Islamophobe Mark Tapson of FrontPageMagRag got really really upset that he couldn’t find any sort of radical, stealth “Jihadist” conspiracy even after “changing his name” (likely pretending to be a Muslim like David Gaubatz did beforehand). He still believes however that such innocuous Muslim conferences are part of a Muslim Brotherhood plot to win “the hearts and minds of the young.”

Anti-Islam writer “infiltrates” Muslim conference, finds it “innocuous”

But he says that it’s all part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s plot to win “the hearts and minds of the young”

BY JILLIAN RAYFIELD

Mark Tapson, a writer for the conservative and anti-Islam FrontPage Magazine, detailed how his secret infiltration of the Muslim Student Association’s yearly West Coast conference did not yield the expected results. “It was largely very innocuous. I mean, there was nothing beyond what I’ve already told you, really. There was very little that you’d consider radical. Highly politicized, yes, but nothing damning,” Tapson said.

Miranda Blue from Right Wing Watch reports that Tapson was speaking on Janet Mefferd’s radio show, and was disappointed that after going so far as to use a “variation” of his name to get into the conference, there was nothing too nefarious to report, even at the apparently tantalizingly named panel “Islamatics.”

But, he stipulated, this is all part of the plan. Mefferd noted ”that for the Muslim Brotherhood front groups that organized this thing, it serves as a very successful recruitment and radicalization tool. Is that really, at root, the reason for the conference, or at least a primary reason for the conference …?”

Tapson agreed:

A good breakdown by MotherJones of how many in the GOP are retreating from the Islamophobes. While the article below paints the GOP embrace of the psychotic anti-Muslim brigades as having been done unknowingly, I do believe it had more to do with political expediency and for some, ideology.

Also, it’s shocking though welcome to see Sue Myrick take back her anti-Muslim bigotry though she needs to come out publicly and repudiate the Forward she wrote, as well as the book “Muslim Mafia” authored by David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry.

The GOP’s Anti-Muslim Wing Is In Retreat

By Tim Murphy and Adam Serwer (MotherJones)

Over the last four years, a die-hard cadre of activists and their allies in Congress have dragged the Republican Party into a fever swamp of Islamophobia and barely-concealed anti-Muslim bigotry. In their paranoid scenario, Islamic Shariah law is creeping into American courts; the Department of Justice has come under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood; and the president’s engagement ring includes secret writing that indicates Muslim loyalties.

But after a November election that saw three of the party’s loudest voices on “creeping Shariah” defeated—and the GOP presidential nominee ignore the issue entirely—the anti-Islam movement within the Republican party may have peaked. Wary of further alienating aonce-promising conservative constituency, mainstream Republican leaders have sought, publicly and behind closed doors, to distance themselves from the loudest of the Muslim-bashers in their midst.

“They have gotten a bit of bad odor,” says GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist, who has pushed to change his party’s tone on Islam.

Randa Fahmy Hudome, a former Bush administration official, Washington lobbyist, and prominent Muslim Republican, notes: “There is a self-policing factor in the Republican Party, when some members get a little off base on some of these issues. That’s the state of play right now.”

A turning point came in July, when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), along with four Republican colleagues, signed a letterdemanding an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s supposed infiltration of the State Department. The letter singled out a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin. Bachmann and her colleagues, deploying tenuous evidence and guilt-by-association, charged that Abedin should not have been given a security clearance because of alleged ties to Muslim radicals.

Days later, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had condemned Bachmann’s letter from the floor of the Senate, calling it “unwarranted and unfounded” and “scurrilous.” Speaker of the House John Boehner piled on, calling the letter “dangerous.” The chair of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), emphasized to USA Today that though she served on his committee, Bachmann’s allegations did not have the committee’s imprimatur. Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida senator and tea party favorite widely touted as a potential 2016 contender, publicly denounced the allegations promoted by Bachmann and her allies, like former Reagan official and longtime anti-Shariah activist Frank Gaffney.

Behind the scenes, GOPers worked to smooth over hurt feelings. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who in 2007 became the chamber’s first-ever Muslim member, says several Republican House members quietly approached him to apologize for the Abedin episode. Norquist, who runs the influential group Americans for Tax Reform, says that following the letter controversy, “We have heard back from a bunch of Hill staffers—’We are keeping our guy away from Gaffney and those guys, they’re crazy.’”

Gaffney has been blacklisted from the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual CPAC confab, since 2011, after accusing Norquist and an associate, Suhail Khan, of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood. He’s also become persona non grata at the Weyrich lunches, the weekly consevative strategy sessions first initiated by the late social conservative guru Paul Weyrich. His insistence on accusing anyone who deviates from his anti-Shariah line of terrorist sympathies has put him on the outs with the Republican establishment. (Gaffney did not respond to requests for comment.)

The Abedin letter prompted the most public break the party leadership had made from the anti-Muslim fringe since George W. Bush was president. During the Bush years, a vocal anti-Islam movement on the right was kept in check by a Republican administration that went out of its way to note the distinction between the average Muslim and the extremist fringe who carried out the 9/11 attacks. (There was a political motivation, too: Bush backers credited Muslim voters with helping turn Florida red.)

But as Bush’s popularity waned during his second term and the administration grew desperate for allies wherever it could find them, the rebukes of anti-Muslim figures like Pat Robertson came to a stop. “Or if it happened,” Norquist says, “we stopped hearing about it.”

When Barack Obama took office, the dam broke. Anti-Muslim activists were on television and leading protests in the streets, spreading conspiracy theories about the president’s birth and his administration’s supposed stealth Islamist agenda. Since 2009, two-dozen statesintroduced legislation to prohibit the non-existent threat of Shariah law from state courts. Five of them passed. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House committee on homeland security, held four hearings on the alleged radicalization of the American Muslim community. Conspiracy theories about American Muslims seeking to impose Saudi-style Islamic law drove communities nationwide to attempt to block construction of mosques, and in New York, the proposed Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan triggered anelection-year scandal in 2010.

By elevating fringe figures and their political allies into the public view, the anti-Islam movement’s success may have been its undoing. And even before the GOP establishment’s public criticism of Bachmann, there were signs that some Republicans had grown uncomfortable with the rhetoric of the Muslim-bashers.

Read the rest…

Sikhs pray at the funeral for those killed by White Supremacist terrorist, Wade Michael Page.

by Garibaldi

Friday, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin six Sikh Americans, five men and one woman, victims of a terrorist attack were laid to rest “surrounded by men and women singing traditional Punjabi hymns.” They were killed in their house of worship, the Gurdwara, where they had gathered for prayer and celebration. The six fallen are as follows: Sita Singh, 41; Ranjit Singh, 49; Prakash Singh, 39; Paramjit Kaur, 41; Suveg Singh, 84; and the temple’s president, Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65.

When news of the terrorist attack on the Sikh Temple was breaking I unreservedly reported it on Loonwatch, it had all the hallmarks of an attack rooted in hate and Islamophobia. Considering the underreported increase in hate crimes and bias attacks against Sikhs, many of which are motivated by attackers’ “misplaced Islamophobia,” I highlighted that,

At the moment we do not know who the shooter was, or his motivation, but in light of the rise in bias attacks and incidents against Sikhs, who are often mistaken for Muslims, this story may be related to violent anti-Muslim Islamophobia and general xenophobia.

Immediately, Islamophobic critics, most of whom are keen on downplaying the effects of racism and bigotry took offense, claiming we were trying to score “points.” This is nothing more than their own projection, as any crime, real or perceived, possibly committed by a Muslim would forthrightly be blamed by them on “Islam.” As Wajahat Ali points out, questions about whether Wade Michael Page actually mistook Sikhs for Muslims are “irrelevant.”

