White House or from bin Bayyah that either Palmieri or Donilon participated in the June 13 meeting.
A second web page on bin Bayyah's site was also changed within hours of MailOnline's inquiries.
According to translations provided by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, an Arabic language account of the June 13 meeting originally mentioned the 'Director of Public Relations in the White House' and 'the National Security Adviser.' It was changed to refer to 'Deputy Director of Public Relations in the White House' and 'Deputy National Security Adviser.'
The National Security Council would not confirm the attendance of any specific West Wing deputy.
Rashad Hussain, US envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is the Obama administration official tasked with rebooting America's relationships in the Muslim world
During an April 2013 TV interview, prominent International Union of Muslim Scholars member Tareq Hawwas wished openly of Europe's Jews that 'Hitler had finished them off, thus relieving humanity of them'
Any connection with the International Union of Muslim Scholars could be problematic for the Obama administration, since that organization ended its December 2012 board meeting by calling for all of Israel to be returned to Palestinians, and for the return of those Palestinians who were exiled after the Israeli War of Independence in 1948.
Its most prominent members have also expressed openly anti-Semitic views.
Lebanese Islamic scholar Tareq Hawwas, for instance, said in April on Al-Quds TV that Jews 'are cowards' and 'the most miserly of all peoples ... If only Hitler had finished them off, thus relieving humanity of them.'
And Hamas parliament member Marwan Abu Ras, another International Union of Muslim Scholars member, claimed on the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV that 'Jews are behind each and every catastrophe on the face of the Earth. This is not open to debate. ... Any catastrophe on the face of this Earth, the Jews must be behind it.'
That assessment came on Sept. 12, 2012, as the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya lay in ruins and ashes.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for information about whether it recommended against issuing a visa to bin Bayyah for his June 13 meeting. Typically, a former DHS official told MailOnline, that agency would have been consulted before the state Department began the process to clear him for entry into the country.
Speaking of the International union of Muslim Scholars, the Investigative Project on Terrorism's Emerson claimed 'the United States Government has just legitimized a group that is basically no different that Hamas or Hizbollah, except that this group is the one issuing the religious edicts to those Islamic terrorist groups to carry out jihad against Israel and the United States.'
'This is the equivalent of inviting Al Qaeda to the White House.'
The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.
To subscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_subscribe.php
The Investigative Project on Terrorism
202-363-8602 - main
202-966-5191 - fax
-
Robert's summary of this is in my opinion the most concise - but this story has been posted all over the Internet on counter-jihad blogs and web sites, as well as on Facebook:
Britain Bans Freedom Fighters
Posted By Robert Spencer On June 27, 2013
Wednesday morning I received an official letter from the British Home Office, notifying me that I would not be allowed to enter the country on the grounds that “your presence here is not conducive to the public good.” My colleague Pamela Geller received a similar letter. We had planned to lay a wreath at a memorial to British soldier Lee Rigby, who was beheaded by Islamic jihadists on a Woolwich street on May 22. But it is not conducive to the public good in Britain to oppose jihad violence and Islamic supremacism.
For that is why the ban came down. The Home Office’s letter to me said:
You are reported to have stated the following:
[Islam] is a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society because media and general government unwillingness to face the sources of Islamic terrorism these things remain largely unknown.
I said no such thing, of course. I generally speak and write in coherent English. But the point is clear enough. I certainly have pointed out that Islam mandates warfare against unbelievers. This is not really a controversial point to anyone who has studied Islam at all. One man who has done so has said that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”
What venomous Islamophobe said that? Omar Ahmad, cofounder of the “civil rights” organization known as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Another notorious hatemonger explained that “the Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state.” That Islamophobe was Majid Khadduri, an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown.
Yet another anti-Muslim bigot was Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.
A Shafi’i manual of Islamic law endorsed by the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, says that the leader of the Muslims “makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax,” and cites Qur’an 9:29 in support of this idea: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o9.8)
Oh, the Islamophobia! How did it penetrate even to the hallowed halls of al-Azhar? How did all these Islamic scholars get the hateful idea that Islam teaches warfare and subjugation, which the British Home Secretary knows is an idea not conducive to the public good?
Ultimately, it’s unclear how all these (and many other) venerable authorities on Islam came to misunderstand it in such an Islamophobic way, but in any case, it is a good thing Home Secretary Theresa May is keeping all this Islamophobia and hatred out of Britain. Britons will not be subjected to hateful misrepresentations of Islam like this spectacularly noxious bit of Islamophobia:
Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight.
You may be wondering if it was I or Pamela Geller who penned that hate-filled misrepresentation of the beautiful Islamic doctrine of jihad. But in fact, it was neither one of us. It was Mohammed al-Arefe, a Saudi Muslim cleric who believes that shedding Infidel blood and smashing Infidel skulls is pleasing to his god.
Apparently believing that such violence is an Islamic imperative is just fine with the British Home Office as long as one does so approvingly: Mohammed al-Arefe was just last week admitted into Britain without any difficulty. If one believes that such violence is an Islamic imperative but opposes it, however, watch out: that is not conducive to the public good.
Thus Britain has not actually banned the truth about Islam. You can get into Britain if you believe that Islam mandates warfare against unbelievers. You just have to think warfare against unbelievers is a fine thing to pursue.
And thus the foremost lesson arising from the banning of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer is this: the unbelievers in Britain don’t stand a chance.
-
Wow :cry: :cry: :x
-
Wow :cry: :cry: :x
Americans banned from Britain based on (anti-)free speech censorship and Islamist extremism appeasement. I can't imagine what the Obama administrations' reaction to this will be, defending the Americans! Will he take back the hope and change speeches he sent to them in an unreadable format? Send back the Churchill bust - again? Worse??
-
Hahahahahaha :lol: AS IF Obama gives a damn. I'm sure he is on the exact same page as the British bureaucrat who sent this. He hates Spencer and Geller as much as any other person who criticizes Islam. Not to mention that Spencer and Geller have printed reams of damaging information about Obama on their respective blogs. Good one, Doug...
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/nytimes-model-muslim-later-endorses-sharia-america/#fm
-
Crafty: At this point I am not surprised at anything the New York Times prints. In my humble opinion, it's a rag suitable only for use as a birdcage liner. I remember this story from 2010, as I seem to recall that both Geller and Spencer linked to it as just another example of how ignorant and gullible the mainstream media is when it comes to Islam. I do not, however, think that Obama is naive on this matter. He's quite literally moving toward a totalitarian model for this nation. He views Islamists as allies in the task of dismantling and weakening the existing U.S. government and Constitution.
Mark my words - just as with other despots, Obama will not reveal his true intentions until a "trigger event" occurs (such as another massive terror attack) and he then uses that event as a justification to impose martial law. I don't believe the man has any intention of ever leaving office.
The mainstream press in this country is effectively marching itself into the gas chamber. These idiots don't realize that they will be among the first to be terrorized and told exactly what they are and are not allowed to print or broadcast. There is a reason that Chavez and Obama got along so well. Obama dreams about essentially duplicating what Chavez did in Venezuela here in the United States.
-
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/team_obama_play_date_with_jihad_umkg93Lj0fo6zguBoTOWjI
-
"Obama has announced the appointment of Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri (full name, Azizah Yahia Muhammad Toufiq al-Hibri) is a Muslim professor and the granddaughter of a Sheikh, who claims that the Koran inspired Thomas Jefferson and the Founders and that the Saudi criminal justice system is more moral than the American one because it accepts blood money from murderers."
MORE at
http://www.usdl.info/modules/news_english/item.php?itemid=1167
========================
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/02/terror-leader-awlaki-paid-thousands-for-prostitutes-in-dc-area-documents-show/#ixzz2Xu5gM4Kl
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/10/was-contentious-saudi-national-at-white-house-4th-of-july-celebration-for-military-families-see-the-pictures/
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/popular-muslim-iman-working-towards-sharia-america/#fm
-
IPT EXCLUSIVE: Pro-Morsi Rally in D.C. A Grand Deception
by Frank Spano
IPT News
July 11, 2013
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4079/ipt-exclusive-pro-morsi-rally-in-dc-a-grand
A rally outside the White House Friday offered a clear example of the Muslim Brotherhood's "Grand Deception" in action in America. To a casual observer, it appeared that a few dozen people came out to support ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Protesters shouted his name and spoke passionately about democracy and how they think it was violated in Cairo.
Signs like "We love Morsi" and "Egyptian Americans Support Democracy" made it seem Morsi was a beloved and unifying figure. In Egypt, opposition to his rule triggered massive street demonstrations considered among the largest in history.
Nobody at the White House rally mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi emerged a year ago to become president. No one referred to Morsi's attempts to monopolize power for the Brotherhood via edicts and appointments – moves that fueled widespread discontent and drove millions of protesters to the streets of Egypt.
But an examination of the rally's organizers and speakers shows deep connections to the Brotherhood, an 80-year-old religious and political movement that seeks to establish a global Islamic Caliphate governed by Shari'ah, or Islamic law. Its motto: "Allah is our goal, the Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle [jihad] is our way, and death in the service of God is the loftiest of our wishes."
The July 5 rally was organized by the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center of Falls Church, Va. mosque that has been home to some notable Islamic extremists. Law enforcement records obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism in 2010 show it has served as "a front for Hamas operatives in U.S.," and "has been linked to numerous individuals linked to terrorism financing."
It was home to the late American-born terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki before he left the United States.
9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour attended the mosque, as well as Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.
Dar al-Hijrah also has a long history of supporting both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. One of the mosque's founders and former imams, Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammed Adam el-Sheikh, also founded the Brotherhood-related Muslim American Society (MAS) along with former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef. (Reports claim that Akef was among the Muslim Brotherhood leaders arrested during the July 4 roundup.)
MAS and Dar al-Hijrah have shared several leaders. For example, former MAS President Esam Omeish served on the mosque's board of directors. Omeish had to resign from a Virginia immigration board in 2007 after he was seen on videotape praising Palestinians who chose "the jihad way" to liberation. And Imam Shaker Elsayed is a former MAS secretary-general. In a 2004 profile of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, Elsayed praised Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna, saying that his ideas are "the closest reflection of how Islam should be in this life." Earlier this year, Elsayed told an Ethiopian group that Muslim men should be "the first in jihad line."
At the White House rally, the former director of the MAS political arm, Mahdi Bray, spoke first amid chants of "Democracy!" and "[in Arabic] Wake up Al-Sisi, Morsi is President!"
"We will join our voices, we will join them together, we will join them together as Muslims, Christians, Jews, secular, wherever there are people, wherever people care about democracy and justice, we'll raise our voices together," Bray said.
Bray has repeatedly defended alleged terrorists and, during a previous rally near the White House, proudly raised his hands in support of both Hamas and Hizballah.
Joining Bray at the pro-Morsi rally was Mauri Saalakhan, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist who has defended former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and blames Israel and its supporters for a host of global problems. Like Bray, his message seemed benign.
"We don't want to see more bloodshed in Egypt," Saalakhan said. "We don't want to see more hardship in the way of how we are viewed in this country and around the world as a result of our wrongheaded policies in that part of the world."
What Saalakhan left out was that he views Hamas as a "resistance organization – whose armed resistance is legitimized by clearly established international law!" He previously appeared on Iranian television to say that Nidal Hasan's shooting massacre at Fort Hood was "not an act of terrorism, it was an act of war on the soldiers of a military installation."
Given the organizers' connections and the speakers' histories, the July 5 rally appears to be more about rallying to defend the Muslim Brotherhood than about any high-minded rhetoric about democracy. Islamists must believe they can't persuade Americans with a direct appeal, so they continue with their Grand Deception and hope no one will notice.
Frank Spano serves as the Director of National Security Policy for The Investigative Project on Terrorism.
-
Bangladesh War Crimes Trial Proceeds Without ICNA Official
IPT News
July 24, 2013
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4098/bangladesh-war-crimes-trial-proceeds-without-icna
In the United States, Ashrafuzzaman Khan ostensibly is a respected Muslim cleric, president of the Imams of America association and past secretary general of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA).
In Bangladesh, a court is hearing evidence alleging that Khan is a war criminal, someone who helped draft a list of intellectuals who would later be kidnapped and killed in the final days of the 1971 war of liberation against Pakistan.
Khan, 65, is being tried in absentia. Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal ruled last month that "there are sufficient and substantial materials" to warrant proceeding to trial against him on 11 war crimes counts.
He remains on the executive board of ICNA's New York chapter and has not commented publicly on the allegations. He is being tried along with Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, a prominent imam in the United Kingdom who helped create the Muslim Council of Britain.
The two are accused of leading a killing squad called Al-Badar, which was an offshoot of the Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami. The Islamists supported Pakistan during the war. As many as 3 million people died in battle for independence and millions more sought refuge in neighboring India. In its final days in December 1971, dozens of intellectuals – journalists, doctors, professors and others – were systematically rounded up. They were taken from their homes at gunpoint and later found in a mass grave. In some cases, the charging papers say, the bodies were never recovered.
"Al-Badar acted as 'killing squad', in furtherance of plan and policy of Pakistani occupation army," the Tribunal's prosecution wrote. Khan was the "'chief executor' of Al-Badar to the accomplishment of the barbaric crimes, in furtherance of common plan and design, with intent to paralyze the Bengali nation."
Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a documentary on Bangladesh's war of independence and the resulting atrocities which can be seen here.
Khan allegedly was on a central committee for the Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing, called Islami Chatra Sangha. The names of many victims were found in a diary found in Khan's home after he fled the country.
Khan's court-appointed attorney denies the charges, saying the Pakistani army was responsible for the killings and that Khan was never in Al-Badar.
So far, three witnesses have placed Khan at the scene of abductions:
1. Masuda Banu Ratna – whose uncle Giasuddin Ahmed was taken at gunpoint from Dhaka University – said she knew Khan and Mueen-Uddin from student political activities and recognized them when they came for her uncle. His body was found three weeks later, dumped in a mass grave.
2. Enamul Huq Khan testified that his father, a history professor, was taken from their home by a handful of men at gunpoint. He said he later was told by a man who was driving the Al-Badar squad around that Khan pulled the trigger and killed his father. He didn't know Khan at the time, but said he recognized him the following year when a newspaper published pictures of Khan and Mueen-Uddin with a caption "help to capture the killers."
3. The son of slain journalist Selina Parvin said Mueen-Uddin and Khan were among those who took her away from their home on Dec. 13, 1971.
The Tribunal has faced some criticism, and its rulings sparked violent protests led by Jamaat-e-Islami. More than 80 people died after the Tribunal sentenced Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi to death in March.
Talk of Khan being charged has circulated for years. A report also indicated that the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations was investigating Khan to determine if he failed to mention his activities when he applied for U.S. residency and naturalization.
ICNA, the organization he led, was founded by South Asian Muslims. Its constitution draws heavily from the Jamaat-e-Islami and its curriculum emphasizes writings by Jamaat founder Syed Abul Ala Maududi. Maududi advocated that Muslims "must strive to change the wrong basis of government, and seize all powers to rule and make laws from those who do not fear God."
Khan offered a similar sentiment in greeting people to ICNA's 1999 convention. Muslims, he wrote in the convention program, "have a culture and civilization which once ruled the world and still has the viability to rule the world again."
Khan has not publicly addressed the charges against him and ICNA has not commented since last month's charges were accepted. In a March statement, it dismissed the tribunal's existence as a purely political effort "to silence opposition figures" and said its actions amount to human rights violations. Mueen-Uddin has posted a statement denying all the charges against him and ridiculing the Tribunal.
It is unclear what happens if Khan is convicted. The United States has no extradition treaty with Bangladesh, and U.S. Ambassador for Global Justice Stephen J. Rapp has been among those taking issue with some of the Tribunal's standards. If the United States is satisfied with the evidence, or even if it can be proven that Khan was a part of Al-Badar and failed to disclose that fact on immigration papers, his interaction with the courts may be just beginning.
-
Pamela Geller: Jesus vs. Muhammad – scholarship vs. propaganda
Posted by Robert Spencer - July 25, 2013 - jihadwatch.org
In "Jesus vs. Muhammad – scholarship vs. propaganda" at WND today, Pamela Geller compares the media treatment of my book about the historicity of Muhammad and Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan's about the historicity of Jesus:
It is critical to point out a small but stunning example of the low state of legitimate public discourse today.
Not so long ago, Robert Spencer, one of the world’s leading scholars on Islam, wrote an extraordinary book entitled “Did Muhammad Exist?” It was a brilliant, original and scholarly work investigating the legitimate questions surrounding the historical value of the early Islamic texts about Muhammad. Spencer pulled together information from ancient documents with linguistic and archaeological data in a remarkable re-evaluation of Islam’s origins.
Robert Spencer is a writer without peer and a nonpareil scholar, the author of 12 books on Islam, jihad and related topics, including two New York Times bestsellers. Yet “Did Muhammad Exist?” was ignored and dismissed by the intelligentsia, the media elite and subversive academia.
Juxtapose that to the recent adulation heaped upon the Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan for his new book. Aslan is an advisory board member of the National Iranian American Council, which has been recently exposed in court as a lobbying group for the Iranian regime. He has smeared and lied about Spencer and me on national television, and responded to Spencer’s reasoned rebuttals with homophobic abuse worthy of a seventh-grader: “I must tell you that I’m flattered but you’re really not my type. … If I send you a picture, will that satisfy your lust for a while?”
In March 2012, a Muslim woman, Shaima Alawadi, was found murdered with a note next to her body saying that she should go back where she came from. Aslan immediately accused Spencer and me of inciting the murder, tweeting a semi-literate rant: “If a 32 yr old veiled mother is a terrorist than [sic] so am I you Islamophobic f–ks Gellar [sic] Spencer et. [sic] al. Come find me.”
Recently this immature creep wrote a book (or more likely, had it written for him) about Jesus, with the pejorative title “Zealot.” The enemedia machine is in full throttle to deliver this seditious hater a bestseller. In what can only have been inspired by the Goebbels template, Reza Aslan will not only be on the Bill Maher show and “The Daily Show,” but this subversive lowlife will be speaking at universities like NYU, Ohio State and the University of Southern California, as well as at numerous public libraries and (gasp) synagogues like Temple Judea in Palm Beach, at upwards of $30,000 a pop. Despite denying basic Christian doctrines, he is speaking at several churches and even preaching the Sunday sermon at one.
You should ask yourself, how did we get here? How can a reasonable, educated and pre-eminent scholar like Robert Spencer be relegated to the very fringe (if that) of the literary world, while jihadist operatives like the vicious Reza Aslan are carried on the shoulders of the media and intelligentsia like a football hero at the end of an impossibly fought game.
Who would have imagined that 12 years after 9/11 the media and academic elite would laud this pro-nuclear Khomeinist? He is funded by who knows who, and he employs vicious trolls who spend their days spreading libel and defamation about Spencer and other freedom fighters, much the way the wicked witch of the west used the flying monkeys – and they, too, are very well paid.
Remember also: Spencer’s book was accurately and forthrightly entitled, “Did Muhammad Exist?” It’s a legitimate question, even though on the BBC recently an interviewer tried to badger Spencer into admitting that there was something wrong, and offensive to Muslims, with even investigating this historical question. Reza Aslan, on the other hand, refers negatively to Jesus in his title as “Zealot.” Clearly, Robert could have entitled his book “Pedophile,” because we know that Muhammad’s favorite wife was taken at the age of 6 and that their “marriage” was consummated when the Muslim prophet was 54 and she was 9. Spencer could also have called his book “Annihilator,” because we know that Muhammad slaughtered an entire Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayza, by beheading. Surely Spencer exercised restraint in not entitling his book “Bloody Warmonger.” Any of these would have been the equivalent of Aslan’s title “Zealot.”
But although Spencer didn’t entitle his book any of those things, and “Did Muhammad Exist?” is a straightforward, dispassionate historical investigation, the media treated it as if it were the one that was designed solely to denigrate and disparage the founder of a religion. That is not true of Spencer’s book, but it is true of Aslan’s screed “Zealot.” Yet the media never comment on the derogatory title of Aslan’s book. It is just fine with the media to speak negatively about Jesus, deny his historicity, deny his importance, denigrate his teachings and more. But any true word that is spoken about Muhammad, whether it be about how he is depicted in Islamic texts or about the historical value of those texts, is viciously attacked.
Those who are doing the attacking will one day fall victim to the very ideology that they are fronting for today. Subversives like Reza Aslan, when they’re through counting their millions, will make sure of that.
Posted by Robert on July 24, 2013 2:12 PM
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/354351/huma-unmentionables-andrew-c-mccarthy
The Corner
The one and only.
The Huma Unmentionables
By Andrew C. McCarthy
July 24, 2013 4:58 PM
Charlotte’s revulsion over Huma Abedin’s calculated “stand by your man” routine is surely right. Still, it is amazing, as we speculate about Ms. Abedin’s political future, that the elephant in the room goes unnoticed, or at least studiously unmentioned.
Sorry to interrupt the Best Enabler of a Sociopath Award ceremony but, to recap, Ms. Abedin worked for many years at a journal that promotes Islamic-supremacist ideology that was founded by a top al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef ran the Rabita Trust, a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under American law. Ms. Abedin and Naseef overlapped at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA) for at least seven years. Throughout that time (1996–2003), Ms. Abdein worked for Hillary Clinton in various capacities.
Ms. Abedin’s late father, Dr. Zyed Abedin, was recruited by Naseef to run the JMMA in Saudi Arabia. The journal was operated under the management of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, a virulently anti-Semitic and sharia-supremacist organization. When Dr. Abedin died, editorial control of the journal passed to his wife, Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin — Huma’s mother.
Saleha Abedin is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and to supporters of violent jihad. Among other things, she directs an organization – the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child. The IICWC, through its parent entity (the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief), is a component of the Union for Good (also known as the Union of Good), another formally designated terrorist organization. The Union for Good is led by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the notorious Muslim Brotherhood jurist who has issued fatwas calling for the killing of American military and support personnel in Iraq as well as suicide bombings in Israel. (As detailed here, the Obama White House recently hosted Qaradawi’s principal deputy, Sheikh Abdulla bin Bayyah, who also endorsed the fatwa calling for the killing of U.S. troops and personnel in Iraq.)
Like Sheikh Qaradawi, who helped write the charter for the IICWC, Saleha Abedin is an influential sharia activist who has, for example, published a book called Women in Islam that claims man-made laws enslave women. It reportedly provides sharia justifications for such practices as female-genital mutilation, the death penalty for apostates from Islam, the legal subordination of women, and the participation of women in violent jihad. Dr. Abedin has nevertheless been hailed in the progressive press as a “leading voice on women’s rights in the Muslim world” (to quote Foreign Policy). What they never quite get around to telling you is that this means “women’s rights” in the repressive sharia context.
Back to daughter Huma. In the late mid to late Nineties, while she was an intern at the Clinton White House and an assistant editor at JMMA, Ms. Abedin was a member of the executive board of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at George Washington University, heading its “Social Committee.” The MSA, which has a vast network of chapters at universities across North America, is the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s infrastructure in the United States. Obviously, not every Muslim student who joins the MSA graduates to the Brotherhood — many join for the same social and networking reasons that cause college students in general to join campus organizations. But the MSA does have an indoctrination program, which Sam Tadros describes as a lengthy process of study and service that leads to Brotherhood membership — a process “designed to ensure with absolute certainty that there is conformity to the movement’s ideology and a clear adherence to its leadership’s authority.” The MSA gave birth to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the largest Islamist organization in the U.S. Indeed the MSA and ISNA consider themselves the same organization. Because of its support for Hamas (a designated terrorist organization that is the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch), ISNA was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, in which several Hamas operatives were convicted of providing the terrorist organization with lavish financing.
As I’ve recounted before, the MSA chapter to which Ms. Abedin belonged at George Washington University
has an intriguing history. In 2001 [to be clear, that is after Ms. Abedin had graduated from GWU], its spiritual guide was . . . Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda operative who was then ministering to some of the eventual 9/11 suicide-hijackers. Awlaki himself had led the MSA chapter at Colorado State University in the early nineties. As Patrick Poole has demonstrated, Awlaki is far from the only jihadist to hone his supremacist ideology in the MSA’s friendly confines. In the eighties, Wael Jalaidan ran the MSA at the University of Arizona. He would soon go on to help Osama bin Laden found al-Qaeda; he also partnered with the Abedin family’s patron, Abdullah Omar Naseef, to establish the [aforementioned] Rabita Trust — formally designated as a terrorist organization under U.S. law due to its funding of al-Qaeda.
Ms. Abedin served as one of Secretary of State Clinton’s top staffers and advisers at the State Department. As I’ve previously detailed, during that time, the State Department strongly supported abandoning the federal government’s prior policy against official dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood. State, furthermore, embraced a number of Muslim Brotherhood positions that undermine both American constitutional rights and our alliance with Israel. To name just a few manifestations of this policy sea change:
The State Department had an emissary in Egypt who trained operatives of the Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations in democracy procedures.
The State Department announced that the Obama administration would be “satisfied” with the election of a Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government in Egypt.
Secretary Clinton personally intervened to reverse a Bush-administration ruling that barred Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder and son of one of its most influential early leaders, from entering the United States.
The State Department collaborated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of governments heavily influenced by the Brotherhood, in seeking to restrict American free-speech rights in deference to sharia proscriptions against negative criticism of Islam.
The State Department excluded Israel, the world’s leading target of terrorism, from its “Global Counterterrorism Forum,” a group that brings the United States together with several Islamist governments, prominently including its co-chair, Turkey — which now finances Hamas and avidly supports the flotillas that seek to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas. At the forum’s kickoff, Secretary Clinton decried various terrorist attacks and groups; but she did not mention Hamas or attacks against Israel — in transparent deference to the Islamist governments, which echo the Brotherhood’s position that Hamas is not a terrorist organization and that attacks against Israel are not terrorism.
The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer $1.5 billion dollars in aid to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in the parliamentary elections.
The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian territories notwithstanding that Gaza is ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch.
The State Department and the administration hosted a contingent from Egypt’s newly elected parliament that included not only Muslim Brotherhood members but a member of the Islamic Group (Gamaa al-Islamiyya), which is formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The State Department refused to provide Americans with information about the process by which it issued a visa to a member of a designated terrorist organization, about how the members of the Egyptian delegation were selected, or about what security procedures were followed before the delegation was allowed to enter our country.
On a trip to Egypt, Secretary Clinton pressured General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the military junta then governing the country, to surrender power to the parliament dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the then–newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, a top Brotherhood official. She also visited with Morsi; immediately after his victory, Morsi had proclaimed that his top priorities included pressuring the United States to release the Blind Sheikh. Quite apart from the Brotherhood’s self-proclaimed “grand jihad” to destroy the United States . . . the group’s supreme guide, Mohammed Badie, publicly called for jihad against the United States in an October 2010 speech. After it became clear the Brotherhood would win the parliamentary election, Badie said the victory was a stepping stone to “the establishment of a just Islamic caliphate.”
As more recent events remind us, this is not an exhaustive account of Obama-administration coziness with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is just some of the lowlights.
When a handful of House conservatives tried to draw the attention of the State Department’s inspector general to some of these matters – wondering how on earth someone with Ms. Abdein’s background could have qualified for a top-secret security clearance – they were castigated by the Obama White House and the Beltway Republican establishment. As reaffirmed in the last 24 hours, Ms. Abedin’s connections to prominent Islamic-supremacist figures and groups are deemed unsuitable for public discussion – Egyptians may be able to eject the Muslim Brotherhood, but in today’s Washington it is raising questions about the Muslim Brotherhood that gets you run out of town.
Naturally, what did get Washington chattering was a scandal far more typical in Clinton circles — the lucrative arrangement Ms. Abedin struck with Mrs. Clinton’s State Department that allowed her, after returning from maternity leave, to draw a $135,000 State Department salary while remaining in New York, not actually working at Foggy Bottom, and moonlighting as a “strategic consultant” for an outfit called Teneo – founded by Bill Clinton’s chum Doug Band.
What a racket. The marriage to Huma Abedin, a Clinton insider, enables Anthony Weiner to resurrect a debased career and deflect attention from his psychotic antics even as he continues them. The marriage to Anthony Weiner, a prominent Jewish progressive, enables Huma Abedin to deflect attention from her associations with various Islamic supremacists even as, during her tenure as a top State Department official, American policy embraces Islamic supremacists.
But let’s not discuss that.
-
http://gawker.com/5932420/joplin-missouris-only-mosque-burns-to-the-ground-arson-suspected
-
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/09/06/mayor-dhimmi-bloomberg-has-turned-new-york-into-a-sharia-compliant-city/
-
Kuwait Funding Muslim Brotherhood Growth in Western Mosques
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
September 13, 2013
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4160/kuwait-funding-muslim-brotherhood-growth-in
The completion of a new mosque in Amsterdam is doing more than opening the doors of worship to Dutch Muslims; it is opening new windows into unexpected avenues of terrorist financing and funding for the growth of radical Islam in the West.
For years, Western counterterrorism officials and pundits have expressed concern about the sponsorship of European and American mosques, Islamic schools, and other Muslim organizations by the Saudi government in efforts to its own extremist version of Islam, Wahhabism. Wahhabis adhere to strict, literal interpretations of the Quran and defend the use of violence against those who do not – Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Now, however, it seems we've been so focused on the Saudis, we may have missed a potentially even greater source of radicalization, and certainly a fast-growing one: the Muslim Brotherhood. And the government of Kuwait, with ties to al-Qaida groups and Hamas, appears to be among the largest financiers of Brotherhood infiltration into Europe.
This is where the Amsterdam mosque comes in. Located in the largely Muslim neighborhood of Sloterdijk, the Blue Mosque has been the subject of controversy in the Dutch press since its conception. A report that the government of Kuwait was paying salaries to its imam and other officers recently propelled the mosque – and its organization – into the headlines. Those reports have since been challenged, but the gist of them remains true: through a pan-European organization called the Europe Trust, Kuwait is tying Dutch and other European Muslims directly into the Muslim Brotherhood via complex financial, non-profit and religious networks that stretch from Spain to Ireland – and across the Atlantic to New York.
Based in the UK, the Europe Trust is funded largely by Kuwait (with help from the UAE-based Makhtoum Foundation, about which, more later), and, according to the Middle East Quarterly, "channels money from the Persian Gulf to groups sympathetic to the Brotherhood in Europe, primarily to build mosques." Indeed, the Blue Mosque was funded entirely by Kuwait, working through the offices of the Europe Trust Nederland (ETN). Others have tied the Europe Trust to the Brotherhood as well; but particularly notable is the fact that the Trust is led by Ahmed Al-Rawi, a UK-based Muslim Brotherhood leader, and Nooh al Kaddo, a Dublin-based Iraqi who runs the Islamic Cultural Center of Ireland (ICCI), well known as a Brotherhood institution. The ICCI also houses the European Council of Fatwa and Research, whose director, the Egyptian cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi, has reportedly "defended suicide bombing and advocated the death sentence for homosexuals, according to the Irish Independent. (Kaddo, for his part, defends Qaradawi, describing his views in the Independent as "representative of Islamic teachings and not assumed to be a violation of same.")
But here's what else: al-Kaddo, who serves as a trustee of the Hamas-linked charity, Human Appeal International, also directs the largest mosque in Western Europe: the Al Salam mosque in Rotterdam, a controversial monument whose 50-meter high minarets form the highest point in the city. And like the ICCI, Al Salam (also known as Essalam) was financed entirely by Hamdan ben Rashid Al-Makhtoum, deputy ruler of Dubai and (conveniently) UAE Minister of Finance. Makhtoum, as it happens, also is a generous donor to Hamas-linked CAIR in the U.S. (The Sheik has also provided funds for other European mosques.)
Thirty-five miles away, Amsterdam's Blue Mosque also has al-Kaddo to thank for his efforts to secure the money that built it – an achievement made possible in part through his affiliation with Yahia Bouyafa, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Netherlands and director (among other things) of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in the Netherlands (FION). FION, in turn, is a member of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) – which the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report identifies as a Brotherhood umbrella group that also embraces al-Kaddo's Europe Trust – and thus the Al Salam mosque in Rotterdam.
All in the same web. But there's more.
According to a fact sheet published by the Blue Mosque itself, a partnership developed early in the planning stages placed the ETN and FION – or al-Kaddo and Bouyafa – in charge of raising funds for the building. Bouyafa approached Kuwait's Ministry of Religious Affairs. But when his proposal was rejected, another local imam, Yassin Elforkani – suspected of ties to the Brotherhood – was called in to take over. With a few clever alterations to the construction and financing plan, Elforkani convinced Kuwait to provide the needed €2 million.
But with Kuwait now owning the building, sponsoring the ETN, and with extensive ties to Kaddo and Bouyafa (who has regularly exchanged places with Elforkani as director of FION and of the mosque board), the next step was inevitable: the appointment of Kuwaiti Minister for Religious Affairs (Awaqf) Mutlaq al-Qarawi, as chairman of the European Trust Nederland.
This means that one of the most active Muslim organizations in the Netherlands is now led not by a Dutch citizen, not even by a Dutch-speaking foreign imam, but by the government of Kuwait. More specifically, the Trust now sits in the hands of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Religious Affairs, which takes as its mandate spread of Islam to nonbelievers (dawah).
The Europe Trust has also not limited itself to Northern Europe: the NEFA Foundation has tied the group to properties in France, Greece, Romania, and Germany, where, NEFA notes, "funds for real estate purchased […] on behalf of a German Islamic association also came from the Makhtoum Foundation as well as the Awaqf Ministry [Ministry of Religious Affairs] in Kuwait and the Bayt al-Zakat in Dubai."
If all this sounds remote for Americans, too far across the oceans to matter very much, think again. According to a 2003 statement from former National Security and Counter-terrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, "several Al Qida operatives have allegedly been associated with the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood," including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramsi Yousef, a key figure in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
What's more, Clarke testified, "The Kuwaiti government allegedly provides substantial funding to charities controlled by the Kuwait Muslim Brotherhood, such as Lajnat al-Dawa. The U.S. Department of Treasury and the United Nations Security Council designated Lajnat al-Dawa on January 9, 2003 as a supporter of Al Qida. Lajnat al-Dawa and its affiliates had offices in the U.S. in Michigan, Colorado, and Northern Virginia."
If that's not enough, cables published by Wikileaks regarding the problems of policing money flowing to terrorist groups are even more damning. The New York Times summed up a series of these cables, which described Kuwait, the only Gulf country where terrorist funding has not been criminalized, as "a key transit point."
Other ties have been suggested between U.S. mosques and the Brotherhood, most notably the renowned Islamic Cultural Center in New York, founded by Egyptian-born
Muhammad Abdul Rauf – father of former Ground Zero Mosque/Park51 imam Faisal Rauf – and funded in large measure by the Kuwaiti government.
Meanwhile, al-Kaddo, with continuing support from the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, is gathering funds for even more mosques throughout Europe. While the ETN, he insists, does not define the positions of those mosques, it does use its power to hire, appoint, and fire each mosque's officers and imams – all carefully selected from an inside Brotherhood group – and many of whom have ties to Hamas or al-Qaida.
With Europe now becoming one of the richest resources for Islamic jihad, and with the free ability of its citizens to travel visa-free to the United States, the threat a growing, radicalized European Brotherhood network poses is a lot closer than it seems.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands.
-
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/428995/september-11-2013/barack-obama-s-footgate---secret-muslim-code
Obama's crescents.
-
Umm BD, , , was that really worthy of our attention?
-
Is this the proper American Muslim response to jihad in America?
By Pamela Geller - October 23, 2013 - www.americanthinker.com
On Friday, October 11, a Muslim convert who calls himself Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum was taken off a terror-bound bus in California and arrested for aiding and abetting the jihadi group al-Qaeda. Another Muslim busted for jihad in America.
This is hardly new or unique. We see these reports daily. Muslims and converts to Islam wage jihad in the cause of Islam. They cite the Quran, chapter and verse. Muslims worldwide continue the 1,400-year-old war to impose Islam across the world -- all citing the same Islamic texts and teachings.
There is a problem in Islam.
So what is the response of the Muslim community?
On the same day that Hassan Abu Omar Ghannoum was arrested, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California issued a statement: "We share the collective concern for the safety of our communities and security of our nation." However, it went on to say: "We ask that law enforcement officials and members of the media refrain from assuming that the alleged criminal's wrongful conduct, if any, was a product of his self-proclaimed faith or associations with members of the southern California Muslim community."
Obfuscation, cover-up, and deceit. The bottom line is that they know exactly what Ghannoum is doing and why. Ghannoum's brother said that after converting to Islam, Ghannoum had gone to Lebanon to learn more about the religion: "He wanted to view more of the religious things. Firsthand experience." His sister said that he went to Syria to study the Quran. While there, he began posting on Facebook about how he was fighting alongside the jihad forces there, bragging about his "first confirmed kill" and writing: "So pumped to get more!!"
The Islamic Shura Council of Southern California never mentioned the possibility that Ghannoum's study of the Quran inspired him to wage jihad. They just warned everyone else not to consider that possibility. Did the Shura Council call for the expunging in the Quran of the violent texts that call for jihad? No.
We never see that from Muslim groups. What we do see is this Islamic pattern of stealth jihad. Muslim Brotherhood groups issue pro-forma, fill-in-the-blank condemnations after jihadi attacks or arrests (e.g., the Boston bombing), but they never address the Islamic texts that inspire jihad -- nor do they attempt to organize programs that intervene in the recruitment of young Muslims or Muslim converts to jihad. What are the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, CAIR, ICNA, ISNA, et al. doing to stop the mosques preaching and teaching jihad? Nothing. Instead, these Muslim groups urge Muslims not to talk to law enforcement (as with the notorious CAIR poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI), and they seek to dismantle counter-terror programs in the USA.
Why isn't the Muslim community trying to reform Islam? Why aren't Muslim groups shutting down mosques that teach and preach jihad? What mosque did Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum attend?
And this isn't the only example of Muslim groups' denial and obfuscation. The United Muslim Nations International (UMNI) group asked the South African media to stop using terms like "Islamist" to describe jihad attacks such as the recent one in Nairobi's Westgate Mall. South African Muslim leader Ganief Hendricks said that "the biased terminology of editors" was "not helpful," and added: "What happened in Nairobi, in the mall attack, may have been a bank robbery gone wrong, using Islam as a cover-up."
Here again we see Islamic supremacism even among the "moderates." Why is UMNI asking the media not to use terms like "Islamist"? So as not to incite jihad? The jihadists can separate the victims by religion in the Nairobi Westgate Mall, and Muslims are released (and this is not new; we saw this in Algeria, Mumbai, etc.) but the non-Muslims are tortured and killed, but the media can't use the word Islam?
Victims at the mall had to say an Islamic prayer and give Muhammad's mother's name, but the media cannot report events as they took place.
Why is the Muslim world asking this of the media? Why isn't the Muslim world taking this up among its own ranks? Why isn't the Muslim world looking inward to reformation, to address the daily acts of jihad in the cause of Islam?
Further, the word "Islamist" itself is already a concession. Think about it. Do we use "Christianist" (outside a few rabid leftists)? Judaist? Essentially, what does it mean to say that someone or something is "Islamist" as opposed to "Islamic"? Nothing, really, except that the person speaking doesn't want to offend Islam by speaking unwelcome truths about the political nature of the religion.
I have been called the most vile names, and let me assure you that it never entered my mind to respond violently. The idea that the kuffar are responsible for the violence of jihadists is an Islamic supremacist concept.
AFDI has issued an 18-point platform for defeating jihad in America. If Muslim groups in the U.S. were genuinely "moderate," they'd endorse every point. Instead, they smear us as "Islamophobes." It's telling.
Pamela Geller is the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of AtlasShrugs.com, and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here.
-
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ryan-mauro/muslim-brotherhood-on-campus-your-tax-dollars-at-work/
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/senior-homeland-security-advisor-america-islamic-country
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/how-muslim-brotherhood-winning-america
-
Yet another thread hits 100,000 reads 8-) 8-) 8-)
-
Conan O'Brien Discovers Muslim Polygamy is no Joke
Robert Spencer - PJ Media - November 12, 2013
Late night comic Conan O’Brien tweeted Friday night: “Marvel Comics is introducing a new Muslim Female superhero. She has so many more special powers than her husband’s other wives.” The predictable self-righteous firestorm ensued.
O’Brien was referring to “Kamala Khan,” Marvel Comics’ new Muslim superhero, unveiled with great fanfare last week. They are only introducing this Muslim superhero because of the hugely successful post-9/11 campaign by Islamic supremacists and their Leftist allies to portray Muslims as victims of “Islamophobia” and “hatred” — when actually the incidence of attacks on innocent Muslims is very low (not that a single one is acceptable or justified), and the entire “Islamophobia” campaign is an attempt to intimidate people into thinking that there is something wrong with fighting against jihad terror and Islamic supremacism.
Will Kamala Khan fight against jihadis? Will Marvel be introducing a counter-jihad superhero? I expect that the answer is no on both counts.
In any case, O’Brien’s tweet was just a silly quip, but as the Ayatollah Khomeini said, “There is no humor in Islam.” One of those who were offended wrote: “I didn’t know that @ConanOBrien had Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller writing for him now. Interesting.” A legion of Leftists descended upon O’Brien’s Twitter feed, accusing him of being a “f***ing racist scumbag” and “Islamophobic,” and his joke of being “kinda tasteless”; “really ignorant and terrible”; “in very poor taste”; and “f***ing gross and racist.”
“Racist”? What race is Muslim polygamy again? I keep forgetting. O’Brien’s joke has a factual basis. The Qur’an says: “And if you fear that you will not deal justly with the orphan girls, then marry those that please you of [other] women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then [marry only] one or those your right hand possesses. That is more suitable that you may not incline [to injustice].” (4:3)
But as O’Brien is discovering now, calling attention to uncomfortable truths about Islam is “racist” and wrong, even if they’re undeniably…truths. I am sure that Conan O’Brien will not make this mistake again: almost immediately after people began criticizing him for it, he took the offending tweet down. After all, he wants to stay on television; bringing uncomfortable aspects of Islam to light is quickest way to be read out of polite and decent society. Just ask Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, formerly darlings of the Leftist intelligentsia — until they touched that third rail of American public discourse and dared to criticize the violence and brutality that Islamic jihadists commit and justify by reference to Islamic texts and teachings.
Polygamy devalues women, reducing them to the status of commodities, and stands as an affront to their equality with men as human beings. But none of the enlightened Leftists condemning Conan O’Brien for his little joke would dare speak out for the Muslim women who suffer in polygamous arrangements; to do so would be “Islamophobic,” “racist,” and probably “gross.”
This strange stigmatizing of those who speak out against what is manifestly a legitimate human rights issue is testimony to the effectiveness of the global campaign that Islamic supremacist groups have been carrying out for years to deflect attention away from the reality of Islamic jihad, and to clear away obstacles standing in the way of that jihad. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, has for years been pressing at the UN for resolutions criminalizing criticism of Islam. It routinely ignores how Islamic jihadists quote the Qur’an and invoke Muhammad to justify violence and terrorism, but cries “Islamophobia” when non-Muslims quote those jihadis quoting the Qur’an and invoking Muhammad.
They want to fool people into thinking that non-Muslim “Islamophobes” are responsible for “linking Islam with terrorism,” when actually the ones doing that linking are the jihadis. The objective is to intimidate non-Muslims into thinking that it is “bigoted” and “hateful” to discuss the Islamic motives and goals of jihadis, much less to resist them — so that those jihadis can do their work unopposed and unimpeded.
In the same way, when Conan O’Brien calls attention, in the most light-hearted and glancing way, to the reality of Muslim polygamy, the attention of the fatuous and self-important Left (but I repeat myself) focuses not on the oppression of women under Islamic law, but on Conan O’Brien as “Islamophobic.” The lesson has been reinforced so relentlessly and repeatedly over so long a period now that neither the OIC nor any other Islamic supremacist entity has to utter a word condemning Conan O’Brien before Twitter lights up with condemnations of him from Leftist non-Muslims. They don’t have to ask their instructions any more.
They know: any negative word about the oppression of women in Islam, and indeed, any negative word at all about jihad terror or Islamic supremacism in general, is “racist” and to be rejected with all the scorn and indignation one can muster. Last year I had a very illuminating lunch with a Leftist writer who has attacked me numerous times for “Islamophobia.” In the course of conversation, I asked him if he thought there was a jihad threat at all. He admitted that there was, but claimed that I had wildly exaggerated it.
Very well, I responded, and posited a hypothetical: what would he do if the jihadis really did start mounting attacks in the U.S. with the regularity of their attacks in, say, Nigeria or Thailand? What if Islamic supremacists began demanding accommodations to Islamic law that plainly contradicted Constitutional freedoms? He responded that he thought that if those things happened, people of good will on the Left would stand up and offer resistance.
But he was wrong. They won’t. Because they have been taught for years that any criticism of Islamic jihad terror and oppression, no matter how accurate, no matter how mild, is that most abhorrent of things, “racism.” And so they will most likely accept their subjugation with bland and self-satisfied complacency: they’re subjugated dhimmis in the smoking ruins of a once-great society, but at least they weren’t “Islamophobes.” I hope that if this happens, Conan O’Brien will be ready with an apposite quip – right before he is led away to the reeducation camp.
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/American-Muslim-Women-Not%20Immune-Islamist-Abuse
-
New Year's morning is usually a quiet time in downtown Minneapolis, sometimes chosen for the scheduled implosion of vacant old building. Yesterday at 8am and 4 below a building of Somali immigrants exploded. MSP has the most Somalis anywhere outside of Mogadishu. Some have ties to al Qaida. A few were tied to the Kenyan mall massacre. So far, this is just a fire. The FBI is looking into it.
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/01/01/article-2532201-1A608CCE00000578-723_634x359.jpg)
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/01/01/article-2532201-1A60763300000578-638_634x420.jpg)
-
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/03/04/cair-tx-director-says-muslims-are-above-the-law-of-the-land/
-
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/01/14/teen-felt-degraded-after-teacher-divided-aikido-classes-by-gender-following-male-students-religious-request/
-
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/01/14/teen-felt-degraded-after-teacher-divided-aikido-classes-by-gender-following-male-students-religious-request/
This is where the left consumes itself.
-
I'm curious GM. If this were to happen in the US what do you think the proper result should be?
-
The proper response is if you want to live under sharia, pack your stuff and head towards the 3 rd shiite hole of your choice.
-
Translating that, you are of the opinion, that a private business should have the right to establish its policies and customs as it sees fit?
What if there is discriminatory intent?
-
First-Class Islam: Eric Holder Puts Muslims Above Terror Suspicion
Posted By Timothy Furnish On January 28, 2014 @ pjmedia.com
From 2008 to 2011, I was a guest lecturer at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (the primary DHS training facility, located in coastal Georgia) and at Joint Special Operations University (which brings foreign officers to learn of U.S. irregular warfare, located in Tampa). At both venues I was asked to lecture on the history of terrorism.
I did so in an even-handed and comprehensive manner, exploring the issue across place (Europe to East Asia), time (ancient Assyria to al-Qaeda), and ideology (religious: pagan, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim; and political: right-wing, left-wing, anarchist, environmentalist, etc.). Only 14 of the 44 PowerPoint screens in my presentation dealt with Islamic terrorism, although several of those actually mitigated against the concept.
Nonetheless, in June 2009 I was told that I could no longer lecture at FLETC, because the edict had come down from the new Obama administration that “no trainer who uses the term ‘jihad’ shall henceforth be used.” (This was over two years before the Obama administration was openly hostile to realistic training about Islam [1].)
JSOU continued to utilize me until late 2011, when I was told by the course instructor that Muslim student officers had complained that “I talked too much about Islamic terrorism.”
I was actually surprised that I had not been yanked the year before, when references to Islam and jihad were stricken [2] from Obama’s kinder, gentler National Security Strategy document. That same year, noted Islamic studies expert Eric Holder told the House Judiciary Committee [3] that foiled Islamic suicide bombers in the U.S. were motivated by “Islam that is not consistent with” that religion’s “true teachings.”
Now, the Obama administration — led by Holder — has decided that Islam is a “race,” [4] and therefore to examine or even to adduce a Muslim’s Islamic beliefs about jihad [5], beheading [6], violence against kuffar [7] (“infidels”), or re-establishing a caliphate [8] is tantamount to racism. This administration behavior is rationalized because “federal authorities have in particular singled out Muslims in counter terrorism investigations and Latinos for immigration investigations.”
It is difficult to express just how willfully ignorant of reality these statements and accompanying policies are.
Per the immigration example: as over 80% of “undocumented aliens” are from Mexico or another Latin American country [9], it would be foolish, indeed delusionary, to ignore that fact. The same logic applies to directing extra scrutiny towards individuals who hold a set of beliefs that may predispose them to violence against others not of that belief system.
And that is the primary point: Islam is a belief system. Not a race.
Muslims can be of any skin, Bosnian or Turkish, Nigerian, Saudi, Chinese. If American, Muslims can perhaps be of several nationalities. This is equally if not more true of Christians, who can be white Finns, black Ethiopians, brown Lebanese, or Koreans, to name but a few examples. It is not possible to look at someone (sans distinctive clothing) and ascertain whether he or she is Muslim or Christian — or secularist, for that matter.
Advocacy groups and willing dupes in the media and Democrat Party — like Senator Dick Durbin — have foolishly yet successfully conflated race and ideology in the case of only one religion, Islam. They have made examining the latter tantamount to discrimination against the former. No one ever argues that singling out Christians for repression because they hold politically incorrect views about gay marriage or abortion amounts to “racism.”
Beyond the obvious fact that beliefs do not constitute a race, Holder et al. are massively wrong to deny the clear link between certain Islamic beliefs and terrorism.
Currently there are 57 groups on the U.S. State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization list [10]; 38 of these are stridently Islamic in ideology and goals. Ten of these are secular/Leftist, six are nationalist, one is anarchist, and one each is Jewish and Christian. (The latter one — the Japanese, sarin gas-using Aum Shinrikyo — is at best only nominally Christian, and better described as generically apocalyptic.)
So: 67% of the world’s terrorist groups as recognized by the U.S. (more, actually, if State were honest and comprehensive; they should includee Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria, etc.) are Muslim.
Since 9/11, 82% of U.S. Department of Justice terrorism convictions have been of Muslims, despite the fact that Muslims comprise less than 1% of the American population. (I accessed this data some time ago; it has since mysteriously disappeared from the DOJ website [11].)
The University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database [12] tracks terrorism incidents from 1970 to today: search for “Islam” and you find almost 5,000 entries. Search for “Christianity” and you will find a grand total of 14.
The NSA could probably save a lot of money — as well as abide by the Constitution — if it simply acknowledged the following:
A person with neither a first nor a last Muslim name stood only a 1 in 500,000 chance of being a suspected terrorist. The likelihood for a person with a first or a last Muslim name was 1 in 30,000. For a person with first and last Muslim names, however, the likelihood jumped to 1 in 2,000 (Levitt & Dubner, Super Freakonomics, 2009, p. 93).
Clearly, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Islam is the world’s major ideological motivator of terrorism and violence. (I have neither the time, nor the patience, to yet again demonstrate the legitimate Islamic roots of violence. Ray Ibrahim’s brilliant article [13] should be all the proof needed for those able to handle the truth.) Yet Eric Holder and his boss would have the federal authorities most responsible for protecting the public — led by the FBI — pretend that up is down, freedom is slavery, and Islam is peaceful except when “twisted” by a “handful of extremists.”
Instead of ardent Islamic beliefs being treated as a clear marker for potential terrorism, they are now a talisman [14] protecting the holder not just from scrutiny, but suspicion.
Obama and Holder are transforming the U.S. into a dhimmi nation: one that cowers before Islamic law and demands that its non-Muslim citizens — especially its 240 million Christians — meekly accept their second-class status and never broach the glaringly obvious fact of Islamic violence, even if this means making all non-Muslims less safe. The question for those of us in the majority, then: just how long will we put up with such a dangerous policy?
Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/first-class-islam-eric-holder-puts-muslims-above-terror-suspicion/
URLs in this post:
[1] Obama administration was openly hostile to realistic training about Islam: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/21/obama-administration-pulls-references-to-islam-from-terror-training-materials-official-says/
[2] when references to Islam and jihad were stricken: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/07/obama-bans-islam-jihad-national-security-strategy-document/
[3] Eric Holder told the House Judiciary Committee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOQt_mP6Pgg
[4] has decided that Islam is a “race,”: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/us/politics/us-to-expand-rules-limiting-use-of-profiling-by-federal-agents.html?_r=0
[5] jihad: http://www.meforum.org/357/what-does-jihad-mean
[6] beheading: http://www.meforum.org/713/beheading-in-the-name-of-islam
[7] violence against kuffar: http://www.meforum.org/3545/islam-hatred-non-muslim
[8] re-establishing a caliphate: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/02/gathering-clouds-here/
[9] 80% of “undocumented aliens” are from Mexico or another Latin American country: http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/44.pdf
[10] U.S. State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization list: http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm
[11] mysteriously disappeared from the DOJ website: http://www.justice.gov/cjs/docs/terrorism-convictions-statistics.html
[12] Global Terrorism Database: http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/about/
[13] Ray Ibrahim’s brilliant article: http://www.meforum.org/2159/are-judaism-and-christianity-as-violent-as-islam
[14] talisman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talisman
-
www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/02/13/Evasions-and-Secrecy-at-the-9-11-Museum
-
No surprise: $24 admission fee. That is New York. It costs that much just to drive into NY from NJ to pay toll/ union/ Democrat party fees.
-
CAIR Lies in Smear Campaign Against Zuhdi Jasser
Posted By Robert Spencer On February 19, 2014
I know, I know: reporting that the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is lying is like reporting that humans breathe oxygen. Still, this is a particularly egregious example, and it is important to set the record straight. Hamas-linked CAIR is now defaming Zuhdi Jasser, the nation’s premier (and virtually only) anti-jihad Muslim spokesman. I have had some differences with Jasser (you can see our 2011 debate here) about the nature of Islamic teaching and the necessity of reform in Islam, but there is no doubt that he is a strong voice against Hamas-linked CAIR and other malignant Islamic supremacist forces.
It is also highly likely that Hamas-linked CAIR is lying about Jasser’s supposed attempt to deny religious rights to Muslim military personnel, since Jasser is committed to constitutional freedoms. There is no doubt, in any case, that they’re lying about me. In the first place, I’ve never heard of the Abstraction Fund, which they say funds Jihad Watch. I am not familiar with all those who fund the David Horowitz Freedom Center, with which Jihad Watch is affiliated, and it is possible that Abstraction funds the Center, but they do not fund Jihad Watch directly. (They’re certainly welcome to do so!)
More importantly, Hamas-linked CAIR claims that the Roman Catholic diocese of Sacramento called me a “key leader in the anti-Islam hate movement in the United States.” This is almost certainly a lie, for several reasons. One is that in its initial chest-thumping about the Sacramento bishop caving in to their smear campaign last June, CAIR never mentioned this — and Hamas-linked CAIR has never been one to shy away from using a weapon that their marks hand them. What’s more, I spoke at the event in question, and the diocese of Sacramento had an information booth there — a strange thing for the diocese to have done if they really wanted to shun a leader of a supposed “hate movement.” The official statement that the diocese sent to Kolbe Academy said only this: “The Bishop didn’t think that it was in the best interest of Kolbe Academy to have a controversial speaker at a conference on education.”
See? This is how Hamas-linked CAIR operates: they (and their allies, such as Reza Aslan’s Aslan Media) mount a campaign of defamation against a counter-jihad speaker (and it isn’t just me — they do it to everyone who stands up against jihad terror). A busy and ill-informed official, such as the Bishop of Sacramento, sees this campaign and caves in immediately, not because he agrees with Hamas-linked CAIR’s defamation, but simply because he doesn’t want any “controversy.”
Groups like CAIR and Aslan Media know that it usually suffices just to stir up a spurious “controversy” over a counter-jihad speaker to get that speaker canceled, because big organizations (like the diocese of Sacramento) don’t want to be the focus of endless hysterical “news” stories and unwelcome media attention. Then when they cave, the anti-free speech fascists trumpet this as more evidence of the wickedness of the counter-jihad speaker, even though no judgment was actually made about the correctness of their charges at all: “See? He’s so hateful that the diocese of Sacramento wanted him dropped from a conference” — when actually the only thing that happened was that the jihad enabler kicked up a fuss where people didn’t want any fuss.
It’s an insidious tactic. Hamas-linked CAIR keeps using it because it works, and because the organizations that should be on to this as a tactic and ready to stand up for freedom and human rights are still unaware of it, and ready to cave at the first sign of “controversy.”
By the way, a couple of things the CAIR press release, which has been widely reported upon and picked up by Al Jazeera and other pro-jihad outfits, didn’t mention in connection with the diocese of Sacramento: CAIR and Aslan Media tried the same smear campaign when I debated a couple of Muslim spokesmen in Michigan a few months ago, at another Catholic conference. Not only did Earl Boyea, Bishop of Lansing, not cave, but he came to celebrate Mass at the event. Nor did CAIR bother to quote quote the National Catholic Register calling me “perhaps the foremost Catholic expert on Islam in our country,” or Catholic Insight calling me “one of the most insightful and learned scholars of Islam.” Truth doesn’t serve their agenda, doncha know. For CAIR, it never has.
-
At this point, how can any rational person believe that Barack Obama is interested in preserving the security of American citizens - even within our own borders? He is actually harboring terrorist groups, and I believe - working in concert with them to trigger some sort of critical event that will be used as an excuse to impose martial law. See below:
Texas Terror Enclave Exposed
Posted By Ryan Mauro On February 25, 2014
The Clarion Project just disclosed the existence of a terrorist enclave in Texas last week, bringing new attention to a network of at least 22 Jamaat ul-Fuqra “Islamic villages” across the country. Newly-declassified documents reveal that the FBI privately considers ul-Fuqra to be a terrorist group, but remains operational in the U.S. because of the State Department.
The “Islamic villages” belong to Muslims of the Americas, an extension of Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani’s Jamaat ul-Fuqra terrorist group. Its headquarters is “Islamberg” in Hancock, N.Y and two of the group’s seized videotapes prove that these sites are used for guerilla warfare training. One recording shows women at Islamberg in military fatigue receiving such instructions.
The FBI files released by Clarion confirm that the most loyal MOA members go to Pakistan for advanced religious and terrorist training under Sheikh Gilani. This travel is apparently done through an MOA entity named the American Muslim Medical Relief Team. The website has photos of members in Kashmir. The MOA has also posted videos of members working at “Gillaniville” under Gilani’s watch.
Last week, The Blaze aired a blockbuster half-hour episode of “For the Record” titled “Sleeper Cell” about Jamaat ul-Fuqra featuring the documents obtained by Clarion. The discovery of the camp near the town of Sweeny in Brazoria County, Texas was covered on “Fox and Friends” and the Fox News website. Media Matters immediately responded with a hit piece describing me as “anti-Muslim” that was then distributed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The Texas enclave has existed since the late 1980s, according to locals interviewed by ACT For America Houston. The FBI documents show that the Bureau discovered it following a tip from an informant in New York and detected the movement of trailers to the site in December 2001.
The site is referred to as “Mahmoudberg” by MOA members. In 2010, an MOA entity named the American Muslim Ladies Club established a Texas chapter at the enclave.
A 2007 FBI document says that the enclave hosts a former leader of the 440-acre “Baladullah” commune in California that was shut down and had armed guards, U-Haul dealership and even an airstrip. Its founder was convicted in 2006 of overseeing a charter school scam at the commune. Other members of Baladullah were arrested for illegal weapons trafficking and murdering a police officer.
One of the most interesting revelations from the Clarion Project report is that a shooting incident at Mahmoudberg took the life of one resident. It was ruled an accident by the police. However, the police were denied access to the trailers and were not allowed to directly interview the women, who covered their faces in the presence of the cops.
The report is a fatal blow to the MOA’s campaign to revamp its image. For example, it established the United Muslim Christian Forum. I attended one of their events and was told by one of the commune leaders that the group was trying “not to get into the bashing business anymore” because “we’re finding that certain things are a little bit too offensive.” He said the group stands by its past statements.
The Texas enclave is also linked to the MOA’s interfaith front. I was given videotape of a United Muslim Christian Forum event in 2009 that featured then-Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan as a speaker. The Master of Ceremonies was Idris Johnson, the registered agent for a MOA front on Mahmoudberg’s premises called the Muslim Model Community.
Johnson was also arrested for interfering with public duties on February 28, 2013. So was Nuh Abdullah and Muhammed Nurriddine was charged with reckless driving.
Almost every communication I received in response to the Clarion report and coverage on The Blaze and FOX News Channel asked how Jamaat ul-Fuqra/Muslims of the Americas is able to operate in the U.S. if the FBI’s own documents identify it as a terrorist threat.
The answer is the State Department has not designated Jamaat ul-Fuqra as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, though it was included in reports about domestic groups in the 1990s. On January 31, 2002, the State Department said:
“Jamaat ul-Fuqra has never been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. It was included in several recent annual terrorism reports under “other terrorist groups,” i.e., groups that had carried out acts of terrorism but that were not formally designated by the Secretary of State. However, because of the group’s inactivity during 2000, it was not included in the most recent terrorism report covering that calendar year.”
The State Department’s own standards require it to label ul-Fuqra as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The three criteria are that the group must be foreign; engaging in terrorist activity or retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorism and it must threaten U.S. nationals or national security.
The newly-released FBI documents blow away any argument the State Department could use to defend its negligence. Two smoking gun quotes from a 2007 file are as clear as can be:
“The MOA is now an autonomous organization which possesses an infrastructure capable of planning and mounting terrorist campaigns overseas and within the U.S.”
“The documented propensity for violence by this organization supports the belief the leadership of the MOA extols membership to pursue a policy of jihad or holy war against individuals or groups it considers enemies of Islam, which includes the U.S. Government.”
Responsible reporters must relentlessly demand answers from the State Department in the wake of these new revelations.
The Institute on Religion and Democracy contributed to this article.
-
Pamelageller.com
USCMO: New Coalition of U.S. Islamic Supremacist Groups to Attempt to Form Voting Bloc
“A national council unifying Muslims in the United States has long been a dream of our community. The goal of the US Council of Muslim Organizations is to help strengthen relationships among the member organizations in order to better serve members of the Muslim community and all Americans.
“A detailed census will allow the larger Muslim community to better participate in our nation’s political process.”
Let the strong-arming begin!
Hamas-CAIR and seven other terror-tied groups will be announcing the formation of the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), an umbrella group that will serve as a “representative voice for Muslims as that faith community seeks to enhance its positive impact on society.”
Many of the Muslim groups in this newly formed U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) “operated in concert with a host of individuals and organizations dedicated to sustaining and furthering the Hamas movement. …
The object of the conspiracy was to support Hamas.
The support will be shown to have take several forms, including raising money, propaganda, proselytizing, recruiting, as well as many other types of actions intended to continue to promote and move forward Hamas’s agenda of the destruction of the State of Israel and establishment of an Islamic state in its place.”
Govt. Exh. 21-61, the International Muslim Brotherhood ordered the Muslim Brotherhood chapters throughout the world to create Palestine Committees, whose job it was to support Hamas with ‘media, money and men.’”
According to a US government document Govt. Exh. 21-61, entered into evidence in the largest terror-funding trial in our nation’s history, the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. created the U.S. Palestine Committee, which CAIR later joined.
Muslim Brotherhood groups forming this new “coalition” include
Muslim American Society (MAS),
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP),
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR),
Islamic Circle of North American (ICNA),
Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA),
Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA)
and Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA).
Stealth jihad on steroids:
“New Coalition of U.S. Islamists to Attempt to Form Voting Bloc,” Counter Jihad Report, March 11, 2014
In 1991, the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood directed its components to “possess a mastery of the art of ‘coalitions’” in order to wage “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”
Seemingly in fulfillment of that directive, eight Muslim groups (seven with solid Islamist records) will announce a coalition on March 12 to increase their political influence.
The new coalition will be announced at the National Press Club. Its name is the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) and one of its objectives is to develop a census that will “create a database that will be used to enhance political participation in upcoming elections.” This coalition undoubtedly will use these census results to make political candidates bend to their will.
The Secretary-General of USCMO is Oussama Jamal. Press reports have alternatively titled him as the President and Vice President of the Mosque Foundation that has extensive links to the Brotherhood and Hamas. Jamal accuses the U.S. government of following the “Zionist agenda” in its counter-terrorism investigations and has questioned whether Arabs were actually involved in the 9/11 attacks.
The coalition consists of eight Muslim organizations. The only one without an extensive Islamist record is the Mosque Cares, part of the Ministry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed:
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is labeled by the U.S. Justice Department as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity (specifically part of its Hamas support structure) and an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S. history. The FBI has officially stopped using CAIR as an outreach partner and federal prosecutors have definitively said in court that CAIR uses deception to disguise its involvement with terrorists.
• The Muslim Alliance in North America is led by a virulently radical cleric named Imam Siraj Wahhaj. The NYPD watches his mosque because of evidence linking it to terrorism and his anti-American record is indisputable. He remains committed to implementing Sharia in America but tells Muslims that it’s better not to talk about it to non-Muslims.
• American Muslims for Palestine is a group that holds conferences with an all-star line-up of Islamists that support the Brotherhood and Hamas. Its leaders have spewed anti-American rhetoric, spoken in support of violence and preached that Muslims should launch an intifada in the U.S. modeled after uprisings by Palestinians and Iraqis.
• The Muslim American Society was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America” according to federal prosecutors. Some of its chapters held protests in response to the overthrow of the Brotherhood in Egypt.
• The Islamic Circle of North America is listed in Muslim Brotherhood documents as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” Its national conferences are filled with Islamist speakers and are held jointly with MAS. It is a derivative of the Pakistani Islamist group Jamaat e-Islami and one of its leaders is wanted in Bangladesh for war crimes.
• The Muslim Legal Fund of America has strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood, with one of its founders joining the Islamist opposition in Syria. The organization raised money for the defense of terrorists convicted in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation. That charity is another Brotherhood entity that was shut down for financing Hamas.
• The Muslim Ummah of North America is mentioned in U.S. Muslim Brotherhood documents as one of its components. An internal plan for 1991-1992 tasks its Youth Department/Committee with “arranging the youth’s relationship with ‘MUNA’ [Muslim Ummah of North America]” and “supervising the administrations” of MUNA.
The formation of this coalition is an example of the Brotherhood’s own words being followed.
As mentioned, its 1991 strategy document told its various fronts to “possess a mastery of the art of ‘coalitions.’”
-
Va. Legislator: Dar al-Hijrah Critics Spread Fear and Hate
by John Rossomando
IPT News
April 3, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4340/va-legislator-dar-al-hijrah-critics-spread-fear
Criticism of extremist rhetoric and the numerous terror plots that have emanated
from Falls Church, Va.'s Dar al-Hijrah Islamic center equals "ignorantly painting
all Muslims with the same brush" and "dividing the country using fear and hate," a
Virginia state legislator said.
Alfonso Lopez, a Democratic candidate for Congress, slammed Fox News host Eric
Bolling for denouncing Lopez's resolution honoring the 30th anniversary of the
controversial Virginia mosque.
Bolling criticized the resolution because of Dar al-Hijrah's ties to American-born
al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and convicted Fort. Hood shooter Nidal Hassan during
a March 19 broadcast.
"For Fox News to smear an important community institution by ignorantly painting all
Muslims with the same brush is reprehensible," Lopez wrote on his Facebook page and
in a post on the Daily Kos. "At its core, this is a rightwing media attack on the
faith and religious freedom of hard-working patriotic Americans."
Lopez created a petition attacking the "right-wing smears of the Dar al-Hijrah
Islamic Center" in response to the criticisms from Fox and others. He did not
respond to a request for comment from the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
The resolution, which passed the Virginia General Assembly March 3, praised the
mosque for "promot[ing] cooperation, tolerance and mutual understanding among
different faiths."
Dar al-Hijrah may engage in inter-faith outreach. But it also has a checkered
history in its preaching, in addition to the radical people it has attracted and the
terrorists who prayed there.
Lopez also downplayed the mosque's established connections with terrorism and
extremist rhetoric by playing up the charitable activities and interfaith activities
it engages in under the rubric of dawah (Muslim evangelism).
"In 2013, the members of the center provided more than $80,000 in assistance to
community members struggling to pay their rent, and served 200 families from all
faith backgrounds each week through their weekly food bank," Lopez wrote on his
Facebook page.
That's lovely, but it doesn't erase the mosque's history and law enforcement
assessments of it. U.S. Department of Homeland Security reports obtained by the IPT
have noted that the mosque "has been under numerous investigations for financing and
[providing] aid and comfort to bad orgs and members" and have called it a "front for
Hamas operatives in U.S."
Among those bad members, Awlaki served as an imam at Dar al-Hijrah before leaving
the United States. Two 9/11 hijackers attended services there, as did Fort Hood
shooter Nidal Hasan and terrorist financier Abdurrahman Alamoudi.
The Washington Post noted in 2011 that "almost no other mosque in the country has
been linked to so many cases of alleged terrorism."
Meanwhile, radical material continues to be peddled by the mosque.
Books the Investigative Project on Terrorism bought during a Dar al-Hijrah's book
sale last fall included texts sanctioning hatred and violent jihad against
non-Muslims. These books raise questions about the mosque's commitment to tolerance
and understanding.
· Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi's book The Desired Muslim Generation, opines that
"Palestine will ultimately be freed and the Jews conquered. The whole universe will
be on their side; even trees and rocks will somehow support them by saying: 'O
Muslim O Abdullah [slave of Allâh (I)] Here is a Jew hidden behind me come and kill
him.'"
Qaradawi writes that Muslims who wage violent jihad believe "their religion is so
precious to them that their worldly life has become despicable."
"They fight in Allah's cause, so they kill [others] and are killed," Qaradawi
writes, citing Surah 9:111 of the Quran.
· The Last Apocalypse, An Islamic Perspective, written by A.R. Kelani, speculates
that the dajjal -- Islam's Antichrist -- will be a Jew and that "Allah will destroy
all religions except Islam."
· In Pursuit of Allah's Pleasure , another book purchased at Dar al-Hijrah's sale,
slams imams who teach that all religions are equal and says that following "iman" --
essentially the Golden Rule -- is the only thing that is required.
"We need to wage Jihad, for without it the flag of Islam will never he raised and
the forces of disbelief will continue to dominate our lives. Jihad is the [m]eans by
which we can establish the Caliphate after having removed the disbelieving rulers
who have replaced the law of Allah by man-made laws," In Pursuit of Allah's Pleasure
says.
· The Ideal Muslim Society, by Dr. Muhammad Ali Hashimi, talks about diverting zakat
funds, ordinarily used as charity to help the poor, to fund jihad.
"The most important of these (other uses for zakat) is jihad for the sake of Allah
because the Muslim ummah should focus on conveying its message to the world,"
Hashimi writes.
Radical ideas also come from mosque leadership.
The mosque's chief imam, Shaker Elsayed, has repeatedly endorsed violent jihad. Just
last year, he spoke at a Northern Virginia high school where he preached that Muslim
men would be last in line except if it was for "arms for jihad."
"Are we afraid because they may call us terrorists?" Elsayed asked. "You are a
terrorist because you are a Muslim," Elsayed said. "Well give them a run for their
money. Make it worth it. Make this title worth it, and be good a Muslim.
"Be a good Muslim who fights back when there is an attack on yourself, on your
community, your society, your nation, your religion, your dignity, your honor, your
women, your children or your neighbors."
This was not the first time Elsayed has endorsed terrorism. In a December 2002
speech, he took issue with the labels "suicide bombers, homicide bombers, or
murderers, or killers."
"To decide that this man is a martyr or not a martyr, it is a pure religious
matter," Elsayed said. "Nobody who is not Muslim has any right to decide for us, we
the Muslims, whose is a martyr or another. We as Muslims will decide that. It is
in-house business."
Esam Omeish, a former Dar al-Hijrah board member who remains an occasional preacher
at the mosque, similarly endorsed violent jihad in an October 2000 speech. In it, he
congratulated Palestinian terrorists for "giving up their lives for the sake of
Allah and al-Aqsa." In another speech two months later, he praised Palestinians for
knowing "that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land."
He was the president of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Muslim American Society (MAS).
Dar al-Hijrah belongs to MAS, and MAS has operations on the mosque's property.
Omeish reportedly hired al-Awlaki to be the mosque's imam.
Dar al-Hijrah's rogue's gallery also includes Abdelhaleem Ashqar, a Hamas operative
who is serving an 11-year sentence for obstructing a federal terrorism investigation
into the terrorist group's activities. Ashqar, a former mosque board member, helped
organize a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia with other Hamas operatives.
In November, the mosque hosted Hassan Hachimi, the head of the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood's political bureau. While there, Hachimi condemned the United States for
classifying al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist group.
Preaching hatred and intolerance of non-Muslims has been a longstanding problem at
Dar al-Hijrah.
For example, a Nov. 12, 2004 sermon by Imam Johari Abdul Malik promised that Islam
would become the "first religion in America" and that it would be better to "be a
Muslim under these conditions than a kaffir (unbeliever) under any conditions."
Sheik Mohammed al-Hanooti, another Dar al-Hijrah imam, also showcased the mosque's
commitment to tolerance in a December 18, 1998 where he said, "Just like Allah
promises us, he will stand in his promise and the curse of Allah will become true on
the Jews. The curse of Allah will become true on the Americans and the tyrannies."
There are plenty of mosques in Virginia that engage in interfaith dialogue without
sermons and literature promoting jihad and which have not served as magnets for
terrorists and their supporters. Pointing out Dar al-Hijrah's full history is
neither bigoted nor ignorant.
Demanding that people not point out that documented history, on the other hand,
appears to be a naked play for political support by a legislator with bigger
ambitions than the General Assembly in Richmond.
Related Topics: John Rossomando
-
De Blasio’s Gift to Jihadists: Disbands NYPD surveillance unit, vows to go after the “real bad guys”
Posted by Pamela Geller at pamelageller.com - April 15, 2014.
During the election for Mayor in NYC, I warned of de Blasio’s pro-terror allegiances. I submitted the ad (below) to run on NYC subway platforms.New York enemedia didn’t like it — read this. A de Blasio spokeswoman called my ad “hateful and offensive.” What exactly is hateful and offensive? He did exactly as I predicted. He has disbanded the NYPD counter-terror program and vowed to go after the “real bad guys.”
Who dat, Herr Wilhelm?
Check out the first bullet of our ad: "He will endanger New Yorkers by disbanding anti-terror surveillance units."
Sleep fitfully, dear New Yorkers. And don’t worry your pretty little heads that NYC is the number one target for jihadists here and across the world.
“NYPD disbanding Muslim spying unit,” NY Post, April 15, 2014 (thanks to Baneshah Zand)
The NYPD has abandoned its controversial and secretive surveillance program that sent plainclothes police officers into Muslim neighborhoods for the purposes of gathering information on possible terrorist plots, officials said.Marking a dramatic change of course for the department, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton agreed to disband the largely inactive Demographics Unit, which was started in 2003 in response to the 9/11 terror attacks.The unit was intended to root out threats by identifying pockets of Islamic radicalization and locations where potential terrorists might gather.The covert program sent plainclothes officers into restaurants, mosques and just about anywhere else Muslims gathered, to eavesdrop on people’s conversations and gauge people’s feeling toward the United States.The unit worked in secret until 2011, when the Associated Press published an expose chronicling the NYPD’s exploits in Muslim neighborhoods, causing a rift between the department and minority communities.“Our administration has promised the people of New York a police force that keeps our city safe, but that is also respectful and fair,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement.“This reform is a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys.”
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2014/04/de-blasios-gift-jihadists-nypd-disbanding-muslim-spying-unit.html/#sthash.qfwTaj0h.dpuf
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375620/roots-cairs-intimidation-campaign-andrew-c-mccarthy
-
Obama’s Muslim Easter and Willful Ignorance
Posted By Robert Spencer On April 25, 2014
In his Easter message last Saturday, Barack Obama asserted that the “common thread of humanity that connects us all – not just Christians and Jews, but Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs – is our shared commitment to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”
Even though he was registered as a Muslim in primary school in Indonesia and recounts in his first autobiography that he got in trouble there for making faces in Qur’an class, Obama apparently recalls little of the contents of the Qur’an. For if he did, he would know that it tells Muslims “take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors” (5:51), calls them “the most vile of created beings” (98:6), and calls the patriarch Abraham an “excellent example” for telling his unbelieving relatives: “There has arisen between us and you enmity and hatred forever unless you believe in Allah and Him alone” (60:4). It also says: “Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another, and harsh to the unbelievers” (48:29).
Enjoining mercy to those who share one’s religious beliefs and harshness to those who do not is hardly tantamount to loving one’s neighbor as oneself, and this sharp dichotomy between believers and unbelievers is not just found in some random Qur’an passages to which no one pays attention. It runs all through Islamic scripture, doctrine and law. It is even an accepted principle in Islam that the life of a non-Muslim is worth less than that of a Muslim: a manual of Islamic law certified by Cairo’s prestigious al-Azhar university (from which Obama addressed the Islamic world in June 2009) as “conforming to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community” declares: “The indemnity for the death or injury of a woman is one-half the indemnity paid for a man. The indemnity paid for a Jew or Christian is one-third the indemnity paid for a Muslim. The indemnity paid for a Zoroastrian is one-fifteenth that of a Muslim.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o4.9)
The Iranian Sheikh Sultanhussein Tabandeh echoed and amplified that point in his Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim — then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain…Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them.”
While this devaluing of the non-Muslim’s life is based on teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah, there is nothing in Islam that teaches that non-Muslims should be accorded the same rights and dignity as Muslims in an Islamic state.
There is no indication that Obama knows about such Islamic teachings, but even if he did, it is unlikely that he would say anything, since, after all, he has said that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” – and in Islamic law, “slander” is not telling a falsehood about someone, but telling a truth about someone that he does not want known. And after over five years of Obama’s presidency, it is abundantly clear that one thing he does not want Americans to know is that there are texts and teachings of Islam that Islamic jihadists use to justify violence and supremacism, and that jihadis are still trying to murder Americans in accord with those teachings.
As I detail in my book Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In, this willful ignorance at the highest levels has endangered Americans more than once, making for murderous attacks that could have and should have been prevented. The most notorious of these are the Boston Marathon bombing and the Fort Hood massacre.
Two years before the Boston bombing, Russian intelligence agents told the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a “follower of radical Islam” who had tried to join “underground groups” in Dagestan. That is tantamount to saying that Tsarnaev was an Islamic jihadist, which should have been enough for the FBI to keep him under constant or at least regular surveillance. It did not – and not coincidentally, right around the time the Russians gave the feds this information, the Obama administration (under pressure from Muslim groups with links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood) mandated the scrubbing of counter-terror training materials of all mention of Islam and jihad (and the dismissal of FBI trainers who spoke about the motives and goals of jihad terrorists, including me). Agents who still knew how to evaluate the Russian intel were probably afraid that to do so, in the prevailing politically correct climate, would have been career suicide.
In the same way, Fort Hood jihad murderer Nidal Malik Hasan rose through Army ranks even as he justified suicide bombing and spouted hatred for America, and he did so with extraordinarily positive recommendations. In an evaluation dated March 13, 2009, just short of eight months before his jihad attack, Hasan’s superiors said that he should be put into a position “that allows others to learn from his perspectives” and declared that his “unique insights into the dimensions of Islam” and his “moral reasoning” could be of “great potential interest and strategic importance to the U.S. Army.”
And indeed, Hasan’s insights into Islam are of great strategic importance to the U.S. Army, but not in a way that Army brass is inclined to accept or admit. To do so would harm “diversity” in the military. And that, apparently, is more important than making sure that there isn’t another jihad massacre.
A large-scale change in the political and media culture is vitally necessary for the U.S. to deal realistically with the jihad threat. But it is not on the horizon. Instead, the willful ignorance and wishful thinking that Obama manifested yet again in his Easter message rule the day. And that means only that there will be more jihad massacres.
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/us/killing-of-iraqi-woman-leaves-immigrant-community-shaken.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120328
I wonder if the tire iron happens to be from the same make/model of the family car?
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Jurors-Verdict-Kassim-Al-Himidi-Shaima-Alawadi-El-Cajon-San-Diego-255551271.html
-
"page not found" , , ,
-
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Jurors-Verdict-Kassim-Al-Himidi-Shaima-Alawadi-El-Cajon-San-Diego-255551271.html
Should work now.
-
Florida: Hamas-linked CAIR attacks Republicans for featuring “extremist anti-Muslim speakers”
Robert Spencer Apr 27, 2014 at 5:06pm
And true to form, this entire article doesn’t mention CAIR’s ties to Hamas, or its fascist pattern of trying to get any and every speaker canceled if he or she dares to speak the truth about jihad and Islamic terror. Shelby Webb doesn’t see fit to mention, and may not even know, that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed the poster above telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.
Note also their use of the term “extremist,” which is the same word they use of jihad terrorists — thus equating the resistance to jihad terror with jihad terror itself, a particularly repulsive exercise in moral equivalence that the mainstream media has accepted with alacrity.
“Islamic group accuses Republicans of fostering anti-Muslim sentiment,” by Shelby Webb, Herald Tribune, April 24, 2014:
A Florida Islamic group is accusing some Republican Party lawmakers and local party organizations of fostering anti-Muslim sentiment.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, sent letters to almost every Republican Club or party extension in the state, asking the groups to stop bringing speakers who espouse anti-Islamic views. The letter said it represented the interests of more than 150,000 registered Florida Muslim voters.
Hassan Shibly, executive director for CAIR, based in Tampa, said such speakers not only inflame anti-Islam tensions but have also led to discriminatory legislation: namely Senate Bill 386, which would ban foreign laws from being enacted in Florida; and House Bill 921, which allows school districts to select textbooks instead of adhering to the statewide curriculum.
Shibly said the textbook debate came about after a parent in Volusia County became uncomfortable with the number of pages in a history textbook that described Islam and organized a protest to persuade the school district to stop using the book. The Volusia School District noted that there are many more references to Christianity in the textbook than there are to Islam.
Shibly said the letters were only sent to Republican lawmakers and groups because Republicans drafted and support these two bills and because no other party has invited anti-Islam speakers to give presentations.
“Our office has documented a pattern of local GOP organizations inviting extremist anti-Muslim speakers who promote fear and hatred of the entire Muslim faith and community, often under the pretense of targeting ‘radicals,’ ” Shibly wrote in the letter.
Sen. Nancy Detert, who represents Sarasota County and part of Charlotte County, refused to comment on the two bills and the letter sent out by CAIR.
“Why should I care about a letter sent out by someone I know nothing about? Is that really worth a story?” Detert said….
-
5 Truths the 9/11 Museum Should Tell About 9/11
Posted By Robert Spencer On April 27, 2014
A controversy erupted last week at the National September 11 Memorial Museum over exactly how the museum should depict what happened on that fateful day. So it’s time to give them a few unsolicited suggestions.
The New York Times reported that Muslim leaders in New York are angry about a film that is slated to be shown at the museum titled The Rise of Al Qaeda because it “refers to the terrorists as Islamists who viewed their mission as a jihad.” Sheikh Mostafa Elazabawy, the imam of Masjid Manhattan, wrote to the museum’s director: “The screening of this film in its present state would greatly offend our local Muslim believers as well as any foreign Muslim visitor to the museum.”
Wait – aren’t the “local Muslim believers,” as well as any given “foreign Muslim visitor,” supposed to be part of the vast majority of Muslims worldwide who abhor and reject al Qaeda? So why would a film about al Qaeda offend them? Because, Elazabawy explains, “unsophisticated visitors who do not understand the difference between Al Qaeda and Muslims may come away with a prejudiced view of Islam, leading to antagonism and even confrontation toward Muslim believers near the site.”
Akbar Ahmed, a professor at American University and a renowned and respected moderate Muslim, complained that people who see the film are “simply going to say Islamist means Muslims, jihadist means Muslims.” While he acknowledged that “the terrorists need to be condemned and remembered for what they did,” he warned that “when you associate their religion with what they did, then you are automatically including, by association, one and a half billion people who had nothing to do with these actions and who ultimately the U.S. would not want to unnecessarily alienate.”
But this is a sleight-of-hand: it is not the 9/11 Museum that is associating their religion with what they did. It was the 9/11 hijackers themselves who associated their religion with what they did. Elazabawy and Ahmed want the museum to ignore and whitewash that fact, and it will almost certainly comply: it has already begun to do so by removing mention of “Islamic terrorism” from its website.
In a just world, however, it would highlight these five truths:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
5. The 9/11 hijackers were Islamic jihadists acting in accord with Islamic imperatives.
In March 2009, the masterminds of the 9/11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin As-Shibh, Walid bin ‘Attash, Mustafa Ahmed AI-Hawsawi, and ‘Ali ‘abd Al-’Aziz ‘Ali – styling themselves as the “9/11 Shura Council” –wrote a lengthy communiqué titled “The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations.”
In it, they wrote:
Many thanks to God, for his kind gesture, and choosing us to perform the act of Jihad for his cause and to defend Islam and Muslims. Therefore, killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great legitimate duty in our religion….We ask to be near to God, we fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The Jihad in god’s [sic] cause is a great duty in our religion.
They quoted numerous Qur’an verses, including one stating that “to those against whom war is waged, permission is given (to fight,) because they are wronged and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid” (22:39), and another commanding Muslims to “fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but be not the transgressor, Allah likes not the transgressors” (2:190). They even quoted the notorious “Verse of the Sword”: “Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush” (9:5).
To cinch their case, they used two verses enjoining Muslims to strike terror into the hearts of their foes: “Soon shall we cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, for that they joined companies with Allah, for which he has sent no authority; There [sic] place will be the fire; and evil is the home of the wrongdoers” (3:151); and “Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the heart of the enemies of Allah and your enemies” (8:60).
Five years have passed, and no moderate Muslim authority has taken up this Islamic case for 9/11 and refuted it on Islamic grounds. This doesn’t mean that the jihadist argument is ipso facto correct, but for Elazabawy and Ahmed to pretend, and to demand that the 9/11 museum pretend, that the 9/11 plotters had no Islamic case and did not identify Islam as the motive and justification for their actions simply flies in the face of the facts.
4. The hijackers hoped to strike fear in the hearts of non-Muslims.
In accord with the Qur’anic imperative to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah, Mohammed Atta reminded himself in notes he wrote just before the attack to do just that:
When the confrontation begins, strike like champions who do not want to go back to this world. Shout, “Allahu Akbar,” because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers. God said: ‘Strike above the neck, and strike at all of their extremities.’ Know that the gardens of paradise are waiting for you in all their beauty, and the women of paradise are waiting, calling out, “Come hither, friend of God.” They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing.
The “Strike above the neck, and strike at all of their extremities” quote is also from the Qur’an (47:4). The gardens and women of Paradise are also spoken of in the Qur’an (52:17-20; 55:62-76; etc.), underscoring the fact that Atta and his companions saw their mission and goal in exclusively Islamic terms.
3. The ultimate purpose of the attack was to call the U.S. to Islam.
In Osama bin Laden’s letter to the American people, which was published on November 24, 2002, he put it succinctly: “The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.” This was the ultimate purpose of the 9/11 attacks: to weaken the American economy, so that ultimately the American government would collapse. That, presumably, would end what bin Laden and his allies considered to be unacceptable American interference in Muslim countries, and pave the way for the U.S. itself to become an Islamic state.
