Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has said "there should be no mosques" in the USA
MRFF deserves a lot of credit for exposing to West Point the fact that General Boykin should not be speaking at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast.
Plans for a talk at West Point by a retired general known for his harshly anti-Muslim remarks were abruptly canceled on Monday after a growing list of liberal veterans’ groups, civil liberties advocates and Muslim organizations called on the Military Academy to rescind the invitation.
Lt. Gen William G. Boykin “has decided to withdraw speaking at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast” on Feb. 8, said a statement issued Monday by the academy’s office of public affairs. “In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the United States Military Academy will feature another speaker for the event.”
General Boykin, a longtime commander of Special Operations forces, first caused controversy after the Sept. 11 attacks when, as a senior Pentagon official, he described the fight against terrorism as a Christian battle against Satan. His remarks, made in numerous speeches to church groups, were publicly repudiated by President George W. Bush, who argued that America’s war was not with Islam but with violent fanatics.
Since his retirement in 2007 and a new career as a popular conservative Christian speaker, General Boykin has described Islam as “a totalitarian way of life” and said thatIslam should not be protected under the First Amendment.
Last week, after learning that General Boykin would be speaking at the prayer breakfast, a liberal veterans’ group,VoteVets.org, demanded that the invitation be revoked. In a letter to West Point’s superintendent, the group said General Boykin’s “incendiary rhetoric regarding Islam” was “incompatible with Army values” and would “put our troops in danger.”
Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, West Point’s director of public affairs, defended the invitation on Friday, saying that “cadets are purposefully exposed to different perspectives” and that the breakfast “will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish and Muslim cadets participating.”
But by Monday, several other groups had condemned the invitation and concern was also reportedly being voiced by some faculty members and cadets. The Forum on the Military Chaplaincy (a liberal group of retired military chaplains), the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations made public appeals to the Pentagon to cancel General Boykin’s appearance.
A fourth-year cadet at West Point, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals for breaking military discipline, said in a telephone interview before the cancellation was announced that “people are definitely talking about it here.”
“They’re inviting someone who’s openly criticizing a religion that is practiced on campus,” he said. “I know Muslim cadets here, and they are great, outstanding citizens, and this ex-general is saying they shouldn’t enjoy the same rights.”
The cadet asked, “Are we supposed to take leadership qualities and experience from this guy, to follow in his footsteps?”
A similar controversy erupted last week, in the days before General Boykin spoke at the mayor’s annual prayer breakfast in Ocean City, Md. The general made no inflammatory statements about Islam, instead describing how prayer had helped him through dangerous military operations.
But Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, said the West Point invitation was a mistake. West Point, Mr. Montgomery said, would have given “a platform to someone who is publicly identified with offensive comments about Muslims and about the commander in chief.”
General Boykin is a leader of an evangelical group called Kingdom Warriors and a visiting professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests seeking comment.
Barack Obama plays the same old dirty political trick of being irresistibly appealing, the Navy trains dolphins to sweep for mines, and the U.N. receives 35 pounds of cocaine. (06:11)
Recently speaking at a town hall meeting at an American Legion Hall in Lady Lake, Florida, presidential hopeful Rick Santorum fielded a question, or rather, a comment from a woman in the audience who forcefully proclaimed: “I never refer to Obama as President Obama because legally he is not. He constantly says that our constitution is passé, and he ignores it as you know and does what he darn well pleases. He is an avowed Muslim, and my question is, why isn’t something being done to get him out of government? He has no legal right to be calling himself president!”
Though Santorum opposes President Obama on many of the issues, he had a magnificent opportunity to take an ethical stand when addressing this woman, but he chose instead to virtually play into her obvious Islamophobic statements by merely responding to issues she raised related to the Constitution.
“Well look, I’m doing my best to get him out of the government right now, and you’re right about how he uniformly ignores the constitution,” Santorum responded. “He did this with these appointments over the recess that was not a recess, and if I was in the United States Senate I would be drawing the line.”
As the old truism goes, “If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.” By not standing up to this woman’s obvious Islamophobia, Santorum was complicit in the demonization, marginalization,, and victimization of Muslims and those perceived as Muslim.
Islamophobia can be defined as prejudice and discrimination toward the religion of Islam and Muslims who follow its teachings and practices. Like racism, sexism, and heterosexism, for example, Islamophobia is much more than a fear, for it is a taught and often learned attitude and behavior, and, therefore, falls under the category of oppression.
Islamophobia routinely surfaced throughout the last presidential election. Members of the political right challenged and spread rumors regarding Barack Obama’s cultural, social, and religious background, political philosophies, U.S. birth status, and patriotism. Insinuations flew about his supposed Islamic background connected to his explicit Marxist and fascist (which is a contradiction) political influences.
Opponents referred to him as Barack Hussein Obama — with emphasis on “Hussein” — in their attempts to connect him not only to the Muslim faith, but also to the former ruler of Iraq. In actuality, his middle name is indeed “Hussein,” which in Arabic translates to “good” or “beautiful.” Furthermore, since this country is founded on the principle of freedom of religion, whichever religious or non-religious background any candidate, or any individual, follows should in no way disqualify or call into question their credentials.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released its 2006 report finding that approximately 25% of U.S.-Americans consider Islam as a religion of hatred and violence, and that those with the most biased attitudes tend to be older, less educated, politically conservative, and are more often to belong to the Republican Party.
Today, especially since September 11, 2001, we see growing numbers of violent acts directed against Muslims. During the single year of 2005, for example, CAIR listed a total of 1,522 civil rights violations against American Muslims, 114 of which were violent hate crimes. The report included incidents of violence, as well as harassment and discriminatory treatment, including “unreasonable arrests, detentions, and searches/seizures.” For example, the CAIR report included an incident in which a Muslim woman wearing a hijab (the garment many Muslim women wear in public) took her baby for a walk in a stroller, when a man driving a truck nearly ran them over. The woman cried out that, “You almost killed my baby!,” and the man responded, “It wouldn’t have been a big loss.”
Nearly one-quarter of all reported civil rights violations against American Muslims involve unwarranted arrests and searches. Law enforcement agencies routinely “profile” Muslims of apparent Middle Eastern heritage in airports or simply while driving in their cars for interrogation and invasive and aggressive searches. In addition, governmental agencies, such as the IRS and FBI, continue to enter individuals’ private homes and mosques and make unreasonable arrests and detentions.
I find the current political tenor very disconcerting as candidates attack, demonize, stereotype, and scapegoat not only other candidates, but also entire groups of U.S. citizens whom they blame for causing the problems of our country.
Democracy demands an educated electorate. Democracy demands responsibility on the part of the electorate to critically examine our politicians so they can make truly informed decisions.
But I observe a certain anti-intellectualism within current political discourse. How often do we hear politicians “accuse” other candidates or those serving in public office of being part of some so-called “elitist” intellectual establishment, or talk about some “elitist” media who are all out of touch with “real” Americans.
And what about the gendering of politics when we are told either that women don’t have the temperament to lead or when a politician calls an opponent’s manhood into questions by demanding them to “man up”? Or blaming those who support marriage for same-sex couples as contributing to the eventual downfall of not only the institution of marriage, but for the ultimate collapse of civilization as we know it? Or blaming working class and poor people who occasionally need a helping hand from the government?
During economic downturns, charismatic and not-so-charismatic leaders attempt to exploit the fears of the public in their quests for power and control. Conservative political discourse centers on “F” words: Faith, Family, Freedom, and the Flag. This set of buzz words comprise the foundation on which politicians tell us we should decide who is truly worthy of our votes.
It does us all a great disservice, though, when we vote either for or against candidates based in large measure on their religious backgrounds. How many of us oppose Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu candidates? How many of us would even consider atheist, agnostic, Pagan, Wiccan candidates?
We must cut through the coded xenophobic, racialized, and classist language, for often when politicians use the words “poor,” “welfare,” “inner city,” “food stamps,” “entitlements,” “bad neighborhoods,” “foreign,” they tap into many white people’s anxieties and past racist teachings of people of color. Though white people comprise the largest percentage of current food stamp recipients, 34 percent, the common perception and societal stereotype depicts black people as abusing the system. In addition, the buzz phrase, “personal responsibility,” now has become a catch phrase to justify cutting benefits to people with disabilities, older people, and those who have fallen on hard times and need assistance.
So-called “social issues” become wedge issues to attract people to a particular candidate. In the final analysis, though, when middle and working class people vote for these candidates, they essentially vote against their own economic self-interests.
After careful and continuous vetting to plow through the reality from the show; the truth in their message from their appeals to fears and insecurities; their sincerity and ability to bring people together from their overt and covert attempts to divide; their talents and strengths from their bravado and performance; their attempts to maintain their integrity, their compassion, their humanity, and their empathy from their insincerity, manipulation, half-truths, lies, and complicity in perpetuating public fears; their attempts to answer questions honestly rather than giving answers derived from polling data saying what they think we want to hear rather than what they actually believe, these are the things we need to consider when judging our candidates. We must rate them on the quality of their characters, on their policies, and how well we believe they will follow through on what they promise.
As I travel across our country, I observe a large number of homes proudly displaying American flags, the red, white, and blue flying and rippling in the wind on poles or porches in front yards. But patriotism and true commitment to our democracy takes more, much more; for it demands of us all the needed time, effort, and commitment to critically investigate all aspects of the great gift we have been given in our representative form of government: the gift of our vote. Anything less would be to waste our enfranchisement, to silence our voices, and to slap the faces of all who have gone before to envision and protect our form of government.
“One second I’m comfortable in bed, and the next second I’m running out of the house in the freezing cold, running for my life,” recalls Mohamed Soltan.
Soltan, a sixth-year in economics at Ohio State, and his roommate Ahmed Mahmoud, a third-year in finance, were victims of arson in their Hilliard home on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The FBI, along with the Hilliard Division of Police, have yet to identify the culprit of the arson that caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs.
On Jan. 16, Norwich Township Fire Department responded to a 911 call made by Soltan at about 5:30 a.m.
Mahmoud, the first of the two to discover the fire, said although he did hear what he described as a “loud banging noise,” it was not until the smoke detectors went off that he realized the house was on fire.
“I immediately ran into Mohamed’s room and woke him up. That’s when we realized the situation and what’s going on, and we got out of the house,” Mahmoud said. “At first, I figured it was Mohamed moving around. I was laying in bed and all of a sudden the smoke detectors went off.”
Soltan said he was in a deep sleep, and it wasn’t until Mahmoud woke him up that he became aware of his surroundings.
“I’m a very heavy sleeper, and I remember Ahmed coming into my room shouting ‘Soltan, Soltan, there’s a fire’,” Soltansaid.
Both men said they did not actually see the fire, but they were surrounded by thick clouds of smoke as they made their way out of the burning house.
Soltan calls the arson a hate crime, saying there was no way the fire was an accident.
“We don’t use the fireplace; I make sure that (when) I cook, I turn everything off, so there is no way this could’ve been anything else but a hate crime,” Soltan said. “So for someone to purposefully set the house on fire while people are sleeping at five in the morning, there is no other explanation for it that these people are attempting to kill my friend and I.”
Doug Francis, chief of police for the city of Hilliard, said the origins of the fire seemed “suspicious,” due to the lack of burn patterns, the fire’s point of origin and the use of flammable materials.
“Our investigations show that there was in fact an accelerant utilized in the home, and they ruled out any natural cause of the fire, and so with utilizing their tools, they determined it was an arson,” Francis said.
Francis said the FBI and the Norwich Township Fire Department are also involved in the investigation.
Francis contacted the FBI because there have been previous reports of Soltan’s home and car being painted with anti-Arab and anti-Muslim slurs.
“We immediately brought in the FBI simply because if we did determine it was in fact an arson, we also wanted to look at it as a potential hate crime,” Francis said.
Francis also said in order to determine the arson as a hate crime, the individual responsible for the fire must be captured.
Despite media reports saying the motive behind the arson was to target the 24-year-old’s father, Salah Soltan, who is said to be a controversial Muslim scholar, Mohamed Soltan said his father’s opinions and views are “irrelevant.”
“My father’s views are 4,000 miles away,” Mohamed Soltan said.
Eric Manske, fire marshal at Norwich Township Fire Department, said the fire originated at the “back half of the house.”
Francis called the arson a form of “ethnic intimidation,” and said the case is “very unique” because Hilliard has never experienced cases of hate crime in the past.
“Not only has it destroyed a home, but it has provided a lot of fear in the victim and that’s what happens with these ethnic intimidation and hate crime issues,” Francis said.
Jennifer Nimer, legal director for the Ohio chapter of The Council on American-Islamic Relations, said she has called the FBI to report the arson as a hate crime.
Nimer also said there is only one hate crime incident she’s come across in her seven years with CAIR that was as “drastic” as Mahmoud and Mohamed Soltan’s case.
“A couple of years ago a woman that was sprayed in the face with pepper spray, that’s probably the most egregious incident other than this one that I’ve come across since I’ve been working here,” Nimer said.
The Danish People’s Party (DPP) wants to put a stop to immigration from Muslim countries, according to a new press release by the party. The party says Muslims don’t integrate and cause big problems with shariah zones, parallel societies and social control.
The announcement followed the release of marriage figures for immigrant groups. According to the new figures, just 20% of non-Western 2nd generation immigrants marry Danes. Among Pakistanis and Turks the figures are less than 10%.
“We must work towards bringing down the immigration from Muslim countries to zero. There can naturally be some exceptions, but there’s a need for political ambition to bring Muslim immigration close to zero,” says the party’s integration spokesperson Martin Henriksen.
“The 24-year old rule is now no longer enough. We have to deal with people who consciously decide to opt out of marrying Danes. It’s problematic. If we are to hope these families will be integrated in the future, we must introduce new and significant restrictions on immigration from Muslim countries,” says Henriksen.
The racist and fascist EDL want to march in Leicester this Saturday, 4th February, to spread their racist poison.
To counter their unwanted presence and to stop them intimidating the local communities the antiracists will also take to the streets on the same day.
This is the second time in less than two years that the EDL thugs want to stir up racism and divisions among the city’s diverse community. Last time when they showed up in October 2010, they caused much violence and disruption.
Despite the Stephen Lawrence verdict and the racist murder of Anuj Bidve in Manchester on Boxing day, once again they want to parade through the streets of Leicester. But Leicester has a proud history of challenging prejudice and promoting equality and people of the city have worked and campaigned together for many years to build a successful, multicultural city where different communities live peacefully side-by-side.
That’s why when the EDL showed up the last time the people of Leicester gathered in their thousands to show to the EDL that they are not wanted. Now again black, white and Asian people are set to show their unity against the EDL again at a ‘Love Leicester, Hate Racism‘ demonstration.
The demonstration is being organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) who have urged for a wider support. Thus the ‘Sikhs Against the EDL’ would be supporting this demonstration.
The ‘Sikhs Against the EDL’ group was formed last year in response to some mis-guided Sikh youth supporting the EDL. They used to carry Sikh flag on the EDL marches and use Sikh insignia and emblems in their vile propaganda.
However, most of those Sikh youth have now left the EDL, largely due to the campaign lead by the ‘Sikhs Against the EDL’ but also after the EDL decided to make an alliance with British Freedom Party (BFP), a breakaway group from the BNP but with equally openly fascist policies.
Balwinder Singh Rana, spokesperson for the ‘Sikhs Against the EDL’ said, “We had always warned that the EDL are no different from the BNP. They are targeting the Muslims today but would turn against all of us tomorrow. I am glad that those Sikh youth who used to support them have learned the error of their ways, but our job is not done yet. We must support the people of Leicester to stand up to these racists & fascists so that they would think twice before they decide to turn up somewhere else”.
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who is the biggest patron of Newt Gingrich's presidential bid, giving a reported $10m to a Gingrich-supporting Super Pac. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP
By donating $10m to the pro-Newt Gingrich Super Pac campaign, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, one of the richest men in the US, and his physician wife, Dr Miriam Adelson, have kept Gingrich in the Republican primary race, and given him the resources to win in South Carolina and, potentially, in Florida, without having to build a large donor base.
The power of corporate money in American politics is nothing new. But the rules set by the US supreme court in its Citizens United decision – that money is speech and corporations are people protected by the first amendment – have undone the limits set by Congress in the 1970s, allowing, in this case, one family to transform the Republican primary race.
Of course, like all private funding of politics, there is no way of knowing with certainty what the Adelsons expect to achieve with their money. And the mainstream US media has been coy about referring to the Adelsons’ political views. The New York Times story on the latest $5m donation to the Gingrich-supporting Super Pac merely described Sheldon Adelson as “a longtime Gingrich friend and a patron”.
This ignored the fact that the Adelsons use their wealth to fund rightwing groups in Israel and anti-Muslim campaigns within the US, causes that are also strongly supported by Gingrich. In Israel, Sheldon Adelson has been accused of using his newspaper Israel Hayom to promote support for his friend, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is also a political ally of Gingrich. In addition, Adelson is a financial backer of the One Jerusalem group, which opposes peace negotiations that would lead to parts of Jerusalem coming under Palestinian sovereignty. The couple’s Adelson Family Foundation donated $4.5m to the founding of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem, headed by Likud party former minister Natan Sharansky (pdf).
Gingrich is “realistic” about the threat of Islamic fundamentalism,according to Adelson. He has endorsed the conspiracy theory that Muslim organisations are using a strategy of “stealth jihad” to infiltrate sharia law into US institutions. Speaking to the American Enterprise Institute in July 2010, Gingrich said: “I believe sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.” He favours a federal law to ban sharia from US courts and has said he would require American Muslims to make a loyalty declaration before serving in his administration. With his wife Callista, he produced and narrated a 2010 film on the threat of radical Islam, entitled America at Risk: The War With No Name. Bernard Lewis, who coined the phrase “clash of civilisations”, appears in the film, saying: “This war will go on until the entire world either embraces Islam or submits to Islamic rule.”
While Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have also declared their strong support for Israel, only Gingrich has embraced a vision of civilizational conflict between the west and Islam – a convenient narrative for the right in Israel, which fears growing international support for the human rights of Palestinians, and would prefer Americans to think of Israel as a bastion of western values threatened by Islamic barbarism.
The number of Americans holding this view is declining. One index of this shifting mood was the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writing last December that the standing ovation Netanyahu received at Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby”, implying that money rather than shared values underlies the special relationship.
Yet there remains a reluctance to fully discuss these issues for fear of fueling the old hate libels about Jewish money controlling world events. This is a real concern: antisemitism continues to be central to much far-right ideology in the US and Europe. Equally, though, we should not be discouraged from properly scrutinising the millions of dollars being spent to advance the career of a politician who promotes conspiracy theories about a Muslim takeover of America and is running for the presidential nomination while espousing a Greater Israel agenda.
Ali Sina has really been saber-rattling against The American Muslim’s Sheila Musaji. As Musaji documents, Sina has received the support and blessing in this regard from the King and Queen of Islamophobia, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs.
For those of you who don’t know, Sina is one of the oldest and most nefarious Islamophobes to troll the internet–if Spencer is the King, Ali Sina is the Last Emperor of Islamophobia. It makes sense then that Sina, Spencer, and Geller would find themselves in bed together. They are truly a hateful trio.
Ali Sina has defended his view that “Muslims are savages”. Sheila Musaji, after carefully documenting her exchange with him, quips:
I leave it to the reader to decide who is civilized and who is savage in this discussion.
This was the thought that went through my mind when I read the exchange between the two: not only does the foaming-at-the-mouth, hateful, and maniacal Ali Sina look completely loony compared to the thoughtful, tolerant, and intelligent Sheila Musaji, but the exchange between the two also typifies the difference between “their side” (loons) and ours (anti-loons and loon-watchers).
To be clear, when I make this dichotomy between “their side” and “our side”, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with “Muslims” and “non-Muslims”. “Our side” includes people of all faiths (or no faith at all) dedicated to spreading peace, tolerance, and mutual coexistence, whereas “their side” includes, well, loons.
Read Sheila Musaji’s record of the exchange and decide for yourself which side you are on:
Today I received this email from Ali Sina with the heading “Sending you an olive branch”:
Dear Ms. Sheila Musaji
I read s [sic] few of your articles and see you have dedicated your efforts in [sic] maligning apostates, those who are fed up with Islam and want to protect the non-Muslim world from its onslaught. Of course you don’t see it that way. That’s okay. Maybe one day you will.
I have an offer for you. How about I send you a copy of my book, Understanding Muhammad? You read it. I promise by the time you are done you will no longer want to be a Muslim.
Now you may think this is ridiculous because nothing in the world can change your views about Islam. That is okay. Read it anyway. Read it, not with an open mind but with hatred in your heart against me. Read it with close mind and strive hard to deny all the evidences I present and try to find errors in it. Resist all my claims. By the time you are done reading the book you’ll lose your faith.
And what if you don’t? I promise you will. I have sent my book to hundreds of Muslims. They all promised to read it and get back to me showing my errors. I told them that I will publish their rebuttal. A percentage of them wrote back to thank me for opening their eyes. They are now fighting alongside me helping other Muslims leave Islam. Another group wrote to say I have a diabolic ability to induce doubt in Muslims and hence they stopped reading further. But most of them never replied. Not a single person has wrote [sic] back to do what they promised they’d do, i.e. refute me and show my errors. Not one person! Isn’t that something? Are you willing to take this challenge?
Should you agree to read the book I promise and refute it, I will publish your rebuttal and if you are correct I will withdraw my book from circulation, my membership from SION, and will stop my sites faithfreedom.org and alisina.org. There is also a financial reward of $50 K that I would give to you so you can donate to the charity of your choice.
If you are sincere you’d admit that by doing that you’d achieve a lot more than writing against me, Wafa Sultan (who is by the way my spiritual daughter) and other people in anti-Islam movement. After all these years I have gained some “notoriety.” If you refute my book I will stop my anti-Islam activity and people will notice. I’ve led thousands of Muslims out of Islam. Maybe many of them will want to take another look at Islam. Don’t say I am insignificant. Maybe in real life I am, but in the anti-Islam movement I have a name and a reputation. You’ll lose two days reading a book that you hate. In exchange you may eliminate a “notorious” enemy of Islam and in fact may even win him to your side. You know the story of Islam. Many of its great supporters were originally its staunch enemies. I could be one of them. Why not! Don’t you believe in Allah’s power? All you’ve to do is read my book, which I will send to you in hard copy or in PDF, whatever is your choice. You can get help from your Muslim husband or imam or anyone you wish.
I am not going to publish this email, unless you ignore it. If you ignore it, will be evidence of your lack of sincerity. My offer to you is sincere and generous. I’ve dedicated 14 years of my life fighting Islam. I am ready to stop and even apologize publicly, should you read my book and prove it wrong. Your investment is only two days of your time. You have nothing to lose except your faith in a lie. That is not bad at all.
If you ignore my offer, I will publish this email. Since you’ve dedicated your life to malign SION and its members I want the world to know you are not a sincere person. But if you reply and read my book, we’ve opened the line of dialogue. You’ll either leave Islam as I predict, or you’ll refute it and I will join Islam. I will also publish your rebuttal, which will help others to see the truth.
I am sending you an olive branch. The ball is now in your court.
Kind regards, Ali Sina
Dear Ali Sina (whoever that might be),
The book that you are offering to send to me has been in print since 2008 (4 years) and is published by your own Faith & Freedom Publishing company. It is sold at Amazon.com, and it is listed as selling for $157.71. Another of your books Understanding Islam & Muslims is listed as having only one new copy available for $999.99 although it was published in November of 2011.
If you are such an effective voice speaking against Islam that you can GUARANTEE that any Muslim reading your book will leave Islam, it would seem that you would want your books to be widely disseminated. At these prices, that isn’t likely. Perhaps this one on one method of soliciting readership from particular individuals is how the book was meant to be distributed.
I think that this offer is just a ploy. I would not provide you with my mailing address, any more than you would provide me with yours. Why would any sane person provide their mailing address to a total stranger who hides behind a pseudonym?
Ali Sina is a pseudonym, and not your real name. I have no idea who you are. I only know you by your writings, and in your own words I find evidence that you are an individual I would be wise to fear, not because of your ideas, but because of your hatred. Here are a few of your own statements:
— “We strive for the unity of Mankind through the elimination of Islam, the most insidious doctrine of hate. Islam can’t be reformed, but it can be eradicated. It can’t be molded, but it can be smashed. It is rigid but brittle. That is why Muslims do not tolerate criticism of it. To eradicate Islam, all we have to do is tell the truth. It’s that simple. The truth about Islam is out. It’s all here in this site. Now it is up to you to spread it. With truth, the decent Muslims will leave Islam and with each Muslim that leaves, we gain a new soldier in our fight against terrorism. We are growing exponentially. The days of Islam are numbered and world peace is around the corner. Many of us will see that day. We might have to go through very tough times meanwhile. The storm is approaching.
— “We do not want to reform Islam. We want to eradicate it. Just as cancer cannot be reformed and the only way to cure the patient is to eradicate it, Islam cant be reformed either and it must be eradicated for the world to be saved.”
— “Islam, like fascism, appeals to people with low self esteem and low intelligence. Both these ideologies are irrational. They disdain reason, and hail devotion and submission to a higher authority. Like fascists, Muslims are triumphalists. They seek power, domination and control. They pride themselves in their strength of number, in their mindless heroism, in their disdain for life and in their willingness to kill and die for their cause. Islam is political and political Islam is fascism.”
— “Tarek Fatah proves my point that there is no such thing as moderate Muslim … Every “moderate” Muslim is a potential terrorist. The belief in Islam is like a tank of gasoline. It looks innocuous, until it meets the fire. For a “moderate” Muslim to become a murderous jihadist, all it takes is a spark of faith.”
— “I promise that if we continue this campaign of discrediting Islam and Muslim scholars, in no more than a quarter of century, Islam will be defeated. Islam will fall, like communism fell. Mark my words today, even if you think I am nuts. If we all work together, especially the ex-Muslims, we can get rid of Islam sooner than anyone can imagine. Iran is already anti Islamic. More than half of Iranians do not call themselves Muslims anymore. We are demolishing Islam from its foundation. The edifice seems to be intact. But don’t let appearances deceive you. This high tower of lies will come down at once.
— “If any city in the West is nuked I am 100% for nuking tens of cities in Islamic countries. I don’t see Muslims as innocent people. They are all guilty as sin. It is not necessary to be part of al Qaida to be guilty. If you are a Muslim you agree with Muhammad and that is enough evidence against you.”
— “We love you Muslims because you are humans like us. We are all related to each other. We are all limbs of the body of mankind. But you are diseased. You are infected by a deadly cult that threatens our lives. Your humanity is destroyed. Like a limb infected by flesh eating disease, now you are a threat to the rest of mankind. We will do everything to save you, to make you see your folly, and to make you understand that you are victims of a gigantic lie, so you leave this lie, stop hating mankind and plotting for its destruction and it domination. But if all efforts fail and if you become a threat to our lives and the lives of our children, we must amputate you. This will happen, not because I say so, but I say so because this is human response. We humans are dictated by our survival instinct. If you threaten me and my survival depends on killing you, I must kill you. Please come to your senses. Muhammad was not a prophet of God. He was an instrument of Satan to divide mankind so we destroy each other. It is a demonic plot to end humanity. Muhammad lied. He brought hate. Wake up please. You are putting the world, including your own lives in danger for a lie. Read my book and learn the truth about Muhammad. … Islam is disease. What does moderate Muslim mean anyway? Does it mean you are moderately diseased? This makes as much sense as saying, I am a moderate Nazi, or I am culturally a fascist. I only participate in their rallies. Let us call you by your name. You are a hypocrite. You are a useful idiot. You are part of the problem. In fact you are THE problem. If it were not for you, we would easily recognize our enemy and eliminating it, would be easy. But you shield the enemy. You muddy the waters. You confuse us to hide the beast among you. You do not fool me, even though you may fool the non-Muslims. I know your hypocrisy. I know how you hide and support the terrorists secretly but publicly you denounce him and portray yourself as our friend.
If these words were not enough for me to form a judgement about whether or not I would want to interact with you, your email is filled with statements that make my decision very clear.
You open with a false accusation that I “malign apostates”. I don’t malign people that you call apostates and that I call people who have chosen another faith than that they were born into. Actually, I strongly uphold freedom of faith, and am a signatory to a statement initiated by Muslims declaring our commitment to that freedom.
I have no problem with anyone, including yourself, choosing whatever religious path (or no path) for themselves that they find meaningful. I am puzzled by the fact that some converts from one belief system to another find it necessary to disparage the faith that they have left. Forty years ago, I chose Islam. That was a very personal and private decision, and I feel no need to defend that choice by in any way disparaging my former faith. In fact, to behave in such a manner would cheapen my choice. There are different paths that are suitable for different people. God will judge, not any human being.
I do respond, and respond strongly to those individuals who malign the faith of others whether through anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Mormonism, anti-Hinduism, or any other form of religious bigotry. I respond particularly to Islamophobes because I believe that the poison that they spread directly endangers the safety and security of American Muslims including my own children. Islamophobia is real and dangerous. You can repeat “Islamophobia is a fallacy” as often as you want, and that won’t make it a fact.
You make an offer that you call “sending an olive branch” that includes a veiled threat“If you ignore my offer, I will publish this email … I want the world to know you are not a sincere person”.
Your patronizing statement You can get help from your Muslim husband or imam or anyone you wishshows your contempt for women and their ability to make their own choices and decisions. I don’t need someone else to help me make my choices.
Your assumption that I might be motivated either by some need to gain notoriety by engaging in a polemical debate with a person who has attained “some notoriety” or by greed in considering the possibility of financial gain as an incentive is offensive.
I decline your offer. I have no time or interest in writing a rebuttal of your book. I am not interested in convincing people to leave whatever faith they have. I don’t need your help to distribute my writings on any topic that I choose to write about. I don’t care what faith you hold. I don’t care if your site is online or not, in fact it is good it is there so that people can judge for themselves what sort of poison you are spreading.
I don’t believe that declining your “challenge” proves my insincerity, but the challenge itself provides even more evidence of your own insecurity. There is something wrong with a worldview that promotes the idea that demonizing others somehow increases your own stature.
I am ignoring your veiled threat and publishing your email myself. Others can judge for themselves the meaning of your offer and of my rejection of that offer.
“If it had been the will of your Lord that all the people of the world should be believers, all the people of the earth would have believed! Would you then compel mankind against their will to believe?” [Qur’an 10:99]
“There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the devil and believes in GOD has grasped the strongest bond; one that never breaks. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.” [Qur’an 2:256]
”(O Prophet Muhammad) proclaim: ‘This is the Truth from your Lord. Now let him who will, believe in it, and him who will, deny it.’” [Qur’an 18:29]
“Say, O Muhammad. I worship not that which you worship, nor will you worship that which I worship. And I shall not worship that which you are worshipping, nor will you worship that which I worship. To you be your religion, and to me my religion.” [Qur’an 109:1-6]
UPDATE 1/25/2012
I was just sent a link to an article that Ali Sina posted about a twitter argument he participated in with someone calling themselves @Rabbi.Shaul. Sina is an atheist and they debated whether or not reason can prove that God exists. Sina attempted to provoke the Rabbi into debating with him in a more formal format that would be published, and ultimately another Rabbi responded to Sina in a Youtube video saying that such a debate will not take place, and calling Sina on the carpet for his ego.
The whole thing is extremely lengthy, but Sina shows much about himself in his response. He repeats his claims about Prophet Muhammad, and then says
But there was another element in shaping his character: The influence of Rabbis.
Judaism and Islam have a lot in common. They have basically the same eschatology and very similar teachings. For example few people know that stoning adulterers that is widely practiced in Islam originates from the Bible. Muhammad did practice stoning but he did not insert it in his Quran. But he said when a law is not clearly stated, Muslims should look into the Bible for guidance.
These are all secondary influences of Judaism on Islam. The main common feature between these two faiths is their intolerance. This intolerance in Judaic texts gave the narcissist Muhammad the power to do as he pleased. He could make his claim without needing to prove it and expect others to believe without questioning him. If they didn’t, he would threaten them with hellfire.
How could he get away with that? Why would people believed in his unproven and often irrational claims? The answer to this question is in Judaism. The Rabbis in Arabia had laid the psychological foundation for Islam among the tolerant pagans. For 2000 years they had preached that Yahweh, their god, is beyond reason, i.e. he is irrational, that his ways are different and they may appear unjust and even evil. But it is not up to humans to question God’s wisdom.
That kind of authority and power is a narcissist’s wet dream. By claiming to be the messenger of God, the same intolerant god of the Jews, Muhammad did not have to prove any of his claims. The reason Arabs fell into his trap was because of the groundwork laid by the Rabbis in Arabia.
Sounds as if he is not only Islamophobic, but also anti-Semitic. And, a little later in this article this gem appears which shows that at the very least, he is a racist: We Persians are of the same genetic stock as Germans and we had a far superior civilization than Arabs.
It is both surprising and not surprising that Ali Sina has now been named to the Board of Directors of the newly formed Stop the Islamization of Nations SION which is a coalition SIOA, SIOE, and other hate groups, and which will be led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. It is not surprising because of the animosity towards Islam that he shares with Geller and Spencer. It is surprising because of the fact that Geller herself is Jewish, and Ali Sina seems to have as much animosity towards Judaism as he does against Islam.
The Southern Poverty Law Centerpublished a report citing Geller for hate speech. The AFDI has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The American Freedom Defense Initiative is the parent group of the SIOA. Spencer, Geller, and Yerushalmi are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.
Pay Pal at least temporarily suspended Geller’s site Atlas Shrugs for being a hate site.
Spencer and Geller attempted to patent the SIOA trademark, but were refused by the U.S. patent officeThe government response, posted on the site, states, “The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease. “The proposed mark further disparages Muslims because, taking into account the nature of the services (‘providing information regarding understanding and preventing terrorism’), it implies that Islam is associated with violence and threats,” the government agency said. Again, Loonwatch has more here which include a number of hateful screen grabs from the SIOA facebook page. Geller says thatI engaged David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center to pursue this matter legally. Once again, these legal warriors did not hesitate to take the case pro-bono.
The Center for American Progress released a groundbreaking report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. The key researchers for this report were Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir. The report itself is the result of a six month investigative project, and is 132 pages in length. Geller is cited as part of this network.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)notes in a backgrounder about the SIOA “Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), created in 2009, promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American” values. The organization warns of the encroachment of shari’a, or Islamic law, and encourages Muslims to leave what it describes as the “falsity of Islam.”
Abraham H. Foxman of the ADL wrote an article The new shape of anti-Muslim hatred in which he calls out Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller (the co-founders of SIOA) by name as purveyors of this hatred.
Ali Sina posted a response to this article rejecting his demand that that I engage in a debate with him.
There are only a few points in his response that I consider to be worth discussing, because they are about me personally.
He says
I read a few of your articles. You write exclusively about people in the anti-jihad movement. You don’t refute them. You vilify them. You engage in ad hominem. All your articles are personal attacks. I haven’t seen once you refute what we say. You are a Muslim and this is how the brain of a Muslim works. Muslims ignore the criticism made against Islam. Instead they focus on the person criticizing Islam and try to discredit them. This is a pattern.
Obviously he has read very few of my articles or he would know that I do not write exclusively about Islamophobes. Here is a link to a list of articles that I have written. This is not difficult to find as I refer to this list of my articles right on the main page of TAM. It would be impossible for anyone to simply read through the titles of my articles and still make the claim with a straight face that I “write exclusively” about Islamophobes.
He says
You have written many articles maligning the critics of Islam. Show us one where you have condemned your own brethren for disparaging other faiths. Show us where you have stood for the rights of the victims of Islam. Did you write any article sending it to an Egyptian media denouncing the Muslims for killing the Coptic Christians? Did you write anything for Pakistanis denouncing them for their blasphemy law? Of course not! Your goal is not to stop the barbarity of Islam. Your goal is to bambuzzle your own people so they lower their guards and not see Islam as a threat. There have been many fools and traitors like you in history. We Persians had the Salman.
Yes you have written articles claiming Islam allows freedom of religion. Those articles are for the consumption of non-Muslims and to deceive them. You never call upon Muslims to be tolerant. You know that they will laugh at you if you do. First of all you are a convert and secondly you are a woman. Will Muslims listen to you and ignore their own scholars, and ignore the Quran and the hadith? They tolerate you for now. You serve their purpose. To borrow a term from Lenin, you are a useful idiot for them. They let you say what you want and pull the wool over the eyes of their targeted victims. You are a deceived woman and the best person to deceive the westerners.
Again, reading my articles would show that this statement is very simply not only wrong, but a lie.
Here on The American Muslim, I have published thousands of articles, many of them discussing issues such as:
On TAM, we regularly call out those within the Muslim community that I identify as the “lunatic fringe”, discuss various interpretations of aspects of Sharia, condemn any interpretations that violate human rights. The list above is a very short list of the thousands of articles on such subjects that we have published, many of which I have written myself.
He says
This is the truth about “no compulsion in religion.” You converted 40 years ago when you were young and inexperienced. We all did stupid things when we were young. Most of us gained wisdom as we aged. But once one converts to Islam the brain becomes numbed. Although others recover from their youthful follies a Muslim is trapped. But there is no reason to despair. My book can help. Whether you are old or young, when you learn the truth, you can no longer cling to lies.
This is simply a nasty, speculative, and meaningless attack on me as an individual that deserves nothing but contempt.
He closes his article with
Will you also publish my response to you? Or if not, will you provide a link to this page in your site letting your readers see my response? That would prove your sincerity.
In case anyone is in doubt about the sort of person attracted to and in agreement with Islamophobes like Ali Sina, here are a few comments at the bottom of his response article
— Sundried Atheist Why this maniacal obsession about Islam. Christianity and Judaism are just as dangerous and poisonous as Islam is. Their actions are just as diabolic. In fact Islam owes its existance to the founders of Christianity and Judaism. So really, it is the Jews we should be taking it out on. All the silly rituals and barbaric rules, human/animal rights abuse all stem from Jewish laws. Jews are suibhuman, less evolved primates who should be eliminated in a peaceful manner. Such as by spraying them with mega toxic pesticides like you try to eliminate locusts and other field posts.
— Enlightened 25 “You’re not a racist, you’re a critique. You criticize those ideologies.” I am not talking about ideologies obviously it is absurd to hate the Koran, it is just a book (though a vile one). I am talking about the people that believe in those ideologies. Do you hate Nazis and communists? If you don’t then you should. If I am asked do I hate Muslims? Then my honest answer is yes. I cannot say I hate everything you believe in, everything you value, everything you stand for, but I don’t hate you personally, that would be a lie as well as self-deception on my part. Once I had a Muslim saying I should be put to death. Should I love that beast? Hell no, that person is my mortal enemy and I should hate him and if I was given the chance and was able to do it, I would destroy him. I say openly to the Muslims if you don’t hate me then you should, because I am out to destroy everything that is sacred to you.
— Ali Sina If your son becomes a Monster (or a good Muslims) you still don’t hate him. But you will allow him to be locked up for the protection of others. Your duty as a parent is to love your children. This does not mean you have to condone their evilness. Let the socity deal with your son according to the law. You don’t hide or protect him, but also you don’t have to hate him. We humans are all sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in a large scale. Yes we have to stop the monsters among us, and if necessary eliminate them so they can no longer harm others. This does not mean we should hate them.
I have now responded to his attacks on me personally, and provided a link to his response which he says would show my sincerity.
UPDATE 1/28/2012
Today, Ali Sina wrote wrote a response to my comments of yesterday. He objects to my saying that some of his previous statements seem to show that he is not only Islamophobic but also anti-Semitic and racist – and his response just makes his attitudes more clear. This is part of what he said:
It seems that Ms. Musaji has some difficulty in comprehension. Or maybe she just pretends it, hoping she may confound her readers. I am against Islam. That does not make me Islamophobe. Islamophobia is a fallacy. You can say Islam-hater. That I agree. But one can’t be “phobic” of a belief. This is a deception. But as Hitler said, if a lie is repeated often it will be believed as truth eventually.
A good example is the word homophobia. This is also a deception. I believe homosexuality is a disorder no different from eating disorder or a personality disorder. Homosexuality is a sexual disorder, like sadomasochism, fetishism, zoophilia and pedophilia. Now these disorders are not all the same and have different implications, but they are all disorders. I am not a homophobe for considering homosexuality a disorder. Homo means same. I don’t have an irrational fear of men. But this lie was repeated so much that today most people have fallen for it. The idea was to stifle any criticism about this disorder and they succeeded. Now they even have gay pride parades, as if there is something to be proud of a disorder. This is how masses are manipulated through propaganda. They even shame you into silence. Few people dare to say homosexuality is not normal. They even gave it a chichi name “gay”, meaning happy. This is also a lie. Homosexuals are not happy.
Muslims are using the same deceptive tactic. They want to stifle the legitimate discussion about Islam. So they invented this lie and with the help of their leftist lackeys who gave us the fallacy of homophobia and they will repeat it until it is seen as truth. But Islam is an ideology. No one can have an irrational fear of an ideology. You can strongly disagree with an ideology and you can even hate it, but you can’t be phobic of it. Ideologies don’t have fangs. It is their believers who may have fangs. Now, it would be more logical to say Muslimphobia. Muslims can hurt you. If you see a group of Muslims coming out of a mosque, you would be wise to run as fast as you can.
… All cultures are not equal. Cultural relativism is another fallacy. We Persians had a much more superior culture that the Arabs. But after the invasion of Islam we were reduced into barbarians. We became like them. Now we are all barbarians. The first charter of human rights was written in Persia more than 2500 years ago.
… It is not racist to say Muslims are savages any more than to say Nazis were savages. Islam is an ideology. It is not hacked into our genes. We can give it up and regain our civility. That is the whole purpose of what I do. Muslims are drowning in the cesspool of Islam. Just look at the pictures of Muslims when protesting in the streets. They are savages. I want to pull them out of Islam and restore their humanity.
Most Jews have given up their belief in the nonsense of their religion a long time ago. Most of them don’t believe in religion anymore. Those who do are like those rabbis, filled with bigotry and hate. But they are the minority. Even when Jews go to synagogues it is for ceremonies. Religion can be a cohesive force. It brings out the spirit of fraternity and builds community.
The emphasis is mine. Here is the gist of his argument: I hate Islam, but that is not Islamophobia. I believe that “Muslims are savages”, but I am not a bigot. I believe that “Homosexuality is a sexual disorder, like sadomasochism” but I am not homophobic. I believe that Judaism is a religion of “nonsense”, those who believe in it are “filled with bigotry and hate”, but I am not an anti-Semite. I believe that my culture is superior to others, but I am not a racist. Terms like Islamophobia or homophobia are lies, there is no such thing. I am sorry, but there is such a thing as anti-Semitism, there is such a thing as Islamophobia, there is such a thing as homophobia, there is such a thing as racism. You can object to the use of one or all of those words, but the bottom line is that no matter what you call this ideology, it is hateful bigotry.
He also objected to my pointing out that the SPLC, ADL, PFAW, CAP, etc. have characterized SION and its leaders Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer as promoting an anti-Muslim agenda. He refers to all of these organizations as “moon-bats”, “traitorous leftist organizations”, “lackeys”, who hate “the Judeo-Christian western values”, and “minions” of Muslims, that “are either run by Muslims or are sympathetic to Islam”. He says that Paypal was “duped” and the U.S. government has been “misled” into believing that Islam is a religion.
Sina says that Pamela Geller “should be awarded the Nobel Prize for her humanitarianism and for her compassion. Alas the Nobel Prize committee is so politicized that they think charlatans like Arafat, Obama and Al Gore are more deserving for that prize than good humans who truly serve mankind.”
He closes with “More on this subject tomorrow!”
Pamela Geller posted an article today titled Takedown which is a short introduction to Sina’s article by Geller.
I urge all Atlas readers, twitter followers, and facebook friends to go over to Dr. Ali Sina’s site and read this takedown of the nasty, libelous shill, Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim.
,,, I have not fisked this liar and dissembler, because everything she has written about me, pages and pages, are lies, defamation and smear. All of it. She serves the fourth reich, and she serves them well. And frankly, I was loathe to give her the notoriety and the traffic she so desperately craves. But Sina has been battling her lies (there is more here, Sheila Musaji and Fear of Freedom).
A minor point, but Paypal never suspended me. They sent me notice that complaints were lodged (by vicious trolls like Musaji no doubt), but they never did. Just another Islamic lie.
Dr.Sina honors me in his defense of my work.
Actually, Geller has written about me in the past, and shown herself in that case as in so many others to be confused about the meaning of truth-telling, and ready to attempt to conceal evidence of outright lies.
On April 30, 2008 Geller posted an article titled “Attacking Chesler: American Muslim Female Takes on Chesler”. As could be expected she didn’t understand how I could possibly say anything negative about Chesler’s anti-Muslim writings. Geller called me a “tool of jihad” who is tearing a “truthteller apart” while “doing nothing for my sisters”. However, she did not directly address any of the specific points that I made in my article. (Note: Geller’s article still comes up on a Google search, and in a search of my name on her site, but if you click on the link you will only get an error message. The article has been pulled). My response to Geller’s claims in her article was the first item in a collection of information on Geller, who along with her partner Robert Spencer seem to be the most prolific Islamophobes. Please see my article Pamela Geller Attempts to Make a Point, Muslims Shrug (SIOA/AFDI/Atlas Shrugs) for a complete background on this.
On May 2, 2008 Geller published an article titled Blah, blah, blah in which she accuses me of“deception, taqiyya- the deliberate dissimulation about religious matters that may be undertaken to protect Islam. And while this kind of double talk has the left doing the Islamists bidding, many of us know exactly what this shiz is. You can fool some of the infidels some of the times, but you can’t fool all of the kufirs all of the time.”
She opens this article with “Musaji over at American Muslim didn’t like my defending Phyllis Chesler.” And she has included this link ( http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/04/attacking-chesl.html ) embedded in the words “defending Phyllis Chesler”. This is a link to the now removed article that was written by Geller on April 30th. Geller herself is sayng that she had written an article to which I responded, but the article is not there? Why was the article removed?
As to my reference to PayPal, on June 12, 2010 Geller posted an article which she titled Paypal Cuts Off Atlas: Truth is the New Hate Speech in which she posts a copy of the email from Paypal which includes the statement However, after a recent review of your account, it has been determined that you are currently in violation of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy. Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance or the financial exploitation of a crime. In Geller’s article and in PayPals email there is nothing about complaints being lodged, simply this statement that she is in violation of their acceptable use policy. Geller’s own title says that PayPal had cut off Atlas Shrugs. Although Geller and Ali Sina seem to want to blame me for some involvement with this PayPal incident, I had nothing to do with it. So, if there was any confusion about exactly what happened with PayPal, that confusion came from Geller’s own statement.
And, of course Robert Spencer has to jump in and also post Ali Sina’s article with a short introduction by Spencer which doesn’t really add much to this saga. Spencer does add one more insult by calling me an established liar and linking to a previous article of his attacking me by making this false claim. Actually, if you read my article that Spencer is referring to Hutaree Christian Militia, Not an Isolated Phenomena you can make your own decision about this charge. Spencer, like Geller has shown himself in that case as in so many others to be confused about the meaning of truth-telling, and ready toattempt to conceal evidence of outright lies.
I have just checked the comments on the article that I mentioned in my update of 1/26, and they are still there. Calling Christianity, Islam, and Judaism “diabolic”, calling Jews “suibhuman [sic], less evolved primates who should be eliminated in a peaceful manner. Such as by spraying them with mega toxic pesticides like you try to eliminate locusts and other field posts”, saying “I hate Muslims”, suggesting that you “will allow him (i.e. Muslims) to be locked up for the protection of others” — these are comments that go beyond the pale of any sort of civilized discussion. This goes beyond bigotry into the realm of hatred. Allowing such statements to remain on his site is a choice that Ali Sina has made, and that choice does reflect on him. I am most concerned about the comments clearly calling for a genocide against Jews, and for locking up Muslims…
Goebbels would be proud, and Ali Sina and the other Islamophobes’ tactics show all to clearly theremarkable similarities between Islamophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda. Geller’s baseless claim that I “serve the fourth reich”, must be projection. UPDATE 1/29/2012
Sina is still carrying on a debate with himself on his site. He is still demanding that I answer his questions about the interpretation of some particular Qur’anic verse, or what some Muslim scholar has said, or some hadith, or (the list goes on and on). This is nonsense. I have no obligation to discuss any of these issues with him. And, I have provided him with links to all of my writings over the past many years, many of which have already discussed many of these issues.
Just as Muslims have given lengthy explanations for example of why particular verses of the Qur’an have been taken out of context to “prove” false points – Jewish scholars have had the need to explain particular aspects of their religion that have been misunderstood – for example what the Talmud says about the permissibility of killing non-Jews. Rabbi David Eidensohn has a site devoted to defending the Talmud against various accusations. The fact that there are verses in the Qur’an that can be interpreted variously is also not unique - that there are verses that be seen as cruel and violent in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) cannot really be disputed. What can be done is to attempt to marginalize those who continue to promote extremist interpretations of religious texts, and to promote false worldviews like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the Protocols of the Elders of Islam.
There is a site that maintains an archive of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda. It is depressing reading, but over and over again I found examples of claims and statements that mirrored claims now being made by people like you Ali Sina against Muslims and Islam. Here are a few examples:
- Nazi propaganda maintained that all Jews were responsible for the act of any Jew “The murder of Ernst vom Rath did not slow legal measures aimed at solving the Jewish Problem, but rather sped them up. The Jews living in Germany had to pay a fine of a billion marks to discourage them from repeating the cowardly murder.”http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/imbild1.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that Judaism was not a religion. “Argument 1: “You say that religion is a private matter. But you fight against the Jewish religion!” Counterargument: “Actually, the Jewish religion is nothing other than a doctrine to preserve the Jewish race.” (Adolf Hitler). “In resisting all government attempts to nationalize them, the Jews build a state within the state (Count Helmuth von Moltke). “To call this state a ‘religion’ was one of the cleverest tricks ever invented.” (Adolf Hitler). “From this first lie that Jewry is a religion, not a race, further lies inevitably follow.” (Adolf Hitler).” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/responses.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that the Jews hated all non-Jews and they wanted to destroy the Gentiles and dominate the world http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds15.htm Further “Whether or not there is an organized Jewish government recognized by all the Jews is less important that the fact that there is a unified and conscious Jewish desire for world power. This is proved by a variety of political events that are taking place in plain sight today.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/aufkla01.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that a war against Judaism was a war against the devilhttp://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds15.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained by distortions of the Torah and Talmud that Judaism teaches hatred http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds3.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that “The goal of the Jew is to make himself the ruler of humanity. Wherever he comes, he destroys works of culture. He is not a creative spirit, rather a destructive spirit.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/catech.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that “Nearly all major inventions were made by Aryans.” The Jews had no real creativity http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/catech.htm Further “Wherever Jewry has appeared, it has never built anything. It has always and everywhere destroyed or torn down, sucking others dry to fill itself. From the days of the Romans to our day, Jewry in every century, in every people, was and remained a foreign body, a destroyer of real and ideal values, a denier of any upward progress, a plague for body and soul. It sneaks in through deceit and treachery, trickery and slyness, murder and assault, understanding how to establish itself.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/esser.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained that A GOOD JEW COULD NOT BE A GOOD GERMAN, that it was impossible for a Jew to honestly say “I am a “good German” and a “decent Jew”! Only a Jew has the insolence to make such a claim. I answer it only to reach the public and finally dispatch the absurd notion of the “decent Jew.” The fable of the “decent Jew” is not a German fable that has been handed down by our people and therefore something with educational value, but rather it is a shameless lie designed to lull the host people to sleep and appeal to hysterical weaklings.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/oberlindober1.htm And further “And you think you can be a “good German”! True, you do speak German, just as your racial comrades in other countries speak English, French, Spanish, and Polish, but you are no more a German than they are Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, or Poles, since Jews are a foreign body in every people.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/oberlindober1.htm
- Nazi propaganda maintained “Each Jew individually, and Jewry as a whole, is without a home. Jewry undermines every people and every state that it infiltrates. It feeds as a parasite and a culture-killing worm in the host people. It grows and grows like weeds in the state, the community, and the family and infests the blood of humanity everywhere. In brief, that is the pestilential nature of Jewry, against which every people, every state, every nation must, should, and wants to defend itself if it does not want to be the victim of this bloody plague.” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/esser.htm
It is not possible for any decent human being not to see the incredible similarities between this Nazi propaganda and the propaganda of the Islamophobes. In fact, many passages from Ali Sina’s work read as if he has simply taken one of these statements and changed “Jew” with “Muslim” or “Judaism” with “Islam”.
The Islamophobic echo chamber is reproducing Ali Sina’s articles and claiming that he has totally crushed me with his rapier wit. Let the bigots continue discussing this among themselves, andcontinue stirring up a hornets nest of bigotry, and engaging in their what everyone “knows” distortions about Islam and Muslims, and following Baron Bodissey/Edward May’s Islamophobia manifesto and Nazi propaganda as their guide.
I leave it to the reader to decide who is civilized and who is savage in this discussion. I will get back to reading the Qur’an.
“If your Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people: but they will not cease to dispute.” [Qur’an 11:118]
“And do thou be patient, for thy patience is but from God; nor grieve over them: and distress not thyself because of their plots. For Allah is with those who restrain themselves, and those who do good.” [Qur’an 16:127-128]
Oh mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (Not that you may despise each other). [Qur’an 49;13]
NOTE: I do thank Ali Sina for correcting my spelling of pseudonym. SEE ALSO
These violent attacks have been occurring with some frequency, just a few days ago we reported on an EDL supporter who attacked a family with knives and threatened to kill them. Now we have another incident in which an EDL yob attacks a Muslim. Remember the EDL is Horowitz tool Robert Spencer’s favorite UK group, he once termed them, “freedom fighters.”
A racist thug who punched a taxi driver and dragged him along a street, has been jailed for 18 months.
Lee Preston, 22, targeted cabbie Mohammed Rashid, leaving him with two black eyes, a bruised face and grazes to his shoulders caused when he was dragged to the ground.
Mr John Hallisey, prosecuting, said the cabbie received a call at 9pm on April 16 to collect five men from Chaddesden. He noticed they were carrying cans of lager and told them these could not be drunk in his vehicle. But after a few minutes, the men started drinking.
“Mr Rashid told them to stop and the response was to start hurling abuse. The defendant was saying ‘we are EDL,’ referring to the English Defence League,” said Mr Hallisey.
Preston, of Walbrook Road, Derby, began to throw beer cans out of the taxi until Mr Rashid closed the windows – a move which angered the passengers. Mr Rashid stopped his cab and told the five to leave. One said: “Get out and we’ll sort you out.”
When they eventually left, they failed to close the rear doors but Mr Rashid waited until he thought they had walked away before getting out of the cab. But he was then grabbed and prevented from getting back into the vehicle before being attacked.
