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GOP congressman silent while racist Tea Partyer calls for Obama assassination

399px-Jim_Bridenstine_official_portrait_113th_Congress-2

GOP congressman silent while racist Tea Partyer calls for Obama assassination

by , America blog

Republican Congressman Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma was at a Tea Party event with constituents a few weeks ago when a woman went off about how President Obama needed to be killed.

The woman explained some bizarre conspiracy theory about the President “shipping” Muslims into our country through pilots and commercial jets.” She then exlained that, of course, President Obama needs to be executed as an enemy combattant.

All the while, Bridenstine looked on and offered no disagreement, or recognition of the fact that the woman had potentially just committed a crime.

“Obama, he’s not president, as far as I’m concerned, he should be executed, he’s an enemy combatant… the Muslims that he is shipping into our country though pilots and commercial jets… what’s, what this… I can’t tell you, I can’t say, because this is a public place, this guy is a criminal, and nobody’s stopping him.”

RightWingWatch, which discovered the Bridenstine video, has more on the “shipping Muslims” conspiracy. It’s, of course, based on the notion that President Obama is a secret Muslim, and therefore has stealth plans to ship 50 to 100 million Muslims from the Middle East to America, so that he can turn our “Christian” nation into a “Muslim” one.

So, in fact, the woman was being racist too. And not a peep from Rep. Bridenstine.

The event is illustrative of just how taken-over by extremists the GOP has become.  Racism, and overt calls for the President’s death, are all ignored by Republican congressmen who will do anything to curry favor with the fringe that now controls their party.

Two weeks after the event, after facing a lot of criticism for remaining silent, Congressman Bridenstine did what any good Republican would do: He took umbrage at the fact that anyone would be upset at his silence in the face of a call for the assassination of the President:bridenstine-death-threat-obama

Yes, how dare anyone criticize a US congressman for sitting there and not saying a word when a constituent tells them that the President of the United States should be killed.  It’s a sign of how extreme the GOP has become that Bridenstine thinks it’s outrageous that anyone would expect him to counter the woman’s racist, extremist rhetoric.  Even John McCain, during the 2008 campaign, stopped a woman at a campaign event from calling President Obama “an Arab.”  But that was six years ago.  Oh how the party has changed.

Oh, and when you watch the video, listen to Bridenstine closely.  You might be surprised to find out that he’s virulently opposed to gay marriage as well.  (Will the rightwing ever find a “defender of marriage” who doesn’t come across like a BOG?)

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    • Reynardine

      We now have a law pending in Arizona that would immunize the perpetrator of any offense, civil, criminal, statutory, or common law, from penalties civil or criminal if they claim their action was based on a religious belief. Under the doctrines of dual sovereignty and federal pre-emption, this could not bar federal prosecutions for federally cognizable offenses, and it must eventually fail a constitutional challenge; but I caution any of my fellow Americans who might be identified as anything unpopular at all to avoid the state if this thing is signed into law. I hope the Feds don’t have to take back the state and govern it as a territory, but if it takes that, stay out of Arizona till they do it.

    • GaribaldiOfLoonwatch

      He should have said something at the time, also he went off on his own loony tangent about Obama.

    • sasboy

      I agree that the provocative comments made by the Tea Partier in question cannot be attributed to the politician himself. At least he recognizes that the comments in question were “reckless” and has distanced himself from them, which under the circumstances were the appropriate thing to do.

    • GaribaldiOfLoonwatch

      This Congressman must really care bout ‘Murica. When he hears such divisive drivel he eggs it on.

    • downwithpants

      I heard a rattle snake bit this preacher dude and killed him. i suspect that was a secret mooslim rattle snake.

    • wjshelton

      Brazil. It’s far from perfect but there are also far fewer gun-toting racist loonies here.

    • mindy1

      Ughghg some states make me wonder about the collective IQ they have. In some states it seems like the dumber the better

    • mindy1

      Where are you living?

    • wjshelton

      And people wonder why I not only left my native state of Oklahoma, but the United States as well…

Bristol EDL declares independence

Bristol-Defence-League-patriotism-is-not-racism

Bristol EDL declares independence

Last month the English Defence League leadership – now a committee known as the Management Group, which is composed of the regional organisers – issued what was on the face of it a stern warning to EDL members against involvement with the various far-right splinter groups that have emerged from the movement over the past few years.

Accusing these rival groupuscules (quite accurately) of being “openly White Pride and racist”, the Management Group emphasised (albeit not very coherently) that “we will not stand with groups that do discriminate and are racist such as the Britain First/SEA/NWI/NEI/EVF/BNP/NF/C18 & White Pride or such like minded openly discriminating against any creed, race, colour other than white”.

EDL members were told: “If you wish to have unity with these groups then you have the option to leave the EDL as a supporter and join one or all of these groups. The splinter groups have minimal numbers and need unity with the EDL to make their numbers up not the other way. If you choose do so then we wish you good luck.”

However, for all their pious condemnation of racism and fascism, the Management Group was not actually proposing a general ban on EDL members participating in the protests organised by these splinter groups: “If any EDL supporter wishes to attend any of these other groups demos then all that we request is that you do not wear EDL colour’s or state you are in attendance as an EDL supporter.” In other words, the EDL leadership has no principled objection to its members’ active involvement with white supremacist, antisemitic and homophobic organisations – just as long as the EDL’s name is kept out of it.

Neverthless, as EDL News reported at the time, this provoked defections by a number of EDL divisions. One of them is in Bristol, where the leadership took badly to being given instructions by the national leadership. Leading local EDL activist Chelsea Anne White posted an indignant response to the new orders, complaining on the EDL Support Group’s Facebook page that “when i joined the EDL 3 years ago i was led to believe it was a street movement not a dictatorship”. According to White: “Good leadership dosen’t tell people what to do…..it is there to offer knowledge, assistance and support.”

Bristol EDL was originally headed by Mickey Bayliss, whose self-proclaimed opposition to racism didn’t prevent him from posting racist ‘jokes’ on Facebook. When Bayliss left to take over the organisation of Portsmouth EDL, he was replaced as leader of Bristol division by Ed Dowden, who combined that position with the post of Somerset and Avon district officer for the Mosleyite New British Union. So you can understand why Bristol division should resent being told not to openly associate with racists and fascists, given that the division has itself been led for years by proponents of racism and fascism.

As a result of Bristol’s refusal to accept the national leadership’s directive, there were for a while two Bristol EDL Facebook pages – the original one, which was in the hands of the dissidents, and a new loyalist page, English Defence League Bristol Division Official. At the weekend, however, the split was made official when the rebels took down their old Facebook page and launched a new one, in the name of the Bristol Defence League. Proudly announcing the formation of yet another far-right fragment, the BDL explains that “the true patriots of Bristol have left the ranks of the EDL behind and gathered together in the name of UNITY!”

This formal break with the EDL was evidently inspired by a far-right meeting held in Essex on 1 February, which brought together various groups and individuals who had split from the EDL, including the former Bristol division, under the umbrella of the United British Patriots. A committee was established which included representatives of the South East Alliance, March for England, the English Volunteer Force, Scottish Volunteer Force, Casuals United, East Anglian Patriots, South West Infidels, Patriots Unite and the former EDL Armed Forces Division (now renamed Armed Forces Patriots), with Mickey Bayliss (now presumably back from Portsmouth) representing the BDL.

In an ill-written mission statement, which characteristically mounts a defence of English culture while showing complete contempt for the English language, the BDL proclaims that it is “against Muslim extremists, the IRA and anyone that don’t want to live or integrate into the British way of life”. Predictably, however, it turns out that the talk of “Muslim extremists” is a just cover for inciting hatred aganst the entire Muslim community and its religious practices: “We Oppose Halal slaughter the building of Mosques and Islamic ‘Education’ centres and see them as places to spread more hatred of western values.”

Equally predictably, the BDL asserts that they are a “non racist/facist [sic] non political street movement”. Not entirely consistently, the statement goes on to declare that the BDL are “against mass immigration and believe this to be a tactic for the end game of white genocide”. So, no racism there, then.

