2010 has been an unbelievable year! Can we say that we are happy that it is finally over? Only if that means that the wacky anti-Muslim Islamophobia that reached unprecedented and at times demented levels will recede. However, it doesn’t appear as though that will be happening any time soon.

Looking at the year in review we see that right-leaning and populist anti-Muslim/xenophobic organizations and party’s increased their power/influence across Europe while also initiating and passing discriminatory legislation in their countries.

1. Rise of Geert Wilders and the Freedom Party
2. EDL (English Defense League)
3. Sweden Democrats
4. Switzerland’s banning of Minarets
5. BZO Austria
6. Pia Kjaersgaard (DF)
7. France and the face veil controversy
8. Belgium’s banning of the face veil
9. Catalonia face veil proposal

In the United States we saw the convergence and solidifying of a network of Islamophobes across the nation who joined arms with their brethren across the Atlantic ocean. We were also treated to the Republican party’s instrumentalization and usage of Islam for purposes of fear-mongering during the the run-up to the 2010 elections; add to this mosque controversies, hate crimes, anti-Muslim rallies and your run of the mill nuke Mecca suggestion and you had 2010.

The beginning of the year saw a slew of hate crimes, it also saw our piece, “All Terrorists are Muslim…Except the 94% that Aren’t,” go viral and become one of our most popular pieces ever, getting picked up by various mainstream media outlets.

Joseph Stack's attack

Events picked up shortly after that with Joseph Stack flying his plane into a IRS office kamikaze style and the failure of many, especially on the right to equate the act to terrorism.

Such double standards were consistently exposed by us throughout the year, particularly in our “What if they were Muslim?” segment. We documented the colossal double standards that exist both in media and popular perception when it comes to judging crimes committed by Muslims against those committed by individuals of other faiths. Invariably, when a Muslim commits a crime it is blamed or linked to Islam, whereas if someone else does it his or her faith is not mentioned — even if it was the motivation.

Of course we would be remiss if we did not mention the biggest story of the year; the Cordoba House, i.e. Park51 or as it has come to be known by many, “the Ground Zero Mosque controversy.” This was a story that raged for months and was “whipped up into a frenzy by a pair of bigoted anti-Muslim bloggers, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, two individuals who should be summarily dismissed as loons that have zero influence in the mainstream media or amongst any of our politicians.”

The Republicans latched onto this story and attempted to make it the wedge issue that they could use to ride to victory during the elections. A dozen or more candidates incorporated this issue into their platform with some making it their sole selling point, (un)surpirsingly a handful actually came out victorious, most prominently the looniest of them all, Allen West.

This was also the issue that catapulted Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer into their 5 minutes of fame. We had been reporting on these two, their financiers, networks and supporters ever since we started Loonwatch, our pieces on both of these goons especially “Pamela Geller: The Looniest Blogger Ever” was picked up by mainstream media outlets including the New York Times, Salon.com, Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post.

Both Geller and Spencer were irked to no end by this and though they attempted to play the silent game were forced at some point to respond to Loonwatch, but they did so only with ad hominem attack and zero interaction with the substance of our articles. Geller resorted to calling us a “Goebbels-style hate site” while Spencer wished to inflict “100-101 lashes” on Danios who he labeled a “slick liar” while continuing to run-away and evade Loonwatch’s open challenge to a radio debate.

Today the controversy over Park51 is still simmering though the rhetoric and verbiage on it has cooled down quite a bit to the chagrin of Spencer and Geller. The spill over from Park51 left a terrible residue and sparked controversies around the nation.

It seemed that the issue with mosques (i.e. Muslims) was not simply about proximity to “hallowed ground,” but the right to build and freely worship was being challenged all over the country.

1. Murfreesboro, TN.
2. Temecula, CA.
3. Sheepshead Bay
4. Sheboygan County, Wi
5. Florence, KY
6. Selden, LI
7. Ohio

Ahmed H. Sharif

There are about six more places from our count where mosque controversies were raging, but the above sampling gives you an idea. The worst spillover of the mosque controversy undoubtedly manifested itself with the near fatal stabbing of New York City cab driver Ahmed H. Sharif. Passenger Michael Enright entered his cab, asked him “Are you a Muslim?” and when the cabdriver replied, “Yes,” slashed his throat.

There were other notable Islamophobiapalooza moments during the year as well. For instance Rima Fakih, the first Muslim Miss America drew the ire of right-wingers and Islamophobes who didn’t like seeing a brown lady with the crown, let alone a Mooslim. There was also the South Park/Revolution Muslim controversy and the resultant Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on Facebook which descended into an orgy of bigotry and hatred. Later this would reveal the epic double standards and failure of the moribund perception-makers in the media when contrasted with the way it dealt with the story of Pastor Terry Jones and his wacky Dove Outreach Church’s “International Burn the Koran Day on 9/11″ (Read: Islam and the Media in the Age of Islamophobiapalooza).

The final focal point with which Islamophobes and their cynical cohorts in the Republican party attempted to garner populist support through anti-Muslim fear-mongering was surrounding the buzz word: Sharia’. Sharia’ is the boogey monster that Muslims, 1% of the population of America is going to impose. Forget the fact that most of those advocating this conspiracy theory are themselves woefully ignorant of the Constitution, a document that they subvert with every statement and move they make. It got so bad that Oklahoma overwhelmingly passed a measure banning Sharia’ which has (thankfully) been overturned for being unconstitutional, it should also have been overturned for being unbelievably stupid.

This leads us to consider the biggest Islamophobic conspiracies of the year, which could be a feature piece on its own:

1. Sharia take over of the United States
2. Park51 being a “victory mosque” for “Islamic supremacism”
3. Barack “Hussein” Obama being a secret “Mooslim”
4. Muslim Congressional Spy Interns
5. Rep. Keith Ellison working for Hamas
6. Google’s “e” as an Islamic crescent

At the end of the day, all hope was not lost. There were many whose eyes were opened and Loonwatch helped by being picked by prominent and diverse bloggers as well as media venues as varying as AlJazeera, NPR, Christian Science Monitor, The Independent, AlArabiya etc. Many concerned citizens spoke out eloquently to reject and counter Islamophobia, our segment “Anti-Loons” vividly  showcased the best of those who opposed bigotry and were sincerely and effectively working to counter hate and ignorance on all levels, especially against Islam and Muslims. Lesley Hazelton’s profound lecture describing her experience with the Quran left us with hope, that those who make an effort may come to see beyond the stereotypes, the ignorance that shackles us and fosters animosity between humanity.

“Part of the problem I think is we imagine that the Quran can be read as we usually read a book. As though we can curl up with it on a rainy day with a bowl of popcorn in reach, as though God, and the Quran is entirely in the voice of God speaking to Muhammad, were just another author on the best-sellers list. Yet it is precisely because so few people read the Quran that it is so easy to quote, that is to misquote, phrases and snippets taken out of context, in what I call the highlighter version, which is the one favored by Muslim fundamentalists and anti-Muslim Islamophobes.” –Lesley Hazelton

Hate blogger Pamela Geller

Here is a snippet from Daily Kos’s profile on Geller being the biggest bigot of 2010.

Pamela Geller: Biggest Islamophobic Bigot of 2010

by JGibson

Mon Dec 27, 2010 at 01:30:21 PM PST

The biggest Islamophobe of 2010, Pamela Geller, was responsible for a lot of anti-Islamic bigotry, including the demonization of Park 51.

There are plenty of examples to go around, and she got tons of coal for her Christmas gift, plus a one-way ticket to Hell.

• JGibson’s diary :: ::

We got tons of examples as to why Pamela Geller got 10 sackfuls of coal for 2010.

Newshounds.us: Fixed Noise re-ignites anti-Park51 sentiments

Now that the Fox “News” temporary one day Christmas truce with all those evil, librul forces that are trying to destroy America as we know it is over, “Fox & Friends” has got its Islamophobic groove on again. You probably have forgotten the Murdoch/Pam Geller inspired controversy surrounding the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero but “Fox & Friends” hasn’t and they’re letting you know it. This show, part of a misinformation and anti-Islamic campaign (much of which has been directed toward Park 51) waged by Fox “News,” has been relentless in its promotion (here,here , here, here, here, here, here, here) of those who oppose the mosque. Today, Alysin Camerota interviewed yet another opponent of the “mosque” and we’re talking somebody with some radical Islamophobic creds. Ryan Mauro, national security advisor to the Christian Action Network, also contributes articles to David Horowitz’s “Front Page Mag,” such as “Legal Jihad to Silence Christian Action Network.” (More “Fox & Friends” creds as a persecuted Christian!). Although not officially a “hate group,” the Christian Action Network is described by the SPLC as one of America’s top anti-gay groups which does way cool things like videotape gays, doing bad things like hand-holding, at gay events. And now they have a little video about how Park 51 is a really, really bad thing. And while Camerota’s interview was fairly straightforward, it does seem interesting that this group, which earlier this year had an Islamophobic film called “Islam Rising,” is being featured on Fox “News.” But as they have a quote from Sean Hannity (along with one from neo-con, Islamophobe Frank Gaffney) on their website, maybe it’s just a quid-pro-quo.

Geller routinely uses outrageous, hateful rhetoric

Geller on transgender Obama appointee: “What a freak show this presidency is.” In a January 4 blog post, Geller responded to a report that Obama named a transgender appointee to a Commerce Department position by stating, “Does Obama know anyone who isn’t wacky, radical, militant, judeophobic, socialist, marxist, pedophilic? …… Does he chill with anyone who is normal? Isn’t there one Marilyn Munster in the family? What a freak show this presidency is.”

Geller called Democrats “National Socialists.” In a March 13 blog post, Geller wrote, “National Socialists [Democrats] Obamacare: Sheeps to ‘Slaughter Solution.’ ” She added, “The buzz on Capitol Hill is that the Democrats are now considering what is being called the ‘Slaughter Solution’ that will allow ObamaCare to be signed into law WITHOUT HOUSE MEMBERS EVEN HAVING TO VOTE.”

Geller declared “VICTORY!” after Swiss established ban on minaret construction. In a November 29, 2009, post — headlined “VICTORY! SWISS BAN MOSQUE MINARETS IN A LANDSLIDE VOTE” — Geller commented: “The Swiss have hand [sic] enough. They actually had the spine to take back their country. I wonder how the religion of peaceniks will react…in their usual tolerant and pacifist manner?”

Geller: “Obama Goes Full On Nazi.” Geller headlined a November 9, 2009, post, “Obama Goes Full On Nazi: Subject: ‘Democratic consultant says he got a warning from White House after appearing on Fox News.’ ”

Geller claimed Obama’s birth certificate is a “forgery.” In an August 4, 2009, column, Geller claimed that according to a “digital forensic examination specialist” called “Techdude,” the birth certificate Obama posted on his fightthesmears.com website was a “forgery.” She further stated that there is “something on Obama’s birth certificate” that “he does not want us to see” and that “there is know way of knowing” whether “all the documentation on Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship is in order.” Geller also speculated about Obama’s birth certificate at length on her blog, dating back to July 2008. In August 2008, FactCheck.org reported that they had “seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship.” FactCheck also noted that “a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961.”

On MSNBC, Geller falsely claimed NYC mosque is scheduled to open on 9-11-11.  On the August 10 edition of MSNBC Live, Thomas Roberts hosted Geller, who falsely claimed that “it’s September 11, 2011, when the mega-mosque is scheduled to open.” In fact, the executive director of one of the groups spearheading the project as well as the imam involved have flatly denied that the center is slated to open on September 11. During the segment, Roberts did not correct her claim.

Geller calls Obama “the Muslim president.” Geller’s blog contains 267 posts tagged, “Muslim in the White House?” In a June 2, 2009, post, Geller called Obama “The Muslim president.” Calling it a “critical issue,” Geller wrote in January 2008 that “Obama went to a madrassa in Jakarta,” that “he practiced Islam,” and that “if Obama makes it to the big house, Israel is screwed. Finished.” On May 30, 2009, Geller wrote that with his Cairo speech, Obama “proved everything I said to be true.” In fact, CNN debunked the “madrassa” falsehood back in January 2007, and as Newsweek stated, “Barack Obama has never been Muslim and never practiced Islam.”

An interesting piece from Soumaya Ghannoushi published at AlJazeera English.

Islamophobia acting like free speech

by Soumaya Ghannoushi

The caricatures of Prophet Muhammad first published in the Danish Jyllands-Posten then reprinted in a string of European newspapers have exposed the gulf separating the West from the Muslim world.

The cartoons and the reactions they have sparked across the Muslim hemisphere, many have conjectured, symbolise the confrontation between two irreconcilable value systems, one based on the Enlightenment tradition, the other clinging to religious dogma.

These simplistic explanations would have stood a better chance of being accepted if the majority of those offering them had been more vocal in denouncing the continuous assault on free speech in Western societies in the name of the war on terrorism. The reality is that the controversy over freedom of expression and its limits is a symptom of an infinitely deeper crisis affecting the relation of the West, European and Atlantic, to the vast Muslim world from Tangier to Jakarta.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Since we are historical beings, we cannot be detached from our hermeneutical tradition and historical condition.

Only by reference to these contexts are our actions understandable. Any explanation of the cartoons crisis that does not take into account the explosive climates of the post-September 11th world and the rise of the right wing in Europe and the United States is bound to remain superficial.

Islam, which had lain forgotten during the cold war and the obsession with the communist threat, has now come to the fore, penetrating into the heart of the public domain.

It is no coincidence that the cartoons were published in Denmark in a right-wing paper under a right-wing government then reprinted in countries notorious for their hostility to their Muslim minorities and opposition to the cultural and racial diversity of today’s European societies.

That reactions to the cartoons have been so passionate should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following developments in the Muslim world closely. To Muslims, the caricatures vividly brought back the scenes of Israeli bulldozers demolishing Palestinian homes in Jenin, the invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of Baghdad, terrors of Abu Ghraib and humiliations of Guantanamo Bay.

Cultural arrogance was added to political aggressiveness. Muslims have grown used to the torrent of terrifying images that associate them and their faith with the most horrifying of practices, from violence and cruelty to fanaticism and oppression. When it comes to Islam, all boundaries and limits could be dispensed with. The unacceptable becomes perfectly acceptable, proper and respectable.

The truth is that today racism, intolerance, xenophobia, and hatred of the other hide behind the sublime façade of free speech, the defence of “our” values and protection of “our” society from “foreign” aggression.

Let us not be deceived about this rhetoric of liberalism and free speech. The Danish cartoons have nothing to do with freedom of expression and everything to do with hatred of the other in a Europe grappling with its growing Muslim minorities, still unable to accept them.

Muhammad, who had been depicted in medieval legends as a bloodthirsty warrior with a sword in one hand and a Quran in another, is now made to brandish bombs and guns. Little seems to have changed about Western consciousness of Islam.

The collective medieval Christian memory has been recycled, purged of eschatology and incorporated into a modern secularised rhetoric that goes unquestioned today.

The medieval world abounded with hostile stories, folktales, poems and sermons of Muhammad where the imagination was given free reign.

About Muhammad, or “Mathomus” all could be said since, as the 11^th-century chronicler Guilbert of Nogent had put it: “One may safely say ill of a man whose malignity transcends and surpasses whatever evil can be said about him” (Dei Gesta per Francos, 1011).

Guilbert’s Muhammad, like that of most medieval authors, bears little resemblance to the historical Muhammad, or his journey.

Just as in the Danish caricatures, he appears as a scoundrel who used licentiousness and the promise of paradise with its many beautiful virgins to lure men into following him. His career was devoid of virtue. His vast empire was built on slaughter and bloodshed.

In the popular Chansons de Geste, written from the 11th to the 14th century at the height of crusading fervour, reflecting sentiments and beliefs that were widely accepted, Muhammad and his followers, the “Saracens” are described in the most grotesque of terms.

Creatures of Satan, they are painted with huge noses and ears, blacker than ink with only their teeth showing white, eyes like burning coals, teeth that can bite like a serpent, some with horns like the antlers of stags.

Humans inherit their prejudices as they do their language. Europe has inherited an enormous body of stereotypes of the Muslim elaborated in the course of many centuries of confrontation with Muslim civilisation.

Islam could not be regarded with the same detached curiosity as the far away cultures or beliefs of China or India. Islam was always a major factor of European history.

As the historian Richard Southern put it, Islam was Latin Christendom’s greatest problem, a mighty military and cultural challenge, dazzling in its power, wealth, learning and civilisation.

In the heart of Europe, its poor northerly neighbour, it generated an array of emotions that ranged from fascination to fear and resentment.

When in the 11th century European writers began to form a notion of what it meant to be European, they found themselves faced with a powerful Islam, which they were neither able nor willing to understand.

Islam was integral to the European notion of the self. The encounter with the Muslim other was fundamental to the formulation of the Western world view, particularly in the centuries that began in the Crusades and culminated in the dismemberment of the Ottoman empire.

By forcing the continent to find ways of concerted action, Islam encouraged Europe towards a stronger sense of “self” and a stronger sense of the “other”. In more ways than one, Islam was Europe’s midwife.

In the tense post September 11th climate, with its pre-emptive strikes, growing military interventions and increasingly powerful right-wing parties, the medieval arsenal of fantasies and stereotypes of Islam and Muslims has been brought back to life. Gone are the devils and Antichrists of medieval legends and polemics.

But their bleak outlook on Islam and the Muslim lingers on unchanged. It survives in an essentialist self-enclosed discourse centred on a mythical pure self permanently pitted against an imaginary dehumanised, demonised Muslim other.

In the past as in the present, religion, culture and the politics of fear are placed at the service of the great games of dominance and mastery.

Make no mistake about it: This is a political conflict that speaks in the language of culture and religion. The conflict is not between “we” and “they”, not between cultures and civilisations, but within the same cultural and political front.

The battle must be fought, a battle against intolerance, hatred, myth of cultural superiority and will to hegemony over the other.

Soumaya Ghannoushi is a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.

The opinions expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position or have the endorsement of Aljazeera.

Ghannoushi is currently writing a book on Western Representations of Islam Past and Present.

Our tax payer money hard at work against us.

Top secret America: Billions used to spy on Americans

(The Arab American)

A large network of military and intelligence agencies working with large corporations. The government spending billions of dollars undermining citizens’ privacy. A major database filled with names of everyday people. Self-described experts on terrorists.  Battlefield technologies being used in neighborhoods.

Though it sounds like something out of a futuristic film, it isn’t. These points describe the current post 9/11 homeland security measures, which the government says is intended to protect citizens from terror threats, according to a recent ongoing series of investigative reports by The Washington Post.

The Post released the report on the extensive security measures entitled “Top Secret America.”  The investigation was first released in July of 2010, and is a series that is being updated, with its latest installment “Monitoring America” released on December 20.

Dana Priest, one of the lead reporters on “Top Secret America,” won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for her investigation into the Walter Reed hospital debacle, and a 2006 Pulitzer for her beat reporting on CIA secret prisons.

The investigation goes into what the Washington Post calls the “fourth branch” of government, private intelligence communities that have the goal of defeating “violent extremists” according to the report.  The organizations, 263 of which have been created or reorganized in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, receive billions of dollars from the government, and do not adhere to the usual standards of personal privacy, the report said.

Ronald Stockton, professor of Political Science at University of Michigan Dearborn who authored the book “Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit After 9/11, spoke about the system that has taken shape following the attacks and since the institution of the PATRIOT Act.

“After September 11, Americans were so afraid that we threw billions of dollars at the FBI and Homeland Security and other agencies, not really knowing what needed to be done,” he said . “We created a bureaucratic monster that is so large that it cannot possibly analyze and absorb its own data or even read its own reports. The system is so big that even those who lead it cannot understand it.”

Critics of the security measures find flaws, not only in the billions used to fund the operation, but the possibility of profiling innocent individuals.

“The FBI is building a database with the names and certain personal information, such as employment history, of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents whom a local police officer or a fellow citizen believed to be acting suspiciously,”  the latest report said.

This database is updated by “experts” who receive their  expert status from themselves, not previous studies in institutions. They train FBI members in the understanding Islam, Muslims, and American Muslims.”

They use specialists to provide training for FBI and analysts who are supposedly specialists on Islam. People who have no PhD , and who have animosity towards Islam,” said Sally Howell, PhD, a professor of history and Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who also contributed to Stockton’s book. “It’s distressing to see these people are empowered in America.”

Local community leaders and scholars are concerned about this intelligence apparatus leading to a McCarthyism practices of conducting “witch hunts” against American Muslims. The report indicates that Michigan has been a target of the intelligence community.

“The current surveillance being conducted by the FBI, Homeland Security and the Defense Department on American citizens and residents invites abuses,” said Dawud Walid. “It is disturbing that the intelligence community equates Michigan as a location for potential terrorists simply because of our large Muslim population.”

Howell agreed with Walid’s assertions about Michigan.

“There were multiple references on Michigan. Michigan being focused on for techniques and staffing because we have a large publicly visible Muslim population in the area. There is no precedent in history where (the government) targets an area because a religious minority is there,” said Howell.

When suspicious activity is reported, often by neighbors or co-workers for reasons that are not always clear, the accused individual is not informed, and the file remains open for five years. This could lead to profiling and abuse.

“We should remember the Law of the Hammer: A little boy given a hammer for his birthday will discover that there are many things that need to be pounded,” said Stockton. “A bureaucratic system this large, with this much money to spend, will inevitably discover threats that do not exist and will do great harm to innocent individuals.”

Pamela “the looniest blogger ever” Geller is on the front page of the SPLC hate report. The SPLC should feature Spencer’s hate diatribe and association now as well.

Geller, Jones Amp Up Anti-Muslim Hate Rhetoric

The annual observances in New York City of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center are normally somber and subdued. But with anti-Muslim acrimony in America escalating, apparently stoked by anger over a proposed Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero, this year’s commemorations were sometimes downright ugly.

Public figures such as Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin helped fuel that discord with harsh denunciations of the proposed Muslim center. But no one did more to fan the flames of fear and hatred over the “Ground Zero mosque” than Pamela Geller, co-founder of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).

Earlier this year, Geller — who also has questioned whether President Obama was born in America — bought anti-Muslim ads that were displayed on New York City buses for a month. She warned that Muslims will “turn to further intimidation, murder and terrorism” if they can’t achieve a political takeover. Her comments were so incendiary, in fact, that several neo-Nazi organizations even ignored the fact that she is Jewish and published her diatribes. She in turn commented favorably on the South African, apartheid-defending terrorist Eugene Terre’Blanche after he was murdered, blaming his death on “black supremacism.”

Pamela Geller

On Sept. 11, Geller led a rally near the proposed Muslim community center, where protesters carried signs (“No mosque on sacred ground”) and heard speeches by her and Geert Wilders. Wilders is a hard-line Dutch lawmaker who has compared the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and made frequent speeches in the United States warning that Islam is an ideology, not a religion, intent on world domination.

At the same time Geller’s demonstration was being staged, a rival rally was held just blocks away. Those demonstrators called for tolerance and carried their own signs — “The attack on Islam is racism” was one.

Citing police estimates, The Wall Street Journal said there were about 1,500 people at Geller’s anti-mosque rally and 2,000 at the counter-demonstration. The New York Post said the pro-mosque crowd outnumbered the anti-mosque protesters, 3,000 to 2,500. Both these estimates infuriated Geller, who accused the “liberal establishment mass media” of a “massive distortion” meant to minimize her cause.

For several days this September, Gainesville, Fla., pastor Terry Jones and his plans to burn Korans were world news. Then the Muslim- and gay-bashing chief of the Dove World Outreach Center sank back into obscurity.

Meanwhile, an obscure pastor from Gainesville, Fla., drew vastly more publicity than the far better known Geller by announcing a plan to mark the 9/11 commemoration with “International Burn a Koran Day.” News of Terry Jones’ plans tore across the Muslim world, igniting fury in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates phoned Jones in an effort to persuade him not to burn copies of the Islamic religious text. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned that Jones could endanger the troops. President Obama said if Jones followed through on his plan, it would be “a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda.” The right-wing pastor, who has also bitterly attacked “homos,” received death threats and a visit from FBI agents. The international police agency Interpol issued a warning to governments worldwide of an increased risk of terror attacks if Jones proceeded with his plan. The U.S. State Department also warned Americans living and traveling abroad of the potential for violent protests.

In the end, Jones canceled his Koran burning event, saying he had an agreement that would move the Manhattan Islamic center to another site. That wasn’t so. Gainesville law enforcement agencies later said they would bill Jones for the costs associated with his planned Koran burning. They are expected to exceed $200,000. That would bankrupt his 50-member Dove World Outreach Center, Jones said, a prospect that clearly delighted many residents of Gainesville.

Racism is alive and well in Israel, especially amongst many of the Haredi nationalists. We have reported now for quite sometime on the phenomena of blatant racism and supremacism on racial and religious levels that has sprung into open discourse in Israel and Palestine due to events in Safed, Israel.

The religious are viewing this as a pitched battle between them and Secularists. They view themselves as a bulwark defending their religious and racial integrity and it has reached a point now where it is in direct conflict with the law and the other cultural strains and forces in society.

The language of a “holy race” of “saving our daughters” and “future generations” is reminiscent of the German women groups such as National Socialist Women’s Organisation, League of German Maidens (Hitler Youth) and the SS--Helferin.

Imagine if this Lehava had been a Muslim organization. You can bet that the anti-Muslim Islamophobsphere would be drooling all over this and blaming it on Islam.

Rabbis’ wives urge Israeli women: Stay away from Arab men

By Chaim Levinson (Haaretz)

A letter urging Jewish women not to date non-Jewish men has been published by a group of rabbis’ wives. The letter comes on the heels of a rabbis’ letter published earlier this month urging Jews not to sell or rent properties to non-Jews.

The new letter, signed by 30 rabbis’ wives, says, “For your sake, for the sake of future generations, and so you don’t undergo horrible suffering, we turn to you with a request, a plea, a prayer. Don’t date non-Jews, don’t work at places that non-Jews frequent, and don’t do national service with non-Jews.”

The letter was organized by the organization Lehava, which claims to “save daughters of Israel” from what it calls assimilation. Lehava also took part in the recent demonstrations against selling or renting homes to non-Jews.

The group operates a shelter for women who leave their Arab partners and educate the public on what it calls the dangers that arise from contact between Jews and Arabs. The organization also called for the boycott of the Gush Etzion branch of the supermarket Rami Levi, where Arab and Jewish workers are on shift side-by-side.

In the last few weeks, Bentzi Gopstein of Kiryat Arba, the director of Lehava, convinced the wives of important rabbis in the religious Zionist movement to sign on to the letter. Among the signatories were Netzhiya Yosef, wife of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, Esther Lior, wife of Rabbi Dov Lior, Shulamit Melamed of Beit Alon and Starna Druckman of Kiryat Motzkin.

The rabbis’ wives letter claims to alert its readers to the phenomenon of Arabs who go by Jewish nicknames, claiming that they are kind and gentle until they can isolate a Jewish woman, whereupon they beat and humiliate her and do not allow her to escape.

In its attempt to appeal to Jewish women, the letter states that they descend from a noble race of kings, and that dating a non-Jew would thereby cut her off from her Jewish family.

Walid Shoebat

Walid Shoebat was one of the first loons that we took to task at our site. We exposed his buffoonery and epically vile shysterism. Now, Shoebat has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar of hate once again, this time advocating the murder of “extremists” and their “children” by which of course he means all Muslims.

Counter-terror ‘expert’ tells cops: Kill militant Muslims, ‘including children’

(RAWStory)

A counter-terrorism consultant told a meeting of law enforcement officials that the way to combat militant Muslims is to “kill them … including the children,” says a news report.

Walid Shoebat, a self-described“former PLO terrorist” who “now speaks out for USA and Israel,” reportedly made the comment at a speech during a conference of the International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association in Las Vegas this past October, according to the Huffington Post’s Chip Berlet.

The comment highlights growing concerns among human rights advocates that US law enforcement is turning to extremists for training in the fight against terrorism. It also highlights concerns among senior counter-terrorism officials that standards for counter-terror training are inappropriate, and possibly harming national security.

According to Berlet’s anonymous source, Shoebat’s comments got a warm reception from at least some of the people attending the conference:

Our source had turned around after Shoebat’s speech and asked the woman in the chair behind them at the conference what she thought was the solution offered by Shoebat.

“Kill them … including the children … you heard him,” was the full response.

Shoebat’s Las Vegas speech was described by our source as “frightening.”

Religion writer Richard Bartholomewdescribes Shoebat as “a pseudo-expert on terrorism, Islamic extremism, and Biblical prophecy, and he teaches that Obama is a secret Muslim and that the Bible has prophesised a Muslim anti-Christ.”

In a lengthy investigation of the US’s intelligence apparatus earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that “in their desire to learn more about terrorism, many [police] departments are hiring their own trainers. Some are self-described experts whose extremist views are considered inaccurate and harmful by the FBI and others in the intelligence community.”

The article also notes that standards for counter-terrorism officers plummeted in the years after 9/11, as law enforcement agencies scrambled to refocus on the terror threat.

“The CIA used to train analysts forever before they graduated to be a real analyst,” Charles Allen, an ex-CIA official and former head of the DHS intelligence office, told the Post. “Today we take former law enforcement officers and we call them intelligence officers, and that’s not right, because they have not received any training on intelligence analysis.”

As David Neiwert notes at Crooks and Liars, this is not the first time Shoebat has found himself at the center of controversy. In 2008, he was accused of falsely claiming to be a former Muslim terrorist who converted to Christianity. Skeptics of Shoebat’s claims point to the fact he is not wanted on any arrest warrants in the US, as a known PLO terrorist ought to be.

Earlier this year, Shoebat was one of the speakers at an unofficial memorial for the soldiers killed in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, an event described by some reporters as being anexercise in Islamophobia.

In comments at the Huffington Post, Michael Riker, head of ICTOA, which sponsored the Las Vegas conference, defended Shoebat.

“What you hear from Walid is the TRUTH,” he wrote. Speaking about the Las Vegas conference, Riker said “the attendees were glued to what Walid had to say and the majority of them agreed. The liberal media is afraid to hear what the truth really is. Who has been planning attacks on our country? We are in a war of ideology and if you don’t know that you need to get you head out of the sand.”

Third time’s the charm, so they say. Following the last two transparent failures to influence American politics with Islamophobia, the Clarion Fund (Aish HaTorah) is literally counting the seconds down until their “nationwide event” to reveal their newest scare-mongering dud: Iranium.