During this, he heard chants of “EDL” and one man said: “I’m going to kill you.” When a second taxi driver stopped to help, he was also assaulted and had his vehicle kicked.
Police were called and Preston was found hiding under a bush.
He admitted affray and racially aggravated assault causing actual bodily harm.
In a daring display of “investigative journalism,” Loonwatch was recently “outed” as a site, “pretty much exclusively concerned with exposing the perceived enemies of Islam…” This jealously guarded secret was previously known only to tech-savvy visitors clever enough to click the link to our About page:
Loonwatch.com is a blogzine run by a motley group of hate-allergic bloggers to monitor and expose the web’s plethora of anti-Muslim loons, wackos, and conspiracy theorists…..
Isn’t that a fancy way of saying pretty much the same thing?
Throughout the screed ”exposing” our “super secret mission,” there are numerous ludicrous and fact-less assertions, which have been refuted here and here. A garden variety bigot isn’t of much interest to us here, but amid the baseless accusations, fuzzy logic, and shameless self-promotion, there is a question that warrants a response:
Does Loonwatch really shun all criticism of Islam and immediately silence our critics by branding them as loons?
Similar accusations have been made repeatedly, against Loonwatch and other sites devoted to fighting Islamophobia. The short and simple answer is “no.” As American Muslim civil rights activist Ahmed Rehab has said:
One thing we must never allow is for the bad amongst us – terrorists, extremists, ideologues of exclusion and hate – to succeed in turning the rest of us against each other. We must condemn them, ostracize them, and disempower them. The way to do that is to strengthen our relations, and stand with one another. That is the only way to spell defeat for the agents of hate.
We must emerge from our comfort zones and stand together as one against all forms of violence, ignorance, and intolerance….
Islam should be subjected to its fair share of constructive criticism and we have said as much in a significant number of articles. In fact several of our writers have severely criticized the theological premises of certain violent and regressive trends within the worldwide Muslim community. The problem is that there’s nothing fair or constructive about the ocean of half truths and outright lies that are routinely spread about Islam and Muslims by a well-funded network of pseudo scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, serial fabricators, and other assorted anti-Muslim crackpots.
Legitimate criticism is truthful, proportionate, and in accordance with fair standards.
Every life is sacred and precious, and reducing individuals to statistics is a grisly calculus. However, we must make the point that war consistently kills far more innocent civilians than terrorism. What justifies the myopic focus on the latter?
The most recent additions are here and here. We repeatedly expose this unfair tactic and insist that all religions be measured by the same set of standards.
Legitimate criticism is in accordance with fair standards.
Our mission is to expose the lies, exaggerations and double standards employed by anti-Muslim bigots, and our articles do exactly that. We advocate universal human rights, and refuse to give anyone a free pass.
We condemn all acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians, no matter who is responsible.
No matter how many times we condemn terrorism, “critics” insist we haven’t condemned terrorism, and have even had the audacity to smear us a terrorist spin control network. It’s become almost laughable and reminiscent of a famous scene from the 1979 British comedy film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian:
Brian: …Will you please listen? I’m not the Messiah! Do you understand? Honestly!
Woman: Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right, I am the Messiah!
Crowd: He is! He is the Messiah!
Will you please listen? We do condemn terrorism! Do you understand? Honestly! …
It’s time to resort to a more potent weapon: common sense. When some halfwit sets his underwear on fire in a failed terrorist attack, anyone with the slightest stake in the Muslim community instantly thinks, “Please, please…don’t let it be a Muslim!”
If it turns out the perpetrator is a Muslim, it is an unmitigated disaster for Muslims everywhere. Besides being morally repugnant, terrorism is self-defeating.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks paved the way for the US to bomb, invade, and occupy one Muslim country after another, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Syria and Iran may be next. The Islamophobia that germinated in the aftermath of the attacks has rooted itself in the public imagination and continues to deepen and expand, despite the loons’ absurd claims it doesn’t exist.
The blatantly obvious, self-evident truth is that terrorism hurts Muslims and damages the fight against bigotry.
In fact, it’s hard to imagine anything that sets back the cause of fighting anti-Muslim bigotry more than a terrorist attack that is in any way associated with Muslims. The loons delight in reporting terrorist attacks because their interests are served, not ours. In fact, anti-Muslim hatemongers and outrage peddlers are so eager to publish news of “Islamic” terrorist attacks, they don’t even care if there are no Muslims involved, as we’ve reported here and here.
We condemn all acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians, no matter who is responsible.
Our question to critics: Do you?
As Danios said in his recent article, We’re at War!” — And We Have Been Since 1776: 214 Years of American War-Making:
The objects of American aggression have certainly changed with time, but the primary motivating factor behind U.S. wars of aggression have always been the same: expansion of U.S. hegemony. The Muslim world is being bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States not because of radical Islam or any inherent flaw in themselves. Rather, it is being so attacked because it is in the path of the American juggernaut, which is always in need of war.
The evidence that radical Islam is the justification, but not the catalyst, for US invasions is simply historical precedent. Decades before the War on Terror, the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against the war in Vietnam, and his words are no less relevant today:
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action; but they ask and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They ask if our nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems…and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government…
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…
The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins…
Even as we commemorate Dr. King’s eloquent and timeless truths, it seems we’ve missed his essential message.
The US dominates the world through military power, maintaining over 700 bases in more than 130 countries, and is still bombing and invading nations with impunity. How is it that we view Muslims as the ones who are exceptionally violent and hellbent on taking over the world?
: the attribution of one’s own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially : the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety.
The US has been variously bombing and starving Iraqis for more than two decades, which begs the question: What did the nation of Iraq ever do to the United States? The answer: nothing.
How is it possible to fixate on acts of terrorism while simultaneously ignoring the colossal crimes the US has visited on the once prosperous nation of Iraq?
: a psychological defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality.
Iran hasn’t attacked another country in over 200 years. Even as the US threatens to launch a war against this relatively peaceful nation, many Americans continue to view their country as peace-loving and standing firmly on the moral high ground.
What accounts for this resilient sense of self-righteousness?
: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs.
How can our critics remain virtually silent on the Western violence and simultaneously assert, ”Loonwatch is protecting Jihadists and terrorists through lies of omission.”
: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.
Defense mechanisms and relentless propaganda are the “psychological cataracts” that embolden us to criticize others and remain blind to our own faults. Refusal to take a good look in the mirror is also a lie of omission.
We condemn all acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians, no matter who is responsible.
Again, our question to critics: Do you?
Of course, the so-called “counter-jihadists” could reasonably argue that they too have a limited focus, and are, “pretty much exclusively concerned with exposing the truth about Islam…” That’s fine, as long as their criticism is truthful, proportionate, and in accordance with fair standards.
Read the following excerpts and decide if they constitute hate speech or merely tell the unvarnished truth about Islam:
The cultured peoples, both today and in the past, create and build, proving their worth as the creators and advancers of culture. Islam was and remains only the corrupter and destroyer of culture… Islam can never be great, can never create culture, for it is not a people, but rather only a corrupt mixture of inferior desert tribes with no national life or longing, with no proud and famous past.
And:
In this war for the very existence of the American people, we must daily remind ourselves that Muslims unleashed this war against us….
There is nothing cruder than the Muslim religious books: the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the Hadith…The whole is a collection of ghost hunting and mysticism, blind cursing and the crassest egotism, an unimaginable superiority complex, sick perversity, the overturning of all natural laws, lust for murder, terror, and horror.
The Crusades, with their enormous sacrifices in the blood of northern peoples, were the result of Muslim insanity.
And:
One feels horror at the unique depravity of the Muslims, at the crimes they have committed, at the devilish hate they have from the beginning directed against all those who did not want to bow to the yoke of Islam! This horror becomes terror when one reads the Qur’anic writings and reads such outbursts of Muslim rage as one finds in the Sunnah and Hadith…..
The term “kafir” expresses the deep antipathy Muslims feel toward infidels. Despite its inferiority, Islam was able to survive over the millennia because of its satanic hatred against infidels.
Muslim hatred today is as strong as it ever was. He who does not submit is their enemy. The Muslim hates the enemy with all his heart and with all the strength of his satanic soul….
Deep and boundless hatred is an essential characteristic of Islam.
Now there is war! The Muslims forced us into a struggle for life and death. The war has forced us to give up much we formerly thought was necessary. It has also forced us to give up the “politeness” that in reality is a weakness. A boxer in the ring must use his fists to defend himself against his opponent. A fencer can only win when he uses his sword. We as a people will survive this war only if we eliminate weakness and “politeness” and respond to the Muslims with an equal hatred. We must always keep in mind what the Muslim wants today, and what he plans to do with us. If we do not oppose the Muslims with the entire energy of our people, we are lost. But if we can use the full force of our soul that has been released by the new crusade, we need not fear the future. The devilish hatred of the Muslims plunged the world into war, need and misery. Our holy hate will bring us victory and save all of mankind.
Common themes include the cultural inferiority of “desert tribes,” crude scriptures, boundless hate for infidels, unique depravity, a superiority complex, sick perversity, and lust for murder, terror, and horror. Muslims pose an existential threat, and their collective insanity is even responsible for the Crusades.
This is pretty standard fare for hate sites like Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, and Frontpage Magazine. Can you guess the source?
It’s a trick question because none of these excerpts came from contemporary hate sites. All are from articles published decades ago by Nazis. Every word in bold has been modified so the passages appear to refer to Muslims instead of Jews.
You can view the original versions here, here and here. We previously published an article comparing specific statements from pre-Nazi era Antisemitic propagandist Julius Streicher and Robert Spencer, here.
That brings us to the next part of the Loonwatch mission statement:
While we find the sheer stupidity and outrageousness of the loons to be a source of invaluable comedy, we also recognize the seriousness of the danger they represent as dedicated hatemongers…
Muslims have not (yet) been subjected to pogroms or rounded up en mass and herded into internment camps, and the point is to make sure that doesn’t happen. We have learned the lessons of history.
During the Nazi era, Antisemitic propaganda resonated with many “good Germans,” just as many “good Americans” once accepted slavery and thought of Native Americans as “savages.” Everyone outside the lunatic fringe recognizes the monstrous injustices of the past, but far fewer have the moral fortitude to recognize and speak out against the socially sanctioned injustices of the present day.
Islamophobia is the hate du jour, and hatemongers and hypocrites are enjoying a lavish feast.
I took issue with Robert Spencer’s opening sentences of his biography of Muhammad (p.5 of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam), in which he wrote:
Muhammad already had experience as a warrior before he assumed the role of the prophet. He had participated in two local wars between his Quraysh tribe and their neighboring rivals Banu Hawazin.
What Spencer leaves out from this talking point–“Muhammad already had experience as warrior before he assumed the role of prophet”!–is quite telling.
He is referring to what is known in Islamic history as Harb al-Fijar (the Sacrilegious War), a series of conflicts that took place when Muhammad was a teenager. The spark that ignited the war was the unsettled murder of a member of one tribe, which lead to a blood feud. Due to “entangling alliances,” many different tribes in the area found themselves at war with each other.
Like most of Muhammad’s life, the details of this event are contested. This dispute is not simply one between modern-day Muslim apologists and Islamophobes, but rather one that traces its way back to the earliest biographers of the Prophet.
In specific, Muhammad’s level of participation in these wars is disputed. On the one hand, some Shia biographers reject the idea that Muhammad partook in them at all. Meanwhile, Sunni biographers write that Muhammad simply accompanied his uncle but did not directly fight in these wars. He only took on a very limited support role: picking up enemy arrows from the battlefield. At the most, he fired off a few arrows, but did not kill anyone.
Not only was Muhammad’s role severely limited, but even this he would later express regret over. Muhammad later recounted: “I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!” [1] Spencer conveniently omits this very important fact, one that mitigates Muhammad’s participation in the war, especially in regards to his views about war and peace.
In 2006 I wrote the book on the right, The Truth About Muhammad, a biography of the prophet of Islam based on the earliest Muslim accounts of his life, in order to illustrate what Muslims generally believe that Muhammad said and did. In my forthcoming book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins, which will be published April 23 by ISI, I examine the historical value of those early Muslim accounts. It is an attempt to determine whether what Muslims believe Muhammad said and did, as recounted in The Truth About Muhammad, actually corresponds to historical reality.
There are numerous reasons to question the historicity of the early Muslim accounts of Muhammad’s life. Take, for example, an incident I refer to briefly in yet another book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades):
Muhammad already had experience as a warrior before he assumed the role of prophet. He had participated in two local wars between his Quraysh tribe and their neighboring rivals Banu Hawazin.
That he participated in these wars, known collectively as the Fijar War, or Sacrilegious War, is generally agreed upon, but there is no agreement about what he thought later about his role in them. The Egyptian writer Muhammad Hussein Haykal, in his 1933 biography, Hayat Muhammad (translated into English as The Life of Muhammad), quotes Muhammad expressing regret for his participation in this war:
“I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!” (Pp. 52-3)
However, the ninth-century Muslim historian Ibn Sa’d, in one of the earliest and most important sources for biographical information on Muhammad, Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, directly contradicts Haykal by quoting Muhammad saying this about the Fijar War:
I attended it with my uncles and shot arrows there and I do not repent it. (I.143)So which is it?
Is Haykal right that he really did express regret, or is Ibn Sa’d right that he explicitly ruled out doing so? Haykal doesn’t give his source, but it is possible that he had access to a hadith or some Islamic tradition that flatly contradicted the one Ibn Sa’d recorded eleven centuries earlier — although this is unlikely, since Ibn Sa’d often records variant and contradictory reports and discusses how they can be harmonized, or why one should be accepted and the other rejected. In this case Ibn Sa’d gives no hint of any variants. Haykal may simply have altered this tradition for apologetic purposes. Those who cite him as their source on this, or try to build an argument upon his quotation, do so at their own risk.
Nonetheless, such contradictions abound in the hadith reports. Muhammad can quite often be found saying contradictory things, as I show in Did Muhammad Exist?. In that book also I discuss how this odd situation came about: opposing factions both invoked Muhammad as an authority, and invented traditions to support their point of view.
Spencer is hawking his new book, which he is pushing as a “scholarly work” about how Muhammad didn’t exist. His home page boasts that Robert Spencer is “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam”, “[a] serious scholar”, and “a brilliant scholar.”
I have pointed out in the past that Spencer is not a scholar of any sort–especially not on anything related to Islam. He simply does not have the academic qualifications to claim this. What other “scholar” do you know of that doesn’t even have a master’s or PhD degree on the subject he claims to be a “scholar” of? He only has a one-year master’s degree in “the field of early Christianity”. How does that make him an “acclaimed scholar of Islam”?
Another major problem with Spencer’s claim to scholarship is that he simply does not speak or understand Arabic. This much has been apparent in the past, and it becomes painstakingly obvious in his latest response to me (as I shall show below). I don’t think Spencer needs to know Arabic to criticize Islam (as some Muslim apologists insist), but I do think he needs to know it in order to be considered a “scholar of Islam” (a title he claims)–let alone “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam.”
Combine (1) not having any academic qualifications whatsoever with (2) not knowing Arabic and you have a situation like this: imagine some random blogger claiming to be “a world renowned physician” without ever having (1) gone to medical school and (2) without ever having studied or learned anatomy. Such a blogger might be able to bring up good points about the field of medicine, but nobody in their right mind would consider him a “world renowned physician”–and if he claimed any such thing, his credibility would be shattered.
The need to understand Arabic in order to be a “scholar of Islam” cannot become more apparent than it is now with Spencer’s latest reply. And here’s why: Spencer argues (see quote above) that the hadith (saying of the Prophet Muhammad) found in Haykal’s Hayat Muhammad contradicts the one in Ibn Sa’d's Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir. He argues that Haykal may have reproduced another hadith that contradicts the one found in Ibn Sa’d's book, or even that Haykal may have engaged in academic deceit (i.e. “altered this tradition for apologetic purposes”). That’s a serious and bold claim to make against Haykal.
Yet, had Spencer simply been able to read Arabic, he would have realized that the hadith in Haykal’s Hayat Muhammad and Ibn Sa’d's Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabirare the exact same! They are word-for-word identical. In other words, Haykal took the hadith from Ibn Sa’d's book. That Spencer couldn’t see this speaks volumes about his “scholarship.” So, Spencer’s blathering on about Haykal finding another contradictory hadith or of manipulating the text is indicative of his sophomoric “scholarship.”
How could Haykal have reproduced another hadith or have manipulated the text when in fact the wording in both Haykal’s book and Ibn Sa’d's is the exact same? Here is what is found in Haykal’s book:
Source: Haykal, Muhammad Husayn, Hayat Muhammad [The Life of Muhammad], 14th ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Ma’arif, n.d.): 134
And here’s the exact same found in Ibn Sa’d's book, which Spencer quoted to “trump” Haykal’s hadith (stupidly not realizing they are the exact same!):
Source: Ibn Sa’d, Tabaqat al-Kabir, edited by Ali Muhammad Umar (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khaniji, 2001) 1:106
To Robert Spencer, who doesn’t read or understand Arabic, that looks like a whole lot of jibberish. One can imagine Spencer saying: “That’s Greek Arabic to me!” But, if we help Spencer out by underlining as we did above, even he should be able to verify that they are the exact same–word-for-word.
So, if the two quotes are the exact same, why does Spencer’s quote seem to say the exact opposite as what I quoted? Why did I translate it as such:
I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!
Whereas Spencer used the following:
I attended it with my uncles and shot arrows there and I do not repent it.
Why the difference?
Being the “acclaimed scholar of Islam” that he is, Spencer relied on Google search to find this English translation of Ibn Sa’d's book and/or was forced to rely on an English translation of the book (due to his inability to read the source text). In doing so, Spencer didn’t realize that the sentence he reproduced was a faulty translation.
In Arabic, the underlined part is:
وما أحب أني لم أكن فعلت
In transliteration (for Spencer’s sake), it would be:
wa ma uhibb anni lam akun fa’alt
It translates to:
and what I wish is that I had not done it!
Breaking it down, we have:
وما(wa ma) – and what
أحب (uhibb) – I love/wish (See Hans Wehr for the meaning of this verb)
أني (anni) – is that I
لم أكن(lam akun) – had not
فعلت (fa’alt) – done [it]
The translator Spencer used made a mistake with the word ما (ma), which is a participle in Arabic that is modified by the words surrounding it. Hans Wehr lists nine different uses of the word ما (ma), one of which is indeed negation. However, from a linguistic standpoint, the “negative ma” cannot be used in this particular sentence. Indeed, it would render the sentence into a nonsensical “double negative”:
And I do not love that I had not done it.
Huh? If you translated it like so, that would actually mean that Muhammad did not participate in the war. So, even still, this would actually be proof against Spencer’s claim that Muhammad took part in it.
The translator Spencer relied upon saw two negatives and just tried to “simplify” the text to read: “and I do not repent it.” This, even though the word “repent” does not appear anywhere in the text. It is completely imagined. It should be noted that the translator’s native language was neither Arabic nor English. He didn’t know what to do with the nonsensical double-negative–a sentence that would actually mean that Muhammad did not love the fact that he did not participate in the war.
In reality, the word ما (ma) was being used as a “relative ma“:
Source: Ryding, Karin C., A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 326
The translator can be forgiven for making a mistake, but Robert Spencer, being “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam” should have known better. The only correct translation of this text would support the translation I used, namely that Muhammad regretted his participation in the war, which was the point of my article. It was this fact that Spencer failed to include in his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Instead, he tried to give the exact opposite (and false) impression, i.e. that Muhammad was already a “warrior” before he became a prophet.
Watch how this hadith from Ibn Sa’d's book–which Spencer is currently using as his strongest proof–will be quickly tossed away by Spencer now that it doesn’t support his argument any more. This is, after all, his methodology for “finding the historical Muhammad”: any hadiths that paint Muhammad in a positive light are jettisoned, whereas those that do the opposite are trumpeted and used as a club to hit Muslims over the head with. With such a biased “methodology”, do you really want to trust Robert Spencer as a source for Muhammad’s biography or for anything related to Islam?
* * * * *
The bottom line is that Spencer relied on an incorrect translation to write a response to my article. This has two implications:
1) Our entire discussion underscores how important it is for a “scholar of Islam” to read, understand and have mastery of the Arabic language. This is what is expected of a scholar at any credible university, and this is what must be expected of Robert Spencer if he wishes to don the mantle of a scholar of Islam. It is exactly because of situations like these where knowing how to read Arabic can make or break the argument.
2) Specifically with the Prophet Muhammad, Spencer’s biography is misleading because it portrays Muhammad as “already [having] had experience as a warrior”, which is meant to purposefully mislead the reader. It is intended to paint a portrait of Muhammad as a fierce warrior–hence, Spencer’s choice of title, “Muhammad: Prophet of War”.
What Spencer leaves out is the fact that, at most, Muhammad’s involvement in the war was menial–mostly just in a support capacity. This is a far cry from the “fierce warrior” image that Spencer is trying to portray.
Muhammad not only expressed regret for participation in the war, but more importantly, after hostilities ceased he supported the League of the Virtuous (Hilf al-Fudul), which was similar to the League of Nations formed after World War I. The goal of the League of the Virtuous was to bring an end to bloodshed, violence, and war. Muhammad’s participation in this–and his ringing endorsement of the League even in his later years of life–tells us a lot about how he viewed the war (and warfare in general). Under the entry of Hilf al-Fudul, Thomas Patrick Hughes’ A Dictionary of Islam says:
A confederacy formed…for the suppression of violence and injustice at the restoration of peace after the Sacrilegious war. Muhammad was then a youth, and Sir William Muir says this confederacy ”aroused an enthusiasm in the mind of Mahomet [Muhammad], which the exploits of the Sacrilegious war failed to kindle.”
The war Muhammad was not too keen of. But, the body designed to bring peace on earth was something he was deeply inspired by.
These are facts that Spencer wouldn’t have the reader know. Yet, whereas there was disagreement among biographers about Muhammad’s participation in the war, there was–as far as I know–no difference of opinion about his participation in and support for the League of the Virtuous. Why is it that Spencer’s biography focuses on contested facts but stays clear from a more accepted occurrence? It is only because one event helps build his case against Muhammad, and the other does the opposite. So, he includes what helps and ignores what doesn’t. Should you really trust Spencer’s biography then?
* * * * *
Spencer also writes in the same article:
Nonetheless, such contradictions abound in the hadith reports. Muhammad can quite often be found saying contradictory things, as I show in Did Muhammad Exist?. In that book also I discuss how this odd situation came about: opposing factions both invoked Muhammad as an authority, and invented traditions to support their point of view.
Robert Spencer has recently argued that Muhammad didn’t in fact exist. The desire to negate Muhammad’s existence altogether is born out of his strongly pro-Catholic, anti-Muslim views.
Yet, Spencer should know that historians have doubted the historicity of Moses and Jesus as well. Almost all of the arguments used against the historicity of Muhammad can be applied to Moses and Jesus. Some scholars have doubted Moses and Jesus’ existences altogether, just as Spencer doubts the existence of Muhammad. Once again, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, but try arguing this point and Spencer will cry “tu quoque, tu quoque!” How dare you apply the same standards to Spencer’s religion and beliefs that he does on a routine basis to others!
However, most scholars don’t believe Muhammad didn’t exist, just as most don’t deny the existence of Jesus. But, the details of Muhammad’s life are far more controversial and up for debate, just as is the case with Jesus. Finding the historical Muhammad is, like finding the historical Moses or Jesus, an important endeavor.
Yes, contradictory hadiths abound, but that’s no different than is the case in Christianity: Bible scholars argue that the Gospels, for example, are highly contradictory to each other, especially with regard to Jesus. I can hear it now already: tu quoque, tu quoque!
The fact that contradictory reports exist just means that scholars need to exert energy to determine what’s more reliable and what’s not–and there will always be a level of guesswork and doubt about it. But the correct way to find the historical Muhammad is not the way Spencer does it: agree with whatever casts Muhammad in a bad light, and dump everything that doesn’t.
Finding the historical Muhammad is an important endeavor that modern scholarship will need to undertake, and you won’t find me disagreeing with that. Yes, it might call into question stories that many Muslims take for granted, but it will also cast doubt on events that Islamophobes like Robert Spencer rely on to bash Muslims over the head with.
But one North Carolina Republican believes that as a country we’ve grown soft since banning public hangings and is calling for them to reinstated as a deterrent to crime. If Rep. Larry Pittman had his way, “abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers” would be first in line for the gallows:
Republican Rep. Larry Pittman, who was appointed to the District 82 House seat in October, expressed his views in an email sent Wednesday to every member of the General Assembly. [...]
“We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner,” Pittman wrote in the email. “If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.”
As ThinkProgress reported, last year Republicans in South Carolina, Nebraska, and Iowa pushed legislation that would essentially legalize the murder of abortion providers. Such radical sentiments have been echoed by prominent conservatives like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who said during his 2004 campaign, “I favor the death penalty for abortionists.”
It was revealed in January 2011 that the NYPD was using an anti-Muslim documentary entitled “The Third Jihad” in its counter terror training courses. At the time “a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened ‘a couple of times’ for a few officers.”
A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training.
During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.
We exposed the Third Jihad way back in 2009 when it was first released! We clearly laid out the facts: (1) Clarion Fund is an arm of Aish HaTorah, an Israeli advocacy and educational organization:
According to the Delaware Department of Corporations, Robert (Rabbi Raphael) Shore, Rabbi Henry Harris and Rebecca Kabat incorporated Clarion Fund. All three of whom are reported to serve as employees of Aish HaTorah International.
(2) Clarion Fund’s free mass distribution of the anti-Muslim movie, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War on the West (also directed by Shore) a few months prior to the 2008 presidential election was an attempt to sway the election in John McCain’s favor:
Unless you were sleeping in a cave during the 2008 Presidential election you’re probably aware that the mysterious Clarion Fund is the same organization that distributed 28 Million DVD’s of their controversial film Obsession, which compares Islam to Nazism, in newspapers in swing states across America.
The movie was widely discredited for its cast of radical and extreme pundits, some of whom (Daniel Pipes, Brigitte Gabriel, Walid Shoebat, Steven Emerson) we have featured on LoonWatch. As our articles showed, these Islamophobes have a history of bigoted and derogatory statements regarding Muslims and Islam.
The film itself was compared to Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 pro-Nazi film Triumph of the Will. Broward-Palm Beach New Times called it “misleading and dangerous.” Jeff VanDenBerg, director of Middle East Studies at Drury University, called the film “a blatant piece of anti-Muslim propaganda.”
During the campaign to distribute Obsession, news reports at the time quickly revealed that their main motivation was to shift the focus during the Presidential election from the Economy to the issue of National Security, the area in which John McCain led in polls.
Shore and his cohorts efforts failed as they over-reached in their attempt to paint the radical-stealth-Islamic boogeyman menace to America as similar to Nazism during WWII. They changed tactic with the Third Jihad and attempted to redirect the hate, though they only offered a thin vanilla (Zuhdi Jasser) covering for the bigotry that is clearly all over the film:
Third Jihad paints a picture of a nefarious plot by a cabal that includes all mainstream Muslim organizations to take over and dominate America. The movie, reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, centers around the purported discovery of a document describing a strategic secret plot by Muslims to undermine Democracy and replace it with Sharia’ laws.
The recent exposes in the mainstream media showing that thousands of NYPD officers have watched the anti-Muslim films, coupled with Ray Kelly himself being interviewed in the film has caused much embarrassment to the NYPD, which is already suffering from poor relations with the Muslim community. The NYPD and Ray Kelly have apologized, (Kelly now calls the movie “inflammatory”), but many are calling for Kelly to be fired.
In a press release Raphael Shore complained about his anti-Muslim film being dumped from the training of NYPD officers:
“We regret that the film has been taken out of the counterterrorism training program of the NYPD. The New York Times stories are proof positive that the Clarion Fund’s high-quality and impactful documentaries touch very sensitive nerves.
“Those that have blasted the film are attempting to stifle an important debate about the internal state of the Muslim community in America, and whether politicized Islam and indoctrination pose tangible security threats.
Yes, Raphael is concerned with the “internal state of the Muslim community in America”/sarcasm. He’s as concerned about it as Pamela Geller is no doubt. The truth is Raphael, your hate work on Islam is no longer going to get a free pass. People can see the nexus that aligns Right-Wing Islamophobes abroad and at home and they are tired of it.
The Third Jihad is essentially an updated and reconfigured version of Obsession or as some have called it“Obsession on steroids.” Instead of the overt comparisons of Islam with Nazism, or of a cosmic battle between good and evil, the object this time is to warn against a threat they term “Cultural Jihad” carried out from within by American Muslims.
In Third Jihad, just as in Obsession, there is the cliche disclaimer at the start of the film that the movie is not about the vast majority of Muslims who are peaceful, yet in Third Jihad just as in Obsession, the rest of the film quickly and completely trumps what becomes an empty disclaimer. Both films fail to make consistent distinctions between Islam and Radical Islamism, and at times conflate the two. As the IPS (Inter Press Service)notes:
Radical Muslims, by having children, spreading their faith, and ensuring their ability to practice Islam as they see fit, are working a ‘demographic jihad’ in which they see themselves emerging as a majority and making Islam the dominant religion of the U.S. – eventually to take over the nation altogether – contend Jasser and the films creators.
But that prospect seems unlikely in the U.S., where Muslim Americans are generally regarded as well-assimilated and not radicalised.
The film itself also contains inconsistencies in terms of differentiating between Islam and radical Islam.
For example, the graphic that the film used to demonstrate the spread of an Islamic state across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe used a tiled picture of a green crescent with a star between its points. The crescent and star are the symbol of Islam in general.
The documentary was produced by the Clarion Fund, a U.S.-based non-profit that was embroiled in controversy last year when it distributed its last movie, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” to nearly 30 million homes in the ‘swing states’ that normally decide U.S. presidential elections.
Its 501(c)(3) status as non-profit means the group is legally exempt from paying taxes and is prohibited from involvement in electoral politics.
IPS investigations also tied the production and distribution of “Obsession” to right-wing Israeli groups and U.S.-based neoconservatives.
The central focus of the film is the purported discovery of a document which claims Muslim organizations are seeking to “destroy” the West from within and replace Democracy with Islamic law worldwide. This ploy is similar to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which is a tract alleging a Jewish and Masonic plot to achieve world domination. Purportedly written by a secret group of Jews known as the Elders of Zion, the document underlies 24 protocols that are supposedly followed by the Jewish people.
The movie also suffers from a lack of credibility with most of the pundits it chooses to interview. For example one of the pundits is Tawfiq Hamid (!) who is labeled an ex-terrorist. Tawfiq’s story is not corroborated by any independent sources, he has also made blatant statements describing Muslims as terrorists and Islam as evil. On the Orla Barry Show he stated, “the majority of Muslim are all passive terrorists. They believe in this evil. They support it either by money or emotionally they are not against it.” He is also featured on radical Islamophobe Walid Shoebat’s website and has appeared with him on talk shows and other venues.
This hate movie is available online and its central protagonist is Zuhdi Jasser who is also the narrator of the film. Jasser is cast as an all American hero, clips of him having moments with his family are reminiscent of episodes out of Full House, complete with sentimental muzak equivalent to the quality one hears in elevators. Jasser is the lone American Muslim (all the others are either “scared” or “silent”) standing up against radicals. He is the “moderate” who is seeking to reform Islam while at the same time save America from the ignored threat of “homegrown radical Muslims.”
Is Jasser an unbiased chronicler of American Islam, and is he the right advocate to counter radical Muslims?
Considering his radical associations and partisan attachment to the far right wing of the Republican party, the answers are no.
As Richard Silversteinwrites, “To put it plain and simple, Jasser is a Muslim neocon.” He created a 501c3 designated organization AIFD (American Islamic forum for Democracy) whose agenda is a “barely concealed” form of radical Republicanism. 501c3 designated organizations are not allowed to meddle in partisan politics.
Jasser has himself publicly participated in the political process. In this endorsement of a far-right pro-Israel Colorado Republican legislative candidate, he strangely takes aim at the candidate’s Republican American Muslim opponent:
“A brief word about Mr. Sharf’s primary opponent. Mrs. Rima Barakat Sinclair has no apparent record, prior to this election of…any traditional conservative issues. Previously, her sole political agenda seems to have been anti-Israel activism. Her candidacy seems to be more a product of Islamist politics than of ideas central to conservative American principles and activism. Sadly, candidates out of this mold, who conflate the Israeli-Palestinian crisis with their Islamic identity actually harm more than they help the genuine pluralistic advancement of American Muslims. Most Muslims are actually quite diverse in their domestic and foreign policy politics and do not accept the collectivist agenda of political Islam (Islamism).”
It is certainly no accident that Sinclair’s opponent, Joshua Scharf, is a right-wing pro-Israel militant.
In this National Review interview, Jasser enthusiastically promotes a Republican agenda:
“Lopez: Do you like what you’re hearing out of any of the presidential candidates?
Jasser: (First a necessary caveat – the following is my personal opinion only and in no way that of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy).
Yes, I think most of the Republican presidential field is much more honest than the Democrats in articulating the real stakes in this war of ideas of the free world versus the Islamists. While most of the Republican candidates are in the right anti-Islamist arena, only a few have been able to articulate it clearly enough and with enough candor to get my attention. I am far from making up my mind on a candidate yet, but am encouraged by a lot of what I see from some of the candidates.
I am most heartened by what I am hearing from Rudy Guliani’s campaign, with Governor Mitt Romney very close behind in my mind. Mayor Guliani understands the toxicity of the Saudis and their Wahhabis…He is not afraid to articulate the conflict in ideas between Western freedom and Islamist theocracy…He names our enemies by name, and is not afraid to stand for principle and substance in foreign policy over diplomatic platitudes (i.e. against the Saudis, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood), and other Islamists.
Governor Mitt Romney’s campaign has also demonstrated a willingness to mince no words when discussing the ideologies we are facing. He identifies jihadists as our enemies and uses his important position of national and global leadership to clearly frame the debate as one between the ideology of Islamism (Caliphism, jihadism, and theocracy) versus freedom.
…John McCain’s articulation of the stakes in the Iraq war has always been very impressive, and I hope that other candidates can look to his clarity on the issue as an example of principle.”
His disclaimer is a laugh since the group’s website lists him as founder and president. Only one other individual is listed on the entire website as a staff member of the group. No board members are listed (though he refers to the existence of one). So Jasser IS AIF. If Jasser is a right-wing Republican, so is AIF. Which makes a 501c3 designation problematic.
Jasser is also a member of the Middle East Forum created and ran by neo-con Daniel Pipes as well as “the pro-Israel and neocon Committee on the Present Danger. He has spoken before the Hudson Institute. He writes for Family Security Matters, Middle East Quarterly, and other far-right websites.” If this doesn’t give you a hint about the agenda that drives Jasser and the purpose of this film nothing will.
Ana and Cenk do a better and more succinct job in eviscerating Third Jihad and the NYPD’s attempted cover-up:
A family barricaded themselves in their home as a neighbour armed with knives threatened to kill them, a court heard. Daniel Smith is said to have shouted racist abuse and English Defence League slogans as he smashed his way into the Thornhill Lees home.
Yesterday, victim Waaqas Ahmed said: “He was like a vicious animal against his prey, lunging. It’s a miracle I didn’t get hurt.”
Leeds Crown Court heard the attack on August 26, 2011, was the culmination of a long-running dispute between Smith’s girlfriend and their neighbours in Victoria Road.
Prosecutor Christopher Tehrani said Smith started a fight in the street with two of his neighbour’s brothers at around 7.30pm. When the fight was broken up, the brothers went into their sister’s house and locked the front door.
Soon after, Smith, 38, arrived armed with two knives and a screwdriver. Jurors saw mobile phone footage of him banging at the door and making threats.
Zubair Yasin said: “Everyone was on their phones calling the police. My little niece was screaming, my sister was crying. We could not imagine how this could be happening in our own home.”
Mr Tehrani said the family wedged an ironing board against the door, but Smith forced his way in. He threatened family members one-by-one with a knife.
Junaid Azad’s arm was cut when he tried to protect his sister. “It was pandemonium,” he said. Mr Azad said he defended himself and his family with a broom handle and exercise bar, and threw a milkshake at Smith.
Smith denies assault by beating and aggravated burglary.
We reported on the negative response Longview, Texas Muslims received from “some” of their neighbors who don’t want to see a mosque built in the town. It is only fair that we also highlight the voices who have no problem with the mosque and are in fact “disappointed” with the ignorant actions some of the anti-Mosque neighbors have taken.
A Longview resident said Thursday he is disappointed by the negative reaction from a portion of the Longview community toward a mosque being built on Amy Street.
“Quite frankly it was very disheartening to me to see that type of discussion taking place here in our community,” Vik Verma said during public comment at a Longview City Council meeting.
“I believe it’s strongly unwarranted. The Islamic community of Longview is merely wanting to have a house of worship just like any other faith in Longview, in Gregg County, in Texas and in the United States. I think this is a value that our community should embrace.”
Verma said freedom of religion is a right granted in the U.S. Constitution and that the community should embrace it. “I support the mosque. I’m glad it’s coming to Gregg County,” Verma said. “I think it’s good for diversity in our area, and I think it’s good for the community as a whole.”
The Dutch Cabinet moved a step closer Friday to banning the burqa, making good on an election promise that is largely symbolic but has broad public support.
Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen said the Cabinet agreed on plans to ban the head-to-toe Islamic gown along with other forms of face-covering clothing including ski masks. The legislation must still be approved by both houses of the Dutch Parliament, a process that could take months. “We are confident we have a majority,” Interior Minister Liesbeth Spies said.
Once seen as one of the world’s most tolerant nations, the Netherlands has turned increasingly conservative in recent years and is pushing immigrants more to fully assimilate into mainstream Dutch society. Anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders welcomed the decision in a tweet as “fantastic news.”
Like neighboring Belgium, the Dutch government cited security concerns as a reason for the ban and framed it as a move to safeguard public order and allow all people to “fully participate in society”. “People must be able to look one another in the eye,” Verhagen said.
The Dutch decision came despite criticism of the ban from independent advisory panel the Council of State, which reportedly suggested it could amount to an attack on freedom of religion. Verhagen denied ignoring the advice and said ministers took it into account when laying out the reasons underpinning the legislation. The government is confident that by citing public order concerns, the legislation will not breach the European Convention on Human Rights.
Leyla Cakir, head of Muslim women’s organization Al Nisa, said she was surprised and shocked by the decision. “You are taking away women’s right of self-determination, and it is all based on fear,” she said.
But in a statement announcing the decision, the government said it was helping women. “Having to wear a burqa or niqab in public goes against equality of men and women,” the government said. “With this legislation, the Cabinet is removing a barrier to these women participating in society.”
A ban on the veil was part of the deal the VVD and CDA made with Wilders in September 2010, in exchange for his party’s support for their coalition government. However, it would be unfair to accuse Maxime Verhagen of adopting this policy out of mere political expendency. He has a record of Islamophobia going back some years.
It is not too often that I feature a specific Anti-Loon story, even though Anti-Loon stories happen to be my favorite, since they have a way of shattering the bi-furcated ‘us vs. them’ narratives that abound. Quite often we are led to believe, whether through daily sensationalist media headlines or the constant barrage of negativity from the Hate Industry that some faiths just can’t get along.
Judaism and Islam, two faiths with a remarkable shared history are considered by far too many to be locked in an epic duel today. In this context I present to you the story of a Synagogue in a Mosque (h/t: Hakeem, Aviv, Nauman):
Near the corner of Westchester Avenue and Pugsley Street in Parkchester, just off the elevated tracks of the No. 6 train, Yaakov Wayne Baumann stood outside a graffiti-covered storefront on a chilly Saturday morning. Suited up in a black overcoat with a matching wide-brimmed black fedora, the thickly bearded 42-year-old chatted with elderly congregants as they entered the building for Shabbat service.
The only unusual detail: This synagogue is a mosque.
Or rather, it’s housed inside a mosque. That’s right: Members of the Chabad of East Bronx, an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, worship in the Islamic Cultural Center of North America, which is home to the Al-Iman mosque.
“People have a misconception that Muslims hate Jews,” said Baumann. “But here is an example of them working with us.”
Imagine Baumann telling Pamela Geller and her acolytes that “people have a misconception that Muslims hate Jews,” he would probably be called a self-hating Jew.
Indeed, though conventionally viewed as adversaries both here and abroad, the Jews and Muslims of the Bronx have been propelled into an unlikely bond by a demographic shift. The borough was once home to an estimated 630,000 Jews, but by 2002 that number had dropped to 45,100, according to a study by the Jewish Community Relations Council. At the same time, the Muslim population has been increasing. In Parkchester alone, there are currently five mosques, including Masjid Al-Iman.
“Nowhere in the world would Jews and Muslims be meeting under the same roof,” said Patricia Tomasulo, the Catholic Democratic precinct captain and Parkchester community organizer, who first introduced the leaders of the synagogue and mosque to each other. “It’s so unique.”
I understand what the Catholic precinct captain is trying to say, but it is not true that there is “nowhere else” that Jews and Muslims would be meeting under one roof. Before the rise in tensions 100 years ago, Jews and Muslims for the most part used to get on very well, and there are plenty of examples of them meeting under one roof in other places, including here in the USA. As commenter Vicki Streiff notes,
Happily, Ms. Tomasulo is quite wrong. Here in Bloomington, the congregants of Beth Shalom and the congregants of The Islamic Center of Bloomington, Indiana do our best to eat, learn, pray and do community service together when we can. We had a joint Ramadan break-fast and Sukkot dinner party three years in a row, for example, until the calendars ceased to conveniently align. I could cite many more examples as well.
The history behind how the synagogue came to be in the mosque:
The relationship started years ago, when the Young Israel Congregation, then located on Virginia Avenue in Parkchester, was running clothing drives for needy families, according to Leon Bleckman, now 78, who was at the time the treasurer of the congregation. One of the recipients was Sheikh Moussa Drammeh, the founder of the Al-Iman Mosque, who was collecting donations for his congregants—many of whom are immigrants from Africa. The 49-year-old imam is an immigrant from Gambia in West Africa who came to the United States in 1986. After a year in Harlem, he moved to Parkchester, where he eventually founded the Muslim center and later established an Islamic grade school. Through that initial meeting, a rapport developed between the two houses of worship, and the synagogue continued to donate to the Islamic center, among other organizations.
A good deed never goes unreturned? You never know, if you venture out of your comfort zone and help others, one day they may return the favor.
But in 2003, after years of declining membership, Young Israel was forced to sell its building at 1375 Virginia Ave., according to a database maintained by Yeshiva University, which keeps historical records of synagogues. Before the closing, non-religious items were given away; in fact, among the beneficiaries was none other than Drammeh, who took some chairs and tables for his center.
Meanwhile, Bleckman and the remaining members moved to a nearby storefront location, renting it for $2,000 a month including utilities. With mostly elderly congregants, Young Israel struggled to survive financially and, at the end of 2007, was forced to close for good. The remaining congregants were left without a place to pray. During the synagogue’s farewell service, four young men from the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in Crown Heights showed up. Three months earlier, Bleckman, then chairman of the synagogue’s emergency fund, had appealed for help from the Chabad.
“The boys from the Chabad said they came to save us,” said Bleckman. “We were crying.”
At this point, Chabad took over the congregational reins from Young Israel, with members officially adopting the new name Chabad of East Bronx. Still, for the next six to seven weeks, Bleckman said they could not even hold a service because they had nowhere to hold it.
When Drammeh learned of their plight, he immediately volunteered to accommodate them at the Muslim center at 2006 Westchester Ave.—for free.
“They don’t pay anything, because these are old folks whose income are very limited now,” said Drammeh, adding that he felt it was his turn to help the people who had once helped him and his community. “Not every Muslim likes us, because not every Muslim believes that Muslims and Jews should be like this,” Drammeh said, referring to the shared space. But “there’s no reason why we should hate each other, why we cannot be families.” Drammeh in particular admires the dedication of the Chabad rabbis, who walked 15 miles from Brooklyn every Saturday to run prayer services for the small Parkchester community.
Sheesh, Rabbis, 15 miles? Islamophobes would call Drammeh a “taqiyyah artist” or someone who is not practicing what they term “real Islam.” Intelligent people however see this for what it is, the practice of “treat others as you would like to be treated” which happens to be a golden rule in all faiths.
The Islamophobes no doubt would try to zero in on the statement from Drammeh that “not every Muslim likes us…” though they would forget there are a lot of non-Muslims who also don’t like this because it destroys their pre-conceived notions of how the world should be.
For the first six months, congregants held Friday night Sabbath services inside Drammeh’s cramped office. As more people began joining the congregation, Drammeh offered them a bigger room where they could set up a makeshift shul. (When it’s not in use, students from the Islamic school use it as their classroom.) Inside the synagogue, a worn, beige cotton curtain separates the men and women who attend the service. A solitary chandelier hangs just above the black wooden arc that holds the borrowed Torah, which is brought weekly from the Chabad headquarters. A large table covered with prayer books stands in the center, and a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe is displayed prominently on a nearby wall. During Shabbat, when Jewish congregants are strictly prohibited from working, they have to rely on the Muslim workers at the center or on Drammeh to do simple chores such as turning on the light and switching on the heater.
At first, it did not make sense, said Hana Kabakow, wife of Rabbi Meir Kabakow. “I was surprised,” said the 26-year-old congregant who was born and raised in Israel. “But when I came here I understood.” The Kabakows have been coming to the service from Brooklyn for the last two years.
A heart changed and a new understanding.
Harriet Miller, another congregant, said she appreciated the center’s accommodating the synagogue. “They are very sweet people,” said the 79-year-old Bronx native and long-time resident of Parkchester, who added that she welcomes the new Muslim immigrants in her neighborhood: “We were not brought up to hate.”
Drammeh also understands the importance of teaching tolerance more broadly, and for turning the school—which was itself founded at the nearby St. Helena Catholic Church on, of all days, Sept. 11, 2001—into a model of sorts for religious tolerance in New York.
“We’re not as divided as the media portrays us to be,” Drammeh said. “Almost 90 percent of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian teachings are the same.”
His latest project involves introducing fifth-grade Jewish and Islamic school students to each other’s religious traditions. Other participants of the program, now in its sixth year, include the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan, the Al Ihsan Academy of Queens, and the Kinneret Day School of Riverdale. At the end of the program, students organize an exhibit that shows family artifacts of their respective cultures and religion. The principal of the Islamic school, who is also Sheik Drammeh’s wife, said that even after the program ended, the participants became “fast friends” and would visit each other’s homes.
“They would have birthday parties together,” Shireena Drammeh said. “When someone invites you to their house, I mean, that says it all right there and then.”
While the Jewish congregants are thankful for their new home, they hope that one day they can rebuild their own synagogue. That day may be far off: Even now that they have space to worship, they still struggle to operate. They don’t have proper heating inside, and the portable working heater could not reach the separate area where the elderly women are seated, forcing them to wear their jackets during the entire service. Congregants are appealing for financial support from the Jewish community and other congregations.
But Leon Bleckman and others say they now also have loftier goals, including reviving the Jewish presence in the neighborhood and reaffirming the positive relationship with their Muslim friends. “We are able to co-exist together side by side in the same building,” said Assistant Rabbi Avi Friedman, 42. “That’s sort of like a taste of the future world to come—the messianic future where all people live in peace.”
The struggle, or jihad for Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, and helping one another to build for peace can begin with small acts of kindness. The hate-filled voices across the world can only respond with silence and hopefully some soul-searching. If any loonwatchers are interested in helping this community please contact them:
You can help the community by finding more people or by contributing or many other ways.
You can contact us by mail: P.O. Box 273, Bronx, NY 10462 or by E-mail: BeisMenachem@ChabadBronx.com
or by phone:347-770-5452
The suspended Gujarat cadre IPS officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, has strongly urged the head of the Special Investigation Team, R.K. Raghavan, to proceed with the prosecution of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as there was “substantial direct evidence as well as overwhelming circumstantial evidence” to establish his alleged complicity in the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002.
Mr. Bhatt, who shot off yet another letter to Mr. Raghavan on Tuesday (his fourth this month), said he was writing in response to reports that the SIT had sought legal opinion on whether or not to prosecute Mr. Modi for the post-Godhra violence. Drawing on his depositions before the SIT, Mr. Bhatt said he had personally met and alerted Mr. Modi to the deteriorating law and order situation on February 28, 2002, focusing especially on “the imminent carnage at Gulberg Society.”
He said he met Mr. Modi twice that day and “by the time of the second meeting… the carnage at Gulberg Society had begun in full view of the police personnel who were deployed there… The Chief Minister was accordingly briefed about the complete police inaction and complicity. The Chief Minister was also explicitly informed about the imminent threat to the lives of ex-MP Ehsan Jafri and his family members.”
Mr. Bhatt also drew the SIT’s attention to the “numerous Situation Reports and Alert Messages” sent “contemporaneously to the Office of the Chief Minister,” especially concerning the “developing violent situation and imminent carnage at Gulberg Society.”
He said Mr. Modi was also kept informed on telephone about the developments. A fax alert dated February 28, 2002 attached to the letter to Mr. Raghavan said: “As informed telephonically to the Hon’ble CM, ex-MP Ehsan Jafri and his family members residing at Gulmarg Society [Mr. Bhatt told The Hindu the alert had erroneously referred to Gulberg as Gulmarg because that is the first time he had heard of the housing society], Chamanpura, Meghaninagar have been summoned and are being attacked by a Hindu mob in the presence of policebundobust [deployment]. The lives of Ehsan Jafri and other family members are in imminent danger…” The alert was addressed to the Personal Secretary to the Chief Minister and the Personal Secretary to the Minister of State (Home) with copies to the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad.
Mr. Bhatt said that instead of reacting to the alerts, Mr. Modi instructed him (Mr. Bhatt) to dig out details of “past instances wherein Mr. Jafri had supposedly opened fire on Hindus during earlier communal riots in Ahmedabad.” Mr. Bhatt said that as he emerged from the meeting, he got the information that Mr. Modi was “independently getting real-time information updates on the developments that were taking place at Gulberg Society.”
Mr. Bhatt said the Chief Minister’s conduct made it “unambiguously and absolutely clear” that he was not interested in discharging his “constitutionally mandated legal obligation of directing the police force to act with all firmness in order to protect the life and property of helpless citizens.” Instead, he wanted to collect information that could be used to build a case that the Gulberg carnage was triggered by Mr. Jafri himself.
The police officer argued further that these “acts of commission and omission” by the Chief Minister amounted to “facilitation and abetment of the gruesome carnage at Gulberg Society” and he was liable to be charged for abetment under Sections 109, 112, 115, and 117 of the Indian Penal Code and for concealing design to commit an offence under Sections 118 and 119.
Later, Mr. Bhatt told The Hindu that he had repeatedly made two requests to the SIT: to allow his statement to be recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Cr.PC. and to examine control room inspectors and other officers who were in a position to testify on the developments of February 27 and 28, 2002, and who could, by their statements, support or negate Mr. Bhatt’s claim that he attended a late night meeting held at Mr. Modi’s residence.
The police officer said: “My depositions to the SIT have been under Section 161 of the Cr.PC which does not even require my signature. However, a statement under 164 of the Cr.PC cuts both ways. It is legally binding, but if I have lied, it also allows my prosecution for perjury. Is that too much to ask?”
Thus the headline to an article in today’s Daily Mail. As is almost invariably the case when this newspaper reports on any issue involving Muslims, the headline is intentionally misleading.
If you read the article, you’ll see it is the rapist’s family background that is characterised as “strict Muslim” not the individual himself. In fact the judge in passing sentence made the point that the rapist carried out the attacks despite and in contradiction to his religious upbringing: “The fact that you have attacked these women not withstanding your background must represent your own wholly warped personality.”
But the headline suggests to the reader that it was the man’s strict adherence to his faith which produced the violent misogyny that led him to commit these crimes.
Islamophobes and anti-Muslim haters are all in a tizzy about some kind words that Liam Neeson had to say about Islam and the “beautiful mosques” he encountered in Turkey. The Sun magazine, a British tabloid ran the sensational headline, Liam Neeson: I May Become a Muslim.
Apparently this is the statement they are basing his consideration of Islam on:
“The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing.
“There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”
To me it sounds like Liam is being nice and appreciating the beauty that he most likely is able to find in various cultures and traditions. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think his words are just hollow sentiment, I think he probably was truly impressed and perhaps he is considering Islam, but of course those who take perpetual offense cannot concede that anyone, let alone a “celebrity,” could see anything beautiful within Islam or Muslim countries.
The ever hysterical Debbie Schlussel for instance thinks Neeson should change his name to Al-Moron. Failed comic book writer Bosch Fawstin is also offended, as are are a plethora of other Islamophobes.
Perhaps they will chalk it up to the secret-Muslamic-creeping-Shariah take over of Hollywood?:
HOLLYWOOD star Liam Neeson is considering giving up his Catholic belief and becoming a Muslim.
The actor, 59, admitted Islamic prayer “got into his spirit” while filming in Turkish city Istanbul.
He said: “The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing.
“There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”
Liam was raised in Northern Ireland as a devout Catholic and altar boy and was named after the local priest.
But the star — whose wife Natasha Richardson died aged 45 in a skiing accident in 2009 — has spoken about challenges to his faith.
He said: “I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What’s it all about?
“I’m constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.”
Liam was criticised in 2010 after claiming Narnia lion Aslan — voiced by him in the movies — is not based on Christ as CS Lewis had claimed but in fact all spiritual leaders including Mohammed.
His latest film The Grey, about an oil drilling team who crash in freezing Alaska, is released in the UK on Friday.
Horowitz tool Robert Spencer and his right-wing buddies, Bat Yeor, Geert Wilders, Pamela Geller, etc. have attempted to create a narrative that Muslim immigrants and their children are responsible for most, if not all “anti-Semitic crimes” in Europe. We have shown in the past that this is false, and the below article asserts that it is actually “right-wing extremists” who commit most anti-Semitic crimes–upwards to 90%.
The article also reveals that about 20% of Germans harbor some form of anti-Semitism:
A new study by a Parliament-appointed commission shows 20% of Germans harbor “latent” anti-Semitism, but anti-Jewish crimes are almost exclusively committed by the far right.
The 188-page report – which draws on several different surveys and other research – puts Germans in the middle of the pack in Europe, with a German university survey showing more latent anti-Semitism in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Portugal, and less in Italy, Britain, the Netherlands and France.
The study released Monday said the surveys show that about one-fifth of Germans agree with anti-Semitic statements, such as “Jews have too much power in business.”
The study also showed that 90% of anti-Semitic crimes are committed by right-wing extremists, who number about 26,000 according to official estimates.
It recommends better coordination of local, state and federal strategies to combat anti-Semitism.
The report makes reference to “a wider acceptance in mainstream society of day-to-day anti-Jewish tirades and actions”.
