Had I been really motivated, I would have photoshopped this picture and put Robert Spencer's head on it. Since I didn't, kindly just imagine it there.

I’m absolutely no fan of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Unlike the neocon nutter Daniel Pipes who said that he was “rooting for Ahmadinejad,” I was praying for the opposition to win.  But I must always speak the truth, and therefore object to (the fraudulent liar) Robert Spencer’s absolutely deliberate misquoting of the Iranian president.  Spencer just published an article which he entitled as follows:

Ahmadinejad: “With God’s grace,” Israel “will be annihilated.”

In fact, Ahmadinejad did not say that.  The proof is in the news article Spencer himself linked to, which claims that the Iranian president said: “With God’s grace, this [Israeli] regime will be annihilated.”   A world of a difference.  Isn’t it the neocons themselves who call for the toppling of regimes in the Arab and Muslim majority world?  Isn’t it Spencer himself who calls for this, in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Iran?  So it’s ok to call for it against Muslim regimes, but not “Judeo-Christian” Western ones?

This deliberate misquoting of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cannot be a mistake, because Robert Spencer–being the global expert of the Islamic world that he is–must be well aware of the now famous misquoting of Ahmadinejad in 2005; the Huffington Post reported:

As the Bush Administration beats the drums for another war of choice with another country that had nothing to do with 9/11, they are using another series of fabricated facts to indoctrinate the American people into thinking that Iran poses a serious threat to our security. At the core of these fabrications is the claim that on October 25, 2005, during a speech at the Ministry of Interior conference hall, the then newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remarked that “Israel must be wiped off the map.” As someone who was born in Tehran, lived there for seventeen years and is a native Farsi speaker, I have read the original transcripts of the speech in Farsi and want to inform you that Ahmadinejad never said “Israel must be wiped off the map,” but rather, his statement was grossly mistranslated and taken out of context, perhaps to help make a case for military action against Iran.

Let’s analyze what Ahmadinejad said. His exact words in Farsi were as follows: “Emam goft een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzegar mahv shavad.”

The correct translation of the statement is as follows: “Imam said this occupying regime in Jerusalem must vanish from the page of times.”

And the word-to-word translation of the statement is as follows: Emam: Imam (Khomeini, leader of the 1979 revolution); Goft: said; Een: this; Rezhim-e eshghalgar: occupying regime; Qods: Jorusalem; Bayad: must; Az: from; Safheye: page of; Ruzegar: times; Mahv shaved: vanish.

Coming back to the recent quote reproduced by Spencer, Ahmadinejad obviously didn’t say for Israel to be annihilated.  The fact that he specifically used the term regime indicates that he absolutely was not calling for that.  This much you can tell just from reading the article that Spencer himself cited.  As for the news article itself, I wonder how accurate their translation is; did he really call for the regime’s annihilation or its elimination (a much less loaded term)?

Anyways, moving beyond Robert Spencer’s deliberate misquoting (which shows how truly fraudulent this man is), there is an even more glaring issue here.  Even if we pretend that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad called for the annihilation of Israel (which he didn’t), then what about the hate video that Robert Spencer just promoted on his website, where a Hindu extremist calls for the annihilation of Pakistan–to wipe it off the map?  It’s almost the exact same words as Spencer attributes to Ahmedinejad!  And this is in the translation that Spencer himself put up.  It is truly unbelievable how oblivious Spencer is to his profound double standards.  Or perhaps he is not oblivious at all (which is actually more likely), and just hopes that nobody important (aside from his loyal Islamophobic fan base) sees through his thin veneer of hate, bias, and double standards?

The brainwashed extremist girl declares:

…Soon our whole nation [of Hindustan] will rise.  When our people rise up, it will be very difficult for you [Pakistanis].  It will be disastrous for every inch of your land…Kashmir will continue to exist, but not Pakistan.  Who [amongst you] will voice such concerns?  Who will show the braveness to use the atom bombs we have [against Pakistan]?  Ask them [the Indian government] who is going to use the [atomic] weapons we have?  Whom are they waiting for?  Don’t worry what is happening now.  History is where it is. We have the capacity to change the geography of the world [by wiping out Pakistan]…everything between [the Pakistani cities of] Karachi to Rawalpindi will become worthless…There won’t be any Pakistan!  If you continue to believe this, I assure you that Pakistan won’t be present in the world for long.

Notice how she goes way past anything that Robert Spencer just criticized in Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s speech.

And one can’t help but notice the absurdity of Spencer saying:

There just isn’t much that’s peaceful about the Iranian regime, but they expect us to believe the nuclear program is.

Earth to Captain Oblivious: you just promoted a video of a Hindu extremist advocating the use of nuclear weapons to absolutely destroy Pakistan and wipe it off the map.  You posted this only within the last few days, and we just published our article calling you out for this.   Maybe you should at least have waited a few weeks, with the hope that people would begin to forget the hate speech posted on your very own site.

What an absolutely unbelievable hypocritical fraudster Robert Spencer is.

(It should be noted that we here at LoonWatch are in no way, shape, or form insinuating that the extremist girl represents Hindus.  Clearly, she is part of a fringe minority of extremists.  Furthermore, I advise the readers not to be harsh with her; I’ve read some people calling her some pretty nasty things.  Calm down.  She’s only sixteen years old and brainwashed.  She’s probably never even seen a Pakistani in her life.  She wasn’t even alive when those events she mentioned in her speech happened.  It’s not her fault as much as those who indoctrinated her with this burning hatred.  I hope that one day, with age and maturity, she recants.  So go easy on her.  The true villains are those like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller who are grown adults and yet promote her immature words.)

Update:

A loyal reader of our site (hat tip: Zam) pointed out to me that the JihadWatch.org article against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was written by Marisol, not Spencer.  Nonetheless, it was posted on Spencer’s own site.  And we must assume that he approves of the message, since he has neither repudiated nor recalled the article.

More importantly, he has condemned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supposed statement multiple times in the past, such as here where Spencer laments: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared at a conference in Tehran entitled ‘The World without Zionism’ that Israel should be destroyed.”   Spencer entitles this article “Iran Calls for a New Holocaust.”  In fact, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad simply reproduced the words of Ayatollah Khomeini, just as Spencer reproduced the words of the Hindu extremist.

Of course, neither Ahmadinejad or the Ayatollah he quoted actually called for the annihilation of Israel or a New Holocaust (see Huffington Post article I referred to earlier); on the other hand, both the Hindu extremist and Spencer endorsed a call for a nuclear holocaust in Pakistan.  I’m sure Spencer condemns himself for that.

Glenn Beck

I guess when you are a supporter of fascists you are to the right of some of the most hardline and dogmatic Conservatives. It looks like Glenn Beck is going to be getting some grief from the extreme Right-wingers of the Horowitz-Geller-Spencer axis if he doesn’t take back his statement that Geert Wilders is a fascist. Sit back and enjoy!

From the Atlantic Wire:

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician and outspoken critic of Islam, sparked outrage across Europe last week when he showed his anti-Islamic film in the UK’s House of Lords. Though the backlash against Wilders from America media has also been harsh, some of it has come from the unlikeliest of sources: Fox News. The conservative network ran a special report from Bret Bauer on Wilders, and Glenn Beck indirectly lumped him in with French politician Jean Marie Le Pen as members of a rising fascist movement in Europe (starting at the 13:00 mark).

Beck’s comments were relatively benign–at least for him. But that didn’t appease hardline conservatives, who slammed Beck and Fox in general for denigrating Wilders. The backlash has taken on several forms, but the one consistent theme on the right is anger.

• What’s Up, Glenn? “What is he doing?” asks a befuddled Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs. “Was Beck saying that the UK was right to ban Wilders in the interest of ‘community harmony?’ And the fact that he was allowed to enter the UK last week was a dire sign?” After extolling Wilders’ virutes, Geller warns Beck to think twice in the future. “Is this going to be be Beck’s narrative? If so, he is wrong. And he ought to be silent until he learns everything.”

• Next Time, Know Your Stuff At Power Line, Paul concludes Beck was simply uninformed. “It was apparent to me that Beck was out of his depth with Wilders. [...] I’ve said before that the European ‘right’ is a complex phenomenon that does contain fascist elements. It takes a little bit of work to identify those elements.”

• Denigrating a ‘Hero’ “Shame on you, Glenn,” chastises The RightScoop’s Cubachi, who proceeds to heap praise on Wilders.

Geert Wilders. A hero, a man who is risking life and limb to rescue the Netherlands and Europe from radical Islamization and communism taking grip of his country and continent. Everyday he has to wear a safety vest and hide his family and give them 24-hour security because he is willing to say the unpopular thing to protect and defend his nation.

• No More Beck for Me Vowing never to trust Beck again, iOwnTheWorld’s BigFurHat embarks on a screed-worthy tirade to set the Fox News host straight. “Glenn – there is NO MODERATE ISLAM. This is what you get when you go out on a limb with a guy that is largely fueled by emotion rather than brains. I’m not saying Beck isn’t smart, but he is a bit Howard Bealish for me, and this is what you will have to endure with him.”

Aasiyah Hassan and Muzzammil Hassan

There was a case a while back in which a Muslim murdered his wife by gruesomely beheading her with a sword. The Islamophobic blogosphere jumped all over the incident and declared that he was motivated by Islam. What fueled their mirthful hatred further was that the murderer was Muzzammil Hassan who had created a television network, Bridges TV to dispel misconceptions about Islam. It was obviously a terrible case of domestic violence and had nothing to do with religion and now the judge in the case has also said as much. Will the Islamophobes take back their smearing of Islam as the culprit in this case? Don’t hold your breathe.

Religion not a factor in Beheading

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The founder of an Islam-oriented television station who is accused of beheading his wife is due in a Buffalo courtroom for proceedings in advance of his murder trial.

Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is tentatively scheduled to stand trial later this month for the death of his wife, Aasiyah Hassan, last year.

Pretrial motions are scheduled for Friday.

Hassan’s attorney plans a defense that includes claims that Hassan was abused by his wife and emotionally out of control. But prosecutors are fighting the use of a psychiatric defense.

The Pakistan-born Hassans started Bridges TV in 2004, in part to dispel negative Muslim stereotypes.

Muzzammil Hassan was served divorce papers shortly before his wife’s slaying.

Martin Kramer

This piece is from Richard Silverstein and covers the sick anti-Muslim speech by Martin Kramer at the Herzliya Conference in Israel.

Martin Kramer Spouts Anti-Muslim Racism

Thanks to M.J. Rosenberg for featuring this video of Martin Kramer speaking at Israel’s equivalent of Davos, the Herziliya conference.

Kramer, a noted pro-Israel neocon academic (think a slightly suaver, less bombastic version of Dershowitz), makes numerous sweeping judgments and statements that are at best arguable, and at worst flat out wrong, about Islamism.  The first of them is this one, in which he rebuts the claim that the key to ending Islamism is resolving the Israel-Arab conflict:

In places like Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia, where Al Qaeda is most deeply entrenched, a just and lasting peace for the Palestinians would not make a shred of difference.

This is a ludicrous statement.  But aside from that, the issue isn’t so much how Al Qaeda and its followers in those countries would react to a peace settlement, but how the mass of the world’s Arabs and Muslims would react.  They are the pool from which the Islamists recruit, and without the leading radicalizing catalyst, Al Qaeda would rapidly lose the ability to recruit unless it sharply changed its political mission.

So what is for Kramer the greatest danger posed to the west by Islamism?  Fertility.  I kid you not.  Those A-rabs are f(&^ing like rabbits and this is what will destroy western civilization as we know it.  His thesis is, in short, that the younger the median age of a society, the more prone to violence it becomes.  And conveniently for Kramer’s arguments, the media age in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza is under 20:

When you get below a median age of 20, you’re talking about places where Islamist radicalization is taking place on a massive scale.  The biggest radicalizer is fertility hovering at 6, 7[%] and masses of economically superfluous young men of fighting age between 15-29…If a state can’t control these young men, then someone else will…

Radical Islam is a way for the superfluous sons to enter history.

So Kramer’s argument is that fertility will drive radicalization of Muslims societies and fuel the threat to the west.  One of the ways this will happen is that many of these “superfluous” citizens will emigrate to the west and so spread the contagion here.  But wait, there’s hope.  If we can only bring about a decline of fertility rates, then Al Qaeda will wither and die for lack of disaffected recruits:

Aging populations reject radical agendas and the Middle East is no different.

This judgement sounds entirely like it was made up on the fly.  Not to mention that it blames political disputes solely on demographic factors which is an absolute lie.  But here’s the most disgusting part of this presentation, in which Kramer essentially argues that those western countries shipping humanitarian aid to Gaza should simply let babies there fend for themselves. After enough die, mamas will get the message and stop having any.  This ghoulishness follows in the spirit of the Dov Weisglass, who bragged that Israel’s siege was putting Gaza “on a diet:”

Eventually this [declining fertility rates] will happen among the Palestinians too.  But it will happen faster if the west stops pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status.  Those subsidies are one reason why Gaza’s population grew between 1997-2007 by an astonishing 40%.  Israel’s present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim…but they also break Gaza’s runaway population growth and there is some evidence that they have.

That might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.  That is rising to the real challenge of radical Islamism and treating it at its root.

If the Gaza strangulation regime is a violation of international law, then what you have just read is an intellectual defense of lawbreaking.  I only wish that in addition to any Israeli or Hamas leaders, militants and generals who may be brought to justice that we could also bring such “intellectual” defenders of infant starvation into the dock as well.

Why doesn’t Kramer invent some way to sterilize child-bearing women?  Wouldn’t that stem population growth?  Perhaps Israel could drop some chemicals in the water supply or taint some of the meager food relief entering into Gaza with some contraceptive.  Why not take your ideas to their natural conclusion?  Why not, for that matter, seal off Gaza entirely so nothing gets in and then propose a la Jonathan Swift, that Gazans consume their children after they die of malnutrition or disease?  Isn’t that truly the best way to reign in the runaway rabbitization of Gaza’s population?

And in case you were of a mind to give Kramer the benefit of the doubt in any way, consider this deliberate lie that he spreads about his critics (among them Phil Weiss and M.J. Rosenberg) who’ve claimed that his speech represents a defense of genocide:

Being accused of advocating genocide by people who daily call for Israel to be wiped off the map of the Middle East is rich.

Yes, that’s right, M.J. Rosenberg the Zionist seeks to wipe Israel off the map. And note that Kramer deliberately uses the same phrase falsely attributed to Ahmadinejad, thereby likening Weiss and Rosenberg to him. I tell you it’s a nifty piece of propaganda worthy of Der Shturmer. Mazel tov, Kramer. You’ve sunk to lows not previously seen since Danny Ayalon or Yvette Lieberman last opened their mouths. And this from a supposedly distinguished Harvard University professor.

Newsweek had an article on some of the trendiest, bizarre, and most trafficked conspiracy theories of 2009. The Muslim spy intern conspiracy made it to #9 and it had ole’ Robert Spencer in a fit. He railed against it with all the ineptitude, innuendo and verbal diarrhea we are used to from his clownish ways. Calling it “journalistic irresponsibility” and “bias,” etc.

What has him in a uproar:

Guide to Conspiracy: Know your Conspiracy

9. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is trying to infiltrate Capitol Hill and spread jihad.
Author Dave Gaubatz alleges that the mainstream group is both connected to Islamist terrorists and international jihad and is working to infiltrate the American government by placing interns on Capitol Hill.
Proponents: Dave Gaubatz, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), Joseph Farah.
Kernel of Truth? CAIR has tried to place interns on Capitol Hill, but as it points out, that’s standard practice for advocacy groups of all types and allegiances. There’s no proof of sinister motives or an effort to encourage international jihad.

Racist Nazi Grafitti on French Mosque

Islamophobia doesn’t exist?

Racist Graffiti on Mosque for 6th time

France’s main Muslim group says a mosque has been defaced with racist graffiti in the sixth such incident this year.

The head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith says racist words were painted over the weekend on the walls of the mosque in Sorgues, in the picturesque Vaucluse region.

It is the sixth time this year that a French mosque has been tarnished by racist graffiti. Mohammed Moussaoui says that Muslims now have a right to ask about the “real objectives” behind these acts.

He noted that his group which brings together various Muslim tendencies has called numerous times for a parliamentary inquiry into Islamophobia, to no avail.

Islam is France’s second most-practiced religion after Roman Catholicism.

Paul Denton

Just Imagine if he were Muslim. This would be headline news for months. (hat tip: Amy)

Wembley Preacher Jailed for Rape

By Jack Royston

A “REMORSELESS” Wembley preacher who raped a woman on seven consecutive days was jailed on Friday.

Paul Robin Denton, 46, of Barnhill Road, was jailed for 12 years after repeatedly abusing his 32-year-old victim in October 2007.

He was found guilty after a trial at Inner London Crown Court when jurors heard how the religious fanatic put the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, through “hell on earth”.

She told the court Denton believed women should be submissive “because the scripture says so”.

When she challenged his views, Denton, who changed his name to Lord Denton, repeatedly punched her in the face, head-butted her, pulled out her hair, and raped her “day after day” as a punishment.

Detective Constable Jon Wedger said: “The level of abuse and the time period it has been spread over has had an overwhelming impact on the victim. Denton has shown no remorse for his actions, even making her go through the ordeal of the trial.

“I hope knowing he has been held accountable for his actions will go someway to helping his victim come to terms with what has happened and allow her to move forward with her life.

“She has shown incredible bravery throughout the criminal proceedings and I hope that strength continues as she rebuilds her life.”

He was arrested in February 2008 but while on bail he sneaked into his victim’s house and stole her hat.

He then sent it back to her in an effort to intimidate her.

Denton, who committed the crimes in Daventry, but later moved to Wembley, was born in Croydon and moved to South Africa with his parents when aged eight months old.

He claims he was kidnapped by his father after his parents split up and told the court he was forced to leave the country after being part of an anti-apartheid group.

He was found guilty of seven counts of rape, four of assault and one of witness intimidation.