2. Many Muslim organizations besides al Qaeda share that goal.
Not all Muslims who want to see the U.S. become a Sharia state are engaging in jihad terror groups. Some are working for the same goal by peaceful means. Islamic supremacist writer Reza Aslan, a board member of a lobbying group for the bloodthirsty and genocidally antisemitic Iranian regime, has said: “No American Muslim, zero, absolutely none, not a single one has ever, ever called for the imposition of Shariah in America.” But that is not true. Daniel Pipes has noted that the imam Siraj Wahhaj, an American convert to Islam and sought-after speaker in mosques and Islamic centers nationwide, advocated for a caliphate in a 1992 speech to a U.S. Muslim audience: “if only Muslims were more clever politically, he told his New Jersey listeners, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” Said Wahhaj: “If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir [leader] and give allegiance to him….[T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.”
Omar Ahmad, CAIR’s co-founder and longtime board chairman, told a Muslim crowd in California in 1998 that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran…should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”
1. The Boston Marathon bombing, the Fort Hood massacre, and other attacks were perpetrated by people holding the same ideology and goals.
The mainstream media and the Obama administration do their best to deny and downplay the fact, but both the Boston Marathon bombing and the Fort Hood massacre were motivated by exactly the same thing that motivated the 9/11 attack: a desire to defend Islam from perceived attack and to spread it at the expense of infidel governments. CNN reported a week after the bombings that “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, wounded and held in a Boston hospital, has said his brother — who was killed early Friday — wanted to defend Islam from attack.” And on the morning of November 5, 2009, the day he murdered 13 Americans at Fort Hood, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan gave a neighbor a copy of the Qur’an and told her, “I’m going to do good work for God.”
Yet on the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon jihad attack, government officials and the mainstream media barely mentioned Islam. And the U.S. government notoriously classified Hasan’s murders not as an act of terror (much less jihad), but as “workplace violence.”
As I show in my book Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In, this denial and unreality is all-pervasive. And it virtually guarantees that there will be more jihad attacks.
The 9/11 Museum could strike a blow for truth and national security by speaking honestly about what happened on 9/11 and calling for greater readiness in the face of the same threat in the future. But given today’s politically correct climate, it is unlikely to withstand the pressure it is now receiving. Soon it will probably change the description of the 9/11 hijackers to “radical violent extremists,” and everyone will be happy – especially the ideological brethren of those “extremists” we dare not name, who will take happy advantage of our refusal to face realistically the threat they pose.
*****
-
Imam Pushing to Sanitize 9/11 Museum's Al-Qaida Film Slurs Jews
IPT News
May 7, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4376/imam-pushing-to-sanitize-9-11-museum-al-qaida
A Muslim religious leader who helped spearhead a push to get the National September 11 Memorial Museum to censor references to Islam in a short film about al-Qaida has said Jews "killed the Prophets and Messengers" and are a "cancer ... in every generation as they get in power."
Mustafa Elazabawy, imam at Masjid Manhattan, made the remarks in a December 2008 khutbah, or sermon, called "Children of Israel." A recording of the sermon remains on the mosque's website.
Elazabawy wrote a letter to museum leadership last month, complaining that the 6-minute film about al-Qaida's rise "would greatly offend our local Muslim believers as well as any foreign Muslim visitor to the museum," if it is not changed. "Unsophisticated visitors who do not understand the difference between Al Qaeda and Muslims may come away with a prejudiced view of Islam, leading to antagonism and even confrontation toward Muslim believers near the site."
He also joined in a follow-up complaint sent to museum Director Alice Greenwald on behalf of New York Disaster Interfaith Services' advisory group. Critics have taken issue with the film's references to "jihad" and the hijackers' Islamist ideology. "If generalized labels are needed, we suggest using specific terms such as "Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism," the letter from the Interfaith Services group said.
Similar complaints were issued by Islamist groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
The museum is scheduled to open in two weeks. Thus far, officials have indicated they do not plan to make changes to the film.
Elazabawy's demands for interfaith sensitivity were absent during the 2008 sermon, which came during Israel's Operation Cast Lead incursion into Gaza aimed at curbing Hamas rocket-fire toward civilian communities in Israel. He emphasized a series of Quranic verses depicting Jews as mischievous and corrupt.
"And after the mischievement (sic), they will seem arrogant," Elazabawy explained after reading one verse. "'We are the powerful. We are the most powerful people. We could defeat whomever we need.' Arrogance actually came from the shaytan [devil] all the time."
Later, he seemed to blame Jews for the war in Afghanistan.
"What they did, if you remember my brothers, the war in Afghanistan, behind that, the war is exactly the state of violence. They went in that land after Allah give the victory for the people of Afghanistan against Russia, they came because they don't want anybody to have power, except them ... and they bring all their allies to Iraq to finish Iraq, return Iraq, 100 years back. Why? Because Iraq used to be number four in power. They don't want anybody in power. And they use the hypocrites of the Muslims to help them, and the Muslim follow them, because they control the money, they control the weapons, they do everything."
Jews were spreading mischief in Egypt, Sudan and Somalia, he said.
"They are cancer in everywhere, in every generation as they get in power. People turn their face, and they know they are tyrants, they know they are oppressors. They know that they kill the children of Muslim all the time. But everybody permits it because they controlling the money and the position in the whole entire world."
At another point, Elazabawy said it wasn't Jews that he opposed, but "the state of violence ... that will kill even the Yahud [Jew]."
The rare Jews Elazabawy embraces are radical orthodox Jews who see Zionism, the belief in a Jewish homeland, as sacrilegious. Two months after delivering this sermon, Elazabawy joined Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss at a City College panel discussion in New York. Weiss leads Neturei Karta, which opposes Israel's existence.
Zionism, Weiss said that night, "is rooted in blasphemy, in, in a rebellion against God. But the whole concept of having a piece of land happens to be, in the teachings of the Torah, forbidden."
Weiss must have felt he was in good company with the panelist to his right, Elazabawy, to whom he makes brief reference, as a fellow anti-Zionist. According to Weiss, Jews and Muslims have almost always lived in harmony:
"It was mentioned that the Jews, Muslim people… these are people, we have been living together truly for hundreds and hundreds of years," Weiss said. "This was prior to any human rights, before there was a United Nations, before any human rights were there to protect, there was no protection – except of course, God the Almighty. And we were able to coexist, live in harmony, in every single Muslim country, in every single Arab country, we were able to coexist, and there was, without any police protection."
Elazabawy does not object. So even though Elazabawy has said Jews are a "cancer" in every generation and have "killed the Prophets and the Messengers," Weiss and Elazabawy manage to bond over their shared antipathy toward the Jewish state.
In his khutbah two months earlier, however, Elazabawy said Jews rejected the prophet "because he came from the Arab and he did not come from them, what they said? They declare a war from the first day and hatred against Islam."
And in a world in which baseless anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion continue to circulate, Elazabawy told worshipers a story so grotesque it cannot be found on Internet trash sites.
During the Six Day War, then-Israeli military leaders Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon would butcher pregnant Palestinian women for sport, Elazabawy said:
"They kill our children. It's halal [kosher] for them. It is a hero. It is a victory ... Begin and Sharon in 1967, they used to bring the Palestinian women, pregnant Palestinian women. They used to bet between both of them is it son or girl, boy or girl, between Sharon and Begin. And then after all what they did, they killed with a knife, and they opened the belly of the woman to find out if there is a boy or there is a girl. If they found it's a boy, they killed the boy and they leave it exactly the same what Pharaoh did with them before.
It is a disgusting canard. Had it any legitimacy, it would be widely reported and invoked incessantly. But Elazabawy wasn't interested in facts that day. And this is the faith leader who is admonishing the National September 11 Memorial Museum about language in a film about al-Qaida that is accurate.
-
After, of course - it was discovered that a teacher assigned students to write an essay debating the veracity of the Holocaust. Spencer rightly asks: "Were these death threats even real - or was this another attempt by a jihadist Muslim to deflect attention from his agenda?" See below:
www.jihadwatch.org/2014/05/la-public-school-district-superintendent-mohammed-z-islam-assigns-students-to-debate-veracity-of-holocaust?utm_source=Jihad+Watch+Daily+Digest&utm_campaign=57ec1c5ac0-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ffcbf57bbb-57ec1c5ac0-123440437#
-
The War on Former Muslim Women
Posted By Nonie Darwish On May 9, 2014 - frontpagemag.com
It is a tragedy and a shame that it had to take the mass kidnapping and sexual enslavement of 300 Nigerian girls by Muslim jihadists for the world to finally express its outrage over Sharia’s evil deeds. Similar stories of Christian girls being kidnapped, forcibly married and converted to Islam by their Muslim captors, have been a reality for decades. But unfortunately, and tragically, they have been ignored by our mainstream media. Only a few “Islamophobic” journalists have cared enough to report on such atrocities in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere — until reality exploded to such a great magnitude that it awakened the world’s conscience.
Former Muslim women like Wafa Sultan, Ayan Hirsi Ali and myself have been writing and speaking about the oppression of women in Islamic society for a long time now. I have written a book dedicated to connecting the dots between Islamic law and such kidnappings, rapes and other forms of oppression of women. But instead of helping our voices be heard, the leftist media and academia have ignored us, called us names and done everything in their power to silence us. They have treated the American people like children who are told they should not be outraged about far away cultural practices — because all cultures are equal.
Advocates of cultural relativism who are brutal in judging conservative and Christian Americans, and call them slanderous names, have no problem in tolerating Islamic tyranny over women and other minorities.
After 9/11 Americans asked: “Where are the voices of Arab Americans who condemn Islamic terrorism?” This question led a few brave former Muslim women to stand up and speak. But when we did (at our own peril), the leftist media and academia called us “Islamophobes” and “racists.” What is Islamophobic and racist about warning America about the tyranny of the barbaric religious legal system that we lived under and came to America to escape from its vicious clutches?
Muslims have convinced the leftist elites that criticism of Islamic doctrine is a hateful phobia equal to hating all Muslim people. Students who wanted to learn the truth about Sharia and its implications on women, jihad, the Arab Israeli conflict and terrorism, have been intimidated and forced to withdraw their invitation to former Muslim women speakers.
Not only have Muslim Brotherhood front groups and the Left succeeded in silencing speech critical of Islam, but reports about Islamic atrocities around the world have been suppressed — until now, when one horrifying story of an Islamic crime against humanity could not be contained.
And so now, with the Nigerian kidnapping story, Islam’s dirty little secret has been exposed: Sharia legalizes the taking of female hostages as sexual slaves in the jihad battle against non-Muslims. And since the jihad battle against non-Muslims is taught as a permanent institution, the kidnapping, rape and enslavement can happen at any time. In fact, the Islamic Nigerian mass kidnappers, who are experts on Sharia, are bragging on camera about their actions because they are told by their books and Islamic education that what they did is holy and legal under Allah.
American students who invite experts on Middle Eastern culture and critics of Sharia, like myself, must endure horrific pressure to cancel our invitations. No matter what horror happens under Islam, we end up being dismissed by the Left as “Islamophobes.”
As a result of the suppression of the truth about Islamic oppression of women, the American public is left ignorant about what is going on in the Islamic world. Thus it takes huge acts of violence, such as the Nigeria mass girl kidnapping or 9/11 to wake Americans up. But for how long can the West afford to ignore Islamic tyranny? I hope not until Islamic jihadists do a similar kidnapping of 300 American girls.
Our culture’s suppression of speech is severely detrimental to the future of this country, which is on its way to embracing Sharia as just another set of laws that must be respected, since, as we are taught, all cultures and religions are equal.
It is high time for American leftist feminists to acknowledge the truth about Islamic oppression of women. Kidnapping of girls, sexual slavery, female genital mutilation, wife beating, legal discrimination against women in the courtroom and other forms of oppression of women, must never be tolerated under the excuse of cultural relativism.
The same leftists who ignore Islamic Sharia tyranny are also the ones who support anti-Semitism also spreading on college campuses. The offensive annual Israel Apartheid Week must end, otherwise pro-Israel students must be free to invite speakers to counter the anti-Israel propaganda.
Just in the last month, I was cancelled twice after being invited to speak on college campuses due to intimidation by leftists and Islamic groups. Muslim radical groups brag about our cancellation like a badge of honor, the same way the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt brags about silencing the opposition. Suppression of speakers who expose the atrocities of Islamic law has become a shameful chronic condition on American campuses. It is true that Sharia forbids the criticism of Islam, but we should never forget that the US Constitution does not.
The situation in America today is upside down, where we see the American Left tolerating Islamic intolerance and protecting Islam’s dirty little secrets from coming to light. We are not doing Muslims and Islam a favor with this cover-up and appeasement. Blatant atrocities against women by Muslims around the world must be exposed and rejected.
It is time for the West to condemn Islamic Sharia law by name.
-
9/11 Museum Film's Critic Says Jews Killed Jesus
IPT News
May 14, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4387/9-11-museum-film-critic-says-jews-killed-jesus
During a news conference Wednesday which cast aspects of a film about al-Qaida at the new 9/11 museum as prejudiced toward Muslims, a speaker invoked the anti-Semitic claim that Jews killed Jesus.
Talat Hamdani, whose son Salman Hamdani was a Muslim New York Police Department cadet killed on 9/11, said religion often is overlooked in other historic crimes.
"Who crucified Jesus?" she said. "Do we ever question that? Bring in the fact that not only the Romans but there were Jews who crucified Jesus?"
Jewish groups say the claim that Jews killed Jesus is one of the strongest messages fueling violent anti-Semitism. The State Department has cited similar statements in its annual reports on Global Anti-Semitism. Though it is still a widely-held belief, Pope Benedict wrote in 2011 that Jews were not responsible for the crucifixion.
No one at the news conference tried to correct Hamdani's statement or walk it back.
The news conference came on the day the September 11 National Memorial Museum opened to New York's first responders and victims' families. It opens to the public May 21.
Islamist groups and their allies have taken issue with the 7-minute film, "The Rise of Al-Qaeda," since a screening last month. On Wednesday, they reiterated their belief that its references to jihad and Islamist violence are unfair and could leave visitors blaming the entire faith of Islam and all Muslims for the attacks.
Speakers included New York City Councilman Robert Jackson, Rev. Chloe Breyer, daughter of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and Zead Ramadan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) New York chapter.
"Suicidal terrorism" and "violent extremism" are more accurate descriptions, Ramadan said. He invoked Charles Manson, who was able to get people to do bad things. "It's unfortunate that there are people who are suicidal and not very guided, and they can be manipulated."
But al-Qaida's core ideology relies on religious justification for violence.
"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilian and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it...," Osama bin Laden wrote in his 1998 fatwa. In a 2002 letter, he cited a passage from the Quran:
"Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory" [Quran 22:39]
This verse, bin Laden wrote, means that, "It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge."
And, according to the 9/11 Commission report, when passengers on United Flight 93 fought back, refusing to let their plane strike another target, the hijackers sent the plane into a nose dive. "Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!" one shouted.
In a martyrdom video taped before the attacks, hijacker Waleed al-Shehri made it clear he was acting out of a belief that Muslims had strayed from their faith and abandoned jihad.
"The condition of Islam at the present time makes one cry," he said," ...in view of the weakness, humiliation, scorn and enslavement it is suffering because it neglected the obligations of Allah and His orders, and permitted His forbidden things and abandoned jihad in Allah's path."
In addition to Hamdani's statement about Jews Wednesday, other advocates for changing the film have their own records of extremism.
Mustafa Elazabawy, an imam at Masjid Manhattan who wrote one of the first letters of protest to the museum, cast Jews as controlling money and the world during a 2008 sermon still available on the mosque's website. He called them a "cancer ... in every generation as they get in power." And, like Hamdani, he said Jews "killed the Prophets and the messengers."
Elazabawy claimed that the film, as it exists, "would greatly offend our local Muslim believers as well as any foreign Muslim visitor to the museum." It might leave "nsophisticated visitors who do not understand the difference between Al Qaeda and Muslims ... with a prejudiced view of Islam, leading to antagonism and even confrontation toward Muslim believers near the site."
The FBI deemed CAIR, Ramadan's group which helped organize Wednesday's news conference, as persona non grata in 2008 due to evidence it uncovered linking the group to a Hamas-support network in the United States. Reviewing that same evidence, a federal judge in Texas found "ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR ... [with] the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas."
Hamdani also decried what she saw as the inherent bigotry in the film's language, which was ironic given her comments about Jews. She acknowledged the hijackers had religious motivations.
-
We're told that Pamela's ads are "racist, bigoted, and hateful" by the ignorant and gullible establishment media - willing accomplices, or dupes - of CAIR and other terrorist-linked pro-Islamic groups. How dare anyone tell the truth about Islam? Further - note that these ads are ABOUT Islam - they are NOT about Hitler per se. Notice how these media outlets cover the story in order to mislead. As Pamela has repeatedly and accurately stated: "When it comes to Islam - Truth is the new hate speech."
http://pamelageller.com/2014/05/pamela-geller-wnd-column-global-firestorm-islamic-jew-hatred-ads.html/
-
We're told that Pamela's ads are "racist, bigoted, and hateful" by the ignorant and gullible establishment media - willing accomplices, or dupes - of CAIR and other terrorist-linked pro-Islamic groups. How dare anyone tell the truth about Islam? Further - note that these ads are ABOUT Islam - they are NOT about Hitler per se. Notice how these media outlets cover the story in order to mislead. As Pamela has repeatedly and accurately stated: "When it comes to Islam - Truth is the new hate speech."
http://pamelageller.com/2014/05/pamela-geller-wnd-column-global-firestorm-islamic-jew-hatred-ads.html/
Islam isn't a race. Shows the stupidity of the critics.
-
But as you will read - AFDI has printed up PLENTY more for replacement in anticipation of this.
www.truthrevolt.org/news/anti-cair-ad-defaced-swastikas-anti-semitic-vandalism
-
Georgetown Rabbi Less Outraged at Islamist Jew-Hatred than Its Opponents
by Pamela Geller, Breitbart, 2 Jun 2014
Rabbi Rachel Gartner, the Director of Jewish Chaplaincy at Georgetown University, has published a ridiculous broadside at The Huffington Post titled “An Antidote for Islamophobia,” denouncing what she calls my “odious” and “heinous anti-Muslim messages” – referring to my American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) ads denouncing the savage jihad against Israel and the Qur’anically-justified anti-Semitism.
This rabbi never bothers to explain what is so “hateful” and “odious” about these ads; she just takes it for granted as she attacks a fellow Jew. But what has this rabbi herself done to combat the vicious Jew-hatred rooted in Islamic teachings that has left thousands of innocents dead? What has this rabbi done to ensure that the cold-blooded murder of little Miriam Monsonego, who was killed by jihadist Mohamed Merah at her school in Toulouse in March 2012 in the name of the Qur’an and Islam, would be the last in the cause of jihad?
Where has Rabbi Rachel spoken about the bloody 1,400-year history of Jews in Muslim lands? She quotes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: “In a free society, not all are guilty, but all are responsible.” Then she adds, “Let’s take responsibility for countering hate speech wherever we encounter it, lest we all go crashing down together.” Yes, let’s do that, Rachel. When have you countered the vicious Jew-hatred that is an increasingly common feature on college campuses and from BDS groups, as well as in Arab media (as the Middle East Media Research Institute and Palestinian Media Watch so indefatigably chronicle), and even in sermons in all too many mosques?
Gartner also says, “The antidote to bad, ill-advised free speech is good, healthy free speech.” I totally agree. Where, then, was Gartner standing up for my right to speak when Jewish groups in Los Angeles and Toronto canceled my speaking engagements? Shouldn’t she have called for discussion and debate to show whose free speech was really “bad” and “ill-advised” and whose was “good” and “healthy”?
She would never have done that, because that would have revealed the hollowness of her opposition to my message, just as she never explains in her Huffington Post piece exactly what is wrong with my ads. Instead, she just claims that they’re “actually hate speech in political garb.”
She may think this because my ad refers to the fact that Islamic Jew-hatred is in the Quran. “Keep the Quran out of it,” she demands. “Unless you also want to reference suras like this one (there are many): ‘Indeed, I, God, sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light, and the prophets judged by it, as did the rabbis and scholars.’ (Quran 5:44)”
Is she seriously claiming that the Quran is more favorable than unfavorable to the Jews? She seems to have missed a key distinction: the Quran is favorable to Jews who accept Muhammad as a prophet and the Quran as a holy book, and venomous to those who do not. The “unbelievers among the People of the Book” are the “most vile of created beings” (98:6). Does she know that the Qur’an says that the Jews are the worst enemies of the Muslims: “the most hostile to those who believe are the Jews” (5:82)?
Yes, the Qur’an says that in the Torah was guidance and light. But it also says of the Jews that “a party from among them indeed used to hear the Word of Allah, then altered it after they had understood it” (2:75), and it is common teaching among Muslims that the Torah as it stands today has been altered and corrupted by Jews in order to erase prophecies of the coming of Muhammad. The Jews’ corruption of their own Scriptures is referenced in the Hadith as well.
But none of that likely matters to Rachel Gartner, for she claims that “all sacred texts can be used to elevate us or to appeal to the basest of human instincts. Choose the high road, share teachings of peace and understanding, respect and love. If you do so, it will strengthen others in doing the same.” Great. But what about the Muslims who read the Qur’an’s many denunciations of the Jews and come away believing, in the words of a music video that was shown on Hamas’s official Al-Aqsa TV station, “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah?”
Gartner seems to think that the existence of Muslims who don’t think that way cancels out and compensates for the existence of those who do. But it doesn’t. They are all too real, and in numbers that are all too large. Or maybe Gartner thinks that if we challenge Muslims who believe this way it will offend those who don’t. But why would it, if they sincerely reject Islamic anti-Semitism?
This weak and cowardly rabbi sanctions the annihilation of the Jewish people by savagely attacking those who stand against it.
The post Pamela Geller, Breitbart: An Antidote for the Self-Loathing Jew appeared first on Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs.
-
Excellent speech by Robert Spencer along with the transcript:
www.jihadwatch.org/2014/06/video-robert-spencer-we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us?utm_source=Jihad+Watch+Daily+Digest&utm_campaign=82bfa3fe59-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ffcbf57bbb-82bfa3fe59-123440437
-
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/24/homeland-security-adviser-tweets-america-islamic-c/#.U6nTiwn0Qxc.twitter
-
The Free World's Willfull Ignorance About the Global Jihad
Robert Spencer - Truthrevolt.org - July 1, 2014
The world is in flames because of jihad, and yet the fog of deception is thicker than ever. If you have ever tried to point out to friends or coworkers the violent texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence and supremacism, you may have experienced its effects yourself: charges of “racism,” “bigotry,” and “hatred”; invocations of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Book of Joshua; and a reminder that the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that Muslims “together with us…adore the one, merciful God” (841).
Yet none of this actually addresses the uniqueness of the jihad phenomenon: Muslims, not Christians or Jews or Hindus or Buddhists, are committing acts of violence today on a global scale, and justifying those acts and making recruits by pointing to their own sacred texts. When foes of jihad terror point this out, however, they tend to place themselves in the position of Dr. Thomas Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.
The play is a marvelous parable for our times. Stockmann’s town is famous and prosperous because of its baths, which are believed to have healing properties. But then Stockmann finds to his horror that the baths are not beneficial at all, but actually poisonous, and are making those who bathe in them even worse off than they were previously.
Ever the good citizen, Stockmann sends a report on this to the town’s mayor, recommending that the baths be closed temporarily and costly repairs undertaken to render the waters truly medicinal and not deadly. He expects that the townspeople will be grateful to him for pointing out this looming disaster and helping them avert it. But to his shock, the town leaders are dismissive, even contemptuous, of his findings. They refuse to say anything publicly about what he has discovered, for fear of causing panic and demoralization among the townspeople and ruining the reputation of the baths, which could bankrupt the town.
They warn Stockmann to keep quiet and go along as well, but he refuses, calling a town meeting on his own. There, he is shocked again as the townspeople show themselves no more receptive to his discoveries and recommendations than the authorities were. They see that the baths are making the town rich, and that Stockmann’s findings will hurt the town’s reputation and cost a great deal of money to implement — and they don’t care that the benefits of implementing the repairs he recommends will outweigh the liabilities in the long run. They make fun of him and denounce him, calling him an enemy of the people. And with Stockmann thoroughly discredited, they continue happily on their pathway to their own destruction, and the destruction of untold numbers of other people.
That, in a nutshell, is what will happen to you if you stand up against jihad terror today. Willful ignorance completely blankets the discourse about jihad-related issues.
A particularly egregious example came in the UK’s Daily Mail this week, in a piece devoted to how jihadists from Nigeria and Kenya to Syria and Iraq have set so much of the world aflame. The Mail interviewed Andreas Krieg, a Middle East security analyst at King’s College London in Qatar, about the rise of “Islamist extremism.” Krieg agreed that there was a problem: “All the empirical evidence shows that it is on the rise. You’re seeing it in all the headlines, then you’re looking at Iraq, you’re looking at Syria, you’re looking at Nigeria.” However, he added, “in all three cases this has nothing to do with Islam. I think people in the West may think it is because they feel alienated by Islam. There is a lot of Islamaphobia.”
Krieg attempted an explanation for how all this Islam that has nothing to do with Islam came about: “When communities become disenfranchised – and lot of them are Muslim – they use Islam to further their particular cause. They adhere to a radical interpretation of Islam, but it has nothing to do with the religion.”
How could a “radical interpretation of Islam” have “nothing to do with the religion”? How could it be possible that these groups that uniformly explain and justify their actions on the basis of Islam have nothing to do with Islam? How can it be that a group that calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant and another that calls itself the Congregation of the People of the Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad have nothing to do with Islam?
It is also noteworthy that this risible interview got printed at all. What stake does the mainstream media have in absolving Islam of responsibility for evils perpetrated in its name and in accord with its teachings? Why does the mainstream media always rush to exonerate Islam of any connection to the ever-mounting number of atrocities done in its name and inspired by its texts and teachings, instead of explaining the ideology that jihadis say motivates and inspires them?
This fog of deception and willful ignorance is only hindering genuine attempts to formulate positive and effective ways to limit the power of Islamic teachings to incite to violence. But it doesn’t look as if it is going to clear anytime soon.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In.
-
So I stumbled on this site where the FBI releases declassified reports... Here's one on Qaddafi...
http://vault.fbi.gov/muammar-%20Qaddafi/muammar-gaddafi-part-01-of-01/view
I put it here, however, and not in the Libya thread because the FBI report, among a lot of other things, went into the relationship between The El Rukns Chicago street gang, who (according to the report) were the ones Qaddafi allegedly was going to hire to hit Reagan. So I googled around about it. Interesting reading, if mostly or only for historical context.
This is from Wiki: "The Blackstone Rangers were founded at the St. Charles Institution for Troubled Youth by Jeff Fort and Eugene Hairston as a community organization for black youth in the Woodlawn area of South Chicago. In the 1960s they evolved into one of the most dangerous and powerful gangs in Chicago. Fort seized upon the gang's changed mission, renaming it the Black P. (Pyramid) Stone Nation. He transformed the BPSN into a black nationalistic group, and continued to involve the gang in street crime and drug trafficking."
I was only 17 at the time of Fort's 1987 trial so I don't remember much except the alleged threat against Reagan.
Is it me, or do the same theme's keep coming up? Maybe It's just the stuff I've been reading today: Alinsky + Ayers + Chicago political machinery + Chicago organized crime + 60's radical communist movement + the ideological left as presently manifested in the academies + radicalized Islam = the policies of the current administration? Thoughts? I really don't subscribe to the idea that everything is supposedly one big conspiracy theory but there's no denying teh prima fascia evidence that the same names and connections keep coming up... like I said, maybe it's just been the stuff I've been browsing today. Except nothing I was really reading seemed to obviously come from Tin-foil-hat land; it was mostly historical fact and not much in the way of opinion.
If nothing else, simply Googling "el rukn street gang in chicago" will give folks some interesting reading. Like I said, mostly historical but it was a "who knew?" for me.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2011/03/qaddafi_ties_to_the_el_rukns_chicago_gang.html
http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/el-rukn-temple.html
http://vault.fbi.gov/el-rukn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almighty_Black_P._Stone_Nation
-
Chicago gangs are a political force in Chicago politics.
http://www.ngcrc.com/bpsn2003.html
http://gangresearch.net/ChicagoGangs/BGD/vote21.html
-
Interesting... tx
-
ttt
-
http://www.tpnn.com/2014/09/01/muslim-threats-against-christian-churches-in-america/
-
http://www.tpnn.com/2014/09/01/muslim-threats-against-christian-churches-in-america/
“Qur’an 3:151.”
That particular verse in the Koran reads, “We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve for what they have associated with Allah of which He had not sent down [any] authority. And their refuge will be the Fire, and wretched is the residence of the wrongdoers.”
I'm not afraid. In fact, in keeping of the spirit as walking as a warrior for all of one's days, I doubt the people who spray painted that know or the other people that follow that belief really know what they're biting off. It may be a bit more than they can chew.
The thought of those types coming here to Mexico makes me chuckle. Americans, if quarrelsome amongst each other, are still certainly known for prizing freedom above all costs. I'm just wondering how long it is until country sized parking lots are made and people are deported en masse (reference Japanese internment camps).
-
DDF:
You have it right. The problem is that the ONLY thing these type of people understand/respect/fear is force equal to or greater than what they inflict upon their victims.
We have an administration in the White House presently that either doesn't understand this, and/or considers the jihadists as useful tools for accomplishing their goal of consolidation of power and tyrannical rule.
I maintain, along with you, that they know not what they are dealing with. While many Americans will allow themselves to be sheep led to the slaughter, there is a small but significant minority of us who will never allow this to happen.
-
How does the saying go?
"Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way."
-
How does the saying go?
"Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way."
I love that about tribe... not a lot of followers that aren't leaders in their own right.
-
It’s Time to Kick ISIS Members Out of America
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On September 5, 2014
Every week brings new reports of Muslims in America flocking to join ISIS. Those who aren’t killed in battle will eventually return to New York, to Los Angeles and to Minneapolis–Saint Paul.
And they will stop being Iraq’s problem and become our problem.
ISIS is more than just another terrorist group. It is now an Islamic State. Its followers and allied militias pledge to obey the Caliph of ISIS and reject all allegiances to other states and entities. Western ISIS recruits burn their passports to show that they are no longer citizens of those countries.
Like most Salafists, ISIS members see our system of law and government as idolatry and heresy. Fort Hood Jihadist Nidal Hasan, who recently applied to join ISIS, had earlier written that he would “renounce any oaths of allegiances that require me to support/defend any man made constitution (like the Constitution of the United States) over the commandments mandated in Islam.”
“I therefore formally renounce my oath of office as well as any other implicit or explicit oaths I have made in the past … This includes my oath of U.S. citizenship,” Hasan declared.
By his own admission, Nidal Hasan is no longer a United States citizen. He should be promptly denaturalized. So should every ISIS member and anyone who supports the Islamic State.
The oath of citizenship that Hasan was retroactively rejecting states, “I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.”
ISIS members have pledged their allegiance to a foreign prince and a foreign state. Denaturalizing them should be a mere formality.
Anwar Al-Awlaki, Hasan’s mentor, whose American citizenship became such an issue for the left when he was killed in a drone strike, was clear in his lectures that he was at war with America, that “Muslims in the West should see their stay there as temporary” before leaving to build an Islamic State in the Middle East and that Muslims shouldn’t even vote in America because they would be participating in “a disbelieving system, in a disbelieving country.”
Like Hasan, he did not consider himself an American in any way, shape or form.
In the past the United States had denaturalized Nazis and Communists and even specifically targeted foreign agitators linked to the Nazis and Communists, denaturalized them and then deported them.
Recently Obama Inc. found the time to have two former Guatemalan soldiers accused of committing atrocities against a village linked to Communist guerrillas in the so-called Dos Erres massacre back in the 1980s stripped of their citizenship.
Other denaturalization targets under his administration included two Serbians, an Ethiopian Marxist who took part in the 70s Red Terror and a woman involved in the Rwandan genocide.
None of the denaturalized were Muslim terrorists posing a current national security threat. And yet if we are to have a strategy against ISIS, denaturalizing its members will accomplish more than air strikes.
The modern Jihadist threat had at its core a group of fighters who trained and fought in Afghanistan during and after the Soviet invasion. These fighters went on to lead terrorist groups and stage attacks. But the battlefields of the Arab Spring will produce a new wave of threats on an unprecedented scale. Muslims in the West, especially converts to Islam, who have gone to join ISIS will return with training, battlefield experience and a plan. It’s far more urgent to keep them out than to deport war criminals.
A serious ISIS strategy has to address not the flow of fighters from the United States, as Obama has proposed to do, but the flow of fighters coming into the United States. If ISIS members want to travel to fight in Iraq and Syria, they should be allowed to do so.
By joining the Islamic State, they have disavowed their allegiance to the United States. Their citizenship is now only a passport of convenience that they will burn as soon as they make their way into Syria.
It’s far more important to keep them from coming back than to keep them from leaving.
If the United States can denaturalize foreign soldiers for being part of units linked to war crimes, as it has under Obama, it has the obligation to pursue the denaturalization of anyone who chooses to affiliate with an organization such as ISIS which has committed undeniable war crimes. While the legal grounds for denaturalization won’t be the same since some of those being denaturalized did not have terrorist histories and may have even been born in the United States, the policy basis is clear.
Despite the various dubious Supreme Court attempts to strike down the denaturalization power of Congress, there are still clear standards for denaturalization. Joseph Lieberman and Scott Brown introduced the Terrorist Expatriation Act back in 2010 which would have added providing material support to terrorists as a basis for denaturalization leading to hysterical reactions on the left and the right. But such an explicit addition isn’t strictly necessary; particularly in the case of the Islamic State.
Under the Immigration and Naturalization Act anyone voluntarily “committing any act of treason”, bearing arms against the United States or plotting to conquer it will lose his citizenship. While establishing this has proven tricky in the past due to the preponderance of evidence standard, ISIS represents a clear case because its fighters travel voluntarily from the United States for that purpose and because the Islamic State’s creed explicitly repudiates citizenship in anything but the new Caliphate.
It is clearly apparent that any American citizen joining ISIS intends to abandon his citizenship. He is not only serving in a foreign army, but he is joining an organization whose very reason for existence is precluded on a rejection of states and manmade documents such as the United States Constitution.
Furthermore if Obama were to admit that the United States is at war with ISIS, its fighters would also be guilty of bearing arms against the United States. However even without this admission, ISIS has made sufficient threats and has now murdered two Americans. There is no serious doubt that we are at war.
Unlike the Taliban, some of whose American members argued that they had not originally been in conflict with the United States, ISIS originated in conflict with the United States and its creed explicitly calls for the perpetuation of conflict not only with the United States, but with the rest of the world.
The Islamic State’s founding declaration urged all the Muslims of the world to gather to it, “So rush O Muslims and gather around your Caliphate, so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war… By Allah, if you disbelieve in democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the west, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you.”
The Muslim fighters rushing to join ISIS hoping to be its “kings of the earth” and “knights of war” and to force the east and west to submit to it are at war with the United States. They have given their allegiance to a foreign power that promises them that they will rule over Americans.
Both attacks on the World Trade Center were carried out by terrorists who should not have been allowed into the United States. It’s time we learned the lessons of those attacks.
ISIS members and supporters like Nidal Hasan are eager to abandon their American citizenship. It’s our own government that is standing in the way.
It’s useless to bomb ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria, if we let them march through our airports.
-
Please also post this in the "Legal Issues presented by the War w Islamic Fascism" thread as well.
-
Well, some also "worship" satan. Some Idolize Hitler and other mass murderers. So this is not too surprising. Probably isolated kid who feels like outcast so as to feel like part of something bigger she does this stuff. There is something romantic about being a "revolutionary" as well. Fosters romance amongst the young. Reminds me of the Stalin biography and how so many women were attracted to him even before he was powerful. It was the young romance thing. Like "Oh we are saving the world together". Wasn't being an anti war protester in the 60s a way for kids to connect. To get girls or guys.
It sure doesn't help to have a liberal MSM and educational system that has made America into the world's evil villain responsible for all its problems. The poor oppressed Muslims and the Indians and the Blacks, and Women, and the rest of it. All evil Western Christian white men.
Perhaps they should have let her go to Syria. She wants to be there in that environment and that culture. Good riddance. Eventually she would come crawling back begging to be American again. If not killed raped or enslaved by then:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/colorado-teen-shannon-conleys-support-of-isis-raises-alarm-about-american-jihadists/
-
An ISIS Nest Grows in Boston
Posted By Robert Spencer On September 24, 2014 @ frontpagemag.com
Boston’s WCVB.com reported Monday that “the federal government is targeting Boston and two other American cities to shut down what they are calling the U.S.-Jihad pipeline to ISIS in an attempt to stop Americans from joining the terrorist organization.” Boston apparently made this elite list because Ahmad Abousamra, “an American college graduate from Boston, who has been on the run from the FBI for years, is suspected of joining ISIS and leveraging his computer skills to spread the Iraqi terror group’s propaganda on social media.” And so now Boston is reaping what it has sown for so many years.
The Islamic State has been linked to the Islamic Society of Boston. The Tsarnaev brothers, the Boston Marathon jihad mass murderers, went to mosque at the Islamic Society of Boston. So did other convicted jihad terrorists, Tarek Mehanna and Aafia Siddiqui. During all this, the FBI conducted “outreach” to the Islamic Society of Boston but never investigated it. Now they’re reaping the fruits of their politically correct willful ignorance.
Former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino really, really wanted the Islamic Society of Boston to be well situated in the city. He gave the ISB an astonishing sweetheart deal on the land for the mosque. Menino, according to a 2008 Boston Phoenix exposé, “in a fit of multicultural ecumenicalism, approved the sale of city-owned land to the mosque for the bargain basement — and still controversial — price of $175,000, plus the promise of in-kind services, including upkeep of nearby parks. The predictable uproar that arose in the wake of not only selling land well below market rates, but also selling it to a religious institution in contravention of the supposed separation of church and state, was supposed to be muffled by making the complex available for community use. But oops — that never happened. The promised community facilities for non-congregant use still have not been built.”
Not only that, but although it was “originally intended to minister to an urban congregation of African-American Muslims, the mosque project was turned over by the city, with no fanfare and little notice, to the control of suburban-based Muslims of largely Saudi Arabian heritage: the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), which more recently became the Muslim American Society of Boston (MAS-Boston). Perhaps the city believed, incorrectly, that one Muslim community could easily step in for another. In fact, the two groups are quite different.”
The Muslim American Society is the principal name under which the Muslim Brotherhood operates in the United States. According to a captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document, the Brotherhood’s “work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
So Menino was instrumental in the construction of a Muslim Brotherhood mosque in Boston, which the Tsarnaevs attended. Were it not for Menino and so many others like him all over the country behaving as if Muslim Brotherhood ties were a matter of no consequence, it would perhaps not be so culturally unacceptable in America today to oppose jihad terror.
It has been so unacceptable for so long, however, that the Islamic Society of Boston mosque that the Tsarnaevs attended was never investigated, despite the fact that they were not the only jihad terrorists to frequent it. Aafia Siddiqui, a.k.a. “Lady al-Qaeda,” who was convicted of trying to murder American soldiers and may also have been plotting a jihad terror attack against an American city, was also a member, as was convicted jihad terror plotter Tarek Mehanna and Abousamra. The renowned Muslim Brotherhood sheikh, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has praised Hitler and called upon Muslims to finish his job of killing Jews, was a trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston and has addressed the mosque congregation during fundraisers. Another imam who has addressed the Boston congregation, Yasir Qadhi, has called for the replacement of the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law and said that the “life and prosperity” of Christians “holds no value in the state of Jihad.”
On June 12, 2013, as the scandal of the Obama Administration’s massive surveillance of law-abiding Americans was breaking, it was revealed that while the National Security Agency was listening to every phone call and reading every email, there was one place where people could be safe from surveillance: inside a mosque. Investor’s Business Daily reported that “the government’s sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.”
This panel “was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.”
And specifically: “The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.”
The next day, Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) confronted FBI director Robert Mueller about this, saying:
The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15th attacks. If the Russians tell you that someone has been radicalized and you go check and see the mosques that they went to, then you get the articles of incorporation as I have for the group that created the Boston mosque where these Tsarnaevs attended, and you find out the name Alamoudi – which you’ll remember because while you were FBI director, this man who was so helpful to the Clinton administration with so many big things, he gets arrested at Dulles Airport by the FBI and he’s now doing over twenty years for supporting terrorism. This is the guy that started the mosque were your Tsarnaevs were attending, and you didn’t even bother to go check about the mosque? And then when you have the pictures, why did no one go to the mosque and say, “Who are these guys? They may attend here.” Why was that not done, since such a thorough job was done?
Mueller initially disputed this, saying, “Your facts are not altogether well –” In a heated exchange, Gohmert shot back: “Sir, if you’re going to call me a liar, you need to point out specifically where the facts are wrong.”
Mueller responded: “We went to the mosque. Prior to Boston,” he said vehemently. “Prior to Boston happening, we were in that mosque talking to imams several months beforehand as part of our outreach efforts.”
Gohmert then asked: “Were you aware that those mosques were started by Alamoudi?”
“I’ve answered the question, sir,” Mueller replied.
Not satisfied with this, Gohmert pressed: “You didn’t answer the question, were you aware that it was started by Alamoudi.” Mueller then admitted that he had not been.
Meanwhile, Boston refused to run our AFDI pro-freedom ads (we are suing on free speech grounds, of course). In nearby Worcester, Roman Catholic Bishop Robert McManus canceled my scheduled talk on Muslim persecution of Christians because, he said, it would harm the wonderful dialogue that local Catholics were having with Boston-area Muslims. He did this at the behest of a local Muslim leader who openly professed his support for convicted jihadist Mehanna.
And so now Boston is a hub for Islamic State recruitment. How is all that “outreach” working out?
-
The Oklahoma Beheading: More ‘Workplace Violence’?
Posted By Robert Spencer On September 29, 2014
A convert to Islam who calls himself Jah’Keem Yisrael (formerly Alton Alexander Nolen) beheaded one of his coworkers and was shot while in the process of trying to behead another last Friday in Vaughan Foods, a food processing plant in Oklahoma. And now the predictable denial and obfuscation from the Obama Administration has begun.
On Sunday, Tony Blinken, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, was asked whether the beheading was an act of terror or, as the Obama Administration notoriously classified the Fort Hood jihad massacre of November 2009, workplace violence. “We don’t know,” said the Dickensian-named Blinken, blinkers firmly in place. “The FBI has an active investigation. I’m not going to get ahead of it. Let’s see what they find.” Wynken and Nod were unavailable for comment.
As for the FBI itself, FBI Special Agent in Charge James E. Finch said Saturday that the bureau hadn’t yet figured out what Yisrael’s motive was. He didn’t say whether or not the feds were examining his Facebook page, which, according to the New York Daily News, is “riddled with phrases like ‘Sharia law is coming’ and calling America ‘wicked.’ It also has photos of various terror groups and their leaders, including bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. forces operating in Pakistan in 2012.”
Not only that. Jah’Keem Yisrael filled his Facebook page with quotations from the Qur’an and exhortations to his fellow Muslims to be more rigorous and correct in their observance of Islamic ritual and morality. Also the page is a photograph of him with two members of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City; Yisrael stands between them holding up his index finger in the sign of the Islamic State, signifying Islam’s uncompromising monotheism. Nor is even that all: his page features photographs of beheadings.
And while the mosque is issuing statements implying that Yisrael was a bad Muslim or hardly even a Muslim at all, and that hardly anyone knew him there anyway, I received this insider report from a former member of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City:
I went to the same mosque the Oklahoma Muslim who beheaded his co-worker today. I live ten minutes away!
The Imam was Imad Enchassi the last I heard. He was a friend of mine. He is a Lebanese-born Sunni who hates Israel. He once gave a sermon that the Israelis were trying to collapse al-Aqsa mosque by digging tunnels underneath it. They have no issue with Palestinian suicide bombings because, as it was explained to me, that is the only weapon the Palestinians have.
They sold Milestones in the book shop while I was there, which as you know calls for replacing all non-Islamic governments with Islamic ones. I remember listening to a tape a friend of mine, Yahya Graff, another white convert to Islam, had that prayed for the destruction of Israel and America.
The imam when I first converted, Suhaib Webb, is hailed as a moderate by liberals in the United States but he was the one that explicitly told me that according to Islam, three choices are to be given to non-Muslims: convert, pay the jizyah tax and live under Islamic rule, or jihad. They try very hard to whitewash Islam when the media is around, but they believe in their religion and the ultimate goal of an Islamic caliphate.
Does all this mean that Jah’Keem Yisrael’s beheading of Colleen Hufford was a jihad attack? Not necessarily. Yisrael wouldn’t be the first person to be distraught over being fired and react violently. Many non-Muslims have done that. The difference here, however, is that when Yisrael became violent, he began beheading – just as the Islamic State is doing, and just as the Qur’an exhorts believers to do (“When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” — 47:4).
At the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City and elsewhere, as he learned the teachings and attitudes of his new religion, Jah’Keem Yisrael breathed in an environment in which beheading was under certain circumstances a proper, even praiseworthy response.
If the Obama Administration and its FBI were at all interested in the truth of this case, they would be investigating whether or not Jah’Keem Yisrael considered the beheading of an unbeliever to be something that Allah would reward, in line with Qur’an 47:4, and seized the opportunity of his firing from Vaughan Foods (after an argument over whether or not adulteresses should be stoned to death; Yisrael argued yes) to combine his desire for revenge with his desire to wage jihad.
Instead, they will probably be doing all they can to make sure such investigations are not pursued.
-
Allah Made Me Do It
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On September 29, 2014
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.
A Muslim convert who recently became very religious beheads a woman while reportedly shouting Islamic phrases. The authorities rush to convince everyone in sight that it has nothing to do with Islam.
I’m not talking about Alton Nolen in Oklahoma at the end of September, but Nicholas Salvador in the UK at the beginning of September. Salvador, a Nigerian Muslim convert, beheaded an 82-year-old European woman with a foot-long blade. Nolen killed a 54-year-old American woman with a 10-inch blade.
The bios of both men are fairly similar to the beheaders of British soldier Lee Rigby. The perpetrators were Nigerian converts to Islam. Alton Nolen was a black convert to Islam. They had a history of criminal behavior followed by a conversion to Islam and the inevitable bloody ending.
On his Facebook page, Nolen posted, “Sharia law is coming!!!” The killers of Lee Rigby had chanted for Sharia law in the streets of London. That is the same Sharia law of stonings and beheadings.
It is the law of the Koran which states, “When you meet the unbelievers in Jihad smite at their necks until you have slaughtered many of them.” (Koran 47:4)
Or as Nolen quoted after posting a gory beheading photo on his Facebook page, “Thus do we find the clear precedent that explains the peculiar penchant of Islamic terrorists to behead their victims: it is merely another precedent bestowed by their Prophet.”
The quote underneath the beheading photo backed that up, “I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off of them.”(Quran 8:9-13)
An unbeliever is anyone who isn’t a Muslim.
This latest “Nothing to do with Islam” atrocity follows the Islamic State’s beheading of two Americans. These acts were admired by an Oklahoma City nursing home worker who was arrested for threatening a female co-worker with an ISIS style beheading on account of her being a Christian.
Again, nothing to do with Islam. Much like the Islamic State beheadings which we have been told also have nothing to do with Islam.
This sort of “Nothing to do with Islam” beheading pops up now and again.
A decade ago Ariel Selloul was nearly decapitated in Texas by Mohammed Ali Alayed. Mo had recently gotten religion and become a devout Muslim. His victim was Jewish. Before Mohammed got serious about Islam, the two men had been friends.
Again, it had nothing to do with Islam. At least that’s what the authorities said.
Around the same time a Jewish disc jockey was murdered in Paris by a Muslim friend who announced, “I killed a Jew, I will go to paradise. Allah made me do it.”
The Muslim killer, Adel Amastaibou, had threatened a Rabbi and a pregnant Jewish woman before. Instead the authorities decided that he was mentally ill.
Nothing to do with Islam. Not a thing.
And so we have a rash of mysterious beheadings and vicious stabbings that we know nothing about except that they have nothing to do with Islam. The more they obviously seem to have something to do with Islam, the more it has to be denied that they had anything to do with Islam.
Alton and Adel, Mohammed, Mujahid and Ismail, the latter two being the Muslim names of the Lee Rigby killers, have nothing to do with Islam. Even the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam.
And yet Alton Nolen decided that beheading had quite a lot to do with Islam. All he had to do to figure that out was open a Koran. Expecting to convince Muslims to believe that the Koran has nothing to do with Islam will be even harder than convincing them that beheadings and the Islamic State have nothing to do with Islam.
You might as well argue that Islam has nothing to do with Islam.
The CVE programs under Barack Obama keep promising to counter the Islamic narrative on Twitter, but instead Twitter is full of ISIS Jihadists displaying severed heads as trophies and quoting the appropriate verses from the Koran.
Obama denounces ISIS as un-Islamic for beheading people while leading a coalition against them which includes Muslim countries that use beheading as an Islamic punishment. The Saudis recently beheaded a man accused of sorcery. What’s the difference between the Islamic State and the Saudis? They both have lots of oil, terrorists and a penchant for beheading people, but the Saudis have better public relations.
Maybe when the Islamic State starts funding chairs at Georgetown and UCLA, and donating to the Clinton Global Initiative, it’ll start getting better press.
The Saudis can’t possibly be un-Islamic because the establishment’s official definition of Islam comes from them. Even the idea of denying that the Islamic State is Islamic is a Saudi strategy. But if Alton Nolen is un-Islamic then ISIS is un-Islamic and if ISIS is un-Islamic then Saudi Arabia is un-Islamic. And then Islam, whose holy book contains numerous verses calling for the brutal murder of non-Muslims, must also be un-Islamic.
Perhaps then there really isn’t an Islam. Or rather there are two Islams.
One is the oriental Unitarianism of the Western imagination whose practitioners are liberals with prayer rugs. The other is a grim relentless Jihad of murderous men who chant the Koran while severing heads. This is the Islam of the Arabian imagination. It is not always what it is, but to them it is the purity of what it should be.
The convert to Islam rarely becomes a liberal with a prayer rug. To become devout is to become more certain, not less certain. And that certainty ends in Jihad. It ends in a murder commanded by Allah.
The real Islam’s symbols carry powerful meanings. The beheading is the final and ultimate meaning. By killing non-Muslims in the name of Allah, its followers become Allah, they gain the power of life and death, to kill and enslave, to rob and rape; they become the murderous masters of creation.
When they say that “Allah made me do it” what they really mean is that the part of them that wants to kill, to rob and rape, to burn and kidnap, made them do it. By submitting to Allah, the Muslim becomes Allah. When he kills, it is Allah killing. His religion is reducible to his will to kill. This is ISIS. This is Islam.
It has nothing to do with the imaginary Islam of the liberal. It has everything to do with the real Islam.
-
For a laugh:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/04/bill-maher-ben-affleck-debate_n_5931832.html
-
I'm not generally a fan of Bill Maher - but in this exchange with Ben Affleck he is 100% correct. Affleck is clearly not very bright.
-
White House official flies to Oklahoma City to read special thank-you note from Obama to beheader’s mosque
This is how it goes in America today: a Muslim screaming what were reported as “Islamic phrases” beheads one woman and is in the process of beheading another before he is stopped. The beheader’s Facebook page shows his allegiance to the Islamic State, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, etc. A former member of his mosque comes forward with information about how the mosque teaches jihad and Islamic supremacism. And then what happens? An investigation of the mosque? The imam questioned as to whether he knew the beheader, and the beheader’s phone and email records checked for contact with mosque leaders? An examination of the teachings of the mosque to see if the beheader was incited to violence by what he heard there? No. A White House official flies to Oklahoma City to read a thank-you letter from Obama to the mosque, so as to “reassure” Muslims in Oklahoma. Who is reassuring American non-Muslims that this case is being adequately investigated and properly classified as an act of jihad terrorism? No one, of course.
“Oklahoma Muslims receive special praise from White House officials,” by Andrew Donley, KFOR.com, October 4, 2014 (thanks to Noor):
OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma Muslims marked the end of the yearly pilgrimage to mecca with communal prayer and celebration called Eid Ul-Adha on Saturday.
Leaders of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City say it’s been a tough month for Muslims here in Oklahoma after being associated with the beheading at Vaughan foods in Moore.
Leaders of the faith here in the state say vicious messages are being left for Oklahoma Muslims, telling them to get out of Oklahoma and threatening to behead them all because the man behind the beheading claimed to be Muslim.
But the Muslim community received the highest form of praise from the White House for their hard work in helping rebuild the Moore community after a destructive tornado tore through the city in 2013.
Today, an official from Washington D.C. flew in to Oklahoma to present a special thank you to the Muslim congregation.
He read a message from President Barrack [sic] Obama, extending warm greetings from the American people during the Muslim holiday.
“Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice,” President Barack Obama said.
The Imam, the leader of the prayer service, stated during his sermon that the Muslim faith has been called a “cancer that needs to be cut off from the American society.”
Now, with the recent praise, Oklahoma Muslims have been reassured that they are apart of the American society.
-
The Islamic State Is Here
Posted By Robert Spencer On October 9, 2014
During the recent race riots in Ferguson, Missouri, CNN’s Jake Tapper was walking down a street and filming a segment when someone emerged out of the shadows behind him, holding a banner emblazoned, “ISIS is here.” At that point it was just a threat, or a boast, or both, but on Tuesday Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) said that the Islamic State was doing all it could to make it a reality: “At least ten ISIS fighters have been caught coming across the Mexican border in Texas.”
“There’s nobody talking about it,” Hunter added. “If you really want to protect Americans from ISIS, you secure the southern border. It’s that simple…They caught them at the border, therefore we know that ISIS is coming across the border. If they catch five or ten of them then you know there’s going to be dozens more that did not get caught by the border patrol.”
Indeed. And jihadist exploitation of our southern border is nothing new. In June 2014, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) foreshadowed Hunter’s announcement when he said: “This jihadist group ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi have promised direct confrontation with America. He is looking forward to that day and he has said that publicly, we should believe him when he says that. These folks hate everything about the United States.” What’s more, “Of course the way they would come to the United States would be through the porous border with Mexico. The drug cartels will bring people into the country no matter who they are — for money. Everyone in the world knows that the border between the United States and Mexico is completely porous.”
Jihad terrorists and their enablers and accomplices have been entering the U.S. illegally by means of the Mexican border for many years. According to TheBlaze, “Hezbollah members and supporters have entered the U.S. through the southern border as early as 2002, with the case of Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, a Mexican of Lebanese descent. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison by Mexican authorities on charges of organized crime and immigrant smuggling. Mucharrafille had owned a cafe in the border city of Tijuana, near San Diego. In 2002, he was arrested for smuggling 200 people into the U.S., including Hezbollah supporters, according to a 2009 Congressional report.”
And in May 2010, the Department of Homeland Security warned local police along the southern border about a Muslim named Mohamed Ali who was suspected of being a member of the jihad terror group al Shabaab. An official who spoke to CNN about the warning said that it wasn’t clear whether or not Mohamed Ali was trying to enter the country illegally, but it seems unlikely that such an alert would have been sent out to police along the border if that had not been the case. Ali was, in any case, apparently involved in operating a “large-scale smuggling enterprise” that had brought hundreds of Somali Muslims into the U.S. illegally.
Top officials in Washington have known about how jihad terrorists have attempted to exploit the vulnerabilities of the southern border for many years now. In 2006, the House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee, under the leadership of Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX), issued a report entitled A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border, which stated: “Members of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization, have already entered to the United States across our Southwest border.”
Nothing changed. Investigative journalist Deroy Murdock reported in 2010 that “according to the federal Enforcement Integrated Database, 125 individuals were apprehended along the US/Mexican border from Fiscal Year 2009 through April 20, 2010. These deportable aliens included two Syrians, seven Sudanese, and 17 Iranians, all nationals from the three Islamic countries that the US government officially classifies as state sponsors of terrorism.” During the same period, border agents also apprehended “two Afghans, five Algerians, 13 Iraqis, 10 Lebanese, 22 Nigerians, 28 Pakistanis, two Saudis, 14 Somalis, and three Yemenis. During FY 2007 and FY 2008, federal officials seized 319 people from these same countries traversing America’s southwest border.”
Murdock grants that these illegals may simply have come to pursue the American Dream, as Leftist dogma would have it. But he notes disturbing signs to the contrary: “Besides Iranian currency and Islamic prayer rugs, Texas Border Patrol agents discovered an Arabic clothing patch that reads ‘martyr’ and ‘way to immortality.’ Another shows a jet flying into a skyscraper.” And for some, their malign intentions were unmistakable: “The Department of Homeland Security issued an April 14, 2010 ‘Intelligence Alert’ regarding a possible border-crossing attempt by a Somali named Mohamed Ali. He is a suspected member of Al-Shabaab, a Somali-based al-Qaeda ally tied to the deadly attack on American GIs in 1993’s notorious ‘Blackhawk Down’ incident in Mogadishu.”
Murdock offered an update in an April 2013 article, in which he gave the numbers of people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally via Mexico from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism.
As indicated by the latest information in Table 34 of Customs and Border Protection’s Immigration Yearbook 2011, 198 Sudanese were nabbed while penetrating the USA. Between FY 2002 and 2011, there were 1,207 such arrests. (These figures cover all U.S. borders, although, as Table 35 confirms, 96.3 percent of the overall detainee population intruded from Mexico.) Like other immigrants, most Sudanese seek better lives here. But some may be vectors for the same militant Islam that literally tore Sudan in two.
In FY 2011, 108 Syrians were stopped at our borders; over ten years, the number is 1,353. Syria is a key supporter of Hezbollah, and Bashar Assad’s unstable regime reportedly has attacked its domestic opponents with chemical weapons.
As for Iranians, 276 were caught in FY 2011, while 2,310 were captured over the previous ten years. Iran also backs Hezbollah, hates “the Great Satan,” and craves atomic weapons.
The other ten “countries of interest” are Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, and:
Afghanistan: The Taliban’s stronghold and current theater of America’s longest war. Afghans halted in FY 2011: 106. Prior ten fiscal years: 681.
Nigeria: The land of underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab suffers under sharia law in its northern provinces. Respective data: 591, 4,525.
Pakistan: Hideaway of the Pakistani Taliban and the late Osama bin Laden. 525, 10,682.
Saudi Arabia: Generous benefactor of radical imams and militant mosques worldwide; birthplace of 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers. 123, 986.
Somalia: Home of Indian Ocean pirates and al-Qaeda’s al-Shabaab franchise. In October 1993, Islamic terrorists there shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, killed 18 U.S. soldiers, and dragged several of their bodies through Mogadishu’s streets. 323, 1,524.
Each passing year brings new stories of this kind, new investigations and new recommendations – but no real action to secure our southern border. And in July 2014, Breitbart News published what it described as “photos of what American security contractors on the ground believe is a Muslim prayer rug found near the border in Arizona last week.”
That same month, Texas rancher Mike Vickers found an Urdu-English Dictionary on his property, which runs along the border and is frequently trespassed upon by illegals. Urdu is, of course, the language of Pakistan, an Islamic Republic that has produced a healthy number of jihad terrorists. A Texas Border Patrol Agent noted: “We’ve found Korans, prayer rugs and many other unusual items at the border that certainly raise concern.”
All these warnings, all this information, and yet year after year, nothing is done. And as long as Barack Obama is President and the Democrats are the majority party, nothing will be done – except the repetition of the charge that concern about border security is “racist.” If the Islamic State manages to get jihadis into the country from Mexico and they succeed in mounting a large-scale attack, our leaders can console themselves amid the carnage that at least they were never “racist.”
-
Excellent 6-minute video exploding this myth:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7TAAw3oQvg
-
Bill Maher and Islam
Posted by Robert Spencer - October 19, 2014
Bill Maher deserves some credit for sticking to his positions on Islam, jihad and Sharia, despite enormous pressure and an increasing torrent of abuse from his Leftist former friends and allies. In this interview, however, he reveals some of his own limitations: he has only a glancing knowledge of the subject matter, and is ill-equipped to answer challenges because he doesn’t realize the fallacies inherent in those challenges, any more than do those who are giving him the challenge.
Marlow Stern of the Daily Beast charges that he makes “generalizations about Islam,” and then Maher answers by arguing that it is perfectly reasonable to make generalizations about Muslims. Maher’s point is sound, but both he and Stern are failing to distinguish between Islam and Muslims. What people continually fail to grasp is the distinction between the texts and teachings of a faith, which are matters of record, and the many different ways in which people understand those texts and teachings. To say that all the schools of Islamic law teach violent jihad and the subjugation of unbelievers under the rule of Islamic law is simply a statement of fact. It can be proven or disproven with reference to the actual teachings of the schools. But if they do all teach this, and they do, that doesn’t mean that every Muslim follows those teachings, any more than the fact that the Catholic Church teaches against contraception means that every Catholic opposes contraception. There is a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor among Muslims as there is among believers in every belief system, religious or not.
What I object to is the violent, authoritarian, aggressive and supremacist program of jihad that is codified in Islamic doctrine. All too often any examination or discussion of this doctrine is waved away with a reference to things Christians did hundreds of years ago, and to passages in the Bible that are purportedly as violent as those in the Qur’an. But these doctrines are actually the problem, for they can and do incite Muslims to hatred and violence. Of course many Muslims are not thus incited, and many couldn’t care less about these doctrines. But that doesn’t change the fact that some Muslims are attempting to implement this deeply traditional supremacist program. The longer we don’t address this, or caricature pointing it out, as Stern does here, as tantamount to saying that “all Muslims are generally bad,” these texts and teachings will continue to incite jihad violence, with no one even considering any ways to stop this. (It is, of course, a staple of the Leftist/Islamic supremacist response to foes of jihad terror to claim that they’re saying that “all Muslims are terrorists.”)
Finally, there is in this another example of the low level of the public discourse today: not only does Stern caricature Maher’s position as “all Muslims are generally bad,” but he also offers as a counter to this the fact that five of the last twelve Nobel Peace Prize winners were Muslim. Given that Barack Obama and Yaser Arafat are Nobel Peace Prize winners, this is not an impressive argument: the Nobel Peace Prize is notoriously politicized. But what are we supposed to make of these Muslim Nobel Peace Prize winners? Did the Qur’an and Muhammad inspire them to take the actions that led them to win the Peace Prize? Does their existence somehow make it improper or wrong or bigoted to point out that jihadis worldwide repeatedly point to the Qur’an and Sunnah to justify their actions and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and that something should be done about this?
“Bill Maher: Yes, I Can Generalize About Muslims,” by Marlow Stern, Daily Beast, October 16, 2014:
The Ben Affleck episode on Real Time was just great television. On no other show would you see an A-list actor from a newly released blockbuster like Gone Girl getting fired up over Islam. What did you make of that heated exchange? He seemed pretty fired up the moment Sam Harris sat down.
Well, I’m done talking about it. My view is I’ve said what I had to say about it the week before, when I did a formal monologue at the end of the show that I wrote very carefully, and they were responding to that. I will say that we legitimately started a national debate on something that needs to be talked about, and it’s very gratifying to finally see that a heck of a lot of liberals understand that the real liberals in this debate are people like me and Sam.
But when you do make generalizations about Islam…
…It’s not a generalization! First of all, this is nonsense—this idea that you can’t make generalizations. All of knowledge is based on generalizations. No one can interview all 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. It’s a dumb argument. Read any history book and it’ll use the word “Christendom,” but they didn’t interview every Christian in the 1600s. We’re talking facts. We’re talking polls that have been done over decades, time and time again telling us what people are thinking about the world. So this idea that we are making generalizations? It’s just stupid. We understand that 1.5 billion people don’t all think alike and that there are differences from country-to-country, but you can’t advance any sort of knowledge without making generalizations and it doesn’t mean they’re inaccurate. To say that it’s a widespread belief in the Muslim world that death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion is just a statement of fact. We should stop arguing about that and move on from it and figure out what we can do about it. To dismiss that is just like saying, “Global warming doesn’t exist.”
If all Muslims are generally bad, then where does five of the last twelve Nobel Peace Prize winners, all of whom are Muslim—people like Malala Yousafzai—fit in?
Man, I’m done talking about this. I just don’t want to keep talking about this. I’ve said my piece, now the rest of you talk about it.
-
FOX reported this morning that several Muslim Imans in Canada notified authorities concerning members of their congregation who troubled them.
-
FOX reported this morning that several Muslim Imans in Canada notified authorities concerning members of their congregation who troubled them.
How are the massive angry global protests by the majority of peaceful muslims going?
-
Exactly, G M - I don't trust these Imams for a second. Taqiyya is an established doctrine (lying to unbelievers) and is actually considered a duty by devout Muslims.
I also thought it was both hilarious and infuriating yesterday listening to the breaking news reports from Canada and hearing reporters repeatedly stress that "authorities have not established any link between the perpetrator and radical Islam." HAH - I would have put $10K down as a bet that he was a jihadist right then and there when I first heard about it. Why are these idiot reporters (and our own President) so eager to absolve Islam of any responsibility?
Note also that we now learn that this guy was NOT a "recent convert" to Islam - nor was he poor or "underprivileged." These myths are going to result in many more dead victims until people face the ugly reality that is Islam.
-
My thought is this: We search for Truth. If that includes that some Imans did the right thing, we should acknowledge that.
-
Canada’s Jihad Denial
Posted By Robert Spencer On October 24, 2014 @ jihadwatch.org
Canada has experienced two murderous jihad terror attacks in the last three days, not long after the Islamic State called for such attacks – but the denial and obfuscation are as thick as ever.
On Monday, Ahmad Rouleau, a convert to Islam, hit two Canadian soldiers with his car, murdering Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Then he led police on a high-speed chase, during which he called 911 and explained that he was doing it all “in the name of Allah.” The chase, and Rouleau’s jihad, ended when he flipped his car and then, brandishing a knife, charged police, who shot him dead. One of Rouleau’s close friends said: “It was a terrorist attack and Martin died like he wanted to. That’s what happened….He did this because he wanted to reach paradise and assure paradise for his family. He wanted to be a martyr….The caliphate called all the Muslims on earth to fight. He listened to what they had to say and he did his part here.”
Then on Wednesday, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who has been widely reported to be a recent convert to Islam but whose father is a veteran of the jihad in Libya and who has been a Muslim for at least three years, went on a shooting rampage in Ottawa, murdering military reservist Corporal Nathan Cirillo and engaging in a gun battle inside Canada’s Parliament building. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said that there was “no evidence at this stage” that Zehaf-Bibeau had connections to any jihad groups, but CNN reported that “according to a U.S. counterterrorism source, Zehaf-Bibeau was connected to Hasibullah Yusufzai through social media. Yusufzai is wanted by Canadian authorities for traveling overseas to fight alongside Islamist fighters in Syria.” And “other radicalized people connected to Zehaf-Bibeau are still believed to be living in Canada, two U.S. law enforcement officials said.”
So Zehaf-Bibeau had connections to at least one jihadist who went to Syria to wage jihad, and Rouleau listened to what the Islamic State was saying, and “did his part” in Canada. What was the Islamic State saying? Late in September, the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, urged Muslims to murder non-Muslims in the West. “Rely upon Allah,” he thundered, “and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling.” He also addressed Western non-Muslims: “You will not feel secure even in your bedrooms. You will pay the price when this crusade of yours collapses, and thereafter we will strike you in your homeland, and you will never be able to harm anyone afterwards.”
Al-Adnani told Muslims to murder non-Muslims with any weapon at hand, or anything that could be used as a weapon: “If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.” Zehaf-Bibeau found a bullet. Rouleau found a car.
Yet despite the indications that Rouleau and Zehaf-Bibeau were heeding the Islamic State’s call to wage jihad at home by any means possible, the mainstream media was ready before the blood had dried to swing into the usual denial and obfuscation about the motives and goals of their attacks. Before Zehaf-Bibeau’s identity was known, CBC’s Doug Stoffel tweeted: “Amid the speculation in the #OttawaShooting in #Canada, it’s important to remember #ISIS hasn’t shown interest in attacks abroad.” Once Zehaf-Bibeau was identified as the shooter and was known to be a Muslim, ABC News one-upped Stoffel’s flagrantly counter-factual statement with the claim that “authorities in Canada are trying to understand what motivated a gunman to kill a soldier in the country’s capital Wednesday.”
In reality, what motivated him was blazingly obvious, but it was the one thing most Western government officials and all of the mainstream media have determined to ignore, and so the search was one for some other remotely plausible motive that could be sold to a public that is increasingly suspicious of what the government and media elites are telling them. Toronto’s Globe and Mail quoted a friend of Zehaf-Bibeau saying, “I think he must have been mentally ill,” although the only evidence for this that the paper presented was that “his friend frequently talked about the presence of Shaytan in the world – an Arabic term for devils and demons” – in other words, that Zehaf-Bibeau spoke frequently of what are standard beliefs of mainstream Islam.
Speaking of mental illness, in the wake of the Ottawa shootings, the police chiefs of Toronto and Ottawa wrote to local Muslim leaders, assuring them of their good will and urging Muslims to contact them in case of a “backlash.” These politically correct police chiefs seem to have imbibed the lesson well: after every jihad attack, Muslims are the victims, and need special reassurances. Of course, there should be no “backlash” against any innocent people and almost certainly won’t be, but this endless pandering is grotesque. Who is reassuring non-Muslims about keeping them safe from jihad attacks? Who is calling upon Muslim leaders in Canada or anywhere else to back up their condemnations of jihad terror with real action against it, including programs to teach young Muslims to reject that understanding of Islam?
No one. And that’s why Ahmad Rouleau and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau are likely to be only the first two in a long line of Muslims in Canada who heed the Islamic State’s call and murder their infidel countrymen. As long as politically correct fictions are allowed to befog the harsh realities of jihad, the bottom line is simple: more people are going to die.
-
Recently I saw a patient whose father was in the airforce in Iraq under Saddam. He fled Iraq many years ago. I asked her what she thought about what is going on in Iraq today. I stated how I feel sad for the many Iraqis who are perpetually stuck in the middle of all this warring.
Her response was that is the "Islamic" religion.
But us. We say that and we are bigots.
-
Spinning a Terrorist Into a Victim
Part 1: Who is Rasmieh Odeh?
IPT News
October 27, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4627/spinning-a-terrorist-into-a-victim
Click Image to View Video Recording
Note: Part 1 includes our previously released 2-minute prologue/trailer.
Starting Nov. 4, federal prosecutors in Detroit present their case against a Palestinian woman who slipped through the cracks. Rasmieh Odeh, 67, has been in the United States since at least 1995.
To her advocates, she's a peaceful community activist living in Chicago and an asset to her community.
Yet, she has a bloody, dark side that she has kept hidden all these years.
Odeh is a convicted terrorist who spent 10 years in an Israeli prison. She led a 1969 bombing that killed two college students in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh confessed. She says that confession only came after she was tortured. She was sentenced to life in prison, but was released unexpectedly as part of a prisoner exchange in 1979. Her torture claim has never been substantiated—even by the United Nations, to which she reported the alleged torture after her release—and she has yet to deny her involvement in the murders or even her ultimate imprisonment.
Odeh could have discussed the particulars of her situation when she applied for her visa and citizenship—how her sentence was even commuted—if she felt her alleged torture merited special consideration. Instead, she simply told U.S. authorities she had a spotless record.
Prosecutors say that constitutes immigration fraud. A terrorist conviction for an attack causing two deaths is something immigration officials would want to consider before granting an immigrant a visa or welcoming her into American citizenship.
Still, her supporters have launched an aggressive campaign aimed at getting the fraud charges dropped. Odeh, they say, is the real victim here. They claim this case is really about a government conspiracy to attack Palestinian advocates in America.
The campaign is led by Odeh's colleagues from the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), but has attracted support from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, and even a group of 124 feminist academics.
In the video above, the first installment of a five-part Investigative Project on Terrorism video series on Odeh's case and the campaign to thwart it, we provide an overview of the case and a look at Rasmieh Odeh and those supporting her.
New installments will be released each day this week. Tomorrow we examine the 1969 Jerusalem bombing Odeh helped orchestrate and learn more about her victims.
-
second post
http://pamelageller.com/2014/10/massachusetts-public-schools-teaching-the-shahada-there-is-no-god-but-allah.html/
-
“There’s a god of this world,” Bernard Hopkins was saying. “Some say the mass media is the god of this world. It’s like a song, like that ‘Happy.’ They shoved it down my throat. At first I hated it. Why I got to be happy? My dog died! But it ended up being one of my favorite songs. They put one of those songs out every 20 years. No matter how bad your life is, no matter how legitimate your reasons for being upset, they say, ‘Don’t worry, be happy.’ Song’s only three minutes, then you stop being happy. The way they control human beings, like cattle. How do a sheepdog keep 50 or 100 sheeps in order? I’m watching a dog keep a herd on TV, and I’m thinking that’s the way the system got most human beings: ‘Eat this. Drink that.’ ”
I had at some point asked him a question about boxing, but I hadn’t really expected a straight answer. Asking Hopkins a question is like trying to hit him. He won’t let you, but the experience of being frustrated by him can be instructive. Among other things, it can help you understand how Hopkins, the oldest champion in the history of boxing, continues to hang onto the title, his money and his considerable wits at the age of — this is not a typo — 49. Hopkins currently holds two of the four major light-heavyweight belts and will try to further unify the division’s fragmented title on Nov. 8, when he faces Sergey (Krusher) Kovalev, the unbeaten Russian knockout machine who holds one of the other two belts and who, though relatively untested, is widely considered one of the deadliest seek-and-destroy punchers of any size.
Unlike most other boxers, who train down to their fighting weight only when they have a bout coming up, Hopkins keeps himself right around the 175-pound light-heavyweight limit. Fight people marvel at the ascetic rigor that has kept him perpetually in superb shape for almost three decades, his habit of returning to the gym first thing Monday morning after a Saturday-night fight, the list of pleasurable things he won’t eat, drink or do. But to fetishize the no-nonsense perfection of his body, which displays none of the extraneous defined muscular bulk that impresses fans but doesn’t help win fights, is to miss what makes Hopkins an exemplar of sustaining and extending powers that are supposed to be in natural decline. He has no peer in the ability to strategize both the round-by-round conduct of a fight and also the shifts and adjustments entailed by an astonishingly long career in the hurt business. He has kept his body supple and fit enough to obey his fighting mind, but it’s the continuing suppleness of that mind, as he strategizes, that has always constituted his principal advantage.
Opponents don’t worry about facing his speed or power. They fear what’s going on in his head.
On a hot summer afternoon, Hopkins was having his hands wrapped in preparation for a workout at Joe Hand Boxing Gym in North Philadelphia. I had asked if he ever felt tempted to dumb down his subtle and hyperefficient boxing style — if he ever throws more punches than his exquisite ring sense tells him is necessary to win a round (which would increase the risk of being hit in return), for the benefit of ringside judges unequipped to appreciate his nuances.
“I understand and I don’t understand human beings,” Hopkins began, warming up for the filibuster to come. “In life — I’m gonna give you life and also sport, intertwined — in life, when you start being conscious of what people are thinking or judging, you’re in trouble.” From there, he took off on his disquisition on the hegemonic power of mass media. It’s one of his favorite subjects, and also, he didn’t want to talk about judges, in keeping with his disinclination to discuss any topic related to fighting or training that might give even the slightest advantage to the large subset of the human race he regards as potential enemies. From “Happy” and sheepdogs he segued into a critique of the prison-industrial complex, another frequently recurring subject for Hopkins, who learned to box in his early 20s while serving five years at Graterford Prison, outside his native Philadelphia, for assorted felonies. “It’s privatized,” he said. “You can buy stock in prison! That means, when I do something” — illegal, he meant, that leads to imprisonment — “you can buy stock in me.” He’s not shy about pointing out that both private and public interests invest heavily in the social failure of black men. All the more satisfying, then, to have beaten the odds: “But I flipped the script on the norm.”
Hopkins is sure that “the shot-callers and string-pullers” yearn for his comeuppance. They and their pawns are always after him to quit, he said. " ‘You got enough money.’ Now they counting my money! ‘We don’t want to see you get hurt.’ Where were they when I was walking off nine?” — a reference to the nine years he spent on parole following his release from prison in 1988, a period of self-reform and toeing the line that he considers the hardest thing he ever did. It’s part of a litany of young troubles and redemptive turns, a personal Stations of the Cross composed of vividly emblematic scenes from a life story that begins in the Raymond Rosen projects in North Philly and eventually arrives at the big home in suburban Delaware where he now lives. Along the way came three stab wounds collected before age 14, a prolific career as a violent street criminal culminating at 17 in an 18-year prison sentence, jailhouse rapes and a murder he witnessed, the shooting death of his brother Michael, a Quran given to him by a fellow inmate that reawakened his faith, the bracing plunge via Graterford’s boxing program into the icy clarity of the gym and the ring, the warden who supposedly said, “You’ll be back,” when Hopkins was paroled.
Opponents don’t worry about facing his speed or power. They fear what’s going on in his head.
Hopkins began playacting a scenario in which They look for a weakness with which to bring him down. " ‘We gotta discredit him. Do he drink? He don’t drink. Do he run with whores? He don’t. He lives clean. He don’t party. He don’t use drugs. Who cooks his food? He cook his own food. He stands in line at Whole Foods with everybody else.’ So they try to find guys to beat me, and I beat them, and I get rich. They become part of my discipline.” Then he was off on another of his regular topics: the conspiratorial failure of Whole Foods, Nike and other corporations to make a “poster boy” of him, a bad boy who became a good citizen and the most potently healthy-living middle-aged man imaginable. How come the marketers, who ate up George Foreman’s fuzzy-bunny routine and Lance Armstrong’s lies, aren’t lining up to pay for the celebrity-pitchman services of an outspoken Sunni ex-con who abjures alcohol, caffeine, refined sugar, processed grains, tap water, performance-enhancing drugs, weakness and just about everything else other than winning fights and making money? This grievance is part of the eternal drama of Bernard Hopkins, a renewable energy source that helps keep him going strong in and out of the ring.
Continue reading the main story
Hopkins climbed through the ropes and onto the canvas, stretched and shadowboxed for a while, and then spent a few rounds working on the mechanics of not being hit. A burly young man named Bear came after him with a blue foam wand in either hand, trying to tap him with simulated punches. Hopkins timed Bear’s advances, shifting the range between them to forestall blows, then stepped in close to put his shoulder on the bigger man, driving him back by expertly shifting his own weight. When Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” came on the gym’s sound system midround, Hopkins gave me a significant look over Bear’s shoulder: They never rest.
There are masters of defense who rely on will-o-the-wisp elusiveness, making a spectacle of ducking punches. Others build a fortress with their gloves, arms and lead shoulder, deflecting incoming blows. Hopkins can slip and block punches with the best of them, but his defensive technique is founded on undoing the other man’s leverage by making constant small adjustments in spacing and timing that anticipate and neutralize attacks before they begin. It’s somehow never quite the right moment to hit Hopkins with a meaningful shot. Boxers, especially big hitters, feel a kind of click when the necessary elements — range, balance, timing, angle — line up to create an opening to throw a hard punch with proper form. Hopkins doesn’t run away, but an opponent can go for long stretches of a round without ever feeling that click.
Frank Lotierzo, a former boxer from Philadelphia who is one of the fight press’s best analysts of ring style, broke down some of Hopkins’s defensive habits for me: “You’ll notice he’s looking down a lot, watching the other guy’s front foot to see when it comes up, which it does when you step into a punch, and that’s when he makes his move. He ties up opponents’ elbows on the inside; you control the elbows, you control the arms. He never backs straight up; he’ll give you an angle every time. He will pick a side and go away from your power, isolate one side of your body, step over and fight you on your blind side.” Drawing from that repertory, Hopkins went around and around with Bear in a state of tautly maintained détente, discouraging wand-blows but not throwing any punches himself.
Naazim Richardson, Hopkins’s trainer (and Bear’s father), took over for a while, wearing a glove on one hand and a pad on the other to catch punches. A steady skullcapped presence in Hopkins’s corner, Brother Naazim, as he’s known, is more co-conspirator than mentor. At this point, Hopkins, who received advanced instruction in his craft from English (Bouie) Fisher, George Benton and other wise men of Philadelphia’s deep ring tradition, knows more about boxing than most trainers. Hopkins and the much larger Brother Naazim shoved and hauled in a series of messy tussles from which Hopkins would emerge to bang the pad with a clean shot or two. Hitting the pads, intended to ingrain accuracy and speed and precise punching form, has become for most boxers in training a largely empty exercise in self-affirmation. The trainer holds up the pads, and the fighter pop-pop-pops them with blisteringly impressive combinations in predictable rhythm, combinations that he’s unlikely to throw in the give and take of a real fight. But Hopkins was rehearsing a more realistic struggle in which he would spend a lot of time shifting and mauling to denature an opponent’s leverage, looking to create an opening in which to score with a sneaky inside shot.
Figuring out what the other guy wants to do and not letting him do it is a matter of policy for Hopkins. But it’s also an expression of his inmost character and worldview. He’s not so much a contrarian as a serial agonist who regards life as an unending train of struggles for the upper hand, and over the years he has come around to the premise that such a life is best lived through a relentlessly calculated managing of self rather than the self-destructive fury of all-out aggression. One key to his longevity at the top of the fight world is that he has come to consider it “barbaric” to exchange blows with an opponent. Hopkins, who listens to Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” while he does roadwork, will employ any tactic at his disposal, fair or foul, to frustrate an adversary — fighter, manager, promoter, TV executive, conversational foil — while he applies his strategic acumen to the problem of divining that adversary’s deepest intention and coming up with a scheme to nullify it while absorbing the absolute minimum of punishment.
After Hopkins’s record-setting reign as middleweight champion from 1995 to 2005, it was widely assumed that he would retire and duly enter the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Instead, he retooled his body to move up two weight classes, straight to 175 pounds from 160 without pausing at 168 (super middleweight), an unheard-of leap in the modern era, and thrashed the light-heavyweight champion, Antonio Tarver, who was heavily favored to beat him. In middle age, Hopkins has made a specialty of flummoxing and defeating younger men who were supposed to have too much power for him: Tarver, Felix Trinidad, Kelly Pavlik, Tavoris Cloud, Jean Pascal.
Hopkins, who used to be known as the Executioner but now styles himself as the Alien, has a record of 55-6 with 2 draws; he will turn 50 in January. Imagine, if you’re looking for parallels in other sports, that the linebacker Ray Lewis did not retire at 36 last year and was still playing in the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl in 2026; or that Derek Jeter, who was 14 when Hopkins had his first professional fight, decided to play on past 40 and was still making the All-Star game and the playoffs in 2023. But getting old in the ring is a far more brutal and unforgiving process than getting old on any playing field. Winning title fights is the highly visible part of a much larger spectrum of effort that includes giving and taking countless blows, weathering the grind of making weight, training more consistently and shrewdly than anyone else, guiding his own boxing and other business affairs, preserving the integrity of his fortune and brain function and priming his seemingly inexhaustible motivational engine. Even great boxers tend over the long haul to lose the desire to do what it takes to win fights, but Hopkins’s sense of purpose, like his fighting mind, shows no signs of flagging. If anything, it’s getting sharper and stronger.
“To me, Bernard, he ain’t no real gifted athlete,” says Robert Allen, a former middleweight contender who was in his early 30s and already in decline when Hopkins (who is four years older than Allen) beat him in 1999 and 2004. “He’s just a little of everything on the average: average punching power, average hand speed.” Measured by the absurdly high standards of elite fighters, Hopkins’s only outstanding physical attribute is his “chin” — the ability to take a punch — which has less to do with natural gifts than with conditioning, technique, experience and will. Hopkins’s “ring generalship” is what sets him apart, Allen says. “The ring is like his home. It’s like he’s sittin’ on the couch watchin’ TV, relaxing. He’s like a snake, not even breathin’.” In 2011, Allen said of Hopkins: “He’s not really a fighter. It’s like something more political when you get in there with him.”
Continue reading the main story
Hopkins has changed his style over time to accommodate advancing age, moving the emphasis to efficiency over action. A mature-period Hopkins fight goes the distance — he has never been knocked out, and he hasn’t knocked out an opponent since Oscar De La Hoya, 10 years ago — and considering they’re boxing matches, they don’t have that much hitting in them. His objective is to prevent the other man from doing much of anything at all so that Hopkins can win rounds with a few well-considered blows. Sometimes he shaves his margin of victory too fine, or the other man is just a little too active and strong, and Hopkins loses a close decision, but nobody ever gives him a beating. Louts who lust for blood may boo when Hopkins works his punch-expunging magic, but Sun Tzu, who taught that a wise general wins by attacking his opponent’s strategy rather than by risking the contingencies of pitched battle, would approve.
‘The ring is like his home,’ says a former opponent. ‘It’s like he’s sittin’ on the couch watchin’ TV, relaxing. He’s like a snake, not even breathin’.’
Hopkins’s former opponents describe fighting him as an ordeal and an education. First come the prefight head games. “He touched me, pushed me in my face at the weigh-in, and it worked,” Winky Wright told me. “It made me want to hurt him and knock him out, instead of outbox him.” Once in the ring, “he won’t allow you to do what you want to do,” as Allen put it; I heard versions of that phrase over and over from men who fought Hopkins. And when an opponent does sense an opening, that could well be a trap. “He’s always five steps ahead of you,” De La Hoya told me. Hopkins set him up for the diaphragm-paralyzing left hook to the body that ended their fight by letting De La Hoya delude himself into believing that he was coming on strong. “He let me throw some punches for a couple of rounds, let my confidence build up,” De La Hoya said. “I got a little too confident, let my guard down, and that’s when he hurt me with a punch I didn’t see.” Smiling ruefully, he added, “I really thought I was going to win the fight!”
A skilled fouler, Hopkins will also hold-and-hit, punch low, step on an opponent’s instep and follow through with his own smooth-shaved skull after a punch to initiate a clash of heads. And he shamelessly complains about the dastardly things supposedly being done to him by the other guy. “When he bent over like I’d hit him low, he looked so wronged,” said the former super-middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe, laughing. “But he was just buying some time.”
Hopkins has hung around in boxing long enough to profit from the passage of time. (The same goes for his extensive real estate holdings in once-depressed and now-gentrifying neighborhoods in Philadelphia.) Sixty or 80 years ago, when the sport was more popular and more deeply embedded in day-to-day life in industrial America, there were several fighters in every weight class who knew all the little things that together add up to Hopkins’s big edge in the ring. But no longer. Hopkins is an enduring atavism, a one-man history lesson in the boxer’s craft.
The men he has fought, even much younger ones, have slipped away into retirement in his wake. The will to fight diminishes, and the once-peerlessly toned body follows. “Oh, man, I’m done,” Kelly Pavlik said when I asked him if Hopkins’s longevity gave him ideas about a comeback. De la Hoya said, “More power to him, but I’m done.” Winky Wright said: “I’m done. I play a lot of golf. It’s easier.”