We have yet to determine if Page mistook Sikhs for Muslims, but such questions are irrelevant. In today’s Islamophobic atmosphere, there has been increased marginalization of all AMEMSA (Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian) communities. In particular, Sikh Americans have faced the brunt of post 9/11 hate crimes and backlash, with Sikh men often being mistaken for Muslims. The first, post 9/11 hate crime murder was of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh gas station owner in Arizona, whom the murderer chose because he was“dark-skinned, bearded and wore a turban.”

What has largely been missing from this discussion however is the relationship between White Supremacists and Islamophobia; there is a nexus that links the two. White supremacy is not new to the Islamophobia Movement. White Supremacist groups and ideologues on both sides of the Atlantic have latched onto the rhetoric of Islamophobic anti-Muslim hate, which they find to be an altogether more easier, accommodating and acceptable vehicle of bigotry to express their agendas and policies. This approach was summed up by Nick Griffin of the BNP (heirs of the White Supremacist National Front), his quite public attempt to break with the BNP’s anti-Semitic past was revealed for the fraud that every one suspected it was. At a conference in the USA, Griffin spoke about the BNP’s strategy and true attitude towards Jews,

“The proper enemy to any political movement isn’t necessarily the most evil and the worst. The proper enemy is the one we can most easily defeat.”

The enemy he talks about most “easily” defeating are Muslims.

Like the BNP, the Islamophobes in the EDL are following a similar course, showing faux respect and solidarity with other groups while bashing Muslims and Islam. Frequently, one will see Israeli flags at EDL protests, a cover that ironically masks a number of Neo-Nazis and sieg heil saluters at the core of the EDL grassroots. In Germany, a story layered with Islamophobia from the lowest to the highest levels exposed a severe security blunder on the part of authorities; for over ten years a cell of Neo-Nazis targeted and murdered German Muslims of Turkish and North African descent. Throughout Europe, Muslim places of worship, community centers and graves have been desecrated with swastikas. Geert Wilders (PVV), Marine Le Pen (FN), Vlaams Belang, Italy’s Northern League, Greece’s Golden Dawn are just some of the supremacists whose rhetoric echoes closely their more open and unabashed White Supremacist and fascist predecessors.

In the United States one must recall the godfather of Islamophobia, Daniel Pipes who bemoaned ‘brown-skinned Muslim people’s exotic customs,’

“Western societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene…All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”

Pipes’ Jewishness in this regard did not impede him from hurling such racist sentiments akin to what we expect to hear from the Grand Wizard of the KKK. The revelation here is that while some White Supremacists are eager to mask their old prejudices for more convenient “new” ones, there are some individuals from minority backgrounds who are all too eager to reciprocate. This is likely why you saw a Jewish Defense League division of the EDL, and Rabbi Nachum Shifren taking up the rhetoric of White Supremacism,

… I AM an Islamophobe, and everything we need to know about Islam, we learned on 9-11! I believe in peace and justice for everybody – but that’s not why they’re here…. We’re getting sucker-punched because we as white – yes I said it! – as white, Christian Americans are being taught that somehow WE are to blame for all the problems.

White Supremacism’s nexus with Islamophobia is even more vividly on display when we encounter the curious case of White Supremacist, David Yerushalmi. Yerushalmi, one will note, is the chief architect behind the anti-Sharia legislation drive that has swept dozens of US states over the past several years. Yerushalmi’s oxymoronic identities of Orthodox Jew and White Supremacist reminds one of the case of young Israeli-Russian Jews who turned Neo-Nazi, and afterword went on an anti-Semitic binge in Tel Aviv.

Yerushalmi is a co-founder of the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE); an organization that seeks to criminalize the practice of Islam. Islamophobe David Gaubatz‘s Mapping Shariah Project was conducted under the aegis of SANE, it’s main claim that over 80% of mosques in the USA are hotbeds of radicalism and terror is a viral talking-point with the Islamophobia Movement. This fake claim about US mosques has been reproduced by such prominent bigots as Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes, Frank Gaffney and has even found its way into the mouths of numerous politicians, including Rep. Peter King, the McCarthyist chair of the current witch-hunt hearings on American Muslims. The number of “80%” has also been used to delegitimize and impede the construction of mosques. It was a frequent trope that was pulled out by anti-Mosque activists during the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy.

We know that bigots have, since 9/11, wedded the rhetoric of Islamophobia and White Supremacism. The Twin Towers, a building that was targeted by terrorists, has been transformed by the cynical in the Islamophobia-White Supremacist nexus into a symbol to be manipulated and exploited for their own agendas. Was it a coincidence that the terrorist Wade Michael Page had a 9/11 tattoo?

Maybe not.

9/11 and The Twin Towers have unfortunately become part of the iconography of hate amongst the Islamophobia Movement. The Twin Towers are all over the Islamophobes’ websites and blogs and even in their emblems, for instance, take Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller’s SIOA image:

Long before the SPLC labeled SIOA a hate group, Loonwatch did. Loonwatch exposed not only how Islamophobic the SIOA is but how its membership is filled with racists, many who espouse White Supremacist views, with frequent talk of “ragheads” and “sandniggers” on their official Facebook membership page.

In a clear example of the union of Islamophobic and White Supremacist iconography take Douglas Story, a White Supremacist who adorned his pickup truck with the Confederate flag; the Neo-Nazi code numbers of 14 and 88 on his license plate; as well as an image of the collapsing Twin Tower’s with the words, “Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Islam, I Learned on 9/11.”

Douglas Story was later arrested by the FBI for purchasing an AK-47 from an undercover agent. Robert Spencer defended Douglas Story and has never issued a retraction or an apology for his defense of Story.

I have only scratched the surface when it comes to the nexus between White Supremacism and Islamophobia in this article. There is much more to discuss. While Islamophobia is a multi-varied phenomenon, White Supremacism is a virulent and pungent trend within the ranks of the Islamophobia Movement. A further, more detailed article discussing all of the various Islamophobic-White Supremacist hate organizations, web sites, blogs, and political parties is necessary for a full treatment of this dangerous racism.

Sheila Musaji puts together an important backgrounder on Frank Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy. Who is Frank Gaffney? What is the Center for Security Policy? What do they do? Who funds them?

Frank Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy

by Sheila Musaji (TAM)

There are numerous articles on The American Muslim (TAM) discussing Gaffney and the CSP.  This article will become the “backgrounder” providing the information in an abbreviated format with links to references for more detailed discussions of particular issues.

Frank Gaffney provides “valuable information” to government officials and leaders regularly:

— He is advising Rep. Bachmann on foreign policy. — When Sen. Greg Ball (R-NY), chairman of the Veterans, Homeland Security & Military Affairs Committee held a hearing titled “Reviewing our Preparedness: An Examination of New York’s Public Protection Ten Years After September 11”  on April 8th, 2011, Frank Gaffney was called to testify (along with Rep. Peter King, Frank and Nonie Darwish).  Eleven democratic senators sent a letter to Senator Ball objecting to the inclusion of such individuals.  ** — During the Murfreesboro Mosque controversy in Tennessee, at one court hearing, Frank Gaffney was called to testify.  The local paper reported: Plaintiffs called former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan, Frank Gaffney, to the stand and asked the court to enter him as an expert on Sharia Law. “I don’t hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law,” Gaffney told the court on the witness stand. “But I have talked a lot about that as a threat.” — Frank Gaffney and one of his Center for Security Policy “reports” was the primary source, and Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism a secondary source for Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s witch hunt against American Muslims in government positions.  See Michele Bachmann Ups the Ante in the GOP War on American Muslims and Is Congressional Christian Brotherhood Group Behind GOP Islamophobia? for a full discussion.