It is easy to sneer at the small forces represented by the Bristol Defence League and its allies in United British Patriots. These are all tiny groups and even if they manage to maintain their unity, which is itself questionable, they are unlikely to succeed in mobilising significant numbers to take to the streets to protest, certainly not on the scale that the EDL did at its peak. The next “unity” demonstration is the English Volunteer Force protestoutside the Houses of Parliament on 15 March, which the BDL have been enthusiasticallypromoting, so we will see.

However, the threat posed by the Islamophobic far right doesn’t lie exclusively, or even primarily, in the holding of large-scale protests. The sort of hate crime inspired by the EDL, which has involved graffiti and arson attacks on mosques and Islamic centres, and racist abuse and physical violence against Muslims in the street, doesn’t require a large number of participants to have a serious impact. The crisis and fragmentation of the EDL is obviously welcome, but it won’t necessarily lead to a decline in such anti-Muslim activity on the ground.

In December the Bristol EDL division’s Facebook page featured calls for a proposed mosque to be firebombed, to the approval of the page’s admin, resulting in a police inquiry. Shortly afterwards, when two Bristol EDL members received prison sentences for their part in an EDL riot in Walsall, they were hailed as “patriots” by Bristol division, who told the jailed hooligans that they were “proud of you both”. Just because Bristol division have split from the EDL and adopted a new name and affiliation, that doesn’t mean there will be any change in their promotion and practice of intimidation and violence.

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    • Seeker

      “In an ill-written mission statement, which characteristically mounts a defence of English culture while showing complete contempt for the English language..” Oooh, that is scary.

    • Nur Alia binti Ahmad

      A group of people I am associated with put up pictures and videos to show scenes from the 2006 ‘escalation’ of the Lebanon/Israeli conflict on Facebook. It was agreed by the group that we would not to caption the offerings, and to ALL block comments that ‘took ANY side’.

      Our intention was to show the brutality of this long going conflict, hopefully so that it would encourage people to do something to end it.

      Most of the comments we got were actually attacking us. They called us racists and ‘anti Semitic’. Most people did not want to discuss the conflict, and many told us they would complain enough to have our Facebook page taken down.

      It was, only 3 days after we posted the pictures, although the page was one of the first Facebook pages, began in April 2004, and belonged to an NGO that is known in Asia for it’s medical assistance in war torn areas.

      We were accused of ‘inciting violence’, and being ‘anti Semitic’…although all we did was post videos and pictures from the war zone. We made the decision then to pull our ‘western based social media’, and bring it to a more friendly, open atmosphere.

      I am wondering why our Facebook page was ‘inciting violence’ and ‘anti Semitic’ but the EDL and their variants are not.

    • mindy1

      I’m calling B.S. on them caring about haning out with racists and far right groups

Former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s Obituary

Then Israeli Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef read the dedication of a Jewish religious book given to Netanyahu by Yosef during a meeting in this June 13, 1996 file photo.

Then Israeli Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef read the dedication of a Jewish religious book given to Netanyahu by Yosef during a meeting in this June 13, 1996 file photo.

Almost every news outlet that covered Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s death did so with apparent restraint. The largely one sided obituaries painted Yosef as “Influential,” a “Giant,” a “Spiritual leader,” a “Kingmaker” and yet when it came to his views on Islam, Arabs, Palestinians specifically, those descriptions are looked upon with confusion. This rabbi also had a very radical and dark side to his outlook of the “other.”

The Guardian was willing to provide one of the more complete obituaries by revealing Yosef’s many extremist, racist and dangerous views:

On the other hand, he often took abstruse, even offensive positions. He lambasted Reform Jews as “destroyers of religion”; claimed that Jewish law forbade men to walk between women; and told President Bill Clinton to “kiss our feet”. In 1999 he repudiated the supreme court after his protege, Aryeh Deri, was jailed for accepting bribes. In 2000 he called Holocaust victims “reincarnated souls of sinners”; later he likened Palestinian and Arab foes to snakes and vipers. In 2010 he said gentiles should serve Jews, he once called Binyamin Netanyahu a “blind she-goat” and this year he dubbed a religious Zionist party as a “home for goyim [non-Jews]”…

A spokesman for the downtrodden and a champion of faith, or a bigoted autocrat who undermined democracy, and whose political dalliances sullied his religious purity? At least Yosef silenced orthodox Ashkenazim who once had lampooned him and his community.

The New York Times made mention of these views on page 2 with only one passing sentence:

In 2010, he called President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority “evil” and asked God to strike “these Ishmaelites and Palestinians with a plague, these evil haters of Israel.”

The only critical sentence in the NPR obituary was a single sentence on the rabbi’s “conservatism,” his remarks about Muslims were omitted and NPR framed the sentence as though Yosef was an equal opportunity hater of secular Jews and Arabs/Muslims alike.:

In later years, he was widely seen as becoming more conservative in his views. And the outspoken rabbi also famously called several other leaders “evil” — including Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas.

But from all the articles not one news outlet covered his Islamophobic beliefs. His anti-Muslim venom. I had to dig up an old article here on LW to remind myself what he said:

Israeli Rabbi Describes Islam as “ugly”

Israel’s top Rabbi, Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, harshly criticized Islam as a religion and described it as an “ugly” faith during a speech he delivered on Saturday night for the occasion of Hanukah. The comments have left many in the Arab world questioning the role of religious leaders in the Jewish state. The Rabbi, according to a report by Egypt’s al-Youm al-Saba’a newspaper, who quoted the statements of the Rabbi from Israel’s Ma’arev daily newspaper, reportedly said, “Islam is the worst religion and a religion that disregards the rules of marriage and divorce among Muslims.”

Headlines

  1. Guardian: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef obituary
  2. Huffington post: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Dead: Head Of Shas, Israel Sephardic Jews Dies At 93
  3. Jewish Press: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, One of Today’s Giant Torah Sages, Dies at 93
  4. Israel National News: Leading Sephardic Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Dies Aged 93
  5. Al Jazeera English: Israel’s Rabbi Ovadia Yosef dies at 93: Influential spiritual leader of Sephardic Jewish community and ultra-Orthodox Shas party dies in Jerusalem hospital.
  6. Ynet News: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef dies at 93
  7. Jpost: Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef dies at 93
  8. NYTimes: Page 1:Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Influential Spiritual Leader in Israel, Dies at 93 /Page 2: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Influential Spiritual Leader in Israel, Dies at 93
  9. NPR: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, A ‘Kingmaker’ In Israeli Politics, Dies
  10. Christian Science Monitor: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s death robs Israel of spiritual and political powerhouse
  11.  LA Times: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef dies at 93; Israeli ultra-Orthodox leader

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    • Maher

      Okay. You quoted Arab sex terrorism. You did not quote Islam at all. Our “ugly” religion does not allow this. In Islam we are not allowed to twist laws to make them morally repugnant. If we twist laws in Islam and pretend like its okay because technically maybe we can double interpret the arabic meaning to do this, hahaha we are completely screwed on the day of Judgment. Zulm (taking away the rights and committing wrongs to) another person is completely forbidden in Islam. Women have the right to reject a marriage, though in practice people who do not actually embody the true meanings of Islam will ignore this. It’s funny you mention anti-women stuff because it was famous that when Islam first came out, the polytheists of Mecca one of their chief complaints was along the lines of how can you make women equal to men. They said they bought them, fed them clothed them, this was their argument. The Muslim response was, “how can you deny the womb that bore you”. In Islam mothers are so important that you cannot disgrace your mother or even say “oof” to her (muslim or nonmuslim) because Paradise is under the feet of your mother. Therefore every women on Earth is required to be respected and protected. What unjust arabs do is not Islam. I could say Judaism requires people to be terrorists because Haganah was how Israel was established and was a terrorist group. But I won’t say that because that is not actually Judaism. Similarly, you should not take the actions of a faulty person and think they represent the religion.

    • Guess

      ” and all dead people were saints.”

      Ah yes, the certain conventions to observe. But as humans still here, we especially need to observe whatever good or bad those did. The elevating, almost cultish Remembrance people in some parts of world have for “dead people” its not the same of other parts.