Muslim Graves Desecrated by Nazis in France

© 2010 AP

Sadly, No has a satirical piece on the Rabbinic Alliance of America’s statement that the earthquake in Haiti is due to homosexuality. While the piece is a little over the top it does provoke us to none the less ask the question, what if they were Muslim? The anti-Muslim blogosphere would be using it as an example of cruelty of Islam etc., but on this we don’t hear a peep out of them.

Silly Rabbi, Tricks are for Kids

Christian Newswire Media Advisory, February 3, 2010
1000 Rabbis Warn: Open Homosexuality in the Military is a Disaster and May Cause Further Natural Disasters

Fine, splendid, freshen it for me, then.

Uh, may cause further what, now?

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America issued the following statement: “When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it’s shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military.

At least they aren’t ‘ramming it down the throat’ of the military, like usually.¹ No, but Rabbi Levin seems like a man often shocked. More specifically, he seems like the sort of bully who flaps his arms and backs into you and then cries that you pushed him. That’s one of the best kinds, and we’re preparing for an ongoing relationship by assigning him a facile nickname (Rabbi “Yehuda Hellcares” Levi) and sketching out a Photoshop piece in which the female figure in this Marc Chagall painting is bearded and wearing a hat and tallis. Oh yes, and this we say to you, Shletero:² If their hair needs some highlights, and indeed if they’re being preferentially marked in attention-getting transparent yellow, these militant gays in the military,³ then azoy gay-it es.⁴ Yes, and furthermore:

…If you know what we’re saying, and we think that you farshtaist.⁵

This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama’s kooky coalition.

It’s like the equivalent of raping the troops with the spiritual equivalent of a big hairy moose peen, while his black friends watch.

We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft.

Because the Center for Military Readiness is certainly not one of those phony wingnut security foundations that sprang up after 9/11.

“Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y.

That worked out great.

So no, basically, those hijacked airliners were like the egg beaters raining from the sky in the Far Side cartoon where the Indian is like, “Whoa, what kind of dance was I doing?” Because it was actually supposed to be a gay partnership G_d-mollifying dance, and instead it brought religious fanatics raining down in passenger aircraft? Like, um, really?

Because speaking just for myself, I personally would think it over before putting something on my rabbinical c.v. like “cockamamie prayers caused terror attacks of 9/11.” Because then the next thing is that everybody keeps looking at you funny every time something blows up nearby — as if nothing in the world ever blew up in a total spontaneous gaysplosion caused by G_d, as things so often do.

Example: June, 1999, when the Stonewall Inn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and JFK Jr.’s plane immediately crashed into the ocean off Gay Head, Massachusetts. Another example is the Krakatoa explosion in 1883, caused by something Walt Whitman did.

These are the things they start to blame you for, when all you’re doing is walking around minding your own business and decrying the spiritual something-like-rape of the equivalent of the American soldier, not to mention sailor. Because whoops, there goes G_d again with the blowing-up and the kaboom, when barely over a year earlier you’d asked him not to do that.

We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes.

“All this is in the sink!” said the 2,000-Year-Old who is still teaching in the Talmud after all these years, and we should all be so lucky. “I keep calling Moe the plumber, and all I hear is that he’s coming. ‘Mr. Shiach is coming any time now,’ they say. Well, I’m still wai…[doorbell rings] holy cats, it’s Menachem Schneerson.”⁶

Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.

This reminds us for some reason: What has ol’ Pastor Swank been up to since the last time we…

J. Grant Swank, Jr., Truth in Conviction
CHRISTIAN VS. VOODOO IN HAITI

[...]

Now voodoo priests are up in arms about the contest. But they should realize that there is plenty of need to go around. Why do any persons have the strength or time to whine about others helping others?

If voodoo spokespersons want to spill goats’ blood and see drum their incantations, go to it. But don’t slam Christians who are working night and day to bring relief.

Because hey, that’s what you call a voo-don’t. But since there’s nothing out of the ordinary here, let’s go back to the rabbi.

“We plead with saner heads in Congress and the Pentagon to stop sodomization of our military and our society. Enough is enough.”

No argument here. Most heads are saner than the Rabbi’s even in Congress and the Pentagon, and P.S., have you seen what they’ve done to Sodom lately?

Rabbi Levin will be available to talk to the media in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, in proximity of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings featuring Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Proximity just like in Chernobyl. No, seriously: It was an outstanding media availability in which Rabbi Levin really stood out, literally at the threshold of public hearing.

We miss him already and look forward to the next time he comes in the public’s eye, despite the mess and the stinging sensation.

---

¹ Cf., and cf. This style reaches what you’d have to call a climax in the following passage from wingnut conspiracy nut Jackie Jura: “Even cartoons ooze with sex, and every show lately pounds with homosexuality. Recently a movie named KINSEY got rave reviews for telling the story of zoologist-cum-sex researcher Alfred Kinsey who brought homosexuality and other deviations mainstream.” Research on zoologist cum is often misunderstood.² Var. ‘Shlomo’ (cf.)

³ Cf. Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” and its treatment of ‘dead’ and ‘dying’ metaphors. The infelicity in which a root word modifies itself seems suddenly to be everywhere (like the ancient and unstoppable grocer’s apostrophe and written air quote). An especially good example can be seen on a current billboard for People’s Bank, apparently quoting a Barron’s review which called them “A BANK TO BANK ON.” As though to complete the chain of irony, the phrase also appears in this May, 2007 Business Week item citing Bank of America as “a good defensive stock that has lagged the rally.” Merely gratuitous is the comic association here.

⁴ Yidd.: Azoy gait es (“that’s how it goes”). (Cf. Ger.: We’re gayin’.)

⁵ I.e., Mayn prom (shveb-shif) iz ful mit veners. This is by way of saying that one’s aéroglisseur or Luftkissenfahrzeug is full of anguilles or Aale, or in other words that ilmatyynyalukseni on täynnä ankeriaita.

⁶ The Lubavitchers now have a joke. When in the future they tell it, one can call out, “Number one!” and another can reply, “Feh.”

A while ago we did a piece on European Loonieness, and it seems like that will continue for a while. Is this a culture war or a fight for European identity.

Far-Right Rhetoric Fuels Opposition to Minaret in German Town

A small Muslim community in a western German town would like to build a minaret on its mosque. But the plan has triggered passionate opposition from locals, many of whom rely on rhetoric from the extreme right in railing against the “symbol of Islam’s quest for power.”

“Willkommen,” reads the stencilled print on the wall along the riverside boardwalk in the small town of Völklingen. Not content to just welcome its German guests, however, the message is translated into a number of languages. “Bienvenue … bienvenidos … velkommen,” it reads. And “hosgeldiniz,” a nod to the city’s substantial Turkish population.

Elsewhere in the city – particularly in the quarter known as Wehrden – Muslim immigrants may not feel quite as welcome. A small mosque on the banks of the Saar River there has applied for a permit to build a small minaret on its roof – triggering a wave of at-times vehement protest reminiscent of the fuss surrounding the November 2009 referendum in Switzerland to ban minarets in the country.

“I am against the Islamification of our fatherland!” reads a message, posted by “Tommy” on the Web site of the local paper Saarbrücker Zeitung. “Islam is the greatest threat facing humanity,” he adds.

The debate in Völklingen is once again showing how quickly right-wing rhetoric can cross over into the mainstream when it comes to debates on Islam in Europe. Local right-wing extremists – two of whom are in the Völklingen city council – have argued that minarets are “symbols of Turkish dominance.”

The local news paper has used the exact same rhetoric on its editorial pages. “This minaret should not be built,” the Saarbrücker Zeitung wrote in late January. “It symbolizes Islam’s quest for power and is nothing less than a provocation. In the course of the Muslim conquests, minarets were first used as watch towers and only subsequently as religious symbols. Following the violent seizure of new territories, minarets were built as manifestations of Muslim rule.”

Minaret opponents are now looking into the possibility of holding a referendum on the issue in Völklingen.

Spiegel, 5 February 2010

Germany is also the scene of a Dentist refusing to treat a teen named Cihad, one way of spelling Jihad, because she believes it means “Holy War.”

German Dentist Refuses to Treat Muslim Teen

An orthodontist in the state of Baden-Württemberg has reportedly turned a 16-year-old boy out of her practice because she was offended by his name – “Cihad,” an alternate spelling for “Jihad,” which she interpreted to mean “holy war.”

The doctor in Donaueschingen told local daily Schwarzwälder Bote on Friday that she believed his name was a declaration of war against all non-Muslims and refused to treat him.

The Local, 5 February 2010

150 people joined this anti-Muslim group on Facebook, interesting considering how Pamela Geller seems to only think Muslims create hateful Facebook groups. (via Islamophobia-Watch)

Anti-Muslim Racists Arrested in Wales

Five men have been arrested after a Facebook site was set up declaring “all Muslims should be thrown out of Wales”.

Around 150 people joined the group on the social networking site claiming they would march through the Rhondda Valleys to make their feelings known. But South Wales Police have now stepped in and arrested five men for religiously aggravated public order offences.

It is one of the first occasions people have been arrested over comments posted on Facebook. The group has also been removed from the site. Police now believe the march will not go ahead, but they will be on standby in case anyone turns up.

Members of the group, which was entitled Rhondda March, said they would walk from Treherbert down to Pontypridd on February 28. And the organisers declared: “We Dont Want Musslims in our country move them out they are takeing over.”

The group’s message board was inundated with comments including “ai im in, gona put sum nails in a stick 4 the f******” and “Got my steel toe caps ready, wot a craking idea”. Another reads: “send the f****** bk. Join us u now u want 2 stand up tall”. A further message said: “Move these musslims back home”. And another read: “yeah support our local buissnes not forgin ones. Im in”.

Wales Online, 7 February 2010

Were these two victims targeted because of their color, for being Muslim or both?

DA Charges Second Hate Crime in Ukiah Truck Stop Altercations

Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott has charged a second man with committing a hate crime after reviewing his interaction in mid-January with clerks at Jensen’s Truck Stop in Ukiah.

Meanwhile, the owner of Jensen’s Truck Stop says he’s rethinking improvements there after his employees were the victims of two hate crimes in a month.

Two clerks of Pakistani descent were the victims of the second hate crime in a month at Jensen’s on Lovers Lane in Ukiah, when Redwood Valley resident Cody M. Cranford, 21, allegedly assaulted them Friday night.

It was obvious Cranford was intoxicated when he entered the truck stop, according to Capt. Kurt Smallcomb of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. He became angry when he asked to use the phone inside and was told to use the pay phone outside instead, Smallcomb said.

Cranford physically attacked clerks Lateef Kamal and Waqar Malik, punching their heads and faces and making racial slurs. Smallcomb said he grabbed one of the men by his sweater and dragged him outside while continuing to hit him. Then Cranford fled and the clerks called 9-1-1.

They identified their alleged attacker after police found Cranford at a nearby bowling alley.

Cranford’s bail was set at $150,000, and he is due to appear in court Wednesday.

The incident comes just more than two weeks after the Jan. 12 incident when Joseph Anthony Frank, 63, of Redwood Valley, made an apparently unprovoked attack on clerk Ahmed Kahn inside the truck.

Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott said Frank walked in and “went into a diatribe of derogatory names towards the store clerk.”

Frank’s anger built until he threatened to kill Kahn, then began to remove his jacket. He lunged across the counter and hit Kahn on the lower left side of his head with a closed fist, according to Lintott.

Frank drove away, and the California Highway Patrol arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, driving with a blood-alcohol level greater than the legal limit of 0.08 percent, and making terrorist threats.

The MCSO investigated the third charge, and the District Attorney’s Office ultimately charged Frank with a felony count of committing a hate crime.

Lintott said what her attorneys look for to decide whether to charge someone with a hate crime is “a biased motive that caused the offender to act.”

State law defines a hate crime as a criminal act committed wholly or partially because of the victim’s disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or association with a person or group marked by one or more of those characteristics.

“Obviously that’s not something we tolerate in Mendocino County,” Lintott said.

Haji Alam, who owns Jensen’s Truck stop and two other gas stations in Ukiah, said, “We get customers like that in and out sometimes, but we usually try to ignore them.”

Alam, a U.S. citizen and Ukiah resident of Pakistani descent, took over the operation of the truck stop last April when he bought the lease from previous tenants. Now he’s thinking of improving the building, but the apparently racially-motivated incidents have made him think twice.

“Now I wonder, should I do it, should I not do it,” Alam said.

He added, “The majority of the customers are nice people, and I like living here.”

Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@pacific.net, or at 468-3523. Editor’s note: This article was edited to correct one incorrect reference to the location of the incidents.

Islamophobia is alive and well in France. (via Islamophobia-Watch)

French Council of Muslim Faith Calls for action against Islamophobia

A French Muslim organisation has condemned a weekend attack on a mosque north of Paris.

The phrases “Islam get out of Europe” and “France is for the French” were scrawled on the walls and entrance of a mosque in Crepy-en-Valois.

The mayor’s office of Crepy-en-Valois denounced what it called a “horrible, idiotic act”, while the French Council of the Muslim Faith said the attack was the latest in a long line of incidents that had targeted mosques in France. The organisation called on authorities to take action to end the “series of shameful and hateful profanities that target houses of prayer.”

The Council, whose members are elected by French Muslims, also called for French President Nicolas Sarkozy to back a parliamentary commission that would examine the rise of Islamophobia in France. The proposal was dropped from last week’s report that called for a ban on the full Islamic veil in official public spaces like government offices, hospitals or schools.

Last month a mosque in the southern town of Castres was targeted and had swastikas and the phrase daubed Sieg Heil on its walls.

RFI, 1 February 2010

The Catholic Church in France should be applauded for speaking out against the veil ban. (via Islamophobia-Watch)

The tragic earthquake in Haiti has brought an immense amount of suffering, with many people dead, injured, homeless and displaced.  This situation has brought out the best in many, various governments and organizations around the world have contributed emergency aid and funding but there has also been those who have attempted to take advantage of the situation by exploiting Haitians. This is what a group of American Christian missionaries are accused of doing.

The missionaries are accused of engaging in Child Trafficking, of taking missing children who are separated from relatives and smuggling them out of the country.

Baptists Probed in Haiti Case

A Haitian judge has questioned a group of US Baptist missionaries arrested while trying to leave earthquake-shattered Haiti with 33 children they claimed had been orphaned by the disaster.

The investigating magistrate question five of the ten missionaries for several hours and will question the remaining five on Wednesday, according to Marie-Laurence Lassegue, Haiti’s communications minister.

The missionaries were questioned behind closed doors and Lassegue said that they did not have a lawyer present at the meeting.

She also denied allegations, levelled by a lawyer for the group, that the Americans were being subject to “inhumane” conditions.

The judge will report to a district attorney who will decide if the 10 Americans are to be formally charged.

Undocumented children

The missionaries were arrested on Friday and are accused of trying to take 33 children - whose ages ranged from two months to 12 years - into the neighbouring Dominican Republic without the correct documents.The group, who are from a Southern Baptist church in the US state of Idaho, say they were only trying to save abandoned children.But legal experts say taking children across the border without documents or government permission can be considered child trafficking.

The children were later taken to the SOS Children’s Village orphanage, where those who were old enough and willing to talk reportedly said they had surviving parents.

Patricia Vargas, regional director of the orphanage, said: “Up until now we have not encountered any who say they are an orphan”.

Vargas said most of the children are between three and six years old, and unable to provide phone numbers or any other details about their origins.She said reports that the orphanage had turned some of the children over to their parents were untrue.

“The Americans apparently enlisted a clergyman who went knocking on doors asking people if they wanted to give away their children,” Jeanne Bernard Pierre, the director of Haiti’s social welfare agency, told the Associated Press news agency.

“One child said to me: ‘When they came knocking on our door asking for children, my mom decided to give me away because we are six children and by giving me away she would have only five kids to care for,’” he said.

‘Live parents’

Max Bellerive, the Haitian prime minister, has suggested that Haiti was open to having the Americans tried in the US since most government buildings, including Haiti’s courts, were crippled by a January 12 earthquake that destroyed much of the capital Port-au-Prince.

Haiti was home to an estimated 380,000 orphans before the earthquake [AFP]

“It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents. And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong,” Bellerive told the AP.

The prime minister said some parents may have knowingly given their kids to the Americans in hopes they would reach the US - not an uncommon wish for poor families in a country that already had an estimated 380,000 orphans before the earthquake.

Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the disaster amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.

Bellerive’s personal authorisation is now required for the departure of any child.

Investigators have been trying to determine how the American church group got the children, and whether any of the traffickers that have plagued the impoverished country were involved.

Of course Robert Spencer and his cronies at their hate site didn’t see fit to run this story because it doesn’t fit in nicely into their argument of Christianity=light and goodness and Islam=Evil and darkness.  If it were Muslims who were accused of this crime you can bet that Spencer would preside as judge, jury and executioner and say that the Muslims were just acting on Islam.

Grasping for straws and for some way to deflect attention away from these missionaries Robert Spencer attempted to cast Muslim relief workers as “stealth Jihadists.”

Islamic Relief USA and the Islamic Circle of North America, both groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” are operating in Haiti — ostensibly working in relief efforts, but no doubt doing a good bit of dawah on the side. Creeping Sharia has the story (thanks to herr Oyal).

Posted by Robert on January 30, 2010 9:02 AM | 49 Comments

It is quite pathetic to see Spencer reduced to cheap shots at relief workers, but his and JihadWatch’s hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Take a look at the comments section as well which Spencer claims is moderated. It shows the deep Islamophobia that is instilled in the hearts of Spencer’s followers and echo’s sentiments that Spencer himself holds but won’t dare to verbalize. According to them this is all “taqiyyah,” “stealth Jihad,” “fake.”

Some of the comments by luminaries on JihadWatch:

Wellington | January 30, 2010 10:08 AM | Reply

For so many reasons and for so many years Muslims have made me so deeply skeptical of Islam that I can’t help but look upon this relief effort as being prompted first and foremost not by noble compassion but rather by the desire to insure conversion. If this sounds too cynical, I plead innocent here and direct guilt towards the Islamic world, whose motives no person of sense should ever trust.