It is amazing that he, or the other Islamophobes he works with, are given this sort of credence, since their real agenda is well known.  Gaffney has been mentioned in just about every legitimate report about Islamophobia and the anti-Sharia movement:

— Gaffney is included in the SPLC Jihad Against Islam report and described as one of a “coterie of core activists”, — and in the SPLC backgrounder on Gaffney, where he is identified as “the anti-Muslim movement’s most paranoid propagandist.” — And in the SPLC report The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.  — Gaffney features prominently in the Center for American Progress“Fear, Inc.” report as one of 5 key “misinformation experts”. — He is also prominently featured in the People for the American Way “Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism”  which called Gaffney “one of the most vociferous anti-Muslim ideologues” and said that he “cited phony statistic to defend his campaign to prevent the construction of mosques in America”. — He is mentioned in the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack: The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State.  — The ADL report on the anti-Sharia movement says about Gaffney “Yerushalmi is General Counsel to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, founded by Frank J. Gaffney. Gaffney has been active in opposing mosque construction and has made several statements about Islam that raise concerns. For example, in a 2009 article in the Washington Times, Gaffney claimed that “there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.” In 2010, the Center for Security Policy published the book Shari’ah: The Threat To America, An Exercise in Competitive Analysis, Report of Team ‘B’ II, co-authored by Yerushalmi. The book repeated Yerushalmi’s theories about a vast Shari’a threat to America.”

Not only Gaffney, but the other Islamophobes that he regularly works with are all mentioned in these reports.— The ADL (A Jewish anti-defamation group) has said that  Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA),  Brigitte Gabriel’s Act for America, and David Yerushalmi’s Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE) are “groups that promote an extreme anti-Muslim agenda”.   — The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated SIOA as a hate group.  — Many of them are featured in the Political Research Associates report Manufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.  —  The ADL says of David Yerushalmi One of the driving forces behind Shari’a-related conspiracy theories and growing efforts to ban or restrict the use of Shari’a law in American courts is David Yerushalmi, an Arizona attorney with a record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry. — Gaffney and all of those he works with are featured in TAM’s Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry, with backgrounders on each of them.

As the SPLC report Jihad Against Islam says “One doesn’t have to probe very deeply to find the fingerprints of the eight central activists — Spencer, Pipes, Horowitz, Gaffney, Emerson, Gabriel, Geller and Yerushalmi — on almost every aspect of the recent surge in anti-Muslim fervor in America. The conservative media, led by FOX News personalities Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Eric Bolling and including the upstart Pajamas Media online network, evangelist Franklin Graham, and a contingent of sympathetic right-wing bloggers and commentators, have joined in to help construct a “movement” that 9/11 itself didn’t generate.”
BACKGROUND ON FRANK GAFFNEY:

Gaffney has turned up so many “Muslim infiltrators” in government or civic positions that it is difficult to keep track.  If a Muslim runs for political office, or even wants to get involved in their local community, or establish any sort of institution, whether they are a Republican or a Democrat, outrageous charges of “creeping Sharia prononent”,  “stealth jihadist”, “Muslim Brotherhood plant”, etc. are made by Islamophobes.   Here are just a few examples of such attacks (almost all instigated by Frank Gaffney):

— Rep. Keith Ellison has faced numerous assaults. — David Ramadan, a Muslim GOP candidate in a Virginia House of Delegates race. — Sohail Mohammed nominated as a judge on the NJ state Superior Court. — Suhail Khan was accused of being a Muslim Brotherhood operative “infiltrating” CPAC.   — Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates was attacked for giving Muslims common legal advice.  — Faisal Gill, a former JAG officer in the Navy and a Bush White House official accused of terrorist connections when he attempted to get involved in local politics. —Parvez Ahmed’s appointment to the Jacksonville, Florida Human Rights Commission was strongly opposed. — Rep. Andre Carson was recently embroiled in a manufactured controversy.  — Ahmed Rehab faced bigotry when he was appointed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel as part of an advisory committee on immigration issues.  — Halim Dhanidina, who spent 14 years as a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, was appointed to a California Superior Court judgeship by Gov. Jerry Brown, he was attacked for having been in the MSA as a student.  — Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy is pressuring the Gov. of Tennessee to fire Samar Ali from the position of Director of the Economic and Community Development Dept.  — Mohamed Elibiary, a member of DHS’s Combatting Violent Extremism Working Group (CVE). — Imam Mohamed Magid, President of ISNA. — Ingrid Mattson former President of ISNA for being included in Inaugural Prayer Service. — Mazen Asbahi who was forced to resign as Obama’s Muslim Outreach Coordinator. — Dalia Mogahed for her appointment to the White House’s Office of Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.  — Huma Abedin has been facing bigoted accusations for at least the past year. — Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was attacked for wanting to build a community center. Imams Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir for wanting to build a Muslim college, Zaytuna.

You don’t even have to be a Muslim to come under attack by the Gaffney and his fellow Islamophobes.

— Gov. Rick Perry was attacked by Islamophobes simply for his friendship with the Aga Khan and not being anti-Muslim enough.    —  Gov. Chris Christie was accused of “abetting treason” for appointing a Muslim.   — Frank Gaffney claimed that the Center for American Progress was part of ‘red-green axis’ with Muslim Brotherhood.   — Elena Kagan was accused of “enabling efforts to insinuate” Shariah law in the United States.  — Gen. David Petraeus was accused of of “submission to Sharia law”.  — When Herman Cain met with Imam Magid of ISNA and other Muslim leaders to apologize for some anti-Muslim statements, Gaffney objected and accused Cain of meeting with Muslim Brotherhood operatives.   — Karen Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy was attacked for attending an ISNA conference.  — Gaffney called President Obama“America’s first Muslim president”, and claimed that President Obama is advancing Sharia Law and the ‘Radical Homosexual Agenda’ in the Military, and said that Obama’s respect for Muslims is a secret code telling “those who adhere to Sharia [Muslims] that we will submit to Sharia.” . — Gaffney called the U.S. Missile Defense Agency Logo “evidence of Obama’s ‘Submission To Shariah’.” — Gaffney claimed that Grover Norquist “is helping the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrate the conservative movement”.  —  — GOP Presidential Candidates were asked by Frank Gaffney to sign a “pledge” or loyalty oath against Sharia.

Gaffney is one of those who continuously discovers non-existent Muslim jihad plots.  Islamophobessee jihad everywhere, but Gaffney specifically has an obsession with Sharia plots.  See Islamic Sharia and Jewish Halakha Arbitration Courts for a full discussion of the anti-Sharia movement. For example:

— Gaffney contended in a Washington Times editorial that the efforts to use non-interest measures to do banking transactions was a Muslim conspiracy to impose Islamic law on the United States. — Gaffney published an over the top Islamophobic rant calling the proposed Cordoba House/Park51 center “a durable, symbolic taunt by our enemies about their bloody victory”, which is “designed to be a permanent, in-our-face beachhead for Shariah, a platform for inspiring the triumphalist ambitions of the faithful and eroding resistence to their demands for separate and (for the moment, at least) equal treatment in America.”  He also uses all the tired cliches – taqiyya, stealth jihad, etc. — Gaffney regularly suggests that any opposition to his positions is taqiyya which we have dealt with previously. — Gaffney said about the newly opened Zaytuna College “This is stealth jihad in the sense that it is about promoting in the United States incubators for sharia,” the religious law of Islam.”  Gaffney thinks Al-Jazeera is a purveyor of Islamic propaganda and part of the “civilizational jihad”, and wrote an article  entitled “Take Out Al Jazeera,” offering a rationale for bombing not only Al Jazeera but Al Arabiya as well. — Gaffney also thinks that Anders Breivik’s manifesto might be a false flag operation that “contributes to Sharia’s efforts” – that means the only possible culprits are, of course, Muslims.  See Understanding Shariah Law:  Conservatives’ Skewed Interpretation Needs Debunking, by Wajahat Ali and Matthew Duss which provides more useful information on this topic. See Islamophobes see Jihad everywhere for refutation of hundreds of such false claims.