Hopkins makes a habit of putting his hands on potential opponents to size them up, assessing their strength and feeling for weakness. In July, I watched him do roughly the same thing to a Showtime producer. Hopkins made a joke about being camera-shy — he’s not — just so he could laugh and slap the man’s shoulder, run a hand along his ribs, get a feel for whom he was dealing with. This habit can turn sitting and talking with him into a contact sport. He scoots his chair up to yours and bumps your knee with his own, as if striving for position. Leaning in so close that you can feel his hot breath on your face, he pokes and prods a shoulder, a forearm, jabs stiffened fingers into your torso just a little too hard, nominally to illustrate a point he’s making about digestion or human frailty or whatever. When I asked him about it, he said: “Feeling for softness is important to my diagnosis. Sometimes you can see and look, but you gotta feel to really check.”
Continue reading the main story
‘If you don’t know your own value, somebody will tell you your value, and it’ll be less than you’re worth.’
At the time we were sitting face to face on folding chairs in the media room of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Hopkins, a minority partner in Golden Boy Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya’s company, which he joined a couple of months after he knocked out De La Hoya in 2004, was in town to boost a fight promoted by Golden Boy. But we were talking instead about how he learned the business side of boxing. This part of his story is essential to understanding his longevity because it’s about rigorous self-knowledge. A great strategist knows his enemy, Sun Tzu says, but he also knows himself. Hopkins performed his own diagnostic routine on himself as a young felon and didn’t like the resulting self-portrait — that of a doom-seeking knucklehead — and so he found the discipline in boxing to go straight and make good. He examined himself again as a rising middleweight in his late 20s and, again, didn’t like what he found: a patsy who dutifully did all the hard work at the behest of others who took more than their share of the money.
So, armed only with native smarts and a jailhouse G.E.D., Hopkins set out to turn a weakness into strength. “I started asking questions, trying to figure out how everybody else was making more than me, and I’m taking the punches,” he said. “I had to learn the business — international rights, marketing, license fees, the gate, concessions, merchandising, sponsors.” He did it on the sly at first. “I didn’t want to let people know I was trying to learn, or they would have tried to stop me, so I would ask questions about other fighters who set an example for me not to do.”
By 1995 he felt ready to take over his own boxing affairs, and he has managed himself ever since, employing lawyers and other “soldiers who do the legal mumbo jumbo” to help negotiate deals that allow him to take home a much greater share of the money he makes in the ring. “I started getting mines late in the game, once I realized I should know this before I became another [expletive]-up fighter,” he said. “If you don’t know your own value, somebody will tell you your value, and it’ll be less than you’re worth.”
Hopkins, who has put his ring earnings into a conservative business portfolio strong on real estate and bonds, resolved long ago not to end up punchy and cadging for handouts, as so many former fighters have. In addition to looking out for himself, he has a wife, Jeanette, and three children to provide for. He offers advice to younger fighters, like the undefeated super middleweight Andre Ward, who told me: “He’s always hammering home: ‘Nobody gets paid unless you get in the ring. So get what you’ve got coming, and save your money. Everybody likes nice things, but wait.’ ”
When I asked Hopkins about advising other fighters, he said, “I was perceived as a troublemaker” when he began managing himself, “because I was a slave who learned to read. Maybe I’m more of a troublemaker now — somebody trying to stand up for themselves and maybe influence others, teach the other slaves how to read.”
Bernard Hopkins may well be the best old fighter ever. Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali, whose names come up often in discussions of the greatest fighters of all time, were both over the hill by their late 30s. Even among the few greats who fought into their 40s — Bob Fitzsimmons, Archie Moore, George Foreman — it’s difficult to find parallels to Hopkins’s late-career run of lucrative high-profile victories over top-flight competition. Others who fought into middle age have typically ended up taking a pounding that made them look pathetic, but Hopkins gets hit less than ever these days, and his post-40-year-old losses have been by debatable decision. And of course, Hopkins and his few near-peers in long-term success are all exceptions to the fight world’s Hobbesian norm of short primes followed by brutal declines. Consider Mike Tyson, who is a year younger than Hopkins. Tyson peaked in 1990 at 24, and was effectively finished as a serious fighter by 1997.
Hopkins may be richer, more sophisticated, more patient and (according to those who work with him) mellower and less abrasively paranoid than he used to be, but he’s constitutionally unequipped to grow overcomfortable in success. When I asked if he had been concerned, back when he started managing himself, that he might be blacklisted by the powers that be, he said, “I feel like I was blacklisted in 1965” — at birth. “I don’t get blinded by a few successful peoples, like Jay-Z or Oprah. I look at the people who didn’t make it — the penitentiaries, the thousands.” A handful of champions make serious money, but boxing remains fundamentally a sport for those who, like Hopkins as a young man, feel they have nothing to lose. While he had to outgrow that earlier version of himself in order to survive and prosper, he hasn’t lost touch with it. He used a mug shot of him taken in 1984 as wallpaper for his phone. He looks older in it than he does now, he says.
I asked, “Are we talking about the motor that makes you go?” and he wrong-footed me by coming back with a straight answer. “Yes,” he said. “Being the person I became, this is the person I am.”
Carlo Rotella is director of American studies at Boston College and the author, most recently, of “Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles and Other True Stories.”
-
Canadian Watchdog Report Chastises RCMP for Islamist Engagement
by John Rossomando
IPT News
November 24, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4663/canadian-watchdog-report-chastises-rcmp-for
A new report by Canada's Point de Bascule takes the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to task for participating in a panel discussion Wednesday sponsored by the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at the University of Windsor. RCMP Superintendent Doug Best, who heads the Canadian law-enforcement agency's national security operations in Ontario, will appear alongside two Canadian Islamists.
"The upcoming event in Windsor is the latest example of an increasing and dangerous collaboration between Canada's security agencies and Islamists linked to the Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure," the Point de Bascule report says.
The program, "Violent Radicalization and It Impact on Muslims," also features two speakers with a history of supporting radical Islamists. One of those speakers is Muhammed Robert Heft who recently met with Taliban officials in Qatar in hopes of getting the Taliban to stand against the Islamic State. The other radical Islamist is law professor Faisal Kutty has been a spokesman for two charities accused of al-Qaida ties.
The host organization, MSA, was founded in 1963 by Muslim Brotherhood members at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. It served as the organizational base from which the Islamist movement in North America sprang. A 2007 New York Police Department report found that extremists use MSAs as "forums for the development and recruitment of like-minded individuals."
Numerous individuals with MSA ties have been convicted or charged with terrorism-related offenses.
"However, if we look carefully at the organizations that they support and the goal that they pursue, they are indistinguishable from those defended by violent Islamists," said Marc Lebuis, director of Point de Bascule. "In fact, Islamists waging violent jihad and those waging what they call themselves the "jihad of the tongue" are executing a good cop/bad cop routine in front of our very eyes."
The "jihad of the tongue" involves calling non-believers to Islam, and it can accompany a military or political struggle. Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi contends that this sort of jihad can be waged by "calling others to Islam, highlighting the merits of Islam and preaching in the language of the target audience."
Qaradawi also notes that this "collective jihad of da'awah (Islamic preaching)" precedes military jihad.
The Hamas Charter similarly endorses the jihad of the tongue as a prong of its offensive against Israel and the Jews, Lebuis said.
"Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah's sake," Hamas says in Article 30 of its 1988 charter.
Point de Bascule, a non-profit watchdog group that monitors the activities and operations of radical Islamic groups in Canada, warns that if those waging the "jihad of the tongue" on Canada's security infrastructure succeed, it will make the "task of neutralizing violent jihadists almost impossible."
The fruits of this engagement include a 2009 RCMP document "Words Make Worlds" that discourages police officers from using Islamic concepts to describe the Islamist threat. Michel Coulombe, director of Canada's Security Intelligence Service, testified in February that his agency prefers to refer to jihadism as "terrorism inspired by Al-Qaida ideology" rather than invoking Islamic terminology.
It's not a notion that will be challenged by the others on Wednesday's Windsor panel.
Muhammed Robert Heft is a Toronto-based convert imam who has advised the RCMP, Canadian parliamentarians along with U.S. and Australian government agencies counter-terrorism issues. Heft helped create a "Specialized De-Radicalization Intervention Program" modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous to work with radicalized Muslim youth. He also founded P4E Support Group, which states on its website that it exists to "assist Muslims converts."
Heft portrays himself as a moderate; however, his Facebook page raises questions about that. Earlier this month, Heft travelled to Doha, Qatar to meet with Taliban representatives at their "embassy" there.
"Please pray for the success of my mission. I am meeting with the head of the Taliban Embassy in Doha, Qatar and we are working on a treaty that would state clearly that the Taliban (Mujahideen) don't condone vigilante violence, Criminal acts or Terrorism in Non Muslim Countries. They have agreed to take it to Mullah Omar," Heft wrote Oct. 24. "This will hopefully put some doubt as to the legitimacy of ISIS and there(sic) Fatwas about killing indiscriminately."
He said that he had been in communication with the Taliban for the previous six months leading up to his announcement.
Such sentiments ignore the Taliban's history of indiscriminate killing of innocents and its support for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida both before and since 9/11. Al-Qaida Emir Ayman Al-Zawahiri pledges his loyalty to Mullah Omar.
Canada's government added the Taliban to its list of terrorist organizations in 2013, noting that the terrorist group mostly relies on suicide bombings and improvised-explosive devices to kill indiscriminately.
Heft's Facebook page links to the website of Zakir Naik, a Muslim televangelist banned from entering Canada in 2010.
Naik described Jews as "our staunchest enemy" and endorsed Osama Bin Laden, saying:" If [Osama bin Laden] is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him … If he is terrorizing a terrorist, if he is terrorizing America the terrorist, the biggest terrorist, I am with him."
Faisal Kutty, the third panelist at the MSA event, is a Valparaiso University law professor in Indiana..
Kutty served on the board of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Canada office and worked as a spokesman for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a radical Saudi funded organization and the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) – both organizations linked to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.
Kutty told journalists that BIF "provides succor for the needy, not help for terrorists" and denied that Benevolence International Foundation had ties to Al-Qaida in October 2001, according to the Point de Bascule report.
The United Nations added BIF to its list of Taliban and al-Qaida supporting entities in November 2002, noting its active support for Bin Laden's activities in Bosnia, Pakistan, China, Chechnya and Russia. Three months later, BIF director Enaam Arnaout entered a plea agreement for diverting charitable donations to jihadists.
Kutty publicly defended WAMY in October 2001, telling a Canadian newspaper it was a "very respected organization" and that people "would be shocked" to hear allegations linking it with al-Qaida. But a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audit released in 2011 found that WAMY had served as "primary [source] of Al-Qaida financial and fundraising activity" in 1993 and that it "served a critical role in the Arab-Afghan terrorist infrastructure."
Furthermore, in 2003, David Kane, a special agent with U.S. Customs Service, signed an affidavit in which he revealed numerous radical, racist and terrorist activities supported by WAMY, including active support for Hamas' terrorist wing. Kane also cited the fact that WAMY published many books for Muslim youth promoting hatred of Christians and Jews. Kane quoted from one book as follows:
"[T]he seed of the Gulf-war was planted by a Jew; the Jews are enemies of the faithful, God and the angels; The Jews are humanity's enemies; they foment immorality in this world; The Jews are deceitful, they say something but mean the exact opposite; Who was behind the biological crisis which became like brain washing? A Jew; Who was behind the disintegration of family life and values? A Jew; The one that stirred-up hate and turned the individuals against their Muslim governments in the Arab peninsula - a Jew; Who promoted Atheism and made the countries thrive on Muslims' blood? The Jews; Every tragedy that inflicts the Muslims is caused by the Jews."
More recently, Kutty downplayed the role Islam plays in motivating jihadists. In a Nov. 22 column in the Windsor Star, he blamed "mental illness" for jihadist terrorist acts, including that of Parliament Hill shooter Michel Zehaf-Bibeau.
"In fact, a few 'radicals' that I have counselled were diagnosed schizophrenics," Kutty wrote.
The report shows that , the RCMP fallen into the same trap as some U.S. law enforcement agencies in that have established close relations with radical Islamist groups who pretend to be moderate. The danger is that the RCMP legitimizes militant groups and radicals who should be shunned rather than dignified as respected moderate allies of the Canadian government in its war against war against Islamic terrorism.
By embracing Islamic extremists who masquerade as moderates, the RCMP effectively has ostracized genuine Islamic moderates in Canada who deserve recognition for their courage in speaking out against the terrorists.
Read the full Point de Bascule report here.
Related Topics: John Rossomando
-
Peace With Islam in Our Time
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On November 27, 2014
Abdallah Bulgasem Zehaf-Bibeau, the crackhead turned Jihadist spawned by the mating of a Canadian immigration official and a Libyan Muslim Jihadist, just wanted peace.
He told a co-worker, “There can’t be world peace until there’s only Muslims.” Then he tried to usher in peace, the Islamic way, by opening fire near the Canadian parliament.
Meanwhile in Israel a reporter interviewing Arab Muslim settlers in Jerusalem found that they too wanted peace. On their terms.
“Yes we want peace,” one of them said, “but peace means no Jews.”
When negotiating peace with other cultures it’s a good idea to make sure that the words you are using mean the same thing. Most Muslims and Westerners want peace. But to Westerners peace means co-existence. To Muslims, peace means the end of your existence.
Ideas carry heavy cultural baggage. Peace in the West summons up images of Armistice Day, of the Christmas Truce of WW1 in which French, German and English soldiers could share meals and play soccer together. It carries with it the subversive idea that both sides realize the war isn’t worth fighting.
Such a subversive idea has no place in Islam. The Jihad is at the heart of Islam. To question the holy war is to also question the faith. When war is religion then peace through setting aside war is heresy.
The Western idea of peace is a wholly alien one to Islam. In Islam, peace does not come from men transcending their differences, but from destroying men who think and live differently. That is the function of the religious police of our allied “moderate Muslim” countries who seek out the practice of other religions and other ways of living in places like Saudi Arabia and suppress their practitioners.
Islamic peace does not come from diversity, from accepting the existence of other nations, religions and peoples, but from unity through Islam and eliminating as many differences as possible. If Islam is the source of peace, then all that which is “not Islam” is the cause of war.
Kill the Jews. Kill the Christians. Then there will be peace.
The Islamic idea of peace was aptly expressed by Zehaf-Bibeau and our anonymous Jerusalem Jihadist. It is not based on a recognition of the humanity of one’s fellow man, but on a rejection of their humanity.
As Mohammed curtly put it in missives to the leaders of non-Muslim countries in the region, “Aslim, Taslam.” Convert to Islam and you’ll have peace. The same message has been dispatched by Muslim leaders today to popes and presidents. It’s a message of peace on the only terms that Islam allows.
Islam is the religion of peace. For there to be peace, Islam must be supreme. Within the Islamic worldview, conflict is caused by the existence of dissent. The only way to achieve peace is by forcing the submission of every human being to the correct strain of Islam. “Moderates” may agree to let Jews and Christians live as inferior second-class citizens if they submit to Muslims. “Extremists” will skip straight to raping and beheading them. And once that ugly business is done, there will be peace.
Or there will be peace once the “moderates” and “extremists” have finished killing each other, once the Sunnis and Shiites have finished beheading each other, and once every single Muslim has finished slaughtering every other Muslim who in any way dissents from his understanding of Islam.
That’s the brand of peace we’re seeing in Iraq and Syria today. Or the peace process between Israel and the Arab Muslims who were rebranded as “Palestinians” because it made them seem like a local flavor.
Islam rejects the idea that mutual empathy should transcend conflict. Instead it believes that war should transcend humanity. Or as the Koran puts it, “Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not.”
The Western tradition is biased toward the peace of co-existence. It applies the logic of armistice toward all areas of life leading to the championing of multiculturalism and immigration. Its siren song is John Lennon’s Imagine with its call for an end to borders, nations, religions and property. Its ideal of peace comes from the end of structure and separation between people.
The Islamic idea of peace however affirms a structure and separation based on the Koran. It believes that there will be peace when everyone is forced to live within the strictures of Islam. And therefore there can be no genuine peace with non-Muslims who do not submit to Islam.
These two incompatible notions of peace continue to collide. Imagine if French soldiers had clambered out to sing and play soccer only to be gunned down by German soldiers who had a fundamentally different idea of peace. This was actually how WW2 was shaped as the victorious side played by outdated rules while Nazi Germany, Japan and the USSR shifted to a thoroughly totalitarian mentality.
Munich was a disaster because Hitler was not the Kaiser. The other side was no longer willing to play by any rules, even in diplomatic negotiations, or to accept anything short of total victory. The Allies were forced to match their enemies in a ruthless war that saw entire cities destroyed.
The Nazis and Communists were the products of years of indoctrination that taught them to see opponents as less than human and peace as being obtainable only through their destruction. Japan, which had a longer history of dehumanizing outsiders, proved to be an even tougher nut to crack.
Islam has a history of over a thousand years of continuously dehumanizing non-Muslims and identifying peace and their enslavement as one and the same. It is impossible to live in peace with Muslims who think that there can be no peace as long as non-Muslims continue to live independent lives.
In the Muslim worldview, war happens because non-Muslims exist. War is caused by the infidel, the disbeliever and the Muslim hypocrite who does not truly commit to the practice of Islam. The Jihad purifies the world of non-Muslims; it eradicates the “moderate” Muslims who have been compromised by Western culture. It is a war of extermination against the un-Islamic.
When Westerners propose peace, Muslims reject them as hypocrites for speaking of peace, but refusing to accept the only religion that can bring peace. They feel no obligation to honor any peace agreements since peace can only come from Islam and the Western rejection of Islam proves our deceitfulness and bad intentions. This dynamic is inherent in the Koran and the entire history of Islam.
Islam does not obtain peace through peace, but through war. It seeks a world without conflict by killing anyone who might disagree with its totalitarian ideology.
Proposing the peace of co-existence to an ideology to which peace means its own supremacy is a foolish and deranged act. Our outreach to the Muslim world does not lack for a common language, but for common ideas. Both sides may speak of peace, but for one side peace really means war.
Languages are not only made up of words, but of values. It is not enough to bring a dictionary to a negotiation if the two parties are reading from different moral and ethical traditions. Just because we translate “Salaam” as peace and agree that we both want peace does not mean that we have the same idea of what peace is.
The West sees peace as living side by side with Muslims. Muslims see peace as the end of the West.
-
http://pamelageller.com/2014/12/nypd-cop-killer-worked-for-hamas-linked-islamic-society-of-north-america.html/
-
http://pamelageller.com/2014/12/nypd-cop-killer-worked-for-hamas-linked-islamic-society-of-north-america.html/
Wait, a Muslim involved in a violent act? NFW!
-
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=29931
-
Pam Geller does great work but unfortunately she regularly leaves out points uncomfortable to her conclusions.
http://pamelageller.com/2015/01/pamela-geller-breitbart-sharia-tribunal-in-texas-this-is-how-it-starts.html/
Working from memory, here she fails to examine that such religious "courts" exist for other religions, including Jewish, and the implications thereof.
-
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4765/hamas-supporting-mb-figures-meet-with-congress#
-
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/28/gun-range-ban-on-muslims-draws-fire/
-
NP3 High School Principal Responds to Concerns over Hijab Day with Smears
Posted By Robert Spencer On January 30, 2015
The exchange below is yet another example of how one side of the debate about Sharia and jihad is trying to have a rational discussion, while the other responds only with slogans and smears. A woman in California responded to my call yesterday to write to NP3 High School principal Tom Rutten. She then received the email below, which is drearily predictable with its cries of “hate” and lack of specific response to any of the concerns she raised. She kindly forwarded this response to me, and I wrote the third email below to Rutten.
I don’t expect a response, or at least one that deals with the points I raised, so I thought I’d post all three emails here so that you can see which side here is being reasonable, and what happens when those whose political views are not favored ask reasonable questions.
Meanwhile, Hamas-linked CAIR is crowing over this ridiculous piece on the controversy, and well they should crow, as only their point of view is represented. Fox 40 made no attempt to contact me, of course, or to speak with anyone who wrote letters to the school expressing concern over Hijab Day. The whole thing is dismissed, as always in the mainstream media, as “bigotry” — on that, see my email to Rutten below. The Fox 40 story is also riddled with errors. I did not name the student responsible for Hijab Day in my post, as you can see here. The principal’s name is Rutten, not Sutten.
And of course Fox 40 makes no mention of CAIR’s ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the jihad terror convictions of several of its former officials, the fact that the United Arab Emirates designated it a terror organization, etc. But it does go out of its way to say I (without naming me) am “anti-Muslim,” without bothering to note the issues regarding the oppression of women and religion-and-state involved here. Typical sloppy and one-sided mainstream media story. In posting it, Hamas-linked CAIR has disabled comments, as they always do. That in itself is telling.
1. Concerned citizen to Tom Rutten:
I am a taxpayer, Girl Scout leader, and public education advocate in Southern California, and I am writing to express my shock, dismay, and disappointment at learning that a school in your district, the Natomas Unified School District, held a Hijab Day today, encouraging all girls and women to wear hijabs. This is outrageous.
It’s outrageous primarily because it brought religion into a public school in a way that directly conflicts with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits school-sponsored prayer and religious indoctrination. Encouraging girls and women to wear hijabs for “modesty” is clearly an example of religious indoctrination. Can you imagine the public outrage if a Jewish student requested “Yarmulke Day” and all men and boys at the school were urged to wear a head covering of the type that Jewish men and boys wear? It’s unimaginable. For your future use, here’s a guideline on Religion in Schools produced by the ACLU: www.aclu-tn.org/pdfs/briefer_religion_in_public_schools.pdf.
Additionally, it’s astounding because, per the flyer, “Hijab Day” was organized by, or encouraged by the Muslim Students Association, which is considered by many national security experts to be tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. In other words, tied to terrorism. I could provide you a dozen links to articles about this, but perhaps you’d like to do your own google search. It’s out there.
I know that you are a busy man, Mr. Rutten, but I really would like to understand why the NP3 thought this was acceptable. If you’d please reply to me, I’d appreciate that.
2. Tom Rutten to the concerned citizen:
Since this was a student run event I have attached the student response below.
Tom Rutten
At a time when anti-Muslim sentiment is growing, I wanted to let my classmates and teachers know about the challenges that young Muslim women face when they put on a headscarf. It is unfortunate that a small effort to promote mutual understanding would provoke such a hate-filled and irrational response.
NP3 Hijab Day was part of my Senior Project, meant to bring awareness to my campus about the misconceptions surrounding Islam, particularly those surrounding the headscarf. I invited a speaker to talk to faculty about addressing Islamophobia in the classroom and the challenges in the Muslim world, and they appreciated the open and frank discussion.
The irrational reaction by some intolerant individuals is similar to the many manufactured controversies nationwide over the teaching of basic information about Islam, the faith of one-fifth of the world’s population, in public schools. In many other cases, any discussion of Islam or American Muslims brings about this reaction.
The person who promoted the misinformation about this issue, Robert Spencer, is one of the most notorious Islamophobes in America.
This extreme reaction clearly demonstrates why this presentation was needed in the first place.
South Poverty Law Center’s profile on Robert Spencer:
http://www.splcenter.org/get%20informed/intelligence%20files/profiles/Robert%20Spencer
3. Robert Spencer to Tom Rutten:
Dear Mr. Rutten:
Thank you for your kind response to Ms. [redacted], which she forwarded to me.
The message from your student was most interesting. I trust that you have explained to her that to respond to the concerns voiced by Ms. [redacted] and others by linking to a smear piece on me is an example of the ad hominem fallacy: attacking the person voicing the concerns rather than the concerns themselves. The Southern (not “South”) Poverty Law Center attack piece is also highly inaccurate and misleading. The FBI, in fact, even stopped using the SPLC’s work on “hate groups” last year, in light of the fact that the SPLC had stopped tracking real hate groups and was using the label to smear those who disagreed with its political views.
I am not going to try your patience by showing the falsehood of all of SPLC’s smear claims; suffice it for the moment to point out that I have led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.
I trust that you also have explained or will explain to your student that to dismiss all concern about NP3 Hijab Day as “hate-filled,” “irrational,” and “Islamophobic” doesn’t contribute in the least to “open and frank discussion,” but actually forecloses on the possibility of such a discussion by trying to intimidate people into thinking that concerns they thought were legitimate are actually manifestations of a “bigotry” they were not aware they had. This is just the opposite of “open and frank discussion,” and I am sure you would agree that this kind of name-calling, intimidation, and groupthink should not be encouraged in academic settings at any level.
For your convenience, here are the major concerns that people have about the NP3 Hijab Day event:
1. FBI statistics show that hate crimes against Muslims, which are never justified, are actually quite uncommon, with hate crimes against Jews being over four times more common. Details here: http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2014/12/new-fbi-hate-crime-stats-another-blow-to-islamist
Yet I would venture to guess that there has been no event at NP3 High to call attention to the challenges that Jews face, and that none is in the works. I understand that NP3 Hijab Day was a student-run event. Would a Jewish or pro-Israel student be allowed to stage a similar Day calling attention to anti-Semitism? If this included the rise in Islamic anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere, would this be allowed? Would you allow a Yarmulke Day at NP3 High?
2. CAIR and the MSA appear to have been involved in this event. Both were named unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land trial, which involved funneling money to the terror group Hamas. Both have demonstrable ties, documented and noted by the FBI, with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. See, for example, these links:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2340/federal-judge-agrees-cair-tied-to-hamas
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2011/March/Muslim-Student-Group-a-Gateway-to-Jihad/
Is it really wise to allow people from organizations that have ties to terror groups to interact with NP3 students?
3. As I am sure you’re aware, even student-run events by Christian students have come under fire in public schools in recent years, and many see them as a violation of the Establishment Clause. Would you allow a Wear the Cross Day? I have never heard of such an event in any public school except in conjunction with protests against it on Constitutional grounds. Do you not think this is a double standard — and one perpetuated by Hijab Day at NP3 High?
4. Many women and girls around the world have been brutalized and even killed for not wearing a hijab. A list of some of them, with further links to the relevant news stories, is at this link: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/02/today-is-world-hijab-day
Are you not concerned that NP3’s Hijab Day might end up justifying and helping perpetuate the pretexts for this oppression? What steps did you take to ensure that that did not happen? If a student wanted to hold a Day calling attention to the oppression of women that is all too often justified by Islamic law, would that be allowed at NP3?
I hope these questions make it clear that there are legitimate concerns regarding NP3’s Hijab Day, and to dismiss them as “hate-filled” is simply an attempt to shut down the public discussion that is needed on these issues. I look forward to receiving your answers to these questions. Also, I would be happy to come to NP3 High School at my own expense, in order to engage in an open forum with students on these and related issues, and to ensure that the “open and frank discussion” on these issues at NP3 High is not dominated solely by one perspective only. We can settle on a mutually agreeable date for this open forum at your convenience — I can be reached at this email address and at [redacted].
Cordially
Robert Spencer
-
FBI official: Islamic State is recruiting U.S. teens
FEBRUARY 4, 2015 11:54 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
How could this be? Obama, Kerry, Biden, David Cameron, and everyone else assures us that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. So why is it so appealing to young Muslims in the West? Why are Muslim parents encouraging their children to join it? The cognitive dissonance is massive, and the FBI isn’t doing what it should be doing: calling upon U.S. Muslims to teach against the Islamic State’s ideology. Right now, it is not being countered with any organized program in U.S. mosques or Islamic schools, and no one seems to care.
“FBI official: ISIS is recruiting U.S. teens,” by Pamela Brown and Wesley Bruer, CNN, February 4, 2015 (thanks to Aron):
Washington (CNN)For the head of the FBI’s counterterrorist division, Michael Steinbach, the unknown worries him the most.
Steinbach is leading the daunting effort to stay on top of the evolving threat landscape, which includes targeting and recruiting teenage Americans. In an exclusive interview with CNN inside the agency’s Strategic Information and Operations Center, he acknowledged it’s extremely difficult to track every American who might travel abroad to join terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
“I’m worried about individuals that we don’t know about that have training,” Steinbach said. “We know what we know. But there is a number that’s greater than that that we don’t know.”
Steinbach says U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies don’t track individuals leaving the United States to vacation in Europe.
“Once you get to Europe, you can easily get down to Turkey and into Syria” Steinbach says.
There’s growing concern about homegrown violent extremism in the aftermath of last month’s terror attacks in Paris. Those strikes underscored the threat posed to the West by small groups of terrorists with western passports who are influenced by the rhetoric espoused by ISIS. Steinbach is concerned that type of attack could happen on U.S. soil.
When asked if there are ISIS cells in the U.S., Steinbach said “there are individuals that have been in communication with groups like ISIL who have a desire to conduct an attack” and those people are living in the U.S. right now, but he says the term “sleeper cells” is too simplistic, because the threat is much more complicated and diffuse.
In the U.S., the FBI has seen children as young as 15 recruited by ISIS and Steinbach said he “can’t speak with 100% certainty that individuals of that age group have not gotten over there successfully.”
In some cases, Steinbach said parents even encourage their children to be involved with terror groups.
“There are individuals out there who are inspired by the message of terrorist groups and they encourage family members, including their children, to follow that path,” he said, adding in those cases, the FBI holds the parents responsible…
-
Obama: Christianity No Different Than the Islamic State
Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On February 6, 2015
As the world reacts with shock and horror at the increasingly savage deeds of the Islamic State (IS)—in this case, the recent immolation of a captive—U.S. President Obama’s response has been one of nonjudgmental relativism.
Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, Obama counseled Americans to get off their “high horse” and remember that Christians have been equally guilty of such atrocities:
Unless we get on our high horse and think this [beheadings, sex-slavery, crucifixion, roasting humans] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.
There is so much to be said here. First, the obvious: the wide gulf between violence and hate “justified in the name of Christ” and violence and hate “justified in the name of Muhammad” is that Christ never justified it, while Muhammad continuously did.
This is not just a theoretic point; it is the very reason that Muslims are still committing savage atrocities. Every evil act IS commits—whether beheading, crucifying, raping, enslaving, or immolating humans—has precedents in the deeds of Muhammad, that most “perfect” and “moral” man, per Koran 33:21 and 68:4 (see “The Islamic State and Islam” for parallels).
Does Obama know something about Christ—who eschewed violence and told people to love and forgive their enemies—that we don’t? Perhaps he’s clinging to that solitary verse that academics like Philip Jenkins habitually highlight, that Christ—who “spoke to the multitudes in parables and without a parable spoke not” once said, “I come not to bring peace but a sword.” (Matt. 10:34, 13:34).
Jesus was not commanding violence against non-Christians but rather predicting that Christians will be persecuted, including by family members (as, for example, when a Muslim family slaughters their child for “apostatizing” to Christianity as happens frequently).
Conversely, in its fatwa justifying the burning of the Jordanian captive, the Islamic State cites Muhammad putting out the eyes of some with “heated irons” (he also cut their hands and feet off). The fatwa also cites Khalid bin al-Walid—the heroic “Sword of Allah”—who burned apostates to death, including one man whose head he set on fire to cook his dinner on.
Nor is the Islamic State alone in burning people. Recently a “mob accused of burning alive a Christian couple in an industrial kiln in Pakistan allegedly wrapped a pregnant mother in cotton so she would catch fire more easily.”
As for the Islamic “authorities,” Al Azhar—the Islamic world’s oldest and most prestigious university which cohosted Obama’s 2009 “New Beginning” speech—still assigns books that justify every barbarity IS commits, including burning people alive. Moreover, Al Azhar—a religious institution concerned with what is and is not Islamic—has called for the cutting off of the hands and feet of IS members, thereby legitimizing such acts according to Islamic law.
On the other hand, does Obama know of some secret document in the halls of the Vatican that calls for amputating, beheading or immolating enemies of Christ to support his religious relativism?
As for the much maligned Crusades, Obama naturally follows the mainstream academic narrative that anachronistically portrays the crusaders as greedy, white, Christian imperialists who decided to conquer peace-loving Muslims in the Middle East.
Again, familiarity with the true sources and causes behind the Crusades shows that they were a response to the very same atrocities being committed by the Islamic State today. Consider the words of Pope Urban II, spoken almost a millennium ago, and note how well they perfectly mirror IS behavior:
From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians [i.e., Muslim Turks] … has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country [as slaves], and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion …. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent…. On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you? You, upon whom above other nations God has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great courage, bodily activity, and strength…
If the crusaders left their own lands and families to come to the aid of persecuted Christians and to liberate Jerusalem, here is Obama portraying them as no better than the Islamic State—which isn’t surprising considering that, far from helping persecuted Christians, Obama’s policies have significantly worsened their plight.
According to primary historical texts—not the modern day fantasies peddled by the likes of Karen Armstrong, an ex-nun with an axe to grind—Muslim persecution of Christians was indeed a primary impetus for the Crusades.
As for the Inquisition, this too took place in the context of Christendom’s struggle with Islam. (Isn’t it curious that the European nation most associated with the Inquisition, Spain, was also the only nation to be conquered and occupied by Islam for centuries?) After the Christian reconquest of Spain, Muslims, seen as untrustworthy, were ordered either to convert to Christianity or go back to Africa whence they came. Countless Muslims feigned conversion by practicing taqiyya and living as moles, always trying to subvert Spain back to Islam. Hence the extreme measures of the Inquisition—which, either way, find no support in the teachings of Christ.
Conversely, after one of his jihads, Muhammad had a man tortured to death in order to reveal his tribe’s hidden treasure and “married” the same man’s wife hours later. Unsurprisingly, the woman, Safiya, later confessed that “Of all men, I hated the prophet the most—for he killed my husband, my brother, and my father,” before “marrying” her.
In short, Obama’s claim that there will always be people willing to “hijack religion for their own murderous ends” is patently false when applied to the Islamic State and like organizations and individuals.
Muhammad himself called for the murder of his enemies; he permitted Muslims to feign friendship to his enemies in order to assassinate them; he incited his followers to conquer and plunder non-believers, promising them a sexual paradise if they were martyred; he kept sex slaves and practiced pedophilia with his “child-bride,” Aisha.
He, the prophet of Islam, did everything the Islamic State is doing.
If Muslims are supposed to follow the sunna, or example, of Muhammad, and if Muhammad engaged in and justified every barbarity being committed by the Islamic State and other Muslims—how, exactly, are they “hijacking” Islam?
Such is the simple logic Obama fails to grasp. Or else he does grasp it—but hopes most Americans don’t.
-
http://pamelageller.com/2015/02/obama-makes-islamic-state-finger-salute-to-african-leaders.html/
-
U.S. Muslims Take On ISIS’ Recruiting Machine
By LAURIE GOODSTEINFEB. 19, 2015
STERLING, Va. — Imam Mohamed Magid tries to stay in regular contact with the teenager who came to him a few months ago, at his family’s urging, to discuss how he was being wooed by online recruiters working for the Islamic State, the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.
But the imam, a scholar bursting with charm and authority, has struggled to compete. Though he has successfully intervened in the cases of five other young men, persuading them to abandon plans to fight overseas, the Islamic State’s recruiting efforts have become even more disturbing, he said, and nonstop.
“The recruiters wouldn’t leave him alone,” Imam Magid said of the young man he met with recently. “They were on social media with him at all hours, they tweet him at night, first thing in the morning. If I talk to him for an hour, they undo him in two hours.”
President Obama on Wednesday described the fight against violent extremism as a “generational challenge” that would require the cooperation of governments, religious leaders, educators and law enforcement. But even before he called on more than 60 nations to join the effort, the rise of the Islamic State and the attacks by homegrown terrorists in Paris, Ottawa, Copenhagen and Sydney, Australia, had jolted American Muslims into action.
Muslim leaders here and elsewhere have already started organizing or expanding prevention programs and discussions on countering violent extremism, often with assistance from law enforcement officials and trained counter-recruiters who emphasize that the Internet’s dangers for young Muslims now go far beyond pornography.
With the Islamic State in particular deploying savvy online appeals to adolescents alongside videos of horrific executions, the sense of urgency has grown. Though some Muslim leaders still resist cooperating with the government, fearing that they would be contributing to religious profiling and anti-Muslim bigotry, many have been spurred to respond as they have come into contact with religiously ardent youths who feel alienated by life in the West and admit that they have been vulnerable to the Islamic State’s invitation to help build a puritanical utopia.
“The number is small, but one person who gets radicalized is one too many,” said Rizwan Jaka, a father of six and the board chairman of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, where Imam Magid is the spiritual leader. “It’s a balancing act: We have to make sure our youth are not stereotyped in any way, but we’re still dealing with the real issue of insulating them from any potential threat of radicalization.”
In practice, it often means one-on-one conversations with Muslims like Amir, a 22-year-old computer programmer in Virginia who said he was drawn to extremist videos from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, because he was a new convert struggling with how to live out his faith in the United States. He said he chafed at having to work in an office with Muslim women who covered their heads but wore clothing he considered too tight. He also did not like seeing photographs of people on the walls, or advertisements for credit cards, which he said Islam strictly forbids. “Every time I mentioned it, no one heard me out,” he said. “I definitely felt like a stranger.”
He said his disenchantment with the Islamic State began when the group beheaded Peter Kassig, who reports said was a Muslim convert, and later executed a Jordanian pilot. Amir then had some long talks with Imam Magid, who pointed him to passages in the Quran that forbid killing other Muslims, innocent women and children. Amir concluded that the Islamic State was only sowing chaos and hatred, which the Prophet Muhammad abhorred.
“The Islamic State once looked like eye candy to me,” said Amir, who was willing to be identified only by his first name because he did not want to attract the attention of extremists. “But now I think they are deviants.”
Imam Magid described Amir as “the kind of person who is vulnerable to ISIS” — an alienated young Muslim with a black-and-white worldview, looking for purpose and adventure. But, he added, it is often hard to identify which people are most at risk.
Here in suburban Virginia — where Muslim parents tend to be professionals whose children are enmeshed in American culture and are more likely to spend time at the mall than watching extremist videos — the threat still feels remote, especially for those who are active in mosques. Many homegrown extremists in the West were converts who had little exposure to the faith, or education in it.
Many parents and religious leaders are struggling with where to focus their efforts. Imam Magid, who is in regular communication with the F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies, said the young men he had counseled came from a variety of family backgrounds.
Humera Khan, the founder of Muflehun, a think tank based in Washington that focuses on countering violent extremism, said that increasingly, there is no consistent profile of those who are targeted for recruitment or drawn to Islamic extremists.
“There are no patterns, and that’s making it harder for everyone,” she said in an interview in Virginia late last month. “They can come from every ethnic, socioeconomic group, any geographic area. But they are more often men than women, and they’re getting younger.”
Officials estimate that about 150 Americans have traveled, or tried to travel, to fight in Syria. That is fewer than in France, where 1,000 people are estimated to have gone to Syria, or England, which has counted about 600, not including those who were in touch with extremists online and decided not to join.
Imam Magid said that in addition to those he had talked out of going, he knew of one young Muslim from Virginia who recently left to join the Islamic State in Syria. (He said he had never met this man or had a chance to dissuade him.)
In Chicago in October, two brothers, ages 19 and 16, and their 17-year-old sister were detained at the airport on their way to Turkey to join the Islamic State. Three girls from Denver, one as young as 15, were stopped at an airport in Germany the same month on their way to join militants in Syria. All were reportedly recruited over the Internet. And that has provoked new levels of introspection, both private and public, among American Muslims of all ages.
At a forum for Muslim millennials in Washington sponsored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council last year, college students and Muslim leaders speculated about why a group as barbaric as the Islamic State had successfully attracted any Muslims at all from the West.
“ISIS says: ‘Come here. We’ve got ripped warriors,’ ” said Imam Suhaib Webb, a popular Muslim leader who moved from Boston to the Washington area last month. “It’s a very simplistic response, but it’s somewhat effective.”
He said that in more than 15 years as an imam, he had encountered only five Muslims considering whether they should join violent militant groups, and that none of them had actually left the United States to fight. “They were all males,” said Imam Webb, and “they all had daddy issues.” He added, “They were not really drawn to this on theological grounds.”
Ms. Khan, who has four degrees from M.I.T., left lucrative consulting work to develop a prevention program that addresses extremism and the way that technology can be used for manipulation. At one of her events last year, about 30 young Muslims, both high school and middle school students, gathered at the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center in Avon, Conn., for what was billed as a “cybersafety workshop,” with Ms. Khan moving swiftly from how to detect online pedophiles to how to detect Islamist extremists.
“They are telling you, ‘Let’s go fight.’ They are asking you to share gruesome images,” said Ms. Khan, who wore a blue floral-print head scarf. “Be very careful. These people are not your friends.” She told the students, who were quick to raise their hands and ask questions, to avoid contact with strangers online, or with anyone who demanded secrecy. The sexual predators are usually male, she told them, but the extremist recruiters can be male or female, and some of them can be, or can pretend to be, teenagers, too. Her presentation included a picture of a wolf zipped into a sheep’s skin.
“Have you guys heard of grooming?” she asked them, using a term more often used in relation to sexual predators. “They will try to be your friend. They will be nice to you, spend lots of time with you. Some of them will be sending you gifts.”
Programs like this have not been embraced as a widespread priority by American Muslims, at least until recently, in part because the problem seemed to be overseas, not here, Muslim leaders say. And since many American Muslims are immigrants or African-Americans, there is substantial fear and suspicion of law enforcement officials, along with simple defensiveness and denial.
“The family says, ‘It’s not going to happen to me,’ ” said M. Saud Anwar, a pulmonologist and the first Muslim to be elected as a mayor in Connecticut, where he serves South Windsor.
Imam Magid, speaking upstairs at his Muslim center while a team of Muslim girls pounded out a basketball game below, said that real prevention meant programs that give young people as much purpose and inspiration as extremists promise. Once young Muslims buy into the ideology, he said, it is very hard to pry them loose. “You have to reach them before it happens,” he said.
-
This is certainly a positive and hopeful development IF it is true. Since it comes from The New York Times - I am highly suspicious of the veracity of the information therein.
I'm not aware of any widespread program like this within the American Muslim community - let alone the Muslim community in Europe. Muslims with whom I have talked here in the Atlanta area are all either quietly supportive if ISIS, ignorant of the actual teachings of the Koran and Hadith (Muslims in name only) or genuinely afraid to speak out against Islamic terror for fear of repercussions from their local Mosque and community.
I take this story with a grain of salt. If I see more evidence emerge that this is actually taking place in any significant way - that will be a good thing. The NYT has no more credibility to me than any other left-leaning rag. Everything it publishes is suspect ipso facto.
-
Exactly so.
-
Funny how young people from other religions seem to not have this problem.
-
Compelling video - echoes what Robert Spencer has been saying for years - but this from a former Muslim himself:
https://fbcdn-video-a-a.akamaihd.net/hvideo-ak-xap1/v/t43.1792-2/10590281_881494028527618_404734724_n.mp4?rl=1500&vabr=304&oh=0ebf5d748ce39a5f499b6bcda7ca95aa&oe=54EF426D&__gda__=1424965873_2ba47db320bac560b75e2c0eea222230
-
Hilarious - if it weren't so sad:
www.jihadwatch.org/2015/02/fbi-ny-jihadis-violated-the-true-tenants-of-their-faith
-
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/muslim-girl-sings-star-spangled-banner-as-oklahoma-anti-islamic-protesters-scream-insults/
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/02/us-muslim-gave-islamic-state-jihadis-us-military-uniforms-combat-boots-tactical-gear-firearms-accessories-and-thousands-in-cash
-
I dunno. We had a substantial Jewish population in my junior high and when it came to Passover and Yum Kippor we just stayed out to go to synagogue. It was not a big deal and no one that I recall demanded the entire city's public schools close down for those holidays:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/03/04/de-blasio-to-announce-addition-of-muslim-holidays-to-city-schools-schedule/
-
Never Mind the Terrorism, Find the Toyota
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On March 9, 2015
When Julissa Magdalena Maradiaga-Iscoa rammed her car into a police vehicle while trying to drive through the Miami airport entrance and was then arrested after shouting in Arabic about a bomb, the media did its best to get all the important details right.
The AP made sure to mention that she was driving a silver Toyota. It failed to mention that she was Muslim or that her Facebook page describes her as a Shaheeda, a holy warrior, a term Muslims use to refer to their terrorists. A few American media outlets did report that she was an illegal alien, but only the Spanish language ones told their readers that she had converted to Islam.
Such minor details have become the first casualties of the War on Terror.
That Maradiaga-Iscoa chose to rename herself Shaheeda Hadee tells us more about her state of mind than the color of the car that she was driving. The make of her car is far less important than that her social media likes and follows included Zakir Naik, who said “Every Muslim should be a terrorist.”
In Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State John Kerry had ducked a question about Zakir Naik receiving an award from the Saudi King. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned Naik’s views, but defended Saudi Arabia as a “key partner.” This doublethink on Islam has become typical of our Islam policy.
Other of Maradiaga-Iscoa’s follows included Yasir Qadhi, a Holocaust denier and a favorite of the Christmas bomber, whose media company featured lectures by Al Qaeda recruiter Anwar Al-Awlaki. Also listed was Bilal Philips, an unindicted co-conspirator in the World Trade Center bombing, who was caught on video defending the Islamic rape of prepubescent girls.
No actual bomb was found on Maradiaga-Iscoa. Her family claims that she’s mentally ill, and perhaps she is, but the media still chose to censor highly relevant information about her ideology. The same media that chose to blow up atheist quotes by Richard Dawkins used by the Chapel Hill man who shot three Muslims over a parking spot has buried her enthusiasm for figures with actual terrorist links.
And it’s not the first time that this has happened.
Last year two Muslims carried out attacks against NYPD officers. Both of them invoked Jihad. One of the cases was even classified as terrorism. But most people don’t even know who the perpetrators were.
The media spent more debating whether the first attacker used a hatchet or an axe.
The media has dogmatically covered up the terrorist ties of Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter, while insisting that Anders Behring Breivik was a Christian and Zionist anti-Muslim terrorist despite the fact that he had contemplated carrying out terrorist attacks on behalf of Muslims, denied belief in any deity and stated that his only interest in Israel was as a “deportation-port for disloyal jews.”
Breivik, like Maradiaga-Iscoa, was probably mentally ill. Unlike Maradiaga-Iscoa, the media spun the story the other way despite plenty of evidence of delusions in Breivik’s manifesto. But the media did insist that Nidal Hassan may have somehow contracted PTSD from the soldiers at the base.
It’s not just that the media covers up Islamic affiliations in violent incidents, but that it exaggerates non-Muslim affiliations to make Islam seem victimized even when the evidence points the other way.
That’s what happened at Chapel Hill. That’s what happened in Miami.
None of this is news. It’s a narrative. When it comes to violence involving Muslims (and any number of other subjects) the news is shaped to fit the narrative. The Chapel Hill killer’s atheism was important because it could be twisted to make it seem that his killings had a religious motive. Had he shot three Christians, that angle would never have been played up. Maradiaga-Iscoa’s religion and her interest in a man who said “Every Muslim should be a terrorist” cuts against the narrative and is cut out of the news.
The narrative is simple and straightforward. Islam can never be a motive for violence. Other religions, and even lack of religion, can always be assumed to be a motive for violence against Muslims.
We have heard far more about the Chapel Hill killer’s atheism than we ever did about Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Islam. And yet the prosecution’s case is that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev saw himself as a Shaheed, a holy warrior, bent on killing Americans on behalf of the Muslim Ummah.
We have mass media coverage of the trial of a terrorist mass murderer in which the prosecution’s argument is not mentioned. But we do get lots of irrelevant “Silver Toyota” details about the killer.
Christians and Jews are taunted in the media with Timothy McVeigh and Baruch Goldstein, men whose actions are over twenty years old, but we still can’t discuss the Islamic motivations of a killer from a few years ago or from last week. And if it’s not McVeigh and Goldstein, then it’s the Crusades. It can be anything and everything as long as it distracts us from dealing with a culture of Muslim violence today.
The one ideology that is involved in violence around the world is also the one we can’t discuss. It exists only as a shadow. We see it in the news only in the constant defamation of Jews, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and Hindus and any other group suffering from the ravages of Muslim violence that are smeared as violent bigots to make Islam look better. Those lies are the shadow of Muslim violence.
The Washington Post recently responded to the call by Republicans that Obama address “Islamic Extremism” by accusing the GOP of being infested with “Islamophobia.” This comes from the same paper which had suggested that ISIS rapists and butchers were “victims”.
The only way to make such a warped point of view palatable is to demonize non-Muslims while labeling critics of Islamic terrorism as bigots. Discussing Islamic intolerance is intolerant. If you talk about Islamic Christophobia or Judeophobia, then you’re being Islamophobic. Intolerance toward Christians and Jews however is a sign of tolerance.
The extremes of Muslim violence that go beyond anything the media is capable of covering up can only be addressed with more extreme smears of their victims. That is why the media is always searching for Muslim victimization and denouncing Christian and Jewish extremism. As the media coverage of Israel’s conflict with Islamic terrorism has shown us, each Muslim terrorist atrocity leads to even more negative coverage of Israel. When Muslims appear to be perpetrators and non-Muslims victims, the media must step in to rebalance the scales to protect its narrative. A familiar symptom of this phenomenon is the ubiquitous “Muslims fear backlash” story that follows each Muslim terror attack in America or Europe.
This is not bias. Bias nudges the story. This is propaganda.
Propaganda grimly follows a narrative to the bitter end, whether it’s Baghdad Bob’s non-existent American soldiers or the Soviet newsreader cheerfully informing listeners of a 95% successful harvest. Our media’s coverage of Islamic terrorism is not biased or flawed; it’s propaganda.
It’s not enough for propaganda to have heroes; it also needs villains to justify its failures.
The worse Islamic terrorism becomes, the more the media will have to smear us. A failed ideology directs most of the blame at its critics because they are represent the alternative to its lies.
The Washington Post denouncing Republicans as Islamophobes while defending ISIS is Baghdad Bob screaming at the camera. It’s a Soviet newsreader claiming that the harvest would have been successful if not for the CIA. The lies are collapsing under the weight of Muslim violence. Christians and Jews can’t be demonized fast enough to make ISIS seem palatable. The more the media is pushed, the faster it will implode.
-
Glenn Beck to NRA: It’s Norquist or Me
Posted By Robert Spencer On March 16, 2015
Glenn Beck has declared that he will leave the National Rifle Association (NRA) if Republican Party kingmaker Grover Norquist remains on the Board of Directors.
This is long overdue: it has now been over eleven years since FrontPage Magazine first published revelations about what David Horowitz described as Norquist’s “alliances with prominent Islamic radicals who have ties to the Saudis and to Libya and to Palestine Islamic Jihad, and who are now under indictment by U.S. authorities.” Horowitz added:
“Equally troubling is that the arrests of these individuals and their exposure as agents of terrorism have not resulted in noticeable second thoughts on Grover’s part or any meaningful effort to dissociate himself from his unsavory friends.”
Nothing has changed in the intervening years. Norquist has dismissed concerns about his ties to Islamic supremacists as “bigotry” and “hatred,” and this has apparently satisfied the Republican establishment and prominent conservative spokesmen – until now, with Beck breaking ranks.
Beck’s peers and Republican leaders could have and should have ended Norquist’s baneful influence on the Republican Party and the conservative movement years ago. The November 1, 2001 issue of The New Republic (hardly a “right-wing” organ) noted that right after 9/11, President Bush met with several Muslim leaders with unsavory ties to the global jihad:
To the president’s left sat Dr. Yahya Basha, president of the American Muslim Council, an organization whose leaders have repeatedly called Hamas “freedom fighters.” Also in attendance was Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who on the afternoon of September 11 told a Los Angeles public radio audience that “we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list.” And sitting right next to President Bush was Muzammil Siddiqi, president of the Islamic Society of North America, who last fall told a Washington crowd chanting pro-Hezbollah slogans, “America has to learn if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come.” Days later, after a conservative activist confronted Karl Rove with dossiers about some of Bush’s new friends, Rove replied, according to the activist, “I wish I had known before the event took place.”
Why didn’t he? Because of Norquist, who
“helped orchestrate various post-September 11 events that brought together Muslim leaders and administration officials…Indeed, when Jewish activists and terrorism experts complained about the Muslim invitees to Adam Goldman, who works in the White House public liaison’s office, Goldman replied that Norquist had vouched for them.”
In 1999, the prominent American Muslim leader Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who is now in prison for financing al-Qaeda, wrote two $10,000 checks to Norquist’s Islamic Institute (aka the Islamic Free Market Institute). Alamoudi is also notorious for proclaiming to a Muslim rally in Washington in 2000: “I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas. Anybody support Hamas here? … Hear that, Bill Clinton? We are all supporters of Hamas. I wished they added that I am also a supporter of Hizballah.” There is no indication that Norquist denounced Alamoudi, or returned his checks, after Alamoudi’s open embrace of jihad terror groups.
Even closer to Norquist is Suhail Khan, Norquist’s American Conservative Union (ACU) colleague. The ACU hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the nation’s largest annual gathering of conservatives, and many observers have charged that Norquist and Khan have foreclosed on any honest discussion of the jihad threat at CPAC. Investigative journalist Paul Sperry revealed in the New York Post in January 2011 that Khan accepted an award from Alamoudi in 2001, commenting: “Abdurahman Alamoudi has been very supportive of me. . . . I hope, inshallah, we can keep working together.”
Sperry also noted that
“in September 2001, four days before the 9/11 attacks, Khan spoke at the Islamic Society of North America’s convention….At the event, Khan shared his experiences from ‘inside’ the White House, and praised his late father, Mahboob Khan, for helping found ISNA — which the government now says is a front for the radical Muslim Brotherhood and has raised money for jihad….Khan vowed in his speech to carry on his father’s ‘legacy.’”
There is much more on Norquist’s unsavory associations and activities, as you can see in these articles on Norquist by Daniel Greenfield, Pamela Geller, Patrick Poole, Jamie Glazov (interviewing Paul Sperry), and David Horowitz. Conservatives have suffered from being in Norquist’s shadow for too long. Particularly in these dark latter days of the Obama Administration, it is imperative that conservative candidates establish themselves as a genuine loyal opposition formulating a realistic and coherent alternative to Obama’s disastrous pro-Muslim Brotherhood policies.
Grover Norquist is the biggest single obstacle preventing that from happening. Glenn Beck is to be commended for being the first major figure on the Right to stand up and say that Grover must go. We can only hope that others will soon follow suit.
-
Pamela Geller Wins Right to Run Ads in Philly
Posted By Matthew Vadum On March 17, 2015
A federal court has struck a blow for the First Amendment by ordering Philadelphia’s public transit system to accept an eye-opening ad that spotlights Islamic Jew-hatred and urges the United States to cut off foreign aid to Muslim countries.
The hard-hitting public service announcement, which contains a photograph of a real-life meeting between Adolf Hitler and Muslim leader and Nazi collaborator Hajj Amin al-Husseini, is sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which was co-founded by conservative leader and blogger Pamela Geller. AFDI sued and placed the ad in New York City and Washington, D.C. public transit systems after litigating the matter in court. It has also attempted to place ads in transit systems in Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, and elsewhere.
It’s just the latest in a string of legal victories for Geller.
For example, in 2012 Geller won her legal fight to post an anti-Islamist ad in the New York City subway system. Quoting Ayn Rand, the ad read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” The ad was a response to ads in the NYC subway promoting Islam and others accusing Israel of a number of things including being an obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
In Geller’s view, Philadelphia desperately needs ads about the true nature of Islam because city council members there have honored Palestinian terrorist supporter Laila Ghannam. Ghannam, who is the District Governor of Ramallah for the Palestinian Authority, glorifies “some of the most horrific Palestinian terrorist murderers, presenting them as heroes and role models, and promising to follow in their path.” Ghannam has said that Islam sanctions the murder of Israeli civilians. Philadelphia also hosted the national anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions conference in 2012, which took place at the University of Pennsylvania.
It should be noted that Geller, an outspoken opponent of the Islamization of America and advocate of the State of Israel, has been the subject of over-the-top attacks from the Left for years. The more successful Geller is at warning of the dangers of Islamism, the viler the attacks on her become.
Last week the left-wingers at the Jewish Daily Forward attacked Geller for running a separate ad drawing attention to Jews that Geller believes are undermining Israel by supporting the New Israel Fund.
The New Israel Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has served as an administrator in the Middle East for Ford Israel Fund, which is an arm of the radical left-wing Ford Foundation. As FrontPage contributor Ronn Torossian has written, the New Israel Fund has “granted nearly $27 million to left-wing and progressive NGOs in Israel” and “systematically works to destabilize Israel.”
Criticizing left-wing Jewish leaders who back the fund constitutes “McCarthyism,” in the eyes of oped authors Deborah Lipstadt, Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, and David Ellenson, Chancellor Emeritus of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. They write:
Unfortunately, McCarthy’s tactics are apparently still alive and well in the Jewish community today. Ronn Torossian and Pam Geller have attacked Karen Adler, Alisa Doctoroff, Edith Everett, and Carol Zabar — among the most prominent leaders of our community — as supporters of the BDS campaign against Israel who seek to undermine the Jewish state. Torossian did so in a New York Post opinion piece and Geller’s group has sponsored bus ads repeating the charge.
Attacks from Geller and others “on these outstanding Jewish leaders reflect a disturbing new development in contemporary Jewish life,” Lipstadt and Ellenson write.
“Rather than disagree civilly and engage in polite and constructive debate there is name-calling and defamation. This is character assassination of the worst kind. Our community should not tolerate it,” they write. And then, after denouncing defamation, they engage in it, implying Geller and others are “the true enemies of the Jewish people.”
Meanwhile, AFDI’s black and white ad in Philadelphia reads “Islamic Jew-Hatred: It’s in the Quran.” It continues: “Two Thirds of All US Aid Goes To Islamic Countries. End All Aid To Islamic Countries. IslamicJewHatred.com.”
It features a photograph of a 1941 get-together between Adolf Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who is described as an ally of Hitler and a Palestinian leader. The photo caption reads, “Adolf Hitler and his staunch ally, the leader of the Muslim world, Hajj Amin al-Husseini.”
Al-Husseini helped the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. Waffen-SS members committed many war crimes, deporting Jews from Eastern Europe, guarding concentration camps, and massacring Jews and others.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) argues the ad runs afoul of “minimal civility standards” and the authority’s “anti-disparagement” policy and may appeal the ruling rendered last week by U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg.
Gino J. Benedetti, SEPTA’s general counsel, previously explained that he rejected the ad because he believed it “put every single Muslim in the same category [of] being a Jew hater.”
SEPTA concluded the ad is not protected speech
“because it utilizes deliberate or reckless falsehoods in order to demean a group based on its religion, uses intentionally provocative language and images in the hope of eliciting a violent response, and embraces the very hatred of religious groups it purports to condemn.”
But Judge Goldberg found that the Constitution’s free speech protections trump SEPTA’s efforts to prevent hurt feelings. SEPTA has carried ads promoting viewpoints on issues such as birth control, animal cruelty, fracking, and religion, he noted.
“It is clear that the anti-disparagement standard promulgated by SEPTA was a principled attempt to limit hurtful, disparaging advertisements,” Goldberg found. “While certainly laudable, such aspirations do not, unfortunately, cure First Amendment violations.”
The Philadelphia office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that is associated with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, maintains that the ad is “dishonest.”
“The court did what it had to do under the Constitution,” said Jacob Bender, executive director of CAIR-Philadelphia. “Now it is on all of us, Philadelphians of all faiths, to find a way to respond to these ads in a way that promotes truth and dialogue over ignorance and division.”
Except that the ad is entirely truthful. Antipathy towards Jews has been deeply ingrained in Islam since it began in the 7th century A.D.
The Koran demonizes Jews at length. The Islamic holy book attributes the following negative qualities and behaviors to Jews: dishonesty, argumentativeness, hypocrisy, wishing ill on others, taking pleasure in others’ suffering, arrogance, haughtiness, opportunism, impoliteness, murderousness, mercilessness, heartlessness, cowardice, and miserliness.
And an infamous hadith urges the mass slaughter of Jews by Muslims.
According to Sahih Muslim 6985, nature itself will rise up and help the followers of Mohammed exterminate the Jews:
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, a Hadith is a “record of the traditions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, revered and received as a major source of religious law and moral guidance, second only to the authority of the Qurʾān, the holy book of Islam.”
The entry continues,
It might be defined as the biography of Muhammad perpetuated by the long memory of his community for their exemplification and obedience. The development of Hadith is a vital element during the first three centuries of Islamic history, and its study provides a broad index to the mind and ethos of Islam.
A survey even found that 73 percent of 1,010 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza agreed with the hadith “quoted in [the] Hamas Charter about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones, trees.”
Clearly, Pamela Geller is onto something.
-
It would seem that our Obj had this right (about Grover Norquist) all along. His no new taxes pledge isn't really advancing that cause anymore either. Dems use it against us and Rs raise 'fees' instead of taxes.
-
From the Muslim prayer room at Normandale Community College to Damascas...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/world/middleeast/from-minneapolis-to-isis-an-americans-path-to-jihad.html
From Minneapolis to ISIS: An American’s Path to Jihad
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/261919091.html
Minneapolis family worries that son, 20, is headed to Syria
Proud son, sobbing on the phone, but smiling with gun in photo:
[NYT link]
Previously in this thread, 24 Minneapolis al Qaida arrests in one year.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/07/02/somali-americans-accused-al-qaeda-ties-indicted-on-terror-charges-sources-say/
Zacarias Moussaoui, trained and arrested in MN.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacarias_Moussaoui
Now, Somali unrest in St. Cloud, MN: http://www.startribune.com/local/297097081.html
Mall of America Heightens Security After al-Shabab Threat
http://abcnews.go.com/US/mall-america-heightens-security-al-shabab-threat/story?id=29137738
New wave of Islamic immigration planned for U.S.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/new-wave-of-islamic-immigration-planned-for-u-s/#bO2CtYzQygk57dI8.99
What could possibly go wrong?
-
Doug:
Normally I tend to blow off WND as a source; IMHO far too often it bloviates and misleads, but that was an interesting article.
-
Doug:
Normally I tend to blow off WND as a source; IMHO far too often it bloviates and misleads, but that was an interesting article.
Agree. Another source:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/411487/troubling-math-muslim-migration-ian-tuttle
-
They failed, to Cruz's great credit. Robert Spencer spoke at the same event as Cruz this past weekend in Nashua, NH. Cruz was pressured to cancel because of this. He ignored the pressure. Another reason to respect Cruz. See story below:
www.jihadwatch.org/2015/03/cair-left-fail-to-strongarm-ted-cruz-into-pulling-out-of-event-with-robert-spencer
-
Trying to intimidate Ted Cruz seems like a waste of valuable, jihad-sympathizers' time. )
-
Cruz is the man!
-
Revived Questions about Huma Abedin
Posted By Matthew Vadum On March 31, 2015 @ frontpagemag.com
Republican lawmakers are probing why Hillary Clinton’s longtime Islamist aide Huma Abedin was allowed to work at the State Department under a special, part-time status while simultaneously working at a politically-connected consulting firm.
Demands for information are coming from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) after the public learned both women used Clinton’s private Internet server and email accounts for Department of State correspondence.
But that’s only part of the endless sleaze and intrigue surrounding Clinton.
The media has also reported that Sidney Blumenthal, the Clinton administration damage-control expert known for his relentless attacks on Clinton family enemies and for being the father of Israel-hating pseudo-journalist Max Blumenthal, was apparently doing freelance work for Mrs. Clinton. Clinton tried to hire the elder Blumenthal at State but the Obama White House nixed the appointment because of Blumenthal’s aggressively slimy attacks on Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.
After Blumenthal’s email was hacked in 2013, it was revealed that “starting weeks before” the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, “Blumenthal supplied intelligence” to then-Secretary Clinton that was “gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine service officer.”
Reports got some of the details wrong, according to the Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto.
“The reporters asked the most obvious question and got a partial answer: ‘A Clinton spokesman told Gawker and ProPublica . . . that she has turned over’—meaning to the State Department—’all the emails Blumenthal sent to [Mrs.] Clinton,'” he writes.
That is incorrect, Taranto notes. “n reality she turned over no emails, only printouts,” which are of limited value as evidence.
Meanwhile, as evidence continues to accumulate that Clinton’s cavalier approach to state secrets put U.S. national security in jeopardy, the shady background of Abedin, who has known ties to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, is barely acknowledged on Capitol Hill.
Instead of examining Abedin’s disturbing family ties that make her employment by the U.S. government a threat to national security, Grassley is honing in on the sweetheart arrangement that allowed the operative to get on the public payroll while raking in money from private consulting.
Well, it’s a start, at least.
Grassley complains that many previous requests to the Department of State for information have gone unanswered, so now he is sending requests to the agency’s inspector general and to Clinton’s successor, Secretary of State John Kerry.
It was about two years ago that Grassley demanded information about Abedin after she moved from being a full-time deputy chief of staff for Clinton to part-time status and then began working at Teneo, a politically connected consulting firm that claims to bring “together the disciplines of government and public affairs.”
In a July 2013 letter the State Department indicated Abedin was employed full-time from January 2009 to June 2012. It also indicated she did not disclose outside employment when ending her full-time status. The department kept her on as an adviser-expert, apparently at the hourly rate of $74.51 with maximum pay of $155,500 per year.
“A number of conflict-of-interest concerns arise when a government employee is simultaneously being paid by a private company, especially when that company (is) Teneo,” Grassley wrote in a March 19 letter to Kerry.
Grassley asked in the letter “what steps the department took to ensure that … Abedin’s outside employment with a political-intelligence and corporate-advisory firm did not conflict with her simultaneous employment at the State Department.”
“She converted from a full-time employee … with seemingly little difference in her job description or responsibilities,” he wrote. In essence Abedin retained the same job and was later hired by Teneo and the Clinton Global Initiative.
“It is unclear what special knowledge or skills Ms. Abedin possessed that the government could not have easily obtained otherwise from regular government employees,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley’s questions also come after the House Benghazi Select Committee learned that the former secretary of state deleted all the emails investigators were interesting in looking at.
On Friday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said in a statement, “We learned today, from her attorney, Secretary [Hillary] Clinton unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server.”
Destroying the electronic correspondence could be a federal crime since the documents were under congressional subpoena. As Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner,
“There’s no doubt Clinton withheld information that Congress demanded she turn over, and some Republicans believe the documents she destroyed were covered under a subpoena as well. But a look at the story behind the subpoena and other document requests from congressional Benghazi investigators is a tale of obstruction, delay and frustration that underscores the limits of Congress’ power to investigate Benghazi. Clinton and her aides had the means to make life very difficult for Republicans trying to learn the full story of the attacks in Libya, and they did just that.”
Disturbingly, Republicans have yet to focus on Abedin’s ties to the world of Islamic terrorism.
Born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Abedin’s connections to the Muslim Brotherhood run deep. (She is also reportedly just as haughty and unpleasant to deal with as Clinton herself.)
Her mother is Saleha Mahmood Abedin, widow of the late Zyed Abedin, an academic who taught at Saudi Arabia’s prestigious King Abdulaziz University in the early 1970s. The year after Huma was born, Mrs. Abedin received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1978 the Abedins moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Abdullah Omar Naseef, then-vice president of Abdulaziz University, hired Mr. Abedin, a former colleague of his at the university, to work for the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), a Saudi-based Islamic think tank Naseef was then in the process of establishing. Mr. and Mrs. Abedin became members of the editorial board of IMMA’s publication, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. According to Andrew C. McCarthy, IMMA’s “Muslim Minority Affairs” agenda is “to grow an unassimilated, aggressive population of Islamic supremacists who will gradually but dramatically alter the character of the West.”
Naseef himself was a Muslim extremist with ties to al-Qaeda. In 1983 he became secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a militant organization with links to Osama bin Laden. Mrs. Abedin became an official representative of MWL in the 1990s. When her husband died in 1994, Mrs. Abedin became the IMMA’s director. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of its journal.
Mrs. Abedin is also a member of the board of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), which has long been banned in Israel because it has ties to Hamas. (In Arabic, dawah, or dawa, means the proselytizing or preaching of Islam.) She also runs the Amman, Jordan-based International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC), a Muslim World League affiliate that self-identifies as part of the IICDR. The league, according to McCarthy, “has long been the Muslim Brotherhood’s principal vehicle for the international propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology.” IICWC promotes strict Sharia Law and advocates the rescission of Egyptian laws that forbid female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape.
Mrs. Abedin is a founding member of the Muslim Sisterhood, a pro-Sharia organization consisting of the wives of some of the highest-ranking leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian opposition newspaper Al-Liwa Al-Arabi has reported that Muslim Sisterhood members: “smuggle secret documents”; “spread the Brotherhood’s ideology by infiltrating universities, schools and homes”; “fulfill the interests of the Brotherhood”; and “organiz[e] projects which will penetrate [the Brotherhood’s] prohibited ideology into the decision-making in the West … under the guise of ‘general needs of women.’” Nagla Ali Mahmoud, wife of Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist who was elected president of Egypt in June 2012, is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood.
When Huma Abedin returned to the U.S. and was an intern in the Clinton White House between 1997 and some time in 1999, she was a member of the executive board of George Washington University’s radical Muslim Students Association (MSA). The MSA had extensive ties to al-Qaeda.
From 1996 to 2008, Abedin was employed by IMMA as assistant editor of its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.
Her brother, Hassan Abedin, an associate editor at the journal, was at one time a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. During his fellowship, the Center’s board included such Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Abdullah Omar Naseef. Huma’s sister, Heba Abedin, is an assistant editor with the journal.
Someone with Abedin’s background shouldn’t be anywhere near the levers of power in Washington.
Yet Hillary Clinton trusted her with vital secrets of state and then erased their electronic correspondence.
What are these two women hiding?
-
America’s Academies for Jihad
A radical imam threatened me with death—and was later hired to preach in U.S. prisons. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
March 31, 2015 7:13 p.m. ET
Less than a year after I moved to the United States in 2006, I was asked to speak at the University of Pittsburgh. Among those who objected to my appearance was a local imam, Fouad El Bayly, of the Johnstown Islamic Center. Mr. Bayly was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. since 1976. In his own words, I had “been identified as one who has defamed the faith.” As he explained at the time: “If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.”
After a local newspaper reported Mr. Bayly’s comments, he was forced to resign from the Islamic Center. That was the last I would hear of him—or so I thought.
Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that the man who threatened me with death for apostasy is being paid by the U.S. Justice Department to teach Islam in American jails.
According to records on the federal site USASpending.gov and first reported by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded Mr. Bayly a $10,500 contract in February 2014 to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” to inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. Ten months later he received another federal contract, worth $2,400, to provide “Muslim classes for inmates” at the same prison.
This isn’t a story about one problematic imam, or about the misguided administration of a solitary prison. Several U.S. prison chaplains have been exposed in recent years as sympathetic to radical Islam, including Warith Deen Umar, who helped run the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Islamic prison program for two decades, until 2000, and who praised the 9/11 hijackers in a 2003 interview with this newspaper.
That same year, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism held hearings on radical Islamic clerics in U.S. prisons. Committee members voiced serious concerns over the vetting of Muslim prison chaplains and the extent of radical Islamist influences. Harley Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time, said that “inmates are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by terrorists,” and that “we must guard against the spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies.”
Yet it is not clear what measures—if any—were taken in response to those concerns.
Testifying in 2011 before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael P. Downing, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said that in 2003 it was estimated that 17%-20% of the U.S. prison population, some 350,000 inmates, were Muslims, and that “80% of the prisoners who convert while in prison, convert to Islam.” He estimated that “35,000 inmates convert to Islam annually.”
Patrick Dunleavy, retired deputy inspector of the Criminal Intelligence Division at the New York State Department of Corrections, said in testimony that prison authorities often rely on groups such as the Islamic Leadership Council or the Islamic Society of North America for advice about Islamic chaplains. Yet those groups can and have referred individuals not suited to positions of influence over prisoners. As Mr. Dunleavy pointedly testified: “There is certainly no vetting of volunteers who provide religious instruction, and who, although not paid, wield considerable influence in the prison Muslim communities.”
The problem isn’t limited to radical clerics infiltrating prisons. Radical inmates proselytize and do their utmost to recruit others to their cause. Once released, they may seek to take their radicalization to the next level.
Kevin James formed the Assembly of Authentic Islam while in New Folsom State Prison in California. In 2004 James recruited fellow prisoner Levar Washington to his cause. After being released, James developed a list of possible targets including an Israeli consulate, a Jewish children’s camp in Malibu, Los Angeles International Airport and a U.S. military recruiting station in Santa Monica. The two men pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges; Washington was sentenced to 22 years in 2008, James to 16 years in 2009.
Michael Finton converted and radicalized in an Illinois state prison while serving time for aggravated assault. Finton wanted to attack a federal government building and spoke of the need to attack members of Congress. He pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2011.
In 2009 the “Newburgh Four”—James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams—were arrested for plotting to bomb synagogues in New York City. The men also intended to shoot down military aircraft with Stinger missiles. All four had converted to Islam in prison, where they developed radical sympathies. The men didn’t know each other while in prison but met after their release while attending a local mosque connected to a prison ministry. All four were convicted on conspiracy charges and received 25-year sentences in 2011.
In January 2010 John Kerry, who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a report warning that “three dozen U.S. citizens who converted to Islam while in prison have traveled to Yemen, possibly for al Qaeda training.”
Europeans have known for some time that prisons can be breeding grounds for Islamists. The British “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, is thought to have been radicalized while in prison for smaller crimes. Two of the gunmen in the Paris terror attacks in January—Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly—came under the religious influence of Djamel Beghal, a convicted terrorist and charismatic Islamist, when serving prison sentences. Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, three small children and a rabbi at a Jewish school near Toulouse, France, in 2012, apparently became a jihadist while in jail. The list is depressingly long.
The problem is that experts tend to be concerned about prison radicalization only to the extent that it ultimately results in some type of violent attack. Yet there are good reasons to be concerned about the inmates who come to cherish a radical interpretation of Islam while refraining—for the time being—from the use of violence. The boundary between nonviolent and violent extremism is much more porous than conventional wisdom allows.
What can be done to stop prisons from becoming academies of jihad? Here are four suggestions:
1) Choose better partners than the Islamic Society of North America and the Islamic Leadership Council to screen prison chaplains. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, founded and led by M. Zuhdi Jasser, a medical doctor and former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, would be a good choice.
2) Prevent radical clerics from coming into prisons to spread their message to susceptible inmates.
3) Ban radical Islamist literature from being disseminated in U.S. prisons.
4) Stop placing inmates in proximity to radicalized mentors.
The fact that Fouad El Bayly, an imam who publicly called for my death, was chosen to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” at a federal prison shows that U.S. authorities haven’t learned the right lessons from a growing list of prison-convert terrorists. Bringing in radical imams to mentor vulnerable inmates will not do anyone any good—least of all prisoners looking for a better path in life.
Ms. Hirsi Ali, a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Heretic: The Case for a Muslim Reformation,” just out from HarperCollins.
-
A courageous and important event being staged in Garland, TX May 3rd...
www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/04/08/vote-now-for-your-favorite-muhammad-cartoon/
-
U.S. Muslim Community Divided Over White House Outreach Plan
Law-enforcement efforts to prevent radicalization provoke both support and suspicion
Abed Farah holds his daughter, Noor Farah, as shawarma is sold after prayer services at the Orange County Islamic Foundation Masjid last Friday in Mission Viejo, Calif. ENLARGE
Abed Farah holds his daughter, Noor Farah, as shawarma is sold after prayer services at the Orange County Islamic Foundation Masjid last Friday in Mission Viejo, Calif. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for The Wall Street Journal
By
Tamara Audi
April 20, 2015 2:39 p.m. ET
8 COMMENTS
MISSION VIEJO, Calif.—On a recent Friday in a mosque on the edge of an office park here, congregants filled rows of plastic chairs to hear community leaders discuss the role the White House hopes they will play in a new government effort to fight terrorism.
Instead, what they got was a debate over the proposed law-enforcement outreach to Muslim groups through community events, mentoring and youth programs, which are intended to prevent radicalization and identify extremists. Some Muslim leaders argued the government’s plan unfairly casts suspicion on the entire Muslim community, while others urged involvement as a way for Muslims to have a voice and safeguard their communities.
“We’re being pushed into this law-enforcement framework that’s inappropriate,” said Todd Gallinger, a representative of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, in the mosque discussion. “This is something we need to avoid.”
But Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, encouraged participation, saying, “CVE is a tool.” He added that the community should think about how to “leverage CVE so that our community is seen for what it is—that it is part of the solution and has nothing to do with the problem.”
The rift playing out in the Orange County mosque and elsewhere demonstrates the challenge the Obama administration faces as it attempts to sell its plan, called Countering Violent Extremism, or CVE, to the communities crucial to its success. The issue has gained potency with the rise of Islamic State, or ISIS, a violent Islamist group aggressively recruiting young Westerners.
On Monday, the U.S. charged six Minnesota men in connection with attempts to join Islamic State, in a case involving one of the largest groups of potential foreign fighters. Minneapolis, with the country’s largest Somali immigrant population, is one of three pilot cities meant to test CVE programs before they are rolled out on a larger scale. Federal officials said the test cities, which include Boston and Los Angeles, were chosen because of strong existing relationships between the Muslim communities and law enforcement.
Government officials and supporters of the program say it isn’t a spy or intelligence-gathering mission. They note it was developed with the input of Muslim leaders from across the country, with an emphasis on mental health, social services and community-style policing, according to an administration official.
The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, an umbrella group, said earlier this year that the CVE singles out Muslims for law-enforcement scrutiny, which it called “constitutionally questionable and morally problematic.”
“We have concerns about any program that might violate civil rights, and on the other side, we are very much concerned about individuals falling into the trap of the wrong argument ISIS is putting out there to recruit innocent young people,” said Oussama Jammal, secretary-general of the group. “We’re in a tough position.”
The CVE programs are tailored to specific community needs, administration officials say. For example, many of the Somali immigrant Muslims in Minneapolis struggle with unemployment. Muslim communities in Los Angeles are more economically and ethnically diverse, and new immigrants often have trouble finding social and health services. In Boston, a college town that draws a diverse Muslim student population, the program could include psychologists to work with young people.
Federal officials are meeting with Muslims groups across the country to discuss the program, the administration official said.
Already, more than two dozen religious and civil-rights groups have publicly opposed or criticized CVE, including the American Civil Liberties Union, CAIR, Muslim Advocates and New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, as well as some Muslim student associations and Muslim religious leaders. Some say they fear that the plan may include surveillance of Muslims.
Despite such criticism, government officials say many Muslim communities have embraced the program, such as in Denver and Detroit, especially in the wake of more high-profile prosecutions of young people from the U.S. attempting to join Islamic State.
“People are really worried about” ISIS recruitment, said an administration official. “So if Muslim American groups are concerned, that’s not the government singling them out. That’s the government responding to their needs.”
Another administration official recalled that in meetings with Muslim leaders at the White House earlier this year, President Barack Obama said that “there have been cases in the past that made the community more mistrustful, and said that’s why it’s so important for the community to be more involved.”
“The core of this program is building healthy and resilient communities, promoting civic participation,” said Joumana Silyan-Saba of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, who worked on L.A.’s CVE. Law enforcement has a role, she said, but the program also calls for beefing up social services for immigrant families.
That hasn’t been enough for some Muslims, who point to high-profile instances of surveillance in the past decade, including a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant in Orange County, Calif.
In the latter case, Craig Monteilh, a convicted check forger, said in court documents that the FBI hired him to pose as a Muslim and spy on mosques in the area. The FBI said it used him as a “confidential human source,” but didn’t detail his actions in court documents. An FBI spokeswoman said the FBI doesn’t target any individual or group based on religion.
Metra Salem, a 36-year-old mother of three and the daughter of Afghan immigrants, said she supports the Obama plan. “I want my kids to be part of this country. I’m tired of this victim-minority-group, marginalization narrative,” she said.
Mohannad Malas, a member of the mosque’s board, said he hadn’t heard enough to come to conclusions. His mosque regularly hosts visits from local law enforcement and city officials, he said, adding, “We have nothing to hide.” Recently, he said local police quickly removed offensive posters mocking the Prophet Muhammad that appeared around the mosque.
But Mr. Malas cited the visit years ago by an official from the FBI’s Los Angeles office. “He told us that he thinks of our community as the solution, and after that visit, we felt part of the solution,” Mr. Malas said. “Turns out, they were planting an informant [Mr. Monteilh].”
Popular on WSJ
-
Is this true?
-
Is this true?
http://nation.foxnews.com/2015/04/20/obama-and-erdogan-open-new-mosque-together-maryland
-
This will be the largest mosque in the Western Hemisphere. Erdogan - Turkey's head of state - has ties to both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Obama is not only looking the other way - he is enabling this. It is telling that Erdogan seems to be the only foreign leader with whom Obama has a close relationship.
The enemy is infiltrating and setting up base camps and training centers right here in our midst. We ought to be EXTREMELY concerned - but with the exception of a handful of members of Congress - including Ted Cruz and Michele Bachmann - the vast majority of our "leaders" seem to be asleep at the wheel.
This is not going to end well. God help us.
-
Simple, practical question:
Consistent with our First Amendment, can anything, should anything have been done to block this?
-
Would we have allowed an Odinist temple sponsored by the National German Socialist Worker's Party or s Shinto temple funded by the Black Dragon society during WWII?
-
But that would mean that we define ourselves as being at war with Islam itself , , ,
-
Crafty: PRECISELY. This IS the reality. Unless and until we face this reality as a nation - and that will take the leadership of a prominent Republican (possibly Ted Cruz?) this war is lost. Period. You can not defeat an enemy you refuse to accurately define. Islam is a totalitarian ideology of world-domination. It is antithetical to the founding principles of this nation and therefore, it follows - to the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Abolishing 501c3 organizations would be a baby-step in the right direction. Islam should NOT enjoy the protected status of a "religion." Does the Nazi Party or the KKK enjoy tax-exempt status? But this is arguably a side issue. Until it seeps into - or is burned into (possibly by a nuclear attack on one of our cities) the American consciousness that Islam is not a "religion" like any other, but in fact a repressive, totalitarian ideology bent on world conquest, we cannot possibly fight - let alone win - this war. And make no mistake. The war has begun. They have declared it against us - whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Garland, TX was just the latest demonstration of this fact.
Sadly, I see America in the same state of denial as the nation was in prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A huge majority of the American people were opposed to getting involved. We saw much the same in Europe - in Great Britain - until Churchill came along. We are on the path to a VERY ugly awakening. I fear thousands, if not tens of thousands will die before we wake up as a nation and engage in this fight. The enemy is HERE. They have infiltrated the Department of Homeland Security, for God's sake. Obama (along with Grover Norquist) has facilitated this. What more needs to be said?
-
Powerful points well made.
BUT, what about countries of hundreds of millions of people such as Indonesia and Malaysia? There are some 1.4-1.7 billion Muslims world wide. That is a lot of people to be warring with, particularly in the context of 4th Gen warfare!
The Kurds are Muslim. Are we at war with them? The Jordanians who support their king are Muslim, are we at war with them? Al Sisi wars on the MB and declares the need for a Muslim reformation. Are we at war with him and his supporters?
-
After Pearl Harbor, we didn't declare a war on aviation. We are at war with the global jihad. Any Muslim globally that directly or indirectly supports it is our enemy.
Some Uighurs try to wage jihad against China. China crushes them as needed. Muslims that don't wish to face China's security state learn to adapt to China's demands.
-
I get that!
However, that is not the question presented. The question presented is do we make enemies of Muslims who are not our enemies by declaring war on Islam.
-
I get that!
However, that is not the question presented. The question presented is do we make enemies of Muslims who are not our enemies by declaring war on Islam.
If they directly or indirectly support the global jihad, they are already at war with us.
-
GM is correct. We are at war with those who practice orthodox Islamic ideology, as expressed in the Koran. (If you haven't yet read it, I HIGHLY recommend "A Simple Koran" edited by Bill Warner.) It is critical to understand that the later verses abrogate the earlier, more peaceful verses, for example. It's also critical to understand the doctrine of taqiyya - the idea that it is not only OK, it is a true believer's DUTY to deceive - to lie to - non-believers, in order to gain the upper hand. To the extent that self-identified Muslims are not actively involved in jihad against us, we have no issue with them.
We must attack those who are actively targeting and attacking us. ISIS and the government of Iran, for example. This certainly does not encompass 1.7 Billion Muslims. Most of them are not actively targeting us. To the extent that they disavow the many explicit passages in the Koran and Hadith which mandate warfare upon unbelievers - we have no problem with them. However - those that hold to and act upon this belief system - are our mortal enemies and we must crush them, every bit as ruthlessly and decisively as we crushed Imperial Japan and the Nazis. There is simply no alternative. They stand against Western civilization. Churchill recognized this long before WWII - when he was serving in the British military in India.
-
Few people get the point as clearly as we do here, but if we prohibit the building of mosques in the US, not only do we have serious First Amendment issues but also it certainly would persuade a lot of Muslims not at war with us that we would be at war with them.
The US's plate is alarmingly full and we are in the process of losing military superiority. We have China and Russia, the Arab Middle East (ISIS and AQ in its various manifestations, and Iran is going nuke.
-
Note Robert's comments regarding Bill O'Reilly - fool that he is:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/81-of-respondents-to-al-jazeera-poll-support-the-islamic-state
-
Note Robert's comments regarding Bill O'Reilly - fool that he is:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/81-of-respondents-to-al-jazeera-poll-support-the-islamic-state
We learned in the Anbar province that people support the side that is winning. In the Middle East, if you support the side that is losing or the side that is leaving, then you will be slaughtered. If I were Muslim polled here, it is a lose-lose situation. I would not want the US identifying me for a terror watch list and I most certainly would not want the terrorist side putting me on a list of Muslims who do not support the jihad.
This is an online poll so who knows what it means. If the respondents are all unique, then it means they found over 30,000 readers/viewers who support ISIS. But if I opposed the gains of ISIS, I might not be motivated to call the terror-affiliated media and tell them that - and how to reach me.
-
Putting aside the author's biases and editorial commentary, the story itself is interesting.
-
http://pamelageller.com/2015/05/67097.html/
-
UPDATE: Believe it or not - United Airlines has now FIRED this flight attendant for denying this Muslim woman an unopened can of Diet Coke. See jihadwatch.org for details.
The Islamophobia Revolution Will Be Brought to You by Diet Coke
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On June 2, 2015
While Americans yawned through another weekend, watching television or playing catch with their kids, the greatest human rights violation in our nation’s troubled history took place in the sky above Chicago.
Tahera Ahmad, a Muslim chaplain at Northwestern University who has participated in MSA and ISNA events, and gotten her photo taken with Obama, was denied an unopened Diet Coke.
“Muslim Chaplain Tahera Ahmad Denied Diet Coke,” NBC News blared. “I Can’t Help But Cry,” the CNN headline declaims. “’No Diet Coke for you': Islamophobia at 30000 feet,” bleated The Guardian.
“Outrage after United Airlines refuses Muslim woman Diet Coke,” the Mirror chimed in.
The Diet Coke crisis was upon us. Islamists called for a boycott of United Airlines and #unitedfortahera became a trending hashtag as random idiots denounced racism and commiserated with the horror of being denied a Diet Coke and pledged not to fly United until they actually need to use their airline miles.
Most of the rest of us would have to lose our legs in an airplane engine to get this much publicity and even if that happened, we would still be stuck crawling across the tarmac while the media eagerly converged on a Muslim passenger who had gotten an Islamophobic eyelash caught in her eye.