Battle_of_Tours | January 30, 2010 10:37 AM | Reply

Taqiyya at best, looks like humanitarian aid, but disguised as making over the world for Allah’s supremacy and Sharia. Beware of Islamics bearing gifts. Cynical with cause.

mp11 | January 30, 2010 12:16 PM | Reply

Muslims dont help = Evil Muslims

Muslims help = Evil Muslims

gravenimage | January 30, 2010 1:03 PM | Reply

A day or two ago, I mentioned that if Muslims were finally going to help with the relief effort in Haiti, then good for them.

I’m not usually so clueless—not anymore, anyway—but I have to admit, this being an opportunity for Da’wa did not really occur to me at the time.

Here’s a generally good article on the subject from Debbie Schlussel:

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/15625/haiti-islamic-relief-the-scientologists/

There is, however, a fair bit of silly moral equivalence between Islam and Scientology presented here. I *am not* a fan of Scientology, but there’s no death for apostasy with them if you decide you no longer want to hang out with Tom Cruise. I wish I could say the same about Islam.

From Hermit, above:

In my city in England, squads of muslims with islamic posters are out in force - stading outside shopping centres with buckets collecting for Haiti.
………………

I wonder how much of that money is actually going to Haiti, and how much will just be considered “Zakat”, and go for whatever Muslim cause—including Jihad—that the “charities” see fit?

Spirit Of 1683 replied to comment from mp11 | January 30, 2010 1:27 PM | Reply

Off you go back to Iran parasite, and stop sponging off us, workshy Mohammedan troll.

mp11 | January 30, 2010 1:55 PM | Reply

“Off you go back to Iran parasite, and stop sponging off us, workshy Mohammedan troll.”

Its good to see you disagree with what I said, so you think the Muslims who are helping haitians are not evil and are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, right?

I dont expect you to be able to put together a proper coherent reply which doesnt involve ad hominems and strange assumptions about my birthplace…but what the hell?

joeblough | January 30, 2010 2:05 PM | Reply

It just goes to show that charity is not a primary virtue.

It may be a secondary or tertiary virtue, or perhaps a value, but not a primary virtue as such.

Thugs and thieves are often fond of charitable giving as a way of making a respectable face in public and/or providing themselves with some ego grats for their material magnanimity.

In this particular case, Haiti is an open wound for the maggots to dig into and feed on.

By the way, why aren’t those bastards being run off?

Oh, oh … I forgot. Our Dear Leader, Red Hussein, has made a comittment to combating negative stereotypes of mohammedanism.

What do you want to be that he knows about this and possibly even had a hand in it.

Wellington replied to comment from mp11 | January 30, 2010 3:37 PM | Reply

Well, what do you expect? Followers of any totalitarian ideology when they are seemingly showing compassion should never be taken by sensible people as engaging in only charitable behavior. Sensible people know that ideologues (and yes, Muslims are as much ideologues as Marxists and Neo-Nazis) most always are motivated by a hidden agenda, i.e., the promotion of their belief system. Hey, this ain’t rocket science, just simple math, like your equations in your 12:16 P.M. post.

Kuffar_England replied to comment from gravenimage | January 30, 2010 3:40 PM | Reply

They are collecting in my city in England too. Same buckets and posters.

I wonder if they have registered with the UK authorities as a “charity”? Fake “charities” occur all the time. Perish the thought that those whom the Qur’an describes as the “best of people” would even think of doing such a thing.

I too, wonder where the money is actually going. Buckets with cash in them would be just too easy to “divert” to another cause.

mp11 | January 30, 2010 4:42 PM | Reply

“Hey, this ain’t rocket science, just simple math, like your equations in your 12:16 P.M. post.”

Exactly, if Muslims hadnt sent money they would have been trashed on here as evil Muslims and now that they have sent money they are trashed on here as evil muslims.

Wellington replied to comment from mp11 | January 30, 2010 5:07 PM | Reply

You are determined to remain clueless, aren’t you? Endeavor next time taking my full comment into account before commenting on it. Go ahead, try and rip my ENTIRE 3:37 P.M. post apart. Address all of it, not just a portion of it.

What’s so humorous here is that the equations you put forward are valid but you think they confirm narrow-mindedness by those who despise Islam, when, in fact, it is you who is the intellecutally diminutive one possessed of an insouciance that is risible in the first degree. My strong guess is that you’ll never get it. You haven’t to date, now have you?

PMK replied to comment from unbeliever1 | January 30, 2010 5:18 PM | Reply

“A few on the fringes” are all it takes.

mp11 | January 30, 2010 5:20 PM | Reply

“Well, what do you expect? Followers of any totalitarian ideology when they are seemingly showing compassion should never be taken by sensible people as engaging in only charitable behavior.”

Muslims, as followers of a totalitarian ideology, cannot be expected to exhibit purely altruistic behaviors.
“Sensible people know that ideologues (and yes, Muslims are as much ideologues as Marxists and Neo-Nazis) most always are motivated by a hidden agenda, i.e., the promotion of their belief system.”

Muslims. as ideologues, are assumed to be motivated by proselytism, including in instance when they exhibit altruistic behavior.

baest | January 30, 2010 5:56 PM | Reply

What’s the deal with the Pepsi and Guinness banners?

Wellington replied to comment from mp11 | January 30, 2010 6:18 PM | Reply

Thank you for confirming my overall point which is that any Muslim generosity to non-Muslims is not motivated by a kind of Mother Teresa love but rather by an agenda. See why Islam is becoming more and more despised by more and more non-Muslims with each passing year?

Islam has had a run of it for a few decades now, whereby most ordinary Western folk were prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt, but those days are almost over (even a majority of the extremely tolerant Dutch are sick of Islam). 9/11, tedious Muslim arguments about the importance of “context,” Muslim word games with terms like “innocent,” actual reading of the Koran by non-believers (which has not only putrid sentiments in it but clearly erroneous ones such as Alexander the Great living to an old age (Sura 18) and the Jews believing that Ezra is the Messiah (Sura 9), Muslim terrorism worldwide on virtually a daily basis, and revelation of just how psychopathic and sexually perverted Mohammed actually was (confirmed by Muslim sources which stupidly brag about it) have all insured with each passing year that more millions of non-Muslims are aware of just how fucked up Islam really is.

And that’s why I think that Islam is eventually headed to oblivion, but not before it does a lot more damage, just as other totalitarian ideologies have before they have finally become the stuff for fringe human beings and for no one else. Islam’s final legacy is to be assigned to that collection pile which contains the greatest and stupidest of human errors. It’s so deserved.

Fancy Dan | January 30, 2010 6:45 PM | Reply

After the initial earthquake in Haiti i’m not sure which of the two following aftershocks were the more harrowing for the survivors.
The inevitable : Part 1
The luminaries of Film, Stage, Music rush forward to the first available TV network and tell us unaffected lay-abouts that we aren’t doing enough to help the poor souls of Hawaii (or where ever that AWFUL thing happened) so give money and lots of it and you might save many floundering careers into the bargin.
Have these people never heard of anonymous donations ? - Of course not !
The inevitable : Part 2
The luminaries of the Muslim world, albeit slow off the mark, get in on the act by swapping bottles of water in return for a quick lecture as to why infidels have been so misguided all these years.
Stepping on and over females to find a nice area to pray in, one does ask, who’s water were they giving out anyway ?

Some of them must have been watching the news, oh yea ! and the Jihadist’s.

Fancy Dan | January 30, 2010 7:08 PM | Reply

Sorry, i forgot, a special thanks to Islamic Relief USA for the quite deliberate extended footage of the Guinness Beer Tent amidst the carnage.

Christian Soldier replied to comment from unbeliever1 | January 30, 2010 8:26 PM | Reply

“Islam doesn’t have a ghost of a chance establishing itself
in the Caribbean.The Christian faith goes too deep.
Maybe a few on the fringes may be persuaded.”

I would not be so quick to think that the scourge of Islam could not gain a strong foot hold in Haiti.

The Nation of Haiti has been infected with other demonic teachings, Voodoo.

An estimated 80 percent of Haiti’s 8.8 million people practice Voodoo to some extent, including many who claim to be Catholic or another religion.

“Muslims noticeable in cities”

“But followers of Islam have recently stepped into the
public eye. Muslim men distinctive in their kufi
headwear and finely groomed beards, and women in
traditional scarves, are now seen on the streets of
several cities.”

“Nawoon Marcellus, who comes from the northern city of
San Raphael, recently became the first Muslim elected
to the Chamber of Deputies, Haiti’s lower house of
parliament.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nygus/3684374231/

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/voodoo/islam.htm

http://www.islamawareness.net/Fastest/haiti.html

Voodoo and Islam both originate from the same source, the Devil himself.

gravenimage replied to comment from baest | January 30, 2010 9:03 PM | Reply

baest wrote:

What’s the deal with the Pepsi and Guinness banners?
……………………..

A lot of companies helping with the relief effort have sent tents and trucks and other items emblazoned with their logos. Some people consider this a bit tacky, but it doesn’t really bother me that much. It’s not as though they are only helping victims who have been past customers or anything.

Often these are already existing items—like the tents—that the companies normally use for concerts and festivals.

champ replied to comment from Christian Soldier | January 30, 2010 9:16 PM | Reply

“Voodoo and Islam both originate from the same source, the Devil himself.”

Agreed, CS.

Christian Soldier replied to comment from champ | January 30, 2010 9:26 PM | Reply

Here is an interesting article concerning Haiti and voodoo.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message965211/pg1

Christian Soldier | January 30, 2010 9:41 PM | Reply

Islamic Rituals Voodoo
By Abul Kasem

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message493957/pg1

Christian Soldier | January 30, 2010 9:49 PM | Reply

For some reason the previous post with this link has a problem.

This one should be ok

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message493957/pg1

champ replied to comment from Christian Soldier | January 30, 2010 10:48 PM | Reply

“When Muhammad finished ablution, Gabriel sprinkled water on Muhammad’s private parts.”

Yeah, in your DREAMS I did that, Muhammad!!

Angrily,
Gabriel

Christian Soldier replied to comment from champ | January 30, 2010 11:22 PM | Reply

He should have sprinkled hydrochloric acid.

That would have ended Mohammed’s career as a child raping pedophile.

livingengine replied to comment from mp11 | January 31, 2010 12:20 AM | Reply

There is nothing untoward about criticizing Islamist groups using disaster relief to their own advantage.

Many have commented on this in the past.

Islamist groups have long used charity to boost their support amongst poor Muslims . . .“These groups have seized the opportunity to raise their profiles by painting their names on the side of refugee tents and flying flags from the roofs of trucks carrying blankets and other supplies and to “reactivate themselves” and improve their image among the masses.. The Islamists are, as the saying goes “doing well by doing good.” “

“[It is] part of their strategy to achieve political power.”

A further concern that arises from the government allowing militant groups to fill the administrative void in quake‐affected areas is the increased penetration of these groups into other government sectors. Education, for example, is a particular concern. . . .it is easier to set up a madrasa than it is to rebuild a school.
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/al_nakhlah/archives/fall2006/byramji.pdf

Other concerns include: recruiting orphans for the jihad, weapons smuggling, misallocation of funds, money laundering, and harassment of other relief workers.
This is a feature of Islamist operations that has been remarked on by the former President of Pakistan, among many others, but you, mp11, don’t know about it?

Spirit Of 1683 replied to comment from mp11 | January 31, 2010 1:29 AM | Reply

Twit. Muslims are there to spread Islam, not help. The only thing they’re supplying is Korans. Nothing else. They’re trying to spread the wicked teachings of Islam to Haiti and create there the sort of Saudi or Pakistani society you’d obviously like to see in the West. So off you go to Pakistan, Sharia-loving barbarian d**khead.

avraidire | January 31, 2010 4:34 AM | Reply

http://www.avraidire.eu/2010/01/fitna-version-francaise-geert-wilders-part-12/

Fitna, version française Geert Wilders part 1/2

sITE EVANGELIQUE FRANCOPHONE VIDEO

Stephen Gash SIOE England replied to comment from mp11 | January 31, 2010 8:24 AM | Reply

At least you undertsand.

Muslims going in to “hekp” while promoting Islam are like the Ku Klux Klan going in to “help” wearing hoods and brandishing burning crosses.

champ replied to comment from Christian Soldier | January 31, 2010 8:50 AM | Reply

Indeed! …lol

gravenimage replied to comment from avraidire | January 31, 2010 9:35 AM | Reply

Avraidire wrote:

Fitna, version française Geert Wilders part 1/2
……………….

It’s good to know that Fitna is now available in French.

Avraidire, Robert Spencer is currently having his “Blogging the Qu’ran” series translated into Spanish. Perhaps you—or someone you know—could have the series translated into French?

ElizaDoolittle | January 31, 2010 12:21 PM | Reply

Izloom’s propagation and proliferation strategy makes perfect sense, logistically. If there is one thing that these a-holes can think clearly about its about how to spread there message of submission to an ideology of barbarism.This might sound perverse but when these barbarians try to procreate with the Haitian natives they will be easy candidates for HIV themselves. This is the only redeeming quality to this invasion.
BTW, I personally do not subscribe to the theory that Voodoo is about the “Devil”; the religion is not about this, but the bottom line here is that the “Devil” is a Christian concept so that negates the understanding that followers of voodoo are conjuring the “Devil”. I would say that if there is anything inherently “evil” about Haiti it is the evil of believing that political demagogues will somehow save the masses from their wretched lives. I would say that Haiti’s lack of up-to-par civilized modes of existence has to do with its subscribing to a belief system that says it is OK to be continually at the mercy of leaders whose only purpose is to use them as scapegoats and pawns for their own agendas. Now, izloom will be the next group of con-artists and whore-masters.

Isabellathecrusader | January 31, 2010 12:26 PM | Reply

Christian Soldier, thanks for the above. I pasted it into the comments section of one of “Hijab” Heageny’s articles about Rifqa over at the Columbus Dispatch online. One guy already red it and thanked me for it. If we can expose the idiocy and super control of Islam in a way that makes people laugh, we may be onto something. This was superb. Again, thank you.

Christian Soldier replied to comment from Isabellathecrusader | January 31, 2010 1:38 PM | Reply

As you can see being a Muslim is not so easy. Many intricate rules to follow.

Except for bathing. Some simple dirt will do just fine.

“In Islam, it is not compulsory to bathe every day. It is quite all right not to bathe for the six days of a week. The only recommended bath is the bathing on Fridays, to attend the juma prayer, although a perfect ablution might do, in case there is shortage of water, or due to inconvenience. When no water is available tayammum will do. This procedure (tayammum) consists of rinsing oneself with dirt or dust. Imam Nasai (1.316) writes that a Muslim can bathe in dirt and dust simply by rolling his body as a camel or a beast does.”

LouManati | January 31, 2010 3:27 PM | Reply

For all the liberals out there that keeping saying “Islam is a religion of peace”, let us look at that peaceful book the Qur’an:

Sura 7:166 “When in their insolence they transgressed all prohibitions, we said the them “be ye apes, despised and rejected” the “religion of peace” speaking about Jewish people

Sura 2:65 “And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath: We said to them “Be ye apes, despised and rejected.” again, the “religion of peace” speaking about Jewish people

You Muslims are out of God’s will. May you come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Your “friendly” Allah, will not and never will save ANYONE..

Richard Silverstein has an article on a credit card company, HAS Advantage which advertises that it contributes to radical and terrorist organizations, including amongst them: All4Israel, Gush Etzion Foundation, Jewish National Fund and American Friends of LIBI (IDF). I would echo Silverstein’s call to stay clear of this company. (hat tip: Dima)

Israeli Affinity Credit Cards Support Settlements, IDF

I just added a Google Adsense adblock to the blog post I wrote about Israel’s Haitian relief effort. To my shock, the very first ad that displayed was this one. HAS Advantage apparently is a patriotic Israeli credit card marketer which signs up Israeli “charities” which benefit from every customer who signs up for one of the cards. I reviewed the list of charity recipients. Some were hospitals, emergency medical personnel, and anti-poverty groups. That’s commendable. But as you can see from the accompanying ad, Honest Reporting, the Israel advocacy media outfit is a beneficiary as are the following pro-Israel, pro-settlement, anti-Arab terror outfits: All4Israel, Gush Etzion Foundation, Jewish National Fund and American Friends of LIBI (IDF).  Apparently, HAS doesn’t believe in things like peace, human rights or co-existence between Jews and Arabs in Israel.  Otherwise, some fine Israeli NGOs would be featured on its charity list.

I’ve written to HAS letting them know of my displeasure and asking them to enroll some peace-loving or human rights NGOs among their charity beneficiaries. In the meantime, steer clear of HAS credit card solicitations which you’ll find at Israeli media sites like Haaretz.

The man says he was educating people about “Islam” but what he seems to be doing was provoking Muslims and trying to upset community relations. (via. Chasing Evil)

Anti-Muslim Images Bring a Fine

Setting the stage for a showdown over free speech rights, a resident of Waite Park, Minn., plans to fight St. Cloud officials’ decision to fine him for posting offensive anti-Muslim cartoons last month.

The city attorney’s office last week cited Sidney Allen Elyea, 41, with violating a city ordinance that prohibits posting written materials on utility poles.

Elyea has admitted posting the cartoons, telling police he did so to educate city residents about Islam, said his attorney, Ryan Garry.

The cartoons, discovered Dec. 8, depicted images such as the Prophet Mohammed engaged in bestiality and sodomy, as well as an Islamic crescent with a swastika inside it. They were posted in front of a mosque and a Somali-owned store.

The city’s complaint states that the cartoons “were placed in high-pedestrian traffic areas and were placed to target local Muslim citizens. The posters were designed to harass, and they had that effect.”

Although some local residents pushed for Elyea to face criminal charges, prosecutors in Stearns and Benton counties declined to do so, saying the cartoons had to be considered free speech.