“Anti-Semitism in our society is based on widespread prejudices, deeply rooted clichés and on sheer ignorance about Jews and Judaism,” stated one of the report’s authors, Dr. Peter Longerich of the University of London, Holocaust Research Center.
The report cites the Internet as a contributing factor to the spread of anti-Semitic thought.
“With regard to modern forms of communication – we point to the Internet in particular – it is virtually impossible to prevent the spread of such thinking,” Longerich continued.
Yes, they just oppose the small mosque-to-be because of “noise” and “traffic.” If that is the case ,then those issues would be legitimate concerns, but what they go on to do and say casts doubt on their stated intentions in opposing the mosque.
Hopefully this will be resolved properly (via. Islamophobia-Watch):
KYTX reports on resistance to the Islamic Centre of Longview’s plan to build the town’s first mosque, a relatively small structure which will be attended by no more than 40-50 people at a time. Needless to say, the objectors say they have nothing against Muslims, it’s just the noise and the traffic they’re worried about.
In response to the mosque proposal, some have erected “Jesus” signs outside their properties. However, this has nothing to do with hostility to Islam, but simply expresses their love of Christianity. As one mosque opponent explains: “The neighbourhood joined together and we put up the Jesus signs to support Jesus Christ in our church and our community.”
Didn’t they love Jesus before this mosque was going to be constructed? Do they realize Muslims believe in Jesus as well?
I recently agreed to debate the following thesis with Robert Spencer of JihadWatch:
Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity.
This is the main theme in Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). It is even the title of one of his books: Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t. More than this, it reflects the fundamental difference between he and I: whereas I accept the violent and intolerant aspect inherent in all religious traditions, Spencer specifically targets Islam.
Under this heading, I was willing to debate the following sub-thesis:
The Islamic prophet was more violent and warlike than Jewish and Christian prophets.
This was the argument Spencer brought forth in chapter 1 of his book, entitled “Muhammad: Prophet of War.” On p.3, Spencer writes:
[F]or the religious man or woman on the streets of Chicago, Rome, Jerusalem, Damascus, Calcutta, and Bangkok, the words of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Krishna, and Buddha mean something far greater than any individual’s reading of them. And even to the less-than-devout reader, the words of these great religious teachers are clearly not equal in their meaning.
On p.4, Spencer promises to compare Muhammad to prophets and founders of other religious traditions in order “to emphasize the fallacy of those who claim that Islam and Christianity–and all other religious traditions, for that matter–are basically equal in their ability to inspire good or evil.” In other words: Muhammad was the most violent of them all, and thus inspires greater evil.
But, is it true?
I’ve already written multiple articles related to this topic, but now I will directly refute chapter 1 of Robert Spencer’s book (“Muhammad: Prophet of War”), which is Spencer’s biography of Muhammad. I will present a balanced, neutral, and academic picture of Muhammad–in between the Islamophobic narrative of Spencer on the one hand and the understandably biased Muslim apologist view on the other.
Once Muhammad’s life is understood thus, I will compare it to the lives of other prophets–Moses, Joshua, Samson, Saul, David, Jesus, etc.–to see if Muhammad was truly the most violent of them all.
* * * * *
Robert Spencer’s biography of Muhammad is extremely misleading. This becomes apparent from the get-go. The very first section of Spencer’s biography of Muhammad begins on p.5, entitled “Muhammad the raider.” Spencer’s opening words are:
Muhammad the raider
Muhammad already had experience as a warrior before he assumed the role of prophet. He had participated in two local wars between his Quraysh tribe and their neighboring rivals Banu Hawazin.
What Spencer leaves out from this talking point–”Muhammad already had experience as warrior before he assumed the role of prophet”!–is quite telling.
He is referring to what is known in Islamic history as Harb al-Fijar (the Sacrilegious War), a series of conflicts that took place when Muhammad was a teenager. The spark that ignited the war was the unsettled murder of a member of one tribe, which lead to a blood feud. Due to “entangling alliances,” many different tribes in the area found themselves at war with each other.
Like most of Muhammad’s life, the details of this event are contested. This dispute is not simply one between modern-day Muslim apologists and Islamophobes, but rather one that traces its way back to the earliest biographers of the Prophet.
In specific, Muhammad’s level of participation in these wars is disputed. On the one hand, some Shia biographers reject the idea that Muhammad partook in them at all. Meanwhile, Sunni biographers write that Muhammad simply accompanied his uncle but did not directly fight in these wars. He only took on a very limited support role: picking up enemy arrows from the battlefield. At the most, he fired off a few arrows, but did not kill anyone.
Not only was Muhammad’s role severely limited, but even this he would later express regret over. Muhammad later recounted: “I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!” [1] Spencer conveniently omits this very important fact, one that mitigates Muhammad’s participation in the war, especially in regards to his views about war and peace.
Like World War I, the Sacrilegious War was sparked over a murder and resulted in great turmoil due to “entangling alliances.” Once hostilities ceased, many of the tribes decided to convene a sort of “League of Nations” to prevent future wars. The Arabian tribes assembled at the house of a man named Abdullah bin Judan and “forged the League of the Virtuous [Hilf al-Fudul]. The major aims of the League were to prevent wars from breaking out and to protect the weak and the defenseless from their enemies.” [2] Members would “henceforth and forever stand on the side of the victim of injustice,” instead of simply siding based on tribal loyalty. [3] It was hoped that such an arrangement would prevent the blood feuds that were common in that time.
Muhammad took part in the signing of the League of the Virtuous, and it left its indelible mark on him. He would later say: “I witnessed in the house of Abdullah bin Judan a pact made that I wouldn’t have exchanged for the choicest of herds; and if it had been suggested after Islam, I would have responded positively to it.” [4] (“The choicest herd” is the ancient equivalent of saying: “I wouldn’t trade it in even for a Ferrari.”) Muhammad said further: “If further such pacts be made for the cause of the oppressed and I be called, I would certainly respond.” [5]
The ideals of the League of the Virtuous–of standing for justice regardless of family or tribal loyalty–finds its way into the Quran:
O you who believe, stand firmly for justice, witnesses before God, even if it be against your own selves, your parents or relatives, or whether it be against rich or poor. (4:135)
Throughout his career, Muhammad opposed tribal warfare and blood feuds. Meanwhile, the Quran instructed the believers to defend the oppressed by fighting the oppressors:
What reason could you have for not fighting in God’s cause–for those men, women and children who are oppressed and cry out, “Our Lord, rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors! By Your Grace, give us a protector and a savior!” (4:75)
The Sacrilegious War and the League of the Virtuous played a pivotal role in Muhammad’s views on matters of war and peace–but not in the way that Spencer implies it to (i.e. “he was born a warrior!”). Instead, Muhammad became a “veteran against the war” and greatly supported the idea of a League of the Virtuous, a body intended to bring peace on earth–one that would end violence, bloodshed, and war.
By omitting key details, Spencer willfully misleads the reader. This is just within the first three lines of his biography of Muhammad. As we shall see, the deception just gets worse.
Footnotes:
[1] Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Hayat Muhammad, p.62
[2] S. Ali Asgher Razwy, A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims, p.24.
Prof. Joseph Morrison Skelly writes on p.39 of Political Islam: “Hilf al-Fudul was an agreement among several pre-Islamic Arab tribes in the seventh century to prevent injustice and to aid those who had been wronged.”
[3] Haykal, p.62
[4] Ibn Kathir, Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya, p.188
[5] A.H. Qasmi, International Encyclopaedia of Islam, p.113
Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.
“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. … This is the war you don’t know about.”
This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department.
A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training.
During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.
News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.
But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims.
“The department’s response was to deny it and to fight our request for information,” said Faiza Patel, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which obtained the release of the documents through a Freedom of Information request. “The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us.”
Tom Robbins, a former columnist with The Village Voice, first revealed that the police had screened the film. The Brennan Center then filed its request.
The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.
Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview. The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them.
None of the documents turned over to the Brennan Center make clear which police officials approved the showing of this film during training. Department lawyers blacked out large swaths of these internal memorandums.
Repeated calls over the past several days to the Clarion Fund, which is based in New York, were not answered. The nonprofit group shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. The producer of “The Third Jihad,” Raphael Shore, also works with Aish HaTorah.
Clarion’s financing is a puzzle. Its federal income tax forms show contributions, grants and revenues typically hover around $1 million annually — except in 2008, when it booked contributions of $18.3 million. That same year, Clarion produced “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The Clarion Fund used its surge in contributions to pay to distribute tens of millions of copies of this DVD in swing electoral states across the country in September 2008.
“The Third Jihad” is quite similar, in style and content, to that earlier film. Narrated by Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim doctor and former American military officer in Arizona, “The Third Jihad” casts a broad shadow over American Muslims. Few Muslim leaders, it states, can be trusted.
“Americans are being told that many of the mainstream Muslim groups are also moderate,” Mr. Jasser states. “When in fact if you look a little closer, you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.”
Footage of an interview with the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, is used in the movie.
The film posits that there were three jihads: One at the time of Muhammad, a second in the Middle Ages and a third that is under way covertly throughout the West today.
This is, the film claims, “the 1,400-year war.”
How the film came to be used in police training, and even for how long, was not clear. An undated memorandum from the department’s commanding officer for specialized training noted that an employee of the federal Department of Homeland Security handed the DVD to the New York police in January 2010. Since then, this officer said, the video was shown continuously “during the sign-in, medical and administrative orientation process.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said it was never used in its curriculum, and might have come from a contractor.
As it turned out, it was police officers who blew the whistle after watching the film. Late in 2010, Mr. Robbins contacted an officer who spoke of his unease with the film; another officer, said Zead Ramadan, the New York president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, talked of seeing it during a training session the previous summer. “The officer was completely offended by it as a Muslim,” Mr. Ramadan said. “It defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for.”
When the news broke about the movie last year, Mr. Browne called it a “wacky film” that had been shown “only a couple of times when officers were filling out paperwork before the actual course work began.”
He made no more public comments. Privately, two days later, he asked the Police Academy to determine whether a terrorism awareness training program had used the video, according to the documents.
The academy’s commander reported back on March 23, 2011, that the film had been viewed by 68 lieutenants, 159 sergeants, 31 detectives and 1,231 patrol officers. The department never made those findings public.
And just one week later, the Brennan Center officially requested the same information, starting what turned out to be a nine-month legal battle to obtain it.
“It suggests a broader problem that they refuse to divulge this information much less to discuss it,” Ms. Patel of the Brennan Center said. “The training of the world’s largest city police force is an important question.”
Mr. Browne said he had been unaware of the higher viewership of the film until asked about it by The New York Times last week.
There is the question of the officers who viewed the movie during training. Mr. Browne said the Police Department had no plans to correct any false impressions the movie might have left behind.
“There’s no plan to contact officers who saw it,” he said, or to “add other programming as a result.”
In a recent article Eric Allen Bell Chooses to Retain “Ridiculous Prejudice”, I discussed an article this individual posted on Daily Kos claiming that the Loonwatch site was “in fact a terrorist spin control network.” I discussed his arguments and the reasons that I believe them to be Islamophobic. In about a week, he has posted a total of three such articles, and been joined in his rantings by Robert Spencer. You can see all of the updates with links at the bottom of my article about this saga.
In his second article Eric Allen Bell says:
But what about the rational and legitimate concerns that people, such as myself, voice about the theology of Islam and some of the ways it is practiced, in certain parts of the world, which violate human rights? Is the expression of such concerns something that should be dismissed and branded as yet more “Islamophobia”?
According to Loonwatch.com – a well known Islamophoiba [sic] watchdog site – there is no distinction. Loonwatch unconditionally attacks criticism of Islam but they refuse to criticize the many, many Islamic clerics and terrorists who are hurting people in the name of Islam. Should a person have something to say publicly questioning the funneling of monies from Islamic charities to Islamic terrorist networks, Loonwatch is there to call them a “Loon” for even raising the question. That’s quite a clever system – a form of radical Islamic McCarthyism it seems – with the first line of defense being a blogoshere of misinformed infidels who will blurt out the word “Islamophobe” at the slightest mention that within Islam there might be a problem brewing. What a clever design.
Should an article be written about forced marriages of Muslim child brides overseas or the stoning to death of a Muslim woman as punishment for being raped, or the many young boys who are brainwashed in Islamic madrasas only to become radicalized Islamic militants, or the Muslim men who were arrested in the UK for distributing fliers to Londoners saying that Homosexuals should be punished by hanging because their lifestyle is against Islam – any article written to express concern about these developments will likely lead the writer of such article to be branded a “Loon” by Looonwatch.com and have his name put out on the street.
Bell also said “But for LoonWatch.com any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad – even those criticisms that might have some legitimacy to them – even of radical Islam, are branded as Islamophobia and anyone who dares to raise questions about the nearly constant acts of Jihad going on increasingly around the world today is labeled a ‘Loon’ – thus the title of their blog, LoonWatch.com.”
And, his new friend Robert Spencer found this statement to be “entirely true observation”.
This particular claim is often made by Islamophobes, and it is becoming tiresome. Voicing legitimate concerns is not a problem, bigotry is a problem.
In this case, a claim was made first about Loonwatch whose sole purpose is narrowly focused on discussions of anti-Muslim bigotry. However, by Bell’s third article, and in the course of Spencer’s entire career, it is obvious that the claims are actually being made against the entire Muslim community and all of Islam.
However, even though Loonwatch is not in the business of themselves publishing anything other than information on Islamophobia, is it true that they would not tolerate criticism of Muslims?
Would writing or publishing articles raising any criticism of extremism or terrorism within the Muslim community lead to being labeled a “loon”? Would any criticism of extremist interpretations of Islam lead to being labeled a “loon”?
Here on The American Muslim, we have published thousands of articles, many of them discussing issues such as:
On TAM, we regularly call out those within the Muslim community that I identify as the “lunatic fringe”, discuss various interpretations of aspects of Sharia, condemn any interpretations that violate human rights. The list above is a very short list of the thousands of articles on such subjects that we have published, many of which I have written myself.
According to Bell any article written to express concern about these developments will likely lead the writer of such article to be branded a “Loon” by Looonwatch.com and have his name put out on the street.
And yet, what has been the result of my discussion of all of these concerns on TAM been? Loonwatch named me one of the “Anti-Loons of 2011”.
Muslims themselves discuss all of these issues and are more than happy to align with others who are concerned about a particular human or civil rights issue to work cooperatively to solve the problem. As one example among many, Muslims are working actively with representatives of other faith groups as part of an Interfaith Coalition against domestic violence. We are not interested in giving any credence to those who are not really concerned about a particular issue, but only in using it to further their bigoted Islamophobic agenda.
We have seen this sort of devious tactic too many times. Just one example was that two years after American Muslims had initiated a statement Apostasy and Freedom of Faith in Islam initially signed by 100 Islamic scholars and activists, a group called “Former Muslims United” produced their own pledgeand demanded that Muslims sign it. And, as I said at that time “This FMU pledge is simply another attempt to create propoganda (planting the idea that American Muslims have not taken a position against punishments for apostasy) and to attempt to make it seem as if only former Muslims can stand for what is right, and frankly to attempt to increase the visibility of the FMU at the expense of the Muslim community. This is shameful behavior (although typical of members of this group who go beyond denouncing Islamic radicalism to denouncing all of Islam) and is simply another example of attempting to marginalize the Muslim community and bolster the false claim that Muslims don’t speak up against injustices, extremism, etc.”
This particular claim that “truth tellers” are being accused of Islamophobia for no reason other than their legitimate concerns about real issues and that in fact there is not even such a thing as Islamophobia is nonsense. The further claim that the fact that there are fewer hate crimes against Muslims than against Jews also proves that Islamophobia doesn’t exist is more nonsense.
The reason that this is so obvious to so many is that rational people can tell the difference between legitimate concerns and bigoted stereotypes. The Islamophobia of these folks is very real.
More than six years after Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich led a squad of Marines into two Haditha, Iraq homes and massacred two dozen civilians, the American serviceman in charge has reached a plea deal.
For nine counts of manslaughter, Wuterich will get three months of confinement.
Wuterich is the last of eight men tied to the November 2005 killing that left 24 Iraqis dead, including women, children and the elderly. It was announced on Monday this week that he had reached a plea with prosecutors during his military tribunal and is now expected to be sentenced as early as Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, Wuterich will face a maximum of three months of confinement, the forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay and a rank demotion.
Of the other seven Marines charged with the now-notorious massacre, one was acquitted and six had their charges dismissed. Wuterich’s attorneys have been confident throughout the ordeal that he would see a similar outcome. “He’s going to be glad to have it over because he knows that he’ll be exonerated,” lawyer Neal Puckett told National Public Radio earlier this month.
On November 19, 2005, Wuterich led a squad of men into two separate homes in the town of Haditha and opened fire on everyone in sight. Prosecutors say that a roadside bomb exploded moments before the Marines stormed the home, and were brought into hysterics by seeing a fellow soldier die in the attack. In response, they went on a rampage and for 45 minutes raided the two homes and were never faced with gunfire. Wuterich later said he instructed his team to “shoot first and ask questions later.”
“My Marines responded to the threats they faced in the manner that we all had been trained,” he explained to CBS’ 60 Minutes in 2007. After the roadside bomb was detonated, Wuterich said that, “My responsibility as a squad leader is to make sure that none of the rest of my guys died. And at that point, we were still on the assault.”
Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel, spokesman of the Camp Pendleton marine Corps base near San Diego, California, told the media on Monday that “By pleading guilty to this charge, Staff Sergeant Wuterich has accepted responsibility for his actions.”
At a Rick Santorum town hall meeting in Lady Lake, Florida moments ago, a woman stood up to declare that she doesn’t like to refer to “President Obama as president because, legally, he is not.” While the audience gasped and clapped at the comment, Santorum restrained himself, refusing to utter a critical word.
The lady continued, Obama “totally ignores” the Constitution, prompting a nod of approval from Santorum. Then she went even further with her conspiracy rant:
He is an avowed Muslim. [applause] And my question is: why isn’t something being done to get him out of our government? He has no legal right to be calling himself President.
In an exemplary show of cowardice, Santorum did not tell the woman that she had her facts wrong or even bother to distance himself from the previous comments. Instead, he did the opposite, giving sanction to her views. “I’m doing my best to get him out” of office, Santorum said, “and you’re right about — he uniformly ignores the Constitution.”
The tail continued to wag the dog as the lady pressed Santorum for tougher language about Obama’s unconstitutionality. Santorum meekly responded, “I agree with you in the sense that he is – he does things that are against the values and the founding principles of our country.” Watch it:
First, of course, Obama is not an “avowed Muslim.” He is a Christian.
And he certainly has every right to be calling himself President as he was soundly elected by the people and has sworn an oath (twice) to uphold his duty to serve and protect the United States.
For Santorum, who frequently touts the need for strong “leadership” in this country, today’s profile in weakness shows he’s unable to stand up to his own right-wing fringe.
Yerushalmi is beating a dead horse these days. Does he realize that this bill undermines our constitution? Or maybe the issue is that he has forgotten that the court in Oklahoma found the anti-Shariah bill discriminatory to foreign law.
RICHMOND – A leading American civil rights group has criticized a new proposed Virginia bill to ban courts from considering any religious codes in litigation, confirming that the bill was a new step towards effort to stigmatize Muslims and undermine their religious traditions.
“Bigotry needs to be repudiated, not legitimized through the introduction of a bill that has such hate-filled and un-American origins,” Gadier Abbas, staff attorney at the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a press release on Friday, January 20.
Titled Morris’ HB631, the new bill was introduced by Virginia General Assembly Delegate Rick L. Morris (R-House District 64) on January 11.
The anti-Shari`ah new proposed law would ban courts from applying religious traditions to proceedings, such as the execution of a will among Muslims.
Not only the religious Muslim code, the new bill would also prohibit the application of the Catholic equivalent, canon law, and other religious guidelines.
The suddenly controversial bill is scheduled to be heard by a Virginia legislature House subcommittee next Monday.
In Islam, Shari`ah governs all issues in Muslims’ lives from daily prayers to fasting and from, marriage and inheritance to financial disputes.
The Islamic rulings, however, do not apply on non-Muslims, even if in a dispute with non-Muslims.
In US courts, judges can refer to Shari`ah law in Muslim litigation involving cases about divorce and custody proceedings or in commercial litigation.
Defended
Sponsoring the bill, Morris said that he aimed at enforcing US laws only.
“It’s definitely not an anti-Muslim bill,” Morris told the Virginian-Pilot in a brief phone interview Friday.
He said his goal is to make it clear that Virginia judges can rely only on state and federal law in their rulings.
However, CAIR confirmed that the bill was drafted by anti-Islam activist David Yerushalmi.
Yerushalmi, a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, immigration and Islam, managed to gain the support of prominent Washington figures.
He is head of the anti-Islam hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which on its now password-protected website offered a policy proposal that would make “adherence to Islam” punishable by 20 years in prison.
The proposed Virginia legislation is just one of more than 20 similar bills that have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide in the past year.
Over the past few years, lawmakers in at least two dozen states have introduced proposals last year forbidding local judges from considering Shari`ah when rendering verdicts on issues of divorces and marital disputes.
The statutes have been enacted in three states so far.
Earlier this January, a US federal court upheld an injection on a proposed ban on Islamic Shari`ah in the state of Oklahoma, saying the drive was unconstitutional and discriminates against religion.
An Alabama state senator plans to introduce a constitutional amendment that would ban state courts from looking to Islamic Shariah law in adjudicating cases, Hatewatch has learned.
Republican Senator Cam Ward pre-filed the “American and Alabama Laws for Alabama Courts Amendment” with the state Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 4.
The amendment’s language is clearly drawn from model legislation drafted by anti-Muslim lawyer David Yerushalmi, who equates Shariah with Islamic radicalism so totally that he advocates criminalizing virtually any personal practice that is compliant with Shariah. His “American Laws for American Courts” initiative enjoys support from Muslim-hating blogger Pam Geller, who plumbed new depths of foulness this week by expressing her “love” for the U.S. marines who were videotaped urinating on dead Taliban combatants.
Yerushalmi, who says the “War on Terror” should be a war against Islam “and all Muslim faithful,” has also proposed to outlaw Islam and deport Muslims and other “non-Western, non-Christian” people to protect the United States’ “national character.”
Ward, who could not be reached for comment, apparently shares Yerushalmi’s dislike of immigrants. The Alabama lawmaker is a member of State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI), a national coalition that attributes to “illegal aliens” what it describes as “[i]ncreasingly documented incidences of homicide, identity theft, property theft, serious infectious diseases, drug running, gang violence, human trafficking, terrorism and growing cost to taxpayers.”
Since its founding in 2007, SLLI has taken a leading role in fostering xenophobic intolerance in statehouses across the nation. The group works hand-in-glove with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant hate group whose legal arm devised the draconian immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama, portions of which have been enjoined by courts concerned about their constitutionality. Though Ward did not introduce Alabama’s immigration enforcement law, he has been a vocal supporter of the measure, which is widely viewed as the harshest of its kind.
Ward is not the first Alabama lawmaker to introduce an anti-Shariah measure. In 2011, Republican state Senator Gerald Allen sponsored SB 62, a virtual replica of Oklahoma’s notorious anti-Shariah “Save Our State” amendment, which was struck down on Tuesday by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Allen’s proposal, which singled out Shariah law as its principle target, was not taken up for consideration before last year’s legislative session ended.
Ward may stand a better chance of success. According to the Public Policy Alliance, which hired Yerushalmi to write the “American Laws for American Courts” model legislation, versions of the law have already been passed in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arizona. Unlike Oklahoma’s amendment, none were immediately enjoined. The Public Policy Alliance describes its creation in explicitly anti-Muslim terms, claiming on its website, “we are preserving individual liberties and freedoms which become eroded by the encroachment of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, such as Shariah.” But the legislation itself does not contain any reference to Shariah law or Islam, thus avoiding the issue that immediately flagged Oklahoma’s legislation as unconstitutional.
Ward has not commented publicly about his proposal, so it is impossible to know what inspired him to think that Alabama needs to worry about Shariah law in the first place. The various state proposals banning Shariah, in effect, attack a problem that does not exist and will not under the U.S. Constitution.
According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, less than 1% of Alabamans are Muslim. And of all the states in the union, Alabama has unique insight into what happens when theocrats get it into their minds to bring their religion into the courts.
In August 2001, Roy Moore – then-chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court – hauled under cover of night a 5,280-pound granite monument to the Ten Commandments into the building that houses the state’s appellate courts and law library. A coalition of civil rights organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center (which publishes Hatewatch), sued, leading U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson to rule that the monument created “a religious sanctuary within the walls of a courthouse” and had to be removed. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision on July 1, 2003. When a defiant Moore refused to comply with the order, he was removed from office for ethics violations, and that was that for Alabama courts’ experiment with mingling secular and religious law.
The monument went too. It now resides at a church in Moore’s hometown of Gadsden, Ala.
Eric Allen Bell, the loon, has been dumped by Daily Kos for being a bigot. Good riddance.
What many have suspected seems to have happened, birds of a feather flock together.
If you sound like a bigot, write like a bigot, argue like a bigot, then you’re a bigot… he started sounding more and more like Robert Spencer and sure enough now they’re reposting each other for validation.
After three diaries of mounting Islamophobia Eric was finally dumped, what a shame I here you all cry.
Now I hardly feel the need to friend him on facebook but I might as well copy his whine here
Eric Allen Bell
Daily Kos has removed me as a writer. Apparently appealing to people’s humanity and asking if we can take a stand on human rights is not a value that DKOS holds as dear as compromise and commercialization. The liberal class in America IS NOT an effective voice of dissent. Either you are radical or you just don’t care. The middle ground is a waiting room for cowards.
Sorry Eric, you were not removed as a writer, but because you sounded just like Pamela Geller.
You mount a typical defense used by bigots everywhere, “I’m just telling the truth”.
You then proceed to lump every Muslim under a violent, bloodthirsty and bigoted banner, you even stooped to the “they are mere savages” argument.
You were not banned for speaking the truth.
You were banned because you are a bigot, sorry but it really is as simple as that.
Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum provoked an angry response from the Council on American-Islamic Relations Saturday for saying equality “doesn’t come from Islam“ but ”from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
“I get a kick out of folks who call for equality now, the people on the left, ‘Well, equality, we want equality.’ Where do you think this concept of equality comes from?” Santorum said during a South Carolina campaign stop Friday, ABC News reported. “It doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions, where does it come from? It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that’s where it comes from.”
The former Pennsylvania senator, a Catholic, has spoken openly about faith on the campaign trail.
“So don’t claim his rights, don’t claim equality as that gift from God and then go around and say, ‘Well, we don’t have to pay attention to what God wants us to do. We don’t have to pay attention to God’s moral laws.’ If your rights come from God, then you have an obligation to live responsibly in conforming with God’s laws, and our founders said so, right?” Santorum asked.
In a statement, CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper called Santorum’s remarks “inaccurate and offensive,“ and said the organization was sending the candidate a copy of the Quran so he could ”educate himself.”
“The Quran, Islam’s revealed text, is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum’s inaccurate and offensive remarks, which are unbecoming of anyone who hopes to hold our nation’s highest office. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God and share religious traditions that promote justice and equality,” Hooper said. “We suggest that Mr. Santorum educate himself about Islam and the American Muslim community by reading the Quran that we will send to his campaign headquarters next week.”
The FBI released hate crime statistics for the year of 2010, which showed that anti-Semitic crimes topped the list of religiously motivated hate crimes. Islamophobes have latched on to this fact to claim that “there is no Islamophobia.” For example, Robert Spencer of JihadWatch asked: ”What do you have to say about the fact that FBI statistics show that there is no ‘Islamophobia’?”
The American Muslim’s Sheila Musaji published a response to this argument, pointing out that it’s a non-sequitur: it does not follow that “there is no Islamophobia” just because there were more anti-Semitic hate crimes reported than anti-Muslim ones. This would be like arguing that “there is no anti-Semitism” because there were more anti-black hate crimes reported than anti-Semitic ones.
In fact, Musaji points out that there was a 50% increase in the number of reported anti-Muslim hate crimes. Any reasonable person would think this trend to be concerning and ask: what is causing this steep rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes?
There is another issue here: it’s a well-known fact that ethnic minorities are less likely to report hate crimes. One of the common reasons cited for this is that such minority groups tend to distrust police and authorities–which is certainly the case for Arabs and Muslims, who have every reason to feel this way.
Islamophobia penetrates law enforcement and government on all levels, starting from the police: the Washington Monthly had a very eyeopening article on the subject: How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam.
The FBI, the governmental institution responsible for monitoring hate crimes, is itself brimming with Islamophobia (see here, here, here, here, here, and here). Many Muslims in America don’t trust the FBI, and wouldn’t report hate crimes to them, for fear of being accused of something themselves.
This is exactly what happened to a female Muslim student at the University of Bridgeport who reported to authorities that a man was sexually harassing her; not only was the man not investigated, but the female Muslim student herself ended up being investigated by the FBI after the accused molester called her a terrorist. That’s how vulnerable Muslims are in this country: accuse them of being a terrorist and the FBI will come knocking at their door.
The chain of anti-Muslim bigotry goes even higher to the Department of Homeland Security. The House Committee on Homeland Security is led by the fervently anti-Muslim Congressman Peter King. It is Muslims, not Jews or people of any other religion, who are subjected to such hearings. If King had suggested holding anti-Jewish hearings, the comparisons to Nazi Germany would be quickly invoked (rightfully so) and the Congressman’s career would come to a swift end (again, rightfully so). Yet, when this bigotry is leveled against Muslims, the reaction is far more mild.
This brings me to my second (and main) point: it is Muslims, not Jews or people of any other faith, who are the number one victims of institutionalized bigotry in America. This is something more pernicious than lone-wolf hate crimes, because the effects of it are more far-reaching.
It is Muslims, not people of any other religious faith, that were (and continue to be) detained by the hundreds–without trial or charge–and holed away in the hell-hole known as Guantanamo Bay detention camp. This, even though it was known by the government that “the vast majority of detainees at Guantanamo were innocent.” Most Americans fail to realize the gravity of this injustice, and continue to believe–like mindless sheep–that the Gitmo prisoners are “the worst of the worst” and are evil Magneto-style villains. People of the future will be horrified that any sane person would think that this is necessary:
Who but the sickest and most deranged person could think this is OK?
Can you imagine the outcry had it been a Jewish person who had been imprisoned like so by our government? Even the idea is considered ludicrous.
Gitmo is just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of Muslims have been imprisoned in Bagram (“the Other Guantanamo”) and there are probably tens of thousands Muslims that have been detained by the United States, without trial or charge, around the world. They are subjected to typical American forms of torture: solitary confinement (considered by human rights experts to be one of the worst forms of torture) and sexual harassment (including sodomy, rape, and having their testicles electrocuted). Mentally deranged guards routinely used dogs to torture the inmates.
Yes, it is Muslims who are the victims of these horrific crimes.
These abuses are carried out because the institution that is supposed to protect American citizens (including American Muslims)–the U.S. Armed Forces–has instead been, in the words of the hawkish Jeffrey Goldberg, ”waging a three-decade war for domination of the Middle East.” Quite predictably, the U.S. Armed Forces as an institution is rife with Islamophobia.
It is Muslim civilians who are being incinerated by our bombs, missiles, and drones. Over the course of the last two decades, the United States has directly or indirectly caused the deaths of over a million Muslims. America is dropping bombs on multiple Muslim countries (the list just keeps getting longer and longer); Americans feel comfortable dropping bombs on countries they can’t even locate on a map. These are Islamophobic wars that kill way more people than hate crimes do.
[W]ho are the prime victims of America’s posture of Endless War? Overwhelmingly, the victims are racial, ethnic and religious minorities: specifically, Muslims (both American Muslims and foreign nationals). And that is a major factor in why these abuses flourish: because those who dominate American political debates perceive, more or less accurately, that they are not directly endangered (at least for now) by this assault on core freedoms and Endless War…
To see how central a role this sort of selfish provincialism plays in shaping political priorities, just compare (a) the general indifference to Endless War and the massive civil liberties assaults… (ones largely confined to Muslims) to (b) the intense outrage and media orgy generated when a much milder form of invasiveness — TSA searches — affected Americans of all backgrounds. The success of Endless War and civil liberties attacks depends on ensuring that the prime victims, at least in the first instance, are marginalized and easily demonizable minorities.
It is Muslims who are the victims of such governmental abuses:
Assassination of U.S. citizens; Indefinite detention; Arbitrary justice; Warrantless searches; Secret evidence; War crimes; Secret court; Immunity from judicial review; Continual monitoring of citizens; and Extraordinary renditions.
It is absolutely crass to argue that there is more anti-Semitism in America than Islamophobia. There would be nothing less acceptable in our country than anti-Jewish Congressional hearings. One could simply not imagine imprisoning hundreds of Jews–without trial or charge–in Guantanamo Bay. If the United States caused the death of over a million Jews, people would be calling this the next Holocaust. Such things are simply unthinkable, except when Muslims are the intended victims.
Certainly, lone-wolf hate crimes are worrisome, and Jews are one of the most targeted groups in this regard. This is a serious concern that needs to be addressed–as does the fact that there has been such a steep rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes. But, we shouldn’t ignore institutionalized bigotry in America, which is even more worrisome. Muslims are the most vulnerable minority in this regard: they are the absolute lowest on the totem pole and get the dubious distinction of being the number one victims in this regard.
Lastly, it is very morbid the way the anti-Muslim cyber-world is pitting the Jewish community against the Muslim one. This is not a competition or game. Hate crimes are not points or goals. Jews, Muslims, and people of all faiths (or no faith at all) should unite together to fight bigotry and intolerance. After all, Jews are well aware of the tactics that were once primarily used against them but are now used against Muslims: it may be a different minority, but it’s the same message.
* * * * *
I encourage everyone to read Sheila Musaji’s take on the subject. It was her article that prompted me to weigh in on this issue.
For a long time the Islamophobia Industry has been pushing fake ex-Muslims and fake ex-terrorists. The insanity went as far as having the charlatan Walid Shoebat teaching security officials about the “dangers of Islam.”
Kamal Saleem is one such fake ex-terrorists whose been banking on the hate and fear of Islam. We have exposed him several times before,
A political organization by the name, “Constituting Michigan-Founding Principles” is hosting Saleem along with Rep. Dave Agema who has introduced something along the lines of an “anti-Sharia” bill which he is passing off as legislation against “foreign law.” How much do you think they are paying Saleem to speak?
There is no doubt that Rep. Dave Agema is trying to curry favor with the radical right, but he should be ashamed of himself for participating in an event alongside a well known liar and charlatan like Saleem.
ALLEGAN — Allegan County political organization Constituting Michigan-Founding Principles will host a self-proclaimed former terrorist on Thursday at the Allegan High School Events Center.
Kamal Saleem claims to have been a former Islamic radical and terrorist before converting to Christianity. He has since published a book detailing his experiences and makes regular tours speaking about his life and views.
”He had entered the U.S. and gotten in an accident, and received medical care,” said Carol Dannenberg, of Constituting Michigan-Founding Principles. “He thought, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to hurt these people.’ He was raised to believe that there was no hope, that killing was a good thing.”
”I met Saleem in my travels to Lansing,” said Bill Sage, one of the co-founders of Constituting Michigan. “He’s here to talk about keeping American law in American courts, to make sure that the Constitution is what we’re drawing from.”
Sage characterizes the organization’s main focus as education reform and a return to focusing on the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights in schools. Sage will also be speaking at the event, as will state Rep. Dave Agema, according to organizers. Agema is one of the sponsors of House Bill 4769, which seeks “to restrict the application of foreign laws” in Michigan. Opponents have characterized the bill as discriminatory towards Islam.
Saleem himself is also the subject of controversy. Questions have been raised regarding the authenticity of his claims, as well as the goals of his speeches.
”I believe he’s a complete fraud, and his claims are bogus,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR-Michigan, an American-Islamic relations council. “He says he’s been reformed by the Holy Ghost. If he were an actual former terrorist who snuck into the U.S., the FBI or immigration services would’ve detained and deported him by now.”
Walid claims that Saleem’s real name is Khodor Shami and that many details of his background do not add up.
”He’s profiting off the cottage industry of Islamophobia,” Walid said. “If he thinks that I’m lying, that I’m trying to falsely discredit him, he should sue me for defamation.”
Sage claims much of the controversy surrounding Saleem is the result of media bias.
”People don’t like his message, they don’t want him out there,” said Sage. “But if you listen to Kamal, you’ll understand.”
Walid encourages caution.
”Individuals should research his claims, and form their own opinions,” said Walid. “Don’t be taken in just because it sounds interesting.”
Contact Joe Stando at jstando@kalamazoogazette.com or 269-388-8553.
An interesting read on the backlash from French politicians when MP Eva Joy proposed allowing Jews and Muslims be allowed to take the day off from school and work on their holiest religious holidays.
The political tempest spawned in France by Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the country’s credit rating has transfixed outside observers. They have thus paid little attention to a different storm now roiling the waters of French society: the question of whether or not French Jews can take the day off on Yom Kippur.
In early January, the Green Party’s candidate for president, Eva Joly, a naturalized French citizen raised in Norway, proposed that French Jews and Muslims should be given the right to take off from work or school on their holiest religious holidays. Observing that official holidays were accorded with Christian celebrations like Easter, Joly affirmed, “Each religion must benefit from equal treatment in the public realm.”
Joly made this declaration at an evening event called the “Night of Equality.” For critics on both the political right and left, “night” suddenly took on a deeper and more disturbing meaning than the soirée’s organizers had intended. Laurent Wauquiez, minister of higher education, took the opportunity to recall what any student of Western civilization already knew: “Our history and roots are Christian.” One of the consequences, he continued, was that this “led to a certain number of national holidays on our calendar.” Wagging his finger at Joly, he concluded, “Toleration in France cannot be built on the negation of our past.”
GETTY IMAGES
Eva Joly
No less eager to slap down the proposal were the Socialists. Michel Sapin, a spokesman for presidential candidate Francois Hollande, also cited the imprint of the past, but unlike Wauquiez, he dwelt on the imperative of a fully secular society. “Eva Joly would do well to always recall this principle,” Sapin harrumphed.
No surprises here: The left has long emphasized the principle of laicism, the right has long praised the force of history and the two sides have long met somewhere in the middle. What might seem surprising, though, was the reaction of the very groups that Joly sought to rally to her cause. France’s head rabbi, Gilles Bernheim, was eager to disassociate his community from the proposal. Refusing to offer his own opinion, Bernheim quickly added that no Jewish institution played a role in Joly’s declaration. At the same time, Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, made a great show of indifference: “Our country has a Catholic calendar: So what?” As for French Muslims, the head of the Great Mosque in Paris was the only one to confess his admiration for the proposal, but in the same breath he added that the law could not be easily enacted or implemented.
When the proposal itself was not immediately attacked, it was instead dismissed as a transparent effort by Joly to resurrect a floundering campaign. But the speed with which her idea was mauled or mocked reflects a deep malaise among the French, one that suggests it is time to move beyond the revolutionary ideal of a society of free and equal individuals for whom religious practice and identification remains a private affair. This ideological variant of “the same size fits all” is both obsolete and an obstacle to better relations among France’s religious groups.
In the late 19th century, following a bitter and centuries-old struggle between republican governments and the Catholic Church, the French Third Republic embraced the notion of laicité. The English word laicism only begins to convey the emotional and ideological power of the original French term. Laicité was, quite simply, the religion of the republican state. In place of Christian saints, the Republic offered secular saints, ranging from Voltaire to Victor Hugo, whose mortal remains are entombed at the Panthéon.
Other efforts to blot out France’s Catholic past were less successful. For example, in 1793 the First Republic simply tossed out the Gregorian calendar, replacing it with a revolutionary calendar based on the decimal system, including 10-day weeks and 10-hour days. Moreover, the traditional names of the months were replaced with naturalistic ones — Pluviose for the rainy days of January, Germinal for the spring month of April — and the saints’ days were bagged and given instead to the names of plants, vegetables, farm animals and occasional revolutionary exhortation.
By 1805, when Napoleon tore the calendar off France’s walls, he made official what public opinion had long before made a fact: The calendar was a massive flop. Furthermore, the vast majority of the French were, if not believers, at least nominal Catholics. Whether or not they prayed to a particular saint, they all recognized a day by his or her name — a habit they did not want to give up.
Even the Third Republic, in its own battle with a hostile church, did not try to replace the calendar. Instead, the republicans, many of whom were agnostic or atheist, used the schools as their pulpits to broadcast the gospel of laicité. Tensions came to a head in 1905, when the national assembly passed the law establishing the full separation of church and state.
The law has not changed, but the country has. France has always been a nation of immigrants. A century ago they hailed from other European countries shaped by Christianity. As for the tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe, they were eager to leave behind their traditions and language for a republican religion chanted in French. They embraced, as historian Philip Nord noted, “the republic as a secular incarnation of values embedded in Jewish tradition.”
But all this is history. The struggle between Catholics and secularists is over: The old ideological stakes have faded in France’s new demographic dispensation. The country has become home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, and even its Jewish community has tilted to Sephardic from Ashkenazi. These new generations of Frenchmen and women are proudly republican, but no less proudly members of vibrant religious communities.
The struggle is now over France’s future. The nation has become multicultural — a fact that even its religious representatives seem terrified to acknowledge, much less ask the French state to do so. Marine Le Pen, leader of the extreme right-wing Front National, has transformed her party from a den for Catholic extremists into the defender of republican laicité. The move has poleaxed the mainstream parties and propelled Le Pen’s popularity: Polls reveal that she is now more or less tied with President Nicolas Sarkozy for second place.
Joly might be pleased to know that she is echoing a call made several years ago by the son of Polish Jews who immigrated to France. Jean-Marie Lustiger, who converted to Catholicism and became archbishop of Paris, asked: “Is there a republican religion that prohibits one from being a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Muslim — even a skeptic? The republican ideal of citizenship does not claim to be a substitute for religion.”
By following the lead of such citizens as Lustiger and Joly, perhaps France can regain its triple-A rating as a republic for the 21st century.
Robert Zaretsky is a professor of history at the Honors College at the University of Houston. His most recent book is “Albert Camus: Elements of a Life” (Cornell University Press, 2010).
Lasky said that since many of the funders or anti-Muslim activists named happen to be Jewish:
By “outing” the people involved, the report puts endangers them. Furthermore, this “report” relies on the conspiracy and age-old anti-Semitic trope that Jews fan prejudice towards others and promotes divisions for their own nefarious purposes (to support Israel in this case). This mindset is straight out of Mein Kampf. The report also stokes the view that rich Jews operate behind the scenes and use their wealth to control the media and government policy (politicians are also mentioned as being ensnared in this web). … Clearly, this is a well-funded effort to chill legitimate criticism of Islamic extremism in America. There are also political motivations behind this report since it also tries to refute allegations of ties between Muslims and Barack Obama. But what is most shameful about this “report” is that it employs classic anti-Semitic tropes, blaming conspiratorial Jews for stoking fear and hatred of Muslims.
This will work its magic in the Muslim world, a substantial fraction of which believes that “defaming” Islam is legitimately punishable by death at the hands of any righteous Muslim. By thoughtfully providing a hit list, the CAP does its part to spread fear and—yes—terror among the opponents of radical Islam.
Actually, Lasky is the one who “outs” or mentions the religion of those named in the report, the report itself does not identify these folks by their religion. I was surprised that Lasky said that Steven Emerson is Jewish, as I had never heard that before.
This attempt to cast the authors of this report as anti-Semitic and as blaming Jews for Islamophobia is reprehensible, and already being repeated on the anti-Muslim blogsphere. Pamela Geller called the report “Goebbels attacking the Jew”. A Pipeline News article calls the report shades of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. and a functioning part of a greater – subversive – Islamist narrative. Daniel Greenfield aka Sultan Knish, in an article on David Horowitz’s FrontPageMag wrote“Any report on Islamophobia that scapegoats Jews is not a report on bigotry, it is an act of bigotry.”
Eric Boling on Fox News reinforced this false anti-Semitic meme by outright lying on air in a segment devoted to attacking the CAP report.
Bolling invited a three-member panel to comment, who all agreed that there isn’t an Islamophobia network in America. Bolling set up the discussion by making this outlandishly false statement:
I need to point this out – I’m reading directly from this report: “The Obama-allied Center for American Progress has released a report that blames Islamophobia in America on a small group of Jews and Israel supporters in America, whose views are being backed by millions of dollars.”
Boling has now issued a clarification, but not really an apology. Boling’s clarification said
I want to correct something from a segment we did the other night on Follow the Money regarding Islam in America. The topic was a report from the Center for American Progress. At one point, I read a brief passage which said the group blamed Islamophobia on “a small group of Jews and Israel supporters in America”. You need to know that I was reading aloud from an American Thinker magazine article critical of the group’s report and not from the report itself. Sorry for the confusion.
The American Thinker article he was referring to was the one by Ed Lasky. As Faiz Shakir (one of the CAP reports authors) noted about this whole incident If there is one key takeaway from this incident, it’s that observers have witnessed how the Islamophobia network generally operates: 1) Produce a blog post with false anti-Muslim information, 2) promote that blog post through Fox News, 3) have so-called “experts” tout the information as if it’s credible, and then 4) stand by your mischaracterizations even when they are shown to be lies. In this case, we successfully fought back against this misinformation network. That’s what it’s going to take to end Islamophobia.
An editorial in the Jewish Forward also notes that a number of those named in the report happen to be Jewish, although to their credit, they discuss this in an entirely different context, one of disappointment:
There is, unfortunately, one disturbing way that a small number of Jews are contributing to the unfair characterizations and discrimination of Muslims. A new study by the Center for American Progress reveals that seven foundations have spent more than $40 million in the last ten years to spread misinformation about Muslim Americans. And who leads those efforts? Far too many Jews, including blogger Pamela Geller, co-director of the group Stop Islamization of America; David Yerushalmi, whose attempts to promote anti-Sharia laws were detailed recently in the Forward; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, which gave a platform for Yerushalmi’s dangerous ideas; Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, who has even criticized President George W. Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for being soft on Muslims.
Philip Weiss notes that Lasky did not mention the fact that George Soros whose think tank he claims is fostering anti-semitism, is himself Jewish.
In December, Ben Smith at Politico published an article which included the following paragraph regarding an article by Eric Alterman at CAP
“There’s two explanations here – either the inmates are running the asylum or the Center for American Progress has made a decision to be anti-Israel,” said Josh Block, a former spokesman for AIPAC who is now a fellow at the center-left Progressive Policy Institute. “Either they can allow people to say borderline anti-Semitic stuff” – a reference to what he described as conspiracy theorizing in the Alterman column – “and to say things that are antithetical to the fundamental values of the Democratic party, or they can fire them and stop it.” (Alterman called the charge “ludicrous” and “character assassination,” noted that he is a columnist for Jewish publications, and described himself as a “proud, pro-Zionist Jew.”)
Justin Elliott published an article documenting that Josh Block had sent out an email to a private listserv called the Freedom Community, in which he throws around accusations of anti-Semitism against liberal bloggers and calls on other list members to “echo” and “amplify” his assault and “use the below [research] to attack the bad guys.”
Elliot also notes in this article that Block was quoted in Ben Smith’s Polito article of accusing CAP columnist Eric Alterman of writing “borderline anti-Semitic stuff,” a charge Alterman (who is himself Jewish) dismissed as “ludicrous.”
In a follow-up article, Elliot notes that two think tanks that Block is associated with, the Progressive Policy Institute and the Truman National Security Project — were apparently rattled by the incident:
PPI head Will Marshall privately told Block that the think tank would sever ties with Block if he didn’t retract the charges detailed in Salon, according to a source familiar with the discussions. Block subsequently offered Politico a statement on the charges, claiming he had never accused people at CAP in particular of anti-Semitism, but not walking back or apologizing for the gist of what was reported in the Salon piece. It’s still unclear how PPI — which declined to comment — will proceed at this point.
Meanwhile, at Truman, top officials privately debated via email whether to cut ties with Block after the Salon story broke, a source says. They had already been unhappy with Block’s attacks on critics of Israel, and the Salon piece exacerbated tensions, I’m told.
The decision in late December by Rachel Kleinfeld, founder of the Truman National Security Project, a defense-oriented Democratic think tank, to sever publicly all ties with former fellow and ex-AIPAC spokesman, Josh Block, brought to an end what was an ugly episode in Washington’s Israel-focused policy community. Block had orchestrated a sloppy smear campaign against a group of progressive writers and bloggers with the aim of painting their dovish views on Israel as beyond the pale of acceptable discourse. His specific target was two left-leaning think tanks, Media Matters and the Center for American Progress, where I have been a senior fellow since 2003.
… In Kleinfeld’s email cutting off ties with Block, she wrote, “This has nothing to do with your policy views, and is a decision solely made on the basis of the need for this community to privilege the ability to debate difficult topics freely, without fear of mischaracterization or character attacks.”
What were the comments that were found in emails or tweets from individuals at CAP that were worthy of the charge of anti-Semitism? The two terms that are considered beyond the pale of civilized conversation are “Israel-firsters” (or dual loyalty) and “Israeli apartheid”. (See Philip Weiss commentary on Jews using this term here)
Jason Isaacson, the AJC’s director of government and international affairs, told the Jerusalem Post by e-mail that “think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints – but they’re not free to slander with impunity. References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”
The ADL, told the Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Weinthal it considered two specific comments from CAP bloggers to be anti-Semitic, including the “Israel Firster” remarks and claims the Israel lobby had pushed the U.S. into the Iraq war.
Ali Gharib issued a clarification and apology for his Kirk comment on Twitter: One my tweets several months ago, a crude characterization of a senator is being seized upon by critics branding me as an anti-Semite. While the accusations are completely false and contemptible, I do apologize for the crudeness of the flippant tweet in question.
Alana Goodman reported that she had “asked the Truman Project today whether it believed the ADL and AJC were also wrong for calling the comments from CAP bloggers anti-Semitic. The center’s spokesperson, Dave Solimini, declined to answer the question directly:
I think our position has been very clear on this. Josh was removed from our community because he was unable to differentiate between an honest debate and damaging personal attacks. There is real anti-Semitism in the world and we cannot debase the term by using it for everyone who disagrees with us on Israel policy. We are a community of trust, and his actions have caused too many to fear discussion within our community.
Okay – so in other words, the Truman Project doesn’t believe that the comments from CAP bloggers about dual-loyalty and “Israel-Firsters” rise to the level of “real” anti-Semitism?
Philip Weiss notes that Even Saturday Night Live is talking about Israel firsters.
It is now January of 2012, and this continuing saga continues to get more and more convoluted.
Eric Alterman’s article on the supposed end of this controversy included this statementBut just as McCarthy’s tactics wore themselves out over time, so, too, does Jewish McCarthyism appear, by virtue of this incident, to be on its last legs. Everyone so accused by Block still has a job and the confidence of his or her respective employer. Block, on the other hand, has seen one think tank gig end and seen himself denounced by his own business partner. A third employer, the Progressive Policy Institute, has distanced itself from his comments but has not so far seen fit to let him go. Score one, therefore, if not for the “pro-Israel” side, then at least for the right to keep arguing about what it really means.
If only that were true. Glenn Greenwald reports that the “anti-Semitism” smear campaign against CAP and Media Matters rolls on. In this detailed and lengthy article, Greenwald gives a lot of background and provides many links documenting the history of these false anti-Semitism charges. Greenwald also notes
Is this not the most blatant evidence yet that these organizations and their adherents are manipulating and exploiting charges of anti-Semitism in order to stifle and punish perfectly legitimate political and policy debates about Israel? They are effectively admitting that “anti-Semitism” does not mean irrational hatred or animosity toward Jews — its actual definition — but rather now means: challenging or even questioning the policy assumptions and preferences of certain Jewish groups and the Israeli government. They are literally decreeing that you are barred from challenging the dubious premises of those who crave war with Iran, are further barred from questioning their fear-mongering about the Iranian nuclear program, are also barred from assigning blame to the settlement-expanding Israelis for the lack of a peace agreement, and are even barred from condemning the increasingly unsustainable and anti-democratic treatment of the Palestinians — all upon pain of being formally condemned as anti-Semitic.
… What’s really going on here is as obvious as it is odious. The primary factor in AIPAC’s astonishing success has been ensuring that its mandated policies are fully bipartisan, that there are zero differences on Israel between the two parties, so that election outcomes change nothing. They are most petrified that some actual dissent may seep into the mainstream of the two parties; that’s why Bill Kristol has demanded that Ron Paul be expelled from the GOP, and it’s why these CAP and MM writers are being attacked so savagely. Especially with a possible war with Iran on the horizon, the last thing they want — especially in the mainstream of either party — is a permissive environment where one can freely debate the accuracy of their fear-mongering premises about Iran and challenge the wisdom of that aggression.
They are particularly panicked by their eroding power to monopolize the discourse. When Time Magazine’s Joe Klein is warning of “Israel-Firsters” and pointing out the role they played in bringing about the Iraq War and now trying to repeat that feat with Iran, and when The New York Times‘ Tom Friedman is warning that U.S. policy is “held hostage” by the Israel Lobby and the U.S. Congress is “bought and paid for by the Israel Lobby,” it’s clear that things have changed. Being able to display a new scalp on their wall will enable them to exhibit that they can still dictate debate limits and punish heretics. The problem, though, is that Joe Klein and Tom Friedman are too protected (to say nothing of being too Jewish and too devoted to Israel) to bring down with anti-Semitism smears (though they certainlyhavetried).
So what they do instead is target young, relatively obscure writers — especially ones with names like “Zaid Jilani” and “Ali Gahrib” — in order to make an example of them. This is a truly disgusting spectacle: these commentators — all of whom are writing well within the range of mainstream opinion on Israel — are being publicly smeared early in their careers as anti-Semites as part of a coordinated, ongoing campaign planned by Josh Block and carried out by numerous journalists with large media platforms, and aided and abetted by Jewish groups trading on their credibility to suppress debate.
These accusers know that their institutional employer (CAP) — dependent both upon White House access and funding by Jewish donors — can ill-afford to be smeared as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic regardless of whether those allegations are valid or not. And that’s exactly why they’re doing it: because they sense that these young CAP writers in particular (who, revealingly, have not been heard from in their own defense since the accusations against them were first voiced) are vulnerable to character assassination and career destruction. Unsurprisingly, CAP has alternated between distancing itself from and even repudiating their writings to desperately assuringeveryone that they are fully on board with standard “pro-Israel” orthodoxies.
So this smear campaign not only threatens to suppress legitimate debate about crucial policy matters in the U.S., but it also is aimed at the reputations and careers of numerous young liberal writers who have done absolutely nothing wrong. As Wildman put it about those who “debase the term by using it as a rhetorical conceit against those with whom we disagree on policy matters”: “When anti-Semitism is falsely applied, we must also stand up and decry it as defamation, as character assault, as unjust. . . .There comes a time when we must insist on common sense. We must reject the absurd. There comes a time when we must say, ‘Enough’.” We are way past that point now: both with the general smearing of Israel critics as anti-Semites and the specific, baseless attacks on these writers.