But that’s Muslim Privilege. It means that your whiny complaints about airline service suddenly become an international incident. A million people complain about airline service, but tag your complaint with #IslamophobiaISREAL, as Tahera Ahmad did, and suddenly your Diet Coke denial is a hate crime.
According to Tahera Ahmad, the flight attendant wanted to open her Diet Coke for her instead of giving her an unopened can. On a scale of hate crimes this is somewhere between 0 and -0.02. About the only person who could possibly complain about it is a celebrity whose color allotment of M&Ms is specified in a rider to their contract or a professional Islamic grievance-monger looking for any excuse to play victim.
And yet Ahmad’s Diet Coke tribulation was covered by more media outlets than the Muslim rape of thousands of girls in the UK or the suffering of Yazidi girls in Iraq. Her demand for a Diet Coke was compared to Rosa Parks and her tweet about it was launched with the hashtag #IslamophobiaISREAL.
The Islamophobia revolution will be brought to you by Diet Coke.
The TSA isn’t too fond of passengers having closed cans of soda on them. It may have something to do with when a Muslim woman attempted to bring down a China Southern Airlines flight to Beijing using soda cans that she had injected with flammable liquid and dropped in the bathroom trash can.
It’s unknown whether they were Diet Coke cans. But what was in them probably tasted like Diet Coke.
Tahera Ahmad’s Diet Coke crisis is a study in Muslim entitlement. Not just in the scope of it, but in the pettiness of it.
Of all the petty complaints about airline service, hers may be the single pettiest complaint in history. Tahera Ahmad isn’t even complaining that she didn’t get a soda. She’s complaining that she had to endure the filthy impure infidel fingers of the flight attendant groping her Diet Coke can.
And it’s equally a study in the media’s rush to take her ridiculous soda martyrdom and turn into it yet another piece of evidence that Muslims in America are oppressed by the Christian Diet Coke patriarchy.
Tahera Ahmad had appeared at an ISNA convention. She had been to the White House and had her photo taken with Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. Not to mention Tariq Ramadan [2]; an open supporter of terrorism against Americans and other non-Muslims around the world.
Despite being a product of traditionalist Islamic institutions like Al-Azhar, the media was eager to buy into the idea that Tahera Ahmad was a reformist.
Her recital of the Koran at an ISNA convention was hailed as a breakthrough without anyone asking how that can be said of reciting a creed that deems women and Muslims to be inferior at a convention for a Muslim Brotherhood front group, one of whose officials has stated [3], “Islam will prevail over other religions”.
On her Twitter account, Tahera Ahmad had retweeted a call to deny an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a human rights activist who was raised a Muslim, but left Islam after recognizing the violent text of the Koran. Ayaan Hirsi Ali suffered through many challenges. None of them involved a Diet Coke.
Instead Ayaan Hirsi Ali had FGM inflicted on her. As an adult, she had to deal with death threats. Her response to them was to continue speaking out. And yet the media prefers the entitled bleating of Tahera Ahmad’s Diet Coke crisis to a serious ex-Muslim intellectual who risks her life every day.
Tahera Ahmad’s sense of entitlement echoes that of her progressive allies. As feminism has taken a dumpster dive into pettiness and entitlement, it has little room for a woman like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who speaks to them about a world in which women are raped and murdered by Islamic Jihadists. They prefer to instead turn minor inconveniences into micro-aggressions to their swollen egos.
In Ahmad’s world, not getting exactly what she wants is a hate crime. And Tahera Ahmad’s whining embodies the torrent of petty Muslim complaints about America in microcosm.
Muslims claim that they’re most oppressed group in the country, but so far that oppression isn’t reflected in such objective metrics as hate crime statistics or actual incidents of oppression.
The banner Islamophobic hate crimes never seem to pan out either.
Shaima Alawadi was supposedly murdered by a racist American because she wore a hijab. The perpetrator left behind a note on the floor reading, “Go back to your country, you terrorist.”
A social media campaign complete with hijabis making duckfaces at the camera while holding up signs reading, “I am Shaima” was launched. The campaign had to be scrapped when it turned out that she had been murdered by her Muslim husband. But it did give “I am Shaima” a new authentic meaning.
The Chapel Hill shootings turned out to be just a parking dispute no matter how desperately Islamist groups and their lefty accomplices tried to turn the perpetrator’s atheism into evidence of a hate crime.
There isn’t a single fatal anti-Muslim hate crime on record. Islamophobia has never killed anyone [4]. The average anti-Muslim hate crime is committed by other Muslims [5].
What’s a good Islamist to do? Try to spin complaints about airline service into oppression. No one likes air travel, especially since Muslim terrorism inflicted the humiliating regimen of the TSA on the entire country. But Muslim complaints about it get a unique hearing because of their Muslim privilege.
Islamophobia is a self-reinforcing myth. The Americans groped at TSA checkpoints aren’t victims, but when a Muslim who has had a photo taken with Obama can’t get her Diet Coke the way she wants it, then it’s the worst soft-drink related human rights incident since Gitmo stopped serving Crystal Pepsi.
Muslim oppression of non-Muslims requires a narrative of victimhood to grease the wheels. So does leftist subversion of America under the guise of aiding the oppressed. And if that victimhood sometimes has to be found at the bottom of an unopened can of Diet Coke, that’s the fizz of the Jihad.
-
Meanwhile, China just bans Muslims from flying as needed and Chinese police rip the hijab off of heads. Who is best positioned to win against the global jihad?
-
I'm not real enthused about China as a role model , , ,
Meanwhile, here's this:
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/03/pamela-geller-reacts-to-reported-targeting-isis-is-here-this-is-a-war/?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+June+4%2C+2015&utm_campaign=20150604_m126072430_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+June+4%2C+2015&utm_term=More
-
The male host questioning Robert shows the typical media skepticism about the seriousness of the threat, and a complete lack of interest in investigating what is being taught in 80% of the mosques in America:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_o-6VoVEsg#t=98
-
I'm not real enthused about China as a role model , , ,
Meanwhile, here's this:
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/03/pamela-geller-reacts-to-reported-targeting-isis-is-here-this-is-a-war/?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+June+4%2C+2015&utm_campaign=20150604_m126072430_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+June+4%2C+2015&utm_term=More
We used to be willing to do what it takes to win. Now we are a bunch of groveling weenies China will get as brutal as it takes to win.
-
GM is correct. This is a simple matter of being willing to identify the enemy properly, and engage them. Political correctness is suicide in this situation. This administration has exactly ZERO interest in investigating what goes on in American mosques, where most of these terrorists are getting taught what is right and proper under Islam. Until we are willing to make a differentiation between Muslims who practice and support violent jihad and other Muslims, we are doomed. That is where we are today. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and Pentagon training manuals on terrorism have all been purged - at this administration's behest - of all references to Islam and jihad as they relate to terrorism. If we refuse to even acknowledge the motivating ideology of our enemy, we cannot possibly fight, let alone defeat him.
We are on the road to mass killings in shopping malls, office buildings, schools, large public sports-related gatherings, etc. Slavish adherence to politically-correct notions of "diversity," "non-discrimination," and profiling have rendered us defenseless against this threat. Our government authorities will do nothing but react AFTER THE FACT. And no doubt, they will use the opportunity to impose draconian restrictions on our freedom, if not outright martial law. This is not some nutty conspiracy theory. It is the natural and ineluctable consequence of the failure to identify and target the enemy, coupled with the staggering corruption and desire for centralized control of 95% of the inside-the-beltway D.C. elite. We have unilaterally disarmed, and are about to pay a very heavy price.
-
http://washingtonweeklynews.com/muslim-assistant-chief-of-police-refuses-to-salute-u-s-flag/
-
http://washingtonweeklynews.com/muslim-assistant-chief-of-police-refuses-to-salute-u-s-flag/
I bet as a devout Muslim, she would be happy to salute the caliphate.
-
Australia PM: Only effective defense against terror persuading people God doesn’t demand death to infidel
JUNE 11, 2015 1:17 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Abbott is right: the only effective defense against jihad terror will be to confront its ideology. I have no idea if Abbott himself realizes what this will entail, but it is encouraging at the very least that he has enunciated this, which no other Western leader is willing to acknowledge. Obama, Cameron and the others all pretend that there is nothing wrong with the Islamic ideology at all — they won’t even admit that Allah commands death to the Infidel. Their willful ignorance and denial will only ensure more deaths of more Infidels.
“Tony Abbott opens summit on countering terrorist propaganda,” by Michael Safi, Guardian, June 10, 2015:
Tony Abbott has opened a regional summit on countering terrorist propaganda in Sydney, telling delegates Islamic State “is coming if it can for every person and every government with a simple message: submit or die”.
Representatives from governments and civil society groups from 25 countries are meeting for two days to share ideas for challenging the appeal of Isis and other jihadi groups at the countering violent extremism (CVE) summit. More than 15,000 foreign fighters are estimated to have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the conflict, including at least 100 Australians.
The prime minister said waves of immigration had helped Australia flourish, “yet the tentacles of the death cult have extended even here as we discovered to our cost during the Martin Place siege last December”.
The prime minister also referenced claims of an Isis plot in Melbourne last year, likely to be the alleged stabbing of two police officers by 18-year-old Numan Haider in September.
He said Isis had inflicted death “mostly on Muslims in the Middle East”, but added: “This is what the death cult has in store for everyone if it has its way.”
“Daesh is coming if it can for every person and every government with a simple message: submit or die,” he said. “You can’t negotiate with an entity like this, you can only fight it.”
Abbott again paid tribute to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for his call that “Islam needed nothing less than a religious revolution to reverse centuries of false thinking”.
“In the end though, the only really effective defence against terrorism is persuading people that it’s pointless, persuading people that God does not demand death to the infidel,” he said. “Above all we need idealistic young people to understand that joining this death cult is an ugly, misguided and wrong-headed way to express their desire to sacrifice.”
The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, also addressed the summit, revealing that 115 passports had been cancelled, nine had been suspended and 14 refused to Australians currently in Iraq and Syria or suspected of wishing to join the conflict in the region.
She said “it defies all comprehension” that women made up around one-fifth of those flocking to join Isis, “given that it is women who are disproportionately affected by extremist groups”.
There were between 30 and 40 women “known to be either engaging in or supporting activity in Iraq, Syria or here in Australia”, she said.
Over the next two days the summit will hear from intelligence chiefs, academics, leaders of Muslim organisations and representatives from Google and Facebook. The sessions are closed, but one of the speakers, Michele Grossman from Victoria University, told Guardian Australia she would emphasise the need to support the families of young people at risk.
“Families can be a frontline of defence,” she said. “Those who are closest to us are often the very first to see early or subtle changes in attitude, in behaviour, in social networks, and this means we really need to see some new ways about how we can educate families on how to read and how to act on such early warning signs….
That is assuming that Muslim families are against all this. An unproven assumption at best.
-
Pamela Geller: “The jihadists aren’t just coming for me, they are coming for all of us that believe in freedom.”
JUNE 10, 2015 6:06 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
She is right, of course, not that Hollywood is on the case: Hollywood wouldn’t dare make a film that depicted Islamic jihadists honestly and accurately. She also says a great deal more that is on-point and important about the freedom of speech and more in this interview. “Pamela Geller: Hollywood Is “In the Pocket” of Jihadists (Q&A),” by Paul Bond, Hollywood Reporter, June 9, 2015 (thanks to Steve):
Pamela Geller has been on a rampage against radical Islam for years, beginning notably in 2010 by spearheading of the opposition to what she called the “Ground Zero Mega Mosque” near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. Her most recent controversy was the organization of a “Draw the Prophet Muhammad” contest in Texas.
A “rampage.” How ridiculous. Islamic jihadists have been on a rampage against free people. Pamela Geller is resisting them — and the Hollywood Reporter says she is the one on the rampage.
At the event, two self-described jihadists shot a security guard before police killed them. Then, on June 2, police killed a knife-wielding Muslim man in Boston whose goal was allegedly to behead Geller in retaliation for the contest. Even though the contest was a major news story, few media outlets published the winning cartoon. Geller’s group, American Freedom Defense Initiative, put the image on billboards, 100 of which debuted in St. Louis on Monday with the tagline “Support Free Speech.” She spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how the (largely hostile) media is portraying these events.
HR: Why are you being overly provocative, purposely insulting Muslims?
I am not being overly provocative or purposely insulting Muslims. Islamic jihadists, not I, made Muhammad cartoons the flash point for the defense of the freedom of speech when they began killing over them. If we don’t stand against them on that point, the only alternative is surrender and submission. I did not make the cartoons a flash point, the jihadis did.
HR: But if you just don’t insult their prophet, they’ll leave you alone, no?
No. The death penalty for insulting Muhammad is just one aspect of Sharia. There is much, much more of infidel behavior that violates Sharia. If we refrain from drawing Muhammad, more demands to adhere to other aspects of Sharia will follow. Millions are suffering or have been slaughtered under Islamic Sharia law in Muslim countries. Islamic supremacists mean to impose it in the West.
HR: Why shouldn’t cartoons insulting a religion be regarded as hate speech instead of protected free speech?
There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. “Hate speech” is a subjective judgment. If it were outlawed, the authority with the power to decide what constitutes it would have the power to control the public debate.… If a group will not bear being offended without resorting to violence, that group will rule unopposed while everyone else lives in fear, while other groups curtail their activities to appease the violent group. This results in the violent group being able to tyrannize the others. Cartoons have been used as satire since the beginning of satire — especially in our country — and no one gets a pass. Not the Pope of Rome, president of the United States or Hollywood’s biggest movie stars.… If you don’t like it, don’t look at it, boycott the network that airs it, don’t buy the publication, make counter-images, make a million, fine, but you have to adjust to us, not we to you, and if that’s too much, don’t come here. Threaten violence? Commit violence? The consequences are yours to bear.
HR: It seems many media pundits who claim allegiance to the First Amendment aren’t persuaded by your arguments.
They are afraid of being killed by Islamic jihadists and camouflage their fear and cowardice as “respect” for Islam and Muslims.
HR: Are there any TV hosts who have been particularly hostile to you during interviews?
Yes. Martha MacCallum, Erin Burnett, Alisyn Camerota, Chris Cuomo — although he let me speak and make my case.
HR: How about behind your back?
Yes. Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham. They said I was insulting the entire religion, one held by our moderate allies such as Egypt and Qatar. They are wrong in assuming that we must submit to Sharia to placate moderates, rather than that moderates need to accept the freedom of speech. Roman Catholics don’t like their religion mocked or the mockery of other religions, but Roman Catholics don’t kill when their religion is mocked — and so no one talks about “provoking” them or “respecting” them. In any pluralistic society, we have to put up with being offended and even with our core beliefs being mocked. Roman Catholics have learned that. Mormons and others have learned that — look at The Book of Mormon on Broadway. Why must we condescend to Muslims and think they cannot learn that? It’s the low expectation of soft bigotry.
HR: So this isn’t entirely a partisan issue where conservatives stand by you and liberals don’t?
No. Chris Hayes stuck up for me on MSNBC. This is not a left/right split, it is a free person/slave split.
HR: Did any TV host say something that struck you as particularly wrongheaded?
They all say I have the right to draw Muhammad but shouldn’t out of respect. They don’t seem to realize that any surrender on this point will only be seen by the jihadists as a victory and embolden them to make more demands. CNN’s Erin Burnett said I relished being the target of a beheading. It’s madness. Who self-promotes to get killed?
HR: So you’re not purposely courting danger, as Burnett and others have insinuated?
Of course not. I love life. But I will not live as a slave.
HR: Are there any TV hosts you’d like to face off with but who won’t have you on?
Bill O’Reilly. I expect he knows he would be shown up.
HR: We know about the man arrested who intended to behead you. Any other threats you can share?
I have received many threats. The FBI and NYPD are aware of them and on the case.
HR: Anyone in Hollywood reach out to you to offer support?
No.
HR: Should Hollywood care about threats against you?
They may think they’re exempt, but they aren’t. Islamic supremacists will be demanding they adhere to Sharia as well. Of course, most producers already are careful not to show anything that might offend Muslims, including accurate representations of jihad plotting and activity, so Hollywood is mostly already in their pocket. But this is their issue, and the entertainment industry should be on the front lines in the information battle space. The jihadists aren’t just coming for me, they are coming for all of us that believe in freedom.
HR: So why do you think Hollywood, which routinely claims to push the envelope in its art, hasn’t supported you?
They’re afraid of being ostracized.
HR: Your “Draw Muhammad” event certainly got a lot of news coverage. Should mainstream media outlets have published the winning cartoon?
Every media outlet should publish the Muhammad cartoons. They can’t kill us all. By kowtowing to violent intimidation, they are inviting more of it. Instead, they should be showing that we will all stand together for free speech. If the media had published the Danish cartoons back in 2005, this would never have become an issue. The submission by media, entertainment and academic elites empowered the savages.
HR: The Southern Poverty Law Center included you on their list of “hate groups.” Are they right?
Of course not. They’re the hate group, using that label to demonize and stigmatize all who don’t share their hard-left agenda. The SPLC smear machine does [not] profile jihad groups, but they target and libel patriots, veterans, Tea Party organizations and other groups that work in defense of freedom. They named [Republican presidential contender] Ben Carson as a hate group. That should tell you everything you need to know about them. Their [sympathizers] have violently attacked family groups, and one tried to assassinate Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. And a few months back an SPLC [sympathizer] killed three Muslims in a parking dispute in North Carolina.
-
BOSTON — Yusufi Vali was hunched over his computer at this city’s biggest mosque, where he is executive director, when the first phone call came. The police had killed a man a few miles away. Soon there were reports that the man was a Muslim who had been under investigation for terrorism.
And so the news media inquiries began. More than 100 calls came to the mosque over the next few days. Mr. Vali would explain, over and over, that the young man fatally shot after pulling a knife on the police on June 2 had only the slightest connection to the mosque: He had been hired by a security contractor to guard the mosque during the holy month of Ramadan in 2013.
No, he was not a regular at prayers. No, Mr. Vali did not recall meeting him. No, he could not shed light on any reported plan to behead a police officer, except to say that such a thing would be abhorrent.
“It weighs on you,” Mr. Vali, a rail-slender 31-year-old Princeton graduate, said of the fallout from the latest allegations of terrorist plotting in the name of Islam. “I don’t have control over what these people do. It’s frustrating to have it put on us.”
To be Muslim in America today means to be held responsible, or to fear you may be, for the brutal acts of others whose notion of what Allah demands is utterly antithetical to your own. For the diverse crowd that prays at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, where professors at nearby universities mix with freshly arrived immigrants from Somalia and Egypt, it means hearing the word “Islamic” first thing each morning in news reports on an infamous extremist group. It means a kind of implied collective responsibility, however illogical, for beheadings in Syria, executions in Iraq and bombs in Boston.
For the estimated 70,000 Muslims in the city and suburbs, there are particular pressures. For more than two years, since the bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the city has been transfixed by the tragedy’s aftermath. For more than six years, a tiny organization with an anodyne name, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, has publicly claimed in newspaper ads and web postings that Boston’s Muslim institutions are led by extremists and terrorist sympathizers.
And in some mosques, tensions have played out between conservatives, some with deep roots in the Middle East, and more liberal worshipers. The former imam at the Boston center, William Suhaib Webb, who moved to Washington last year, recalled that after a sermon expressing a tolerant view of what Islam allows, a congregant told him bluntly: “You’re not a Muslim.”
On the grounds of the Boston center, a soaring mosque with a minaret and red-brick construction meant to honor New England tradition, work is underway to turn an abandoned swimming pool into a formal Islamic-style garden. It was to be called the “Terrace Garden,” until some jaw-dropping reactions showed that some people thought they were hearing “terrorist garden.” The project was quietly renamed “Paradise Garden.”
News arrived recently that a 57-year-old man in Iowa had been arrested after posting obscene and threatening notes, one including a photograph of a rifle, on the mosque’s Facebook page. Then people began to stop by the office to show Mr. Vali fliers someone had slid under the doors of neighboring houses in the Roxbury neighborhood, citing the Americans for Peace and Tolerance claims and denouncing the mosque for “extremist leadership.”
Mr. Vali, who is close to several local rabbis and ministers and whose only evident fanaticism is for the Kansas City Royals, took to the public address system before Friday Prayer to call on congregants to ignore the bait. “Let’s kill them with kindness,” he said of the mosque’s critics.
He said he and his staff, who are guiding a search for a new imam, were determined not to be distracted from the mosque’s mission — to build a home for a distinctly American Islam, one that models community service, tolerance and compassion.
The Obama administration, worried about the recruiting of young Americans by Islamic State extremists, chose Boston last fall as one of three cities for a Countering Violent Extremism pilot program. The idea is to brainstorm ways to combat recruitment by all militants, including antigovernment groups and white supremacists. But the plan has divided Muslims in Boston and the other two cities, Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
Mr. Vali’s mosque is among those that have opted out of the federal program, saying that however well intentioned it is, they believe it will further stigmatize Muslims.
“There is obviously an ideology that exists that’s horrific,” Mr. Vali said. But he said he had not encountered violent militancy in his congregation and believed it would be a mistake “to gear everything around extremism.”
Rather than lecturing young people about terrorism, he said, he wants them learning genuine Islamic principles in a new youth program and in joint projects with churches and synagogues.
Some Muslim activists have decided to go along with the federal effort. Nabeel Khudairi, 53, an optometrist in the Boston suburb of Norwood, is already creating a program to encourage young Muslims to look for genuine heroes and convince them that they “should not go to YouTube University and not listen to Imam Google.”
Participating in the federal project “is getting on a ship before it sails,” Mr. Khudairi said. “Otherwise you’re standing on shore, watching it go.”
Unlike Minneapolis, Boston has not experienced the departure of dozens of young people for militant groups like the Shabab, in Somalia, and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But over the years, a growing list of Muslim extremists and terrorists has emerged from the city.
Most notorious are the Tsarnaev brothers, who committed the marathon bombing. But there are others:
■ Ahmad Abousamra, 33 if he is still alive, grew up in suburban Boston. His father was an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and president of the Islamic Center of New England. He fled to Syria in 2007 after coming under F.B.I. scrutiny and last year joined the Islamic State’s prolific English-language social media operation in Syria, officials believe. In late May, the Iraqi military announced that he had been killed in an airstrike; American officials have not confirmed his death.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
■ Tarek Mehanna, another suburbanite in his early 30s, who was charged in 2009 with Mr. Abousamra but did not flee. He was convicted of supporting Al Qaeda and other charges, and is serving a 17-year federal sentence.
■ Rezwan Ferdaus, 29, grew up in the outer suburb of Ashland and earned a physics degree at Northeastern University. He was sentenced in 2012 to 17 years for plotting to fly explosives-laden model planes into the Capitol and the Pentagon and other crimes.
■ Aafia Siddiqui, 43, who earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Brandeis and became an outspoken Muslim activist. She later joined Al Qaeda and in 2008, in custody in Afghanistan, was accused of shooting at American soldiers. She was sentenced in 2010 to 86 years.
■ Abdurahman Alamoudi, 63, a founder of the Islamic Society of Boston, parent organization to Mr. Vali’s mosque, who in 2004 was sentenced to 23 years for joining a bizarre Libyan plot to kill the Saudi crown prince and other charges.
They are among more than a dozen people featured in a rogues’ gallery of former Bostonians featured in advertisements and online writings of Americans for Peace and Tolerance. The group’s founder is Charles Jacobs, 71, a former business consultant who spent years combating contemporary slavery in Africa before focusing on what he sees as a new form of anti-Semitism, fueled by Islamic extremism and hostility to Israel.
The accumulation of Boston malefactors makes for a disturbing list, especially if it is now updated with Usaamah Rahim, the man killed by the police this month, and two other men who were charged Friday with plotting with him and supporting the Islamic State. The Boston Globe was prompted last week to ask in a headline, “Are Boston terrorism cases a trend?”
Mr. Jacobs blames what he believes to be the radical leadership of area mosques, including the Islamic Society of Boston. He points to the fact that devotees of the Muslim Brotherhood, the conservative Islamist organization with branches and allies across the Middle East, were involved in founding the society more than three decades ago. The Muslim American Society, whose Boston branch operates Mr. Vali’s mosque, has been accused of links to the Brotherhood; it insists any ties are historical and have no relevance.
“We think and say and write that the vast majority of Muslims in Boston and America are moderates who would never do anyone any harm,” Mr. Jacobs said. “We think the I.S.B. leadership are hiding behind the general Muslim population.”
Photo
Abdul Cader Asmal, left, a retired physician, and Nabeel Khudairi, an optometrist, outside the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, Mass. Dr. Asmal said that Islam must find a way to “excommunicate” extremists. Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times
His assertions have been rejected by Boston’s leading rabbis and the United States attorney, Carmen Ortiz, who said she found the group’s claims “incredibly racist and unfair.”
A closer look at extremists who have come from Boston finds little evidence that they were radicalized at local mosques. For example, the authorities believe the Chechen brothers responsible for the bombing at the marathon got their ideas largely online; the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was thrown out of the Islamic Society of Boston’s Cambridge mosque after a strident outburst.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Still, to talk privately with a range of Boston-area Muslims is to hear a more subtle story about the battle over Islamic ideology. One Pakistani-American, who did not want to be identified for fear of becoming a target of anger, said he believed Muslim Brotherhood loyalists in Boston still met secretly and had a pernicious influence on some young people. But he said he did not believe these “hard-liners,” as he called them, supported terrorism.
Talal Eid, 63, a liberal imam who was ousted from his longtime position at a suburban Boston mosque in a factional fight in 2005, said he believed the city’s mosques should operate more democratically. But he said the ideological tensions had no relationship to violence.
“Muslims all over are very good people, working hard, living their lives,” he said. “In Boston, when you talk about terrorists, you can count them on the fingers of one hand. It’s not even one in 10,000.”
But while the numbers may be small, the consequences for American Muslims of each reported plot or act of religiously motivated violence are incalculable.
Some Boston Muslims believe Islam itself faces a grave, perhaps existential danger from the association with terror.
Mr. Webb, the imam who served at Mr. Vali’s mosque from 2010 to 2014, has been denounced on the Internet for his liberal views. A onetime gang member and hip-hop D.J. from a Christian family, he said he himself had espoused deeply conservative views after converting to Islam and changed only gradually.
After the Islamic State beheadings of journalists last year, Mr. Webb delivered a striking sermon. “In America, no religious community has been beaten up or slapped around in the last 13 years like us,” he said.
But he added: “Within our ranks, we have people who openly say they want to kill Americans, they would like to see the destruction of America.” Mr. Webb said Muslims did not like to talk about the few who embrace violence. “But if we continue to ignore these problems, they’ll never be answered,” he said.
The same sense of danger to Islam was expressed by an older member of the Boston community, Abdul Cader Asmal, 76, a retired physician and longtime leader in area mosques. He recalled watching Tarek Mehanna and Ahmad Abousamra grow up, and expressed puzzlement that one had ended up in prison and the other with ISIS.
“This is painful for us,” Dr. Asmal said. Islam, he said, must find a way to “excommunicate” extremists.
“If it doesn’t take a drastic stance against terrorism,” Dr. Asmal added, “its credibility as a force for good will be lost.
-
This is pure, unadulterated bullshit propaganda that these mosques put out, and gullible "news" outlets like the New York Times repeatedly swallow hook, line, and sinker.
This Boston mosque has very clear ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and has connections to several convicted terrorists, including the Boston Marathon bombers. This is extensively documented at jihadwatch.org and pamelageller.com
The question we should be asking is WHY is the NYT, nor any other establishment media outlet , NOR THE FBI - investigating this mosque, and the many like it, where this doctrine of violent jihad is being preached? WHY? There is a very deliberate cover-up going on here, and the Obama Justice Department is deeply involved.
-
THE LURE OF FANTASY ISLAM
Just because you ignore the reality of Islam, doesn’t mean it will ignore you.
July 8, 2015 Dr. Stephen M. Kirby
Fantasy sports such as football and baseball have become increasingly popular on the internet. For those not familiar with fantasy sports, the emphasis is on fantasy. The simple explanation is that you pretend to be the owner of a team, join a pretend league which has other pretend teams, and then man your team with actual professional players from that particular sport. In this fantasy world you can pick players from any team to be a member of your own team.
When it comes to Islam, there is a similar world that has been created. In this world there are two teams involved, of differing sizes and membership, and interacting at different times and places. The large team consists of a group of non-Muslims who know little if anything about Islam, generally wish with all of their hearts that it is a “Religion of Peace,” seem to prefer any presentation that will support that wish, and frown on anyone who expresses skepticism about that wish during the presentation, or afterwards. The small team usually consists of one Muslim making a presentation that largely fulfills the wish of the large team. The accuracy of the presentation is not questioned because the presenter has already established his credentials simply by being a Muslim.
In this world of Fantasy Islam, the presenter is able to create his own version of Islam, react with patronizing sympathy or condescending dismissiveness toward any non-Muslim who questions his version, and knows that the majority of his audience will support him in maintaining the comfort of this fantasy.
Since the make-up of the large team changes regularly and this team is the more passive of the two, let’s look at two of the individuals who have appeared on the small team:
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, MD
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser is the Muslim Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). He is well-known as a proponent of reforming and modernizing Islam, and for years has been a guest on countless television and radio programs. Unfortunately, for years Jasser has also played Fantasy Islam.
Mickelson in the Morning
We can go back to October 11, 2010 when Jasser was on a major Iowa radio station with host Jan Mickelson here. During the interview, Jasser said he didn’t believe that Muhammad had really spoken what was in the hadith about killing a Jew hiding behind every stone (Time: 17:58). Here is that hadith:
Narrated Abu Hurairah: Allah's Messenger said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight against the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.'"
Sahih Al-Bukhari, No. 2926
The collection of hadiths by Al-Bukhari has been considered by Muslim scholars to be the most authoritative collect of hadiths since the 9th Century. Jasser simply has no doctrinal basis for dismissing Al-Bukhari.
Later in the same program, Jasser talked about the Verse of the Sword in the Koran (Time: 24:09 and 26:20). He said that this verse only referred to a specific battle against a specific tribe and applied only to 623 AD; it no longer had any relevance today. Here is that verse:
Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every ambush. But if they repent [by rejecting Shirk (polytheism) and accept Islamic Monotheism] and perform As-Salat (the prayers), and give Zakat (obligatory charity), then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
Chapter 9, Verse 5
Where did he come up with 623 AD? 9:5 was among the verses from Chapter 9 that were revealed in early 631 AD. And these verses were not related to a specific battle or to a specific tribe, but rather directed toward all non-Muslims (Life of Muhammad (Sirat Rasul Allah), pp. 617-619; The History of al-Tabari: The Last Years of the Prophet, pp. 77-79; and Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. 4, pp. 370-376).
There is no basis in Islamic doctrine for Jasser’s assertion that 9:5 has no relevance today. His assertion ignores the facts that Muslims believe the Koran consists of the eternal words of Allah, and Chapter 9 of the Koran was the last chapter to be “revealed” to Muhammad. Consequently, the commands found in Chapter 9 are the final, eternal words of Allah on the matters addressed in that Chapter.
Abraham’s Tent
Over the years Jasser has continued playing Fantasy Islam. He was interviewed on a segment of the Abraham’s Tent radio program, which was aired on September 29, 2014. In this interview he made his standard assertion that 5:51 of the Koran, which commands Muslims not to be friends with Jews and Christians, had been intentionally misinterpreted (Time: 25:38). Here is that verse:
O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians as Auliya' (friends, protectors, helpers), they are but Auliya' of each other. And if any amongst you takes them as Auliya', then surely, he is one of them. Verily, Allah guides not those people who are the Zalimun (polytheists and wrongdoers and unjust).
Jasser claimed that Auliya’ really meant “legal representatives.” He said this verse simply meant that when it came to picking such a representative, Muslims should pick someone who understands the legalisms in Islam, meaning a Muslim, and not somebody of another faith. It had nothing to do with prohibiting Muslims from being friends with Jews and Christians.
Once again Jasser is flying in the face of Islamic doctrine. As I pointed out in an earlier article, in 5:51 Allah commands Muslims not to be friends with Jews and Christians. And, as I also pointed out in that article, this understanding is supported by five modern translations of the Koran; the messages of additional verses of the Koran; five authoritative Koran commentaries, written at different times between circa 900-1995 AD; and the teachings of Muhammad.
Jasser also expressed the basis for his Fantasy Islam: “Every Muslim has the right to interpret their faith.” (Time: 29:11). This too flies in the face of Islamic doctrine, e.g.:
Muhammad bin Jarir reported that Ibn 'Abbas said that the Prophet said, 'Whoever explains the Qur'an with his opinion or with what he has no knowledge of, then let him assume his seat in the Fire.'
Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. 1, pp. 32-33
In this interview Jasser suggested that 5:38 of the Koran, which commands amputation for theft, was “metaphorical” and “not literal” (Time 54:25). Here is that verse:
And (as for) the male thief and the female thief, cut off (from the wrist joint) their (right) hands as a recompense for that which they committed, a punishment by way of example from Allah. And Allah is All-Powerful, All-Wise.
Not only is this verse not a metaphor, it is explicit in commanding the amputation of hands for theft. In addition, Muhammad, who is the example of conduct for Muslims, ordered the hands of many thieves to be cut off; he even said he would cut off the hand of his favorite daughter if she committed theft (Sahih Al-Bukhari, No. 4304).
A Battle for the Soul of Islam
In 2013 the paperback edition of Jasser’s widely acclaimed book A Battle for the Soul of Islam was published. After reading only the eleventh chapter, “How the Qur’an is Misinterpreted,” I decided not to read the rest of the book.
Jasser’s version of Fantasy Islam is best epitomized in this eleventh chapter with the following statement he wrote on p. 252:
Nowhere in the Qur’an does God tell Muslims that they must repeat and thus emulate the Prophet Muhammad’s role and actions as a military or governmental leader.
This statement is immediately repudiated by 33:21 of the Koran:
Indeed in the Messenger of Allah (Muhammad) you have a good example to follow for him who hopes for (the Meeting with) Allah and the Last Day, and remembers Allah much.
There are no limitations here on the circumstances in which Muhammad is to be considered a good example. In fact, this verse was actually “revealed” as a result of Muhammad’s military leadership and the example he set for his Muslim warriors during the Battle of the Trench in 627 (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. 7, p. 658; Tafsir Al-Jalalayn, p. 900; Tafsir Ibn 'Abbas, p. 546; and Tafsir Ahsanul-Bayan, Vol. 4, p. 374).
Since 33:21 is a verse that counters Jasser’s Fantasy Islam, he has apparently decided to deny it, which means he has apparently also decided to ignore this warning from his prophet Muhammad:
It was narrated from Ibn 'Abbas that the Messenger of Allah said: "Whoever denies a Verse of the Qur'an, it is permissible to strike his neck (i.e. execute him)..."
Sunan Ibn Majah, No. 2539
Dr. Syed Mohiuddin
Dr. Syed Mohiuddin is President of the American Muslim Institute (AMI), the Muslim group involved in building a new mosque as part of the Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska. I recently attended a presentation he made at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Omaha. The presentation was titled The True Nature of Islam. Here is how Mohiuddin presented “the true nature” of Islam.
When asked about the treatment of women, Mohiuddin assured the audience that the Koran repeatedly stated that men and women were equal, without, however, mentioning any supporting verses. In reality, the Koran says that it takes the testimony of two women to equal that of one man (2:282); a woman is to receive only half the inheritance of a man (4:12); a Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man (2:221), while Muslim men can marry Jews and Christians (5:5) and have up to four wives (4:3).
Mohiuddin was wise not to mention things that Muhammad said about women, e.g.:
It is not wise for anyone of you to lash his wife like a slave, for he might sleep with her the same evening.
Sahih Al-Bukhari, No. 4942
Treat women well, for they are [like] domestic animals with you and do not possess anything for themselves.
The History of al-Tabari: The Last Years of the Prophet, p. 113
Mohiuddin was asked why, if Islam says we are all brothers and sisters, do we see beheading of Christians on the beaches of Libya? He replied that Islam,
if practiced appropriately and correctly, would never, never allow that… And the true Muslims in true Islamic countries would never allow that to happen.
In reality, there are two verses in the Koran (8:12 and 47:4) and numerous hadiths that allow Muslims to behead people, even captive non-combatants.
Mohiuddin said there were “major differences” in how the Koran was interpreted. And he said there were instances when people added their own thoughts to provide an incorrect interpretation. He gave an example from Al-Fatihah, the first chapter of the Koran, in which he said the translator had included in parenthesis the words “Jews” and “Christians” to explain “those who go astray” (1:7). For some reason, much of the audience laughed when he said this.
In reality, Muhammad himself said that the Christians had gone astray (e.g. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. 4, p. 410, and Tafsir Al-Qurtubi, Vol. 1, p. 127), and it was also an accepted belief among later Muslim scholars that the Jews too had gone astray (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. 1, p. 87). But in Mohiuddin’s version of Islam, this was a bad translation.
I asked Mohiuddin to explain the Doctrine of Abrogation. His first response was to confuse it with apostasy. To prompt him a bit, I pointed out that abrogation meant that when there was a conflict between the meanings of two verses, the verse “revealed” later would supersede the earlier verse (meaning that the belligerent Medinan verses found in Chapter 9 supersede the peaceful Meccan verses elsewhere in the Koran). I asked him to comment on this principle. After some general, and not necessarily germane remarks, he concluded by saying that the message “was the first one which supersedes the other one.”
The Doctrine of Abrogation is fundamental to understanding the messages of the Koran. How can one talk about the “true nature of Islam” without understanding the Doctrine of Abrogation?
When asked about 5:51, which prohibits Muslims from being friends with Jews and Christians, Mohiuddin said this verse only referred to a specific tribe of people during a specific time of war. He said this verse had to be specific to a time and tribe because of the other verses in the Koran that “repeatedly emphasized the importance of” Jews and Christians. He did not mention any supporting Koran verses.
So let’s consider some supporting Koran verses that emphasize Jews and Christians: Allah is angry with the Jews, and the Christians are misguided because they believe that Jesus is the son of God (1:7); Jews are among the worst enemies of Islam (5:82); Muslims are commanded to fight Jews and Christians until the Jews and Christians pay protection money with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (9:29); Allah curses the Jews and the Christians (9:30); and Jews and Christians are among the worst of creatures and “will abide in the fire of Hell” (98:6).
These verses show us that Jews and Christians are certainly important to Islam, but not in the positive way implied by Mohiuddin.
In hindsight, Mohiuddin’s presentation should have been titled Dr. Mohiuddin’s Personal Impressions of Islam, or more simply, Fantasy Islam. After the presentation, the audience of 60-70 people walked out misinformed, but also feeling comforted about Islam; the latter which, from the apparent attitude of the hosts and much of the audience, appeared to be the main purpose of the event.
Conclusion
For many years non-Muslims in the West have been fed a steady diet of how Islam is a “Religion of Peace” and is similar, and even related to, Judaism and Christianity. At the same time we have seen an increasing number of acts of violence done in the name of Islam.
For those willing to learn and investigate, the irrefutable conclusion is that most, if not all, of the violent acts committed by the jihadists are truly supported by Islamic doctrine, just as the jihadists themselves claim. But this conclusion can create a cognitive dissonance between what we have heard about Islam and what we see actually being done in the name of Islam and supported by Islamic doctrine. This dissonance can create stress. The antidote to this stress for many is to turn to Fantasy Islam, where Islam is what any peaceful-sounding Muslim wants it to be, and the jihadists are the hijacking outliers.
But this is only a temporary resolution. Just because you continue to ignore the reality of Islam, doesn’t mean that the reality of Islam will continue to ignore you. The Christians in the Middle East and Africa are the canaries in the coal mine.
Dr. Stephen M. Kirby is the author of three books about Islam. His latest book is Islam According to Muhammad, Not Your Neighbor.
-
Condemned Boston Marathon jihadi bomber files motion for new trial
Pamela Geller - July 8, 2015
He never should have been taken alive.
Boston pays in blood and money — this will go on for decades, while providing this devout savage with his three halal meals, prayer mats and prayer meetings with coreligionists, converting the broken and the violent in Boston’s prison system.
“Condemned Boston Marathon bomber files motion for new trial,” July 06, 2015 Associated Press
FILE – In this Dec. 18, 2014, courtroom sketch, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sits in federal court in Boston for a final hearing before his trial begins in January. (Jane Flavell Collins via AP, File)
BOSTON – Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has filed a motion for a new trial, less than two weeks after he was formally sentenced to death for the 2013 attack.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers filed a preliminary motion for a new trial Monday for his conviction and death sentence. The motion did not contain any details on what grounds they plan to argue, saying only that a new trial is “required in the interests of justice.”
The 21-year-old Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 charges in the bombing, which killed three people and injured more than 260. The same jury recommended the death penalty, and a federal judge on June 24 sentenced him to death.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers call the motion a “placeholder” until they can file a more detailed motion next month.
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/07/condemned-boston-marathon-jihadi-bomber-files-motion-for-new-trial.html/#sthash.MP1t80S4.dpuf
-
I find it hard to believe even this guy would be executed in Massachusetts.
-
http://pamelageller.com/2015/07/first-photos-chattanooga-jihad-murderer-muhammad-youssef-abdulazeez-five-things-you-need-to-know.html/
-
http://pamelageller.com/2015/07/first-photos-chattanooga-jihad-murderer-muhammad-youssef-abdulazeez-five-things-you-need-to-know.html/
This happened in Tennessee? Obviously the Confederate flag is to blame!
-
http://pamelageller.com/2015/07/chattanooga-jihad-shooters-blog-we-need-to-establish-islam-in-the-world.html/
-
http://www.redstate.com/2015/07/17/fbi-struggles-find-motive-chattanooga-shooting/
All I can say is thank allah he was a moderate muslim. Imagine the loss of life if he wasn't...
-
http://www.redstate.com/2015/07/17/fbi-struggles-find-motive-chattanooga-shooting/
All I can say is thank allah he was a moderate muslim. Imagine the loss of life if he wasn't...
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/terrorism-july-dec02-lax_07-05/
Funny enough, the FBI had to reverse course after it was discovered that the shooter had an unfortunate affiliation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/25/national/25DEPO.html
-
http://www.timesofisrael.com/empire-state-building-turns-green-for-eid/
The twin towers of the World Trade Center did not for some reason.
I blame islamaphobia.
-
http://www.steynonline.com/7055/senselessness-and-sensibility
-
Florida gun store bans Muslims in wake of Chattanooga jihad attack
JULY 22, 2015 4:31 PM BY RALPH SIDWAY
This reminded me of a story from last September about an Arkansas Gun Range banning Muslims. No doubt there are others making the same decision. Hallinan’s story is especially important because of his explicit citation of federal law to back up his position.
By banning the sale of guns to Muslims who interpret the Koran literally, Florida Gun Supply owner Andrew Hallinan says he wants to “offend as many people as [possible]” in hopes of “[starting] a conversation about the political correctness that… [is] causing loss of life that we could prevent if we looked at Islam for what it is.”
This is wholly reasonable, and Hallinan’s position deserves serious consideration. Background checks on firearms purchases could also look for links between Muslims and radicalized mosques with known ties to Islamic terrorism, whether through jihad terrorists associated with the mosques, or through jihad financing trials in which they are implicated. There certainly are plenty of such links to investigate.
Hallinan gives himself ample maneuvering room by noting that “the ATF expressly gives me the right and authority to deny service to anybody that I feel is a threat for any reason.”
For this very reason, all Muslims seeking to purchase firearms or earn pilots licenses should come under increased scrutiny. More and more Muslims in the U.S. already are committing jihad terrorist acts. Since Islam is proven to be the sole constant motivating these followers of Muhammad and the Koran, our nation is fitfully starting to have this “conversation,” which boils down to, “How do we deal with a militant, adversarial religious ideology in our midst, which has fourteen centuries of aggression and conquest behind it, and whose founder, holy books and most zealous adherents call for our overthrow?”
“Florida Gun Store Owner Bans Muslims in wake of Chattanooga Attack,” by AWR Hawkins, Breitbart News, July 21, 2015:
Florida Gun Supply owner Andrew Hallinan is instituting a ban on selling guns to Muslims who interpret the Koran literally. In making the announcement, he declared his store a “Muslim-free zone.”
His ban also covers any training or services Muslims might have otherwise received.
Hallinan announced the ban in front of a Confederate flag and told CNN he wanted the announcement to “offend as many people as [possible]” in hopes of “[starting] a conversation about the political correctness that has become overly extreme here in the United States and [is] causing loss of life that we could prevent if we looked at Islam for what it is.”
CNN’s Carol Costella responded by saying, “I’m all for conversation, alright, but you’re going one step farther–you’re banning Muslims who follow the Koran from your store. How do you determine which Muslim follows the Koran?”
Hallinan responded by admitting that it is going to be a difficult ban to enforce at all times, precisely because of the difficulty of ascertaining who follows the Koran literally and who doesn’t.
He then said:
I can’t, by law, ask each and every person who comes through my doors what their religious background is. But the ATF expressly gives me the right and authority to deny service to anybody that I feel is a threat for any reason. And it happens on weekly basis that we have people come through the gun shop [and] they pass their background check but they seem a little off. And we make a determination on a case by case basis whether or not we’re going to arm and train these people.
Costella asked Hallinan if he would deny services to “white supremacists” as well, and Hallinan said he “won’t arm and train anyone from the KKK” or “someone from a white supremacy movement or anything like that.”
-
CAIR LEADER NEZAR HAMZE IS NOW DEPUTY SHERIFF
First Jewish Sheriff of Broward County picks representative of terror group to wear gun and badge.
July 24, 2015 Joe Kaufman
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has its foundation in the terrorist organization Hamas. It has been named as a co-conspirator by the U.S. government for two federal trials dealing with the financing of Hamas, and it is recognized as an international terrorist group by the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE). Given this information, how is it possible that one of this group’s leaders, Nezar Hamze, could be considered for a position at one of the most prominent Sheriff’s offices in the United States? However, that is exactly what has happened.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) is the largest fully accredited Sheriff's office in the nation. As such, having the title of Sheriff comes with much fanfare and responsibility. The current Sheriff is Scott Israel; he was elected to office in November 2012. As Sheriff, Israel has made it a point to reach out to diverse crowds, including those who could be considered enemies of the U.S. and her allies.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s 2015 radical Muslim tour began this past January, when he posed for photos with Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout and a member of Zakkout’s Miami-based AMANA group at a local mosque. Zakkout is a big supporter of Hamas. On his Facebook page, one can find Hamas logos and photos of Hamas militants and leaders, including Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi and deceased Hamas bomb maker Yehiya Ayyash.
In July 2014, Zakkout organized a pro-Hamas rally held in Downtown Miami, where the crowd chanted loudly a number of anti-Jewish and pro-Hamas slogans. Zakkout is shown on video with a huge grin on his face, as his mob repeatedly screams, “We are Hamas.” Following the rally, Zakkout wrote in Arabic on his Facebook page, “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”
Zakkout is also a big fan of white supremacist and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. Zakkout has posted different links on his Facebook site to Duke videos , including a link to Duke’s official YouTube page. In July 2010, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned Zakkout’s group AMANA for featuring what it called a “vicious” David Duke video on its website. In the video, which is titled ‘No War for Israel in Iran – Keep Americans Safe,’ Duke rails against Jews and is shown shaking hands with then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The next stop for Sheriff Israel, on his tour, was the Islamic Foundation of South Florida (IFSF), for a June Ramadan Iftar meal. The event was sponsored by Emerge USA, an innocuously named Islamist lobbying and advocacy group that attempts to dupe politicians into attending its functions by seducing them with a “Muslim vote.”
Like he did with Zakkout, Sheriff Israel posed for photos, one of which has him standing alongside Mayor of Sunrise, Florida Mike Ryan and the co-founder and co-chairman of Emerge, Khurrum Wahid.
Wahid, a South Florida attorney, has spent years representing high-profile Muslim terrorists. They include: Rafiq Sabir, who received a 25-year prison sentence for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was given a life sentence for being part of al-Qaeda and for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush; Sami al-Arian who spent time in prison (and was later deported) for his activities within Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ); and Hafiz Khan, a Miami imam who received 25 years for shipping $50,000 to the Taliban explicitly to murder American troops overseas.
According to the Miami New Times, Wahid himself was placed on a federal terrorist watch list in 2011.
Another photo from the Iftar featured Sheriff Israel and IFSF Events Coordinator Abdur Rahman al-Ghani. Al-Ghani’s Facebook page is littered with anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and Islamic supremacist language and images. In March 2013, al-Ghani posted on his Facebook site a photo of a group of American rabbis, who were meeting with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office to discuss Judaism, with the caption, “Every President has end [sic] up like this. This is the power of Zionism in our U.S. Government.” In December 2012, he wrote on Facebook, “Zionist/Israelis are not holy people. They are demonic and the most evil on earth.”
In April 2012, al-Ghani posted on his Facebook page a graphic depicting an American flag, stating “Worlds [sic] Number One Terrorist Organization.” In March 2012, he posted a graphic stating, “ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD.” He wrote next to it, “Yes, Allah (SWT) has Decreed [sic] we will overtake the world in numbers…” And in February 2012, al-Ghani posted a graphic of the CIA logo spattered in blood with a caption that read in part, “You wipe out the organization that is solely responsible for every terrorist act committed since it’s [sic] creation. You wipe out the CIA.”
Next to the photo of Sheriff Israel with al-Ghani, Emerge wrote, “Thanks again to IFSF and Abdur Rahman al-Ghani.”
The third stop of Sheriff Israel’s radical Muslim tour, which took place this month, led him to the Darul Uloom Mosque, located in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Darul Uloom has ties to a number of high-profile al-Qaeda terrorists.
“Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla was a student at Darul Uloom. His teacher was the current imam at the mosque, Maulana Shafayat Mohamed. Padilla was sentenced to 21 years in prison for providing material support to terrorists and for conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim individuals overseas.
Now-deceased al-Qaeda commander and al-Qaeda Global Operations Chief Adnan el-Shukrijumah was a prayer leader at the mosque. In 2010, Shukrijumah was indicted by New York authorities for plotting suicide bombings in the city’s subway system. His father, Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, who was a translator for the spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, “Blind Shaikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, taught classes at Darul Uloom. One of Gulshair’s students, Imran Mandhai, was sentenced to twelve years in prison for plotting to blow up strategic targets in South Florida. Mandhai was deported to Pakistan this past May.
It has further been alleged that one of the 19 hijackers from the September 11 attacks prayed at Darul Uloom.
The official website of Darul Uloom contains a photo of its imam, Shafayat Mohamed, shaking hands with now-deceased bigot Ahmed Deedat. Deedat, author of the book ‘CRUCIFIXION OR CRUCI-FICTION?’ was infamous for going around the world giving lectures on how Christianity is a false religion. In his book, ‘Muhammad the natural successor to Christ,’ he repeatedly refers to homosexuals as “sodomites.” He states, “Euphemistically they call them ‘gays’ a once beautiful word meaning - happy and joyous - now perverted!”
The photo of Shafayat Mohamed with Deedat, whom Shafayat Mohamed said he “had a good relationship” with, was taken in Durban, South Africa, at what was then named the Bin Laden Center. Deedat, who according to the New York Times was “a vocal anti-Semite and ardent backer of Osama bin Laden,” personally received millions of dollars from Bin Laden for the center.
Shafayat Mohamed, himself, was thrown off a number of boards in Broward County for his outspokenness against homosexuals. In February 2005, an article written by him was published on the Darul Uloom website, entitled ‘Tsunami: Wrath of God,’ claiming that homosexual sex caused the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. He stated, “I have been pondering over the reasons for the recent Tsunami, ever since the incident took place… a time when thousands would have been enjoying themselves during the holidays in the ‘GAY PARADISE’… [A]fter days of pondering, I was able to find a major similarity with the Tsunami and Sodom & Gomorrah.”
Sheriff Israel arrived at Darul Uloom to deliver a Ramadan message to the crowd; he did so, before being warmly embraced by the imam, Shafayat Mohamed. But the real message was sent by the individual who was introducing the Sheriff. It was Deputy Sheriff Nezar Hamze. This was an alarming and surreal surprise, as Hamze has been a leader of a local chapter of the Hamas-associated CAIR for the past five years. Hamze is the Regional Operations Director of CAIR-Florida. Previously, he served as CAIR-Florida’s Executive Director.
CAIR was established in June 1994 as being part of the American Palestine Committee, an umbrella organization acting as a terrorist enterprise run by then-global Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. Marzook, at the time, was based in the U.S and currently operates out of Egypt as a spokesman for Hamas. In 2007 and 2008, amidst two federal trials, the U.S. government named CAIR a co-conspirator in the raising of millions of dollars for Hamas.
Under a graphic of the World Trade Center in flames, CAIR posted to its national website a link to the Hamas charity, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), asking its followers to donate money. The group also asked its followers to donate to the al-Qaeda charity, Global Relief Foundation (GRF).
In November 2014, just eight months ago, along with ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, CAIR was named a terrorist organization by United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Hamze has his own anti-social and dangerous issues, apart from being a CAIR leader.
In December 2010, outside a fundraiser for then-Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom, George Galloway, being held at the Islamic Center of South Florida (ICOSF), in Pompano Beach, Hamze was caught on video repeatedly refusing to denounce Hamas, when given numerous chances to do so.
As well, in June 2007, after his cousin, Abdelaziz Bilal Hamze, murdered a woman, running her over with his minivan, Nezar tried to make excuses for his cousin. Abdelaziz had dragged her body for several miles down the road – her body parts scattered throughout – and then attempted to flee the U.S. to Lebanon, where the Hamze family is from. Nezar was quoted by the media, saying, while his cousin “made some bad decisions,” he “may have been a little threatened.”
All of this would seem to make someone like Nezar Hamze ineligible to serve in any capacity within law enforcement and would render his designation as Deputy Sheriff untenable. Yet, there was Hamze, at Darul Uloom, in full uniform with firearm at his side.
During his talk, Sheriff Israel said of Hamze that he was a “friend” and a “phenomenal Deputy Sheriff.” He said that Hamze was with him because they are “on the same mission,” that they are “like-minded,” and because, “as a man who studies Islam and as a Muslim, he’s gonna find out information that we can’t. He’s gonna be able to bring information back to the community and take information from the community and bring to us.”
Can Sheriff Israel, the first Jewish Sheriff in Broward County, seriously believe that Nezar Hamze – a man who has spent years as a leader of a fanatic Muslim organization; a man who repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas when given numerous chances; a man who tried to make excuses for his murderer cousin, after his cousin had willfully ran over a woman, dragged her body for several miles, and then tried to flee the country – should serve as a Deputy Sheriff in one of the most prominent Sheriff’s offices in the nation?!!
By employing Nezar Hamze, Sheriff Scott Israel has compromised not only the Broward Sheriff’s office, but the security of the entire county and by extension U.S. national security. And with the intelligence information made available to someone in Hamze’s position and the misleading information Hamze has exhibited he is capable of providing, who knows how much damage this could cause!
If the situation is not corrected and Nezar Hamze is not dismissed from his position immediately, Sheriff Israel should resign from office immediately.
If you wish to contact Sheriff Israel, you can do so by sending an e-mail to: ask_the_sheriff@sheriff.org, or you can call the Broward Sheriff’s Office, at 954-764-4357. Please be respectful in any and all communications with this office.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
-
Disgusting.
-
Shocked, Shocked to Find That Terror Is Going On in Here!
Posted By Robert Spencer On August 10, 2015
It’s an iconic moment in American cinema, from Casablanca: Captain Renault tells Rick Blaine that he is “shocked! shocked!” to discover that gambling is going on in his establishment, and that it will be immediately closed — just as a clerk approaches and hands Renault his winnings. Muslims aren’t generally known for cinematic tributes, but mosque leaders around the country deserve Oscars for how they reenact this scene every time a jihadi is apprehended. For how long are law enforcement officials going to fall for the act?
The latest example comes courtesy of Arafat Nagi of Lackawanna, New York, who was arrested last week for recruiting for the Islamic State. According to WIVB [1], the local Muslim community is “devastated and in shock.”
In shock, eh? Dr. Khalid Qazi, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, said that Nagi “had withdrawn from the community about three years ago. He had some domestic issues, some family issues.” Ah, that does explain it. Qazi is implying that Nagi was a bit unbalanced, leading to his involvement with the Islamic State, and that if he hadn’t withdrawn from the peaceful Muslim community three years ago, this wouldn’t have happened.
But wait: back in 2002, Nagi had wanted to join the Lackawanna Six [2] – six local Muslims who attended an al-Qaeda training camp.
According to Qazi, Nagi withdrew — he wasn’t expelled for his “extremism,” but withdrew — from the local Muslim community only three years ago. That means that for ten years after trying to join an al-Qaeda group, Nagi was presumably a member in good standing of the local Muslim community.
Clearly his recent arrest shows that he hadn’t given up his “extremism.” Yet when Nagi is arrested, the local community is “in shock”? They knew for at least thirteen years that Nagi was a supporter of the violent jihad doctrine they supposedly reject and abhor. What was shocking about his arrest?
Qazi was, of course, posturing for the media and law enforcement authorities, and there is no indication that either didn’t wholly swallow his act. Indeed, despite the fact that this same act has played all over the country, it always gets rave reviews.
It played in Birmingham, Alabama, last April [3], when a young Muslim woman fled to the Islamic State. A spokesman for the girl’s parents — why did they need a spokesman? — said:
For them this is worse than losing the life of a child, to have them join such a horrible, horrible gang of violent extremists. Nothing can describe the pain they are facing.
The spokesman was none other than Hassan Shibly, a lawyer and the chief executive director of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group with established ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood [4].
Shibly claimed that the woman had withdrawn from the local Muslim community a year before joining the Islamic State, and added:
The reason she withdrew from the community is because the Muslim community is very vocal against groups like ISIS … she made the decision based on her communication online with them that she wanted to join them.
He didn’t bother to explain why the peaceful Islam the young woman presumably learned from the community and her shocked and devastated parents wasn’t able to withstand the appeal of a supposedly twisted, hijacked version of the religion. He didn’t have to: he could be secure in the knowledge that no one would ask him to do so.
And so it goes. After the July 16 jihad massacre of U.S. Marines in Chattanooga by Mohammod Abdulazeez, the Times Free Press [5] reported that Bassam Issa, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga:
… has said how shocked he was to find out that a young man who went to his mosque harbored radical ideas. He doesn’t see how anything Abdulazeez learned locally could have led to such thinking or to such a tragic plan.
And last April, a Muslim woman named Noelle Valentzas was arrested [6] for plotting, along with another Muslim woman, a jihad bombing on U.S. soil. Valentzas’ husband, Abu Bakr, said of his wife’s arrest:
I don’t believe any of it, period. We are all shocked, the whole community. That’s not who she is.
But back in 2007, Abu Bakr was photographed [7] at the Muslim Day Parade in New York City with the black flag of jihad. He carried it at other parades as well.
A particularly hammy version of this play-acting came in Rochester, New York, in June 2014 [8], when Mufid Elfgeeh, a Muslim local restaurant owner, was arrested for plotting to murder American soldiers. Sareer Fazili, president of the Islamic Center of Rochester, said:
Our religion is one of peace and one of submission and I think all of our friends in the faith based community know that. … I’m very shocked, I’m very upset, very disappointed that somebody who claims they follow Islam, the same religion that has been taught for so many years would think that he is within the bounds of our teachings because nothing could be further from the truth.
He was shocked to hear that someone who professes to be a Muslim would commit an act of violence? Really?
Had Sareer Fazili never heard of 9/11? 7/7? The Bali bombing? The Boston Marathon bombing? The Fort Hood massacre? Or any of the thousands of other jihad attacks perpetrated by people who not only profess to be Muslim, but say that when they bomb and kill they are following the teachings of Islam?
Fazili also said, according to WHEC [8], that he “does not believe Elfgeeh has ever been a member of the Islamic Center.” That may be, but it is noteworthy how so many devout Muslims who turn to violent jihad — Elfgeeh had tweeted “about the prophet Muhammad and terrorist groups fighting in the name of Allah” — never seem to go to mosque.
Every time there is a jihad attack or plot in the U.S., local Muslims say that no one knew him, he never went to mosque. Yet by their own words, these people are fanatically devout and observant.
Anyway, relax: “Members of the Islamic Center say these beliefs are foreign and are not what is taught at their center.”
Great. So do they teach against these beliefs, which are so widespread as to not be shocking at all, at the Center? Do they teach young Muslims why they should reject the al-Qaeda view of Islam on Qur’anic grounds? Why are there no such programs anywhere? And why does no one ever ask why?
Khalid Qazi, Hassan Shibly, Bassam Issa, Abu Bakr, Sareer Fazili and the rest all do an admirable job playing Captain Renault, but it is time for this play to close, and for law enforcement officials and the mainstream media to get more skeptical about these professions of shock and dismay at every jihad arrest. These jihadis didn’t exist in a vacuum, much as these Qur’an-toting Renaults would have us believe otherwise. If it doesn’t stop soon, this credulity could be the death of us.
Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com
-
GELLER: MUSLIM STEWARDESS REFUSES TO SERVE ALCOHOL, THEN PLAYS THE VICTIM
by PAMELA GELLER 2 Sep 2015
A Muslim flight attendant, Charee Stanley, claims that she was suspended from her job with ExpressJet Airlines because she refused to serve alcohol. She has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) – and now the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has jumped onto the case.
So now we have yet another Muslim workplace lawsuit from CAIR – once again designed to impose Islam on the workplace. This is what they do.
Why would a devout Muslim want to be a flight attendant in the first place, when half your job is serving alcohol?
Lena Masri of Hamas-tied CAIR declared: “We notified ExpressJet Airlines of its obligation under the law to reasonably accommodate Ms. Stanley’s religious beliefs. Instead, ExpressJet close to violate Ms. Stanely’s constitutional rights, placed her on administrative leave for 12 months after which her employment may be administratively terminated.”
What about the rights of the passengers on Stanley’s flight who just wanted to have a drink? Alcoholic beverages are still legal in the United States.
This is reminiscent of Samantha Elauf, the devout Muslima who sued soft porn retailer Abercrombie & Fitch because she wanted to wear the hijab. She won that case and got herself a healthy cash settlement – and Abercrombie and Fitch had to change the way they do business in order to accommodate her demands. That is no doubt part of the objective here as well.
There are many such cases. The EEOC is suing Star Transport for rightfully terminating two Muslims who refused to do their job. If these Muslim truck drivers don’t want to deliver alcohol, then they shouldn’t have taken a job in which part of their duties would be to deliver alcohol. It’s that simple.
But no, Islamic supremacists chip, chip, chip away at the establishment clause, and in doing so, impose Islam on the secular marketplace. Take, for example, the Hertz company. Hertz bent over backwards to accommodate its Muslim workers: they have prayer rooms, prayer times, etc. They just didn’t want the Muslim workers leaving work to pray outside of scheduled break times. Mind you, they could easily pray before or after work, but no. This imposes Islam on everyone else – just as Charee Stanley wanted to do when she refused to do her job and serve flight passengers alcohol. After the initial surrender on Hertz’s part, Muslim workers began suing Hertz, charging “Islamophobia.”
Islamic supremacists see that this legal intimidation works, so they keep on resorting to it. A Muslim woman sued Children’s Hospital Boston after being fired for refusing to get a flu shot. If you don’t want to take the necessary steps to work in a hospital and adhere to the rules to insure the health of the public at large, then don’t work in a children’s hospital.
And in New Mexico, a Muslima sued Planet Fitness over its headgear safety rules. Obviously, headgear is prohibited in this gym because it presents a safety hazard. But people’s safety be damned. This suit mirrored the melee that ensued at a New York Playland Park when park officials adhered to their safety rules in order to keep park attendees free from harm. Muslim visitors got angry that the park was enforcing its ban on headgear by prohibiting the women from wearing their traditional head coverings on some rides.
A Muslim woman who worked as a hostess at a Disneyland restaurant sued Disney. Like Abercrombie & Fitch’s Elauf, Imane Boudlal wore the hijab, but the garment violated Disney’s dress code. Disney offered up a compromise hat for her to wear, but Boudlal refused, of course. It wasn’t about hijab; otherwise the cute cowboy hat that Disneyland offered Boudlal would have been fine (everyone on the floor at Disney wears costumes). It was about imposing Islam on the secular marketplace.
You’ll notice that it is always big companies that are targeted. Hertz, Heinz, Target, Walmart, Disney, Abercrombie & Fitch, and now ExpressJet Airlines. Why? To set legal precedents they can use in yet more intimidation cases. Muslim lawsuits against Hertz, Walmart, Target, Disney and a host of other American businesses for special rights, special accommodation have been largely successful creating a special rights for a special class of people — which is an accordance with Islam (in which Muslims are superior to the kuffar).
But this goes against every American tenet of individual rights and separation of mosque and state. Someone ought to remind the EEOC that their name is Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Equal,” as in no special rights for any particular class.
Read the chapter titled “Mosqueing the Workplace” in my book Stop the Islamization of America to better understand this de facto imposition of sharia in America. It works this way: every accommodation gives way to more demands. Everywhere American mores conflict with sharia, it is our mores that must give way. And it is going to keep on happening, until someone, somewhere, says, “No more accommodation. We’re going to stand up for our own principles.” But no one is saying that now.
-
Of course this presents the obvious question: Is this different from the KY clerk, Wendy Davis? If so, how?
-
Crafty,
Of course there is the obvious difference that this Muslim woman took this job KNOWING FULL WELL that her job would entail serving alcohol. Wendy Davis did not expect to have to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. However, I think the principle is consistent in both cases. That is - if you are not able to perform the job duties due to sincerely held reasons of conscience - RESIGN, and find another job. It is NOT incumbent upon the employer to accommodate you. The job requirements are what they are, and no one is forced to accept employment in this country. It is a contract "at will."
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/04/when-does-your-religion-legally-excuse-you-from-doing-part-of-your-job/
-
Obj:
I would focus more on the private-public sector distinction.
GM:
Useful article. Thank you.
-
Crafty:
To be clear, I don't see that there is a distinction on this point. The job description is what it is. If you find you cannot fulfill the duties of the job with "reasonable" accommodation (of course this is subjective, but I don't believe either of these scenarios clear that bar) then you should find another job. The employer in such a case is completely justified in terminating your employment.
-
From what I recall, Islam restricts the consumption of alcohol by Muslims, no restriction on serving it to kufar.
-
From what I recall, Islam restricts the consumption of alcohol by Muslims, no restriction on serving it to kufar.
Well, after a quick look, it appears that the Islamic religious scholars say it is a no-no, and the prohibition extends to pork as well. Did the muzzie stew balk at handing out pork based meals?
-
As GM's post of the WaPo article discusses, another valid path is no accommodation legally required.
-
AHMED MOHAMED AND THE ‘ISLAMOPHOBIA’ CLOCK
by PAMELA GELLER 17 Sep 2015
A Muslim teen, fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, bought a strange ticking device to his school, MacArthur High School. His device caused alarm and fear, and he was detained for having what his teacher perceived as a bomb. Police officers said the electronic components and wires inside his Vaultz pencil case (which is the size of a briefcase) looked like a “hoax bomb,” according to local news station WFAA.
When questioned about what the device was, Mohamed wouldn’t answer. Now terror-tied Islamic groups like the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), their media lapdogs, and even Barack Obama are waging jihad against the school and the local police.
When police questioned the boy, WFAA reports, they said he was “passive aggressive” and didn’t give them a “reasonable answer” as to why he had brought his contraption to the school. “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only say it was a clock. He didn’t offer any explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school,” said James McLellan of the Irving Police Department.
This whole thing smells like a setup. With ISIS in America, and young moderate Muslims fleeing to Syria to join the terror group, the response of MacArthur High School officials was rational and reasonable. At my website, PamelaGeller.com, I run news stories on a weekly basis of American Muslim teens who have been arrested for trying to join ISIS. Just this week, a Muslim teen from Philadelphia was arrested for an alleged plot to assassinate the Pope during his visit to the United States.
Every day we are warned of new terror threats, increased threat levels. But trying to protect school children is “Islamophobic.” And President Obama agrees, of course. Yes, he has weighed in; Barack Obama himself got into the act, tweeting to Ahmed: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
When I first heard about this story, I wrote at my website that it smelled fishy. Now, as more details have emerged, it positively stinks. The plot has considerably thickened. In what has become one of the most egregious of the faked hate narratives, the bomb hoax clockster turns out to come from a family that has a history of supremacist stunts.
The New York Daily News reported this Wednesday about Ahmed Mohamed’s father, Mohamed ElHassan Mohamed:
One of the earliest instances of the standout citizen making national news was in 2011, when he sensationally stood up to an anti-Islamic pastor and defended the Koran as its defense attorney. That mock trial at a Florida church ended with the book’s burning, to ElHassan’s claimed shock. In an interview with the Washington Post at the time, the devoted Muslim said he’d take on Rev. Terry Jones’ challenge because the holy book teaches that Muslims should engage in peaceful dialogue with Christians.
Also in 2011, ElHassan debated Robert Spencer on the questionf of “Does Islam Respect Human Rights?” Clearly, he was trying to score a victory against a famous “Islamophobe” and thus win a name for himself. ElHassan has been looking for publicity and chances to fight against “Islamophobia” for a considerable period. Now he has seized it, going so far as to claim his son was “tortured” by school and law enforcement officials.
He finally has the cause he has been seeking for so long. School officials were being prudent, protecting the children. Irving, Texas has had its share of jihad and sharia. Two Muslim sisters, Amina and Sarah Said, were honor murdered by their father, execution-style, in Irving several years ago. He is still at large. And Irving, Texas is only half an hour from Garland, Texas – the site of a jihad shooting on a free speech event last May. And the news is regularly riddled with stories of young Muslims, all lovely, sweet achievers, who suddenly — go jihad.
This story is pure agitprop most fatal. “If you see something, say something” is now racism. And for destroying this simple principle of self-protection, young Ahmed Mohamed is a media star. Not only has Barack Obama invited him to the White House, but NASA has also invited Ahmed to meet with them, as has Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. The whole thing has clearly been a setup, and its effect will be to make Americans less safe. If you ever see a Muslim with a suspicious object, remember the lesson of Ahmed Mohamed: to say something would be “racism.” That could end up being the epitaph of America and the free world.
-
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/09/hoax-muslim-clockmaker-didnt-build-clock-just-put-existing-one-into-pencil-box
-
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/26/its-official-ground-zero-mosque-defeated/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
-
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/10/07/clock-kid-ahmed-mohameds-dad-pushes-911-conspiracy-theories-online
-
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/state-department-promotes-muslim-cleric-who-backed-fatwa-on-killing-of-u-s-soldiers/
-
FOX'S GRETA VAN SUSTEREN LETS HUMA ABEDIN OFF THE HOOK
Abedin's longstanding Muslim Brotherhood ties go untouched.
October 19, 2015 Matthew Vadum
A Fox News Channel report last week examining Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin's role in the deadly Benghazi affair curiously ignored the troubling, well-documented ties that Abedin and her family have to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Instead, the Friday broadcast of "On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren" centered on the legal and ethical issues surrounding Abedin and the extremely unusual working arrangement she enjoyed while serving as a top aide to Clinton during her tenure as U.S. secretary of state.
Certainly the mountain of allegations of corruption against Clinton and her longtime hatchet woman, Abedin, and employment best practices in the U.S. government merit scrutiny, but so does the fact that Abedin was an editor for 12 years at an al-Qaeda-funded Muslim Brotherhood magazine.
The FBI is investigating whether classified information was mishandled on the so-called home-brew Internet server that Clinton and Abedin both used to send emails concerning official government business. But Van Susteren's show did not pay much attention to exactly what Abedin did for Clinton out of public view while serving in a sensitive, senior government post. Abedin was depicted somewhat sympathetically as a controversial, though possibly corrupt, public figure who aggressively pursued personal revenue streams separate from government employment. She was shown to have been wronged by her man but to have faithfully stood by him.
Van Susteren, a renowned, down-to-earth legal commentator who rose to prominence for her CNN commentaries during the 1994-5 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, failed to go anywhere near the Abedin family's inter-generational ties to Muslim organizations hostile to the United States and Israel. A two and a half minute clip detailing Huma's background and relationship to the Clintons omits all mention of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates that Abedins young and old have devoted their lives to supporting. Viewers learned that Abedin got her start interning for then-First Lady Hillary Clinton inside Bill Clinton's White House. Things went swimmingly and Huma and Hillary became inseparable. The young go-getter emerged as Hillary's most visible, trusted confidant. Huma was a top Hillary aide in Mrs. Clinton's successful 2000 campaign for the U.S. Senate and during her unsuccessful presidential run in 2008. Huma came under fire for conflict of interest for being on the payroll of multiple private sector concerns --one run by a Clinton ally-- at the same time as she served Hillary as a top advisor and strategist at the Department of State. Huma went through troubled times, it was reported, during her husband's run for mayor of New York City when Americans learned he tweeted photos of his body parts and then lied about doing so. Her husband, well known to FrontPage readers, is the rabidly left-wing serial pervert former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).
Van Susteren showed footage of the 2013 presser during the mayoral campaign at which poor Huma does her best Tammy Wynette impression by standing by her man. "It was not an easy choice in any way but I made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage," Huma is shown saying as she glances reassuringly at Weiner, a smile twisting on her lips.
In a voiceover, Van Susteren opines:
But as questions and controversies surround Secretary Clinton's use of a personal server to store government emails, there is one thing the emails do make clear: There are few people as close to Hillary Clinton as Huma Abedin.
In a more newsy related four and a half minute segment on the Friday show, Van Susteren interviews Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), a member of the House Benghazi Select Committee which had just questioned Abedin behind closed doors for six hours.
Westmoreland noted that Abedin was deputy chief of operations for Clinton's State Department and thought it strange that she remembered so little of what happened on Sept. 11, 2012, when jihadists were in the process of slaughtering four Americans, including a sitting U.S. ambassador. Abedin, the congressman explained, said she was in New York at the time and didn't know much about what went on during the eleventh anniversary of the fateful 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Westmoreland said Abedin acknowledged she knew about Clinton's private email server, which congressional investigators say processed numerous sensitive government documents, but that panelists didn't ask her about the propriety of having the hacker-friendly system. "She answered every question," he said. Westmoreland said separately Abedin often responded to questions by saying "'I don't remember' and 'I don't recollect.'"
But the wrong questions are being asked. None are focusing on Abedin's background that makes her uniquely unqualified for service in the U.S. government. Born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Abedin's frightening connections to the Muslim Brotherhood run deep. Her mother is Saleha Mahmood Abedin, widow of the late Zyed Abedin, an academic who taught at Saudi Arabia's prestigious King Abdulaziz University in the early 1970s. The year after Huma was born, Mrs. Abedin received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1978, the Abedins moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Abdullah Omar Naseef, then-vice president of Abdulaziz University, hired Mr. Abedin, a former colleague of his at the university, to work for the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), a Saudi-based Islamic think tank Naseef was then in the process of establishing. Mr. and Mrs. Abedin became members of the editorial board of IMMA's publication, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.
According to FrontPage contributor and former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, IMMA's "Muslim Minority Affairs" agenda is "to grow an unassimilated, aggressive population of Islamic supremacists who will gradually but dramatically alter the character of the West." Naseef himself was a Muslim extremist with ties to al-Qaeda. In 1983 he became secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a militant organization with links to Osama bin Laden. Mrs. Abedin became an official representative of MWL in the 1990s. When her husband died in 1994, Mrs. Abedin became the IMMA's director. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of its journal.
Mrs. Abedin is also a member of the board of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), which has long been banned in Israel because it has ties to Hamas. (In Arabic, dawah, or dawa, means the proselytizing or preaching of Islam.) She also runs the Amman, Jordan-based International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC), a Muslim World League affiliate that self-identifies as part of the IICDR.
The Muslim World League, according to McCarthy, "has long been the Muslim Brotherhood’s principal vehicle for the international propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology." IICWC promotes strict Sharia Law and advocates the rescission of Egyptian laws that forbid female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape.
Mrs. Abedin is a founding member of the Muslim Sisterhood, a pro-Sharia organization consisting of the wives of some of the highest-ranking leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian opposition newspaper Al-Liwa Al-Arabi has reported that Muslim Sisterhood members: “smuggle secret documents”; “spread the Brotherhood’s ideology by infiltrating universities, schools and homes”; “fulfill the interests of the Brotherhood”; and “organiz[e] projects which will penetrate [the Brotherhood's] prohibited ideology into the decision-making in the West ... under the guise of 'general needs of women.'” Nagla Ali Mahmoud, wife of Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist who was elected president of Egypt in June 2012 and subsequently overthrown by anti-Islamists, is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood.
When Huma Abedin returned to the U.S. and was an intern in the Clinton White House between 1997 and some time in 1999, she was a member of the executive board of George Washington University's radical Muslim Students Association (MSA). The MSA had extensive ties to al-Qaeda.
From 1996 to 2008, Abedin was employed by IMMA as assistant editor of its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. Her brother, Hassan Abedin, an associate editor at the journal, was at one time a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. During his fellowship, the Center's board included such Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Abdullah Omar Naseef. Huma's sister, Heba Abedin, is an assistant editor with the journal.
Someone with Abedin's background shouldn't be anywhere near the levers of power in Washington. Yet Hillary Clinton trusted her with vital secrets of state and then erased their electronic correspondence. But even now as evidence continues to accumulate that Clinton's cavalier approach to classified information put U.S. national security in jeopardy, the shady background of Abedin is barely acknowledged on Capitol Hill.
The media's lack of interest in Abedin's extracurricular activities has been mirrored by the ineffectual Republican leadership in Congress. Abedin has been aided by the anti-so-called Islamophobia lobby which accuses lawmakers and media outlets of racism and religious bigotry whenever her name is mentioned in the same breath as anything remotely connected to Islamofascism.
Benghazi Select Committee member Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, predictably piled on Republicans. He told reporters that having Abedin, who is now vice chairwoman of Clinton's presidential campaign, testify raised more questions about whether the committee is "a taxpayer-funded effort to derail the candidacy of Hillary Clinton."
The indignant barking of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who took to the Senate floor in 2012 to defend Abedin, has no doubt helped to make it more difficult to vet her.
Statements House Republicans made about Abedin are “an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant,” McCain said, stating that Abedin should be judged by "her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully.” To put the finishing touch on his position, McCain affirmed: “I am proud to know Huma and to call her my friend.” The Washington Post, meanwhile, has dismissed claims about Abedin as mere "unsubstantiated allegations that her family has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood."
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has been demanding information from the foot-dragging Obama administration about a multitude of irregularities including why Abedin was allowed to work at the Department of State under a special, part-time status arrangement while simultaneously working at Teneo, a politically-connected consulting firm. Grassley also has done little if anything to probe the ties that yet another Abedin employer, the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has to Muslim terrorism.
Americans have learned the philanthropy is a free-wheeling international cash-for-future-presidential-favors clearinghouse and that it has received hefty donations from unlikely sources such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Professional jihadi propagandist Gehad el-Haddad, who worked for the Clinton Foundation for five years, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Egypt earlier this year for terrorism-related activities. The name Gehad happens to be the Egyptian version of the Arabic word jihad.
So, when are the right and urgent questions going to be asked about Huma Abedin? To what extent did she use her high office to advance the cause of her family? Does she reject her mother's views? Why was she employed for twelve years by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs and why is she never asked about it? Did she play any role in developing or promoting the dishonest cover story that painted an unknown anti-Islam movie director's obscure trailer on YouTube as the real cause of the terrorist assault in Benghazi? What, if any, role did she play as an advisor to Secretary of State Clinton regarding the catastrophic Arab Spring that plunged the already volatile Middle East and North Africa into an Islamist Winter?
These are some of the many questions that need to be asked. High-profile media figures like Greta Van Susteren should be asking them.
-
Difficult issues here.
http://conservativetribune.com/michigan-town-makes-move/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=ConservativeHeadlinesEmail&utm_campaign=AM1&utm_content=2015-10-20
-
Difficult? Really? Seems to me this is an overwhelmingly positive development - to the extent it demonstrates Americans are educating themselves about Islam.
This nation is committing suicide by continuing to allow virtually unlimited Muslim immigration, and the constant anti-American preaching that takes place in 95% of all mosques in this country - if not more. It's about time someone stood up and shouted "NO MORE." The alternative is the conquest of our Western civilization and 1,000 years of darkness.
-
AND what about the Freedom of Religion implications?
-
AND what about the Freedom of Religion implications?
Would nazi groups (like the silver shirts) in the US in WWII enjoy protections if they claimed it was a religion?
-
Precisely, GM.
Sooner or later, western civilization is going to be forced into acknowledging that Islam is not simply a religion - certainly NOT in the sense that our Founding Fathers intended when they conceived of the concept of "freedom of religion." Islam is much MORE than a religion - it in fact could be said to be a totalitarian, repressive ideology of world domination with a "god" tacked-on explicitly for the purpose of using "freedom of religion" as subterfuge. Islam is nothing more nor less than Naziism with a supreme being added to the ideology. As such, it is antagonistic and antithetical to our western values. It explicitly denies our foundational concept of human rights.
Such a belief system does not deserve, in fact - MUST NOT BE GIVEN - protected status as a "religion" if our civilization is to be preserved.
-
Concerning the Nazis, they held rallies on the upper east side of Manhattan (around 86th and First Avenue if I am not mistaken) Madison Square Garden (covered in detail by Glenn Beck) and elsewhere.
C'mon gents, we all understand the backlash implications here of defining all Islam and all Muslims this way. Let's address them squarely-- including that there are good and decent Muslims, some of whom are thanklessly helping our intel people at no little risk to themselves.
-
Concerning the Nazis, they held rallies on the upper east side of Manhattan (around 86th and First Avenue if I am not mistaken) Madison Square Garden (covered in detail by Glenn Beck) and elsewhere.
C'mon gents, we all understand the backlash implications here of defining all Islam and all Muslims this way. Let's address them squarely-- including that there are good and decent Muslims, some of whom are thanklessly helping our intel people at no little risk to themselves.
Those who earn the right to be here are different than the vast majority.
-
Again - GM is on point.
The VAST MAJORITY of Muslims - including those in this country - support, either tacitly or explicitly - the imposition of Sharia law - which is antithetical to our Constitution.
There are NO programs in any mosque in America to teach that the violent, totalitarian aspects of Islam are incorrect doctrine.
When we see evidence of these programs, we can re-evaluate whether or not Islam deserves protected status as a religion in this nation. Until then - the burden is upon MUSLIMS to provide this evidence. Exactly ZERO evidence to this effect has been produced.
The fact that there are a very few "good" Muslims willing to work against this understanding of Islam does not change this fact, any more than the fact that there were some (very few) Nazis in name only who spied and provided intel to the Allies in WWII.
-
Trump: Revoke Passports of those who leave to fight for ISIS, Look at closing some mosques:
by IAN HANCHETT20 Oct 20154,709
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated he would revoke passports from people who go overseas to fight for ISIS and “You’re going to have to certainly look at” closing mosques “if the mosque is, you know, loaded for bear” on Tuesday’s “Varney & Co” on the Fox Business Network.
Trump [relevant remarks in first video] re-iterated his prior claim about George W. Bush and September 11th, he did say that former President Bill Clinton, along with Bush holds responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. He added, “Now, was Clinton possibly, also guilty? Yeah, yeah sure. He should have maybe been more vigilant. And he actually said he knew about Osama bin Laden. I knew about Osama bin Laden, because I wrote about him in my book, I think 19 months before the World Trade Center came down.”
He was also asked [relevant remarks begin in the second video] “Now, in the UK, in Britain, they’ve obviously got a terror problem. They’ve got a lot of youngsters going over to fight for ISIS, about — just under 1,000 are going over there, and they’ve got a whole new series of proposals to deal with this, including withdrawal of passports from some of these people who’ve gone –.”
Trump responded, “Absolutely good, good.”
After host Stuart Varney continued, “And closing some mosques, would you do the same thing in America.” Trump answered, “I would do that. Absolutely. I think it’s great.”
When asked if you could close a mosque, Trump then stated, “Well, I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t heard about the closing of the mosque. It depends, if the mosque is, you know, loaded for bear, I don’t know. You’re going to have to certainly look at it. But I can tell you one thing ,if somebody goes over and they want to fight for ISIS, they wouldn’t be coming back.”
Trump responded to a question about Democratic proposals for paid family leave with, “Well, it’s something that’s being discussed. I think we have to keep our country very competitive, so, you have to be careful of it, but certainly there are a lot of people discussing it.” Regarding a $15 an hour minimum wage, he said, “We have to keep our similar answer. You have to keep our country competitive. One of the reasons companies are leaving is because salaries are too high.”
When asked if he would pledge to have no new taxes, Trump said he could, but wouldn’t on the show, and “could certainly think about doing that. Because my taxes, and under my plan, as you know, I’m reducing taxes, I think more than any other candidate, by far.” He continued that this was no new taxes is “where my mindset is.”
He also added that he wasn’t a “big fan” of the minimum wage proposal, and expressed disagreement with free universal pre-K. He further expressed support for repealing Dodd-Frank and building the Keystone XL Pipeline while stating he opposes breaking up big banks.
-
I bet gives CAIR a case of the vapors.
Trump: Revoke Passports of those who leave to fight for ISIS, Look at closing some mosques:
by IAN HANCHETT20 Oct 20154,709
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated he would revoke passports from people who go overseas to fight for ISIS and “You’re going to have to certainly look at” closing mosques “if the mosque is, you know, loaded for bear” on Tuesday’s “Varney & Co” on the Fox Business Network.
Trump [relevant remarks in first video] re-iterated his prior claim about George W. Bush and September 11th, he did say that former President Bill Clinton, along with Bush holds responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. He added, “Now, was Clinton possibly, also guilty? Yeah, yeah sure. He should have maybe been more vigilant. And he actually said he knew about Osama bin Laden. I knew about Osama bin Laden, because I wrote about him in my book, I think 19 months before the World Trade Center came down.”
He was also asked [relevant remarks begin in the second video] “Now, in the UK, in Britain, they’ve obviously got a terror problem. They’ve got a lot of youngsters going over to fight for ISIS, about — just under 1,000 are going over there, and they’ve got a whole new series of proposals to deal with this, including withdrawal of passports from some of these people who’ve gone –.”
Trump responded, “Absolutely good, good.”
After host Stuart Varney continued, “And closing some mosques, would you do the same thing in America.” Trump answered, “I would do that. Absolutely. I think it’s great.”
When asked if you could close a mosque, Trump then stated, “Well, I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t heard about the closing of the mosque. It depends, if the mosque is, you know, loaded for bear, I don’t know. You’re going to have to certainly look at it. But I can tell you one thing ,if somebody goes over and they want to fight for ISIS, they wouldn’t be coming back.”
Trump responded to a question about Democratic proposals for paid family leave with, “Well, it’s something that’s being discussed. I think we have to keep our country very competitive, so, you have to be careful of it, but certainly there are a lot of people discussing it.” Regarding a $15 an hour minimum wage, he said, “We have to keep our similar answer. You have to keep our country competitive. One of the reasons companies are leaving is because salaries are too high.”
When asked if he would pledge to have no new taxes, Trump said he could, but wouldn’t on the show, and “could certainly think about doing that. Because my taxes, and under my plan, as you know, I’m reducing taxes, I think more than any other candidate, by far.” He continued that this was no new taxes is “where my mindset is.”