    • Friend of Bosnia

      OK if one can’t compare the Zionists to the Nazis one can certainly compare them to the Serbs, and call them by their common name: X E N O P H O B E S

  • mindy1

If you haven’t been Detained, you’ve been Deported

08editorial-articleLarge

A new grave marker names the Mexicans who died in an airplane crash at Los Gatos in 1948.

The Islamophobia that is alive in this country – from the anti-Muslim legislation to the illegal spying by the NYPD – casts a wide net on Muslims, citizens and non-citizens, similarly to the way it is casted on immigrants. Recently, there was a ceremony at a California graveyard  for the 28 farm workers who were being deported back to Mexico, when in 1948, their plane crashed at Los Gatos.  Unfortunately, after the event, reporters only printed the names of the pilot, co-pilot, flight attendant and an immigration guard but not the Mexicans, the deportees in that plane. They were not recognized. Following this incident, Woody Guthrie penned a famous poem that would later be turned into a song titled Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee) in protest of the incident:
Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted, Our work contract’s out and we have to move on; Six hundred miles to that Mexican border, They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves. We died in your hills, we died in your deserts, We died in your valleys and died on your plains. We died ’neath your trees and we died in your bushes, Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
Fast forward in 2013, an editorial in the New York Times reminds us that  the treatment of deportees has not evolved one bit:
Mr. Obama speaks of embracing immigrants but has deported nearly two million of them. He and Ms. Napolitano, who left office last week, always said they were focused on catching dangerous criminals, but they cast a wide net that has fallen hard on day laborers, carwash employees, farm workers and others who pose no threat.
How sophisticated are immigration policies if the average working person is being targeted? How just are these policies if we acknowledge their labor but not their humanity? Take for example, The Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act, a bill that gives “state and local governments the authority to write and enforce their own immigration laws.” This type of authority has always been reserved as a foreign policy matter, not for local officers who will now turn these civil immigration violations into crimes. Immigration laws have largely been used as a tool to target communities, and we see this especially true in a post-9/11 world. Instead of deportees, there are detainees. David Cole’s Enemy Aliens provide haunting insight on this:
Immigration law has been the centerpiece of the preventive detention campaign. At every opportunity since September 11, Ashcroft has turned immigration law from an administrative mechanism for controlling entry and exist of foreign nationals into an excuse for holding suspicious person without meeting the constitutional requirements that ordinarily apply to the preventive detention.  – David Cole, Enemy Aliens
All though David Cole’s Enemy Aliens was published in 2003, this campaign has taken other forms; the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is an extension of this campaign.  Obama signed the bill at the end of 2011, which includes sections 1021 and 1022. These sections give the government the power to detain not only immigrants but any American without due process. In other words, legal kidnapping. Both detainees and deportees are slapped with similar laws to limit their rights and deny their stay in  this country. Their denial is not based on any constitutional motives but rather a xenophobic culture that fears the other. The preventive detention campaign and the Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act both attack their target by using immigration law as the centerpiece. One may wonder what purpose does it serve to target certain communities. A lesson in history will show that immigration and economic woes, political turmoil or war has coincided. Here is  a  history of immigration in the US:
  • During the depression of the 1840s, mobs hostile to immigrant Irish Catholics burned down a convent in Boston and rioted in Philadelphia.
  • In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, one of our nation’s first immigration laws, to keep out all people of Chinese origin.
  • During the “Red Scare” of the 1920s, thousands of foreign-born people suspected of political radicalism were arrested and brutalized. Many were deported without a hearing.
  • In 1942, 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent had their homes and other property confiscated, and were interned in camps until the end of World War II. During the same period, many Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were excluded under regulations enacted in the 1920s.
  • In the 1950s, a government program targeted Mexicans, exclusively, for deportation.

The next bullet point would read: After  9/11,  government programs target Muslims, exclusively, for detainment. Detainees and deportees are in the same struggle. In a country built upon immigrants, we have a systematic way of stripping them of their rights and denying them of their humanity.

Anytime the rights of the alien, the immigrant, the foreigner has been stripped it has resulted in the stripping of the rights of the citizen. If the other is not protected, then the citizen is no longer protected. Or as Guthrie puts it, “Both sides of the river, we died just the same.”

The alien was to be protected, not because he was a member of one’s family, clan, religious community, but because he was a human being. In the alien, therefore, man discovered the idea of humanity. – Herman Cohen, Opening quote used in Enemy Aliens

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    • GaribaldiOfLoonwatch

      Nice article, always good to see Woody Guthrie mentioned.

    • CriticalDragon1177

      I wish I knew. Other than doing a better job of teaching history, I don’t know much else. Maybe we could use some of the strategies to reduce bigotry, used in the SPLC’s teaching Tolerance Program?

    • Yausari

      That’s a disturbing conclusion. What can be done?

    • Talking_fish_head

      Unfortunatly, as long as people profit from these things it will continue, they’ll sell ad revenue on TV warning people about the “Big Brown Menace” to sell security cameras and hire more people to watch for “Scary Brown people” at airports and train stations.

    • CriticalDragon1177

      Sad but true. At one point there was wide spread discrimination against Catholics in the country, yet today one of our most prominent anti Muslim hate Mongers is Robert Spencer, who is a Catholic. Same is true for Jews, except even more so, and we all know about the horrors of the Holocaust, but there are plenty of Jewish Islamophobes out there.

      For all we know we know, after all the Islamophobia has died down, a Muslim maybe a prominent propagandist in the next major wave of persecution of a minority group in America.

    • mindy1

      *sigh* and time marches on… most reasonable people want reform, but it’s hard to find an answer that satisfies everyone…what should be done and what can be done?

    • mindy1

      Hard to say-last years victim may become tomorrows oppressor if he gets rich and feels threatened :/

    • CriticalDragon1177

      Amago,

      When will we ever learn from history and stop repeating it?

Bat Ye’or: Theorist of the ‘counterjihad’ movement

More on Bat Ye’or.

Bat Ye’or: Theorist of the ‘counterjihad’ movement 

(Via Islamophobia-Watch.com)

The current issue of Searchlight magazine features an interesting study by Dr Paul Jackson of the ”independent historian and writer” Bat Ye’or (Gisele Littman).

As the author of the Muslim-conspiracy “Eurabia” thesis, Littman has served as a major source of ideological inspiration to the “counterjihad” movement, not least to the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

You can subscribe to Searchlight here.

Bat Ye’or and far right Islamophobia

By Dr Paul Jackson

A FEW MONTHS AGO, I analysed some of the ideas underpinning Peder Jensen’s writings, and his impact on Anders Breivik [‘Fjordman and fascism: the extremes of the counter-Jihad worldview’, Searchlight, April 2013]. In this article, I want to build on this and set out some of the ideas of a figure that profoundly influenced him, Bat Ye’or. As ideologues such as Jensen, violent extremists such as Anders Breivik, and movements such as the English Defence League all highlight, Europe’s contemporary far right cultures have become steeped in a radical milieu that has become profoundly anti-Muslim in recent times.

In a nutshell, one of the most successful new narratives of the far right is not to reconfigure neo-Nazism, but to reject it. Instead, many activists now argue that western civilisation is facing an existential threat from an invading Muslim hoard, one that is on the cusp of taking over the continent and imposing its ostensibly barbaric and backward way of life on Judaeo-Christian civilisation. This is being allowed to happen by a corrupt, left wing elite who promote multiculturalism.

Defining the new conspiracy At the heart of this ‘Counter-Jihad’ discourse is a figure of some intellectual sophistication, the independent ‘historian’ and writer of deeply anti-Muslim monographs on European history and politics, Bat Ye’or. This is a pen name, translating roughly as ‘Daughter of the Nile’, adopted by a Jewish, Egyptian-born, British author, Gisele Littman. Her work includes books such as Eurabia: The Euro- Arab Axis and Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilisations Collide.

Many within the Counter-Jihad movement have picked up Ye’or’s conspiracy theory themes. As analysts such as Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens stress, this fuzzy movement spans websites such as Gates of Vienna, far right street movements like the UK’s English Defence League, and US based activists such as Pamela Geller. It even blurs into quite mainstream voices, such as the Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips. For the most part, the highly disparate voices that make up this movement do not actively promote violence. But they do foster a milieu in which, for some, violence towards Muslims and towards left wing figures becomes easier to imagine, and so, again for some, easier to consider as desirable.