Here are just a few ridiculous claims about nonsensical Muslim jihad plots that Gaffney and his fellow Islamophobes have uncovered:

An Eid Celebration for Muslim Special Needs Kids was described as a “stealth jihad”.   A children’s page in a newspaper focusing on Eid was described as a toxic propaganda plot.  Joel Hinrichs (a Christian) had a beard and had walked through the parking lot of a campus mosque thus proving that his crime was an example of sudden jihad syndrome.   The awful April 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech by a Korean student was also called Islamic jihad because Cho’s father had once worked in Saudi Arabia (before he was married and before Cho was born).  A Muslim doctor had a heart attack and died at the wheel of his car which then crashed into a shopping mall and this was described as “vehicular jihad”.   A Muslim cab driver objected to what he considered pornographic ads on the roof of his cab, and that became astealth-jihad plot to impose Sharia on America.  Any Muslim who has sued an employer for violation of their rights under the EEOC is engaged in employment jihad, or litigation jihad.  Muslim environmentalists are said to be actually engaged in “civilizational jihad”.  A cartoon series “The 99” aimed at young Muslims was described as “cultural jihad”.  The victims of the terrorist attack of 9/11 included Muslims, they were accused of dying as martyrs in an act of jihad.

The Islamophobes have uncovered countless examples of “shocking” Muslim jihad plots.  They have uncovered:  bumper sticker jihad,  Thanksgiving turkey jihad, an incredible paisley scarf jihad, marriage to important men jihad, spit jihad, fashion jihad, spelling bee jihad, rape jihad,  defacing dollar bills jihad,   population jihad, creeping Sharia jihad,   mosque building jihad, terror baby jihad, “creeping Sharia” jihad,  pedophilia jihad,  bus driver prayer jihad,forehead bruise jihad, postage stamp jihad, soup jihad,  banning alcohol jihad, fake hate crimes jihad, piggy bank jihad,  tv reality series jihad, handshake jihad, prom jihad, interfaith jihad, Arabic language jihad,  public school jihad, religious accommodation jihad, Crescent moon jihad, Christmas tree tax jihad, oath of office jihad, immigration jihad, community fundraiser jihad.  Christina Abraham (a Muslim) has a name that is not recognizably Muslim enough and so we have stealth name jihad.  And, when it seemed they might have run out of plots to warn about, we now have public school/madrassa jihad, and post office jihad, andfood jihad.

Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP) has produced or cooperated in the production of a number of “reports”.

— The right-wing “Team B II” report Shariah: The Threat To America” which claims that the “Muslim Brotherhood in insinuating shariah into the very heartland of America through stealthy means.”  —  CSP also produced Shariah Law and American State Courts which distorted information about court cases and their possible implications.  Both are discussed at length in the article Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy Sharia Reports a Threat to American Ideals — David Yerushalmi who was one of the authors of the Team BII report also released a report Mapping Sharia:  Shari’a and Violence in American Mosques by Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi which was published in Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Quarterly Summer 2011 issue.  I have debunked this one in an article titled Mapping Sharia Project Goes Beyond Islamophobia to Raving, Paranoid, In(SANE)ity!. — The CSP also produced a 10-hour video course The Muslim Brotherhood in America from which Michelle Bachmann got her “facts”. — According to the Center for American Progress Fear, Inc. report, Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP) funded research David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry’s book Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.  See Dave Gaubatz and the “Muslim Mafia” for more detailed background including the fact that Gaubatz is also a former employee of David Yerushalmi’s racist hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE).  Dave Gaubatz was at one-time “Director of Intelligence and Counter-terrorism Studies” for Yerushalmi.  In 2007, Yerushalmi’s group paid Gaubatz $148,898 for “research.”

Gaffney and the CSP also sponsor and participate in other Islamophobes anti-Muslim activities.  This Islamophobic network is very much intertwined.  For example:

— One of the anti-mosque rallies was sponsored by a group called The Coalition to Honor Ground Zero.  They sponsored one of the most hateful rallies against the Cordoba House/Park51 Center.  However, as Glenn Greenwald has reported “The group which sponsored this rally has a website, the repellently named StopThe911Mosque.com, which is registered to The Center for Security Policy, the group of Frank Gaffney.” — Gaffney is one of the regular speakers at David Horowitz’ annual Islamo Fascism Awareness Week on college campuses. — David Yerushalmi is Pamela Geller‘s personal attorney and has represented AFDI/SIOA (Stop the Islamization of America) run by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.  Yerushalmi incorporated American Freedom Defense Initiative which is the non-profit under which she and Robert Spencer produce their blogs, Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch.  He is also the legal counsel for Frank Gaffney’s anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy and served in the same role for Stop the Madrassa, the group which got Debbie Almontaser fired as principal of the Khalil Gibran Academy.— Gaffney regularly appears on Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT for America program, on which once said that Muslims practicing Sharia should be prosecuted for sedition. — Gaffney co-sponsored Geert Wilders’s National Press Club event. — Gaffney PNAC was one of the founders of the (Project for a New American Century), the notorious neo-con think. — Loonwatch did a lengthy report on LATMA and Caroline Glick which included this interesting fact:  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.  TAM has a backgrounder on LATMA and Glick titled Caroline Glick and LATMA:  Promoting the meme of Muslims as “the other” outlining many of their vicious anti-Muslim propaganda pieces on their weekly television program.

FUNDING:

A number of investigations have been done into where the money comes from for Gaffney’s CSP to operate:

The Center for American Progress “Fear, Inc. report of 2011reported:  “In 2009, the Center for Security Policy (CSP)’s annual revenue was nearly $4 million, and Frank Gaffney’s annual salary was nearly $300,000 as president of the organization. Over the past decade, the Scaife foundations gave CSP nearly $3 million, the Bradley Foundation more than $800,000, the Becker foundations about $375,000, and the Anchorage and William Rosenwald funds about $437,000, with the Fairbrook Foundation contributing smaller amounts. All told, CSP received about $20 million in revenue between 2002 and 2009.”

Max Blumenthal reported that: The $437,000 in donations Gaffney reaped from the Rosenwald family enabled him to churn out conspiratorial pamphlets like his 2010 “Shariah: The Threat to America,” in which he warned that American Muslims were engaged in a “stealth jihad” to place the country under the control of Sharia, or Islamic law.

According to Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress:  CSP has big-time right-wing funders like theBradley Foundation and, presumably, its board of directors. Gaffney’s board includes the vice president of Van Scoyoc Associates, which touts itself as the “largest independent lobbying company in Washington, D.C,” with numerous defense clients and $15.93 million in lobbying revenue over the first six months of 2010. Other members of Gaffney’s board include the former vice president of Boeing’s missile defense division, and the head of the investment firm American Securities Management L.P.  The group paid Gaffney $288,300 in 2008, according to its most recently available 990 form.

Bob Smietana reported that Frank Gaffney, head of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Security Policy, earned a $288,300 salary from his charity in 2008. Gaffney was a key witness in recent hearings in the Rutherford County lawsuit filed by mosque opponents. He said he paid his own way.

According to Paul Blumenthal: Irving Moskowitz provided $100,000 to the Center for Security Policy.

The problem is that this sort of Islamophobic rhetoric and activity is coming not just from the professional Islamophobes, but is also coming from GOP elected representatives, and very often they are getting their facts from people like Gaffney.  In the article Where is the U.S. Government Getting It’s Information on Islam and Muslims? this unfortunate tendency to go to disreputable sources for information is discussed in detail.

Read the rest…

David Gaubatz

The racist, kooky conspiracy theorist David Gaubatz, who has been milking the Islamophobia industry for all he can is now claiming that most “friendly fire” incidents in which US soldiers die are perpepetrated by Muslims. Gaubatz’s so-called “research” has led him to the conclusion that many Muslims “join the military to kill fellow soldiers,” while the reality is that if you join the US military the people you are most likely going to kill, if you get an opportunity, are Muslims (Islamophobia-Watch):

Many Muslims join US military to kill fellow soldiers, says ‘terrorism expert’

A terrorism expert and author is warning of what he perceives as a threat to the U.S. military, and suggesting to lower that danger, Muslims not be allowed to enlist in the ranks.