Garry agreed with Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall’s description of the case as “classic First Amendment” issue.

Garry said the city’s ordinance is overly broad, too vague and amounts to “discriminatory enforcement.”

In an e-mail, Garry wrote, “the government is not punishing my client for posting a piece of paper to a telephone pole, but rather punishing him for offering an opinion on a religious and political issue that they disapprove of and find offensive.”

He added: “I am not defending the content of my client’s political and religious speech. However, the government should know that I will vigorously fight this case to the end to defend his right to say it.”

The two civil charges filed against Elyea carry a maximum fine of $250.

Bob von Sternberg • 673-7184Also read: St.Cloud to serve charges against Waite Park man for Cartoons

Collin McKenzie-Gude of Bethesda, Md

Muhammad Abdul Qasim, a 20-year-old man of Middle Eastern descent, was sentenced to life in prison for a plot to kill President Barack Obama. Qasim fashioned an attack plan inside his second-floor bedroom, where he stored chemicals for a bomb, along with three semiautomatic rifles, two shotguns, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds.  Police also found assault plans on a computer storage device in the bedroom.

Can you imagine if that had been the story of the day?  The media outlets would become frenetic, the Islamophobes would have a field day, and the right wing in general would be fear mongering about the looming Islamic threat.  The people would be panic stricken, the alert levels would be raised to florescent super red, and pregnant women would miscarry.  Muslims would react by saying “oh no, not another one…”  Fox “News” would begin debating the issue of racial profiling, and Robert Spencer would sign another book deal.

In case you are confused, the above story is fictitious.  The actual story is about a 20 year old non-Muslim man named Collin McKenzie-Gude who was sentenced to five years in prison for plotting to kill the president.  Why, we ask, is there no hullabaloo as there invariably would have been had it been a Muhammad, Ahmad, Abdul Qasim, or some other Arabic sounding name involved?  The sparse media coverage explains why it is that people erroneously think that 90% of terrorists are Muslims, when in fact only about 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are from Islamic extremists.

The Washington Post reports:

Bethesda man linked to Obama death plot sentenced to 5 years
By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A 20-year-old Bethesda man linked to a plot to try to kill Barack Obama was sentenced to 61 months in prison Tuesday by a federal judge who said he had gone well beyond innocent role-playing.

“Nobody was assassinated. Nobody was wounded. Nobody was injured. But you were on the cusp,” U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte told Collin McKenzie-Gude.

The judge technically sentenced McKenzie-Gude on his earlier guilty plea of storing bomb-making chemicals in his bedroom. But other factors came into play. Prosecutors convinced Messitte that McKenzie-Gude deserved additional prison time because he was plotting to kill Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, that he had fashioned an attack plan against another student who was possibly going to sell him untraceable guns, and that he had not accepted responsibility for his actions…

The judge also criticized McKenzie-Gude’s parents for giving their only child too much leeway. Inside his second-floor bedroom, in a house just outside the Capital Beltway, McKenzie-Gude stored the chemicals, three semiautomatic rifles, two shotguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds. Police also found assault plans on a computer storage device in the bedroom…

When a twenty year old Christian does something like this, then he’s just an immature child.  When a twenty year old Muslim does something like this, then he’s a diabolical terrorist scum bag.

(hat tip: Umer Sultan)

Harrasment

San Francisco man Convicted of Harrasing Muslims

A 47-year-old San Francisco man was convicted Tuesday of four misdemeanor counts related to a September incident in which he harassed members of a local mosque celebrating Ramadan, according to the district attorney’s office.

Gregory Tolbert, also known as Troy Adams, was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of battery and two misdemeanor counts of interference with the exercise of civil rights for a Sept. 20 encounter with congregants of the Al-Sabeel mosque, the district attorney’s office said.

Tolbert reportedly showed up at a breakfast reception in Victoria Manalo Draves Park in the South of Market District, where members of the mosque were celebrating the end of the Ramadan holiday.

Prosecutors said Tolbert began shouting racial and ethnic slurs at the celebrants and was escorted out of the park, but returned later in the afternoon and “caused a disturbance” in an area designated for women and children.

As members again asked him to leave, Tolbert began cursing and swung his backpack at one man, injuring the man’s hand, and scratched another man on his cheek and neck, prosecutors said.

He continued to shout racial and religious slurs until police arrived and arrested him, prosecutors said.

“The law will come down hard on those who violate the civil rights of others,” District Attorney Kamala Harris said in a statement Tuesday.

“There is no place in a civilized society for behavior that steals the free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege guaranteed by the Constitution,” Harris said.Tolbert faces a year in county jail, a $5,000 fine and 400 hours of community service at his sentencing today, according to the district attorney’s office.

Copyright © 2009 by Bay City News, Inc. “… republication, re-transmission or reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.

Ephraim Chantzis

From Richard Silverstein’s Tikun Olam. A portrait of a misguided young American Jewish Settler. Imagine if he had been a young American Muslim there would be hackles raised about “homegrown terrorism.”

Ephraim Khantsis: Portrait of KahanaWannabe American-Jewish Settler Terrorist

Haaretz is reporting that an American born-again Orthodox Jew, Ephraim Khantsis, has received a military order expelling him from the West Bank for six months for expressing solidarity with Jack Teitel and his terrorist acts against Palestinians.  Though he was enrolled in the Machon Meir Yeshiva, he spent most of his time since making aliyah to Israel four months ago at the Kfar Tapuach settlement, a hotbed of Kahanist extremism.  It was there that residents reported him.

With some key help from the intrepid Sol Salbe, I’ve learned quite a bit about our Kahane-wannabe.  He recently graduated from SUNY Stony Brook with a degree in computer science.  He grew up in Bensonhurst, known as a tough  neighborhood filled with Syrian and Russian Jews.

He was profiled back in September in quite an unlikely place, Conde Nast’s Details Magazine, where he made the rather startling confession, even before becoming an Israeli citizen, that he would shoot IDF soldiers who came to remove him from the extremist enclave where he intended to make his home:

…There’s a pledge Khantsis makes, one that it’s also possible to hear from Americans already living in settlements, that might be more troubling to Israeli authorities: If the Israeli military comes to remove him from his new home—and many in Israel believe such an event is likely—he will not leave peacefully.“I would fight against it with all my strength, and I would leave nothing back to try to stop it,” says the slim young man wearing a black yarmulke. He speaks so softly that at times it’s hard to hear him. “If they use violence, then we’re justified doing the same.” Would that include using a gun? “Yes,” he says. Is he absolutely sure that he would use a weapon against Israeli soldiers? “That’s right. I strongly hope it would never come to that,” he says. But “if they’re already shooting us, I’d have no option. I don’t think the right thing to do is turn the other cheek. It’s not a Jewish thing to do.”

The entire story is a real eye-opener as it chronicles other hard-core Hilltop Youth and their forays into violent insurrection against the secular Israeli state.  I got a dark laugh from the thought that the Shin Bet can do some of its best intelligence work by reading glossy American men’s magazines. In this day and age, even wannabe terrorists maintain social networking profiles.  He has a Facebook account, where his political views are listed as “Kach” and religious views are listed as “fundamentalist.”  One thing you have to hand to him: at least he’s honest.  He lists his hometown as “Belgorod Dnestrovskiy, Ukraine.”

I am sorry to say that Khantsis’ Ukrainian origin fits with the fact that many former Soviet Jews came to Israel and America with hardline anti-Communist views which translated into hardline nationalist political views supporting the Likud (in Israel) and parties even farther to the right (like Kach for one).  When Avigdor Lieberman first made aliyah he too made common cause with Kach.

Among the Facebook pages he features are those of Nadia Matar, the Women in Green settler extremist who called for Mahmoud Abbas assassination at a Manhattan synagogue; and Ketzeleh Katz, settler Knesset member featured here in a YouTube video foaming at the mouth against the Israeli TV satire program, Eretz Nehederet; Kahane Tzadak (“Kahane was right”); Mike Huckabee, darling of the settler extremists; and the settler news portal, Arutz Sheva.

He lists his profession as “web designer,” which somehow seems fitting in this age of internet terrorism. He has a Twitter account aptly named, Doom7777.  Seems to have had a fantatical devotion to Gilad Shalit (“Kidnapping, terrorizing, fanatical monsters will not succeed to subdue the Zionist State!”) and his freedom, though he pretty much stopped tweeting once he made aliya.

So this is the cream of American Jewish youth, our latter-day Zionist chalutzim who, like our European grandparents, came to build the land and make it bloom–with settlements, barbed wire, attack dogs, M-16s and hate.  When are we going to wake up and realize this isn’t a Zionist dream, it is a nightmare.  And in order to prevent the nightmare from turning into a cataclysm, we must crack down on this aberrant form of Jewishness and Zionism.  We must destroy these movements and ideas. If neither the Israeli nor American governments takes firmer action they will have only themselves to blame for the consequences.  We have seen what the Jack Teitels can do even with his solo reign of terror.  Imagine what an entire movement of Teitels can do with some ingenuity and intestinal fortitude.  All they have to do is think a little bigger, get someone with the vision of an Osama bin Laden.  That would be all it would take for some real mayhem.

Haaretz notes that this military expulsion order is one of the most severe measures at the disposal of the military authorities in dealing with extremist settlers.  There are currently three such orders in effect against residents of Yitzhar.

The actions taken against Khantsis bring home once again the necessity for the U.S. government to do a better job of monitoring the radical pro-settler movement in this country and the necessity for clamping down on fundraising here on behalf of extremist settlements like Yitzhar and Kfar Tapuach among many others.

For some odd reason Haaretz English omitted Khantsis’ name from its English language report, but not from the Hebrew edition.

17 year old Meir David Kahane's Grandfather

From Richard Silverstein’s Tikun Olam.

Kahane Grandson Arrested in Torching Yasuf Mosque

Arutz Sheva, the settler’s news portal, reveals that Meir Kahane’s grandson, Meir David Kahane (which was also his grandfather’s full name), 17, was arrested and is a suspect in the arson attack on a West Bank mosque in the village of Yasuf.  The latter neighbors the radical Israeli settlement of Kfar Tapuach, where the young Kahane lives.  Both his grandfather and parents were murdered by Arab militants in separate incidents.

The Israeli police refused to name the suspect, though the Jerusalem Post identified him as a Kahane “relative.”  But Arutz Sheva seems less bound by such pledges of privacy and revealed the boy’s identity.

I should also remind readers that this is the same Kfar Tapuach where Kahane-wannabe Jewish terrorist, Ephraim Khantsis, was hanging out for the past four months telling anyone within earshot that Jack Teitel, another Israeli-American terrorist on trial for several acts of murder and maiming, was a good Jewish boy and the Palis only got what they deserved, etc., etc.  The IDF recently issued an order expelling Khantsis from the West Bank for six months.

Eden Natan Zenda, another Israeli Jewish terrorist who shot up an Israeli Arab bus and killed four, also lived in Kfar Tapuach after deserting from the IDF.  That place is a regular font of brotherly love.

Can we anticipate even bigger and better acts of hatred from the Kahane clan in the future?  Perhaps graduating from arson to murder to avenge their own parents’ murders?  Where will it all end?

H/t to Eileen Read.

Goel Ratzon

Goel Ratzon is an Israeli with some heterodox beliefs, his actions are clearly outside of mainstream Judaism, but imagine if he had been from a Muslim country what would the media reaction be? Of course we know how Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller would react they would say this is “normative” Islam, but of course we won’t hear a peep out of them on this story.

Israeli living with 17 women arrested for enslavement and rape

A Tel Aviv man who has been living with 17 women with whom he fathered 38 children was arrested on Monday on suspicion of enslavement, rape, extortion by threat and sexual assault of minors, among other charges, police said after a gag order was lifted on the case.

Police launched an undercover investigation into the suspect, Goel Ratzon, in June 2009 after receiving a complaint about abuse from one of his “wives.”

Ratzon, 60, allegedly subjected his family to strict disciplinary measures, but has claimed that the women and children lived with him on their own accord.

Click here to read Goel Ratzon’s ‘rulebook’

More than a year ago, Channel 10 aired a documentary on Ratzon and his many wives, which gained widespread attention and criticism after he said that there had been several attempts at collective suicide after some of the women thought he was going to leave them. Also in the film, some of the women said they would commit mass suicide if anyone tried to harm their leader.

Wary of mass suicide, police were accompanied to his home by social workers and psychologists on Monday so as to avoid hysteria and any attempts at mass suicide after his arrest.

Police confiscated a rule book by which Ratzon forced his family to abide. The women were forbidden to communicate with men, be in physical contact with their biological family, eat meat, smoke, drink alcohol or dress immodestly.

Ratzon is considered by his companions to be the savior (Goel in Hebrew) of the universe, and is attributed godly and supernatural abilities. Many of the women have tattooed his name and portrait to several parts of their bodies.

The names of every one of Ratzon’s children include his own first name. For instance, one of his sons is called Avinu Ha-Goel (our father the savior) and he has a daughter named Tehilat Ha-Goel (glory of the savior).

Some crazy comments by ill informed and ignorant people about Islam and a proposed Mosque that will be built in their neighborhood.

Some Residents in Sheepshead Bay Fear Planned Mosque

Racial and religious tensions are flaring in Sheepshead Bay over plans to build a mosque on a residential street.

Opponents say the mosque will lead to traffic and noise problems - but their complaints are littered with anti-Islamic attacks, like one letter to elected officials that said “mosques and Muslim schools preach hatred.”

“There’s a safety issue here. I don’t want my kids walking past it,” said Kathy Cash, 38, a mother of three children who attend Public School 52 around the corner on E. 29th St. “It’s disgusting,” said Cash, “they [Muslims] have no respect.”

“My children are scared and I am too,” said Victor Benari, 56, trying to rally neighbors against the mosque during a civic group meeting on Monday. “This is a security issue.”

The hysterical language startled officials from the mosque, who say their neighbors have no reason to worry.

“It saddens us very much to see our neighbors already agitated about these things,” said Allowey Ahmed, 60, who owns the property and is spearheading the project.

“Our neighbors are very important. We cannot be good Muslims unless we have good relations with our neighbors,” said the native of Yemen who moved to Sheepshead Bay in 1997.

Besides the prayer hall, the project will include a community center with youth programs for the growing number of Arabic-speaking families in Sheepshead Bay.

It would be affiliated with the Muslim American Society, a national organization, which runs another facility in Bath Beach.

Other opponents distanced themselves from the hateful language some of their neighbors used.

“I don’t agree with how they presented us. I don’t have a problem with it being a mosque,” said Grigory Kalman, 54, a computer programmer who lives on E. 28th St.

Still, he’s fighting the project because he says it will be noisy and make traffic chaotic on the block.

“This is a quiet residential street, but who knows how bad it will become,” said Kalman.

To calm fears, Ahmed said the Muslim center will not broadcast the daily call to prayer heard at other mosques five times a day.

“We are keen to not disturb the neighbors,” he said.

Councilman Lew Fidler (D-Sheepshead Bay) denounced the stereotyping by the project’s foes.

“I understand they’re uncomfortable. Our emotions are so high and our concerns for safety are so real,” Fidler said, “but to suggest that any mosque that is going to be built is a haven for terrorism or a pulpit for hate before they even build the foundation is simply just over the top.”

Construction is currently stalled because the city Buildings Department rejected plans for a 4-story structure in August, but Ahmed said work would begin “in a couple of months.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/01/08/2010-01-08_some_in_nabe_fear_planned_mosque.html#ixzz0cKdGt5SR

Raymond Ibrahim

Raymond Ibrahim is a friend of Robert Spencer and used to be a regular contributor to JihadWatch, he was one of the many who took advantage of the “Islamophobic cash cow” that took off after 9/11 and overnight transformed from “research librarian” into “Islamic scholar” and “Middle East Expert.”

InFocus did a great piece back in 2007 exposing Ibrahim for what he is: a faker.

The Islamophobic Cash Cow

By Salaam Abdul Khaliq

OK, so you’re a failed writer who toiled for years to achieve fame, fortune and immortality. You’ve spent years in obscurity struggling to pay the bills and keep your head above water, hoping for the day you would eventually earn the attention of some big publisher.

But, sadly for you, all your efforts went by the wayside.

The good news is there is hope. There is just one thing left to do, one thing that would guarantee fame, fortune, a publishing contract and a lot of free media bonanza.

Would you like to know the secret that escaped hundreds of other failed writers like you - academics, journalists, the poor and huddled masses that had bad luck striking gold in the land of opportunity?

OK, here it is - and you need to sit down for this - it’s called “The Islamophobia cash cow.”

Post 9/11, the fastest and surest way to gain celebrity status in the West and garner respect and attention you would otherwise never achieve on your own mediocre merit is to go on an “Islam-bashing” campaign.

And, mind you, you don’t need to be an expert on the subject matter, just make sure to quote verses from the Qur’an out of context, cite Osama Bin Laden as the role model of Muslim behavior, bank on tired canaries like “Islam oppresses women,” and “Islam was spread by the sword,” and other washed out cliches, and voila!

You’re a celebrity, a famous author (a rich, famous author, mind you), a Good Samaritan defending the civilized world from the evils of Islam.

Meet Raymond Ibrahim, the latest client of the “Islamophobia cash cow industry.”

Ibrahim was recently a guest of Air Talk, hosted by Larry Mantle on the Pasadena-based NPR affiliate KPCC. Ibrahim had his 15 minutes at last.

An unknown and obscure menial research librarian at the Library of Congress, Ibrahim thrust himself into the limelight by writing a book called “The Al Qaeda Reader,” (published in 12/06). The newly Christened crusader finally broke down the doors of rejection and abject obscurity and made it to the pantheon of famous “Islam experts.”

And you wonder how many other poor research librarians have risen out of nothingness to sudden fame in a matter of weeks?

Not to worry, Ibrahim has now shown them the fastest path to sleazy righteousness.