Early in January, the Jerusalem Post published an article E-mail reveals anti-Semitism at US think tank. Here is their “proof” of the charge made in the title In the e-mail that the Post obtained exclusively from the CAP account of Faiz Shakir, who serves as editor-in-chief of the ThinkProgress.org website and is a vice president at CAP, he wrote, “Yes, I agree ‘Israel Firster’ is terrible, anti-Semitic language. And that’s why that language no longer exists on Zaid’s personal twitter feed, because he also knows and understands the implications.” Zaid Jilani wrote on his Twitter account, where he identifies himself as a “Reporter-Blogger for ThinkProgress,” that “…Obama is still beloved by Israel-firsters and getting lots of their $$.”
Obviously, the Jerusalem Post is thrilled that the anti-Semitism charges seem to be accepted even by those targeted. Also, obviously, all of the propaganda is having an effect on CAP.
According to a Washington Post online article on Thursday, Jarrod Bernstein, the new White House liaison with the Jewish community, told Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that what was unfolding at CAP was “troubling,” and, “that [the attitude toward Israel at the think tank] is not this administration.
… Zaid Jilani had blogged for the Center for American Progress’s ThinkProgress website; he used Twitter to call US supporters of the Jewish state “Israel Firsters” and compared Israel to the former apartheid regime in South Africa. A CAP employee who said her name was Amanda told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that Jilani was no longer employed by ThinkProgress. Jilani’s biography and photo no longer appear on the ThinkProgress website “About” section. His Twitter feed no longer identifies him as a reporter for ThinkProgress. His last CAP blog posting was on January 12.
It is very difficult watching all of this unfold not to lose hope that free speech still exists. It seems that simply charging an individual with anti-Semitism, whether or not there is any truth to that charge, particularly if that individual is a Muslim is enough to destroy their career.
At the beginning of this article I quoted Faiz Shakir’s statement If there is one key takeaway from this incident, it’s that observers have witnessed how the Islamophobia network generally operates: 1) Produce a blog post with false anti-Muslim information, 2) promote that blog post through Fox News, 3) have so-called “experts” tout the information as if it’s credible, and then 4) stand by your mischaracterizations even when they are shown to be lies. In this case, we successfully fought back against this misinformation network. That’s what it’s going to take to end Islamophobia.
Faiz Shakir’s most recent statement seems to contradict those noble principles, and CAP’s throwing of Zaid Jilani to the wolves doesn’t speak well for their courage or integrity. It is possible that there is some other explanation for Zaid Jilani’s departure from CAP, but it doesn’t look good.
It’s a shame that CAP didn’t have the courage of their convictions to fight back against the misinformation network. As, in the end, they will have been seen to have been on the right side of history to begin with. Americans for Peace Now who identifies themselves as “a Jewish, Zionist organization that is dedicated to achieving peace and security for Israel” said in a statement
We are deeply concerned about the ongoing attacks against staff of the Center for America Progress (CAP). We believe that these attacks do not reflect genuine concerns about anti-Semitism, or even the use of language that some people may find offensive. Rather, they appear to be part of an effort to stifle discussion on America’s Middle East policy, while using Israel as a partisan wedge issue, both inside the Democratic Party and between Democrats and Republicans.
As a non-partisan organization, we have no interest in CAP’s political identity or its relationship to the Obama Administration. However, as a Jewish, Zionist organization that is dedicated to achieving peace and security for Israel, we believe that a vibrant public debate over issues related to peace and security for Israel and the Middle East – the kind of debate that takes place every day in the Israeli press – is vital for both Israel and the United States. We believe that the current charges of anti-Semitism are intended, cynically, to have a “chilling effect” on such debate. Such attacks cannot be allowed to succeed.
We recognize that the tone adopted by many commentators – on both sides of these very contentions issues – has grown uglier in recent years. This is especially true in blog posts and tweets. All of us operating in this sensitive policy sphere would do well to de-escalate the tone. Intemperate rhetoric only distracts from the important policy issues that, for the sake of both Israel and the U.S., deserve serious debate. Name-calling has no place in policy discussions and, as has been seen in the current context, can pave the way for both unintended offense and for manufactured controversy.
CAP and its staff have a long record of pro-Israel, pro-peace work. This includes hosting numerous Israeli security and policy experts, in addition to providing timely, thoughtful analysis and commentary on the issues. It includes a long record of support for peace, Israeli security, and the two-state solution. Such positions are consistent with the policies of successive U.S. presidents from both parties and with the aspirations of most Israelis and their leaders.
This sounds remarkably similar to Zaik Shakir’s original statement, and it is just a shame that it seems that in Shakir’s case, it may have been only talk. It will be interesting to follow further developments and statements.
What is most ironic about all of this is that just yesterday, I wrote an article about Andrew Adler, owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times who had published an article calling on the Israeli Mossad to assassinate President Obama.
I thought about the term “Israel-firster” when I was writing that article, as it seemed to me that he is a perfect example of the fact that there really are individuals for whom this is a factual statement of their ideology. Interestingly, I am not the only one who had that thought. Chemi shalev wrote onHaaretz:
It is ironic that Adler’s despicable diatribe comes against the backdrop of a fierce blogosphere debate that flared up yesterday about the term “Israel-firsters” and whether it is a legitimate critique or an anti-Semitic slur. Adler, for his part, has provided an example of a sub-specie of “Israel-firsters” that have not only lost track of where their loyalties lie, they have gone off the tracks altogether. He has pleased anti-Zionists and delighted anti-Semites by giving them the kind of “proof” they relish for accusing American supporters of Israel not of “double loyalty” but of one-sided treachery, plain and simple.
… There is something eerily familiar in all this, of course, for anyone who was present 16 years ago at Tel Aviv’s Kikar Malchei Yisrael, as it was then known, on the night that Yitzhak Rabin was murdered. One can already envisage how Adler will be disowned, described as a “wild weed,” depicted as a lone wolf who does not represent anyone in his or in anyone else’s community and used as a springboard for a righteously indignant, preemptive counteroffensive that will show how his solitary case is being exploited to score points against anyone who legitimately criticizes Obama.
To date Obama has been one of the most pro-Israel presidents ever.
Andrew Adler wrote that he thinks Benjamin Netanyahu should assassinate President Barack Obama because he is not pro-Israel enough. Obama has been one of the most pro-Israel presidents out there and still you got the nutbags on the Right who want him dead.
Imagine if an American Muslim publisher had wrote this? He would be getting water-boarded in Guantanamo as we speak. Also, you could bet that the condemnations from Muslim leaders would barely be recognized, unlike in this case, where the outrage at Adler’s statements from within the Jewish community is highlighted very well.
NEW YORK – The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, has suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consider ordering a Mossad hit team to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama so that his successor will defend Israel against Iran.
Adler, who has since apologized for his article, listed three options for Israel to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons in an article published in his newspaper last Friday. The first is to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, the second is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the third is to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”
Adler goes on to write: “Yes, you read “three correctly.” Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If have thought of this Tom-Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?”
Adler apologized yesterday for the article, saying “I very much regret it; I wish I hadn’t made reference to it at all,” Adler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And in an interview with Gawker.com, Adler denied that he was advocating an assassination of Obama.
The op-ed in Atlanta Jewish Times.
The American Jewish Committee in Atlanta last night issued a harsh condemnation of Adler’s article, saying that his proposals are “shocking beyond belief.”
“While we acknowledge Mr. Adler’s apology, we are flabbergasted that he could ever say such a thing in the first place. How could he even conceive of such a twisted idea?” said Dov Wilker, director of AJC Atlanta. “Mr. Adler surely owes immediate apologies to President Obama, as well as to the State of Israel and his readership, the Atlanta Jewish community.”
Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, also blasted Adler on Friday, saying “There is absolutely no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric. It doesn’t even belong in fiction. These are irresponsible and extremist words. It is outrageous and beyond the pale. An apology cannot possibly repair the damage. Irresponsible rhetoric metastasizes into more dangerous rhetoric. The ideas expressed in Mr. Adler’s column reflect some of the extremist rhetoric that unfortunately exists — even in some segments of our community — that maliciously labels President Obama as an ‘enemy of the Jewish people.’ Mr. Adler’s lack of judgment as a publisher, editor and columnist raises serious questions as to whether he’s fit to run a newspaper.”
Robert Spencer has complained for several years that “Muslims and Leftists” refuse to debate him on his ideas. He issued an open challenge to debate. I accepted this challenge and agreed to a radio debate over a year and a half ago, yet Spencer has been running away from me ever since. To see the chronology behind Spencer’s debate-dodging with me, check out Sheila Musaji’s articleDanios vs Spencer: 18 months and Spencer still avoiding a debate.
Initially, Spencer had used my anonymity as an excuse to get out of debating me. After over a year and a half, he seemed to finally put this condition aside and agreed to debate me. I offered Salon Radio as a possible choice for venue and moderator, to which Spencer initially agreed. Shortly thereafter, however, Spencer chickened out of this, claiming that Salon Radio was not a neutral venue. He then insisted upon ABN Sat, a loony right-wing Christian channel with anti-Muslim shows on it like Jihad Exposed.
Remember: Spencer rejected Salon Radio because it was not neutral enough, but meanwhile he has debated Muslims on ABN, which is the last thing on earth that could be called “neutral”. Anyone see the double standard?
I agreed to ABN, just to get the debate moving along. After this, Spencer emailed ABN saying: “It will be interesting in any case to see his face on camera.” When did I ever agree to that? Remember: I’ve always said that I am willing to engage in a radio (audio) debate with Spencer, so why the insistence that I do video? After prolonged negotiations (designed to waste my time?), ABN finally refused to host the debate if I would be “audio-only” (as was my condition from the very beginning).
ABN claimed that it was against their policy to have one of the debaters be “audio-only” and that each debater must be on Skype (with video). This seems to be nothing but a boldfaced lie made by ABN, since here is a debate they hosted just within this last year in which one of the debaters used Skype (video) and the other used the phone (audio only). It seems that Spencer and ABN are colluding with each other in order to find an excuse to get out of the debate, because Spencer knows that he cannot defend his ideas.
So, the reality is that nothing has changed, and Spencer continues to use my anonymity to dodge the debate with me.
* * * * *
Moment of truth time for Robert Spencer: instead of wasting everyone’s time negotiating over venue and moderator (all of which seems to be designed to dodge the debate), I challenge you, Robert Spencer of JihadWatch, to a head-to-head debate using a format similar to bloggingheads.tv (no moderator needed) and audio only (like this debate or the one Spencer just did with “Spengler”–readers will note Spencer’s own words there: “Yes, it’s a video, but it’s audio only”).
We can make this debate happen right away. Nothing fancy is required, no gimmicks, no third party needs to be negotiated with. All we need is a recorded telephone conversation between you (Spencer) and I (Danios). Then, we can put the recording of the debate on our respective websites (on LoonWatch and if Spencer wants, on JihadWatch).
As for the topic, we can debate the contents of Spencer’s book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). I argue that this book is completely misleading, whereas Spencer argues that nobody has been able to refute the substance of it but just smear him instead. We’ll go through the book chapter by chapter and see where the truth lies. Spencer, if you can’t defend the contents of your book, what are you but a fraud?
A generous time limit can be set for the debate so that we can have a real substantive discussion. I say we stick with what we both found reasonable initially: three hours.
Spencer, I’m trying to make this debate actually happen, whereas you keep trying to find ways out of it. The ball is in your court now.
This is the moment of truth to see if Spencer wants to debate or just wants to flee from me. I think the question most of us have is: what excuse will Robert Spencer come up with next to chicken out of the debate? Is Spencer too scared to pick up a phone and debate with me? I think so.
Update I:
Robert Spencer just went on a tweet splurge, attempting to do damage control in order to hide the fact that he is dodging the debate with me. He argues: “Every debate [on ABN] has same format.” This is clearly a lie that both ABN and Spencer are sticking to, despite the fact that we have clear evidence to the contrary: as I already pointed out above (a point Spencer ignored), here is an ABN debate in which one of the two debaters was “audio only”, just as I requested. Their insistence that all debaters must appear on video is something new that they invented for me, just as a way to give Spencer an out.
Like I said, there’s nothing new here: Spencer has chickened out of the debate with me as usual, using my anonymity as a cheap excuse. He has rejected my new debate offer above, saying about me: “He wants uneven playing field.” How would that be an “uneven playing field” to have no moderator and just go head-to-head? Here Spencer is guilty of projection: he is the one who insisted on ABN, a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel, that would be completely in his favor. Meanwhile, I accepted this “uneven playing field”–to Spencer’s advantage! This is yet another case of Spencer putting reality on its head.
Lastly, Spencer gets out of my new debate offer by arguing that he will only accept it if I accept a “university invitation.” He knows that I won’t accept because it would require compromising my anonymity, something I am unwilling to do at this point in time. Therefore, we’re once again back where we were, with Robert Spencer dodging me in debate, using my anonymity as his ultimate fall back excuse and cop-out. Why, Spencer, did you waste all of our time by making us think a few days ago that you were ready to stop running? Please don’t keep wasting everybody’s time.
Anti-Muslim zealot Pam Geller announced this week the formation of a new international organization, Stop the Islamization of Nations (SION), for which she will serve as executive director. This “new global force” will merge the work of the two major anti-Muslim groups in the U.S. and Europe – Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), run by Geller and co-founded by another anti-Muslim fanatic, Robert Spencer, and Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), run by Anders Gravers out of Denmark. Spencer will serve as SION’s vice president.
This is not the first time these organizations have worked together. In the past, they have tried to hold events in Europe to protest what they see as a coming “Eurabia.”
Geller has a long track record of anti-Muslim activities. Most recently, Geller, whose blog Atlas Shrugs once suggested that President Obama is the “love child” of Malcolm X, celebrated a video that appears to show U.S. soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. “CAIR has whipped itself up into an Islamic frenzy because a video surfaced that appears to show US Marines [in] combat gear urinating on several dead jihadis,” Geller’s website said last week, referring to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group. “Would anyone have CAIRed if Marines urinated on dead Nazi soldiers during WWII? (Anyone besides CAIR and Nazis, that is)?”
Gravers’ organization, which inspired SIOA, was cited byNorwegian terrorist Anders Breivik in his manifesto as an organization that people should support and that should have far more members than it has. Breivik blamed the lack of support for SIOA on multiculturalism and political correctness. Spencer was a particular favorite of Breivik. His manifesto cited Spencer and his work dozens of times.
The new group intends to create a “common American/European coalition of free people” to “oppose the advance of Islamic law,” which it describes as in contradiction with “Western laws and principles.” It plans to publicize the names of politicians, activists and others “that promote the Islamization of Western policy and culture.”
SION’s board includes notable anti-Muslim activists, including Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American psychologist who has called Islam a “brainwashing machine,” and Hindu nationalist Babu Suseelan, who is published on Spencer’s hate site, Jihadwatch. Gravers will also serve on the board. SION plans soon to hold a worldwide summit to further its efforts.
Newt Gingrich’s statement that he would only support Muslim presidential candidates if they “would commit in public to give up Sharia” was met by harsh comments from both Muslim American organizations and academic experts on Islamic law. “Newt Gingrich’s vision of America segregates our citizens by faith. His outdated political ideas look backward to a time when Catholics and Jews were vilified and their faiths called a threat,” said Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Legislative Director Corey Sayolor.
But Gingrich’s anti-Muslim crusade found an ally with noted Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy, leaped on Gingrich’s anti-Shariah comments yesterday in a column for National Review Online and on his radio show, Secure Freedom Radio. His column reads:
Newt is absolutely right in making such a distinction [between a "moderate person who worships Allah" or "a person who belonged to any kind of belief in sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us]. The danger we currently face from the so-called Muslim world arises not from the fact that people are Muslim, but from the extent to which they adhere to the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine of sharia.
With his successive warnings about sharia…Newt Gingrich has, in my judgement, rendered a real public service. We must know who are enemies are and we must defeat, not accommodate, those who in the name of Sharia are obliged to wage Jihad against us. And we must keep America Sharia free.
But Gaffney’s concerns about religious and personal freedoms rarely extend to Muslim Americans. Last year, he said:
A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.
Newt Gingrich makes no secret of his hostility toward Muslims but Frank Gaffney’s defacto endorsement — he also picked up an endorsement from anti-Muslim activist and Gaffney ally Pamela Geller — might not be helpful as Gingrich attempts to appeal to moderate voters and chip away at Mitt Romney’s momentum in the primaries. Gaffney is a noted member of the Islamophobic far-right and his organization, the Center for Security Policy, was highlighted as a major nexus for the anti-Sharia initiatives sweeping the country in the Center for American Progress’s report, Fear, Inc.
In 2008, African-American Muslim student Balayla Ahmad enrolled in Connecticut’s University of Bridgeport with hopes of becoming a chiropractor. Instead, she became of a victim of sexual harassment. Distressed by the repeated sexual advances and “graphic offensive comments” of a male student, Ahmad reported the harassment and “fears for her safety” to multiple teachers, who urged her to say nothing, and finally the university’s president and dean. The dean told Ahmad, “My hands are tied. What do you suggest I do?”
Rather than having her claims addressed, Ahmad received allegations of her own. Learning of her report, Ahmad’s harasser decided to falsely accuse her of terrorism to the FBI. And rather than fully investigate what was happening, the University of Bridgeport just expelled Ahmad altogether:
After reporting the sexual harassment in April 2009, Ahmad said she was approached by two university security directors who told her someone had made allegations against her and they threatened to call the FBI and have her arrested.
Later, two FBI agents knocked on Ahmad’s apartment door, questioned her and left a business card, according to the lawsuit. She said she learned that her harasser or his associates had fabricated a story falsely accusing her of being a terrorist in apparent retaliation for having made a sexual harassment complaint against him.
“Ahmad was racially profiled and discriminated against because of her race, color and ethnic identity as an African American Muslim and labeled a terrorist based on false accusations provided by the harasser and adopted without adequate investigation by the university,” the lawsuit states.
Ahmad asked that the university provide her with an off-site proctor for her exams, but she said the university told her in April 2009 that her sexual harassment complaint had been closed and that she was being referred to a disciplinary committee. In June, she said the university dismissed her.
Ahmad filed a lawsuit against the university last week for failing to investigate her claims, instead showing “deliberate indifference” to her plight. The lawsuit claims that the college even “recklessly disseminated false accusations by the harasser that they had good reason to believe were unreliable and threatened her with arrest by the FBI.”
Ahmad’s lawyer, Bradford Conover noted that because Ahmad regularly wears the hijab, she was easily targeted for her religion. “[B]ecause of that, she ended up getting targeted based on some reckless accusations against her,” Conover said. “They never investigated it. Had they done so, they would have discovered the accusations against her were false and she had been subject to sexual harassment.”
Prof. Juan Cole notes that in a poll taken a few years ago, three-quarters of Americans couldn’t find Iran on a map and another two-thirds couldn’t find Iraq. This fact didn’t stop a majority of Americans from supporting the invasion of Iraq by a ratio of two-to-one. What does it say about a people when they support bombing a country before even knowing where it is? But anyways, why are those Muslims so violent and warlike?
With all the talk of Iran and Israel among the GOP presidential candidates, it is worth remembering that in this poll of a few years ago, three quarters of Americans could find neither Israel nor Iran on a map. Despite the US being at that time the occupying power in Iraq, some two-thirds couldn’t recognize that one, either.
A few more did recognize Iraq than the others, reminding one of Ambrose Bierce’s dictum that “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
I suggest a new regulation on war. If a majority of your country cannot find the enemy country on the map, they aren’t interested enough to justify making war against it.
It is an understatement to say that violence against women is a serious issue today, as I wrote in a previous article titled, Rampant Sexual Harassment of Women…in the West, “women are mistreated across the globe, across cultures, races, and religions at unfortunately high and gross levels.” This was proven with empirical evidence and scholarly analysis from various studies.
In the intro of the article I reminded readers that Islamphobes,
love to trot out the talking point that Muslims (due to Islam of course) are unique in harassing and oppressing women. According to them, anytime a Muslim man harasses or otherwise assaults a woman it is considered a result of Islam or somehow encouraged by “Islamic behavior.”
This belief, however, is not limited to anti-Muslim bigots but has also crept into the popular imagination and perception of the mainstream.
It is within that context that we review another recent manifestation of this “anti-Muslim talking point” creeping into the mainstream. As many of those who watched the recent South Carolina GOP Presidential Primary debate are aware, Fox News’s Brett Baier asked Gov. Rick Perry about Turkey’s “Islamist oriented” government, and what our relationship should be towards them (Turkey is one of our oldest allies). He set up the question this way,
“Since the Islamist oriented party took over in Turkey the murder rate of women has increased 1400% there…”
My jaw dropped when I heard that, what an astronomical and frankly unbelievable number! The clear implication was that the “increase in violence” was related to the rule of the so-called “Islamist oriented” AKP party. Once again something “Islam” or “Islam” related was being cast as the source and cause of violence.
Imagine the effect this had on those watching the debate? It either reinforced or created the perception that Islam and Muslims are incredibly violent towards women, and that any “Islam” oriented political party will result in a degradation of women’s rights.
Brett Baier’s question was extremely misleading to say the least. It provided no context or evidence linking the AKP party to the “increase” in murders. To say that the AKP is “Islamist oriented” is misleading as well, a more appropriate analogy may have been to the “Christian Democratic” parties in Europe.
I have found conflicting origins on the source of the “1400% increase” statistic. On some news outlets we learn that the figures were released by Women’s Rights lawyer Aydeniz Alisbah Tuskan,
The figures are based on data issued by lawyer Aydeniz Alisbah Tuskan, Co-ordinator of the Istanbul Bar Association Centre for Women’s Rights.
According to the data of the Ministry of Justice, the number of women murders increased by factor 14 between 2002 and 2009. While 66 women were killed in 2002, this figure raised to 953 women murders in 2009. The development of the increase was documented as follows: 83 women murders in 2003; 128 in 2004; this figure more than doubled in 2005 with 317 women killings; again a sharp increase with 663 in 2006; a peak of 1011 women murders in 2007 and a small decrease in numbers in 2008 with 806 women murders.
Regardless of the source there seems to be agreement on the numbers. Tuskan in her report also added another startling fact regarding violence towards women,
The data revealed an additional startling dimension of the problem: 85 percent of about 2000 annually registered divorce applications in Istanbul are based on violence.
According to Tuskan the reason for this explosion in the number of divorce applications stemming from violence is, “based on the fact that women do not endure violence as they used to do in the past.”
Are violent incidents against women on the rise in Turkey? Or is it just that we are finally getting a clearer picture of something that has been happening at the heart of Turkish society for some time?
If one were to listen to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it has been his government that has started compiling these statistics, whereas before his administration statistics on the issue were not even “calculated,”
While numerous sources argued over the last week that violence against women increased by 1,400 percent in the past seven years, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said earlier this week that the issue was presented as if violence against women was on the rise. Highlighting that they would not ignore a single act of violence, Erdoğan said: “Before we started keeping track of this, statistics on the issue were not even calculated and no one was aware of these incidents. … I expect a responsible approach from both the opposition and the media over the matter and I say that, with solidarity and responsibility, we can decrease violence to the lowest level.”
I don’t see any reason to doubt Erdoğan’s assertion, however it would be vital to verify.
Either way, the statement from Erdoğan clearly contradicts Brett Baier’s misleading assertion that the so-called “Islamist-oriented” AKP which Erdoğan heads is the cause or root of the violence.
Erdoğan also went on to say,
“Violence against women is remorselessness, ruthlessness and, I say this without hesitation, contemptible”
Not really the evil, misogynist Islamic terrorist that Baier and Rick Perry thought ruled Turkey, aye?
Since the stats came out on the number of murders and incidences of violence directed against women there has been an intense debate on the subject in Turkey. It is no longer a taboo subject locked behind closed doors. There have also been massive grassroots campaigns and new legislation countering the violent trend,
In recent months, both print and visual media in Turkey have been running story after story about domestic violence: ex-husbands who shoot their ex-wives in front of their children, abusive husbands who come back to kill, boyfriends or fiancés who cannot forgive being dumped and seek revenge.
…
As disheartening as the situation is, there is also a growing reaction and a grassroots movement to stop it. Nowadays it is widely acknowledged that violence against women is not only confined to a few uneducated families in remote undeveloped regions. More importantly, until today, it was mainly assumed that such cases were a “family affair”. If a husband was beating his wife, this was their problem. Now this assumption is fully debunked. More and more public figures are coming out to say that domestic violence is everyone’s business and we should, as a society, interfere.
Family and social policies minister Fatma Sahin has announced that abusive husbands will be kept away from their homes with the help of electronic handcuffs. A group of men in the eastern province of Van have organised a significant march to protest at male violence. The group’s speaker proclaimed: “We are ashamed of men who attack women and do so in the name of manhood.”
University students are marching on the streets, women’s organisations are collecting signatures. Through blogs, websites, magazines, fanzines, panels and conferences activists are raising their voices, singers give concerts to honour women who have been victims of killings, writers and poets condemn the violence openly and contest it with their words. And yet, all this is not enough. Unless we change the way we raise our sons and discard our belief that they are superior to our daughters, unless we mothers stop treating our sons as the sultans in the house, nothing will be enough.
Lastly, it should be highlighted that Brett Baier’s misleading question is damaging most of all because it obfuscates the true issue of violence directed at women. It deflects from the root causes (cultural norms, cultural traditions, patriarchy) in exchange for the easy Orientalist scapegoat–Islam.
As Ilisha pointed out in her article on Honor Killing, by focusing on Islam, anti-Muslim Islamophobes are actually doing a disservice to those who are truly challenging violence towards women. Brett Baier’s question had the added effect of dehumanizing a whole nation, and I echo Ilisha’s call that Islamophobes, “give up their vicious campaign against Islam and join us in the struggle to end violence against women from all cultural and religious backgrounds.”
UPDATE I:
For further information on this topic I suggest reading The Journal of Turkish Weekly, which conducted an exclusive interview with Dilek Karal, a specialist at USAK Center for Social Studies regarding violence against women. According to Karal, there is no way to solidly identify whether murders against women have increased or decreased,
How should we read violence against women in Turkey? How accurate is it to say that violence has drastically increased in recent years?
D. Karal: There are a lot of factors which can trigger violence such as sociocultural factors, economic factors, and psychological factors in the environment where people grow up. We need to look at what conditions they become prominent under. The efforts shall target eliminating the roots of these factors. However this is not limited to the motto which is liberally used in Turkey—“education is a must”. Educated people also beat their spouses or commit different kinds of violence against them. Education is just one dimension. The issue should be tackled with integrated multi-agency policies. It is compulsory to operate family and child services efficiently, and formalize different environments where boys and girls grow up to not normalize the violence. All in all, violence as a phenomenon needs to leave our lives altogether.
For instance, Turkish Ministry of Justice 2010 data shows violence against women has increased 1400% during the last seven years. This is a very big number. According to some other data during the first seven months of 2010; 226 women were murdered while 478 women were raped and 722 women sexually abused. There are a lot of similar cases. Over 100,000 women suffered from sexual attacks. Although the numbers are as such, they cannot present us solid data regarding whether the violence has increased or decreased. This is because there are certain problems in evaluating statistical data in Turkey. The fact that they are being presented in a systematic fashion in recent years can be interpreted as the invisible tip of the iceberg slowly surfacing.
In other words, violence against women existed before as well but can now be better measured with in-depth research, which has made the issue more apparent. Without longitudinal studies it is very difficult to understand if the violence has increased or not. However, we need to underline that the existing circumstances in the context of this issue are already too tragic. According to Hacettepe University’s research, 39% of the women in this country (more than a third) are victims of physical violence and 15% are victims of sexual violence. 42% of women say that they have experienced a form of one or the other. The interesting part is the women who experienced violence did not make appeals to official units or to non-governmental organizations. More than half of them shared the situation with just close relatives. Only 8% of the women requested help from official units. This rate is very low. In a society where violence is skyrocketing, this low rate points to ignorance. Women either do not see themselves sufficient socioeconomically or they normalize violence in a sociocultural sense.
UPDATE II:
I also came across figures on murders of women since 2009 in the article, “This is a Civil War…” There is a large discrepancy between 2009 (1,126 murders) and 2010 (217 murders). If one were to be disingenuous regarding the issue, one could claim a massive decrease in murders!:
In The Washington Post yesterday, Law Professor Jonathan Turley has an Op-Ed in which he identifies ten major, ongoing assaults on core civil liberties in the U.S. Many of these abuses were accelerated during the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, but all have been vigorously continued and/or expanded by President Obama. Turley points out that these powers have long been deemed (by the U.S.) as the hallmark of tyranny, and argues that their seizure by the U.S. Government has seriously called into question America’s status as a free nation: “They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian.” All ten of these powers are ones very familiar to readers here: Assassination of U.S. citizens; Indefinite detention; Arbitrary justice; Warrantless searches; Secret evidence; War crimes; Secret court; Immunity from judicial review; Continual monitoring of citizens; and Extraordinary renditions.
I’ve written volumes on all of those powers over the last several years, but — especially today — I want to focus on one narrow but vital question: who are generally the victims of these civil liberties assaults? The answer is the same as the one for this related question: who are the prime victims of America’s posture of Endless War? Overwhelmingly, the victims are racial, ethnic and religious minorities: specifically, Muslims (both American Muslims and foreign nationals). And that is a major factor in why these abuses flourish: because those who dominate American political debates perceive, more or less accurately, that they are not directly endangered (at least for now) by this assault on core freedoms and Endless War (all civil liberties abuses in fact endanger all citizens, as they inevitably spread beyond their original targets, but they generally become institutionalized precisely because those outside the originally targeted minority groups react with indifference).
To see how central a role this sort of selfish provincialism plays in shaping political priorities, just compare (a) the general indifference to Endless War and the massive civil liberties assaults described by Turley (ones largely confined to Muslims) to (b) the intense outrage and media orgy generated when a much milder form of invasiveness — TSA searches — affected Americans of all backgrounds. The success of Endless War and civil liberties attacks depends on ensuring that the prime victims, at least in the first instance, are marginalized and easily demonizable minorities.
The fundamental interconnectedness between war and civil liberties abuses on the one hand, and the targeting of minorities as part of those policies on the other, is, of course, nothing new. It was most eloquently emphasized in the largely forgotten, deliberately whitewashed 1967 speech about the Vietnam War by Martin Luther King, Jr. (who himself was targeted for years with abusive domestic surveillance by the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover). Dr. King devoted that extraordinary speech generally to the way in which the war in Vietnam was savaging not only the people of that country but also America’s national character. He specifically sought to answer his critics who were objecting that his increasingly strident opposition to the Vietnam War was a distraction from his civil rights work; instead, he insisted, his war opposition and advocacy of civil rights are, in fact, causes that are inextricably linked:
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don’t mix, they say. Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. . . .
It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through [Lyndon Johnson's] poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such . . . .
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. . . .
Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. . . .
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
King notably added another reason why he felt compelled to prioritize issues of war: “another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission.” As he put it: “ This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances.” If only that award were similarly understood today. His essential point was that nothing good could possibly happen in America so long as it continued on its path of warfare and bombing and invading foreign countries, and it was therefore necessary to prioritize protests against the war on at least equal footing with every other issue.
Over the weekend, I recorded a BloggingheadsTV session with The Nation‘s Katha Pollitt in which several of these same themes were discussed; it was a good, civil, constructive discussion, and the video is below. Part of the debate over the last couple weeks among progressives regarding political priorities, the Obama presidency, the Ron Paul candidacy and the like has entailed a litany of accusations — smears — hurled at those of us who insist on the prioritization of issues of war and civil liberties abuses, and who vocally highlight the ways in which the Democratic Party generally and President Obama specifically have been so awful on these matters. Some Democraticloyalists have explicitly argued that contrasting Obama with Ron Paul on these issues is warped because issues of war and civil liberties are, at best, ancillary concerns, while others have gone so far as to claim that only racial and/or gender bias — white male “privilege” — would cause someone to use the Paul candidacy to highlight how odious Obama has been in these areas.
Leaving aside the fact that (as I detail in the discussion with Pollitt),numerouswomen and peopleofcolor have made the same points about the vital benefits of Paul’s candidacy — voices which these accusers tellingly ignore and silence — these accusations are pure projection. Those who were operating from such privilege would not seek to prioritize issues of war and civil liberties; that’s because it isn’t white progressives and their families who are directly harmed by these heinous policies. The opposite is true: it’s very easy, very tempting, for those driven by this type of “privilege” — for non-Muslims in particular– to decide that these issues are not urgent, that Endless War and civil liberties abuses by a President should not be disqualifying or can be tolerated, precisely because these non-Muslim progressive accusers are not acutely affected by them. The kind of “privilege” these accusers raise would cause one to de-prioritize and accept civil liberties abuses, drone slaughter, indefinite detention and the like (i.e, do what they themselves do), not demand that significant attention be paid to them when assessing political choices.
As I noted the other day, it isn’t white males being indefinitely detained, rendered, and having their houses and cars exploded with drones — the victims of those policies are people like Lakhdar Boumediene, or Gulet Mohamed, or Jose Padilla, or Awal Gul, or Sami al-Haj, or Binyam Mohamed, or Murat Kurnaz, or Afghan villagers, or Pakistani families, or Yemeni teenagers. In order to get the full depth of the oppression and injustice of these ongoing War on Terror policies, one has to do things like listen to this amazing — and tragically rare — interview conducted by Chris Hayes this weekend with Boumediene, as the former GITMO detainee explained in Arabic how his life was devastated by indefinite detention. It’s easy to convince yourself that these abuses are not an urgent priority if, like those above-linked accusers, your non-Muslim privilege (to use their accusatory terminology) enables you to be shielded from their harms.
This is the primary point made so brilliantly by Falguni Sheth, the Political Theory and Philosophy Professor, in arguing that white progressives throwing around these accusations are themselves the ones guilty of it by virtue of their willingness to subordinate these issues to partisan gain — in other words, no longer desiring that these abuses be vested with prime political priority now that it’s their Party and their President guilty of them:
But HERE FOLKS! I am a brown woman (in case my bio didn’t clue you into that), and I am downright livid at policies passed during the Obama administration (which a number of folks will attest that I anticipated before the 2008 election), which are even worse than expected. I am as livid with progressives who affect a casual? studied? indifference to the Administration’s repeated support for warrantless wiretapping (remember Obama’s vote during the 2008 election season when he took a break in campaigning to return to Washington to vote for the renewal of FISA; for his support of the Justice Department’s withholding of evidence (and even habeas corpus) from detainees on grounds of national security; his commitment to indefinite detention (NDAA was not the first time it’s arisen. We saw his support in the gesture to move Gitmo detainees to a federal prison in Illinois—with only a casual suggestion that they might receive civilian trials—only to watch it die quickly under even modest resistance. Guantanamo is still open with detainees languishing); the expansion of troops into Afghanistan in the first part of his term; the unceasing drone attacks in Pakistan, etc. . . .
Here’s my other question: Why does this have to turn into a “guilt by association” debate? Why can’t we discuss the questions that are being raised as serious and important questions, rather than referendums on voters’ or pundits’ moral character? I don’t have to like Ron Paul (and why do we need to LIKE our politicians?). I don’t have to have dinner with him. He doesn’t need to be a friend. He is raising the questions that every other liberal and progressive and feminist (yes, including you, Katha) should be raising and forcing the Democrats to address. As Greenwald has pointed out, these issues only become outrage-worthy when the Republicans are spearheading human rights violations, because it gives the libs and progs a lever by which to claim political superiority. The silence on the Democrats’ record of human rights violations is deafening. And they’re more than cherries on a blighted tree. They’re dead bodies on the blighted conscience of Americans.
As I said the other day, I don’t run around accusing progressives who have different political priorities than I do of being driven by racial and religious bias. I genuinely recognize that there are all sorts of benign and even noble reasons why one might have different political priorities or might even value partisan loyalty more than I do. But there is one thing I know for certain: to smear with this kind of innuendo those insisting on the prioritization of war and civil liberties issues or devoting oneself to these causes is indescribably irrational and reckless. One driven by racial or other forms of privilege would seek to de-prioritize or ignore these issues, not highlight them. Indeed, a primary reason why these fully bipartisan policies of Endless War and civil liberties assaults largely go unchallenged is precisely because their primary victims are anything but privileged. That’s exactly why these issues are not a distraction from the cause of equality; they are an embodiment of it.
* * * * *
On a related note, International Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller reviewsthe debate raised here and elsewhere last week about the murder of Iranian scientists and argues that these acts, definitively and without question, are acts of Terrorism.
Here is the 55-minute discussion I had with Pollitt this weekend, one which, as I indicated, I thought was quite constructive and helpfully illuminated the key points:
UPDATE: The always smart Freddie De Boer has some poignant insights on all of this – on progressives, war and civil liberties — that are well worth reading.
Two stories coming out of Ohio related to Islamophobia. The first is still being investigated for a possible hate crime, and the second story shows that even within the prison system there is a double standard when it comes to Muslims.
A deliberately set fire at the Hilliard home of the son of a controversial Islamic scholar is being investigated as a possible hate crime.
The arson fire heavily damaged a house at 4907 Britton Farms Dr. once occupied by Salah Soltan, but now the home of his 24-year-old son, Mohamed, authorities said.
The younger Soltan and a friend escaped the fire without injury after it was reported to Norwich Township firefighters at 5:24 a.m. Monday.
Firefighters arrived to find flames coming from the rear of the $290,000 house, which sustained extensive damage, said Fire Chief Dave Long.
The house was painted with anti-Islamic slurs a couple of months ago, authorities said.
The elder Soltan, who now lives abroad, is a native of Egypt and formerly was a professor at Cairo University and president of Islamic American University in suburban Detroit.
Some conservative critics have accused Soltan of being sympathetic to terrorist causes. He has said while he supports Palestinian rights, he condemns terrorism as a violation of Islamic law.
The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations yesterday called on the FBI to assist in the investigation of the motive behind the fire.
The FBI is working with Hilliard police in investigating the circumstances of the fire, said Special Agent Harry Trombitas, spokesman for the Columbus field office.
Hilliard police called in state fire marshal investigators yesterday to assist in the probe and determined it was arson.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A Muslim death row inmate has settled a lawsuit that accused the Ohio prison system of denying him meals prepared according to Islamic law while providing kosher meals to Jewish prisoners.
Ohio had previously decided to remove all pork products from prison menus in response to the lawsuit, though inmates weren’t seeking a ban on pork.
Details of the settlement announced Wednesday afternoon weren’t released. Neither the inmate’s lawyer or the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction would comment.
The state argued as recently as last month that providing the meals, known as halal, could bankrupt the state’s food service system because thousands of inmates have declared themselves Muslim.
Attorneys for Abdul Awkal (ab-DUHL’ AW’-kuhl) and a second inmate argued that the state was exaggerating the cost.
This past week Eric Allen Bell posted an article on Daily Kos attacking the Loonwatch site
I was startled when I read the article, and sent an email “heads up” to Danios at Loonwatch in case he hadn’t seen the article yet. He replied that he had not seen it, and he was equally surprised at the content and at the venue in which the article was printed.
I had previously heard the name Eric Allen Bell only in relation to a documentary he had made One Mosque Too Many on the Murfreesboro Mosque. That documentary was well received in the American Muslim community, and in the interfaith community. Bell said himself about this documentary and why he made it
It was on this past 4th of July that I decided to make a documentary about the backlash against the building of a new Islamic Center here in Mufreesboro, TN. At that time I had no idea that a chilling wave of anti-Islamic hysteria was about to sweep over the country, strengthen the far right and send the civil rights movement several decades backwards all in the matter of just a few short weeks.
The documentary is titled “Not Welcome” and chronicles events in Murfreesboro concerning the backlash against the Mosque from the 4th of July to 9/11 of 2010. I have interviewed nearly everyone on all sides of this issue here. And along the way I have been threatened repeatedly but I have also made many new friends. I have learned a lot about how my own ridiculous prejudices about the South have distorted my point of view. I have been surprised repeatedly at how often the most unlikely of people can defy their stereotype with acts of kindness, courage and compassion. I have come to know many members of the Islamic community here, known them as friends, broken bread with them and watched as they faced persecution without striking back, without getting consumed with anger, watched as they prayed for those who oppose them, asked for God’s mercy on them and trusted that, in the end, whatever happens will be God’s will.
Because of that background, this current article of Bell’s was particularly puzzling. How could the person who said I have learned a lot about how my own ridiculous prejudices about the South have distorted my point of view. also be the person who showed ridiculous prejudice against the same American Muslim community he seemed to respect? I thought that perhaps there are two different individuals with the same name – one opposed to bigotry, and one encouraging it, and so I did a little research.
There is only one Eric Allen Bell. He has a website, and one of the sections of that site is Freedom From Religion. Scrolling through the posts in that section, it became obvious that this individual is not fond of religion. Bell’s posted comments are not just anti-Islam, but anti-all religion. One of his posts is titled “God” is part of the 1 percent, and seems to sum up Bell’s position:
Once upon a time a very, very angry man named “god” created the world, got pissed off at everybody and killed them all with a flood, except for his buddy Noah and his 2 live crew. Later God decided everyone is so lame that he chose his “chosen people” to give a plot of real estate to while telling everyone else to f*ck off, ordered some ethnic cleansings to clear out the area and so forth. Still finding nearly all people to be unbearable (and who can blame him, really?) this god person decided, out of the kindness of his heart, to send his only son to be brutally tortured and savagely murdered so that he won’t have to send us all into a lake of hell fire for all eternity, because he loves us.
About 600 years later, god met this slave owner named Mohammed who also hated most people and the two of them really hit it off. God told Mohammed to wipe out the Jews, the Christians, basically everyone who did not see the the world the way that he did, and together they decided to call this new way of thinking, “the religion of peace”. But now the religion of peace wants to wipe god’s chosen people off of their plot of real estate and the followers of god’s poor brutalized son – whom the chosen people killed (oops, epic fail there guys) see this as a good thing because it will bring about the end of the world, and god’s son will appear in the clouds while the rest of us can go to hell. What does this all mean? It means god must be stopped and his followers need to give us back our planet before they blow the whole damned thing up in one big rapturous apocalyptic orgasm of self fulfilling prophecy. In other words GOD IS PART OF THE 1 PERCENT. “He” must be stopped.
On his site he promotes films like “Islam, What the West Needs to Know” about which he says “I cannot say that I am in 100% agreement with everything said in this documentary. However, having read the Koran, visited a few mosques and produced a documentary on Islamophobia in the Bible Belt, it is my feeling that fundamentally what is being put forth here in “Islam – What the West Needs to Know” is correct.”
As Colm O’Broin has pointed out about this particular “documentary”
The documentary Islam: What the West needs to know, which features many of the most influential anti-jihad writers, makes this point clear. A short TV ad is shown of ordinary Muslim Americans describing their backgrounds and finishes with the statement that “Muslims are part of the fabric of this great country and are working to build a better America.” The contributors to the documentary warn ominously however that the Koran allows Muslims to deceive non-believers in the service of Islam.
This is possibly the most reprehensible claim made by the anti-Muslim writers. If you accepted what they say it would mean that you can’t trust your friends, relatives, neighbours or work colleagues if they happen to be Muslim. In fact, all Muslims are suspect according to this poisonous allegation.
Bell’s admiration for films like this, and for individuals like Robert Spencer of the hate group SIOA makes some sense after scrolling through Bell’s site. Although Spencer is a devout Catholic, and Bell would have no more respect for his religious beliefs than he would have for my religious beliefs, in Bell’s war against religion, it seems that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is his philosophy.
The newly coined term Islamophobia describes an irrational fear of Islam. But for LoonWatch.com any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad – even those criticisms that might have some legitimacy to them – even of radical Islam, are branded as Islamophobia and anyone who dares to raise questions about the nearly constant acts of Jihad going on increasingly around the world today is labeled a Loon.
What does Bell provide as way of evidence for the claim that Loonwatch opposes “any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad?” Does he provide quotes or statements from Loonwatch articles or writers? You know, facts?
The answer is a glaring and resounding, NO.
Instead, Eric relies on guesswork. According to him Loonwatch doesn’t speak out against “Islamic Terrorism,” that, to him, is enough to declare that it is “in fact a terrorist spin control network.”
A pretty bold and probably libelous claim when measured next to the absence of facts Bell provides.
When one takes a look at the mission statement of Loonwatch, it becomes clear that their focus is on challenging bigotry against Muslims,
Loonwatch.com is a blogzine run by a motley group of hate-allergic bloggers to monitor and expose the webs plethora of anti-Muslim loons, wackos, and conspiracy theorists.
What’s wrong with that? As many commenters pointed out to Bell there are “thousands” of sites tracking “terrorism” and “jihad.” In fact there is a whole “Terrorism Industry” that is in existence feeding off of the fear of “Islamic Terrorism,” to make sure that Americans have a new “green” menace to replace the old “red” menace. Prof. Charles Kurzman, who has actually done empirical evidence on this topic gives us some perspective on this exaggerated threat,
As it turns out, there just arent that many Muslims determined to kill us. Backed by a veritable army of fact, figures, and anecdotes, Kurzman makes a compelling case. He calculates, for example, that global Islamist terrorists have succeeded in recruiting fewer than 1 in 15,000 Muslims over the past 25 years, and fewer than 1 in 100,000 since 2001. And according to a top counterterrorism official, Al Qaeda originally planned to hit a West Coast target, too, on 9/11 but lacked the manpower to do so.
Bell seems to have a schizophrenic personality, on the one hand he defends religious liberty (such as in the case of Murfreesboro Mosque) but on the other hand he agrees with many of the irrational attacks leveled at Islam and Muslims:
1.) He conflates Radical Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism with Islam. In the comment section he made clear that he believes “Islam IS Islamic Fundamentalism.”
4.) He cherry picks verses, quotes them out of context, and when it is pointed out that the same could be done with other scriptures he resorts to a popular argument amongst Islamophobes; stating that while it may be true that other scriptures hold violent passages they “are rarely carried out” in contrast to Islam. There is nothing further from the truth as the website, WhatIfTheyWere Muslim.com? details quite vividly. All the crimes that are considered uniquely “Islamic” are still committed by Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc.
Spencer, whom I don’t see eye to eye with either entirely, presents himself in a rather rational, sober and scholarly fashion and I might add that neither he nor the other “Loons” have bombs strapped to them – only words.
Now, should we likewise, per the logic of Mr. Bell, be afraid of the scary Christian Americans, and make broad sweeping generalities about Christianity? Or Jewish Americans? Or Israeli Jews?
This is just a slither of what I found wrong with Eric Allen Bell’s article. It was reliant on not only a highly dubious methodology of critique, sourced poorly, but also filled with Orientalist and prejudiced tropes that ironically were the same ones used by the anti-Mosque opponents Bell documented in Murfreesboro, TN.
In 2009, the Daily Kos published a positive review of our website. So imagine my surprise whenThe American Muslim emails me a link to a recently published article on Daily Kos which is nothing short of a hatchet job against LoonWatch. This article was authored by Eric Allen Bell and is entitled Loonwatch.com and Radical Islam. Bell had the temerity to accuse LoonWatch of being “a radical Islamic front, covering up for terrorism”; he writes: “Loonwatch.com is in fact a terrorist spin control network.”
We would hardly bat an eye at this loony stream-of-consciousness article–Islamophobes have been accusing us of this since our site launched–except that this screed was published on the Daily Kos. Why would a fellow progressive website take a swipe at us out of the blue?
This mystery solves itself when you look into who wrote the article. His name is Eric Allen Bell, and he professes a soft spot for Robert Spencer, a man who was ranked by FAIR as the #2 leading Islamophobe in the country (losing out the number 1 spot to his boss, David Horowitz). Spencer is the leader of the SIOA group, deemed by the SPLC to be a hate group. Spencer’s organization has links to Neo-Nazi and skinhead groups in Europe. Among other things, Robert Spencer joined a genocidal Facebook group and posted a genocidal video on his website. This is the man that Eric Allen Bell calls “rational, sober and scholarly.” Bell imagines some difference between Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller even though they are close friends and colleagues-in-crime:
That explains why Bell’s article looks like something out of a loony anti-Muslim blog likeBareNakedIslam, AtlasShrugs, or JihadWatch. Bell uses the exact same talking points against us. His main gripe seems to be why our site “ignores” the violent acts of terrorism committed by Islamic terrorists. The answer to that is painstakingly obvious: our website’s mission statement is to document and expose Islamophobia. To ask us why we don’t document Islamic terrorism would not be very different from asking us: why doesn’t your site talk about world hunger? Whereas this might be a worthy topic to bring attention to, it is simply not part of our mission statement. Surely, Bell understands that websites oftentimes specialize in one particular topic and simply do not have the resources to dedicate to every noble cause.
Bell’s accusation itself is steeped in his Islamophobia. Imagine, for instance, if some white guy accused the NAACP of being “a black supremacist group” because they only fought racism against blacks instead of documenting violence and crime committed by blacks. What would anyone call such a person but racist?
Eric Allen Bell tries to shield himself from accusations of bigotry by pointing out that he made some documentary about a mosque in Murfreesboro. Yet, this would be like someone being opposed to segregated schools for black people on the one hand but on the other hand becoming absolutely livid against anyone who dared to deny that blacks are more violent than white people. Readers can go to the racist website Stromfront to find plenty of people compiling lists of black violence and criminality just like Bell reproduced his list of Muslim violence and terrorism.
Bell argues that Muslims are more violent than people of other religions, which is in fact the exact same argument raised by–you guessed it–Robert Spencer. My response to this is two-fold:
1) The threat of Muslim terrorism has been extremely exaggerated (in order to justify our wars in the Muslim world). According to the FBI’s own database (available from 1980-2005), of the terrorist attacks in America less than 6% were committed by Muslims. Readers should also refer to my May 2010 article which noted that since 9/11, there have been zero U.S. civilians killed from Islamic terrorism. The situation is the same in Europe. For the past several years, Europol has released an annual terrorism report, which showed that Islamic terrorism accounts for less than 1% of terrorism in Europe and has resulted in zero deaths. In the half decade documented in these reports, the only injuries sustained from Islamic terrorism were to a security guard who “was slightly wounded.”
For the past several years, zero civilians in America and Europe have been killed by Islamic terrorism. Yet, we are indoctrinated into thinking that Islamic terrorism represents some existential threat: you should be scared out of your wits and be losing sleep over Islamic terrorism. This is war propaganda at its finest. The reality is that you have a far greater chance of dying from being struck by lightning (about 67 Americans die of lightning every year) than being killed by an Islamic extremist (a whopping average of zero).
When confronted by this reality check, Islamophobes are quick to shift gears and insist that they are talking about Islamic terrorism in the “rest of the world.” Yet, almost all of this Islamic terrorism takes place in countries that have been bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States or its proxy Israel. (India is the notable exception, although it should be noted that India has sustained a brutal occupation of Kashmir for many decades.) Iraq currently leads the list. If you look at Iraq before we started dropping bombs on it, Islamic terrorism was virtually non-existent in that country. Is it Islam then that is to blame for this terrorism or our bombing, invasion, and occupation?
2) The type of terrorism that is included in such comparisons is what I call Amateur Terrorism (strapping a bomb on yourself to injure a security guard and kill yourself); it excludes the greater form of terrorism: Professional Terrorism (carpet-bombing an entire civilian population). This is the violence committed by nation-states. The United States and Israel are guilty of committing, in the words of the Nuremberg trial, “the supreme international crime”: waging wars of aggression. When this form of violence is factored in, then the argument that Muslims are more violent seems untenable. As Prof. Steven Walt noted, Americans have killed anywhere from 30 to 100 times as many Muslims as Muslims have killed Americans.
I find it difficult to lecture Muslims about how violent they are when my own government, with the backing of its people, have killed so many Muslims (and continue to do so on a daily basis).
In a way, our violence is worse than theirs, because ours is sanctioned by us: our duly elected members of government are the ones who launch these wars, with our blessing and support. It is our uniformed soldiers who kill those Muslims. Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda and such groups operate without governmental authority, without any sanction or permission from the Muslim population. In fact, the Muslim population is often the victim of such terrorist groups.
Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years, or 91% of her existence. Meanwhile, the country in the Muslim world we vilify the most, Iran, has not initiated a war since 1795, over 200 years ago. (It was, however, attacked by its neighbor with the aid and encouragement of the United States.) Who is the more violent one again?
Here is a map of the Greater Middle East, showing countries that the U.S. has bombed or has bases in:
Meanwhile, the modern state of Iran has never attacked any of its neighbors or any other country in the region (or world). But, Eric Allen Bell wants us to say that Islam and Muslims are the violent ones?
These two points constitute my argument, and if Eric Allen Bell wants to produce something more than a screed that belongs on Pamela Geller’s AtlasShrugs, that’s what he needs to refute.
One should also recognize that I am making a radically different claim than the Islamophobes when I point to American aggression. There is nothing intrinsically different between the United States and the rest of the world that makes it more violent–or, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”–other than the fact that it has the power to do so. I truly believe that absolute power corrupts absolutely: those vested with great power almost invariably abuse it, and it is for this reason that they must be held to account the most.
Compared to the United States, the forces of Radical Islam have virtually no power. Since 9/11–more than a decade ago–the collective strength and resources of the “worldwide jihad” have been unable to kill a single civilian on American soil. That’s how powerful they are. In the grand scheme of things, Islamic terrorism is a nuisance of modern day existence, a threat akin to that of gang violence or drug cartels–it is not an existential military threat as it is made out to be.
There is no doubt that Radical Islam is repugnant to the senses and must be intellectually fought. But attacking all of Islam and Muslims in general–targeting their religion and labeling Islam as uniquely violent–is the most counter-productive way of doing so. More than that, it’s intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.
The girl was attacked by older white girls who kicked her, pushed her to the ground and drew on her face.
Surrey Police said it seemed the girl had been targeted on 11 January because she was wearing a headscarf.
Spelthorne councillor Colin Strong said the incident was being raised at a meeting with neighbourhood police as an issue that affected the community.
‘On busy road’
Detectives said they were treating the incident in Vicarage Road as a racially-aggravated assault.
Det Con Simon Egan said the girl had been targeted as she waited for a bus.
He said the suspects had kicked the victim in the leg, pulled her rucksack from her, pushed her to the floor, used make-up to draw on her face and racially abused her.
After the incident, the girl picked up her bag and ran away.
Det Con Egan said: “This was an appalling assault where a young victim has been targeted in a completely unprovoked attack.
“It would seem that suspects targeted the victim for no reason other than because she was wearing a headscarf.”
In an appeal for witnesses, he said the assault had taken place at the side of a busy road in daylight and urged any pedestrians or drivers who saw the attack to come forward.