“Muslim Mafia” co-author David Gaubatz said on a recent edition of his counterterrorism radio program that because of a Muslim’s first allegiance to Shariah law, they are ill-fitted for the U.S. armed forces.

Gaubatz said a mosque leader in Knoxville, Tenn., reported many Muslims in the military believe that their fellow soldiers are the “enemy.”

“An Islamic leader at a mosque in Knoxville, Tenn., told me that many of the ‘friendly fire’ incidents were actually murders. He advised many Muslims are joining the military for outstanding training and to fight the enemy (their fellow troops),” Gaubatz said.

He said this alarming trend is the result of a reality that he has uncovered in his research: There are no “moderate” Muslims.

“The simple answer is, Islam itself (through Shariah law) mandates a Muslim to follow Shariah law 100 percent, and no man-made law can be placed before Shariah law,” Gaubatz said. ”If a person does not follow Shariah law then they are a non-practicing Muslim and essentially an apostate of Islam.”

“That leaves only ‘true’ Muslims who follow Islam as dictated by prophet Mohammed 1400 years ago. A ‘true’ Muslim cannot put the U.S. Constitution ahead of Shariah law, and therefore one can’t faithfully serve in the U.S. military if the U.S. Constitution is not their number one priority,” Gaubatz said.

WND, 10 July 2012

Update:  See “Gaubatz repeats claim that US Muslim soldiers are murdering fellow troops and claiming ‘friendly fire’”, Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 10 July 2012

With Sue Myrick's departure in 2013, the 9th Congressional District seat will shift to another person for only the fifth time since Republican Charles Jonas went to Washington in 1953. DIEDRA LAIRD - 2008 CHARLOTTE OBSERVER FILE PHOTO

1. She wrote the forward to “Muslim Mafia”, a book that argues that Muslims crept into our government by an orchestrated network of spy interns.
2. She partook in the Peter King hearings.
3. She supports Bridgette Gabriel of ACT! for America, and other Islamophobes.

Rep. Sue Myrick will not Seek another Term in Congress

By Tim Funk and Jim Morrill
tfunk@charlotteobserver.com, jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com

Hate Blogger Robert Spencer Attacks Interfaith Leaders, Imam Mohamed Magid and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

by Jacob M. Hausner

It is no surprise that extremist right-wing anti-Muslim polemicist Robert Spencer is on the prowl, targeting peacemakers and interfaith leaders. In a recent blogpost Spencer targets Roman Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Washington D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and ISNA president Imam Mohamed Magid.

He begrudges the fact that Cardinal McCarrick “respects Imam Mohamed Magid”:

Spencer rehashes his favorite method of attack; smear and libel. He claims the Imam has ties to the “Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas,”

The Imam Mohamed Magid is with the ADAMS Center. From a February 2008 report: “Another D.C.-area mosque, the ADAMS Center, was founded and financed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been one of the top distributors of Wahhabist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma.”

Also, Magid is the President of the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA has admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case.

What does Spencer cite to prove his claims about the Imam? The ubiquitously termed “February 2008 report.” By not naming the report or its authors Spencer hopes the reader will lazily trust that it is a credible source. The fact is the so-called “report” is nothing except more Islamophobic yarn spun by the anti-Islam industry.

The report was put together by the Mapping Sharia Project led by David Yerushalmi, David Gaubatz and Frank Gaffney under the auspicious of SANE (Society of American National Existence). You may remember David Gaubatz as the co-author of Muslim Mafia which asserted that Muslim spy interns had infiltrated the government; Newsweek labeled this one of the top ten wackiest conspiracy theories of 2009. SANE is well known as a racist organization, and the Mapping Sharia Project has been discredited for its indulgence in conspiracy myths and shoddy methodology.

Amongst the main myths forwarded in the “report” is the false claim that 3 out of 4 mosques in the United States “preach anti-Western Jihadist hate,” including the ADAMS Center. The truth it turns out is that this report has never been made public, the link that Spencer provides is to a World Net Daily article from 2008 claiming to report the findings of an “undercover survey.”

Spencer’s other attempt at tying Imam Magid to the “Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas” is to claim that ISNA has “admitted” ties to both organizations. To do so he doesn’t rely on statements by ISNA or its members (i.e. Facts), but again returns to the anti-Islam echo chamber to gather “information.” Spencer cites pseudo-journalist turned “terror expert” Steven Emerson. Steven Emerson’s terror expertise led him in the past to respond to the Oklahoma City Bombing by claiming it showed “a Middle Eastern trait. It goes without saying that ISNA has never claimed to endorse, support or be in any way associated with either the “Muslim Brotherhood” or “Hamas.”

Spencer seeks to give Cardinal McCarrick the “Lowe’s treatment,” trying to intimidate him into repudiating Imam Magid through falsities covered by a thinly disguised undercurrent of bigotry. It must be said that such defamation of real peacemakers and freedom fighters is projection on the part of Spencer and his allies.

The real threat and subversion in this country is being carried out by Spencer and his allies in the radical right-wing. They are the ones attacking freedom of religion by lobbying for so-called anti-Sharia’ legislation whose real intent is to ban Islam, protesting the construction of Mosques and furthering the idea that all Muslim leaders and organizations are “fifth columns.”

Who is Robert Spencer?

Spencer is a radical right-wing extremist whose words the anti-Muslim terrorist Anders Breivik cited as inspiration well over one hundred times in his manifesto. Breivik also praised Spencer as deserving of the “Noble Peace Prize.” Spencer is co-founder along with Pamela Geller and John Jay of SIOA, an organization that both the SPLC and the ADL have labeled as a hate group. SIOA’s trademark patent was denied by the U.S. government due to its anti-Muslim nature.

Spencer has linked to sites promoting the designated terrorist organization MEK. Spencer is a denier of the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Bosnians during the Serbian war on Bosnia in the early 90’s. Spencer is a supporter and friend of right-wing anti-Muslim European politicians and groups including: Geert Wilders, EDL, SIOE, BPE and others.

No doubt Islamophobes will view this as more evidence of “Obama’s Stealth Jihad” against “Judeo-Christian United States.”

Obama Orders Government to Clean Up Terror Training

by Spencer Ackerman (Wired.com)

The White House quietly ordered a widespread review of government counterterrorism training materials last month, following Danger Room’s reports that officials at the FBI, military and Justice Department taught their colleagues that “mainstream” Muslims embrace violence and compared the Islamic religion to the Death Star.

According to a Pentagon memorandum acquired by Danger Room, the White House’s National Security Staff in October requested “Departments and Agencies” to “provide their screening process for CVE trainers and speakers.” (.pdf) CVE refers to “Countering Violent Extremism,” the euphemism du jour for the war on terrorism. The memorandum says that “recent media attention” led to the review, and contains a single attachment to demonstrate that attention: “Spencer Ackerman’s Wired.com article.”

The ongoing review will examine whether counterterrorism training material throughout the government is accurate and relevant, and will make sure the briefings given to federal field offices and local cops meet the same standards as FBI headquarters or the Pentagon.

Jose Mayorga, a retired two-star general who now serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, oversaw the Pentagon’s contribution to the White House review. In the memo, dated Oct. 16, Mayorga asked aides to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to collect counterterrorism training materials at the “service academies and major academic centers (e.g., Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and National Defense Intelligence College)” by Oct. 31, a deadline that Pentagon spokesman Robert Ditchey says has “been extended” so the department can be “comprehensive and deliberate.” 

The purpose of the review, Mayorga writes, is to “determine the criteria used to establish professional qualifications for teachers and lecturers providing instruction on countering violent Islamic extremism; with particular focus on Military Information Support Operations, Information Operations, and Military Intelligence curriculum.” Mayorga adds that information on “cultural awareness” for troops preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan is also subject to the White House review.