He also added that he wasn’t a “big fan” of the minimum wage proposal, and expressed disagreement with free universal pre-K. He further expressed support for repealing Dodd-Frank and building the Keystone XL Pipeline while stating he opposes breaking up big banks.
-
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/259099-cruz-bill-would-designate-muslim-brotherhood-as-terrorist-group
-
Respect!
-
THE ATLANTIC: FREEDOM OF SPEECH VICTIMIZES MUSLIMS
November 9, 2015 Daniel Greenfield
There was yet another decision in the Bible Believers case.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday found that Wayne County violated the constitutional rights of a group of religious proselytizers who were kicked out of an Arab-American cultural festival in 2012.
In a rare reversal of a previous decision from three-judge appeals court panel, an en banc review by 15 judges yielded a majority ruling that Wayne County is civilly liable to the group of evangelical Christians who sued after being ordered to leave the festival by sheriff's deputies.
The court found that even though the group attended the festival with the intention of offending Muslims using "loathsome" messages of "gross intolerance," their speech is protected by the First Amendment, and should have protected by the sheriff's office.
This is a thoroughly predictable outcome. It used to be the standard liberal position. "Used to" being the key words. The Atlantic's Garrett Epps claims that the First Amendment victimizes Muslims.
Bible Believers displays vividly the underlying strength of the American commitment to free speech—and the troubling shadow that commitment inevitably casts.
The troubling shadow being... freedom.
But we pay a price for this freedom, and not everyone pays the price equally. The First Amendment imposes on us all the duty to maintain the peace even when our deepest beliefs are denounced. But that duty is doubly onerous for minorities, because they must endure such abuse more often and longer.
In a country that is 70 percent Christian, Muslims account for less than one percent of the population. Since 9/11, powerful religious and political figures have been openly campaigning to strip this tiny population of the protections of the Constitution.
It's a typical leftist tactic to flip a freedom around into a burden. Look who suffers under freedom of speech. Minorities. To protect them, we might maybe sorta have to get rid of it.
Isn't freedom just privilege? What about voting? It rewards the majority. Think of the heavy burden of democracy on the minority? Wouldn't they be better off under an enlightened dictator?
In that context, the Bible Believers’ speech, though protected, was far from harmless... I wish I could talk to Irv Feiner about Bible Believers. He was a better lawyer than many who took the bar, and a better American than those who tried to ruin his life. His imagination, I think, would have room for concern about both the Muslim people of Dearborn and the aggressive bigots who destroyed their peaceful fair.
As opposed to the aggressive Muslim bigots who violently attacked them while shouting Allah Akbar?
Epps assumes that freedom of speech just empowers majorities to attack minorities. But Muslims are a global majority compared to Americans and the internet makes few distinctions between global Muslim hatred and local Muslim hatred. That's what enabled Anwar Al-Awlaki to do what he did. Muslim terrorists in the US are often the products of international Muslim hate speech.
When it comes to inciting hatred that leads to violence, the disproportionate share of it remains on the Muslim side. Despite the constant chatter about Islamophobia and blowback, thousands of Americans have been killed by Muslim hatred. The number of Muslims killed by Americans out of bigotry is so small that it has to be padded out by non-bigoted violence like the Chapel Hill shootings or hoax cases like Shaima Alawadi.
If freedom of speech empowers majorities at the expense of minorities, consider the Islamic alternative found throughout the Muslim world, in which speech critical of Islam is a crime while Islamic attacks on others cannot be challenged by non-Muslims.
Furthermore, the heckler's veto in the West has been exercised far more frequently by Muslims. Just ask a cartoonist.
The attacks on the First Amendment on behalf of Muslims attempt to impose a heckler's veto in the name of political correctness that is often indistinguishable from the one which Muslims impose by violence. If Epps thinks the First Amendment is such a burden, he should living without it in Pakistan or Iran.
What happened in Dearborn showed the danger of that kind of thinking. We've let Nazis march through Skokie and allowed Westboro's protesters to scream hate at the funerals of soldiers. Yet somehow Muslims are special. They deserve an exemption from American freedoms when no one else does. That's not protection. That's privilege.
-
The UC Merced knife stabber (Had he read Ben Carson's book? evil) was a follower of Islam. He was also apparently on the Terror Watch List, and the college and local PD briefed about him. Notice that the media is not covering this story, even here in the Bay Area where Merced is just a couple of hours away.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/11/report-uc-merced-stabber-was-on-terror-watch-list-had-islamic-state-flag (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/11/report-uc-merced-stabber-was-on-terror-watch-list-had-islamic-state-flag)
-
Received in the email. No offense intended!
A young Arab boy asks his father, "What is that weird hat you are wearing?"
The father said, "Why, it's a 'chechia,' because in the desert it protects our heads from the intense heat of the sun."
"And what is this type of clothing that you are wearing?" asked the young man.
"It's a 'djbellah' because in the desert it is very hot and it protects the body," said the father.
The son asked, "And what about those ugly shoes on your feet?"
His father replied, "These are 'babouches," which keep us from burning our feet from hot sand in the desert."
"So tell me then," asked the boy...
"Yes, my son?"
"Why are you living in Dearborn Michigan, and still wearing all that [stuff]?
-
:-D
-
I particularly liked this one.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428151/mass-murder-radical-islam
-
MEET THE FAROOKS: THE MODERN JIHAD FAMILY
How did this anything-but-moderate family not attract any law enforcement attention?
December 9, 2015 Robert Spencer
When Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik murdered fourteen people and wounded twenty-one at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, Farook’s family, having lawyered up, instructed its legal representatives to tell the world how shocked – shocked! – they were by the massacre. However, just as Captain Renault is handed his winnings immediately after telling Rick Blaine of his shock that gambling was going on in Rick’s Café Americain, so also in this case did the family’s shock seem increasingly less genuine the more that became known about them.
Initially, however, the lie was fed easily to a credulous mainstream media. One of the Farook family lawyers, David Chesley, immediately found the nearest microphone and declared: “None of the family members had any idea that this was going to take place. They were totally shocked.”
Even in stories that reported this, however, the story started to unravel. No sooner had the Associated Press quoted Chesley that it noted that he and another Farook family lawyer, Mohammad Abuershaid, said that “Farook’s mother lived with the couple but she stayed upstairs and didn’t notice they had stockpiled 12 pipe bombs and well over 4,500 rounds of ammunition.”
Farook’s mother didn’t notice the twelve pipe bombs and well over 4,500 rounds of ammunition because she “stayed upstairs”? Was she an invalid, then, who never ventured downstairs at all? If so, why did the couple leave their six-month-old daughter in her care when they went off to shoot Infidels for Allah?
And now it has come out that Mom did venture downstairs now and again after all, and that her eye may indeed have caught the site of a stray pipe bomb or two. According to the Daily Mail, “FBI agents found an empty GoPro package, shooting targets and tools inside a car belonging to” Rafia Farook, Syed’s mother. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik mounted GoPro cameras on their body armor before they began their jihad massacre; apparently, like other jihad killers before them, they hoped to cheer and encourage the faithful with scenes of the bloodbath. Authorities are investigating the possibility that Rafia Farook aided in the planning and preparation of the San Bernardino jihad massacre.
Rafia might have taken this car to meetings of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), of which she was an active member. ICNA openly supports Sharia and the caliphate, and has links to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as to the Pakistani jihad group Jamaat-e-Islami.
The family’s shock at the murders appears even more feigned in light of revelations from Syed Rizwan Farook’s father, who is also named Syed Farook. The elder Syed has characterized his ex-wife Rafia as “very religious,” like the killer, to whom he referred as Rizwan. “Rizwan was the mama’s boy,” he recounted, “and she is very religious like him. Once we had a dispute about the historical figure of Jesus, my son yelled that I was an unbeliever and decided that marriage with my wife had to end.” The son insisted on the divorce because he considered the father an “unbeliever.”
What’s more, old man Farook said that his son was an open supporter of the Islamic State, and, of course, hated Israel: “He said he shared the ideology of al-Baghdadi to create an Islamic state, and he was obsessed with Israel.” Moderate “unbeliever” Papa then told his son to bide his time since, in the immortal words of Tom Lehrer, everybody hated the Jews: “I kept telling him always: stay calm, be patient, in two years Israel will no longer exist. Geopolitics is changing: Russia, China, America too, nobody wants the Jews there.” Moderate!
So right in the heart of sunny Redlands, California, where Syed Rizwan and Tashfeen lived with their baby and Rafia (however safely ensconced upstairs, away from the pipe bombs, Grandma may have been), there was an open supporter of the Islamic State and an open supporter of the concept of the caliphate. Then we must not forget the winsome Tashfeen, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State during the attack, was linked to a jihadi mosque in Pakistan, and who had become, in one of her teacher’s words, “a religious person” who often told people “to live according to the teachings of Islam.”
Despite all that and more, Tashfeen passed FBI and DHS background checks and was allowed to enter the United States. And as she and her loving hubby amassed pipe bombs and thousands of rounds of ammunition, authorities didn’t bat an eye. No report has indicated that they were ever questioned, or were under any kind of surveillance, or were on any watch list.
After all, they were just pious Muslims – and anyone who believes that pious Muslims who are assembling pipe bombs might be up to no good is a racist, bigoted Islamophobe, right? But now the Farooks, the modern jihad family, and the fourteen dead left in their wake, stand as a lesson as to how urgently our law enforcement and intelligence operations need to adopt a realistic approach to the jihad threat, and to discard today’s prevailing politically correct fantasies. But the dead bodies are going to have to be piled up much higher for that reform even to become a possibility.
-
Objectivist, in my view this validates what Trump is saying. We cannot trust what some Muslims say. They are not going to walk around with Jihadi stamped on their foreheads.
Of course every family member is going to act like they had no idea and are surprised. Some of them may have genuinely been surprised but I don't believe all of them were.
Let Muslims who want to come to this country clean up their acts with their trouble makers. Is there any other country in history that allows a group of people into their country who are devout enemies. (except for modern Europe).
Yes I know the left's "kill them with kindness, peace, and love" and they will eventually become docile.
But that simply is not true.
-
I might add that for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over Trump's "ban Muslims" comment, FDR (the Left's HERO) did this with other groups, and we ended immigration ENTIRELY from 1929 - 1965. So as usual, Trump is using his finely-honed negotiation skills to lead with the most outrageous proposal which he KNOWS will get massive airtime, and will flesh it out with details as time goes on. What he is saying is essentially true. Most of the media - including Fox News - is clueless, and screaming "unconstitutional," when Trump's proposal absolutely is NOT.
Funny how they only seem to be interested in issues of constitutionality when a presidential CANDIDATE is talking about an issue, but couldn't care less when a SITTING PRESIDENT violates the document on an almost daily basis.
-
In a similar vein, here is my FB post of this morning:
Some random thoughts this dawn:
I stand by my hard words about Donald Trump yesterday. Indeed I suspect will add heartily to them as I write this.
I'll begin by noting the spectacular hypocrisy, logical incoherence, cowardice, and Orwellian manipulations tumbled together in response to Trump.
Let's start with the great protestations about the Constitution. Why are not the media discussing that the President, the front runner for the Dem nomination, and pretty much the entire Dem party are making a major campaign issue out of trying to make taking away a fundamental Constitutional right of about 375,000 Americans WITHOUT DUE PROCESS?
Before reading any further, how many of you can recognize what issue I am discussing?
I'll tell you.
It is the effort to deny the Second Amendment rights of those Americans on the No Fly list WITHOUT DUE PROCESS. People are put on the list by bureaucratic whim and impulse according to vague and intuitive criteria. This passes constitutional muster because there is no constitutional right to fly on a commercial airplane.
However, what is not widely known is that there are about 800,000 people on the list and I am seeing that pretty consistently across the spectrum among the articles covering the point that about 3/8 (for those of you educated by Common Core that would be 37.5%) of them don't belong there.
A few examples to make the point: Sen. Ted Kennedy was put on the list So was Cong. John Lewis (D). Of course they were promptly removed. FOX reporter Steve Hayes (spare me the anti-FOX snark, SH is an outstanding and very serious reporter) was put on it because he bought a one way ticket to Turkey where he got on a cruise ship. He spent months trying to get off it and was still there until anchor Brett Baier spoke to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson ON THE AIR about his case.
What about mere mortals without the resources to fight the bureaucracy to get off the list? The Supreme Court has held that our Second Amendment rights are FUNDAMENTAL rights (the term "fundamental" is a strong term here of great legal import) yet the President, the front runner for the Dem nomination, and pretty much the entire Dem party are perfectly willing to take them away WITHOUT DUE PROCESS , , , and no one seems to give a flying fornication.
Why is this?
Add to this that the ideological constructs and propaganda of the President and his fellow progressives target the Tea Party, fundamental Christians, pro-Lifers as dangerous as Jihadis.
This sort of thing badly damages the bonds between a free people and its government.
Next point. Words have consequences. Note the rampant use of the word "ban" by our Pravdas. Trump has not called for "banning Muslims". He has called for a MORATORIUM on all foreign Muslims entering the US "until we figure things out". Yes this too is really stupid, but it is NOT the same thing.
Indeed given the significant presence of Jihadi beliefs among Muslims (I consistently see the number of around 10% world wide, with MUCH, MUCH higher in certain regions) and that there are about 1.4 billion Muslims world-wide that makes for about 140,000,000 radicalized Muslims around the world who it may be plausibly inferred may well support jihadis going operational in their midst-- witness the family of the San Bernardino assassins. Given the nature of "fourth generation war" and the havoc that a handful of people can now create, THIS IS A REAL FG SERIOUS PROBLEM and it is not unreasonable to think that this takes us from this being a matter of a criminal law state of mind to a state of war frame of mind.
Unfortunately we are led by a Commander in Chief (and the Dem Party seeks to replace him with the same) who has sedulously done everything he can to enable illegal immigration of many millions of people. Even as he takes the State of Arizona all the way to the Supreme Court to block it from enforcing FEDERAL law, supported by Hillary and the rest of the Dems, he supports sanctuary cities such as San Francisco. Together (via Sen. Harry Reid's filibuster) they block such simple common sense bills as the proposed "Kate's Law" which would imprison repeatedly deported violent felons to jail such as the one who killed that woman in San Francisco earlier this year. What kind of deranged excrement is this?!? What kind of trust can we have for a President who 23 times said he did not have the power to give amnesty to some 11 million illegals here in the US and then turns around and purports to do so via Executive Order? And then tops it off by illegally granting benefits too?!? Where is the rule of law in this?!?
Add in his shenanigans to give sanctuary to waves of children to travel from Central America and illegally enter the US (which fell off the radar screen of most of us here I'm guessing) and it is no surprise that Trump supporters have lost faith in the integrity of the President and the rest of the Washington Cartel and are willing to embrace Trump's syllogism of "Let's have a moratorium until we sort this out."
Yes, yes, Trump has gone stupid , , , again , , , (or worse? see https://www.commentarymagazine.com/…/many-times-donald-tru…/ -- and combine this with his musings of yesterday about doing a Ross Perot ) but I encourage those hyperventilating in this moment to consider the contributions of the President, Hillary, and the rest of the Dems to creating the environment in which this stupidity flourishes.
So, what to do? I saw Sen. Marco Rubio say something yesterday that made sense to me. I paraphrase but what I took away is this "Only let in people we can properly vet."
How simple! Yes, the devil will be in the details but note how precisely it covers the problem without the blunderbuss stupidity of Trump's formulation which would make it so difficult for Muslims around the world who do stand up in the war with the fascism in their midst to continue to stand with the US.
I'll give you three examples of such people: India's head of intelligence is a Muslim. How would he feel about needing special dispensation to get into the US for meetings? What about the King of Jordan? What about General Al-Sisi of Egypt who has spoken so bravely to the big Muslim theology university of Muslim world wide repute?
And what of the feelings of American Muslims in our midst who for reasons of their own personal safety work anonymously to us helping our authorities keep track of the Islamo Fascists in our midst? Until the fool mayor of NYC Di Blasio shut it down, the NYPD quietly had a very good program of monitoring certain mosques of jihadi tendency. Who do you think the undercover officers were? They were Muslims, so they knew how to blend in.
Anyway, just some thoughts to kick off this day.
-
"Funny how they only seem to be interested in issues of constitutionality..... "
Yes I noticed the left's use of "Constitutional rights" only when it is PC and when not it becomes an antiquated living and breathing document that needs to be ignored or changed.
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/blog/muslim-reform/muslim-reform-movement-kicks-washington-dc?fb_action_ids=756593881139329&fb_action_types=og.comments
-
"Funny how they only seem to be interested in issues of constitutionality..... "
Yes I noticed the left's use of "Constitutional rights" only when it is PC and when not it becomes an antiquated living and breathing document that needs to be ignored or changed.
The left wants the constitution to be a living, breathing document because they are working to kill it.
-
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/220141.php
(http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/Extremists-vs-islamist-deaths-us-nytimes.JPG)
-
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/428349/hidden-reason-why-americans-dislike-islam-david-french
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12/11/texas-imam-forced-out-after-he-issues-warning-on-radical-islam-expresses-support-for-trumps-muslim-ban/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%2012-11-15%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2TlWNVhRu8
-
It is getting worse in Missouri.
6 Walmarts with multiple cell phone purchases. Now, thefts of large numbers of propane tanks.
Wonder what they can be used for? Many a big bar-be-que?
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/mo-alert-6-missouri-walmarts-now-report-bulk-cell-phone-purchases-dozens-of-propane-tanks-stolen-in-kc/ (http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/mo-alert-6-missouri-walmarts-now-report-bulk-cell-phone-purchases-dozens-of-propane-tanks-stolen-in-kc/)
-
It is getting worse in Missouri.
6 Walmarts with multiple cell phone purchases. Now, thefts of large numbers of propane tanks.
Wonder what they can be used for? Many a big bar-be-que?
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/mo-alert-6-missouri-walmarts-now-report-bulk-cell-phone-purchases-dozens-of-propane-tanks-stolen-in-kc/ (http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/12/mo-alert-6-missouri-walmarts-now-report-bulk-cell-phone-purchases-dozens-of-propane-tanks-stolen-in-kc/)
What can they be used for you ask?
Barrack's excuse to implement martial law. That's what they'll be used for.
-
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/121015-784850-america-should-not-have-to-beg-muslims-to-help-against-terror.htm
-
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/121015-784850-america-should-not-have-to-beg-muslims-to-help-against-terror.htm
90% of Muslims ruin it for all the rest.
-
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/15/ronald-kessler-the-fbis-problem-with-muslim-leader/?page=all#pagebreak
The FBI’s problem with Muslim leaders
The imams are afraid to condemn terrorism
RONALD KESSLER: The FBI's problem with Muslim leaders
Federal appeals court voids ruling against D.C.'s restrictive concealed-carry gun law
BEST OF TWT VIDEO
Illustration on the difficulties of Muslim community cooperation against terrorism by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times
Illustration on the difficulties of Muslim community cooperation against terrorism by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times more >
By Ronald Kessler - - Tuesday, December 15, 2015
As we all know, the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving. We all have Muslim friends or co-workers who are admirable people. And a handful of terrorist plots have been rolled up by the FBI based on tips from Muslims.
But what the FBI finds disturbing is that Muslim leaders by and large are reluctant to cooperate with the FBI to let the bureau know of radicals within their midst. The FBI is not about to publicize this. But for my book “The Secrets of the FBI,” Arthur M. “Art” Cummings II, who was the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of counterterrorism and national security investigations, opened up about the problem.
The FBI has outreach programs to try to develop sources in the Muslim community and solicit tips, but Mr. Cummings found little receptivity. He found that while Muslims have brought some cases to the FBI, Muslim leaders in particular are often in denial about the fact that the terrorists who threaten the United States are Muslims.
“I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in D.C.,” Mr. Cummings told me. “And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’ “
Mr. Cummings began laughing.
“OK, you know what I’ll do?” Mr. Cummings said. “I’ll start an Irish squad, or how about a Japanese squad? You want me to waste my time and your taxpayer’s dollars going to look at the Irish? They’re not killing Americans. Right now, I’m going to put my money and my people in a place where the threat is.”
Then Mr. Cummings told him to take a look at the cells the FBI had rolled up in the United States
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom were seeking to murder Americans,” Mr. Cummings said. “It’s not the Irish, it’s not the French, it’s not the Catholics, it’s not the Protestants, it’s the Muslims.”
In response to such points, Muslim groups have told him he is rough around the edges.
“I’m not rough around the edges,” Mr. Cummings has told them. “You’re just not used to straight talk.”
Mr. Cummings found they respond by getting angry at him.
While Muslims will occasionally condemn al Qaeda, “rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about,’” Mr. Cummings said. “They want to fix it inside the community. They’re a closed group, a very, very closed group. It’s part of their culture that they want to settle the problem within their own communities. They’ve actually said that to us, which I then go crazy over.”
On one hand, “They don’t want anyone to know they have extremists in their community,” Mr. Cummings observed. “Well, beautiful. Except do you read the newspapers? Everyone already knows it. That horse has left the barn. So there’s a lot of talk about engagement, but realistically, we’ve got a long, long way to go.”
At one meeting, a Muslim group suggested having a photo taken of their members with then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to show their community isn’t a bunch of terrorists and that they are partners in the war on terror.
Mr. Cummings responded, “Let me make a suggestion: When you bring to my attention real extremists who are here to plan and do something, who are here supporting terrorism, and I work that based on your information, then I promise you, I will have the director stand up on the stage with you.”
To Mr. Cummings‘ amazement, the answer was: “That could never happen. We would lose our constituency. We could never admit to bringing someone to the FBI.”
“Well, we’ve just defined the problem, haven’t we?” Mr. Cummings told them.
After September 11, according to Mr. Cummings, imams in as many as 10 percent of the 2,000 mosques in the U.S. preached jihad and hatred of America. In a 2011 Pew Research Center poll, 7 percent of American Muslims said suicide bombings against civilian targets are sometimes justified to defend Islam. But in more recent years, “Preaching jihad and hatred of the U.S. overtly has become more unusual and happens more in private,” Mr. Cummings said. Instead, “Radicalization on the Internet has risen to fill the void.”
“If you look at the websites of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, or the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, you see a passive, almost obligatory approach to condemning terrorism,” Mr. Cummings said. “The most prominent crisis for the Arab and Muslim communities is this perception that they’re terrorists, when only a small fraction of them are. Why wouldn’t you have a very loud, active program that says murder of anyone is immoral, illegal and not consistent with Islam, and anyone who supports terrorism or harbors a terrorist is a problem?”
FBI cases in such places as Atlanta, Lackawanna, N.Y., and Lodi, Calif., began with tips provided by individual Muslims. “But I don’t see the community doing that,” Mr. Cummings said.
While many Muslim leaders may be afraid to take on radical Islam publicly, providing tips confidentially to the FBI is another matter. And that is what the FBI needs to develop leads and roll up plots such as the massacre in San Bernardino and possible weapons of mass destruction attacks that could kill millions of Americans.
“I talked to a very prominent imam in the U.S.,” Mr. Cummings said. “We would have our sweets and our sweet tea. We would talk a lot about Islam. I would say we understand Islam and where they’re coming from. We’d tell him what our mission is, trying to keep people from murdering Americans or anybody else, for that matter.”
Months later, the FBI found out that the man’s mosque had two extremists who were so radical that they kicked them out. Clearly, those two extremists would have been of interest to the FBI. If they only engaged in anti-American rhetoric, the FBI would have left them alone. More likely they were planning action to go with their rhetoric.
Mr. Cummings asked the imam, “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” the imam asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” the agent said.
“Why would I tell you about this?” the imam said. “They’re not terrorists,” he said of the radicals. “They just hate the U.S. government.”
• Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, is the author of “The Secrets of the FBI” (Crown Forum, 2012).
-
Islamic Jihad: Symptom of a Western Cause
By Raymond Ibrahim - December 18, 2015
As someone specializing in Islamic jihadism, one would expect I’d have much to say immediately after jihadi attacks of the sort that recently occurred in San Bernardino, or Paris, or Mali, where a total of about 180 dead. Ironically, I don’t: such attacks are ultimately symptoms of what I do deem worthy of talk, namely, root causes. (What can one add when a symptom of the root cause he has long warned against occurs other than “told you so”?)
So what is the root cause of jihadi attacks? Many think that the ultimate source of the ongoing terrorization of the West is Islam. Yet this notion has one problem: the Muslim world is immensely weak and intrinsically incapable of being a threat. That every Islamic assault on the West is a terrorist attack—and terrorism, as is known, is the weapon of the weak—speaks for itself.
This was not always the case. For approximately one thousand years, the Islamic world was the scourge of the West. Today’s history books may refer to those who terrorized Christian Europe as Arabs, Saracens, Moors, Ottomans, Turks, Mongols, or Tatars[1]—but all were operating under the same banner of jihad that the Islamic State is operating under.
No, today, the ultimate enemy is within. The root cause behind the nonstop Muslim terrorization of the West is found in those who stifle or whitewash all talk and examination of Muslim doctrine and history; who welcome hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants while knowing that some are jihadi operatives and many are simply “radical”; who work to overthrow secular Arab dictators in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” only to uncork the jihad suppressed by the autocrats (the Islamic State’s territory consists of lands that were “liberated” in Iraq, Libya, and Syria by the U.S. and its allies).
So are Western leaders and politicians the root cause behind the Islamic terrorization of the West?
Close—but still not there yet.
Far from being limited to a number of elitist leaders and institutions, the Western empowerment of the jihad is the natural outcome of postmodern thinking—the real reason an innately weak Islam can be a source of repeated woes for a militarily and economically superior West.
Remember, the reason people like French President Francois Hollande, U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are in power—three prominent Western leaders who insist that Islam is innocent of violence and who push for Muslim immigration—is because they embody a worldview that is normative in the West.
In this context, the facilitation of jihadi terror is less a top down imposition and more a grass root product of decades of erroneous, but unquestioned, thinking. (Those who believe America’s problems begin and end with Obama would do well to remember that he did not come to power through a coup but that he was voted in—twice. This indicates that Obama and the majority of voting Americans have a shared, and erroneous, worldview. He may be cynically exploiting this worldview, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s because this warped worldview is mainstream that he can exploit it in the first place.)
Western empowerment of the jihad is rooted in a number of philosophies that have metastasized into every corner of social life, becoming cornerstones of postmodern epistemology. These include the doctrines of relativism and multiculturalism on the one hand, and anti-Western, anti-Christian sentiment on the other.
Taken together, these cornerstones of postmodern, post-Christian thinking hold that there are no absolute truths and thus all cultures are fundamentally equal and deserving of respect. If any Western person wants to criticize a civilization or religion, then let them look “inwardly” and acknowledge their European Christian heritage as the epitome of intolerance and imperialism.
Add to these a number of sappy and silly ideals—truth can never be uttered because it might “hurt the feelings” of some (excluding white Christians who are free game), and if anything, the West should go out of its way to make up for its supposedly historic “sins” by appeasing Muslims until they “like us”—and you have a sure recipe for disaster, that is, the current state of affairs.
Western people are bombarded with these aforementioned “truths” from the cradle to the grave—from kindergarten to university, from Hollywood to the news rooms, and now even in churches—so that they are unable to accept and act on a simple truism that their ancestors well knew: Islam is an inherently violent and intolerant creed that cannot coexist with non-Islam (except insincerely, in times of weakness).
The essence of all this came out clearly when Obama, in order to rationalize away the inhuman atrocities of the Islamic State, counseled Americans to get off their “high horse” and remember that their Christian ancestors have been guilty of similar if not worse atrocities. That he had to go back almost a thousand years for examples by referencing the crusades and inquisition—both of which have been completely distorted by the warped postmodern worldview, including by portraying imperialist Muslims as victims—did not matter to America’s leader.
Worse, it did not matter to most Americans. The greater lesson was not that Obama whitewashed modern Islamic atrocities by misrepresenting and demonizing Christian history, but that he was merely reaffirming the mainstream narrative that Americans have been indoctrinated into believing. And thus, aside from the usual ephemeral and meaningless grumblings, his words—as with many of his pro-Islamic, anti-Christian comments and policies—passed along without consequence.
—–
Once upon a time, the Islamic world was a super power and its jihad an irresistible force to be reckoned with. Over two centuries ago, however, a rising Europe—which had experienced over one millennium of jihadi conquests and atrocities—defeated and defanged Islam.
As Islam retreated into obscurity, the post-Christian West slowly came into being. Islam didn’t change, but the West did: Muslims still venerate their heritage and religion—which impels them to jihad against the Western “infidel”—whereas the West learned to despise its heritage and religion, causing it to be an unwitting ally of the jihad.
Hence the current situation: the jihad is back in full vigor, while the West—not just its leaders, but much of the populace—facilitates it in varying degrees. Nor is this situation easily remedied. For to accept that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant is to reject a number of cornerstones of postmodern Western thinking that far transcend the question of Islam. In this context, nothing short of an intellectual/cultural revolution—where rational thinking becomes mainstream—will allow the West to confront Islam head on.
But there is some good news. With every Islamic attack, the eyes of more and more Western people are opened to the true nature of Muhammad’s religion. That this is happening despite generations of pro-Islamic indoctrination in the West is a testimony to the growing brazenness of the jihad.
Yet it still remains unclear whether objective thinking will eventually overthrow the current narrative of relativism, anti-Westernism, and asinine emotionalism.
Simply put, celebrating multiculturalism and defeating the jihad is impossible.
However, if such a revolution ever does take place, the Islamic jihad will be easily swept back into the dustbin of history. For the fact remains: Islam is terrorizing the world, not because it can, but because the West allows it to.
-
I enjoyed that piece.
-
I noticed this thread started in 2006, at that time we were pampering CAIR, muslim taxicab drivers were refusing to carry alcohol. Today, 9 years later with Trump raising the issue front and center, the pendulum might just start to swing the other way. This might be an important inflexion point. Another 9 years will tell the story.
-
To be fervently desired, and for those of us so inclined, to pray for.
If so, I like to think our collective efforts here, of which I am quite proud, have contributed.
-
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Bassam Issa stepped in front of a crowded classroom of students this month at Southern Adventist University, a Christian college near here, for a presentation on being Muslim in Chattanooga — recently named America’s most “Bible-minded city.”
From Our Advertisers
Mr. Issa, a real estate developer and the president of his local mosque, was struggling with how to attack the assumption that Islam gives rise to terrorism. He knew that the association was strong: Only last July, here in Chattanooga, four Marines and a sailor were killed in a terrorist rampage by a young Muslim man who grew up in the community. Many people here now speak of that day, July 16, as “7/16,” an echo of “9/11.”
And just a week before Mr. Issa’s visit to the college, there had been another attack, when a married Muslim couple killed 14 people and wounded 22 in San Bernardino, Calif.
“Every time something like this happens, we have national news media, local news asking us, what do we think?” Mr. Issa said.
Photo
Bassam Issa, right, the president of the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga, and other members of the group after a recent Friday Prayer. “What’s happening right now is not religious, even though ISIS and Al Qaeda are covered as a religious thing,” Mr. Issa said of terrorist attacks. “In reality, it’s political.” Credit Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times
President Obama recently challenged Muslims to speak out against extremism and build closer ties to know their non-Muslim neighbors. Aware of this, and compelled by the rise of both the Islamic State and anti-Muslim sentiment, many American Muslims here and across the country are now saying it is no longer enough to denounce terrorism and assert that Islam is a religion of peace.
Instead, no matter how exasperated they may privately feel, some Muslims are beginning to publicly confront the uncomfortable questions that non-Muslims have about Islam and violence, and trying to provide answers, both through words and through the example of how they live their lives.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
Friday prayers at the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Va., this month.
American Muslims Under Attack After San Bernardino and Paris TerrorDEC. 22, 2015
Friday Prayer at Dar al-Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Va., was attended by Representative Don Beyer Jr. and other elected officials as a show of solidarity.
The Backlash: Muslims in America Condemn Extremists and Fear Anew for Their LivesDEC. 4, 2015
Here in the classroom, Mr. Issa told students to look beyond Islam to the deeper and more universal causes of violence. “What’s happening right now is not religious, even though ISIS and Al Qaeda are covered as a religious thing,” he said. “In reality, it’s political.”
Mr. Issa also spoke this month at the downtown public library with Boyd Patterson, an assistant district attorney, who self-published a book compiling verses in the Quran that could be used by extremists to justify violence and terrorism. The two held a forthright discussion about those verses, and why most Muslims do not read them as justification for terrorism because, Mr. Issa said, they were written in a very different historical context, when Islam was an upstart faith challenging the status quo, and are primarily prescriptions for self-defense — not justifications for terrorism.
Dr. Mohsin Ali, a child psychiatrist who has worked in the area for 10 years, said he, too, had tried to tackle questions about what Islam teaches head-on, with Muslims, non-Muslims and others.
“We can’t ignore the fact that violent extremists use an interpretation of the very same books and texts that we use,” Dr. Ali said in an interview at a coffee shop near the clinic where he treats low-income patients. “I feel like the Muslim community does need to do more. We had a shooter from our mosque do this.”
Photo
Dr. Mohsin Ali, a member of the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga, offered group counseling after the shooting. Credit Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
On the morning of the shooting, the last day locally of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, drove a rented silver Mustang convertible up to an armed forces recruiting center in a strip mall and fired several rounds, wounding a Marine recruiter. He then drove to a Navy and Marine Corps reserve center where he shot his way into the building, armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. Minutes later, the police fatally shot him.
Details soon surfaced about Mr. Abdulazeez’s troubled path since he graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: He had been treated for depression; was awaiting trial on a drunken-driving charge; had lost a job, reportedly because he did not pass a drug test; and was thousands of dollars in debt.
Investigators found that he had viewed extremist videos and that in the days before the attack, he searched the Internet to learn whether martyrdom would allow him to be forgiven for his sins.
On Wednesday, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said the bureau had determined that Mr. Abdulazeez “was inspired by a foreign terrorist organization’s propaganda,” a determination that prompted the Navy to announce that it would award the Purple Heart posthumously to the five military members who were killed.
But the mayor, Andy Berke, and the police chief in Chattanooga, Fred Fletcher, say the response from the city’s tiny Muslim minority helped defuse what was a highly incendiary situation in a Southern city of 175,000 where guns and military members are revered.
The effort started right away. At a memorial service at Olivet Baptist Church for the slain military members the day after the 7/16 attack, Dr. Ali told the crowd that he and other Muslims in Chattanooga were grieving with the rest of the city. Then he asked the Muslims in attendance to stand as a sign of their allegiance to Chattanooga and to peace, and when the dozens of Muslims in attendance did so, the audience applauded loudly.
Photo
Iman Ali, center, studying with friends at a coffee shop in Chattanooga. For local Muslim children, she said, one result of July's shootings has been “the fear of being feared.” Credit Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times
Continue reading the main story
Recent Comments
PTB 17 minutes ago
Tha Muslim holy book as well as the Bible honor Jesus. What is lacking is real, serious faith … conviction that Jesus really covered the...
Carol 17 minutes ago
Thank you for your positive writing. Everyone should read "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim woman who shares her life story and her...
Hempy 18 minutes ago
What is disturbing to me about Islam is that while it is claimed that Islam is a religion of peace, I don't hear any explanations or citing...
See All Comments Write a comment
Dr. Ali said in an interview later that the message he wanted to deliver was, “Count us amongst the mourners, not the perpetrators.” His daughter, Iman Ali, who is 16, said the service was “one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had.”
“People were coming up to me and hugging me who I didn’t even know,” she said. “It made me hopeful.”
There have been setbacks. Later that summer, while Iman was a volunteer intern at a local hospital, a fellow intern who learned that she is Muslim told Iman to her face that she was scared of her. One result of 7/16 for local Muslim children, Iman said, has been “the fear of being feared.”
But Muslims and non-Muslims say the effort to build relationships continues to bear fruit: Five months after the shooting, Chief Fletcher and Mr. Issa said, there have been no acts of retribution, no vandalism, no religiously motivated threats reported.
It is now well known around town that the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga, of which Mr. Issa is president of the board, took up a collection and donated more than $20,000 to the fund for the families of the victims of the 7/16 attack. The Firebox Grill, a restaurant owned by members of the Issa family, for months gave free meals to any customers in uniform.
At the recruiting center that was the first target of Mr. Abdulazeez’s rampage, the shattered glass has been repaired and the recruiters who took cover during the attack are back at work. Sgt. First Class Robert Dodge, the recruiting center leader, said in an interview in his office that he now believed that the gunman was a troubled person who saw the attack “as a means to an end, by suicide.”
Sergeant Dodge said he bore no animus toward Islam or Muslims. “Muslim Americans really stepped up and showed their positive support for this community,” said the sergeant, who is 36 and served four tours of duty in Iraq.
Outside, a memorial for the five fallen service members includes a plaque that testifies to how the city responded: “We did not riot. We prayed. We did not lash out at easy targets for revenge. Instead, we invited each other into our lives, homes and places of worship.”
-
:roll:
Muslim leaders worry about backlash from tomorrow's terror attack.
-
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Federal-officials-arrest-man-in-connection-with-6727623.php
-
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Federal-officials-arrest-man-in-connection-with-6727623.php
Neat clock, Achmed!
White house invite?
-
DNC Chair Dismisses Questions About CAIR Invites to Obama Speech
IPT News
January 13, 2016
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5127/dnc-chair-dismisses-questions-about-cair-invites
In an interview Tuesday night, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz refused to address questions about the wisdom of her Democratic colleagues inviting two officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to the State of the Union address.
As we reported Monday, Democrats Alcee Hastings of Florida and California's Zoe Lofgren invited CAIR officials to the speech in response to a call from Wasserman-Schultz and Rep. Keith Ellison. It was a symbolic response to what they see as overheated rhetoric toward Muslim Americans in the ongoing presidential campaigns.
By embracing CAIR, the representatives did something the FBI proscribes for its agents. Internal documents seized by the FBI show CAIR was founded as part of a U.S.-based Hamas support network. CAIR founder Omar Ahmad was a leader of that network, called the Palestine Committee. Nihad Awad, the only executive director in CAIR's 21-year-history, also was part of the group and participated in a secret meeting of Hamas supporters in 1993 aimed at derailing the U.S.-led Oslo Accords which sought to bring peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestine Committee opposed the effort because it included recognition of Israel's right to exist, and because it empowered the secular Palestine Liberation Organization over the Islamist Hamas terrorist group.
On Fox News after the speech Tuesday night, host Megyn Kelly asked Wasserman-Schultz whether the invitation to the CAIR officials was a mistake, noting "President Obama's DOJ says they're directly linked to Hamas, which we recognize is a terrorist group."
"Megyn, now who's talking about something that's disappointing?" Wasserman-Schultz asked. She never addressed the question about CAIR's sordid history.
For merely engaging in journalism by asking the question, Media Matters for America writes that Kelly "attacks" the DNC chair.
That is absurd.
Here's what an FBI assistant director wrote in 2009, explaining why the agency broke off "all formal outreach activities with CAIR": "ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."
The policy remains in effect seven years later.
Wasserman-Schultz either doesn't believe the FBI or doesn't care what evidence it has to support its policy. That's disturbing for someone in a leadership position. But she also does a broader disservice by casting CAIR as the voice of Muslim Americans when, in reality, most want nothing to do with the Islamist group.
A 2011 poll from the by Abu Dhabi Gallup Center in the United Arab Emirates found 11 percent of women and 12 percent of men believed CAIR represented their interests.
On top of CAIR's documented ties to Hamas and a terror-financing network, the group reflexively opposes terror support and financing prosecutions, accuses federal law enforcement of entrapping otherwise innocent and peaceful Muslims in order to gin up terrorism prosecutions and of using excessive force with Muslim suspects.
As we noted Monday, inviting Muslim Americans to the speech is not the problem. But if the objective was to show there's a monolithic community of liberty-minded Muslims with no skeletons, including CAIR representatives is ignorant and counter-productive. The same is true for New Jersey U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who invited the treasurer of a group which wants the Muslim Brotherhood back in power in Egypt. Last month, the White House hosted a CAIR official who is helping a family sue the FBI, alleging an agent unjustly shot and killed a friend of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev after hours of questioning in his Orlando home in 2013.
Meanwhile, reform-minded Muslims who unequivocally reject "interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam" and advocate "equal rights and dignity for all people, including minorities," and women were shut out of the Democrats' invite-a-Muslim program.
Maybe a House Democrat should stand up and challenge colleagues to empower those free-thinking Muslims by giving them a seat at the table, too.
-
http://woundedamericanwarrior.com/video-christians-bloodied-by-stone-throwing-muslims-in-michigan/
-
I appreciate their opinions but their arguments are false arguments. I would believe they ARE ALL Democrats. Comparing what Trump says about Muslims is not the same as what Hilter said of Jews. Furthermore, a subset of Jews were not running around Germany or Europe hell bent on terrorizing and killing Germans like a subset of Muslims are hell bent on killing Americans And Jews. Trump has not been calling to discriminate but just to limit temporarily importing them.
As far as registering them, am not sure. How often do we get asked our religion our race our ethnicity?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-age-of-trump-grim-warnings-from-holocaust-survivors/2016/01/27/c65ea38c-c549-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html
-
Hitler analogies are easy to make and almost never appropriate since the compared party has rarely murdered 6 million Jews.
Mentioned previously, my Dad was present at the holocaust liberation, FWIW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchenwald_concentration_camp
God Bless these people if they are Holocaust survivors, but Trump and Cruz bear no resemblance to Hitler nor are they likely to mass murder Jews or Muslims.
We don't have open hostility to Muslims in this country, and how crass to say that we do while Muslim countries are openly murdering Jews and Christians.
We have every right to demand scrutiny of new arrivals during this time where they have declared war on us.
-
Agree Doug.
"my Dad was present at the holocaust liberation, FWIW"
Wow. would you share a bit more details . I am in awe of WW2 stories.
-
Why Sensible People Are Bothered When Women Wear Hijabs
Thursday - www.citizenwarrior.com
There are Muslim women all over the world who don't wear a hijab, yet consider themselves Muslim. But the doctrine says a believing woman should cover herself.
So when Muslim women begin to cover themselves, it is a visible signal of increasing orthodoxy. In other words, if there are Muslims in your area, and the women start covering themselves, it is an indication that the Muslims in your area are beginning to take the written doctrine more seriously.
And it is never just that particular written doctrine only — it is all the written doctrine, which includes hatred toward non-Muslims, political action to put the reins of power in Muslim hands, increasing demands for Islamic standards of dress, behavior, Islamic limits on free speech, etc. Because of the political nature of Islamic doctrine, these Islamic standards are not to be only applied to Muslims; as Muslims gain political power, those standards are to be applied to everyone.
Already in some parts of European countries where there is a high Muslim percentage, non-Muslim women are harassed (or worse) if they don't cover themselves.
Many of the signs of increasing devotion to Islamic ideals cannot be seen by non-Muslims. But the hijab can be seen by everyone.
-
Exactly so.
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/average-mohammed-cartoons-fight-radicalization-us
-
https://www.facebook.com/ebntalkradio/videos/1670060049910683/
-
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/average-mohammed-cartoons-fight-radicalization-us
What is it about Islam that makes it so easy for young Muslims to be radicalized? Why don't we see this with other belief systems?
-
The reason, GM, is that the whole notion of "radicalization" is nonsense to begin with. The violent elements of Islam are explicitly taught in the Koran and Hadith. They are integral to the faith. To the extent that there are Muslims who do not believe in, or act upon these violent precepts of the religion, those Muslims are either ignorant of them, or are choosing to ignore them. Authentic, orthodox Islam is inherently violent, repressive, and expansionistic. It tolerates no other belief system. It recognizes no inherent human rights. It is a comprehensive totalitarian world-view and political system. Therefore - whenever anyone chooses to study Islam and follow its teachings more closely, i.e., become "more devout," by definition they adopt this predator mindset toward all non-Muslims. No other "religion" incorporates these totalitarian fundamentals.
To phrase it more simply - while there are certainly peaceful people who call themselves Muslim, there IS NO PEACEFUL ISLAM.
-
Islamist Activist Asks Obama to Support Libyan AQ Group
by John Rossomando
IPT News
March 18, 2016
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5217/islamist-activist-asks-obama-to-support-libyan-aq
The revelation of his praise for Palestinians who chose "the jihad way" to liberation forced northern Virginia surgeon Esam Omeish to resign from a statewide immigration commission in 2007. But it hasn't stopped him from enjoying red carpet treatment from Obama administration officials. Omeish briefly drew national attention in 2007 when he was forced to resign from the Virginia immigration panel. The move resulted from Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) video showing him praising for Palestinians who chose the "jihad way" during a rally in 2000.
This was no slip of the tongue. At a different event two months earlier, Omeish congratulated Palestinians who gave "up their lives for the sake of Allah and for the sake of Al-Aqsa. They have spearheaded the effort to bring victory upon the believers in Filastin, insha'allah [God willing]. They are spearing the effort to free the land of Filastin, all of Palestine, for the Muslims and for all the believing people in Allah."
Nonetheless, high-ranking Obama administration officials engaged with him despite this and his praise for Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. They consulted with him on Libya and included him in other events aimed at engagement with the Muslim community and countering violent extremism.
Now, Omeish is hoping those contacts will help him persuade U.S. officials to change gears in Libya, shifting support from a secular political figure to one with links to al-Qaida. He spelled out those ambitions in a Feb. 29 letter addressed to President Obama posted on Omeish's Facebook page.
It is co-signed by Emadeddin Z. Muntasser, secretary general of the Libyan American Public Affairs Council (LAPAC). Omeish is identified as the LAPAC president. Before he was affiliated with the LAPAC, Muntasser was convicted in 2008 of failing to disclose connections between a charity he worked with and jihadist fundraising when he sought tax-exempt status for the charity. Muntasser ran the Boston branch of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, which is considered a precursor to al-Qaida, federal prosecutors have said. It was founded by Osama bin Laden's mentor Abdullah Azzam. Under Muntasser's leadership, Al-Kifah's Boston office published a pro-jihad newsletter called Al-Hussam and distributed flyers indicating its support for jihadists fighting on the front lines in places such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Algeria.
Muntasser's charity, Care International, was "an outgrowth of and successor" to Al-Kifah, prosecutors say.
Omeish and Muntasser note in their letter that the U.S. has backed the "Libyan National Army," led by Khalifa Hifter, a former general under dictator Muammar Gaddafi. That's a bad idea, Omeish and Muntasser wrote, because "many in Libya believe [Hifter] has dictatorial aspirations ..."
"He sounds like the Ahmed Chalabi of Libya," said former Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon, a fellow at the Center for a Secure Free Society. "He wants America to fight his battles for him in order to gain the upper hand over his countrymen."
However, the letter makes no mention of ties between the group Omeish endorses, the Revolutionary Council of Derna, and al-Qaida. Instead, he and Muntasser casts the group as an effective counter to ISIS because the council has "stripped [ISIS] from its social support. [ISIS]'s foreign presence and violent ways made them an evil that local Libyans themselves rejected and defeated" in Derna.
The council's leaders included two men – Nasir Atiyah al-Akar and Salim Derbi – known to have had ties to al-Qaida.
After ISIS killed al-Akar, the Derna council eulogized him last June for his close ties to Abu Qatada, al-Qaida operative currently in Jordan. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reports from 2012 connect Akar to Abdulbasit Azzouz, who was al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's man in Libya at the time. Azzouz allegedly was involved with the attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans dead.
Derbi, also killed fighting ISIS, previously belonged to the al-Qaida linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and commanded the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, which also has al-Qaida ties.
Egypt's Al-Alam Al-Youm refers to the Revolutionary Shura Council as "a branch of al-Qaida."
Despite his ongoing connections to key White House decision-makers, Omeish appears headed for disappointment this time.
His letter is not likely to be read by the president's national security team, a White House source told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). The U.S. is prepared to support a "Government of National Accord" that is being developed, the White House said in a statement.
However, the Obama administration repeatedly has involved Omeish in policy deliberations about Libya.
White House logs show that Omeish visited nine times since 2011, including a Dec. 13, 2013 visit in which he was photographed with President Obama.
Omeish's encounter with the president came during the White House's annual Christmas party, a White House spokesperson said. President Obama never conducts policy discussions at such public meetings, the source said.
Two photos appear on Omeish's Facebook page showing him with U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, widely considered an architect of the president's Libya policy, where she advocated for military intervention. She notably helped draft PSD-11, a secret presidential directive that led to the U.S. supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya among other places.
One photo shows Omeish meeting with Power in February 2012, when she worked as special assistant to the president and senior director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council. The other photo posted the day Obama announced Power's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. shows her standing next to Omeish.
White House officials thought enough of Omeish that they invited him to attend an April 2011 speech on Libya by President Obama at the White House. Omeish also attended the installation of Christopher Stevens, the late U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, and that of his successor, Deborah Jones, in 2013.
Omeish told The Washington Times following the Benghazi attack that he briefed Stevens before the ambassador began his duties in Tripoli.
Omeish and the Muslim Brotherhood
In addition to his comments about Palestinians and jihad, Omeish admits to prior personal involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. and served as president of the Muslim American Society, which has been described as the "overt arm" of the Brotherhood in America. His association with the Brotherhood likely dates back to his involvement in the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in the 1990s when he became the national organization's president, which was founded by Brotherhood members in 1963.
Omeish endorsed Libya's Muslim Brotherhood in a 2012 IRIN News article, stating that although it came in a distant second in Libya's 2012 elections, it "may be able to provide a better platform and a more coherent agenda of national action."
Libya's Muslim Brotherhood subsequently failed to implement a coherent agenda and became deadlocked with its liberal rival, the National Forces Alliance, over establishing a working constitution. Brotherhood members opposed building a strong Libyan military that could have helped rein in the militias that have since created havoc. Numerous militias tied to the Brotherhood have contributed to Libya's instability. U.S. State Department officials contracted with the Brotherhood-linked February 17 Martyrs Brigade – a group that also had Al-Qaida ties – to provide security for the ill-fated U.S. consulate in Benghazi. A BBC report described the brigade as the best armed militia in eastern Libya. It additionally held al-Qaida sympathies, according to posts on its Facebook page. A State Department report called reliance on the February 17 militia in the case of an attack such as happened on Sept. 11, 2012 "misplaced."
LAPAC is but one of an alphabet soup of groups that Omeish helped found as a result of the Arab Spring, aimed at affecting U.S. policy toward Libya.
This includes Libyan Emergency Task Force,(LETF),Libyan Americans for Human Rights, Libyan Council of North America (LCNA), Libyan American Organization, American Libyan Council, American Libyan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ALCCI), Center for Libyan American Strategic Studies. Former Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. Ali Aujali appointed Omeish the official representative of the Libyan-American community, according to ALCCI's old website.
LETF lobbied for the U.S. and the international community to establish a no-fly zone to keep Gaddafi from bombing rebellious cities in early 2011. Omeish's LCNA worked to facilitate meetings between U.S. officials and Libyan rebels, including a meeting with John Kerry while he still was a U.S. senator. ALCCI works with the Libyan embassy in Washington to "certify and support trade relations between Libya and the United States."
It remains to be seen whether the advice from Omeish and Muntasser will be ignored. But their gambit, publicly posting their letter urging the president to support Islamists, indicates a confidence generated by years of access and consultation. That raises a host of troubling questions.
-
The Mideast Came to Idaho State. It Wasn’t the Best Fit.
By STEPHANIE SAULMARCH 21, 2016
Kuwaiti students at Idaho State University looked over quiz results outside their math professor’s office in Pocatello, Idaho. Accusations of cheating have been directed at a number of Middle Eastern students. Credit Kim Raff for The New York Times
POCATELLO, Idaho — When the Rev. Jim Jones, pastor of the Blazing Grace Church here, approached the lectern at City Hall, he was holding a copy of the Quran.
The Islamic text commanded followers to embrace intolerance, hate and violence, he told the zoning panel, explaining why he felt uncomfortable with the plan of Middle Eastern students at Idaho State University to build a mosque within walking distance of campus.
“I get very fearful because I live close to this place,” Mr. Jones told the panel, which was considering a rezoning request.
The mosque was approved. But the remarks by Mr. Jones and other opponents at the February 2014 hearing were signs of the fissures developing in this railroad town as Idaho State became increasingly dependent on Saudi and Kuwaiti students to replace income lost from steep declines in local enrollment and state funding.
The potential payoff of having these students was big — $20,000 per student in annual out-of-state tuition, nearly three times what state residents pay. As the number of Middle Eastern students grew to nearly 1,200, almost 10 percent of the school’s enrollment, that meant an estimated $40 million for the local economy every year.
But Idaho State had not bargained for the cultural clash in this isolated community. Even if they were just normal, rowdy college kids, the behavior of the mostly male students stood out in this conservative, predominantly Mormon city. Free from the strict cultural mores of their home countries, some students have faced charges like drunken driving and stalking.
At the same time, professors said students, many of them unfamiliar with English, were ill-prepared and frequently resorted to cheating.
Students have taken umbrage to the accusations, and have recounted episodes of discrimination on campus and in town. Now some students are leaving.
For Idaho State, it is a moment of truth, with a loss of more than $2 million a year in tuition alone from 100 students who left last summer. More declines are expected.
“We’re preparing for the worst,” said Scott Scholes, the associate vice president for enrollment management.
As colleges across the country, including prestigious universities like the University of California, Berkeley, second-tier state universities and little-known private institutions, look to make up for budget cuts and declining enrollment by accepting more foreign students, the situation at Idaho State is a cautionary tale, an example of the complexities of integrating foreign students into a campus and a community.
By some estimates, the one million international students in the United States generate a $30.5 billion boost to the economy. The largest group comes from China, but Saudi Arabia, the fourth-largest country of origin, supplies more than 70,000 students to schools like Arizona State, Western Kentucky, Cleveland State and Southern Illinois.
Some of these institutions are particularly concerned about the impact of a recent announcement by the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, which supports most of the students from Saudi Arabia. The program is facing “deep funding cuts,” according to Moody’s Investors Service, which said the scholarships would be limited to the top 100 American schools, an Academic Ranking of World Universities list that does not include Idaho State.
The Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission to the United States, which administers the scholarship program, did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Scholes said new limits established by the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments might mean that no Middle Eastern freshmen will be arriving at Idaho State for the next academic year, cutting enrollment by more than 250, on top of the 100 Saudi students who have already departed.
Explaining another reason for the declining enrollment, Daniel Hummel, a political-science professor who is also secretary of the new mosque, said, “Some of the students are dissatisfied, and they’re leaving.”
Although this virtually all-Christian city does not appear to be a natural fit for Muslims — the courthouse lawn features a monument chiseled with the Ten Commandments — everything seemed fine when the first 17 Saudi students arrived in 2006, mostly in the engineering school. Over time, the students began sending word back home about Pocatello’s attributes, particularly the low cost of living, said Nezar Alnejidi, a marketing major and student leader. On a monthly stipend of about $1,850, students could pay their room and board and have money to spare.
Photo
Idaho State students from Kuwait at a campus game center. Middle Eastern students have recounted episodes of discrimination, and 100 left Idaho State last summer. Credit Kim Raff for The New York Times
As the number of Saudi students grew, Kuwaiti students also began to arrive. Sales of Mustangs soared at a local car dealership. Abandoned storefronts downtown reopened with hookah lounges and Middle Eastern restaurants. Merchants and landlords relished the business. “The economic impact has been humongous,” said Dave Packer, the president of the Pocatello Rental Housing Association.
But the students also brought unease. On campus, several professors said their colleagues chafed at the extra work required of them because of the poor English skills of many students who needed help after class. Some professors also believed the students did not have the proper math backgrounds for their chosen majors: A chart sent to the faculty by one dean revealed that in some classes with more than 20 Middle Eastern students, 90 percent of them had failed physics, 75 percent had failed introductory English, and more than 60 percent had failed math.
David Rodgers, an associate dean of science and engineering, described the challenges many students have faced.
“In engineering, every single class is scripted,” Dr. Rodgers said. “There’s not a lot of room for a screw-up. If you fail a class, you can make it up perhaps by taking 18 hours the next semester. You know your funding is running out. You know you’ve come to America to be an engineer. The cultural change, the language barrier, all these things stress kids.”
That might explain why several professors said Middle Eastern students seemed prone to cheating and plagiarism. Eighty percent to 90 percent of the cheating cases reported in recent semesters in engineering and science have involved foreign students, Dr. Rodgers said.
The university has bought antiplagiarism software, installed cameras, and gone so far as to track the Internet addresses of submitted papers, but Martin Hackworth, a departing physics lecturer, said the response was inadequate.
Mr. Hackworth wrote a column in The Idaho State Journal last year with accusations that Middle Eastern students had cheated, and criticism that the university had accepted students who were unprepared.
“They viewed these students as A.T.M. machines,” Mr. Hackworth said in an interview.
While admitting that some Middle Eastern students had cheated, Ali Alheid, 22, a mechanical engineering major from Kuwait, complained that the university had painted all of them with a broad brush. “They caught 20 or 30 students cheating,” he said. “Because of that, they treat us like cheaters.” Professors and proctors have sometimes prohibited bathroom breaks during exams and looked between students’ legs for hidden cellphones.
The cheating accusations are one reason Mr. Alnejidi is now telling friends not to come to Idaho State.
Photo
Omar Alfilkawi, an Idaho State student, parked his Mustang outside a friend’s house in Pocatello. The car has been popular among Middle Eastern students at the university. Credit Kim Raff for The New York Times
“The Saudi students are leaving because they feel they will not graduate under that level of scrutiny,” he said.
On a recent afternoon at the engineering school, groups of Middle Eastern students chatted outside. Inside, Saudi students worked in a basement laboratory on a virtual shield to protect United States borders from incursion, both by undocumented immigrants — and terrorists.
Mr. Alheid said that at a gathering of students last month for Kuwaiti National Day, more than 100 signed a petition complaining of discrimination on campus and in town. He plans to transfer to Arizona State. “They think we are terrorists,” said Mr. Alheid, describing several episodes.
As he drove his Mustang one night to a gym and tried to park, a car with an open door blocked his parking spot. When Mr. Alheid complained, he said, the man flashed a handgun at him. On another day, a middle finger was directed his way as he approached the newly built mosque, he said.
While acknowledging instances of discrimination, officials and professors say some of the students have done little to adapt. Some have made inappropriate overtures toward women, according to the Police Department. Others have raced their sports cars on city streets and, unaccustomed to local laws, ignored speeding tickets.
“I don’t think they understand that they have to pay a fine,” said Zachary Parris, the chief deputy prosecutor, whose office held a seminar on campus to educate students on city ordinances.
Jim Peterson, the deputy police chief, said, “I would say they get away with a lot more here than they do at home.”
Things came to a head last May, when The Idaho State Journal reported price gouging by landlords, who defended the extra fees with claims that the Middle Eastern students had damaged apartments. Among the problems, according to the newspaper: carpets burned by hookahs.
That is when Eva Nye, then a City Council member, wrote a column urging Pocatellans to be nicer to the students. By that time, the students were packing the mosque for Friday Prayer.
“It put some people on edge, and they felt certain that a jihad was going to occur in Pocatello,” Ms. Nye said.
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/saluting-muslim-american-patriots_b_7039866.html
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/saluting-muslim-american-patriots_b_7039866.html
http://www.islamictreasure.com/2511-fabricated-hadeeth-love-for-ones-homeland-is-from-faith/
Fabricated Hadeeth – Love for one’s Homeland is from Faith
Nowadays mawdoo’ (fabricated) ahaadeeth, false reports and made-up stories have become widespread. Many people have become used to repeating these reports without checking whether they are saheeh and without examining their real nature.
This is haraam according to sharee’ah and is an insult to common sense.
These ahaadeeth are falsely attributed to the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). It is not permissible to narrate them or quote them without clearly stating that they are false.
Regarding the hadeeth: حُبُّ الْوَطَنِ مِنَ الإِيمَانِ (Hubbul-Watan Min al-Eemaan)
Translation: “Love of one’s homeland (country) is from faith”
Source: Kashf al-Khafa’ wa Muzil al-Ilbas (1102), al-Silsilah al-Hadeeth ad-Da’eefah (36) and reported by al-Saghaanee in his al-Mawdhoo’at (81)
The above hadeeth is not the saying of Prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu ‘alayhi wasallam) and is a very good example of fabrication and falsehood which are attributed to the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alayhi wasallam). It is mentioned by the scholars in their books as an example of Hadeeth fabrication and lies.
● The Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta’ was asked regarding the hadeeth, they replied:
ما ذكرته من الجمل ليست بأحاديث عن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم، وإنما هي كلمات جرت على ألسنة الناس.
وبالله التوفيق. وصلى الله على نبينا محمد، وآله وصحبه وسلم.
“The phrases you mentioned are not Hadith reported from the Prophet (peace be upon him); they are just sayings that people have become accustomed to using.
May Allaah grant us success. May peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad his family, and Companions!”
Members: ‘Abdullah ibn Qa`ud, ‘Abdullah ibn Ghudayyan, Deputy Chairman: ‘Abdul-Razzaq `Afify, Chairman: ‘Abdul-‘Aziz ibn ‘Abdullah ibn Baz
Source: Third question from fatawa number 5729, Volume 4 page 465.
● Shaykh Abdul Azeez ibn Abdullaah bin Abdur Rahmaan ar-Raajhee said in his explanation of Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah’s “al-Waseeah al-Kubra” under the heading “Categories of Fabricated and False ahadeeth”:
وقد يكون هذا الحديث الذي ينسبونه إلى النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم كلاماً لبعض السلف، أو كلاماً لبعض العلماء، مثل قول بعض الناس: (حب الوطن من الإيمان)
“It may be that the hadeeth which is attributed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, be sayings of some of the salafs, or sayings of some scholars, such as the saying of some people (love of the homeland is from Faith).”
Source: “Sharh al-Waseeah al-Kubra li-Ibn Taymiyyah”, Volume 5, page 7.
● Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-Uthaymeen (rahimahullaah) said:
وما يذكر من أن ((حب الوطن من الإيمان)) وأن ذلك حديث عن رسول الله صلي الله عليه وسلم كذب.
حب الوطن إن كان لأنه وطن إسلامي فهذا تحبه لأنه إسلامي. ولا فرق بين وطنك الذي هو مسقط رأسك، أو الوطن البعيد من بلاد المسلمين؛ كلها وطن الإسلام يجب أن نحميه.
“Furthermore, it ought not to be mentioned that ‘Love for one’s homeland is from faith’, nor that this is a narration from the Messenger of Allaah (sallallaahu ‘alayhi wasallam), for this is a fabrication.
We are obliged to love our country if it is an Islamic nation, there being no distinction between an individual’s country of birth or a country distant from the lands of the Muslims, both are deemed Islamic lands and dictate that they are protected.”
Source: Sharh Riyadh as-Saaliheen, Volume 1 page 66.
● al-Mulla ‘Ali Qaari (may Allaah have mercy on him) mentioned regarding the hadeeth:
قَالَ الزَّرْكَشِيُّ لَمْ أَقِفْ عَلَيْهِ
وَقَالَ السَّيْدُ مَعِينُ الدِّينِ الصَّفَوِيُّ لَيْسَ بِثَابِتٍ
وَقِيلَ إِنَّهُ مِنْ كَلَامِ بَعْضِ السّلف
az-Zarkashi said: “I am not aware of it.”
as-Saeed Ma’een uddin as-Safawiyyu said: “It is not proven”
And it was said that it is from the sayings of some salafs.
Source: “Al-Asrar Al-Marfoo’a fee Al-Akhbaar Al-Mawdoo’at” by al-Mulla ‘Ali Qaari (may Allaah have mercy on him), page 180 under hadeeth number 164.
Regarding whether the meaning of the phrase is correct or not, the scholars have clarified that it’s meaning is strange and wrong.
● Shaykh al-Albaani (rahimahullaah), mentioned about this hadeeth in “al-Silsilah al-Hadeeth ad-Da’eefah” (Volume 1, page 110 number 36), and classed it as being Mawdoo’ (fabricated).
He said:
موضوع. كما قال الصغاني (ص 7) وغيره.
ومعناه غير مستقيم إذ إن حب الوطن كحب النفس والمال ونحوه، كل ذلك غريزي في الإنسان لا يمدح بحبه ولا هو من لوازم الإيمان، ألا ترى أن الناس كلهم مشتركون في هذا الحب لا فرق في ذلك بين مؤمنهم وكافرهم؟ !
“This hadeeth is Mawdoo’ (fabricated) and it was said by al-Saghaanee (page 7) and other than him.
And the meaning of the hadeeth is not correct, because love of homeland is like love of oneself, money, and the like. All of these are inborn in humans. There is no praise for this love and neither is it from Eemaan (faith). Do you not think that all of the people involved in this love (i.e love of ones homeland), there is no difference in that between the believers and kaafir alike? !”
● Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-Uthaymeen (rahimahullaah) said:
ومثله “حب الوطن من الإيمان” وهو مشهور عند العامة على أنه حديث صحيح، وهو حديث موضوع مكذوب، بل المعنى أيضاً غير صحيح بل حب الوطن من التعصب.
“Like for example ‘Love for one’s homeland is from faith’. It is famous near the general people, that this is a saheeh hadeeth, (but) this hadeeth is fabricated and false. It’s meaning is also not correct, rather, love of one’s homeland is from prejudice.”
Source: “Sharh al-Manzuma al-Bayquniyya fee Mustalah al-Hadeeth” page 70
● Shaykh Ismail ibn Muhammad al-‘Ajaloonee mentioned this hadeeth as Mawdoo’ in his book “Kashf al-Khafa’ wa Muzil al-Ilbas” (1102), Volume 1 pages 398-399 and said:
قال الصغاني: موضوع، وقال في المقاصد: لم أقف عليه، ومعناه صحيح،
ورد القاري قوله ومعناه صحيح بأنه عجيب، قال: إذ لا تلازم بين حب الوطن وبين الإيمان، قال: ورد أيضا بقوله تعالى: {وَلَوْ أَنَّا كَتَبْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ} النساء: 66,
فإنها دلت على حبهم وطنهم، مع عدم تلبسهم بالإيمان؛ إذ ضمير عليهم للمنافقين، لكن انتصر له بعضهم بأنه ليس في كلامه أنه لا يحب الوطن إلا مؤمن، وإنما فيه أن حب الوطن لا ينافي الإيمان, انتهى.
“al-Saghaani said: Mawdoo’ (fabricated). And he said in al-Maqaasid: I am not aware of it, and its meaning is correct. Al-Qaari replied to his saying that its meaning is not saheeh and that It is strange.
al-Mulla ‘Ali Qaari (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: As there is no correlation between the love of Country and the matters of Eemaan (faith) and this view (i.e. the view of those who consider the meaning of the hadeeth to be correct) could be refuted by what Allaah Said :
“And if We had ordered them (saying), “Kill yourselves (i.e. the innnocent ones kill the guilty ones) or leave your homes,” very few of them would have done it; but if they had done what they were told, it would have been better for them, and would have strengthened their (Faith)” [Qur’an Surah an-Nisa’ 4:66]
So this is an evidence of their (the hypocrite’s) love to the Homeland/Country without mixing it with the matters of Eemaan, as the pronoun (alayhim/upon them) is for the hypocrites.
And some (scholars) also said that there is nothing in his mentioned words that proves that no one can love his country except a Believer. But rather, it shows that there is no contradiction between Love of the homeland/Country and the matters of Eemaan.” [i.e. even the hypocrites who have no faith, also love their country/homeland. So love of one’s homeland cannot be considered to be from Faith and hence this saying is not true.]
End quote from Shaykh Ismail ibn Muhammad al-‘Ajaloonee’s book “Kashf al-Khafa’ wa Muzil al-Ilbas”
[Note: al-Mulla ‘Ali Qaari (may Allaah have mercy on him) mentioned the above in his book “Al-Asrar Al-Marfoo’a fee Al-Akhbaar Al-Mawdoo’at”, pages 180-181 under hadeeth number 164]
And Allaah Knows the Best.
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/saluting-muslim-american-patriots_b_7039866.html
http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/004-qmt.php
004.060
YUSUFALI: Hast thou not turned Thy vision to those who declare that they believe in the revelations that have come to thee and to those before thee? Their (real) wish is to resort together for judgment (in their disputes) to the Evil One, though they were ordered to reject him. But Satan's wish is to lead them astray far away (from the right).
PICKTHAL: Hast thou not seen those who pretend that they believe in that which is revealed unto thee and that which was revealed before thee, how they would go for judgment (in their disputes) to false deities when they have been ordered to abjure them? Satan would mislead them far astray.
SHAKIR: Have you not seen those who assert that they believe in what has been revealed to you and what was revealed before you? They desire to summon one another to the judgment of the Shaitan, though they were commanded to deny him, and the Shaitan desires to lead them astray into a remote error.
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/saluting-muslim-american-patriots_b_7039866.html
So, shockingly, the article from Huffpo is utter garbage.
In case you missed it, go back to the last two posts. :wink:
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/03/28/trump-aide-causes-entire-cnn-panel-to-erupt-in-mockery-with-jaw-dropping-claim-about-immigrants-but-is-he-right/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%203-28-16%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire
-
Muslim Offers $10,000 to Anyone Who Can Show That Qur’an Promotes Terrorism
March 28, 2016 - Robert Spencer
Dear Omar Alnatour:
Thank you so very much for offering “anyone $10,000 if they can find me a verse in the Quran that says it’s ok to kill innocent people or to commit acts of terror.” My 1999 Toyota is on its last legs, and your generous gift will enable me to replace it with a modest but fully operational used midsize sedan. Or maybe (since it has been years since I’ve had a break), if I can keep the jalopy going for awhile, I will use your ten grand take a vacation to Paris and Brussels -- before it’s too late, you know?
Anyway, here is my entry, which I am confident will win the $10,000 prize. I’ll make sure of that by giving you even more than you asked for: you wanted just a single Qur’anic verse that “says it’s ok to kill innocent people or to commit acts of terror,” I’ll give you more than one of each, just so there is no doubt:
The Qur’an says it’s ok to kill innocent people
“Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.” (Qur’an 9:5)
The verse says to kill the idolaters – mushrikun – those who worship others besides Allah. Now I don’t know, Mr. Alnatour, if you might think “idolaters” are by virtue of being “idolaters” are not innocent and therefore worth killing, but I’m with Thomas Jefferson: “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” I don’t think my neighbor to have forfeited his innocence if he prays to gods I don’t recognize, and I hope you don’t, either.
Now I expect that you will say that this Qur’an verse refers not to all idolaters, but only to one very specific group of idolaters, the polytheist Quraysh tribe of Mecca that was making war against Muhammad, and that this verse has no force now that they have been conquered and Islamized, and doesn’t apply to any other idolaters. It would have been nice for Allah to make that clear in the pages of his perfect book, but who am I to question the will of a deity?
What’s more, classic Muslim commentators on this Qur’an verse give no hint that it has long expired. On the contrary, Ibn Juzayy notes that it cancels out peaceful verses; he says that it abrogates “every peace treaty in the Qur’an,” and specifically abrogates the Qur’an’s directive to “set free or ransom” captive unbelievers (47:4). As-Suyuti agrees: “This is an Ayat of the Sword which abrogates pardon, truce and overlooking” — that is, perhaps the overlooking of the pagans’ offenses. The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that the Muslims must “slay the idolaters wherever you find them, be it during a lawful [period] or a sacred [one], and take them, captive, and confine them, to castles and forts, until they have no choice except death or Islam.” He is offering this as instruction for Muslims in his day; he seems to have no idea that this verse doesn’t apply to them.
Neither does Ibn Kathir. He writes that Muslims should “not wait until you find them. Rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks ever smaller to them. This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam.” He also doesn’t seem to subscribe to the view that this verse applies only to the pagans of Arabia in Muhammad’s time, and has no further application. He asserts, on the contrary, that “slay the unbelievers wherever you find them” means just that: the unbelievers must be killed “on the earth in general, except for the Sacred Area” — that is, the sacred mosque in Mecca, in accord with Qur’an 2:191.
So there you are, Mr. Alnatour: the Qur’an calling for the murder of those who are innocent, except for the crime of being “idolaters” – a “crime” that requires earthly punishment only in the Qur’an.
And there’s more:
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29)
The “People of the Book” are Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. The verse doesn’t provide any reason why they should be fought and made to submit to the Muslims except that they are People of the Book and don’t acknowledge Islam. Here again, you might consider them not innocent on that basis, but I hope you don’t, as I’m sure you would agree that people may differ on key questions in good faith.
Ibn Juzayy, however, does believe that the People of the Book should be fought simply because they are not Muslims. He says that this verse is “a command to fight the People of the Book” and explains that they must be fought because of their “denying their belief in Allah because of the words of the Jews, ‘Ezra is the son of Allah” and the words of the Christians, ‘The Messiah is the son of Allah’” (cf. Qur’an 9:30). He adds that Muslims must also fight them “because they consider as lawful carrion, blood, pork, etc.” and because “they do not enter Islam.”
So the Qur’an says that the People of the Book must be fought because they believe differently from the Muslims. But that is not a crime. These people are innocent.
The Qur’an says it’s ok to commit acts of terror
“We will cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, for that they have associated with Allah that for which He sent down never authority; their lodging shall be the Fire; evil is the lodging of the evildoers.” (Qur’an 3:151)
Now, Mr. Alnatour (may I call you Omar?), I know what you’ll say here: this is Allah saying he will terrorize the unbelievers, not commanding the Muslims to do so. Fair enough, although I can’t help but recall that the Qur’an also says: “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands” (9:14). So if Allah is punishing the unbelievers by the hands of the believers, might part of that punishment involve casting terror into the hearts of the unbelievers? And that’s what terrorism is all about, right?
And yes, there is still more. “Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you can, to strike terror into the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them that you know not; Allah knows them. And whatsoever you expend in the way of Allah shall be repaid you in full; you will not be wronged.” (Qur’an 8:60)
Strike terror into the enemy of Allah and your enemy. Now you no doubt have some explanation for this, Mr. Alnatour, but I wonder how you would explain to a young member of the Islamic State (ISIS) or al-Qaeda that Allah’s command to strike terror into the enemy of Allah doesn’t mean that they should behead, or blow up, or otherwise terrorize unbelievers.
So there you have it. Not just one verse, but four, and I have plenty more. You don’t have to pay me $40,000 even though I fulfilled your requirements four times over; I’ll take the $10,000, and thank you very much for your generosity. I must say that I very much enjoyed your article in which you made this offer, “Why Muslims Should Never Have To Apologize for Terrorism" (Huffingtonpost.com - 3-24-2016,) if it is proper to say that one enjoyed such a lamentable tale as your own. It is lamentable to read about how your wife screams at you and your children hate you for matters beyond your control, and that then on top of that, Infidels have the temerity to want you to do something about Islamic terrorism beyond issuing pro forma condemnations.
My mind goes back, however, to those who were murdered by Islamic terrorists recently in Brussels, Paris, San Bernardino, and so many other places. I’m sure you would agree that the suffering of their families far exceeds that of Muslims who must suffer Infidels asking them (quite patiently, for over fourteen years now since 9/11) to clean their own house. I do hope that you will think a bit about them, and about your Qur’an. Instead of obfuscating its contents, as you’re writing out my check, you could do us all a favor by starting to ponder some strategies about how to limit the capacity of your holy book to incite murder and bloodshed. In light of my confidence that you will do that, I very much look forward to your next article.
With cordial best wishes from your fellow human being,
Robert Spencer
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/03/28/trump-aide-causes-entire-cnn-panel-to-erupt-in-mockery-with-jaw-dropping-claim-about-immigrants-but-is-he-right/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%203-28-16%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire
Female Gender Mutilation. Maybe we make the lifting of a US Muslim immigration pause contingent on a total, worldwide, Islamic repudiation and ending of this practice. Then the ball is in their court. Remove this barbaric practice from the face of the world and then get back in line if you want. Don't bring your savagely cruel ways here.
-
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/03/28/trump-aide-causes-entire-cnn-panel-to-erupt-in-mockery-with-jaw-dropping-claim-about-immigrants-but-is-he-right/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%203-28-16%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire
Female Gender Mutilation. Maybe we make the lifting of a US Muslim immigration pause contingent on a total, worldwide, Islamic repudiation and ending of this practice. Then the ball is in their court. Remove this barbaric practice from the face of the world and then get back in line if you want. Don't bring your savagely cruel ways here.
It isn't a theoretical issue, it has and does happen here.
-
Let us not lose sight of the number claimed by the Drumpf man-- that is part of the story too.
-
https://www.facebook.com/prageru/videos/1039179489458240/
-
Obama: “We have to reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslim-Americans, and their enormous contributions to our country”
MARCH 27, 2016 8:48 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Obama’s timing is grotesque. After the Brussels jihad massacre, he should be talking about how he is ramping up our resistance to jihad terror, not about how we have to stop picking on the poor Muslims in America, whom no one is picking on in the first place.
“We have to reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslim-Americans,” i.e., we are not going to speak honestly about the motivating ideology of jihad terror, no matter how high the bodies pile up.
“…and their enormous contributions to our country and our way of life.” Yes, look at all the enormous contributions Muslims have made to our country and our way of life. Muslims remodeled the New York skyline. Muslims brought about the transformation of government buildings in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere into veritable fortresses, each with massive stone blocks outside to prevent jihadis from using truck bombs. Muslims provided the impetus for huge advances — and huge expenses — in the development of technology used to screen passengers in airports. Muslims are responsible for air travel being transformed from a glamorous, adventurous activity to a cramped, hectoring, inhospitable affair, with glum, shoeless hordes holding up their beltless trousers while being herded through intrusive and inefficient checkpoints. We also owe Muslims for insisting upon the political correctness that requires everyone to be humiliated equally. Passengers are poked, prodded, threatened, and treated as likely criminals while America is hamstrung from efficiently focusing on the true source of the problem.
We also must credit Muslims with increases in the U.S. government. It is now bigger, wealthier (on your tax money), and watching you more closely than it was on September 10, 2001. Muslims can take a bow for the creation of at least two government agencies — the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security — plus a massive expansion in the budgets of all manner of intelligence and law enforcement entities. Those bloated budgets are one manifestation of what is actually the greatest contribution that Muslims have made to our nation: the slow destruction of the American economy. Osama bin Laden explained that he mounted the 9/11 jihad terror attacks in order to weaken the American economy; in October 2004 he rejoiced at how he had induced the Americans to spend, spend, spend to try to stymie him: “Al-Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost — according to the lowest estimate — more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al-Qaeda defeated a million dollars.”
And that was in 2004. How many more billions have been spent since then, even aside from the billions wasted on the nation-building misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan? If Osama were alive today, he could look with satisfaction on an America that is poorer, uglier, meaner, more dangerous, less productive, and less efficient than it was on September 10, 2001.
Such an enormous contribution Muslims have made to our country!
“Obama: Stigmatizing Muslims ‘plays into hands’ of jihadists,” AFP, March 26, 2016:
Washington (AFP) – President Barack Obama has urged Americans not to stigmatize Muslims following this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels, saying that doing so is “counterproductive” in the fight against radical Islam.
In his weekly media address, Obama said Muslim-Americans are “our most important partners in the nation’s fight against those who would wage violent jihad.
“That’s why we have to reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslim-Americans, and their enormous contributions to our country and our way of life,” Obama said.
“Such attempts are contrary to our character, to our values, and to our history as a nation built around the idea of religious freedom. It’s also counterproductive,” he said.
“It plays right into the hands of terrorists who want to turn us against one another — who need a reason to recruit more people to their hateful cause.”
Obama made his remarks as the global community continues to reel from Tuesday’s attacks in Belgium, claimed by the Islamic State group, which killed 31 dead, including two Americans, and wounded 300….
-
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/armed-hate-group-backs-out-of-texas-mosque-protest-when-faced-with-gun-toting-worshipers/#.VwBMzcvSC5Q.facebook
-
https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/do-radicalized-islamic-communities-exit-us
-
There's an old joke mocking the French for perennially surrendering under pressure. But, once again, it was the Muslim sympathizers in the White House who were caught surrendering to political correctness. And the French were the bold ones.
A transcript on the White House website shows French President Francois Hollande, who was sitting across a table from Barack Obama, remarking, "But we're also well aware that the roots of terrorism, Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq." But that's not what you'll hear in the video version. According to the Media Research Center, "The White House website has censored a video of ... Hollande saying that 'Islamist terrorism' is at the 'roots of terrorism.' The White House briefly pulled video of a press event on terrorism with Pres. Obama, and when it reappeared on the WhiteHouse.gov website and YouTube, the audio of Hollande's translator goes silent, beginning with the words 'Islamist terrorism,' then begins again at the end of his sentence."
Hot Air's Allahpundit makes this critical observation: "t's [Obama's] prerogative to choose his own words. It's not his prerogative to choose someone else's words, particularly when that someone is a foreign head of state whose country is dealing with a more severe jihadist threat right now than the United States is."
But here's the other thing, he says: "You know what the worst part is? Hollande didn't say 'Islamic terrorism,' which is the supposedly objectionable term. He said 'Islamist terrorism.' 'Islamist' was ... a term that came into use precisely because it gave the speaker an efficient way to distinguish between 'moderate Muslims' and the more jihad-minded. 'Islamic' describes all things Muslim; 'Islamist' describes a supremacist view in which Islam is the highest authority of the state."
But even that was too much for Obama's minion editors. It seems any iteration of the word "Islam" in the context of terrorism is altogether banned. You can't exercise a strong foreign policy when you're in denial about what defines your enemy.
-
https://www.facebook.com/libtardmedia/videos/1665563246994359/?pnref=story
-
http://counterjihad.com/awful-ontario-shia-mosque-teaches-children-decapitation-works
-
http://counterjihad.com/awful-ontario-shia-mosque-teaches-children-decapitation-works
Savages gonna savage.
-
Ramadan: Month of Jihad
As Muslims struggle to increase their devotion to Allah, expect more mass murder.
June 7, 2016
Robert Spencer
Another Ramadan is upon us, and no less an authority on Islam than Barack Hussein Obama has assured us that “for many, this month is an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience, compassion for those less fortunate, and unity across communities.” Meanwhile, a Muslim whom Obama would disparage as a “violent extremist” who has hijacked the religion of peace, Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, called on Muslims to use this Ramadan to “get prepared, be ready … to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers…especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America.”
Ramadan 2016 began with the news that a group of Muslims in Jordan were so filled with pious fervor that they murdered five Jordanian intelligence officers in an attack on a security office. The perpetrators may have been acting upon the understanding of Ramadan that a jihad group enunciated back in 2012: “The month of Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators. One of our groups aided by Allah managed to bomb a bus full of Jewish tourists, plunderers of holy lands, after careful tracking. The holy war is not confined to a particular arena and we shall fight the Jews and the Americans until they leave the land of Islam.”
So which is it? Is Ramadan a time to “an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience, compassion for those less fortunate, and unity across communities,” or is it “a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers”?
In fact, it’s both. During Ramadan, Muslims are exhorted to renew and deepen their devotion to Allah. Hence it is a time when they’re supposed to grow more generous and kind toward their fellow Muslims. However, the Qur’an says: “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him are severe against disbelievers, and merciful among themselves” (48:29). If the Ramadan imperative is to become more devout, the Muslim who applies himself diligently to the Ramadan observance will simultaneously become more both merciful to his fellow Muslims and more severe against the unbelievers.
Murdering infidels thus doesn’t contradict the spirit of Ramadan; it embodies it. The Kavkaz Center, a website operated by Chechen jihadists, explained in a 2010 article that the idea of Ramadan as a time for warfare against infidels went back to Muhammad’s time: “The month of Ramadan in the life of the Prophet (pbuh) and the righteous ancestors was a month of forthcoming. The greatest battles during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh) occurred in this blessed month, the month of jihad, zeal and enthusiasm.”
Obama is, true to form, severely misleading the American people when he focuses exclusively upon Ramadan’s exhortation to charity (the part of the Qur’an verse about being “merciful” to one’s fellow Muslims) without mentioning its imperative to terrorize infidels (the other part, about being “severe” toward the unbelievers). But as we have seen already in Jordan, all too many Muslims around the world are fully aware of that part of the Ramadan observance, and are ready to carry it out.
It is folly to pretend that the aspect of Ramadan that makes it a more dangerous time for non-Muslims doesn’t exist: dangerous, suicidal folly. But the fact that no one in the public square even thinks to question Obama’s Ramadan congratulations, which roll around every year in the same form, shows how widespread that folly is. Obama’s Ramadan message for this year concluded: “I can think of no better way to mark my Administration’s last celebration of Ramadan as President than to honor the contributions of Muslims in America and across the world for Eid. Ramadan Kareem.”
What contributions of Muslims in America? He has alluded to them before, but once again he didn’t bother to list any, and of course no one asked. That Muslims have made great contributions to America (beyond spurring tremendous developments in airline security, that is) is simply an unquestionable dogma of our silly and stupid age; no one needs ask the President for examples, because those contributions are taken as axiomatic, with only “Islamophobes” questioning them. That there aren’t any actual such contributions is an inconvenient fact, to be sure, but one so thoroughly obscured by propaganda that everyone feels it can be safely ignored.
The cognitive dissonance here equals that about Ramadan itself. And as our Ramadan follies and willful blindness continue, more Infidels will die.
-
Hugh Fitzgerald: You Don’t Have To Be Muslim To Love Ramadan
June 8, 2016 3:48 pm By Hugh Fitzgerald
Why is it that Western politicians, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and David Cameron, think they must send out messages of such heartfelt solidarity to the world’s Muslims on Ramadan? Of course they send out messages as well for Diwali (Hindus and Buddhists), Passover (Jews), Christmas and Easter (Christians), but not with the suggestion that this or that religious holiday is somehow meant to include all of us as well-wishers, when some of us only wish to be counted out, or – equally disturbing – to sing the praises of a religious observance that is insufficiently understood.
Why does Ramadan appear to get special treatment? And why do these politicians presume to speak for us, as when Hillary Clinton sends a brief message that starts “As we begin Ramadan,” with that “we” implicating non-Muslims in what is, after all, a religious observance for Muslims only. That “we” is properly a “they.” Why did she not write, more accurately because less inclusively: “As Ramadan begins, I wish all Muslims….”or “As Ramadan begins for Muslims, I wish them…,” thus being polite, but no longer implying that “we” all share in Ramadan?
David Cameron offered an especially treacly and “inclusive” Ramadan greeting this year, and the very first sentence of his message to Muslims everywhere insists on implicating all of us in what should only be their epithet:
It’s the holy month of Ramadan…
Why did Cameron have to say that Ramadan is “holy” to non-Muslims? Why could he not have said “It’s Ramadan, that month holy to Muslims,” or “It’s the month of Ramadan, holy to Muslims”?
– a time when mosques open their doors, community centers welcome in their neighbors, and even churches and synagogues offer up their spaces as Muslims break their fasts – and people of all faiths and none are often asked to join.” (But these open-to-all iftars are not just for simple breaking-bread fellowship, but occasions for propagandizing, or even proselytizing, for Islam, as those who have attended these affairs well know.)
Coventry Cathedral is holding its own multi-faith iftar. In Manchester, they’re combining an iftar with England’s European Championships appearance. And homeless shelters up and down the country are holding ‘Iftars with the Homeless’.
Of course, fasting is what comes to mind when we think of Ramadan.