We have reported on Clarion’s last two anti-Muslim films: Obsession (see: Obsessionforhate) and Third Jihad. Those films featured a number of Islamophobic “experts” we have exposed on this site (i.e. Daniel Pipes, Brigitte Gabriel, Walid Shoebat, Steven Emerson) who specialize in making lucrative careers off Islamophobic fear. Those two films were disturbingly similar to other sophisticated propaganda films that demonize entire populations. Jack Shaheen, an Oxford University research scholar and author of four books on racism, stereotyping and propaganda, describes the film Obsession as “very convincing.” He says:

“Goebbels would be proud. This film has a place in cinema history with the racist film Birth of a Nation and the Nazi film Triumph of the Will because it so cleverly advances lies to vilify a people.”

Those are the old films. But with this new film will Clarion reform its alarmist ways and instead present us with an insightful, balanced, and objective analysis of the situation in Iran? A quick look at some of the film’s interviewees tell us, no.

Iranium, like its predecessors, seems to rely on a highly edited mix of expert and pseudo-expert commentary. Among the most glaring pseudo-experts is Frank Gaffney; noted on this site for his adherence to the “stealth jihad” conspiracy. Gaffney is founder of the Center for Security Policy where he lobbies for hardline neoconservative security policies. Gaffney is a prolific writer on the Washington Times’ anti-Muslim editorial page where he has seriously argued that President Obama is a secret Muslim, lambasted Obama for daring to reach out to the Muslim World, and accused Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan of facilitating a Sharia take-over… twice.

Due to his obvious conflict of interest, Gaffney’s presence as a film expert raises serious doubts about the credibility of the film. Since Gaffney is a neoconservative lobbyist, he writes security “analysis” that favors neoconservative policy prescriptions. In other words, it is not in his policy interest to provide us with an objective analysis. Hence, he has been duly noted for the idiocy of his hyper-inflated anti-Sharia report.

If all of Clarion’s films have relied on pseudo-expert testimony that supports a pre-defined policy prescription, then why should we take seriously their hyping the Iranian threat? Is the purpose to inform the public or to influence them to vote a certain way? Iranium appears to be just another expensive attempt to influence American politics by scapegoating the Islamic/Iranian boogeyman.

People who are inspired by the Clarion Fund should flip the scenario around. Would it be acceptable for me to create a serious documentary entitled Israelanium featuring Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu? Would it be right if my film deliberately blurred the line between extremism and Judaism? Somehow I think charges of anti-Semitism would immediately ensue, but this same crowd of people has no problem using the same cut, paste, and smear tactics against Muslims.

Don’t get me wrong. The Iranian government should be subject to all the international laws and standards that all nations are held to. There are important concerns about which people need to get good, balanced information. So for this reason the film Iranium promises to harm our national debate even more by injecting inflammatory, one-sided propaganda into the discourse at a time when people need clear-headed assessment.

So while Clarion prepares for another Muslim-fearing mulligan, let’s hope that this film follows its cousins as another embarrassingly epic failure. Perhaps our efforts to restore sanity will overcome their march to keep fear alive.

Robert Spencer was all on this issue before, painting it in a simplified form directly taking the side of ultra right-wing Coptic apologists who hate Islam with a passion. Don’t expect any retractions from Spencer on this one.

Two missing Coptic women had been abused by priest husbands

(StlToday)

CAIRO, Egypt • The wives of two Egyptian Coptic priests, forbidden by the church from divorcing their abusive husbands, desperately sought another way out by converting to Islam. When their intentions were discovered, police handed them over to the church, and their whereabouts since have been unknown.

The cases caused a furor at home that spilled over the borders and turned deadly when al-Qaida in Iraq cited the women as the reason behind the worst attack ever on Christians in Iraq — a siege of a church in October that left 68 people dead.

It was a stark example of the schism between Christians and Muslims that runs through the Middle East and periodically erupts into violence.

“Amid the current sectarian discord, the timing is perfect for al-Qaida to show it is defending Islam and to exploit the situation to rally extremists against the churches,” said Ammar Ali Hassan, an expert in Islamic movements.

Both Wafaa Constantine, 53, and Camilla Shehata, 25, lived in remote rural towns and enjoyed prestige as devoted and pious wives of conservative Coptic priests. But behind that veneer, a lawyer and a church official said, the women were trapped in abusive relationships.

Both tried to seek a divorce through church channels but hit a dead end because the Coptic Orthodox Church forbids divorce — a rule enforced even more strictly against the wives of priests. And they decided to rebel, not only against their husbands but against the whole religion.

They sought to convert to Islam, something viewed as a disgrace in their community. The Coptic Church considers those who convert to other religions dead, making the marriage contract invalid.

Though Egyptian religious authorities say the women never succeeded in converting, the controversy in both cases escalated with protests by Egyptian Christians, who accused Muslims of abducting the women and forcing them to convert.

That riled Muslim extremists in Egypt who protested and accused the church of holding them against their will and forcing them to convert back to Christianity.

Al-Qaida in Iraq turned it into a cause celebre when it cited the women as the reason behind the Baghdad church siege. The group followed with more threats against Iraq’s Christian minority, generating such fear that most Christmas celebrations in the country were canceled.

Brigitte Gabriel

One piece would have saved Deirdre a lot of time: ACT! For America is better known as HATE! For America.

Educating or fear-mongering? The controversy over ACT!

By Deirdre Conner
When ACT! for America’s Jacksonville chapter began attacking a local Muslim scholar this year, it might have appeared to be the isolated action of a fringe group.

Far from it.

Over the past year, ACT has engaged in similar skirmishes across the country that have raised the group’s profile, its membership and its revenue.

It describes itself as educating concerned citizens and exposing the threat of radical Islamic terrorists they believe are multiplying on American soil. When the local chapter protested the appointment of University of North Florida professor Parvez Ahmed to the city’s Human Rights Commission, they claimed he had ties to terrorist organizations, despite his written record of condemning violence and terrorism.

But the episode is also one of many reasons ACT has come under increasing scrutiny from critics. They say that at best, the group is promoting misinformation among an American public still largely uninformed about Islam, and at worst, it is exploiting people’s worst fears to propagate bigotry and hate speech against Muslims.

Related: Anti-Muslim activist who led fight against Jacksonville commissioner owes state more than $500K

Its detractors include Muslim civil rights groups as well as scholars and even the Southern Poverty Law Center, all of which say the group denigrates all Muslims, not just extremists.

Despite controversy over ACT’s message, the group has found more and more willing ears from the public, and, in some cases, elected officials.

ACT! for America has a full-time lobbyist in Washington and says it ended 2010 with 155,000 members nationally. In Florida, the group’s membership has more than doubled since 2009, to 19,233 members, said Guy Rodgers, the group’s national executive director. Those members, he said, have been key in the “squeaky wheel gets the grease” strategy.

Busy agenda

It counts among its successes:

- The passage of a ballot initiative in Oklahoma banning courts from considering “international law or Sharia Law” in making decisions.

Related: What sharia is – and isn’t

- The investigation and suspension of the Muslim Student Union at University of California-Irvine for disrupting a speech by Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.

- Protesting the cancellation of a course called “What is Islam?” at an Oregon community college, which was to be taught by one of the group’s chapter leaders.

Together, the Pensacola-based ACT! for America and its affiliated research group, American Congress for Truth, raised more than $1.6 million in 2009, according to the latest tax returns available. Rodgers attributes growing interest in the group to the rise in domestic terrorism threats from Islamic militants over the past two years.

“More and more Americans are beginning to in their consciousness wonder, what is causing this?” Rodgers said.

‘Political correctness’

ACT also is concerned that the government is not thoroughly investigating places in America they feel could be breeding ground for Islamic militants, such as jihadist websites or camps they believe are paramilitary training grounds for terrorists.

So why does ACT believe the government isn’t as vigilant as it should be?

“Political correctness, I think that’s why,” Rodgers said. “We believe that is shackling many in the government … from tackling that issue head-on.”

It was political correctness, the group believes, that led to Ahmed being appointed to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission, a volunteer board.

Ahmed is the former chairman of the national board for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. ACT claims CAIR is a front for Hamas, a militant Palestinian organization designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government. And ACT points to CAIR being named in 2007 as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a terrorism-funding trial.

But CAIR was one of hundreds of unindicted co-conspirators. And it was never accused of wrongdoing by the government. For his part, Ahmed has personally condemned violence against both Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

In numerous blog posts and op-eds for The Times-Union and national media, Ahmed has rejected extremist views and violence and writes frequently about how religions can coexist peacefully.

Related: Parvez Ahmed speech transcript: ‘Is Islam compatible with American values?’

And although nearly a third of the City Council voted against his appointment, he found many more supporters among politicians, business leaders and citizens concerned that the episode could paint Jacksonville as a place of intolerance.

Difficult to dismiss

ACT! for America has, both locally and nationwide, found common ground with tea party members and extreme conservatives who helped Republicans retake the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections.

One of its key allies, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., announced plans this month for hearings on Muslim-Americans and terrorism when he assumes the chairmanship of the House Homeland Security Committee.

That’s why even its opponents say the group shouldn’t be dismissed.

“If they were just yahoos … then why did you have people running for Congress or government officials who are otherwise well educated playing that [Muslim] card?” said John L. Esposito, a Georgetown University professor who studies discrimination against Muslims.

“They played that card because a significant number of voters believe that.”

Esposito said ACT! for America is Islamophobic, and he compares it to anti-Semitic and racist groups.

He said that ACT – along with politicians and pundits who agree with it – is capitalizing on people’s fear, which is heightened because of the trauma of terrorism and a painful economy.

“People don’t look at the numbers,” Esposito said. Islamic terrorists “are an infinitely small but dangerous part of the population, and that’s a group that most people reject.”

He compared it to stereotyping all anti-abortion advocates as violent extremists just because there have been incidents of violence against abortion providers.

“It’s a dangerous thing,” he said, “but nobody blows the numbers out of proportion on this.”

Despite its crusade against political correctness, ACT officials deny they are anti-Muslim.

Yet its national leaders – including its founder, the Lebanese-born Christian Brigitte Gabriel – repeatedly say that Islam itself creates terrorists.

In her book “They Must Be Stopped,” Gabriel writes that “The freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedoms that Muslims enjoy in this country have not tempted them to renounce their dreams of destroying the United States.”

In 2008, she told the New York Times Magazine that she disapproves of Islam because it “calls for the killing of other people.” In a speech to U.S. Navy SEALS that same year, she said that the West is doomed to failure until it identifies Islam as the “real enemy.”

A slideshow presented as educational material on ACT! for America’s website refers to Muslims’ birth rates as a “demographic timebomb” and says that moderate Muslims are the true radicals.

But Rodgers, the group’s executive director, said the group is not prejudiced, and that it works with Muslims who want to reform Islam. Islam has “issues” that need to be addressed, he said.

“Embedded within Islamic doctrine is a supremacist political ideology,” Rodgers said. “Does every Muslim agree with that ideology? No. Does every Muslim practice it? No. But it’s that particular political ideology that is at the root of militancy, whether it’s violent militancy or what we call ‘cultural jihad.’ ”

When it comes to the information about Islam and terrorism that ACT espouses, the group is less than transparent. In its tax return, American Congress for Truth notes that it conducted 700 hours of research on the issues, but Rodgers declined to name any of those researchers.

‘This filthy doctrine’

If the difference between being anti-Islam and anti-radical Islam is nuanced, some of ACT’s supporters don’t appear to get the message.

Facebook “fans” of the group repeatedly post anti-Islamic sentiments on the page. In the past week, one posted that “this filthy doctrine needs to be wiped off the face of the earth,” and another declared hatred of Muslims. The week before, one post praised ACT for “fighting the good fight” against Islam, and another called on “God-lovin” Americans to disrupt a Muslim prayer service in New York City.

But Rodgers said the group tries to keep tabs on members who cross the line. He pointed to a video posted this year by CAIR, in which an ACT member is shown saying that the Quran should be used as toilet paper.

Rodgers said ACT condemned those actions when it found out about them. The group can’t know about the beliefs of every one of its members, he said.

What isn’t in dispute is how little most Americans know about Islam and the roots of terrorism.

An August poll from the Pew Research Center shows that 55 percent of Americans say they do not know very much or know nothing at all about the Muslim religion and its practices.

Yet just 62 percent of respondents said Muslims should have the same rights as other groups to build houses of worship.

And 38 percent believe Islam encourages violence more than other religions, a figure that has increased substantially in the nine years since President George W. Bush visited a mosque and reminded Americans that Islam is a religion of peace.

Republicans and people with less education are far more likely to express an unfavorable view of Islam, Pew found, and people with more knowledge of the religion are more likely to view it favorably.

Concern over rising volume

Groups that exploit that lack of information to spread fear about Muslims seem to have become louder over the past few years, said Brannon Wheeler, professor of history and director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy. He does not speak on behalf of the academy.

More insidious, he said, is when groups “take a 10th century legal text [regarding sharia] … and find stuff in that text and say, this is what Muslims all around the world believe.”

Just as Christians around the world have diverging beliefs on certain issues, Muslims around the world are also quite diverse – if not more so, Wheeler said.

“It was my hope … that after the tragedy of Sept. 11, many people would learn more about Islam,” Wheeler said. “But I fear that what has happened in general is that most people’s stereotypes have become more entrenched and more widespread.”

On the whole, Muslims in America are far more integrated into society than in Europe, where there have been more violent conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Still, American Muslims – who make up less than 2 percent of the overall population – say they are more often experiencing discrimination. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has seen a surge in discrimination complaints by Muslims in the past two years, the New York Times reported in September.

Although there are many different and complex ways that people become radicalized, discrimination can be a factor, said Gary LaFree, director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Known as the START Center, it is a partner with the Department of Homeland Security, known as a Center of Excellence.

“The more you marginalize any minority in your population, the more grievances they have, and the more their grievances will be supported,” he said. “[It's] a way of provoking people who had peacefully coexisted.”

That, LaFree said, is something that Osama bin Laden expressed hope would happen.

“If one of the main purposes of this type of terrorism is to drive a wedge between the Muslim and non-Muslim population,” he said, “it seems this is playing right into that.”

deirdre.conner@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4504

The Mooslims have reached Alaska where they are now opening up the first mosque in that state. Someone call Sarah Palin to “refudiate” the Islamic takeover of Alaska. I predict there will be calls to ban sharia’ in Alaska in a couple of years.

The anarchists seem to be on a tear across Europe.

Terrorism is a serious issue in Europe, but contrary to popular misperception it isn’t the Mooslims you should be worried about:

‘Wave of terrorism’: Blasts hit Rome embassies

ROME — An Italian anarchist group claimed responsibility for parcel bombs on Thursday that wounded two people at the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome, a reminder of home-grown threats at a time of political instability in Europe.

A Swiss man was seriously wounded and was rushed to hospital. The employee at the Chilean embassy was less seriously hurt. A note was found stuck to his clothing, claiming responsibility for the attack on behalf of the FAI, or Informal Anarchist Federation.

“We have decided to make our voice heard with words and with facts, we will destroy the system of dominance, long live the FAI, long-live Anarchy,” said the note, written in Italian, which was released in the evening by the police.

A woman was harassed for being Muslim and sprayed with pepper spry by her attacker. Now the FBI is looking for help in the investigation. I guess Islamophobia i all made up?

FBI Issues Appeal For Help In ‘Hate Crime’ Investigation

COLUMBUS, Ohio –

The FBI has issued a more detailed description of a man who apparently sprayed a Muslim woman with a pepper spray and the public is being asked to help find him.

NBC4 first told you about this story Tuesday, after a veiled woman told police she had been sprayed with some kind of chemical by a man who came up to the driver’s side window in the parking lot of a mosque.  He yelled threatening remarks and drove off.

The FBI is asking the public if they know a white male, in his 40’s or 50’s, 5 feet 9 inches tall with a medium build.  His light colored, closed-cropped beard is coupled with a long mustache.

Authorities say his teeth are in poor condition, yellowish with several missing.  He has light-colored eyes.

The image of the vehicle he was driving was captured on surveillance video. It’s a white Jeep Cherokee from the late 80’s or early 90’s and has a roof rack and black wheels.

Anyone with information on the man or vehicle is asked to contact the FBI at 614-744-2144 or Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477.

The woman did not suffer serious injury in the incident.

Imam Plans US Tour

by Paul Vitello

The controversy over plans to build an Islamic center in downtown Manhattan subsided in November, almost abruptly, with the end of an election season that amplified its most emotional underlying issues.

But the imam behind the project has decided to risk reigniting that opposition by setting out on a nationwide speaking tour next month to promote the planned center and to foster dialogue about Muslim life in America.

“Controversy has never been a problem for me,” said the imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, whose proposal to build the high-rise community center and mosque two blocks north of ground zero made him the prime target last summer of opponents who viewed the plan, known as Park51 for its address on Park Place, as a Trojan horse for Muslim triumphalism. “I think the controversy of last summer helped initiate a discourse that has been very good for the country. I’m an American, and I believe that Americans are problem solvers. So I believe further discussion can only be good.”

The tour, which he described in an interview on Wednesday, is scheduled to begin in Detroit, the city with the largest Muslim population in the United States. It will include stops in Chicago, Washington, San Antonio and several college campuses, starting with Harvard, Yale, Georgetown and the University of North Carolina.

Because of death threats that the imam has received, none of his addresses will be open to the general public, though the local news media in each place will be invited to attend, and to ask questions afterward, he said.

Some of the project’s most outspoken opponents welcomed the imam’s plan for a speaking tour, though for reasons of their own.

“I think this will help to revive the opposition, not only from Americans in general but from Muslims in this country, who don’t want this thing built,” said Ryan Mauro, a conservative blogger and the producer of a documentary about the planned community center.

The film, “Sacrificed Survivors: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque,” focuses on opposition by some families of 9/11 victims.

Pamela Geller, another conservative blogger who organized many of the public demonstrations against the center last summer, said she planned to marshal protests when the City Council meets next month to review Wal-Mart’s proposal to open a store in Manhattan. “Christine Quinn is against Wal-Mart, but she’s in favor of the megamosque. Typical liberal elitist thinking,” she said, referring to the City Council speaker.

Ms. Geller also predicted that the imam’s speaking tour would serve the opposition. “The opposition has never gone away, and will never go away,” she said.

At the height of the controversy over the summer and fall, Mr. Adbul Rauf was on a scheduled speaking tour in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The tour was sponsored by the State Department’s cultural exchange bureau, known as the Department of Public Diplomacy.

He considered canceling that trip in order to confront the opposition and rally support at home to his cause — a job that fell for the most part to his wife and partner in interfaith work, Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement.

“But in that environment, I realized that no matter what I did or said, I would be accused of something,” he said. And as it turned out, he added, the reaction of Middle Eastern Muslims to the controversy over Park51 was encouraging to him.

The idea that in the United States there could be a discussion, even an angry one, about building a mosque that some considered to be too close to ground zero — “that was an amazingly positive thing to people I met in the Middle East,” he said.

“The idea that the Jewish mayor of New York would be our most outspoken defender,” he continued, referring to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, “well, I think that really touched people. It was very positive ‘optics’ for the international Muslim audience, as they say in the State Department.”

If Mr. Abdul Rauf ever entertained thoughts of moving the planned center to a less contentious site — as he has admitted in interviews — Mr. Bloomberg’s support for Park51 has since made that unthinkable.

And to do so now would be “a betrayal of this great opportunity,” he added, referring to the discourse about relations between Muslims in the United States and their fellow Americans, which he plans to take on the road from mid-January until the early spring.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our Christian Loonwatchers.

From Spencerwatch

Robert Spencer who has been ceaselessly attacking Reza Aslan for calling him out for being a bigot and an Islamophobe, (a fact which is a consensus amongst sane people) wrote an article not too long ago in which he claimed that Reza Aslan was somehow an apologist for the Iranian regime because a “genuine pro-democracy movement of free Iranians is on to NIAC.”

NIAC is an organization in which Reza Aslan is a board member it supports the growth of a Democratic Iran and the Green Movement. It is an understatement that whenever Spencer claims something is “genuine” it turns out to be a lie.

The so called “genuine movement of free Iranians” that Spencer is referencing is something called PDMI, and as we reported then it is an anti-Islam site run by a single anonymous individual who admires Reza Shah, the dictator who was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

If you don’t remember who Reza Shah is then this interview might give you some sort of inkling:

I am guessing this won’t go over so nice with your patrons the Chernick’s Robert.

We can now add to the crack-pot dictators, fascists and neo-Nazis that Spencer supports: Geert Wilders (Right-wing Dutch neo-Fascist), EDL (English Defense League),SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe), BPE (Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa), Ewald Stadler (Far right Austrian politician), BZO, Sergei Trefkovic (Serbian Nationalist, genocide denier), and Reza Shah.

How poignant is the above Photo? It wasn’t long ago that such signs were strewn across the USA, but those with historical amnesia seem to forget it ever existed.

Even more egregious,  Jewish extremists in Israel are now inflicting a similar decrepit form of racist and religious discrimination. What if it were Muslims saying “this is a Muslim only neighborhood, no Jews allowed?” Or if this had happened in an area of Cairo?

You can be sure that Robert Spencer and company would be chirping about it day and night.

Arab tenants forced to leave Tel Aviv home due to threats

(YNet)

Four Muslims and a Druze man were compelled to leave an apartment they had rented in southern Tel Aviv due to neighbors’ scheming against them, Ynet has learned. They claim that residents of the neighborhood threatened to torch the apartment and attack the landlord if the tenants were not evicted.

“Residents said aloud that they didn’t want to see Arabs in the neighborhood, because it’s for Jews alone,” one of the tenants said. (Hassan Shaalan)

Rep. Keith Ellison

Ellison confronts Peter King’s planned witch hunt of Muslims.

Ellison confronts King on planned Muslim investigations

Republican Rep. Peter King of New York says he wants to hold investigations into the “radicalization” of American Muslims in his new position as chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, but Rep. Keith Ellison said on Monday that targeting one community would hamper homeland security efforts.

“I believe it’s important to have this investigation into the radicalization of the Muslim community,” King said in an interview with Fox News this week. “We have to break through this politically correct nonsense which keeps us from debating and discussing what I think is one of the most vitally important issues in this country. We are under siege by Muslim terrorists and yet there are Muslim leaders in this country who do not cooperate with law enforcement.”

Ellison, who became America’s first Muslim member of Congress in 2006, said that investigations like the one proposed by King will not cause members of the community to cooperate with law enforcement. He said it might have the opposite effect. Ellison said he confronted King on the House floor on the issue.

“I got so concerned that when I heard about it I actually approached Congressman King on the House floor and told him that, you know, look, we all need to be concerned about violent radicalization, but not just against Muslims, against anybody,” he said on the Ed Show on MSNBC on Monday. “What about the guy who flew a plane into the IRS or what about the guy who killed a guard at the holocaust museum?”

He said the proposed investigations should include all Americans. “You know it is worthwhile to find out what turns somebody from a normal citizen into a violent radical, but to say that we’re only going to do it against this community and we’re about to change the debate to vilify this community is very scary and clearly has McCarthyistic implications.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ellison added, “I’m willing to engage with Congressman King… Let’s investigate this thing in the right way and… enlist Muslim Americans to help safeguard our country… I’m fearful that if you attack an discrete, insular community, you will make people, good people, withdraw, and I would like to see Muslim leaders, if they feel there is some national security threat in their midst, they would feel comfortable talking to the FBI, talking to local law enforcement, and this kind of stuff can really discourage that.”

Jewish religious students and elders took part in a demonstration in which protestors called out for “Jewish women who date Arabs to be killed.” What if they were Muslim?

Bat Yam rally: Death to Jewish women who date Arabs

by Yoav Zitun (YNet)

Some 200 people held a demonstration in central Bat Yam Monday evening against relationships between local Jewish women and Arab men.

One of the protestors called out, “Any Jewish woman who goes with an Arab should be killed; any Jew who sells his home to an Arab should be killed.”

‘We will not allow it.’ Bat Yam rally (Photo: Ofer Amram)

During the rally, held under the banner, “We Want a Jewish Bat-Yam”, demonstrators also insulted the prophet Muhammad and made racist remarks against Arabs and their saints.

Police forces maintained order, but did not act when the demonstrators made racist remarks.

“We are not racist, we are just Jews. The Arabs are coming and taking our daughters. We will not allow it,” one of the speakers said.

‘Fed up.’ Leftist counter rally (Photo: Ofer Amram)

Moshe Ben-Zikri of Eilat said the “struggle” began three years ago in Givat Ze’ev. “There were 330 Arab families there, and the Jewish women would walk around with them freely. We vowed this would not happen again.

“Just like we triumphed there, we will triumph in Bat Yam as well. We are not afraid of the police, the media or the Arabs – we only fear God,” he said.

Mayor: Climb on a different tree

Bat Yam Mayor Shlomo Lahyani strongly condemned the event and those who took part in it.

“The city of Bat Yam denounces any racist phenomenon. This is a democratic country with laws,” Lahyani told Ynet angrily. He denied claims made by extreme right-wing activists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel that this was a local initiative.

“I would like these honorable gentlemen to find a different tree to climb on, far from Bat Yam. I am certain and I know that most of the protestors are not Bat Yam residents. This is a foolish attempt to create a provocation, which has failed.”

Ben-Gvir and Marzel responded to the mayor’s accusations, saying that “Mr. Lahyani has failed in his attempt to ignore the harsh reality in Bat Yam, which has been taken over by hostile elements and is suffering from assimilation. The crowd which took part in the protest was furious at the failure to deal with this phenomenon. We suggest that Lahyani stop ignoring the danger.”

One of the event’s organizers, Bentzi Gupstein told Ynet Sunday night, “So many Arabs are dating Jewish women, and the public is fed up with it.

A short distance away, about 200 leftists and Arab residents of Bat Yam held a counter protest. They waved signs reading, “We’re fed up with racists” and “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies”.

An epic piece from Max Blumenthal. He links to us and a lot of the information he presents are issues that we have been covering for quite a long time.

The Great Islamophobic Crusade

Nine years after 9/11, hysteria about Muslims in American life has gripped the country.

With it has gone an outburst of arson attacks on mosques, campaigns to stop their construction, and the branding of the Muslim-American community, overwhelmingly moderate, as a hotbed of potential terrorist recruits. The frenzy has raged from rural Tennessee to New York City, while in Oklahoma, voters even overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure banning the implementation of Sharia law in American courts (not that such a prospect existed). This campaign of Islamophobia wounded President Obama politically, as one out of five Americans have bought into a sustained chorus of false rumors about his secret Muslim faith. And it may have tainted views of Muslims in general; an August 2010 Pew Research Center poll revealed that, among Americans, the favorability rating of Muslims had dropped by 11 points since 2005.

Erupting so many years after the September 11th trauma, this spasm of anti-Muslim bigotry might seem oddly timed and unexpectedly spontaneous. But think again: it’s the fruit of an organized, long-term campaign by a tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives who first focused on Islamophobia soon after the September 11th attacks, but only attained critical mass during the Obama era.  It was then that embittered conservative forces, voted out of power in 2008, sought with remarkable success to leverage cultural resentment into political and partisan gain.

This network is obsessively fixated on the supposed spread of Muslim influence in America. Its apparatus spans continents, extending from Tea Party activists here to the European far right. It brings together in common cause right-wing ultra-Zionists, Christian evangelicals, and racist British soccer hooligans. It reflects an aggressively pro-Israel sensibility, with its key figures venerating the Jewish state as a Middle Eastern Fort Apache on the front lines of the Global War on Terror and urging the U.S. and various European powers to emulate its heavy-handed methods.

Little of recent American Islamophobia (with a strong emphasis on the “phobia”) is sheer happenstance.  Years before Tea Party shock troops massed for angry protests outside the proposed site of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, representatives of the Israel lobby and the Jewish-American establishment launched a campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism that would prove a seedbed for everything to come. That campaign quickly — and perhaps predictably — morphed into a series of crusades against mosques and Islamic schools which, in turn, attracted an assortment of shady but exceptionally energetic militants into the network’s ranks.

Besides providing the initial energy for the Islamophobic crusade, conservative elements from within the pro-Israel lobby bankrolled the network’s apparatus, enabling it to influence the national debate. One philanthropist in particular has provided the beneficence to propel the campaign ahead. He is a little-known Los Angeles-area software security entrepreneur named Aubrey Chernick, who operates out of a security consulting firm blandly named the National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination. A former trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has served as a think tank for the American Israel Policy Action Committee (AIPAC), a frontline lobbying group for Israel, Chernick is said to be worth $750 million.

Chernick’s fortune is puny compared to that of the billionaire Koch Brothers, extraction industry titans who fund Tea Party-related groups like Americans for Prosperity, and it is dwarfed by the financial empire of Haim Saban, the Israeli-American media baron who is one of the largest private donors to the Democratic party and recently matched$9 million raised for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces in a single night. However, by injecting his money into a small but influential constellation of groups and individuals with a narrow agenda, Chernick has had a considerable impact.

Through the Fairbrook Foundation, a private entity he and his wife Joyce control, Chernick has provided funding to groups ranging from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and CAMERA, a right-wing, pro-Israel, media-watchdog outfit, to violent Israeli settlers living on Palestinian lands and figures like the pseudo-academic author Robert Spencer, who is largely responsible for popularizing conspiracy theories about the coming conquest of the West by Muslim fanatics seeking to establish a worldwide caliphate. Together, these groups spread hysteria about Muslims into Middle American communities where immigrants from the Middle East have recently settled, and they watched with glee as likely Republican presidential frontrunners from Mike Huckabee to Sarah Palin promoted their cause and parroted their tropes. Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the increasingly widespread appeal of Islamophobia is that, just a few years ago, the phenomenon was confined to a few college campuses and an inner city neighborhood, and that it seemed like a fleeting fad that would soon pass from the American political landscape.

Birth of a Network

The Islamophobic crusade was launched in earnest at the peak of George W. Bush’s prestige when the neoconservatives and their allies were riding high. In 2003, three years after the collapse of President Bill Clinton’s attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue and in the immediate wake of the invasion of Iraq, a network of Jewish groups, ranging from ADL and the American Jewish Committee to AIPAC, gathered to address what they saw as a sudden rise in pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses nationwide. That meeting gave birth to the David Project, a campus advocacy group led by Charles Peters, who had co-founded CAMERA, one of the many outfits bankrolled by Chernick. With the help of public relations professionals, Peters conceived a plan to “take back the campus by influencing public opinion through lectures, the Internet, and coalitions,” as a memo produced at the time by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company stated.

In 2004, after conferring with Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the pro-Israel think tank where Chernoff had served as a trustee, Peters produced a documentary film that he called Columbia Unbecoming.  It was filled with claims from Jewish students at Columbia University claiming they had endured intimidation and insults from Arab professors.  The film portrayed that New York City school’s Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures as a hothouse of anti-Semitism.