Write something that bashes Islam and your “research librarian” title will suddenly transform into “historian of the Middle East and Islam” and “scholar and writer on the Middle East and Islam,” and many other promiscuous titles that have as much worth as fortune cookie sayings.

Then one wonders why a respected talk show host like Mantle would cede the podium to an Islamophobe like Ibrahim without balance, without bringing someone like Karen Armstrong. for example, to challenge his twisted and warped views.

Instead, Mantle let Ibrahim run amuck quoting verses from the Quran ad hoc and out of context, saying for instance that the verse “there is no compulsion in religion” was reprobated, meaning canceled out, by verses of war in what is known as “naskh.”

Ibrahim was given free reign to unabashedly spew lethargic tirades with impunity, shamelessly proclaiming that if Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, were alive today, he would do what Bin Laden is doing now.

Ibrahim also implied that American Muslims presented a danger to American society because their faith teaches them to kill their enemies wherever they are and by all means necessary.

Such alarmism and incitement to hate and paranoia are simply unacceptable, especially coming from an NPR affiliate station that prides itself in being liberal and inclusive.

It is unconscionable for a respected talk show host like Mantle to hand over the microphone to a petty, anti-Muslim research librarian to freely bash Islam and up the ante on American Muslims in order to hype his anti-Islam-disguised-as-a-critique-of-Al-Qaeda book for material gain.

Just like his fellow Arab American Islam-bashers Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish, Ibrahim ought to take notice that Arabs and Muslims have always been in the same boat.

Most Americans don’t make the difference. You are whom you bash.

Many icons of Islamophobia before Ibrahim who sought to make a quick buck by viciously maligning Islam and Muslims sold their souls and ended up as dejects, discarded and washed out has-beens with no credibility and no respect.

It won’t be long before the wisdom of “Islamophobia, like crime, does not pay” will catch on. Media outlets and talk show hosts should take notice.

After this piece was published, Raymond revealed that he faced heat from his employers eventually leading to his “resignation”:

after this Islamist op-ed was published, I received much heat from my supervisors at the Library of Congress, partially culminating in my recent resignation from that American bibliotech — another institution that goes out of its way to appease, especially where Saudi money and princes are concerned.

It was good to see the Library of Congress take a stand against rabid anti-Muslims like Raymond Ibrahim. Notice also how he does what Islamophobes do best, resort to conspiracy theories and blaming it on those “influential” Saudis.

No, Raymond those who employed you at the Library of Congress weren’t “appeasers” or “dhmmis” beholden to the world wide influence of the Saudis, they just got fed up with your hate. Kudos to them.

There is a new report that came out last week that was put together by David Shanzer of Duke University, Charles Kurzman of North Carolina University and Ebrahim Moosa of Duke University, titled Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans. It is an excellent report and a must read, that amongst other things finds that a majority of Muslims who commit terrorist acts have very little Islamic knowledge,

This study identified 139 Muslim-Americans with a linkage to terrorist violence between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2009, an average of about 17 people per year. The dataset contains information about both the offenders and the nature of their activity. All but one of the offenders are men. Their average age is 28. Almost two-thirds (65%) are under 30.

This research confirmed what has been observed in other studies of Muslim terrorists: most of those who engage in religiously inspired terrorism have little formal training in Islam and, in fact, are poorly educated about Islam. Muslim- Americans with a strong, traditional religious training are far less likely to radicalize than those whose knowledge of Islam is incomplete.

This puts a dent in the theories expounded by Islamophobes such as Spencer and company.

Also read this: Study: Threat of Muslim-American Terrorism is Exaggerated

The conspiracy theories swerving around Barack Obama continue, now right-wingers are claiming Obama and MoveOn are working with CAIR to harm America. A book needs to be written about all these conspiracy theories.

Obama, MoveOn working with CAIR

Continuing with the trend from Christmas there seems to be an uptick in hate crimes targeting Muslims, this time in Southern California.

Costa Mesa - Police are investigating a series of apparent hate crimes targeting Muslims in Southern California.

Mosques and displays have been vandalized in Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo, and Azusa in recent weeks… in five separate incidents.

On New Year’s Day, someone left a burned and tattered Quran… the Islamic faith’s holy text… at the back entrance of the Islamic Education Center while hundreds of people worshipped inside.

This story in the LA Times covers what is going on

O.C. Islamic Educational Center a Target of anti-Muslim acts

Costa Mesa police have stepped up patrols near the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, the target of recent anti-Islamic acts including vandalism, hate mail and the burning of two copies of the Koran.

Vandals also recently defaced part of an outdoor interfaith holiday display in Mission Viejo, according to the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which denounced both acts as “incidents of anti-Islam hate targeting the local Muslim community.”

The two incidents are thought to be unrelated but appear to be part of a recent uptick in anti-Muslim acts nationally, especially since the attempted terrorist bombing of a jetliner headed to Detroit on Christmas, council spokeswoman Munira Syeda said Saturday.

A burned and torn copy of the Koran was found in the parking lot at the educational center, on Airport Loop Drive, during Friday prayers. It was the second time in a month that a desecrated Koran had been found there, according to a statement on the Costa Mesa mosque’s website.

“This deplorable incident is a form of anti-Islamic assault, hate crime and terror campaign against American Muslims,” it read. “Even more, it is a great offense against 1.2 billion Muslim followers worldwide because it defiles their holiest and most sacred divine book.”

Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Ed Everett said that his department has increased patrols in the area but that no arrests have been made.

In the Mission Viejo incident, vandals defaced the Islamic portion of the holiday display but left nearby Christian components untouched. They painted over a verse from the Koran and left behind a piece of paper reading “No Islamic Lighthouses in the U.S.A.”

Syeda said the vandalism of the display, at La Paz Road and Chrisanta Drive, was reported to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which provides police services to Mission Viejo. Investigators could not be reached Saturday.

Syeda and other Muslims said they hope the incidents prompt public disavowals of such behavior.

“Americans of all faiths, and leaders of all political persuasions, must repudiate those who would divide our nation along religious or racial lines,” Hussam Ayloush, the L.A. council’s executive director, said in a statement.

Malmo Mosque

No Suspects in Attack against Malmo Mosque

As of New Year’s Eve evening, police had no suspects for an attack against a mosque in Malmö earlier in the day when shots had been fired through the window of the building.

Nobody was seriously injured during the incident. The imam was taken to hospital to treat minor cuts from glass splinters, but he was not struck by a bullet. He was allowed to leave the hospital after his cuts were bandaged.

Around five people, including the imam, were in an office following the evening prayers.

“The imam was sitting in front of the computer when (we heard) a bang. At first I thought there had been an explosion,” one of the witnesses told Sydsvenskan newspaper.

Bejzat Becirov, head of the Islamic Center, said that he doesn’t believe the shots were aimed at a particular individual but rather at the mosque.

“We receive threats all the time. Unfortunately, we have become immune to it. Despite all the incidents, the police have never arrested anyone,” he told TT news agency.

The incident is classifed as attempted murder or aggravated assault.

Police currently have little to go on in their investigation. “We are looking for information from witnesses,” police information officer Cindy Schönström-Larsson said.

“Knocking on doors doesn’t work. The mosque is located by itself and there are no other buildings around,” she added.

The Swedish Muslim Association (Sveriges Muslimska Förbund) said in a statement that they take the attack very seriously. The mosque in Malmö has reportedly been the target of several cases of attempted arson over the last ten years.

“These criminals are being driven by islamophobia. The police must protect (Sweden’s) mosques and their followers against racist threats,” Mahmoud Aldebe, head of the association, said.

Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald, has written another great piece on his blog at Salon.com, I urge all to keep up with his writing. He discusses how the media has made a concerted and boneheaded effort to make the word “Islam” synonymous with “terrorism.”

Making “Islam” synonymous with “terrorism”

(via: Islamophobia-Watch)

This is England, Masked like Terrorists, members of Britain’s newest and fastest-growing protest group intimidate a Muslim woman on a train en route to a violent Demo

by Billy Briggs

On Platform One at Boltonstation a mob of around 100 men punch the air in unison. The chant goes up: ‘Muslim bombers, off our streets, Muslim bombers off our streets…’

Their voices echo loudly and more men suddenly appear; startled passengers move aside. The group march forward waving St George Cross flags and holding up placards. The throng of men around me applaud. A train heading for Glasgow draws up on the opposite platform and the men turn as one, bursting into song: ‘Engelaand, Engelaand, Engelaand.’

Some of the men hide behind balaclavas, others wear black hoodies. A few speak on mobile phones, their hands pressed against their ears to block out the cacophony.

‘It’s already kicking off in Manchester. This could be tasty,’ shouts one. These are some of the most violent football hooligans in Britain and today they have joined together in an unprecedented show of strength. Standing shoulder to shoulder are notorious gangs - or ‘firms’ as they are known - such as Cardiff City’s Soul Crew, Bolton Wanderers’ Cuckoo Boys and Luton Town’s Men In Gear.

The gathering is remarkable, as on a match day these men would be fighting each other. But it is politics that has drawn them together. They are headed for Manchester to support a march by the burgeoning English Defence League.

The police are here in force, too. ‘Take that mask off,’ barks a sergeant to one young man. He does so immediately but protests: ‘Why are they allowed to wear burkas in public but we’re not allowed to cover our faces?’

‘Just do what you’re told,’ the policeman snaps back.

An EDL demonstrator is arrested at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester in October

‘It’s always the same these days. One rule for them and another for us. I’m sick of this country,’ a man standing next to me says in a West Country accent.

He draws on a cigarette then flicks it to the ground in disgust. He starts to complain again but when the tannoy announces the arrival of the train to Manchester Piccadilly he raises his hands above his head and starts another favourite.

‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves… Britons never, never, never…’ His companions join in. As the train comes to a halt the crowd surges forward.

The carriages are almost full so the men pack themselves into the aisles followed by policemen speaking into radios. A group of lads drinking beer at a table eye the new contingent warily.

One man wearing a baseball cap clocks their fear and reassures them.

‘It’s all right lads, nothing to worry about. We’re protesting against radical Islam. Come and join us.’

Further up the carriage another bursts into song.

‘We had joy, we had fun, we had Muslims on the run,’ he starts up. Nobody joins in and a couple of his mates tell him to ’shut up’ as they point to a woman dressed in a black hijab sitting at a table.

A man standing close to her is masked and holds a placard. It has a picture of a Muslim woman crying with red blood streaming down her face. ‘Sharia law oppresses women!’ the slogan reads.

The rise of the English Defence League has been rapid. Since its formation at the start of the summer the group has organised nearly 20 major protests in Britain’s cities, including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Luton, Nottingham, Glasgow and Swansea.

Its leaders are professional and articulate and they claim that the EDL is a peaceful, non-racist organisation. But having spent time with them, there is evidence that this movement has a more disturbing side. There is talk of the need for a ’street army’, and there are links with football hooligans and evidence that violent neo-Nazi groups including Combat 18, Blood and Honour and the British Freedom Fighters have been attending demos.

Violence has erupted at most of the EDL’s demonstrations. In total, nearly 200 people have been arrested and an array of weapons has been seized, including knuckledusters, a hammer, a chisel and a bottle of bleach.

As the EDL gains support across the UK, Muslims have already been targeted in unprovoked attacks. In the worst incident, a mob of 30 white and black youths is said to have surrounded Asian students near City University in central London and attacked them with metal poles, bricks and sticks while shouting racist abuse. Three people - two students and a passer-by who tried to intervene - were stabbed.

Following the Manchester protest, when 48 people were arrested during street violence, the Bolton Interfaith Council Executive issued a stark warning that race relations were under threat and Communities Secretary John Denham compared the EDL to Oswald Mosley’s Union of British Fascists, who ran amok in the Thirties. In response to these fears, the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit, a countrywide police team set up to combat domestic extremism, has been investigating the EDL.

‘The concern to me is how groups like this, either willingly or unwillingly, allow themselves to be exploited by very extreme right-wing groups like the National Front and the British Freedom Fighters,’ Metropolitan Police chief Sir Paul Stephenson has said.

Welsh Defence League members burn an anti-Nazi flag in Swansea

I had met the English Defence League for the first time in Luton three weeks before the Manchester demonstration. After several calls, key members agreed to talk on the condition that I did not identify them. We met at a derelict building close to Luton town centre. Eleven men turned up. All wore balaclavas, as they often do to hide their identities, and most had black EDL hoodies with ‘Luton Division’ written on the back. They’d made placards bearing slogans such as ‘Ban the Burka’.

The group’s self-proclaimed leader, who goes by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, did most of the talking. A father of two, Robinson explained the background to the rise of the movement.

‘For more than a decade now there’s been tension in Luton between Muslim youths and whites. We all get on fine - black, white, Indian, Chinese… Everyone does, in fact, apart from these Muslim youths who’ve become extremely radicalised since the first Gulf War. This is because preachers of hate live in Luton and have been recruiting for radical Islamist groups for years. Our Government does nothing about them so we decided that we’d start protesting.’

EDL demonstrators in Birmingham in September

Robinson could barely conceal his anger as he explained that the spark for him had been the sight of radical Muslims protesting when soldiers paraded through the town on their regiment’s return from Afghanistan in May.

Following the incident Robinson set up a group called United People of Luton and, after linking up with a Birmingham-based organisation called British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists and another called Casuals United (largely made up of former football hooligans), they realised there was potential for a national movement.

‘We have nothing against Muslims, only those who preach hatred. They are traitors who should be hanged and we’ll keep taking to the streets until the Government kicks them out.’

More than 100 divisions have been set up across Britain and a careful co-ordination means the EDL is becoming efficient and a potential catch-all for every far-right organisation in Britain.

Robinson admits that he has attended BNP meetings in the past. Another prominent member and administrator of Luton EDL’s Facebook group is Davy Cooling, a BNP member. Sean Walsh, an activist for the EDL in Luton, is a member of the BNP’s Bedfordshire Facebook group.

Even within the EDL there are concerns over links to extremists. A former member called Paul Ray recently claimed that the group had been hijacked by BNP activists, including a man from Weston-super-Mare, Chris Renton, who helped set up the EDL website. Ironically, Ray himself has extremist contacts, including a German former neo-Nazi who is friends with Northern Ireland Loyalist Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair.

Casuals United was the brainchild of Jeff Marsh, a convicted football hooligan from Cardiff City’s Soul Crew, one of the most feared gangs in Britain. Marsh operates behind the scenes, orchestrating activities with both Casuals United and the Welsh Defence League, a sister group of the EDL.

The public face of Casuals United is another Welshman called Mickey Smith. An avowed football hooligan, he is banned from Cardiff City’s football ground. Together, Marsh and Smith organise the 50 or so gangs actively recruiting members across the UK.

The EDL insists it is separate from Casuals United, but dig a little and it becomes clear they operate hand-in-hand. Joel Titus is a cocky but politically naive 18-year-old Arsenal fan of mixed race. He tells me that the EDL youth division he runs has over 300 members across the UK.

‘We want to hit every town and city in Britain,’ he says.

Titus became involved with the movement through Casuals United. And according to anti-fascism magazine Searchlight, his role is to recruit football hooligans.

He sticks to the ‘peaceful movement’ mantra but a text I later receive from him ahead of an EDL demo in London reveals his involvement with the hooligans. It reads: ‘Right lads, the “unofficial” meet for the 31st (London) is going to be 12 o’clock at The Hole In The Wall pub just outside Waterloo Station. I will be there just before that. Remember lads were (sic) going as Casuals Utd and if you could obtain a poppy to wear it would make us look good even if we are kicking off. lol. Cheers lads. Joel “Arsenal” Titus.’

EDL members meet at a rendezvous pub before travelling to Manchester

Alarmingly, the EDL is becoming more sophisticated and those orchestrating its activities at the top are far more astute than its foot soldiers. I meet two of the EDL’s key figures in a Covent Garden pub - a respectable looking man called Alan Lake, and a man who goes by the moniker ‘Kinana’.

Lake is a 45-year-old computer expert from Highgate, north London who runs a far-right website called Four Freedoms. This summer he contacted the EDL and offered to both fund and advise the movement.

‘Our leaders in this country no longer represent us,’ he says.

Lake’s aim is to unite the ‘thinkers’ and those prepared to take to the streets. He describes this marriage as ‘the perfect storm coming together’. Lake says that street violence is not desirable but sometimes inevitable.

‘There are issues when you are dealing with football thugs but what can we do?’

He criticises fascist organisations, however, and says he will only support the EDL so long as it doesn’t associate with the BNP. When I ask about extremists hijacking the movement, he says: ‘There are different groups infiltrating and trying to cause rifts by one means or another, or trying to waylay the organisation to different agendas. The intention is to exclude those groups and individuals.’

These men are outwardly intelligent and their political nous combined with the brawn of the casuals makes them a quasi-political force.

Britain’s neo-Nazis realise this. For Kevin Watmough, leader of the neo-Nazi British People’s Party and a former member of the National Front, the rise of the EDL is reminiscent of the Seventies.

‘The protests remind me of the National Front marches, but I wouldn’t march with the EDL because they have blacks as supporters,’ he told me.

But other neo-Nazis have joined EDL demos. These include members of Combat 18 and the British Freedom Fighters, who later posted videos of themselves on the internet.

Watmough lives in Bradford and can recall the 2001 riots, which came about as a result of tensions between whites and Muslims. Bradford, along with Oldham, another tinderbox northern city that witnessed riots in 2001, is a stated target for the EDL and Casuals United in 2010. Tension is likely here and in other towns where the EDL is also promoting spontaneous flash demos and the occupation of building sites for new mosques.

Professor Matthew Goodwin, an expert on far-right organisations who has advised the Home Office, says that the police are right to monitor the EDL and to take them seriously.

‘(The EDL) is now well-organised and not just a minor irritant. It has become a rallying point for a number of different groups and to have them marching through sensitive areas is a major concern.’