The issue will be discussed at a neighbourhood policing meeting at the Sunbury Youth Centre, in Bryony Way, on Thursday evening.
Hollywood moguls have declared that they will not contribute any more money to Obama since he came out against SOPA. (But given that Obama promised to veto NDAA, and then didn’t, that might not mean very much.)
Given that even the web “dark out” hasn’t killed these zombie bills, Anonymous is calling for physicalprotests to oppose the bills:
This is an urgent emergency alert to all people of the United States. The day we’ve all been waiting for has unfortunately arrived.
The United States is censoring the internet. Our blatant response is that we will not sit while our rights are taken away by the government we trusted them to preserve. This is not a call to arms, but a call to recognition and action! The United States government has mastered this corrupt way of giving us a false sense of freedom. We think we are free and can do what we want, but in reality we are very limited and restricted as to what we can do, how we can think, and even how our education is obtained. We have been so distracted by this mirage of freedom, that we have just become what we were trying to escape from.
For too long, we have been idle as our brothers and sisters were arrested. During this time, the government has been scheming, plotting ways to increase censorship through means of I S P block aides, D N S blockings, search engine censorship, website censorship, and a variety of other methods that directly oppose the values and ideas of both Anonymous as well as the founding fathers of this country,who believed in free speech and press!
The United States has often been used as an example of the ideal free country. When the one nation that is known for its freedom and rights start to abuse its own people, this is when you must fight back, because others are soon to follow. Do not think that just because you are not a United States citizen, that this does not apply to you. You cannot wait for your country to decide to do the same. You must stop it before it grows, before it becomes acceptable. You must destroy its foundation before it becomes too powerful.
Has the U.S. government not learned from the past? Has it not seen the 2011 revolutions? Has it not seen that we oppose this wherever we find it and that we will continue to oppose it? Obviously the United States Government thinks they are exempt. This is not only an Anonymous collective call to action. What will a Distributed Denial of Service attack do? What’s website defacement against the corrupted powers of the government? No. This is a call for a worldwide internet and physical protestagainst the powers that be. Spread this message everywhere. We will not stand for this! Tell your parents, your neighbors, your fellow workers, your school teachers, and anyone else you come in contact with. This affects anyone that desires the freedom to browse anonymously, speak freely without fear of retribution, or protest without fear of arrest.
Go to every I R C network, every social network, every online community, and tell them of the atrocity that is about to be committed. If protest is not enough, the United States government shall see that we are truly legion and we shall come together as one force opposing this attempt to censor the internet once again, and in the process discourage any other government from continuing or trying.
***
EMERGENCY ACTION AUTHORIZED. ORGANIZATION OF LOCAL PROTESTS IS NEEDED. CONVERGE AT FREEWAYS AND HIGHWAYS. LIBRARIES, MALLS, GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, SCHOOLS…ALL ARE ACCEPTABLE AREAS! IF YOUR GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN THE INTERNET … SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT!
Hundreds protested against the bills in front of senators offices in New York today.
Newt Gingrich who has been on a racist role, calling the president of the USA the “greatest food stamp” president, and implying that Blacks are more prone to “food stamps” than other groups is also displaying his bigotry towards Muslims and Islam again. He wants any future Muslim presidential candidate to be given a “sharia test.”
Newt Gingrich told a South Carolina town hall audience on Tuesday that he would be open to seeing a Muslim-American run for president, as long as the candidate denounced Sharia law and didn’t seek to impose his or her views on others.
At a town hall meeting in West Columbia, S.C., a man asked Gingrich if he would ever “support a Muslim-American running for president.”
“Would you endorse…a Muslim-American, [who] could possibly be running for president, given that we had a woman running for president in Hillary Clinton, and we had a Jewish-American, in Joe Lieberman, running for vice president?” he asked.
“A truly modern person who happened to worship Allah would not be a threat,” Gingrich replied. “A person who belonged to any kind of belief in Sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us, would be a mortal threat.”
“I think it would depend entirely on whether they would commit in public to give up Sharia,” he said, referencing his support for the bill and drawing cheers from listeners at the event. “If they’re a modern person integrated into the modern world, and they’re prepared to recognize all religions, that’s one thing. On the other hand, if they’re the Saudis, who demand that we respect them while they refuse to allow either a Jew or a Christian to worship in Saudi Arabia, that’s something different.”
He pointed to an acquaintance as an example of a “truly modern” Muslim.
“We have a friend in Arizona who serves in the U.S. Navy, who’s a medical doctor, who’s Muslim — but he’s a totally modern person, trying to find ways to bring Islam into modernity,” Gingrich said.
Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain said he wouldn’t be comfortableappointing a Muslim to a judgeship or cabinet position. He later apologized.
No item of female apparel summons more attention, animosity, debate or censure in Western society than the veil covering Muslim women. That’s saying something in a culture inured to the sight of sweatpants with “Juicy” on the backside, Abercrombie & Fitch’s padded “push-up” swimsuit tops for eight-year-old girls, and women teetering on skyscraper porno heels as hobbling as the “chopines” worn by 16th-century Venetian prostitutes.
Governments are racing to restrict the veil in its various declensions: hijab, chador, abaya, niqab, burka. France and Belgium banned face-and-body concealing burkas and niqabs last year; similar legislation is in the works in other European countries, echoing campaigns to rid cityscapes of minarets. Last June, Muslim women were singled out by FIFA, the world soccer body, which banned players from wearing Islamic headdresses on the grounds they could cause a “choking injury.” The Canadian federal government drew its first line in the sand last month when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced a ban on face veils during the swearing-in of the citizenship oath. Quebec’s Bill 94, which would deny essential public services to women in niqabs in the name of “public security, communication and identification,” is wending through the legislature.
So what’s really going on here? Why are women many see as subjugated the ones being censured? Part of what’s driving this is the visceral response a veiled face summons in the West: it’s a mystery and a threat. Unless you’re a surgeon, a goalie, a bride or a belly dancer, masking one’s face is anti-social, a prelude to robbing a bank or attending a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Faces confer identity, legally and socially. Covering them can signal Darth Vader menace. It’s dehumanizing.
A covered or veiled woman summons more complex associations, given that female emancipation in the West focused on bodily autonomy and was mirrored in fashion trends—beginning with Coco Chanel, who believed women should share the same liberties as men and replaced restrictive corsets and long skirts with jersey dresses, knits and pants. Instructing a woman to cover up to preserve sexual modesty and prevent lustful thoughts is viewed as archaic and misogynistic—harking back to the Victorians hiding curvy table legs or the kind of dystopian theocracy depicted in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The “liberated” woman eschews modesty; any instructive to preserve it is code for oppression, as seen in global “SlutWalks” protesting “victim-blaming” after a Toronto police officer suggested women could avoid sexual assault if they stopped dressing “like sluts.”
Western women may be shackled by clothing and customs—six-inch stilettos, Brazilian waxing, cosmetic surgery, the imperative to be thin—but that’s seen to be their choice, their self-expression within a culture that often conflates female empowerment with female sexuality. A veiled Muslim woman is therefore even more freighted, thought to represent a second-class citizen deprived of identity and isolated from public life, a trapped victim of “gender apartheid,” as witnessed by the horrific acid attack on Afghani schoolgirls who abjured the offensive burka.
Yet we didn’t always see it that way. In the 1990s, the niqab, the veil that leaves only eyes exposed, was exotic, a marketing ploy: Loblaw put a photograph of a woman wearing one on the box for its “Memories of Marrakech” couscous. The “otherness” of a veiled Muslim could occasionally inflame bigotry, as seen in 1994 when female high school students in Montreal were expelled for wearing the hijab; the head scarf worn to preserve modesty was deemed an “ostentatious symbol.” But the burka was off the political radar, with the exception of feminist groups that protested the repression of women in fundamentalist Islamic nations, particularly Afghanistan, where Taliban rule in 1994 torched advances made by women.
Then came 9/11, and the burka was hijacked as a handy accessory for the emerging “war on terror.” The week after the twin towers fell, The Economist sent out a “free trial offer” mailer recycling a February 2000 cover of a woman in a niqab below the line: “Can Islam and Democracy Mix?” The image was sultry, destined to boost subscriptions, even if linking a veiled woman with all of Islam was below the magazine’s usual intellectual rigour. Not all Muslim women wear face-covering veils; many Muslims oppose the practice. The Quran, an enlightened text regarding gender equality, enforces no dress code; “hijab,” or cover, refers to the curtain that separates man and the world from God, not to clothing. Men and women are only called to “lower their gaze and guard their modesty.” Nor are Muslim nations in sync on veiling, which has come to represent an oppression-meter of sorts—from Afghanistan, where women faced a mandatory burka law punishable by death, to Tunisia and Turkey, where burkas are banned in schools and government buildings.
Turkish-born sociologist Necla Kelek dismisses the idea that the burka has anything to do with religion or religious freedoms, but rather represents an ideology whereby “women in public don’t have the right to be human.” France’s Fadéla Amara views the garment as a form of religious obscurantism, “a kind of tomb for women.” In her 2004 book, The Trouble with Islam, Irshad Manji rejects any notion of “spiritual submission” to the veil, calling adherence “closer to cultural capitulation”: “To cover my face because ‘that’s what I’m supposed to do’ is nothing short of brand victory for desert Arabs, whose style has become the most trusted symbol of how to package yourself as a Muslim woman.”
Yet as a symbol, the “desert Arab” packaging of women offered powerful visual shorthand for the indeterminate “war on terror.” It was harnessed to garner support for the invasion of Afghanistan, where the road to female freedom was measured in media reports in terms of women’s access to lipstick and beauty salons. Then the burka was tied to Islamic terrorism itself, linking the “war on terror” with a “war on Islam”: video footage that appeared to show one of the failed July 2005 London bombers wearing a niqab implanted fear that the garment posed a national security threat. That risk migrated to Muslim immigrants’ seeming unwillingness to conform to European and American mores. Even global cultural juggernaut Disney, whose 1992 Aladdin came under fire for promoting racist Arabic stereotypes, joined the hijab jihad last year, telling more than one Magic Kingdom employee that they were “not part of the Disney look.”
We can only await the Disneyfication of the burka, which has acquired near magical powers in its ability to turn right-wing politicians into situational feminists. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the garment “a debasement” of women that rendered them “prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social contact, deprived of all identity,” ignoring the fact that his ban would closet these women in their homes. As British writer Myriam Francois-Cerrah, a Muslim, puts it: “[Governments] have a funny idea of liberation: criminalizing women in order to free them.”
Sheema Khan, author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman, likens the paranoia over female veiling to another trumped-up distraction: “These new WMDs (women in Muslim dress) seem to evoke the same fear as those other WMDs (weapons of mass destruction),” she writes. Khan, who wears the hijab, sees a cultural disconnect over the female body and its display: “Muslim women value their bodies, they simply don’t believe in flashing skin.”
In their covering and attempt to disappear from the public sphere, veiled women have acquired paradoxical power in a society that pays attention to women for what they’re not wearing: as the most visible of visible minorities, they’re a measure of multiculturalism’s limits. And as a graphic reminder of the world’s fastest-growing religion, they test how much religious observation and cultural defiance we’re willing to accommodate—and accept.
Jason Kenney described a covered face as “un-Canadian” when announcing the new citizenship ruling: “Allowing a group to hide their faces while they are becoming members of our community is counter to Canada’s commitment to openness, equality and social cohesion,” he said. The minister admitted he found it “frankly, bizarre” that women had been allowed to veil their faces. Some 81 per cent of Canadians agreed with the veto, according to a Forum Research poll, which raises questions as to whether we’ll see similar rulings in other public spaces; Muslim women’s right to veil their faces while giving testimony is currently being challenged.
Canadian political scientist and Middle East scholar Katherine Bullock predicted that Muslim women would become “the visible link between Western power politics and an anti-veil discourse in the West,” in her 2002 book, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil. The University of Toronto professor, a convert to Islam since 1994, wears the hijab. She was prescient: Sarkozy’s targeting of the Muslim minority is viewed by many as a pander to voters on the extreme right.
Bullock challenges the common view that the veil is oppressive and degrading. While she acknowledges the horrific violation of women’s rights in Islamic states, she writes that these must be addressed by the courts, and that a woman’s right to wear the veil should be separate from other human rights issues. That argument is a hard sell in the West, where high-profile murders of Muslim girls and women are associated with their rejection of the veil in “honour killings,” the odious term that segregates extreme domestic violence: Aqsa Parvez, the 16-year-old Mississauga, Ont., girl who was murdered in 2007 by her father and brother for refusing to wear the veil, and the ongoing Shafia trial in Kingston, Ont., in which a husband, wife and son are accused of murdering three teenage girls and a first wife. At that trial an expert prosecution witness overtly raised the connection when speaking of Muslim mores: “A woman’s body is considered to be the repository of family honour,” he said.
That any woman would willingly wear an “ambulatory prison,” as Christine St-Pierre, Quebec’s minister for the status of women, has called the niqab, is a mystery in a culture focused on the exposed female body and the distorted “body image” resulting from artificial Photoshopped standards. Amid “Does this burka make me look fat?” jokes, female Western journalists took the garments out for test drives, reporting back that they were confining, isolating and even elicited hostility, which is predictable. Veiled Muslim women have become doubly dehumanized in the West—by the veil itself and incendiary responses to what it’s seen to represent—which makes them vulnerable to the kind of violent Islamophobic attacks seen in France.
Yet the defiance expressed by hijab and burka wearers confounds the stereotype that they are submissive and lack will. Disney’s hijab ban has been successfully challenged. Last September, Hind Ahmas and Najate Nait Ali made headlines when they were fined for disobeying the French burka ban.
Inscrutable and complex, the veil is a code that can’t readily be cracked. Many women are veiled against their will, it is true, yet many others choose it. The idea that the veil could represent an assertion of identity, defined by daily connection and devotion to God, is alien for many in a secular culture. Liberal ideas of equality and liberty, which distinguish want from need, trump other ways of looking at the topic, says Middle Eastern historian Christina Michelmore, a professor at Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pa.: “A lot of women want to wear it because they have to,” she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2001.“It was a commandment, and I would obey,” Bullock writes. That’s a mindset alien in the West, Michelmore observes: “For many Americans, cultural restraints on individual behaviour automatically look like oppression. I think that’s a very American look at the world. For lots of cultures, communal standards aren’t seen as inhibiting individual freedoms.”
Women wear the veil as a rejection of Western values, Michelmore notes: “They see it as part of their identity, as separate from this globalized McDonald’s world.” Many of the veil’s most vocal proponents, ironically, are Western women who’ve converted to Islam, among them Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, German broadcaster Kristiane Backer, author of the 2009 book From MTV To Mecca, and Yvonne Ridley, of Islam Channel TV. Ridley extols the veil as offering freedom from Western sexism—the male gaze that renders a woman “invisible” after a certain age and undue judgment of women based on their appearance: “What is more liberating: being judged on the length of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced breasts, or being judged on your character and intelligence?” she asks. Yet to frame the debate as an either-or duality between two cultures is to ignore the continuity that exists. There’s synchronicity in the burka being stigmatized at the same time female display in the West has geared into cartoonish, hyper-sexualization—the mainstreaming of the stripper aesthetic, the creepy Toddlers and Tiaras commodification of girls, and billboards like Estée Lauder’s: “Beautiful gives her daughter something to look forward to.” A new study from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism reveals women are increasingly under-represented and overly sexualized in top movies: they’re far more likely to be seen in “sexy” clothing (25.8 per cent, compared to men at 4.7 per cent) and to be partially naked (23.6 per cent compared to 7.4 per cent). Yet the barbaric repression of women in fundamentalist Islamic nations—stoning for adultery, being denied the vote and access to education—renders complaints about continuing gender inequities in the West trivial by comparison, when, in fact, they are all extremes on a vast continuum.
Legislating what women wear under the guise of freedom is a worrisome portent, one Human Rights Watch calls a “lose-lose situation”: “[Burka bans] violate the rights of those who choose to wear the veil and do nothing to help those who are compelled to do so,” Judith Sunderland, a senior researcher with the group, said last April.
Art allows an exploration of the ambiguities that politics cannot. Canadian photographer Lana Slezic captured a fearful complexity in her famous portrait of Lt.-Col. Malali Kakar, Afghanistan’s most senior female police officer, who was murdered by the Taliban in 2008. Taken in profile, the image shows Kakar shrouded in a half burka, holding a handgun, her fingernails painted bright red. The image of the Afghan police officer working to emancipate Afghan women wearing a symbol of oppression upends the assumption that an unseen woman can’t yield power. Last week, Michelle Risinger, an NGO worker, blogged on GenderAcrossBorders.com about a successful uprising in Kabul by women disguised by their burkas; it forced her to redefine the garment “from a symbol of repression to a means of protection, and even the sustainment of women’s empowerment activities.”
Parisian guerrilla artist “Princess Hijab” explores the power of the veil in her work, using a black marker to “hijabize” and “niqabize” billboards to subvert consumer imagery and push cultural boundaries. “The niqab is very powerful, not just religiously,” the artist told Al Jazeera in 2010: “It has been used in fairy tales, it’s part of the collective memory, a symbol of religious observance, mourning and death.” The veil doesn’t belong to a single religious or ethnic group, she points out: “It’s an empowering piece of clothing but it also can be frightening.”
Exiled Iranian artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat, known for her “Women of Allah” series, similarly creates haunting, powerful images of veiled women, some with guns, their bodies superimposed with Farsi poetry. “Western culture generally tends to mystify women behind a veil,” Neshat told hEyOkA magazine: “It seems ironic but true that the more a female body is covered, the more desirable it becomes. Therefore much of the credit goes to the phenomena behind Islamic culture that by controlling female sexuality, it ironically heightens the notions of temptation, desire and eroticism.”
That would explain the bizarre spectre of the increasing sexual fetishization of the burka in the West. In 2003, rapper Lil’ Kim appeared in a half-burka, naked below, on a magazine cover. In 2009, Mattel endorsed a “Burka Barbie.” The pneumatic plastic doll, once banned in Iran as a threat to “morality,” was outfitted in lime-green and Day-Glo orange “burkas” and auctioned off at Sotheby’s for Save the Children. A few months ago, Kim Kardashian, of sex tape infamy, pranced around in a burka in Dubai. Paparazzi swarmed. It was defiant, outrageous, more shocking than nudity. And anyone who sees it as cultural progress hasn’t been paying attention.
In 2009, the Daily Kos published a positive review of our website. So imagine my surprise when The American Muslim emails me a link to a recently published article on Daily Kos which is nothing short of a hatchet job against LoonWatch. This article was authored by Eric Allen Bell and is entitled Loonwatch.com and Radical Islam. Bell had the temerity to accuse LoonWatch of being “a radical Islamic front, covering up for terrorism”; he writes: “Loonwatch.com is in fact a terrorist spin control network.”
We would hardly bat an eye at this loony stream-of-consciousness article–Islamophobes have been accusing us of this since our site launched–except that this screed was published on the Daily Kos. Why would a fellow progressive website take a swipe at us out of the blue?
This mystery solves itself when you look into who wrote the article. His name is Eric Allen Bell, and he professes a soft spot for Robert Spencer, a man who was ranked by FAIR as the #2 leading Islamophobe in the country (losing out the number 1 spot to his boss, David Horowitz). Spencer is the leader of the SIOA group, deemed by the SPLC to be a hate group. Spencer’s organization has links to Neo-Nazi and skinhead groups in Europe. Among other things, Robert Spencer joined a genocidal Facebook group and posted a genocidal video on his website. This is the man that Eric Allen Bell calls “rational, sober and scholarly.” Bell imagines some difference between Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller even though they are close friends and colleagues-in-crime:
Robert Spencer with loon Pamela Geller
That explains why Bell’s article looks like something out of a loony anti-Muslim blog like BareNakedIslam, AtlasShrugs, or JihadWatch. Bell uses the exact same talking points against us. His main gripe seems to be why our site “ignores” the violent acts of terrorism committed by Islamic terrorists. The answer to that is painstakingly obvious: our website’s mission statement is to document and expose Islamophobia. To ask us why we don’t document Islamic terrorism would not be very different from asking us: why doesn’t your site talk about world hunger? Whereas this might be a worthy topic to bring attention to, it is simply not part of our mission statement. Surely, Bell understands that websites oftentimes specialize in one particular topic and simply do not have the resources to dedicate to every noble cause.
Bell’s accusation itself is steeped in his Islamophobia. Imagine, for instance, if some white guy accused the NAACP of being “a black supremacist group” because they only fought racism against blacks instead of documenting violence and crime committed by blacks. What would anyone call such a person but racist?
Eric Allen Bell tries to shield himself from accusations of bigotry by pointing out that he made some documentary about a mosque in Murfreesboro. Yet, this would be like someone being opposed to segregated schools for black people on the one hand but on the other hand becoming absolutely livid against anyone who dared to deny that blacks are more violent than white people. Readers can go to the racist website Stromfront to find plenty of people compiling lists of black violence and criminality just like Bell reproduced his list of Muslim violence and terrorism.
Bell argues that Muslims are more violent than people of other religions, which is in fact the exact same argument raised by–you guessed it–Robert Spencer. My response to this is two-fold:
1) The threat of Muslim terrorism has been extremely exaggerated (in order to justify our wars in the Muslim world). According to the FBI’s own database (available from 1980-2005), of the terrorist attacks in America less than 6% were committed by Muslims. Readers should also refer to my May 2010 article which noted that since 9/11, there have been zero U.S. civilians killed from Islamic terrorism. The situation is the same in Europe. For the past several years, Europol has released an annual terrorism report, which showed that Islamic terrorism accounts for less than 1% of terrorism in Europe and has resulted in zero deaths. In the half decade documented in these reports, the only injuries sustained from Islamic terrorism were to a security guard who “was slightly wounded.”
For the past several years, zero civilians in America and Europe have been killed by Islamic terrorism. Yet, we are indoctrinated into thinking that Islamic terrorism represents some existential threat: you should be scared out of your wits and be losing sleep over Islamic terrorism. This is war propaganda at its finest. The reality is that you have a far greater chance of dying from being struck by lightning (about 67 Americans die of lightning every year) than being killed by an Islamic extremist (a whopping average of zero).
When confronted by this reality check, Islamophobes are quick to shift gears and insist that they are talking about Islamic terrorism in the “rest of the world.” Yet, almost all of this Islamic terrorism takes place in countries that have been bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States or its proxy Israel. (India is the notable exception, although it should be noted that India has sustained a brutal occupation of Kashmir for many decades.) Iraq currently leads the list. If you look at Iraq before we started dropping bombs on it, Islamic terrorism was virtually non-existent in that country. Is it Islam then that is to blame for this terrorism or our bombing, invasion, and occupation?
2) The type of terrorism that is included in such comparisons is what I call Amateur Terrorism (strapping a bomb on yourself to injure a security guard and kill yourself); it excludes the greater form of terrorism: Professional Terrorism (carpet-bombing an entire civilian population). This is the violence committed by nation-states. The United States and Israel are guilty of committing, in the words of the Nuremberg trial, “the supreme international crime”: waging wars of aggression. When this form of violence is factored in, then the argument that Muslims are more violent seems untenable. As Prof. Steven Walt noted, Americans have killed anywhere from 30 to 100 times as many Muslims as Muslims have killed Americans.
I find it difficult to lecture Muslims about how violent they are when my own government, with the backing of the American people, has killed so many Muslims (and continues to do so on a daily basis).
In a way, our violence is worse than theirs, because ours is sanctioned by us: our duly elected members of government are the ones who launch these wars, with our blessing and support. It is our uniformed soldiers who kill those Muslims. Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda and such groups operate without governmental authority, without any sanction or permission from the Muslim population. In fact, the Muslim population is often the victim of such terrorist groups.
Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years, or 91% of her existence. Meanwhile, the country in the Muslim world we vilify the most, Iran, has not initiated a war since 1795, over 200 years ago. (It was, however, attacked by its neighbor with the aid and encouragement of the United States.) Who is the more violent one again?
Here is a map of the Greater Middle East, showing countries that the U.S. has bombed or has bases in:
Meanwhile, the modern state of Iran has never attacked any of its neighbors or any other country in the region (or world). But, Eric Allen Bell wants us to say that Islam and Muslims are the violent ones?
These two points constitute my argument, and if Eric Allen Bell wants to produce something more than a screed that belongs on Pamela Geller’s AtlasShrugs, that’s what he needs to refute.
One should also recognize that I am making a radically different claim than the Islamophobes when I point to American aggression. There is nothing intrinsically different between the United States and the rest of the world that makes it more violent–or, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”–other than the fact that it has the power to do so. I truly believe that absolute power corrupts absolutely: those vested with great power almost invariably abuse it, and it is for this reason that they must be held to account the most.
Compared to the United States, the forces of Radical Islam have virtually no power. Since 9/11–more than a decade ago–the collective strength and resources of the “worldwide jihad” have been unable to kill a single civilian on American soil. That’s how powerful they are. In the grand scheme of things, Islamic terrorism is a nuisance of modern day existence, a threat akin to that of gang violence or drug cartels–it is not an existential military threat as it is made out to be.
There is no doubt that Radical Islam is repugnant to the senses and must be intellectually fought. But attacking all of Islam and Muslims in general–targeting their religion and labeling Islam as uniquely violent–is the most counter-productive way of doing so. More than that, it’s intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.
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There was some silver lining to Eric Allen Bell’s article. Glenn Greenwald emailed me with the following response to Bell’s post (reproduced with his permission):
Danios- That post is disgusting, but it’s important to distinguish between what “Daily Kos” has written (which is basically the front-page writers) and what a diarist has written (which is basically the equivalent of a blog comment, since anyone can write one, and is not at all attributable to the site itself).
This post is by a diarist – he has no affiliation with Daily Kos, except that he’s posting there – and my guess is that it won’t be promoted to the front page through recommendations and most commenters will be critical.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge GG fan. I wake up every day to read his column with my breakfast and check his blog for updates throughout the day. There is no writer or political thinker I respect more than him. So when Glenn sent me a follow-up email saying “you guys are doing great work”, you can imagine how elated I was.
Who the heck cares what some Eric Allen Bell-nobody thinks when the intellectual giant known as Glenn Greenwald has such positive words to say about us?
It’s good to see another Daily Kos diarist respond to Eric Allen Bell, but the question remains: what is such a hate-mongering bigot doing on a site like the Daily Kos? I think it’s time to clean house, just like former AIPAC operative Josh Block was cleansed from the progressive system: if Block was given the boot for libeling others as “anti-Semites”, shouldn’t Bell be dropped for wrongfully calling others “jihadists”? Send the Daily Kos a message to dump this anti-Muslim bigot by clicking here.
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In other news, it seems we are closer than ever to seeing the debate between Robert Spencer and myself actually come to fruition. I’ll keep you posted.
Update I:
The American Muslim’s Sheila Musaji posted a good article on the subject. She notes that Eric Allen Bell is an atheist who dislikes all religion, not just Islam. However, it’s important to point out that he has a special hatred for Islam and Muslims, who he believes are uniquely violent and intolerant compared to all the other peoples of the world. This is why he would still be categorized as an Islamophobe in my book. On the other hand, I don’t have any problem with atheists who dislike all religions; I do, however, have a problem with atheists who specifically target one religious community over others, especially if that community happens to be the most vulnerable in this country. This of course was my problem with Christopher Hitchens.
Pat Scanlon of Andover, coordinator of Chapter 9 Smedley Butler Brigade of Veterans for Peace, shows Al-Zubeydi his signs in support of the restaurant.
The owners of Babylon restaurant in Lowell, Massachusetts, were understandably shaken last Wednesday when a man hurled a 20-pound rock through the window of the downtown Iraqi eatery, fearing he may have acted out of hate.
“This solidarity gives us the courage to stand,” Babylon owner Leyla Al-Zubaydi told the Sun. “There is no more fear in my heart because there are such nice people behind us.”
A victim of hate crimes in his home country, Al-Zubaydi told the Sun that when his restaurant was threatened last week, it brought his wife to tears and made her consider the possibility of closing the restaurant for good.
Luckily, as soon as he heard about the incident, Vietnam veteran Patrick Scanlon, coordinator of the Greater Boston chapter of the Veterans for Peace, organized the rally for the following Tuesday and was delighted to be joined by a number of veterans in the area who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With Lowell Mayor Patrick Murphy by their side, the vets took turns holding signs for the sit-in and eating at the restaurant. By 8 p.m. Tuesday evening, more than 100 people had come in to eat at the restauraunt, Al-Zubaydi told the Sun.
Lowell police have since identified the man who threw the stone and say he has confessed to the crime, but claimed not to have known the restaurant was owned by Iraqis. He is scheduled to be summoned from his home in New Hampshire later this month to appear in court on misdemeanor charges.
Being in a place such as the Quad-Cities, where most residents tend to be tolerant and some are interested in the world’s major religions, makes it possible to host joint classes on Islam, Judaism and Christianity in a special three-week series, a local religious leader said.
“I feel we have a unique situation here, among the United States,” the Rev. Mike Schaab from St. Pius X Catholic Church in Rock Island said. “People of different faiths in other parts of the country and the world would be loath to walk down the street with one another.”
The Inter-religious Dialogue sessions begin Thursday and will be led by Schaab, Imam Saad Baig from the Islamic Center of the Quad-Cities in Moline and Rabbi Tamar Grimm of the Tri-City Jewish Center in Rock Island.
“Seeing what is beautiful about another faith tradition is a life skill,” said Grimm, who also appreciates the fact that the Quad-City community is a place where such lessons can be held openly and celebrated.
This area is a very good location for interfaith dialogue, Baig agreed.
“We are blessed to have people from every walk of life here in the Quad-Cities,” he said. “We try to inform those individuals who come and who see value and potential in this kind of program.”
A rarity at first
Such cooperation between faiths was a novelty when it began many years ago. But it has evolved over time, Schaab said, including special commemorations of 9/11, and the recent 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, an event that attracted an overflow crowd to Augustana College in Rock Island.
The interfaith sessions are designed with a tone free from politics.
“Our goal is to educate, to give people information,” Grimm said. For example, the first session will be on the separate calendars, holy days and celebrations of the three faiths. It will take place at the Islamic Center.
Grimm intends to talk about the cycle of the year in Judaism and how it begins in the autumn. She also will speak about symbolism in the Jewish holidays. Catholics are on the Gregorian calendar, Schaab said, while many Muslims follow a lunar calendar.
A tour that will wrap up the first event at the Islamic Center will include time to witness Muslims in prayer, Baig said. Visitors will see inside the building, its special setting, and then be invited to watch as evening prayers are conducted.
The classes should be appealing, Schaab said. During the Feb. 16 session, visitors will see an actual Torah scroll at the Tri-City Jewish Center, and they will be able to view a copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
“Looking at sacred scriptures will be very interesting to many Christians,” Schaab predicted.
“Each one offers something unique,” Grimm said. “But at the same time, it amazes me how much we share, in every one of our traditions.”
Schaab, the Catholic priest, believes that knowledge gained from the Inter-religious Dialogues deepens faith. “We want to be supportive, appreciative and sensitive to one another,” he added.
Baig, a Muslim imam, said such education teaches respect for all faiths. There also is value in seeing leaders of these faiths together on one stage, he pointed out. Baig cited a phrase that he believes is central to the outreach effort: “The more you sweat in making peace, the less you will bleed in war.”
Grimm, who took over her part in the forum from her predecessor, Rabbi Michael Samuel, hopes to find continuing acceptance for the lessons.
“People are curious, people want to know and people want to understand,” she said.
During Fox News’ South Carolina debate, Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested it might be time for Turkey to be kicked out of NATO, saying the country was being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists. Perry’s response might surprise many, as Turkey is a longstanding US ally in NATO, and a critical diplomatic partner engaged in “a working relationship that is one of the most important but least discussed developments shaping (2011)’s change in the Arab world.”
Moderator Bret Baier asked the Republican hopeful about the country’s Islamist governing party, and outlined many of the problems going on in the nation, including a high murder rate among women, lessening press freedom, and military issues in the region. “Do you believe Turkey still belongs in NATO?”
“Obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then, yes,” Perry boldly proclaimed. “Not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it.”
Watch Perry suggest Turkey be kicked out of NATO below via Fox News:
“The debate that the Republican candidate Rick Perry attended on American Fox TV turned into a scandal that contained very ugly statements about Turkey,” announced TRT state television.
“Rick Perry: what an idiot,” tweeted Mustafa Akyol, a columnist with the English-languageHurriyet Daily news.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Turkish foreign ministry said it has no comment, but that the Turkish embassy in DC might seek clarification from Perry.
Two Extraordinary Men: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X
The day when we are supposed to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy and struggle for civil rights, justice and freedom is marked today, January 16th, 2012. It goes without saying that everyone owes MLK Jr. a debt of gratitude. Reflecting on his life the past few days, I have re-read the “Auto-biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.” edited by Clayborne Carson, mostly using material from his collected letters, speeches and writings.
There are innumerable ways in which we can remember his legacy, but there is a specific context and relevance that I want to highlight, one that American Muslims and all despised minorities can relate to and understand.
It begins with first acknowledging that, as Svend White noted, Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn’t exactly the universally loved and admired individual that we honor today. In his time, MLK was reviled, considered by some in their hysterical conspiratorial craze “a Communist,” the FBI followed his every movement, and while he was alive he was considered a national security threat.
…contrary to the comforting revisionism that reigns, King was not universally acclaimed and supported after his advent in American national consciousness, even a decade after his legendary speech.
It’s relatively well-known that elements in the government—especially J. Edgar Hoover, who was convinced that he was a Communist plant—ignored the fact that by the end of his life he was a radical social critic who applied his vision to far more than race relations. As he began to apply his values holistically and across racial lines, he lost support among many erstwhile allies.
King’s bravery and vision did not end at “race relations,” his dream was larger, that is why he condemned the Vietnam war and joined striking sanitation workers in Memphis.
MLK day is an awkward day for Islamophobes. His life stands in sharp contradistinction to their hate-filled polemic and activism. While MLK waged jihad for civil rights and freedom, anti-Muslims lobby to restrict freedoms, while MLK pushed for non-violence and opposed aggressive wars, Islamophobes stand in support of such wars–or at least the by-product of slaughtering “towel-heads.”
The USA is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.
If MLK said that today (and it is as true today as it was in his time), rest assured he would be called a leftist, terrorist sympathizer, or perhaps even a “secret Mooslim.”
MLK represented the highest qualities of his Christian faith, but this did not lead him to exclusivist narrow mindedness, instead it opened doors of knowledge and reflection upon unifying principles between the various world religions:
‘I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate — ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: ‘Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.’ If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.”
For saying the above MLK would be considered a “dhimmi” by the radical anti-Muslim Islamophobes. That is why a commemoration of MLK is awesome, it exposes the futility of hate, the absurdness of it, while also reminding us that there is much work to be done to reach a dream that has not been understood or realized.
Danios of Loonwatch has had an ongoing online discussion with Robert Spencer in an effort to set up a debate.
Spencer has regularly challenged Muslims to debate him, but seems to prefer limiting those debates to marginal figures or useful idiots. As Danios has said in the past Spencer’s modus operandi: engage in debate with those who are weak debaters, fastidiously avoid debating with those who are skilled debaters (and who have solid grasp of the subject matter), and then crow in victory over one’s supposedly undefeated record.
Spencer has also shown a pattern of setting impossible conditions on even something as simple as a request for an interview, let alone a debate, as Dean Obeidallah found out just last month.
In the case of Danios attempt to accept Spencer’s challenge to debate, Spencer displays both of these propensities — avoiding a genuine debate, and attempting to hide that avoidance by setting so many conditions that the other party will just give up.
First, a little background on the Spencer vs Danios debate saga, In June of 2010, Spencer stated thatThe list of the Leftist and Muslim academics and apologists who have refused my challenge to debate is very long; they know they can’t refute what I say on the basis of evidence, so they resort to broad-based smears and personal attacks — and haughty refusals to debate.
Danios of Loonwatch immediately responded to Spencer I accept your challenge, Spencer. I agree to a radio debate with you on the topic of jihad and “dhimmitude”, namely chapters 1-4 of your book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). It will then be seen if you can defend your own writing, which I argue is a load of sensationalist crock. Will you accept my challenge to debate or cower in fear? My guess is that you “know [you] can’t refute what I say” and will “resort to…haughty refusals to debate.”
Ahmed Rehab in an article stating why he personally was not interested in debating Spencer reminded Spencer of Danios acceptance of his challenge to debate: And now for some irony. Spencer, you are claiming you are ready to debate anyone but that alas no one wants to debate you because no one can. But, is this actually true? Does the name Danios of Loonwatch ring a bell Spencer? You may be burying your head in the sand hoping no one will notice, but a simple Google search on “Robert Spencer debate” reveals your hypocrisy. How come you are ignoring an invitation from another blogger who has challenged you numerous times and whose articles shredding your arguments to pieces are all over the web without a peep of a rebuttal from you? Are you conceding defeat? Are you “running away?”
Robert Spencer at first said thatI am willing: if “Danios of Loonwatch” reveals his real name, finds a university willing to host the debate and contracts an impartial moderator, I’m ready when he is. Spencer expanded on the issue of Danios pseudonymn sayingSorry, I don’t debate fictional characters or pseudonyms. “Danios of Loonwatch” can go debate Scot Harvath or Harold Robbins.
ROUND 1: Danios agrees to debate Spencer in a radio debate. Spencer sets conditions: Danios must reveal his real name, hold the debate at a university, and find an “impartial” moderator.
Danios respondedOf course, Spencer’s two conditions–both of which involve revealing my identity–are completely bogus. I have offered to debate Spencer on the radio. Does Spencer not do radio interviews? In fact, Spencer has appeared on the radio countless times … Danios also saidThis is of course strange since Hugh Fitzgerald, the Vice President of JihadWatch since 2004, himself operates under an anonymous pseudonym. Fitzgerald is a co-administrator of the site, alongside Spencer. Is Fitzgerald then a “fictional character” who is only worthy of debate with Scot Harvath or Harold Robbins? If that is the case, I challenge Hugh Fitzgerald–co-administer and Vice President of JihadWatch–to a radio debate. The topic will be Jihad, “Dhimmitude”, and Taqiyya (Stealth Jihad), namely chapters 1-4 of Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
ROUND 2: Danios says that if Spencer doesn’t want to debate an individual using a pseudonym, then he will agree to debate Spencer’s Jihad Watch site’s Vice President, Hugh Fitzgerald, who also uses a pseudonym. (Note: Spencer’s fellow Islamophobes whose work he publishes and promotes often use pseudonymns — e.g. Hanan Qahwaji, Nour Semaan, Rachael Cohen and Brigitte Gabriel are the same person. Nonie Darwish and Nahid Hyde are the same person. “Sultan Knish” is actually Daniel Greenfield. “Baron Bodissey” of Gates of Vienna is actually Edward May. “Bonni” of Bare Naked Islamis actually Bonni Benstock-Intall. Fjordman is actually Peder Jensen. Hugh Fitzgerald has been writing for Jihad Watch since 2004, although no biographical information on this individual appears anywhere else, and no photographs exist even on Jihad Watch. No one knows who Jihad Watch contributorsHugh Fitzgerald or ]Henry Rochejaquelein, or Marisol actually are.)
Now, we jump forward to January 10, 2012, and the Spencer vs Danios debate saga heats up again. Here is what Danios posted on Loonwatch about this development
Just yesterday, Robert Spencer posted an article with the title of “Why can’t Muslims debate? (Again)”, saying:
For example, an Islamic supremacist hate site that defames me and lies about what I say regularly charged that I was refusing to debate them:
I responded by repeating yet again something I had reiterated several times in the preceding weeks, when other Muslims had thrown up this site to me:
No response to that at all.
A simple Google search will reveal how this is a great big lie. Spencer has adamantly refused to engage in a radio debate with LoonWatch and me in particular, using my anonymity as a face-saving excuse.
Do his recent tweets reflect a change in attitude or is he still cowering in fear of me? Spencer, are you willing to back your words with action and “debate [me] anytime”? I will debate the accuracy of your book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), with regard to the topics of jihad, “dhimmitude”, and taqiyya. Are you ready to defend your arguments or not?
I think most of us anticipate “no response to that at all.”
This time, it didn’t take months for Spencer to respond. Two days later, on January 12th, Danios posted this
When I first read Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) a couple years ago, I knew I could not just refute it but (proverbially speaking) blow it out of the water. After I penned my first few articles against it, I also knew that Spencer could not issue any substantive reply. Soon, I began to detect fear in Spencer’s eyes. It is no wonder then that he has refused to debate me for so long. I have documented Spencer’s evasion here.
Yet, Robert Spencer is also keenly aware of the fact that his refusal to debate the one site that is dedicated to refuting him–and was voted by his “target population” to be the number #1 non-Muslim blog with the number #1 writer–makes his fear obvious to the world. When his fear of debating me was pointed out in a recent Twitter war, Spencer finally agreed to debate me. (Of course, in true Spencer fashion, he accused us of “lying” when we said that he had been refusing to debate us for almost two years.)
Even so, I had predicted–as had many others–that Spencer would try to weasel his way out of the debate. Lo and behold, this now seems to be the case.
Initially, Spencer sent me an email saying “[t]here needs to be a thesis…So propose one.” I proposed the following thesis: Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity. This is not only the central argument in Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) but is also the title of another book of his:Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.
Yet, Spencer emailed me back and said:
Actually, I am not interested in debating about Judaism and Christianity. I am only interested in debating regarding Islam and Jihad.
Spencer, the title of your book is a comparison between Christianity and Islam. So, are you saying that you can’t defend the central tenet and title of your book!?
He goes on:
Your tu quoque arguments are silly and have had abundant airing already. Propose another.
When you write a book titled “Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t”, then to you that’s a valid comparison, but when someone refutes that comparison by pointing out how Christianity, by the very same standards you apply to Islam, couldn’t be considered a “religion of peace,” then you cry “tu quoque”!
If my arguments “are silly,” then why don’t you debate me on them and show me how silly they are? Do you accept my counter-argument that “Judaism and Christianity are just as violent as Islam, if not more so”? If yes, then please state it openly so that we can declare victory and move on; otherwise, if you disagree with it, then refute it in debate with me.
The entire premise of Spencer’s book, the one I have been refuting all along, is the thesis I have proposed. It represents the fundamentaldifference of opinion I have with Robert Spencer and JihadWatch, so why should we debate something else? Does Spencer think we should debate on just any topic? Maybe we can debate the following thesis then: Arrested Development should never have been canceled because it is the single best comedy show ever.
I have never said or believed that the Islamic tradition does not have its violent aspects to it. I have only argued that Islam is not alone in this and that the religious tradition of the dominant group (the Judeo-Christian tradition) is just as bad in this regard, if not worse. That is my central argument, so why should we debate something else?
To be clear: I will only debate this thesis (Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity) and no other, since (1) it is the central tenet of Robert Spencer’s book and (2) it represents the fundamental difference I have with him. The fact that Robert Spencer cannot defend his central tenet (and the fundamental difference between us) indicates that he knows he doesn’t stand a chance in defending the thesis. That’s why he must insist on “propos[ing] another.”
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Additionally, there is an issue regarding “venue.” He has suggested we debate on ABN SAT–a Christian channel. Ludicrously, he calls them “neutral,” even though the channel airs a show (the one Spencer debated on) called Jihad Exposed, with the email addressjihadexposed@abnsat.com. Yeah, real “neutral.”
I had earlier complained that Spencer tends to debate only on Christian or conservative channels, to which Spencer accused me of “lying.” In any case, he asked that I propose another venue other than ABN and in the same email adamantly stated: “I will debate anywhere.” OK, if that is the case, how about we debate on Salon?
Initially, Spencer responded (bold is mine):
I have no problem with Salon but I guess you mean a print debate, in that case.
I actually had meant Salon Radio, so it would be a recorded audio debate that they could reproduce on the Salon site. In any case, I emailed somebody at Salon, only to later get this follow-up email from Spencer (bold is mine):
Also, Salon in print is not what I had in mind. If you have a radio show in mind, I wasnt aware that Salon had one, but in that case Salon is not a neutral forum with a neutral moderator.
ABN — they offer a completely neutral forum. Let’s do it there.
Initially, he will “debate anywhere” and he has “no problem with Salon,” only to follow-up with an email rejecting Salon as a venue. And then he goes back to the same silly Christian channel as an option.
Whether or not Salon will agree to host the debate is still up in the air, but if they accept will Spencer stick by his word that he will “debate anywhere” and that he has “no problem with Salon”? Spencer?
ROUND 3: Spencer asks Danios to set a topic, Danios does, Spencer rejects that topic and asks for another. Spencer agrees to a radio debate “anywhere”, but then refuses the venue proposed by Danios and demands a different venue, ABN and with ABN’s moderator. (ABN, by the way is a Christian TV ministry whose mission statement says: ABN is a non-denominational ministry committed to presenting the Word of God and its transforming message of Jesus Christ to Arabic and Aramaic speaking people worldwide through media. Their approach to this missionary work is not to set a good example of what Christianity is, but to attack Islam. I could find nothing on their site except such biased attacks.)
This attempt by Danios to arrange a debate with Robert Spencer has now gone on since June of 2010, but perhaps, we are actually getting close to seeing this debate happen. Here is what Danios posted today, January 15, 2011:
One of Spencer’s sticking points was the issue of venue and moderator. I had recommendedSalon Radio, whereas he suggested ABN Sat (a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel with shows like Jihad Exposed). In our email exchanges, Spencer kept insisting that ABN is “neutral” (ha!).
The funny thing is that in my initial email to Spencer I pointed out that he always tends to only debate on Christian or conservative channels. This observation angered Spencer to no end, who insisted that he would “debate anywhere.” He even seemed to accept Salon as the venue for the debate.
Spencer then had an about-face, rejecting Salon, and once again bringing up ABN, reinforcing what I said earlier: Spencer’s M.O. has been to debate Muslim floozies on Christian or conservative channels, only to then thump his chest when he wins. The fact that I suggested Salon (a respectable and award-winning site) and Spencer kept insisting on ABN Sat (a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel) speaks volumes about what company we prefer: I like the legendary Glenn Greenwald, whereas he likes loony Christian bigots.
The choice of ABN was designed to stack the cards in his favor. That’s fine. I am so utterly confident in the searing truth of my argument–and the absolute falsity of his–that I acceptABN as the venue and moderator of the debate.
[Naturally, I would insist that they give me equal time to speak, reproduce the debate in its full, unedited form, and give our website (and any other website) the right to reproduce our own recording of the debate. (Spencer has already agreed to a 2-3 hour long debate; if this is too long for ABN to air on their show, they can do what the Daily Show does by airing the first part of the debate and then putting the rest of it online.)]
Readers should understand this decision of mine (i.e. accepting such a hostile venue and moderator) as a reflection of my low regard for Robert Spencer’s arguments and views. This is especially bold of me, considering the fact that he has engaged in numerous debates whereas I am a novice in this field: I prefer written medium. Even so, I have absolutely no doubt that I will trounce him in debate.
Now that I have accepted Robert Spencer’s own choice of venue and moderator–one that is heavily slanted in his favor–what excuse will Spencer come up with to avoid debating me?
* * * * *
I must, however, insist on the following thesis:
Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity.
As I stated before, this is not just the main theme in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), but it is even the title of one of his books: Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t. More than this, it reflects the fundamental differencebetween he and I: whereas I accept the violent and intolerant aspect inherent in all religious traditions, Spencer specifically targets Islam.
Under this thesis, I will individually debate the following sub-points:
1.The Islamic prophet was more violent and warlike than the Judeo-Christian prophets. This is the main argument in chapter 1 of Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), entitled “Muhammad: Prophet of War”. On p.4, Spencer compares Muhammad to Jesus and to all other prophets in order “to emphasize the fallacy of those who claim that Islam and Christianity–and all other religious traditions, for that matter–are basically equal in their ability to inspire good or evil…[T]hrough the words of Muhammad and Jesus, we can draw a distinction between the core principles that guide the faithful Muslim and Christian.” In fact, throughout his book Spencer has sidebars that compare Muhammad to Jesus. (Yet, somehow when you refute this, it’s a “tu quoque fallacy!”)
2. The Quran is more violent and warlike than the Bible.This is the focus of chapter 2, which he entitles “The Qur’an: Book of War”. On the very first page of this chapter (p.19), Spencer states unequivocally: “There is nothing in the Bible that rivals the Qur’an’s exhortations to violence.” (When I want to refute this claim, then “tu quoque, tu quoque!”) He says on the same page: “The Qu’ran is unique among the sacred writings of the world in counseling its adherents to make war against unbelievers.” On pp.26-31, Spencer explains why the Quran is far more violent and warlike than the Bible. (But refute this claim and you are guilty of committing a “tu quoque fallacy.”)
3. The Islamic religious tradition was more violent and warlike than the Jewish and Christian traditions.This is what chapter 3 of his book is about, entitled “Islam: Religion of War”. This argument is also spread throughout his book and blog. For example, on p.31, Spencer argues that in Judaism and Christianity there have been “centuries of interpretive traditions” that have moved away from violent and warlike understandings, whereas “ in Islam, there is no comparable interpretative tradition.” Chapter 14 of his book is entitled “Islam and Christianity: Equivalent Traditions?” (But if you question this point by showing that yes indeed the two traditions are at least equally violent, then get ready to be accused of committing “tu quoque!”)
4. Contemporary Muslims interpret their religion in a much more violent and warlike way than Jews and Christians. Again, this claim is found throughout his book and blog; on p.31, for example, he argues that, unlike Muslims, “modern-day Jews and Christians…simply don’t interpret [their scripture] as exhorting them to violent actions against unbelievers.”
5. Jews had it much better in Christian Europe than the Muslim world.This is addressed in chapter 4 of Spencer’s book, in which he talks about “dhimmitude.” On the very first page of this chapter, he states: “The idea that Jews fared better in Islamic lands than in Christian Europe is false.” (OK, so are you ready to defend this statement of yours, Spencer? Or do you cry “tu quoque, tu quoque” when asked to do so?) Spencer quotes “[h]istorian Paul Johnson” (a conservative Christian ideologue–surprise, surprise) who says: “the Jewish dhimmi under Moslem rule was worse than under the Christians,” and Spencer himself says that “the Muslim laws were much harsher for Jews than those of Christendom.” (But ask Spencer to defend that statement and see how it’s automatically a “tu quoque fallacy” to do so.)
6. Islamic law, unlike Judaism and Christianity, permits lying and deception against unbelievers. This is the import of chapter 6 of Spencer’s book, entitled ”Islamic Law: Lie, Steal, and Kill”. On the very first page of this chapter, Spencer argues that “Islam doesn’t have a moral code analogous to the [Judeo-Christian] Ten Commandments” and that “the idea that Islam shares the general moral outlook of Judaism and Christianity is another PC myth.” On p.84, he writes that Islam is alone among religions and civilizations in that it fails to espouse “universal moral values.” On the very next page, Spencer bellows: “This is what sets Islam sharply apart from other religious traditions.” (Try to disagree and suddenly you will hear chants of “tu quoque, tu quoque!”)
7. Islamic history was more violent and warlike than Jewish and Christian history. This argument is found in chapter 9 of Spencer’s book, entitled “Islam–Spread by the Sword? You Bet”. On the first page of this chapter, Spencer writes: “The early spread of Islam and that of Christianity sharply contrast in that Islam spread by force and Christianity didn’t.” On p.116, Spencer rejects the “myth” that “Christianity and Islam spread in pretty much the same way.” (Reject that claim–and yep, you got it: “tu quoque, tu quoque!”)
8. In the modern day (twentieth and twenty-first century), Muslims are more violent and warlike than Jews and Christians. This is of course the general theme found not only throughout Spencer’s book but also on his blog. This is the ultimate fall-back argument of Islamophobes, who routinely ask: “why are there no Jewish or Christian suicide bombers?”
Spencer claims these are “tu quoque fallacies” (his favorite phrase), but in fact he himself is the one making these comparisons. He makes such comparisons, and then shields himself from all counter-attack by invoking “tu quoque, tu quoque!” How very convenient.
There is a very important reason that Robert Spencer refuses to debate me on this topic and thesis–he knows that he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Even when I let him choose the venue and moderator (one that slants the debate in his favor), he still cannot–at all costs–debate me on the central theme of his book and ideology. That’s why Spencer is not a real scholar: he has never been forced to defend his thesis, nor had his work peer-reviewed, challenged, and intellectually critiqued. I’m merely asking Spencer to defend the substance of his book. This refusal in and of itself is a very powerful reminder of how his ideology is fraudulent, how he himself is nothing more than a hateful ideologue and huckster, and how he is so scared that I will expose him.
The fact that I want to debate him–and that he wants to run away from me–is now self-evident: I have removed any possible barrier by agreeing to his venue and moderator. So, what excuse will Robert Spencer come up with now to chicken out of this debate? Will he continue to run away from me on the one hand and on the other hand continue to lament why no liberal or Muslim will debate him?
Don’t hold your breath for a debate: Spencer can’t debate me. It would be the end of him. So, he will continue to run.
ROUND 4: Danios accepts ABN as the venue even though it is not “neutral” but hostile, but insists on the original topic.
Spencer has said in an article bemoaning the fact that Muslims just won’t debate him:
… other Muslims claimed they wanted to debate me, but never followed up on my invitation to email me and set a topic, date and venue. … So the real reason why no Muslims will debate me is this:
They know that what I say about Islam and jihad is true, and don’t want that fact to be illustrated to a wider audience.
Why can’t Muslims debate? Because the truth is something they don’t generally wish the Infidels to know. So they do all they can to shut down those Infidels by other means.
There is an ancillary reason also: Islam doesn’t encourage critical thinking. It has no natural theology, only a series of laws declared by fiat. In some contemporary forms of Islam, hardly any premium is put on reasoning—after all, the Qur’an itself warns Muslims not to question (5:101). Consequently, even superficially intelligent Islamic supremacists such as Reza Aslan and Ibrahim Hooper are abjectly incapable of building a cogent intellectual argument and defending it. All they and so many others like them can do, as is clear from their track record, is heap abuse upon those who oppose them.
It seems as if Danios has followed up on all of Spencer’s demands. Now all that is left is to set a date. I am holding my breath to see what ROUND 5 will be.
I was going to write an article about this topic, but then Prof. Saree Makdisi beat me to it on Salon. Although I find U.S. Marines urinating on dead Afghans to be morally repugnant, it is not as morally repugnant as the killing of said Afghans. The desire to distance themselves from the former is born out of the fact that it would hamper doing more of the latter. It’s bad publicity and takes away from the very important work of killing, bombing, and occupying Afghans.
The United States and its allies were quick to go into damage control mode to try to contain the political and diplomatic fallout from a video posted on YouTube apparently showing US Marines urinating on the mangled corpses of dead Afghans,
A Pentagon spokesman, Captain John Kirby, told CNN: “Regardless of the circumstances or who is in the video, this is egregious, disgusting behavior. It’s hideous. It turned my stomach.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed.“This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.”.