Some security agencies already have their own internal reviews. After Danger Room reported on presentations at the FBI training academy at Quantico and for FBI partners in New York that taught al-Qaida was “irrelevant” compared to the threat of Islam itself, the bureau began what it describes as a thorough scrub of its counterterrorism curriculum. It enlisted the Army’s Combating Terrorism Center at West Point to purge material that conflates terrorism with mainstream Islam. Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department initiated a separate counterterrorism training review, recently told Congress that those instructional materials hurt the U.S. fight against al-Qaida.

But at least one member of Congress is worried that all of these reviews will undermine counterterrorism efforts in the name of political correctness.

In a forthcoming letter to Holder and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) writes that “political nature of these reviews might inadvertently weaken our law enforcement and military counter-terrorism training programs by censoring certain language that is used to objectively identify the asymmetrical threats that are present in today’s world.”

Myrick takes a dark view of Islam. In a foreword to a book titled Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America, she writes, “Since the 1960s there has been a concerted effort on the part of radical Islamists to infiltrate our major institutions. Front groups of terror now operate openly in our country, comprising a network of support for jihadists.” Last year, Myrick alleged that Hezbollah was planting operatives among illegal immigrants entering the U.S. through Mexico.

“We don’t necessarily disagree with some action being taken,” Myrick’s military affairs aide, Clark Fonda, tells Danger Room. “But we’re concerned that this could inadvertently cause a political reaction within [the Justice Department] and [the Defense Department] that could lead to the censoring of words such as ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ in federal law enforcement and military counter-terrorism training documents.”

Myrick’s letter to Holder and Panetta cites the recommendations of a Senate inquiry into the Fort Hood shooting that also warns against euphemistic treatment of violent Islamic extremism. Yet the leader of that inquiry, Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), told Danger Room that the FBI’s anti-Islamic training materials represented a “lie” that “all Muslims support terrorism.”

President Obama has repeatedly tried to assure Muslims that “America is not, and never will be, at war with Islam,” a message he delivered in Turkey and Egypt. His chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, argued last year against calling al-Qaida’s adherents “jihadis,” because using a religious term “would play into the false perception that they are religious leaders defending a holy cause, when in fact they are nothing more than murderers.”

These messages are complicated, if not contradicted, by the anti-Islam training that counterterrorism agents and officials at the FBI, Justice Department and Defense Department have received. “Boneheaded is a generous way to describe this training,” says counterterrorism analyst Jarret Brachman, author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice. “I’d lean more towards hateful, paranoid and completely counterproductive.”

Photo: White House

I wanted to find out what the kerfluffle over “creeping Shariah” was all about. After all, this is a Republican worry in thirteen states which have introduced anti-shariah laws. And apparently it’s more serious than even a global economic Depression.

So I went to a blog by the promising name of “Creeping Shariah” and its matching Twitter feed for some hard answers.

The website promised to easily locate the numerous recent cases of jihad being waged on our very shores. In Massachusetts alone there were forty incidents of jihad, as those sly Mahometans managed to finesse a Muslim holiday in Cambridge, plotted to build a cemetery in Belchertown, and the Muslim Brotherhood had apparently consulted with Whitey Bulger to get governor Duval Patrick to build a mega-mosque in Bah-stahn.

Those armed-and-dangerous ladies from Code Pink were raising money for Hamas, CAIR was at it again, trying to help out some headscarf-toting Muslim terrorists at a Boston pharmacy school, Yale University was cozying up to faculty jihadis by not re-inviting an Islamophobe to come back for a conference, and some crazy Mooslim women troublemakers in Kansas City wanted to wear Islamic-style bathing gear in a pool. The fate of our pools, our children, and our very nation were at stake. And all this trouble from a bunch of Muslim women, no less.

Beside the fact that New Haven and Kansas City are not exactly in Massachusetts, most of the other “incidents” reported were endlessly-recycled hate blurbs from people like Pamela Geller and Rick Santorum — which, I will grant you — do constitute a sort of domestic terror. But most of the postings were over a year old. Maybe getting all that “news” onto his website was just too overwhelming for him. HTML can be so wordy.

But now I was really curious. Incidents of creeping shariah and jihad were obviously so numerous, so dangerous, and so troubling that perhaps a Twitter feed could provide better real-time coverage of the onslaught. And surely the feed would corroborate a pattern of Islamification of our beloved heterosexual, fetus-friendly, pro-capitalist, White-loving, brown-skin-hating, Ayn Randophilic, Judeo-Christian-based culture! I went online looking for more answers.

And answers I found. More attacks on Keith Ellison, indignation at a Toronto school which tried to accommodate a Muslim student who wanted to pray quietly in a corner of its library, and the unmitigated gall of the town of Farmington, Michigan, to sell an unused school to an Islamic cultural association. Truly disturbing stuff, indeed!

Elsewhere in the tweets were some on a Republican congressman (Wolf, R-VA) going after CAIR via the IRS, Judicial Watch going after CAIR, and disappointment that CAIR could sue a former intern who stole tens of thousands of documents for his Islamophobe father, Paul David Gaubatz.

There was also a speech by Geert Wilders at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville, part of his “Warning to America” event, which concluded with the words:

You and I, Americans and Europeans, we belong to a common Western culture. We share the ideas and ideals of our common Judeo-Christian heritage. In order to pass this heritage on to our children and grandchildren, we must stand together, side by side, in our struggle against Islamic barbarism. That, my friends, is why I am here. I am here to forge an alliance. Our international freedom alliance. We must stand together for the Judeo-Christian West. We will not allow islam to overrun Israel and Europe, the cradle of the judeo-Christian civilization.

Wow. Now I get it. Only Leni Riefenstahl was missing from the picture. Or was that Hermann Goering?

I mean, thank goodness I’m a Jew! It wasn’t that long ago that Nordic types like Wilders were saying the same thing about my people. Now with the cool kids expanded to “European Judeo-Christians” and not just Christians anymore, I could join a select club and kick around Muslims if I wanted to — rather than just being a Yid whose faith and culture was once characterized by Nazis exactly as Wilders paints Islam at churches and synagogues today.

I’d get with his program, but all I’d have to do is stop trying to be a mensch. That and the stench Wilder’s words would leave in my mouth.

The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle

By Robert Steinback
Illustration by Bri Hermanson

The apparent recent surge in popular anti-Muslim sentimentin the United States has been driven by a surprisingly small and, for the most part, closely knit cadre of activists. Their influence extends far beyond their limited numbers, in part because of an amenable legion of right-wing media personalities — and lately, politicians like U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who held controversial hearings into the radicalization of American Muslims this March —who are eager to promote them as impartial experts or grassroots leaders. Yet a close look at their rhetoric reveals how doggedly this group works to provoke and guide populist anger over what is seen as the threat posed by the 0.6% of Americans who are Muslim — an agenda that goes beyond reasonable concern about terrorism into the realm of demonization.

Of the 10 people profiled below, all but Bill French, Terry Jones and Debbie Schlussel regularly interact with others on the list. Most were selected for profiling primarily because of their association with activist organizations. People who only run websites or do commentary were omitted, with two exceptions: Schlussel, because she has influence as a frequent television talk-show guest, and John Joseph Jay, because he is on the board of Pamela Geller’s Stop Islamization of America group. Three other activists, Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney, have interacted with many of the core group as well and also have offended many Muslims, but they are somewhat more moderate in their views of Muslims than those who are profiled below.

BILL FRENCH
ORGANIZATION Heads the for-profit Center for the Study of Political Islam in Nashville.

CREDENTIALS Former Tennessee State University physics professor; author of Sharia Law for Non-Muslims (2010; under the pen name Bill Warner).