In their complaints, the students focused on one figure in particular: Joseph Massad, a Palestinian professor of Middle East studies.  He was known for his passionate advocacy of the formation of a binational state between Israel and Palestine, as well as for his strident criticism of what he termed “the racist character of Israel.” The film identified him as “one of the most dangerous intellectuals on campus,” while he was featured as a crucial villain inThe Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, a book by the (Chernick-funded) neoconservative activist David Horowitz.  As Massad was seeking tenure at the time, he was especially vulnerable to this sort of wholesale assault.

When the controversy over Massad’s views intensified, Congressman Anthony Weiner, a liberal New York Democrat who once described himself as a representative of “the ZOA [Zionist Organization of America] wing of the Democratic Party,” demanded that Columbia President Lee Bollinger, a renowned First Amendment scholar, fire the professor. Bollinger responded by issuing uncharacteristically defensive statements about the “limited” nature of academic freedom.

In the end, however, none of the charges stuck. Indeed, the testimonies in the David Project film were eventually either discredited or never corroborated. In 2009, Massad earned tenure after winning Columbia’s prestigious Lionel Trilling Award for excellence in scholarship.

Having demonstrated its ability to intimidate faculty members and even powerful university administrators, however, Kramer claimed a moral victory in the name of his project, boasting to the press that “this is a turning point.” While the David Project subsequently fostered chapters on campuses nationwide, its director set out on a different path — initially, into the streets of Boston in 2004 to oppose the construction of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center.

For nearly 15 years, the Islamic Society of Boston had sought to build the center in the heart of Roxbury, the city’s largest black neighborhood, to serve its sizable Muslim population. With endorsements from Mayor Thomas Menino and leading Massachusetts lawmakers, the mosque’s construction seemed like a fait accompli — until, that is, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Boston Herald and his local Fox News affiliate snapped into action.  Boston Globecolumnist Jeff Jacoby also chimed in with a series of reports claiming the center’s plans were evidence of a Saudi Arabian plot to bolster the influence of radical Islam in the United States, and possibly even to train underground terror cells.

It was at this point that the David Project entered the fray, convening elements of the local pro-Israel community in the Boston area to seek strategies to torpedo the project. According to emails obtained by the Islamic Society’s lawyers in a lawsuit against the David Project, the organizers settled on a campaign of years of nuisance lawsuits, along with accusations that the center had received foreign funding from “the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia or… the Moslem Brotherhood.”

In response, a grassroots coalition of liberal Jews initiated inter-faith efforts aimed at ending a controversy that had essentially been manufactured out of thin air and was corroding relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities in the city. Peters would not, however, relent. “We are more concerned now than we have ever been about a Saudi influence of local mosques,” he announced at a suburban Boston synagogue in 2007.

After paying out millions of dollars in legal bills and enduring countless smears, the Islamic Society of Boston completed the construction of its community center in 2008. Meanwhile, not surprisingly, nothing came of the David Project’s dark warnings. As Boston-area National Public Radio reporter Philip Martin reflected in September 2010, “The horror stories that preceded [the center’s] development seem shrill and histrionic in retrospect.”

The Network Expands

This second failed campaign was, in the end, more about movement building than success, no less national security. The local crusade established an effective blueprint for generating hysteria against the establishment of Islamic centers and mosques across the country, while galvanizing a cast of characters who would form an anti-Muslim network which would gain attention and success in the years to come.

In 2007, these figures coalesced into a proto-movement that launched a new crusade, this time targeting the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a secular Arabic-English elementary school in Brooklyn, New York. Calling their ad hoc pressure group, Stop the Madrassah – madrassah being simply the Arab word for “school” — the coalition’s activists included an array of previously unknown zealots who made no attempt to disguise their extreme views when it came to Islam as a religion, as well as Muslims in America. Their stated goal was to challenge the school’s establishment on the basis of its violation of the church-state separation in the U.S. Constitution.  The true aim of the coalition, however, was transparent: to pressure the city’s leadership to adopt an antagonistic posture towards the local Muslim community.

The activists zeroed in on the school’s principal, Debbie Almontaser, a veteran educator of Yemeni descent, and baselessly branded her “a jihadist” as well as a 9/11 denier.  They also accused her of — as Pamela Geller, a far-right blogger just then gaining prominence put it, “whitewash[ing] the genocide against the Jews.”  Daniel Pipes, a neoconservative academic previously active in the campaigns against Joseph Massad and the Boston Islamic center (and whose pro-Likud think tank, Middle East Forum, has received $150,000 from Chernick) claimed the school should not go ahead because “Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with Pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage.” As the campaign reached a fever pitch, Almontaser reported that members of the coalition were actuallystalking her wherever she went.

Given what Columbia Journalism School professor and former New York Times reporter Samuel Freedman called“her clear, public record of interfaith activism and outreach,” including work with the New York Police Department and the Anti-Defamation League after the September 11th attacks, the assault on Almontaser seemed little short of bizarre — until her assailants discovered a photograph of her wearing a T-shirt produced by AWAAM, a local Arab feminist organization, that read “Intifada NYC.” (“As AWAAM provides young women with opportunities to become active as community organizers and media producers, ‘intifada NYC’ is a call for empowerment, service, civic participation and critical thinking in our communities,” the organization explained once the controversy erupted.)

Having found a way to wedge the emotional issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict into a previously New York-centered campaign, the school’s opponents next gained a platform at the Murdoch-owned New York Post, where reporters Chuck Bennett and Jana Winter claimed her T-shirt was “apparently a call for a Gaza-style uprising in the Big Apple.” While Almontaser attempted to explain to the Post’s reporters that she rejected terrorism, the Anti-Defamation League chimed in on cue. ADL spokesman Oren Segal told the Post: “The T-shirt is a reflection of a movement that increasingly lauds violence against Israelis instead of rejecting it. That is disturbing.”

Before any Qassam rockets could be launched from Almonstaser’s school, her former ally New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg caved to the growing pressure and demanded her resignation, prompting the state’s Department of Education to fire her. A Jewish principal who spoke no Arabic replaced Almontaser, who later filed a lawsuit against the city for breaching her free speech rights. In 2010, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that New York’s Department of Education had “succumbed to the very bias that the creation of the school was intended to dispel” by firing Almontaser and urged it pay her $300,000 in damages. The commission also concluded that thePost had quoted her misleadingly.

Though it failed to stop the establishment of the Khalil Gibran Academy, the burgeoning anti-Muslim movement succeeded in forcing city leaders to bend to its will, and having learned just how to do that, then moved on in search of more high-profile targets. As the New York Times reported at the time, “The fight against the school… was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.”

“It’s a battle that has really just begun,” Pipes told the Times.

From Scam to Publicity Coup

Pipes couldn’t have been more on the mark. In late 2009, the Islamophobes sprang into action again when the Cordoba Initiative, a non-profit Muslim group headed by Feisal Abdul Rauf, an exceedingly moderate Sufi Muslim imam who regularlytraveled abroad representing the United States at the behest of the State Department, announced that it was going to build a community center in downtown New York City. With the help of investors, Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative purchased space two blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan.  The space was to contain a prayer area as part of a large community center that would be open to everyone in the neighborhood.

None of these facts mattered to Pamela Geller. Thanks to constant prodding at her blog, Atlas Shrugged, Geller made Cordoba’s construction plans a national issue, provoking fervent calls from conservatives to protect the “hallowed ground” of 9/11 from creeping Sharia. (That the “mosque” would have been out of sight of Ground Zero and that the neighborhood was, in fact, filled with everything from strip clubs to fast-food joints didn’t matter.)  Geller’s activism against Cordoba House earned the 52-year-old full-time blogger the attention she apparently craved, including along profile in the New York Times and frequent cable news spots, especially, of course, on Fox News.

Mainstream reporters tended to focus on Geller’s bizarre stunts.  She posted a video of herself splashing around in a string bikini on a Fort Lauderdale beach, for instance, while ranting about “left-tards” and “Nazi Hezbollah.”  Hercall for boycotting Campbell’s Soup because the company offered halal — approved under Islamic law (as kosher food is under Jewish law) — versions of its products got her much attention, as did her promotion of a screed claiming that President Barack Obama was the illegitimate lovechild of Malcolm X.

Geller had never earned a living as a journalist.  She supported herself with millions of dollars in a divorce settlement and life insurance money from her ex-husband.  He died in 2008, a year after being indicted for an alleged $1.3 million scam he was accused of running out of a car dealership he co-owned with Geller. Independently wealthy and with time on her hands, Geller proved able indeed when it came to exploiting her strange media stardom to incite the already organized political network of Islamophobes to intensify their crusade.

She also benefited from close alliances with leading Islamophobes from Europe. Among Geller’s allies was Andrew Gravers, a Danish activist who formed the group Stop the Islamicization of Europe, and gave it the unusually blunt motto: “Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense.” Gravers’ group inspired Geller’s own U.S.-based outfit, Stop the Islamicization of America, which she formed with her friend Robert Spencer, a pseudo-scholar from Great Britain whose bestselling books, including The Truth About Muhammad, Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion, prompted former advisor to President Richard Nixon and Muslim activist Robert Crane to call him, “the principal leader… in the new academic field of Muslim bashing.” (According to the website Politico, almost $1 million in donations from Chernick has been steered to Spencer’s Jihad Watch group through David Horowitz’s Freedom Center.)

Perfect sources for Republican political figures in search of the next hot-button cause, their rhetoric found its way into the talking points of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin as they propelled the crusade against Cordoba House into the national spotlight. Gingrich soon compared the community center to a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, while Palin called it “a stab in the heart” of “the Heartland.” Meanwhile, Tea Party candidates like Republican Ilario Pantano, an Iraq war veteran who killed two unarmed Iraqi civilians, shooting them 60 times — he even stopped to reload — made their opposition to Cordoba House the centerpiece of midterm congressional campaigns conducted hundreds of miles from Ground Zero.
Geller’s campaign against “the mosque at Ground Zero” gained an unexpected assist and a veneer of legitimacy from established Jewish leaders like Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman. “Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational,” he remarked to the New York Times. Comparing the bereaved family members of 9-11 victims to Holocaust survivors, Foxman insisted, “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted.”

Soon enough, David Harris, director of the (Chernick-funded) American Jewish Committee, was demanding that Cordoba’s leaders be compelled to reveal their “true attitudes” about Palestinian militant groups before construction on the center was initiated.  Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, another major Jewish group, insisted it would be “insensitive” for Cordoba to build near “a cemetery,” though his organization had recently been granted permission from the municipality of Jerusalem to build a “museum of tolerance” to be called The Center for Human Dignity directly on top of the Mamilla Cemetery, a Muslim graveyard that contained thousands of gravesites dating back 1,200 years.

Inspiration from Israel

It was evident from the involvement of figures like Gravers and Spencer that the Islamophobic network in the United States represented a trans-Atlantic expansion of simmering resentment in Europe.  There, the far-right was storming to victories in parliamentary elections across the continent in part by appealing to the simmering anti-Muslim sentiments of voters in rural and working-class communities. The extent of the collaboration between European and American Islamophobes has only continued to grow with Geller, Spencer, and even Gingrich standing beside Europe’s most prominent anti-Muslim figure, Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, at a rally against Cordoba House.  In the meantime, Geller was issuing statements of support for the English Defense League, a band of unreconstructed neo-Nazis and former members of the whites-only British National Party who intimidate Muslims in the streets of cities like Birmingham and London.

In addition, the trans-Atlantic Islamophobic crusade has stretched into Israel, a country that has come to symbolize the network’s fight against the Muslim menace. As Geller told the New York Times’ Alan Feuer, Israel is “a very good guide because, like I said, in the war between the civilized man and the savage, you side with the civilized man.”

EDL members regularly wave Israeli flags at their rallies, while Wilders claims to have formed his views about Muslims during the time he worked on an Israeli cooperative farm in the 1980s. He has, he says, visited the country more than 40 times since to meet with rightist political allies like Aryeh Eldad, a member of the Israeli Knesset and leader of the far right Hatikvah faction of the National Union Party.  He has called for forcibly “transferring” the Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied West Bank to Jordan and Egypt. On December 5th, for example, Wilders traveled to Israel for a “friendly” meeting with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, then declared at a press conference that Israel should annex the West Bank and set up a Palestinian state in Jordan.

In the apocalyptic clash of civilizations the global anti-Muslim network has sought to incite, tiny armed Jewish settlements like Yitzar, located on the hills above the occupied Palestinian city of Nablus, represent front-line fortresses. Inside Yitzar’s state-funded yeshiva, a rabbi named Yitzhak Shapira has instructed students in what rules must be applied when considering killing non-Jews. Shapira summarized his opinions in a widely publicized book, Torat HaMelech, or The King’s Torah. Claiming that non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature,” Shapira cited rabbinical texts to declare that gentiles could be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations.” “There is justification,” the rabbi proclaimed, “for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”

In 2006, the rabbi was briefly held by Israeli police for urging his supporters to murder all Palestinians over the age of 13. Two years later, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, he signed a rabbinical letter in support of Israeli Jews who had brutally assaulted two Arab youths on the country’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. That same year, Shapira was arrested as a suspect in helping orchestrate a rocket attack against a Palestinian village near Nablus.

Though he was not charged, his name came up again in connection with another act of terror when, in January 2010, the Israeli police raided his settlement seeking vandals who had set fire to a nearby mosque. One of Shapira’s followers, an American immigrant, Jack Teitel, has confessed to murdering two innocent Palestinians and attempting to the kill the liberal Israeli historian Ze’ev Sternhell with a mail bomb.

What does all this have to do with Islamophobic campaigns in the United States?  A great deal, actually. Through New York-based tax-exempt non-profits like the Central Fund of Israel and Ateret Cohenim, for instance, the omnipresent Aubrey Chernick has sent tens of thousands of dollars to support the Yitzar settlement, as well as to the messianic settlers dedicated to “Judaizing” East Jerusalem. The settlement movement’s leading online news magazine, Arutz Sheva, has featured Geller as a columnist.  A friend of Geller’s, Beth Gilinsky, a right-wing activist with a group called the Coalition to Honor Ground Zero and the founder of the Jewish Action Alliance (apparently runout of a Manhattan real estate office), organized a large rally in New York City in April 2010 to protest the Obama administration’s call for a settlement freeze.

Among Chernick’s major funding recipients is a supposedly “apolitical” group called Aish Hatorah that claims to educate Jews about their heritage. Based in New York and active in the fever swamps of northern West Bank settlements near Yitzar, Aish Hatorah shares an address and staff with a shadowy foreign non-profit called the Clarion Fund. During the 2008 U.S. election campaign, the Clarion Fund distributed 28 million DVDs of a propaganda film called Obsession as newspaper inserts to residents of swing states around the country. The film featured a who’s who of anti-Muslim activists, including Walid Shoebat, a self-proclaimed “former PLO terrorist.” Among Shoebat’s more striking statements: “A secular dogma like Nazism is less dangerous than is Islamofascism today.” At a Christian gathering in 2007, this “former Islamic terrorist” told the crowd that Islam was a “satanic cult” and that he had been born again as an evangelical Christian. In 2008, however, the Jerusalem Post, a right-leaning newspaper, exposed him as a fraud, whose claims to terrorism were fictional.

Islamophobic groups registered only a minimal impact during the 2008 election campaign. Two years later, however, after the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections, the network appears to have reached critical mass. Of course, the deciding factor in the election was the economy, and in two years, Americans will likely vote their pocketbooks again. But that the construction of a single Islamic community center or the imaginary threat of Sharia law were issues at all reflected the influence of a small band of locally oriented activists, and suggested that when a certain presidential candidate who has already been demonized as a crypto-Muslim runs for reelection, the country’s most vocal Islamophobes could once again find a national platform amid the frenzied atmosphere of the campaign.

By now, the Islamophobic crusade has gone beyond the right-wing pro-Israel activists, cyber-bigots, and ambitious hucksters who conceived it. It now belongs to leading Republican presidential candidates, top-rated cable news hosts, and crowds of Tea Party activists. As the fervor spreads, the crusaders are basking in the glory of what they accomplished. “I didn’t choose this moment,” Geller mused to the New York Times, “this moment chose me.”

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Original post: The Great Islamophobic Crusade

A very funny and enlightening piece from Cracked.com. While some things are a bit simplified much of it is on point and there are a few new interesting facts that aren’t well known.

5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam

By Jacopo della Quercia Dec 20, 2010

Either they’re not all that dedicated to terrorism, or the claim is utter insanity.

Well, if there’s one thing everyone thinks of when they hear “Cracked.com” it’s “friend of Islam.” Which is why we feel compelled to clarify a few misconceptions for our readers. Also, there is no way this article will ever come back to haunt us in any way.

For millions of people in the West, when you say “Islam,” the first mental image that pops into mind is this:

A two-person Scotch-garded version would sell like hotcakes.

A woman covered head to toe in a burqa. The truth is, if you could suddenly gather all of the Muslim women on the planet into one giant room and had to throw a football to someone wearing a burqa, it’d be next to impossible to complete that pass.

But the whole hide-them-under-a-veil thing must be pretty big among Muslim communities, otherwise Europe wouldn’t be all in in a dither over the things, pushing for bans and whatnot. Right?

Look at them there, plotting new ways to drive super-slow in the HOV lane.

After all, we all know that Islam hates women — the fact that Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that actually prohibits women from driving, or that only predominantly Muslim countries still use death by stoning as a punishment for adultery, proves it, right?

But Actually…

Thinking that all Muslim women have to dress like this…

…is like thinking that all Christian women have to dress like this:

That photo is from one of several small Christian sects that require women to dress like it’s Little House on the Prairie.

So for instance, in France they have about 3 million Muslim women. French police decided to figure out how many of them wore burqas and/or niqabs and found the number to be … 367.

Then again, these were French police.

Not 367,000, but 367, a number so small that from a statistical point of view, it’s barely enough to register as a margin of error. As for the rest of Europe, the numbers are even more disastrous for the burqa business (for instance, Belgium has 500,000 Muslims, a couple dozen wear the burqa).

Yes, there are Middle Eastern countries where the veils are required by law (namely Iran and Saudi Arabia) and combined those countries have less than 5 percent of the world’s Muslims. There are actually more Muslim countries that outright ban the wearing of the veils than there are that require them. They can do that because wearing a veil is not required in Islam but is more of a custom, depending on where you live and who’s in charge.

Much like hot pants.

Hey, speaking of which, try this number on for size: Of the five most populous Muslim-majority nations, four of them have elected female heads of state.

So there’s a fantastic chance that in 2012, Sarah Palin will be campaigning for an achievement that Muslim ladies have already accomplished.

We bet Megawati Sukarnoputri knows the United States doesn’t have a Department of Law.

It’s easy to stand on a soapbox and publicly bluster about what you think the Founding Fathers would think about the godless, multicultural United States today. After all, these were Christian, God-fearing men, damn it. They certainly wouldn’t put up with all this tolerance for these terrorist religions.

Thomas Jefferson, moments before leaping into the air on a giant eagle and drop-kicking Saladin.

It’s a good thing some Americans are standing up for good old-fashioned American values and passing laws to prohibit Islamic law from taking over the U.S., because that’s totally around the corner! Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is smiling in his grave!

But actually…

Even if they were staunch Christians (or deists, whatever), plenty of the Founding Fathers had a healthy admiration for the Muslim faith. Thomas Jefferson, for example, taught himself Arabic using his own copy of the Quran and hosted the first White House Iftar during Ramadan.

Jefferson believed in celebrating the deliciousness of all world religions.

John Adams hailed the Islamic prophet Muhammad as one of the great “inquirers after truth.” Benjamin Rush, who was so Christian he wanted a Bible in every school, also said he would rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohammad “inculcated upon our youth” than see them grow deprived “of a system of religious principles.” Benjamin Franklin once declared: “Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” Even George Washington personally welcomed Muslims to come work for him at Mount Vernon.

So, why all this Founding Father/Muslim love? Probably because Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah of Morocco was the first world figure to recognize the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain in 1777. Another reason was that the Founding Fathers were smart enough to distinguish between terrorists and everybody else on the whole damn planet, as demonstrated in the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797. It was in this agreement that the U.S. declared: “The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Mussulmen [Moslems].”

Another possible translation.

Remember that crazy lady with the Einstein hair who asked John McCain if Barack Obama was an Arab? No? Well, let us refresh your memory:

The instant John McCain realized that he would never, ever be president.

We’re willing to bet there’s more than a 20 percent chance this woman meant to say “Muslim” but accidentally said “Arab” because same thing, right? And even if you’re not in the tea party camp, where you’re convinced “Arab” and “Muslim” are interchangeable, you’ve probably operated under a similar assumption: that non-Jewish Middle Eastern people are Muslim and that most Muslims live in the Middle East.

But actually…

Only about 20 percent of the entire world’s Muslim population is Arab or North African. For comparison, about 22 percent of the global Christian population is African, yet when somebody says “Christian,” you don’t immediately picture a dude from Africa. Equating “Muslim” with “Arab” makes just as much sense.

That’d be like associating “Kansas” with “hate-filled douchebags”.

While we in the West have been conditioned to associate Islam with the Middle East, a whopping 61.9 percent of all Muslims — aka a supermajority — don’t live in the Middle East at all; most Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region. Indonesia alone is home to more than 200 million Muslims, and the Indian subcontinent has roughly a half-billion Muslims.

It works the other way, too. For example, if you think being Arab guarantees you being Muslim these days, well, we are sorry to disappoint. As much as 10 percent of the world’s Arab population is Christian (that’s more than 14 million people). That means there are 1 million more Arab Christians than, oh, we don’t know … the world’s entire Jewish population..

Haartez reports an interesting development amongst the anti-Muslims who are trying to forge ties across borders.

Europe far right courts Israel in anti-Islam drive

Far-right political parties in Europe are stepping up their anti-Muslim rhetoric and forging
ties across borders, even going so far as to visit Israel to hail the Jewish state as a bulwark against militant Islam.

National Front leader Marine Le Pen has shocked the French political elite in recent days by comparing Muslims who pray outside crowded mosques — a common sight during the holy month of Ramadan — to the World War Two Nazi occupation.

Oskar Freysinger, a champion of the Swiss ban on minarets, warned a far-right meeting in Paris on Saturday against “the demographic, sociological and psychological Islamisation of Europe”. German and Belgian activists also addressed the crowd.

Geert Wilders, whose populist far-right party supports the Dutch minority government, told Reuters last week he was organising an “international freedom alliance” to link
grass-roots groups active in “the fight against Islam”.

Earlier this month, Wilders visited Israel and backed its West Bank settlements, saying Palestinians there should move to Jordan. Like-minded German, Austrian, Belgian, Swedish and other far-rightists were on their own Israel tour at the same time.

“Our culture is based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism and (the Israelis) are fighting our fight,” Wilders told Reuters in Amsterdam last week. “If Jerusalem falls, Amsterdam and New York will be next.”

While he seeks anti-Muslim allies abroad, Wilders said some older far-right parties such as France’s National Front or the British National Party were “blunt racist parties I don’t care for” and he would avoid cooperating with them.

Campaigns aimed at Muslims have been gaining ground in Europe, most notably with the Swiss minaret ban last year and France’s law this year against full facial veils in public, which Wilders said the Netherlands should copy next year.

Support for these steps has spread beyond anti-immigrant parties and towards the political centre as globalisation and the ageing of Europe’s population fuel voters’ concerns about national sovereignty, according to a leading French analyst.

Political scientist Dominique Reynie said the financial crisis had prompted more voters to agree with the far right that their political elites were incompetent.

“Some people refuse what they see as a change in their cultural or religious surroundings,” he told the Paris daily Le Monde. “These are the problems posed by mosques, burqas and the provisions of halal food.”

Some on the far right see similar trends in the United States. Wilders attended a rally in New York on Sept. 11 to protest against a mosque planned near Ground Zero and the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, Heinz Christian Strache, has said he wants to visit the United States to meet leaders of the Tea Party movement.

Marine Le Pen, who is preparing to succeed her father Jean-Marie as head of the National Front, had in recent years toed a more moderate line before her anti-Muslim comments. She notably refused to echo the anti-Semitic views expressed by her
father.

On Sunday, she insisted all public subsidies for building mosques must stop. Several politicians and Muslim leaders have said Muslims often pray in the street because they do not have enough space in mosques and urged that more be built.

The rightists’ Israel visits set what some analysts call the “new far right” apart from older extremists who were often anti-Semitic and backed Arab countries against the Jewish state.

Declaring support for Israel gives them an opportunity to oppose Muslim opinion in their home countries, since European Muslims are often pro-Palestinian, as well as celebrate the Jewish state as the front line against militant Islam.

“It is not Israel’s duty to provide a Palestinian state,” Wilders said in a speech in Tel Aviv. “There already is a Palestinian state and that state is Jordan.”

A so-called “Jerusalem Declaration” issued by four other European rightists during their Israel visit also staunchly defended the country’s existence and its right to defend itself
“against all aggression, especially Islamic terror.”

Heinz-Christian Strache from Austria, German Freedom Party head Rene Stadtkewitz, Sweden Democrat MP Kent Ekeroth and Filip Dewinter, head of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party, denied they were stoking Islamophobia with their statement.

“The Arab-Israeli conflict illustrates the struggle between Western culture and radical Islam,” Dewinter said in Tel Aviv. Strache made a similar link to Europe, telling a conference in Ashkelon — a city that has been hit by rockets from the nearby Gaza Strip — that Israel faced “an Islamic terror threat that aims right for the heart of our society”.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz accused the rightists of “trading in their Jewish demon-enemy for the Muslim  criminal-immigrant model” and visiting Israel only to get
“Jewish absolution that will bring them closer to political power”.

We are well aware of the fact that the AlQaeda threat is overblown, or to cite Australian Intelligence, “vastly overblown.” Articles from our writers in the past have also explored the fact that the Terror threat in the West in general is very low, that actual occurrences are lower than leftist/separatist attacks.

Even when terrorism does occur discussion inevitably leads to the 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about; occupation. Occupation, aggressive posturing against Muslims and the rise of Islamophobia in the West correlate significantly or in part to the well spring of terrorist recruitment. They don’t attack us for our “freedom,” they attack us because we are “over there.”

The news media has worked in tandem or as unwitting stooges in the propagation of the “myth” of the number one enemy being “Islam” or “terrorism.” In doing so they generally neglect or push to the side serious stories that highlight and expose “terror plots” amongst other groups.

Recently a house in Connecticut that three white men had recently moved into was found to have “improvised explosives.” Imagine if it had been “three Middle Eastern” looking guys? Or heaven forbid some Muslims?

FBI, Connecticut police find “improvised explosives” inside New Haven home

(HSNW) Published 16 December 2010

The FBI and Connecticut police late Wednesday night find improvised explosives devices and bomb-making material in a New Haven, Connecticut home; firefighters found the materials when they responded to reports of smoke coming out of the house; it is not yet clear how many bombs were found, and what type of explosives material was used

Connecticut police and FBI agents are investigating what they say appear to be “improvised explosives” and bomb-making materials found late Wednesday night in a New Haven home.

Firefighters found the materials when they responded to reports by neighbors of smoke at 17 Hubinger Street, New Haven Police Officer Joe Avery said .

No injuries were reported, and Avery said there is no immediate danger.

Fox News quotes Avery to say that it is not clear how many bombs and explosive materials are in the home.

An FBI spokesman in New Haven confirmed that agents were on the scene Thursday and were assisting in the investigation, but declined to provide additional details.

Hubinger Street remained closed to traffic early Thursday.

The police say the home was empty and no one has been arrested, but that they have persons of interest they want to talk to.

Peter Wells, who lives not far from the home, said a “few guys” had moved into the residence on Sunday. The three white men appeared to be in their mid 20s or early 30s, Wells said.

“They looked like average guys,” he said. “I didn’t see anything out of line at all, that’s why I’m a daze myself about what’s going on.”

He said he was awakened at 3:30 a.m. by the police. “They just got the house shut down,” Wells told FoxNews.com. “Whatever happened at this residence, [police officials] are stating that it’s a pretty serious matter over there. But they’re not releasing many details.”

Wells said he saw New Haven police officers “stomping on a box” early Thursday morning, and that police dogs were on the scene.

(hat tip: Eric Allen Bell)

ISLAMIC CENTER LAWSUIT: Attorney vows to maintain fight against mosque

The attorney representing residents suing Rutherford County over a proposed mosque solicited the public Friday for help — and money — while pledging to continue the court fight.

“The plaintiffs fully intend to continue to gather facts and evidence and proceed to a final hearing,” Murfreesboro lawyer Joe M. Brandon Jr. states in a “response” sent to media. “It is anticipated that the final hearing will occur after the full completion of discovery. This should be some time over the course of the next year.”

Brandon is representing plaintiffs Kevin Fisher, Lisa Moore and Henry Golczynski who filed suit after the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro acquired site plan approval May 24 from the county’s Regional Planning Commission to build a 52,960-square-foot community center with a mosque on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike southeast of Murfreesboro’s city limits.

The lawsuit challenges whether the county provided sufficient notice to the public about the agenda item and also questions whether Islam is a religion and should be afforded land use rights as with other churches.

Chancellor Robert Corlew Jr. concluded after several days of testimony spread over three months this fall that “Islam is in fact a religion” and found no grounds to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the mosque’s construction.

Brandon, though, notes in his letter that at the conclusion of the temporary hearing, the trial court ruled, ” … we are startled to find that the case advocated by the Defendants as the authoritative holding that Islam is a religion was actually a case wherein the Supreme Court held that display of a Christmas tree with an angel proclaiming ‘Glory to God in the highest’ on the stairway of a county courthouse had the effect of endorsing a Christian message.”

The trial court went on to state, “[w]e stress in our holding that there is a distinction between a legal finding that Islam is a religion compared with a religious finding that Islam is a religion. The religious scholars may debate for a lengthy period of time whether Islam meets their definition of a religion.”

Brandon argued repeatedly during the hearing that the Islamic Center poses a threat to the community based on the tenants of Shariah Law, and therefore should not be deemed a religion. It’s a point that Brandon says he will continue to challenge at the full hearing in the case.

The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, meanwhile, has been charging ahead with its building plans on 15 acres. The congregation hopes to submit more detailed plans to obtain a building permit by March or April, said Saleh Sbenaty, a planning committee member for the Muslim congregation.

“We’re just finishing up the grading,” Sbenaty said during a Friday night phone interview. “The grading is taking more time because of the weather. After the grading is done, we will send the whole package for the building permit.”

Phase I of the building plans will be in the 10,000- to 11,000-square-foot range and include a reception hall that will also serve as a prayer area, an office for the imam (religious leader) and a small meeting room that can also serve as a nursery.

If enough money is available in Phase I, the ICM will also seek to build two outdoor pavilions and a playground between the two, added Sbenaty, an 18-year MTSU professor who teaches courses in electronics and computers for the Engineering Technology Department.