The family relationship Given this spread of figures and organisations, we should be careful not to assert that people within this movement are all the same. Not all voices from within this fuzzy ‘Counter-Jihad’ movement argue the same points, and some are far more extreme than others. Some are bloggers, or self-styled independent voices, decrying the political mainstream for failing to recognise their much-inflated readings of the security threats posed by Muslims. Others are street activists, or even violent extremists. Nor do they all meet together, or have a central coordinated plan, though of course some conferences do occur – such as at Aarhus in 2012.

But despite this being quite a nebulous movement, we can certainly say they all possess some form of ‘family relationship’. To stick with European figures within this movement at least, what tends to unite them is, as they see it, the waning of European national identities as a result of soft, multicultural and left wing politics, which promotes cultural difference over strong national and European traditions, which are identified as Judeo-Christian. This, the Counter-Jihad narrative continues, is seized upon by Muslims inside and outside of Europe, who themselves have an innate desire to conquer and overthrow European culture and society.

The Counter-Jihad movement’s ‘history’ is a future-orientated one too, often presenting scary sketches of the near future that are based on an assortment of migration statistics and projected birth rates of Muslims. The trajectory such voices forecast is one that predicts that Muslims will be running Europe within the next generation or so, having already begun to mount a largely ignored invasion of the continent.

This narrative finds many forms. For example it can be encoded with quite a strong conspiracy theory element, or can develop different readings of just how many Muslims in Europe are involved in such plotting, or what types of activity should be included here. Yet it is always marked by the linking of data and analysis, some more empirical, some more speculative, to some form of repetition this story of Europe on the cusp of Islamisation.

Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory Turning to Bat Ye’or’s approach here, within her overarching conceptual approach we can certainly give her credit for some originality. Her work offers a radical new strain of thinking that helps to style each and every form of Islam as the same, both across the globe, and through time too. A Muslim perpetrator in the Armenian genocide, or a violent thug within a non-democratic regime such as in Sudan, is just the same as a Muslim living down the road.

In particular, she develops a new concept in her work, which she dubs ‘dhimmitude’. Rhetorically, this neologism is quite consciously designed to sound similar to ‘servitude’, and is drawn from simplistic reading of Islamic theology. Drawing on the Arabic term ‘dhimmi’, for Ye’or the term becomes a dubious concept for structuring a far right historiography, and is used to describe the socio-Iegal contexts of Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule.

Via her idea of ‘dhimmitude’, she essentialises, and asserts that relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims always have been, currently are, and always will be, a relationship defined by power. For her, Muslims are driven, through the theology of the faith, to engage in Jihad to establish dominance over Christians and Jews. This is seen as an essential quality within Islam. It is a direct consequence of Jihad, and all those who are deemed ‘Infidel’ will ultimately need to accept a condition of humiliation.

Adding to this theme, she has also developed the concept of ‘Eurabia’, which has become another highly influential buzz term among the anti-Muslim far right. In her analysis, Eurabia refers to a behind-the-scenes conspiracy by leading Arab countries. For her, this developed from the early 1970s and forged clandestine networks of power that promoted pro-Muslim and anti-American values in Europe, and sought to lay the groundwork to establish a longer-term cultural hegemony over European society. For Ye’or, the French lay at the heart of this conspiracy, drawing on De Gaulle’s anti-American legacy and longer-term sympathies with the Arab world.

Then, in 1973, as a result of the oil crisis, an organisation supported by the EEC was created called the Euro-Arab Dialogue. This became the centrepiece of a series of mechanisms for the cowing of all European political structures to follow an agenda set by Muslim nations, especially in the Middle East. Powerful Europeans at the highest level were regularly corrupted, lured by bribes and essentially conned into doing the bidding of Arab nations.

Academic or ideologue? It is worth bearing in mind that far right activists can develop ideas in a very scholarly-seeming manner. For example, Holocaust denial literature often presents itself as genuinely academic, while really it is simply regurgitating a mythology in lengthy texts with footnotes. Is this the case with Ye’or too?

For the uninitiated, Ye’or’s writings certainly appear to conform to the model of academic texts, albeit of a more polemical kind. Moreover, the backs of her books are adorned with quotes from leading academics as well as fellow anti-Muslim ideologues. For example, according to the high-profile Niall Ferguson:

No writer has done more than Bat Ye’or to draw attention to the menacing character of Islamic extremism. Future historians will one day regard her coinage of the term ‘Eurabia’ as prophetic. Those who wish to live in a free society must be eternally vigilant. Bat Ye’or’s vigilance is unrivalled.

This quote is regularly cited when Ye’or appears on websites such as Jihadwatch, and certainly is used to give her ideas gravitas and respectability. If Ferguson took the time to read her work in depth, he might well be appalled by the ahistorical manner in which a deeply polemical viewpoint is set out. Or he may have done so, agrees with her politics, and so sees nothing wrong with its flawed methodology and dubious arguments.

More sensibly, writing in Race and Class, Matt Carr has described Ye’or’s analysis of recent European history as follows:

To Ye’or, the Euro-Arab Dialogue was the deus ex machina by means of which European politicians and civil servants willingly prepared for the subjugation of Europe and whose ‘occult machinery’ has bought about the ‘irreversible transformation’ of Europe into a ‘new geographical entity – Eurabia’ … a name she randomly applies to the conspiratorial project she describes without offering any evidence that the EAD, or any other organisation, ever used it….

As an analysis of contemporary European history, this is flat-out barking gibberish, which falls somewhere between hyper-Zionist propaganda, crude conspiracy theory and delirious fantasy…. Nowhere in this ideologically driven interpretation of European-Arab relations does Ye’or come close to proving the ‘secret history’ that she professes to reveal.

Conclusion Now, Matt Carr’s analysis is essentially correct, but it does not mean Ye’or has not been influential. Indeed, adding to Carr’s comments, it is important to stress that Ye’or’s historical methodology is highly flawed, and steeped in a strong, deductive approach typical of conspiracy theories and far right readings of the recent past. She starts with unassailable set of conclusions, and then selects facts that fit them – and not always convincingly.

It is likely that she appeals, then, through an ideological resonance around the sense that Muslims are becoming too powerful, and so this theme ‘rings true’ for her supporters, so they go along with it. She began this agenda ahead of 9/11, but only started to be picked up as a relevant voice in the 2000s. Mainstream academia sees her as of little to no relevance, yet she has now become the darling of the Counter-Jihad movement.

Finally, it is important to stress that Bat Ye’or’s far right agenda is not neo-Nazism, far from it. Her ideas are not compatible with a reworking of Hitler’s creed. Indeed, for Ye’or, the Nazis were in collusion with Muslims, and some of her passages even suggest that Muslims were partially culpable for the Holocaust. So here the Nazis are the bad guys. This theme is unsurprising given the fact that Ye’or is herself Jewish. This does not stop the ideology she presents manifesting many of the qualities of a far right perspective, especially the demonisation of hate figures and revelling in conspiracy theory ideas. Its just one that does not like Nazism and antisemitism.

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    • CriticalDragon1177

      A more accurate description would be

      “Bat Ye’or: Conspiracy Theorist of the ‘counterjihad’ movement”

    • Theorist? Her ideas about European relations in the Mediterranean are well outside of the mainstream and what is accepted as history.

    • bboy_blue

      Bat(shit) Ye’or is the ‘counterjihad’ equivalent of Sayyid Qutb. Fjordman is her Anwar Al-Awlaki, Anders Breivik her Nidal Hasan. If she were Muslim Obama would have a drone with her name on it.