It ought to go without saying that urinating on corpses, whether of Taliban fighters or Afghan civilians (or any one else for that matter), is disrespectful and degrading and ought to be condemned. What is interesting, and somewhat unsettling, about the outpouring of sentiment following this new scandal, however, is that it raises more questions than it answers.
Isn’t it odd, for example, that there seems to be more concern about urinating on these bodies than there is about the actual killing that transformed them from living human beings to splayed-out corpses in the first place? Is it really possible that peeing on dead bodies is seen as horrific, but killing people is perfectly acceptable? Isn’t something missing from this picture?
This seems an especially pressing question given that much of the US military (and related CIA) effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan so often seems to involve simply killing—or, to use the rather more circumspect military term, “degrading”—as many militants as possible, not necessarily in actual combat operations, but by twos and threes and tens and dozens, in bombings and air raids and drone attacks, as they sleep or drive or eat or pray or brush their teeth. Day after day we read reports of 8 militants being killed here, 5 being killed there , and 6 somewhere else. It is as though the earth keeps vomiting forth “militants,” who then simply need to be mown down like so much vermin in a “war” reduced to its lowest common denominator—killing for the sake of killing, without any kind of strategic aim or vision or logic, much less a sense of when it might end.
Sure, every now and then someone (very rightly) raises a question about how many civilians are being killed in air raids or drone attacks in Afghanistan or Pakistan; not that it makes any difference. There is even the occasional report about the “vast drone/killing operation” being conducted by the Obama Administration, and a few people, including Glenn Greenwald, have been warning of the menace that an unchecked, unregulated, program of extrajudicial executions means, or ought to mean, to Americans and others alike.
But, these exceptions aside, the routine, hum-drum slaughter of “militants” slips by far too readily without sufficient questioning, without enough people pausing to ask who these people are, what they want, what threat they really pose to the US with their AK-47s and RPGs, what plan, if any, there is to do something to stop their seemingly autochthonous emergence (by addressing its causes, for example) rather than merely mowing them down by the dozen after they emerge–or whether the plan really is simply to go on killing as long as there is a supply of living bodies to soak up our ordnance. After all, President Obama has deliberately chosen to kill rather than capture people because he knows that pictures like those that emerged from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are bad news—but that there will be few pictures and fewer questions about the endless slaughter of anonymous militants in the dusty backwaters of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For all the furor, the current scandal proves that point all too grimly, precisely because the scandal consists in the urination rather than the killing itself.
Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos called the act of urinating on the corpses “wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history.” A NATO spokesman added, “This disrespectful act is inexplicable and not in keeping with the high moral standards we expect of coalition forces.”
But what does it mean to speak of a “warrior ethos” and “high moral standards” in a war when most of the killing is being done by remote control—and not in the heat, intensity and sweaty, adrenaline-driven fear of battle (which the very concept of a “warrior ethos” is supposed to describe), but rather clinically, in air-conditioned comfort, from the safe distance of 20,000 feet—or, rather, 10,000 miles?
It is all too easy to look at the young Marines urinating on the corpses in that video and condemn them (rightly) for their callous brutality. It is far more difficult, however, to put their adolescent action back in its fuller and more meaningful context and ask ourselves what it means that we hardly seem to attach more value to a human life than they do, and that we have come to accept the “reaping” of human lives—for it is not without reason that one of the biggest drones is called Reaper—as a matter to be dismissed with a careless flick of the morning newspaper or click of the mouse.
Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA and the author of, among other books, “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.” Follow him @sareemakdisi on Twitter.
One of Spencer’s sticking points was the issue of venue and moderator. I had recommended Salon Radio, whereas he suggested ABN Sat (a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel with shows like Jihad Exposed). In our email exchanges, Spencer kept insisting that ABN is “neutral” (ha!).
The funny thing is that in my initial email to Spencer I pointed out that he always tends to only debate on Christian or conservative channels. This observation angered Spencer to no end, who insisted that he would “debate anywhere.” He even seemed to accept Salon as the venue for the debate.
Spencer then had an about-face, rejecting Salon, and once again bringing up ABN, reinforcing what I said earlier: Spencer’s M.O. has been to debate Muslim floozies on Christian or conservative channels, only to then thump his chest when he wins. The fact that I suggested Salon (a respectable and award-winning site) and Spencer kept insisting on ABN Sat (a loony anti-Muslim Christian channel) speaks volumes about what company we prefer: I like the legendary Glenn Greenwald, whereas he likes loony Christian bigots.
The choice of ABN was designed to stack the cards in his favor. That’s fine. I am so utterly confident in the searing truth of my argument–and the absolute falsity of his–that I accept ABN as the venue and moderator of the debate.
[Naturally, I would insist that they give me equal time to speak, reproduce the debate in its full, unedited form, and give our website (and any other website) the right to reproduce our own recording of the debate. (Spencer has already agreed to a 2-3 hour long debate; if this is too long for ABN to air on their show, they can do what the Daily Show does by airing the first part of the debate and then putting the rest of it online.)]
Readers should understand this decision of mine (i.e. accepting such a hostile venue and moderator) as a reflection of my low regard for Robert Spencer’s arguments and views. This is especially bold of me, considering the fact that he has engaged in numerous debates whereas I am a novice in this field: I prefer written medium. Even so, I have absolutely no doubt that I will trounce him in debate.
Now that I have accepted Robert Spencer’s own choice of venue and moderator–one that is heavily slanted in his favor–what excuse will Spencer come up with to avoid debating me?
* * * * *
I must, however, insist on the following thesis:
Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity.
As I stated before, this is not just the main theme in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), but it is even the title of one of his books: Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t. More than this, it reflects the fundamental difference between he and I: whereas I accept the violent and intolerant aspect inherent in all religious traditions, Spencer specifically targets Islam.
Under this thesis, I will individually debate the following sub-points:
1.The Islamic prophet was more violent and warlike than the Judeo-Christian prophets. This is the main argument in chapter 1 of Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), entitled “Muhammad: Prophet of War”. On p.4, Spencer compares Muhammad to Jesus and to all other prophets in order “to emphasize the fallacy of those who claim that Islam and Christianity–and all other religious traditions, for that matter–are basically equal in their ability to inspire good or evil…[T]hrough the words of Muhammad and Jesus, we can draw a distinction between the core principles that guide the faithful Muslim and Christian.” In fact, throughout his book Spencer has sidebars that compare Muhammad to Jesus. (Yet, somehow when you refute this, it’s a “tu quoque fallacy!”)
2. The Quran is more violent and warlike than the Bible.This is the focus of chapter 2, which he entitles “The Qur’an: Book of War”. On the very first page of this chapter (p.19), Spencer states unequivocally: “There is nothing in the Bible that rivals the Qur’an’s exhortations to violence.” (When I want to refute this claim, then “tu quoque, tu quoque!”) He says on the same page: “The Qu’ran is unique among the sacred writings of the world in counseling its adherents to make war against unbelievers.” On pp.26-31, Spencer explains why the Quran is far more violent and warlike than the Bible. (But refute this claim and you are guilty of committing a “tu quoque fallacy.”)
3. The Islamic religious tradition was more violent and warlike than the Jewish and Christian traditions.This is what chapter 3 of his book is about, entitled “Islam: Religion of War”. This argument is also spread throughout his book and blog. For example, on p.31, Spencer argues that in Judaism and Christianity there have been “centuries of interpretive traditions” that have moved away from violent and warlike understandings, whereas “[i]n Islam, there is no comparable interpretative tradition.” Chapter 14 of his book is entitled “Islam and Christianity: Equivalent Traditions?” (But if you question this point by showing that yes indeed the two traditions are at least equally violent, then get ready to be accused of committing “tu quoque!”)
4. Contemporary Muslims interpret their religion in a much more violent and warlike way than Jews and Christians. Again, this claim is found throughout his book and blog; on p.31, for example, he argues that, unlike Muslims, “modern-day Jews and Christians…simply don’t interpret [their scripture] as exhorting them to violent actions against unbelievers.”
5. Jews had it much better in Christian Europe than the Muslim world.This is addressed in chapter 4 of Spencer’s book, in which he talks about “dhimmitude.” On the very first page of this chapter, he states: “The idea that Jews fared better in Islamic lands than in Christian Europe is false.” (OK, so are you ready to defend this statement of yours, Spencer? Or do you cry “tu quoque, tu quoque” when asked to do so?) Spencer quotes “[h]istorian Paul Johnson” (a conservative Christian ideologue–surprise, surprise) who says: “the Jewish dhimmi under Moslem rule was worse than under the Christians,” and Spencer himself says that “the Muslim laws were much harsher for Jews than those of Christendom.” (But ask Spencer to defend that statement and see how it’s automatically a “tu quoque fallacy” to do so.)
6. Islamic law, unlike Judaism and Christianity, permits lying and deception against unbelievers. This is the import of chapter 6 of Spencer’s book, entitled ”Islamic Law: Lie, Steal, and Kill”. On the very first page of this chapter, Spencer argues that “Islam doesn’t have a moral code analogous to the [Judeo-Christian] Ten Commandments” and that “the idea that Islam shares the general moral outlook of Judaism and Christianity is another PC myth.” On p.84, he writes that Islam is alone among religions and civilizations in that it fails to espouse “[u]niversal moral values.” On the very next page, Spencer bellows: “This is what sets Islam sharply apart from other religious traditions.” (Try to disagree and suddenly you will hear chants of “tu quoque, tu quoque!”)
7. Islamic history was more violent and warlike than Jewish and Christian history. This argument is found in chapter 9 of Spencer’s book, entitled “Islam–Spread by the Sword? You Bet”. On the first page of this chapter, Spencer writes: “The early spread of Islam and that of Christianity sharply contrast in that Islam spread by force and Christianity didn’t.” On p.116, Spencer rejects the “myth” that “Christianity and Islam spread in pretty much the same way.” (Reject that claim–and yep, you got it: “tu quoque, tu quoque!”)
8. In the modern day (twentieth and twenty-first century), Muslims are more violent and warlike than Jews and Christians. This is of course the general theme found not only throughout Spencer’s book but also on his blog. This is the ultimate fall-back argument of Islamophobes, who routinely ask: “why are there no Jewish or Christian suicide bombers?”
Spencer claims these are “tu quoque fallacies” (his favorite phrase), but in fact he himself is the one making these comparisons. He makes such comparisons, and then shields himself from all counter-attack by invoking “tu quoque, tu quoque!” How very convenient.
There is a very important reason that Robert Spencer refuses to debate me on this topic and thesis–he knows that he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Even when I let him choose the venue and moderator (one that slants the debate in his favor), he still cannot–at all costs–debate me on the central theme of his book and ideology. That’s why Spencer is not a real scholar: he has never been forced to defend his thesis, nor had his work peer-reviewed, challenged, and intellectually critiqued. I’m merely asking Spencer to defend the substance of his book. This refusal in and of itself is a very powerful reminder of how his ideology is fraudulent, how he himself is nothing more than a hateful ideologue and huckster, and how he is so scared that I will expose him.
The fact that I want to debate him–and that he wants to run away from me–is now self-evident: I have removed any possible barrier by agreeing to his venue and moderator. So, what excuse will Robert Spencer come up with now to chicken out of this debate? Will he continue to run away from me on the one hand and on the other hand continue to lament why no liberal or Muslim will debate him?
Don’t hold your breath for a debate: Spencer can’t debate me. It would be the end of him. So, he will continue to run.
Washington, DC - I rarely learn anything meaningful from reading The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg. In my opinion, his tight relationship with the Israeli government and its lobby here greatly influences his take on both foreign and domestic events. Although he occasionally deviates from the Israeli line, he not only appears very uncomfortable doing so, he tends to correct course fairly rapidly.
Nonetheless, in a Goldberg column about Iran this week, there was one paragraph that was dead-on and which he will have a hard time taking back (should he be so inclined).
Writing about a piece in the current edition of Foreign Affairs that endorses bombing Iran as a neat and cost-free way to address its nuclear programme, Goldberg explains why he thinks the author, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Matthew Kroenig, is wrong. Goldberg says he now believes:
…that advocates of an attack on Iran today would be exchanging a theoretical nightmare – an Iran with nukes – for an actual nightmare: A potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East that could cost the lives of thousands Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen.
Think about that for a minute. Uber-hawk Jeffrey Goldberg is saying that the threat posed by Iran is a “theoretical nightmare” while a war ostensibly to neutralise that threat would present an “actual nightmare”.
No critic of US policy toward Iran could say it better or would say it differently. And why would we?
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has not yet made the decision to go nuclear. Speaking to CBS’ Face the Nation last Sunday, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta made the same point. Iran is not working on the bomb.
We do know, as Goldberg says, that a “potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East” could “cost the lives of thousands of Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen”.
And that makes the decision against war a no-brainer. As Goldberg puts it:
Now that sanctions seem to be biting – in other words, now that Iran’s leaders understand the President’s seriousness on the issue – the Iranians just might be willing to pay more attention to proposals about an alternative course.
That alternative course would be an attempt “to try one more time to reach out to the Iranian leadership in order to avoid a military confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear programme”.
In short, dialogue.
The US, to this day, has never attempted a true dialogue with Tehran. Even under President Obama, all we have done is issue demands about its nuclear programme and offer to meet to discuss precisely how they comply with those demands.
That is not dialogue and it’s not negotiation; it’s an ultimatum.
The one attempt at dialogue (i.e., a discussion that involves give and take by both sides) was initiated by the Iranian government in 2003. That was when it proposed, according to the Washington Post, “a broad dialogue with the United States,” in which “everything was on the table – including full co-operation on nuclear programmes, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups”. In exchange, Iran wanted normalisation of relations with the United States.
As is well known, the United States did not respond. In fact, we chastised the Swiss intermediary who delivered the offer for having the temerity to do so.
It was us, not Iran, that spurned a process that would have led to improved relations.
Rather than diplomacy, we’ve pursued a policy of sanctions, which we escalate every time the war lobby demands them.
But sanctions will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapon capability, nor will “regime change”, considering that Iranians across the political spectrum support the Iranian nuclear programme. The only effect sanctions have is to please AIPAC, which has made confronting Iran central to its mission. AIPAC writes the sanctions bills, Congress passes them, the president signs them, and the Iranian people (not the regime) bear the brunt of the effects. (The politicians who endorse such measures, however, quite often are well rewarded.)
Goldberg deserves some credit for calling for dialogue. But his seriousness is undermined when he explains that the US offer must be our final one. Although real dialogue is a process, Goldberg’s suggestion is to try to talk just “one more time”. And then: war.
Nonetheless, Goldberg does not seem to be on the same page as the Israeli government or its neoconservative backers here, who reject any dialogue at all.
Any doubt on that score came today when an Iranian civilian nuclear scientist was assassinated in his car on a Tehran street. This was the fifth Iranian scientist killed in such an attack in the last two years.
The attack today certainly looks like an Israeli hit, especially when top Israelis themselves have warned that “unnatural” events were about to befall Iran. At this point, circumstantial evidence is all we can go on.
“For those hell-bent on getting the US engaged in a war that even Jeff Goldberg views as a ‘nightmare’ for both the US and Israel, this is a very good day indeed.”
That, and the answer to the ancient Latin question: Cui bono? Who benefits? (Check out Commentary, the neocon website that iscelebrating the murder.)
In theory, at least, the Netanyahu government benefits. A 32-year-old Iranian nuclear scientist is dead. The opportunities for dialogue or successful multilateral negotiations diminishes. And, if Iran responds in any way, US neocons (including Congress, which will recite its AIPAC talking points) will intensify calls for war.
On the other hand, actions like these against civilians in one country endanger civilians in others. Imagine how the United States or Israel would react if Iran or even Canada started bumping off nuclear scientists (or anyone else) in Washington.
Innocents in Israel, the US, Europe or elsewhere will pay a price for this criminal act of colossal stupidity. And from a security standpoint, such clear acts of aggression can only convince the mullahs that they need to develop a nuclear deterrent.
Here is Jeff Goldberg again in a column subsequent to the one I already cited:
If I were a member of the Iranian regime (and I’m not), I would take this assassination program to mean that the West is entirely uninterested in any form of negotiation (not that I, the regime official, has ever been much interested in dialogue with the West) and that I should double-down and cross the nuclear threshold as fast as humanly possible. Once I do that, I’m North Korea, or Pakistan: An untouchable country.
In short, for those hell-bent on getting the US engaged in a war that even Jeff Goldberg views as a “nightmare” for both the US and Israel, this is a very good day indeed.
Congratulations. Or something like that.
MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.
When I first read Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) a couple years ago, I knew I could not just refute it but (proverbially speaking) blow it out of the water. After I penned my first few articles against it, I also knew that Spencer could not issue any substantive reply. Soon, I began to detect fear in Spencer’s eyes. It is no wonder then that he has refused to debate me for so long. I have documented Spencer’s evasion here.
Yet, Robert Spencer is also keenly aware of the fact that his refusal to debate the one site that is dedicated to refuting him–and was voted by his “target population” to be the number #1 non-Muslim blog with the number #1 writer–makes his fear obvious to the world. When his fear of debating me was pointed out in a recent Twitter war, Spencer finally agreed to debate me. (Of course, in true Spencer fashion, he accused us of “lying” when we said that he had been refusing to debate us for almost two years.)
Even so, I had predicted–as had many others–that Spencer would try to weasel his way out of the debate. Lo and behold, this now seems to be the case.
Initially, Spencer sent me an email saying “[t]here needs to be a thesis…So propose one.” I proposed the following thesis: Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity. This is not only the central argument in Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) but is also the title of another book of his:Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.
Yet, Spencer emailed me back and said:
Actually, I am not interested in debating about Judaism and Christianity. I am only interested in debating regarding Islam and Jihad.
Spencer, the title of your book is a comparison between Christianity and Islam. So, are you saying that you can’t defend the central tenet and title of your book!?
He goes on:
Your tu quoque arguments are silly and have had abundant airing already. Propose another.
When you write a book titled “Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t”, then to you that’s a valid comparison, but when someone refutes that comparison by pointing out how Christianity, by the very same standards you apply to Islam, couldn’t be considered a “religion of peace,” then you cry “tu quoque”!
If my arguments “are silly,” then why don’t you debate me on them and show me how silly they are? Do you accept my counter-argument that “Judaism and Christianity are just as violent as Islam, if not more so”? If yes, then please state it openly so that we can declare victory and move on; otherwise, if you disagree with it, then refute it in debate with me.
The entire premise of Spencer’s book, the one I have been refuting all along, is the thesis I have proposed. It represents the fundamentaldifference of opinion I have with Robert Spencer and JihadWatch, so why should we debate something else? Does Spencer think we should debate on just any topic? Maybe we can debate the following thesis then: Arrested Development should never have been canceled because it is the single best comedy show ever.
I have never said or believed that the Islamic tradition does not have its violent aspects to it. I have only argued that Islam is not alone in this and that the religious tradition of the dominant group (the Judeo-Christian tradition) is just as bad in this regard, if not worse. That is my central argument, so why should we debate something else?
To be clear: I will only debate this thesis (Islam is more violent than other religions, specifically Judaism and Christianity) and no other, since (1) it is the central tenet of Robert Spencer’s book and (2) it represents the fundamental difference I have with him. The fact that Robert Spencer cannot defend his central tenet (and the fundamental difference between us) indicates that he knows he doesn’t stand a chance in defending the thesis. That’s why he must insist on “propos[ing] another.”
* * * * *
Additionally, there is an issue regarding “venue.” He has suggested we debate on ABN SAT–a Christian channel. Ludicrously, he calls them “neutral,” even though the channel airs a show (the one Spencer debated on) called Jihad Exposed, with the email address jihadexposed@abnsat.com. Yeah, real “neutral.”
I had earlier complained that Spencer tends to debate only on Christian or conservative channels, to which Spencer accused me of “lying.” In any case, he asked that I propose another venue other than ABN and in the same email adamantly stated: “I will debate anywhere.” OK, if that is the case, how about we debate on Salon?
Initially, Spencer responded (bold is mine):
I have no problem with Salon but I guess you mean a print debate, in that case.
I actually had meant Salon Radio, so it would be a recorded audio debate that they could reproduce on the Salon site. In any case, I emailed somebody at Salon, only to later get this follow-up email from Spencer (bold is mine):
Also, Salon in print is not what I had in mind. If you have a radio show in mind, I wasnt aware that Salon had one, but in that case Salon is not a neutral forum with a neutral moderator.
ABN — they offer a completely neutral forum. Let’s do it there.
Initially, he will “debate anywhere” and he has “no problem with Salon,” only to follow-up with an email rejecting Salon as a venue. And then he goes back to the same silly Christian channel as an option.
Whether or not Salon will agree to host the debate is still up in the air, but if they accept will Spencer stick by his word that he will “debate anywhere” and that he has “no problem with Salon”? Spencer?
Pamela Geller “loves” the soldiers pictured above urinating on dead corpses. According to her it may be the “infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.”
Interestingly, Geller often wears a necklace with the word “LOVE” showing, which is perplexing considering that to most rational people she is a hate-mongering-attention-seeking loon blogger. I guess this answers the puzzle of her “LOVE” necklace, she “loves” when Muslims are killed, urinated on or otherwise mutilated.
How sick and sadistic can Geller get? Why doesn’t her best friend Robert Spencer condemn her for such asinine comments?
Geller couches her approval and “love” of such actions by implying that those being urinated on deserve it because…they were “jihadis” and “Taliban.” She then trumps out the Nazi analogy, saying,
Would anyone have CAIRed if Marines urinated on dead Nazi soldiers during WWII? (Anyone besides CAIR and nazis, that is)
She also goes on an off topic tangent about honor killings and clitorectomies, etc. as if those issues are linked to the actions of the marines.
Here is Geller’s vile screed:
Hamas-tied CAIR, once again sides with jihadists against the US military. Always. Apparently they are a “Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization” for jihadists and Taliban and Al-Shabaab, Hamas, Hezb’allah, et al).
CAIR has whipped itself up into an Islamic frenzy because a video surfaced that appears to show US Marines combat gear urinating on several dead jihadis.
Here’s the thing. Hamas liars, CAIR, say jihad and pure Islam is “fringe,” “extremist.” So why do they CAIR about disrespecting the Taliban? According to CAIR lies, Taliban and jihadists do not represent Islam, they have “hijacked Islam”; so why would CAIR care about “respect”? CAIR calls these Marines immoral, but considers honor killings, clitorectomies, forced marriage, child marriage, polygamy, subjugation of women, slaughter of non-Muslims, Jew hatred moral?
Would anyone have CAIRed if Marines urinated on dead Nazi soldiers during WWII? (Anyone besides CAIR and nazis, that is).
I love these Marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/11/12) –- A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today condemned the alleged desecration of corpses in Afghanistan by members of the U.S. Marines.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said video on the TMZ website appears to show a number of Marines in combat gear urinating on several dead bodies. The person who reportedly distributed the video stated that it shows Marines from Camp Lejeune urinating on dead Taliban. A Marine Corps spokesperson said the incident allegedly shown in the video will be investigated.
SEE: U.S. Marines to Investigate Video of Soldiers Urinating on Corpses
http://tinyurl.com/7rkzvp4
In a letter faxed to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad wrote:
“We condemn this apparent desecration of the dead as a violation of our nation’s military regulations and of international laws of war prohibiting such disgusting and immoral actions.
“If verified as authentic, the video shows behavior that is totally unbecoming of American military personnel and that could ultimately endanger other soldiers and civilians.
“We trust that this disturbing incident will be promptly investigated in a transparent manner and that appropriate actions will be taken based on the results of that investigation. Any guilty parties must be punished to the full extent allowed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and by relevant American laws.”
Update: Geller won’t back down. She is going all the way on this. She’s mighty upset that CAIR called her out on her vileness, and so published another pro-Urinating on dead corpses hate post titled, “Hamas-CAIR Attacks US Marines, Pamela Geller and Atlas Readers in Defense of Jihadists.” She is pulling the usual hate speech out against CAIR, calling it “HAMAS in America” and so forth. I think it is time for CAIR to start suing these individuals for libel, but I guess it would just be a waste of time. Some of what she says sounds downright threatening,
Hamas in America, CAIR, want to harrass and threaten anyone who doesn’t toe their line. Don’t do it. Do not be cowed. Push back.
As tensions grow between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Israeli state, the scholar discusses Jewish identity and extremism.
When ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters recently clashed with Israeli government officials over gender segregation in public places, many of the demonstrators played on a link between Israel and Nazism by dressing up as Nazi concentration camp inmates.
Such clashes have become more frequent in recent years, as ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up 10 per cent of the country’s population, are said to be growing increasingly aggressive in their attempts to impose their conservative ways on others. So is the religious divide in Israel growing? And is there a link between the Holocaust and the existence of the state of Israel?
Earlier last year, before the recent demonstrations, Talk to Al Jazeera met Yehuda Bauer, a prominent Holocaust scholar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who says that the foundation of the state of Israel and its link to the Holocaust is weak. In fact, he says, the Holocaust almost prevented the establishment of the state by destroying much of the population the Zionist movement had expected to move to Israel.
On the question of how to achieve peace with the Palestinians as Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, stands firm on his demand that the Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state, Bauer says: “I think that is proof of his [Netanyahu's] internal insecurity. If you are secure in your Jewish identity you do not need Abu Mazen or Saeb Erekat to tell you that you are a Jew. Do they need me to fortify their belief that they are Palestinian?”
Bauer believes Palestinians and all other minorities living on Israeli soil should be given equal rights to Israelis, because a national state “should grant absolutely equal rights, not just formal rights, to the minorities that are within it”.
On this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, Yehuda Bauer talks to Teymoor Nabili about being a historian in a region where there are as many versions of history as there are people telling them, Jewish identity and extremism and navigating between conservative Jews and Palestinians.
“There is a certain closeness in attitudes, in outlooks, in social psychology …. We are cousins. Cousins very often quarrel in a very unpleasant way, but I think that we could arrive at an arrangement where live and let live could become a viable option – it is not now, obviously, but it could become that. There is a danger of a violent Jewish radical, genocidal nationalism with a minority of Israeli Jews. There is such a minority, it’s very dangerous, I think we have to exert great pressure on these people to limit that, and finally to conquer it. This group of radical Jewish nationalists, genocidal radical Jewish nationalists, are a mirror image of radical Islam that wants to annihilate all the Jews in the world. But on both sides there is a danger. Here it is a minority, but that could change ….”
A black metal band nominated for Norway’s top music prize has rejected claims that lyrics on its latest album go too far in their criticism of Islam.
Taake’s nomination for the Spellemann Prize in the Best Metal Album category has sparked a strong reaction from listeners who find some of the band’s lyrics objectionable, newspaperAftenposten reports. In the song Orkan (“Hurricane”) on its latest album, Noregs Vaapen, the band sings: “To hell with Muhammad and the Mohammedans” and their “unforgivable customs”. It ends with the line: “Norway will soon awaken”.
Marte Thorsby, chairman of the prize committee’s board, denied any assertion that the jury must not have listened to the album properly before announcing the nomination. “We enjoy full freedom of expression in Norway and a Spellemann jury is not going to censor content in any way,” she told Aftenposten.
Søderlind said the lyrics were presumably written prior to last summer’s terror attacks in Norway, “and in the aftermath of July 22nd they’re completely over the edge”. “I’d imagine Taake aren’t particularly proud of these lyrics after Utøya,” he said, referring to the massacre of 69 young people at a summer camp by anti-Islam extremist Anders Behring Breivik.
In a written response to the newspaper, Taake front-man Ørjan Stedjeberg said his sole intention with the contentious lyrics was to criticize religion. “Our view, in the name of freedom of expression, is that it is shameful to adhere to Christianity or Islam. Incidentally, Christianity is mentioned in the same lyrics, but that doesn’t seem to have been given any emphasis,” he wrote. “Taake has never been a political band, and we do not encourage either violence or racism.”
Stedjeberg previously landed himself in hot water in 2007 when he appeared onstage with a swastika painted on his chest in Essen, Germany, where any use of the former Nazi symbol is strictly prohibited. In a statement released after the incident, Stedjeberg said: “Taake is not a political Nazi band, etc. We certainly didn’t expect the current threat reactions, as everyone should know by now that our whole concept is built upon provocation and anything evil- and death-related.”
The Spellemann Prize winners will be announced at a ceremony on January 14th.
According to the Wikipedia entry on Taake, after subsequent concerts on the band’s German tour were cancelled due to the Essen incident Stedjeberg posted a statement on the Taake website in which he wrote: “we truly apologize to all of our collaborators who might get problems because of the Essen swastika scandal (except for the Untermensch owner of that club; you can go suck a Muslim).”
There are those who look at violence between Muslims and Christians with glee, such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. For them, when Muslims act criminally or hatefully it is more fodder to smear Islam, while dismissing the same logic for Christian attacks on Muslims.
What boggles their mind however is when Muslims and Christians come together and oppose sectarianism and actively seek peace and reconciliation.
This is the case in Nigeria, where many want to transcend sectarian and ethnic violence (h/t: SK).
Here for example are pictures of recent protests in Nigeria showing solidarity and unity between Nigerians and Muslims:
Muslim and Christian Nigerians holding up their respective symbols
An Imam and a Pastor in a show of unity
Christians protesters protecting praying Muslim protesters (something we also saw in Egypt):
Muslims are also protecting Christian centers of worship. This needs to become a movement within Nigeria (h/t: Thomas Miles):
Some youths, mainly Muslim faithful, organised themselves into groups yesterday to guard worshippers in some churches in parts of Minna, Niger State capital, as part of a solidarity gesture against the removal of oil subsidy.
LEADERSHIP observed in Kpakungu area of Minna that some of the youths earlier dispersed by the Police on Friday from protesting at the Polo Field, Minna, had regrouped to protect some of the churches.
It was observed that the youths mounted the gates of the churches as their Christian counterparts were worshipping, and conducted themselves peacefully in order not to cause any apprehensions.
The youths, under the umbrella of Concerned Minna Residents, were last Friday dispersed by the police for lack of identity, with the Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Mohammed Maishanu, saying they could not be granted a permit to hold protest.
The leader of the group, Awaal Gata, told LEADERSHIP in an interview at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Kpakungu, said, “we are protecting our fellow Christian brothers and sisters to show the people that our leaders cannot use religion to divide us.
“In this struggle, we are determined to make sure that the removal of fuel subsidy will not stay; we want to send a signal – by coming here to protect our Christians friends and to show that we are one and our Christian brothers will do same on Friday,” he added.
Asked whether they got police permit to do what they were doing, he said: “We are peaceful; we are here to protect ourselves and to emphasize that security is not only in the hands of the police - security is the responsibility of every citizen.”
These are the forces and the voices who should be promoted. Yet extremists on both sides want to see violence in a push for power.
Three cars were torched and a mosque wall was spray painted with the sentence “price tag Gal Arye Yosef” in the village of Dir Istiya near Ariel in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The sentence refers to the name of an illegal outpost that was evacuated in the last few days.
The head of the Dir Istiya local council, Nazmi Salaman, told Ynet that at 1:40 am residents noticed a car with three passengers and an Israeli license plate driving at high speed on the village’s main street towards the exit. “Immediately after that the residents noticed that three cars parked cars were on fire near the mosque and one of the fences that surround the mosque had the ‘price tag’ graffiti.”
Salaman added that at first the residents called the Palestinian DCO to report the incident, later Israeli police along with IDF troops arrived due to the fact that Dir Istiya is in Area C. “This is a continuation of attacks against Palestinians and mosques in the West Bank,” he said.
He noted that this was the second time that village property was vandalized. “The first time was in September when the Palestinian Authority launched their UN bid, and then settlers came and unsuccessfully tried to set the mosque on fire.”
Where did this image of the oppressed Muslim woman come from and when will this battle against it stop? Growing up on a diet of Saturday TV matinees, every “Muslim woman” I saw in the movies was a belly dancer with a lot of chiffon wrapped around her. Mata Hari, who was actually a Dutch divorcée who recreated herself as a Javanese Hindu princess, changed the world of exotic women forever. In the films of old it was the dance of the seven veils that would woo a man into revealing secrets of war. Today, it seems there is the idea that under one’s hijab lies some mystical inner working, one that needs to be covered up by another layer of normality.
This seemed to be the idea at a recent panel discussion called “The Role of Muslim Women in Society”. This discussion was part of the ICover photograph exhibit by Sadaf Syed at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization. This exhibit is a sort of official debut of the new American Muslim. This newly christened, hybrid identity is one that hopes to erase all ties with Muslim cultural, ethnic and linguistic history.
The exhibit tries to show Muslim women breaking the boundaries of so-called tradition. Muslimah rockers, surfers and boxers are some of the examples of the “modern Muslim woman”. OK, that may be well and good, but I am so tired of this conversation. Muslims are people and by virtue of this essential fact, they are going to do what they want. Perhaps some might wag a finger and proclaim this is un-Islamic. Others will argue that traditional (Islamic) ideology is a thing past and shout: “Come on now, get over it.”
Photo by: Sadaf Syed
I am so over hijab hysteria.
Standing on the sidelines of this discourse is like watching a dog chase its tail with the sincere hope of catching it. And if he does, what will happen? More than likely, he’ll yelp and bite himself again for being so stupid. Why should it be a special event if a woman who wears a hijab decides to be a fencer or a ballerina? Is it out of the realm of faith? Some may not think so and others may not care. Then, there may be another premise: that wearing the hijab will show the world that Muslim women have arrived. However, I think that if this is the case, they may end up being the oldest debutantes at the ball.
This was the case during the panel discussion sponsored by the US Consulate in Dubai. On the panel were the fashion designer Rabia K, the media consultant Wafa KBR, the artist Najat Mekky and the US foreign service officer Marwa Zeini. The first three are Emirati women who have been successful in their fields despite their covering Islamically and came to discuss their experiences. I don’t want to steal my sisters’ thunder – they deserve their applause, because their journeys have not been easy – but they were managing their lives as they see fit, within the context of their circumstances.
“Muslim women should wear clothes that they can run and play in,” Zeini said. Was she trying to tap into my unconscious and force me to do battle with my former self? Just then, I got an uneasy feeling that someone was going to kidnap me the moment I stepped into the streets, and then announce the next day that I was miraculously freed by Brad Pitt and American values.
If anything, I wish someone would rescue me from this endless notion that a woman is nothing unless she aspires to run with the big boys or tosses her Muslim soul into the sea and declares she’s free at last. Can we please talk about something else?
Maryam Ismail is a sociologist and teacher who divides her time between the US and the UAE
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An amendment that would ban Oklahoma courts from considering international or Islamic law discriminates against religions and a Muslim community leader has the right to challenge its constitutionality, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.
The court in Denver upheld U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange‘s order blocking implementation of the amendment shortly after it was approved by 70 percent of Oklahoma voters in November 2010.
The amendment read, in part: “The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia law.”
Backers argued that the amendment intended to ban all religious laws, that Islamic law was merely named as an example and that it wasn’t meant as a specific attack on Muslims. The court disagreed.
“That argument conflicts with the amendment’s plain language, which mentions Sharia law in two places,” the appeals court opinion said.
The court also noted that the backers of the amendment admitted they did not know of any instance when an Oklahoma court applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other countries.
Awad argued that the ban on Islamic law would likely affect every aspect of his life as well as the execution of his will after his death. The appeals court pointed out that Awad made a “strong showing” of potential harm.
“When the law that voters wish to enact is likely unconstitutional, their interests do not outweigh Mr. Awad’s in having his constitutional rights protected,” the court said.
DENVER – A giant electronic billboard that went up off 58th Avenue and Interstate 25 when the Broncos had an embarrassing record at the beginning of the season.
It begged Denver Broncos head coach John Fox to start Tim Tebow at quarterback instead of Kyle Orton.
Shortly after it went up, the Broncos reached 1-4 and then Tebow took over and led the team to the playoffs.
As the Broncos have evolved, so has the sign.
On Monday, the huge LED sign said, “Tebow’s trigger is right on target,” referring to John Elway’s request that Tebow throw the ball during Sunday night’s game.
Tebow threw for 316 yards and his 80-yard pass in overtime won the game for the Broncos over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The people behind the sign are not Christian or a conservative group plugging Tebow’s faith.
It’s three Muslim brothers who are just big fans of Tebow and the Broncos.
“It adds to the fun, at least for us,” Tariq Suleiman said.
“We wanted to be part of the excitement,” Mohammad Suleiman said.
After Sunday night’s thrilling overtime victory, the Suleiman brothers’ latest message asks doubters, “Now Do You Believe” in Tebow?
“For me personally, I never doubted him. I knew he could pull off a Steelers win,” Tariq said.
The Suleiman brothers have been creating new messages after each game, all from an office which has a window view of the sign.
Mohammad Suleiman is the youngest at 26, Ali, 28, is the middle brother, and Tariq, 30, comes up with most of the messages.
They all sell wholesale goods at their father’s store which is next to the billboard.
As most fans know, Tebow is a devout Christian who thanks the Lord during most interviews.
The Suleiman brothers are devout Muslims, also proud of their faith.
“We do like the fact that he practices what he preaches,” Mohammad Suleiman said.
“I am also a big believer in God as a Muslim, there are some differences but when Muslims and Christians get together, miracles can occur. We just had the Mile High miracle!” Tariq Suleiman said.
After Tebow threw for 316 yards last night, people quickly made the religious connection to John 3:16, which is Tebow’s favorite Bible verse.
Tebow also wore the verse on his eye black when he was quarterback in college at the University of Florida.
After the connection surfaced Monday morning, John 3:16 became the most searched Google term on Monday.
“I went to check the Quran, chapter 3, verse 16 to see what it said, and it talks about salvation and believing in God, very similar to what the Bible says,” Mohammad Suleiman said.
But the Suleimans say they didn’t start running the billboards for religious reasons, it was all about rallying for their favorite quarterback and team.
“It’s been great, obviously with the wins, and the way the fans have been coming in and reacting, they’ve been coming in and thanking us,” Mohammad Suleiman said.
“We love the Denver Broncos, we’ve always been fans, and this year has been just an amazing year,” Tariq Suleiman said.
9NEWS got a preview of the next sign the brothers will unveil. You can see it tonight on 9NEWS at 9 and 10 p.m.
For several years, pseudo-scholar Robert Spencer of JihadWatch has claimed that he would be willing to debate any “Leftist or Muslim” to defend his arguments. For example, on the 13th of June 2010, Spencer bellowed:
The list of the Leftist and Muslim academics and apologists who have refused my challenge to debate is very long; they know they can’t refute what I say on the basis of evidence, so they resort to broad-based smears and personal attacks — and haughty refusals to debate.
Just a few days later on June 17th, I responded by accepting Spencer’s debate challenge:
I accept your challenge, Spencer. I agree to a radio debate with you on the topic of jihad and “dhimmitude”, namely chapters 1-4 of your book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). It will then be seen if you can defend your own writing, which I argue is a load of sensationalist crock.
Will you accept my challenge to debate or cower in fear? My guess is that you “know [you] can’t refute what I say” and will “resort to…haughty refusals to debate.”
I predict that the JW minions will give excuses to explain away why their master Robert Spencer will refuse to debate me, instead of urging him to enter into a debate as they always do with other people who challenge his ideas. They already know that Spencer does not stand a chance in a debate with me, which is why they will continue to generate excuses to exonerate him from his intellectual cowardice. This is because deep down inside they know–as does everyone else who has followed his and my writings–what the outcome would be.
Spencer backing down from a debate with me would be curious, considering that he has already conceded that my writings are “rare occasions when the opposition does offer a substantive response.” Spencer, are you saying that you can debate with people so long as they don’t give you a substantive response, in which case you flee?
As most readers are aware, LoonWatch has become the most popular anti-Islamophobia website, giving birth to a sister site called SpencerWatch. In fact, LoonWatch won the Brass Crescent Award in 2010 and I (Danios) won the Brass Crescent Award for Best Writer in 2011. The people have spoken, and they clearly want to see a debate between Spencer and I.
To this effect, Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, asked Robert Spencer in October of 2010 why he was dodging the debate with me. A few days later, Spencer issued a furious response, in which he said:
Debating such a compromised and dishonest individual would be a waste of time
Isn’t that the exact same reasoning that Rehab gave for refusing to debate you, Spencer? The same reasoning you were so opposed to and called cowardice?
Spencer needs another excuse to weasel out of a debate with me. What will it be? Aha! It will be my anonymity! As many of you know, I write anonymously under a pseudonym. Spencer and his fellow fans desperately want to know who I am. Some of them are convinced I am XYZ, and others that I am ABCD. Some have even engaged in textual analysis, trying extremely hard to find out who this cursed Danios is. My question is: who cares? Deal with my arguments, not who I am. Spencer says:
…Since Rehab invokes [Danios] and others have referred to his site [LoonWatch] recently, I am willing: if “Danios of Loonwatch” reveals his real name…
Spencer places this condition on me, knowing full well that I will refuse to reveal my name, since he knows that I like writing anonymously.
JihadWatch, a vitriolic hate site run by pretend scholar Robert Spencer, has propelled itself to the forefront of the Islamophobic movement in the United States. The fear-mongering Spencer has used his hate site to demonize Islam and Muslims. To bolster his credibility, Robert Spencer had long ago issued an open challenge to “Muslims and leftists” to debate his ideas.
I accepted Spencer’s challenge to a debate on June 17th, 2010. Since then, several influential Muslim-American spokesmen have expressed their interest in such a debate between Spencer and I. This includesAhmed Rehab (Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago), who issued a scathing statement against Spencer. However, it has now been over 135 days since I accepted Robert Spencer’s challenge. JihadWatch has generated excuse after excuse as to why this radio debate cannot take place.
The latest set of excuses was that I must reveal who I am before a debate can take place. Spencer issued this pre-condition knowing full well that I value my anonymity too much to do that. He naturally thought that this was a creative way to get out of a debate with me while at the same time saving face. Said Spencer:
Sorry, I don’t debate fictional characters or pseudonyms. “Danios of Loonwatch” can go debate Scot Harvath or Harold Robbins.
This is of course strange since Hugh Fitzgerald, the Vice President of JihadWatch since 2004, himself operates under an anonymous pseudonym. Fitzgerald is a co-administrator of the site, alongside Spencer. Is Fitzgerald then a “fictional character” who is only worthy of debate with Scot Harvath or Harold Robbins?
If that is the case, I challenge Hugh Fitzgerald–co-administer and Vice President of JihadWatch–to a radio debate. The topic will be Jihad, “Dhimmitude”, and Taqiyya (Stealth Jihad), namely chapters 1-4 of Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
Hugh Fitzgerald of JihadWatch uses a pseudonym like myself, and he remains completely anonymous like myself. Surely two “fictional characters” are worthy of debating each other, right?
Now what excuse will be generated by JihadWatch to avoid this debate with LoonWatch? I can just see Robert Spencer’s brain churning in order to generate a reason to get out of this one. The truth is that JihadWatch is a bully, and as soon as someone steps up to a bully and delivers a solid punch to the mouth, the bully backs down like the coward he is.
That was where we last left off, with Robert Spencer coming up with the excuse of my anonymity to dodge a radio debate with me. In other words, it has been 572 days since I issued my radio debate challenge–and Spencer has never manned up.
Until now?
Just yesterday, Robert Spencer posted an article with the title of “Why can’t Muslims debate? (Again)”, saying:
For example, an Islamic supremacist hate site that defames me and lies about what I say regularly charged that I was refusing to debate them:
I responded by repeating yet again something I had reiterated several times in the preceding weeks, when other Muslims had thrown up this site to me:
No response to that at all.
A simple Google search will reveal how this is a great big lie. Spencer has adamantly refused to engage in a radio debate with LoonWatch and me in particular, using my anonymity as a face-saving excuse.
Do his recent tweets reflect a change in attitude or is he still cowering in fear of me? Spencer, are you willing to back your words with action and “debate [me] anytime”? I will debate the accuracy of your book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), with regard to the topics of jihad, “dhimmitude”, and taqiyya. Are you ready to defend your arguments or not?
I think most of us anticipate “no response to that at all.”
When Jon Stewart is called a “smug, self-loathing Jew” by a right-wing Jewish personality (who is often called upon by conservative pundits to wax political), it’s tempting to dismiss the comment as a disgusting tribal dig.
However, ignoring these comments wouldn’t just be dangerous, it would be to allow a growing brand of hatred coursing through America’s veins – produced on the fringes – to continue infecting our public discourse (and public opinion) on matters both foreign and domestic.
It’s a hate-filled islamophobia that masquerades as patriotic, as anti-terrorism, as proudly American and Zionist (as though the two are synonymous). It’s a brand of hatred that the current GOP seeks, a hatred it feels it needs, a hatred it foments for perceived political gain at great cost to civil society. And, as much as it pains me as a progressive Jewish American to say, it’s a hatred right-wing American Jews are often solicited to be spokespeople for on venues like Fox News, with claims of anti-Semitism at the ready should they be critiqued by people such as, well, Jon Stewart.
So, wait – what happened to Jon Stewart, exactly? – you ask. Here is the context:
Jason Jones and The Daily Show crew produced this rather brilliant segment on how Broward County Republicans orchestrated a campaign to block membership of a Muslim Republican to the Broward Republican Party’s executive committee. This was done with the help of the Muslim-hating group ironically called Americans Against Hate (headed by Joe Kaufman, who is running against Debbie Wasserman Schultz for Congress).
This is not the first time that The Daily Show made fun of, ridiculed, and smeared proud Americans and passionate zionists. What’s he doing? And why? Does he know how much CAIR raised for their home office, Hamas, whose stated goal is to destroy the Jewish homeland, through the Holy Land Foundation? Stewart missed his calling. He would have been first on line to turn over his fellow Jews in Poland and Germany. Smug self-loathing Jew.
Yes, Geller is a nut. And yes, this particular display has been limited – so far – to her personal site. But Geller, just one of many fringe figures who inexplicably get airtime aplenty, knows what she’s doing. She knows the game: play the anti-Semitism card.
And not just any anti-Semitism card – the self-hating-Jew card. And she plays it against one of our country’s most important media critics and defenders of reason. Why? Because he represents exactly what she and her right-wing minions loathe: someone willing to call out islamophobia for what it is, even when promoted by American Jews.
While it would be easy to dismiss all this due to the messenger, does Jon Stewart shy away from railing against hatred and bigotry when it is perpetrated by the unhinged?
A Liberal Democrat candidate has refused to apologise for a series of shocking Islamophobic comments. Sick Dave Stone suggested a pork restaurant and a topless bar — named after Islam’s holiest city – should be build next to a mosque.
The would-be councillor, who is the party’s candidate for a by-election in Redcar and Cleveland on 19 January, said:
“Regarding the mosque being built near ground zero. I say let them build it. But then, across the street we should put a topless bar called “You Mecca Me Hot” … and next to that a pork rib restaurant … Then we’ll see who’s tolerant.”
A number of posts on his Facebook page were seemingly calculated to deliberately offend Muslims — including spreading outright smears. Stones claimed that the Royal British Legion were “not selling poppies in certain areas of the UK”, implying that objections from Muslims were behind the decision:
When contacted by Scrapbook, however, a spokesperson for The Royal British Legion said his claims about the poppies were “categorically not true”.
This brazen intolerance brings to mind Cllr Warren Swaine, a Liberal Democrat who was suspended from Reading Borough Council after Scrapbookexposed a race remark about Labour MP Chuka Umunna. That incident, and an attempted cover up, led to an internal party investigation at the behest of the party’s outraged black members.
Will the Lib Dem leadership be burying its head in the sand again this time?
Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church holds Christmas mass at the Abassiya Cathedral in Cairo. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA
The Islamophobes would like nothing more than strife and disunity between Muslims and Copts in Egypt. Much to their dismay however Pope Shenouda calls for unity in the country.
David Shariatmadari and Damien Pearse (The Guardian)
As Coptic Christians celebrated their first Christmas after the Egyptian revolution, their pope called for national unity amid fears that their community will suffer under Islamic majority rule.
Copts, who use of a 13-month calendar dating back to pharaonic times, celebrated Christmas Day on Saturday.
At the start of the festive celebrations in Egypt, prominent figures from across the political spectrum, including leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and members of the ruling military council, attended Friday night mass at Cairo’s main Coptic cathedral.
The Coptic pope, Shenouda III, commended their presence and appealed for national unity for “the sake of Egypt”. He said:
For the first time in the history of the cathedral, it is packed with all types of Islamist leaders in Egypt. They all agree … on the stability of this country, and in loving it and working for it, and to work with the Copts as one hand for the sake of Egypt.
The call for unity follows an escalation in violence against the Christian minority, an estimated 10% of Egypt’s 85 million people, over the past year.
Many Christians blamed a series of street clashes, assaults on churches and other attacks on radical Islamists who have become increasingly bold after Mubarak’s downfall.
The Coptic church traces its origins to 50 years after the death of Christ, when Mark the Evangelist took the gospel to the pagan city of Alexandria.
British Copts, expatriate members of the Egyptian denomination, have also expressed their concerns over the events of the Arab spring.
“Because of the problems in the last 12 months, overall attendance every Sunday has increased significantly,” said Nabil Raphael, a GP who has lived in London for the past 35 years. He is a regular at St Mark’s church in Kensington. “Whenever there are problems in the mother church, people naturally get more interested and attend more regularly.”
Christmas services took place across Britain, with centres of worship in London, Hertfordshire, Birmingham, Newcastle and Kirkcaldy, Scotland.
As families gathered for the late-night church services marking Christmas Eve, there was a sense of nervousness, as well as joy. “Last year started horrifically for us,” said Egyptian-born Bishop Angaelos, who is based at the Coptic Centre, a manor house on the outskirts of Stevenage, Hertfordshire. “Just as we were going into new year celebrations we heard about the bombing.”
The 1 January 2011 attack outside al-Qiddissine church in Alexandria, the worst sectarian violence in Egypt for more than a decade, left 23 dead.
Attacks on the community continued after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, prompting thousands of Copts to take to the streets in protest that no culprits had been brought to justice. The military violently quashed the most recent demonstration in October, leaving 27 dead and provoking further outrage.
“At the beginning [of the revolution] there was a great euphoria, a sense of hope for the future,” said Angaelos. “The problem is that because of the lack of law and order, you then had a lot of extremism. We saw in the past 10 months more attacks on Christians and churches than over the past two years before that.”
Amir Michaeel, 26, saw the revolution as a moment of hope for the country, which he left aged 12 when his father came to the UK to work. But he is concerned by the emergence of more organised Islamic parties.
Raphael is more categorical. “There is real concern about the likelihood of harsher treatment for the Copts if radical Islam is to rule Egypt.”
Bishop Angaelos said the community had no issue with a Muslim majority government as long as the rights of Copts were protected: “What we want is a government which represents everyone in the country, not just one sector over another.”
A Star of David and anti-Arab slurs were spray-painted at a mosque in Quebec
Harper condemns ‘heinous attacks’ on Gatineau mosque
Prime Minister Stephen Harper took time this week to condemn an attack by vandals at a mosque in Gatineau, Que., across the river from Ottawa.
“Our government strongly condemns these heinous attacks that have been terrorizing the whole community,” the Prime Minister said in a statement in French.
Bernie Farber, former CEO of Canadian Jewish Congress, wrote an Op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen about the importance of protecting those who face such despicable acts of racism as the vandalism of the Gatineau Mosque.
It’s difficult for those who have never experienced unbridled hatred to feel the pain that congregants of a Gatineau Mosque must be feeling today. Over the last two weeks hateful vandals have smashed windows, tried to torch cars in their parking lot and spray-painted anti-Islamic graffiti including of all things “Stars of David,” on the Mosque’s doors and windows.
Five hours west of Gatineau in the sleepy GTA bedroom community of Newmarket, Rita Brown and her partner Seun Oyinsan awoke Christmas morning to find that racist vandals had scratched an ugly epithet on the hood of their car. You see Rita and Seun are a mixedrace couple and it seems that there are at least a bigoted few in Newmarket who have yet to enter the 21st century.
Incredibly this was not the first such racist attack on this couple. In early September they were the victims of two other attacks. Swastikas and that despicable “N”-word were spray painted and scratched on the couple’s garage and van. The van also was defaced with acid and sharp nails embedded into small pieces of wood were placed under the tires. Ominously all this was followed by a warning that Rita and Seun were “not wanted in Newmarket” with a threat of violence.
In Newmarket there has been an outpouring of support. Local community newspapers have editorialized and condemned the actions. Neighbours and friends have rallied to the side of the beleaguered couple. In Gatineau condemnation came from the very top; Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke out strongly, as has mainstream Jewish leadership all too familiar with such faith-based attacks.
Sadly some used newspaper online comments to remind us that there still remain a small number of bigotry’s fellow travellers.
Regarding the Newmarket attack one poster wrote: “I will bet a loonie or toonie that they did it themselves, they over paid for their house, couldn’t sell it and are using ‘racism’ to gain sympathy. They know some braindead liberal with White Guilt will swoop in and save the day.”
Sadly similar comments were also found online pertaining to the Gatineau incident: “This appears to be an inside job by one of the congregation trying to put the blame on Jews by spray painting the Star of David on the door …”
Thankfully, here in Canada, like most of the western world, we have created anti-hate laws as a fence of protection from the very worst society has to offer. Laws prohibiting the vilest of racist expression make it a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in jail. Acts of violence and property destruction motivated by hatred can add months and even years to a sentence.
Recently there has been a debate raging here in Canada regarding the necessity of antihate laws. There are those who believe that any restriction on speech whatsoever is an infringement on our valued right to free-speech. In 1990 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld our anti-hate laws by a slim margin. While it found that such laws were a limitation on speech, given the serious need to ensure protection of vulnerable minorities such an infringement, it argued, was justified.
I agree. We are a democracy based on justice and law. We understand that human beings are far from perfect, hence we created laws to protect society. Anti-hate laws are a kind of insurance for the future. Such laws help define us as a tolerant society. To be sure we must find the correct balance between freedom of expression and the right to equality that we all share.
Rita Brown, her partner Seun Oyinsan and congregants of the Gatineau Mosque have the right, as do we all, to live in safety, free from hatred and vilification. We have the responsibility as a nation to protect identifiable groups as defined in law from the contemptible few who find hatred their oxygen of life.
As we enter a New Year let us join hands with Rita, Seun and the Islamic community of Gatineau and wish them strength for a better 2012. Let us also hope that those who committed these despicable crimes are apprehended and face the full force of Canada’s anti-hate laws.
Bernie Farber is the former CEO of Canadian Jewish Congress. He writes often on human and civil rights issues.
In the media, and in the world at large, we are fed many narratives about the unique propensity of Islam towards violence. We see arguments for apocalyptic, creeping, stealth Jihad conspiracies on a regular and incessant basis in the Islamophobesphere and beyond. Little mention or attention is paid to the peacemakers, the voices seeking transformative change, from norms of vengeance and retaliation to ones of reconciliation and peace–Arsalan Iftikhar is one such peacemaker.