Long-term plans include a formal mosque area for worship, classrooms for weekend religious study, a gym, indoor pool, more offices, a multipurpose sports field, a basketball/tennis court and a private cemetery for ICM members.

Brandon, in addition to vowing to continue efforts to halt the project, implored anyone with information relevant to the case to forward it to his office.

“Additionally, should anyone feel led to make a donation toward attorney’s fees or other mandatory related costs, please give me a call, wherein, these matters can be discussed in depth,” Brandon states.

Peter King supported the IRA

Peter King claims American Muslims are a threat to our security while also being soft on terrorism, even though throughout the 80′s and until as recently as 2005 King financially and politically supported the IRA.

The Republican congressman who supported terrorism

by Justin Elliot (Salon.com)

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is set to assume the chairmanship of the House Homeland Security Committee in January, and today comes the news that he intends to launch an investigation of “radicalization” among American Muslims.

In some perverse sense, King, who has represented part of Long Island in Congress since 1993, may be just the man for the job: He spent years openly supporting the terrorist Irish Republican Army.

The journalist Alex Massie has ably documented King’s history with the IRA, a group that he did not break with until 2005:

In the 1980s, he was a prominent fundraiser for Noraid, the Irish-American organization that raised money for the IRA and was suspected of running guns to Ulster, too. Indeed, King’s rise to prominence within the Irish-American movement was predicated upon his support for the IRA at a time when New Yorkers were softer on terrorism than they are now. Noraid helped win King his seat in Congress, making him, in some respects, the terrorists’ Man in Washington. …

In 1982 he told a pro-IRA rally in Nassau County, New York, that “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.” That same year, an IRA bomb killed eight people in London’s Hyde Park. Two years later, the IRA almost succeeded in murdering the British prime minister.

If “IRA” were replaced with “Hamas,” the sort of fundraising King did would these days earn you a lengthy prison sentence for material support for terrorism.

WikiLeaks has further exposed what was quite obvious but which many people were silent about: the systematic torture by the Indian Army of Kashmiri civilians.

Mike, a Loonwatch reader asked, “what if this had been Pakistan?” Well Mike, no doubt you would have been hearing cries from the Mooslim haters as well as reverb about how Islam is to blame.

Another interesting tid-bit in the article was the suggestion that the US use Bollywood stars to pacify Afghanistan. I guess Shahrukh Khan holds the key to ending the occupation?

(hat tip: Mike)

WikiLeaks: India ‘systematically torturing civilians in Kashmir’

(Telegraph)

By Nick Allen, Los Angeles 12:17AM GMT 17 Dec 2010

The US officials in Delhi were privately briefed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2005 that Indian security forces were using methods including electrocution, physical beatings and sexual interference against hundreds of detainees.

In a detailed report back to Washington they recorded the view of the ICRC that India “condones torture” and that the detainees were not Islamist insurgents or Pakistani-backed militants, who were “routinely killed.” Instead, they were civilians “connected to or believed to have information about the insurgency.”

According to the cables, which will prove a major embarrassment for the Indian government, the ICRC interviewed 1,296 detainees of whom 681 said they had been tortured.
Of those, 498 claimed to have been electrocuted, 381 said they were suspended from the ceiling, and 304 cases were described as “sexual.”

A total of 294 described a procedure in which guards crushed their legs by putting a bar across their thighs and sitting on it, while 181 said their legs had been pulled apart into the splits.

In one cable US officials reported that “terrorism investigations and court cases tend to rely upon confessions, many of which are obtained under duress if not beatings, threats, or in some cases torture.”

Other leaked cables from US officials in India revealed that the Dalai Lama believed environmental problems on the Tibetan plateau should take precedence over a political solution there for the next five to 10 years.

The exiled Buddhist spiritual leader told US diplomats that issues such as polluted water from mining, deforestation and melting glaciers “cannot wait.”

US officials also suggested to Washington that India be encouraged to send Bollywood stars to Afghanistan to help pacify the country.

A cable, obtained by the WikiLeaks website, said “We understand Bollywood movies are wildly popular in Afghanistan” but the plan never materialised.”

An interesting blogpost by Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches.

WaPo Blogger Jordan Sekulow is proud to stand with Geert Wilders, if Washington Post has any self-respect they will fire him.

Washington Post Blogger “Proud” To Have Shared Stage With Geert Wilders

by Sarah Posner (Religion Dispatches)

After Matt Duss called out new Washington Post blogger Jordan Sekulow at Think Progress and on Twitter for saying at a demonstration against the Park51 project, “Imam Rauf, America rejects you,” Sekulow responded by tweeting: “Enjoyed that speech!”

And in response to Duss pointing out that Sekulow shared the stage with far-right nationalist, anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders, Sekulow tweeted, “proud to.”

In one of the State Department cables released by WikiLeaks, a U.S. embassy official in the Netherlands summed up Wilders for President Obama as “no friend of the U.S.”:

The Wilders Factor: Golden-pompadoured, maverick parliamentarian Geert Wilders, anti-Islam, nationalist Freedom Party remains a thorn in the coalition’s side, capitalizing on the social stresses resulting from the failure to fully integrate almost a million Dutch Muslims, mostly of Moroccan or Turkish descent. In existence only since 2006, the Freedom Party, tightly controlled by Wilders, has grown to be the Netherlands second largest, and fastest growing, party. Recent polls suggest it could even replace Balkenende,s Christian Democrats as the top party in 2011 parliamentary elections. Wilders is no friend of the U.S.: he opposes Dutch military involvement in Afghanistan; he believes development assistance is money wasted; he opposes NATO missions outside “allied” territory; he is against most EU initiatives; and, most troubling, he forments fear and hatred of immigrants.

Let’s sum up: the Post’s On Faith, which has a stated mission to promote “intelligent, informed, eclectic, respectful conversation,” has hired a blogger who describes himself as a “human rights attorney” yet is proud to share a stage with someone who “calls Islam ‘the ideology of a retarded culture’ and likens the Quran to ‘Mein Kampf.’”

Coexistence with Islam will destroy America because the Moozlims are sinisterly planning to undermine Western civilization. That is the message of a new editorial in the Washington Times. Yes, the stealth jihad conspiracy turns its ugly head again as we are warned – without any academic studies or proof – that the imminent “Islamic tsunami” and “Islamic tidal wave” are threatening everything we hold dear.

Is an Islamic tidal wave coming? “There is a plan to take over Western civilization,” warns David Rubin, “and we need to recognize it for what it is.” Mr. Rubin is a native New Yorker who served as mayor of the Israeli town of Shiloh. He spoke to The Washington Times about his new book, “The Islamic Tsunami: Israel and America in the Age of Obama.”

Who is David Rubin and what are his credentials to speak as an expert on Islam? Well, none, unless you consider rave reviews by far-right extremist demagogues like David Horowitz and Pat Robertson something to be proud of.

The entire editorial speaks of a monolithic, singular-minded, totalitarian Islam bent on destroying America. Not just extremists, but Islam itself. This perfectly fits the accepted textbook definition of Islamophobia by the Runnymede Trust:

1.      Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.

2.      Islam is seen as separate and ‘other’. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.

3.      Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.

4.      Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a ‘clash of civilizations’.

5.      Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.

6.      Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.

7.      Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.

8.      Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.

Islamophobia (irrational fear of Islam) is exactly what the Washington Times is spreading when they speak of the menacing hoards of Saracens secretly teaming up with Democrats to undermine Western civilization. The Times continues:

Confronting the growing threat to Western civilization first involves admitting the problem exists, something President Obama not only refuses to do but strongly denies. The administration has censored any discussion of the problem in these terms within the government, preferring to focus on ill-defined “violent extremism” when the real extremist threat is only partly violent and wholly Islamicist. Mr. Rubin notes that Mr. Obama‘s vaunted outreach effort to the world’s Muslims has been “a total failure in generating respect for the Judeo-Christian world.” The president keeps reaching out, but Islam is not reaching back.

It is very strange to see how “Islam” (1.5 billion people) can be collectively accused of snubbing President Obama’s outreach. Never mind the research which shows most American Muslims are mainstream moderates citizens. Ignore their insidious attempts at interfaith peace! We can only assume our government officials should stop using the term “violent extremism” and instead declare outright holy war against Islam. The Times continues:

Instead of pandering to Islam in hopes that somehow the threat will go away, Mr. Rubin says the United States needs to rediscover its roots. “The United States is a country built on Biblical foundations,” he said. “The United States needs to cease apologizing for what it is and where it comes from.” That America is a pluralistic nation in which people from many cultures may live, work and flourish doesn’t overshadow the fact that the country was founded on a specific set of ideals that enabled this pluralistic culture to take root. Islamism constitutes a mortal threat to those ideals, just as fascism and communism did for previous generations.

Despite what moral relativists believe, all belief systems are not created equal. A moral defense of the American ideal is possible and increasingly necessary. Mr. Rubin believes Americans “do not have to be ashamed” of the religious basis of the country’s founding. “America is built on freedom of worship, but of a particular religious root,” he says. The United States has to reclaim and defend the civilization on which it is based or risk declining into second-rate status and being overwhelmed by the tsunami steadily building on the horizon.

Now we are told the “threat” will not go away until we stop “pandering to Islam,” whatever that means. We can only assume that America should immediately stop all diplomacy with Muslim nations and forego any attempt at peaceful interfaith coexistence. If we don’t stand up now, the Moozlim hoards will quickly achieve the ¾ majority of states needed to change the Constitution into Sharia law!

So there you have it. Western civilization is under immediate existential threat by a shadowy, vague Islamic tsunami. The sky is falling! How exactly the religion of Islam will bring Western civilization crashing down is left to the imagination. No specific prescriptions are given to deal with this allegedly clear and present danger, so worried readers are left to find their own ways of saving their doomed civilization; such as attacking random Imams, bullying the local Muslim school boy, vandalizing or pipe bombing a random mosque, stabbing a random Muslim cabby, or agitating to nuke Muslim cities.

What can we do to save our civilization? We can only assume.

Robert Spencer before the tummy tuck

Cyberpath Robert Spencer can’t get over Reza Aslan.

Aslan irks Spencer, bothers him to no end, Spencer views him as his arch-nemesis. In dozens of posts over the past few months, Spencer has at times nervously, at other times excitedly and feverishly used all the JihadWatch talking points and obfuscation at his disposal to attack or hurl personal insults and wild inuendo at Aslan. The dozens of posts have been long winded thousand worded epic Spencerian bile.

The reality behind this Spencer obsession is that Aslan is an outspoken critic of the anti-Muslim Islamophobia machine in which Spencer is a leader, and at the same time is also an advocate for Islamic reform and greater freedom in Muslim nations.

Aslan represents all that Spencer isn’t and therefore is a personality that confounds him, no longer is it easy for him to sling the allegation of Islamic supremacist, or Stealth Jihadist at someone who has an air of respectability and visibility in the mainstream such as Reza Aslan commands.

Spencer’s most recent outpouring of invective against Aslan was due to a few words Aslan said about Islamophobia,

RA: And the crazy thing about it is that we’re seeing that same sort of playbook, that made European Islamophobia so successful and mainstream on the continent, now being adopted by these groups like Stop Islamization of America and Jihad Watch, which are also very successful about creating a mainstream sense of anti-Muslim sentiment.

In the margins of this country there will always be racists and bigots; it’s just that they were always on the fringes; now, hence we have people like Pam Geller and Robert Spencer appearing as regular guests on mainstream television….

For this Spencer calls Aslan the “new” Fritz Kuhn, who was the leader of the American Nazi party back in the 30′s. Insane hyperbole and ad hominem attack? You bettcha!

Among other inane assertions, in a feat of hubris not uncommon for Spencer he not only compared Aslan to an American Nazi leader he also compared Islam to Nazism and levied the assertion that he is on par with those who criticize “Nazism.”

Imagine if Kuhn had given a similar address denouncing critics of Hitler and Nazism as “bigots” and “Germanophobes,” and claiming that anti-Nazi sentiment in the United States was a recrudescence of the ugly nativism that had victimized Catholics in America in the nineteenth century, and was leading up to a wholesale persecution and possibly even a genocide of innocent German-Americans.

Spencer’s off kilter analogy falls on its face when we realize that in fact Spencer is engaging in projection, as he himself has been an ally of Fascists and neo-Nazi groups such as: Geert Wilders (Right-wing Dutch neo-Fascist), EDL (English Defense League),SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe), BPE (Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa), Ewald Stadler (Far right Austrian politician), BZO, Sergei Trefkovic (Serbian Nationalist, genocide denier), etc.

Spencer’s argument as to why Aslan is the “new Fritz Kuhn” gets even weaker from that point. In trying to make his obscene case he says that Aslan is the new Fritz Kuhn because he is,

1. A “board member” of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) which Spencer says is, “a group that genuine Iranian pro-democracy forces regard as an apologetic vehicle for the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

First of all the NIAC is considered one of the best Iranian pro-Democracy organizations out there. In truth, the link that Spencer provides goes to an organization that not only doesn’t support democracy but displays an image of the Shah Reza Pahlavi on its site, not really a scion of democracy.

NIAC, Terrorist Apologist or pro-Democracy advocates?

2. He claims Aslan is uncritical of Ahmadinejad and his anti-Semitism.

Another false claim. If calling someone a “fraudulently elected Megalomaniac” is uncritical as Aslan did in one article then Spencer doesn’t know the meaning of “uncritical.” As it happens Aslan condemned Ahmadinejad’s denial of the holocaust calling it “absurd.”

3. Aslan calls for the US Government to negotiate with Ahmadinejad and Hamas.

What is controversial here? Others have called for the US to negotiate with Ahmadinejad and Hamas as well. Is Spencer implying that because Aslan has called for the US to negotiate with the two he somehow supports them? If so can he show us any proof? Of course he cannot and so he resorts to innuendo.

4. Has “praised” Hizballah by observing that it is “the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon.”

Aslan didn’t “praise” Hizballah as Spencer would have it, implying that Aslan somehow endorses them. He merely observed an obvious point that even Hizballah’s greatest detractors have, that it is the most highly organized and dynamic party in Lebanon.

At the end of the day Spencer is only chasing vague phantoms and attempting to spin terrorists or terrorist supporters out of thin air to suit his morbid agenda of framing “the only good Muslim as a bad Muslim.” The real Fritz Kuhn’s of the world are Spencer and his ilk, individuals who wish to eliminate Islam from the West.

Sue Myrick wrote the foreward for Muslim Mafia

Sue Myrick, John Shadegg, Paul Broun and Trent Franks, all Republican Representatives are attempting to rekindle the anti-Muslim conspiracy theory they advanced not too long ago about “Muslim spy interns.” They did this in tandem with David Gaubatz, who has been exposed as not only virulently anti-Muslim but also a liar.

From the Right-wing Washington Times,

A group of House Republicans is calling for an investigation into whether a leading American Muslim advocacy group tried to “spy” on congressional offices by placing interns on key security committees.

Rep. Sue Myrick, North Carolina Republican, cited an internal January 2007 memo in which the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) discussed placing Muslim interns on Capitol Hill to “focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community.”

…

The memo was unearthed by David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, authors of a book titled “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” Mrs. Myrick, a founder of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, wrote a forward for the book and was given an advance copy. A CAIR spokesman, dismissing the Wednesday morning Capitol Hill news conference as “a book launch for Muslim bashers,” said the memo constitutes stolen property, as it was obtained by the son of an author who posed undercover inside the advocacy group.

“They had a spy in our organization for months, stole our property and the most they can come up with is that we placed interns on Capitol Hill? I wish we had placed more interns,” spokesman Ibrahim Hooper cq said. He added that the group has filed a police report on the matter.

Henry Kissinger, one of the only Nixon officials to escape the taint of involvement in Watergate has officially had his reputation destroyed. A recently released Nixon tape has Kissinger saying that it is not a concern of America if Jews are sent to gas chambers.

“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern.” — Henry Kissinger

Christopher Hitchens who I am generally wary of linking to has an excellent piece on this most recent expose of the heinous views of Kissinger. He makes an excellent point that Kissinger should now be shunned by society and that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which is quick to condemn anti-Semitism when it is uttered by Jesse Jackson or Mel Gibson need to break their silence and condemn Kissinger.

Christopher Hitchens: Latest Nixon tape buries Kissinger’s reputation

(Slate)

In the past, Kissinger has defended his role as enabler to Nixon’s psychopathic bigotry, saying that he acted as a restraining influence on his boss by playing along and making soothing remarks. This can now go straight into the lavatory pan, along with his other hysterical lies. Obsessed as he was with the Jews, Nixon never came close to saying that he’d be indifferent to a replay of Auschwitz. For this, Kissinger deserves sole recognition.

It’s hard to know how to classify this observation in the taxonomy of obscenity. Should it be counted as tactical Holocaust pre-denial? That would be too mild. It’s actually a bit more like advance permission for another Holocaust. Which is why I wonder how long the official spokesmen of American Jewry are going to keep so quiet. Nothing remotely as revolting as this was ever uttered by Jesse Jackson or even Mel Gibson, to name only two famous targets of the wrath of the Anti-Defamation League. Where is the outrage? Is Kissinger — normally beseeched for comments on subjects about which he knows little or nothing — going to be able to sit out requests from the media that he clarify this statement? Does he get to keep his op-ed perch in reputable newspapers with nothing said? Will the publishers of his mendacious and purloined memoirs continue to give him expensive lunches as if nothing has happened?

Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/12/14/christopher-hitchens-latest-nixon-tape-buries-kissingers-reputation/#ixzz18ILqW8kA

Not only is the terrorist threat overstated in Europe but it is also “vastly overstated” in Australia. This will make Spencer’s head spin.

(hat tip: Ian Gold)

Al-Qaeda threat overstated, top spies say

Philip Dorling
December 15, 2010
A SECRET Australian intelligence assessment has declared the al-Qaeda terrorist network a failure and claims its regional offshoot, Jemaah Islamiah, has been broken in Indonesia.

The head of Australia’s intelligence analysis agency, the Office of National Assessments, told US diplomats in October 2008 that al-Qaeda ”ultimately has failed to achieve the strategic leadership role it sought within the Islamic world”.

The assessment undercuts a key argument of the Gillard government to justify Australia’s continued commitment to the war in Afghanistan: that al-Qaeda could return to use the country as a terrorist training ground.

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Australian intelligence officers instead blamed Taliban success in Afghanistan on the failings of the Afghan government and the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence and security agencies.

Pressed by the US diplomats for an overall assessment of Islamist terrorist threats, the then ONA director-general, Peter Varghese, gave a strongly upbeat view.

He told the visiting head of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Randall Fort, that terrorism was ”a good news story that is getting better, with the violent Islamist threat receding”.

The US embassy reported that Mr Varghese ”commented that in personal meetings and intelligence exchanges with the Office of National Assessments and other Australian services, Pakistani [Defence chief] General [Ashfaq] Kayani continually comes across as ambivalent on the issues of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, reiterating that India remains the core mission – and priority – of the Pakistan defence and intelligence establishment”.

”ONA assesses that Pakistan’s military and security elite view this as ‘an American war’, which combined with a very hard sense of anti-Americanism combines into ‘a very dangerous cocktail’,” Mr Varghese was reported to have told his American colleagues.

Mr Varghese said developments were especially positive in Australia’s region, where ”the growth of Islamic extremism-based movements is constrained, thanks in part to ongoing successes in combined counterterrorism efforts, but more because of societal factors in south-east Asia that reject the Middle Eastern Jihadist model”.

But the secret US embassy cable, leaked to WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald, warned the southern Philippines was emerging as a terrorism haven.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, told Parliament on October 19 during the debate on Australia’s military deployment that it was vital ”to make sure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for al-Qaeda”; she warned that Osama bin Laden’s group remained ”a resilient and persistent network” and noted past links between al-Qaeda and extremists in Indonesia.

But the US record of the high-level intelligence exchange states: ”Varghese and his analysts assessed that Indonesia Islam was ‘returning to its main course following a detour’ driven by personal linkages to the global jihad that were formed in Afghanistan in the 1980s”.

”ONA analysts assess ‘the tide has turned’ on Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia, noting that its leadership has been devastated – with most seniors killed, captured or on the run – and that it has lost its local support networks and funding,” the US embassy reported to Washington.

”ONA judged JI was shifting near-term goals to its local … anti-Western interests while otherwise ‘creeping back to the shadows’ and focusing on survival.”

Australian intelligence analysts proffered the view that JI could ”endure and regenerate over the long term”, but that it would be ”a more localised terrorist threat”.

This latest disclosure comes as the former JI leader Abu Bakar Bashir was yesterday committed for trial in Indonesia on terrorism charges

Mr Bashir, convicted of conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombing but acquitted on appeal, has been charged as the alleged inspiration of, and fund-raiser for, an Islamic militant training camp in Aceh that was broken up in February.

The leaked US cables also reveal that ONA considered Indonesian counterterrorism successes to be ”a study in contrast” to ”the ongoing downward slide in the Philippines, where the collapse of the peace process in the south threatened to make this area ‘the new regional incubator of terrorist jihadis’ ”.

The US embassy in Canberra reported that: ”ONA terrorism specialists noted signals and human intelligence that JI ‘structuralists’ embedded with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were rethinking plans to return to Indonesia, while JI ‘freelancers’ were becoming more active and better linked with Abu Sayyaf Group operatives.”

According to the US diplomatic reporting, ONA judged that the southern Philippines increasingly contained ”all the ingredients” of al-Qaeda’s ”favoured tilling ground”.

Robert Irwin wrote an excellent review of Martin Gilbert’s recent book on a history of Jews in Muslim lands. Martin Gilbert you may remember was a pundit on Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West (debunked by the website Obsession for Hate) which essentially claimed Islam was the same as Nazism.

Irwin mentions that Gilbert cites Bat Ye’or favorably a number of times even though she is thoroughly discredited on all fronts and he cites Loonwatch as a source exposing her loonieness and shoddy scholarship, referring particularly to our piece, “Bat Ye’or: Anti-Muslim Loon with a Crazy Conspiracy Theory Named “Eurabia.”

The House of Ishmael: A history Of The Jews In Muslim Land, By Martin Gilbert

by Robert Irwin

The subtitle to Martin Gilbert’s new book (his 81st?) is a little misleading. This is not really a general account of the fortunes and misfortunes of Jews under Muslim rule from the seventh century until the present day. The early centuries are rushed through and, although Gilbert is aware of the magnificent and fabulously detailed account of Jewish lifein medieval Egypt provided by SD Goitein’s five-volume A Mediterranean Society, he makes little use of it.

Similarly, though Gilbert quotes Bernard Lewis once, he has made surprisingly scant use of Lewis’s brilliant articles on the Jews under Turkish rule, which drew both on Hebrew sources and the Ottoman archives. Lewis’s The Jews of Islam (1984) remains the best, most balanced and accessible account of the Jews under Muslim rule.

By contrast In the House of Ishmael reads more like a bill of indictment than a history. It is overwhelmingly focused on the sufferings of the Jews in the Islamic lands in the 20th and 21st centuries in the wake of the foundation of the Zionist movement, the establishment of Israel and the successive victories of Israel over Arab armies. The indictment is damning indeed.

From Afghanistan to Morocco, Jews were made to suffer for the successes of Zionism. They were humiliated, robbed, raped, imprisoned, tortured and killed. In Iraq and elsewhere there were mass hangings of innocent Jews. For one Iraqi Jew driven out by pogroms of the 1940s this was “a tragedy which turned out to be a blessing in disguise – it got us out of that dreadful country and away from its destructive, treacherous and savage people”.

Gilbert makes use of copious anecdotal evidence and statistics to chronicle a shameful side of Arab and Islamic history. In the aftermath of the creation of Israel, 726,000 Palestinian Arabs were made refugees, while 850,000 Jews had to abandon their homes in the Arab lands. With some difficulty, Israel succeeded in assimilating most of the Jewish refugees. By contrast, the Palestinian refugees still languish in crowded camps. The paradox is that violent Arab racism and paranoia helped populate Israel.

Gilbert has so much material and such a strong case that it should not have been necessary to stack the deck. Yet it seems to me that he has done so and his use of sources is sometimes questionable. For his account of how the Jews in 13th-century Basra were forced to wear clothing that marked their lower status he cites a Jewish traveller, Jacob of Ancona, who allegedly travelled from Italy to China. But when in 1997 the purported narrative of Jacob’s travels was published by David Selbourne as The City of Light, the Sinologists Jonathan Spence and Tim Barrett, the Jewish historians David and Bernard Wasserstein and myself all challenged the authenticity of the text. Since then no original manuscript has turned up. It would have been safer to have relied on Goitein’s material.

Gilbert’s notes cite Bat Ye’or with approval several times. When, in 2002, her book Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide appeared, I reviewed it and then threw the book away. Bat Ye’or is not an academic and her books are poorly ordered assemblages of facts, real or alleged, that relentlessly show Islam and Arabs in an unfavourable light.

She believes that there is an Islamic conspiracy to turn Europe into something she calls “Eurabia”. Those interested to get a fuller sense of the dementedly Islamophobic polemics of this woman should consult the website www.loonwatch.com.

When Gilbert discusses what was happening in Palestine during the British mandate, he quotes Joan Peters’s From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine to back up his assertion that more Arabs than Jews entered Palestine as immigrants in the 1930s. But when that book was published in 1984, critics swiftly demonstrated that its use of archives and statistics was seriously flawed and substantially misleading. Yehoshua Porath, professor of Middle East History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, denounced the book as “sheer forgery”.

Israel can be seen as the salvation of the Jews of the Middle East, but it can also be seen as their curse. One Iraqi Jewish woman confessed that she “nursed a grudge. I felt that all the horrible things that were happening to us were because of Israel, because of your dream and your wars. You celebrated the victories, and we paid the price of those wars. Now I can see that we were saved because of the existence and efforts of Israel”.

In the House of Ishmael, full of vivid accounts of Jewish sufferings in the Middle East, did not need the testimony of false friends to pad its grim story out. Its account of the slow-burning tragedy of the extinction of Jewish communities in the Arab world is moving and important. It should be read.

Robert Irwin’s ‘For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies’ is published by Penguin

Two ultra-orthodox Hassidic Jewish men, a 58-year-old father and his 21-year-old son, fled to Israel a few days ago amongst an investigation regarding allegations of rape and abuse coming from a number of their female relatives. Those of us who take seriously the academic study of religions – which includes rigorous scholarly training in research methods, language, history, and culture – know better than to think that an aberrant incident like this represents the Jewish norm. It can’t seriously be cited as evidence of “Judaism’s treacherous conspiracy against the West” or as a unique “Jewish problem.” Anyone who made such claims would be considered an anti-Semite.

But what if they were Muslim?

This is just more evidence of the Islam’s 1400-year war against women! Yet another snide blogpost for the fake scholar Robert Spencer and his raging anti-Muslim readership. Yet another fresh gust of wind in the sails of professional, career Islamophobes like Ayan Hirsi Aliand nuclear trigger-happy Wafa Stalin (I mean Sultan) who specialize in using women’s issues to demonize the entire religion of Islam and bash all its followers. And yet again Fox news commentators continue to get it so wrong on Islam.

Uncovering the double standards behind the pulsating Islamophobic blogo-discourse is important. Anti-Semites and Islamophobes operate using the same police blotter tactics. That is, they construct a fantastically evil caricature of the “Jew/Muslim” and then selectively cite aberrant behavior (in news reports) as evidence of the “Jew’s/Muslim’s” normatively wicked nature, which leads to the creation of ideologically supported stereotypes.

Most Americans are reasonable and understand the simplistic, dehumanizing role of stereotypes. But if it is completely absurd to argue in all seriousness on national television “Should Americans fear Jews?” then why it is not equally absurd that we argue in all seriousness on national television “Should Americans fear Islam”?

Representative Keith Ellison asks; what if they were black?

Do some Americans fear black people? For sure. But we don’t validate those fears by allowing them to be expressed with fake innocence on respected news shows. Why are fears of Muslims validated by television airings?

Are there criminals in America who are African-American? Yes, again. But they’re not presented as representative figures of the community by reputable news programs. Why do such shows go out of their way to find the scariest, most cartoonish Muslims possible and present them as spokespeople for Muslims?

No serious journalist would ask a random black guy with a briefcase on the street to explain the pathology of an African American criminal because of the coincidence of shared skin color. But serious journalists called on ordinary Muslim Americans to explain the behavior of homicidal maniacs and extremists, thereby making the link between the crazies and the mainstream community.

Are there people willing to offer all sorts of racist theories about black crime, from problems in black genes to deficiencies in black culture? Plenty. But the only time they show up on mainstream news shows are as examples of racism, not as experts on race.

When we observe the Islamophobic blogo-sphere, if you just replace the word “Muslim” with “Jew” or “Black” then the dynamic of stereotyping and bigotry should be made clear to reasonable people. So when will Islamophobic myth, like its anti-Semitic and anti-Black predecessors, be swept into the dustbin of American history?

Note: This article is part of our “What if they were Muslim?” series. In this series, we examine the double standards used by anti-Muslim activists when discussing religious extremism in Islam as compared to other religions. We reject using extremists of any religion to justify prejudice, stereotypes, and hostility towards all members of that religion. Period.

Voice of the Copts which for all intents and purposes is an anti-Islam Coptic apologetic website is hosting a “celebration” of human rights on Human Rights day which they completely undermined by inviting a panel consisting of some of the most anti-Freedom, anti-Muslim activists (read opportunists) out there.

The panel will include:

Robert Spencer: anti-Muslim director of David Horowitz’s funded JihadWatch. An ally of Fascists and neo-Nazi groups such as: Geert Wilders (Right-wing Dutch neo-Fascist), EDL (English Defense League), SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe), BPE (Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa), Ewald Stadler (Far right Austrian politician), BZO, Sergei Trefkovic (Serbian Nationalist, genocide denier). Spencer has also created anti-Muslim org’s along with Pamela Geller, SIOA and AFDI.

Pamela Geller: All you need to know about Pamela, “Pamela Geller: The Looniest Blogger Ever.”

Tawfiq Hamid: Oppurtunist of the worst kind, “Tawfiq Hamid: The Shemp of the Three Stooges.”

It is sad that the Voice of the Copts has chosen to give a platform to hatemongers of the worst kind, it undermines a valuable day and hurts any credibility that they may have.

European Loonieness keeps marching on. Instead of focusing on combating the anti-Muslim sentiment raging in France they French elite chose to focus on the 500 women who wear Niqab. Go figure!

French far-right star compares praying Muslims to Nazi occupiers

(Reuters)

Marine Le Pen has put paid to the idea she would put a softer face on France’s National Front for elections in 2012 with anti-Muslim comments that have aroused a storm of criticism. Le Pen, the likely next far-right challenger for the French presidency, compared overflowing mosques in France with the Nazi occupation — remarks indicative of a drift to the right in parts of Europe that could let the National Front eat into support for the ruling conservative UMP party in 2012.