    • Bob

      Actually it’s not from Islamophobia-Watch.com, it’s from islamophobiawatch.co.uk

The Muslims Are Coming: Pamela Geller Discovers Comedy Jihad

Dean_Obeidallah

The Muslims Are Coming:  Pamela Geller Discovers Comedy Jihad

by Sheila Musaji

In 2009, Dean Obeidallah wrote The Muslims Are Coming! in which he talked about an early Muslims Are Coming efforts:

… In an effort to speed up the Muslim take over of America—which on some level would probably help my comedy career because I’ll get even more bookings by Muslim groups—my fellow Arab-American comedians Aron Kader and Maysoon Zayid went out to the streets of NYC with me to see if we could recruit Americans to Islam. (We did this a little while back when we first heard this allegation.) We offered prizes to people to convert to Islam, such as a toaster, a blender and even Sudoku. Here is a clip of our efforts to convert Americans! …

By 2011, this initial skit had become the Muslims Are Coming comedy tour which Dean Obeidallah wrote about in the article America, how can Muslim-Americans reach non-Muslims?.  You can see Dean Obeidallah’s Tedx talk about the comedy tour hereThe_Muslims_are_Coming

And during the comedy tour, Dean Obeidallah and Negin Farsad began working on making a documentary film based on the comedy tour.  In 2011, Obeidallah requested an interview with Robert Spencer to be included in this The Muslims Are Coming documentary film, and Spencer turned this into a “prove to me you’re not a radical Muslim test”.  I laid out the whole saga in the article The Muslim comedian and the Islamophobe:  A funny thing happened on the way to the interview.  That article includes Spencer’s 1,000 word plus questionnaire requiring an answer before he would consider being interviewed by Obeidallah, and my answers to those stupid questions.  The bottom line is that Spencer didn’t agree to the interview.

Obeidallah and Farsad created a Facebook page, and ran a Kickstarter donation compaign to get the funds to complete the film project.

Now, in 2013, the film is completed, and is set to be released in theaters on September 12th.  This documentary film is co-directed by Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah.  You can see the trailer here.

Patrick Gavin published an article about this film titled Film tackles Islamophobia with humor.  He noted that “The film tracks a group of Muslim-American stand-ups as they performed in the Muslims are Coming Comedy Tour across the country and tackle people’s stereotypes.  The film also features cameos by Jon Stewart, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Colin Quinn, Lewis Black and Aasif Mandvi.”

Pamela Geller doesn’t find this funny.  She has just written Cultural Jihad: Hollywood Documentary to Mock ‘Islamophobes’.  Here are just a few of her objections to this Muslim comedy:  ”… We aren’t even allowed to discuss Islam and the doctrine of jihad in the mainstream media, but “Islamophobia” is a matter for comedy?  …  So the new cultural jihad is to make it cool and happening and now to make fun of the people who do talk about it at risk of their reputations and livelihoods and personal safety.  …  The Hollywood hordes who have signed on for this film have no intellectual depth, but fighting against “Islamophobia” is perceived to be politically correct and chi chi, and that’s all they need.  …  Meanwhile, anti-jihad activists can’t get movies made. …”

Yes, Geller is right this is a jihad, in the sense that mainstream, traditional Muslims understand jihad — not in the sense that Islamophobes and the Muslim lunatic fringe distort the term.  It is a comedy jihad.  A jihad for truth, justice, and the American way.

I for one am going to buy a ticket and have a good laugh at the idiocy of Islamophobes like Geller and Spencer and the rest of the Islamophobia echo chamber. **************

RESOURCES FOR DEALING WITH ISLAMOPHOBIA SUMMARY

The Islamophobia Industry exists and is engaged in an anti-Muslim Crusade.  They have a manifestofor spreading their propaganda, and which states their goal of “destroying Islam — as a culture, a political ideology, and a religion.” They produce anti-Muslim films.  They are forming new organizations and coalitions of organizations at a dizzying speed, not only nationally, but also internationally.   They have formed an International Leadership Team “which will function as a mobile, proactive, reactive on-the-ground team developing and executing confidential action plans that strike at the heart of the global anti-freedom agenda.”

The Islamophobia of these folks is very real, it is also strikingly similar to a previous generations’ anti-Semitism, and it has predictable consequences.   The reason that this is so obvious to so many is that rational people can tell the difference between legitimate concerns and bigoted stereotypes.

Sadly, the Islamophobic echo chamber has been aided by some in the Jewish and Christian clergy, and even by some of our elected representatives, particularly in the GOP.

The claim that the Islamophobes are “truth-tellers” and “defenders of freedom” who actually “love Muslims” and have never engaged in “broadbrush demonization” or “advocated violence”, or thatnothing that they say could have had anything to do with any act of violence,  are nonsense.  The claim that they are falsely 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, or their claim that the fact that there are fewer hate crimes against Muslims than against Jews or that some Muslims have fabricated such crimes “proves” that Islamophobia doesn’t exist,  or that the term Islamophobia was made up by Muslims in order to stifle their freedom of speech, or that anti-Muslim bigotry is “not Islamophobia but Islamorealism” are all nonsense.

These individuals and organizations consistently promote the false what everyone “knows” lies about Islam and Muslims (including distorting the meaning of Qur’anic verses, and distorting the meaning of Islamic terms such as taqiyyajihadsharia, etc.).  Islamophobes falsely claim to see “JIHAD” PLOTSeverywhere, particularly where they don’t exist.   They, like Muslim extremists, don’t understand the true meaning of the term jihad.  The Islamophobes have uncovered countless examples of “shocking”, non-existent Muslim jihad plots.

Here are just a few ridiculous claims about nonsensical Muslim plots:

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.  Leon Alphans Traille, Jr., the Arlington, Virginia Mall Bomber was accused of possible “sudden jihad syndrome” just because he had a beard, obviously, a case of beard jihad.     Tyler Brehm who carried out theHollywood shooting jihad was accused of “sudden jihad syndrome” because he shouted something that one witness from the Philippines said he might have shouted “Allahu Akbar”.  This report was not backed up by any other witnesses.  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 a stealth-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. Muslims hoped to open a Muslim hospital in the U.S. and that was called hospital jihad.

The Islamophobes have uncovered countless examples of “shocking” Muslim jihad plots.  They have uncovered:

bumper sticker jihad — Thanksgiving turkey jihad — 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— public school/madrassa jihad — post office jihad — food jihad — pyramid jihad — crucifixion jihad in Egypt — fireworks jihad — computer donation jihad — civic participation jihad —Olympic “judo” jihad— stealth name jihad— pre-violent jihad — Love jihad — fashion jihad 2 — #MyJihad ad jihad — talk show host jihad — art museum jihad — Halloween jihad —DNC Muslim Prayer Jihad — cat crucifixion jihad in Ghana — Scottish Muslim women’s stealth jihad — anti-democracy jihad — un-neighborly Musims in Paris jihad — jihad on Christopher Columbus — Iranian smallpox jihad — Muslim Christmas grinch jihad —#MyJihad twitter jihad — Muslim takeover of National Parks jihad

Nothing is too trivial to escape the eagle eyes of these “defenders of Western civilization” against devious Muslim stealth jihad plots.  Christina Abraham (a Muslim) has a name that is not recognizably Muslim enough and so we have stealth name jihad. And, if a Muslim somewhere is not doing anything at all suspicious, then they are engaged in pre-violent jihad.

Islamophobes generalize specific incidents to reflect on all Muslims or all of Islam.    Islamophobes consistently push demonstrably false memes such as:  – we are in danger from creeping Sharia, – the Muslim population is increasing at an alarming rate, – 80% of American Mosques are radicalized,  –  There have been 270 million victims of “jihad”  –  There have been 17,000+ “Islamic terrorist” attacks since 9/11    – Muslims in government are accused of being Muslim Brotherhood plants, stealth jihadists, and creeping Sharia proponents and should be MARGINALIZED or excluded.  Muslim and Arab organizations and individuals are connected to the infamous Muslim Brotherhood document or theunindicted co-conspirator label, or accused of not condemning Hamas, telling American Muslims not to talk to the FBI, of being “Jew haters”, etc.

When Islamophobes are caught in the act of making up or distorting claims they engage in devious methods to attempt to conceal the evidence.

Islamophobes do not understand freedom of speech or that freedom of speech does not include freedom from condemnation of that speech and they are quick to call for censorship and repression of speech they don’t like.