SUMMARY French has no formal training or background in law, Islam or Shariah law — which in any case is not an established legal code, as the book title implies, but a fluid concept subject to a wide range of interpretations and applications. He garnered attention recently by leading the opposition to a proposed mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

IN HIS OWN WORDS “The two driving forces of our civilization are the Golden Rule and critical thought. … There is no Golden Rule in Islam. … There is not really even a Ten Commandments.”
—Quoted in The [Blount County, Tenn.] Daily Times, March 4, 2011

“This offends Allah. You offend Allah.”
— Quoted in The Tennesseean, Oct. 24, 2010, speaking to opponents of the Murfreesboro mosque while pointing to an American flag

BRIGITTE GABRIEL
ORGANIZATIONS Founder and head of ACT! for America and American Council for Truth.

CREDENTIALS Author of Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America (2006) and They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It (2008). Co-producer and co-host of weekly ACT! for America television show.

SUMMARY Gabriel views Islam in absolute terms as a monolithic threat to the United States, Israel and the West. She is prone to sweeping generalizations and exaggerations as she describes a grand, sophisticated Muslim conspiracy bent on world domination. Of the people profiled here, she alone has focused on building a grassroots organization, claiming 155,000 members and 500 chapters around the country. Questions persist about the accuracy of her autobiographical account of being a victim of Muslim militancy in Lebanon.

IN HER OWN WORDS “America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America. They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department.”
— Quoted in The New York Times, March 7, 2011

“The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arabic world is quite simply the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil and this is what we’re witnessing in the Arab and Islamic world. I am angry. They have no soul! They are dead set on killing and destruction.”
— From a speech delivered to the Rev. John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel Convention, July 2007

“Tens of thousands of Islamic militants now reside in America, operating in sleeper cells, attending our colleges and universities, even infiltrating our government. They are here — today. Many have been here for years. Waiting. Preparing.”
— ACT! for America website, undated

P. DAVID GAUBATZ
ORGANIZATION Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE).

CREDENTIALS Co-author of Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America (2009). As director of operations for SANE’s Mapping Shariah project (see David Yerushalmi, below), a privately operated effort to infiltrate American mosques in an attempt to expose radical elements, Gaubatz was paid $148,898, according to Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim website.

SUMMARY A civilian agent who worked in the Middle East for the U.S. Air Forces Office of Special Investigations, Gaubatz made it a personal project — and the theme of his book — to prove the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is linked to international terrorism. In October 2009, four members of Congress led by Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) held an embarrassing press conference claiming the book revealed a Muslim plot to infiltrate government. Their hardest “evidence” was a document showing that CAIR had encouraged young Muslims to become Capitol interns — much like many other Washington, D.C., interest groups.

IN HIS OWN WORDS “As an ideology [Islam] is a terminal disease that once spread is hard to destroy. Once the ideology (cancer) takes hold it is like trying to remove millions of cancerous cells in one’s body. Not impossible to remove, but very, very unlikely.”
— Essay on the Northeast Intelligence Network website, June 10, 2008

“[T]he political ideology of winning over the West and the world for an Islamic Caliphate is NOT specific to some extremist group of Muslims. This is mainstream Islam and Shari’a. … The goal remains the same: all of the non-Islamic world, and indeed all of the Islamic world, must submit to Shari’a. A Muslim who refuses to do so will be killed. … A non-Muslim, assuming he is not a pagan (typically a Christian or Jew) might be given the opportunity to live in a subservient status in an Islamic society and pay a special head tax to prove his submission. But this option is left to the Caliph or ruler at the time.”
— Essay carried by the Assyrian International News Agency, Feb. 13, 2008

PAMELA GELLER ORGANIZATIONS Executive director and co-founder (with Robert Spencer; see below) of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA)

and the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), an umbrella group encompassing SIOA. Both are listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Runs the Atlas Shrugs blog.

CREDENTIALS Self-styled expert on Islam with no formal training in the field. Co-produced with Spencer the film “The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks,” which was first screened at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference. Co-author with Spencer of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America (2010).

SUMMARY Geller has seized the role of the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and influential figurehead. Her strengths are panache and vivid rhetorical flourishes — not to mention stunts like posing for an anti-Muslim video in a bikini — but she also can be coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam. Geller does not pretend to be learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to SIOA partner Spencer. She is prone to publicizing preposterous claims, such as President Obama being the “love child” of Malcolm X, and once suggested that recent U.S. Supreme Court appointee Elena Kagen, who is Jewish, supports Nazi ideology. Geller has mingled with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists and defended Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. She is a self-avowed Zionist who is sharply critical of Jewish liberals.

IN HER OWN WORDS “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.”
— On Fox Business’ “Follow the Money,” March 10, 2011

“No, no, they can’t. … I don’t think that many westernized Muslims know when they pray five times a day that they’re cursing Christians and Jews five times a day. … I believe in the idea of a moderate Muslim. I do not believe in the idea of a moderate Islam. I think a moderate Muslim is a secular Muslim.”
— Quoted in The New York Times, responding to a question as to whether devout practicing Muslims can be political moderates, Oct. 8, 2010

“In the war between the civilized man and the savage, you side with the civilized man. … If you don’t lay down and die for Islamic supremacism, then you’re a racist anti-Muslim Islamophobic bigot. That’s what we’re really talking about.”
— Quoted in The New York Times, Oct. 8, 2010

DAVID HOROWITZ

ORGANIZATION Front Page Magazine (online), published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

CREDENTIALS Organized “Islamofascism Awareness Week” which brought prominent anti-Muslim activists to college campuses in 2007. Author of several books including Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (2004), which claims that American leftists support Islamic terrorists.

SUMMARY Horowitz, who spent his young years as a Marxist, has in recent years become a furious far-right antagonist of liberals and leftists. He also provides some funding support for other anti-Muslim ventures, including, according to the blog SpencerWatch.com, paying Spencer $132,537 to run the JihadWatch website. Horowitz sees no philosophical gradations; if you’re not in total agreement with his view of Islam, you’re in favor of Muslim hegemony. He believes the Muslim Brotherhood and “Islamofascists” control most American Muslim organizations, especially Muslim student groups on college campuses.

IN HIS OWN WORDS “I spent 25 years in the American Left, whose agendas are definitely to destroy this country. The American left wanted us to lose the Cold War with the Soviets and it wants us to lose the war on terror. So I don’t make any apologies for that.”
— On the “Riz Khan” Show, Al Jazeera, Aug. 21, 2008

“Some polls estimate that 10 percent of Muslims support Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. An al-Jazeera poll put the number at 50 percent. In other words, somewhere between 150 million and 750 million Muslims support a holy war against Christians, Jews, and other Muslims who don’t happen to be true believers in the Quran according to
bin Laden.”
— In the Columbia Spectator, Oct. 15, 2007

“There are 150 Muslim Student Associations on American campuses. The Muslim Student Associations were created by Hamas and funded by Saudi Arabia. … [The associations] are Wahhabi Islamicists, and they basically support our enemies.”
— On Fox News’ “Neil Cavuto Show,” Aug. 15, 2006

JOHN JOSEPH JAY
ORGANIZATION summer patriot, winter soldier (a website; Jay doesn’t use capital letters in his website’s name or in his writings). Board member, SIOA. Listed as one of the founders of American Freedom Defense Initiative, SIOA’s umbrella group (see also Pam Geller, above).

CREDENTIALS Jay worked for 25 years as a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney in Washington, D.C. Geller’s Atlas Shrugs blog describes him as a constitutional scholar. In addition to his anti-Muslim commentary, Jay blogs prolifically on the right to bear arms.

SUMMARY Jay is remarkable for his unreconstructed hatred of all Muslims. He believes attacks by Muslim terrorists justify any violence directed at any Muslim, adding that, as he sees it, the Koran itself justifies such blind retaliation.