Le Pen, the frontrunner to succeed her father Jean-Marie Le Pen as head of the party, made the comments on a television show last Thursday with about 3.4 million viewers watching. On Monday she dismissed any suggestion of a gaffe. “My comments were absolutely not a blunder, but a completely thought-out analysis,” she told a news conference, adding she was merely saying out loud what everyone thought privately.

Given support of 12 to 14 percent in recent opinion polls, Marine Le Pen is regarded as more electable than her father, who was convicted in 1990 for inciting racial hatred. But her remarks suggest that far from moderating the party line, she will go all out to outgun conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy to secure the slice of the French electorate that opposes high immigration.

(Photo: Marine Le Pen at National Front headquarters in Nanterre near Paris December 13, 2010/Jacky Naegelen)

“The National Front has changed: it’s more dangerous than before,” said an editorial in the left-leaning Liberation daily after mainstream politicians and Muslim leaders slammed Le Pen’s comments. “Given a lick of paint by Marine, xenophobia is back in the spotlight.”

On Thursday, she told a party meeting that after a steady rise in the number of Islamic veils and burqas worn in France, home to five million Muslims, the crowds praying outside mosques were akin to an occupation.

Her remarks chime with a growing right-wing mood among voters in Europe, where far-right parties are taking up worries that high immigration facilitates Islamic fundamentalist terror cells and makes tight labour markets even tighter. Since France banned burqas, which cloak a woman’s face and body, calls for bans have been heard elsewhere in Europe, most loudly in the Netherlands where populist politician Geert Wilders wants to tighten rules on immigration and ban the Koran.

In France the National Front scored a strong result in regional elections in early 2010, even after Sarkozy offered tough solutions of his own on immigration and crime. The party is enjoying a revival reminiscent of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s surprise showing in the 2002 presidential election when he got through to the second round before losing to conservative Jacques Chirac.

(Photo: German troops march past the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 14 June 1940/German Federal Archive)

Marine Le Pen’s remarks on Muslims provoked angry comment. Several UMP politicians spoke out against them, and government spokesman Francois Baroin called them “one more provocation”. Veteran socialist Laurent Fabius called them shameful and France’s anti-racist group MRAP filed a lawsuit against Marine Le Pen for incitement to racial hatred.

“These remarks constitute a serious attack on the dignity of Muslims in France and are synonymous with an incitement to hate and violence,” France’s Muslim Council (CFCM) said in a statement. CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organisations, also protested: “The Crif is outraged by the comments of Marine Le Pen comparing prayers in the street to the Occupation, which were made only to stigmatise the Muslim community. These remarks amount to a double and dishonest manipulation of history and language.”

Analysts view Le Pen as much closer to Wilders than far-right leaders of her father’s generation, but note that to keep her party faithful from drifting towards the UMP she needs to cling more than ever to hardline principles. “Le Pen has realised the limits of de-demonising the National Front — it works on the outside but less so with her militants,” analyst Sylvain Crepon told Liberation.

(Photo: Jean-Marie Le Pen with a campaign poster that reads “No to Islamism. Youth with Le Pen” and shows a map of France covered by an Algerian flag and minarets, March 7, 2010/Jean-Paul Pelissier)

Analyst Dominique Reynie said that by reinforcing her base, Le Pen would bite into Sarkozy’s first and second-round scores if he seeks reelection in 2012. “If the National Front gets a high score, that means it has taken votes from the left. Those may not necessarily go to the candidate on the right afterwards,” he wrote in a column.

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Brigitte Gabriel

Slowly but surely the SPLC is coming around to listing all the anti-Muslim hate groups or at the very least recognizing them as anti-Muslim.

In our last article on the SPLC we wrote about Dove Outreach being put on their hate list and we requested that SPLC look carefully at SIOA and also add them onto the hate list as they are every bit as anti-Muslim as Dove Outreach or ACT for America.

In this thorough article the SPLC takes on ACT, exposes their hypocrisy and concerted campaign against Parvez Ahmed, a Human Rights Commissioner in Jacksonville and also mentions SIOA in a negative light though a stronger condemnation is needed.

Anti-Muslim Group Denounces One Professor, Defends Another

The American Congress for Truth (ACT), an anti-Muslim group run by firebrand Brigitte Gabriel, has targeted a Muslim professor serving on a human rights board in Florida, accusing him of having ties to radical Islamic groups and serving as a “mosque operative” in city government.

After months of opposition to Parvez Ahmed’s nomination to the Human Rights Commission of Jacksonville — he was appointed earlier this year — ACT held a news conference on the steps of Jacksonville City Hall Thursday to release a DVD of edited clips of a speech Ahmed gave in October, which the group claims shows “irrefutable” evidence of Ahmed’s associations with the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam — despite the absence of any footage speaking directly to that charge. The lack of evidence apparently didn’t trouble Randy McDaniels, the Jacksonville ACT chapter leader who called the news conference. “It’s how he says what he says. What he doesn’t say. What’s inferred and the facts we know,” McDaniels said, adding that Ahmed was a “made man in the Muslim mafia.”

Ahmed is a former national chairman of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest advocacy organization for Muslims in America. Fueling ACT’s accusations against Ahmed is the fact that CAIR was named in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in charges brought against the Holy Land Foundation. The foundation is a Muslim charity that was ultimately convicted of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas, the militant Palestinian Islamist organization considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government. Charges were never brought against CAIR in the case.

Ahmed says ACT’s claims are categorically false, and that the group, whose lobbying arm is called ACT! for America, has gone too far in its efforts to sully his reputation. “They are going to make the waters so muddy that sensible people will shy away from engaging Muslims in this country. That would be such a tragedy at this time when we need more Americans to engage with Muslims, even have disagreements with them.”

The waters may already be muddied in Florida, however. ACT’s campaign to discredit Ahmed has gone on for months. Ruffians claiming to be ACT members have disrupted his public appearances, screaming that he belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood. Ahmed described being harassed at one public appearance to the point that audience members, fearing for his safety, escorted him from the room. Another eyewitness confirmed Ahmed’s account.

Last week, Jacksonville General Counsel Cindy A. Laquidara told the Florida Times-Union that the city is standing by Ahmed. “Once he’s appointed, he’s appointed,” she said. “And there is not a procedure for people to change their mind.” A message left with Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton’s assistant requesting comment was not immediately returned.

ACT’s attacks on Muslims elsewhere have moved onto the Web, where the hate-filled rhetoric has reached an incendiary level. YouTube clips show people claiming to be ACT members suggesting the Koran is best used for toilet paper and the footbaths outside mosques are better suited for urinals.

ACT officials in Florida and Oregon did not return several communications seeking comment on these recent events.

Still, the campaign against Ahmed is part of a groundswell brought on by groups such as ACT and Pam Geller’s New York-based Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) whose members see themselves as foot soldiers in the so-called “anti-jihad” movement and domestic patriots on the front lines of a war on terror. Claiming nearly 300 chapters nationwide, with the largest concentrations in California, Texas and Florida, ACT representatives have pushed for legislation to prohibit courts from acknowledging Shariah or international law and asked for deeper investigations into U.S. Muslim charities. Gabriel, ACT’s founder, has written two books titled They Must Be Stopped and Because They Hate, the latter partly a memoir in which the Lebanese-born Christian claims to have the experience to judge all of Islam.

On its Web page, ACT claims without proof that “tens of thousands of Islamic militants now reside in America, operating in sleeper cells, attending our colleges and universities, even infiltrating our government.” ACT’s Web site also chastises the “purveyors of political correctness,” saying the “political Left in America denies, apologizes for, or blames America for the rise in Islamic extremism.”

Three thousand miles from Jacksonville, ACT is at work trying to save another professor’s job. Lane Community College in Eugene, Ore., cancelled a scheduled class on Islam to be taught by an ACT chapter leader named Barry Sommer. The class, called “What is Islam?” was pulled from the school’s catalogue after CAIR wrote a letter of concern to administrators that Sommer would spread hateful untruths about Islam based on his association with ACT and statements he had made on his personal blog, Islam Today Oregon. Neither Lane College administrators nor Sommer responded to telephone calls and E-mails seeking comment, though Sommer has told several media outlets he is talking to the American Center for Law and Justice about possible legal action.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said Sommer’s class would be a disservice to Muslims nationwide and stoke already-burning flames of intolerance. “Once you look at what this guy believes, it’s clear what he would have taught,” Hooper said.

In a Dec. 6 entry on his blog, Sommer wrote: “When I say that Islam wants to rule the world, I am called a hatemonger. When I say sharia [sic] law is creeping into western civil law, I am accused of demeaning a religion. When I say that Islam is a patriarchal society where men control women I am said to be a [sic] Islamophobe. My view that Islam is more political than spiritual is shouted down as being intolerant.”

Ahmed, who has no association with the controversy in Oregon, says it all comes back to respecting and tolerating difference. “It’s one thing to have a negative opinion of Islam. And somebody may not like Muslims, and that’s fine,” he says. “But to have the kind of rhetoric and the kind of tactics that ACT and Pam Geller’s group engage in is way over the top.”

Robert Pape’s studies are starting to be taken more seriously in the government but the media and popular perception creators haven’t gotten the message yet.

What really drives suicide terrorists?

By Robert Pape / December 9, 2010

Chicago

From the 9/11 hijackers to the double agent whose suicide attack in Afghanistan killed seven CIA employees last December, many people want to know what drives some Muslims – many of whom are middle class and well educated – to kill themselves in attacks on Americans and others in the West.

After examining 2,200 suicide attacks around the world since 1980 – the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted – I’ve concluded that the answer is both simple and disturbing. What drives them is deep anger at the presence of Western combat forces in the Persian Gulf region and other predominately Muslim lands.

Popular accounts of these suicide terrorists give the impression that most of them are globe-trotting extremists radicalized by militant networks to strike outside their homeland for religious or other transnational causes. These accounts are false.

Five key members of Al Qaeda in Yemen (AQAP)

What the evidence shows

In the 2,200 suicide attacks since 1980, over 90 percent of the attackers carried out strikes in their home countries, often just miles from their homes, to resist foreign occupation of land they prize.

Hence, Lebanese carried out the suicide attacks against Israel’s occupation of Lebanon; Turkish Kurds carried out the suicide attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party against the Turkish military presence in their home areas; and Iraqis, Saudis, Syrians, Kuwaitis, and Jordanians carried out the suicide attacks against America’s military occupation of Iraq and the US threat to countries adjacent to Iraq.

Afghanistan is a prime example. We can identify 93 suicide attackers who have killed themselves to strike targets, mostly US and Western troops, in Afghanistan in recent years.

More than 90 percent are Afghan nationals and another 5 percent are from border regions of the country, while only 5 percent are from areas of the world beyond the immediate zone of conflict.

In other words, suicide terrorism in Afghanistan is not part of some global jihad looking for a place to land, but regional opposition to foreign military presence.

We’re missing the real threat

Transnational suicide terrorists do exist. But, they are exceptions to the rule. Understanding that transnational suicide attackers are “black swans” has important implications for explaining their existence. For years, many have sought to explain how an individual becomes a transnational terrorist by seeking to track points along a spectrum of radicalization.

The basic idea is that there is a large pool of potential extremists who become progressively radicalized either through elite manipulation (religious leaders in mosques) or through social and economic alienation. Hence, policymakers embrace the idea of eavesdropping on many thousands of Muslims in the United States and Europe. This has done little to find terrorists, but a lot to scare many loyal citizens.

The fundamental problem with the “spectrum of radicalization” approach is that it is looking for many “white swans” that do not exist, while missing the rare black swans that might.

Consider the London suicide attacks in July 2005. Even if we restrict the pool of potential extremists to the 1.6 million Muslims living in Britain then, the spectrum of radicalization approach would expect more “homegrown” suicide attackers by orders of magnitude. After all, tens of thousands of British Muslims had met fundamentalist leaders in mosques, lost their jobs, or faced social difficulties that they might view as related to their ethnic or religious backgrounds. But just four men launched the attack.

Further, after a year-long investigation, MI5 found little evidence that any of the four London bombers were economically or socially alienated in significant ways. Mohammad Khan, the leader, was a mentor at a primary school with an exemplary employment record. Shezhad Tanweer drove his own red Mercedes to work in one of his father’s several businesses and was a trophy-winning cricket player. Another was known for going to night clubs and talking about girls and cars. None had a history of outbursts or violence, or other signs of significant opposition to British life.

What they did share was deep anger at Western occupation of kindred Muslim populations. Mr. Kahn and Mr. Tanweer left martyr videos to explain their motives.

“Your … governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world,” Khan said. “Until we feel security, you will be our targets.”

Recent so-called homegrown terrorists in the United States also reveal little social alienation, but deep anger at foreign occupation. Faisal Shahzad, who was sentenced to life in prison for planning the failed May 1 Times Square car bomb, cited US military activity in his family’s native Pakistan and the presence of US troops in various Muslim countries as reasons for his desire to kill American civilians.

While religion contributes in many cases to increased feelings of loyalty toward a kindred community that may be oceans away from an individual’s country of citizenship, the primary cause of these horrible phenomena is foreign occupation.

US approach is counterproductive

The US approach in countering this threat has done more harm than good. By simultaneously occupying two Muslim countries and cracking down on Muslim Americans, the US has angered elements of an entire population and made it more likely that they would feel more loyalty to their kindred communities abroad.

Further, aggressive surveillance missed the one behavior trait that the American and British transnational terrorists had in common: self-initiated efforts to communicate with representatives of Al Qaeda and other known terrorist groups to receive approval for their actions.

Counterterrorism operations should focus on what makes these rare events dangerous – that is, the point at which politically active groups seek detailed information and actual materials for lethal action, commonly from international terrorist organizations or their local representatives.

Top 5 attacks linked to Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki

Law enforcement attempts to track large numbers of young Muslim men would incorrectly profile and target an entire community. Such manpower takes resources away from the most productive counterterrorism measure: the search for specific preparations for violent acts.

Robert A. Pape is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and co-author of “Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It.”

The issue of the Rabbis who are urging Jews not to rent to Arabs just won’t go away. They are now calling on the public to “inform” on those renting to Arabs. Those disgusted by these actions held a counter march and rally to protest against racist lawmakers/Rabbis in Tel Aviv.

Public invited to inform on those renting to Arabs

(YNetnews.com)

The Lehava organization issued a notice Sunday evening, inviting the public to call a voicemail service and record the names of Jewish Israelis renting apartments to Arabs. Lehava, identified with supporters of Meir Kahane, thus adds its weight to the recent call by 50 prominent rabbis to avoid renting to Arabs which, the organization says, amounts to no less than assimilation.

According to the notice, the information given anonymously will be verified, after which the names will be published as a mark of disgrace “so the public can decide what to do with them.”

“If we were in the time of (former Prime Minister David) Ben Gurion or (former Prime Minister) Golda (Meir), the organization would undoubtedly receive a governmental citation,” said a Lehava activist to Ynet, claiming the activists were taking the rabbis’ letter one step further.

“The organization wants to apply this important ruling, while our main aim is to counter assimilation. We publish our number, people will call, then we’ll make checks of course, and as soon as we see the information is correct we’ll publish it in a list of disgrace.”

The activist added that the publication of the list of names will not actively include a call to harm the people involved.

He also referred to what he termed “assimilation,” saying, “Unfortunately, this is a serious problem, and we hope the rabbis’ halachic ruling will put a stop to it. This is an existential struggle for the character of the Jewish State, and we don’t intend to give up.”

This new initiative comes just a week after 50 rabbis signed a position paper which stated that renting or selling apartments or land in Israel to non-Jews is forbidden according to halacha.

“The neighbors and acquaintances of the seller or renter must warn him personally first and later they are allowed to make this matter public, distance themselves from him, avoid commercial ties, and so on,” the letter reads.

India is branded as the largest democracy in the world and it is a growing world power, however unfortunately it at times suffers from chronic sectarianism that explodes into all out violence in the form of riots, pogroms and discrimination. For the past few years there has been extensive violence against the Christian communities in certain regions of India, specifically Orissa.

Recently, Robert Spencer and fellow Islamophobes have been focusing on the mistreatment of Christians in Pakistan and other Muslim countries but they have been precariously silent on the condition of Indian Christians.

Hindu mob storms Orthodox school

A group of rightwing Hindu activists yesterday attacked an Orthodox school in a central Indian town in protest at disciplinary actions against three students, witnesses say.

The group forced their way into the visitors’ room of St. Mary’s Higher Secondary School in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh and shouted anti-Christian slogans, ucanews.com reports.

They then smashed a picture of the Blessed Virgin in the visitors’ room state before staff prevented them from further action.

Another group of nearly 50 young people later went to the school and threatened the staff.

School principal Father K. J. Louis said the troublemakers had been angered by the school for punishing three students for indiscipline.

The police were called and are now being asked to offer protection to the school, the principal told ucanews.com today.

The principal said the school acted against the students after getting their parents’ consent. They had been suspended them for 10 days in November after they were caught setting off firecrackers in the school premises.

Catholic Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur condemned the incident, which he said was part of an ongoing hate campaign against Christians in the state.

The protests are suspected members of the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian people’s party) which rules Madhya Pradesh.

Christians and their institutions in the state have witnessed several incidents of violence after the BJP came to power seven years ago.

Since then, more than 180 cases of attacks on Christians have been reported from the state.

The school has started 25 years ago and has some 2,500 students.

SOURCE

Hindu mob storms Orthodox school (ucanews.com)

The alignment of Robert Spencer’s favorite UK organization and the loon pastor of Florida, Terry Jones.

Theresa May pressed to halt visit by anti-Muslim US preacher

(Guardian)

Home secretary Theresa May is under intense pressure to ban controversial anti-Muslim preacher Terry Jones from Britain after far-right activists said he had agreed to address them at a demonstration about “the evils of Islam“.

The English Defence League (EDL) said it was “proud to announce” that the US pastor, who caused outrage with plans to burn the Qur’an on this year’s anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, would be attending the event in Luton in early February. Jones confirmed that he would be arriving in the UK. The pastor’s website said he intended to visit the EDL’s “biggest demonstration to date” in February. The website stated: “During the protest, Dr Terry Jones will speak against the evils and destructiveness of Islam in support of the continued fight against the Islamification of England and Europe.”

President Barack Obama warned in September that Jones’s planned Qur’an burnings would be a “recruitment bonanza” for al-Qaida and the US state department said it would put the country’s citizens at risk across the world.

Tonight the British anti-extremist campaign, Hope Not Hate, launched its own petition urging May to ban Jones from Britain, while MPs demanded immediate action from the home secretary. Hope Not Hate’s campaign co-ordinator, Nick Lowles, said: “Pastor Jones’s presence in Luton will be incendiary and highly dangerous. He will attract and encourage thousands of English Defence League supporters to take to the streets of Luton.

“Like the EDL, Pastor Jones indiscriminately targets all Muslims and their actions can only lead to increased tensions and racism in our communities. His appearance will rightly cause concern and fear among Muslims across the country.”

Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham, said he would table an urgent parliamentary motion tomorrow demanding that the pastor be banned from coming into the country.

“We have seen how Pastor Jones, with a very small congregation in Florida, created a firestorm by urging the Qur’an to be burned,” Cruddas said. “We should not allow racial hatred to be whipped up in this manner in our country.”

The EDL announced Jones’s planned visit on its Facebook site today, saying he would attend “our biggest demo to date” and describing it as “the big one”. There are fears that copies of the Qur’an could be burned by extremists.

The last time the EDL marched in Luton, 250 of their supporters went on the rampage through an Asian area of the town. Shop windows were smashed, cars overturned and a number of people were attacked. Thirty-five people were arrested as a result of the violence. Eleven people were arrested yesterday as 500 EDL supporters marched in Peterborough.

“The EDL march in February has the potential to be far worse,” Lowles said. “Only extremists will benefit from his visit and, as we know, extremism breeds hatred and hatred breeds violence. Pastor Jones, a preacher of hate, must be stopped from entering the UK.”

The home secretary has the power to exclude or deport an individual if she thinks their presence in the UK could threaten national security, public order or the safety of citizens. She can also do so if she believes their views glorify terrorism, promote violence or encourage other serious crime.

May has been keen to show that she is tough on extremism. Five weeks after the coalition government came into power, she banned a radical preacher who claimed that “every Muslim should be a terrorist” from entering Britain. Zakir Naik had been due to give a series of lectures at Wembley Arena and in Sheffield in June.

However, visitors from other countries cannot be banned just for having opinions that other people would find offensive. In the past, May has said the powers can only be used in “very serious” cases. She has already acted against the EDL, banning a march in Leicester in November.

News of Jones’s planned visit comes as the head of the police intelligence unit on domestic extremism reveals that the EDL and related splinter groups have become his biggest concern.

Adrian Tudway, the national co-ordinator for domestic extremism, told the Observer: “We look at the extreme right and left, but currently our biggest single area of business are the various groups which call themselves defence leagues. These defence leagues can be found across England.”

The unit is monitoring a “number of individuals” connected to extreme rightwing groups, details of which are disseminated to local police forces.

At the height of the controversy over Jones’s threat to burn the Qur’an, effigies of the pastor were burned in Afghanistan and there was widespread condemnation across the Muslim world. Jones is a Pentecostalist who bases his theology on the literal text of the Bible. He runs the Florida-based Dove World Outreach Centre, which objects to Islam because it “teaches that Jesus is not the son of God, therefore taking away the saving power of Jesus and leading people straight to Hell”.

Pamela Geller who has increasingly become less and less significant is still chirping her obfuscation and deception rattled anti-Muslimisms in New York.

Right-Wing Blogger Discusses Jihad, Park51, And Free Speech At NYU

(NYU Local)

Responding to my question about whether there is an anti-Muslim movement in America, she said, “not anti-Muslim, but counter-Jihadist.” She later dismissed accusations that she was racist by saying, “I believe in individualism, so I look at a person and judge them as an entire unit — who are they, what are their actions.”

Yet for the past six years, her blog has been criticizing Muslims not as individuals, but labeled as Muslims (she uses the term Jihadist interchangeably). Most recently, a clip of a man beating a puppy to death is characterized as “another Muslim abuse video.” She refuses to accept that there are moderate Muslims, only secular ones. She assumes everyone who follows Islam follows the most extreme Taliban interpretations of Sharia law. She called Park51 a “Mecca on the Hudson, because it is a habit of Islam to build mosques on the cherished sites of conquered land,” and the refusal to move it somewhere else “inhumane.”

Geller’s rhetoric dehumanizes Muslims, and though she most definitely has the constitutional right to say all these things, she’s hardly the embodiment of the civic responsibility she criticizes Muslims for lacking. The “clash of civilizations” narrative that Geller promotes may just be a metaphor to her, but other people take it quite literally. Whether Geller believes she’s a racist or a part of an anti-Muslim movement is of less importance than the overtly racist and anti-Muslimreadership to which she panders. To ignore the repercussion of your words is to not understand their true meaning, so for all of Geller’s purported views on personal liberty and civic responsibility, she ultimately harnesses them hypocritically.

It looks like the Muslim takeover is complete, the threat is no longer “creeping Jihad” it is all out Islamic imposition upon our values! That great American institution, “Family Feud” had the Abdur Rahman’s on and to top it off they won!

Woe to our free nation, this is no doubt Stealth Jihad!

Lesley Hazleton gave a very moving and profound speech about her three month extensive devotion to the study of the Quran at TEDx. What she learned deeply moved her and in sharing her experience she deeply moves the crowd.

It is a very interesting video in light of our recent article on Asra Nomani, an individual who was born a Muslim but advocates tearing out pages from the Quran and calling for verses of the Quran to “go up in smoke.”

Hate? Islamophobia? Oh no, it doesn’t exist! This Imam had it coming because he dared to be a Mooslim!

Two men accused in subway imam attack hit with hate crime charges

(NYDailyNews)

Two men accused of attacking a Muslim religious leader in a Manhattan subway station were the targets Thursday of a hate-crimes investigation.

The unidentified imam claimed the two men called him a “terrorist” and yelled ethnic and religious slurs when they assaulted him at the Canal  Street station early Wednesday, sources said.

Eddie Crespo, 28, of Staten Island, was charged with third degree assault as a hate crime and two counts of second degree robbery, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said.

Albert Melendez, 30, of Manhattan, is expected to be arraigned later Thursday.

The incident happened at 3:25 a.m. on the northbound A-train platform, prosecutors said.

csiemaszko@nydailynews.com

Hate rolls on.

More states enter debate on sharia law

By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

Muneer Awad’s opponents label him “a foreigner” trying to change Oklahoma’s laws.
Awad, 27, a recent University of Georgia law school graduate born in Michigan, says he’s standing up for the U.S. Constitution. “I’m trying to defend the First Amendment,” says Awad, director of Oklahoma’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

At issue is an amendment to Oklahoma’s constitution passed overwhelmingly on Election Day that bars judges from considering Islamic or international law in Oklahoma state courts. Awad sued, and last week a federal judge temporarily blocked the law from taking effect while she determines whether it violates the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits establishment of a state religion.

Although Oklahoma’s law is the first to come under court scrutiny, legislators in at least seven states, including Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, have proposed similar laws, the National Conference of State Legislatures says. Tennessee and Louisiana have enacted versions of the law banning use of foreign law under certain circumstances.

Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House, is pushing for a federal law that “clearly and unequivocally states that we’re not going to tolerate any imported law.”

Based on Quran

Islamic law or sharia, which means “path” in Arabic, is a code of conduct governing all aspects of Muslim life, including family relationships, business dealings and religious obligations. It is based on the Quran, or Muslim holy book, and the teachings of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Islamic countries operating under the guidance of sharia may have varying interpretations of the code.

Awad says the Oklahoma law would prohibit a judge from probating his will, written in compliance with Islamic principles, or adjudicating other domestic matters such as divorces and custody disputes involving Muslims.

Supporters of sharia bans, including Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, say Islamic law is creeping into U.S. courts.

Earlier this year, for example, an appeals court in New Jersey overturned a state court judge’s refusal to issue a restraining order against a Muslim man who forced his wife to engage in sexual intercourse. The judge found that the man did not intend to rape his wife because he believed his religion permitted him to have sex with her whenever he desired.

The case “presents a conflict between the criminal law and religious precepts,” the appeals court wrote. “In resolving this conflict, the judge determined to except (the husband) from the operation of the State’s statutes as the result of his religious beliefs. In doing so, the judge was mistaken.”

Gaffney’s think tank recently published a book that argues jihadists who want worldwide Islamic rule try to establish sharia courts to weaken democracies. “I think you’re seeing people coalesce around legislation of the kind that was passed in Oklahoma,” Gaffney says.

South Carolina legislators proposed a resolution in April that says state courts “shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider Sharia Law” or other international laws.

In Utah, Rep. Carl Wimmer, a Republican from Salt Lake County, withdrew his bill to ban foreign law after he learned that it could harm banking and international businesses. “My bill was just too broad,” he says.

Wimmer says he’s concerned about “increasing amount of judges who continue to look to foreign law and foreign courts to make their decisions.”

“It’s not an issue in Utah,” he says, “but I wanted to make sure it doesn’t become an issue in Utah.”

‘Just fear mongering’

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, sees the laws as an indication of growing anti-Muslim sentiment. “I’ve never seen it like this, even after 9/11,” Hooper says. “In another time, this would be laughed out of the Oklahoma Legislature.”

Islamic principles are interpreted differently in different parts of the world, Hooper says. “We have not found any conflict between what a Muslim needs to do to practice their faith and the Constitution or any other American laws,” Hooper says. “We are, in fact, relying on the Constitution as our last line of defense.”

Americans have no reason to fear sharia law in America, says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which advocates for religious freedom.

However, Lynn says he expects to see more attempts to ban sharia law regardless of the outcome in Oklahoma.

“It’s just fear mongering tinged with anti-Islamic sentiment,” he says.

Oklahoma’s attorney general will ask an appeals court to lift the injunction and allow the law to take effect.

Constitutional expert Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at University of California-Irvine, says the Oklahoma law won’t stand because it discriminates against one religion and violates the requirement for “full faith and credit,” which requires Oklahoma courts to enforce judgments from other states and countries.

“There is no blossoming of sharia law in Oklahoma,” says Randall Coyne, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. “There’s no risk of Oklahoma falling under the sway of sharia law or any other law other than American law for that matter. It’s fear mongering at its worst.”

Islamophobia? What Islamophobia? These four youth were probably a bunch of undercover Mooslims practicing taqiyyah to take over the West.

Of course over at JihadWatch, Spencer and his drones probably blame the Muslim victims at the mosque for “provoking” the teenagers by being Muslim and worshipping in a mosque.

(hat tip: Marco)

Four arrests over Stoke-on-Trent mosque arson

(BBC)

Four teenagers have been arrested after a gas pipe was put into a Stoke-on-Trent mosque in an attempt to set light to the building, police said.

The incident is being treated by police as a deliberate racist attack.

Officers were called to Regent Road at 0630 GMT after live CCTV footage showed smoke emerging from inside the building.

Three males aged 16, 18 and 19, and an 18-year-old female remain in custody. All are from the local area.

A Staffordshire Police spokeswoman said there was no structural damage, but the fire was being treated as a case of criminal damage.

‘Community appalled’

Police said the attackers fed a gas pipe from a nearby building through a mosque window.

Ch Insp Wayne Jones said: “It’s clearly visible for people to see.

“A gas meter on an external wall has been interfered with. That’s gone into the mosque and the damage could have been significant.

“At this stage we are treating this incident as a racist attack on a religious building.

“I am sure the community are as appalled as we are at this behaviour.”

Stoke-on-Trent CID are examining the scene and CCTV footage of the area.

Asra Nomani responded to my article with the following message:

Dear Friends,

Thanks for the time that you spent discussing the ideas that I’ve presented in my writings. I see that there are many differences of opinion with readers of this site, but, nonetheless, I appreciate the conversation.

It’s interesting to me how often readers of this site use the term “whore” to describe me, and I’m sorry that so many of you feel such anger. I understand that many of these issues from religion to intimacy are sensitive ones.

I would gently say to you that many of the assumptions that are made here are, I understand, an effort by some folks to make sense of ideas with which you don’t agree. Sometimes the truth is a lot less sensational. I’m not self-hating. I’m not gaining riches, and, as a journalist, I can tell you that the “fame” of a TV appearance here or there is most certainly fleeting.

I sincerely care about how Islam expresses itself in the world, and I care about our world. We may differ in opinion, but I would also gently suggest to you that, while anger and insults may be an authentic expression of your frustration, I do wish for all of us a day when we can be in more civil conversation.