Not all Muslims agree; what comes to mind for some of them, when they think of Ramadan, is that it’s the perfect time to conduct Jihad: “The month of Ramadan in the life of the Prophet (pbuh) and the righteous ancestors was a month of forthcoming. The greatest battles during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh) occurred in this blessed month, the month of jihad, zeal, and enthusiasm.” For more on Ramadan as the month of Jihad, see here.
It’s part of the month that really puts Muslims’ faith to the test, especially during these long, warm days. But there is much more to it. There is all the energy and money people donate to those who are less fortunate, and all the extra time spent in prayer and contemplation.
Cameron ought to know, but may not, that Muslim charity is directed only toward fellow Muslims; he ought to have said “all the energy and money Muslims devote to less fortunate fellow Muslims” — which changes the sense considerably.
Uppermost in all our minds…
“All our minds”? Are we all Muslims now?
…this Ramadan are those whose lives have been torn apart by the twin evils of Assad and Daesh,…
Are these equivalent evils — the Alawite aligned with Shi’a Muslim Iran and hereditary despot, Assad, and the Sunni Muslim fanatics of Daesh (the Islamic State)? Or are the latter far more dangerous to non-Muslims than the former?
…all those families spending this holy month…
The epithet is again imposed on non-Muslims for whom Ramadan is not “holy.” Why?
…in refugee camps, mourning loved ones, yearning to go back to school or to work…
News of the scandal of the “Syrian refugees,” so many of whom are not from Syria, but assorted Muslims from as far away as Pakistan and Afghanistan, many of them seeking “refuge” in those European countries offering the most generous benefits, where they need not trouble themselves to seek work, has apparently not reached 10 Downing Street. Just consider the demonstration of the Muslim migrants’ “yearning for work” in Sweden where, last year, out of 162,000 “refugees” who arrived, exactly 464 are now employed. Some yearning.
…wondering whether they’ll ever return home again.
And how many of those Muslim “refugees” have given any sign, over the last decade, of wanting to return home from Europe?
Our thoughts, whatever our backgrounds or beliefs, are with them.
Again Cameron presumes to speak for all of us: “Our thoughts.” Notice, too, the casual feelgood dismissal of differences – “whatever our backgrounds or beliefs” — which no Muslim would endorse.
And we must continue to support the people of Syria and the region, as we work towards a lasting political solution. Because that’s who we are as a country. We won’t walk on by again.
So this Ramadan, let’s renew our resolve to help those victims. Let’s continue to come together for iftars and community events. Let’s celebrate the proud, multi-racial, multi-faith democracy we live in.
Cameron attributes to Ramadan a significance for non-Muslims that it does not as yet possess: it’s because it’s Ramadan that, he suggests, we renew, we continue, we celebrate. That is, all of us, in first-person-plural harmony. He might have written more to the real point: “Both Muslims and non-Muslims should renew their resolve to fight fanaticism and to ensure that minorities everywhere are safe.” Not a sentiment to which Muslims could openly object, even if they know to whom – themselves — it is really being addressed. And the distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim is usefully maintained.
To everyone in Britain and around the world, Ramadan Mubarak.
Ramadan Mubarak “to everyone,” not just Muslims? Are we all Muslims now? And greetings not only in Britain but “around the world”? Why not at least limit greetings, if greetings there must be: “To Muslims in Britain, Ramadan Mubarak”?
Muslims would not have taken kindly to having Cameron presume to speak for them by having them appear to share in his Christmas or Easter or Passover or Diwali greetings, and he has been careful not to do so. Muslims are taught not to acknowledge the religious observances of others. But he does presume to speak for all non-Muslims in his specious sharing of the observance of Ramadan.
As for his “proud, multi-racial, multi-faith democracy,” this is a pollyannish figment of Cameron’s imaginative multicultural boosterism. Not everyone in Britain has forgotten the Muslim terrorist attacks on the buses and Underground, the butchering of Fusilier Rigby, and the sex-grooming gangs up and down the land, all contributing to a justified and growing anxiety over the Muslim presence in the country.
Barack Obama has issued his own equally fulsome Ramadan greetings:
For many…
Should this not be “For many Muslims…”?
…this month is an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience, compassion for those less fortunate, and unity across communities.
To repeat yet again: “compassion” — i.e., charity — “for those less fortunate” is, in Islam, limited to fellow Muslims; Muslims are not supposed to give alms (zakat) to non-Muslims. This is often overlooked, because many non-Muslims are unaware of it, and even if they do know about the rules for Muslim “charity,” it seems churlish for non-Muslims to mention them (“Muslims are supposed to aid only other Muslims”), and Obama does nothing to set things straight. He might, however, simply have omitted that misleading phrase about “compassion for those less fortunate,” or he might have praised Muslims for “making a special effort during Ramadan to support less fortunate members of their own community,” which is less stark than “Muslims offering support for less fortunate Muslims.”
As for Ramadan being the perfect time to “focus on…unity across communities,” Obama presumably means a “unity” of Muslims with other faith groups. But Muslims are taught to regard themselves as the “best of peoples,” and non-Muslims as the “vilest of creatures” for whom all manner of punishments await. What “unity” could there possibly be between the “best of peoples” and the “vilest of creatures”?
Obama also remarks on the history of Muslims in America: “There are those whose heritage can be traced back to the very beginning of our nation, as well as those who have only just arrived.” This fits in with incessant Muslim attempts at backdating their presence in America, to insert themselves into the historical narrative much earlier, as a means of legitimizing their presence, and then pushing that “Islam has always been part of America” nonsense. This campaign reached its absurd zenith when State’s Phyllis McIntosh issued a report in 2004 entitled “Islamic Influence Runs Deep in American Culture.” In this report, she found a non-existent Muslim in Columbus’s crew: “Islamic influences may date back to the very beginning of American history. It is likely that Christopher Columbus, who discovered America in 1492, charted his way across the Atlantic Ocean with the help of an Arab navigator” (flatly untrue). “May date back” and “It is likely that” are weasel words designed to protect from criticism a claim that is made up entirely out of whole cloth. Then there is the other dubious claim — made with very slight supporting evidence — that, among the African slaves brought to America were some who had been Muslims in Africa. But even were that to have been true, a handful of Muslim slaves, living in an overwhelmingly Christian environment, outside a Muslim community, without either mosques or the texts necessary to help perpetuate the faith, would have had their Islam extinguished by the next generation.
In fact, a scarcely discernible, and very tiny, Muslim presence came very late to America. The first community of Muslims to have founded a mosque in the United States did so in a building borrowed for that purpose, in 1929; the first building erected as a mosque dates to 1935. Obama ought to have left out claims that Muslims arrived “at the very beginning of our nation,” rather than transmit what is a staple of Muslim propaganda. Or he might have written, with studied vagueness: “While many American Muslims have only just arrived, others can trace their heritage to earlier periods of our history.”
Then there is Obama’s parting remark about wishing “to honor the contributions of Muslims in America and across the world.” I have no idea what impressive contributions he has in mind, but along with others “in America and across the world,” I await with bated breath President Obama’s detailed list of Muslim Achievers.
To sum up:
Despite their extravagant expressions of solidarity with, and admiration for, Muslims on the occasion of Ramadan, nowhere in their remarks do either Cameron or Obama demonstrate real understanding of Islam. They should be – are they? — aware that Muslims are forbidden to reciprocate, that is, to offer similar greetings to non-Muslims on the occasion of any non-Muslim religious holiday – e.g., Christmas, Easter, Passover, Diwali. Some Muslims become incensed even at the non-religious observances of non-Muslims; campaigns by clerics to convince Muslims not to participate in such innocuous holidays as Valentine’s Day, or Thanksgiving, are not unknown. That being the case, there should be even less felt need or sense of obligation for non-Muslims to offer up such fulsome praise for this Muslim religious observance; a few sentences would have been quite enough.
In their choice of words, both Cameron and Obama make it appear that Muslim charity is extended to non-Muslims, but the only sanctioned object of Muslim alms-giving (zakat), during Ramadan (as at all other times), is fellow Muslims. And neither one explains why, during this month which – Obama informs us – “is an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience,” Muslim violence does not recede, but surges.
One hopes that other commentators — freer to speak the truth than do our leaders, or those “taking a leadership role” — will continue to correct the record, dialing back on this insensate Infidel enthusiasm for Ramadan, both silly and sinister, before it becomes “not just for Muslims anymore.”
-
Ramadan in Orlando, Florida: Muslim murders 20, wounds 42 at gay nightclub after taking hostages
JUNE 12, 2016 8:13 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER
“Police said the gunman was believed to be in his 20s was not a local man, and the FBI believe he may have ‘leanings to radical Islamic terrorism.'”
Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani recently called on Muslims to “get prepared, be ready … to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers…especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America.”
We tried to sound a warning on this, and were vilified for doing so. When AFDI ran ads highlighting the mistreatment of gays in Islamic law, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which is its city council, issued a resolution condemning not that mistreatment, but our ads. Gay advocates such as Theresa Sparks and Chris Stedman attacked us for daring to call attention to the institutionalized mistreatment of gays under Islamic law. Their gay advocacy doesn’t extend to standing up to Sharia oppression of gays, even though that oppression is far more virulent and violent than anything from “right-wing extremists” in the U.S. And you can’t blame them: given the Leftist/jihadist alliance, it’s clear that if they spoke out against Sharia mistreatment of gays, they would no longer be invited to the best parties, and might even be branded as “right-wing.” Their moral cowardice and duplicity, however, are obvious, and monstrous in the light of what has just happened in Orlando.
Will gay leadership wake up to the jihad threat now? Probably not. Instead, they will issue a call for gun control and a declaration of solidarity with Muslims who are experiencing backlash, and leave it at that.
“‘We consider this an act of terrorism’: Suspected Islamic extremist shoots dead at least 20 dead at Florida gay club after bursting in ‘wearing a suicide vest’ and taking hostages – injuring a further 42,” by Matt Hunter and Jenny Stanton, Dailymail.com, June 12, 2016:
A suspected Islamic extremist wielding an assault rifle and a handgun has killed about 20 people after taking party-goers hostage inside a gay nightclub in Orlando.
The gunman was carrying a suspicious device, possibly a suicide vest, when he opened fire inside Pulse in the early hours of this morning.
Orlando Police Chief John Mina said authorities have not determined the exact number of people killed, but that ‘approximately 20’ have died. Another 42 people were taken to hospital.
An FBI spokesman said the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism. He explained authorities are looking into whether this was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was a lone wolf.
Police said the gunman was believed to be in his 20s was not a local man, and the FBI believe he may have ‘leanings to radical Islamic terrorism’.
The killings took place less than four miles from where The Voice singer and YouTube star Christina Grimmie, 22, was shot dead at The Plaza Live in Orlando on Friday.
Party-goers were urged to ‘get out and keep running’ as bullets started flying at around 2am local time.
Eyewitnesses described the gunman having a bomb strapped to himself when he started shooting today.
At around 6.00 local time (11am GMT) police said on Twitter: ‘Pulse Shooting: The shooter inside the club is dead.’ Officers described it as a ‘mass shooting’.
One man who said he was inside the club posted that the shooting broke out around 2 a.m. and that he heard about 40 shots being fired.
Police earlier carried out an controlled explosion at 5.15 local time (10.15am GMT today). but it is not yet clear whether that was linked with the gunman’s death.
It was thought that at least one hostage had been locked in a bathroom with gunshot wounds.
Around 100 officers were involved in the hostage situation before the gunman was killed.
During the gunfire, an officer was shot, but he was saved by his helmet.
Local TV reporter Stewart Moore said that more than 20 people had been shot with an assault rifle.
Jon Alamo said he was at the back of one of the club’s rooms when a man holding a weapon came into the front of the room.
‘I heard 20, 40, 50 shots,’ Alamo said. ‘The music stopped.’
Club-goer Rob Rick said it happened around, 2 a.m., just before closing time. ‘Everybody was drinking their last sip,’ he said.
He estimated more than 100 people were still inside when he heard shots, got on the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth.
A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area in the back where only workers are allowed. People inside were able to then escape through the back of the club.
Christopher Hansen said he was in the VIP lounge when he started hearing gunshots.
‘I was thinking, are you kidding me? So I just dropped down. I just said please, please, please, I want to make it out,’ he said. ‘And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don’t get shot.’
He continued to hear shooting even after he emerged, where police were telling people to back away from the club. He saw injured people being tended to across the street.
Mina Justice was outside the club trying to contact her 30-year-old son Eddie, who texted her when the shooting happened and asked her to call police.
He told her he ran into a bathroom with other club patrons to hide. He then texted her: ‘He’s coming.’
‘The next text said: `He has us, and he’s in here with us,” she said. ‘That was the last conversation.’
Ricardo Almodovar was in the nightclub. He said: ‘Shooter opened fire at around 2.00am. People on the dance floor and bar got down on the floor and some of us who were near the bar and back exit managed to go out through the outdoor area and just ran.
‘I am safely home and hoping everyone gets home safely as well.’ Juan Rivera said on Twitter: ‘Never seen so many dead bodies on the floor, God is good that my friends and I didn’t get shot’.
Anthony Torres heard people screaming that others in the nightclub were dead.
Rosie Feba was in the club with her girlfriend and described the moment the shooting happened to the Orlando Sentinal.
She said: ‘Everyone was getting on the floor.I told her [girlfriend] I didn’t think it was real, I thought it was just part of the music, until I saw fire coming out of his gun.’
A police dispatcher described the incident as an ‘active shooting’. Officers are advising locals to stay away from the area.
He said: ‘There are injuries. I am not sure if there are any deceased at this time.’
‘Officers are going in to search the building and to get people out,’ the dispatcher said.
The police department posted on their official Twitter account: ‘Multiple injuries. Stay away from the area.’
Pulse nightclub said on its Facebook account: ‘Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running.’
Dozens of officers and medics are at the scene including Orlando Fire Department’s bomb squad and hazardous material team.
Police have not given any further updates on the hostage situation or the gunman….
-
The LEFT will ignore the obvious "Islam" terror angle and probably turn this into a gun control issue.
-
The LEFT will ignore the obvious "Islam" terror angle and probably turn this into a gun control issue.
Most underlying facts still unknown or untold. There is an Islam angle, terror angle, gun angle, crazy person angle, political angle, disbelief, shock, grief and just human caused tragedy.
I don't know any way around it, but what these shooters want is publicity, and what we give them is all of that.
The shooting is over, almost no helpful facts are breaking and yet all networks have gone to wall to wall coverage to continue until some ratings expert tells them to go back to regular programming.
The shooter was "radicalized", they think. Radicalized to what? He was looked at by law enforcement a few years ago for his associations. Associations with what? It's Ramadan and this happened. Did he wait for Ramadan? Does that matter? If you aren't radicalized, Ramadan doesn't mean shoot people.
The shooter had guns, redundancy noted. The defenseless people being shot didn't, I assume. Which is the significant point? Both?
Our response is state of emergency (right after there isn't one anymore).
Medical crews are doing everything they can, grief counselors, people coming forward to give blood and help in any way they can. We are good at that.
Perspectives differ. 50 senseless deaths are unthinkable. We had 50 beheadings in an ISIS incident. Murder toll in Chicago is 275 so far this year. That is not a mass shooting.(?) 38,300 people were killed on U.S. roads last year, and 4.4 million injured. Accidental, not intentional. 50-80 million killed in WWII.
Violence at Trump events was caused by Trump offending protesters. Violence at gay event was not caused by gays who offended this shooter.
Everyone is now waiting for President Obama to make a statement. Why?
-
That is the salient point to take away from this event - finally. Islam is INHERENTLY violent. Imams around the world have called for slaughtering infidels during the month of Ramadan.
When will the media stop using these bullshit "hate crime" and "lone wolf" terms? The enemy is known - his motivation is KNOWN. It is ISLAM. Not "radical Islam," - ISLAM.
We are at war - and the enemy is HERE on our soil. Either you recognize and acknowledge this or you make yourself a willing victim. It is long past time for we in the warrior community to be vigilant and armed EVERYWHERE we go. This could happen anywhere - and I think that sadly - it has only begun.
-
Would not surprise me to see Obamster label this a "hate" crime and not Islamic terrorism. It fits their agenda - gay hate crime and gun control. Hate crime does fit but it is certainly Islamic terror even more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/orlando-shooting-religion_us_575d76d5e4b0e39a28add69f?u4ejflhhu8nkx1or
-
Shooter pledged allegiance to Islamic State and Islamic State took responsibility.
Aversion to gayness by some conservatives and some Christians is expressed quite differently than acts from Islamists.
A freedom loving, religious conservative might choose to not go to that club - and be accused of hate for making that choice.
-
"Shooter pledged allegiance to Islamic State and Islamic State took responsibility."
So is this Islamic terror?
I am going to wait and see what our great leader Obama the Great call this.
-
It seems that the shooter's dad, had tried to stand for Afghan President position...at the very least dad was a player in afghan politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAqERW4ip3g (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAqERW4ip3g)
-
Would not surprise me to see Obamster label this a "hate" crime and not Islamic terrorism. It fits their agenda - gay hate crime and gun control. Hate crime does fit but it is certainly Islamic terror even more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/orlando-shooting-religion_us_575d76d5e4b0e39a28add69f?u4ejflhhu8nkx1or
Religion of Peace strikes again..
-
Head of Jewish LGBTQ group fears for Muslims after Orlando jihad massacre
JUNE 12, 2016 8:03 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Muslims were not, of course, the victims of the Orlando jihad massacre, but to Leftists, Muslims are always the victims of every jihad terror attack that other Muslims perpetrate. Idit Klein doesn’t worry that more gays will be the targets of Islamic jihadists; instead, she is worried that “vilification of the Muslim community will certainly be in part a result of this tragedy.” This is a constant refrain after every jihad attack, but that vilification never actually materializes. Trump’s proposal for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration is not “vicious rhetoric,” but an attempt to prevent more jihadis from entering the country. Does Klein have an alternative proposal for how to accomplish that?
No innocent persons should be subjected to “vilification.” The problem is that people such as this Idit and so many others like her classify as “vilification of the Muslim community” any honest examination of the motives and goals of jihad terrorists. And so nothing effective is done to frame the jihad threat realistically, as no one in power wants to be accused of this “vilification.”
Idit Klein
“Head of Jewish LGBTQ group fears for Muslims after attack,” by Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel, June 13, 2016:
The first calls and emails Idit Klein received after hearing the news of the horrific attack that killed at least 50 at an Orlando gay bar on June 12 were from Muslim leaders expressing their sorrow and solidarity.
“Within a very short time of news breaking about the attack colleagues in the Muslim community reached out to say, ‘Our hearts are with you, our prayers are with you. What can we do to express our solidarity?’” said Klein.
Since 2001, Klein has served as executive director of Keshet, a Boston-based national non-profit organization with a $2m. annual budget that works in some 200 communities for LGBTQ equality and inclusion in Jewish life….
For Klein, the immediate condemnation by American Muslim leaders is “historically important.”
Among the many Muslim voices, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Florida) released a statement shortly after the attack condemning the killings.
“We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured,” said CAIR-Florida’s Orlando Regional Coordinator Rasha Mubarak. “The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence.”
Klein said that although some “courageous leaders” have pushed their community, Islam is not known to be progressive on LGBTQ issues. The widespread condemnation of the massive attack which targeted the gay community is “a reason to feel some hope even in this time of sadness….
Klein is equally troubled by the prospect of a backlash against the American Muslim community — those who reached out first upon hearing the news Sunday morning.
This is an election year which has seen a December 2015 call from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslim immigration. The attack, fears Klein, “will inflame the very vicious rhetoric we’ve been hearing regarding Muslims and the Muslim community.
“Vilification of the Muslim community will certainly be in part a result of this tragedy,” she said.
-
“Head of Jewish LGBTQ group fears for Muslims after attack,”
Just absurd
Person thinks he is so "good', so "nice" such a peace loving forgiving and so smart that he can see "beyond" the hatred, beyond the rancor
"kill them with kindness" so to speak
This is just narcissism. We are better than the haters etc.
"“Vilification of the Muslim community will certainly be in part a result of this tragedy,” she said."
Pet peeve of mine is what is with this *community * label for every group imaginable? Why not just Muslims? What is with the Muslim "community" stuff?
Someone recently told me that what was most bothersome about the holocaust is how Jews just so sheepishly just went along for the slaughter. While I am not sure i agree with this this should certainly not happen again.
-
Video: Furious Obama defends his refusal to name the enemy: “What exactly would using this language accomplish?”
JUNE 14, 2016 5:48 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
“What exactly would using this language accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.”
Indeed. But calling things by their right names is always preferable to obfuscation and dissimulation. If there is an Islamic jihad threat, we should call it an Islamic jihad threat. One rhetorical question Obama notably didn’t ask was, “Would calling this threat what it really is help us understand the enemy better and formulate more effective ways to counter it?” To that, the answer is yes.
And his talk about refusing to “validate” al-Qaeda and the Islamic State is just ludicrous. Islamic jihadis aren’t looking to the President of the United States for validation. They aren’t looking to non-Muslims to validate their Islamic authenticity. This is just an excuse for not speaking honestly about the threat, and it’s a dangerous one, since it prevents our law enforcement and military authorities from understanding the threat properly.
“Obama goes on tirade against Trump over ‘dangerous’ Muslim ban, ‘radical Islam,'” by Kevin Liptak and Stephen Collinson, CNN, June 14, 2016:
Washington (CNN)President Barack Obama lit into Donald Trump on Tuesday, turning the tables to make the impassioned case that Trump is the one who’s un-American.
Obama’s extraordinary denunciation of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was about far more than a personal intervention on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the ugly general election campaign.
The commander in chief’s fury, which seethed out of him in a stunning soliloquy on live television, amounted to a moment of historic significance: a president castigating one of the two people who could succeed him as beyond the constitutional and political norms of the nation itself….
“Where does this stop?” Obama asked Tuesday, condemning Trump’s renewal of his call for a ban on Muslim migration and claims that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims are pouring into the country with the “same thought process” as the terrorist behind the Orlando massacre.
“Are we going to start treating all Muslim-Americans differently?” Obama asked. “Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith?”…
“That’s not the America we want,” he said. “It doesn’t reflect our democratic ideals. It will make us less safe.”…
Obama also expressed fury at critiques of his foreign policy, pushing back against criticism for not using the term “radical Islamic terrorism” and calling the debate “a political distraction.”
“What exactly would using this language accomplish? What exactly would it change?” Obama asked during remarks at the Treasury Department. “Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans?” he continued, using a different acronym for ISIS.
“Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above,” he said. “Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.”…
Much of the criticism has centered on Obama’s refusal to use the phrase “radical Islam,” which the White House argues unfairly maligns the entire Islamic faith.
In a brief statement following Obama’s remarks, Trump said Obama “claims to know our enemy, and yet he continues to prioritize our enemy over our allies, and for that matter, the American people.”
“When I am president, it will always be America First,” Trump said. He was expected to respond more fully during an evening event in North Carolina….
In his remarks Tuesday, the President defended his actions against ISIS, lauding the work of the U.S. military in going after terrorists. He said changing his wording about the threat would not alter those efforts….
-
Islamic Terrorism Is Not Domestic Terrorism
The Orlando massacre is not “homegrown extremism.”
June 15, 2016
Daniel Greenfield
Obama described the massacre carried out by Muslim mass murderer Omar Mateen as “an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been concerned about.” But there’s nothing “homegrown” about Omar Mateen. Omar was fighting for a foreign ideology. He just happened to be born in this country. Being born in America does not make him a domestic terrorist.
One of our biggest errors in the fight against Islamic terrorism has been to treat it as a domestic terrorism problem. Islamic terrorism is not domestic terrorism. Not even when its perpetrators, like Omar Mateen or Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, are born in the United States.
What distinguishes domestic terrorism from international terrorism is not the perpetrator’s place of birth.
One of the worst foreign terrorists in American history was Anton Dilger, who, like Hasan, was born in Virginia. As part of the German terrorist campaign against the United States during WW1, which included attacks such as the Black Tom explosion that damaged the Statue of Liberty and was heard in Philadelphia, Dilger plotted a biological warfare campaign that would decimate American horses. Working out of a laboratory near the White House, he experimented with anthrax on animals and his fellow operatives worked to infect as many horses as they could.
This entire episode of history has been largely forgotten. As have its lessons.
Anton Dilger was an international terrorist, despite being born to a Civil War hero, because his agenda was foreign, not domestic. Domestic terrorists seek political change in the United States. International terrorists seek to damage the United States. They are interested in domestic politics only to the extent that it serves their larger agenda for damaging the United States.
Islamic terrorists are not seeking domestic political change the way that Bill Ayers was. They are not domestic elements, but foreign elements. And yet we treat them as if they were domestic terrorists.
Our current strategy of trying to prevent radicalization while assuming that what Islamic terrorists want is to destabilize our political system by “dividing” us is a domestic terrorism response. It might or might not be effective if we were dealing with a domestic terror threat, but we aren’t.
Contrary to what Obama claims, Islam has not always been a part of our history. It isn’t part of us today. It is no more a “part of us” than the German nationalists of WW1 and WW2 who plotted against us were a part of us. Even the most radical left-wing terrorist has something in common with us. The Islamic terrorist has nothing in common with us. He does not share any part of our worldview. He did not emerge from some fork in the road of our history like the left-wing terrorist did. He does not seek to modify our system, but to utterly destroy it and replace it with something completely alien.
Left-wingers radicalize Americans. But they do so by exploiting existing liberal beliefs. Obama demonstrates this every time he invokes some element of American history or thought to push a radical agenda. One crisis after another is manufactured to push people further to the extremes of the left.
This is how radicalization actually works.
Nidal Hasan was not “radicalized”. He was never an American. He was a proud Muslim who happened to be born in the United States. His beliefs did not shift along a domestic political spectrum. Instead, like the German terrorists of WW1, he found that his allegiance to a foreign power impelled him to work against America. This isn’t radicalization. It’s patriotism. But his “Patria”, his homeland, was not ours.
The “Patria” of Islamic terrorists may be the Islamic State, some Al Qaeda emirate or Pakistan or Iran. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that they are a foreign enemy. And our strategy of fighting “radicalization” makes no sense because the problem isn’t radicalism, it’s alienism.
Domestic terrorism springs from a structural conflict within the politics, history and worldview of a nation. Typical examples are left-wing and right-wing terrorism. Contradictions within a nation’s ideals are pushed to the limits resulting in conflict. Arguments over which values should be emphasized and to what degree can lead to radicalism. But Islamic terrorism does not spring from a conflict within America.
Islamic terrorism is a foreign element that has been imported into the United States. It does not emerge from structural conflicts within our society. It cannot be resolved by moving in any direction on the domestic spectrum. It is purely an alien entity that has no natural home within the United States.
In Islamic terrorism, radicalization can only occur within the spectrum of Islam, not within an American spectrum. Which is why Countering Violent Extremism programs to combat Islamic terrorism awkwardly lecture to Muslims about Islam. Underlying the botched CVE enterprise is the recognition that Islamic terrorism is a foreign element. But if Islamic terrorism is a foreign element then efforts to counter it by treating it as a domestic problem are doomed to fail just as treating a sore toe with an antacid is doomed to fail. CVE covertly carries within it the acknowledgement of its own failure.
There is only one element driving Islamic terrorism in the United States. And that is Muslim immigration.
Once we recognize that Islamic terrorism is a foreign element, not a domestic element, then we must also recognize that there can only be only one answer to it. If one of your glands is malfunctioning, then medical intervention will attempt to restore your body to its proper balance. But if the problem is that you are drinking poison, then the only possible solution is to stop drinking poison.
Domestic political radicalism needs to be treated. Foreign radicals just have to be kept out of the country. They are not our problem because they are not a part of us.
The solution to Islamic terrorism is to stop treating it as a domestic problem. Once upon a time we viewed Islamic terrorism as a foreign problem. When the World Trade Center was first bombed, we did not think in terms of radicalization. We saw foreign enemies infiltrating the United States and plotting against us. We didn’t worry what made them that way. Their mindset was not our problem.
After 9/11, we began treating Islamic terrorism as a domestic problem. The process really took off under Obama. The only accepted view now is that Islamic terrorism has to be countered at a domestic level. We have to work with Muslim groups to counter radicalization while making them feel as included as possible in our society. This same program has failed miserably in Europe. It will fail in America.
The only answer to Islamic terrorism is to treat it as a foreign threat. To quarantine its carriers and to build barriers against the entry of the alien virus of its ideology.
We must recognize that Islamic terrorism is not a domestic insurrection, but a foreign act of war and that it must be fought abroad by force and at home through border control.
And if we do that, we will win.
-
In an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says that on Monday, the FBI will release edited transcripts of the 911 calls made by the Orlando nightclub shooter to the police during his rampage.
"What we're not going to do is further proclaim this man's pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups, and further his propaganda," Lynch said. "We are not going to hear him make his assertions of allegiance [to the Islamic State]."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/19/lynch_partial_transcript_of_orlando_911_calls_will_have_references_to_isis_cut_out.html
Islam in America and Obama Dept of Truth Ministry: Exposing his training and motives wouldn't further our goals of stomping on the rights of innocent people and calling this man a lone wolf.
-
In an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says that on Monday, the FBI will release edited transcripts of the 911 calls made by the Orlando nightclub shooter to the police during his rampage.
"What we're not going to do is further proclaim this man's pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups, and further his propaganda," Lynch said. "We are not going to hear him make his assertions of allegiance [to the Islamic State]."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/19/lynch_partial_transcript_of_orlando_911_calls_will_have_references_to_isis_cut_out.html
Islam in America and Obama Dept of Truth Ministry: Exposing his training and motives wouldn't further our goals of stomping on the rights of innocent people and calling this man a lone wolf.
Maintain the narrative, no matter the cost in American lives and freedoms.
-
http://nypost.com/2016/06/18/why-the-lone-wolf-terrorist-is-a-myth/
We can't afford the delusion.
-
http://nypost.com/2016/06/18/why-the-lone-wolf-terrorist-is-a-myth/
We can't afford the delusion.
http://observer.com/2016/06/the-road-to-orlando/
Willful blindness.
-
http://nypost.com/2016/06/18/why-the-lone-wolf-terrorist-is-a-myth/
We can't afford the delusion.
http://observer.com/2016/06/the-road-to-orlando/
Willful blindness.
That's right. Lone wolf is an apologist concoction that cannot be accepted where it is not true.
You can't (falsely) holler "FIRE!" in a crowded theater because of the mayhem it could cause, but you can openly recruit for al Qaida and ISIS on the internet and disseminate bomb and terror info?
These psycho morons want to be part of something. And they want their carnage to be super-broadcasted in false glory to themselves and as an example and inspiration for others to follow. We strangely do everything we can to accommodate their wishes.
It was actually Bill O'Reilly who had one aspect of this right, declare war on ISIS and radical Islam and then these activities of training, even communicating, with the enemy would be criminal.
-
Saudis Kept Two Terror Groups Off U.S. List
And Hillary Clinton adjutant Huma Abedin has ties to both of them.
June 20, 2016
Matthew Vadum
The Saudi Arabian government apparently had so much clout with previous U.S. administrations that they refused to designate as terrorist organizations two terror-funding Islamofascist groups linked to Huma Abedin, now the vice-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Abedin is joined at the hip to Hillary. She is to Mrs. Clinton what Valerie Jarrett is to President Obama.
That two deadly terrorist groups avoided proper scrutiny for years is a chilling reminder of how close Mrs. Clinton's political network is to the brutal Muslim Brotherhood, possibly the Left's favorite Islamist operation. It also underlines the extent to which Islamist enemies of the United States have infiltrated the American political establishment. And it takes on added importance now that polls show the pathologically dishonest Alinskyite radical who wrote the communitarian manifesto It Takes A Village has a significant lead over presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Sifting through archived media reports, Breitbart’s Lee Stranahan discovered it was known in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks that the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and its parent entity the Muslim World League (MWL), both of which are directly funded by Saudi authorities, were financial backers of al-Qaeda.
“The Saudis have probably done more to penetrate Al Qaeda than any other foreign intelligence service, but Al Qaeda in turn has penetrated the Saudi regime,” Newsweek reported the month after 9/11.
Although the IIRO, whose website calls the group the International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia (IIROSA), and MWL “have been used by bin Laden to finance his operations,” they were “left off the list of groups sanctioned by the United States last week, U.S. officials hinted … in order to avoid embarrassing the Saudi government.”
The League acknowledges on its website that it is “engaged in propagating the religion of Islam” and “elucidating its principles and tenets.” It also engages in strategic lying, known in the Islamic world as taqiyya. The League “is well known for rejecting all acts of violence and promoting dialogue with the people of other cultures,” its website claims, adding that it does “not intend to undermine, dominate or practice hegemony over anyone else.”
It claims on the site that it has “external centers,” “external offices,” and “Islamic centers” in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Brazil, Burundi, Canada, Congo, Denmark, Egypt, France, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, United Kingdom, and other countries.
IIRO describes itself as “a charity organization emanating from the Muslim World League.”
Its annual report from 2011/2012 indicates that “thousands of mosques have been built with an average of one mosque a day” and that it has “1,222 staff” worldwide. Under its "Holy Qur'an and Da'wa Program" it has "8,044 male and female students memorizing Qur’an and learning Islamic studies in 306 centres and Qur'an circles." IIRO has "304 Qur'an teachers and supervisors" in "these centres in 29 countries around the world” and sponsors "338 Islamic preachers” in those 29 countries.
Clinton protégé and campaign vice-chairman Huma Abedin, her parents, and her siblings all have intimate ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim World League has reportedly taken in more than $1.3 billion since 1962 from the Saudi government to promote Wahhabism. The League, warns Andrew C. McCarthy, is the Brotherhood’s “principal vehicle for the international propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology.”
Abedin, who is married to disgraced former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), has never publicly explained her disturbing connections to the people who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 or why, despite those ties, she ought to be trusted with state secrets. And when courageous politicians like former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) have tried to sound the alarm about who Abedin really is, they have been relentlessly mocked by the media and politicians from both parties. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) famously suffered from an acute outbreak of faux chivalry on the Senate floor when congressional colleagues dared to ask legitimate questions about Abedin’s loyalty to this country.
Few recall that when Bill Clinton was president in 1996, the CIA believed the International Islamic Relief Organization helped to underwrite six terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan. Harper’s reported in 2004 that the former head of IIRO’s office in the Philippines, who happened to be Obama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, “had been linked to plots to ‘target the pope and U.S. airlines.’”
The year 1996 was also eventful for Abedin. That year the young Michigan-born woman returned to the U.S. after years of living with her jihadist parents and soaking up the militant Islamic culture of Saudi Arabia. She promptly began working for then-first lady Hillary as an intern in the White House. At the same time Abedin was a member of the executive board of the George Washington University chapter of the Muslims Students Association, which was created by the MWL in the 1960s. In 1996 Abedin also began working as assistant editor at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, an Islamist publication of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA).
The Institute was founded in 1979 by the entrepreneurial Islamist Abdullah Omar Naseef who at the time was vice president of the prestigious King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. Naseef, who became MWL secretary-general in 1983, hired the late Dr. Zyed Abedin, Huma’s father, as managing editor of the Journal, and the Abedins relocated to the repressive Saudi kingdom. Huma’s mother is the publication’s editor-in-chief and her brother and sister also work there as editors.
The Harper’s article from 12 years ago added that the U.S. intelligence community believed MWL employees took part in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. Even though both MWL and IIRO funded al-Qaeda, Newsweek reported in October 2001, the Bush administration “left the two organizations off the list of designated terrorist groups in order to spare the Saudi government from embarrassment.” It’s not clear why the Clinton administration suppressed the truth about the two organizations.
Stranahan is optimistic that despite the frantic lies of the Left, the facts about Hillary and Huma will receive proper attention in the current election cycle.
“Defenders of Clinton and Abedin have attempted to spin concerns about Abedin’s disturbing connections as a crazed right-wing conspiracy theory, but the facts are coming out, and with America focused on the presidential race and terrorism, it is just a matter of time before the truth comes out.”
Meanwhile, even as the nation grieves for the 49 innocent Americans gunned down June 12 by Muslim terrorist Omar Mateen at a gay club in Orlando, Fla., members of the media seem blissfully unaware that for five years Hillary Clinton had a real live jihad-loving terrorist on the payroll at her family foundation.
Gehad el-Haddad, an Islamic terrorist leader who jumped straight from his job at the terrorist-friendly international cash-for-favors clearinghouse known as the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation to a post with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, received a life sentence back home last year for seditious Islamist activities.
The professional propagandist may have learned about forcing Sharia law on Egyptians while he was "city director," a senior communications post, at the Clintons' charity from August 2007 to August 2012. (Note: Gehad is the Egyptian version of the Arabic word jihad.) Haddad was the lead English-language spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood and a frequent apologist for the since-ousted President Mohamed Morsi’s violent crackdowns on civil liberties. He put his spin doctoring skills to use downplaying Brotherhood supporters' attacks on women and children.
Hillary Clinton, of course, headed the U.S. Department of State during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 that ousted longtime U.S. ally and anti-Islamist Hosni Mubarak and cleared the way for Morsi, an Obama ally.
It beggars belief that Clinton didn’t know about Haddad’s employment with the Brotherhood. A mere month after Haddad quit his Clinton Foundation job for full-time employment with the Brotherhood in 2012, Morsi received an invitation to deliver a major address at the Clinton Global Initiative, a high-profile project of the foundation.
These things are all just incredible coincidences, Clinton’s defenders will insist.
-
Arrest the Widow, Investigate the Family
The Orlando jihad mass murderer was anything but a “lone wolf.”
June 20, 2016
Robert Spencer
Noor Salman, the wife of Omar Mateen, the Orlando gay nightclub jihad mass murderer, has gone missing, and with good reason: she explodes the idea that Mateen was a “lone wolf” terrorist. She should be arrested – but now she is gone.
Salman witnessed him selling his house to his brother-in-law for $10 – a clear indication that the couple knew jihad was in the offing. She has admitted to law enforcement authorities that she and her husband had recently been “scouting Downtown Disney and Pulse [the nightclub where the jihad massacre took place] for attacks.” Mateen texted her during his massacre, asking if she had seen the news; she responded that she loved him.
As authorities deliberated over whether or not to arrest her, Salman herself showed more dispatch. Last Wednesday, the killer’s father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters that Salman was “no longer here.”
No one seems to have asked Seddique Mateen himself where she has gone, but he probably knows. There are, after all, numerous indications that he may not be as upset about his son’s jihad massacre as he has claimed: he is an open supporter of the Taliban, and the morning after the murders, he posted online a video in which he claims that he was “not aware what motivated” Omar to “go into a gay club and kill 50 people,” but then he adds: “God will punish those involved in homosexuality,” as it is “not an issue that humans should deal with.”
Despite Seddique Mateen’s professed puzzlement over his son’s actions and denial that Omar had been “radicalized,” is it really any wonder that a man who grew up in a household in which the Taliban were held up as positive role models would turn out to be a jihad terrorist? Omar Mateen is known to have cheered at school when al-Qaeda flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001; is it likely that his father, a supporter of al-Qaeda’s allies and collaborators the Taliban, rebuked him for doing so?
While not revealing where Noor Salman is, the family issued a statement saying: “Noor is completely innocent and [was] unaware of the attacks.” It added the claim that she is unable to comprehend “cause and effect.” The mainstream media, always anxious to exonerate Islam from responsibility for the crimes done in its name and in accord with its teachings, even dragged out Salman’s middle school teacher to say: “Noor had difficulty with retention, she had difficulty with conceptualizing, understanding, all challenges to her. She tried hard. She was very sweet.”
All that may be so, but Noor Salman is an adult now, and her difficulty in middle school is irrelevant to whether or not she aided her husband in preparing for his jihad massacre. She should have been arrested, and the whole family needs to be investigated. Former Department of Homeland Security official Philip Haney responded trenchantly to common media claims that Mateen was “self-radicalized”: “As though nobody knew anything – that’s completely preposterous. If you know anything about the Islamic worldview, family and community is ultimately central to everything they do. The concept of operating alone is anathema to the Islamic worldview. They just don’t do it. So, self-radicalization – what does that even mean any more? Nobody is self-anything in this world we live in.”
Yet the feds let Noor Salman slip through their fingers – and whatever Muslim community in which she is hiding now isn’t calling the police to alert them of her whereabouts. Was the FBI too complacent in its politically correct dogma that Muslims in America all hold to a benign, peaceful form of the faith, and that any Muslim in the U.S. who becomes a jihad murderer must have been “radicalized on the Internet,” to be too concerned about the possibility that Omar Mateen’s family was complicit in his attack? How long will it be before Seddique Mateen and the rest of the family absconds, as did Noor Salman?
The Orlando jihad massacre was eminently preventable: the FBI questioned Omar Mateen but deemed him unworthy of close scrutiny, even after a gun shop owner reported him; agents didn’t even bother to visit the shop. This was after Mateen bragged to coworkers about jihad ties, but the FBI called off investigation, dismissing the coworkers as “Islamophobic,” and after Mateen threatened to kill a sheriff and his family, and the FBI dismissed the threat. Now they have let Noor Salman slip through their fingers. Would it have been “Islamophobic” to arrest her? And how many more Americans have to die before the politically correct fantasies that hamstring law enforcement today are discarded?
-
"She should be arrested – but now she is gone."
Does anyone really think she just disappeared?
She is being followed. The FBI can't be that stupid.
They want to see where she leads them.
-
"She should be arrested – but now she is gone."
Does anyone really think she just disappeared?
She is being followed. The FBI can't be that stupid.
They want to see where she leads them.
You've never dealt with the FBI.
-
NPR whitewashes Mateen’s jihadist motive, calling his pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State a publicity stunt
June 20, 2016 2:25 pm By Christine Williams
In the name of political correctness, the leftist ideologues are at it again, abetting jihadists by publicly denying their destructive ambitions for the West. This time, it’s NPR stating that Mateen “evoked ISIS as a ‘cover story’ to gain more publicity.”
This make-it-up-as-you-go approach has no limits in the propaganda war against truth. It’s a privilege to be living in a free democracy where such folly can be openly exposed as the risk to public safety that it is.
It wasn’t enough for broadcaster Scott Simon that Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, or that Mateen cased Disney and the Pulse in the company of his wife; it wasn’t even enough that “Disney notified FBI the couple may have been casing Disney in April”; and that on the day of the Pulse massacre, Mateen posted on the internet: “Now taste the Islamic state vengeance.” For Simon, this was all part of an elaborate publicity stunt.
In addition, although the FBI released transcripts of 911 calls that Mateen made during his massacre and they were redacted with content relating to Islam removed, according to Robert Spencer “even what has been released shows that Orlando jihad mass murderer Omar Mateen was acting avowedly in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings.”
2016-06-20-cbs-tm-911redactions
“NPR: Mateen Only Evoked ISIS as a ‘Cover Story’ to Gain ‘More Publicity’…for Shooting 100!”, by Tim Graham, NewsBusters, June 20, 2016:
On NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, the play-down-Islam game was in full swing. The headline online was “Orlando Shooter Update: Few Warning Signs Point To Radicalization.”
NPR anchor Scott Simon said unnamed federal officials [translation: Obama appointees?] were “struck by the fact that the shooter, Omar Mateen, doesn’t seem to have exhibited any of the warning signs often associated with radicalization. They’re exploring whether Mateen invoked ISIS’s name not because he follows that group, but perhaps in hopes of getting more publicity for his attacks.”….
-
"NPR anchor Scott Simon said unnamed federal officials [translation: Obama appointees?] were “struck by the fact that the shooter, Omar Mateen, doesn’t seem to have exhibited any of the warning signs often associated with radicalization. They’re exploring whether Mateen invoked ISIS’s name not because he follows that group, but perhaps in hopes of getting more publicity for his attacks.”…."
But he certainly DID display warning signs including trips to Arabia and things he said for years.
Obamster swore to protect us. Instead he protects our enemies. If this is not grounds for impeachment. In 235 years we have never had a President so hell bent on making excuses for enemies of our country.
Where is our God damn media on this?
-
From Hot Gas,
Mateens father was at the the White House! Did he know Bamster in chief? Is this how he got DHS contractor job.
This will be scrubbed from the Czar in Chief's media controller's/propaganda bureau.
https://www.hotgas.net/2016/06/guess-islamic-terror-sympathizing-president-white-house/
-
Cops, media hide Idaho girl’s sex assault by Muslim migrants
JUNE 21, 2016 4:12 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
The authorities are in frenzied denial mode about this story. And as is increasingly the norm these days, they’re lying. Journalist Leo Hohmann has found the facts to cut through the Idaho authorities’ politically correct denial and mainstream media obfuscation:
“Cops, media hide Idaho girl’s sex assault by Muslim migrants,” by Leo Hohmann, WND, June 21, 2016:
A 5-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by two boys at an apartment complex in Twin Falls, Idaho — while a third boy filmed the attack — and some local residents are charging the police and city officials with covering up the fact that the boys are from Muslim immigrant families from Sudan and Iraq.
Although not yet confirmed, the alleged perpetrators, ages 14, 10 and 7, appear to be from refugee families.
In a new twist to the story, the Twin Falls City Council met Monday night and was given an earful by residents who warned last year that exactly this type of criminal behavior was being invited into their community through refugee resettlement.
“Islam has declared global jihad on us,” Vicky Davis of Twin Falls told the council. “And Obama, this administration, is bringing them in as fast as he possibly can.”
“They’re on your head, your head, your head, yours, yours,” she said as she pointed at each member of the council.
Twin Falls is one of more than a dozen “pockets of resistance” across the U.S. where residents are protesting the arrival of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and other Muslim nations.
A protest rally took place in the city last fall and residents have been seeking more transparency from the College of Southern Idaho, which is resettling refugees in the area.
The alleged sexual assault occurred on June 2 at Fawnbrook Apartments in Twin Falls. The low-income complex houses at least two immigrant families from Sudan and Iraq.
WND talked to residents of Fawnbrook who sent photographs of women in burqas on the grounds at different times of day.
This photo was taken outside the juvenile detention center in Idaho showing family of two of the Sudanese boys who allegedly stripped and sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl while an older boy filmed them.
Earlier reports that multiple “Syrian” refugees had gang-raped the girl “at knife-point” were inaccurate, however.
“There was no gang rape, there was no Syrian involvement, there were no Syrian refugees involved, there was no knife used, there was no inactivity by the police,” Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs told the Spokesman Review, a local newspaper. “I’m looking at the Drudge Report headline: ‘Syrian Refugees Rape Little Girl at Knifepoint in Idaho’ – all false.”
But an attack did occur and it was perpetrated by Muslim migrants.
Jolene Payne, an 89-year-old retired nurse who lives at the complex, told WND she was an eye witness to the incident and gave her account to police the day after it happened.
“This happened three weeks ago around 3:30. I was sitting on my porch patio and I looked over and saw this boy taking pictures with a camera,” Payne told WND. “He was from Africa or somewhere overseas, standing outside the laundry room taking pictures of kids in the laundry room.”
She said she immediately walked over to the laundry room and opened the door.
“I found them in there. I knew there was something going on because the boy (with the phone camera) was acting funny, he was taking pictures but he was telling the two younger boys what to do,” she said.
She said the boy filming the assault is 14 and the two who were inside the laundry room with the girl are ages 7 and 10, all of whom she described as having “dark cloudy skin and curly hair.”
When she flung open the door she found a disturbing scene.
“The door was cracked enough for him to see the pictures he was taking. I opened that door and I almost fainted when I saw what was going on and here I’m a nurse,” Payne said. “What a pitiful thing for a poor little girl to go through.”
The “little tiny white girl, 5 years old,” was standing there with her clothes off. The two younger boys were also naked.
“The police came and then the next day detectives came and talked to me alone,” Payne said.
“All I know is what I told them. The worst thing was the way they peed all over her clothes and on her too, and I thought that was one of the meanest things I’ve ever saw done,” she added. “And we know those kids must know a lot more than the kids in America of that age. I’ve never seen any of them do anything like that to little girls, and we have a lot of children around here.”
“The little girl had no clothes on. The boys took them off. The littlest boy said ‘we didn’t do it, he told us to,’ pointing to the older boy. They’re just kids that have a mother and they moved here from overseas. The women don’t even talk any English, some of them do, but others don’t. They wear long dresses and long black things on their heads.
‘She was scared to death’
There was no knife involved, Payne said.
“I saw two boys and one little girl scared to death,” she continued. “I told them boys you better get your clothes on. She was scared to death, crying ‘Grandma Jo, Grandma Jo, help me.’ I’m not her grandmother but that’s what all the kids around here call me.”…
-
https://www.clarionproject.org/news/cair-stand-trial-massive-fraud-0
-
How Hillary and Obama Caused the Orlando ISIS Attack
Obama ignored ISIS, Americans died.
June 22, 2016
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
The media has desperately tried to blame anything and everything for the Orlando Muslim massacre. The bloodshed by a Muslim terrorist has been attributed to guns, homophobia, family problems and mental illness. By next week, the media may be blaming global warming and UFOs.
But Omar Mateen told his Facebook friends and a 911 operator exactly why he was doing it. Omar killed 49 people as part of the Islamic State’s war against America.
The motive is there in black and white. This was one of a number of ISIS attacks. The roots of the Orlando attack lie in Iraq forcing us to dig down into Obama’s disastrous mishandling of ISIS. Without understanding what went wrong in Iraq, we cannot understand what happened in Orlando.
Under Bush, Al Qaeda in Iraq had been on the run. Under Obama, it began overrunning the region.
In 2009, Obama vowed a “responsible” end to the Iraq War. He claimed that the “starting point for our policies must always be the safety of the American people”. But the safety of the American people was the first casualty of his foreign policy. In 2011, he hung up his own “Mission Accomplished” sign and boasted that “The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year.” It did not and would not.
Obama claimed that his withdrawal from Iraq and his invasion of Libya were both examples of successful policies. Both countries are now ISIS playgrounds. The “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” Iraq he told the country we were leaving behind was a myth. The new Libya was an equally imaginary and unreal place. ISIS gained power and influence as a result of that chaos. And it used that influence to kill Americans.
Today the battle for Fallujah is raging. When ISIS first took the city, Obama breezily dismissed them as a JayVee team. He specifically insisted that ISIS posed no serious threat to America. “There is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”
“Fallujah is a profoundly conservative Sunni city… And how we think about terrorism has to be defined and specific enough that it doesn’t lead us to think that any horrible actions that take place around the world that are motivated in part by an extremist Islamic ideology are a direct threat to us,” he said.
It is now blatantly and indisputably obvious that ISIS is a direct threat to us. Orlando is yet another reminder of how deeply wrong Obama was about ISIS. Instead of taking action, Obama chose to ignore the expansion of ISIS until it had become a major threat. As a result of its victories, Al Qaeda in Iraq went from an Al Qaeda affiliate to declaring the Islamic State while commanding the allegiance of Muslims around the world. Omar Mateen was one of those Muslims.
If Obama had not dismissed ISIS early on, it would never have gained the level of support that it did. And the Orlando massacre might never have happened.
But Obama was not the only proudly neglectful parent of ISIS. The two key elements in the rise of ISIS were the withdrawal from Iraq and the Arab Spring. The withdrawal gave ISIS freedom of action in Iraq allowing it and its Shiite frenemies in Baghdad to roll back the stability of the Surge. The Arab Spring however destabilized the region so badly that ISIS was able to expand into countries like Syria and Libya. The migration of Jihadists into the region swelled its ranks enormously and turned it from a local problem into a global one.
And the Arab Spring was a project of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama created space for ISIS in Iraq, but Hillary Clinton opened the door for the rise of ISIS in Libya and Syria. Together they helped make ISIS into a regional and then a global player.
Hillary Clinton tried to blame the “internet” for the Orlando attack. But Al Gore’s magical internet did not shoot 49 people in Orlando. For that matter it did not “radicalize” Omar Mateen.
Omar, like many other Muslims, was impressed by the ISIS victories that Hillary’s Islamic regime change project had made possible. He viewed these triumphs not as the result of a disastrous State Department and White House policy, but as proof of the religious authority of ISIS. Omar wanted to join the fight.
Muslim terrorism existed before ISIS. It will exist after ISIS. But there is no doubt that the Islamic State’s claim to having revived the Caliphate and its impressive string of victories against the Iraqi military convinced many Muslims that they were religiously obligated to follow its orders.
And these orders were quite explicit.
ISIS had called for attacks in America during Ramadan. “Hurt the Crusaders day and night without sleeping, and terrorize them so that the neighbor fears his neighbor,” ISIS had told Muslims in the US,
Omar answered the call in Orlando.
Attempting to blame fellow Americans for the actions of ISIS, as Obama has done by emphasizing gun control, only plays into the hands of the Muslim terror group behind the attack. The NRA did not carry out this attack. ISIS did. And ISIS benefited from Obama and Hillary’s foreign policy which allowed it to expand its reach and its popularity until its network of Muslim supporters could strike anywhere.
Obama and Hillary do not want to discuss the role that they played in creating the global conditions that led to the Orlando attack. It’s more convenient for them to blame it on Republicans by emphasizing gun control or homophobia, but discussing an ISIS attack without mentioning ISIS is like talking about WW2 without mentioning Nazi Germany. It’s intellectually dishonest and strategically senseless.
The Orlando massacre was not a local event, but a global one. It must be viewed within the context of a series of ISIS attacks in Europe and America. And ISIS became a global threat on Obama’s watch.
During these pivotal years, Hillary Clinton was the highest ranking foreign policy figure in the country. It is absurd for her to argue that she bears no responsibility for the rise of ISIS. And Hillary Clinton has even defended Obama over his “JayVee” dismissal of ISIS as a direct threat to America.
The Orlando massacre is yet another example of the consequences of Obama and Hillary’s foreign policy. It is not the first such consequence and it will not, by any means, be the last.
-
"The media has desperately tried to blame anything and everything for the Orlando Muslim massacre"
Taking their cues from Bama et al. For GOD"S SAKE Lynch who is supposedly so impartial still has the nerve to state with a straight face "we will probably never know why he did this".
Can any one for one second believe this AG will do the honest/ethical/legal thing with Hillary's emails?
-
Muslim Migrant Sex Assault Comes to Idaho
But the big story is the law enforcement and media cover-up.
June 23, 2016
Robert Spencer
The first hint that something was amiss with this story came in the initial media report about it: Idaho’s “KMVT has confirmed that a reported sexual assault that possibly occurred near the Fawnbrook Apartments is being investigated by the Twin Falls Police Department. The incident allegedly occurred on June 2.” Why the five-day gap between incident and news report? Unexplained. Even more curiously, the story added: “Several unconfirmed reports concerning the case are circulating on social media.” Why would social media be filled with unconfirmed reports about this particular sexual assault? Unexplained.
The explanation for both of these curious aspects of the story came from Twin Falls residents, who began a petition asking that authorities act against the perpetrators, explaining:
The little girl was at the FAWNBROOK apartment buildings where both her parents and grandmother reside. She was playing in between those two apartment units when 3 boys (from 2 Syrian refugee families, ages 8, 10, 13) pulled a knife on her, held it to her throat, forced her into the laundry unit, stripped her naked, raped, and urinated on her. The 13 year old “coached” the younger boys as he videoed. Due to age restraint the boys could not ejaculate but did urinate on her.
But at a local city council meeting, instead of being outraged by this incident and determined to bring the guilty to justice, council members were openly contemptuous and hostile toward citizens who were expressing their concerns about it. Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs was dismissive: “There was no gang rape, there was no Syrian involvement, there were no Syrian refugees involved, there was no knife used, there was no inactivity by the police. I’m looking at the Drudge Report headline: ‘Syrian Refugees Rape Little Girl at Knifepoint in Idaho’ – all false.”
The only problem with this was that Loebs’ string of denials left the essentials of the story intact. The perps were not Syrian, but they were Muslim migrants. There was no rape, but there was sexual assault. The Twin Falls residents’ petition was revised:
This little girl, as stated in the news, was assaulted, and urinated on by three boys under the age of 18. The boys took her into a laundry room and proceeded to take part on the previous stated actions which was videotaped by the eldest boy. The incident as well as the video was submitted to the police department. However, due to the ages of the children involved, this case is being sealed. Many people in this community are in awe, and outraged that minimal consequences will be served to these boys and their parents for this vile incident.
An eyewitness to the incident, Jolene Payne, recounted:
This happened three weeks ago around 3:30. I was sitting on my porch patio and I looked over and saw this boy taking pictures with a camera. He was from Africa or somewhere overseas, standing outside the laundry room taking pictures of kids in the laundry room. I found them in there. I knew there was something going on because the boy (with the phone camera) was acting funny, he was taking pictures but he was telling the two younger boys what to do….The door was cracked enough for him to see the pictures he was taking. I opened that door and I almost fainted when I saw what was going on and here I’m a nurse. What a pitiful thing for a poor little girl to go through.
The worst thing was the way they peed all over her clothes and on her too, and I thought that was one of the meanest things I’ve ever saw done....The little girl had no clothes on. The boys took them off. The littlest boy said "we didn’t do it, he told us to," pointing to the older boy. They’re just kids that have a mother and they moved here from overseas. The women don’t even talk any English, some of them do, but others don’t. They wear long dresses and long black things on their heads.
Since this horrifying story involved Muslim migrants, the mainstream media went into full cover-up mode, focusing on Loebs’ denials to portray the whole thing as right-wing anti-immigrant hysteria. As Daniel Greenfield has noted, that, not the sexual assault, became the story:
Story of Syrian refugees raping Idaho girl is false: authorities - New York Daily News
No, Syrian refugees didn't rape a child in Idaho: Right-wing urban myth - Salon
False story on social media charges Syrian refugees raped Idaho girl - Spokesman
We have seen in recent days, with the White House’s inept attempts to conceal Orlando jihad mass murderer Omar Mateen’s Islamic declarations, that covering for Islam seems to be what the Obama administration considers its primary responsibility. The mainstream media, always in Obama’s pocket, is following along: Muslim migrants brutalizing a little girl in Idaho? That’s not a story. Angry Idaho residents protesting against law enforcement inaction about the assault? That’s not a story, either. Idaho residents getting some details of the story wrong? That’s a story – see, folks? This isn’t about the risks and dangers of importing huge numbers of Muslim migrants. It’s about the racism and xenophobia of ordinary Americans. As are all mainstream media stories having anything to do with Islam in the U.S.
-
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/06/avert-us-versus-dhs-told-ban-religiously-charged-terms-jihad-sharia-anti-terror-programs/
-
Sorry "Left" . But nice try. No evidence this was all an anti gay hate crime:
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/06/24/fbi-no-evidence-omar-mateen-gay/
Shucks I guess we'll just never know. :wink:
-
http://pamelageller.com/2016/07/u-s-accepts-record-number-of-syrian-refugees-in-june-despite-terrorist-screening-worries.html/
-
http://pamelageller.com/2016/07/u-s-accepts-record-number-of-syrian-refugees-in-june-despite-terrorist-screening-worries.html/
No worries, only 10% will actively wage jihad.
-
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/somali-muslims-march-upscale-mn-town-threaten-rape-homeowner-video/
-
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/somali-muslims-march-upscale-mn-town-threaten-rape-homeowner-video/
Strange, I thought the Somalis were famous for their friendliness and civility. Members of the religion of peace as well!
-
Obama whistleblower: Terror-linked Muslim groups helping set policy, costing lives
JULY 6, 2016 4:32 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Malfeasance on a grand scale. I detailed in my 2013 book Arab Winter Comes to America how the Fort Hood and Boston Marathon jihad massacres could have been prevented, were it not for politically correct willful ignorance at the highest levels. And now Philip Haney is revealing that the situation is even worse than was previously known.
“Obama Whistleblower: Terror-Linked Muslim Groups Helping Set Policy, Costing Lives,” by Philip B. Haney, Breitbart, July 6, 2016:
Last week I testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts at a hearing entitled, “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism.”
I am a recently retired Customs & Border Protection (CBP) agent. I was named a Founding Member of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at its inception on March 01, 2003. During my 12 years serving inside DHS under two administrations, I witnessed a series of events which ultimately prompted me to become a whistleblower, releasing critical documents to Members of Congress as I felt necessary to comply with my oath to the Constitution.
First, in January of 2008, I received what is now known as the “Words Matter Memo,” which was circulated internally by the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) division of DHS. The full title of the document was “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims,” and it read in part:
[T]he experts counseled caution in using terms such as, “jihadist,” “Islamic terrorist,” “Islamist,” and “holy warrior” as grandiose descriptions.
Collapsing all terrorist organizations into a single enemy feeds the narrative that al-Qaeda represents Muslims worldwide.
We should not concede the terrorists’ claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam. Therefore, when using the word [Islamic], it may be strategic to emphasize that many so-called “Islamic” terrorist groups twist and exploit the tenets of Islam to justify violence and to serve their own selfish political aims.
Regarding jihad, even if it is accurate to reference the term (putting aside polemics on its true nature), it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have, and damages relations with Muslims around the globe.
I submitted a seven-point response listing serious substantive concerns about this memo, but received no response.
On November 24, 2008, a decision came down in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, the largest terror financing case in American history. During that trial, the federal government had established that a number of organizations were appropriately named as unindicted co-conspirators along with HLF, including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).
Specifically, the judge ruled that federal prosecutors had “produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF… and with Hamas.” In addition, the judge ruled that that these organizations had direct links to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the oldest and largest Islamic fundamentalist organizations in the world, founded in 1928 in Egypt to reestablish the Caliphate, whose motto includes “Jihad is our way, and death in the service of Allah is the loftiest of our wishes.”
I made note of the decision, and explored links between these groups and potential extremist and terrorist activity. But on October 15, 2009, I was ordered by DHS to ‘modify’ linking information in about 820 subject records in the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, or “TECS records” to remove ‘unauthorized references to terrorism.’ I was further ordered not to input any more Memoranda of Information Received, or MOIRs, to create no more TECS records, and to do no further research on the topics I was exploring.
On November 5, 2009, at Ft. Hood, Texas, Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 people, including one who was pregnant, and wounded 32 others, while calling out “Allahu akbar!” meaning “God is great” in Arabic.
Hassan was a U.S. Army major who had exchanged emails with leading al Qaeda figure Anwar Awlaki – which the FBI had seen and decided not to take action – in which he asked whether those attacking fellow U.S. soldiers were martyrs. He had also given a presentation to Army doctors discussing Islam and suicide bombers during which he argued Muslims should be allowed to leave the armed forces as conscientious objectors to avoid “adverse events.” The Pentagon refused for five years to grant victims Purple Hearts, designating the attack “workplace violence.”
On January 27-28, 2010 an ‘Inaugural Meeting’ occurred between American Muslim leaders and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, hosted by DHS CRCL. The Inaugural Meeting created controversy because it included a number of Islamic fundamentalist individuals and organizations.
For instance, the meeting included at least one organization that was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 HLF Trial and established to have associations with the now-shuttered HLF and with Hamas, namely ISNA. According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), the group’s representative who attended the meeting, Ingrid Mattson, has “an established pattern of minimizing the nature of extremist forms of Islam and rationalizing the actions of Islamist terrorist movements.” Another invited group, the Muslim American Society (MAS), was actually formed as the United States chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1993.
Likewise, in the Spring of 2010, the Administration convened the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group under the authority of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), again raising questions because of those named to it.
They included Omar Alomari, who once wrote that jihad was “the benign pursuit of personal betterment. It may be applied to physical conflict for Muslims, but only in the arena of Muslims defending themselves when attacked or when attempting to overthrow oppression and occupation,” asserting further that “”Jihad as a holy war is a European invention, spread in the West”; Mohamed Elibiary, who has asserted that it was “inevitable that [the] ‘Caliphate’ returns” and ultimately was let go from the HSAC amid charges he misused classified documents; and Dahlia Mogahed, who has decried “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism” and holds that “Islamic terrorism’ is really a contradiction in terms” to mainstream Muslims “because terrorism is not Islamic by definition.”
So by the Spring of 2010, we had come to the point that a CBP Officer was literally removing information connecting the dots on individuals with ties to known terror-linked groups from TECS, while the Administration was bringing the same individuals into positions of influence, to help create and implement our counter-terror policy, in the context of actual terror attacks taking place.
On August 30, 2011, the DHS Chief Council approved a project I initiated looking into Islamic fundamentalist group Tablighi Jamaat (TJ). On November 15, 2011, I began a temporary duty assignment at the National Targeting Center (NTC). A short time later, I was assigned to the Advanced Targeting Team, where I worked exclusively on the TJ Project, which was quickly upgraded to a global-level case.
On March 15, 2012, seven lawyers and three senior executive service (SES) administrators met with management personnel at the NTC to express concern for our focus on TJ, because it is not a designated terrorist group, and therefore the project might be “discriminating” against its members because they are Muslim. On June-July, 2012, the TJ Initiative was ‘taken in another direction,’ (i.e. shut down). The Administration took this action despite the fact that [1] in nine months, we had conducted 1,200 law enforcement actions, [2] I was formally commended for finding 300 individuals with possible connections to terrorism, and [3] 25% of the individuals in Guantanamo Bay had known links to Tablighi Jamaat.
On August 22, 2012, The Institute of Islamic Education (IIE) case that today links both the Darul Uloom Al-Islamiya mosque attended by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the San Bernardino shooters, and the Fort Pierce mosque attended by Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, was entered into TECS. But once again, on September 21, 2012, all 67 records in the IIE case were completely deleted (not just ‘modified’) from TECS.
On September 21, 2014, I was relieved of my service weapon, all access to TECS and other programs was suspended, my Secret Clearance was revoked, and I was sequestered for the last 11 months of my career with no assigned duties.
On December 2, 2015, the San Bernardino shootings occurred, and I immediately linked the mosque in San Bernardino to the IIE case (with the 67 deleted records), and to the Tablighi Jamaat case (which was shut down).
On June 09, 2016, the Homeland Security Advisory Council Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Subcommittee issued an Interim Report and Recommendations. The report recommended in part using American English instead of religious, legal and cultural terms like “jihad,” “sharia,” “takfir” or “umma.”
On June 12, 2016, the shootings in Orlando occurred, and I linked Omar Mateen’s mosque in Fort Pierce, FL to the IIE & TJ case. And on June 19, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that her Department of Justice would release redacted 9-11 call transcripts for Mr. Mateen.
The threat of Islamic terrorism does not just come from a network of armed organizations such as Hamas and ISIS, who are operating ‘over there’ in the Middle East. In fact, branches of the same global network have been established here in America, and they are operating in plain sight, at least to those of us who have been charged with the duty of protecting our country from threats, both foreign and domestic….
-
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/somali-muslims-march-upscale-mn-town-threaten-rape-homeowner-video/
Strange, I thought the Somalis were famous for their friendliness and civility. Members of the religion of peace as well!
They are bout as peaceful as the 911 hijackers on Sept 10, and on Sept 11. The radical ones look a lot like the peaceful ones - right before they blow you up.
Is DFL Minnesota going to prosecute Muslim rape victims - or reject Sharia Law? Can't we all just learn to honor and accept the local customs that our new neighbors bring?
How did these savages get citizenship or safe haven? Liberals wondering where Trump and Brexit came from should ask themselves that?
"No hate-crime charges are apparently being considered by either the Minnesota authorities or the Obama Justice Department headed by Loretta Lynch." - for resisting Muslim rape?
Shard values: The Muslims, gays and Jews in Minneapolis have all found a political home in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. Rapists and rape victims, murderers and the murdered, wealthy elites and the free shit crowd, can't we all just get along? The farmer and labor parts of that old coalition are drifting over to the R's.
-
Objectivist:
Posted that on my FB page-- audience of 5,000.
-
http://teaching.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000000/000017/html/t17.html
-
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/06/29/trial-10-minnesota-jihadis-guilty-ignored-media/
-
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/06/29/trial-10-minnesota-jihadis-guilty-ignored-media/
"With an estimated 100,000 plus Somali immigrants settled in Minnesota, brought there by the federal government..."
This is such a big story in so many ways and is being ignored by the media. Powerline blog has covered it in detail, but Scott Johnson from Powerline (writing in City Journal) was Breitbart's only source too.
They were brought here by the federal government?! Why Minnesota, the place where they will assimilate worst? Did they assimilate? No. Do they join the Jihad? Yes, significant numbers do. Many were already arrested for joining al Qaida. Now it's ISIS.
The crucial point is that our government is still planning to bring many many more 'refugees' from the region to America, (and Europe, etc.) Are significant numbers of those people ISIS sympathizers? Yes. Will some of them join the Jihad? Yes. Will they attack us here? Yes. Do they want to come in order to assimilate, join our communities, become Americans? No, they keep their own communities, set them up here and insist we accept their ways. Do they bring special job skills needed by our high tech economy? No. Will they bring in more revenue than they cost us? No. Is there any positive side of this? Yes. They are believed to be reliable Democratic voters.
The Startribune couldn't tell the story without focus on the appeal, entrapment and attacking the "all-white jury", a line right out of Rubin Carter and the story of 'Hurricane'.
http://bobdylan.com/songs/hurricane/
Was the Somali Jihadists' trial about incontrovertible evidence or was it about the race of the jury?
http://www.startribune.com/jury-reaches-verdict-in-isil-recruitment-trial/381796251/
http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-s-somali-american-terrorism-trial-is-over-can-we-still-get-justice/382031441/
Maybe ee could have been culturally sensitive and tried them in a Sharia court and had them judged by a jury of their Jihadi peers...
-
"They were brought here by the federal government?! Why ?"
Perhaps a cynical move by your illustrious Senator Franken in cohoots with Bama.
Perhaps they wanted to learn skiing or skating or take up ice hockey:
*****Climate Somalia[edit]
Somalia map of Köppen climate classification.
Arabian horses, referred to as faras, seen here in the arid plains of Dhahar
Due to Somalia's proximity to the equator, there is not much seasonal variation in its climate. Hot conditions prevail year-round along with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall. Mean daily maximum temperatures range from 30 to 40 °C (86 to 104 °F), except at higher elevations along the eastern seaboard, where the effects of a cold offshore current can be felt. In Mogadishu, for instance, average afternoon highs range from 28 to 32 °C (82 to 90 °F) in April. Some of the highest mean annual temperatures in the world have been recorded in the country; Berbera on the northwestern coast has an afternoon high that averages more than 38 °C (100 °F) from June through September. Nationally, mean daily minimums usually vary from about 15 to 30 °C (59 to 86 °F).[142] The greatest range in climate occurs in northern Somalia, where temperatures sometimes surpass 45 °C (113 °F) in July on the littoral plains and drop below the freezing point during December in the highlands.[10][142] In this region, relative humidity ranges from about 40% in the mid-afternoon to 85% at night, changing somewhat according to the season.[142]****
-
The Somalians were brought to MN for ice hockey, very funny!
"Due to Somalia's proximity to the equator, there is not much seasonal variation in its climate." - Same here. )
I'm guessing this started before Al Franken, but the question remains, why?
They were brought here to collect benefits and vote Democratic, or to wage war against us, or both.
-
The Somalians were brought to MN for ice hockey, very funny!
"Due to Somalia's proximity to the equator, there is not much seasonal variation in its climate." - Same here. )
I'm guessing this started before Al Franken, but the question remains, why?
They were brought here to collect benefits and vote Democratic, or to wage war against us, or both.
The left has decided to dissolve the American public and replace it with one more to their liking.
-
Yup.
:x :x :x
-
https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/exclusive-sanders-delegate-member-fuqra-terror-cult
Many Muslim groups say Ul Fukra is a jihadi organization
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/muslims-join-clarion-call-ul-fuqra-be-foreign-terrorist-org
-
Surprising no one, with an IQ above room temp.
https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/exclusive-sanders-delegate-member-fuqra-terror-cult
Many Muslim groups say Ul Fukra is a jihadi organization
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/muslims-join-clarion-call-ul-fuqra-be-foreign-terrorist-org
-
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/06/16/obama-vs-sun-tzu-deadly-price-not-making-threat-assessment/
-
http://counterjihad.com/abdourahman-alamoudi-jailed-al-qaeda-financier-frequented-clinton-white-house
-
Sarah Penskey is not her real name.
Sarah Penskey was in her garage unpacking boxes on a sunny morning in late June when she was approached by several bearded Somali men in their early to mid-20s.
It was the last week of Ramadan, and the men were wearing traditional Islamic robes.
The uninvited visitors to this posh Minneapolis neighborhood known as Linden Hills – situated among tall trees just off of Thomas Beach on Lake Calhoun – ground to a halt beside Penskey’s house that morning.
They came in a white RAV 4 Toyota and a dark-colored van, catching her unawares as she walked out of her garage to put something in her trash can.
It was just the day before that another group of Somalis had driven through the neighborhood and approached her as she was turning on her sprinkler, but they were younger, in their late teens and dressed in basketball shorts, not robes.
Penskey, blonde with an hourglass figure, quickly became an object of their curiosity.
“Hey, you have a beautiful house,” they said. “You’re beautiful, too. Can we move in with you?”
“Thank you. Have a nice day at the beach,” she replied, dismissively, walking back into her house and doing her best to, as she says, “diffuse the situation.”
The older group that showed up the next day was not so subtle. Nor would they be so easily dismissed.
“Hey, hey… hey,” they yelled as she was taking out her trash.
“Yes?”
“We want to live in your house. We want to marry you.”
“No, I already have a husband, but have a good day,” Penskey replied.
The men starting jostling with each other and yelling things that were hard to understand. At least five other cars were driving recklessly through the narrow streets, setting off bottle rockets, their passengers hanging off of the door frames, some even riding on the hood, yelling, “Jihad!”
They ran over some neighbors’ lawns and reportedly beat up one resident’s dog.
“Do you know Shariah law?” one of the older men in robes yelled at Penskey.
Having lived overseas, Penskey knew about Shariah law and its rules for man-woman relationships and Muslim-non-Muslim relationships.
“Yes,” she said, walking back toward her garage.
“We can kidnap you and rape you!” the men shouted back at her.
She shut the garage door and ran inside to call police.
“I didn’t yell at them. I didn’t do anything, just tried to shut the door and get back inside, so it’s like there were some bad apples one day, and then there were some really bad apples the next,” Penskey told WND in a phone interview Wednesday. Her husband was not home during either of her first two encounters with the Somali men.
Many neighbors called police on the second morning of what some are calling the Somali “wilding,” a day of brazen intimidation that started in Linden Hills using fireworks and fake guns and spread to the adjacent beach on Lake Calhoun.
“On the second day, multiple neighbors were running out, trying to get license plate numbers, and were on the phone with the police. They were running outside, barefoot. One woman came and swept up her child and took her back in the house,” Penskey said. “Imagine six cars driving 50 mph through a residential street, then slamming on the brakes, driving on lawns, exploding fireworks. They almost hit one child and actually did hit one of their own.”
Several of the Somalis carried black flags that Penskey said resembled the ISIS flag.
A man in his sixties was reportedly threatened by one Somali who demanded that he erase the picture of his license plate from the man’s camera.
Police took up to three hours to arrive. The dispatchers told Penskey they didn’t have enough officers on duty to confront 20 or more men. The police did periodic drive-bys to monitor the situation. When they did show up, the worst offenders were gone.
The police report says officers arrived to find a female victim, Penskey, who was “very distraught and alone. Crying.”
She had called 9-1-1 three times that day. An officer arrived once earlier but only wrote a minor traffic ticket to one of the rioters. The main instigators had fled before police got there.
Read WND’s initial report from earlier this week on the terrorizing of Linden Hills by Somali refugees.
Police: ‘This is a very unusual case’
John Elder, public information officer with the Minneapolis Police Department, told WND Wednesday there have been no arrests in the incident to date.
“There remains an active investigation, and I am very limited in what I can say due to the fact that it is an active investigation,” Elder said. “We continue to work with the community, and continue to interview folks, but no arrests have been made at this point.”
WND asked if any arrests were anticipated.
“I can’t comment on that,” Elder said.
Is this type of activity common in Minneapolis?
“This is an unusual case, yep,” the officer said.
The case is being investigated as a situation involving potential terroristic threats. Penskey said the FBI has also visited her and is taking the case very seriously.
Day 3: Men in robes return
And the terrorizing of Linden Hills didn’t stop after that second day.
The men returned for a third straight morning, June 28, and this time Penskey’s husband was home, standing out in the yard as they approached.
It was the younger group of Somalis this time, not the older ones dressed in robes. Within minutes, the older provocateurs were back, however, with their robes and their duffel bags, their flags and their bottle rockets, shouting their threats in this strange form of jihad.
But this time they had a surprise for the targets of their terror.
“They slowed the car down, waved at my husband with the windows open and played a recording of what sounded like a woman being raped, blasted it from their car speakers,” Penskey said. “Then they parked their car, and my husband came upstairs and said call 9-1-1 now and stay away from the windows.”
The robed Somalis scared vacationers off the beach that morning, reportedly using their duffel bags as fake guns, pointing them at families and pretending to shoot them, one by one.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/woman-gives-chilling-1st-hand-account-of-muslim-rape-threat/#tf8Ilv1AusMKcdvW.99
-
We are lied to.
-
That is what Obama and Hillary are dedicated to bringing more off to America , , , :x :x :x
================
OTOH, moving this post by CCP to this thread:
So ERic Adelson feels that Ibtihaj Muhammad should be the US flag bearer in the Olympics because this is "who we are now" and that is NOT politicizing the choice.
Yeah right! tongue
Team USA Opening Ceremony flag bearers
A look at the athletes who’ve carried the flag for Team USA over the years in the Olympics Opening Ceremonies.
RIO DE JANEIRO – Every four years, the United States gets to tell a distinctly American story in a very unique way — by selecting a flag bearer for the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. This year, the U.S. chose a story that has been told before.
The selection of Michael Phelps, as decided by athlete vote, is certainly a good one. He is the greatest Olympian of all time, not only synonymous with his sport but someone who has lifted swimming in an unprecedented way. The fact that Phelps is so familiar to all audiences is a tribute to how hard he’s worked and how much he’s accomplished. He is a legendary American.
But the choice of flag bearer is an opportunity to say, “This is who we are.” Everyone around the world knows Phelps is who we are. But not everyone knows the stories of some of the other candidates, and why they are so meaningful. Not everyone knows the story of Ibtihaj Muhammad.
Muhammad, raised by a police officer and a teacher, is a fencer who went to Duke, where she got degrees in African and African-American Studies and International Relations. She is also a devout Muslim. She will become the first American Olympian woman to compete in a hijab.
Too often, the sight of a hijab or even the mention of “Muslim” brings misconception and fear. Just recently, there was a woman on an airplane who asked to move seats because she saw a woman in a hijab texting “Allah” on her phone. At a recent presidential town hall event, one voter in New Hampshire challenged the candidate to replace TSA workers in hijabs.
“Why aren’t we putting our military retirees on that border or in TSA?” she asked. “Get rid of all these hebee-jabis they wear at TSA. I’ve seen them myself. We need the veterans back in there to — they’ve fought for this country and defended it, they’ll still do it.”
Lost on this voter was the fact that many of those who wear hijabs have represented our country, served our country and sacrificed for our country. There are nearly 6,000 Muslims in the military, according to the Department of Defense. Many Muslims have died for our country, and that was made powerfully clear in Khizr Khan’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. He is a Gold Star parent, as his son gave his life defending the U.S. in Iraq in 2004. The media has focused on what Khan’s speech means for the upcoming election, but Khan’s turn in the spotlight has brought more attention to the complex meaning of being Muslim in America. So did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s speech. So did the national reflection on the passing of Muhammad Ali.
The easy response to support for Ibtihaj Muhammad as flag bearer is that choosing her would be “politicizing” the Opening Ceremony. That it would be picking sides in a heated presidential race.
But this argument doesn’t hold up. Choosing Muhammad would have simply been an expression of America’s diversity, and that in these Games, because of her accomplishment, we are a little more diverse than ever. This is not only who we are, but this is who we are now.
Other Olympians tell a similar story of change and growth. Carlin Isles missed his chance as a sprinter in 2012 and now comes to Rio as a rugby player in the sport’s return to the Olympics after nearly a century. Bernard Lagat is here, at age 41, as the oldest American Olympic runner ever. Jordan Burroughs fought extremely hard to keep wrestling as an Olympic sport. Water polo player Tony Azevedo is in his fifth Olympics, returning to the city of his birth.
[Fourth-Place Medal: Phelps meets idol Novak Djokovic in Rio]
It’s not that these choices would have been better than Phelps. These are all American heroes, and when the team walks into the Maracana Stadium on Friday, all Olympians are the same. But Phelps has had, and will always have, the opportunity to tell his own story. He will always have a rapt audience for whatever he does. The flag bearer gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to tell his or her story simply by walking in with Old Glory. He or she also gets to tell the evolving story of a nation. America is different now than it was in 2012, and in 2008.
That’s the best story to tell, in the Opening Ceremony and in every Olympics.
-
DOES THE FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECT WARRIOR RELIGIONS?
A frightening glimpse into the European future -- and its dire warning to America.
August 5, 2016 William Kilpatrick
Reprinted from CrisisMagazine.com.
After every Islamic terrorist attack, whether in Europe or the U.S., people ask what can be done to prevent it from happening again. But when the obvious solutions are proposed, they are invariably met with the objection that “you can’t do that,” or “that’s unconstitutional,” or words to that effect.
Some of the obvious solutions are to close radical mosques and radical Islamic schools, to monitor suspected mosques, to deport radical imams, and, of course, to restrict Muslim immigration or ban it altogether. If you dare to say such things, however, it quickly becomes apparent that—for many, at least—only politically correct solutions are acceptable. The trouble is, the politically correct crowd doesn’t have any solutions. In the memorable words of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, “France is going to have to live with terrorism.”
Catholics are frequently in the forefront of those who object to these “drastic” measures for preventing terrorism in the West. Pope Francis, for example, has made generosity to refugees and immigrants a hallmark of his papacy. Christians, he has reminded us on several occasions, should build bridges, not walls. Others, Catholics among them, have objected that restrictions on Islamic immigration would violate the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution—as would surveillance of mosques and Islamic societies.
Catholics are understandably touchy about the subject of religious liberty. But concerns over Christians being forced to bake cakes for same-sex weddings shouldn’t be allowed to overshadow some other basic questions about religious liberty.
One of the questions is this: does a religion that doesn’t believe in religious freedom for others qualify for First Amendment protection? Another, related question might be framed as follows: Is a religion that calls for the subjugation of other religions entitled to the “free exercise” of that mandate? The underlying issue, of course, is whether or not Islam really qualifies as a religion. As any number of authorities have pointed out, Islam is a hybrid—part religion and part a geo-political movement bent on world domination.
The “world domination” bit, by the way, is not confined to the fevered imaginations of right-wing fanatics. In a recent interview with Religion New Service, Cardinal Raymond Burke said “there’s no question that Islam wants to govern the world.” “Islam,” he continued, “is a religion that, according to its own interpretation, must also become the State.”
Here’s what I had to say about the matter four years ago:
Does this [the 1st Amendment] make the exercise of religion an absolute right to do anything in the name of religion? Should the free-exercise clause be extended to protect suicide cults or virgin sacrifice? The First Amendment also prohibits the establishment of a state religion, but one of the main purpose of Islam is to establish itself as the state religion. It can be argued that Islam’s raison d’etre is to be the established religion in every nation. Hence, another question must be asked: does the First Amendment protect its own abolishment?
Cardinal Burke is a canon lawyer—a profession that requires one to choose words carefully. Hence, when he talks about Islam becoming the State, he should be taken seriously. According to him, “when they [Muslims] become a majority in any country then they have the religious obligation to govern that country.” As we have seen, however, long before Muslims become a majority they begin demanding that their fellow citizens comply with sharia laws regarding diet, dress, and blasphemy. Allowing Muslims the full and free exercise of their faith is tantamount to restricting the freedom of others. Or, as Dutch MP Geert Wilders likes to say, “more Islam” means “more intolerance” for everyone else.
Wilders is referring to the consequences that follow upon the mass migration of Muslims into Europe. Although his was once a lonely voice, numerous polls show that the majority of Europeans now believe along with him that Islam does not belong in Europe. Pope Francis, on the other hand, has been in the habit of chiding Christians for their opposition to accepting more Muslim immigrants. He recently went so far as to warn them that they will have to answer to Christ at the Last Judgment because he (in the guise of the migrant) was homeless, and they did not take him in.
But, although charity is the paramount Christian virtue, there is another virtue that governs the exercise of charity. It’s called “prudence.” And prudence would suggest that spiritual leaders and secular leaders should exercise caution when advocating acts of charity that put the lives of others at risk. In Europe, there are now numerous prudential reasons for slowing or halting the flow of Muslim immigration: the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the Bataclan Theater massacre, the massacres at the Brussels airport and subway, the massacre at Nice, the Munich mall massacre, the axe attack aboard a German train, the bomb attack on a wine bar in the city of Ansbach, and the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults which targeted over 1,200 German women.
The most recent outrage was the slaughter of a French priest, Fr. Jacques Hamel, by two Islamic terrorists who burst into a church in Normandy during Mass and slit his throat. Pope Francis condemned the attack, but on the same day in Krakow he spoke once again about the need to welcome refugees. He called for “solidarity with those deprived of their fundamental rights, including the right to profess one’s faith in freedom and safety.”
But how about the right of Christians and Jews to profess their faith “in freedom and safety?” Fr. Hamel is no longer free to profess his faith, and now that the Islamic State has proclaimed its intention to target more churches in Europe, Christians are going to feel considerably less safe at Sunday service. Jews in Europe already know the feeling. Most synagogues in Europe are now protected by security guards during Saturday services.
But if you really want to see the European future, just look at those nations where Muslims are already a majority. In Nigeria, where Muslims make up about 60 percent of the population, Christians are regularly attacked during church services, and on some occasions entire congregations have been burned alive inside their churches.
All of which prompts a question: should Western nations passively stand by as their own population balance shifts in the direction of Nigeria’s? A curtailment or a moratorium on Muslim immigration is one of the obvious solutions to the problem of terrorism in the West. But, as I’ve suggested above, many Americans think that such a moratorium would be unconstitutional. After all, doesn’t the Constitution forbid a “religious test” in scrutinizing immigrants? Indeed today’s top news story concerns the attack on Donald Trump by the father of a slain Muslim soldier. At the Democratic Convention, Khizr Khan challenged Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration by asking: “Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?”
In fact, the Constitution has no ban on a religious test for immigration. In a recent National Review piece, Andrew McCarthy points out that Article VI of the Constitution states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The clause has nothing to do with immigration and, as our bien pensants like to say, it has nothing to do with Islam.
The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 actually gives the president wide latitude in restricting immigration:
Whenever the president finds that the entry of aliens or any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, the president may … suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
One of the main intents of the act was to prevent communist ideologues from entering the country, but it was also invoked in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter to keep Iranians out of the U.S. And—surprise—according to McCarthy, “under federal law, the executive branch is expressly required to take religion into account in determining who is granted asylum.” As McCarthy notes:
We have a right to require scrutiny of the beliefs of aliens who petition for entry into our country … this includes beliefs the alien may regard as tenets of his faith—especially if such ‘faith tenets’ involve matters of law, governance, economy, combat and interpersonal relations that in our culture’s separation of church and state are not seen as spiritual.
In short, if you believe your religion allows you to execute apostates or subjugate infidels, don’t bother to apply.