Communities Minister John Denham has also condemned the rise of the EDL: ‘If you look at the types of demonstrations they have organised, the language used and the targets chosen, it looks clear that it’s a tactic designed to provoke, to get a response. It’s designed to create violence. And we must all make sure this doesn’t
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1238213/This-England-On-trail-English-Defence-League.html#ixzz0bC5X3XLJ

Cradley Heath Mosque Burned to the Ground

A Mosque was torched and burned to the ground in Cradley Heath. (via Islamophobia Watch)

Cradley Heath Mosque Burned to the Ground by Arsonists

CRADLEY Heath’s Muslim community is appealing for help after its mosque was burnt to the ground by arsonists.

A fire engulfed the Cradley Heath Mosque and Islamic Centre in Plant Street on Boxing Day destroying the building and the religious countless books inside.

It is the second time in five years that the building has been targeted by arsonists and police are hunting the culprits.

The West Midlands Fire Service first reported that the blaze on Plant Street had destroyed ‘industrial units’ in Plant Street but when the smoke cleared it became obvious the building was a mosque.

The mosque was a thriving part of the community with 400 worshippers using it and classes of children being taught there.

The worshippers are now trying to find a new place to worship as the new Mosque they have being building alongside the old one will not be ready for use for several years.

Basharat Ali, secretary of the mosque and education centre, said: “This is not the first time we have been targeted, there was a similar attack four or five years ago.

“The building has been completely destroyed and all the books we use with the children have been damaged by water.”

“He added: “The new building is under construction, it is a shell inside and it is due to open in a few years.”

Steve Walder-KFDM News

In the past week there has been an uptick in crimes against Muslims and “Mooslim” looking people. Two cases highlight this real well: In the first case we have a serial criminal, a white supremacist who killed Muslim store owner Naushad Virani in a robbery. Of course the killer,Stevie Walder was a filthy racist and at the time that he was apprehended by police stated, “I saw you behind me. I loaded my clip. When I saw that all of you were white I decided to give up and not fight.” Whether Walder was just trying to appease the police officers or not we do not know but it is clear that he relished killing Virani, who he no doubt, as his ilk is prone to do considered a “raghead” or “sandn*****.”

The Tyler County Sheriff told KFDM News a man who has ties to a white supremacist group and faces charges of capital murder in the Christmas night shooting death of a Liberty store owner has admitted to the crime and told a deputy he gave up and decided not to shoot when he was surrounded because the arresting officers were white.

Two Tyler County deputies, two state troopers and a Woodville Police officer arrested Stevie “Bubba” Walder, 31, at about 1 a.m. Sunday on Highway 69, just north of Woodville, according to information Tyler County Sheriff David Hennigan provided to KFDM News.

A judge set Walder’s bond at $2 million on a charge of capital murder in the death of Naushad Virani, 50.

Two customers found Virani at about 10:30 a.m. Friday behind the counter at Ridgewood Grocery Store in the 4300 block of North Main Street in Liberty. Virani was working on Christmas so his employees could have the night off with their families. Virani had been shot in the head and was found in a pool of blood.

The store’s surveillance video helped authorities identify Walder as the suspect.

Liberty police believe robbery was the motive. They’re trying to determine if the shooting was a hate crime.

Tyler County Sheriff David Hennigan spoke with KFDM News on Sunday afternoon and described the events leading up to the arrest.

He said one of his deputies received information from a DPS trooper about the murder in Liberty and the suspect.

“My deputy spotted Walder’s vehicle and fell in behind him,” said Sheriff Hennigan, “and he also saw the trooper who had given him the information about the homicide and the suspect. They confirmed with dispatch that it was the vehicle. My two deputies and two DPS troopers followed the suspect and a Woodville Police officer fell in behind them.”

Hennigan said the suspect pulled over on Highway 69, just north of Woodville. The officers conducted a felony stop and pointed their weapons at Walder.

“He told my deputy, ‘I saw you behind me. I loaded my clip. When I saw that all of you were white I decided to give up and not fight.’ He admitted to my deputy that he shot the store owner.”

Hennigan said people with ties to white supremacist groups are a problem in East Texas.

He praised the officers involved in the arrest for working together to take Walder into custody without any harm to themselves or the suspect.

We also have the case of the Sikh man who was attacked by crazed fanatic who obviously thought the poor guy was an evil “Mooslim.” Sikhs have had to endure a lot of hatred and violence in America and Europe because of the visible turban which ignorant people mistake all “Mooslims” as wearing.

A Sikh graduate student, working as a part-time pizza delivery person, was thrown into a swimming pool and brutally assaulted in West Texas, according to the Sikh Coalition, a community advocacy group.

When the young man, whose identity has been withheld for his protection, brought pizzas for delivery into a home, four men took the pizzas and started eating without paying, while hurling racial epithets and threatening him.

“I’m going to **** you up in Iraq, I’m going to **** you up in Afghanistan, I’m going to **** you up over here,” they were quoted as saying by the Coalition in a media release. But it did not say when the incident took place.

The four men then grabbed the Sikh student and threw him into a swimming pool. The four attackers surrounded the pool, kicking him in the head and body. Every time he tried to escape, they would stomp or hit at him.

For 20 minutes, he swam for his life trying to escape. He eventually seized an opportunity to flee and barely made it to his car with two men in pursuit, the community group said.

Though the local police were called shortly after the attack, they failed to respond adequately, the community group alleged. The police classified the incident as a misdemeanor, which means that the attackers may not have to serve any jail time, it said.

The local police also did not file the incident as a hate crime, the group said. “It is clear from the attackers’ references to ‘bin Laden’ and ‘Go back to Afghanistan’ and the fact that they kicked off his turban that this assault targeted not only him as an individual, but his Sikh identity.”

However the Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently investigating the matter as a possible federal hate crime after being contacted when the local police department refused to prosecute the attackers for hate crime, the Sikh Coalition said.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

The Grinch who stole Christmas is at it again.

For some, this “merry” time of the year is a special occasion to spread Islamophobia and hate around the United States.

First we had the loon pastors who turned a cheerful Christmas lights display into an occasion to spread their warm and fuzzy Christmas message “Islam is of the Devil.”

Then we had the anti-Muslim KKK (Kahane-Krazed Kaufman) rallying  his merry band of wackos against American Muslims who are partaking in an initiative to pick up litter from the streets because Moooslims are a dangerous terrorist threat.

Joe Kaufman

And now we have an email crusade aimed at pressuring the US postal service to stop including Islamic holidays in their holiday stamp group. The email crusade is replete with the general conspiracy nonsense we are used to from Islamophobes, that it was issued by President Obama (secret Muslim), linking the stamp to Muslim terrorists, etc. Take a quick read at the following news piece and then consider our little idea of how to push back against this rabid hate with just a few cents.

Muslim Stamp delivers e-mail boycott

St. Petersburg, Florida - It’s the holiday season and people are busy mailing out packages and greeting cards.

The Arabic says "Happy Festival."

The United States Postal Service offers a variety of holiday stamps including ones marking Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. But there’s one stamp that some people aren’t giving the stamp of approval.

It’s the Eid Greetings stamp, which honors two Muslim holidays. There’s an e-mail going around calling on “patriotic Americans” to boycott it.

Ahmed Bedier, President of the Tampa Human Rights Council and a Muslim, has seen the e-mail and he finds it troubling. “This is a form of hate mail. Hate speech,” says Bedier. “It can be very dangerous and it’s full of basically a lot of misinformation.”

The e-mail sent to 10 Connects does contain some factual errors. It says the stamp is new and that President Obama had it issued. However, the stamp is far from new. It’s eight years old and was created when George W. Bush was president.

Besides talking about the stamp, the e-mail also lists a string of terrorist bombings linked to Muslim extremists. The e-mail says that using the stamp would be a slap in the face to Americans who died.

For Bedier, that message amounts to cyber hate. “That would be similar to sending out messages like it was a Catholic who committed the Oklahoma City bombing; it was a Catholic who did this, it was a Catholic who did that. Let’s get rid of the Catholics.”

But one thing Bedier would like to get rid of is this e-mail. Just like the mobs at the post office, variations of it seem to surface every year. And that’s one holiday tradition Bedier wishes more people would help extinguish.

“I would recommend just hitting the delete button.”

The U.S. Postal Service and several rumor-debunking websites like Snopes offer information about the Eid stamp and the e-mail.

Here’s the news report with the full story:

Of course, the US Postal Service is not carrying stamps for other religious holidays and traditions celebrated in America, it’s just Islam, because Islam you see is taking over:

So what do we do about it? Well, how about we heed the example of the Swiss Businessman who took a stance against hate? LoonWatch is asking everyone who opposes Islamophobia and all forms of hate - whether you are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, or something else - to make it a point to purchase and use Eid stamps for all your mailings in 2010. With just 42 cents, that you will spend anyway, you can turn a mundane daily task into a powerful statement against hate. We would call for the same if say Hanukkah or Kwanzaa was being targeted in this way. Join in the campaign and pass it on!

Order here or from your local post office.

Our site is geared towards combating Islamophobes, but sometimes we like to give a well deserved shout out to a righteous individual who stands up against hate and Islamophobia. In this case we applaud Guillaume Morand, who took a strong and principled stance against Islamophobia. Great job Guilliame!

Swiss Businessman Builds Minaret in Protest

BUSSIGNY, Switzerland — A Swiss businessman appalled by his fellow countrymen’s decision to ban minarets has extended a chimney above his company building into a minaret in protest.

“It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban. Now we have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful,” Guillaume Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told AFP.

The businessman, who is not a Muslim, explained that the he had constructed the mock minaret at his building near western Switzerland’s city of Lausanne in protest, and at the same time, to “send a message of peace.”

More than 57 percent of voters upset opinion polls and defied their government by approving the right wing motion to ban minarets — the turrets or towers on mosques from which Muslims are called to prayer.

The outcome of the referendum brought by members of the hard-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and other right wing groups was also hailed by anti-immigrant party leaders elsewhere in Europe.

Morand blamed other political parties in Switzerland for not having campaigned against the far-right motion ahead of the referendum.

“They were all against it but they did not explain the issue clearly to the country,” he said, pointing out that only the SVP’s controversial poster campaign was visible.

The SVP had sought support for the ban through a poster campaign depicting a burqa-clad woman against a background of a Swiss flag upon which several minarets resembling missiles are erected.

Morand said he viewed the ban was all the more “scandalous” given that Switzerland actively encourages Arabs to “visit the country and to spend their money here.”

The minaret, which has been in place since Tuesday, has “generated a lot of interest,” he said, adding that he will wait and see before deciding if further action was needed to push his point.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Interesting piece about challenging traditions in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. In it we read about how some ultra-Orthodox Jewish men gather to harass women,

Across a partition, in the men’s section of the Kotel, a group of ultra-Orthodox men gathered to harass the women as they sang and prayed. The men shouted “Gevalt!” — expressing their revulsion in Yiddish — and called the women’s prayer an abomination. One or two threw objects and spat at them. In the women’s section, some Orthodox female worshipers joined in the insults.

Imagine if this had been Mooslims hurling insults at women, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and the whole goof troop would be waxing on how this is “Islam” and just part and parcel of the “misogyny Islam preaches.” Will they cover this story?

Challenging Traditions at the Heart of Judaism

JERUSALEM — A struggle for the character of the Western Wall, this city’s iconic Jewish holy site and central place of worship, is under way, and it is being fought with prayer shawls and Torah scrolls.

On Friday, sheets of rain obscured the Old City’s ancient domes. But by 7 a.m. about 150 Jewish women had gathered at the Western Wall to pray and to challenge the constraints imposed on them by traditional Jewish Orthodoxy and a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court.

Under their coats many of the women, supporters of a group of religious activists called Women of the Wall, wore a tallit, or fringed prayer shawl, a ritual garment traditionally worn only by men. Some wore their prayer shawls openly, an illegal act in this particular setting that can incur a fine or several months in jail.

Last month Nofrat Frenkel, 28, an Israeli medical student and a committed follower of Conservative Judaism, a modern, egalitarian strain, was the first woman in Israel to be arrested during prayers at the Western Wall, also known as the Kotel, for publicly wrapping herself in a tallit.

The police accused her of acting provocatively and in a way that upset public order. Ms. Frenkel said the investigation was still under way.

The Women of the Wall, who meet for prayers at the Kotel at the start of every Hebrew month, are at the vanguard of a feminist struggle in Orthodox Judaism and other more contemporary strains to adapt time-honored religious practice for the modern age. They came in droves on Friday, the first day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, to express their outrage over Ms. Frenkel’s case.

Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women of the Wall, which was founded in 1988, said she had never seen so many turn up in the month of Tevet.

“We are pushing the envelope. History is made of moments like this,” she said.

The group’s activities present a head-on challenge to the religious establishment, which is dominated in Israel by Orthodox rabbis who interpret and apply the rules of religious law in their strictest form.

The Kotel is defined in Israel as a national and holy site that is open to all. In practice, the women say, it operates like an Orthodox synagogue, with separate prayer sections for men and women and a modesty patrol to ensure that visitors are appropriately dressed.

Traditional Orthodox women pray individually, and quietly, by the Kotel’s massive beige stones, a remnant of the retaining wall of the mount revered by Jews as the site where their ancient temples once stood. Al Aksa mosque now sits on the top of the mount.

Critics of the Women of the Wall say that their practices — like holding organized prayers, singing out loud, carrying a Torah scroll and wearing prayer shawls — offend the more traditional worshipers at the site.

Twenty years ago, having suffered verbal and physical abuse as they prayed, the Women of the Wall petitioned the Supreme Court to have their right to religious freedom recognized, on grounds that the Kotel does not belong to the Orthodox establishment alone.

After a lengthy legal battle, the court ultimately ruled against the women in the interest of public order. Consequently, it is illegal for them to read aloud from the Torah or to wear prayer shawls openly by the wall. Instead, the authorities have allocated them a special area where they can conduct services in their own fashion, in an archaeological garden tucked around a corner, out of sight.

“These women come here like a persecuted group,” said David Barhoum, a criminal lawyer there on behalf of the Women of the Wall. If anything, he said on Friday, the criminal behavior seemed to be coming from the other side.

Across a partition, in the men’s section of the Kotel, a group of ultra-Orthodox men gathered to harass the women as they sang and prayed. The men shouted “Gevalt!” — expressing their revulsion in Yiddish — and called the women’s prayer an abomination. One or two threw objects and spat at them. In the women’s section, some Orthodox female worshipers joined in the insults.

Jewish religious law is open to interpretation. The Women of the Wall argue that even according to some Orthodox opinions, they are doing nothing wrong.

“Women are exempt from carrying out certain commandments, but not forbidden,” said Ms. Frenkel, who kept her prayer shawl hidden beneath her jacket by the Kotel this time around.

But the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, said “there is no value to prayer that creates controversy and offends other female worshipers” at the site.

The dispute is not about interpretations of religious law, he added, but about the sanctity and the accepted custom of the place. “On Friday the heavens wept,” he said.

Others saw the rain as a blessing in this parched land. The downpour was “so fitting,” said Simonne Horwitz, an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan in western Canada, who said she had flown in especially for the event.

By and large, the inclement weather was on the side of the police who were sent to uphold the law and keep the peace.

There had been a plan for the women concealing their prayer shawls to open their coats, but Ms. Hoffman said most did not want to because of the storm.

Plans to take out a Torah scroll at the Kotel, and perhaps to read from it, were also aborted for fear the parchment would be damaged by the rain. Even so, one of the scrolls ended up with water stains.

Whether or not it was an act of divine intervention, the deluge allowed everyone to claim victory — the drenched women, their detractors and the police. The women were obviously wearing prayer shawls at the wall, but no arrests were made.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09356/1022781-82.stm?cmpid=news.xml#ixzz0aSDQCPKN

According to a recent poll taken more people in Britain are open to banning minarets than in the United States. (via Islamophobia-Watch)

People in Britain are open to the idea of banning minarets, according to a three-country poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 37 per cent of respondents in Britain would vote in favour of a ban, while 25 per cent would vote against it.

In the United States, 21 per cent of respondents would vote to ban minarets, while 19 per cent disagree. In Canada, 35 per cent of respondents would vote against a ban, while 27 per cent would endorse one.

Angus Reid Global Monitor, 22 December 2009

Cf. Sholto Byrnes’ comments on the New Statesman blog, 21 December 2009

Christmas to be boycotted?-Reuteurs

A new Jewish lobby is proposing a war against Christmas. Stating amongst other things,

Fliers and ads distributed among the public read, “The people of Israel have given their soul over the years in order to maintain the values of the Torah of Israel and the Jewish identity.

“You should also continue to follow this path of the Jewish people’s tradition and not give in to the clownish atmosphere of the end of the civil year. And certainly not help those businesses that sell or put up the foolish symbols of Christianity.”

Imagine if a Muslim group of scholars made a similar statement, or if a Muslim lobby group waged such a campaign, Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the gang at Fox News would be up in arms about how these groups are waging war on Christianity. Also notice the befuddling silence from Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller on this issue, it isn’t newsworthy if it isn’t “Mooslim.”

Jewish Lobby Wages War on Christmas Trees

A new front for religious battles: Hotels and restaurants. The “Lobby for Jewish values” this week began operating against restaurants and hotels that plan to put up Christmas trees and other Christian symbols ahead of Christmas and the civil New Year.

According to the lobby’s Chairman, Ofer Cohen, they have received backing by the rabbis, “and we are even considering publishing the names of the businesses that put up Christian symbols ahead of the Christian holiday and call for a boycott against them.”

Fliers and ads distributed among the public read, “The people of Israel have given their soul over the years in order to maintain the values of the Torah of Israel and the Jewish identity.

“You should also continue to follow this path of the Jewish people’s tradition and not give in to the clownish atmosphere of the end of the civil year. And certainly not help those businesses that sell or put up the foolish symbols of Christianity.”

The Jerusalem Rabbinate also works each year to ensure restaurants and hotels receiving kosher certification from the Jerusalem Religious Council do not put up Christian symbols.

According to a senior official in the kashrut department, this is done each year consensually, but that businesses which do not meet this requirement may find their kashrut certificate revoked.