If anyone would like to personally write to me, I invite you to do so at asra(a)asranomani.com.

Otherwise, I wish all of you well.

Warmly, Asra

My response is follows:

Dear Ms. Nomani,

You are certainly correct in stating that “civil conversation” is important.  However, I’d like to raise a few points with regard to this:

1)  It should be understood that this is the internet, and people tend to “say” things with less inhibitions than they would in the “real” world.  I myself have been called horrendous things on the internet.  Hence, the “colorful” language in the comments section needs to be understood in this context and as a product of this phenomenon.  I did not–and neither did any LoonWatch writer–refer to you as a “whore”.  Neither do we endorse such language.  As a progressive, I cannot condone the use of such a misogynistic word that is often hurled at women.  As for the few Muslim users who used this term, they ought to be reminded that in their faith the levying of such a charge is considered strictly prohibited (see Quran, 24:23).

2)  At the same time, I suspect that you will transform this into another piece of evidence against “the Muslims”, as if Muslims alone hurl such insults.  Yet, female personalities of all creeds are routinely called “whores” by random people (ever seen the comments on YouTube!?).  This is very unfortunate, but it is not a Muslim-specific issue.  But I’m sure you will make this all part of your anti-Muslim paradigm.  You might also feel the urge to boast about the insults you have received here, as you did with the “Uncle Tom” label in your article on profiling, and as Robert Spencer (your fan and loyal supporter) does with the e-death threat he supposedly received on some random forum (he put the quote on the cover of his book, just as the Uncle Tom quote was highlighted in your article).

3)  My own article was not nearly as “courteous” as your reply was.  But let’s be real for a second: my reply was at least more honest.  Your reply, on the other hand, is disingenuous (and as lame as Mr. Rogers).  “Dear Friends.” Are we really your friends?  “Thanks for the time you spent discussing the ideas that I’ve presented in my writings.”  Am I to believe you are actually thankful for the article we wrote about/against you?  C’mon, can’t we be real for a second?  We’ve accused you in our article of being a fake, not the real thing…and here you reply exactly that way: in a fake way.  You certainly could have responded in a courteous manner without being so blatantly fake, but I guess fake comes easier to some people than others.

4)  You said: “Sometimes the truth is a lot less sensational.”  Ahhh, if only you yourself understood this point.  You (and the right-wing loons who agree with you) sensationalize everything about Muslims and Islam.  Instead of having serious and nuanced discussion about Muslims and Islam, you engage in sensationalism and fear-mongering.

5)  While it may be commendable to respond with courtesy (although in your case I think it is simply an act), it should be noted that some very vile people make sure to respond to critics courteously.  For example, David Duke oftentimes sounds like an absolute gentleman, but his ideas are vile.  Even Robert Spencer attempts to portray himself in this way.  It is not simply the way in which a person responds that matters, but more importantly what they believe and say.  In your case, your ideas are horrendous, not the manner in which you deliver them.  You are not the “liberal and progressive” you pretend to be; you are a right-winger just like the people who you admire and/or who admire you, including Robert Spencer, Wafa Sultan, etc.

6)  On that note, you should be proud that the anti-Muslim website BareNakedIslam has come to your swift defense.  That vitriolic website responded with a post entitled LEFT WING LOONIES hating on a Muslim woman who most Americans would love.  They praise you as “a one in a billion Muslim author.”  On the very same page, they are selling shirts saying “War on Terror Islam” and “Infidel” and links saying stuff like “Islam’s Rules for Having Sex with Animals”, etc.  The site boasts a logo that reads “Proud Right Wing Extremist.”  If you are really a “liberal and progressive” Muslim as you pretend, then why is a “proud right wing extremist” infatuated with you?  You are in fact honored on their page entitled Pro-America Muslims, with such ex-Muslim luminaries as Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, etc.  Why care what we at LoonWatch think about you when you have such a great fan base at BareNakedIslam and JihadWatch?

7)  You have offered the opportunity for readers to write personally to you via email.  This makes it appear as though you are one who is willing to discuss your views.  Yet, your response is completely devoid of substance.  You have not responded to a single one of my arguments.  If you think that my article is not worthy of response, then why go through the charade of offering to respond to people privately?  Surely if you have the time to respond to people individually, you then should have the time to respond to our site.  Once again, this is all mere posturing.

You seem to enjoy being interviewed on the “Fair and Balanced” Fox “News” channel.  Why not speak with us and actually field some critical questions for once?

Warmly, Lovingly, and Cherishingly,
Danios.

Craig Montielh, Wanna-be FBI Infiltrator

It is high time the FBI stop spying on American Muslims, as recent op-eds, comments from leading Muslim organizations and leaders and former intelligence officials reveal, spying is an ineffective tool that runs counter to anti-Terrorism efforts.

Instead of fostering better relations with Muslims, it creates and perpetuates an atmosphere of distrust that drives further away the number one resource –the Muslim Community– in combating terrorism and threats to our security.

Wajahat Ali writes piercingly on the topic,

Time for FBI to stop spying on American Muslims

(Guardian)

The recent arrest of the potential Christmas tree bomber is reflective of the FBI’s myopic strategy of using glitzy, expensive sting operations and dubious confidential informants to further erode Muslim American relations instead of concentrating on effective partnerships to combat radicalisation. The FBI is promoting the arrest of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old Somali-born teenager accused of attempting to detonate a car bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, as a triumph of effective law enforcement. Instead, the operation reeks of gratuitous self-adulation, requiring 6 months of time and precious expenditures to “uncover” a dummy terrorist plot wholly scripted and concocted by the FBI in the first place.

Although many argue that this was simply entrapment, evidence does indicate that Mohamud became increasingly radicalised and voluntarily continued with the FBI’s fake terror plot. Regardless, CAIR attorney Zahra Billo told me, “The FBI seek out troubled people – nobody is arguing that some of these individuals aren’t deeply troubled – and then enable and facilitate their aspirations. It is the FBI’s job to stop operational terrorists. It is not the FBI’s job to enable aspirational terrorists.”

Attorney General Eric Holder recently suggested the use of such sting operations were “part of a forward-leaning way” in which law enforcement could proactively find those individuals committed to harming Americans, and a study revealed that 62% of terror prosecutions relied on confidential informants. But recent episodes suggest these tactics are neither “forward-looking”, nor effective. Instead, they contribute towards a deepening, polarising wedge between law enforcement officials and some of their most important assets in the war against extremism: Muslim American communities.

Recently, a former FBI confidential informant, Craig Monteilh, humorously codenamed “Oracle”, revealed he was paid $177,000 tax-free by the FBI to infiltrate and entrap a southern California Muslim community. The convicted forger, who went by “Farouk al-Aziz”, was served with a restraining order by the mosque after he repeatedly pestered attendees with absurd conversations about engaging in violent jihad. Not to be deterred, the FBI heavily relied upon Oracle’s superlative evidence, consisting of taped conversations, to indict an Afghan-American language instructor for allegedly making false statements regarding his ties to terrorists. Moreover, prosecutors alleged he was the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden’s security coordinator.

Surely, this bombshell discovery paved the way for a successful prosecution and conviction? Nearly a year and a half later, the judge agreed with the prosecutors to dismiss the case citing lack of an overseas witness and “evidentiary issues”. The result is a widening distrust of the FBI, since “the community feels betrayed,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic shura council of southern California, an umbrella group of more than 75 mosques.

In the deeply flawed 2005 Lodi terror case, the FBI boasted of capturing two, alleged high-level terrorists, Hamid and Umer Hyatt – Pakistani father and son immigrants, who drove ice cream trucks for a living – based on the evidence of an unreliable Pakistani-American informant, codenamed “Wildkat”. Indeed, his fact-finding lived up to his name, since he told the FBI he saw al-Qaida’s number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, at his Lodi, California mosque. Although the FBI [thankfully] conceded his reporting as false, they nonetheless proceeded to pay him nearly $300,000 to infiltrate the sleepy Muslim community and scour for terrorists. His taped conversations with Umer Hyatt reveal him badgering and allegedly conning Umer to make incriminating statements. Furthermore, videotapes of the Hyatts’ absurd alleged “confessions”, which former veteran FBI agent James Wedick Jr reviewed and concluded were a result of illegal questioning and coaxing, nonetheless convinced a jury to convict Hamid of providing material support to terrorists and making false statements to the FBI.

Aside from a miscarriage of justice, perhaps the most poisonous result of such belligerent law enforcement procedures, is a “chilling effect” on the Muslim American community, in which citizens legitimately feel fear and alienation from, and a deepening mistrust of, their government, as a result of such harassment. “Time and again, Muslims prove themselves to be good and smart when it comes to reporting potential crimes. The problem with this method of law enforcement is that strains the very relationships that are critical to effective community policing,” says Billo.

In a country where 60% of its citizens claim to not know a Muslim and 45% regard Islam as a religion that promotes violence, these self-aggrandising displays of “successful” prosecutions also contribute to the volatile climate of anti-Muslim bigotry and reactionary rhetoric. Recently, Glenn Beck delved into his hyperactive, paranoid imagination to produce the utterly baseless statistic that nearly 10% of Muslims are terrorists. Although many of Beck’s audience will not question the veracity of his “facts”, a comprehensive study undertaken by Duke University reveals that the number of radicalised Muslim-Americans remains very small. The study reports that “Muslim American communities have been active in preventing radicalisation… This is one reason that Muslim American terrorism has resulted in fewer than three dozen of the 136,000 murders committed in the United States since 9/11.”

Thus, a Senegalese Muslim immigrant was the first to witness and report failed jihadist Faisal Shahzad’s burning car in Times Square. A Muslim American community in Virginia went to local law enforcements and the FBI after discovering troubling videotapes left by five youths who allegedly went to Pakistan to commit jihad. A convert to Islam tipped off the FBI about the Christian militant group, the Hutarees, who were planning a terrorist attack on American soil. Even the Nigerian underwear bomber’s own father warned British authorities that his son was radicalised and could potentially harm himself and others.

Undoubtedly, radicalisation and terrorism are real threats, which afflict all US citizens, regardless of race or religion. Perhaps the FBI should now cease treating most Muslim American citizens as potential suspects, whose privacy rights and civil liberties are now curtailed in clumsy ways – such as faulty GPS tracking devices sloppily attached on their cars. Perhaps the FBI needs to spend its considerable (taxpayer-paid-for) resources to re-engage them as partners and allies – instead of contributing to the heightened climate of fear and paranoia by employing shady informants with cheesy, comic-book codenames.

AlJazeera News has begun to air for one hour on KPFT, a prominent Texas Radio Station. It has received threats and hate mail since.

Robert Spencer would say,” Islamophobia? What Islamophobia? It doesn’t exist! But if it does exist or happen then it is the fault of the Mooslims, and this hate crime is probably made up! Michel Duff and Michael Van Andel are probably some Mooslims practicing taqiyyah!”

Big secret: In his heart of hearts Spencer probably smiles anytime a Muslim is attacked.

Two assaulted at Islamic Centre in Niagara Falls in possible hate crime

Niagara Police are investigating after a possible hate crime occurred at an Islamic Centre in Niagara Falls.

Police say on December 3 two adult males and a male young offender went to the Centre armed with golf clubs.

They proceeded to damage cars in the parking lot and where then confronted by two members of the centre.   The members were then assaulted with golf clubs before others intervened and detained the attackers until police arrived.

The victims received minor injuries and were treated on scene.

Police say throughout the attack the assailants continually hurled racial slurs at the victims.

Michel Duff , 27, has been charged with mischief under $5000 and assault with a weapon. Michael Van Andel, 22, has been charged with assault with a weapon and fail to comply with probation.

A 16-year-old young offender is charged with mischief.

Due to the racial slurs police are treating this as a hate crime.

Birds of a feather flock together and in Robert Spencer’s case it seems that he has latched onto a fellow Catholic in Austria by the name of Ewald Stadler.

The only problem is that Stadler is a politician with the BZO, a group that he found along with Jorg Haider, a neo-fascist. Stadler has also made some controversial statements on Nazism.

Here is the video Spencer posted on his site and his comments, it has been reposted by the BNP since,

Austrian MP Ewald Stadler, addressing the Turkish ambassador to Austria, here dares to tell the truth about Islam in Turkey and in Europe. It’s breathtaking. Ewald Stadler surely deserves to be nominated for Anti-Dhimmi Internationale of 2010.

(Video thanks to Pamela Geller.)

Here is his bio translated from the German (hat tip: Leonora),

Ewald Stadler is an Austrian politician and was a member of the Austrian Freedom party until 2007. He was counted among the so-called “German National” wing of the FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party/ freedom party Austria) but was also a proponent of the (previously less known) conservative catholic views in his party. Stadler constantly attracted attention with his controversial statements on the Nazi era. He asserted that the end of the National Socialist(nazi) command in Austria would not give any relief/liberation.  In the European elections in Austria in 2009 he was the top candidate of the BZÖ .

Bündnis Zukunft Österreich(BZÖ)= Alliance for Austria’s Future (BZÖ) is an Austrian party . It was founded in April 2005 by members of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) by Jörg Haider. It is classified as right-wing (right-populist).

Is it any surprise that Spencer is so awe struck by Stadler? A fascist whose party is classified as right-wing (right-populist), and who has made borderline Nazi favorable comments? In reality it once again peels away at the facade that Spencer has created as a defender of the West when in reality he is nothing more than an anti-Freedom fascist.

It also adds to the list of Fascists that Spencer has supported and spoken with:

-EDL (English Defense League), SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe), Geert Wilders, Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa, Ewald Stadler, BZO, Sergei Trefkovic (Serbian Nationalist, genocide denier), etc.

Racism from high ranking Rabbis across Israel who are stating that racism is a part of Judaism and Jews shouldn’t rent apartments to Arabs. Imagine if they were Muslim?

We must also take note of those voices speaking out against such rhetoric and pronouncements because many are opposed to the language used by these Rabbis.

Top rabbis move to forbid renting homes to Arabs, say ‘Israel belongs to Jews’

(Haaretz)

A number of leading rabbis who signed on to a religious ruling to forbid renting homes to gentiles – a move particularly aimed against Arabs – defended their decision on Tuesday with the declaration that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

Dozens of Israel’s municipal chief rabbis signed on to the ruling, which comes just months after the chief rabbi of Safed initiated a call urging Jews to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews.

Signatories include the chief rabbis of Ramat Hasharon, Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, Rishon Letzion, Carmiel, Gadera, Afula, Nahariya, Herzliya, Nahariya and Pardes Hannah, among a number of other cities.

“We don’t need to help Arabs set down roots in Israel,” Rabbi Shlomo Aviner of the Beit El settlement, said on Tuesday. Aviner explained that he supported the move for two reasons: one, a Jew looking for an apartment should get preference over a gentile; and two, to keep the growing Arab population from settling too deeply.

“Racism originated in the Torah,” said Rabbi Yosef Scheinen, who heads the Ashdod Yeshiva. “The land of Israel is designated for the people of Israel. This is what the Holy One Blessed Be He intended and that is what the [sage] Rashi interpreted.”

He added that he did not see the move as racist so much as segregationist. “The world is so big and the State of Israel is small, that God intended it for the people of Israel and the whole world covets it. That is the injustice.”

Upon news of the religious ruling, Meretz faction whip Ilan Ghilon immediately asked the attorney general to dismiss each of the rabbis who had signed their names.

“We are witnessing an epidemic of racism and xenophobia and we must act firmly,” he said.

Deputy Knesset chairman MK Ahmed Tibi decried the letter as a “mass crime [committed] by a group of racist rabbis who should be given intensive course in Jewish history.”

The entire group should be tried for “incitement to racism,” added Tibi, “Muslim clerics have recently been tried or fired from their jobs for much less but the rabbis are able to pursue their unruly behavior without concern.

Haifa Mayor Yonah Yahav termed the ruling the “real desecration of God’s name. It is bringing hatred against those with whom we have chosen to live our lives.”

Nazareth Mayor Ramiz Jaraisy also decried the moving, declaring that “whoever thinks it damages one side is mistaken. We are all children of the land. Both nations must search for common ground and not bring about escalation.”

In their ruling, the rabbis called on the religious community to voice support Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, who could face trial for incitement against Arabs for initiating the move against renting to gentiles.

Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman has also asked Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman to begin the process of suspending Eliyahu immediately from his post as municipal rabbi.

Politicos from the national religious sector believe that the mass of prominent figures who signed on to the ruling – all of whose salaries are paid by public funds – will send a message to the attorney general to take Eliyahu’s position seriously.

The rabbis’ letter prompted by Eliyahu, which was first published months ago and reprinted in October, urges Jewish owners of apartments to reconsider renting their properties to Arabs since it would deflate the value of their homes as well as those in the neighborhood.

“Their way of life is different than that of Jews,” the letter stated. “Among [the gentiles] are those who are bitter and hateful toward us and who meddle into our lives to the point where they are a danger.”

The rabbis also urge neighbors of anyone renting or selling property to Arabs to caution that person. After delivering the warning, the neighbor is then encouraged to issue notices to the general public and inform the community.

“The neighbors and acquaintances [of a Jew who sells or rents to an Arab] must distance themselves from the Jew, refrain from doing business with him, deny him the right to read from the Torah, and similarly [ostracize] him until he goes back on this harmful deed,” the letter reads.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck puts forward the lie that ten percent of Muslims are terrorists.

Glenn Beck: Ten Percent Of Muslims Are Terrorists (AUDIO)

(Huffington Post)

Glenn Beck said he thinks ten percent of all Muslims are terrorists.

As ThinkProgress pointed out, Beck’s estimate would mean that roughly 157 million Muslims in the world are terrorists.

Speaking on his radio show Monday, Beck decried the relative lack of coverage that the news media is giving to the figures he discusses day after day on his radio and television shows.

“We have revolutionaries here in America speaking — American citizens speaking — about an open violent revolution and no one will cover it!” Beck said. “Would they cover it if you had tape of al Qaeda saying they’re going to get out in the streets, they want violence? Of course you would!”

Beck surmised that the media don’t think that the threats he describes are sufficient enough to cover seriously. However, he said, they should look at the havoc a relatively small number of “Islamic terrorists” had caused:

“What is the number of Islamic terrorists? One percent? I think it’s closer to ten percent but the rest of the PC world will tell you, ‘oh no, it’s minuscule.’ OK, well, let’s take you at your one percent. Look at the havoc one percent of Muslims causing in the rest of the world. You don’t think one percent, half a percent here in the United States of radicals, of people who want to violently overthrow the government, is a problem?”

UPDATE: As The Huffington Post’s Sebastian Howard pointed out on Twitter, Beck’s figure of ten percent is hardly new. In fact, Beck used the same statistic in his 2003 book, “The Real America.” In it, Beck says that he has concluded, after “reading and prayer,” that, while ninety percent of Islam is peaceful, “ten percent wants to see us dead.” The remaining ten percent, he writes, is “composed of extreme radicals who have taken Islam through a time tunnel and twisted it into something ugly and barbaric.”

Rabbi David Rosen contacted us over the weekend in response to our article, “Rabbi David Rosen: Europe Risks being Overrun by Islam,” (which was based on a quote from an EU Observer article with the same title), seeking to clarify his comment and distancing himself from others quoted in the article.

Here is the quote in question:

Speaking to journalists at a meeting in Jerusalem on Friday (26 November), Rabbi Rosen, the director of inter-religious affairs at the Washington-based American Jewish Congress, said that a predominantly secular and liberal Western European society is under threat by the rapid growth of Islamic communities that do not want to integrate with their neighbours.

“I am against building walls. My humanity is my most important component. But Western society very clearly doesn’t have a strong identity. I would like Christians in Europe to become more Christian … those who do not have a strong identity are easily overrun by those who do,” the rabbi warned.

“I think there is a pretty good chance that your grandchildren, if they are not Muslim, then they will be very strong Roman Catholics,” he told one Italian reporter. “I don’t think a tepid identity can stand up to the challenge.”

This is Rabbi David Rosen’s comments:

Dear Loonwatch.com,

The article that you reproduced from EUobserver.com grossly misrepresented me. The headline and the first paragraph are entirely the reporter’s tendentious fabrication. The quotes are correct, but connecting mine with the others in the piece even distorts the quotes. I was addressing a group of journalists on the subject of Religion and Identity in the M.E. In question time they asked me about Europe and the prognosis of an eventual Muslim majority. I said that I didn’t think one needed to be afraid of such a prospect, if the Muslim population was appropriately integrated in Europe as it sought to be. However if the prospect causes them concern, then the only appropriate and valid response is to strengthen their own identities and this is unlikely to succeed without a religious basis. I would be grateful if you would put this clarification upon your site.

Thankyou,

Rabbi David Rosen

A poor choice of words from the Rabbi initially but his clarification spells out his repudiation of the Muslim demographic take over conspiracy, though in reality all indicators reveal that Muslims in Europe are in a post-integration phase and have already been integrated into society.

Tension grows between Calif. Muslims, FBI after informant infiltrates mosque

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 5, 2010; 12:47 AM

IRVINE, CALIF. – Before the sun rose, the informant donned a white Islamic robe. A tiny camera was sewn into a button, and a microphone was buried in a device attached to his keys.

“This is Farouk al-Aziz, code name Oracle,” he said into the keys as he sat in his parked car in this quiet community south of Los Angeles. “It’s November 13th, 4:30 a.m. And we’re hot.”

The undercover FBI informant – a convicted forger named Craig Monteilh – then drove off for 5 a.m. prayers at the Islamic Center of Irvine, where he says he spied on dozens of worshipers in a quest for potential terrorists.

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the FBI has used informants successfully as one of many tactics to prevent another strike in the United States. Agency officials say they are careful not to violate civil liberties and do not target Muslims.

But the FBI’s approach has come under fire from some Muslims, criticism that surfaced again late last month after agents arrested an Oregon man they said tried to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. FBI technicians had supplied the device.

In the Irvine case, Monteilh’s mission as an informant backfired. Muslims were so alarmed by his talk of violent jihad that they obtained a restraining order against him.

He had helped build a terrorism-related case against a mosque member, but that also collapsed. The Justice Department recently took the extraordinary step of dropping charges against the worshiper, who Monteilh had caught on tape agreeing to blow up buildings, law enforcement officials said. Prosecutors had portrayed the man as a dire threat.

Compounding the damage, Monteilh has gone public, revealing secret FBI methods and charging that his “handlers” trained him to entrap Muslims as he infiltrated their mosques, homes and businesses. He is now suing the FBI.

Officials declined to comment on specific details of Monteilh’s tale but confirm that he was a paid FBI informant. Court records and interviews corroborate not only that Monteilh worked for the FBI – he says he made $177,000, tax-free, in 15 months – but that he provided vital information on a number of cases.

Some Muslims in Southern California and nationally say the cascading revelations have seriously damaged their relationship with the FBI, a partnership that both sides agree is critical to preventing attacks and homegrown terrorism.

Citing Monteilh’s actions and what they call a pattern of FBI surveillance, many leading national Muslim organizations have virtually suspended contact with the bureau.

“The community feels betrayed,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella group of more than 75 mosques.

“They got a guy, a bona fide criminal, and obviously trained him and sent him to infiltrate mosques,” Syed said. “And when things went sour, they ditched him and he got mad. It’s like a soap opera, for God’s sake.”

FBI and Justice Department officials say that the Monteilh case is not representative of their relations with the Muslim community and that they continue to work closely with Muslims in investigating violence and other hate crimes against them. Officials also credit U.S. Muslims with reporting critical information in a variety of counterterrorism cases.

The bureau “relies on the support, cooperation and trust of the communities it serves and protects,” FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said, adding that agents conduct investigations “under well-defined investigative guidelines and the law, and in close coordination with the Department of Justice.”

Officials said they have gone to great lengths to maintain good relationships with Muslims, including meetings hosted by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Last week, FBI officials met to discuss law enforcement and other issues with predominantly Muslim Somali community members in San Diego and Minneapolis.

Steven Martinez, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, declined to comment on Monteilh, citing Monteilh’s lawsuit. He said that in certain circumstances, if there is evidence of a crime, FBI agents may “conduct an activity that might somehow involve surveillance in and about a mosque.”

But he said the agency does not target people based on religion or ethnicity.

“I know there’s a lot of suspicion that that’s the focus, that we’re looking at the mosques, monitoring who is coming and going. That’s just not the case,” he said.

The ‘chameleon’
Monteilh’s career as an informant began in 2003. Like many other informants, he was familiar with the inside of a prison cell. He had just finished a sentence for forging bank notes when local police officers he met at a gym asked him to infiltrate drug gangs and white supremacist groups for a federal-state task force.

“It was very exciting,” Monteilh said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I had the ability to be a chameleon.”

Monteilh, who stands over 6 feet tall and weighs 260 pounds, had worked as a prison chaplain before he was incarcerated. Married with three children, the Los Angeles native said that after he became an informant, an FBI agent on the task force sought him out. Law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about informants, said Monteilh was promoted from drug and bank robbery cases because his information was reliable and had led to convictions.

In early 2006, Monteilh said, he met with his FBI handler at a Starbucks.

“She asked if I wanted to infiltrate mosques,” he said. At a follow-up session at a doughnut shop, he said, his new handler told him that “Islam is a threat to our national security.”

Law enforcement sources said that the FBI trained Monteilh and that he aided an existing investigation. Monteilh, however, said he was ordered to randomly surveil and spy on Muslims to ferret out potential terrorists. Agents, he said, provided his cover: Farouk al-Aziz, a French Syrian in search of his Islamic roots. His code name was “Oracle.”

Monteilh said he was instructed to infiltrate mosques throughout Orange and two neighboring counties in Southern California, where the Muslim population of nearly 500,000 is the nation’s largest. He was told to target the Islamic Center of Irvine, he said, because it was near his home.

FBI tactics were already a sensitive issue at the Irvine mosque, a stucco, two-story building that draws as many as 2,000 people for Friday prayers. With tensions rising between law enforcement and Muslims over allegations of FBI surveillance, J. Stephen Tidwell, then head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, spoke at the mosque in June 2006.

“If we’re going to mosques to come to services, we will tell you,” he said, according to a video of his speech. “. . . The FBI will tell you we’re coming for the very reason that we don’t want you to think you’re being monitored. We would come only to learn.”

Two months later, in August 2006, Monteilh arrived at the same mosque. He had called earlier and met with the imam. That Friday, he took shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, before hundreds of worshipers.

Worshipers said that in Monteilh’s 10 months at the mosque, he became almost manic in his devotion, attending prayers five times a day and waiting in the parking lot before the 5 a.m. prayer. Monteilh said he was told by the FBI to take notes on who opened the mosque each day.

Worshipers said his Western clothes gave way to an Islamic robe, a white skullcap and sandals, an outfit Monteilh said was chosen by his handlers. As he grew closer to Muslims, he said, the FBI told him to date Muslim women if it gained him intelligence.

Worshipers noticed that Monteilh often left his keys around the mosque, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who speaks often at the mosque.

“It seemed strange to people,” Ayloush said.

Inside the car remote on the bundle of keys was a microphone that recorded Muslims at the mosque, in their homes and at a local gym. Monteilh, who told people he was a fitness trainer, used the gym to seek out Muslim men.

“We started hearing that he was saying weird things,” said Omar Kurdi, a Loyola Law School student who knew Monteilh from the mosque and gym. “He would walk up to one of my friends and say, ‘It’s good that you guys are getting ready for the jihad.”

Worshipers said Monteilh gravitated to Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, an Afghan-born Arabic-language instructor who was a regular at Friday prayers.

In May 2007, Monteilh said he recorded a conversation about jihad during a car ride with Niazi and another man. Monteilh said he suggested an operation to blow up buildings and Niazi agreed. An FBI agent later cited that and other taped conversations between the two in court as evidence that Niazi was a threat.

A few days later, Ayloush got an anguished phone call from Niazi and the other man in the car.

“They said Farouk had told them he had access to weapons and that they should blow up a mall,” Ayloush recalled. “They were convinced this man was a terrorist.”

Ayloush reported the FBI’s own informant to the FBI. He said agents interviewed Niazi, who gave them the same account, but the agency took no action against Monteilh.

Still, Monteilh’s mission was collapsing. Members of the mosque told its leaders that they were afraid of Monteilh and that he was “trying to entrap them into a mission,” according to Asim Khan, the former mosque president. The mosque went to Orange County Superior Court in June 2007 and obtained a restraining order against Monteilh, court records show.

Soon afterward, Monteilh said FBI agents “told me they wanted to cut me loose.” After he vowed to go public, he said, he met with three agents at the Anaheim Hilton, where an FBI supervisor threatened him with arrest.

“She said, ‘If you reveal your informant status to the media, it will destroy the Muslim community’s relationship with the FBI forever.” Monteilh said.

The FBI declined to comment on Monteilh’s allegation.

At a subsequent meeting, Monteilh said, he signed a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for $25,000 in cash. An FBI letter to Monteilh’s attorney, on file in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, says Monteilh signed the non-disclosure agreement in October 2007.

But Monteilh was arrested in December 2007 on a grand-theft charge and ended up back in jail for 16 months. In January, he sued the FBI, alleging that the bureau and Irvine police conspired to have him arrested, then allowed his informant status to become known in prison, where he was stabbed.

The FBI and police have denied the allegations, and the lawsuit was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. But the judge allowed Monteilh to file an amended complaint, with similar allegations, in September. The case is pending.

A case unravels
In the meantime, the case against Niazi unfolded. He was indicted in February 2009 by a federal grand jury on charges of lying about his ties to terrorists on immigration documents. In court, prosecutors said that jihadist materials were found on Niazi’s computer and that he had wired money to an alleged al-Qaeda financier. Prosecutors said he is the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden’s security coordinator. Much of the evidence was FBI testimony about Niazi’s recorded conversations with an FBI informant, who sources say was Monteilh.

“Frankly, there is no amount of bail or equity in a home that can protect the citizens of this community” from Niazi, Assistant U.S. Attorney Deirdre Eliot said in arguing for his detention.

Within days of Niazi’s indictment, Monteilh revealed his informant status in a series of interviews with Los Angeles area media.

“I think the FBI treated me with the utmost treachery,” he said in the interview with The Post.

In subsequent months, Monteilh sought out Niazi’s attorneys and told them he was ordered to entrap their client.

A year and a half later, on Sept. 30, prosecutors summarily moved to dismiss the case against Niazi, and a judge agreed. The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles cited the lack of an overseas witness and “evidentiary issues.” Sources familiar with the decision said Monteilh’s role – and his potential testimony for the defense – was also a factor.

Niazi declined to comment. His attorney Chase Scolnick said he is “very pleased with the outcome. It is a just result.”

In recent weeks, Monteilh said, he has been approaching Muslims at a local gym and apologizing for “disrespecting their community and religion.” Monteilh, who is now unemployed, says he regrets his role in the Niazi case and was glad when the charges were dropped.