There is a reason that many, even outside of the Muslim community see such demonization of Muslims as Islamophobic.  There is a reason that the ADL has stated that Brigitte Gabriel’s Act for America, Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), David Yerushalmi’s Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE)  are “groups 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 these individuals are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.  There is a reason that these individuals and organizations are featured prominently in: — the Center for American Progress reports “Fear Inc.” on the Islamophobia network in America and Understanding Sharia Law: Conservatives skewed interpretation needs debunking. — the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism.  — the NYCLU reportReligious Freedom Under Attack:  The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State.  — the Political Research Associates report Manufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.  — The ACLU report Nothing to Fear: Debunking the Mythical “Sharia Threat” to Our Judicial System — in The American Muslim TAM Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry.   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 these individuals and organizations are featured in just about every legitimate report on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred.

See Resources for dealing with Islamophobes for many more reasons that these people cannot be trusted.

Sheila Musaji is the founding editor of The American Muslim (TAM), published since 1989.  Sheila received the Council on American-Islamic Relations 2007 Islamic Community Service Award for Journalism,  and the Loonwatch Anti-Loons of 2011: Profiles in Courage Award for her work in fighting Islamophobia.  Sheila was selected for inclusion in the 2012 edition of The Muslim 500: The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims published since 2009 by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan.    Biography  You can follow her on twitter @sheilamusaji (https://twitter.com/SheilaMusaji )

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    • Sam Seed

      Of course, but you and I know that certain individuals (Spencer/Geller) would paint a very different picture.

    • CriticalDragon1177

      The fact they’re going to be in it makes me want to see it even more. Those guys are hilarious!

    • jameyfan

      Love the trailer which showed Jon Stewart, Jeneane Garofalo, Lewis Black, and many other great comedians.

  • jameyfan

    lol I can’t believe someone would downvote a simple opinion! I was tempted to downvote your comment just for laughs but had to resist.

Pamela Geller exploits another tragedy to promote pathological anti-Muslim hatred

Pamela-Geller-Undead

Pamela Geller exploits another tragedy to promote pathological anti-Muslim hatred

by Sheila Musaji

Pamela Geller has posted Muslim “Youth” looting the dead at French Rail Crash.

Geller says:

“This is the second unexplained train crash in as many weeks. More bodies are still being recovered in a mysterious Quebec train disaster in Canada   In this latest disaster in France, French Atlas readers tell me that Muslim “youths” were looting corpses at the train crash site. Most media neglected this monstrous bit of news; The Daily Telegraph makes a brief mention of the ghouls, referring to the Muslims as, ahem, “local people.”

Actually, according to the most recent Reuters report on the tragic Quebec train crash: The runaway train of 72 cars carrying crude oil had been parked uphill in the nearby town of Nantes. It started moving toward Lac-Megantic when its brakes failed, building speed and eventually jumping the tracks in the heart of town near the packed Musi-Cafe bar, shortly after 1 a.m. (0500 GMT) last Saturday.

The French train crash appears to have been caused by loose equipment, more specifically, a loose steel plate at a junction.

There have been reports of looters but those reports only mention “jeunes” and “local people” in their descriptions.  No one anywhere mentions Muslims except for Islam vs EuropeSheikh Yer’Mami and Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs (and after them, the rest of the most vicious element of the Islamophobic echo chamber).

“Jeunes” simply means young people.  No one but Geller and Islam vs Europe and other Islamophobic sites mention Muslims at all in relation to what happened in France.  Who says that jeunes is “French journalist code for Muslims”?  Who says “local people” is code for Muslims?

There is a reason that any respectable media have neglected Geller’s “monstrous bit of news”, and that is because it is not news, but simply another of Geller’s endless steam of sick Islamophobic fantasies.  Pamela Geller says that she “loves Muslims” and has “no problem” with Muslims only with Islam.  This is certainly a love that passes all understanding as her pathological hatred of Muslims seems to know no bounds.

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    • CriticalDragon1177

      I would imagine

    • EDLNewsXtra

      Another one, who by rights, should be pumped full of haloperidol, and rocking back and forth in a psychiatric unit muttering about the mass Islamic conspiracy against her…

    • Tighe McCandless

      This was before I eventually got fed up with his passive-aggressive attempts at shoving his politics into literally any discussion we had and I stopped trying to befriend him, but I used to know a guy who, no joke, was apparently 100% convinced that Muhammad was the Antichrist. My initial thought was that he meant AN antichrist, which would have at least been slightly more plausible as far as religion, as the New Testament acknowledges them in the form of false prophets. But, uh, no. Literal spawn of the devil, apparently.

      But then, this was the same guy who received all of his news from WorldNetDaily and Fox News so maybe I shouldn’t be all that surprised (big Spencer fan, too).

    • Zakariya Ali Sher

      Actually, I’ve seen some REALLY out there bigots who do try and link Islam with aliens/demons/whatever by claiming that the Ka’bah is some sort of spaceship and Muhammad (PBUH) was talking with aliens. Or he was possessed by demons. Or… well, you get the idea. Fortunately, these guys are pretty far out there even by Islamophobe standards.

    • Zakariya Ali Sher

      Heh, I doubt Pamella Geller knows about Bhopal, or would dare to bring it up. After all, it was an American company that caused the disaster, and their CEO Warren Anderson still hasn’t stood trial in India. In fact, he’s living the highlife up in the States. Most Americans are blissfully ignorant about what happens half a world away…

    • Rob Saunders

      Yes, well, most of the victims in the Bhopal tragedy were Hindus so that must have been the work of wicked Muzzies.

    • CriticalDragon1177

      If aliens were to invade the Earth Tomorrow, Pamela Geller would blame the Muslims, somehow. Not sure how, but she could find a way.

    • Talking_fish_head

      THIS JUST IN: THE MUZZIS CAUSED THE HINDENBURG DISASTER!!!!!!!!

      seriously, it (Geller) needs to go to mental institute and have what left of its brain examined

    • Yausari

      “unexplained train crash” She says. Wanna blame Muslims on that too?

    • Heinz Catsup

      So let me get this straight. Only Muslims are looters and everyone else is not? Damn, Pam (hey, that rhymes lol), you truly are one cuh-razy biiatch!

    • golden izanagi

      that wouldn’t be surprising to find on atlas drugs the article would probably be titled “the truth unveiled how muslims had a hand in the sinking of the titanic” and will rave on about how muslims used there super strength to prevent the ship from being able to avoid the iceberg.

    • Reynardine

      Bigots so believe their targets ought to be as bad as the bigots say they are, that they feel downright righteous about making up “facts” and forging “evidence” if they’re not. Fox News broadcast a snip of a hockey riot in Vancouver and pretended it was a race riot over the Martin case in Miami. Alas, the sissy pink faces, heavy clothes, bare branches, and Canadian newspaper sign, all rather spoiled the effect. I suppose they’re over at the old 20th Century Fox studios, coming up with something more convincing as we speak.

    • golden izanagi

      ah pamela geller there she goes “defending freedom” by exploiting a freak accident what a gal, and I wonder how “shiek” his mami can title a story with the words “no accident” in it does he think somebody with telekinetic powers made the steel plate to come loose causing the accident and oh god my brain is hurting again if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go have a break down its kinda like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxzuEM8puNQ

    • mindy1

      Stay classy pam, exploiting a freak accident to blame the mooosssllliiimmms :/

    • Jon Diamond

      Lots of car crashes everyday. I wonder who is involved.

Muslim Cabdriver, an Army Reservist and Iraqi veteran,assaulted for being Muslim

IMG_08871367256190

Watch the video here: Exclusive cell phone video of alleged cab assault

Muslim cabdriver alleges assault by passenger who cited Boston Marathon bombing

By  and Published: April 30

An Army reservist and Iraq veteran who works as a cabdriver says a passenger he picked up early Friday at a Northern Virginia country club accused him of being a terrorist because he is Muslim, then fractured his jaw in an attack being described by Islamic activists as a hate crime.Mohamed A. Salim says the passenger compared him to the men accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing 11 days earlier and threatened to kill him.“Because I’m a Muslim, he treated me like a piece of trash,” Salim said. “I love this country. I didn’t deserve this.”

Ed Dahlberg of Clifton, who has been charged with misdemeanor assault, denied hitting Salim in a statement released by his attorney.

Muslim rights workers said Salim’s account is supported by medical records and an 11-minute, obscenity-filled video of Dahlberg’s remarks leading up to the alleged assault. Salim, a 39-year-old from Great Falls, provided The Washington Post with a copy, which his attorney described as evidence of the prejudice that others sometimes face but rarely document.