We discussed with Iftikhar his book on the topic of “Islamic pacifism,” a hitherto almost alien concept to many minds but one that Iftikhar believes is an important imperative for what he calls our “millennial ‘farewell to arms.’” The book describes “Islamic Pacifiscm” as,
…a humanitarian ethical platform rooted within the general concepts of nonviolence and basic Muslim ethical teachings of mercy and compassion towards all of humanity. From the global Muslim response to September 11 to analyzing the concept of ‘The Golden Rule’ within Islamic tradition to highlighting the contributions of historical Muslim pacifist giants from our recent past, this book ‘Islamic Pacifism’ shall offer young girls and boys of all colors and religions around the world a nonviolent antidote to many of our shared social and political issues affecting our globe today.
We also discussed the increasing fear-mongering about “Sharia,” and the notion of “Jihad” and how that fits in with pacifism.
Book Discussion:
LW: Islamic pacifism will probably strike many as a novel idea, yet you point out in your book there is a long history of pacifism in Islam. You mention several historical figures, including Abdul Ghaffer Khan. Khan was a friend of Gandhi, and was referred to as “Frontier Gandhi” in his day. How have the teachings of Gandhi, Khan, and other historical pacifists influenced your work?
Iftikhar: Mahatma Gandhi once beautifully said that, “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and nonviolence are as old as the hills.” The important take-away from that sentiment is that the concepts of nonviolence and pacifism are as old as humanity itself. For Gandhi, he attained his inspiration from previous pacifist luminaries like Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy. Just like Dr. Martin Luther King adapted his own version of Christian pacifism, by highlighting the lives of prominent Muslim pacifists like Abdul Ghaffar Khan and others, I am hoping to help shift the global narrative on Islam in a more iconoclastic direction.
Click Image to Purchase
LW: The word “jihad” has entered the Western vocabulary as a synonym for “holy war.” In sharp contrast, you’ve called for a “love jihad.” In practical terms, what does that mean?
Iftikhar:For young pacifists around the world, our millennial ‘farewell to arms’(or ‘love jihad’) will be a very simple global pacifist philosophy based on the ethical thesis that every single geopolitical issue in existence today (and from this day onwards) will only be resolved through diplomatic, peaceful, and nonviolent means. As millennial pacifists of all colors, we must help to elevate and enlighten our next generation by finding innovative, humanitarian ways to positively contribute to our respective societies and not be bogged down by the political baggage of our older generations.
LW: What is the “Clash of the Knuckleheads” and how does it relate to the “Clash of Civilizations”?
Iftikhar: Well, my book ‘Islamic Pacifism’ highlights the last interview ever of Samuel Huntington (author of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ theory) with our Islamica magazine. In his interview extensively mentioned in my book, I write that most people would agree that the vast numerical majority of the human race would obviously prefer ‘peace’ over ‘war’ on any given day of the week.
Following suit, this would necessarily (and mathematically) make the warmongering knucklehead dinosaurs (on both sides of the global political velvet rope) among the infinitesimal minority of the world’s total numerical population. Thus, since many of our global political problems today revolve around extremist ‘knuckleheads’ on both sides who are not even close to representing the majority of any given ‘civilization’ around the world, this global political hypothesis should probably tweak Huntington’s theory to be renamed ‘The Clash of Knuckleheads.’
LW: The next time there is a provocation, like the Danish cartoon controversy, you said before responding, Muslims should ask themselves, “WWMD?” What would Muhammad do?
Iftikhar:The next time there is one of these geopolitical flashpoints, we should be reminded of a well-known Islamic parable that tells the story of the Prophet Mohammed and his interactions with an unruly female neighbor, who would curse him violently and then dump garbage on him from her top window each time he walked by her house. One day, the prophet noticed that the woman was not there. In the spirit of true kindness, he went out of his way to inquire about her well-being. He then went on to visit his unfriendly neighbor at her bedside when he found that she had fallen seriously ill.
This genteel act of prophetic kindness toward unfriendly or overtly hostile neighbors is the Muslim “Ubuntu” standard that we should all aspire to, not irrational threats of violence in response to some silly, sophomoric cartoons aimed at inciting a provocative response around the world. If we ask ourselves the simple question “What would Mohammed do?” about this, the even simpler answer would be two words: “Absolutely nothing.”
LW: You have called for abolishing the death penalty. Why is this so important to you?
Iftikhar:By following the brave political lead of the European Union and every other major industrialized nation in the world (with our United States being the tragic lone exception), the diverse spectrum of 56 Muslim nations can finally start to show to the rest of the world that our millennial global Muslim community are helping to improve our respective legal, political and human rights frameworks to comfortably fit within our global village’s accepted standards of current international humanitarian law. As a proud Muslim death penalty abolitionist, aside from our own disastrous death penalty experiment here in the United States, it is important for every reader to again remember that every single other country in the entire global community of modern-day industrialized nations has already outlawed the death penalty from their respective legal and judicial systems.
LW: As a devout Muslim and a strong advocate for women’s rights, why do you think Islam is widely perceived as inherently misogynistic?
Iftikhar:Notwithstanding the Western media’s obsession and fixated lens on global Islamic feminist issues like the hijab (head scarf) and other compelling (albeit fringe) media stories of (dis)honor killings, female genital mutilation (FGM) and/or the absurdity of ‘morality police’ anywhere around the globe; any knowledgeable observer would also have to unflinchingly concede that Muslim women around the world today have suffered the vast majority of these disparate sociopolitical impacts primarily because of anachronistic medieval cultural tribalism and ridiculous un-Islamic legal edicts (a la ‘women are not allowed to drive’ laws) aimed at continuing patriarchal hegemonic societies clinging onto their dinosaur mentality from their own tortured historical pasts.
In fact, any truly holistic reading of the Quran (or any other religious holy book) actually reinforces the divine idea that males and females are all created by God as equal human beings meant to be inseparable and complementary to one another – to coexist with mutual love and recognition.
LW: Many states in the US are considering legislation to ban Islamic Law in response to fears of “creeping Sharia.” As a human rights lawyer, what would you say to people who feel Sharia is a genuine threat to the American legal system?
Iftikhar: The “supremacy clause”of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) states quite clearly that the “Constitution and the laws of the United States … shall be the supreme law of the land” and that no other law (foreign or domestic) can pre-empt or supersede it. Any idiot who says that Islamic law is about to take over America should retroactively fail 9th grade civics class.
LW: Thank you for taking your time out and discussing some of these very important ideas and issues.
Iftikhar: You’re welcome and it has been my pleasure.
His book is available at Amazon.com, or signed copies can be purchased here from Islamica Magazine.
Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, global media commentator and author of the bookIslamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era. Arsalan is a regular contributor for National Public Radio (NPR) and his ‘on-the-record’ media interviews, commentaries and analyses have regularly appeared in virtually every major media outlet in the world.
Abdul Ghaffar Khan (also known as ‘The Frontier Gandhi’)
In March 2005, I was honored to give a keynote speech in my home state at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was even more humbled by the fact that the person who was officially introducing me to the college audience that evening was Professor Rajmohan Gandhi; a former Indian politician and well-known grandson of the legendary pacifist, Mahatma Gandhi. In addition to being a lifelong peace activist like his well-known grandfather, Professor Rajmohan Gandhi had also written the seminal biography on the life of Abdul Ghaffar Khan; the famous Muslim pacifist contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi known around as the world as ‘The Frontier Gandhi’ and the ‘Nonviolent Badshah [King] of the Pashtuns’ within the geographical region known today as modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In a December 7, 2001 column for The New York Times entitled “The Peacemaker of the Pashtun Past”, Karl Meyer of the World Policy Journal wrote that Abdul Ghaffar Khan was “renowned as ‘the Frontier Gandhi’…His [Muslim pacifist] followers…all had to swear: ‘I shall never use violence. I shall not retaliate or take revenge, and shall forgive anyone who indulges in oppression and excesses against me.’” Furthermore, for over two decades of his life, “Ghaffar and his [supporters] dominated the North-West Frontier [Province of modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan] without resort to violence, enduring prison and torture.” In response to this political campaign of Islamic pacifism, Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s dear friend and pacifist contemporary, Mahatma Gandhi, once called Khan’s non-violent political feat “a miracle”. In Professor Rajmohan Gandhi’s seminal biography entitled Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pashtuns, one of the central theses of the important life history of this Islamic pacifist was the notion that: “To this Muslim, forgiveness was [an integral] part of Islam.”
“There is nothing surprising about a Muslim like me subscribing to nonviolence,” once said Abdul Ghaffar Khan during a personal meeting with Mahatma Gandhi in 1931. “It was followed fourteen hundred years ago by the Prophet [Muhammad], all the time he was in Mecca…But we [Muslims] had so forgotten it that when Mahatma Gandhi placed it before us, we thought he was sponsoring a new creed or a novel weapon.” For Abdul Ghaffar Khan, this pacifist doctrine of Islamic nonviolence (or adam tashaddud in his native Pushto language) was considered to be the “twin of patience [or perseverance], a virtue stressed again and again in the Quran.” A true sociopolitical visionary during his lifetime, in response to the blatant historical mistreatment of Muslim women within our own Islamic societies, Ghaffar Khan was once known to have said to all the women of his region:
“In the Holy Qur’an, you have an equal [human] share with men…You are today oppressed because we men have ignored the commands of God and the Prophet [Muhammad]…Today, we are the followers of [tribal] custom and we oppress you.”
Mahatma Gandhi was once known to have famously said that, “I claim to have as much regard in my heart for Islam and other religions as for my own.” Furthermore, during a personal conversation between the two dear pacifist friends, Mahatma Gandhi once told Abdul Ghaffar Khan: “Look, nonviolence is not for cowards…It is for the brave.”
To exemplify the profound impact of Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s life on the millions of people of South Asia, in a June 19, 1947 personal conversation with his own grand-niece, Mahatma Gandhi once uttered these amazing words about the Islamic pacifist known around the world as Abdul Ghaffar Khan:
I cannot sleep…The thought of him has robbed me of my sleep…I cannot cease thinking of Badshah Khan…He is a prodigy…I am seeing more and more of his deeply spiritual nature daily…He has patience, faith and nonviolence joined in true humility…He is a man of penance, also of illumination, with love for all and hatred for none.
At a time when there was great communal bloodshed between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs during the fight for independence from British colonial rule, Abdul Ghaffar Khan always commanded nonviolence to India’s Muslim populations in the name of Islam and the Holy Quran. “If you plant a slap after having been provoked by a slap, then what is the difference between the followers of the Quran and the evildoer?” once asked Badshah Khan on the need to peacefully respond to any grievance in the name of the basic Islamic ethical teachings of forgiveness, mercy, and compassion. In 1984, on speaking to the pure divine simplicity of his own Islamic pacifism, the ninety-four-year-old Abdul Ghaffar Khan once said as he tapped his own chest: “What else can I do…if Allah has placed this feeling [of love] for all people inside here?”
…
Whether one is a Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Jewish pacifist, the tremendous ninety-eight-year human legacy of global pacifism exemplified by Abdul Ghaffar Khan showed our world that “the naturalness of his Islam, his directness, his rejection of violence and revenge and his readiness to cooperate with non-Muslims add up to a valuable legacy for our angry times.” Named in 1957 as Amnesty International’s ‘Prisoner of the Year’ for his nonviolent protests, the world-renowned human rights organization said at the time that, “His example symbolizes the suffering of upwards of a million people all over the world who are in prison [simply] for their conscience.” As the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and the seminal biographer of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, my dear friend Professor Rajmohan Gandhi finally noted that the most important legacy of the Islamic pacifist known as Abdul Ghaffar Khan was the simple historical fact that “his bridge-building life is a [direct] refutation of the clash-of-civilizations theory.”
In summarizing the overall historical significance of the amazing life of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, The Washington Post once noted that his life exemplifies the greater need to tell the world “about an Islamic practitioner of pacifism at a moment when few in the West understand its effectiveness and fewer still associate it with anything Islamic.”
Finally, the Christian Science Monitor once beautifully summarized the overall global contribution of this Muslim pacifist giant quite perfectly when it simply stated:
The essence of Khan’s story…is that the true nature of Islam is nonviolent.
Geert Wilders and his PVV Party are upset that Queen Beatrix, queen of the Netherlands wore this “hijab-hat” while visiting a mosque in Abu Dhabi:
Queen Beatrix visits mosque in Abu Dabi
Wilders Seemingly forgot that he dressed like this while visiting a synagogue in the United States:
Wearing a Yarmulke (Yamaka) is okay but not the Hijab
Getting upset over celebrities and world leaders wearing Islamic or Muslim garb while visiting a mosque or Islamic holy place is a regular theme amongst Islamophobes, we have covered their angst about this before, Daniel Pipes’ Unhealthy Obsession with the Hijab.
Here is a Radio Netherlands post on the subject (via. Islamophobia-Watch):
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who is in Abu Dabi, wore a headscarf when she visited the Sheikh Zayed Mosque this morning out of respect for the customs, traditions and conventions of Islam, says Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal. The queen is on a two-day state visit to the United Arab Emirates.
“Not to have worn one during a visit to a mosque wasn’t an option. In that case, the invitation to visit to the mosque, one of the most important in the United Arab Emirates, would’ve had to have been refused,” explained Mr Rosenthal.
‘Oppression’
His comments come in response to criticism from the Freedom Party (PVV) about the clothing worn by Queen Beatrix and Crown Princess Máxima who, with her husband Prince Willem-Alexander, is part of the royal party visiting the UAE. The PVV had complained that, by wearing a headscarf, the queen was lending legitimacy to the oppression of women under Islam.
Mr Rosenthal pointed out that Queen Beatrix also adjusts the way she dresses when she visits synagogues and cathedrals.
‘Waste of time’ The democrat D66 party was quick to point out that PVV leader Geert Wilders himself wears a yarmulke when he visits the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Green Left MP Tofik Dibi not only slammed Mr Wilders’ comments about the queen’s dress but also the responses to them as a waste of time. (emphasis mine)
Western China is far from the happiest place in which to be Muslim right now. At the end of December, police killed seven people in Xinjiang, an area traditionally dominated by the Uighur Muslim ethnic group, using some very sketchy justifications. Days later, the government destroyed a mosque in Ningxia that was just set to reopen after refurbishment, prompting a fight in which at least two more people were killed. The details available on these events have been sparse and often in stark contradiction. It might seem as though we have wandered back in time to the Cultural Revolution, but we’re looking at a very twenty-first century brand of Islamophobia, infused with a legacy of ethnic tensions.
What happened in Xinjiang? The state claimed that police officers confronted a group of fifteen men who had kidnapped two people, and the kidnappers were Muslim extremists or terrorists off to “jihadist training” across the border. Government media sources and spokespeople refuse to specify the ethnic origins of the fifteen. One police officer was also killed.
Non-state media sources are reporting that this group was all Uighur, included children, and was attempting to escape Chinese repression. Other members of the group were taken into custody, and their fates are unknown. It’s far from the first time state information on violence involving Muslims has been questionable, as Edward Wong catalogues at the New York Times. There’s a lot that’s disturbing about this story, from implying that killing a group of people for supposedly kidnapping would somehow justify the killings, that they were killed in front of children, and that these people weren’t welcome in China, but weren’t allowed to leave, either.
As for Ningxia? Taoshan villagers raised USD $127 000 to renovate their mosque. After Friday prayers, the day before the opening ceremony, one hundred villagers faced one thousand soldiers and police officers. Three guesses how that went. The two confirmed dead are reported to have been elderly. This was so unexpected and unprecedented in this area that it sends a message of the state cracking down hard. That’s particularly so given that the soldiers and officers weren’t sent out until the mosque was completed, and all the more so following on immediately from the Uighur deaths.
A major difference between what happened here and what happened in Xinjiang is that the Taoshan Muslims, who say they’ve never experienced religious persecution before, are Hui. China’s biggest Muslim ethnicity, the Chinese-speaking Hui have been far better treated and tolerated by the state than any other Muslim group as they have been considered more properly Chinese – or at least they have been since the mid-twentieth century state classification of ethnic groups. (This is not at all to endorse the sentiment in the piece linked at the start of the last paragraph that Hui “are practically indistinguishable from the Han”. One wonders to whom they are practically indistinguishable.)
CNN Editor’s note:Dean Obeidallah is a comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” special, ABC’s “The View,” CNN’s “What the Week” and HLN’s “The Joy Behar Show.” He is executive producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and the Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival. Follow him on Twitter.
(CNN) – There are two Rick Santorums: The first one I might not agree with, but the second one truly scares me.
“Santorum One” pushes for less government regulation for corporations and shrinking the federal government. You may or may not agree with these positions, but they are both mainstream conservative fare.
Then there’s “Santorum Two.” This Santorum wants to impose conservative Christian law upon America. Am I being hyperbolic or overly dramatic with this statement? I wish I were, but I’m not.
Plainly put, Rick Santorum wants to convert our current legal system into one that requires our laws to be in agreement with religious law, not unlike what the Taliban want to do in Afghanistan.
Santorum is not hiding this. The only reason you may not be aware of it is because up until his recent surge in the polls, the media were ignoring him. However, “Santorum Two” was out there telling anyone who would listen.
He told a crowd at a November campaign stop in Iowa in no uncertain terms, “our civil laws have to comport with a higher law: God’s law.”
On Thanksgiving Day at an Iowa candidates’ forum, he reiterated: “We have civil laws, but our civil laws have to comport with the higher law.”
Yes, that means exactly what you think it does: Santorum believes that each and every one of our government’s laws must match God’s law, warning that “as long as there is a discordance between the two, there will be agitation.” I’m not exactly sure what “agitation” means in this context, but I think it’s a code word for something much worse than acid reflux.
And as an aside, when Santorum says “God,” he means “not any god (but) the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” So, if your god differs from Rick’s, your god’s views will be ignored, just like the father is on “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
Some of you might be asking: How far will “Santorum Two” take this? It’s not like he’s going to base public policy decisions on Bible passages, right?
Well, here’s what Santorum had to say just last week when asked about his opposition to gay marriage: “We have Judeo-Christian values that are based on biblical truth. … And those truths don’t change just because people’s attitudes may change.”
Santorum could not be more unambiguous: His policy decisions will be based on “biblical truths,” and as he noted, these “truths” will not change regardless of whether public opinion has evolved since the time the Bible was written thousands of years ago.
Imagine if either of the two Muslim members of Congress declared their support for a proposed American law based on verses from the Quran. The outcry would be deafening, especially from people like Santorum.
One of the great ironies is that Santorum has been a leader in sounding alarm bells that Muslims want to impose Islamic law — called Sharia law — upon non-Muslims in America. While Santorum fails to offer even a scintilla of credible evidence to support this claim, he continually warns about the “creeping” influence of Muslim law.
Santorum’s fundamental problem with Sharia law is that it’s “not just a religious code. It is also a governmental code. It happens to be both religious in nature and origin, but it is a civil code.”
Consequently, under the Sharia system, the civil laws of the land must comport with God’s law. Now, where did I hear about someone wanting to impose only laws that agree with God’s law in America?
So, what type of nation might the United States be under Rick Santorum’s Sharia law?
1. Rape victims would be forced to give birth to the rapist’s child. Santorum has stated that his religious beliefs dictate that life begins at conception, and as a result, rape victims would be sentenced to carrying the child of the rapist for nine months.
2. Gay marriages would be annulled. Santorum recently declaredthat not only does he oppose gay marriages, but he supports a federal constitutional amendment that would ban them, invalidating all previous gay marriages that have legally been sanctioned by states and thus callously destroying marriages and thrusting families into chaos.
3. Santorum would ban all federal funding for birth control and would not oppose any state that wanted to pass laws making birth control illegal.
4. No porn! I’m not kidding. Santorum signed “The Marriage Vow”pledge (PDF) authored by the Family Leader organization, under which he swears to oppose pornography. I think many would agree that alone should disqualify him from being president.
To me, “Santorum Two” truly poses an existential threat to the separation of church and state, one of the bedrock principles of our nation since its inception. Not only did Thomas Jefferson speak of the need to create “a wall of separation between church and state,” so did Santorum’s idol, Ronald Reagan, who succinctly stated, “church and state are, and must remain, separate.”
While there may be millions of Americans who in their heart agree with the views of “Santorum Two,” it is my hope they will reject any attempts to move America closer to a becoming the Afghanistan of the Western Hemisphere.
A 15-year-old boy was tortured and drowned by his sister and her boyfriend because they believed he was a witch, the Old Bailey has heard.
Kristy Bamu, from Paris, was found dead in Newham, east London, on Christmas Day in 2010.
The boy had 101 injuries and died from being beaten with a metal bar and drowning, the court heard.
His sister Magalie Bamu and her boyfriend, Eric Bikubi, both Congolese and aged 28, of Newham, deny murder.
Prosecutors told jurors of acts they described as “depraved”, “wicked” and “cruel”.
Kristy Bamu and his siblings were visiting London from Paris during the Christmas holidays
Mr Bikubi admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, a plea not accepted by the prosecution.
‘Armoury of weapons’
Kristy and his siblings were visiting the couple for Christmas, but Mr Bikubi had accused the boy and two of his siblings of witchcraft, the court heard.
All three were beaten and other children were forced to join in the attacks. But it was Kristy who became the focus of Mr Bikubi’s attention, the prosecution said.
The teenager was said to be in such pain after days of being hit with an “armoury of weapons” including sticks, pliers, a metal bar, hammer and chisel that he begged to die.
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: “Eventually Bikubi took him into the bathroom, put him in the bath and started to run the water.
“Kristy was just too badly injured and exhausted to resist or to keep his head above the water.
“It was only when he [Mr Bikubi] realised that Kristy was not moving that he stopped what he was doing and pulled him from the water.”
He added: “By then it was too late.”
The youngsters were forced to lie to their parents about what was happening when they phoned home, the jury heard.
Mr Altman said of Kristy’s father: “He had sent his children on holiday, not to a torture chamber.”
When police arrived they found Kristy and his siblings – brother Yves, 22, and and sister Kelly, 20, and other children.
Mr Altman said: “All were standing in the living room, hysterical, terrified and soaking wet.
‘Sorcerers’
“None of them spoke any English.”
Kelly Bamu said Mr Bikubi and Ms Bamu accused Kristy, herself and a third child of “being witches or sorcerers – practising witchcraft” which adversely influenced another child.
“Despite her own siblings’ denials that they were sorcerers, Magalie Bamu joined her boyfriend in repeating these fantastic claims and participating in the assaults,” Mr Altman said.
The three were beaten and refused food, drink and sleep and eventually, to stop the torture, they admitted being sorcerers, the jury was told.
Mr Altman said Mr Bikubi’s admission of manslaughter was rejected by the prosecution, which argues the couple carried out “the very deliberate murder” of Kristy.
‘Feral and evil’
Ms Bamu also denies two charges of causing actual bodily harm to her other siblings.
The defendants are originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The jury heard that witchcraft or sorcery – called kindoki – is practised in Congolese Christian churches.
Mr Altman said that taken out of the church’s control “it may take on a feral and indeed evil character, as we suggest it did here”.
The court heard that in 2008 Mr Bikubi had accused a family friend of being involved in witchcraft and had forced her to cut her hair short to purge herself.
Justin Elliot wrote a piece on Nezar Hamze’s attempt to join the Broward County Republicans not too long ago. The anti-Muslim response Hamze got from members of the Grand Old party received national attention at the time.
Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones was funny as usual and skewered Joe Kaufman in the video below. Kaufman was looking dolt-like as ever, unable to provide a definition of the word “against;” he also readily admitted that he used ‘guilt-by-association’ assumptions to label individuals such as Hamze ,and organizations such as CAIR, as “terrorists” or “terrorist supporters.”
Jason Jones heads to Florida to help a Muslim Republican gain the acceptance of the Brower County GOP. (05:21)
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The video certainly deserves to be in the annals of our Kaufman-o-meter series, so we will consider this Kaufman-o-meter #6!
Who is Joe Kaufman?:
Joe Kaufman, has been on the Anti-Muslim scene for quite a while now and is dubbed by the far Right-Wing FrontPageMag as, you guessed it…another one of their ”Investigative Journalists.” That he has been influenced by Meir Kahane and the Kahanist ideology is well documented, as is his love and angst for Kahane.
In the past he has been accused of contributing to the terrorist organization founded by Kahane known as JDL (Jewish Defense League) while others accuse Kaufman of at the very least holding views that parallel JDL positions.
Kaufman’s unsavory associations and views are quite real and they are only dangerous to America if you’re stupid enough to swallow his conspiracy theories but other than that he is simply a half-baked paranoid conspiracy theorist, some what along the lines of the “9/11 Truthers.”
In every nook and cranny there is a “Mooslim”…hiding and ready to get ya…so beware and be afraid. Be veryyyy afraid goes his story.
In this special LoonWatch series we will detail the exploits and punchlines that Krazy Kaufman throws out there and attempts to pass on as serious journalism, commentary and investigation.
One obstacle that Mitt Romney may face as he asks for the support of Republican primary voters is bigotry against the Mormon faith.
A Marietta Daily Journal story published yesterday demonstrates the bigotry that Romney may have to overcome. The Journal quotes Republican state Rep. Judy Manning saying that she’s scared of Romney’s Mormon faith. But at least he’s “better than a Muslim”:
“I think Mitt Romney is a nice man, but I’m afraid of his Mormon faith,” Manning said. “It’s better than a Muslim.Of course, every time you look at the TV these days you find an ad on there telling us how normal they are. So why do they have to put ads on the TV just to convince us that they’re normal if they are normal? … If the Mormon faith adhered to a past philosophy of pluralism, multi-wives, that doesn’t follow the Christian faith of one man and one woman, and that concerns me.”
Manning’s criticism of Romney’s faith and her attack on Islam as an even more inferior religion — in addition to other comments she has made against LGBT rights — demonstrates an important point. Progressives and others who oppose bigotry and preach tolerance must denounce discrimination of every kind, not just because all discrimination is wrong, but because validating discrimination against one group can lead to increased discrimination against other groups in the future. (HT: @GregFrayser)
GOP presidential hopeful and former senator Rick Santorum found himself amid a flurry of new attention after placing a close second in the Iowa caucuses. One of the fiery right-wing politician’s views coming under increased scrutiny is his attitude toward Islam. Already in this campaign, Santorum endorsed profiling in airport security and, when pressed, said, “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you’d look at.”
Now, journalist Max Blumenthal unearthed a 2007 speech Santorum gave to a Washingtonconference at the invitation of David Horowitz. In the speech (audio can be found at anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller‘s site), Santorum outlined the “war” against “radical Islam”:
What must we do to win? We must educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate. …
The other thing we need to do is eradicate, and that’s the final thing. As I said, this is going to be a long war. There are going to be pluses and minuses, ups and downs. But we have to win this war to — fight this war to win this war.
Santorum insists that he’s “not suggesting that we have to go in there and blow them up.” But, later in the speech, he compares the “long war” to World War II, adding, “Americans don’t like war. They don’t like suffering and dying. No one does.”
Both in this speech and in other writings and remarks, Santorum often specifies that he’s speaking of “radical Islam.” But what does “radical Islam” mean to Santorum? In fact, the former senator often times conflates extremists with the entire Muslim faith at-large and, at other times, he states outright that radicals dominate Islam. In the 2007 D.C. speech, Santorum compared Muslim wars from hundreds of years ago to 9/11: “Does anybody know when the high-water mark of Islam was? September the 11th, 1683,” he said to gasps from the audience.
As to what “losing” the war with “radical Islam” looks like, Santorum discussed Europe. “Europe is on the way to losing,” he said. “The most popular male name in Belgium — Mohammad. It’s the fifth most popular name in France among boys.” The other data point he cited was larger birthrates among “Islamic Europeans” as opposed to “Westernized Europeans.” Nowhere did he indicate a growing “radical” threat in Europe.
In October 2007 at his alma mater Penn State, Santorum gave a speech and failed to break out the radical strain from the faith at-large: “Islam, unlike Christianity, is an all-encompassing ideology. It is not just something you do on Sunday. … We (as Americans) don’t get that.” The quote is particularly ironic from someone who, among other such statements, has said, “[O]ur civil laws have to comport with a higher law: God’s law.”
In a January 2007 speech, Santorum suggested Islam at-large was responsible for religious freedom issues and put the onus Muslims to deal with these issues to end the “war”:
Until we have the kind of discussion and dialogue with Islam — that democracy and freedom of religion, along with religious pluralism, are essential for the stability of the world and our ability to cohabit in this world. Unless Islam is willing to make that conscious decision, then we are going to be at war for a long time.
If Santorum’s discourse sounds like some of the Islamophobia network outlined in CAP’s Fear, Inc. report, that should be no surprise. Horowitz has repeatedly hosted Santorum for “Islamo-fascism Awareness Week” events and Geller and her associate Robert Spencer cite his work approvingly.
In a 2008 appearance at the Christians United For Israel confab, Santorum outflanked even Daniel Pipes. When Pipes mentioned that radicals only constituted about 10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide, Santorum, before wondering whether Muslims are capable of making moral decisions at all, challenged him:
It’s not a small number. OK? It’s not a fringe. It’s a sizable group of people that hold these views. [Pipes' notion of 'moderate' Islam] is the exception, I would argue, of what traditional Islam is doing.
No decent American — or anyone across the globe — should oppose “eradicat(ing)” extremist ideologies like militant, “radical Islam.” But Santorum’s history of statements raises questions about just exactly what and who he’s targeting for eradication.
WARNING: This article contains images with offensive language
A mosque in Gatineau, Que., that has been a target of vandalism was spray-painted with graffiti overnight.
Workers at the Outaouais Islamic Centre awoke Thursday to discover swear words and derogatory references to Arabs and Allah spray-painted in white.
The vandals painted messages on the front doors, across the building’s side and on two other entrances to the building.
The mosque had earlier been vandalized Monday morning when windows were damaged and someone attempted to set fire to two cars in the parking lot.
4th incident in 6 months
Gatineau police were investigating a number of incidents of vandalism at the mosque over the last few months. Police said it was the fourth incident in the last six months.
Mosque secretary general Amadou Thiam said the vandalism was a “provocation” and called on members of the mosque to remain calm.
Thiam urged police to do their utmost to find the perpetrators. The mosque has turned over security video footage to police.
Thiam also urged Gatineau city officials to show their support for the mosque.
Graffiti was spray-painted on the front door and two back doors of the mosque. (CBC)
Muslim, Jewish groups condemn attack
The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) condemned the vandalism Thursday and said authorities should investigate the incident as a hate crime.
“The repeated vandalism, within days of the previous attack, of this specific mosque is deeply troubling. Attacks on all our nation’s houses of worship must be condemned by all Canadians and should be investigated and prosecuted using all available law enforcement resources,” said Ihsaan Gardee, CAIR-CAN executive director.
Jewish Stars of David were also spray painted on the walls.
Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, also condemned the attacks.
“We unequivocally condemn all acts of vandalism committed against any place of worship,” Fogel said in a statement.
National Muslim and Jewish groups have condemned the vandalism. (CBC)
Mosque member says he isn’t taking attack personally
The mosque, located off Saint Joseph Boulevard just north of St. Jean-Bosco Park, draws about 500 people for Friday prayers and serves a community estimated at close to 5,000 people.
Mosque member Walid Ali said he didn’t think the incident was a hate crime.
“Maybe someone was drunk or something, I don’t think he deeply means it,” said Ali.
“I’ve been here more than three years and this has never happened,” he said.
OSLO, Norway — Prison psychiatrists monitoring confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik say he is not psychotic and he has not been put on medication, a prosecutor said in a court filing Wednesday, adding fuel to calls to reassess whether he is legally insane.
The original finding by two court-appointed psychiatrists has been fiercely debated by mental health experts and several lawyers representing the victims of the massacre that rocked Norway over the summer have demanded the Oslo District Court order a second evaluation.
But, prosecutor Svein Holden said Wednesday in a letter to the court that despite the new information he would not seek another evaluation. Breivik has recently been given access to media in prison and could try to manipulate new experts in ways that would be favorable to him, he said.
Prosecutors say they would rather let experts testify at the upcoming trial.
Breivik, 32, has confessed to setting off a bomb that ripped through Oslo’s government district on July 22, killing eight people, then opening fire at the summer camp of the governing Labor Party’s youth wing, killing another sixty-nine.
The Nov. 29 finding by two psychiatrists said Breivik was insane during the bomb-and-shooting rampage. In that report, the psychiatrists, who spent 36 hours talking to Breivik, described him as a man living in a “delusional universe” – a paranoid schizophrenic who had lost touch with reality.
However, in his letter to the court, Holden says four psychiatrists at Ila prison in Oslo, where Breivik is held in pretrial detention, informed him they have not observed any signs that he is psychotic.
The prison has not started medication of Breivik or seen any need to move him to another facility, Holden added.
The deadline for parties to file their demands is on Friday and the court will decide some time next week whether a new evaluation should be made, court spokesman Geir Engebretsen said.
The trial is set to begin April 16. If declared mentally fit and convicted of terrorism, Breivik would face up to 21 years in prison or an alternative custody arrangement that could keep him behind bars indefinitely.
If the courts declare him insane, he would be given three-year terms of psychiatric care that can be extended for as long as necessary.
By Madeleine Crum, Huffington Post: The American perception of Muslim women is sadly narrow: We imagine heavily cloistered beauties, submissive to their male counterparts who, we assume, they married because of an agreement between parents rather than love. To expose readers to the true spectrum of Muslim American dating experiences, Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi compiled “Love, InshAlla: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women,” [$15.95, Soft Skull Press] an anthology of romantic relationships, gay and straight, arranged and spontaneous, monogamous and not.
In this telling excerpt, “The Birds, the Bees, and My Hole,” Zahra Noorbakhsh re-hatches her mother’s brusque sex talk and how it changed the way she perceived her male friends:
Finally. My first year of high school was over, and summer was here. My mother was dropping me off to go to the movies with Jen, Kim, Laura, and Ryan. Wait. Oh, crap, I had forgotten about Ryan! There he was, walking with my girlfriends to the ticket booth. I knew that if my mom saw him, she would never trust me again and would confine me to the house for the rest of the summer.
My parents were so strict that I couldn’t go anywhere without their practically doing a background check on everyone who would be there. Regardless of how chaste the event was, they had to be sure there wouldn’t be any boys present to tempt me down the path of loose women. The thing is, I was a late bloomer and had absolutely no interest in dating—what I knew of it, anyway, based on Molly Ringwald’s characters in John Hughes films like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. Though I could barely admit that I “liked” guys, my days of blissful ignorance about the world of dating were about to be over.
I had told my mom that it would be just my girlfriends and me at the movies. How could I forget that Ryan was coming? There was no adjective in the world that would make my mom see past my geeky, lanky, pasty, computer nerd, Mormon classmate Ryan’s Y chromosome. She was totally going to freak. She was going to remind me that we were Iranian Muslims, not Americans. These lectures always reminded me of when she’d explained to me in kindergarten that Christians believed in Santa and got presents, and we didn’t . . . so we simply didn’t. It just wasn’t fair.
There was no way she was going to let me go to the movies with a man. Ryan was only fourteen, but to my mom, he was a man. He could’ve been eight or forty; it was all the same. When I was in middle school, she didn’t approve of all the “men” exercising with me in gym class. She didn’t like that I was friends with so many of the “men” in my sixth-grade history class, or that girls and eleven-year-old “men” were playing coed T-ball at recess.
As we made our way through parking-lot traffic in our Danville, California, suburb, I strategized about ways to navigate our argument. I could already hear her in my head: Zahra, what do you mean this man is just your friend? A young girl is not friends with a man! It is not right. Mageh Kafir hasti? You want to be like these filthy American ladies who go home with dis guy and dat guy, and blah blah blah…?
This is such bullshit! I thought to myself.
I had a pretty good feminist rant stashed away that just might hit home: “Mom,” I’d begin, “you didn’t raise your eldest daughter to stay quiet and avoid making friends or talking to people because of creed or stature or even sex…” Wait, I can’t say “sex.” She’ll flip out. “Gender.” Remember “gender” . . . Forget it. Take the easy way out: Lie. Just lie and say you don’t know him. He’s not with you. You don’t even know whose friend he is.
I snapped back to reality when I realized how close we were to where my friends were now standing . . . without Ryan. I looked around, scanning the crowds feverishly, but couldn’t see him anywhere. Perfect!
“Zahra! Hey, Zahra!” It was Ryan, tapping on my window. “I got your ticket.”
Godammit, Ryan, you polite-ass Mormon, I thought. You don’t need to come say hi!
My mom rolled down the window.
“Is this your mom? Hi, my name’s Ryan! I’m a friend of Zahra’s. We’ve got Algebra together. Hey, Zahra, I got your ticket already and saved us seats. You saved me on my math test, so I figured I owe ya. Anyway, great to meet you, Mrs. Noorka-baba-kaka-kesh.”
He shook my mom’s hand, gave me my ticket, and ran into the theater, waving.
Thanks, Ryan. You just ended my summer and any hope I had of a normal adolescence.I couldn’t even look at my mother, so I kept staring straight ahead. I could feel her glaring at me.
“Zahra,” she began.
Here we go, I thought.
“Zahra, are you going to go?” she asked.
“What?” I asked, confused. Was this some kind of reverse psychology?
“Maman jaan, there’s traffic behind me—get your bag,” she complained.
I grabbed my bag, undid my seat belt, and reached for the door handle of salvation.
“Wait,” she said.
F*&%! I waited too long.
A spot opened up in front of us, so she rolled in and parked the car. We sat in silence for what felt like forever. What the hell was going on? She didn’t seem mad. I didn’t know what to think or what to prepare for.
Maybe Ryan’s politeness impressed her, I thought. Maybe she’s going to take back everything she’s said about men. Maybe she’s going to apologize for all the times she yelled at me, because she now realizes how great my friends actually are. Wow. I really underestimated my mom. I guess the toughest thing about being the firstborn daughter of immigrant parents is that they have to catch up to you as they assimilate into a foreign culture.
Maybe I needed to initiate this dialogue, to tell her it was okay if she felt bad about all the mean things she’d said before about my guy friends or the “American ladies.”
“Mom—”
“Zahra,” she cut me off, “I just wanted to tell you…” She had a distant look in her eyes, but then suddenly zeroed in on me with intense concentration.
“Zahra, you have a hole. And for the rest of your life, men will want to put their penis in your hole. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you look like, who is your ‘friend.’ Even at the movies, maman jaan, wherever—it does not change. Ri-anne seems like a very nice man, but he is a man. And all he wants is your hole. So, I will pick you up here at five o’clock. Have fun, maman jaan,” she said.
I got out of the car and staggered toward the theater. I was horrified and astounded. I have a what?! A hole? Where? Was that what I had missed in sex ed the one day I had the flu? Was I the last girl on Earth to find out about my hole?
I’d never felt so completely clueless about or protective of my body in my entire life. I’d thought I had a pretty clear idea of sex. It didn’t look all that complicated: a lot of kissing and touching and groping and people mashing their bodies together under bedsheets. There were no “holes” in Sixteen Candles!
Suddenly, crossing the parking lot to the theater was like being a scared, limping animal in a wide-open meadow with sleazy holehunters lurking about. I couldn’t look a single guy in the face.
I busted my way through the double doors of the theater and accidentally made eye contact with the concessions guy, who was lasciviously filling up a large swirly snow cone and staring at me. I imagined him halting mid-ICEE, flinging it in the air, and then leaping across the counter, making a beeline for my hole.
I had to find my friends.
I saw Ryan sitting third-row center, with an empty seat saved for me next to him. Nothing about my relationship with him felt platonic anymore. I felt awkward and clumsy. I felt like… like… like I was on a date. Omigod, was this a date? My vision was
blurring. I couldn’t think fast enough.
He bought me my ticket.
He met my mother.
We’re sitting next to each other.
Did he ever really need help with algebra?
I sat through all of Johnny Mnemonic with my jeans pulled up to my waist and my legs crossed tightly together. Every time my legs started to relax and slide open, I felt like I was exposing my hole to the world, and clamped them back together again. The longer I held my legs together, the angrier I became at Ryan. Look at him, all stupid-faced and smiling, sitting there dipping his disgusting hands into the greasy popcorn. This movie sucks. Why is he smiling? He’s probably thinking about holes. Gross! All I knew at that point was that, date or not, he’d better not be thinking about my hole, or I was going to kick his a**.
By Rocco Parascandola, Matt Mcnulty, Kerry Burke AND Kevin Deutsch
(NYDailyNews)
THE UNHINGED Queens pyromaniac who unleashed a scary New Year’s Day firebombing spree had planned to take out “as many Muslims and Arabs as possible” by lobbing Molotov cocktails at worshipers inside a mosque, prosecutors said.
Ray Lazier Lengend, 40, allegedly told cops he had planned to inflict “as much damage as possible” by hurling all five of his firebombs from the balcony of Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center onto the crowd below.
The hateful bomb-hurler, who is under psychiatric observation at Bellevue Hospital center, flat-out told detectives he did not like Muslims or Arabs, prosecutors said.
“This is a message to anyone who does this in the future,” said Imam Maan Al-Sahlani, leader of Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center, where Lengend planned to inflict major casualties. “It’s a good message that justice will come for you, the police will come for you.”
The imam applauded prosecutors’ use of the hate crime statute and hoped it would deter further anti-Muslim crimes.
“Obviously there is something wrong with him,” Al-Sahlani said.
Lengend, an unemployed truck driver from Queens Village, will face a judge via video arraignment Thursday from his bed at Bellevue.
He faces 18 charges including arson as a hate crime and weapon possession for throwing Starbucks Frappuccino bottles filled with gasoline at four occupied Jamaica buildings — two of them places of worship.
Lengend’s brother-in-law, Bejai Rai, 73, said his Elmont, L.I., house was also firebombed because he evicted Lengend for not paying rent.
“He had a vendetta against us,” Rai told the Daily News. “He tried to kill my wife, my two sons and my sister. I’m glad they got him otherwise he’d be back to firebomb us again.”
Rai said his family could not sleep until Lengend was caught.
“This is the first night we’ve been able to rest since the bombing.”
Lengend carried out his spree in a silver Buick Regal, which had been stolen from a rental car business at Kennedy Airport.
He first drove to to a gas station off the Van Wyck Expressway at Hillside Ave. and bought five glass Frappuccino bottles, before heading to another gas station and filling them with fuel.
His first target was Hillside Deli on 179th St., where Lengend threw a flaming glass bottle that ignited upon hitting the floor.
He burned four other targets, including the mosque and a Hindu place of worship on 170th St., but did not inflict the massive damage he hoped for, prosecutors said.
Lengend confessed to three earlier attacks as well, sources said. He claimed ongoing beefs were his motive for all eight crimes.
The Newcastle mosque in Australia has been attacked several times. “Srebrenica,” a reference to the slaughter of thousands of Muslims during the genocide against Bosnian Muslims was spray painted on the mosque just a month ago.
Now, a few thugs forced worshippers into locking themselves in the mosque so as to avoid confrontation and violence with them. I don’t believe there is a correlation between Spencer’s recent visit to Australia and this attack on the mosque, however, such attacks are the Islamophobes’ wet dream.
Many Islamophobes love violence against Muslims. Violent rhetoric against Muslims is what sites like BareNakedIslam regularly indulge in, such sites are defended by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, whose own sites have approved of violence and intimidation directed at Muslims.
(Visit the original site for video of the attack):
AN attack on a Newcastle mosque, trapping seven worshippers inside, has been caught on security camera.The attack happened only minutes after a group of children had finished a scripture class and is the latest in a series of incidents that have left the city’s Muslim community feeling ‘‘vulnerable and scared’’.In the security footage, which has been provided to police, two tattooed men are seen to approach the Wallsend mosque about 9.30pm on Monday.One man, with a large tattoo of a cross on his neck, kicks through the fence gate and hurls an object at the mosque’s front door.
Then he runs and smashes a flying kick into the door.
More objects are thrown at the building and one of the men is seen to shout what appears to be abuse.
Newcastle Muslim Association vice-president Diana Rah said seven worshippers were inside the mosque at the time and managed to lock the main entrance on the side of the building.
The two men tried to kick through this entrance but were unsuccessful, she said.
Ms Rah said a group of children left the mosque after an evening scripture class only minutes before the men arrived.
Newcastle police Chief Inspector Dean Olsen said the attack was being investigated. He called for anyone with information to come forward.
Click below to see images taken from the CCTV footage.
Ms Rah said incidents against the mosque had increased in the past three months.
Garbage had been thrown across the mosque’s front lawn and the fence had been broken down on another occasion.
In April, an envelope containing photographs of three slaughtered pigs was left at the mosque’s doorstep. The pigs had been half-buried on land where a new mosque was to be built.
Last month the word ‘‘Srebrenica’’ was sprayed in graffiti across a neighbour’s car parked outside the mosque.
Srebrenica is the name of the town where 8000 Muslims were massacred in July 1995 during the Bosnian war.
The association had also received abusive emails and threats.
Ms Rah said that in the past 20 years there had been only a handful of isolated incidents directed at the Wallsend mosque.
But since the association had made plans to establish its mosque at Elermore Vale, the incidents had increased and were ‘‘starting to become a pattern’’.
Ms Rah said the Newcastle Muslim Association had ‘‘a lot of faith in the wider Newcastle community’’ and knew the majority were not responsible for the ‘‘unacceptable’’ acts.
The association had installed a high-tech security camera system.
In yet another disgusting post filled with typos, hate group leader Pamela Geller makes excuses for terrorism by saying that Muslims in Queens probably firebombed their own mosque.
Color me skeptical. We find time and time again, in the rare instances when a mosque has graffit [sic] or some prank, the perp is Muslim. More times than not.
Here’s the a [sic] sketch of the perp, looks like a CAIR member.
It’s amazing and sickening how much Geller’s smears of Muslims resemble antisemitic libels of Jews.
A stun gun apparently was used on a woman at a New Tampa Walmart on New Year’s Day, and police are investigating whether she was the victim of a hate crime.
The victim, a Muslim who was wearing a traditional ethnic dress known as a salwar, told investigators she was hit by a stun gun fired by another shopper shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday at the store at 19910 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.
A video of the incident does not show the victim being hit by the stun gun, said McElroy. But she did have marks “consistent” with being hit by a stun gun, McElroy said.
“She has two marks on her back,” McElroy said. “We have no reason to doubt what she is saying.”
The video shows the suspect and another woman following the victim through the store as if she were being targeted, McElroy said. The video does not show an exchange between the women, the stun gun incident or the victim being hit, but that may have occurred off-camera, said McElroy.
Before police can determine if the incident rises to the level of a hate crime, they must first find the suspect, described as a heavy-set white female, about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and between ages 30 and 49, said McElroy.
Investigators, she said, will have to determine if the offense “was based on prejudice against victim’s race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
McElroy said the victim’s daughters raised the issue of whether she was being targeted because of her religion.
Another possibility, said McElroy, is that the victim may have been targeted because of the big purse she had in her shopping cart.
Efforts to reach the victim by phone were not immediately successful.
Hassan Shibly, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said, “If indeed this was a hate crime it is a clear sign that anti-Muslim rhetoric is not cost free and may unfortunately lead to senseless attacks against law abiding American Muslims.”
Shibly said via email that regardless of the motive, he hopes the suspect is caught.
A couple things struck me while watching this video. The first was how unfunny it was. The second was how offensive it was. Let’s explore the latter:
The “Eurabia” threat
The video’s title, “Christmas in Eurabia,” refers to a conspiracy theory that white Christian Europe is being systematically overtaken by immigrant hordes of brown-skinned Muslims from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. An uninspired cross between “Europe” and “Arabia,” “Eurabia” is the anti-Arab/Islamophobic equivalent of saying “Jew York.”
To these “Eurabists,” the Islamification of Europe is being facilitated by multicultural permissiveness. The Eurabia ideology takes xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, and nativism—all traits of classic white supremacism—but combines them with ultra-Zionism, as Israel represents the Western bulwark against the Muslim menace.
The English Defence League
The equivalent in the United States are the pundits, politicians, thinktanks, and officials who rail against the “creeping shar‘ia” threat. Participants in this American, European, and Israeli network of Islamophobic fear-mongering collectively refer to themselves as the “counter-jihad” movement.
The most infamous proponent of the Eurabia conspiracy theory is the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. Although many Eurabists publicly distance themselves from Breivik and dismiss him as a lone extremist, his 1500-page manifesto actually provides a good introduction to basic Eurabist ideology, and the citations clearly identify the most prominent voices in the “counter-jihad” movement. It is instructive to compare the message of Latma’s “Christmas in Eurabia” to the Breivik manifesto in one instance.
First they kill Santa Claus, then they rape your white daughters
As the “Christmas in Eurabia” video goes through its verses, the locale switches from London to Paris to Oslo. When it reaches Oslo, a Norwegian man (portrayed by Latma regular Noam Jacobson) instructs his daughter:
When they rape you, don’t object,
For that is politically incorrect.
The idea that Muslims are employing rape as systematic warfare against white (non-Muslim) women is popular among Eurabists. Breivik’s manifesto is littered with such references. Here is a sampling:
The incidence of rapes carried out by Muslim men in Norway against non-Muslim women is many times higher than rapes by non-Muslim men….
We have had several recent cases where native girls have been gang raped by immigrants in the heart of the EU capital….
Native Swedes are raped, stabbed, killed and chased out of their homes by Muslim gangs….
The massive wave of violence and especially rapes in Western cities now is a form of warfare against whites, and it’s about time it is recognised as such.
Are not the notorious “gang rapes” another example of collective violence to European women….
…Britons whose teenage daughters are being sexually abused and gang raped by various races who hate whites.
The Muslims therefore takes [sic] advantage of their Allah-given prerogative to rape, kill and steal from Europeans as they view this as the spoils of war.
Muslim drug traffickers/dealers all across Europe…mak[e] their subjects addicted to heroin… when “processing” non-Muslim girls for sexual/financial exploitation.
[Muslims] have…raped more than 500,000 European women…
…more than 1 million European women raped [by Muslims]…
Many European girls/women have been raped multiple times. Ratio is an average 200 rapes per 100,000 Muslims annually.
Moreover the connection between “Muslim-on-White rape” and political correctness, as depicted in the video, is expressed frequently in Breivik’s manifesto. The primary facilitator of mixed-race rape is multiculturalism:
Tellingly, when black gang members stab each other or gang rape a white teenage girl or when Muslim jihadists blow up buses and trains filled with innocent people the first concern of the guardians of multiculturalism will be to minimise the racial aspect of these events…
Make no mistake. These Muslims must be considered as wild animals. Do not blame the wild animals but rather the multiculturalist…traitors who allowed these
animals to enter our lands, and continue to facilitate them.
As a result of [multiculturalism]… more than 500 000 European women have been raped…
Fellow Islamophobe and Eurabist Pamela Geller explained that “Breivik was targeting the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives, including violent gang rapes…”
In the “Christmas in Eurabia” video, mulitculturalism is depicted as permitting Muslims to commit violence against non-Muslims:
Someone burned my car, oh pity.
That’s what happens when you tease
Islam, the greatest creed of peace.
But it makes me feel so jolly,
Proves that multi-culti’s holy
And what is the only “Western” nation not incapacitated by multiculturalism? Israel. Again, from the manifesto:
The truth is that Israelis defend themselves so that their daughters do not have to suffer rape at the hands of Muslim Jihadists, the way the
authorities in Western European countries, and in Sweden in particular, allow to happen every single day.
To be clear, the fear of white women being raped by brown hordes is not based on personal concern for the women themselves, but on concern for the purity of Western heritage. To Eurabists, feminism is as responsible as mulitculturalism for the downfall of Western society:
As a Western man, I would be tempted to say that Western women have to some extent brought this upon themselves. They have been waging an ideological, psychological and economic war against European men for several generations now.
The “Muslim rape wave” myth
Why does the “Christmas in Eurabia” video jump from London to Paris and then to Oslo, where a Norwegian man tells his daughter to let Muslims rape her? Aside from the general tastelessness of the video, isn’t it especially inappropriate to focus on Norway, the site of the recent killings by Anders Breivik, whose crimes were motivated by a fear of creeping Eurabia and the raping of white women by hordes of Muslim immigrants?
A possible explanation lies in a pair of fabricated stories reported by the Israeli settler news site Arutz Sheva. Last June, Arutz Sheva “reporter” Gil Ronen wrote an article entitled “Police Report: All Assault Rapists in Oslo Follow Muhammad,”and he recently followed up on this story with another report, “Muslim ‘Rape Wave’ Reported in Oslo, Ministers Blame Israel.” The articles alleged that Norway was “suffering from an unprecedented wave of rapes that are largely being perpetrated by Muslim immigrants against local women,” based on statistics in an Oslo police report. Moreover, Norwegian “government ministers, most of them avowed anti-Semites, claimed that the report and its publication serve Israel and its policy of occupation,” with Norway’s justice minister declaring, “Israel must be glad to hear about it.”
However, the source for these stories was a single person living in Israel, a blogger named Yehuda Bello who was described by Ronen as “acclaimed,” “well-acquainted with Norwegian culture,” and as someone “who understands Norwegian and has Norwegian contacts.”
Then the story started falling apart. Arutz Sheva inexplicably removed references to the supposed anti-Semitic Norwegian ministers, while Boston University professor and Eurabist nut Richard Landes attempted to corroborate the story about the ministers, to no avail.
Meanwhile, writer Farha Khaled did what Gil Ronen and Arutz Sheva failed to do: she provided a link to the actual Norwegian police report and inquired with the Norwegian justice ministry about the statistics. The ministry’s response:
The Oslo Police District has given a report of rapes in Oslo in 2010. The report shows that for all types of rape, except assault rape, European perpetrators are in the majority, and they are mostly Norwegian. Assault rapes covers only five identified unique person. These have all a foreign origin. The number is however, so low that it does not provide a basis for drawing conclusions with regard to country of origin. Two of them were very young (under 18) and two had severe psychiatric diagnoses and cannot be regarded as representative of their ethnic culture. It is highlighted in the report that generalizations like “Oslo’s rapists are foreigners,” which have been seen in media, are wrong. The report gives no statistics regarding religion of rapists.
While Oslo has indeed been rocked with what has been termed a “rape wave,” authorities are still attempting to identify the culprits and causes, even suspecting the involvement of a serial rapist. Besides, if a “wave” of rapes signals a higher than statistically normal number of occurrences, one cannot necessarily refer to statistics preceding the wave to determine the identities of the current perpetrators.
Interestingly, Gil Ronen had cited another person as an authority on “Muslim rape waves”: the then-pseudonymous Eurabist blogger known as “Fjordman,” who was a primary inspiration for Anders Breivik. Much of Breivik’s manifesto was authored by Fjordman. In the June Arutz Sheva article, Ronen approvingly cited Fjordman’s warning about an earlier “immigrant [and Muslim] rape wave in Sweden,” from back in 2005.