On a recent Friday, more than 200 men sat on the carpet for prayers inside the Irvine mosque, most of them in khakis or jeans. During the sermon, the imam offered some advice.

“If an FBI agent comes in and says, ‘You’re under arrest,’â??” he told the crowd, they should pray to Allah – and then call a lawyer.

As worshipers milled around outside, they said they support the FBI’s role in fighting terrorism but feel betrayed by the infiltration of their sacred place.

“The FBI wants to treat the Muslim community as a partner while investigating us behind our backs,” said Kurdi, the Loyola student. “They can’t have it both ways.”

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Communities rallying to support one another.

Deploring vandalism, local Muslims tell Jews: ‘What happens to you happens to us’

(Herald Times)

By Dann Denny 331-4350 | ddenny@heraldt.com

It was a tiny gathering – 11 people huddled around a table in a small room at the Beth Shalom synagogue – eating cookies, sipping hot tea and talking.

But the five Muslims who had come to express their support and solidarity Thursday afternoon to a Jewish community that’s been shaken by a half-dozen anti-Semitic acts of vandalism in recent days – and six members from the Beth Shalom congregation who agreed to meet with them – spoke with palpable passion.

“We are very moved and grateful to all of you for making this visit, but we’re not at all surprised,” said Beth Shalom member Madi Hirschland. “We know the Muslim community is one of great compassion.”

The visit was prompted by recent acts of vandalism targeting the Jewish community – including the tossing of eight Hebrew texts into toilets and several rock-throwing incidents at the Chabad House Jewish Student Center, Helene G. Simon Hillel Center and other Jewish facilities.

For many Muslims, the acts conjured up memories of similar incidents aimed at Bloomington’s Muslim community. After someone threw a firebomb through a window of the Bloomington Islamic Center and set fire to a copy of the Quran in 2005 – and after local Muslims received death threats following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 – Beth Shalom was one of several local faith congregations that reached out with supportive letters, visits, meals and vigils.

“We learned compassion from you,” said Muslim Abdul Sinno. “We think of you as wonderful neighbors. What happens to you happens to us.”

Yusuf Nur, one of the Muslims at the gathering, said it was unfortunate that it took a series of hateful incidents to prompt the meeting between members of the two faith traditions.

“We need to be more proactive and work together as people of faith to educate people,” he said. “These acts of hatred come from ignorance.”

Zaineb Istrabadi concurred, but wondered if some people could ever be enlightened. She said she recently received an e-mail asking her if it was true that a Muslim had to kill a non-Muslim in order to go to heaven.

“We’ve already done a lot of education and some people still don’t get it,” she said. “What’s been happening most recently is one or more persons in Bloomington going bananas.”

Beth Shalom member Deb Allmayer said in addition to education, “We need more opportunities to interact with one another. That helps erase the barriers.”

Hirschland said though she is deeply saddened by the recent incidents, theoutpouring of support for the Jewish community from Muslims and Christians has been a refreshing antidote.

At one point in the meeting, Sinno asked the Jewish members in the group how the Muslim community could help Beth Shalom.

“You’ve already helped,” said Perry Metz. “You have touched us with your compassion and your presence here today. When something like this happens, you wonder, ‘Does anyone else care?’ You have given us your answer very clearly, and it means a lot to us.”

Nur said it’s imperative that tolerance be extended to everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs.

“Actually, we need to go beyond tolerance to acceptance and respect,” he said.

Paul Eisenberg, president of the Beth Shalom Congregation, could not attend the meeting because he and his family were on their way out of town to celebrate Hanukkah with relatives. But he heard about it.

“The meeting is very heartening,” he said. “There are many, many Jews and many, many Muslims in the U.S. and abroad who don’t get along, but in Bloomington we have a much different situation.” Faiz Rahman, president of the Islamic Center, could not attend either, because of teaching commitments at Indiana University. But he was encouraged that the meeting took place.

“There is a view that Jews and Muslims are at each others’ throats, but in Bloomington that is certainly not the case,” he said. “This is our chance to show solidarity with the Jewish community that is being attacked, notbecause it’s politically correct, but because it’s the right thing to do.

The members of the Jewish community are our neighbors and friends and colleagues.”

Rahman said it’s ironic that the recent acts aimed at hurting the Jewish community have in fact triggered an outpouring of support for that community.

“There’s always a silver lining to bad acts,” he said. “When bad things happen, good people show their spirit, and let others know they will not bow down to the forces of evil.”

Asra Nomani on Fox "News", fear-mongering about Muslims

Hat tip: to all the countless people who sent us tips about Asra Nomani’s lunacy.

Islamophobia is a big business.  From pretend-scholars of Islam to pretend-apostates from Islam, it seems like every other person is trying to cash in on the cash cow that is anti-Muslim bigotry.  All sorts of opportunists have made six-digit salaries and full-time careers out of Muslim-bashing.  So it shouldn’t surprise us that some Muslims would want to get in on the action.  And so, I introduce to you one very prominent self-hating loon, namely Asra Nomani.

Nomani has become the “Muslim-for-hire”, selling out her religious community in exchange for fame and money.  Like other anti-Muslim bigots, she arose out of obscurity and shot to national prominence by fear-mongering about the Evil Muslims.  Now, she has a very steady career out of doing the neo-con bidding.  Nomani is very useful to the right wing, as she provides them with the “voice from the inside.”  She says the same things as the Islamophobes do, but when she says them, then the Islamophobes can point and say: “Look, even one of their own–a real life Muslim–says the same as we’ve been saying all along!”

This self-hating loon has consistently taken positions that are anti-Muslim.  For example, she came to the swift defense of anti-Muslim bigots who opposed the construction of an Islamic cultural center two blocks away from Ground Zero, arguing that “their fears are legitimate.”  When Juan Williams stated that he discriminates against people who “look Muslim”, it was none other than Nomani who came to his defense.  (One wonders how she’d feel about an old woman being “worried” about a young black man walking towards her on the street?  Would Nomani defend a white person admitting being fearful of blacks–and on top of that arguing that it was a justifiable fear?)  Notice how she prefaces her statement with “I am Muslim.”  Well then, you must automatically be a spokesperson for Muslims everywhere, and whatever you say about Islam and Muslims must be true.  You are, after all, a real life Muslim!  In fact, Asra Nomani can hardly ever write an article or argue a point without injecting herself into it, such is her self-absorbed nature.

When anti-Muslim bigots began burning the Quran, Nomani couldn’t get herself to say a word against these lovely people.  (One wonders how she’d feel if people were burning Torahs?  Remember how that ended up in Europe?)  Instead, she came out on the side of bigotry once again, writing an article fit for Pamela Geller’s hate site.  When right wing bigots need a Muslim voice, who better to do their bidding than Asra Nomani?  By so doing, she allows people to say “well, there are Muslims on both sides of the aisle.”  She might be one of the only voices chanting anti-Muslim talking points, but HEY A REAL LIFE MUSLIM SAYS WHAT WE’VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!  Suddenly there is an equivalence: “there are Muslims on both sides of the issues!”

Asra Nomani is marketed as a “progressive Muslim” and argues that what “we need [is] an expression of institutional Islam that is moderate, progressive and liberal.”  Yet there is absolutely nothing progressive about her.  Instead, she actually finds herself agreeing with right wing loons.  In the very same article, she states that “the Tea Party activists actually express the sentiments of Muslims such as myself…”  She criticizes liberal and progressive Americans like myself, saying:

Liberal and progressive Americans and their organizations have dropped the ball in having a nuanced, intelligent critique of extremist Islamic ideology, currying pluralism points instead in the name of interfaith relations.

So on the one hand, Muslims should be liberals and progressives…And on the other hand, she always is on the side of right wing loons and against real liberals and progressives.  Nomani’s so-called “liberalism and progressivism” is akin to colonial feminism.  Colonial feminism is when people with no connection to feminism suddenly become indignant about womens’ rights in Foreign-Looking Peoples and Countries.  For example, many right wingers in America became the world’s most ardent defenders of womens’ rights when it came to invading and occupying Afghanistan.  Those People Over There need to be conquered by Us, so We can show them how to treat women.  (Lost on them of course is that they are dropping bombs on the heads of women.)

In the same way, Asra Nomani is far removed from liberalism and progressivism, having no relation to it whatsoever.  Womens’ rights is nothing more than a great big stick with which to bash Muslims over the head with.  Nomani is, allow me to coin a new term (albeit a cheap rip-off of the previous neologism), a colonial liberalist.  Her liberalism and progressivism only comes in the flavor of Muslim-bashing. Her liberalism and progressivism goes into overdrive when it comes to the ultraconservative Saudi Arabia (so does mine), but meanwhile she remains silent when this Goodly Judeo-Christian Beacon of Light Country imprisons and tortures Muslims without charge.  Iran’s belligerence is then seen as the Ultimate Evil, but meanwhile our own country’s multiple unjust wars cannot be questioned.  When it comes to criticizing Muslims, she dons the mantle of liberalism and progressivism.  When liberalism and progressivism would mean standing up for Muslims against right wing nut jobs, she’ll be sure to write a piece chastising Muslims.

As a colonial feminist and colonial liberalist, Asra Nomani provides the U.S. government with the proper environment for it to continue waging endless wars against the Muslim world, and to continue occupying their lands. This is no different than what the colonialists aforetime did.  And the Arabs, Africans, and Asians are well aware of it.  The British would always find some chump from amongst the natives to chant the colonialist line.  Back then they used to shower that chump with gifts, money, and positions of power.  In exchange, that person would sell out his own people.  Today, the same dynamic exists: Asra Nomani says what they want her to say, and in exchange she gets media appearances on Fox News, sells her books for millions, and gains positions of prestige.  (How Yale took her as a fellow amazes me.)

Whilst claiming to be the voice of progressive and liberal Islam, she remains chummy with the right wing nuts who find her ever the useful tool.  As a proud progressive myself, I cannot understate the degree of harm that her type of self-hating Muslim-bashing “liberals and progressives” have done.  Due to people like her, the term “liberal and progressive” has a negative connotation in the Muslim world.  And why shouldn’t this be the case, when all the Muslims have heard from such so-called “liberals and progressives” is how barbaric they are, and how great the West is compared to them?  People like her make it harder for true liberals and progressives to market themselves in the Muslim world.

Interesting is the fact that despite saying what they want her to say, many extreme right wing characters hate Muslims to such an extent that they can’t tolerate Asra Nomani because she still refers to herself as a Muslim.  And so, the colonial analogy comes full circle: the chumps-for-hire were generally hated by their own people and scorned by the colonialists themselves.  This one YouTube conversation between bigcherry99 and bronco200005 is accidentally very insightful:

bigcherry99: asra is a really nice lady, but i cannot believe she hasn’t completely denounced islam. what the hell is wrong with her?

bronco200005: @bigcherry99 well if she denounces islam wat will she be left to milk?? Christianity?? Judaism maybe?? I dnt fink so

I don’t “fink” so either.  Her utility is only in that she is a Muslim.  That’s what she milks.  Her article promoting racial and religious profiling would hardly have gotten such significance had she been another non-Muslim calling for profiling of those Dark-Skinned Bad People.  But because she plays (and exploits) the I’m-a-Muslim card, her writings are thus pushed to the forefront.

Career bigot and hate blogger Robert Spencer, who advocated a militant video calling for the genocide of Pakistanis and joined a genocidal Facebook group against Muslims of Turkey, gave high praise of Asra Nomani, saying: “why are voices like this so rare among Muslims in the West?”  And he lauds her as “courageous.”  She is praised elsewhere on his vitriolic website.  Why is it, Ms. Asra Nomani, that one of the world’s leading Islamophobes is praising you so? If you are really a “liberal and progressive” Muslim, why is an extreme right wing website speaking so fondly of you?  Is it perhaps because you say the exact same things that they normally do against Muslims?

Thankfully, almost no Muslims are buying what Asra Nomani is selling.  Instead, her fans consist of right wing non-Muslims, who love the fact that A REAL LIFE MUSLIM is saying exactly what they say.  One article critical of Nomani asked (perhaps rhetorically):  “Are her remarks given any more weight or legitimacy by the fact that she herself is Muslim?”  The answer to that question is obvious: if she wasn’t a Muslim, nobody would have heard of her.  She’d have to get a real job then, or at least struggle for a job in the already saturated I-am-an-ex-Muslim-writing-a-book-against-Islam market.

And so, with the latest anti-Muslim controversy, Nomani once again sides with the voices of bigotry.  As many of you know, many Americans are protesting the TSA (Transit Security Administration) and their invasive ways, including “touching [your] junk” and using XXX-ray scanners to see you naked. But as the ever astute Glenn Greenwald (a real liberal and progressive, unlike the right wing loon Asra Nomani) notes:

[The] American People. They’re not angry that the Government had adopted inexcusably invasive and irrational security measures.  They’re just angry that, this time, it’s being directed at them — rather than those dark, exotic, foreign-seeming Muslims who deserve it, including their own fellow citizens.  And if there were a successful bombing plot against a passenger jet, many of those most vocally objecting now would be leading the way in attacking the Government for not having kept them Safe, and would be demanding even more invasive measures — just directed at those Other People, the Bad Dark People over there.

Asra Nomani, ever the self-hating loon, tries to reassure Good Judeo-Christian Folk that they shouldn’t need to get screened like that, and that it’s better to just target Her People.  This then is her “difficult solution” that “we need to consider”, namely “racial and religious profiling.”  In other words, the “cop-a-feel strategy” (her words) ought to be used only against Muslims and Muslim-looking peoples.

Her article is full of weak arguments to prove her point.  The article starts out with the following introduction (emphasis is mine):

In the wake of yet another Muslim terror plot, we can’t ignore the threat profile any longer–or the solution.

Which “Muslim terror plot” is she referring to?  She clarifies in her article:

…the Somali-born teenager arrested Friday night for a reported plot to detonate a car bomb at a packed Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Oregon.

It amazes me that this loon was allowed to blog for Salon.com (which is one of my favorite sites).  Another writer for Salon, the epic blogger Glenn Greenwald, wrote an excellent piece about how “the Somali-born teenager” was in fact set up by the FBI:

The FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot

…The FBI — as they’ve done many times in the past — found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a “Terrorist plot” which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI’s own concoction.  Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts — and an uncritical media amplifies — its “success” to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government’s vast surveillance powers — current and future new ones — are necessary.

How Asra Nomani’s conclusion from this entire escapade was that we need to adopt racial and religious profiling against Muslims (an essentially more right wing position than is currently in place, at least officially)–instead of reflecting on the backwards approach of the authorities in combating terrorism–only a self-hating loon could explain!  But this indeed is where Nomani misses the mark entirely.  Terrorism to her is the fault of “literal interpretations of the Quran” which supposedly sanction “terrorism, militancy, and suicide bombings in the name of Islam.”  The Somali-born teenager was ready to kill children because of “literal interpretations of the Quran”, or at least so the argument goes.  See!, argues the Islamophobe, even a Muslim herself says that the Quran is to blame for terrorism, militancy, and suicide bombing!

Of course, the reality is that the Quran forbids terrorism, suicide, and targeting of civilians.  No literal interpretation of the Quran could justify such things.  Neither did traditional Islam ever tolerate such.  In fact, ultraconservative traditionalists–including the Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia–have declared terrorist tactics to be strictly prohibited in Islam, a view that is entirely consistent with the Islamic tradition.  Contrary to popular misconception, Al-Qaeda types justify such deeds not in the Quran or Islamic tradition, but based on the political situation today, wherein the West (the United States and Israel in specific) invade, occupy, and bomb Muslim countries.  Greenwald writes:

Finally, there is, as usual, no discussion whatsoever in media accounts of motive.  There are several statements attributed to Mohamud by the Affidavit that should be repellent to any decent person, including complete apathy — even delight — at the prospect that this bomb would kill innocent people, including children.  What would drive a 19-year-old American citizen — living in the U.S. since the age of 3 — to that level of sociopathic indifference?   He explained it himself in several passages quoted by the FBI, and — if it weren’t for the virtual media blackout of this issue — this line of reasoning would be extremely familiar to Americans by now (para. 45):

Undercover FBI Agent:  You know there’s gonna be a lot of children there?

Mohamud:  Yeah, I know, that’s what I’m looking for.

Undercover FBI Agent:  For kids?

Mohamud:  No, just for, in general a huge mass that will, like for them you know to be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays.  And then for later to be saying, this was them for you to refrain from killing our children, women . . . . so when they hear all these families were killed in such a city, they’ll say you know what your actions, you know they will stop, you know.  And it’s not fair that they should do that to people and not feeling it.

And here’s what he allegedly said in a video he made shortly before he thought he would be detonating the bomb (para. 80):

…For as long as you threaten our security, your people will not remain safe. As your soldiers target civilians, we will not help to do so.  Did you think that you could invade a Muslim land, and we would not invade you..

We hear the same exact thing over and over and over from accused Terrorists — that they are attempting to carry out plots in retaliation for past and ongoing American violence against Muslim civilians and to deter such future acts.  Here we find one of the great mysteries in American political culture:  that the U.S. Government dispatches its military all over the world — invading, occupying, and bombing multiple Muslim countries — torturing them, imprisoning them without charges, shooting them up at checkpoints, sending remote-controlled drones to explode their homes, imposing sanctions that starve hundreds of thousands of children to death  — and Americans are then baffled when some Muslims — an amazingly small percentage — harbor anger and vengeance toward them and want to return the violence.   And here we also find the greatest myth in American political discourse:  that engaging in all of that military aggression somehow constitutes Staying Safe and combating Terrorism — rather than doing more than any single other cause to provoke, sustain and fuel Terrorism.

Even Asra Nomani’s article itself betrays this point, as she quotes Usama bin Ladin as follows (emphasis is mine):

“Our response to the barbaric bombardment against Muslims of Afghanistan and Sudan will be ruthless and violent,” he said in a statement. “All the Islamic world has mobilized to strike a prominent American or Israeli strategic objective, to blow up their airplanes and to seize them.”

Naturally, pointing out the obvious–that nothing promotes Terrorism more than us “invading, occupying, and bombing” their countries–would be anathema to a fake “liberal and progressive” like Asra Nomani.  Instead, she’d rather agree with the likes of the Tea Party and other right wing nuts who–even though the United States has killed way more Muslims than “the Muslims” have killed Americans–wonder mysteriously why a few Muslims would want to attack us.  It’s much easier to blame The Other for being so violent, and then have a self-hating loon affirm this for them.  It is only by removing this key element–our invading, occupying, and bombing their countries–that we can condescendingly discuss what’s wrong with Islam.  The truth is, however, that terrorism is directly related to our own foreign policy.  As Nomani herself says (except she’s talking about racial and religious profiling):

I know this is an issue of great distress to many people. But I believe that we cannot bury our heads in the sand anymore.

Yes, it does cause great distress to many people that we dare cogitate that we are responsible for our own plight.  But I believe that we cannot bury our heads in the sand anymore.  How the media completely blacks out the obvious–and how any politician who dares argue this point must be immediately ostracized–is indicative of its truth.

Not only is Asra Nomani’s article ethically repugnant, she deceitfully cites “studies.”  She cites the Rand Corporation’s study entitled “Would-Be Warriors.”  Only a self-hating loon could read that entire report and only glean the point that she did!  In fact, I wrote an article summarizing the Rand Corporation’s findings here:

Rand report:  Threat of homegrown jihadism exaggerated, Zero U.S. civilians killed since 9/11

The “threat profile”, as Nomani asserts, is defined as follows by Rand:

[Of the] 83 terrorist attacks in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only three…were clearly connected with the jihadist cause.

Fifty of the 83 terrorist attacks were committed by environmental extremists and animal rights fanatics, “which account for most of the violence.”  Five civilians were killed by the anthrax letters.

The Rand study states:

There are more than 3 million Muslims in the United States, and few more than 100 have joined jihad—about one out of every 30,000—suggesting an American Muslim population that remains hostile to jihadist ideology and its exhortations to violence. A mistrust of American Muslims by other Americans seems misplaced.

Only a self-hating loon could argue that 3 million Muslims should be profiled for the crimes of 100.  In fact, the Rand study blasts people like Asra Nomani who fear monger about the “threat profile.”  Says Rand:

Public reaction is an essential component of homeland defense. Needless alarm, exaggerated portrayals of the terrorist threat, unrealistic expectations of a risk-free society, and unreasonable demands for absolute protection will only encourage terrorists’ ambitions to make America fibrillate in fear and bankrupt itself with security…Panic is the wrong message to send America’s terrorist foes.

Nomani argues for widened governmental power, including invasive security measures.  Yet, the Rand report argues the opposite.  As I wrote in that previous article:

Americans have ceded their civil liberties to the government due to the misplaced fear of terrorism.  The first group affected by these heavy-handed laws are Muslim Americans, which hampers anti-terrorism efforts by alienating the very community whose cooperation is so necessary.  The report declares:

In response, the country has conceded to the authorities broader powers to prevent terrorism. However, one danger of this response is that revelations of abuse or of heavy-handed tactics could easily discredit intelligence operations, provoke public anger, and erode the most effective barrier of all to radicalization: the cooperation of the community.

We argue that the loss of civil liberties and rise in xenophobia have a more significant and longer lasting effect than acts of terrorism.

In any case, the Rand study is an excellent one, and enough to refute loons like Asra Nomani.  I urge our readers to read my summary of it as well as the original study.

Asra Nomani writes:

According to a terrorism database at the University of Maryland, which documents 60 attacks against airlines and airports between 1970 and 2007, the last year available, suspects in attacks during the 1970s were tied to the Jewish Defense League, the Black Panthers, the Black September, the National Front for the Liberation of Cuba, Jewish Armed Resistance and the Croatian Freedom Fighters, along with a few other groups.

In each of these groups’ names was a religious or ethnic dimension. For that time, those were the identities that we needed to assess. Today, the threat has changed, and it is primarily coming from Muslims who embrace al Qaeda’s radical brand of Islam.

So, terrorism was before linked to Jews, blacks, and Hispanics in the 1970′s.  But now it is linked to Muslims.  Hence, we should racially and religiously profile Muslims.  OK, so would Asra Nomani have agreed to racially and religiously profiling Jews, blacks, and Hispanics in the 1970′s?  (Notice how the “threat profile” is always The Other, never Good Christian White Folks, but Jews, blacks, Hispanics, and now the Evil Muslims!)  I suspect Nomani will issue a response to my article, and if she does, then I want a direct yes/no answer from her: would she agree that it would have been the right thing to do at that time to racially and/or religiously profile Jews, blacks, and Hispanics?

But we need not restrict this to a hypothetical in the 1970s.  Rather, it can be applied to the situation today.  Nomani’s argument is very simple: Muslims are (according to her) the number one terrorists, therefore it makes sense to racially and religiously profile them.  Extending that logic, one could easily sanction racial and religious profiling of blacks and Hispanics by police.  One could cite studies and statistics just like Asra Nomani did against Muslims.  For example,the government released a report which showed that “more than three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms.”  And: “The ratio is only slightly better for Hispanics, at 2.7 inmates for every Latino in college housing.”   The same study found that the percentage of U.S. inmates that are black is 41%, and the percentage that are black and Hispanic is 60%.   The same is the case in the UK, where the Metropolitan Police found that 54% of those who committed street crimes were blacks, 59% of robberies were by blacks, and 67% of gun crimes were by blacks.

One racist website breaks it down for us:

The chilling report by The New Century Foundation, called The Colour of Crime [PDF], shows in unflinching statistical detail, that in the USA:

• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
• The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
• Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
• Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
• Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.

Meanwhile, over here in Our Country the pattern appears to be much the same

• Blacks are 5 times more likely to commit violence against the person.
• Blacks are 4 times ‘more likely’ to commit sexual offences.
• Blacks are fifteen times ‘more likely’ to commit robbery.
• Blacks are over six times ‘more likely’ to commit fraud and forgery.
• Blacks are over twice as likely to commit criminal damage.
• Black are five times ‘more likely’ to commit drugs offences.

Source: The UK Government

This is of course all “threat assessment.”  Another racist website argues that we are curtailing the government’s ability to Protect and Keep Us Safe by prohibiting racial profiling of blacks (emphasis is mine):

Data suggest ‘racial profiling’ may have scientific basis

1. African-Americans commit 90% of the approximately 1,700,000 interracial crimes of violence that occur in the United States every year, and are more than 50 times more likely to commit violent crime against whites than vice versa.

Study: blacks commit 90% of interracial crime

2. Blacks are so much more likely than Americans of other races to commit crimes that police may be justified in stopping and questioning them more frequently – just as they stop men more often than women and young people more often than old people.

These are some of the controversial findings of a new think tank report based on extensive cross-analysis of government crime statistics. The study finds that Asians consistently commit the smallest number of crimes, followed by whites. Hispanics commit violent crime at approximately three times the white rate, and blacks are five to eight times more violent. In one of its most startling conclusions the report finds that blacks are as much more violent than whites as men are more violent than women. “This is the painful reality that gives rise to ‘racial profiling,’ “ said Jared Taylor, the report’s author. “Police quickly learn who the bad guys are. When there is a murder they don’t look for little old ladies. They look for young men – unfortunately, they are often justified in looking for young black men.”

Why should you stop my grandma instead of that young black man?  Isn’t that wasting resources?  Any argument that Nomani and other right wingers make against Muslims in support of racial or religious profiling could be applied even more so to blacks and Hispanics.  In fact, violent crime on the streets accounts for a hundreds times more American deaths than from terrorists.  So if there is an urgency that must be met–if we simply just cannot avoid racial or religious profiling of terrorists due to the imminent threat–then surely there is an even greater urgency to apply such standards to our domestic police force.

This is Asra Nomani’s logic to justify racial and religious profiling.  There is no logical way for her to support the racial and religious profiling of Muslims, and to be against it when it comes to black people and Hispanics.  My point here is not to argue for the profiling of blacks and Hispanics.  Rather, it is to show that we all immediately have a visceral reaction to the mere thought of this (as we should).  But when people on national media routinely suggest the profiling of Muslims, then it’s something that is seriously debated.  This proves that although blacks and Hispanics are certainly low on the social totem pole, the Muslims are the absolute lowest.

On the other hand, even passingly mentioning the idea of racially and religiously profiling Jews would be met with absolute shock. Yet, if we were to use Asra Nomani’s logic (and that of the right wing in general), then wouldn’t Iran be justified in racially and religiously profiling Jews in their country?  After all, logic dictates that a Jewish guy is much more likely to be an Israeli spy than anyone else.  Wouldn’t this be justified in light of the fact that Israel has repeatedly threatened Iran?  Shouldn’t national interest trump everything else?  So I’m sure we wouldn’t have a problem if the Iranians racially or religiously profiled Jews, right?

Racial and religious profiling is immoral.  Our nation had already come to this conclusion.  It is sad that Islamophobia has reintroduced this ugly evil.  Asra Nomani, like all bigots, has to justify her bigotry with the necessary disclaimer: “I’m not racist, but…”  She states:

I realize that in recent years, profiling has become a dirty word, synonymous with prejudice, racism, and bigotry…

Yes, she is correct.  It is certainly synonymous with prejudice, racism, and bigotry.  Too bad she didn’t stop there.  Nomani concludes (emphasis is mine):

We have to choose pragmatism over political correctness, and allow U.S. airports and airlines to do religious and racial profiling.

Pragmatism?  Perhaps Asra Nomani is a “racial realist”?  Racial realists are just being “pragmatic” when they argue for racially profiling young black men.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with pragmatism, or any desire to actually stop terrorism.  Terrorists do not fit one mold, and in fact come in all different shapes, sizes, and races.  The Underwear Bomber was a black guy, and so was the recent Somali would-be bomber…Show both pictures to any random person on the street, and see how many of them would recognize them as “Muslim.”  On the other hand, most people would see two black guys.  Asra Nomani argues not just for religious profiling, but racial profiling.  So is she arguing for racial profiling of black people?  Or perhaps just young black men?  The Underwear Bomber was Nigerian and the Oregon would-be bomber was Somali.  Nomani states that “they trace their national or ethnic identity back to specific countries.”  So, are we to screen out only Nigerians and Somalis as opposed to other black people?  How many people could make that fine distinction?  I’m sure there are plenty of black people–born and bred here in the United States–who could pass off as Nigerian or Somali.  Should we also profile them?

(Many Islamophobes will chime in that they oppose racial profiling but support religious profiling…Would it then be OK to religiously profile Jews in the 1970′s or for Iran to do so today?  The famous line “you-can’t-be-racist-against-Muslims-since-Muslim-is-not-a-race” is debunked by simply asking “would it be OK to discriminate against Jews in a similar fashion?”)

Asra Nomani came to Juan Williams’ defense, arguing that Williams was justified in fearing passengers who wore “Muslim garb.”  Yet, Al-Qaeda operatives are told to blend in.  They are not dressed in stereotypical “Muslim garb.”  Oftentimes, they are as clean-shaven as they come, and wearing Western clothes just like you or I.  Does Asra Nomani think that Al-Qaeda cannot recruit blue-eyed blond-haired terrorists?  They sure can, and they have.

There are certainly times when we must choose between the ideologically sound choice and the expedient one.  Even if that were the case here–even if we had to choose between being racially/religiously equal vs Being Safe–then our moral conscience should choose the former.  Even if racial or religious profiling made us safer, we should not opt for that route, since it goes against our moral character.  Benjamin Franklin famously said: “The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.”

But in this case, racial and religious profiling of Muslims does not make us safer at all. Andrew Curry wrote an excellent article on Salon.com (why on earth did a great website like Salon.com ever hire a right wing Tea Party sympathizing loon like Asra Nomani!?) on how a recent study found that “such profiling is not only ineffective, it’s counterproductive.”  (Not like the proponents of racial and religious profiling actually care about keeping us Safe; if they really did, they would be the first to oppose U.S.-led invasions, occupations, and bombings of Muslim countries.) The article reads:

In a study released on Tuesday, the Open Society Institute — a think tank and democracy-promotion organization funded by billionaire George Soros — argues that racial profiling of Muslims is essentially a public relations tool designed to make people feel safer in the immediate aftermath of a terror attack. After the 2006 bus and subway bombings in London, for example, highly publicized raids on mosques or ID checks in Muslim areas gave the public the impression the police were taking action.

There is also the desire to use racial and religious profiling to single out and blame Muslims.  Your people are to blame.  And Asra Nomani, the ever eager self-hating loon, chants: my people are to blame for all this.  But just because she is Muslim, it does not give her the right to cede Muslim rights to the majority population.  She cannot be allowed to speak for all Muslims, no more than Uncle Tom was allowed to speak for black people.  Neither should Nomani be thought of as some Muslim “liberal and progressive”, when in fact she has nothing to do with liberals and progressives.  Liberals and progressives stand for all minority groups, be they Christians being targeted in Iraq by Muslim extremists or Muslims being targeted by Jewish extremists in Israeli Occupied Territories.  We stand up for them not to score cheap political points, nor to reinforce the Team Muhammad vs Team Jesus mentality.  The last thing we tolerate is the demonization and singling out of one community, which is what Asra Nomani facilitates.  She is not a liberal or progressive Muslim; she is a self-hating loon and self-absorbed opportunist.