The video, which Salim took on his phone, appears to show physical contact between the men but does not capture the alleged punch that Salim said fractured his jaw, the Boston bombing reference or the threat to kill. Salim said that those happened after he stopped recording so he could call the police.

On the video, a middle-aged businessman can be heard asking Salim if he is Islamic and then asserting that most Muslims are terrorists. He says the Koran directs Muslims to kill nonbelievers and then repeatedly and loudly demands that Salim denounce the Sept. 11, 2001, attackers. When Salim asks if the passenger is threatening him, the passenger uses an obscene phrase to respond in the affirmative.

“If you’re a Muslim, you’re a [expletive] jihadist,” the passenger says. “You are just as bad as the rest of them.”

The video ends with a blur of motion and audio of Salim asking, “Why are you punching me? Sir, why are you punching me?”

The passenger replies: “You’re a [expletive] Muslim.”

The insult is followed by the sound of a car door slamming. In an interview, Salim said Dahlberg left briefly but returned, struck him and ran into the woods.

Dahlberg’s attorney, Demetry Pikrallidas, said Dahlberg did not assault Salim. Even so, he said, Dahlberg wanted to apologize to anyone offended by his remarks. Dahlberg was profoundly affected by the Sept. 11 attacks, Pikrallidas said, and misunderstood Salim’s response to his questions.

Dahlberg “became rather emotional as the discussion turned to jihad and 9/11, and especially heated on the subject of jihadists who want to harm America,” Pikrallidas said in a statement.

Pikrallidas described Dahlberg as a “hardworking family man and a church-going person” who had been drinking but was not intoxicated. He stressed that Salim’s video shows the ride began with six minutes of friendly conversation.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations on Monday asked Fairfax County prosecutors to designate the attack a hate crime. “The prosecutor has a clear opportunity to send a message that anti-Muslim crime will not be tolerated, ” said Gadeir Abbas, an attorney for CAIR.

Fairfax prosecutors said they will review the video to determine whether to prosecute the case as a hate crime, which would elevate the charge to a felony. Prosecutors would have to show that Dahlberg attacked Salim because of his religion, race or national origin.

CAIR said it has documented two suspected hate crimes elsewhere since the Boston bombing. Hours after the April 15 explosions, a Bangladeshi man reportedly suffered a dislocated shoulder when beaten at a New York City restaurant. In Malden, Mass., a woman wearing an Islamic head scarf allegedly was assaulted April 17 by a man shouting anti-Muslim slurs.

On the video, Dahlberg describes himself as the owner of a local brokerage that sells large business jets internationally.

Salim said he has had a headache since the incident, has lost hearing in one ear and has blurred vision. Medical records provided by Salim show that he was treated for a fractured jaw and a head injury.

Salim, a married father of four who emigrated from Somalia 15 years ago, said the incident was particularly painful because he is a naturalized U.S. citizen and an Army Reserve sergeant who served in Baghdad and the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has worked in intelligence and as a linguist, he said.

“I’m real angry,” he said. “I served my country. I fought. I sacrificed.”

Salim said he was dispatched to the Country Club of Fairfax about 2 a.m. Friday to pick up Dahlberg. When he arrived, he said he told Dahlberg he could not enter the cab with an open beer, so Dahlberg finished it.

Dahlberg then began complaining about the time that had expired on the taxi’s meter, Salim said. As a precaution, Salim said, he started the video recorder on his phone. For most of the ride, it recorded audio but the camera was obscured.

Dahlberg can be heard asking where Salim is from and whether he’s Muslim. Then Dahlberg demands to know Salim’s view of jihad and the 9/11 terrorists, growing progressively louder.

“If you’re a Muslim, you are [expletive] on that same page” as the Sept. 11 terrorists, Dahlberg says at one point. “Denounce those [expletives] that flew jets into the World Trade Center. . . . Tell me that they are pieces of [expletive], or you are with them. . . .

“If you’re a [expletive] Muslim flying jets into the World Trade Center, then [expletive] you, I will slice your [expletive] throat right now.”

Salim tries to calm the situation by saying, “Okay, just peace, and sit, please. Cut off. Cut off.”

Then, about 10 minutes into the ride, Salim aims the phone over his shoulder, informs Dahlberg that he is being recorded and says he is calling the police. The camera shakes, and there are sounds of an apparent scuffle.

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    • Seeker

      Wow ! So you could get brainwashed just by reading the Quran ? That must be one powerful book !

      Or maybe your brain is too weak eh ? Figures. From the childish comments you’re posting in here. (“Get lost” ????)

    • Leftwing_Muslim_Alliance

      he maybe revealed his true identity …… Pam MacBeth Geller ! Although maybe he deleted his own posts when he/she realised how stupid he looked Sir David

    • Leftwing_Muslim_Alliance

      You are looking for logic among the paranoid and delusional ? Best of luck mate. I will let you in to a secret since there is just you and me here . Its called FUD its a way of managing people. FUD stands for fear ,uncertanty and doubt. First of all you create fear of the unknown for example Muslims or jews or catholics or communists or witches ,this makes people uncertain you reveal there doubts and offer a solution . The solution is usually support me and my methods , Its a tried and tested method and its not difficult to see current and historical examples. Sir David

    • Christian-Friend

      What would troy said that would make the moderator delete his answers to my posts?

    • Christian-Friend

      obvious troll is obvious.

    • Christian-Friend

      I just want to understand the logic behind such statement.

  • Leftwing_Muslim_Alliance

    You should read the Quran because it would reveal to you how much an idiot your statements are making you look like . I have read the Quran and it did not make me a muslim . Do you think I should read it again ? Maybe backwards

Stop Trying to Split Gays and Muslims

gays_muslims-620x412

Geller is attempting to pinkwash Islamophobia, but many in the LGBT and Muslim communities will not allow it to happen.

Chris D. Stedman, a humanist, who is also homosexual has been an outspoken fighter against anti-Muslim bigotry and takes on Geller and her cohorts’ claim that they have support from the gay community head on.

Homosexuality is a controversial topic in many Muslim American communities in which there is heated debate about the topic, but there appears to be a consensus that despite disagreements on homosexuality, respect and support for equal rights before the law, especially in the case of the marginalized has to be part and parcel of securing ones own rights.

Stop trying to split gays and Muslims

Anti-Islam crusader Pam Geller’s effort to foment hate between the two groups is based on lies and doomed to fail

BY 

I have an earnest and sincere question for the LGBT community: Do you support Pamela Geller?

Geller, who is one of the most active proponents of anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States, rose to notoriety as one of the key instigators of the Park51 backlash, misrepresenting a proposed Islamic Community Center (think a YMCA or Jewish Community Center) by calling it the “Ground Zero mosque” and engaging in dishonest rhetoric and blatant fear-mongering. Her organization, Stop the Islamization of America, was identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, alongside extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis. And it’s earned that label — Geller and her allies have dedicated countless hours and millions upon millions of dollars to drum up hatred, fear and xenophobia toward Muslims.

Last week I learned that Geller and one of her biggest allies, Robert Spencer, are hosting a fundraiser for their anti-Muslim advertisements on the website Indiegogo. This disturbed me for a number of reasons, but particularly because Indiegogo’s terms explicitly prohibit “anything promoting hate.” (Despite reports from me and many others, Indiegogo has so far declined to remove the fundraiser; if so inclined, you can let them know what you think about that here.)

While I was looking into this, I discovered that Geller recently announced plans to run a series of anti-Muslim advertisements in San Francisco quoting Muslim individuals making anti-LGBT statements. Why? Because members of San Francisco’s LGBT community criticized other anti-Muslim ads she has run there.

I tweeted my appreciation that the LGBT community in San Francisco is standing up against her efforts to drive a wedge between LGBT folks and Muslims. Soon after, Geller retweeted me, claiming that she in fact has “huge support in Gay community.” Immediately, her supporters began to lob insults and even threats at me; Spencer himself suggested that I should be rewarded for supporting Muslims by someone “saw[ing] off [my] head.” (Meanwhile, though Geller, Spencer and their supporters kept tweeting at me that Muslims “hate gays” and want to kill me, many Muslim friends and strangers alike tweeted love and support for LGBT equality at me.)