IN HIS OWN WORDS “every person in islam, from man to woman to child may be our executioner. … there are no innocents in islam. … there is no innocence in islam. all of islam is at war with us, and … all of islam is/are combatant[s.] … islam has established without intellectual doubt that there are no innocent muslims, that the myth of the ‘moderate muslim’ is precisely that, and that muslims are no more entitled to exemption or protection from retaliation that [sic] any of the other ‘non-innocent’ combatants in the world. … there are no innocent muslims.  islam is subject to killing on grounds of political expediency on the same basis as islam kills its victims, and islam cannot ethically and morally claim otherwise.”
— From his website, July 14, 2010

“in short, dear muslims, g_d in his infinite wisdom saw in advance this struggle between men and religions to win his favor, and the only thing that is foreordained, is that the strong and the resolute shall win his favor, and so far, it has been amply demonstrated that he has chosen the jews as his people, and favored christianity with science, technology, culture and military power. to islam, he has given the hind and dry tit, and the sewers and the deserts of the world in which to inhabit, and in which to fester.”
— From his website, June 27, 2010

TERRY JONES
ORGANIZATION Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Fla. Listed by the SPLC as a hate group.

CREDENTIALS Pastor of Dove World; instigator of “International Burn a Koran Day,” which was slated for Sept. 11, 2010, but canceled after worldwide protests and calls from senior officials of the Obama Administration. On March 20, however, Jones did burn a Koran, leading to several days of rampages in early April by religious rioters in Afghanistan, including the storming of a United Nations compound, that resulted in the deaths of at least 20 people. Jones showed no remorse over the deaths, which included at least seven foreigners. Author ofIslam is of the Devil (2010). Jones has admitted never having read the Koran. He has no academic or theological degree; his “doctorate” is honorary.

SUMMARY A true fanatical extremist who seems to be driven mostly by the need for self-promotion and publicity. Operates entirely outside of the core circle of anti-Muslim activists. Jones is also virulently anti-gay.

IN HIS OWN WORDS “Here’s your opportunity, all you so-called peaceful Moslems [Jones' pronunciation]. … We are accusing the Koran of murder, rape, deception, being responsible for terrorist activities all around the world. … Present to us your defense attorney who is going to defend the Koran. Let us really see. We challenge you: do it. Let us not talk. Let us have some action and proof. … The Koran, if found guilty, can be burned … Or the Koran will be drowned. Or the Koran will be shredded into little bitty pieces … or the Koran will face a firing squad.”
— From an undated video on the Dove World Outreach website announcing “International Judge the Koran Day”

“The world is facing a great danger, which, if it is not stopped, will sooner or later be a threat to freedom in all nations and specifically to the United States. This danger is the growing religion of Islam.”
— From the introduction to Islam is of the Devil, 2010

DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL
ORGANIZATION Columnist; eponymous website.

CREDENTIALS The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Schlussel is a Detroit-based attorney and MBA. Frequent guest on conservative talk shows.

SUMMARY Uncompromising, viciously anti-Muslim commentator who dismisses ostensible allies if they are willing to believe in the concept of moderate Islam. She has even berated Hollywood for its failure to depict Muslims as sufficiently villainous. She has referred to Muslims as “animals.” Her intense animosity toward Muslims appears rooted in strong pro-Israel sentiments.

IN HER OWN WORDS “So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we’d hope. … How fitting that Lara Logan was ‘liberated’ by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the ‘liberation.’ Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdillullah (praise allah) [sic].”
— From her website, following the gang sexual assault on CBS Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo, Feb. 15, 2011

“[T]he fact is that the majority of Muslims support terrorism. The vast majority. Not just a few hijackers and a few suicide bombers. But the MAJORITY. This isn’t me saying it. It’s Muslims saying it. And not just in poll after poll of Muslims around the world including in America. Go to the streets of ‘moderate Muslim’ Dearbornistan [Dearborn, Mich.] and see how many Muslims dare condemn Hezbollah and HAMAS. It’s like playing “Where’s Waldo?”
— From her website, Oct. 8, 2008

ROBERT SPENCER
ORGANIZATION Runs the Jihad Watch website, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Co-founder with Pamela Geller (see above) of Stop Islamization of America and the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

CREDENTIALS Spencer has a master’s degree in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Co-produced with Geller the film “The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks” (2011). Author of numerous books including The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion (2007) andThe Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005).

SUMMARY Spencer is entirely self-taught in the study of modern Islam and the Koran. Critics have accused him of doggedly taking the Koran literally — Spencer considers it innately extremist and violent — while ignoring its nonviolent passages and the vast interpretive tradition that has modified Koranic teachings over the centuries. Spencer believes that moderate Muslims exist, but to prove it, they’d have to fully denounce the portions of the Koran he finds objectionable. Spencer has been known to fraternize with European racists and neo-fascists, though he says such contacts were merely incidental. Benazir Bhutto, the late prime minister of Pakistan, accused Spencer of “falsely constructing a divide between Islam and West” in her 2008 book,Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. Spencer, she wrote, presented a “skewed, one-sided, and inflammatory story that only helps to sow the seed of civilizational conflict.”

IN HIS OWN WORDS “Osama [bin Laden]‘s use of these and other [Koranic] passages in his messages is consistent … with traditional understanding of the Quran. When modern-day Jews and Christians read their Bibles, they simply don’t interpret the passages cited as exhorting them to violent actions against unbelievers. This is due to the influence of centuries of interpretative traditions that have moved them away from literalism regarding these passages. But in Islam, there is no comparable interpretative tradition.”
— From The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), 2005

“Where is moderate Islam? How can moderate Muslims refute the radical exegesis of the Qur’an and Sunnah? If an exposition of moderate Islam does not address or answer radical exegeses, is it really of any value to quash Islamic extremism? If the answer lies in a simple rejection of Qur’anic literalism, how can non-literalists make that rejection stick, and keep their children from being recruited by jihadists by means of literalism? Of course, as I have pointed out many times, traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”
— Jihad Watch, Jan. 14, 2006

DAVID YERUSHALMI
ORGANIZATION President of the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE); principal of Stop the Madrassa.

CREDENTIALS General counsel for the Center for Security Policy (see Frank J. Gaffney Jr., above); also, an attorney representing SIOA. Yerushalmi drafted a proposed law filed this year in the Tennessee legislature that would subject anyone who advocates or adheres to Shariah customs to up to 15 years in prison; he drafted a similar bill in Georgia in 2008.

SUMMARY Yerushalmi equates Shariah with Islamic radicalism so totally that he advocates criminalizing virtually any personal practice compliant with Shariah. In his view, only a Muslim who fully breaks with the customs of Shariah can be considered socially tolerable. He waxes bloodthirsty when describing his preferred response to the supposed global threat of Shariah law, speaking casually of killing and destroying. Ideally, he would outlaw Islam and deport Muslims and other “non-Western, non-Christian” people to protect the United States’ “national character.” An ultra-orthodox Jew, he is deeply hostile toward liberal Jews. He derides U.S.-style democracy because it allows more than just an elite, privileged few to vote.

IN HIS OWN WORDS “On the so-called Global War on Terrorism, GWOT, we have been quite clear along with a few other resolute souls. This should be a WAR AGAINST ISLAM and all Muslim faithful. … At a practical level, this means that Shari’a and Islamic law are immediately outlawed. Any Muslim in America who adopts historical and traditional Shari’a will be subject to deportation. Mosques which adhere to Islamic law will be shut down permanently. No self-described or practicing Muslim, irrespective of his or her declarations to the contrary, will be allowed to immigrate to this country.”
— A 2007 commentary entitled “War Manifesto — The War Against Islam,” as reported by The American Muslim

“The more carefully reviewed evidence, however, suggests that because jihadism is in fact traditional Islam modernized to war against the ideological threat posed by the West against Islam proper,there is no way to keep faithful Muslims out of the war. If this is true, any Muslim who sticks his neck out of the mosque to yell some obscenity at the West should be considered an enemy combatant and killed or captured and held for the duration of the war. If you kill enough of them consistently enough, those disinclined to fight in the first place will find a way to reform their religion.”
— Review of Mary Habeck’s book Knowing the Enemy on the American Thinker website, Sept. 9. 2006