This entire “I’m a Muslim, Please Profile Me” nonsense is theatrics.  Nomani knows she would be immune from scrutiny due to her fame.  Subjecting her fellow Muslims to such treatment–which she herself calls “cop-a-feel strategy” and knows is an outrage to The Real Americans (Good Judeo-Christian White Folks)–this she has no problem with.  She has no qualms about selling out her religious community for the fame and money it provides her.

Update #1:

It seems that the last article Asra Nomani wrote for Salon was in 2003.  Perhaps she realized that a right wing nut like herself has no reason to write for such a website.  In light of the fact that Nomani’s last article on Salon was so many years ago, it might be making much ado about nothing to question that site about this.  Nonetheless, I think it might behoove people to message Salon and especially people like Glenn Greenwald to give them a heads up that Asra Nomani does not in any way, shape, or form represent Muslims.  This is not to say that a Muslim is not allowed to give a dissenting opinion from the Standard Muslim Line…I’m all for that.  But, notice how she seems to use her Religious Affiliation as an immunity card, always making sure that it is known that she is a Real Life Muslim.  Furthermore, she posits herself as a representative for Muslims, using such constructs as “The Tea Party activists actually express the sentiments of Muslims such as myself…”  A Muslim supporting the Tea Party is as much of a political oddity as a gay black man supporting the Republican party.  Ms. Nomani, try making an argument without seeking to validate it with the “I’m-a-Muslim” routine.

Update #2:

Asra Nomani’s support for the right wing Islamophobia machine was highlighted in a previous profile of the loon Wafa Sultan by our very own Garibaldi. Sultan, like Nomani, lives off of the anti-Muslim cash cow–the “I’m a real life (former?) Muslim” canard–and she uses it to deliver speeches and write books declaring Islam a greater threat to civilization than Nazism.  Amongst other things, Sultan is friends with and is admired by career Islamophobe Pamela Geller, who she often lectures with.  Sultan was seen at a synagogue calling for nuclear strikes on Muslim countries.

Asra Nomani, the so-called “liberal and progressive”, has expressed her deep admiration for Wafa Nuke-the-Muslims Sultan, referring to her as a fellow “bad girl of Islam.”  From Garibaldi’s article on Sultan:

Another good example of her (Sultan’s) tale of woe is the profile carried by self-described “bad girl of Islam” Asra Nomani in TIME magazine. Asra Nomani, who can’t pen anything without including herself writes,

I connected with her (Sultan’s) anger and pain. She questioned Islam in 1979, when, she says, she witnessed the murder of a professor by men with alleged ties to the ultraconservative Muslim Brotherhood political group.

One wonders if Nomani was so moved by her “connection” with Sultan that she (and her editors) forgot to fact check whether or not Sultan actually could have witnessed the murder of her professor in her classroom. InFocus, a California based magazine did more thorough research into the matter than TIME in a piece titled Wafa Sultan: Reformist or Opportunist,

As to the claim that her professor (thought to be Yusef Al-Yusef) was gunned down before her eyes in a faculty classroom at the University of Aleppo, Halabi said the incident never took place. “There was a professor who was killed around 1979, that is true, but it was off-campus and Sultan was not even around when it happened,” he added.

InFocus contacted the University of Aleppo and spoke to Dr. Riyad Asfari, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, who confirmed Halabi’s account. “Yes, the assassination took place off-campus,” he said. Dr. Asfari was keen to add that no one had ever been killed in a classroom anytime or anywhere at the university.

Syrian expatriate Ghada Moezzin, who attended the University of Aleppo in 1979 as a sophomore, told InFocus that she never heard of the assassination. “We would’ve known about the killing if it had happened,” she said. “It would have been big news on campus and I do not recall ever hearing about it.” Moezzin, who lives in Glendora, Calif., added that government security was always present around the university given the political climate in Syria at the time.

Update #3:

Anyone read Asra Nomani’s article entitled “My Big Fat Muslim Wedding?” In it, she uses her n=1 experience to stereotype Pakistani men as brutish.  A great reply to her silly article was written by G. Willow Wilson:

“Police Blotter Scholar” Robert Spencer, of course, was all over the arrest of the Somali-American man in Oregon as another piece of evidence that Islam is really violent and it only inspires violence and “jihad.” But, like I said before, there are very important things he won’t tell you.

In this latest episode, Spencer did not (and will probably never) tell you that the FBI was tipped off to the young Somali-American by his own father:

However, a prominent member of the Somali community in Portland (estimated to number 8,000) says a relative played some role in helping to put the FBI on the young man’s trail — though that relative was almost certainly unaware of the scale it would assume. “Before this happened, the father informed Homeland Security and the FBI that something was going on with his son,” claims Isgow Mohamed, executive director of the Northwest Somali Community Organization, who says he knows Mohamud’s family well and had been in touch with them.

In fact, Adam Serwer at the American Prospect elucidates how many terrorist plots have been foiled with the help of the Muslim community:

October 2001: The conviction of “Portland 7” case was substantially helped after a local police officer encountered the suspects engaged in target practice. The police officer had been sent to the area after a local citizen notified police that he heard gunfire.

September 2002:Members of the “Lackawanna 6” are arrested. FBI first becomes aware of their activities in June 2001 when a local Muslim community member tips off the FBI.

March 2002: FBI become aware of a possible terror plot by Imran Mandhai (and later Shueyb Jokhan) after they are notified by an American Muslim named “Saif Allah” who attended Mandhai and Jokhan’s same mosque provides a tip.

June 2003: FBI receive two tips from community members notifying them “military-style training” was being conducted suspect by Ali Al-Tamimi. The tip set in motion an
investigation later leading to the arrest of the so-called “Paintball 11” in Northern Virginia.

August 2004: James Elshafay and Shahwar Matin Sirajare arrested largely based on the controversial use of an informant in the investigation. However, NYPD were first notified of Siraj after a Muslim community member anonymously notifies New York police about consistently troubling rhetoric coming from the suspect.

February 2006: Muslim community members in Ohio provide information helping to arrest and eventually convict 3 suspects planning attacks in Iraq.

July 2009: Mosque leaders in Raleigh, North Carolina, contact law enforcement to notify them of “violent, threatening action … considered to be dangerous” leading to the arrest of Daniel Boyd and 6 other individuals.

November 2009: Five Virginia Muslim youth are arrested in Pakistan, allegedly seeking to join a terror group, after family members told American federal authorities they went
missing.

April 2010: Senegalese Muslim Alioune Niass first spots the suspicious vehicle used as a bomb to attack Times Square in New York City. Clues from the vehicle and defused explosive immediately led to the suspect, Faisal Shahzad’s, arrest.

June 2010: Suspects Mohammed Mahmoud Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte are arrested, after the FBI first receives an anonymous report in 2006 from one of the suspects’ family members. News reports indicate one of Alessa’s family members provided the tip.

But, of course, this goes against the narrative that Spencer wants to put forward. Thus, he will not tell you anything that will put the Muslim community in a positive light. Now, I really don’t expect anything else from the likes of Spencer, but it is important that you, the reader, know the truth.

Loonwatch has previously reported the links between the Tea Party and the far-right English Defense League or individual loons like Rick Lazio, Rabbi Nachum Shifren, and aBrooklyn group protesting Park51. We’ve posted Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams’ “Allah is a Monkey God, Muslims are His Animals” remarks along with his amusing charges that the NAACP is a “racist” group. We’ve posted the NAACP’s resolution condemning racism within the Tea Party.

Now the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights has released a study of the Tea Party showing that nativism and bigotry is rampant within the movement. It’s not just blacks, gays, Latinos, immigrants, and Muslims.

Tea Partiers are equal opportunity haters.

The complete 94-page report, which studies six of the national Tea Party organizations and includes a forward by NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous, notes several efforts that the various Tea Party organizations have made to soften criticism for their racism. For instance, Mark Williams was eventually fired for his Islamophobic remarks, as was Tim Ravndal for his calls for violence against gays. It also cautions that not everyone within the Tea Party movement is a racist:

“It would be a mistake to claim that all Tea Partiers are nativist vigilantes or racists of one stripe or another, and this report manifestly does not make that claim. As this report highlights, however, all of the national Tea Party factions have had problems in these areas. Of the national factions, only FreedomWorks Tea Party, headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area, has made an explicit attempt to narrow the focus of the movement as a whole to fiscal issues — an effort that has largely failed, as this report documents.”

But the report takes the Tea Party to task for the nativism found within most groups, suggesting that its core issues are less economic and more xenophobic:

“The result of this study contravenes many of the Tea Parties’ self-invented myths, particularly their supposedly sole concentration on budget deficits, taxes and the power of the federal government. Instead, this report found Tea Party ranks to be permeated with concerns about race and national identity and other so-called social issues.”

“While Tea Partiers and their supporters are concerned about the current economic recession and the increase in government debt and spending it has occasioned, there is no observable statistical link between Tea Party membership and unemployment levels.”

The report warns:

“Tea Party organizations have given platforms to anti-Semites, racists, and bigots. Further, hard-core white nationalists have been attracted to these protests, looking for potential recruits and hoping to push these (white) protestors towards a more self-conscious and ideological white supremacy. One temperature gauge of these events is the fact that longtime national socialist David Duke is hoping to find money and support enough in the Tea Party ranks to launch yet another electoral campaign in the 2012 Republican primaries. [...] The leading figures in one national faction, 1776 Tea Party (the faction more commonly known as TeaParty.org), were imported directly from the anti-immigrant vigilante organization, the Minuteman Project. Tea Party Nation has provided a gathering place for so-called birthers and has attracted Christian nationalists and nativists.”

The largest and fastest growing group is Tea Party Patriots. The report describes its May 2010 convention in Gatlinburg:

“Notable among the workshops were presentations by Pam Geller, an anti-Islam agitator; and a set by the Oath Keepers, a quasi-militia group that focuses on recruiting law enforcement officers and military personnel, and defending their version of the Constitution. A similar workshop with Spike Constitution Defenders, mixed a bit of Posse Comitatus-style rhetoric into their propaganda. Another workshop presenter, Samuel Duck, conducted a workshop advocating repeal of both the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendment.”

The second largest Tea Party group is ResistNet which is described as “notable” as a home to nativists and Islamophobes. It includes a number of militia members and anti-immigration activists, including Robert Dameron, founder of Citizens for the State of Washington (Yakima, WA); Wendell Neal, leader of the Tulsa Minutemen (Broken Arrow, OK); Mike Jarbeck, director of the Florida chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (Orlando, FL); David Caulkett, creator of IllegalAliens.us and Report Illegals (Pompano Beach, FL); Robin Hvidston of the Southern California Minuteman Project and Gilchrist Angels (Upland, CA); Ruthie Hendrycks, founder of Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform (Hanska, MN); Evert Evertsen, founder of Minutemen Midwest (Harvard, IL); and Rosanna Pulido, the founder of the Chicago Minutemen and a former staffer for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (Chicago, IL).

The report adds:

“Another ResistNet partner organization is TakeAmericaBack.org, a website launched in April 2009 to publish anti-immigrant propaganda. One article claimed that ‘multiculturalism’ demands that ‘Americans learn to speak Spanish so illegals can take over America with foreign cultures.’ Another article on this site concluded that ‘a Kenyan, Communist, son of a terrorist, as our wannabe president, who has not only expressed his hatred of America, but is also an avowed Muslim…’ Also included among the official partners is a trio of groups run by anti-Islam activist Pam Geller.”

“It is this untenable attempt to vilify President Obama as ‘non-American’ and ‘foreign’ that pushes a significant number of ResistNet Tea Partiers out of the ranks of a responsible opposition and into the columns of bigots and xenophobes.”

One minor quibble: it’s not just the attack on President Obama that moves these wackos into the column of bigotry and xenophobia.

Next in membership and growth is Tea Party Nation. Describing its Convention in Nashville in February 2010:

“Despite all of these pre-conference difficulties, the convention in Nashville was well attended. Sarah Palin spoke there, generating discussion about her speaking fee, rumored to be over $100,000. Underneath the hoopla attending Palin’s appearance, the convention highlighted the place of Christian conservatives, indeed Christian nationalism, inside this movement generally, and in Judson’s Tea Party Nation specifically. The convention also built bridges to nativists and so-called birthers. There was a marked shift away from a supposed focus on bailouts and budget deficits towards a culture war.”

The convention was also attended by an inexplicable (and to this Jewish writer, a disgusting) number of Jewish ultraconservatives, including Andrew Breitbart, Orly Taitz, and members of the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. It wasn’t that long ago that we were reviled by such bigots; now some of us are sleeping with these people.

At the bottom of the list and the bottom of the barrel is the 1776 Tea Party, heavily loaded with vigilante militiamen. These guys (and the membership is overwhelmingly male) practically define the word “fringe.”

“On February 27, 2009, Robertson attended a Tea Party event in Houston with a sign reading ‘Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = Niggar.’ He’s also sent out racist fundraising emails depicting President Obama as a pimp. Robertson also has a history of promoting anti-Semites on his ‘Tea Party Hour’ radio program. Both incidents increased the negative publicity surrounding the 1776 Tea Party, but its notoriety did not stop two leaders of an anti-immigrant vigilante group, Minuteman Project, from stepping in to run the 1776 organization.”

The report includes a chapter, Tea Parties – Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Militia Impulse. The Tea Party is riddled with anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, white supremacists, militia members, and Christian Identity spokesmen. Dale Robertson, chairman of the 1776 Tea Party, supports the views of Pastor John Weaver:

“According to [Weaver's] particular theology, Jews are considered a satanic force (or the incarnation of Satan himself), and people of color are considered less than fully human. By contrast, the white people of northern Europe are considered racial descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel, and the United States of America is considered their ‘promised land;’ a theory descended from a theology known as British-Israelism. Although Weaver describes his particular outlook as a variant of ‘Dominionism,’ his essay, ‘The Sovereignty of God and Civil Government’ was listed in a book catalogue published by the British-Israel World Federation. As such, this would place Weaver just one step to the right of the most radical forms of Christian fundamentalism. The list of out-front anti-Semites on Tea Party platforms includes an event in July 2009. One thousand people gathered in Upper Senate Park for a rally in D.C. A full line-up of speakers included representatives from several tax reform groups, FreedomWorks, and talk show hosts. Also on the platform that day was the band Poker Face, playing music, providing technical back up, and receiving nothing but plaudits from the crowd. The band, from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, already had a reputation for anti-Semitism. Lead singer Paul Topete was on the public record calling the Holocaust a hoax, and writing and performing for American Free Press — a periodical published by Willis Carto, the godfather of Holocaust denial in the United States. According to Topete, ‘The Rothschilds set up the Illuminati in 1776 to subvert the Christian basis of civilization.’ Because of their bigotry, the band had been kicked off venues at Rutgers University in 2006 and a Ron Paul campaign event in 2007. But they made it to the stage of the Tea Party without any questions asked.”

And there’s a lot more in the IREHR document: David Duke, European fascists, neoconservatives, and loons like Pamela Geller. But in the interests of space and time, read the frightening report yourself.

http://teapartynationalism.com/index.php

Many people are feeding into the fear mongering frenzy that Islam and Muslims are going to take over and overrun the West, here Rabbi David Rosen a prominent Jewish religious leader succumbs to such tactics.

Leading rabbi says Europe risks being ‘overrun’ by Islam

ANDREW RETTMAN

Today @ 09:42 CET

EUOBSERVER / JERUSALEM – One of the luminaries of the international Jewish community, Rabbi David Rosen, has warned that Europe risks being “overrun” by Islam unless it rediscovers its Christian roots.

Speaking to journalists at a meeting in Jerusalem on Friday (26 November), Rabbi Rosen, the director of inter-religious affairs at the Washington-based American Jewish Congress, said that a predominantly secular and liberal Western European society is under threat by the rapid growth of Islamic communities that do not want to integrate with their neighbours.

“I am against building walls. My humanity is my most important component. But Western society very clearly doesn’t have a strong identity. I would like Christians in Europe to become more Christian … those who do not have a strong identity are easily overrun by those who do,” the rabbi warned.

“I think there is a pretty good chance that your grandchildren, if they are not Muslim, then they will be very strong Roman Catholics,” he told one Italian reporter. “I don’t think a tepid identity can stand up to the challenge.”

Rabbi Rosen’s views are shared by a number of Jewish commentators, who look at the demographic growth of Muslims in Europe with the same trepidation as the demographic growth of Arabs in Israel.

The question we must ask of Rabbi Rosen and others who share his views or forward similar views is, how can they believe the character, foundation and beliefs of Europe are so fickle that a minority population (that all indications show is integrated) will so dramatically alter Europe? It exposes a profound lack of confidence in Europe.

The SPLC has put the “Dove World” organization on their hate groups list. We are still waiting for the SPLC to put Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) on the hate list.

Dove World to be listed as a hate group

By Chad Smith
Staff writer

Published: Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 9:11 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 9:11 p.m.
Dove World Outreach Center, the Gainesville church behind the “Islam is of the devil” signs and plans to burn the Quran, will be listed next year as a hate group, joining the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, the Southern Poverty Law Center announced this week.

“It wasn’t a very hard call to be honest with you,” said Mark Potok, who tracks extremism for the Montgomery, Ala.-based civil rights organization and serves as editor of its magazine. “Essentially (Dove World Pastor Terry Jones) is completely over the top with his hatred of gay people and of Muslims.”

In the latest issue of the SPLC publication, the church was featured with 17 other small groups around the country that “pump out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.”

SPLC noted Dove World’s anti-gay stances, including its “No homo Mayor” signs during the city’s spring elections and its joining with the controversial Westboro Baptist Church — a small Kansas church that protests military funerals and other denominations — when that church was in town in April.

“I don’t know of any other group at all that has demonstrated alongside the Westboro Baptist Church,” Potok said.

Dove World will become the third Gainesville-based hate group on the SPLC’s list, joining an Imperial Klans of America chapter and a skinhead group called The Hated. Others listed include the Nation of Islam, the Jewish Defense League and Westboro.

Jamal Alshaer, the former interim director of the Islamic Center of Gainesville, said Dove World qualifies for the list.

Thought provoking study from Gallup and Dalia Mogahed.

Muslims worldwide say respect is key to better relations with U.S., West

ADELLE M. BANKS, Religion News Service

WASHINGTON — About half of Muslims surveyed worldwide believe the West does not respect them, according to a new Gallup report, and many say not desecrating the Quran and portraying more “accurate” Muslim movie characters could improve a strained relationship.

The findings are part of a report on “Measuring the State of Muslim-West Relations,” released Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010, at Gallup’s Washington headquarters.

“We also found that this concept of respect … now includes perceptions of fairness in policies, not just culturally sensitive language,” said Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Fifty-four percent of Muslims said being treated fairly in policies that directly affect them would be a very meaningful demonstration of respect.
Mogahed said the “policies” were not defined in the new report, but past Gallup studies have found that respondents were particularly concerned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nearly three-quarters of Muslims polled said increased respect for the Quran and other religious symbols would be helpful. About half want to see Muslims portrayed more accurately by Hollywood.

Researchers found people across the globe — from the United States to sub-Saharan Africa — believe the tensions between Muslim countries and the West are mostly avoidable.

“This was especially true among people who saw the conflict as political in nature,” Mogahed said, “rather than caused by religious differences.”

In most of the countries surveyed, people said greater interaction between Muslims and the West is a benefit rather than a threat. In the U.S., 76 percent of individuals saw such interaction as beneficial, compared to 63 percent of Iranians.

Gallup researchers classified individuals as being “ready” or “not ready” for Muslim-Western engagement based on their attitudes about commitment to such relations, as well as perceptions of respect and of future conflict.
Researchers said religion plays a key role in readiness.

“For ‘Not Ready’ individuals, irrespective of whether they live in majority-Muslim or Western societies, religion is the factor most likely to be cited as being at the root of Muslim-Western tensions,” the report stated in its executive summary.

The report detected a religious paradox between the two sides: people in majority-Muslim societies who were considered “ready,” and those in the West who were “not ready,” were both more likely to have attended religious services in the past week.

The findings are based on interviews with more than 100,000 in more than 55 countries between March 2008 and May 2010.

Muslims and Christians hold their respective holy scriptures at a gathering to support peace amongst the various confessions in Iraq.

After months of heated argument and vitriolic anti-Muslim agitation and Islamophobia the mosque in Temecula has been approved.

After tense and heated comments, Temecula Planning Commission approves mosque

BY ROCKY SALMON,  SWRNN
A lengthy and heated Temecula Planning Commission hearing on a proposed mosque ended with an approval to the cheers of proponents.

Opponents of the 24,943-square-foot mosque have stated plans to appeal the decision to the City Council over concerns on traffic and the politics tied to the association to Islam.

The commissioners unanimously voted on the mosque proposed by the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley. The mosque will be built in two phases in a rural area along Nicolas Road near Chaparral High School.

“The project has met all the conditions placed before them and in fact has exceeded them,” said commissioner Ron Guerriero.

The group has spent years praying inside a small industrial building on Rio Nedo near Old Town Temecula. The commission was not voting on the merits of religion rather on whether there would be any violations of city codes, especially traffic, if approved. The mosque requires a conditional-use permit.

The staff report states the traffic analysis shows the mosque would have less than significant impact to the roads in the area. The group would need to add two-way left turn lane at the eastbound direction at Nicolas Road and Calle Colibri.

The study further states that the intersections of Winchester and Nicolas roads and Winchester and Margarita Roads are already operating under a less than satisfactory level of service. The traffic study states congestion in the area will ease with the implementation of a city-wide electronic traffic monitoring system, which officials expect to be running by April 2011.

The mosque will have two entrances – both along Calle Colibri.

The mosque will build 104 parking spaces for phase one. The first phase will include a 4,157 square foot building that houses a prayer hall and storage area. The second phase will add to the prayer hall with a 20,786 square foot two-story expansion. The center will build additional parking spaces for a total of 181.

The buildings will have two minarets that will blend with the Mediterranean architecture of the mosque. The minarets will not be taller than the highest point of the main building.

The public hearing on the proposal started at 6:30 p.m. The city opened up two rooms for over-flow crowds with sound from the meeting piped in.

The commissioners listened to impassioned pleas from both sides until 11 p.m. Through out the night, residents shouted, applauded and even booed during speeches. Chairman Carl Carey had to warn the crowd a dozen times and used his gavel to maintain order.

Opponents of the project focused at first on traffic issues.

Laura Scott said she is not against the center but concerned about the lack of infrastructure.

“Nicolas Road can’t support any facility of this magnitude,” she said. “This is a double lane road, poorly maintained with potholes. Don’t decide on this proposal until Nicolas Road has been expanded.”

Other opponents requested the traffic study be redone at a different time in the day and also do a thorough study of traffic at mosques in other counties.

Comments quickly turned toward fear of Islamic extremism coming to Temecula and the mosque being used for extremist camps.

“Islam is not a religion but a political ideology,” said Amy Pina. “This is about the survival of the United States.”

Proponents called the fears unsubstantiated and pointed to the fact that there have been no problems with the Islamic Center.

“I know there is a lot of fear here in this room,” said Rebecca Al-Ghizawi, a member of the Temecula Women’s Islamic Center. “These people stand up and say its about traffic then sit down and mumble about how Islam will take over this country. It has a name: institutional prejudice. I hope this commission does not hold this against us.”

In the end, the commissioners said they were ashamed by some of the statements and said the project met the conditions.

“As a citizen I can say I was flabbergasted by the rhetoric I heard tonight,” said commissioner John Telesio. “Ignorance of the facts breeds fear. Fear breeds hatred. Unfortunately I saw a lot of that today.”

Read more: http://www.swrnn.com/southwest-riverside/2010-12-01/news/after-tense-and-heated-comments-temecula-planning-commission-approves-mosque#ixzz16yISRK3Z

Have a great Hannukah especially Gefilte and Mindy!

Say what? First it was the Quran swearing controversy, then Ellison was accused of being more dangerous than AlQaeda and now…this.

And can you believe it, Michelle Bachman and other politicians are fundraising for these guys.

Bradlee Dean: Keith Ellison is advancing Sharia law through ‘homosexual agenda’

By Andy Birkey |(Minnesota Independent)

Bradlee Dean of the religious ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International believes Rep. Keith Ellison’s support for LGBT rights is part of his strategy to bring Sharia law to the United States. On his radio show Saturday, Dean said that members of the LGBT community are fools for supporting Ellison and that the Minnesota Democrat is “adamant about overthrowing the United States Constitution.”

Sharia law is the sacred law of Islam and derives its condemnation of homosexuality from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, as do fellow Abrahamic traditions Christianity and Judaism. As with Christian and Jewish approaches to LGBT issues, Muslim interpretations of  Sharia laws on homosexuality vary widely, ranging from full support to prescribing a death sentence for it.

“I said time and time again that there is a correlation between the Muslims and the homosexual agenda, and we have a couple of fools in the state of Minnesota that are putting a rope around their neck and they just don’t realize it,” said Dean

Dean said that Ellison’s support for protections for LGBT people from hate crimes and for same-sex marriage is part of an attempt to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and implement Sharia law.

“Why is he so adamant about overthrowing the Constitution as it is right now? Because if you pay attention to the plow he’s planting the seed,” Dean said. “He’s trying to come through with Sharee [sic] law.”

Raising his voice, he urged his listeners, “Does somebody want to talk to the homosexual community in the state of Minnesota and tell them what he is doing? Go online, folks! You love the homosexuals so much then why don’t you tell them who they’ve appointed as their chairperson? He’s a Muslim!”

He continued, “Hello? Why is he after it? Because he wants to bring in Sharee [sic] law through the homosexual agenda!”

“They are using the homosexuals as a political battering ram to bring forth what? Sharee [sic] law.”

LGBT leaders in the United States are “ignorant,” Dean said, for allowing Ellison to serve as co-chair of the House LGBT Caucus.

“What is Keith up to? I think we have to ask the question, Keith,” said Dean. “I’m just asking the gay communities what’s up with Keith Ellison because they are so foolish, blind and stupid not to figure out that their vice chair is a Muslim. This is no hidden secret, folks. This is in America. Who is this guy working for?”

“Why is this guy advocating the overthrow of the United States Constitution in the state of Minnesota?”

Dean then played an audio clip of an unidentified Muslim who said that Sharia law calls for the execution of homosexuals.

“I would say to the homosexuals: You better keep your eyes peeled. You are playing the fools. I knew there was a correlation. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. And the homosexuals are using the Muslims to do it, and the Muslims are using the homosexuals to do it. The homosexuals are playing the fool to the Muslims.”

He continued, “That’s how foolish these homosexuals are in Minnesota. God is not mocked. You can’t spit against heaven and not expect to fall upon your own back. And that’s exactly what’s happening to those that want to play the devil’s advocate.”

To Ellison, Dean said, “Keith you can call me any time. Let’s see how much of an American you really are.” He added the Ellison’s office has not returned his calls. Ellison’s office has not yet responded to the Minnesota Independent’s query about whether Dean has called or to offer comment on Dean’s statements.

Ellison has been forthright about his beliefs about Islam and homosexuality, and he has repeatedly said that Islam has taught him the importance of civil rights and social justice.

Earlier this year, Ellison addressed the Unitarian Universalist National Convention in a speech that covered themes of faith, love and abundance. “There’s enough for the straight and the gay,” he said. “There’s enough for the people who were born in America and the new immigrants. There’s enough for the blacks, there’s enough for the whites, there’s enough for the Latinos, there’s enough for the Asians, there’s enough for the Muslims, the Christians, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Hindus! There’s enough, everybody!”

And in an interview with the Muslim Peace Fellowship he stated unequivocally that he opposes violence and discrimination against LGBT people.

“I’m not asking people to embrace homosexuality,” he said. “I’m saying it’s wrong and immoral to kill them, beat them or exclude them from working. You don’t have to like them. Leave ‘em alone. Let them live their lives and let God decide if He will judge them, as He will judge us all. That’s all I’m saying.”

The Minnesota Independent emailed You Can Run But You Cannot Hide for clarification on Dean’s statements about Ellison and whether the group believed Ellison would try to implement Sharia law that would call for the execution of homosexuals.

“Due to the fact that the Muslims are the ones who would enforce Sharia Law and execute homosexuals, and being that Keith Ellison is a Muslim, you should be asking him that question,” a spokesperson replied. “That is our point.”

“I think the problem here is that Bradlee is trying to warn you of your sin before God for your good, and time and time again, you treat Bradlee like he is your enemy for doing so,” the email continued. “He has stuck his neck out for you many times. Bradlee’s heart is out of a sincere and real love to turn all men from sin to God.”

“You should be writing an article about what the Muslims are saying, since they are the ones who want to execute homosexuals. We are here merely to look out for you in that sense. Why do you turn on those who warn you?”

But Dean seemed to applaud Muslims that call for such executions. On his May 15 radio show, Dean said:

“Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America. This just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination.”

Dean and his ministry have close ties to the Republican Party and GOP elected officials and candidates including gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Secretary of State and current state Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, and state Rep. Dan Severson. Rep. Michele Bachmann has fundraised for the group extensively in recent years as well.

On Monday Pamela Geller responded to the Constitutional victory for freedom of religion that struck down the Oklahoma anti-Sharia’ and unicorns measure with the usual shrill cries that it was the end of America and a “blow to freedom.”

She accused the Judge of being “ignorant.” She also wailed on about how all the judge had to do was look at Europe to see how Sharia’ is slowly taking over, “She only had to look to Europe and the UK to witness how sharia is slowly intorduced into free societies.”

Pamela also approved a comment that can still be viewed on her blog, “BLOW TO FREEDOM: JUDGE BLOCKS OKLAHOMA SHARIA BAN” (yes thats all Caps), which called for the death of “scum” (i.e. Muslims),

David Biograd said…
Absolutely. The scum must die then they need to die some more.
Maybe.
Eh.
I wish…

Oh no there’s no Islamophobia here! And then they wonder where violent attacks against Muslims come from?

I wonder if that arch hypocrite Spencer, who a week ago complained that Spencerwatch.com had approved a comment that called him a “cancer” will “refudiate” his pal Geller for approving a comment a million times worse than any on Spencerwatch or Loonwatch? Will he call on her to take down the comment? That is the very least he can do, but why would he since he publishes comments as egregious if not more so on his own website and on the SIOA page, but don’t hold your breath.