When Pope Francis visited Poland for World Youth Day, security in Krakow was at its highest level. Forty thousand security personnel were deployed and, according to The Guardian:
Mobile X-ray devices and metal detectors, as well as dogs trained to detect explosives, are in use at railway and bus stations, major road hubs and venues where papal events are due to take place. Police said that gas tankers and large trucks had been banned from Krakow following the use of a 19-ton truck in a terrorist attack in Nice earlier this month.
Does that suggest anything? Are the officials worried that Protestants or Jews are going to attack the Catholic youth? Are they fearful that Buddhist will attempt to bomb the popemobile? Before the era of mass Muslim immigration into Europe, such precautions would have been deemed as overkill. Now they seem like prudent measures to prevent overkill. The heightened security at World Youth Day and all over Europe is a tacit acknowledgement that Islam differs radically from all other religions. This is a point that Cardinal Burke made in his interview when he criticized Catholic leaders who “simply think that Islam is a religion like the Catholic faith or the Jewish faith.” Just so. It’s well past time to question whether a religion with totalitarian ambitions should be treated like all other religions.
In the Guardian story about the Pope’s visit to Poland, he is described as a “modern pope.” But in some respects he, along with many bishops, seems to belong to an earlier era—an era when it seemed that all people desired nothing more than peace and friendship. At a time when the world is faced with the resurgence of a seventh-century warrior religion, that sixties sensibility no longer seems so modern.
-
https://mic.com/articles/149996/donald-trump-adviser-rudy-giuliani-says-it-s-time-to-start-electronically-tagging-muslims?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=WHFacebook&utm_content=inf_10_285_2&tse_id=INF_52a7dcf05be511e6b7dc69ca5c618d1d#.rsIl8dXBe
-
Pamela Geller–Undercover FBI Agent Told Garland Jihadist: ‘Tear Up Texas’
by PAMELA GELLER 8 Aug 2016
The Daily Beast recently reported that “days before an ISIS sympathizer attacked a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, he received a text from an undercover FBI agent. ‘Tear up Texas,’ the agent messaged Elton Simpson days before he opened fire at the Draw Muhammad event, according to an affidavit (pdf) filed in federal court Thursday.”
The Beast’s Katie Zavadski also revealed that the undercover agent was at our free speech event in Garland, where Simpson and Nadir Soofi attempted a jihad massacre.
Zavadski and others in the left-wing media have pounced on the incitement, entrapment angle — which is absurd. These jihadis were plotting jihad at the Super Bowl and planning to travel to Syria to join ISIS, and we’re supposed to believe they were entrapped? What could anyone say to you or me that would make you a mass murderer? Nothing.
While I do believe that undercover FBI agents have to play along with the jihadis they’re dealing with, because in order to be in an informant you have to have credibility, it’s a whole other thing if you’re encouraging and cheering on the proposed murder of Americans who are standing in defense of the freedom of speech, and then not doing anything about it. Why did the FBI only have one agent there? And not a team waiting for them to shoot back?
In the wake of Garland, the media attacks on us were the overwhelming and overarching story. But outside of that, one of the stories that bubbled to the surface was that the FBI knew about the attack before it happened, but did not alert law enforcement or my security apparatus. When I first heard that the FBI had prior notice of the attack, I thought that it was very short-term notice. It was assumed by many people that the FBI had had some sketchy prior knowledge of the attack, but nothing particularly specific.
Now we find they were in on the planning of the jihad attack, and did nothing about it. If you recall, the FBI only got around to alerting Garland police about Simpson’s jihad plans three hours before our event. It was Garland police, not the FBI, that coordinated all the super security efforts with our own security team.
The FBI knew about the impending attack, one of their agents told Simpson to “tear up Texas,” and an accomplice of Simpson was even communicating with the undercover agent at the time of the attack.
The Beast reported that this accomplice “asked the undercover officer about the Draw Muhammad event’s security, size, and police presence, during the event, according to an affidavit filed in court. The affidavit does not specify what the undercover responded to questions about size and security.” Why not? Why weren’t the agent’s answers released?
They knew about the attack, yet they didn’t have a team there in case the jihadis started shooting?
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Obama FBI wanted me and the other speakers at the event dead. Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders was the keynote speaker; he has been living with armed guards for years for supposedly “insulting Islam.” My colleague Robert Spencer has received numerous death threats from Muslims. Cartoon contest winner Bosch Fawstin drew Muhammad. Did Obama’s pro-Islam FBI want us all dead?
What other conclusion can be reached?
I’ve been trying to get my mind around this thing. What was Obama trying to do? Teach Americans a lesson? Enforce the edict that he enunciated in the wake of the Benghazi jihad slaughter, that “the future must not belong to those to slander the prophet of Islam”?
If people had died at our Garland event, the murders would have had a blood-chilling effect on the freedom of speech in America. That, in my view, appears to have been what the Obama administration wanted — and certainly that’s what the enemedia wanted in the wake of our event, as it gleefully and relentlessly blamed us for violating Sharia blasphemy laws and getting shot at.
If you look at the Obama administration’s track record in regard to jihad in America, it’s abysmal and ghastly. Look at San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, Orlando… Garland is one of the few stories where Americans came out on top.
And now it comes out that in Garland, we have to ask whether the United States government aided and abetted the would-be murderers. It’s astonishing.
Did the Obama FBI want us dead? We need answers: we need an explanation of the FBI’s behavior that accounts for everything we know and demonstrates that this is not the case – if there is one.
This is shocking, and it should frighten every American, all across the political spectrum.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.
-
How can the church and the civil authorities be so blind, stupid, or both???
Robert Spencer: Muslims videoing in Ohio church “suspicious in the extreme”
August 15, 2016 11:57 pm By Robert Spencer
Meanwhile, as churches are being cased, Church leaders are intent on reading those who call attention to the problem out of the Church.
More on this story. “Saudi Arabians Videotape Inside Catholic Church, Scare Parishoners [sic],” by Richard Ducayne, Church Militant, August 15, 2016:
KETTERING, Ohio – Three Arab men were caught recording footage in Ascension Catholic Church in Kettering, Ohio Sunday, claiming they were only “studying” Christianity — but JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer is calling their behavior “suspicious in the extreme.”
The men, who were visiting their families from Saudi Arabia, had all passed background checks and, according to church authorities, simply breached “proper etiquette.”
“While their actions did arouse suspicion, we believe their actions were simply a breach of proper etiquette,” a statement on Ascension’s website read Thursday morning. “While current evidence suggests that they intended no ill will, the Kettering police and other appropriate agencies are continuing to thoroughly investigate the matter and are keeping us aware of their findings.”
Church Militant contacted Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch.org. Spencer said that if the Saudis were really studying Christianity, “they could have approached the priest and asked him questions. They could have read books about Christianity. They could even have asked permission to videotape. That they did none of these things is suspicious in the extreme.”
Spencer highlighted that authorities, when apprehending an extremist or investigating an attack after the fact, have found that the extremists usually have videos in their possession of their intended targets.
Many jihadis have been discovered with videos of prospective target sites in their possession. The Islamic State (ISIS) has quite recently called on Muslims to attack Christians. What’s more, jihadis thrive on intimidation, striving to “strike terror into the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60) — at the very least the videotaping of the Mass would unnerve and frighten the parishioners. This incident should be treated as the intentional provocation that it clearly was.
Regarding local authorities ignoring the attack by writing it off as merely a “breach of proper etiquette,” Spencer remarked that such curious behavior should be looked at with a more wary eye.
“The phenomenon of Muslims videotaping at sensitive sites cannot be ignored by those concerned about jihad terror,” he commented to ChurchMilitant.com. “What has been passed off as innocent tourist interest includes videotaping of water treatment plants, electrical plants and other sites without plausible interest for tourists.”
Concerns have developed after ISIS earlier this month, in its propaganda magazine Dabiq, ordered its supporters who live in the West to attack more Christians.
Titled “Break the Cross,” the issue is dedicated to calling all Europeans and Westerners to “abandon their infidelity and accept Islam, the religion of sincerity and submission to the Lord of the heavens and the Earth.”…
-
http://counterjihad.com/exclusive-meet-one-radical-imams-america
-
Disgruntled security guard. He must not have gotten his raise:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MALL_ST_CLOUD_MINNESOTA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-09-18-09-40-44
No "credible threat" or evidence of terrorism and no evidence it is linked to explosions from garbage cans in NJ earlier same day:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/explosion-chelsea-manhattan_us_57ddea74e4b04a1497b4ed5f?section=&
Must be the Jews behind this!
-
http://pamelageller.com/2016/09/nyc-bomber-ahmad-rahamis-jihad-family.html/
-
DEPORT THE RAHAMI FAMILY
It’s time to send Muslim terrorists a message.
September 21, 2016 Daniel Greenfield - FrontPageMag.com
The Rahami family came to America from Afghanistan as refugees. They made life miserable for their neighbors. When the police tried to bring some order, they cried Islamophobia.
Two of the Rahamis have posted in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups on social media. The third actually built and planted bombs to kill Americans. He terrorized two states, tried to kill and maim countless Americans and then shot it out with police.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, the central figure in the terror case, brought his wife here from Pakistan and she departed days before his attack. His mother left for Pakistan a few weeks before his bombing spree.
The media, eager for a story of redemption, has widely broadcast the claim that Mohammed Rahami, Ahmad’s father, told the FBI that he was a terrorist. But that was years ago. And Mohammed didn’t turn in his son because there was a terror plot, but because he attacked family members.
As Mohammed put it, “Because he doing bad. He stab my son and hit my wife. I put him in the jail."
This wasn’t Mohammed Rahami being a good citizen. It was a dysfunctional oversized family of Muslim refugees causing problems for local law enforcement over their own internal disputes.
Ahmad stabbed his brother in the leg with a knife. His father told the FBI that Ahmad was a terrorist. Then he recanted the accusation and said that he had made it out of anger.
This wasn’t patriotism. It wasn’t helpful. It was selfish abuse of the system.
We get a lot of lectures from politicians about the contributions of Muslims, especially refugees, to America.
Here are the sum total contributions of the Rahami family to America. 29 wounded people in Manhattan. 1 wounded police officer in Linden, New Jersey. A chicken place that was the subject of disputes with law enforcement. A lawsuit against Elizabeth, New Jersey stemming from that chicken place, which threw around accusations of Islamophobia. Previous legal issues and a jail sentence for Ahmad over his family dispute. 1 assaulted police officer due to issues with the chicken place.
Then there’s Ahmad’s unwed girlfriend and his baby whose case will be wending through the courts.
A conservative ballpark figure for the Rahamis and their various legal issues would be $100 million. Considering the sheer cost of scrambling manpower and resources across states, the hospital bills, the various insurance costs, the jail time, trial and security, that’s probably erring on the thrifty side.
Unless one of the Rahamis cures cancer, there is nothing they can do to even the score.
3 of the Rahami children support Islamic terrorists. For all the nonsense about “internet radicalization”, it’s obvious that support for terrorism and hatred for America ran in the family. And it might not even end with Ahmad sneering on a stretcher. There’s a history of multiple siblings engaging in terrorism. The most effective Islamic terror cells in this country in recent years have been siblings and married couples.
We can waste more time puzzling it out or we can just get the Rahamis out of the country and let them be Pakistan’s problem or Afghanistan’s annoyance. They don’t have to be our problem anymore.
And that is what we should have done back when these “refugees” first tried to set up shop here.
America does not have a desperate need for terrible fried chicken places or domestic disputes. The FBI doesn’t need to waste more time chasing terror suspects who might not have evolved into terrorists yet because they’re too busy stabbing other family members. It doesn’t need more accusations of Islamophobia. And it does not need the Rahamis.
Immigration policy is about making intelligent choices. And we are making the dumbest immigration choices possible.
The Rahamis and the Tsarnaevs, two dysfunctional terror families of asylumites, are typical of our terrible decisions. Both ate up large numbers of resources while giving us only terror and death.
Politicians tell us that Muslim refugees “contribute” to this country. But is it possible that we can get non-terrorists to make us fried chicken? And is cheap fried chicken really worth the cost of bombs going up? Would we be willing to pay a dollar more for fried chicken so we can just get on a plane without the TSA or so that the countless people who have been killed from 9/11 and onward could still be with us?
Let’s have an adult conversation about this crisis. And we can start by recognizing that granting asylum to the Rahamis was a mistake. If Ahmad’s bombs had worked properly, it might have been an even bigger mistake. As it was countless people were traumatized, countless millions have been squandered on dealing with the Rahamis and there’s no reason to believe that’s about to stop.
We can and should undo that mistake.
Denaturalizing those Rahami family members who have made statements supportive of Islamic terror and then deporting them would be an excellent start. It would send a message to other terror families that playing dumb after their son goes on his terror spree won’t work anymore.
But, for that matter, there’s no reason not to deport the entire Rahami family except technicalities.
We let them in under false pretenses. We let them stay under false pretenses. They have been nothing but trouble. We can’t undo the damage they have done in the past, but we can prevent them from doing any more of it in the future.
It’s either that or we can rerun the same tired narrative from every previous attack. The family will offer contradictory statements. Neighbors and school friends will be shocked at how normal Ahmad was. Rahami’s lawyer will blame everything from discrimination to mental illness. The whole soap opera will play out for the next few days until we all get tired of it. Just the way that it did with the Tsarnaevs.
We’ve seen this movie too many times. Maybe we should change the channel.
Denaturalization and deportation will send a message that we’re serious. It will encourage families of terrorists to come forward when they actually suspect something, instead of abusing the system.
When a Muslim terrorist kills Israelis, Israel demolishes his house. This sends a message that the terrorists are destroying exactly the thing that they are trying to gain. They want to conquer Israel and take over its land. But instead their racist atrocities are depriving them of the land.
Ahmad Rahami sought to kill non-Muslims in order to impose the rule of Islam on America. His writings contained a call to kill non-Muslims. They expressed admiration for Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Al Qaeda leader, who had declared, "We will implement the rule of Allah on earth by the tip of the sword."
We don’t need to demolish the Rahami family home or their fried chicken place. But we do need to make it clear that Rahami’s actions have not only failed to bring this goal closer, but represent a setback toward that goal by removing the rest of his family from the country.
The Rahamis have been our problem for far too long. It’s time to make them someone else’s problem. We can go back to living in denial until the next attack or we can send the Muslim terrorists of tomorrow a message.
-
Works for me!
-
Despite mall shooter’s “SubhanAllah” post and admiration for ISIS caliph, police search for motive
September 26, 2016 10:44 am By Robert Spencer
He had a history of violence and sexual abuse of women — almost as if he grew up in a culture that revered violence and thought of non-Muslim women as “uncovered meat.” He posted admiration for al-Baghdadi and Khamenei and a call for Muslims to repeat “SubhanAllah” multiple times.
Maybe he wasn’t a jihadi and there is some mitigating explanation for all of this. When authorities refuse to discuss it and appear to dismiss it out of hand, however, it only reinforces the impression that there is some deliberate effort to cover up jihad attacks — an impression that authorities reinforce all too often.
“A portrait of violence emerges of suspect in Washington state mall killings,” by Rick Anderson, Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2016 (thanks to Darcy):
A disturbing portrait began to emerge Sunday of Arcan Cetin, the man suspected of killing five people at a Washington state mall, but authorities appeared no closer to determining the motive for the crime.
Cetin, 20, who came to the United States from Turkey as a child, was described by authorities as having called out women’s names as he allegedly killed them in a hail of bullets Friday night at the Cascade Mall in Burlington.
By the time he was found carrying a computer bag near his home in nearby Oak Harbor about 24 hours later, he was depicted by the sheriff who arrested him as “zombie-like” and docile….
As Lt. Chris Cammock of the police department in Mount Vernon, south of Burlington, said Saturday, he and a task force investigating the shooting have a lot of questions to answer.
“I don’t know what his motivations were to do this. I don’t know what his motivations were to continue [shooting]. I don’t know what his motivations were to stop,” Cammock said….
Investigators have not revealed what, if anything, Cetin — who pronounces his first name as “ar-zhan” — has told them since his arrest. But his capture and jailing were greeted with both relief and anger.
Uhlaine Finnigan, 19, a former classmate at Oak Harbor High School, remembered Cetin as someone to avoid in the school hallways. She didn’t want to comment further Sunday but gave permission to use her recollections from a Facebook post after his arrest.
“He’d grab and slap my friends and … even caressed my friends chest, along with other women,” she wrote. “Has been known to be violent towards girls too.”
Another classmate, Austin Hendrix, 19, told the Seattle Times, “He would grope women in high school and middle school.”…
According to his Facebook page, Cetin is a native of Turkey, not Russia, and goes by the nickname “the Turk.” He came to the U.S. with his parents and is a legal permanent resident, officials said.
The Associated Press quoted a neighbor, Amber Cathey, 21, describing Cetin as “really creepy, rude and obnoxious” — so much so, she said, that she complained to apartment management and kept a stun gun handy. Cathey said she blocked him on Snapchat after he sent her a photo of his crotch.
His Tumblr page, with “arcanmotherrussiavodkaandak47” as part of the Web address, includes a photo of him with an apparent assault-style weapon. He also posted, without comment, a photo of serial killer Ted Bundy at age 4, sitting next to a snowman.
Court records show Cetin has faced three domestic violence assault charges in Skagit and Island counties, involving disputes with his stepfather. There is no record of any convictions. In December, however, a judge ordered Cetin not to possess firearms. The judge also suggested imposing a no-contact order, but the stepfather objected, saying Cetin was going through “a hard time” and needed the stepfather’s help.
One post on Cetin’s Tumblr page urged readers to repeat the phrase “Subhan Allah” (“Glory to God”) 10 times “and then reblog this, do not stop reblogging it.”
Police had no comment on the suspect’s religious beliefs.
-
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/orlando-terror-attack-triggered-pentagon-drone-strike/
-
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/united-airlines-implements-muslim-sharia-bigotry-on-flight/
-
http://www.meforum.org/blog/2016/11/cair-leader-calls-for-overthrow-of-us-government
-
http://www.meforum.org/blog/2016/11/cair-leader-calls-for-overthrow-of-us-government
Moderate. I'm sure the MSM will get right on this as soon as Martha Raddatz stops sobbing uncontrollably.
-
http://www.meforum.org/blog/2016/11/cair-leader-calls-for-overthrow-of-us-government
Moderate. I'm sure the MSM will get right on this as soon as Martha Raddatz stops sobbing uncontrollably.
I'm trying not to laugh.
-
Brooklyn Imam Linked to Qaradawi Group Calls for Sisi's Head
by John Rossomando • Nov 30, 2016 at 6:15 pm
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5710/brooklyn-imam-linked-to-qaradawi-group-calls-for
A Brooklyn imam issued what appeared to be a call to behead Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi last Wednesday at an event sponsored by the pro-Muslim Brotherhood group Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice (EAFJ).
Sisi has led Egypt since a July 2013 coup toppled the Muslim Brotherhood government led by then-President Mohamed Morsi. Brotherhood supporters in the United States have condemned the move, which was prompted by massive street protests against Morsi's rule. They demand his reinstatement.
"- nce people pledge allegiance to a Muslim ruler, it is forbidden to struggle against him and remove him, and if anyone removes him, he should be beheaded," Islamic Society of Bay Ridge imam Sheikh Mohamed Elbar told the EAFJ gathering in Arabic. "Do you know who ought to be beheaded? Who should be stricken with the sword or hanged or detained? He who came to fight, and not the legitimate president [Morsi]."
The Investigative Project on Terrorism obtained a recording of the event, held at the Muslim American Society (MAS) Center in Brooklyn.
Elbar belongs to the International Union of Muslim Scholars, headed by radical Muslim Brotherhood cleric Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi.
Qaradawi issued a similar threat against Sisi on Al-Jazeera shortly after the 2013 coup: "f he, who has disobeyed the ruler, does not repent, then he must be killed. There is a legitimate ruler (in reference to Morsi) and people must obey and listen to him."
Elbar's mosque has a long track record of extremism dating back to the 1990s. "Brooklyn Bridge Shooter" Rashid Baz, killed Hasidic student Ari Halberstam in 1994 after hearing a sermon at the mosque calling for revenge on Jews for an incident in Hebron.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time EAFJ was connected to threats of violence against Egypt's military leaders.
In February 2015, EAFJ board members Hani Elkadi and Mahmoud El-Sharkawy, who appeared alongside Elbar and Sharaby at last week's event, each posted a communiqué from the Popular Resistance Movement (PRM) which has launched attacks against Egyptian police and other targets.
It features an image of a blood-red map of Egypt with a fist superimposed over it. It claims responsibility for targeting two police cars. "God, martyrs, Revolution," it said.
PRM claimed joint responsibility with ISIS's Sinai Province for an attack near Cairo that left eight police officers dead last May.
-
Dar al-Hijrah Board Member Pens Muslim Brotherhood Tribute
by John Rossomando • Dec 2, 2016 at 11:08 am
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5714/dar-al-hijrah-board-member-pens-muslim
A politically connected, longtime board member at the Falls Church, Va., based Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center effusively praised the Muslim Brotherhood in a Facebook posting Wednesday.
Esam Omeish was forced to step down from a state immigration commission by then Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine in 2006 after video of him praising Palestinians for fighting the "jihad way" became public. He also served as president of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a group founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in America.
While MAS officials denied that connection, Omeish praised the Egyptian-based organization with ultimate designs on a global Islamic state.
"We have not known of the people of Islam ... those more just in understanding, wider in approach and closer in application than the Muslim Brotherhood," Omeish wrote. "We have not known of humane brotherliness and its people, (and we are affiliated with all men whom Allah has created a propensity for love, mercy, an upright disposition, good morals and honorable character) better in ethics, of gentler parts, deeper in adherence to duty, nobler in morals among all their sons, and everyone of their actions than the Muslim Brotherhood."
Omeish was responding to a posting by Hani Elkadi, co-founder of Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice and Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights. Elkadi seemed to admit his own Brotherhood affiliation on Facebook in a March 9, 2015 Facebook post showing an cartoon of a man holding a sign with the Brotherhood logo and the words which translate to, "I am [Muslim] Brotherhood and I'm not threatened."
Omeish visited the White House and State Department numerous times and posted pictures of himself with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on his Facebook page. State Department officials featured Omeish in a 2008 video about American Muslims.
In February, Omeish sent an open letter to President Obama asking him to support the al-Qaida linked Revolutionary Council of Derna.
He endorsed the Muslim Brotherhood branch in his native Libya in a 2012 IRIN News article, saying that although it came in a distant second in Libya's 2012 elections, it "may be able to provide a better platform and a more coherent agenda of national action."
-
NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Jolted into action by a wave of hate crimes that followed the election victory of Donald J. Trump, American Muslims and Jews are banding together in a surprising new alliance.
They are putting aside for now their divisions over Israel to join forces to resist whatever may come next. New groups are forming, and interfaith coalitions that already existed say interest is increasing.
Vaseem Firdaus, a Muslim who has lived in the United States for 42 years, spent Friday night at a Shabbat dinner for members of a women’s group called the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, in a home here filled with Jewish art and ritual objects.
Until Mr. Trump was elected president, Ms. Firdaus, who is 56 and a manufacturing manager at Exxon Mobil, felt secure living as a Muslim in America. She has a daughter who is a doctor and a son who is an engineer, and she recently traveled to Tampa with her husband looking to buy a vacation home. But Mr. Trump’s victory has shaken her sense of comfort and security.
After joining in blessings over home-baked challah and sparkling grape juice (instead of wine, out of consideration for the Muslims), Ms. Firdaus talked with four Jewish women she had never met before, balancing plates of Indian food on their laps. They found that the spate of hate crimes and the ominous talk by Mr. Trump or his advisers about barring Muslims from entering the country and registering those living here had caused all of them to think about Germany in the years before the Holocaust.
“When did you know it was time to leave?” Ms. Firdaus asked one woman who had just recounted how her relatives had fled the Nazis. “The ones that didn’t leave are the ones who went to Auschwitz.”
The Jewish women tried to convince her that they would not let it come to that. “If Muslims have to register, we’re all going to register,” said Mahela Morrow-Jones, who is helping to build the first West Coast chapter of the Sisterhood in Santa Barbara, Calif. “You’ve got to believe it, sister.”
Groups are reaching out not just to clergy members, but also to laypeople, including business executives, students and women.
Photo
Conference participants discussing how to prevent “extremist narratives.” Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times
Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a recent interview: “Jews know what it means to be identified and tagged, to be registered and pulled aside. It evokes very deep emotions in the Jewish community.”
Mr. Greenblatt received a standing ovation when he declared at his organization’s conference in Manhattan last month that if Muslims were ever forced to register, “that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim.”
“All of us have heard the story of the Danish king who said if his country’s Jews had to wear a gold star,” he said, “all of Denmark would, too.”
Nearly 500 Muslim and Jewish women, many wearing head scarves and skullcaps, gathered on Sunday at Drew University in Madison, N.J., in what organizers said was the largest such meeting ever held in the United States. It was the third annual conference of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, a grass-roots group that now claims 50 chapters in more than 20 states. The first conference two years ago drew only 100 people.
The women spread out inside an enormous sports complex and met in clusters to study sacred texts on the racquetball courts, practice self-defense techniques in the dance studio and, in the bleachers, discuss how to talk to friends whose impression of Islam had been shaped entirely by news of terrorist attacks.
Over lunch and in the hallways, they traded stories about the latest ugly outbreaks back home: a brick thrown through the window of a Muslim-owned restaurant in Kansas, apartments of Muslim families in Virginia hit with eggs and graffiti, swastikas scrawled on synagogues and in a playground in New York. Sisterhood chapters keep track of the incidents on their Facebook pages and other social media.
“Ignorance is one of the key triggers of hate,” said Sheryl Olitzky, the group’s executive director, in her opening remarks. “We need to show the world that we are Americans. We are here because we love each other and we’re overcoming hate.”
Ms. Olitzky, a marketing executive whose husband and two sons are rabbis, started the first Sisterhood women’s meeting in New Jersey six years ago on the theory that “women navigate the world through relationships.” She baked the challah and hosted the Shabbat dinner on Friday night at her home.
The Sisterhood is one of several groups expanding their work on Muslim-Jewish relations: The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding started an initiative to elevate Muslim condemnations of terrorism, which are often ignored by the news media. The Anti-Defamation League is increasing its work against anti-Muslim bigotry.
“It’s the Trump effect,” said Imam Abdullah Antepli, the chief representative on Muslim affairs at Duke University, who attended the women’s conference with his wife. “I see the Muslim community even more eager to reach out and to put aside the grievances of the past.”
The most prominent new initiative is a Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council whose co-chairmen are Fortune 500 chief executives: Farooq Kathwari, of the furniture company Ethan Allen, who is Muslim, and Stanley Bergman, of the medical products distributor Henry Schein, who is Jewish.
The council, which was forming as Mr. Trump’s campaign was gaining steam, includes both Democrats and Republicans. It was created by leaders of the American Jewish Committee and the Islamic Society of North America in an effort to have influence on public policy. The group intends to oppose a registry, support immigrants and refugees, and push for accommodating religious practices in the workplace.
Despite the new cooperation, tensions over Israel continue to flare up. Several Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, recently declared their opposition to a bid by Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who is a Muslim, to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, because of critical statements he has made about Israel.
And the embrace of Muslims is hardly universal. A few Jewish groups have applauded Mr. Trump’s hard line on Muslims, and cheered his choice of Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn to be national security adviser. The retired general has called Islam “a cancer” and a “political ideology” masquerading as a faith.
The selection of General Flynn prompted the usually stoic Ms. Firdaus to rethink her situation. She abandoned the plan to buy a vacation home in Tampa, or anywhere in the United States, at least for now. Instead, she and her family will spend Christmas vacation in Toronto, where they intend to open a bank account and look for a condominium to buy — just in case they have to flee.
Attending the Sisterhood conference on Sunday, however, Ms. Firdaus said she was feeling a bit more optimistic. She was surrounded by Jews who pledged not to abandon Muslims. Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, brought the women to their feet cheering with stories of how in history’s darkest times, love had conquered hate.
“Sitting here makes you feel it’s really not so hopeless. This is food for the soul,” Ms. Firdaus said. “But there were 60 million people who voted for Trump. I’m not ready to leave, but you have to have a plan.”
-
It takes a special kind of stupid to bond with those who hate you and look at those most inclined to protect you as your enemy.
-
White House "Champion" Blasts Muslims Who Talk to Any Pro-Israel Jews
IPT News
December 7, 2016
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5722/white-house-champion-blasts-muslims-who-talk-to
Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour took to Twitter Nov. 22 with a quick, venting post: "You know what I can't stand? Bitter people. That's all."
Sarsour spoke at the annual American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference three days later. Evidently, she can't stand herself.
Sarsour, who describes herself as a "racial justice and civil rights activist," lashed out at Jews who extended a hand of friendship and solidarity over concerns that increasing hostility toward Muslims in America might lead to draconian government action. And she lashed out at fellow Muslims who accepted the gesture and joined in a new inter-faith dialogue.
Why the bitterness?
The Jews at issue support the state of Israel, support its existence and its vitality. Sarsour wants none of that.
"We have limits to the type of friendships that we're looking for right now," Sarsour told the AMP conference, "and I want to be friends with those whom I know have been steadfast, courageous, have been standing up and protecting their own communities, those who have taken the risk to stand up and say – we are with the Palestinian people, we unequivocally support BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctioning Israel] when it comes to Palestinian human rights and have been attacked viciously by the very people who are telling you that they're about to stand on the front line of the Muslim registry program. No thank you, sisters and brothers."
It's a message that fit right in at the AMP conference. AMP claims its "sole purpose is to educate the American public and media about issues related to Palestine and its rich cultural and historical heritage." But in practice, the group has defended Hamas and its leaders admit they seek "to challenge the legitimacy of the State of Israel."
Sarsour, a media darling honored by the Obama White House as a "Champion of Change" and a high-profile surrogate for Bernie Sanders' failed Democratic presidential nomination campaign, seems to strike a different tone in public appearances. Her biography says she is "most known for her intersectional coalition work and building bridges across issues, racial, ethnic and faith communities." That clearly wasn't her intent at the AMP conference.
She acknowledges there's a rift among Islamists about how hard a line to draw in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, yet she was intent on pouring gasoline on the fire.
The "cracks in our community" are so wide, she said, they're visible to "right-wing Zionists, Islamophobes, white supremacists. They know where we're divided. They know that we're segregated," she said. "So they, we could easily be targeted when we're a fragmented community. But if we were a strong, united, steadfast community that stood up for each other first and foremost, you'd better believe that no opposition would ever be trying to take us down, because we'd be too big, too strong and too united."
Some of her comments likely were directed at Anti-Defamation League chief Jonathan Greenblatt. Should a Trump administration create a registry for Muslims, an idea that does not seem to be on the table, Greenblatt recently pledged that "this proud Jew will register as Muslim."
Sarsour not only rebuked the gesture, she cast Muslims who might respond more positively as sellouts of the Palestinian cause. Cooperation and solidarity gestures should only be reserved for those who share the depth of her hatred toward Israel, she said.
"I am tired of Muslims working towards acceptance and not respect of our communities. And I'm also tired of the Muslims willing to sell Palestine just for a little acceptance and nod from the white man and white power in these United States of America," Sarsour said.
Despite this extreme stance, Sarsour is a rising star among American Islamist activists. She has been welcomed to the White House at least 10 times during President Obama's tenure, most recently in July for a celebration of the Muslim Eid holiday. Last year, a glowing New York Times profile described her as "a Brooklyn Homegirl in a Hijab."
"But the most apparent thing about her voice is that it is exceedingly Brooklyn," the story said. "She says 'swag' instead of 'charisma.' ('Mr. B. has swag ...) She calls her father, a Palestinian immigrant in his 60s, 'Pops.' Like the actress Rosie Perez in a hijab, Ms. Sarsour has perfected her delivery of the head-swaying 'Oh no you dih-int' and pronounces the word 'Latino' like, well, a Latino."
Sarsour also says "nothing is creepier than Zionism," and all-but accused the CIA of faking an attempted terrorist attack.
Those statements didn't make the Times profile. And they didn't prompt the Obama administration to reconsider the wisdom of elevating Sarsour's clout with repeated White House access.
In February, just over a year after terrorists massacred the staff at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, saying they "avenged the Prophet," Sarsour told a Council on American-Islamic Affairs (CAIR) banquet in Chicago that she would not stand with the victims. The magazine was "a bigot and a racist" for publishing caricatures of Islam's prophet Muhammad, she said. The images served to "vilify my faith, dehumanize my community [and] demoralize my prophet."
Building off Sarsour's rejection of anyone who breaks bread with Zionists, former AMP New York President Raja Abdulhaq defined the BDS movement – not as a tool to lead to peaceful negotiations – but as way to break Israel into total surrender.
"The rights are non-negotiable. And that's the whole point of BDS, is that we demand, we want to apply pressure," Abdulhaq said, "not sit down in a negotiated setting and figure out what you can give up so that I can give up something in return, because what you're essentially doing is you're asking the other side – give up your illegality, stop your illegality and I will give up my rights. What kind of negotiation is that? No, I demand my rights, and you stop your illegality. And that's the whole basis of BDS."
Among the non-negotiable "rights" Abdulhaq says AMP and the BDS movement insist upon is the so-called "right of return" for Palestinians. That would lead to a huge influx of Palestinians into Israel, swamping the country demographically and ending its existence as a Jewish homeland.
That's just fine with conference speaker Lamis Deek, an attorney and board member for CAIR's New York chapter. She repeatedly described Israelis as "serial killers" intent on ethnic cleansing.
"There is a serial killer in our home," Deek said. "And what do you do when you are confronted with a serial killer, right? You protect yourself. You protect your family. You scream for help. And you expect that when you scream for help from a serial killer everybody is gonna come to your aid, they're gonna come protect and defend you. Right? You don't expect somebody to intervene on behalf of the serial killer ... and say 'the serial killer has some rights, let us tell you about the rights the serial killer has' as he begins to kill you. Right?"
Like Sarsour, Deek expressed frustration at Muslims who accept other viewpoints.
"Nothing has set back the Palestinian movement in the U.S. more than demands by people who want to work and focus their efforts on [Washington] D.C., by their demands that we tame our demands for Palestine," she said.
Dawud Walid, CAIR's Michigan director, echoed the message about Muslim groups who appear too accommodating. "If these organizations claim to represent the Muslim community," he said, "then when we see them doing things that go outside of the mainstream of the (UI word) of our community, we need to hold them accountable, and if they continue to step outside of the boundaries, then we should withdraw our support and make that very public."
Walid has acknowledged that his employer, which works hard to project an image as a civil rights organization, really sees itself as "defenders of the Palestinian struggle."
Deek, meanwhile, spoke of the harm done to the Palestinian cause by the U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords. While that initiative may have given Palestinians autonomy, it came at the cost of unity, she said.
It's not clear what she means. But, since 2006, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has governed the West Bank while Hamas controls Gaza.
Oslo also made it more difficult to engage in terrorism – what Deek calls "armed resistance."
"Now armed resistance, self-defense, has been the only direct challenge to Zionist colonial expansion. Nothing else is a direct challenge," she told the AMP conference. "Everything else is an indirect challenge, right? Pressure – economic pressure, diplomatic pressure. So this national united Palestinian body was able – by supporting the resistance – was able to be part of directly impacting and influencing Zionist policy."
Advocating more Palestinian violence is consistent for an AMP gathering. The organization's message never mentions peaceful co-existence. An Investigative Project on Terrorism investigation found connections between at least five AMP officials and speakers and the defunct Hamas support network called the "Palestine Committee."
During the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, AMP's then-National Campus Coordinator Taher Herzallah posted images of wounded Israelis, calling them "The most beautiful site (sic) in my eyes." He defended indiscriminate Hamas rocket fire at Israeli civilian communities as "an audible cry for help" and "an act of resistance."
Two clear messages emerged from the AMP conference. "Resistance" is better than renouncing violence and seeking peace. All Muslims who might disagree, even if they see eye-to-eye on other issues, are no longer welcome.
These extreme stands came from speakers who enjoy prominent political profiles and high-level contacts.
Sarsour is right about one thing. There is a rift in her community. She and her AMP panelists are the ones widening it.
-
http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/15/another-trump-inspired-crime-in-nyc
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQge2xTKPno
-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/01/06/muslim-woman-who-voted-for-trump-asks-georgetown-to-intervene-over-professors-hateful-vulgar-messages/?utm_term=.4f42fd3d7f4e&wpisrc=nl_wemost&wpmm=1
-
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/01/airport-shooter-converted-islam-identified-aashiq-hammad-years-joining-army/?utm_source=t.co&utm_campaign=corruption+chronicles&utm_medium=social
Not terrorism-The FBI
I'm sure the MSM will be all over this story!
-
Why is the "investigative news site" unnamed?!?
-
Why is the "investigative news site" unnamed?!?
Not a reliable story yet but a heads up to where the story could lead.
An unnamed law enforcement official told ABC News on 9 January 2017 that Santiago may in fact have used the name Aashiq Hammad:
Since the attacks, investigators recovered Santiago’s computer from a pawn shop, and the FBI is examining it to determine whether the alleged shooter created a jihadist identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad, according to officials familiar with the case.
Snopes fails to end their story on this with true or false:
http://www.snopes.com/2017/01/10/fort-lauderdale-shooting-suspect-used-muslim-name/#
Investigators are looking at terrorism as one possible motive, but have not decisively established it as such. George Piro, FBI special agent in charge out of Miami, told reporters during a 7 January 2017 press conference:
We continue to look at all angles and motives and at this point we are continuing to look at the terrorism angle
-
https://www.clarionproject.org/news/seattle-mosque-torched-arson-attack-0
-
ON June 20 th I wondered if she was let go purposefully so she could be followed:
Reply #936 on: June 20, 2016, 05:14:28 PM »
"She should be arrested – but now she is gone."
Does anyone really think she just disappeared?
She is being followed. The FBI can't be that stupid.
They want to see where she leads them.
----------------------------------------------
Don't know if that is what happened but she was just arrested:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/01/16/fbi-reportedly-arrests-wife-orlando-nightclub-killer-omar-mateen.html
----------------------------------------------
When one is spied on one thinks like a spy.
-
Fg scum bag! :x :x :x
The Inside Story of How John Kerry Secretly Lobbied to Get CAIR Removed From UAE's Terrorist Organization List
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
January 19, 2017
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5758/the-inside-story-of-how-john-kerry-secretly
On Nov. 16, 2014, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took the unusual step of designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Muslim American Society (MAS) – as terrorist organizations. They were among 83 groups named for their connections to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
This outraged CAIR officials, who immediately began efforts to get their organization removed from the list. They found a powerful ally in Secretary of State John Kerry, who authorized State Department officials to meet regularly with UAE officials to lobbying on behalf of CAIR and MAS . CAIR already had a sympathetic ear in the Obama administration, including the State Department, that had openly embraced and legitimized the entire spectrum of radical Islamist groups falsely posing as religious or civil rights groups, which both CAIR and MAS had done.
At a daily State Department press briefing two days after UAE released its list, a spokesman said that State does not "consider CAIR or MAS to be terrorist groups" but that it was seeking more information from UAE about their decision. He added that "as part of our routine engagement with a broad spectrum of faith based organizations, a range of U.S. government officials have met with officials of CAIR and MAS. We at the State Department regularly meet with a wide range of faith based groups to hear their views even if some of their views expressed at times are controversial."
In making that admission, the State Department official had effectively affirmed the Obama Administration policy of embracing radical Islamist group under the euphemism of calling them "faith based groups."
The UAE had good reason to designate CAIR, as records obtained by the FBI indicate it was created as front group for a Hamas support network. While CAIR bills itself as "the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization," the reality is quite different. Before helping launch CAIR, Executive Director Nihad Awad worked as public relations director for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a Hamas propaganda arm in the United States. A 2001 Immigration and Naturalization Service memo documented IAP's support for Hamas and found that the "facts strongly suggest" that IAP was "part of Hamas' propaganda apparatus."
IAP was part of the "Palestine Committee," created by the Muslim Brotherhood to support Hamas politically and financially. CAIR was added to the Palestine Committee's roster just after its 1994 creation. In 2008, the FBI cut off official contact with CAIR, citing evidence from the Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial which documented the connections between CAIR and its founders to Hamas. In a letter to U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, the FBI explained, "until we [the FBI] can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."
During a 2003 Senate hearing, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, said that CAIR is known "to have ties to terrorism." In 2009 correspondence with the FBI, he wrote that cutting off contact with the Islamist group "should be government-wide policy."
CAIR and its representatives, meanwhile, often espouse radical ideology and propagate the jihadist narrative that the United States is waging a "war on Islam." Awad repeated that message as recently as September when he denounced legislation allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.
CAIR officials often side with Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists.
CAIR-New York board member Lamis Deek, an attorney, tweeted during the 2012 war between Israel and Hamas that Gaza is a "beacon of resistance, exposes shackles, awakens dignity, inspires revolution, reaffirms our oneness – the reason 'israel' won't last."
During a 2009 fundraiser for an effort to break Israel's embargo against the Hamas government in Gaza, Deek explained that Palestinian support for Hamas is a choice for "one united Palestinian state on all of the 1948 territories from the north to the very south. That is what Palestinians chose. And in supporting Palestinian choice we are saying we support their right to liberation from violent colonialism."
Just days before the UAE's 2014 designation of CAIR as a terrorist group in the organization's San Francisco chapter bestowed its "Promoting Justice" award to Sami Al-Arian and his family. Al-Arian secretly ran an American support network for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group in the late 1980s and early 1990s. PIJ was responsible for terrorist attacks which killed dozens of Israelis and several Americans.
Al-Arian pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide goods or services to the PIJ. His plea agreement included an admission that he was associated with the PIJ. U.S District Judge James S. Moody went further in sentencing Al Arian: "The evidence was clear in this case that you were a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad," Moody said. "You were on the board of directors and an officer, the secretary. Directors control the actions of an organization, even the PIJ; and you were an active leader."
Since 2001, six CAIR officials have been convicted of terror-related charges. A longtime national board member was deported in part because of his Hamas support. Yet despite the massive evidence linking CAIR to Hamas and other terror groups, the Obama administration repeatedly invited CAIR officials and other radical Islamist groups to the White House.
In December 2014, CAIR met with top officials of the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department, asking them to pressure the UAE to remove them from the list, according to reliable sources intimately familiar with the communications. On December 22, 2014, CAIR issued a press release asserting that "the two American Muslim organizations and the U.S. government pledged to work together to achieve a positive solution to the UAE designations.
In response to a letter sent by CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad sent to Secretary Kerry protesting the UAE designation, Kerry responded on May 5, 2015 in a letter to Awad stating, "Let me reiterate, first, that the U.S. government clearly does not consider CAIR to be a terrorist organization. As your letter noted, the Department of State rejected this allegation immediately after the UAE designations were announced in November, and we will continue to do so....U.S. officials have raised the issue of CAIR's inclusion on the UAE's terror list with UAE officials on multiple occasions..."
That portion of the letter now appears on CAIR's website. But at the time that the letter was sent to CAIR, according to knowledgeable sources, there was an agreement between CAIR and the State Department to keep the letter secret. An excerpt from it was posted on CAIR's website only in May 2016, a year after it was received. The IPT has learned that Kerry and CAIR made this agreement to keep the letter secret so as to protect Kerry from public embarrassment. In light of CAIR's numerous ties to Hamas and other unsavory aspects of its record, Kerry had good reason to believe that the letter could cause a public relations disaster for him.
Whatever influence the State Department exerted on the UAE did not work. There has been no indication CAIR and MAS were removed from the Gulf state's terrorist list. When the UAE list was published, CAIR realized that it was going to a public relations disaster for them as well. So they published a FAQ attacking the UAE as a "politically 'authoritarian' regime."
The organization seemed more comfortable with this authoritarian regime in 2006, when Awad and CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper led a delegation on a fundraising trip to the UAE. State Department cables show that the delegation, led by the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, sought millions of dollars from UAE donors. The cables, obtained by the IPT through the Freedom of Information Act, show that CAIR officials met with top UAE leaders and attended an evening reception "in honor of the CAIR group" hosted by a top presidential adviser. The cable also noted that "UAE press has reported that Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al-Makhtoum Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance and Industry, 'has endorsed a proposal to build a property in the U.S. to serve as an endowment for CAIR.' The cable added that CAIR had already received substantial contributions from several wealthy UAE donors, including one who had already given CAIR $1 million.
The Muslim American Society, meanwhile, has its own lengthy record of defending accused terrorists and terror supporters. It was formed as the Muslim Brotherhood's overt arm in the United States. Co-founder Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to engaging in illegal transactions with Libya and facilitating a Libyan plot to assassinate then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, testified in 2012 that MAS's connection with the Brotherhood cannot be disputed.
This sordid episode of going to bat for a Hamas-support organization is emblematic of the larger problem of the Obama's administration's inability to pinpoint the heart of the impasse between the Palestinians and the Israelis as unceasing Palestinian terrorism, continued Palestinian subsidies paid to terrorist families, incendiary glorification of terrorists who kill Jews, and massive anti-Semitic incitement in Palestinian schools and media.
The outgoing Secretary of State recently crowed in the New York Times about what he got right. This episode is a stark example of what he got wrong.
-
CAIR and MAS are wings of the Muslim Brotherhood, as is Al Qaeda.
-
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/02/toronto-muslim-speaker-we-must-celebrate-our-way-of-life-until-their-way-of-life-dissipates-under-our-feet
-
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/02/03/dhs-had-been-warned-about-radicalized-muslim-who-allegedly-murdered-denver-officer/
-
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5775/raheel-raza-hopes-to-be-the-muslim-extremists
-
Turning down tax payer money to fight the concept of murder under the guise of Jihad. Why aren't they doing that anyway?
We hear far more Jews complaining of some housing being built in the West Bank then we hear American Muslims standing up to murder:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article132146279.html
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktqdYXd1qJQ
-
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tennessee-man-convicted-of-planning-to-attack-new-york-mosque/
-
http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/02/10/asra-nomani-i-feel-safer-us-i-do-any-muslim-country
-
"Moderate" Muslim Brotherhood Mourns Terrorist's Death
by John Rossomando
IPT News
February 21, 2017
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5802/moderate-muslim-brotherhood-mourns-terrorist-death
-
"Moderate" Muslim Brotherhood Mourns Terrorist's Death
by John Rossomando
IPT News
February 21, 2017
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5802/moderate-muslim-brotherhood-mourns-terrorist-death
"Mostly secular" is what I've been told.
-
https://www.launchgood.com/project/muslims_unite_to_repair_jewish_cemetery#/
-
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
-
CAIRO — In Morocco, it would tip a delicate political balance. In Jordan, it could prevent American diplomats from meeting with opposition leaders. In Tunisia, it could make criminals of a political party seen as a model of democracy after the Arab Spring.
Of all the initiatives of the Trump administration that have set the Arab world on edge, none has as much potential to disrupt the internal politics of American partners in the region as the proposal to criminalize the Muslim Brotherhood, the pre-eminent Islamist movement with millions of followers.
“The impact would be great,” said Issandr El Amrani, an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Morocco, where a Brotherhood-linked party won the last election in October. “It could destabilize countries where anti-Islamist forces would be encouraged to double down. It would increase polarization.”
At issue is a proposal floated by Trump aides that the 89-year-old Brotherhood be designated as a foreign terrorist entity. The scope of any designation remains unclear, but its potential reach is vast: Founded in Egypt, the Brotherhood has evolved into a loose network that spans about two dozen countries. It has officially forsworn violence.
For President Trump, the designation debate is an election promise made good. He has made no bones about taking an approach to the Middle East that is narrowly focused on counterterrorism, and that plays to domestic supporters who view all Islamist movements — or even all Muslims — as potentially hostile.
In much of the Middle East, though, the rapid pace and embattled rollouts of Mr. Trump’s early orders have induced anxiety. Now many are following the potential indictment of the Muslim Brotherhood as a harbinger of things to come.
“The Obama administration moved us away from the ‘clash of civilizations’ narrative,” said Emad Shahin, a dissident Egyptian academic who lectures at Georgetown University. “Trump is taking us deeper into it.”
Not all are unhappy about the move to list the Brotherhood.
One leader the designation would surely delight is President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, the former general who has led a harsh crackdown on the Brotherhood since the military ousted a Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Morsi, as president in 2013. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also would support it.
But in countries where Brotherhood-linked parties are prominent in Parliament or are in power, experts say a sweeping indictment could have serious implications for domestic politics, American diplomacy and the broader fight against Islamist extremism.
In Jordan, a crucial ally in the fight against jihadist groups, Islamists constitute a small but significant bloc in the Parliament. Tunisia’s Ennahda party, which has won wide praise for its democratic engagement and moderate stance since 2011, might be shunned. The prime minister of Morocco, technically, could be considered a criminal.
“You would throw many babies out with the bath water,” said Gerald M. Feierstein, a former United States ambassador to Yemen, now at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
The initial momentum toward such a designation appears to have slowed. A leaked assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency said isolating the Brotherhood would serve only to empower jihadist groups; some experts doubt that a broad designation would pass legal muster.
But the very fact that the ban is under consideration by Mr. Trump’s aides is being taken as an ominous sign in a region where religion and politics are carefully, and often precariously, balanced.
The proposed designation has also reaffirmed Mr. Trump’s apparent embrace of Mr. Sisi, who has weathered a barrage of international criticism for his country’s dismal human rights record in recent years. Mr. Trump has hailed him as a “fantastic guy” with whom he shares “good chemistry.”
Since an initial meeting at the United Nations in September, the two leaders have spoken several times by phone — Mr. Sisi was the first foreign leader to congratulate Mr. Trump on his victory in November — and now a visit to Washington by Mr. Sisi is under preparation.
Egypt wants the United States to resume a military financing program, frozen by President Barack Obama in 2015, that helps it make billions of dollars in purchases of big-ticket weapons like F-16 warplanes and M1A1 Abrams tanks.
More than anything, though, a handshake in the White House for Mr. Sisi would offer a stamp of legitimacy to a leader who had been kept at arm’s length by Mr. Obama.
Tens of thousands of Mr. Sisi’s opponents languish in Egyptian prisons, human rights workers are routinely harassed, and his security forces have faced accusations of extrajudicial killings.
To some, it suggests Mr. Trump is set to take an approach in the Middle East that will not just tolerate strongmen and monarchs but also actively seek to embrace them — a throwback that evokes American alignment with autocrats like the shah of Iran in decades past.
“It’s easy to say you will stand by your friends,” said Mr. Feierstein at the Middle East Institute. “But authoritarian regimes are always brittle, always fragile. We thought we would stand by the shah of Iran until the day he got on an airplane and left the country. Now what do we have to show for it? We have 40 years of not being able to have a relationship with Iran.”
Brotherhood officials insist that the Trump administration has gotten it wrong. In a letter smuggled from the high-security Egyptian prison where he is being held, the Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Haddad admitted that his party had made serious mistakes during its yearlong stint in power in Egypt from 2012 to 2013. Citing the “hard-learned lessons of the Arab Spring,” he said the Brotherhood had failed to heed loud opposition from millions of Egyptians who disliked Mr. Morsi’s actions.
But, he insisted, the movement renounced bloodshed. “Our flaws are many,” he wrote. “Violence is not one.”
In other places, the reality can be harder to pin down. By nature secretive, the Brotherhood takes different forms around the world. In some places, its members have condoned or committed violent acts. Its Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, carries out suicide bombings; in Egypt, angry young supporters have been accused of attacking Mr. Sisi’s security forces.
But that does not make terrorists of the many millions of people who support the Brotherhood’s political ideology across many countries.
One route for the Trump administration could be to narrowly designate specific Brotherhood branches as terrorists, said Mokhtar Awad, an expert on the group. But it would be better still, he argued, to “engage in a battle of ideas.”
The debate could prove an early lesson for the administration in doing business in the Middle East, which has long resisted broad-brush prescriptions. Unpalatable as its ideas may be to Trump officials, the Brotherhood may become just one of many factors they will be forced to grapple with.
“We engage with the Brotherhood knowing they are problematic actors, but they are also a reality,” said Michael Wahid Hanna of the Century Foundation. “And the alternative — ignoring or repressing them — leads to a very bad place.”
Correction: February 20, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated the year that President Barack Obama froze Egypt’s military financing program. It was 2015, not 2013.
-
'Explanatory Memorandum' Detractors Ignore Evidence About MB in America
by John Rossomando
IPT News
March 1, 2017
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5807/explanatory-memorandum-detractors-ignore-evidence
-
https://vladtepesblog.com/2017/01/20/canada-14-year-old-girl-sexually-assaulted-by-muslim-migrant-school-asks-her-to-consider-the-situation-from-his-point-of-view/
-
http://quillette.com/2017/03/16/on-betrayal-by-the-left-talking-with-ex-muslim-sarah-haider/
-
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/imam-sermon-montreal-mosque-1.4037397
-
Very interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/world/canada/syrian-refugees.html?emc=edit_ta_20170325&nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193&ref=cta
-
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/27/muslim-brotherhood-listing-as-terror-group-delayed/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURZNE5HSTNObVkxTkROaCIsInQiOiI4bWwxM1VSRGhWNFRTWXM5UUYrbmxvdDc1SHN5UHRVSTJLa3g5bVhpMlRDVG5ONWMyMTdyaWt4SUowbEZqdEJLd0cwXC9kbm5oQXh1VnFmOE1Udm1yb1VVaUZJSG1BaTR2ZWQxNjBpY3NGQVBFdVVrSXRwdVc2RkFzdEkyS1IwclkifQ%3D%3D
-
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/02/u-s-mosque-honors-radical-islamist-murdered-liberal-pakistani-governor/
-
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/04/02/turkish-govt-opened-100m-mosque-in-washington-dc-as-turkish-intel-spied-from-mosques-all-over-europe/
-
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2016/08/how-americas-polygamy-ban-blocked.html
How America's Polygamy Ban Blocked Muslim Immigration
Posted by Daniel Greenfield
A hundred years ago, Muslims were furious over an immigration bill whose origins lay with advocacy by a headstrong and loudmouthed Republican in the White House.
The anti-immigration bill offended the Ottoman Empire, the rotting Caliphate of Islam soon to be defeated at the hands of America and the West, by banning the entry of “all polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy.”
This, as was pointed out at the time, would prohibit the entry of the “entire Mohammedan world” into the United States.
And indeed it would.
The battle had begun earlier when President Theodore Roosevelt had declared in his State of the Union address back in 1906 that Congress needed to have the power to “deal radically and efficiently with polygamy.” The Immigration Act of 1907, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, had banned “polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy.”
It was the last part that was most significant because it made clear what had only been implied.
The Immigration Act of 1891 had merely banned polygamists. The newest law banned anyone who believed in the practice of polygamy. That group included every faithful believing Muslim.
The Ottoman Empire’s representatives argued that their immigrants believed in the practice of polygamy, but wouldn’t actually take more than one wife. This argument echoes the current contention that Muslim immigrants may believe in a Jihad against non-Muslims without actually engaging in terrorism. That type of argument proved far less convincing to Americans than it does today.
These amazing facts, uncovered by @rushetteny reveal part of the long controversial history of battles over Islamic migration into America.
Muslim immigration was still slight at the time and bans on polygamy had not been created to deliberately target them, but the Muslim practice of an act repulsive to most Americans even back then pitted their cries of discrimination and victimhood against the values of the nation. The Immigration Act of 1907 had been meant to select only those immigrants who would make good Americans.
And Muslims would not.
In his 1905 State of the Union address, President Theodore Roosevelt had spoken of the need “to keep out all immigrants who will not make good American citizens.”
Unlike modern presidents, Roosevelt did not view Islam as a force for good. Instead he had described Muslims as “enemies of civilization”, writing that, “The civilization of Europe, America and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization", praising Charles Martel and John Sobieski for throwing back the "Moslem conquerors" whose depredations had caused Christianity to have "practically vanished from the two continents."
While today even mentioning “Radical Islam” occasions hysterical protests from the media, Theodore Roosevelt spoke and wrote casually of “the murderous outbreak of Moslem brutality” and, with a great deal of foresight offered a description of reform movements in Egypt that could have been just as well applied to the Arab Spring, describing the "mass of practically unchained bigoted Moslems to whom the movement meant driving out the foreigner, plundering and slaying the local Christian."
In sharp contrast to Obama’s infamous Cairo speech, Roosevelt’s own speech in Cairo had denounced the murder of a Coptic Christian political leader by a Muslim and warned against such violent bigotry.
Muslims had protested outside his hotel, but Teddy hadn’t cared.
The effective implementation of the latest incarnation of the ban however had to wait a year for Roosevelt’s successor, President Taft. Early in his first term, the Ottoman Empire was already protesting because its Muslims had been banned from the country. One account claimed that 200 Muslims had been denied entry into the United States.
Despite these protests, Muslims continued to face deportations over polygamy charges even under President Woodrow Wilson. And polygamy, though not belief in it, remains a basis for deportation.
Though the law today is seldom enforced.
American concerns about the intersection of Muslim immigration and polygamy had predated Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson. The issue dated back even to the previous century. An 1897 edition of the Los Angeles Herald had wondered if Muslim polygamy existed in Los Angeles. “Certainly There is No Lack of Mohammedans Whose Religion Gives the Institution Its Full Sanction,” the paper had observed.
It noted that, “immigration officials are seriously considering whether believers in polygamy are legally admissible” and cited the cases of a number of Muslims where this very same issue had come up.
A New York Times story from 1897 records that, “the first-polygamists excluded under the existing immigration laws were six Mohammedans arrived on the steamship California.”
To their misfortune, the Mohammedans encountered not President Obama, but President Herman Stump of the immigration board of inquiry. Stump, an eccentric irascible figure, had known Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth and had been a wanted Confederate sympathizer during the Civil War.
In the twilight of his term, Stump had little patience and tolerance for either Islam or polygamy.
The Times story relates the laconic exchange between Stump and the Muslim migrants.
“You believe in the Koran?" asked President Stump.
"Thank Allah, yes," responded the men in chorus.
“The Koran teaches polygamy?" continued the Inspector through an interpreter.
"Blessed be Allah, it does!"
"Then you believe in polygamy?" asked Captain George Ellis.
"We do. We do! Blessed be Allah, we do," chorused the Arabs, salaaming toward the setting sun.
"That settles it," said President Stump. "You won't do."
President Stump’s brand of common sense has become keenly lacking in America today.
None of the laws in question permanently settled the issue. The rise of Islamist infiltration brought with it a cleverer Taquiya. The charade that Muslims could believe one thing and do another was dishonest on the one hand and condescending on the other. It was a willful deception in which Muslims pretended that they were not serious about their religion and Americans believed them because the beliefs at stake appeared so absurd and uncivilized that they thought that no one could truly believe them.
Theodore Roosevelt knew better. But by then he was no longer in office.
Unlike today’s talk of a ban on Muslim migration from terror states, laws were not being made to target Muslims. Yet Muslims were the likeliest group of foreigners to be affected by them. Even a hundred years ago, Islam was proving to be fundamentally in conflict with American values. Then, as now, there were two options. The first was to pretend that there was no conflict. The second was to avert it with a ban.
A century ago and more, the nation had leaders who were not willing to dwell in the twilight of illusions, but who grappled with problems when they saw them. They saw civilization as fragile and vulnerable. They understood that the failure to address a conflict would mean a loss to the “enemies of civilization”.
Debates over polygamy may seem quaint today, but yet the subject was a revealing one. Islamic polygamy was one example of the slavery so ubiquitous in Islam. The enslavement of people is at the heart of Islam. As we have seen with ISIS, Islamic violence is driven by the base need to enslave and oppress. Polygamy, like honor killings and FGM, is an expression of that fundamental impulse within the private social context of the home, but as Theodore Roosevelt and others understood, it would not stay there. If we understand that, then we can understand why these debates were not quaint at all.
American leaders of a century past could not reconcile themselves to Islamic polygamy. Yet our modern leaders have reconciled themselves to the Islamic mass murder of Americans.
Thus it always is. When you close your eyes to one evil, you come to accept them all.
-
https://m.townhall.com/columnists/calebparke/2017/04/19/allahu-akbar-vs-god-is-great-ap-got-it-wrong-and-why-it-matters-n2315288
-
http://www.chicksontheright.com/anti-muslim-guy-stabbed-three-men-portland-hes-bernie-supporter/?ref=Ads
-
http://pamelageller.com/2017/05/nyc-school-stands-against-prom-demands.html/
http://pamelageller.com/2017/05/tillerson-says-no-to-ramadan.html/
-
http://eheadlines.com/red-alert-muslims-just-took-over-trump-tower-in-new-york-heres-whats-happening/
-
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/virginia-imam-caught-on-camera-endorsing-female-genital-mutilation-to-curb-hypersexuality-in-girls/
Virginia Imam Caught On Camera Endorsing Female Genital Mutilation to Curb ‘Hypersexuality’ in Girls
Home Culture Wars
By Jillian Kay Melchior | 3:57 pm, June 7, 2017
A Virginia imam is under fire after a Youtube video showed him endorsing female genital mutilation as a way to curb “hypersexuality” and as “the honorable thing to do—if needed—for the girls.”
Imam Shaker Elsayed of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., made the comments late last month, just weeks after the arrests of three Michigan residents who allegedly carried out female genital mutilations on two seven-year-old girls.
In the United States, federal law has prohibited female genital mutilation since 1996. But Elsayed said that in societies where such forms of female-genital mutilation are completely prohibited, “hypersexuality takes over the entire society, and a woman is not satisfied with one person, or two, or three.”
The imam advised parents to consult a “Muslim gynecologist,” endorsing only the form of genital cutting known as “Type 1” or “clitoridectomy,” which involves causing clitoral damage. Anything more than that, Elsayed said, “causes serious harm in the sexual life of the child when she grows up.”
Imam Shaker Elsayed
Video of Elsayed’s comments, posted by the mosque on YouTube, were first flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute. The mosque has since removed the footage, but it can be viewed here.
Heat Street could not immediately reach the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center for comment. Phone and email messages were not returned by deadline. Additionally, no one answered Elsayed’s phone, and his voicemail was full.
But according to the Virginian-Pilot, the mosque’s board of directors condemned Elsayed’s comments, saying they were contrary to both American and Islamic law.
“We at Dar al-Hijrah, DO NOT condone, promote, or support any practice of FGM,” the Board said in a statement to the Virginian-Pilot. “The reference to ‘Hyper-sexuality’ is offensive and it is unequivocally rejected. The Board of Directors is particularly disturbed by such comments.”
Elsayed also said in the statement that he “should have avoided” the comments on hypersexuality. “I hereby take it back,” he said. “And I do apologize to all those who are offended by it.”
He also said he had “referred the audience to their OBGYN to inform them why [FGM] is illegal and harmful.”
So far, the mosque has stopped short of removing Elsayed from his position. That’s reportedly upset several of its other leaders.
Citing two unnamed mosque officials, the Washington Post reported that “the mosque’s second imam and outreach coordinator, Johari Abdul-Malik, was threatening to quit if the board didn’t fire Elsayed.”
Abdul-Malik joined Linda Sarsour and 18 other prominent Muslims, calling for Elsayed’s firing in a Monday night statement. “We cannot and will not stand for any Imam or Muslim leader who endorses human rights abuses antithetical to our beautiful faith,” their statement said.
Meanwhile, the Pilot reported that an unnamed “longtime Dar al-Hijrah member” says there is a power-struggle within the mosque between “the more conservative and liberal ranks of the mosque’s leadership.”
The mosque has a controversial past, the Pilot noted: Past attendees included two of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as the Fort Hood shooter, and a former imam has since become an outspoken proponent of extremism.
Jumana Nagarwala, a Michigan doctor accused of performing female genital mutilation on two seven-year-old girls.
In the ongoing Michigan FGM criminal case, all three people accused have ties to a local mosque and belong to the Dawoodi Bohra community. In 2016, the global spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community openly endorsed female genital mutilation, also known as “khatna,” female circumcision, or female genital cutting. The Michigan trio’s legal team is expected to rely heavily on a religious freedom defense.
— Jillian Kay Melchior writes for Heat Street and is a fellow for the Steamboat Institute and the Independent Women’s Forum.
-
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/how-cair-shaped-san-diegos-public-schools/
-
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/how-cair-shaped-san-diegos-public-schools/
Coming soon to a public school near you.
-
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/new-georgetown-dean-avowed-supporter-of-hezbollah
-
https://www.investigativeproject.org/6337/ipt-exclusive-updated-suit-against-san-diego
-
https://www.investigativeproject.org/6421/ipt-video-islam-in-america-as-described-by-three
-
http://www.speroforum.com/a/VMYTIMNHDB4/81415-Google-bows-to-Muslim-complaints-about-web-search-results?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=KRPZFGZOJH43&utm_content=VMYTIMNHDB4&utm_source=news&utm_term=Google+bows+to+Muslim+complaints+about+web+search+results#.WXq2NnokS2A
-
https://clarionproject.org/u-s-muslims-open-to-multiple-interpretations-of-islam-new-poll/
-
second post
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/243791/omaha-three-faiths-one-big-idea?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=3a4b04907d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_08_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-3a4b04907d-207194629
-
This forum is not an echo chamber, we search for Truth-- thus though I think this piece tries to slip its way past some important points, I post it here:
https://www.mercatornet.com/above/view/us-muslims-continue-the-long-american-tradition-of-religious-moderation/20371?utm_source=MercatorNet&utm_campaign=db8a4a3690-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e581d204e2-db8a4a3690-124674163
US Muslims continue the long American tradition of religious moderation
92 percent of Muslims agree, 'I am proud to be an American'.
Jeff Jacoby | Sep 7 2017 | comment
The story of American pluralism began with the migration of Puritan separatists, who came to the New World seeking a haven where they could practice their faith as they saw fit. The Puritans didn’t show much tolerance toward subsequent newcomers practicing other faiths, such as Quakers and Baptists. But those religions put down roots, and the intolerance evaporated over time.
That became the pattern. Though religious diversity is one of the hallmarks of American life, believers from less familiar traditions start out facing resentment and mistrust. After a while, those minority creeds and churches grow accepted and comfortable and become part of the nation’s religious and cultural mosaic.
The American way
We don’t often think about it, but it’s an amazing phenomenon. In a world torn by religious bitterness, the United States has repeatedly managed to assimilate clashing faiths. It was true for Quakers and Baptists in the 18th century, for Catholics in the 19th, and for Mormons and Jews in the 20th. It is proving true yet again in this century for American Muslims.
The Pew Research Center recently released the results of a detailed survey of Muslims in the United States – the third it has conducted since 2007.
It is no secret that many Americans, especially since 9/11, have come to regard Muslims with fear or suspicion. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump fueled that animus, decrying the “great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population” and demanding a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
Yet for all that, the Pew surveys make clear, US Muslims are replicating the age-old trajectory of religious minority communities: They adopt American values, reject fundamentalism, and form ties of friendship and love across religious lines.
In the latest poll, an overwhelming 92 percent of Muslims agree with the patriotic statement “I am proud to be an American.” When asked how much they feel they have in common with most Americans, 60 percent of Muslims say “a lot” and another 28 percent say “some.” Only 36 percent say that all or most of their friends are fellow Muslims, a striking drop from the 49 percent who said so in the 2011 survey – and far less than the 95 percent of Muslims who say so in other countries.
Rejecting fundamentalism and terrorism
Islamist fanaticism and terror have been among the world’s intractable problems for decades; Daniel Pipes has estimated that up to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support “militant Islam.” There is no simple solution to the problem of militant Islamist extremism, and too many Americans – from Boston to Fort Hood to San Bernardino to Orlando – have been among its victims.
But as the Pew data show, the Muslim community in America is the most religiously tolerant and socially liberal Islamic population in the world. And Muslims in America, far from sanctioning deliberate violence against civilians, are actually more likely than the general public to oppose it in all circumstances.
In Pew’s latest survey, 59 percent of Americans overall said that targeting or killing civilians for a “political, social, or religious cause” can never be justified. Opposition among US Muslims, however, was 17 percentage points higher – three-fourths of Muslim respondents opposed such killings. The Cato Institute’s David Bier suggests that American Muslims are so strongly opposed to religion-based terrorism for the obvious reason that Muslims worldwide are its most frequent victims.
Perhaps it is for the same reason that Muslims in the United States are considerably more likely to reject fundamentalist or monolithic interpretations of Muslim teachings.
About 43 percent of US Muslims say they attend religious services at least once a week; 65 percent say religion is very important to them. For US Christians, the numbers are comparable – 47 percent say they go to church at least weekly, and 68 percent consider their religion very important in their lives.
Contrary to the popular view of Muslims as dogmatic, however, a large majority of those living in America take a latitudinarian approach to Islam and the Koran. Pew found that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) “openly acknowledge that there is room for multiple interpretations” of their religion, and just over half of all US Muslims agree that “traditional understandings of Islam must be reinterpreted to reflect contemporary issues.” Polls of Muslims worldwide have found overwhelming majorities supporting a literal interpretation of the Koran; in America, fewer than half of Muslims do.
Similarly, a majority of Muslims in this country reject the view that Sharia should be a source (let alone the source) for national legislation. In France and Britain, by contrast, majorities of Muslims insist that Sharia should be the primary law of the land. When asked if there is “a natural conflict between the teachings of Islam and democracy,” 65 percent of American Muslims say no.
Americans of all faiths
All this is a wonderful affirmation of the power of “e pluribus unum” and the melting pot. It is a reminder of the fundamental difference between the blood-and-soil nationalism that prevails in Europe and the American conviction that nationhood is grounded in equality and natural rights.
During the debate on independence in 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declared that liberty in America must be universal, embracing “the Mahomitan [Muslim] and the Gentoo [Hindu] as well as the Christian religion.” The potency of that embrace has not diminished. Immigrants of every faith still come to America, and still turn into Americans.
Reprinted from the Boston Globe.
Jeff Jacoby has been a columnist for The Boston Globe since 1994. He has degrees from George Washington University and from Boston University Law School. Before entering journalism, he (briefly) practiced law at the prominent firm of Baker & Hostetler, worked on several political campaigns in Massachusetts, and was an assistant to Dr. John Silber, the president of Boston University. In 1999, Jeff became the first recipient of the Breindel Prize, a major award for excellence in opinion journalism. In 2014, he was included in the “Forward 50,” a list of the most influential American Jews.
-
https://clarionproject.org/muslim-brotherhood-deepens-ties-capitol-hill/
-
https://www.steynonline.com/8229/jihad-on-the-bike-path
Jihad on the Bike Path
by Mark Steyn
Steyn on America
October 31, 2017
The bike path to diversity hell
Fourteen years ago, I wrote a column for The Wall Street Journal on "The Bike-Path Left":
There was a revealing moment on MSNBC the other night. Chris Matthews asked [Howard] Dean whether Osama bin Laden should be tried in an American court or at The Hague. "I don't think it makes a lot of difference," said the governor airily. Mr. Matthews pressed once more. "It doesn't make a lot of difference to me," he said again... So how about Saddam? The Hague "suits me fine," he said, the very model of ennui. Saddam? Osama? Whatever, dude.
So what does get the Dean juices going? A few days later, the governor was on CNN and Judy Woodruff asked him about his admission that he'd left the Episcopal Church and become a Congregationalist because "I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church over the bike path." I hasten to add that, in contrast to current Anglican controversies over gay marriage in British Columbia and gay bishops in New Hampshire, this does not appear to have been a gay bike path: its orientation was not an issue; it would seem to be a rare example of a non-gay controversy in the Anglican Communion. But nevertheless it provoked Howard into "a big fight." "I was fighting to have public access to the waterfront, and we were fighting very hard in the citizens group," he told Judy Woodruff. Fighting, fighting, fighting.
And that's our pugnacious little Democrat. On Osama bin Laden, he's Mister Insouciant. But he gets mad about bike paths. Destroy the World Trade Center and he's languid and laconic and blasé. Obstruct plans to convert the ravaged site into a memorial bike path and he'll hunt you down wherever you are.
The Hudson River Greenway is not, formally, a 9/11 "memorial bike path". But it does run within 300 feet or so of the World Trade Center as it begins its progress up the West Side Highway toward the Bronx. So close enough. Yet on the central point I was wrong. The "bike-path left" will surrender the bike path as they surrender everything else.
As I write, eight are dead - all men, five Argentines, one Belgian, all in the path of an Uzbek Muslim who decided to take a Home Depot pick-up truck down the bike path for 20 blocks mowing down bicycle after bicycle after bicycle before exiting the vehicle and yelling - go on, take a wild guess - "Allahu Akbar!" Well, I never! You could knock me over with a feather duster - which the Mohammedans will no doubt find a way of weaponizing any day now.
So two hours after the attack, Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio and other New York bigwigs assembled for the usual press conference to give the usual passive shrug - this is the way we live now, nothing to be done about it, etc, etc. Every so often in New York, as in London as in Stockholm as in Berlin as in Nice as in Brussels as in Paris as in Manchester as in Orlando, your loved one will leave the home and never return because he went to a pop concert or a gay club or a restaurant or an airport, or just strolled the sidewalk or bicycled the bike path. "Allahu Akbar"? That's Arabic for "Nothing can be done". So Andrew Cuomo ended with some generic boilerplate about how they'll never change us:
We go forward together. And we go forward stronger than ever. We're not going to let them win...We'll go about our business. Be New Yorkers. Live your life. Don't let them change us.
But they are changing us. I've written before about what I've called the Bollardization of the Western World: the open, public areas of free cities are being fenced in by bollards, as, for example, German downtowns were after the Berlin Christmas attack, and London Bridge and Westminster Bridge were after two recent outbreaks of vehicular jihad. This is a huge windfall for bollard manufacturers - Big Bollard - and doubtless it's a huge boost for the economy, if your town's nimble enough to approve the new bollard plant on the edge of town, or if your broker is savvy enough to divest your tech stocks and go big on the bollard sector. As I write, Geraldo is on Fox demanding to know why this bike path wasn't blocked off with concrete barriers.
Why? Why does every public place have to get uglified up just because Geraldo doesn't want to address the insanity of western immigration policies that day by day advance the interests of an ideology explicitly hostile to our civilization? Instead Geraldo wants to tighten up vehicle rental. Why? Why should you have to lose an extra 15 minutes at an already sclerotic check-in counter because Hertz and Avis and UHaul have to run your name through the No-Rent list? Why should open, free societies become closed, monitored, ugly, cramped and cowering?
And Bollardization doesn't even solve the problem, does it? Last week I was tootling through Williston, Vermont, which has just reconfigured its highway system to run green-painted bike paths down the center of the streets. And the thought occurred to me that, once you've bollarded off every sidewalk, what's to stop jihadists mowing down cyclists? After all, if the eco-crowd are installing them in the middle of the roadway, they're kind of hard to bollard off. And then a second thought occurred: As inviting a target as bike paths are in enviro-poseur communities, they're even more inviting in genuine bicycling cultures such as the Netherlands or Scandinavia.
And now eight people are dead and dozens more injured - at the hands of a guy who came here in 2010 because he won a Green Card in the so-called "diversity lottery". Why was that stupid program not suspended on September 12th 2001?
Because even 3,000 dead cannot be allowed to question the virtues of "diversity". The other day, the Australian government lost its working majority because, thanks to the usual boneheaded jurists, an Aussie-born citizen who chances also to share, say, New Zealand citizenship is deemed to be ineligible to sit in Parliament. [UPDATE: See my note to our Oz commenter below.] Er, okay, whatever. But at the same time we're assured that an Uzbek or a Somali or a Yemeni becomes a fully functioning citizen of a free, pluralist society simply by setting foot on western soil. That's not so. And the price of maintaining the delusion is blood on the pavement.
And so, on a buckled, broken bicycle on the Hudson River Greenway, the wheel comes full circle. America and every other major western nation thought the appropriate response to 9/11 was to show how nice we are by dramatically increasing the rate of mass Muslim immigration. Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov was among the many beneficiaries of the west's suicide by virtue-signaling. "Sayfullo" is a Central Asian rendering of "Saifallah" - or "Sword of Allah". Hmm, what a fascinating name! Do you think whichever brain-dead bureaucrat who gave Sword of Allah's online Green Card application the once-over (assuming anyone did) so much as gave the name a second glance? And so, because we did not take an act of war seriously in 2001, we are relentlessly harassed and diminished by unending micro-jihad - in Copenhagen, in Toulouse, in San Bernadino, in Calgary, Barcelona, Parsons Green ...and now on a bike path 300 feet from where we came in sixteen years ago. Three months ago, on the anniversary of 9/11, I wrote:
In any war, you have to be able to prioritize: You can't win everything, so where would you rather win? Raqqa or Rotterdam? Kandahar or Cannes? Yet, whenever some guy goes Allahu Akbar on the streets of a western city, the telly pundits generally fall into one of two groups: The left say it's no big deal, and the right say this is why we need more boots on the ground in Syria or Afghanistan. Yesterday President Trump said he was committed to ensuring that terrorists "never again have a safe haven to launch attacks against our country".
By that he means "safe havens" in Afghanistan. But the reason the west's enemies are able to pile up a continuous corpse count in Paris, Nice, Berlin, Brussels, London, Manchester, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Orlando, San Bernadino, Ottawa, Sydney, Barcelona, [Your Town Here] is because they have "safe havens" in France, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, North America, etc. Which "safe havens" are likely to prove more consequential for the developed world in the years ahead..? In Afghanistan, we're fighting for something not worth winning, and we're losing. In Europe, Islam is fighting for something very much worth winning, and they're advancing. And, according to all the official strategists in Washington and elsewhere, these two things are nothing to do with each other.
So now eight grieving families and dozens more who'll be living with horrific injuries for the rest of their lives are told by Cuomo and De Blasio and the rest of the gutless political class behind their security details that there's nothing to do except to get used to it.
I don't want to get used to it - and I reiterate my minimum demand of western politicians that I last made after the London Bridge attacks: How many more corpses need to pile up on our streets before you guys decide to stop importing more of it?
If your congressman or senator says that's not on his agenda, what he means is he's willing to sacrifice you and your loved ones in the suicide lottery of diversity.
~Mark will be talking about the latest developments in the Lower Manhattan terrorism attack with Tucker Carlson tomorrow, Wednesday, on Fox News, live at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. If you're a Mark Steyn Club member, feel free to weigh in in our comments section. We appreciate the Club is not to everyone's taste, but, if you're minded to give it a go, either for a full year or a three-month experimental period, we'd love to have you. You'll find more details here - and, if you've a loved one who'd like something a little different for a birthday or anniversary, don't forget our new gift membership.
-
Next up after gun control, a law against trucks ramming people on a bike path - or do we already have a law on that?
Steyn has it right of course, stop importing Jihad. Homegrown Jihad will give us enough problems! And Trump had it right from the beginning, Muslims in particular and immigrants from dangerous areas require strict scrutiny, and that the wall is a symbol of the idea that we take entry into this country seriously.
-
https://pjmedia.com/trending/bisexual-student-reprimanded-criticizing-islams-record-gay-rights/
Council on Foreign Relations Suddenly Cancels Presentation by Terrorist-Linked Charity Leader After IPT Inquiry
by John Rossomando
IPT News
October 31, 2017
https://www.investigativeproject.org/6848/council-on-foreign-relations-suddenly-cancels
-
A friend of this forum writes:
=================================
Please refer to the link below for more details. The SHOCKING TRUTH THE MEDIA WON’T TALK ABOUT is that
there have been 53 separate Islamic terror attacks ON U.S. SOIL SINCE 9-11-2001. 158 people have been killed in these attacks, and 492 have been injured.
CLEARLY - our government and law enforcement is NOT doing enough to prevent these attacks - MOST IMPORTANTLY, politicians, the media and leaders of law enforcement agencies REFUSE to state the obvious truth that it is ISLAMIC JIHADIST DOCTRINE which is the root cause of this terror. Every mosque in this country should be under surveillance right now - and any which preach this doctrine should be immediately shut down. Our intelligence agencies and law enforcement MUST be taught the truth about Islamic doctrine - not the politically-correct fiction that “Islam is a religion of peace.” It is NOT. Further - if most Muslims are supposedly peace-loving, then why do we not see any programs within the Muslim community to expunge Islamic texts of these violent teachings, and to root out and expose these jihadists? Instead - we get excuses, claims of victimization, and claims that no one has ever seen these people who attend these mosques and then commit acts of terror. CLEARLY - many of these Muslims are lying - practicing what is known as “taqiyya” - which is officially-sanctioned lying to non-Muslims to conceal their support of these jihadists.
To those who claim (as CAIR does) that surveilling mosques would be persecuting Muslims, I remind you that Roman Catholic churches were ROUTINELY surveilled for members of the Mafia for decades by law enforcement in this country, and I never heard Catholics or Christians claim persecution or discrimination. NO - they cooperated - because they shared the goal of rooting out these evil criminals.
Mark Koenig
Atlanta, GA
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/american-attacks.aspx
-
To the idea we should build truck barriers to bike paths to stop terrorists:
Geller: Why don't we lay down and assume the fetal position if we aren't going to stop them...
-
ISNA President Addresses Jamaat-e-Islami Crowd In India
by John Rossomando • Nov 17, 2017 at 6:13 pm
https://www.investigativeproject.org/6947/isna-president-addresses-jamaat-e-islami-crowd-in
The leader of the largest Muslim group in the United States, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), addressed a radical Asian Islamist group during a trip to India. ISNA President Azhar Azeez spoke to India's Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) during a visit to Hyderabad. ISNA posted an announcement of Azeez's visit on its Facebook page Friday.
Jamaat-e-Islami is an Asian version of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Its leaders advocate laws that criminalize blasphemy against Islam. Its constitution calls for "the reconstruction of society" and the formation of an Islamic State. It tells Muslims to avoid going to "un-Islamic" courts to settle dispute except under "compelling necessity."
Founder Maulana Maududi declared that insufficiently Islamic regimes should be destroyed and replaced by an Islamic State and eventually a caliphate. Maududi inspired Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and ISIS's self-appointed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Still, Azeez used a Twitter post to show that he met with Jamaat-e-Islami's leadership in Delhi. ISNA was founded by Muslim Brotherhood members in the United States. The group has tried to distance itself from that past and present itself as the representative of mainstream American Muslims. But its conferences have featured radical Islamist speakers, and this year, it tossed a gay-friendly group called Muslim for Progressive Values from its annual gathering.
In Asia, Jamaat-e-Islami's leaders encourage boycotts against the Ahmadiyya Muslim minority, which led to Ahmadiyyas being evicted from their homes and fired from their jobs.
Jamaat-e-Islami branches in Kashmir and Bangladesh have been tied to terrorist activities.
Bangladesh executed top former Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for war crimes committed during its 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
JIH supported terrorism against American troops and in the Middle East. It praised "the historic victory against Israeli aggression in Lebanon by the Hezbollah led Lebanese National resistance" in a March 2007 statement in conjunction with other Muslim groups.
Azeez's speech to a Jamaat branch, and his desire to promote it, reinforces the perception that ISNA's attempts at moderation are superficial.
-
https://pamelageller.com/2017/12/sentence-15-years-jail-bacon-mosque.html/
https://pamelageller.com/2017/12/sharia-high-school.html/
-
HANUKKAH HEROES
Day Four: Hassan Askari
One December night, Walter Adler, a young Jewish man, and a group of friends were on a subway train in New York City. Another group of revelers wished them a “Merry Christmas!” to which Adler responded “Happy Hanukkah!”
Immediately, Walter and his friends were physically attacked by a large group of violent thugs yelling anti-Semitic epithets.
The subway train was packed with people, but only one man stepped forward to help the besieged Jews - Hassan Askari, a young Muslim accountant from Bangladesh.
Hassan jumped into the fight, and suffered two black eyes. His involvement gave Walter a moment to pull the emergency brake, which summoned the transit police.
Ten people were arrested for assault that night, and two strangers became friends. “A random Muslim guy jumped in and helped a Jewish guy on Hanukkah - that’s a miracle,” said Walter. The next night, Walter and Hassan got together to celebrate the Festival of Lights.
The Anti-Defamation League honored Hassan Askari with the Stand-Up New Yorker Award. The inscription on the award reads, “With deep appreciation for taking civic responsibility and protecting innocent victims of a violent hate attack on the New York City subway.”
Hassan was perplexed by all the fuss. “My friends are proud of me for what I did, but I know every one of them would have done exactly the same,” he said. "I did what any regular person would do.”
For saving a stranger from violent attack , we honor Hassan Askari as as our Day 4 Hanukkah Hero.
from the Accidental Talmudist
-
Moving CCP's post to here:
I am shocked....... rolleyes
This is a complete opposite story we were force fed from Obama Holder jive:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/06/wife-orlando-nightclub-massacre-knew-would-do-something-bad-officials-say.html
-
Moving CCP's post to here:
I am shocked....... rolleyes
This is a complete opposite story we were force fed from Obama Holder jive:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/06/wife-orlando-nightclub-massacre-knew-would-do-something-bad-officials-say.html
Shocking!
:roll:
-
Pakistani Islamism Flourishes in America
by Sam Westrop
The National Review
January 24, 2018
http://www.meforum.org/7181/pakistani-islamism-flourishes-in-america
-
As Robert Spencer correctly states here - either Abdullah is kidding himself, or the U.S. He cannot possibly be ignorant of these relevant verses in the Koran:
www.jihadwatch.org/2018/02/king-abdullah-of-jordan-maybe-theres-a-lack-of-understanding-of-islam-in-washington
-
https://clarionproject.org/pew-report-sees-zero-net-growth-muslims-us/
-
https://clarionproject.org/pew-report-sees-zero-net-growth-muslims-us/
Good. Now end all muslim immigration to the US.
-
https://gellerreport.com/2018/02/fake-islamophobia-report.html/
-
https://clarionproject.org/texas-councilman-resign-islam-post/
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/broward-county-sheriffs-office-signed-off-on-concealed-carry-training-for-mosque-attendees/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202018-03-03&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
-
https://gellerreport.com/2018/03/georgia-police-cair.html/
-
https://clarionproject.org/islamists-infiltration-american-universities/
-
https://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/maine-dems-approve-of-fgm/
Maine: House Democrats Kill Bill to Ban Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
APRIL 23, 2018 / CREEPING
Source: Maine House Democrats Vote to Allow Female Genital Mutilation – Maine First Media
Following swift action from Maine House Democrats on the last day of the legislative session, there will be no Female Genital Mutilation ban in the Pine Tree State.
After months of pretending they wanted to stop the barbaric ritual child abuse of FGM, the Democrat caucus showed their true colors on the issue late Wednesday night.
By a final vote of 77-70, the House killed the FGM ban in a mostly party-line vote. Rep. Cathy Nadeau (D-Winslow) was the only Democrat who crossed the aisle to protect young daughters of immigrants in Maine from this brutal abuse.
You can see a full roll-call vote by clicking here.
Republican Rep. Heather Sirocki of Scarborough points out Democrats voted to kill an FGM Ban in April, which is Child Abuse Prevention Month. And in fact, they did it on the “Week of the Young Child.”
Rep. Sirocki says Maine House Democrats initially decided to table the bill with the intent of letting it cowardly die without the courtesy of a vote. However, supporters of the ban made their voices heard.
“Playing games with a child abuse bill is shameful,” Rep. Sirocki said. “Finally, after hours of phone calls from all over the country and state urging Speaker Gideon to relent, she brought the bill to the Floor at 10:30 pm. The Democrats like to talk about victims’ rights, women’s rights, child advocacy, human rights, and justice — but their votes on this horrific form of child abuse do not back up all of their talk.”