It should be noted that most of the hotels in Jerusalem and a significant part of the restaurants in the capital receive permanent kosher certification from the city’s religious council.

Professor John L. Esposito, a renowned expert on Islam and Muslim societies has come out with an excellent piece on Huffington Post, rebutting a horrendously inaccurate article from long time New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman that has gotten a lot of circulation in the media.

John L. Esposito: Tom Friedman on Muslims and Terrorism: Getting it Wrong Again

Thomas Friedman, in his Dec. 15 column “www.jihad.com” repeats and reinforces the same tired, totally incorrect, but commonly-made generalization preached in his July 9, 2005 column, “If it’s a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution,” that “no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.” In his most recent column, Friedman continues to assert, despite readily available information to the contrary, that ” a “violent, jihadist minority seems to enjoy the most ‘legitimacy’ in the Muslim world today” and that “Few political and religious leaders dare to speak out against them in public”…..”How many fatwas — religious edicts — have been issued by the leading bodies of Islam against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?” Friedman asks and then answers his own question with “Very few.”

The real truth is that Muslim religious leaders have indeed spoken out strongly and often to condemn terrorism and violence, but mainstream media like the NY Times and columnists like Friedman have chosen to ignore them. For example, Muslim scholars’ and organizations’ condemnations (including fatwas) of the 9/11 attacks, given from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia to the US, can be seen here. As reported by the BBC, already on September 14, 2001, statements condemning terrorism in general and Bin Laden in particular were made by a significant, influential and diverse group of religious leaders, ranging from Shaykh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar University in Cairo (viewed by many as one of the highest authorities in Sunni Islam) to Ayatollah Kashani in Iran. In addition, the North America Fiqh Council joined with other internationally prominent Islamic scholars in issuing a formal fatwa on 27 September 2001 condemning bin Laden’s actions of 9/11 and also sanctioning Muslim participation in the United States’ military response in Afghanistan. For a more comprehensive list of statements made by individual leaders and organizations pre and post- 9/11, attacks in Europe and elsewhere, click here.

It is inconceivable that a knowledgeable reporter could be so unaware of major polls on Muslim attitudes towards religious extremism and terrorism and the many statements made by important Islamic leaders and organizations around the world denouncing acts of terrorism. Given Friedman’s knowledge of the area and best selling book on the Middle East, we are dismayed by what can only be willful ignorance. The Gallup World Poll and the recent PEW Center poll of American Muslims provide hard evidence that refutes Friedman’s views of the Muslim majority. Gallup data from 35 Muslim countries from North Africa to Southeast Asia, (see Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think) found that Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustified. The PEW study American Muslim attitudes concluded:

“Recent events such as the Fort Hood shootings and the arrest of five Muslim American students in Pakistan have raised questions about the threat of homegrown terrorism in the United States. However, the Pew Research Center’s comprehensive portrait of the Muslim American population suggests it is less likely to be a fertile breeding ground for terrorism than Muslim minority communities in other countries. Violent jihad is discordant with the values, outlook and attitudes of the vast majority of Muslim Americans, most of whom reject extremism.”

Friedman says “a corrosive mind-set” has developed that “says that Arabs and Muslims are only objects, never responsible for anything in their world, and we are the only subjects, responsible for everything that happens in their world.” If he is so concerned about encouraging Arab and Muslim responsibility and building more resistance against the terrorists, then a positive response from him and the New York Times would be to promulgate and support rather than ignore or deny statements from Muslim leaders and the mainstream majority of Muslims who are speaking out against terrorism in the name of Islam. For Friedman and the Times not to recognize this is more than simply irresponsible journalism; it borders on a polemical advocacy that alienates our most valuable partners, mainstream Muslims, and US-Muslim world relations. This post was co-written by John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, both from the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

The Muslim Demographic threat conspiracy theory takes another hit in Europe with a new Gallup poll that came out recently revealing that Muslims in Britain, Germany and France are well integrated into their communities. (Hat tip: Syed) The report by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation says 77% of British Muslims identified with the UK, compared with 50% of the general public. There was a similar finding in Germany, the survey says.

Survey Reveals Muslim Attitudes

European Muslims have much more loyalty to the countries they live in than is generally believed, a survey says.

The report by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation says 77% of British Muslims identified with the UK, compared with 50% of the general public.

There was a similar finding in Germany, the survey says.

The authors say their report counters a commonly-held view that measures to combat Islamic militancy may have alienated many European Muslims.

“This research shows that many of the assumptions about Muslims and integration are wide of the mark,” said Dalia Mogahed of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and co-author of the report.

“European Muslims want to be part of the wider community and contribute even more to society,” she said.

The findings of the report are surprising, because since the 11 September attacks in the US commentators have repeatedly questioned the loyalties of European Muslims to the countries they live in, the BBC’s Rob Broomby says.

The research - which focused mainly on European Muslims in Britain, France and Germany - polled around 500 Muslims and 1,000 members of the general public in each country.

‘Isolated’

In Britain, the report found that more than three-quarters of Muslims identified with the country and its institutions - far more even than the general population did.

But whereas the vast majority of British Muslims (82%) felt Muslims were loyal citizens, the general public remained suspicious of them.

In Germany, 40% of Muslims identified with the country against 32% of the wider public.

German Muslims were also found far more likely than the general public to have confidence in the judicial system, financial institutions and the honesty of elections.

They had higher levels of confidence in their national government than society as a whole, but much less faith in the media.

In France, 52% of Muslims identified with the country, compared with 55% of the general public.

However, the report found that French Muslims had much less confidence in the nation’s institutions, including police.

The survey also said that European Muslims felt far more isolated than those living in the United States and Canada.

Anti-Muslim graffiti found on French mosque

(AP) – 1 day ago

CASTRES, France — Police say assailants have scrawled a Nazi slogan and hung pig feet on a mosque in southern France.

Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux has denounced the “vile and racist desecration” of the mosque in the town of Castres.

Police say the swastika in black paint and slogans including Hitler salute “Sieg Heil” in German, “France to the French” in French, and “White Power” in English were scrawled on the mosque.

Hortefeux said Sunday any person found responsible for the overnight desecration should be “severely punished.”

Assailants sporadically scrawl anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic graffiti on religious sites, cultural centers and cemeteries in France — home to western Europe’s largest populations of both Muslims and Jews.

In another case of what if they were Muslim, Israeli settlers spurred by a mandate from G-d attacked a West Bank Mosque, sprayed graffiti on it and burned Qurans inside of it. Of course this isn’t big news for most, and we will see the likes of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Rabbi Jonathan Hausman either remain silent on this or somehow justify it. (hat tip: retaane)

Settlers attack West Bank Mosque and burn holy Muslim books

Suspected Jewish settlers today attacked a mosque in the northern West Bank, burning holy books and spraying threatening graffiti in Hebrew on the building, Palestinian officials and Israeli police said.

Extremists broke into the mosque in the village of Yasuf, near the city of Nablus, and burned Muslim holy books and prayers carpets, while sprayed slogans on the floor reading “Price tag - greetings from Effi.”

The so-called price tag is the Jewish settlers’ policy of attacking Palestinians and their property in retribution for any Israeli government curb on settlement expansion. Effi is a Jewish name.

The dawn attack appeared to be the work of hardline settlers furious that the right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu has given in to US pressure to try and enforce a temporary freeze on the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where some 300,000 settlers live.
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While the attackers escaped, the Israeli government was quick to condemn the attack. “This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government’s efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel’s future,” said Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, whose department is overseeing the freeze.

When they discovered the desecration of their mosque, Palestinian villagers started throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, whom they often accuse of complicity with settlers when they carry out such attacks on them and their olive orchards. Two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were hurt in the clashes.

There have been rising tensions since Mr Netanyahu announced the proposed freeze last month, in an effort to meet US and Palestinians demands for a total halt on settlement construction, deemed illegal by the international community but often backed by the Israeli state.

Thousands of angry settlers gathered for a demonstration close to the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem this week, vowing to continue building and condemning Mr Natanyahu’s decision to bow to pressure from Barack Obama, the US president. They carried banners that said “Obama wants us frozen, God wants us chosen,” and “God’s Bible gave us this land.”

The settlers believe that the West Bank - which they call by its Biblical name, Judea and Samaria - should be part of a greater Israel, and are adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

They have torn up freeze orders delivered by the Israeli authorities to settlements in the West Bank, and blocked inspectors trying to enforce the building ban. Last week at the settlement of Qedumim, close to Nablus, residents prevented inspectors from entering while cheering as trucks of building materials were brought in.

A right-wing cabinet minister said that the freeze was largely a sham and that the settler population could grow by as many as 3,000 people in the next 10 months, the period of the proposed moratorium.

“This is neither a freeze nor a suspension,” Benny Begin, the son of former prime minister Menachem Begin, told a conference in Tel Aviv, according to an Israeli newspaper. “Construction in Judea and Samaria will continue in the next 10 months.”

“We are … saying that we don’t intend to restrict or suspend new building permits,” he added.

And Mr Netanyahu has tried to temper anger by allocating special development grants to tens of thousands of the settlers, sparking anger from Mr Barak’s centrist Labour party, which has threatened to vote against the measure.

Yaakov Neeman

Will we be hearing condemnations from Pamela Geller, Rabbi Jonathan Hausman or Robert Spencer for this call to replace secular law in Israel with Jewish Law? Don’t hold your breath. (via Huffington Post)

JERUSALEM — Israel’s justice minister called for Jewish law to become binding in Israel, causing a stir Tuesday that cut to the heart of the country’s simmering secular-religious divide.

Yaakov Neeman’s office tried to contain the uproar Tuesday by saying his words were taken out of context and that he had no intention of replacing Israel’s current legal system. But his comments touched a raw nerve among secular Israelis wary of what they consider to be religious coercion by the Orthodox Jewish minority.

Neeman, an observant Jew, told a rabbinical conference on Monday that the Bible contains “a complete solution to all the things we are dealing with.”

“Step by step we will bestow religious law upon the citizens of Israel and transform religious law into the binding law of the state,” he said. Israeli newspapers said the rabbis attending the conference applauded him wildly, but some lawmakers later attacked his remarks as antidemocratic.

Secular Jews make up about 80 percent of the Jewish population. While many participate in some religious observances, only the Orthodox adhere to Judaism’s strict regimen of rules, including praying three times a day and not driving on the Sabbath.

Opposition lawmaker Haim Oron warned of a “troubling process of Talibanization” in Israel.

In the wake of the commotion, Neeman’s office put out a statement Tuesday saying he spoke only “in broad terms” about “the importance of Jewish law in the life of the state.”

The minister’s remarks did not imply “a call to replace state laws with religious laws, either directly or indirectly,” the statement said.

Speaking in the parliament Tuesday, Neeman said his remarks had been misunderstood. He added that rabbinical courts could provide practical help. “The justice system in Israel is overworked,” he said, “and therefore disputes should be encouraged to be transferred by mutual agreement to an alternative judging system.”

A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no immediate comment.

The notion of instituting religious law in a democratic society is a sensitive one in Israel, which is largely secular but marks the Jewish Sabbath and all Jewish holy days as national holidays and has always allowed rabbinical authorities control over procedures like marriage and divorce.

Secular Israelis are afraid that a wider application of religious law would bar them from activities such as driving, shopping or even turning on the television on the Sabbath.

Heavily religious Jerusalem, which has experienced a flight of secular Jewish residents over the past two decades, is the site of the most faith-based friction.

Over the summer, police clashed repeatedly with ultra-Orthodox protesters enraged by the city’s decision to open a parking lot on the Jewish Sabbath, when driving is banned by religious law. More recently, ultra-Orthodox activists have demonstrated against an Intel Corp. chip-making plant in Jerusalem because it operates on the Sabbath.

Richard Silverstein, has this excellent piece up at his site Tikun Olam, on the newest right-wing “conversion” creation; Mark Halawa. Halawa, published a piece on how he was in the dark his whole life about his Jewish roots and now is a firm Likud-Israel backer. He published his “testimonial” on the Aish HaTorah website, Aish HaTorah you might remember was the organization that funded the anti-Muslim film Obsession. There used to be a great website that debunked the Obsession movie, hopefully it will be running again, Jews on First also have a great rebuttal.

Mark Halawa, Aish’s Manchurian Muslim by Richard Silverstein

A few days ago I received a seemingly polite, deferential e mail from someone named Mark Halawa telling me I might be interested in a post he’d just written.  When I saw the website I knew there was a lot more there than met the eye.  He had published at the Aish HaTorah website.  Anyone who knows anything about Aish or me knows that we don’t exactly see eye to eye on anything related to Judaism or Israel.  So I realized there must be something hinky about Mark’s e mail:

My name is Mark, and I’m very much impressed with your message.

Below is a link for my article that was published on Aish.com last week. Feel at liberty to use it, and let me know how I can be of help.

When I read his post I knew there was.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this when I initially received his e mail and assumed it was a personal message.  On further review, this likely was an e-mail spam blast sent to scores or hundreds of sites.  The wording is vague enough that it could be sent as a mass mailing.  So it’s possible Halawa didn’t even know who he was dealing with when he e mailed me.

It seems that Mark is following in a long line of dutiful “moderate” (or “good”) Muslims who far-right pro-Israel groups use to impeach Islam.  The list is long and fascinating: Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Tawfiq Hamid, Walid Shoebat, Zuhdi Jasser, etc.  What all these have in common is that they’re trotted out by Aish HaTorah via their Islam hate movies.  Being a relatively new recruit, Halawa hasn’t yet been featured.  But he will be.  If not in a movie, you can be sure he’ll be visiting a Hillel or synaoguge near you warning about the evils of Islam and the wonders of Judaism Aish-style.

Mark Halawa dreaming of a Third Temple

Since we know that a good number of the Muslim turncoats especially Walid Shoebat are frauds it’s useful to dwell on a few of Mark’s claims.  Now, I’m not claiming that Mark is one.  But the possibility exists based on previous bad faith shown by Aish and similar groups using these people for their own political ends.

Though this story is less lurid, it does remind me somewhat of the account of the so-called former Hezbollah intelligence agent turned Haredi Jew and follower of one of Israel’s most racist anti-Arab rabbis, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu.  Now that one was a real whopper!

Mark, who was raised as a secular Muslim in Kuwait, claims that his maternal grandmother is Jewish.  On meeting an alleged Orthodox former philosophy professor, the latter tells him that means he is Jewish.  I’m trying to check out the halacha on this claim.  Of course, Orthodox Judaism is based on matrilineal descent, but I’ve never heard of some claiming to be Jewish based on a grandmother being Jewish.  At best, this is a very tenuous claim to being Jewish since his mother clearly wasn’t raised Jewish.

But the proof he posits for his grandmother’s Jewishness seems flimsy:

I recalled how my grandmother had a funny name on her documents, Mizrachi, which I never heard before. She also had a small prayer book with Hebrew letters, and she prayed in the dark crying. (I thought the Wailing Wall was so named because crying was a part of prayer.)

Aside from a vague family legend, my grandmother never mentioned anything about being Jewish — but now the pieces were fitting into place…

I went to my room and called my mother. She rebuffed the story, saying, “Don’t listen to people like that. We are Muslims and that’s that.”

I decided to call my grandmother myself and bring up the subject.

I beat around the bush a bit — after all, she’d been denying it for the past 50 years — and then finally blurted out, “Grandma, are you Jewish?”

She didn’t answer the question directly, but she started crying and spoke about the years of Arab-Israeli conflict. She told me how her brother Zaki had been killed in Jerusalem before the rebirth of the State. To me that was sufficient confirmation of her Jewishness and I decided to leave it at that.

Well that seals it, her brother was killed in 1948, therefore she must be Jewish.  There may be more family history here that he’s not telling us, but this isn’t in the least convincing.  If this guy isn’t lying, he’s really digging deep to prove something he desperately wants to be true.

This passage too seems suspect to me.  Keep in mind that he’s describing a supposedly Jewish Palestinian girl in the pre-1948 period falling in love with a Palestinian Arab in Jordanian army uniform:

My mother’s parents met in Jerusalem when my grandfather, an Arab from the West Bank, was serving in the Jordanian army fighting the Zionists. He was 18 years old and my grandmother was 16. Her father ran a school in Jerusalem — the same school where she would jump off the wall to meet my handsome, uniformed grandfather. They fell in love, got married, and lived for a number of years in Shechem (Nablus).

How likely would it be for any Jewish girl to fall in love with a Jordanian soldier “fighting Zionists?”  Again, I can’t say for sure that this is a sack of lies, but it sure smells funny.

Halawa claims that his suspicions about his grandmother’s origins made him predisposed to feel sympathetic to Israel:

Whenever we were on vacation in Amman, Jordan, I used to constantly watch the Israeli channel — when my parents weren’t around. My favorite was the Israeli national anthem, and I would stay up late waiting to hear them play it at the end of the TV transmission.

How touching that Mark knew at that early an age he was an Arab Zionist.  But explain to me this, Mark: how would this have gone over in a household in which your father was allegedly a Pan-Arab Nasserist??  Once again, there’s something wrong here.

The scene Mark describes of visiting a synagogue for the first time is absolutely priceless.  I tell you the guy should be writing for television.  He takes one look at the Black man, Indian and Egyptian all praying together and pfffft! he knows this is where he’s meant to be his whole life.  And don’t you know the tears fell like rain (even I almost shed one about as crocodile as the ones he was shedding).

There is another tell-tale sign that all might not be well in Mark’s story.  Keep in mind this is the first time he’s ever visited a synagogue and he presumably knows no Hebrew:

“I can’t believe I’m here, singing and praying in Hebrew. I could never have imagined it.”

Nor can I.  No one who has never been to a Jewish religious service and knows no Hebrew could “sing and pray in Hebrew” the first time he’s done it.  For someone to master the prayers and the language requires years of deep immersion.  The language is difficult to master and quite archaic in places.  It simply beggars belief that he could feel so at home in the language and music of the Shabbat service from the get go.