As things settled down, I realized that Geller had stopped responding to me when I requested more information to back up her assertion that she has “huge support in Gay community,” after the only evidence she provided was a link to a Facebook group with 72 members. I’ve since asked her repeatedly for more information, but have not gotten a response.

I couldn’t think of a single LGBT person in my life that would support her work, but I didn’t want to go off of my own judgment alone. So I started asking around. It wasn’t hard to find prominent members of the LGBT community who do not share Geller’s views.

“The idea that the LGBT community should support Islamophobia is offensive and absurd,” said Joseph Ward III, director of Believe Out Loud, an organization that empowers Christians to work for LGBT equality. “[American Muslims] are our allies as we share a common struggle to overcome stereotypes and misconceptions in America.”

“Trying to drive a wedge between the LGBT community and other communities is old, tired and [it] doesn’t work,” said Ross Murray, director of News and Faith Initiatives for GLAAD. “Pitting two communities [like the Muslim and LGBT communities] against one another is an attempt to keep both oppressed. Wedge strategies are offensive and, in the long run, they do not work. Geller is not an LGBT ally — she’s posing as one because it is convenient to her [anti-Muslim] agenda.”

“As with any attempts at a wedge, these efforts seek to erase the real and powerful reality of LGBT Muslims and seek to create a false dichotomy: All the LGBT people are non-Muslim/Islamophobic and all the Muslims are straight and homophobic,” said Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, program director of the Institute for Welcoming Resources at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “Particularly given the oppression, marginalization, hatred and violence visited upon the LGBTQ community, it is critically important that we use our spiritual, communal and political power to speak out against the victimization and vilification of any other community. As a Christian lesbian, I must stand against any attempts to victimize another because of their personhood.”

“There’s no doubt that there’s a great deal of religion-based bigotry against LGBT people, although it’s hardly limited to Islam. The Hebrew Scriptures also prescribe the death penalty for some homosexual conduct, but you don’t typically see people using this to inflame anti-Semitic or anti-Christian sentiment,” said John Corvino, author of “What’s Wrong With Homosexuality?” and coauthor of “Debating Same-Sex Marriage.” “To single out Muslims in this way is both unhelpful and unfair.”

Despite her claim, the work of Geller and her colleagues has plenty of opposition in the LGBT community. Why?

For starters, it’s wrong.

As Junaid Jahangir writes in a recent piece at the Huffington Post, “[Geller’s] selective references provide a misguided view of the current Muslim position on queer rights issues.” He rightly notes that her advertisements lift up the views of a controversial Muslim cleric, but ignore the “over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries [that] not only called for an international treaty to counter such clerics, but also called for a tribunal set by the United Nations Security Council to put them on trial for inciting violence.” In his piece, which is a must-read, Jahangir goes on to quote many influential, pro-equality Muslim leaders. Pointing to the activism they are doing to support LGBT rights, he demonstrates that Geller is unfairly — and dangerously — presenting a skewed picture of Muslim views on LGBT people.

“There’s no question that homophobia is rampant among the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims — but that doesn’t negate the fact that there are huge groups of Muslims who have easily reconciled their faith and sexual orientation, like LGBT people in other faith communities,” said Reza Aslan, author of “No God but God” and “Beyond Fundamentalism,” in a recent phone interview. “For a woman who leads an organization that has been labeled a hate group to try to reach out to a community like the LGBT community, by trying to make a connection based on bigotry, is harmful and ridiculous. Bigotry is not a bridge.”

Of course, members of the LGBT community are right to be concerned about the dangers of religious extremism and totalitarianism — whether it is Christian, Muslim or any other expression. But demonizing another community won’t help reduce the influence of religious fundamentalism.

You can be honest about your disagreements without being hateful. I’m a queer atheist, and I believe that there are ideas and practices promoted by Muslims in the name of Islam that are not only false — they’re extremely harmful. But to rally against Muslims and Islam as if they and it are some monolithic bloc is counterproductive; it creates enemies where we need allies. There are many Muslims who oppose cruelty and violence done in the name of Islam and favor equality for all people, and they are positioned to create change. We should be working with them, not standing against all of Islam. Based on my own experiences, I know that this is a much more constructive approach. In my book “Faitheist,” I tell several stories about Muslim friends who are not only accepting of my sexual orientation, but are also fierce allies for LGBT equality.

That’s the problem with Geller’s advertisements, and with sweeping, generalizing statements about entire groups of people: They don’t account for the diversity of ideas and traditions that exist within any given community. Geller focuses on a ridiculously tiny minority of Muslim extremists in order to paint her picture of Islam, and in doing so she neglects to account for the rich and varied traditions of generosity, selflessness, social progress and forgiveness present within Islam. Not only that, but her efforts alienate key allies — Muslim and non-Muslim alike — who share her concerns about Muslim extremists, but who also recognize that her narrow approach is unfair and dishonest.

Instead of adopting Geller’s approach, LGBT people should focus on building relationships. After all, support for marriage equality more than doubles among people who know a gay person. The Pew Research Center reports that of the 14 percent of Americans who changed their mind and decided to support gay marriage in the last decade, 37 percent (the largest category) cited having “friends/family/acquaintances who are gay/lesbian” as the primary reason. The second largest group in this astounding shift, at 25 percent, said they became more tolerant, learned more and became more aware.

In 2011, I wrote an essay encouraging more cooperation and solidarity between the LGBT community and the Muslim community:

[In 2009], a Gallup poll demonstrated something the LGBTQ community has known for some time: People are significantly more inclined to oppose gay marriage if they do not know anyone who is gay. Similarly, Time Magazine cover story featured revealing numbers that speak volumes about the correlation between positive relationships and civic support. Per their survey, 46 percent of Americans think Islam is more violent than other faiths and 61 percent oppose Park51, but only 37 percent even know a Muslim American. Another survey, by Pew, reported that 55 percent of Americans know “not very much” or “nothing at all” about Islam. The disconnect is clear: When only 37 percent of Americans know a Muslim American, and 55 percent claim to know very little or nothing about Islam, the negative stereotypes about the Muslim community go unchallenged.

The Muslim and LGBTQ communities face common challenges that stem from the same problem—that diverse communities don’t have robust and durable civic ties. This is why the Muslim and LGBTQ communities ought to be strong allies.

I continue to believe this, and Geller’s work isn’t helping. Geller, Spencer, and their supporters are wrong to try to pit the queer community against Muslims. Their efforts to force a wedge between us and the Muslim community are little more than fear-mongering — a tactic that has long been used to keep the LGBT community marginalized and oppressed.

Read the rest…

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    • mindy1

      Hehehe

    • Razainc_aka_BigBoss

      I second that

    • Amago

      Chris Stedman has been doing a great job promoting interfaith dialog, tolerance and understanding, and he’s done a great job doing so once more.

    • Most likely yes. If Geller is your source assume its wrong until you come across compelling evidence to the country. She’s either someone who is being paid to lie, or she’s to irrational to be trusted.

  • mindy1

    If geller claims it’s true, it is not

Mosque Bomb Threat Suspect Pleads Not Guilty

(Via IslamophobiaToday.com)

Mosque Bomb Threat Suspect Pleads Not Guilty

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – A Texas man accused of making terrorist threats against a local mosque has pleaded not guilty.

Javier Alan Correa turned himself in to U.S. Marshals in Nashville for processing on Monday.

David Boling, the spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville, said Correa was released on his own recognizance. No future hearings have yet been scheduled.

The 23-year-old from Corpus Christi was indicted by a federal grand jury in June. He is accused of threatening to blow up the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

The curse filled message left on a machine at the center said “there’s going to be a bomb in the building.”

Authorities traced the call back to Correa, who lives in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Correa also is charged with violating the civil rights of mosque members by using a threat of force to interfere with the free exercise of their religious beliefs.

He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The mosque has been at the center of a fierce debate since 2010. Opponents recently prevailed in a court case that challenged its construction.

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    • Terrorist threats? Why this is freedom of speech?!

      [sarcasm]

  • mindy1

    *Sigh* why must people hate other people for no reason

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