Such reports of hordes of brown-skinned attackers may be familiar to people living in the US in the 1990s, when the media promulgated sensational reports of“wilding” and of African American and Latino “superpredators,” along with today’s recurrent media warnings of “immigrant crime waves.”
As we should be aware, the notion of brown men defiling white women is not a specifically Eurabist scare. It has long been the pinnacle of white supremacist and xenophobic fears, and has long been evoked to justify the oppression and expulsion of brown peoples.
In 1900, South Carolina Senator Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, proclaimed this justification for the lynchings of African American men:
We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him. I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores.
I am reminded of a white supremacist cartoon that I once had the misfortune to see. The cartoon, attacking miscegenation, depicted a black man hooking up with a white woman—with the act being orchestrated by a Jewish man. Both the black man and the Jewish man were drawn as hideous caricatures that highlighted stereotypical features. The Eurabist scare, whether portrayed through Breivik’s manifesto or Latma’s YouTube video, is an extension of the offensive cartoon, lacking only in the stereotypical Jew.
(Update: Ali Abunimah has more information about the Muslim rape wave myth on his blog.)
Is Latma a fringe group?
If we define fringe solely by the validity of one’s viewpoints, then Latma, which produced the “Christmas in Eurabia” video, would definitely be fringe. However, if we define fringe as lacking in popular representation and influence and thus negligible, Latma would not qualify.
Latma head director Shlomo Blass has worked on projects for the Likud party, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies. Earlier this year, Blass collaborated with StandWithUs to produce a propaganda video for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The video, starring Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, was a copy of a settler video for the YESHA Council, with virtually the same storyboard and script, and which was also produced by Blass. The message in both videos were the same: the West Bank belongs to Israel.
Blass was recently commissioned to create another video for the Ministry, again starring Danny Ayalon, and this time purporting to address the issue of Palestinian refugees (of which Ayalon is not one).
Blass also produced the video “Israel’s Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace”for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. This explained that in any future negotiations with the Palestinians, Israel would retain Jordan Valley, would control the West Bank airspace and roadways, and would reshape the West Bank borders to Israel’s liking.
More prominent than Blass is Latma’s chief editor, Caroline Glick, who also serves as the deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post.
Both Glick and Blass starred in Latma’s infamous “We Con the World” video, which ridiculed the Mavi Marmara massacre and portrayed the Gaza flotilla as an Arab/Muslim/Turkish plot to deceive the world into hating Israel.
Caroline Glick, impersonating an Arab or a Muslim or a Turk—or perhaps a crazy Jewish woman from Chicago with a knife. Shlomo Blass can be seen behind her.
The video link to “We Con the World” was distributed to foreign media via the Israeli government press office. After the video was criticized internationally for its racist content, its tasteless response to the killings of nine people, and its contradiction of Israel’s self-portrayal as reluctant killers, the Israeli government claimed that the link was distributed in error. However, press officer director Danny Seaman still insisted that the video was “fantastic,” and Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev said, “I thought it was funny…It is what Israelis feel. But the government has nothing to do with it.”
In 2010, Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People, based in Tel Aviv University, presented Latma with the NADAV Peoplehood Award, claiming that the “We Con the World” video “made many Jews feel proud in a time of conflict and tension for our people.”
Earlier this year, Israeli Channel One partially funded Latma to film a pilot for aweekly TV program in the style of Latma’s offensive YouTube videos.
Latma’s funder: The Center for Security Policy
Although Latma operates in Israel, it acts as an initiative of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a 501(c)(3) and DC-based think tank, where Caroline Glick serves as the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs. The CSP motto is, no joke, “Peace through Strength.”
Big Eagle is watching you.
The CSP made waves at the start of the Iraq War as part of the neocon network that was planning for US wars in Iraq and elsewhere. Indeed the CSP National Security Advisory Council has at times included prominent Bush era neocons, such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, and Dov Zakheim, as well as Dick Cheney.
CSP’s founder and president is neocon lunatic Frank Gaffney, who accused Saddam Hussein of orchestrating the Oklahoma City bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center attack. More recently, Gaffney took up the “birther” cause and warned that Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.”
Gaffney also railed against “Obama’s pandering to the radical homosexual agenda” and the “Obama/homosexual agenda” (in an article strangely placed under a section of the website titled “The Shariah Threat”).
The CSP helped organize the campaign against the Park51 Islamic Center and has been prominent in pushing the “shar‘ia law” scare in the US. Last year, the CSP published a report, Shariah: The Threat to America, co-authored by David Yerushalmi, who has been paid over $270,000 as CSP’s general counsel.
Yerushalmi, who also serves as the attorney for Pamela Geller and Gaffney, is an Orthodox Jew with a penchant for making the most blatantly offensive statements. In an essay entitled “On Race: A Tentative Discussion,” Yerushalmi attempted to justify addressing “blacks as the most murderous of peoples (at least in New York City)” and explained that “there is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote,” since these founders had an “understanding of human nature and its affect on political society.”
The Jews it seems are the bane of Western society… the Jewish problem for conservatives is a…quite interesting affair. It is most interesting because so much of what drives it is true and accurate… The conservative variety simply professes to uncover the many and varied ways Jews destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite, especially when the host is a Western nation-state… In response, one must admit readily that the radical liberal Jew is a fact of the West and a destructive one.
And when Mel Gibson made his famous anti-Semitic remarks, Yerushalmi defended him by saying
That Gibson sees Jews in an unfavorable light is only irrational if one wishes to make the argument that secular liberal Jews are not in fact the leading proponents of all forms of anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Christian movements, campaigns, and ideologies.
Such a congregation of Islamophobic, homophobic, racist whackjobs would be easily dismissed if the CSP and its affiliated network of Islamophobes did not have such immediate access to the media and to government officials, along with access to a multimillion dollar budget. It’s through CSP that Latma’s videos are realized.
The CSP website proudly features “Christmas in Eurabia” on its home page, and Caroline Glick needs an editor.
It is thus no surprise that Frank Gaffney, the CSP, and Caroline Glick are all cited and quoted as authorities in Breivik’s manifesto.
Is Caroline Glick a Nazi according to the Jerusalem Post?
On July 24, two days after the Anders Breivik killings, the Jerusalem Post issued an editorial warning that the massacre should not be allowed to be “manipulated” by the Left in such a way as to raise public concern that right-wing extremism was a “real danger facing contemporary Europe,” since the “real underlying problems faced not only by Norway, but by many Western European nations” was the “abject failure of multiculturalism.” That is, the real danger to Europe was the danger Anders Breivik warned about, and over which Breivik committed his killing spree.
An outcry against the editorial was inevitable, and so was the subsequent apology, which the Post issued on August 4, and which included the following statement:
It later emerged that Breivik, a Christian radical, had posted on the Internet an extremely anti-Muslim manifesto that supported far-right nationalism and Zionism.
He apparently feared that a “Muslim colonization” of Europe would destroy Norway.
This is certainly not the kind of support Israel needs. It is the type of Islamophobia that is all too reminiscent of the Nazis’ attitude toward the Jews. Jews, Muslims and Christians in Israel and around the world should be standing together against such hate crimes.
Yet the “Muslim colonization” of the West is exactly what the “Christmas in Eurabia” video is about and is the focal obsession of Eurabists and the so-called “counter-jihadist” movement that includes Caroline Glick and the Center for Security Policy.
Thus, if we are to take the Post’s apology at face value, we would have to accept that Glick’s sentiments, along with Latma’s, are “the type of Islamophobia that is all too reminiscent of the Nazis’ attitude toward the Jews.”
On August 8, Glick responded in the Jerusalem Post with a piece entitled“Norway’s Jewish Problem.” Regarding the Post’s apology editorial, Glick stated, “I was not consulted about this editorial ahead of time, and the editorial does not reflect my views,” implying that the earlier July 24 editorial did reflect and still reflected her views.
Glick refused to apologize, instead labeling her critics anti-Semites and attacking Norway for its pervasive “climate of hatred towards Israel and Jews.” She reminded her readers that Norway was invaded and occupied by the Nazis, and thus Norwegian officials may still be Nazi collaborators. She produced names of Norwegians she didn’t like, such as the humanitarian doctors Erik Fosse and Mads Gilbert. Glick also claimed that “Judaism [is] the only religion that cannot be freely practiced in Norway.”
In a strange expression of moral superiority, she condemned Breivik’s actions, she said, even though Breivik’s victims “had obvious animosity towards Israel and sympathy for genocidal, Jew hating Hamas terrorists.” She concluded by stating that Norway owed her an apology but that no apology from Norway would be enough for her.
Apart from the fact that her long list of things to hate about Norway includes no mention of Norwegian black metal, the main thing that stands out in Glick’s opinion piece is this religious paradox: Glick is more concerned about Christmas being banned in a hypothetical Muslim Norway than she is concerned about Judaism already being banned in a non-Muslim Norway. This indicates either misplaced priorities or an inability to keep her fear mongering “facts” straight. That is, when she wants to criticize Norway, she warns that Jews are unsafe in Norway; when she wants to criticize Muslims, she warns that Christians are unsafe in Norway. Or else, she wants to protect the Jew-hating Norwegians from the Christian-hating Muslims.
Complicated? It’s simply a matter of who Caroline Glick hates most at the moment.
“Christmas in Jewrabia”
For an Israeli group that purports to satirize current events, Latma seems to have overlooked the irony of producing a video about a Muslim war on Christmas while their own government expresses hostility toward Christmas in the name of Jewish nationalism.
Take the case of Nazareth Illit, a suburb of the Nazareth that was the childhood home of Jesus. This year, when Palestinian Christians asked the mayor of Nazareth Illit to permit the placement of festive Christmas trees, similar to the enormous menorahs already on display in the town, the mayor refused. His reasoning:
The request of the Arabs to put Christmas trees in the squares in the Arab quarter of Nazareth Illit is provocative…Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city and it will not happen—not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor.
Never mind that the area of Nazareth was Palestinian Arab and largely Christian before Israel seized the land. In fact, during the imposition of the State of Israel in 1948, Nazareth was slated for ethnic cleansing, saved only when an Israeli officer refused to follow orders and instead decided to honor the agreement made with the town’s inhabitants during their capitulation. Nazareth Illit was constructed in the following decade in order to Judaize the area and offset the Palestinian majority.
In 1954, IDF Planning Department Director Yuval Ne’eman explained that the purpose of Nazareth Illit was to “emphasize and safeguard the Jewish character of the Galilee as a whole, and … demonstrate state sovereignty to the Arab population more than any other settlement operation.” Northern Military Governor Colonel Mikhael Mikhael elaborated that Nazareth Illit would “swallow up” Nazareth proper through the “growth of the Jewish population around a hard-core group” and “the transfer of the center of gravity of life from Nazareth to the Jewish neighborhood.”
And let’s not forget the Israeli Ministry of Absorption’s own war on Christmas, when it recently produced a video warning Jewish Israeli expatriates in the US to return home, lest their children end up wishing a merry Christmas to the grandparents.
Israel, which side of the War on Christmas are you on?
Even Muslim camels are racially inferior
There’s one final thing to be said about the “Christmas in Eurabia” video. At one point, a camel can be seen walking through the Islamized streets of Norway. The connotation is that Muslim immigration will bring backwardness to European civilization, as represented by the orientalist trope of the Middle Eastern camel.
The irony here is that to diaspora Zionists in the west, the camel has positive connotations associated with the Jewish homeland, as evidenced in these pictures from this year’s “Celebrate Israel” parade in New York.
This can also be seen in Birthright trips, where the camel ride is a staple of the program to induce an emotional attachment to Israel:
How do we reconcile the contradictory connotations? Camels associated with Muslims/Arabs—as in the “Eurabia” video—are a symbol of oriental backwardness, to be contrasted with the technically advanced western Israeli civilization. It is an Israeli rejection of geographical realities, as Israel is seen to have more in common with Europe than with the Middle East.
However, camels associated with Israel—as seen through the idealized eyes of Zionists in the West—are a symbol of exotic wonder, rooting the Western diaspora Jew in a place that is magical and historically profound, symbolizing a deep yet constructed heritage. Here, the camel is part of Israel’s geography, as the camel, like the land, has been conquered by the Ashkenazi pioneers, and so too have the native Bedouins been conquered and thus now prepare the camel rides for the Birthright tourists as part of the contrived Bedouin experience.
Banner from a website promoting Birthright
“The Tribal Update”
When “Eurabia” becomes a reality, who knows what those nefarious Muslims will do? Once they outlaw Christmas, what will follow? Will they ban church bells?Demolish non-Muslim homes? Flatten complete villages? Evict non-Muslim residents for Muslim ones? Impose mass population transfers? Eliminate civil marriages? View non-Muslims in Europe as a “demographic threat”? Establishsegregated roads? Enact laws that favor Muslims? Require loyalty oaths to Europe as a “Muslim and democratic” continent? The possibilities that Latma can take their “Eurabia” scenario are endless, and they just need to look at home for inspiration.
But “Christmas in Eurabia” and “We Con the World” are only samples in the Latma YouTube video series known as “The Tribal Update.” Here are some others.
This video mocks the notion that Palestinians are indigenous to the land:
And in a skit entitled “Palestinian Eskimos,” the denial of the existence of the Palestinian people turns into a gratuitous joke at the expense of another oppressed indigenous population, the Inuit.
Another video depicts the UN as filled with incompetent Third Worlders such as an African ambassador who is so uneducated he can’t find Israel on the map.
And a slant-eyed ambassador eating rice.
Rahm Emanuel is depicted as a Jew-traitor.
Barack Obama is a Muslim anti-Semite.
If the Obama blackface is too subtle, here’s Noam Jacobson playing “Kazabubu the Jewish Cannibal,” in a skit that ridicules black African “Jews” making aliyah.
In case you don’t understand Latma’s sense of humor, you’re supposed to laugh as Kazabubu babbles in his stupid African gibberish: “Bu ta le bo bo bi de bbbbbbbbb”—thus demonstrating that he is of inferior stock to the real Jews such as Noam Jacobson and Caroline Glick.
Most of the videos are Israeli talking points expressed by critics of Israel (and semi-critics of Israel) in racist caricature. The humor relies on an elitist nationalist perspective that can be boiled down to this: The world hates Israel, but the world outside of Israel is just a bunch of ignorant Africans, rice-eating chinks, bloodthirsty Muslims, self-hating Jews, and white multiculturalists asking to be raped. Ha ha.
The sheer racism of Noam Jacobson is matched only by his cluelessness, as he fails to understand why his offensive “comedy” skits elicit such hatred—concluding that he is a victim of the world’s hatred against Israel and the Jews. The fact that people would hurl anti-Semitic slurs—unjustified yet unsurprising—against him after watching his racist videos somehow proves that he is doing the right thing. As Jacobson explained to a reporter, “When you see the talkbacks, you know what you’re fighting for.”
Such a remark, made without irony, and published in an article with the incredulous headline, “Fighting the New Blood Libel”—against the backdrop of blatantly racist videos such as “Kazabubu the Jewish Cannibal”—just goes to show what anyone who has sat through a video produced by Noam Jacobson and his Latma colleagues already understands: they have no sense of humor.
A Queens man confessed Tuesday to a firebombings spree on New Year’s Day — claiming a personal vendetta drove him to tossing the Molotov cocktails, police said.
The firebug — identified by sources as Raylazir Legend, 40 — told detectives that each of the five attacks in Queens and Elmont, L.I. — including an attempt to torch a Jamaica mosque — stemmed from ongoing beefs.
“The suspect made statements incriminating himself in each of the five firebombings, citing a personal grievance or dispute in each instance,” said Paul Browne, top spokesman for the NYPD.
Legend, an unemployed towtruck driver, was still waiting to be charged Tuesday, but a law enforcement official said he faces arson and hate-crime charges because of “broad anti-Muslim statements” he made during his confession.
Legend was cuffed about 8 a.m. Tuesday, after Detectives Richard Johnson and Charles LoPresti of the 103rd Precinct saw him get into a stolen car linked to the first attack: a Hillside Ave. bodega.
Legend was caught by workers at the bodega on Dec. 27 trying to steal a carton of milk and a Starbucks Frappuccino.
Robert Spencer and his fellow Islamophobes are fond of asking Muslims impossible questions, demanding that Muslims “admit” to something or another, and developing tests for Muslims to “prove” that they are “one of us”. Daniel Pipes had a test, David Horowitz had a petition he wanted Muslims to sign, Former Muslims United had a pledge against punishment for apostasy (created two years after an actual Muslim statement on this topic was issued) , the list goes on and on. None of these are serious attempts at understanding anything. They simply demand simple answers to complicated questions, or include some bigoted assumption within the question that no Muslim would agree with and demand a yes or no answer.
This is the infamous legal tactic exemplified by the question “Have you stopped beating your wife? Answer yes or no!”
The most recent prove to me you’re not a radical Muslim test came out of a simple reqest for an interview with Robert Spencer by the Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah. Loonwatch lays out the background of this incident very well
Dean Obeidallah is working on an Islamophobia documentary and asked Robert Spencer if he could interview him. A simple request one would think? Spencer of course is chicken (as we have shown before), he doesn’t want to be exposed for the buffoon he is, and so he responded to Obeidallah with an inquisition-like (pun intended), 1,000+ worded questionnaire.
Isn’t this extremely odd? Spencer attempted to pass off his fear of this interview by claiming that Obeidallah was “running” from his questions. When Obeidallah called him out on not presenting the truth, Spencer begrudgingly published Obeidallah’s response:
Robert – I dont have the time to answer all ur questions in the midst of editing a film and all the other projects Im working on – in fact I didnt even finish reading all of them.
You dont know me but Im a rather direct person so so let me make this easy: If you are interested in being interviewed for our film, I can assure you that we will not quote u out of context or play any games with you- we will ask u straightforward questions – most of which Im sure u have been asked before.
If ur interested then lets please lock in a date when u will be in NYC and conduct the interview. If you’re not interested then lets not waste any more of each other’s time-I know we are both busy people.
Thanks, Dean
That’s pretty direct in my opinion. What is Spencer so scared of? Isn’t he the “champion of freedom,” defending the West against the Muslim hordes?
Here is an opportunity Spencer for you to put your cape on and be the champion of the “counter-Jihad” world!
Here is the 1,000 word plus questionnaire required by Spencer in order to consider being interviewed by Obeidallah, and I have taken the liberty of responding to the questions myself.
1. True or false: No comedy show, no matter how clever or winning, is going to eradicate the suspicion that many Americans have of Muslims. This is because Americans are concerned about Islam not because of the work of greasy Islamophobes, but because of Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and many others like them who have plotted and/or committed mass murder in the name of Islam and motivated by its texts and teachings — all in the U.S. in the last couple of years
The only Americans who are concerned only about Muslims who have carried out or plotted terrorist actions are those who have fallen for Robert Spencer and other “greasy Islamophobe’s” big lie about the actual terrorism threat coming primarily from Muslims. All of us need to be concerned about all such actions, including those by non-Muslims such as — Ray H. Adams, Jim Adkisson, Alabama Free Militia, Chad Altman, Animal Liberation Front, Army of God, Samuel Arrington, Jonathan Avery, Sergio Baca, Daniel Barefoot, Philip Bay, John Patrick Bedell, Kody Brittingham, Seung-Hui Cho, Demetrius Van Crocker, Daniel Cowart, Samuel J. Crump, James Cummings, Matthew Derosia, Jeremy Donahoe, John Earl, Earth Liberation Front, Paul Ross Evans, David Anthony Fuselier, Matt Hale, Jeffrey Harbin, Kevin William Hardham, Lucas John Helder, Patricia Hughes, David Hull, Hutaree Christian militia, Idaho Mountain Boys Militia, Vadim Ignatov, Bruce Ivins, JDL, Jerry and Joe Kane, KKK, Joseph Konopka, William Krar, John F. Lechner, James Lee, Ryan Daniel Lewis, Thomas Hayward Lewis, Jared Lee Loughner, Davvie Love, Keith Luke, Dennies & Daniel Mahon, Alberto Martinez, David McMenemy, Jonathan Maynard, Justin Carl Moose, Donny Eugene Mower, Patriot Movement, Robert Pickett, Richard Andrew Poplawski, Project 7, Charles Carl Roberts, Daniel & Timothy Robinson, Dan Roberts, Scott Roeder, Daniel James Schertz, Paul Schlesselman, Kyle Shaw, Joseph Stack, Rossie L. Strickland, Roger Stockham, Texas Militia, Frederick Thomas, Bruce & Joshua Turnidge, omar Falu Vives, James von Brunn, Lonnie Vernon, Clayton Waagner, Jeffrey Weise, Byron Williams, Alexander Robert Youshock..
2. True or false: The fact that there are other Muslims not fighting jihad is just great, but it doesn’t mean that the jihad isn’t happening. This comedy show simply doesn’t address the problem of jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism.
This is not a true or false question. The question contains more than one element, and requires a more complex answer than is possible with a simple true or false.
3. What do you make of the fact that Islamic supremacists from the Muslim Brotherhood invented the term “Islamophobia” in order to deflect attention away from jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, and intimidate opponents thereof?
Spencer believes that he knows who coined the term “Islamophobia”. There are certainly a number of different theories about when the term was first used. It really doesn’t matter who used the term first. The term itself has come to be used to describe a particular form of bigotry against Muslims and Islam, just as anti-Semitism has come to be used to describe a particular form of bigotry against Jews and Judaism. It’s primary use is to direct attention towards outright bigotry.
4. What do you have to say about the fact that FBI statistics show that there is no “Islamophobia”?
Actually, FBI statistics do not show that there is no “Islamophobia”. What the most recent “hate crime statistics” do show is that there have been fewer hate crimes committed against Muslims in the U.S. than there were against Jews. Whether this might also reflect a reticence to report such crimes on the part of members of some refugee communities particularly has been discussed. And, the same report documents the fact that the actual hate crimes against Muslims, while still lower than those against Jews, have increased by 50% over the last year. Hate crimes statistics are only one of many possible indicators of prejudice and bigotry.
Other possible indicators of Islamophobia including EEOC complaints about work related discrimination, and a trend towards an increase of anti-Muslim, anti-Islam rhetoric from public figures, Christian andJewish clergy, and even elected representatives would appear to show that this is a word describing a real phenomenon.
5. What do you have to say about the fact that many “anti-Muslim hate crimes” have been faked by Muslims, and that Jews are eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate attacks.
For every category of hate crime there have been people who have taken advantage of an opportunity to further their own agenda and claim a hate crime where none existed.
There are hundreds of such cases. Here are just a few:
— In Florida LB Williams, a 50-year-old black man, his wife of nearly seven years Donna Williams, who is white, and their bi-racial daughter found a cross burning in their driveway. This was reported and investigated as a hate crime, but it turned out that Mr. Williams faked the whole thing in an attempt to stave off a divorce.
— In Anderson, California, a black high school student staged a fake hate crime because she was angry with her father for not picking her up on time.
— A Jewish student at George Washington University faked an anti-Semitic hate crime
The issue is not that there are some despicable individuals who will lie about hate crimes, but that there are far too many legitimate hate crimes against minorities.
6. True or false? Since the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” one easy way to do that would be to guilt-trip non-Muslims into being ashamed of resisting jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, for fear of being accused of “Islamophobia.”
Another impossible true or false question. To think that every American Muslim is somehow privy to internal Muslim Brotherhood plots, or has ever even met a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for that matter is nonsense. The Muslim Brotherhood document that Spencer refers to has had a lot of questions raised about its authenticity.
7. True or false: Negin Farsad, with her “eye-catching mini dresses,” etc., has more to worry about from observant Muslims than she does from “Islamophobes.”
Negin Farsad is a competent Muslim woman who can speak for herself. Ask her the question. My guess (as a Muslim woman myself) would be that she would say that Muslim women have as much to worry about from Muslims holding extremist interpretations of Islam, as from Islamophobes. Being an extremist and being observant are not the same thing.
8. What do you think of this: When you call Geller (and by implication, me) a “Muslim hater,” I believe that you are ascribing people’s legitimate concerns about jihad and Islamic supremacism to “hate,” and that the only effect of this will be to make people who have those legitimate concerns to be even more suspicious of Muslims, which will only lead to more of what you call “Islamophobia.”
Geller is called a “Muslim hater” because of the hateful things she herself is documentedas saying. — ”Devout Muslims should be prohibited from military service. Would Patton have recruited Nazis into his army?” — I would like to feel all warm and fuzzy and embrace the moderate Muslim/ meme but they show no evidence of their existence – not in any real number anyway. The only voices of reason in the Muslim world are lapsed Muslims or apostates. — We can pretend or we can strategize on how to defeat our mortal enemy. — Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. — Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. — There are no moderates. There are no extremists. Only Muslims. — Islam is not a race. This is an ideology. This is an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth.
And, here are a few of your own quotes, Mr. Spencer — Islam itself is an incomplete, misleading, and often downright false revelation which, in many ways, directly contradicts what God has revealed through the prophets of the Old Testament and through his Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh… For several reasons… Islam constitutes a threat to the world at large. — no American official should be taking an oath on the Qur’an, since—as we have been pointing out here for over three years now—there are so many elements of traditional and mainstream Islam that are at variance with our system of government, our Constitution, and our entire way of life. — there is no reliable way to distinguish a “moderate” Muslim who rejects the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism from a “radical” Muslim who holds such ideas, even if he isn’t acting upon them at the moment. — The misbegotten term “Islamo-fascism” is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state. — there has been no widespread, sustained, or sincere Muslim outcry against the jihad terrorist enterprise in general. — there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists.
Geller and Spencer’s hateful rhetoric could fill a book. Refusing to acknowledge this sort of speech as hatred will only make Muslims not only suspicious of those who engaged in such speech, but proves to us that Islamophobia really does exist.
9. Is there a plan behind your demonizing and smearing of all anti-jihadists? Do you want to create “Islamophobia” in order to claim privileged victim status for Muslims and exempt them from reasonable law enforcement scrutiny?
Actually, no we would like to shine a bright spotlight on Islamophobia and it’s purveyors so that decent people can see it for what it is and reject it as bigotry pure and simple, so that we can stop wasting time responding to bigotry against all Muslims and use that time to work together to fight against actual Muslim and non-Muslim extremists.
10. What kind of work have you done to raise awareness about the escalating persecution of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim societies, which is far worse in Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere than Muslims have it here? Why not?
Dean Obeidallah is an American Muslim comedian. He is not responsible for solving all of the problems of the world, even those directly involving Muslims anymore than every Christian is responsible for solving all of the problems of the world directly involving Christians. Spencer, you are Catholic, what have you done to raise awareness about the pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church, or about the genocide of Muslims by Christians in Bosnia, or about brutality and slaughter by the Christian Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa, or about numerous other crimes involving Christians? It’s ludicrous to believe that every individual member of any religious group is personally responsible for every injustice committed anywhere in the world by anyone who shares the same religion.
11. On what basis do you imply that those who are defending freedom against jihad are “exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this nation”? What have you done to resist the Muslim Brotherhood’s stated agenda of “sabotaging” this nation “from within”?
You are not defending freedom against jihad, you are consistently demonizing Muslims. And, it is not only Muslims who are openly stating that this is bigotry. There is a reason that the ADL (A Jewish anti-defamation group) has said that Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) is a “group that promote an extreme anti-Muslim agenda”. There is a reason that The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated SIOA as a hate group, and that they are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle. There is a reason that Geller and Spencer are featured prominently in the Center for American Progress “Fear Inc.” report on the Islamophobia network in America. There is a reason that Geller is featured in the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism. There is a reason that Geller is featured in the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack: The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State. There is a reason that Geller is featured in the Political Research Associates reportManufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security. There is a reason that the SIOA’s trademark patent was denied by the U.S. government due to its anti-Muslim nature. There is a reason that they are featured in our TAM Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry. There is a reason that Gellerand Spencer are featured in just about every legitimate report on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred.
12. Aside from the murder of a Sikh by an idiot shortly after 9/11, what evidence do you have of any backlash against Muslims to which you refer so off-handedly in the WaPo? Where are Muslims suffering violence, discrimination, harassment of any kind? Even you expected far worse than you got when you went to the South — and the level of harassment you did get was no worse than what I get in my email every day. So why the overblown claims about it?
You need to do a little research yourself, and might start with the following collections of resources:
13. And yes, what do you think about these recommendations?
Do Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah really want to eradicate “Islamophobia”? As long as Islamic jihad and supremacism continue, a comedy tour will never do the trick. But here is an easy way. They can call on Muslims in the U.S. to do these things:
1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively, sincerely, honestly, and in deeds, not just in comforting words, not just “terrorism,” but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people, teaching accordingly in mosques and Islamic schools, and behaving in accord with these new teachings.
3. Teach, again sincerely and honestly, in transparent and verifiable ways in mosques and Islamic schools, the imperative of Muslims coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, and act accordingly.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach sincerely against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively and honestly work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities
1 and 2. Please see the thousands of fatwas, statements, articles, etc. by Muslims denouncing extremists committing violent acts in the name of Islam in our TAM collection Muslim Voices Against Extremism and Terrorism. Type “lunatic fringe” into the search engine of TAM for numerous articles denouncing particular extremists and extremist groups. See my article American Muslims must defend the Constitution of the United States in which I said America is a secular and democratic nation with a clearly marked wall between church and state (thank God!). One of the reasons America has been a beacon to the world is the freedom that all Americans have to practice any (or no) religion. As an American Muslim I don’t believe that America can be defined as anything but a secular democracy (secular meaning neutral towards religion, not devoid of religion or hostile to religion) in which all religions are free to worship. I don’t want to see Shariah, or Biblical law, or any other religious law replace the Constitution, and I don’t want to see any kind of a theocracy in place based on any religion. I agree with Rabbi Arthur Waskow that “When those who claim their path alone bespeaks God’s Will control the State to enforce their will as God’s, it is God Who suffers.” All civilians are innocent including Americans, Israelis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Iranians, etc.
3. There are numerous existing studies, polls, and statements about radicalization in the Muslim community and how the community is working to counter attempts by extremists to radicalize individuals here. The efforts within the Muslim community are numerous. MPAC alone has many ongoing efforts including the NATIONAL GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT TERRORISM and BUILDING BRIDGES TO STRENGTHEN AMERICA: BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE COUNTERTERRORISM ENTERPRISE BETWEEN MUSLIM AMERICANS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT. Also type “radicalization” into the TAM search engine for numerous articles, etc.
4. Why would American Muslims be responsible for building comprehensive programs in other countries. We are Americans.
5. Muslims have already done this. And, in fact, many of the actual arrests made of individuals plotting some terrorist act were made because of tips from American Muslims.
To sum up, yes you are an Islamophobe. The fact that you and your partner Pamela Geller have shown time and time again that you have a tenuous grasp of the concept of “truth telling”, and haveattempted to conceal evidence when you’ve been caught in lies and distortions is shameful. The fact that you have also shown time and time again that you have no qualms about exploiting a tragedy to further your own agenda is shameful. The Belgian shooting tragedy, and the Hollywood shooting tragedy are just two of the most recent examples.
The fact that you are a middle aged man whose primary means of earning a living comes from being paid to churn out anti-Muslim propoganda is shameful.
A little comedy, preferably satirical about Islamophobes and their tactics wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Update Robert Spencer and David Horowitz jointly published another version of these 5 questions on Front Page Magazine.
The book banners never sleep. I’ve received a note that the Valley View School Board in Jonesboro will meet at 5:30 p.m. today while others watch football games to consider two complaints from school district residents about the teaching of “The Kite Runner” to honors English classes. As you might know, “good Christians” do not countenance literature that presents Muslim people in anything but an unflattering light.
We reported on this controversy earlier. The ACLU is keeping watch. Some School Board members had taken a “middle ground.” Let the book be read, but not aloud.
UPDATE: A Jonesboro correspondent reports that the board met to hear the complaints, but took no action, thus leaving the curriculum including the book in place. The public was invited to speak but only supporters of the book spoke. A round of applause followed the board’s decision to take no action, I was told.
A note before the meeting from ASU professor Norm Stafford and ACLU Board member about tonight’s meeting. There’s still time to join the throng on the side of free expression:
I am writing to urge you to attend a special meeting of the Valley View School Board tonight, Monday, January 2nd at 5:30 pm, at the office of the superintendent on the Valley View campus.The Board will decide on the complaints of two patrons opposing the teaching of Khaled Hosseneini’s The Kite Runner to senior English classes. The book has won numerous awards and is a novel recounting the redemption of a man, who as a young boy witnessed his male friend being sexually assaulted and out of fear did nothing. The novel provides insight into modern Afghanistan and the effects of war on the area and its people as well as into the brutal Taliban.
Although the central goal of those complaining is to eliminate this single text from the curriculum, they have support of strong religious forces in the area and want a homogenized curriculum. In a story in the Jonesboro Sun , one of those complaining said that students’ belief that America is one country under God would be undermined by reading the novel.
The teacher, whose abilities I know and respect, has taught the novel in the past, and now her job is at stake.
The announcement for this called meeting appeared on page 7 of the Sun on December 31st. It appears that the Valley View Board and those opposing the teaching of the novel want the issue addressed with as little publicity as possible.
Those opposing the teaching of the novel will be out in force. Those wishing to prevent this censorship need to be present as well. Please let others know of this meeting and its time and place.
HATFIELD, Pa. (AP) — Lisa Abdelsalam said she feels “like she swallowed poison” in the days since the threat of parental protests caused the Muslim mother and author to cancel a talk with students at A.M. Kulp Elementary School in Hatfield.
“I have a such a sick feeling in my stomach,” said Abdelsalam, 48, who lives in Colmar with her husband and children, all of whom were or are North Penn students.
Born in Lansdale, the 1981 North Penn High School graduate converted to Islam at 19, when she married her husband, who is from Egypt.
As she has many times at many North Penn schools, she was scheduled to meet with several Kulp classes over four days earlier this month to discuss how she wrote and published her book, “A Song for Me, A Muslim Holiday Story,” based on her son Yoseph’s experiences at York Avenue Elementary in the 1990s.
“A Song for Me, A Muslim Holiday Story,” has illustrations based on pictures of the York Avenue school and details a Muslim boy’s efforts to fit into the holiday spirit at Christmastime.
A few days before her appearance at Kulp was to take place, Principal Erik Huebner called her.
The principal, according to Abdelsalam, told her a few parents had complained about the program and threatened to bring in an outside group to protest if the classes went forward.
“They did not want a Muslim or a Muslim book read in their classrooms,” she was told. Huebner could not be reached for comment.
Abdelsalam, a longtime volunteer at Kulp where she previously served as president of the Home and School Association, and a current member of the district’s diversity committee, was taken aback. “I was serving pizza with these people last year,” she said.
Huebner was supportive, said the author, and said she was welcome to come regardless of the protests. However, both she and the principal decided it was best to cancel, for the sake of the young students.
“I didn’t feel it would be right; it wasn’t one day, it was four days over two weeks,” she explained. “It’s not a battle that should be fought in an elementary school parking lot.”
Christine Liberaski, a spokeswoman for the North Penn School District, said she hopes the program can be rescheduled in the spring.
“I can’t speak to why some people objected,” said Liberaski, who noted that Abdelsalam previously received praise for her book and her presentation on publishing.
The idea for the book came when a music teacher approached Abdelsalam years ago when Yoseph, now 21, was in elementary school. She was asked if she could find a Muslim holiday song for the school’s annual concert. Finding none, she wrote one herself and also wrote the story. She now has two CDs of music she sells online with her book.
“It’s about inclusivity and the child being happy he’s in a school where everyone is accepted,” said Abdelsalam. “I don’t go and talk about religion.”
In that same article, I explained some of my own grievances with Dr. Paul, not the least of which were the racist newsletters that were written in his name. As they say: Where there is smoke, there is fire.
But there is a disgruntled former aid to Ron Paul named Eric Dondero who is trying to artificially fan the flames by spreading stories about–and against–Ron Paul.
I was first alerted to the story by The Young Turks. Dondero blogged and tweeted about Ron Paul implying that he was racist, homophobic, anti-Israel, and a 9/11 truther.
Ex-Aide: Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy is ‘Sheer Lunacy’
A disillusioned former aide publishes scathing allegations, saying that Paul harbors anti-Israel views and is a 9/11 truther.
…[F]ormer Paul staffer Eric Dondero purporting to describe the ins and outs of Paul’s positions on everything from Israel (it shouldn’t exist) to Hitler (we shouldn’t have fought him) to 9/11 (U.S. authorities may have known about the attacks) to Afghanistan (we shouldn’t have invaded). He calls Paul’s foreign policy “sheer lunacy.”
Or, as the conservative Weekly Standard summarized in its headline: “Ex-Aide Says Ron Paul Is a 9/11 Truther & Isolationist Who Thinks U.S. Shouldn’t Have Fought Hitler.”
Eric Dondero’s statements were conveyed in a misleading way, such that many in the media portrayed them to be in defense of Ron Paul. In fact, as Mediaite has pointed out, Dondero’s message is mixed: Ron Paul is no child molester; he just likes to fondle little boys.
What nobody in the media is doing, however, is critically examining the spurious source of these allegations: Eric Dondero.
A few users on a discussion forum (one I’m unfamiliar with, but a tip of the hat to them for unearthing this) did a bit of digging and found out that Eric Dondero’s blog is full of Islamophobic screeds.
On his site, Dondero cites the vitriolic hate site Faith Freedom, which was founded by Ali Sina, a man who openly declares that he hates Islam. Dondero also relies on the extreme right-wing website World Net Daily, a conspiracy site that promoted the “Obama, show us your birth certificate” nonsense.
As one user on that discussion forum pointed out, this is just the tip of the iceberg: Eric Dondero’s numerous blog posts against Muslims make his site a lot like Jihad Watch and other nutty anti-Muslim sites, such as the one run by the Norwegian anti-Muslim terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.
Dondero opposes Muslim immigration to Western countries; here is one lovely quote from the mouth of Eric Dondero:
NO YOU STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE. MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS ARE THE PROBLEM.
Are you an American or some fucking Communist/Fascist piece of shit sent to destroy us from within?
Why do you defend the very people who KILLED 3,000 AMERICANS AND CHEERED ALL ACROSS THE MUSLIM WORLD AS IT HAPPENED?
In the same thread, he argues to deport Muslims as “his solution” to “the problem.”
Here is what Dondero says about Muslims and Islam:
This is about an alien culture, coming into our AMERICA AND WESTERN EUROPE and invading us from within.
Why on earth is anyone taking what this guy says seriously? As a rabid Islamophobe, Eric Dondero has every reason to hate Ron Paul, who fired him long time ago (even before the 2008 election). Dondero hates Ron Paul for the reasons that every Islamophobe does: (1) Ron Paul opposes Islamophobia against American Muslims; (2) he opposes the Bush-Obama curtailments of civil liberties that specifically target Muslims; and (3) he opposes America’s many wars in the Muslim world.
As I said in my article yesterday, there are plenty of reasons to have deep reservations about Ron Paul, but these recent claims by Eric Dondero should be ignored, because the source is not credible whatsoever.
DISCLAIMER: LoonWatch has not endorsed any candidate for President of the United States. This article should not be seen as such.
Update I:
A LW reader named Capauncha, who says he has been reading our website for a long time, seems to be the one who first shed light on Eric Dondero’s Islamophobia. Capauncha just posted another link to Dondero’s blog in which Dondero reproduces an article from the Philadelphia Weekly:
“My fellow Jews need to buck up,” says Eric Dondero, editor of Libertarian Republican.net, over the phone from Houston. “The big problem right now is Islam and Islamism invading our country. And if they want to continue to move in, we need to fight back. Their culture is coming here.”
Dondero, a former staffer for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, has blogged extensively about what he calls “creeping Sharia Law” over the past several years. He says if you want to know what Sharia looks like in the United States, all you have to do is look at Europe, where he claims Muslim Europeans have “invaded” the countryside.
“They’re invading Switzerland and a Swedish island called Malmo, where the Muslims are raping all the European and Swedish women,” he says, recalling that city’s reports of lawlessness between the Jewish, Muslim and Neo-Nazi populations. And he fears that if Sharia Law isn’t banned in all states the way it was banned in his, the U.S. is next.
There is no indication that Arrington and his accomplice are Muslim, their motivations are still unclear. Already the hatemongerers at FreeRepublic are casting Arrington as a Muslim youth.
(Reuters) – A “person of interest” was being questioned in connection with as many as 55 arson fires, most started in cars, in a spree that began on Thursday, Los Angeles Fire Department said on Monday.
Early Monday, several fires broke out in cars and structures in Hollywood and the surrounding areas, said an alert posted on the fire department’s website.
An unidentified person of interest was detained hours after Los Angeles police released video of a man who they said witnesses and security video footage placed at several locations where the fires started.
“It is too early to speculate if this person is responsible for the spree of arson fires,” the LAFD alert said.
The security camera video distributed by police at a news conference showed a white male in his late twenties to early thirties, dressed in black, with receding hair held in a ponytail.
Since the attacks began, a total of 55 “fires of concern” broke out, including 45 in the Los Angeles area, nine in West Hollywood and one in Burbank, the fire department said on its website.
Most of the fires started in cars and some spread to carports and homes.
Police spokesman Cleon Joseph urged residents to be on the lookout for anyone acting suspiciously.
“Keep your lights on, be diligent, watch your surroundings. If you see anything, call 911,” Joseph said.
Los Angeles Police Department Commander Andrew Smith said dozens of detectives had worked through the night to gather evidence and sift through clues.
“We’ve reassigned dozens of detectives,” Smith said. “Those detectives are now working together around the clock… We’ve got hundreds of clues, dozens of witnesses, and countless pieces of evidence,” he added.
So far, no one has been seriously hurt, but a firefighter was treated and released for injuries suffered at the site of one blaze over the weekend and another person suffered minor injuries on New Year’s Eve.
One of the fires damaged a house in the Hollywood Hills, where The Doors lead singer Jim Morrison was inspired to write the 1968 song “Love Street” about his girlfriend Pam Courson and what was then a hippie hangout.
Fire chiefs declined to say how the blazes were started.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Greg McCune)
According to the Greek press, Greek Orthodox Bishop Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus appealed to the Council of State to withdraw a Greek bill that would allow the building of a mosque in the capital city, Athens.
Known for his far-right views, Seraphim described the bill as an anti-Christian move and a disrespect to Christian martyrs, although it is billed as democratic move.
In the previous years, there were talks of building a mosque in Athens. However, no steps were taken as the previous governments’ ministers were mainly right-wingers.
This year a bill which asked for an old building in the Votanikos region of Athens to be converted into a place of worship for Muslims passed through the Greek parliament.
DISCLAIMER: LoonWatch has not endorsed any candidate for President of the United States. This article should not be seen as such.
Islamophobes absolutely hate Ron Paul. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs–the King and Queen of Islamophobia on the internet–dedicate page after page on their hate blogs lambasting the Congressman and presidential hopeful.
Why do they hate Ron Paul so much?
There are three major reasons why they detest him:
(1) Ron Paul stands up for American Muslims against Islamophobia. For example, he defended the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” arguing that the entire controversy was “all about hate and Islamophobia.”
(2) He has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Bush-Obama curtailments of civil liberties that specifically target Muslims.
(3) Paul is the only major presidential candidate to oppose America’s wars in the Muslim world. Even more importantly, Ron Paul links reason #1 above (the Lesser Islamophobia) to reason #3 (the Greater Islamophobia), arguing that “in order to perpetuate this foreign policy…they have to perpetuate this hate toward Islam.”
This third reason is also why mainstream politicians and the mainstream media dislike Ron Paul and have tried their utmost to destroy him. Fox political pundit Bill O’Reilly argued that Paul’s views on foreign policy “disqualifies him” as a candidate for president. Here is exactly what O’Reilly said:
His foreign policy disqualifies him in my eyes as an American…
Bill O’Reilly has inadvertently touched upon something very deep and meaningful: ”As an American,” foreign policy must include waging war. To do without war would simply be un-American.
One recalls the words of H. Rap Brown, the chairman of the civil rights group Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who famously declared in 1967:
Violence is as American as cherry pie.
Brown uttered this statement during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. While blacks were being beaten up and hosed down in the streets of America, the United States was raining death down upon the Vietnamese population halfway across the earth.
H. Rap Brown was not the only one in the civil rights movement who linked the struggle of blacks in America to the struggle of the darker skinned peoples of the world. For instance, Martin Luther King, Jr. called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” for its war-making:
The Soviet Union brought attention to America’s “Negro problem.” Michael L. Krenn writes on pp.89-90 of Race and U.S. Foreign Policy During the Cold War:
By 1949, according to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, “the ‘Negro question’ [was] [o]ne of the principal Soviet propaganda themes regarding the United States.” “[T]he Soviet press hammers away unceasingly on such things as ‘lynch law,’ segregation, racial discrimination, deprivation of political rights, etc., seeking to build up a picture of an America in which the Negroes are brutally downtrodden with no hope of improving their status under the existing form of government.” An [American] Embassy official believed that “this attention to the Negro problem serves political ends desired by the Soviet Union and has nothing whatsoever to do with any desire to better the Negro’s position.”
Apparently, only the United States is allowed to saber rattle and invade countries on the grounds that the “existing form of government” is discriminatory or unjust to part of its population.
With the world’s spotlight on America’s treatment of its darker-skinned citizens–and those same citizens linking their struggle to America’s foreign wars against darker-skinned peoples–the United States moved in the direction of racial integration in the 1970′s. America’s longest war was also grudgingly brought to an end.
But today, despite the fact that we have been waging wars for two decades in the Muslim world and in just the last couple years bombed over half a dozen Muslim countries, the anti-war movement is, at least compared to the 1960′s and 70′s, all but dead.
Ron Paul is one of the only major political figures–and the only major presidential candidate–to oppose America’s wars.
And that is why he is in the cross-hairs of anti-Muslim bigots, who see the world in apocalyptic holy war terms: the jihad will bring an end to Western civilization as we know it so we must destroy them first! This is their fundamental world view, which is why sustaining and protracting the wars against the Muslim world is their greatest desire.
Ron Paul threatens that paradigm. He dares to cogitate that it is our military interventions in the Muslim world that result in Islamic terrorism against the United States and her allies. He had the chutzpah to include 9/11 in this: “They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years.”
In the American national discourse, this is next to blasphemy. But, in the rest of the world (especially in Muslim countries), this is not just common knowledge, it’s common sense. In fact, nothing could be more obvious.
It’s precisely because this idea is so obvious and self-evident that it must simply never be uttered in the United States. Anyone who does so must be condemned as unpatriotic and, worse, as Unserious. Such a person’s character must be viciously attacked.
That’s exactly what is happening to Ron Paul. Unfortunately, Paul deserves much of the blame for making himself such an easy target. The racist newsletters are a gold-mine for his opponents. Pamela Geller gleefully called them a “bombshell,” arguing that his presidential bid is now “unrecoverable” and that “[h]e is done.”
The evidence against Ron Paul, that he wrote those vile things against black people, is certainly very strong. The only saving grace for Paul is the fact that those racist screeds do not sound anything like him. Whether or not this alone can outweigh the proof against him, I do not know. Whatever the case, Paul’s delay in disassociating himself from the letters, his ever-changing excuses, and his questionable associations are enough to condemn him. (A balanced article on Ron Paul was written by the indefatigable Glenn Greenwald.)
Under normal circumstances, I’d have nothing but absolute contempt for Ron Paul. In fact, even if he didn’t have such racism-related baggage, a progressive like myself would have nothing to do with a man who wants to get rid of social welfare programs, the Department of Education, etc. etc. When it comes to domestic issues, there is probably very little Ron Paul and I would see eye-to-eye on. Worse yet, I find many of his views on such matters to be outside the realms of reasonableness–I’d go so far as to call them loony.
Yet, many progressives like myself are finding themselves inexorably drawn to Ron Paul. That is because he is the only major presidential candidate to oppose America’s wars. Stated another way: the rest of the candidates–including the incumbent president (who expanded the War on Terror)–are war-makers. Ron Paul is the only peace candidate.
This says a lot about the state of our union more than it does about Ron Paul. War-making has become such a staple of American life that the only man who stands a chance (and a slim one at that) of bringing an end to Endless War is a loony, fringe candidate with a questionable and possibly racist past.
I have been criticized by some Islamophobes for daring to say anything positive about Ron Paul. But, the fact that a person of my views (a progressive peacenik) is forced to consider Ron Paul is indicative of how truly violent and warlike our country has become (or, rather, has always been). This underscores my main counter-argument to the Supreme Islamophobic Myth: we, as part of the Judeo-Christian West, have been and are still, just as, if not more, violent and warlike than the Muslim world.
This fact is underscored even more by the fact that thereason why Ron Paul has been “disqualified” as a realistic candidate is because, in the words of Bill O’Reilly, of his peace-loving foreign policy. Imagine, for instance, if an Iranian candidate for the Iranian presidency could never realistically win unless he advocated for war against other countries. What would it say about Iranians if they, by convention and consensus, refused to elect someone who advocated peaceful relations with the rest of the world?
One would expect that progressive peaceniks like myself would have more options to choose from than just one candidate. But because warmongering is an essential component of being president of the United States (and serving in the military is almost a prerequisite to getting elected–imagine if Iranians would demand that their leaders must have sometime in their lives fought jihad), there is virtually nobody to vote for.
In an earlier article, I wrote of how war has been a part of the American psyche since the very beginning, from 1776 all the way to the present. We’ve never gone a decade without a major war, and no president in our history can truly be considered a peacetime president. Yet, somehow even after waging wars for more than 91% of our existence, we look at ourselves as peace-makers and “those Moozlums over there” as violent and warlike.
A verse from the Quran is most fitting here: “When it is said to them: ‘Do not make mischief on earth,’ they say: ‘We are but peace-makers.’ In fact, they are the mischief-makers, but they realize it not.” (2:11-12)
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Something else that reinforces my argument is the fact that even Ron Paul, the single peace proponent in the presidential race, does not seem to oppose war based on peacenik principles. He usually raises financial and political arguments against the wars, instead of humanitarian ones: We’re bankrupting ourselves. Or: These wars result in terrorism (against us).
Our moral compass should not be dictated by money or self-interest. We should oppose these wars because killing innocent civilians is morally atrocious. This is what should be the main argument:
Not this:
Let me clarify: there is nothing wrong with raising financial and political arguments as secondary reasons to end the wars. In fact, I would encourage doing so. But, the primary motivation behind opposing wars should be less self-centered (the war is costing us too much money, they may retaliate with terrorism against us, too many of our young soldiers are risking their lives over there), but more humanitarian towards the victims of our aggression: we are killing innocent civilians.
Ron Paul’s emphasis on financial and political reasons, as opposed to humanitarian concerns, seems to be consistent with his ideology. (After all, he supported Israel’s bombing of Iraq in 1981 and seems unconcerned if Israel bombs Iran on its own accord. This indicates to me that it is not the dead in Iraq or Iran that bothers him so much, but only that it would cost us money to kill them or would risk retaliation against us for doing so.) What does it say about America if even the one and only supposed peace candidate is against wars not out of humanitarian reasons but financial and political concerns?
Even if I am being too harsh on Ron Paul and it’s just a political consideration to focus on financial and political reasons, what does it say about us Americans that we can only be convinced based on our wallets and not on our consciences?
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I don’t say this very often, but Pamela Geller was absolutely right when she said about Ron Paul that “[h]e is done.” He most certainly is. And so dies the only candidate who could have ended America’s Endless Wars.
One should point out, however, that just because the Islamophobes have found the Kryptonite that will kill Ron Paul (the racist newsletters) this doesn’t change the fact that Paul’s foreign policy views were correct.
Let this be a lesson to groupies and fan boys of Ron Paul, a lesson that groupies and fan boys of Barack Obama should also heed: do not put your hopes in a man, because if you do, that man will often, if not always, disappoint you. Put your faith in a conviction instead. If you hold on tightly enough to the conviction and not the man, it will persevere.
All the facts on this are not clear yet, but it is being reported as a bias crime in many reports. If this holds true then it will be another manifestation of the all too real threat to Muslim communities from radical hatemongers.
A wave of arson attacks spread across eastern Queens on Sunday night, and the police said the firebombings were being investigated as bias crimes — with Muslims as the targets.
No one was hurt in the four attacks, in which homemade firebombs were apparently used. In three of the four attacks, the police said, Molotov cocktails were made with Starbucks bottles.
The first attack occurred just before 8 p.m. at a bodega at 179-40 Hillside Avenue.
Ten minutes later, another crude firebomb was thrown, this time at a private home at 146-62 107th Avenue, and the house caught fire.
Half an hour after that, an Islamic center at 89-89 Van Wyck Expressway was the target. The last attack occurred at a house at 88-20 170th Street, the police said.
The Islamic center, the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation, houses one of the most prominent Shiite mosques in New York. According to its Web site it offers funeral services, counseling and free SAT classes. It lists branches in several cities, including Montreal and Islamabad, Pakistan. Calls to the foundation were not returned Sunday night.
The firebomb, made with a glass Starbucks bottle, was thrown at the door of the center, possibly from a van as it drove it by, the police said. The door was blackened, but the building did not catch fire.
A similar weapon was found at the bodega, the site of the first attack, according to the police. The bomb might have been thrown from inside the store, because the counter sustained some damage, the police said.
It was the second attack, on 107th Avenue, police and fire officials said, that caused the most damage.
Shortly after 8 p.m., someone called 911, saying that a Molotov cocktail had been thrown at their home. The house caught fire, and it took more than 60 firefighters about 40 minutes to bring it under control.
In the fourth attack, two bottles were thrown at the house on 170th Street. A spokesman for the Fire Department said that the person who called 911 said they saw a vehicle drive by as the bottles were hurled toward their home. But the flames quickly fizzled.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called for federal civil rights charges to be filed against a man seeking to “save his country” by allegedly stabbing a faculty member of the University of Illinois College of Law who he thought was Middle Eastern.
The non-Muslim victim of Sri Lankan origin was stabbed December 7 on the second floor of the Illinois Terminal Building in Champaign, Ill. The victim was singled out due to his perceived ethnicity and the attacker allegedly committed the offense to, in his words, save his country. The victim underwent surgery for a stab wound to his neck.
His alleged attacker, 23-year-old Joshua Scaggs, was charged with attempted murder and a hate crime.
We thank local law enforcement authorities for their swift and professional actions in this case and urge the US Department of Justice to consider what federal civil rights charges could be filed in the case, said a CAIR spokesman.
Adding, Our society must begin to address the rising level of anti-Muslim sentiment that can lead to such disturbing incidents.
CAIR contacted the FBI and local police to seek the investigation of a possible bias motive for the stabbing of a Sikh man at Fresno Yosemite International Airport in California.
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