The same FGM Ban bill killed in the House, passed the State Senate 30-5, with only the most far-Left Senators voting against it.
…
But late Wednesday night the show was over.
House Democrats threw a tantrum in the wake of Republicans voting against extending the legislative session. The FGM ban was one of several critical bills Democrats killed in a matter of hours. In fact, it was jaw-dropping to watch, after months of little action from the House, Democrat “leadership” managed to pull together votes to kill a handful of good bills in just a matter of hours. The breakneck speed makes one question what “leadership” has been doing all session.
…
To learn more about the horrific abuse, listen to FGM survivor, F.A. Cole’s testimony in front of the CJPS Committee. Cole fights through a panic attack to share her story with Maine Legislators in the hope it would save young daughters of Maine immigrants from suffering through the same terrifying experience.
-
Syrian Imam Who Endorsed Suicide Bombing Tours U.S. Mosques
by John Rossomando • Apr 25, 2018 at 9:22 am
https://www.investigativeproject.org/7419/syrian-imam-who-endorsed-suicide-bombing-tours-us
-
Syrian Imam Who Endorsed Suicide Bombing Tours U.S. Mosques
by John Rossomando • Apr 25, 2018 at 9:22 am
https://www.investigativeproject.org/7419/syrian-imam-who-endorsed-suicide-bombing-tours-us
Zuhdi Jasser, a Syrian-American and founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, condemned the mosques for treating Nabulsi as mainstream.
"It is incumbent upon every American Muslim especially the Syrian community to marginalize and defeat the ideas of radical Islamism peddled by the likes of Nabulsi," Jasser said.
*So, who expects that to happen?
-
https://clarionproject.org/we-found-a-candidate-that-gets-it/
-
https://clarionproject.org/extremist-group-educates-san-francisco-high-schoolers/
-
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/islamic-relief-charity-extremism-and-terror
-
https://clarionproject.org/teenage-boy-nm-compound-trained-for-jihad/
-
https://clarionproject.org/radical-islam-and-the-ultimate-fighting-championship/
see e.g. at 19:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzhJ9PdY77c
-
See change of recommended viewing point in previous post!
-
New York’s Disastrous Grant for Organizations Linked to Islamic Extremism
by Oren Litwin
The Daily Caller
October 05, 2018
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/new-york-s-disastrous-grant-for-organizations-link
On Aug. 21, the New York City Council announced $250,000 in grants made to 14 Muslim community organizations in collaboration with the New York Immigration Coalition. Alarmingly, three of the grant recipients are linked to Islamic extremism — the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim American Society (MAS), and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA).
Worse, it seems that the ICNA in particular plans to use the money for religious proselytizing rather than civic improvement
The grant announcement was made at ICNA’s headquarters in Jamaica, Queens, after the Jumu’ah prayer service. Present were the young speaker of the city council, Corey Johnson, and Councilman Daneek Miller, the sole Muslim member of the council.
Councilman Miller is no stranger to the ICNA; his campaign website prominently features a photo of him speaking at the ICNA mosque.
ICNA was established in 1971, ostensibly as a “non-ethnic, non-sectarian” grassroots organization, with the aim of seeking the “establishment of the Islamic system of life as spelled out in the Qur’an.”
In fact, it functions as the American arm of the Pakistani Islamist group Jamaat e-Islami (JI). Indeed, ICNA’s international charity, Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD), works closely with JI in Pakistan. Worse, in 2017 HHRD openly worked with the “political” wing of the murderous terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
JI has long been linked to political violence, notably during the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971 — during which Pakistan employed JI groups as death squads.
ICNA’s former Vice President Ashraf Uzzaman Khan was convicted in absentia by Bangladesh in 2013 of being part of the Pakistan-backed Al-Badr death squad, and personally murdering seven professors and intellectuals.
The radical literature of JI’s founder, Sayyid Abul ‘Ala Maududi, is repeatedly emphasized in the 2010 ICNA members’ handbook, which explicitly discusses ICNA’s true goal of setting up a worldwide Islamic state via proselytizing campaigns.
Unsurprisingly, ICNA secretary general Muhammad Rahman said that ICNA’s portion of the grant money would fund “community engagement activities;” he specifically mentioned “Iftar in the Park” and outdoor prayer services.
To pay for prayer services with a government grant is a blatant violation of constitutional law, all the more so when it is to proselytize.
MAS, meanwhile, has been identified in courtroom testimony as the main U.S. front group for the Muslim Brotherhood. And CAIR was founded by the leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine, a front group for Hamas, following the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial featuring strong evidence that CAIR was still coordinating with Hamas. The FBI subsequently cut off all contact with CAIR.
CAIR’s New York chapter has been particularly open in its support for terrorism. Former executive director Cyrus McGoldrick has a history of inflammatory rhetoric, including retweeting a statement from Hamas leader Khaled Meshal mocking those who object to its rocket attacks on civilians, and other tweets quoting Hamas slogans.
CAIR-NY board member Lamis Deek publicly praised a Palestinian drive-by murderer, calling him a “martyr,” and bluntly stating that the “Zionist Israeli government does not have the right to exist.” She was even more explicit in 2009: “n choosing Hamas, what [the Palestinian people] chose was one united Palestinian state on all of the 1948 territories from the north to the very south.… [And] we support their right to liberation from violent colonialism.”
New York’s new grant program likely reflects the increasing influence that CAIR has in City Hall. CAIR-NY President Zead Ramadan is a significant donor to New York politicians including Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Faiza Ali, the director of Speaker Johnson’s office and formerly the community affairs director of CAIR-NY (as well as a civic engagement director for the Arab American Association of New York, which also received grant money).
Speaker Johnson, a councilman from Manhattan, also owes his current position to the support of the Queens and Bronx Democratic machine (to which he has directed considerable pork); this may help to explain his willingness to associate himself with Queens-based groups like ICNA.
It is shocking that an effort to strengthen local Muslim communities is being exploited to fund groups linked to extremism. Sleazy pay-for-play politics do not excuse such reckless policy, nor do they excuse violating the Constitution by funding religious services.
If New Yorkers want to help Muslim communities, giving money to CAIR, ICNA, and MAS should be the last thing they do.
Dr. Oren Litwin is a Research Fellow at Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
Related Topics: Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamism in the United States, US politics | Oren Litwin
-
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/COLUMN-ONE-Defeating-Hamas-in-America-452551?fbclid=IwAR0ZSKrgLnIxw0Ak6qyZN77gLbsa7p4T3rVFDf5-Oxg_3Z6cv9IVbijqrS4
-
Ellison's replacement?
https://gellerreport.com/2018/10/ilhan-omar-faces-charges.html/
-
https://clarionproject.org/georgia-center-hosting-radical-iranian-clerics/
-
https://clarionproject.org/backlash-against-imam-nick-mosque-culture/
-
https://clarionproject.org/you-didnt-hear-about-this-mob-attack-in-minnesota/
You Didn’t Hear About This Mob Attack in Minnesota
BY NANCY HARTEVELT KOBRIN Wednesday, November 7, 2018
On Saturday, September 22, 2018, while the world focused on the tragedy in Iran of the Ahvaz military parade attack carried out by ISIS, a mob of Somali Muslim men and boys rushed the entrance to Valleyfair, a family amusement park that had set aside the day to honor law enforcement in Minnesota.
The mob overcame security, jumping fences avoiding metal detectors while bringing in weapons. It was a direct, premeditated attack on police and security. Backup had to be called in along with fire trucks, ambulances and even a police helicopter. This attack should be understood as a “dry run” test (in counterterrorism parlance).
...
The mob action occurred even after the Somali community had just enjoyed their very own special Somali day with reduced ticket prices at Valleyfair in July!
The incident has gone virtually unreported in the mainstream media. This shows that a vocal number of troublemakers have been effective in paralyzing honest reporting concerning the deepening of Somali violence in Minnesota.
The media is afraid to report the truth. Allegedly, the reason being given is that Minnesota is facing midterm elections and four Muslims are running for government positions.
Of note in the running is Keith Ellison, the Democratic nominee for attorney general (who is not Somali). Ellison, who is under investigation for domestic violence, formerly associated with the Nation of Islam, a virulently anti-Semitic organization. (When I did prison interviews in Minneapolis of Somalis, Sudanese, African Americans and others, it was the former “Nation of Islamers” who told me that they had “upgraded” to the extremist Sunni Wahhabi Islam. They were among the most violent in the jail. That was in 2005.)
Not to be forgotten in this election is Ilhan Omar, who may have committed perjury when she married her brother in order to obtain a green card for him. He now lives in the United Kingdom. Oddly, she has never been investigated with regards to this issue, to the best of my knowledge, even though she is running for the U.S. Congress (for Keith Ellison’s old seat).
.,..
The Somali mob at Valleyfair started fights, rampaging and looting among other things. Adults and children were terrified. A woman posted that she feared she would never get out of the parking lot alive. Indeed, families set out for a day of fun only to return home with traumatized children.
This mob behavior is a classic example of an enraged shame/honor group bent on destruction and obliteration of everything in its path. Since the media has failed to cover this story because of concerns for “offending” the Somali community, the media has unwittingly primed the pump for more severe violence in the future.
The worst thing that can be done when dealing with such groups is to ignore their violence and cover up what went on.
-
https://clarionproject.org/radical-muslim-group-operates-commune-in-california/
-
https://israelunwired.com/jews-saved-from-muslim-car-ramming-attack-in-la/
-
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Al-Arabiya-slams-Linda-Sarsour-as-Muslim-Brotherhood-ally-573859?fbclid=IwAR3-5-WvSOLKbF-a0d9izwSKU3XSJC_obnhtrL6r71x0_dAXBSgUECKKz8o
https://clarionproject.org/houston-mayor-proclaims-cair-day/
-
The Heart of Texas?
Shahid Shafi knows America better than many other Republicans.
0 Comments
By The Editorial Board
Dec. 16, 2018 4:40 p.m. ET
Dr. Shahid Shafi on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, in Austin.
Dr. Shahid Shafi on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, in Austin. Photo: Amanda Voisard/Associated Press
The midterm election results in Texas weren’t exactly an occasion for Republican whoopin’ and hollerin’. Ted Cruz narrowly held his Senate seat against Beto O’Rourke, and previously secure House Members such as John Culberson and Pete Sessions lost in the suburbs. We’re going to guess the last thing most Texas Republicans thought they needed now is a controversy over Shahid Shafi.
Dr. Shafi came to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1990, is a surgeon, and is vice chairman of the Republican Party in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth. A faction of local Republicans are seeking a recall vote next month to turn him out of his party job. The excuse is that Islam is in contradiction with American values and the party.
That this faction’s initiative is an ugly post-election look for the party isn’t lost on its leadership. Dr. Shafi has received support from Senator Cruz, Texas land commissioner George P. Bush and the county chairman who appointed him.
Dr. Shafi for his part isn’t put off by the minirevolt. He says, “Anyone wondering if one can be a practicing Muslim, which I am, a good American, which I am, and a Republican, which I am—I’m a living example that one can be all three.”
We hope he wins the recall vote.
-
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4732679/sharifa-alkhateeb-talks-public-schools-convert-america-islam&fbclid=IwAR2lazzXYYSFxGc3ScXpi4neSIbP8FGjdIY-Y_g72K2_EkFP9Uuwmdskt-A
-
https://www.dailywire.com/news/43579/ilhan-omars-district-terrorist-recruitment-capital-ryan-saavedra?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=021819-news&utm_campaign=position1
-
https://www.dailywire.com/news/43579/ilhan-omars-district-terrorist-recruitment-capital-ryan-saavedra?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=021819-news&utm_campaign=position1
I thought that when feral inbred 3rd world savages touched the magic soil of the US or Europe, they would be transformed into model citizens.
-
https://www.theblaze.com/news/jussie-smollett-civil-rights-arrest?fbclid=IwAR0-PdMdwSyBIhggeDI39eN8Rp5mA8hq598_fLGldv1JJNG0PhZ1wUDP6e0&utm_campaign=glennbeck&utm_content=buffer862e2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com
-
https://clarionproject.org/isis-may-be-knocked-out-in-syria-but-alive-in-us/
-
https://clarionproject.org/isis-may-be-knocked-out-in-syria-but-alive-in-us/
Strange how many converts to islam miss out on it's inherently peaceful nature. Oh, a lot of those raised in it also seem to be unaware of how very peaceful islam is.
It's almost as if all the experts that have been explaining the inherently peaceful nature of islam to us since 9/11/01 aren't telling us the truth.
Un-possible! They have CREDENTIALS!
-
Let's keep an eye out for the After Action Report on this:
https://www.theblaze.com/glenn-tv/amid-accusations-of-anti-semitism-omar-and-tlaib-fund-raise-for-organization-linked-to-islamic-terror-groups?utm_content=bufferae608&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=glennbeck&fbclid=IwAR1lFpmkiTyCbdBH9isIkXA1ynZsqKLY-OYBB8wS5VYmFPRMbPk0SxdV16k
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=u2pb84cgKp8
-
https://newspunch.com/muslim-christian-protest-trump/?fbclid=IwAR0w1C9LFtOWNDtCDAp7803tYNY8oushabHlhRyRJhRn03ld2ImVi9OWrUo
-
https://newspunch.com/muslim-christian-protest-trump/?fbclid=IwAR0w1C9LFtOWNDtCDAp7803tYNY8oushabHlhRyRJhRn03ld2ImVi9OWrUo
Try googling “Minneapolis woman” “arson” “motive unknown”.
-
CAIR Loses a Round in San Diego to MEF-Funded Lawsuit
March 20, 2019
https://www.meforum.org/58012/cair-loses-round-mef-funded-lawsuit
PHILADELPHIA – March 20, 2019 – The Council on American-Islamic Relation's (CAIR) ubiquitous presence in the San Diego Unified School District is over, thanks in part to the Middle East Forum.
A settlement in the federal lawsuit against the District, substantially funded by MEF, ends the District's "anti-Islamophobia initiative," which: (i) singled out Muslim students for special protections; and (ii) empowered Islamist CAIR to change the District's curriculum to portray Islam more favorably.
The District enacted its initiative in 2017 at the behest of CAIR, which claimed that "Islamophobia" was sweeping through schools after the November 2016 elections. According to the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund – which brought the lawsuit on behalf of five San Diego families – CAIR activists were teaching schoolchildren "how to become allies to Muslim students" and conducting Islamic education workshops for teachers, among other inequities.
Under the terms of the court settlement:
• "Educators should treat each religion with equal respect, with the time and attention spent discussing each religion being proportionate to its impact on history."
• "Educational material on religious subjects must be neutral and may not be presented in a manner that promotes one religion over another."
• "Educators or other staff sponsoring guest speakers at District events must ask them not to use their position or influence on students to forward their own religious, political, economic or social views and shall take active steps to neutralize whatever bias has been presented."
• "Guest speakers from religious organizations are not permitted to present to students on religious topics."
"This is a tremendous victory, because CAIR intended this plan to be a pilot program for a nationwide rollout," said Daniel J. Piedra, executive director of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund. "I thank the Forum for its support of this critical case."
"This is a prime example of how the Forum helps protect the West from Islamist aggression," notes Forum director Gregg Roman."
_ _ _ _ _
The Middle East Forum identifies and promotes American interests in the Middle East and works to protect Western civilization from the threat of Islamism.
For immediate release
For more information, contact:
Gregg Roman
Roman@MEForum.org
+1 (215) 546 5406
-
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjqkw5/american-muslims-contemplate-taking-up-arms-in-self-defense?utm_medium=vicenewsfacebook&fbclid=IwAR25k2bKxUBbBh-DzCCdYFa2N07l9lEewDVG0gJ4Dzy4hMr4HGW7CC5Mwso
-
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjqkw5/american-muslims-contemplate-taking-up-arms-in-self-defense?utm_medium=vicenewsfacebook&fbclid=IwAR25k2bKxUBbBh-DzCCdYFa2N07l9lEewDVG0gJ4Dzy4hMr4HGW7CC5Mwso
Muslims in the US have been arming themselves long before this.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/
https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/02/us/san-bernardino-shooting/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/06/nyregion/kahane-is-killed-after-giving-talk-in-new-york-hotel.html
-
The rhetorical point is acknowledged, but here the notion is entirely something different. There the arming was for nefarious purpose, here the call is for one that claims the right to be supported by all of us.
-
The rhetorical point is acknowledged, but here the notion is entirely something different. There the arming was for nefarious purpose, here the call is for one that claims the right to be supported by all of us.
Actually, we should consider that for everyone’s safety, they should return to dar al Islam.
-
https://mailchi.mp/meforum.org/ilzn5g2nmv?e=9627475d7f
-
Rep Ilhan Omar to Cair: "Some people did some things.
Yes they did. Islamist extremists in the name of Allah committed the worst attack ever on our nation, killing thousands and causing people to jump from burning buildings and vowing to commit more and more attacks including from within.
Omar says that made it harder for Muslims here, the ones who didn't fly the airplanes into the buildings. Yes it did. "They began to lose their civil rights." What?
The ones who did this are dead now, but lived peacefully among us before it happened. It's hard to tell the difference between the followers of the religion of peace [that support jihad] and the ones who want to destroy us who call for jihad.
Minimizing what happened, not effectively separating yourself from their terror cause, raising money for terror related groups, adopting the speech code of the terrorists and the haters, mirroring their foreign policy wishes like death to Israel, these things don't help.
(https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/11.p1lcf.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=780)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/omar-sparks-controversy-over-comments-9-11-muslim-civil-rights-n993326
-
https://www.foxnews.com/us/how-rep-ilhan-omars-minnesota-district-became-the-terrorist-recruitment-capital-of-the-us-officials-highly-concerned?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newslink&utm_term=members&utm_content=20190416211918
-
https://www.foxnews.com/us/how-rep-ilhan-omars-minnesota-district-became-the-terrorist-recruitment-capital-of-the-us-officials-highly-concerned?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newslink&utm_term=members&utm_content=20190416211918
Funny how all jihadists keep sneaking in despite the inherent peacefulness of islam.
-
Help!
I've been challenged on my assertion elsewhere that Obama enabled Somali entrance into America and that he placed them in what is now Ilhan Omar's district.
-
Help!
I've been challenged on my assertion elsewhere that Obama enabled Somali entrance into America and that he placed them in what is now Ilhan Omar's district.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/99-muslim-43-000-somali-refugees-settled-in-us-under-obama
-
Thank you!
-
Some murky lines here , , ,
https://www.meforum.org/58240/brooklyn-islamist-vigilantes?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=8b6f251b5e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_16_04_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-8b6f251b5e-33691909
-
https://clarionproject.org/exclusive-maryland-mosque-arrested-led-prayers/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d3a0924726-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_17_12_03_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-d3a0924726-6358189&mc_cid=d3a0924726&mc_eid=d7eaaa3130
-
Help!
I've been challenged on my assertion elsewhere that Obama enabled Somali entrance into America and that he placed them in what is now Ilhan Omar's district.
https://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1080.msg114793#msg114793
http://tennesseestar.com/2019/01/02/minneapolis-little-mogadishu-sees-56-percent-increase-in-violent-crimes-caused-by-somali-gangs/
"Minneapolis’ ‘Little Mogadishu’ Sees 56 Percent Increase in Violent Crimes Caused by Somali Gangs"
-----------------------------------------------
https://www.businessinsider.com/minneapolis-isis-problem-2015-9
The Twin Cities have an ISIS problem
Colin Campbell Sep. 13, 2015
Members of the Minneapolis Somali community on May 12 waiting to enter the US courthouse in Minneapolis. A federal judge there ordered four Minnesota men accused of trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group held pending trial.
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that a man from Minneapolis pleaded guilty to charges related to the Islamic State militant group.
But the man, whom prosecutors identified as 19-year-old Hanad Musse, was hardly the only Twin Cities resident to face charges in recent months over suspected support of the extremist group.
There have been a string of ISIS-related arrests over roughly the past year.
Why Minneapolis? Authorities say it's linked to Minneapolis-St. Paul's large Somali community.
-----------------------------------------------------
Accelerated under Obama but the beginning of the Somali migration in MN goes back to 1992 and was destroying some suburbs by 2010:
https://www.minnpost.com/learning-curve/2012/07/eden-prairie-schools-update-three-vantage-points/
http://www.startribune.com/aiming-to-desegregate-eden-prairie-schools-redraw-lines/102229224/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/25/minnesota-school-race-diversity/18919391/
--------------------------------------
I don't see why teenage ISIS recruiters and Somali gang members don't assimilate easily with white midwestern suburban kids.
-
The Geller Report sometimes gets carried away, but it also goes where many fear to tread:
https://gellerreport.com/2019/04/cair-wishes-hitler-was-alive.html/
-
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/04/wisconsin-muslim-migrant-mother-of-seven-plotted-to-poison-reservoir-with-ricin-recruited-for-isis?fbclid=IwAR2T39DyqAfxkQ7r49YJyt73wvr5J88vW4ABMDvaHycBuv86aWzCEFdhu6o
-
http://www.gopusa.com/analyst-omars-2017-meeting-ties-somalis-to-muslim-brotherhood/
-
http://www.gopusa.com/analyst-omars-2017-meeting-ties-somalis-to-muslim-brotherhood/
Shocking. America-hating muslims connected to other America-hating muslims. Who could have imagined?
-
https://israelunwired.com/muslim-imam-bashes-delusional-louis-farrakhan-in-front-of-a-jewish-audience/
-
https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/report-fatal-shooting-outside-mosque-in-fort-lauderdale-florida?fbclid=IwAR16TNNVnBW4fMbnlzrJDlHiYx-1LYaKZqcRYSTbLREO9--SY4D0uOOGmGQ
-
https://www.meforum.org/59007/zahra-biilloo?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=e17ae56713-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_25_03_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-e17ae56713-33691909&mc_cid=e17ae56713&mc_eid=9627475d7f
-
https://clarionproject.org/houston-extremist-mosque-launches-cub-scout-troop/
-
I thought this link came from the forum but I don't see it posted.
Unbleeping believable. "Lutheran Social Services" and "Catholic Charities" contributed to this travesty. How do you undo this?
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/somalis_have_changed_minneapolis.html
June 3, 2019
Somalis have Changed Minneapolis
By Sunny Lohman
Everyone not lying to themselves predicted when the federal government under Bill Clinton – aided and abetted by Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities and World Relief Minnesota -- plopped 30,000 Somalis down into the midst of the kind, virtue-signaling, eager-to-help Midwesterners of Minneapolis (of which I am one) that it would lead to some grave consequences for our community.
Now, due to continuing refugee placements as well as chain migration there are an estimated 80,000 Somalis living in the Twin Cities metro area, or more like 79,000 if you subtract those who’ve left the country to join terrorist organizations like ISIS.
Anyhoo, here’s a week Minneapolitans had with their Somali neighbors last month:
On Wednesday, May 15th a couple of University students were attacked on campus at the East Bank Train station by two Somali thugs. It was an attempted robbery that the guys rebuffed sustaining injuries that required a hospital visit.
On Thursday, May 16th two Somalis burned down the pavilion at Lake Calhoun
* [or Lake Bde Maka Ska if you’re a virtue signaler) an eating and hanging out meeting place in the heart of the city enjoyed by generations of Americans around the prettiest city lake you’ve ever seen. This is in the most expensive neighborhood in Minneapolis.
[* This is a personal affront to me and my family history but means nothing to these people who care nothing about our unshared heritage.]
On Friday, May 17th a gang of 10-12 Somali youths attacked all the white people at that same East Bank Train station with hammers and pipes. Snopes says this is “Mostly False” because after the attack they fled, and out of the 7 who were eventually apprehended only two were still in possession of weapons, in this case pipes. So therefore, it never happened.
And now Tuesday, May 20th a woman walking her dog in a gorgeous, huge, wooded off leash dog park, complete with sandy beach on the Mississippi River, found spikes just off the path. Sharp metal objects taped to a wooden spike, presumably designed to hurt dogs running happily through the underbrush. Now, we don’t know that a Somali did that, it could be some crazed psycho Swede, but Islam abhors dogs as unclean because the prophet did.
Will this cause anything to change in Minnesota? Will the city’s leaders stop wearing the hijab in solidarity with the worst of Islam, incredibly, after they attack us!? Will Minneapolitans elect secular, assimilated Somalis rather than proudly Sharia- supporting, anti-Semitic, enshrouded Somali Muslims like Ilhan Omar? (80% of Democrats picked her in the primary.) I doubt it. They did all that after the following events:
· In 2018 it was uncovered that Somalis had perpetrated a massive, community wide scam against the welfare state of Minnesota, stealing an incredible $100 million from a childcare handout program by fraud and shipping that money to Somalia to fund God knows what. (Incidentally, though finally proven in 2018, this was an open secret for years. I knew about this scam when I left the state in 2014.)
· Dozens of Somalis, men and women, over the years arrested or tracked as they attempted to join terrorists overseas including ISIS. The feds are concerned it is still a rich breeding ground for Islamic supremacy and terrorist organizations.
· In 2016 the first Somali police officer murdered a woman in her pajamas who had called in a disturbance. I guess it’s not safe to call the cops when you see something and say something. He has been found guilty of that murder.
· In 2018 a Somali student at St Catherine University attempted to burn down the school and “hurt people,” saying, ““You guys are lucky that I don’t know how to build a bomb because I would have done that.”
· In 2017 a Somali man stabbed a young woman 14 times for no apparent reason -- he didn’t go after her purse -- while she was walking home from her job at an Apple Store. He’s still at large. Curiously no composite sketch was ever released to the media.
· In 2016 during Ramadan a gang of religious robed Somali men terrorized the city’s affluent Linden Hills community “for three straight days, threatening to rape a woman, beating one resident’s dog, and shouting “jihad!” as they drove vehicles over residents’ lawns and pretended to shoot people through their duffel bags. No arrests were made.” (Seriously read this account. You will find it absolutely horrifying and it’s shocking that no arrests were made with all these people trying to get license plate numbers, all the likely surveillance cameras etc. It makes one wonder if the city is protecting Somalis from being held accountable to our laws.) [Minnesota nice??]
· In 2012 90% of Somalis worldwide said they think they agree with Sharia Law and think it should be implemented.
But Ilhan Omar wears such pretty head scarves when she’s raising money for the Muslim Brotherhood.
I’m not sure what it would take for Minneapolitans to wake up and stop being so suicidal with their multiculturalism. Terrorism, arson, violent crime, murder, corruption, fraud, female oppression is apparently not enough.
-
when the Ft Hood shooter terrorized and murdered in 2009 . -- he had mental health problems, and Obama policy of down playing Islamic terror is protected,
as per the MSM
when present murderer in Pensacola kills, the MSM is able to link the fact that he is a Saudi
to the fact that Trump is aligning with Saudi Arabia against Iranian hegemony and therefore use as way to criticize the orange man.
therefore this is orange man's fault.
-
https://clarionproject.org/nyc-muslim-patrol-bullying-reported/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ab684208b5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_12_10_12_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-ab684208b5-6358189&mc_cid=ab684208b5&mc_eid=d7eaaa3130
-
https://clarionproject.org/nyc-muslim-patrol-bullying-reported/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ab684208b5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_12_10_12_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-ab684208b5-6358189&mc_cid=ab684208b5&mc_eid=d7eaaa3130
Shocking. I am so old I remember when sharia law in America was a laughable right wing paranoid idea.
-
https://www.meforum.org/60109/new-brand-of-us-islamists-wins-big-in-2019?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=ff3969bb8e-MEF_Baird_2019_12_16_07_48&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-ff3969bb8e-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-ff3969bb8e-33691909&mc_cid=ff3969bb8e
-
https://clarionproject.org/ny-muslim-patrol-bullied-back-bloods/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=773cf6324f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_12_17_01_55&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-773cf6324f-6358189&mc_cid=773cf6324f
-
https://clarionproject.org/taqwa-mosque-member-beaten-by-bloods-retaliation/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter
-
second post
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/28/school-suspends-christian-student-who-challenged-muslim-prof-who-said-jesus-crucifixion-is-a-hoax?utm_content=buffer12979&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fb-theblaze
-
https://clarionproject.org/taqwa-mosque-member-beaten-by-bloods-retaliation/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter
Heh.
-
" .The wounded man, described as “beaten up real bad,” was sent to Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. He told mosque officials the attackers were wearing the known colors of the Bloods –red and black."
Obviously this is the fault of Jews who live in the vicinity !
This would never happen otherwise.
-
Members of the brutal Bloods gang viciously beat a Muslim man outside the Masjid Taqwa in Brooklyn, N.Y. last Saturday evening, according to a mosque member. The beating was seen as retaliation for a Muslim Community Patrol member roughing up a teenage boy who had reportedly “disrespected” a Muslim woman several days earlier.
The wounded man, described as “beaten up real bad,” was sent to Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center.
https://christianaction.org/dont-miss-news/bloods-fulfill-promise-and-retaliate-against-n-y-c-muslim-community-patrol/
-
https://clarionproject.org/muslim-patrol-sacrifices-former-officer-to-bloods-gang/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4e33b6fe99-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_06_02_37&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-4e33b6fe99-6358189&mc_cid=4e33b6fe99
-
Some background context
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/nyregion/muslim-community-patrol-brooklyn.html
-
https://clarionproject.org/detroit-michigan-islamic-leaders-mourn-soleimani/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=43193085bb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_15_12_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-43193085bb-6358189&mc_cid=43193085bb
-
CAIR Sues to Muzzle Arizona Community College Professor
by John Rossomando
IPT News
June 16, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8442/cair-sues-to-muzzle-arizona-community-college
-
As we predicted :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/minnesota-state-rep-antifa-and-muslim-groups-plan-robert-spencer/
-
As we predicted :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/minnesota-state-rep-antifa-and-muslim-groups-plan-robert-spencer/
Well, as long as Doug is willing to say the shahada, he might actually get some actual protection for himself and his properties.
-
Why Feminism Is AWOL on Islam
Kay S. Hymowitz
U.S. feminists should be protesting the brutal oppression of Middle Eastern women. But doing so would reveal how little they have to complain about at home.
Argue all you want with many feminist policies, but few quarrel with feminism?s core moral insight, which changed the lives (and minds) of women forever: that women are due the same rights and dignity as men. So, as news of the appalling miseries of women in the Islamic world has piled up, where are the feminists? Where?s the outrage? For a brief moment after September 11, when pictures of those blue alien-creaturely shapes in Afghanistan filled the papers, it seemed as if feminists were going to have their moment. And in fact the Feminist Majority, to its credit, had been publicizing since the mid-90s how Afghan girls were barred from school, how women were stoned for adultery or beaten for showing an ankle or wearing high-heeled shoes, how they were prohibited from leaving the house unless accompanied by a male relative, how they were denied medical help because the only doctors around were male.
But the rest is feminist silence. You haven?t heard a peep from feminists as it has grown clear that the Taliban were exceptional not in their extreme views about women but in their success at embodying those views in law and practice. In the United Arab Emirates, husbands have the right to beat their wives in order to discipline them??provided that the beating is not so severe as to damage her bones or deform her body,? in the words of the Gulf News. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot vote, drive, or show their faces or talk with male non-relatives in public. (Evidently they can?t talk to men over the airwaves either; when Prince Abdullah went to President Bush?s ranch in Crawford last April, he insisted that no female air-traffic controllers handle his flight.) Yes, Saudi girls can go to school, and many even attend the university; but at the university, women must sit in segregated rooms and watch their professors on closed-circuit televisions. If they have a question, they push a button on their desk, which turns on a light at the professor?s lectern, from which he can answer the female without being in her dangerous presence. And in Saudi Arabia, education can be harmful to female health. Last spring in Mecca, members of the mutaween, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue, pushed fleeing students back into their burning school because they were not properly covered in abaya. Fifteen girls died.
You didn?t hear much from feminists when in the northern Nigerian province of Katsina a Muslim court sentenced a woman to death by stoning for having a child outside of marriage. The case might not have earned much attention?stonings are common in parts of the Muslim world?except that the young woman, who had been married off at 14 to a husband who ultimately divorced her when she lost her virginal allure, was still nursing a baby at the time of sentencing. During her trial she had no lawyer, although the court did see fit to delay her execution until she weans her infant.
You didn?t hear much from feminists as it emerged that honor killings by relatives, often either ignored or only lightly punished by authorities, are also commonplace in the Muslim world. In September, Reuters reported the story of an Iranian man, ?defending my honor, family, and dignity,? who cut off his seven-year-old daughter?s head after suspecting she had been raped by her uncle. The postmortem showed the girl to be a virgin. In another family mix-up, a Yemeni man shot his daughter to death on her wedding night when her husband claimed she was not a virgin. After a medical exam revealed that the husband was mistaken, officials concluded he was simply trying to protect himself from embarrassment about his own impotence. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, every day two women are slain by male relatives seeking to avenge the family honor.
The savagery of some of these murders is worth a moment?s pause. In 2000, two Punjabi sisters, 20 and 21 years old, had their throats slit by their brother and cousin because the girls were seen talking to two boys to whom they were not related. In one especially notorious case, an Egyptian woman named Nora Marzouk Ahmed fell in love and eloped. When she went to make amends with her father, he cut off her head and paraded it down the street. Several years back, according to the Washington Post, the husband of Zahida Perveen, a 32-year-old pregnant Pakistani, gouged out her eyes and sliced off her earlobe and nose because he suspected her of having an affair.
In a related example widely covered last summer, a teenage girl in the Punjab was sentenced by a tribal council to rape by a gang that included one of the councilmen. After the hour-and-a-half ordeal, the girl was forced to walk home naked in front of scores of onlookers. She had been punished because her 11-year-old brother had compromised another girl by being been seen alone with her. But that charge turned out to be a ruse: it seems that three men of a neighboring tribe had sodomized the boy and accused him of illicit relations?an accusation leading to his sister?s barbaric punishment?as a way of covering up their crime.
Nor is such brutality limited to backward, out-of-the-way villages. Muddassir Rizvi, a Pakistani journalist, says that, though always common in rural areas, in recent years honor killings have become more prevalent in cities ?among educated and liberal families.? In relatively modern Jordan, honor killings were all but exempt from punishment until the penal code was modified last year; unfortunately, a young Palestinian living in Jordan, who had recently stabbed his 19-year-old sister 40 times ?to cleanse the family honor,? and another man from near Amman, who ran over his 23-year-old sister with his truck because of her ?immoral behavior,? had not yet changed their ways. British psychiatrist Anthony Daniels reports that British Muslim men frequently spirit their young daughters back to their native Pakistan and force the girls to marry. Such fathers have been known to kill daughters who resist. In Sweden, in one highly publicized case, Fadima Sahindal, an assimilated 26-year-old of Kurdish origin, was murdered by her father after she began living with her Swedish boyfriend. ?The whore is dead,? the family announced.
As you look at this inventory of brutality, the question bears repeating: Where are the demonstrations, the articles, the petitions, the resolutions, the vindications of the rights of Islamic women by American feminists? The weird fact is that, even after the excesses of the Taliban did more to forge an American consensus about women?s rights than 30 years of speeches by Gloria Steinem, feminists refused to touch this subject. They have averted their eyes from the harsh, blatant oppression of millions of women, even while they have continued to stare into the Western patriarchal abyss, indignant over female executives who cannot join an exclusive golf club and college women who do not have their own lacrosse teams.
But look more deeply into the matter, and you realize that the sound of feminist silence about the savage fundamentalist Muslim oppression of women has its own perverse logic. The silence is a direct outgrowth of the way feminist theory has developed in recent years. Now mired in self-righteous sentimentalism, multicultural nonjudgmentalism, and internationalist utopianism, feminism has lost the language to make the universalist moral claims of equal dignity and individual freedom that once rendered it so compelling. No wonder that most Americans, trying to deal with the realities of a post-9/11 world, are paying feminists no mind.
To understand the current sisterly silence about the sort of tyranny that the women?s movement came into existence to attack, it is helpful to think of feminisms plural rather than singular. Though not entirely discrete philosophies, each of three different feminisms has its own distinct reasons for causing activists to ?lose their voice? in the face of women?s oppression.
The first variety?radical feminism (or gender feminism, in Christina Hoff Sommers?s term)?starts with the insight that men are, not to put too fine a point upon it, brutes. Radical feminists do not simply subscribe to the reasonable-enough notion that men are naturally more prone to aggression than women. They believe that maleness is a kind of original sin. Masculinity explains child abuse, marital strife, high defense spending, every war from Troy to Afghanistan, as well as Hitler, Franco, and Pinochet. As Gloria Steinem informed the audience at a Florida fundraiser last March: ?The cult of masculinity is the basis for every violent, fascist regime.?
Gender feminists are little interested in fine distinctions between radical Muslim men who slam commercial airliners into office buildings and soldiers who want to stop radical Muslim men from slamming commercial airliners into office buildings. They are both examples of generic male violence?and specifically, male violence against women. ?Terrorism is on a continuum that starts with violence within the family, battery against women, violence against women in the society, all the way up to organized militaries that are supported by taxpayer money,? according to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, who teaches ?The Sexuality of Terrorism? at California State University in Hayward. Violence is so intertwined with male sexuality that, she tells us, military pilots watch porn movies before they go out on sorties. The war in Afghanistan could not possibly offer a chance to liberate women from their oppressors, since it would simply expose women to yet another set of oppressors, in the gender feminists? view. As Sharon Lerner asserted bizarrely in the Village Voice, feminists? ?discomfort? with the Afghanistan bombing was ?deepened by the knowledge that more women than men die as a result of most wars.?
If guys are brutes, girls are their opposite: peace-loving, tolerant, conciliatory, and reasonable??Antiwar and Pro-Feminist,? as the popular peace-rally sign goes. Feminists long ago banished tough-as-nails women like Margaret Thatcher and Jeanne Kirkpatrick (and these days, one would guess, even the fetching Condoleezza Rice) to the ranks of the imperfectly female. Real women, they believe, would never justify war. ?Most women, Western and Muslim, are opposed to war regardless of its reasons and objectives,? wrote the Jordanian feminist Fadia Faqir on OpenDemocracy.net. ?They are concerned with emancipation, freedom (personal and civic), human rights, power sharing, integrity, dignity, equality, autonomy, power-sharing [sic], liberation, and pluralism.?
Sara Ruddick, author of Maternal Thinking, is perhaps one of the most influential spokeswomen for the position that women are instinctually peaceful. According to Ruddick (who clearly didn?t have Joan Crawford in mind), that?s because a good deal of mothering is naturally governed by the Gandhian principles of nonviolence such as ?renunciation,? ?resistance to injustice,? and ?reconciliation.? The novelist Barbara Kingsolver was one of the first to demonstrate the subtleties of such universal maternal thinking after the United States invaded Afghanistan. ?I feel like I?m standing on a playground where the little boys are all screaming ?He started it!? and throwing rocks,? she wrote in the Los Angeles Times. ?I keep looking for somebody?s mother to come on the scene saying, ?Boys! Boys!? ?
Gender feminism?s tendency to reduce foreign affairs to a Lifetime Channel movie may make it seem too silly to bear mentioning, but its kitschy naivet? hasn?t stopped it from being widespread among elites. You see it in widely read writers like Kingsolver, Maureen Dowd, and Alice Walker. It turns up in our most elite institutions. Swanee Hunt, head of the Women in Public Policy Program at Harvard?s Kennedy School of Government wrote, with Cristina Posa in Foreign Policy: ?The key reason behind women?s marginalization may be that everyone recognizes just how good women are at forging peace.? Even female elected officials are on board. ?The women of all these countries should go on strike, they should all sit down and refuse to do anything until their men agree to talk peace,? urged Ohio representative Marcy Kaptur to the Arab News last spring, echoing an idea that Aristophanes, a dead white male, proposed as a joke 2,400 years ago. And President Clinton is an advocate of maternal thinking, too. ?If we?d had women at Camp David,? he said in July 2000, ?we?d have an agreement.?
Major foundations too seem to take gender feminism seriously enough to promote it as an answer to world problems. Last December, the Ford Foundation and the Soros Open Society Foundation helped fund the Afghan Women?s Summit in Brussels to develop ideas for a new government in Afghanistan. As Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler described it on her website, the summit was made up of ?meetings and meals, canvassing, workshops, tears, and dancing.? ?Defense was mentioned nowhere in the document,? Ensler wrote proudly of the summit?s concluding proclamation?despite the continuing threat in Afghanistan of warlords, bandits, and lingering al-Qaida operatives. ?uilding weapons or instruments of retaliation was not called for in any category,? Ensler cooed. ?Instead [the women] wanted education, health care, and the protection of refugees, culture, and human rights.?
Too busy celebrating their own virtue and contemplating their own victimhood, gender feminists cannot address the suffering of their Muslim sisters realistically, as light years worse than their own petulant grievances. They are too intent on hating war to ask if unleashing its horrors might be worth it to overturn a brutal tyranny that, among its manifold inhumanities, treats women like animals. After all, hating war and machismo is evidence of the moral superiority that comes with being born female.
Yet the gender feminist idea of superior feminine virtue is becoming an increasingly tough sell for anyone actually keeping up with world events. Kipling once wrote of the fierceness of Afghan women: ?When you?re wounded and left on the Afghan plains/And the women come out to cut up your remains/Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains.? Now it?s clearer than ever that the dream of worldwide sisterhood is no more realistic than worldwide brotherhood; culture trumps gender any day. Mothers all over the Muslim world are naming their babies Usama or praising Allah for their sons? efforts to kill crusading infidels. Last February, 28-year-old Wafa Idris became the first female Palestinian suicide bomber to strike in Israel, killing an elderly man and wounding scores of women and children. And in April, Israeli soldiers discovered under the maternity clothes of 26-year-old Shifa Adnan Kodsi a bomb rather than a baby. Maternal thinking, indeed.
The second variety of feminism, seemingly more sophisticated and especially prevalent on college campuses, is multiculturalism and its twin, postcolonialism. The postcolonial feminist has even more reason to shy away from the predicament of women under radical Islam than her maternally thinking sister. She believes that the Western world is so sullied by its legacy of imperialism that no Westerner, man or woman, can utter a word of judgment against former colonial peoples. Worse, she is not so sure that radical Islam isn?t an authentic, indigenous?and therefore appropriate?expression of Arab and Middle Eastern identity.
The postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault, one of the intellectual godfathers of multiculturalism and postcolonialism, first set the tone in 1978 when an Italian newspaper sent him to Teheran to cover the Iranian revolution. As his biographer James Miller tells it, Foucault looked in the face of Islamic fundamentalism and saw . . . an awe-inspiring revolt against ?global hegemony.? He was mesmerized by this new form of ?political spirituality? that, in a phrase whose dark prescience he could not have grasped, portended the ?transfiguration of the world.? Even after the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power and reintroduced polygamy and divorce on the husband?s demand with automatic custody to fathers, reduced the official female age of marriage from 18 to 13, fired all female judges, and ordered compulsory veiling, whose transgression was to be punished by public flogging, Foucault saw no reason to temper his enthusiasm. What was a small matter like women?s basic rights, when a struggle against ?the planetary system? was at hand?
Postcolonialists, then, have their own binary system, somewhat at odds with gender feminism?not to mention with women?s rights. It is not men who are the sinners; it is the West. It is not women who are victimized innocents; it is the people who suffered under Western colonialism, or the descendants of those people, to be more exact. Caught between the rock of patriarchy and the hard place of imperialism, the postcolonial feminist scholar gingerly tiptoes her way around the subject of Islamic fundamentalism and does the only thing she can do: she focuses her ire on Western men.
To this end, the postcolonialist eagerly dips into the inkwell of gender feminism. She ties colonialist exploitation and domination to maleness; she might refer to Israel?s ?masculinist military culture??Israel being white and Western?though she would never dream of pointing out the ?masculinist military culture? of the jihadi. And she expends a good deal of energy condemning Western men for wanting to improve the lives of Eastern women. At the turn of the twentieth century Lord Cromer, the British vice consul of Egypt and a pet target of postcolonial feminists, argued that the ?degradation? of women under Islam had a harmful effect on society. Rubbish, according to the postcolonialist feminist. His words are simply part of ?the Western narrative of the quintessential otherness and inferiority of Islam,? as Harvard professor Leila Ahmed puts it in Women and Gender in Islam. The same goes for American concern about Afghan women; it is merely a ?device for ranking the ?other? men as inferior or as ?uncivilized,? ? according to Nira Yuval-Davis, professor of gender and ethnic studies at the University of Greenwich, England. These are all examples of what renowned Columbia professor Gayatri Spivak called ?white men saving brown women from brown men.?
Spivak?s phrase, a great favorite on campus, points to the postcolonial notion that brown men, having been victimized by the West, can never be oppressors in their own right. If they give the appearance of treating women badly, the oppression they have suffered at the hands of Western colonial masters is to blame. In fact, the worse they treat women, the more they are expressing their own justifiable outrage. ?When men are traumatized [by colonial rule], they tend to traumatize their own women,? Miriam Cooke, a Duke professor and head of the Association for Middle East Women?s Studies, told me. And today, Cooke asserts, brown men are subjected to a new form of imperialism. ?Now there is a return of colonialism that we saw in the nineteenth century in the context of globalization,? she says. ?What is driving Islamist men is globalization.?
It would be difficult to exaggerate the through-the-looking-glass quality of postcolonialist theory when it comes to the subject of women. Female suicide bombers are a good thing, because they are strong women demonstrating ?agency? against colonial powers. Polygamy too must be shown due consideration. ?Polygamy can be liberating and empowering,? Cooke answered sunnily when I asked her about it. ?Our norm is the Western, heterosexual, single couple. If we can imagine different forms that would allow us to be something other than a heterosexual couple, we might imagine polygamy working,? she explained murkily. Some women, she continued, are relieved when their husbands take a new wife: they won?t have to service him so often. Or they might find they now have the freedom to take a lover. But, I ask, wouldn?t that be dangerous in places where adulteresses can be stoned to death? At any rate, how common is that? ?I don?t know,? Cooke answers, ?I?m interested in discourse.? The irony couldn?t be darker: the very people protesting the imperialist exploitation of the ?Other? endorse that Other?s repressive customs as a means of promoting their own uniquely Western agenda?subverting the heterosexual patriarchy.
The final category in the feminist taxonomy, which might be called the world-government utopian strain, is in many respects closest to classical liberal feminism. Dedicated to full female dignity and equality, it generally eschews both the biological determinism of the gender feminist and the cultural relativism of the multiculti postcolonialist. Stanford political science professor Susan Moller Okin, an influential, subtle, and intelligent spokeswoman for this approach, created a stir among feminists in 1997 when she forthrightly attacked multiculturalists for valuing ?group rights for minority cultures? over the well-being of individual women. Okin admirably minced no words attacking arranged marriage, female circumcision, and polygamy, which she believed women experienced as a ?barely tolerable institution.? Some women, she went so far as to declare, ?might be better off if the culture into which they were born were either to become extinct . . . or preferably, to be encouraged to alter itself so as to reinforce the equality of women.?
But though Okin is less shy than other feminists about discussing the plight of women under Islamic fundamentalism, the typical U.N. utopian has her own reasons for keeping quiet as that plight fills Western headlines. For one thing, the utopian is also a bean-counting absolutist, seeking a pure, numerical equality between men and women in all departments of life. She greets Western, and particularly American, claims to have achieved freedom for women with skepticism. The motto of the 2002 International Women?s Day??Afghanistan Is Everywhere??was in part a reproach to the West about its superior airs. Women in Afghanistan might have to wear burqas, but don?t women in the West parade around in bikinis? ?It?s equally disrespectful and abusive to have women prancing around a stage in bathing suits for cash or walking the streets shrouded in burqas in order to survive,? columnist Jill Nelson wrote on the MSNBC website about the murderously fanatical riots that attended the Miss World pageant in Nigeria.
As Nelson?s statement hints, the utopian is less interested in freeing women to make their own choices than in engineering and imposing her own elite vision of a perfect society. Indeed, she is under no illusions that, left to their own democratic devices, women would freely choose the utopia she has in mind. She would not be surprised by recent Pakistani elections, where a number of the women who won parliamentary seats were Islamist. But it doesn?t really matter what women want. The universalist has a comprehensive vision of ?women?s human rights,? meaning not simply women?s civil and political rights but ?economic rights? and ?socioeconomic justice.? Cynical about free markets and globalization, the U.N. utopian is also unimpressed by the liberal democratic nation-state ?as an emancipatory institution,? in the dismissive words of J. Ann Tickner, director for international studies at the University of Southern California. Such nation-states are ?unresponsive to the needs of [their] most vulnerable members? and seeped in ?nationalist ideologies? as well as in patriarchal assumptions about autonomy. In fact, like the (usually) unacknowledged socialist that she is, the U.N. utopian eagerly awaits the withering of the nation-state, a political arrangement that she sees as tied to imperialism, war, and masculinity. During war, in particular, nations ?depend on ideas about masculinized dignity and feminized sacrifice to sustain the sense of autonomous nationhood,? writes Cynthia Enloe, professor of government at Clark University.
Having rejected the patriarchal liberal nation-state, with all the democratic machinery of self-government that goes along with it, the utopian concludes that there is only one way to achieve her goals: to impose them through international government. Utopian feminists fill the halls of the United Nations, where they examine everything through the lens of the ?gender perspective? in study after unreadable study. (My personal favorites: ?Gender Perspectives on Landmines? and ?Gender Perspectives on Weapons of Mass Destruction,? whose conclusion is that landmines and WMDs are bad for women.)
The 1979 U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), perhaps the first and most important document of feminist utopianism, gives the best sense of the sweeping nature of the movement?s ambitions. CEDAW demands many measures that anyone committed to democratic liberal values would applaud, including women?s right to vote and protection against honor killings and forced marriage. Would that the document stopped there. Instead it sets out to impose a utopian order that would erase all distinctions between men and women, a kind of revolution of the sexes from above, requiring nations to ?take all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women? and to eliminate ?stereotyped roles? to accomplish this legislative abolition of biology. The document calls for paid maternity leave, nonsexist school curricula, and government-supported child care. The treaty?s 23-member enforcement committee hectors nations that do not adequately grasp that, as Enloe puts it, ?the personal is international.? The committee has cited Belarus for celebrating Mother?s Day, China for failing to legalize prostitution, and Libya for not interpreting the Qur?an in accordance with ?committee guidelines.?
Confusing ?women?s participation? with self-determination, and numerical equivalence with equality, CEDAW utopians try to orchestrate their perfect society through quotas and affirmative-action plans. Their bean-counting mentality cares about whether women participate equally, without asking what it is that they are participating in or whether their participation is anything more than ceremonial. Thus at the recent Women?s Summit in Jordan, Rima Khalaf suggested that governments be required to use quotas in elections ?to leapfrog women to power.? Khalaf, like so many illiberal feminist utopians, has no hesitation in forcing society to be free. As is often the case when elites decide they have discovered the route to human perfection, the utopian urge is not simply antidemocratic but verges on the totalitarian.
That this combination of sentimental victimhood, postcolonial relativism, and utopian overreaching has caused feminism to suffer so profound a loss of moral and political imagination that it cannot speak against the brutalization of Islamic women is an incalculable loss to women and to men. The great contribution of Western feminism was to expand the definition of human dignity and freedom. It insisted that all human beings were worthy of liberty. Feminists now have the opportunity to make that claim on behalf of women who in their oppression have not so much as imagined that its promise could include them, too. At its best, feminism has stood for a rich idea of personal choice in shaping a meaningful life, one that respects not only the woman who wants to crash through glass ceilings but also the one who wants to stay home with her children and bake cookies or to wear a veil and fast on Ramadan. Why shouldn?t feminists want to shout out their own profound discovery for the world to hear?
Perhaps, finally, because to do so would be to acknowledge the freedom they themselves enjoy, thanks to Western ideals and institutions. Not only would such an admission force them to give up their own simmering resentments; it would be bad for business.
The truth is that the free institutions?an independent judiciary, a free press, open elections?that protect the rights of women are the same ones that protect the rights of men. The separation of church and state that would allow women to escape the burqa would also free men from having their hands amputated for theft. The education system that would teach girls to read would also empower millions of illiterate boys. The capitalist economies that bring clean water, cheap clothes, and washing machines that change the lives of women are the same ones that lead to healthier, freer men. In other words, to address the problems of Muslim women honestly, feminists would have to recognize that free men and women need the same things?and that those are things that they themselves already have. And recognizing that would mean an end to feminism as we know it.
There are signs that, outside the academy, middlebrow literary circles, and the United Nations, feminism has indeed met its Waterloo. Most Americans seem to realize that September 11 turned self-indulgent sentimental illusions, including those about the sexes, into an unaffordable luxury. Consider, for instance, women?s attitudes toward war, a topic on which politicians have learned to take for granted a gender gap. But according to the Pew Research Center, in January 2002, 57 percent of women versus 46 percent of men cited national security as the country?s top priority. There has been a ?seismic gender shift on matters of war,? according to pollster Kellyanne Conway. In 1991, 45 percent of U.S. women supported the use of ground troops in the Gulf War, a substantially smaller number than the 67 percent of men. But as of November, a CNN survey found women were more likely than men to support the use of ground troops against Iraq, 58 percent to 56 percent. The numbers for younger women were especially dramatic. Sixty-five percent of women between 18 and 49 support ground troops, as opposed to 48 percent of women 50 and over. Women are also changing their attitudes toward military spending: before September 11, only 24 percent of women supported increased funds; after the attacks, that number climbed to 47 percent. An evolutionary psychologist might speculate that, if females tend to be less aggressively territorial than males, there?s little to compare to the ferocity of the lioness when she believes her young are threatened.
Even among some who consider themselves feminists, there is some grudging recognition that Western, and specifically American, men are sometimes a force for the good. The Feminist Majority is sending around urgent messages asking for President Bush to increase American security forces in Afghanistan. The influential left-wing British columnist Polly Toynbee, who just 18 months ago coined the phrase ?America the Horrible,? went to Afghanistan to figure out whether the war ?was worth it.? Her answer was not what she might have expected. Though she found nine out of ten women still wearing burqas, partly out of fear of lingering fundamentalist hostility, she was convinced their lives had greatly improved. Women say they can go out alone now.
As we sink more deeply into what is likely to be a protracted struggle with radical Islam, American feminists have a moral responsibility to give up their resentments and speak up for women who actually need their support. Feminists have the moral authority to say that their call for the rights of women is a universal demand?that the rights of women are the Rights of Man.
Feminism Behind the Veil
Feminists in the West may fiddle while Muslim women are burning, but in the Muslim world itself there is a burgeoning movement to address the miserable predicament of the second sex?without simply adopting a philosophy whose higher cultural products include Sex and the City, Rosie O?Donnell, and the power-suited female executive.
The most impressive signs of an indigenous female revolt against the fundamentalist order are in Iran. Over the past ten years or so, Iran has seen the publication of a slew of serious journals dedicated to the social and political predicament of Islamic women, the most well known being the Teheran-based Zonan and Zan, published by Faezah Hashemi, a well-known member of parliament and the daughter of former president Rafsanjani. Believing that Western feminism has promoted hostility between the sexes, confused sex roles, and the sexual objectification of women, a number of writers have proposed an Islamic-style feminism that would stress ?gender complementarity? rather than equality and that would pay full respect to housewifery and motherhood while also giving women access to education and jobs.
Attacking from the religious front, a number of ?Islamic feminists? are challenging the reigning fundamentalist reading of the Qur?an. These scholars insist that the founding principles of Islam, which they believe were long ago corrupted by pre-Islamic Arab, Persian, and North African customs, are if anything more egalitarian than those of Western religions; the Qur?an explicitly describes women as the moral and spiritual equals of men and allows them to inherit and pass down property. The power of misogynistic mullahs has grown in recent decades, feminists continue, because Muslim men have felt threatened by modernity?s challenge to traditional arrangements between the sexes.
What makes Islamic feminism really worth watching is that it has the potential to play a profoundly important role in the future of the Islamic world?and not just because it could improve the lot of women. By insisting that it is true to Islam?in fact, truer than the creed espoused by the entrenched religious elite?Islamic feminism can affirm the dignity of Islam while at the same time bringing it more in line with modernity. In doing this, feminists can help lay the philosophical groundwork for democracy. In the West, feminism lagged behind religious reformation and political democratization by centuries; in the East, feminism could help lead the charge.
At the same time, though, the issue of women?s rights highlights two reasons for caution about the Islamic future. For one thing, no matter how much feminists might wish otherwise, polygamy and male domination of the family are not merely a fact of local traditions; they are written into the Qur?an itself. This in and of itself would not prove to be such an impediment?the Old Testament is filled with laws antithetical to women?s equality?except for the second problem: more than other religions, Islam is unfriendly to the notion of the separation of church and state. If history is any guide, there?s the rub. The ultimate guarantor of the rights of all citizens, whether Islamic or not, can only be a fully secular state.
Modify message
-
As we predicted :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/minnesota-state-rep-antifa-and-muslim-groups-plan-robert-spencer/
Well, as long as Doug is willing to say the shahada, he might actually get some actual protection for himself and his properties.
"Plan to 'Police Minneapolis Under Muslim Rule"
That's crazy, like saying the city council would vote to de-fund the police.
There are so many cognitive dissonance issues to work out with Left-rule and Sharia law. Not funny but looking into their world, would they be able to stone Ilhan Omar to death for adultery quickly enough to get her replaced on the ballot?
Will the new ISIS respect the rights of the Native Americans after the white Left deeds the ill-gotten land back to them?
Minnesota's most Jewish area, hometown of Al Franken and Thomas Friedman, NYT, is in Ilhan's Muslim-run district. Is Sharia Law Kosher?
Minneapolis is one the the leading open gay cities in the world. How do they fare under Sharia?
As G M suggests, my business of providing housing for the economically challenged doesn't hold up in a land of third world laws that does not recognize property rights.
I won't need a gun in this scenario. I will need a new pair of Nikes to outrun the mob.
Seriously, Minneapolis Democrats have a contested primary (Aug 11?) to discuss the future of being represented a feminist, black, Marxist Muslim. The main challenger is male, darker than Ilhan in skin tone, and hates just Trump in the campaign instead of all of America. No one speaks ill of Ilhan in the white lefty neighborhoods but I see a lot of people have yard signs supporting Antoine hyphon-last-name, the challenger.
-
California Census Partners with CAIR Radical
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
August 5, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8495/california-census-partners-with-cair-radical
-
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2020/08/06/third-minneapolis-police-leave-force-end-year-no-replacements-sight/
You should have guns and your Nike running shoes ready.
As we predicted :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/minnesota-state-rep-antifa-and-muslim-groups-plan-robert-spencer/
Well, as long as Doug is willing to say the shahada, he might actually get some actual protection for himself and his properties.
"Plan to 'Police Minneapolis Under Muslim Rule"
That's crazy, like saying the city council would vote to de-fund the police.
There are so many cognitive dissonance issues to work out with Left-rule and Sharia law. Not funny but looking into their world, would they be able to stone Ilhan Omar to death for adultery quickly enough to get her replaced on the ballot?
Will the new ISIS respect the rights of the Native Americans after the white Left deeds the ill-gotten land back to them?
Minnesota's most Jewish area, hometown of Al Franken and Thomas Friedman, NYT, is in Ilhan's Muslim-run district. Is Sharia Law Kosher?
Minneapolis is one the the leading open gay cities in the world. How do they fare under Sharia?
As G M suggests, my business of providing housing for the economically challenged doesn't hold up in a land of third world laws that does not recognize property rights.
I won't need a gun in this scenario. I will need a new pair of Nikes to outrun the mob.
Seriously, Minneapolis Democrats have a contested primary (Aug 11?) to discuss the future of being represented a feminist, black, Marxist Muslim. The main challenger is male, darker than Ilhan in skin tone, and hates just Trump in the campaign instead of all of America. No one speaks ill of Ilhan in the white lefty neighborhoods but I see a lot of people have yard signs supporting Antoine hyphon-last-name, the challenger.
-
Amid a Spate of Anti-Semitic Attacks, Orange County Muslim Leader Incites More Hatred
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
May 25, 2021
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8869/amid-a-spate-of-anti-semitic-attacks-orange
-
https://www.dailywire.com/news/dem-tells-high-school-grads-theyre-entering-capitalism-white-supremacy-remember-jihad-reject-objectivity?al_applink_data=%7B%22target_url%22%3A%22https%3A%5C%2F%5C%2Fwww.dailywire.com%5C%2Fnews%5C%2Fdem-tells-high-school-grads-theyre-entering-capitalism-white-supremacy-remember-jihad-reject-objectivity%3Futm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_campaign%3Dbenshapiro%22%2C%22extras%22%3A[]%2C%22referer_app_link%22%3A%7B%22url%22%3A%22fb%3A%5C%2F%5C%2F%5C%2F%22%2C%22app_name%22%3A%22Facebook%22%7D%7D&fbclid=IwAR21BthqWL3pMTz222RiIKzRNYRpSJlgtwEZuV2bNA-NHEcLcM41F2uPPR0
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10247301/School-CANCELS-event-ISIS-survivor-Nadia-Murad-saying-visit-offensive-Muslims.html
-
Report: CAIR to be Named Among Wiesenthal Center's Top Global Anti-Semites
IPT News
December 27, 2021
https://www.investigativeproject.org/9106/report-cair-to-be-named-among-wiesenthal-center
-
https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/police-investigating-violence-vandalism-outside-islamic-center-of-tucson?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e7004cb507-extremist_roundup_12-16-21_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-e7004cb507-7091200&mc_cid=e7004cb507&mc_eid=361b583397
-
Media Attack Investigative Reporter for Investigating and Reporting on CAIR
Hamas-linked CAIR gets a free pass from lazy media that smear Steven Emerson as an 'Islamophobe.'
by A.J.Caschetta
National Review
January 29, 2022
https://www.investigativeproject.org/9132/media-attack-investigative-reporter-for
-
CAIR Doubles Down on 'Illegal Surveillance' Charges
The Islamist group has expanded its bogus accusations and is asking the Department of Justice to investigate its critics.
by A.J. Caschetta
National Review
February 9, 2022
https://www.investigativeproject.org/9137/cair-doubles-down-on-illegal-surveillance-charges
-
for a reason:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/islamophobia_is_as_old_as_islam.html
Christianity in practice has had its' warts too.
Jews generally do not prosetylize
perhaps that is why there are so few of us relatively speaking..........
-
Christianity created western civilization, a lack of it is causing it's destruction.
90% of muslims ruin it for all the rest.
for a reason:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/islamophobia_is_as_old_as_islam.html
Christianity in practice has had its' warts too.
Jews generally do not prosetylize
perhaps that is why there are so few of us relatively speaking..........
-
https://www.frontpagemag.com/mayor-adams-to-honor-22nd-anniversary-of-9-11-by-unleashing-mosque-loudspeakers-across-nyc/
-
I don't know about NYC but here in NJ I live next to a church and get early morning Church bells.
That said I would not want to wake up to the Islam call early in the AM
the most beautiful sound as per Obama .
-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/opinion-being-a-muslim-american-right-now-is-like-living-on-borrowed-time/ar-AA1iCTul?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=e3f4122403634e79bff2ca4e1baeab15&ei=23
first, we do not see in the 21st century Jews, Christians, Buddhist, Hindus (well maybe some in India who persecute Muslims) preaching convert or kill non belieivers.
second, again he/they are the victims not the other way around:
" At this moment, when the horror of mass death unfolds in Gaza and on screens we hold in our palms, our identity spells absurdity.
We see ourselves in the people of Gaza. The accosted people there share our names, our faith, our culture and our customs"
"“A Palestinian boy was killed in Illinois,” shared Abed. This sequence of foreign-to-domestic murder was a familiar one. Being American, like 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was, does not protect us from the stigma of being Palestinian or Arab, Muslim and from the “Middle East.”
Of course, this was pure evil. That said I did not see any reports of Jews or anyone else celebrating this.
" Calling it “Islamophobia” would be a severe understatement. "
third, not hard to wonder why anyone would be suspicious of a Muslim......
Why Muslims kill their own then anyone else.
Look at the Muslim self destruction for power after the second US /Iraq war.
Remember Saddam sending children across the no man's land towards Iranian troops in 1980?
"Our names and nationalities, faces and faith brand us with the stain of collective guilt for crimes that we did not commit. "
Sadly that is is true for those peaceful Muslims.
Fourth, yet many Muslims have no problem blaming Jews .
Fifth, he gets it backwards:
"I typed those very eight words 20 years later in my book, “The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims.”
Sixth I fail to read any condemnation of Muslims who live preach believe in terror.
If true, the ~ 15% of Muslims are "radicals" then where are the voices of the other 85 % against THEM not those who are victims of the minority policies?
-
CCP:
Exactly so.
-
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2023/11/02/biden-administration-announces-plan-to-combat-islamophobia-and-people-definitely-have-thoughts-n2630680
-
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2023/11/02/biden-administration-announces-plan-to-combat-islamophobia-and-people-definitely-have-thoughts-n2630680
Phobia = irrational fear.
Why would irrational fear be triggered by beheading, rapes, kidnapping, torture, murder, genocide, Bragging about it on camera and promising more of it. I'm not feeling any irrational fear and I'm not even Jewish.
Can't they just say they are troubled by their 14% approval rate with Muslim Americans and initiating a pandering program?
-
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/muslim/
some of the interesting findings:
62% Democrat
only 17% Republican
73% want large government with services
64% are immigrants
65 % men
NJ has most at 3% (as I expected )
76% right or wrong "depends on situation"
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12770587/Egyptian-American-Aya-Hijazi-Trump-Hamas.html
-
Hamas: Made in the U.S.A.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/11/hamas-made-in-the-u-s-a/?bypass_key=S2YxRFQ0K2dtOTFGWGRzczZkRWphUT09OjpNVE53V2xGTlRHbHBMMWh1YW5GelNHMUVMMjk1WnowOQ%3D%3D
Left: Mousa Abu Marzook in 1999. Right: Pro-Palestinian students take part in a protest at Columbia University in New York City, October 12, 2023. (Khaled Al Hariri, Jeenah Moon/Reuters)
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
November 25, 2023 6:30 AM
Antisemitic terror has deep, surprising roots in American soil.
After the jihadist barbarities of October 7, Israel responded with aerial bombardments of Hamas havens in Gaza, in preparation for the now-ongoing ground invasion. As the bombs fell, Hamas heavyweight Mousa Abu Marzook was asked about the elaborate network of tunnels that the organization has built under the territory it has governed since being popularly elected in 2006. It is a virtual underground city stretching over 300 miles, constructed with untold billions of dollars in foreign-aid money diverted for the purpose (not to be confused with the aid money diverted to make billionaires out of Marzook and his fellow Hamas emirs).
Since Hamas has built tunnels instead of bomb shelters, the friendly Russia Today TV reporter wondered, why doesn’t it just let Gazans use the tunnels to shelter from Israeli attacks?
Marzook’s answer was chillingly matter-of-fact. The tunnels were not built for so-called civilians; they were built for the jihadists:
We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed. These tunnels are meant to protect us from the airplanes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels.
Of course Marzook (sometimes spelled “Mazouk” or “Marzuq”) is not fighting from inside a tunnel. He was speaking from his posh offices in Qatar. There, he and the rest of Hamas’s “politburo” are harbored and abetted by the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Doha that President Biden — building on the Obama–Biden administration’s empowerment of Qatar, despite its record of material support to jihadists — has formally denominated a “major non-NATO ally” of the United States. Hamas has been formally designated as a terrorist organization under U.S. law since 1994, yet the Obama–Biden administration greenlit the establishment of a Hamas headquarters in Doha in 2012 — just as it similarly greenlit the establishment of a Taliban headquarters that Qatar, of course, was delighted to host.
Remember, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”? Twenty-two years ago seems like an alternative universe now.
The notion that Hamas has a strictly political operation siloed from its jihadist operations has always been as absurd as the conceit, similarly popular among transnational progressives, that anti-Zionism is just a political stance, unconnected to hateful antisemitism. Marzook has been at the center of both fictions since the 1987 establishment of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In Doha, the native of Gaza has landed softly, as ever, after bouncing from Amman to Damascus to Cairo. Following his faraway treks these last three decades, one almost forgets that it was in the United States that he helped forge Hamas — and even ran it for a time.
The Brotherhood’s Lifeblood Is the Campus
I recounted Marzook’s exploits in The Grand Jihad, my 2010 book about the partnership between the political Left and the Brotherhood — the most successful global sharia-supremacist movement in modern history. (The Brotherhood, which has numerous satellite organizations, is frequently referred to as the Ikhwan — shorthand for Jamā’at al-Ikhwān al-Mulismūn, the Society of the Muslim Brothers. It was established in Egypt after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924.) While I’d love to take credit for as perfect a description of the Brotherhood’s sharia-supremacist project as “the grand jihad,” it is perfect because it comes directly from the Brotherhood itself. The phrase appears in an internal Brotherhood memorandum, which was central to the Justice Department’s eventual terrorism-financing prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development — the “charity” that served as Hamas’s American piggy bank.
In the memo, expounding on its mission in the United States, Marzook’s confederate, Mohamed Akram, wrote:
The Ikwhan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands [i.e., the Westerners’ own hands] and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.
Those words were written in 1991. By then, Marzook had been at this civilizational jihad in America for a decade.
The Brotherhood is a movement that sprang from universities and has always catalyzed campus radicalism. Its two most formative figures, founder Hassan al-Banna and his successor Sayyid Qutb, were academics. The Brotherhood’s guiding jurisprudent in the modern era, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, was a scholar at al-Azar University, the center of Sunni Islamic scholarship for over a millennium. So was another Brotherhood eminence, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (dubbed “the Emir of Jihad”), whom I prosecuted in the early-to-mid-Nineties, and whose students’ movement (Gama’at al Islamiyya, the Islamic Group) was principally responsible for murdering Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981 over the peace he’d made with Israel.
Like most members, Marzook found the Brotherhood on campus, becoming active as an engineering student in Abu Dhabi during the Seventies. Ostensibly, it was to pursue an industrial-engineering doctorate at Columbia State University in Louisiana that he came to the United States in the late 1970s. That was over a decade after the Brotherhood stood up the first chapters of its most consequential building block in the West, the Muslim Students Association (MSA).
You’ve been aghast at the Dionysian exhibitions of Jew hatred on American campuses for the past seven weeks? You shouldn’t be so shocked. It’s been happening unimpeded right before our eyes for, now, 60 years.
MSA chapters indoctrinate young Muslims — and those they, in turn, influence — in sharia-supremacism, particularly the writings of Banna, Qutb, and Qaradawi. Needless to say, until his death last year, Qaradawi was harbored in Qatar, also — of course — home to the Islamist propaganda outlet Al Jazeera, which for years broadcast the sheikh’s weekly Sharia and Life program to audiences in the tens of millions. Antisemitism is a leitmotif of this oeuvre, seamlessly interwoven with progressive academia’s anti-Western, anti-Zionist, anti-white polemics against “colonialism,” “oppression,” and “systemic racism.”
Starting with just a few chapters in the Midwest (the first at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1963), the MSA now boasts chapters (often more than one) at hundreds of universities across the United States and Canada — such that it’s really not that tough to rustle up over 30 organizations at Harvard to blame Israel for the atrocities perpetrated on Israelis by Hamas. And if you’re wondering how you end up with 300,000 pro-Hamas demonstrators on the streets of London on the very day England reserves for the honoring of its war dead, the answer is the Brotherhood’s American model. In 1984, the Muslim Students Association of Europe was founded in Madrid. In short order, it became the plinth for the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, a hive for Brotherhood groups throughout the continent.
That’s exactly what had previously happened in the United States.
Marzook Builds the Brotherhood’s American Empire
Back in the Seventies, the Saudi government was playing the role now largely assumed by Qatar, bankrolling the Brotherhood’s proselytism. (This was four decades before the Brotherhood’s so-called Arab Spring revolts and the brutal war in Syria ruptured the Saudi–Brotherhood alliance.) In 1973, the Saudis and their Brotherhood partners at the MSA created the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which set about investing in (i.e., assuming control of) the lion’s share of American mosques and associated Islamic centers — the centers that Qutb envisioned as the “axis” of the movement to spread sharia’s dominion.
By 1981, the consolidation of influence in the mosques and on campus had proved so successful, the Brotherhood conceived of a new organization, which would serve simultaneously as an MSA graduate program and an umbrella structure “to advance the cause of Islam and service Muslims in North America so [as] to enable them to adopt Islam as a complete way of life.” Thus was born the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
ISNA is now the largest Muslim organization in the United States, and thus efforts to airbrush its history — including, to my chagrin, in National Review — are legion. But facts are facts. ISNA emerged from the MSA like Athena from the head of Zeus. It was incorporated at the same address as the MSA and NAIT. On its website, ISNA has frequently claimed to have been created in 1963 (the year of the MSA’s establishment, 18 years before ISNA’s). And an internal Brotherhood memo relates that the MSA “was developed into the Islamic Society of North America to include all Muslim congregations of immigrants and citizens, and to be a nucleus for the Islamic movement in North America.” For its part, NAIT acknowledged that it provided “protection and safeguarding for the assets of ISNA/MSA.”
ISNA chafes at this history because it resulted in the organization’s being identified, along with NAIT and other Brotherhood satellites, as an unindicted coconspirator in the notorious scheme to back Hamas’s anti-Israeli intifada with millions of dollars. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
In 1981, the same year ISNA also debuted in the Midwest, Chicago was the locus for the Brotherhood’s establishment of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP). The trailblazer for IAP was Marzook, then 30, in collaboration with another STEM student, Sami al-Arian. A budding computer engineer born in Kuwait to Palestinian refugees, al-Arian would ultimately become a top leader in Palestinian Islamic Jihad while holding down a professorship in computer engineering at the University of South Florida (having earned his doctorate at North Carolina State University). According to the Turkish-American scholar Zeyno Baran, Marzook and al-Arian worked in consultation with Khaled Mashal, a prodigy who joined the Brotherhood at 15 while (naturally) a student in Kuwait — and who, years later, would succeed Marzook as Hamas’s leader because Marzook was stuck in U.S. federal prison.
Coddled by Marzook’s American Brotherhood Network, Hamas Is Born
The IAP was an unabashed Brotherhood organ, declaring its purpose to be communicating the Ikhwan point of view and championing “Palestine” in the arenas of politics and public opinion. It also became the essential support platform for the jihad against Israel when the Brotherhood created Hamas — whose name is an acronym roughly derived from Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Isamiyya, the Islamic Resistance Movement.
For decades, even prior to Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, jihadists had savagely resisted the presence of Jews in the ancestral Jewish homeland (as Sol Stern relates in an essential Commentary essay). But by the Eighties, “the resistance” was dominated by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Its tactical nods to radical Islam notwithstanding, the PLO had a Marxist bent (to say nothing of its notorious corruption), and thus coexisted uneasily with the Brotherhood and its sharia supremacism. Hamas would be the vehicle by which the Brotherhood would seize control — very lucrative control — of the “struggle against occupation.”
In late December 1987, fighting broke out in Gaza when a tragic car accident, in which four Palestinians lost their lives, was distorted by agitators, who portrayed it as an intentional killing to avenge the recent murder of an Israeli. In the resulting revolt, Hamas was formally established by two longtime Brotherhood activists: Ahmed Yassin, a blind paraplegic bestowed the honorific “Sheikh” although he had not completed his studies, and Abdel Azziz al-Rantisi, a medical doctor who — need I say it? — joined the Brotherhood while at university in Alexandria, Egypt. By 1988, as the first intifada raged, Hamas had issued its infamous charter, which pledges it to Israel’s destruction by violent jihad, assertedly as an Islamic duty.
Once Hamas was established, its support became the preeminent mission of the Brotherhood globally, and especially of Marzook in America. He sprang his U.S.-based network into action, forming the “Palestine Committee” under the auspices of the IAP, as both a fundraising arm and a vehicle for imposing order and direction on the surge of pro-Hamas initiatives from various Brotherhood components.
These exertions included Marzook’s provision of $200,000 in seed money for the creation of the “Occupied Land Fund,” which in time morphed into the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The HLF operated from within ISNA and NAIT, which kept an HLF account into which were deposited checks payable to “the Palestinian Mujahideen” — a reference to Hamas’s military wing. Years later, when it became the subject of the Justice Department’s most significant federal terrorism-financing prosecution, the HLF was proved to have raised over $12 million for Hamas.
There was a vital piece missing from the Brotherhood’s U.S. infrastructure, however: a public champion wily in the ways of American law and media.
As the first intifada raged from 1987 through 1993, and Hamas emerged as the jihad’s hard edge, a new Democratic administration made its bed with Arafat in the quest for the holy grail: the “two-state solution” that Palestinians have never wanted, and the prospect of which they are reared from birth to regard as a betrayal of Allah. As “peace partner,” Arafat paid lip-service to the “renunciation of terrorism” and “Israel’s right to exist,” but never backed up his words with much meaningful action. It was enough, though, to persuade President Clinton to strengthen Arafat’s hand against his Hamas rival. New federal laws were enacted, under which Hamas was formally designated as a terrorist organization, such that material support to it was criminalized and its fundraising channels could be dammed.
Hamas’s principal supporters, under the auspices of Marzook’s IAP, were thus imperiled. They were known abettors of the jihad, and their labors could now land them in federal prison. “We are marked,” one fretted at a 1993 Brotherhood confab in Philadelphia, secretly recorded by the FBI.
The solution, they decided, was to establish a less “conspicuous” cheerleader with a clean slate, one that would combine what HLF leader Shukri Abu-Bakr called “a media twinkle” with an emotive commitment to civil rights — the better to obscure its jihadist sympathies in vaporous odes to “social justice,” “due process,” and “resistance.” Because “war is deception,” the Philadelphia conferees agreed, the organization would need to speak with a forked tongue — offering a message that would seem benign to the “American . . . who doesn’t know anything” while resonating with “the Palestinian who has a martyr brother,” as Nihad Awad, the IAP’s then-public-relations director, explained.
Thus did Marzook’s Brotherhood network birth the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, which made its first official appearance in 1994. It has since become the American media’s go-to source for sharia-supremacist apologetics. Awad, a Palestinian from Jordan, was placed in charge and is to this day CAIR’s executive director. Seed money was poured in by Marzook and HLF. CAIR would return the favor many times over, not only serving as Hamas’s “civil rights” advocate but also helping HLF raise funds.
Running Hamas . . . from Virginia
It is not enough, though, to say Hamas was bankrolled from the United States in its early days, as it sought to destroy Israel by force. Hamas was also run from the United States.
In 1989, Sheikh Yassin was arrested by Israeli authorities. At that point, Marzook was named head of the Hamas political bureau. For three years during the First Intifada, Marzook ran Hamas from his Virginia home. From that perch, he not only oversaw fundraising but coordinated forcible attacks as well as the recruitment and training of Hamas operatives on American soil. In 1992, Marzook moved closer to the action, relocating to Jordan where he remained until the Clinton administration induced King Hussein to expel him despite the resulting Palestinian unrest.
It should go without saying in this sordid story that Marzook had earned U.S. lawful-permanent-resident-alien status in the years during which he built the Brotherhood’s American network and led Hamas. With that seeming ace in the hole, Marzook calculated that the Americans could not prevent him from returning to his family in Virginia. But for once, he guessed wrong: He was arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York City in July 1995, his name flagged on a terrorism watch-list. Israel pressed its American ally to detain Marzook while it sought his extradition to face trial for a slew of terrorist atrocities. He was thus held in federal prison for 22 months.
The Peace Process Helps the Jihadist Slip the Noose
In a 1996 opinion rejecting one of Marzook’s many challenges to detention and extradition, the late judge Kevin Thomas Duffy — who had earlier tried the first World Trade Center bombing case in Manhattan federal court — summarized some of Marzook’s alleged trail of carnage:
(1) the bombing at a beach in Tel Aviv on July 28, 1990, which killed a Canadian tourist; (2) the stabbing deaths of three civilians working in a factory in Jaffa on December 14, 1990; (3) the January 1, 1992, shooting death of a civilian as he drove his car in Kfar Darom in Gaza; (4) the shooting death of a civilian as he drove his car in the Beit La’hiah region of Gaza on May 17, 1992; (5) the stabbing deaths of two civilians working at a packing plant in Sajaeya on June 25, 1992; (6) the gun-fire attack by three persons of a passenger bus in Jerusalem on July 1, 1993, in which two civilians were killed and others were injured; (7) the bombing of a passenger bus in Afula on April 6, 1994, which killed eight civilians and injured forty-six; (8) the bombing of a passenger bus in Hadera on April 13, 1994, which killed four civilians and injured twelve; (9) the machinegun attack in a pedestrian mall in Jerusalem on October 9, 1994, which killed one civilian and injured eighteen; and (10) the bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv on October 19, 1994, which killed twenty-two civilians and injured forty-six.
Marzook laughably contended both that the Hamas political bureau he led was walled off from the organization’s forcible operations, and that the latter operations were nevertheless “political” rather than criminal — a claim Judge Duffy curtly rebuffed, pointing out that terrorist crimes against humanity cannot be immunized as mere political acts.
Marzook’s legal arguments were meritless, but he has always had an exquisite sense of timing.
In autumn 1996, after an outbreak of deadly fighting and under pressure from the Clinton administration to revive the flagging Oslo “peace process,” the newly elected Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, agreed to restart negotiations, mediated by Jordan’s King Hussein in conjunction with Clinton’s emissaries. Recognizing this as a sensitive moment — when, if he actually were tried for Hamas’s rampages in Israel, it could stir Palestinian outrage and disrupt the negotiations — Marzook suddenly dropped his objection to extradition. Flummoxed, Israel announced that it no longer sought to try him, despite having for a year and a half pressured the Clinton Justice Department to detain him in the teeth of protest by the Brotherhood’s array of American satellite organizations.
It is not enough to say that, at that point, there were abundant grounds for a U.S. prosecution that could, then and there, have put an end to Marzook’s jihadist career. Marzook was eventually indicted by the Bush Justice Department in 2002 — i.e., only after the 9/11 attacks had roused Americans into dull awareness that our country had for decades been fueling the jihad even as it turned its fire on us.
Alas, by then Marzook was long gone. Once Israel declined prosecution of its nemesis, Clinton washed his hands of Marzook, now pressuring Jordan to take him back less than two years after demanding that Jordan expel him. In the dead of night in May 1997, Marzook was flown from New York to Amman. He had agreed not to contest the terrorism allegations, which effectively forfeited his green-card status. While American and Israeli officials tried to spin this as a win, the Hamas emir was welcomed back to the region as a victor.
Though Hamas’s leaders have become multi-billionaires skimming off the jihad, it’s an uncertain life. But Marzook has a remarkable way of landing on his feet. Sprung from American imprisonment, safely out of U.S. jurisdiction, he evaded prosecution in the above-mentioned 2002 Texas case and, later, in the 2008 HLF prosecution — in which ISNA, NAIT, and CAIR were all named as unindicted coconspirators. They stayed unindicted. Despite convictions of several defendants and a mountain of evidence, by the next year the new, Brotherhood-friendly Obama–Biden administration was in power — with President Obama’s top adviser, Valerie Jarrett, keynoting the annual ISNA convention.
Meanwhile, Marzook was booted from Jordan to Syria when the vaunted “peace process” inevitably imploded. He subsequently made his way to Cairo, but the Arab Spring proved exceptionally hot when Egyptians ousted the new Brotherhood government upon just a small taste of what it would actually be like.
So now Marzook has found safe haven in the Brotherhood’s alter ego, the sharia-supremacist regime of Qatar. There, while Doha barters savagely abducted Israeli hostages — including toddlers — for concessions to Hamas, Marzook snidely explains that the tunnels in Gaza, built by diverting billions in foreign aid, are for jihadist warfare, not civilian shelter.
Many wonder at how, after funding and harboring Hamas for years, Qatar could be rewarded by the Biden administration with “Major Non-NATO Ally” status and all its attendant perks. Mousa Abu Marzook does not wonder. Having built the Muslim Brotherhood’s American empire, which has flooded urban centers and campus quads with unabashed Hamas supporters; having launched Hamas in gusts of American fundraising; and having run the Brotherhood’s Palestinian jihad for years from his Virginia home, Marzook can only smirk.
-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12793051/Vermont-Palestinian-college-students-shot-police-investigate.html
-
A political football for sure .
but which team will get the possession of the ball?
-
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102412-biden-im-disappointed-in-myself-2023-11-27?mailing_id=7941&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.7941&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body
-
The True Face of the Anti-Israel Movement
The leader of the Council on American-Islamic Relations celebrated Oct. 7, in his own words.
By The WSJ Editorial Board
Updated Dec. 8, 2023 6:17 pm ET
The response in anti-Israel circles to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre has been clarifying. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the tip of the spear on U.S. campuses, early on called the slaughter “a historic win for Palestinian resistance.”
The tune hasn’t changed, even from the leaders pressuring President Biden. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), celebrated Oct. 7 at an American Muslims for Palestine convention on Nov. 24. A damning excerpt was publicized Thursday by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
American Muslims for Palestine then took down the full video, and Mr. Awad now claims a “hate website selected remarks from my speech out of context and spliced them together to create a completely false meaning.” But we got the video before Mr. Awad’s ally hid it, and here’s what CAIR’s leader had to say:
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on Oct. 7. And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, that they were not allowed to walk in. And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves. And yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.”
The crowd applauded, and not a word in Mr. Awad’s speech qualified his pleasure with Oct. 7, justified as “self-defense.”
Democrats and media have long treated CAIR as a primary political spokesman for Muslim Americans. In late October the White House invited Mr. Awad to convey Muslim concerns about the war to the President. In May the Biden Administration included CAIR as a partner in its Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. The White House has now removed CAIR from that document and condemned Mr. Awad’s remarks.
On stage Mr. Awad accused Israel of buying “corrupt members of Congress,” concluding, “We have to free so many people from the shackles of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and its affiliates who have sold the soul of America.” Complaining of Mr. Biden’s betrayal, Mr. Awad asked, “For how much? It is for how much AIPAC and its affiliates have been controlling the U.S. government and the U.S. Congress. . . . Unless we free Congress, we will not be able to free Palestine.”
There it is, the hoary conspiracy that justice—however defined—could be achieved if only the Jews weren’t secretly shackling and manipulating the powers that be. Maybe that’s easier for Mr. Awad to accept than the truth: The American people support Israel and oppose Palestinian terrorism.
But CAIR and its allies have influence, and Mr. Awad said the White House had begun to listen. “When we say ‘if there is no cease-fire, there will be no votes for you in 2024 elections,’” he said, “we started to see the tone changing—and the position changing.”
Mr. Awad’s co-panelist was Osama Abuirshaid, director of American Muslims for Palestine, the leading sponsor of SJP on campus and an organizer of anti-Israel protests across the country. Mr. Abuirshaid told a rally Dec. 1: “What they alleged that happened on Oct. 7 turned out to be a lie. Most of the [Israeli] civilians were killed by their own army.” Will Democrats bend on Israel to people like this?
Near the end of Mr. Awad’s speech, he said, “I ask young people: Be wise. You are not in Palestine. You are not in Gaza. The language there doesn’t work here.” You know, less on the Jews and violence, and more on human rights. He should have taken his own advice.
-
https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/02/florida-house-passes-resolution-condemning-cair-and-calling-for-state-agencies-to-cease-contact-with-group/
-
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1771288191632331185