In the following passage, you finally get a glimpse of what Mark’s selling and it’s little more than the religious far-right anti-Muslim snake oil:

In the Arab world there are tons of misconceptions and misinformation regarding Israel. So I am working to develop a program to educate Arabs about Jews and Judaism, to dissolve the stereotypes propagated by the Muslim media and schools. I hope that my unique background can help bridge some of that divide.

Indeed.  Before Mark dissolves stereotypes and starts “truth-telling” to Muslims about Judaism he might want to come clean about himself and dispense with the fantasy he’s spun in this story.  Mark’s “program” reminds me of why I called him the “Manchurian Muslim” above.  For groups like Aish HaTorah, discoveries (or frauds) like Mark are pure gold.  They are secret weapons which Jews turn around and launch against the Muslims to undermine their cause.  They also serve to warm the cockles of the hearts of Jews who need to believe in the inherent superiority of Judaism to Islam.

Surprisingly, Mark addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only obliquely and refers to it in terms that are not at all characteristic of the pro-Israel far right.  Again, either Mark hasn’t quite drunk the Aish Kool Aid, or he’s dissembling since this is far too Kumbaya for a real Aish follower:

It often seems like the Arab-Israeli conflict is intractable. Yet I believe in today’s world, there is a real opportunity for a breakthrough. Arabs today have a more universal education, which makes them more open and curious. Also they are meeting Israelis and Jews in their travels around the world, which breaks down misconceptions. And as we saw during the recent protests in Iran, many young people in the Muslim world are yearning for reform. On top of all this, they have high-speed Internet access which opens up all kinds of new avenues of communication, and the possibility of forming new friendships unrestricted by borders or political agendas. Perhaps this can be the basis of a grassroots movement to mend relations and hopefully one day achieve peace.

And perhaps Alan Dershowitz is Anne Coulter in drag.

Mark does have one classic Orthodox right-wing obsession–Arab men on the prowl for Jewish women.  According to Mark, it’s an epidemic:

The other issue that needs urgent attention is intermarriage in Israel. Unfortunately, a story like my grandmother’s is not so rare. Many young Jewish women are wooed by Arab men and brought back to live in their villages.

“Many” of course is an extreme exaggeration, which seems to characterize Mark’s entire story.  But it is true that for the Israeli far-right miscegenation is a deeply disturbing phenomenon much like it was in the Jim Crow South.  It’s also instructive that Meir Kahane used to rail about precisely the same issue, while concealing that he had an adulterous affair with an Italian-American woman who killed herself when he abandoned her.

Finally, this e-mail reply from Mark to the first e-mail I sent him, in which I warned him that Aish was a nasty organization, brought forth this reply containing some uncharacteristically naughty language for a supposed Orthodox Jew:

That’s a horrible message, Richard. You have lots of  hate blinding your eyes, and you run a site called Tikkun Olam!!!

You’ve exposed the real person you are; calling my people Nasty!

Its unfortunate, people like you use our religion for their own advancement, and financial gain.

Not a single Jew I’ve met in the past 7 years, ever spoke or incited against another religions.. Islam or other.

But here you are (a christian or messianic shit most probably) the first bigot! That knows nothing else but fowl [sic] thoughts and evil, for the lack of better education. You’re the nastiest person I’ve heard from, you’re [sic] own family probably hates you. What a scam!!!

Half of me wanted to report him to his Aish rebbe for fowl language!  But I was especially tickled by his accusation that I was “christian messianic shit” and that I was exploiting my religion for “financial gain.”

Curious also that Mark claims that he’s never met anyone at Aish who “incited against another religion.”  Keep in mind this is the same Aish (through its subsidiary Clarion Fund) which produced the two most hateful films about Islam in the past few decades: Obsession and Third Jihad.  Aish and their fellow partners in religious holy war, Ateret Kohanim want to rebuild the Third Temple where the Dome of the Rock now stands.  No incitement there either.  I don’t know whether Mark is a brainwashed ex-Muslim or an out-and-out fraud.  But whatever it is, he’s yet another sorry example of the Jewish religious right attempting to perpetrate fraud on any gullible parties who’ll listen to the message.

Oren Dorell

Oren Dorell, a reporter with USA Today wrote an article recently on so called “Honor killings,” of which there have been six in the past two years. Unfortunately, his article was rendered inaccurate and ineffectual because of a severe lapse of judgment on his and USA Today’s part in citing Robert Spencer as an authority on Islam and Radical Muslims.

The portion that we are speaking about goes,

“There is broad support and acceptance of this idea in Islam, and we’re going to see it more and more in the United States,” says Robert Spencer, who has trained FBI and military authorities on Islam and founded Jihad Watch, which monitors radical Islam.

Of course, Robert Spencer, per his modus operandi is again lying. There is neither broad support or acceptance of honor killings as an idea in Islam. Two points which Spencer will be hard pressed to prove, especially since Islam expressly condemns the pre-Islamic tribal practice. Spencer also attempts to play prophet here, a role that he has failed at over and over.

This is an especially egregious report in light of the events that played out in the Fathima Rifqa Bary case, a case which Michael Kruse, a reporter for the St.Petersburg Times noted was in part “created” by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. Throughout the case, without any of the facts present Spencer was claiming that Rifqa would be killed in an honor killing and that her parents were extremists, he still believes this today regardless of the fact that the authorities investigated the matter and repudiated Spencer and his far right cronies when they sent Rifqa back to Ohio and found the charges against the family to be baseless.

We urge our readers to contact Oren Dorell and USA Today to rectify this epic failure in citing Spencer as an authority on Islam or radical Islam.

Contact Brent Jones, for corrections and clarifications: accuracy@usatoday.com

Contact Oren Dorell: odorell@gmail.com

Remember to be polite and topical.

The fact is Spencer is not taken seriously by academia especially in the field of Islam: He has been repudiated over and over. Take a glance at our archives:

Academics and members of the American Library Association condemn Spencer and his work: Robert Spencer Rejected by Academics, still Supports Geert Wilders

DePaul Law Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni condemns Spencer

His former friend and ally Charles Johnson has also condemned Robert Spencer as an “Anti-Islamic Bigot:”

Robert Spencer goes postal on Charles Johnson

Spencer’s association and fervent support for anti-Muslim European neo-Fascists and supremacists also disqualifies him from being mentioned as a true neutral observer and commenter on Islam or radical Islam:

Robert Spencer Teams up with Euro-Supremacists Again

Spencer has also joined a genocidal Facebook group which called for the extermination of Turks:

Robert Spencer: Wanna be Conquistador

Robert Spencer’s arguments have been shown to be filled with errors and excessive prejudice:

The Church’s Doctrine of Perpetual Servitude worse than Dhimmitude

Robert Spencer Misrepresents Facts — Again

Robert Spencer Worried about ticking ‘Muslim Demographic Time Bomb’

There is more information exposing the bigotry and anti-Muslim motive that mars the work of Robert Spencer in our archives, if USA Today truly cares about what they print and the information they wish to present to readers then they should take a serious look at who they choose to quote as experts.

Wafa Sultan

We updated our post on Wafa Sultan. It looks like she was loonier than we thought.

In retrospect, our piece on Wafa Sultan seems not to have been harsh enough on her hateful lying and bigotry. In light of recent comments she has made while on her book tour at synagogues and churches, the poseur can properly be renamed, Wafa Stalin Sultan because the atheism that she believes in is propelled by the same genocidal and insane impulses that led another loon, Joseph Stalin.

Atlas Shrugs (read: Pamela Geller on Drugs) made our jobs easy by posting a video clip of Wafa Stalin Sultan going off the deep end. In the video, Sultan is addressing a group at a synagogue in NYC and says,

“I believe King Abdullah can change Islam overnight, but you need to put pressure on him to do it, and the same kind of pressure you put on Japan, you might need it“ at that moment someone from the audience interjects and asks, “atom bombs?” Wafa Sultan replies, “Yes. At some point the West will need to do it.” This statement is quite revealing considering how in 2007, at a right-wing David Horowitz funded conference called “Restoration Weekend,” Wafa Sultan said, “I will change 1.3 billion Muslims…they have to realize they have only two choices: to change or to be crushed.”

At the end of her speech, she utters something quite strange for an atheist, “God bless you and God bless America.” More charlatanism?

During the question and answer session she divides moderate Muslims into three categories: 1.) a majority, 80% who are unaware of the real teachings of Islam, 2.) huge chunks of them are practicing Taqiyyah, 3.) a very small progressive group who have no effect. All talking points from the far right-wing.

The rest of the question and answer session is interesting as well, and pocked full of more and more lies from Wafa Stalin Sultan. Check it out for yourselves:

This disgusting woman continues with her fascist fear mongering, she says, “Islam is infiltrating and you are doing nothing about it.” Someone from the audience then asks Sultan, “How would we stop it from infiltrating?” Sultan replies, “Get involved in politics, you have to know the kind of leaders you are choosing.” The man then says, “If we got involved in politics, what would our platform be, what would we say?” Sultan replies quoting Geert Wilders, “Islam is not religion!” The man interrupts and asks, “what would our platform be, what would A, B and C be?” Sultan replies, “the same you dealt with Nazism. The same way, the same exact way. The same way!” To this she receives a big applause from the all too captive audience…”you reversed the Japanese culture, the same, you might need to do it, you might need to do a heavy pressure, I cannot predict the kind of pressure, you understand it, I don’t have to say it.” Quite chilling the way she nonchalantly advocates nuking Muslims.

Sultan also says, “You know Geert Wilders has said if he becomes Prime Minister of Holland he will ban the Quran, I admire him for that.” The audience glibly agrees with her with mutterings of “yes.” If you want to see how fascism takes hold then watch the video. My only question is how much are these synagogues and churches paying her for speaking appearances at their congregations?

Muslim Graves Desecrated by Nazis

Vandals have targeted Muslim graves in Manchester again. (hat tip: Islamophobia-Watch)

Racist Yobs Vandalize Muslim Graves

RACIST vandals have targeted Muslim graves at a south Manchester cemetery for a third time.

Sometime between 4pm on Friday 20 November and 9am on Monday 23 November unknown offenders pushed over 20 headstones at the Southern Cemetery on Barlow Moor Road.

The vandalism is being treated as racially motivated as only a Muslim section of graves were targeted.

On 29 September 2009, 26 Muslim headstones were vandalised and on 2 November 2009, 27 were similarly targeted.

Police are now appealing to anyone who has information to come forward.

Detective Chief Inspector Steve Eckersley said: “It is an absolute disgrace that whoever is responsible thinks it acceptable to repeatedly target the graves of loved ones.

“The repeated nature of these attacks and the fact the offenders are only targeting Muslim graves means we are treating this as a hate crime.

“This sort of mindless, racist behaviour must be utterly condemned and I’m sure the whole community will be outraged, that is why I want to reassure them, and in particular the families affected that we are doing all we can to catch the culprits.

“We have increased our patrols in the cemetery and surrounding area and I ask people using the cemetery to be vigilant and report anyone causing damage to the graves or acting suspiciously.

“To those who know who is responsible or have been told who is responsible I would like to ask how you would feel if someone damaged a grave of one of your loved ones and how hurt or upset that would make you.

“Please do the right thing, tell us what you know and help us put a stop to this.”

Anyone with information should call Greater Manchester Police on 0161 856 6151 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes, the academic who dropped academia long ago to pursue anti-Islam polemics and apologia for Israeli policy is at it again. In a Nov, 24, 2009 article in the Jerusalem Post, Pipes writes about his favorite topic, “the Muslim threat to Western Civilization.”

According to the illogic of Pipes the greatest threat doesn’t come from Al-Qaeda, Ayatollah Khomeini or Nidal Hasan but rather from people like Dr. Tariq Ramadan and Congressman Keith Ellison. He accuses the two of being part of something he terms “Islamism 2.0.” This ridiculous term translates essentially into what Islamophobe Robert Spencer calls “Stealth Jihad,” or the subtle takeover of the West by peaceful, law-abiding Muslims who have a secret, sinister (stealth) goal to takeover the West and replace Democracy with Shariah law: in other words it’s a conspiracy theory.

Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Nidal Hasan represent Islamism 1.0, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (the prime minister of Turkey), Tariq Ramadan (a Swiss intellectual), and Keith Ellison (a US congressman) represent Islamism 2.0. The former kill more people but the latter pose a greater threat to Western civilization. (emphasis mine)

That Erdogan, Ramadan and Ellison can even be mentioned in the same sentence as equivalent to, or even more dangerous and threatening to the West than Bin Laden speaks volumes about Pipes’ preposterous agenda. Would Bin Laden have Turkey make peace with Armenia as Erdogan did? Would Bin Laden affirm Democracy as the way forward to better governance and equal rights as all three do? Would Bin Laden pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America on Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an as Keith Ellison did?

All of the above are of course rhetorical questions because there is an obvious wide gulf that separates the likes of a Bin Laden and a Keith Ellison. Keith Ellison, is an American whose family history in the Americas goes back centuries, longer even than Pipes’ family history. He is a liberal Democrat who believes in Democracy, the rule of law, universal suffrage and equal rights for all. That is why his district in Minnesota overwhelmingly voted for him.

The most condescending aspect to the vile piece from Pipes and what he ignores or fails to mention is that Erdogan, Ramadan and Ellison are Westerners. In fact, they represent all that is good about the West, they are consistent on their values, are educated, active and participatory citizens: one doesn’t have to agree with their beliefs or ideas to see the common values in that. They call on their fellow citizens to be active and educated and they foster understanding between different communities while also being self-critical; that is more than we can say for Daniel Pipes.

Pipes goes on to state that “lawful Islamism” is growing in the West and may be worse than “violent Islamism” which is retreating,

Other once-violent Islamist organizations in Algeria, Egypt, and Syria have recognized the potential of lawful Islamism and largely renounced violence. One also sees a parallel shift in Western countries; Ramadan and Ellison represent a burgeoning trend.

In conclusion, only Islamists, not fascists or communists, have gone well beyond crude force to win public support and develop a 2.0 version. Because this aspect of Islamism undermines traditional values and destroys freedoms, it may threaten civilized life even more than does 1.0’s brutality.(emphasis added)

Instead of bizzarely bemoaning the fact that these once violent organizations have renounced violence, Pipes should see it as most sensible people do, a positive development which brings these groups into the system and opens them up to the scrutiny of checks and balances and eventually the electorate. Also notice the highly disingenuous way in which Pipes again lumps these once violent organizations onto the same wavelength as Ramadan and Ellison who, yes, are proud Muslims (not a crime by the way) but at the same time are staunch Democrats who are the fiercest and most affective opponents of the violent ideology that motivates groups such as Al-Qaeda.

Ellison and Ramadan stand as a strong counter example against Bin Laden and his cohorts for Muslims, especially young Muslims. They see two Muslims, strongly grounded in their faith, belonging to their society and giving back on various levels from the social to the political; instead of deriding them Pipes should be encouraging them. As more examples such as theirs increase in the West it will enable Muslims to better fight those minority elements within their faith that seek to cause chaos and violence and that is what really threatens Daniel Pipes who seems to be motivated by the paranoid fear that the “enfranchisement of American Muslims…will present true dangers to American Jews.”

So what does Daniel Pipes propose? How do we stop this “stealth Islamism 2.0?” Do we restrict the free speech of Tariq Ramadan and deny him entry into the US? ( Pipes does support that) Do we disallow Muslims such as Keith Ellison from holding public office? Do we not allow Muslims to enter into the military? Do we watch Muslim peoples’ every move? What practical solutions is Pipes proposing from this highly opinionated and doomsday scenario article?

We can only assume that he is in league with other believers in these conspiracy theories who do put forward pratical solutions to the “stealth Muslim problem.” Believers like Geert Wilders whose solutions include: no religious freedom for Muslims, banning the Quran, taxing Muslim women who wear the Hijab, deporting Muslim citizens etc.

One must ask Daniel Pipes, does he agree with such a program? Some of his colleagues and friends such as Robert Spencer have already given their backing to Wilders, where does Pipes stand? Does he stand for Democracy, equal rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion or is he a hypocrite cloaking himself as a champion of Western civilization when in reality with every word he undermines it?

Best Buy Happy Eid

There is a storm brewing at Best Buy over a promotional ad for Thanksgiving Day that included the words “Happy Eid al-Adha.” CruchGear has an interesting article on it with even more interesting responses.

A Storm is brewing at Best Buy

Here it comes: Best Buy ran a national Black Friday ad inviting the world to celebrate Thanksgiving and Eid Al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice. Fair enough, right? Happy Eid! Well, take a gander at the ad up there and brace yourself.

Look closely. You’ll probably miss the good will and wishes, they’re so innocuous.

So you’d think that a national retailer would be praised for trying to reach out to its Muslim visitors and you’d also think that since Black Friday comes around Thanksgiving, an ostensibly “conservative” holiday,” they’d be excused for not putting baby Jesus in the carriage Toad drives in Mario Kart Wii on the first page of its Black Friday ad.

Nope.

The s-storm brewing at Best Buy is going to overtake the news cycle in a few days. Here’s an example of the rhetoric:

Among my major purchases from BB over the years were a plasma big screen, a fridge and a laptop. No more. In 2006 you discontinued the use of ‘ Merry Christmas’ in your “holiday” messages.

Yet one of your ad inserts wishes your customers a happy “Eid Al Aldha” ( a Muslim goat throat slitting festivity) . Clearly the liberal/ PC culture in your corporate offices is biased against Christians and traditional American values. So, in 2009 I discontinue Best Buy. Good riddance.

Hello A m a z o n

- A proud patriotic Christian American.

While I’d be happier if they celebrated a real holiday like Festivus, can’t we give Best Buy a break? This is literally the first time I’ve ever seen any major retailer celebrate Eid, it’s a nice holiday for millions of Americans, and it’s nice for BB to note that yes, it is coming up soon. And let me assure you that next week’s flyer will probably include dancing angels, Moses riding a jet-ski, and What Would Jesus Buy HDTV buying tips.

Thoughts?

Welsh Defense League

These hooligans don’t seem to get it. These are the same people that Pamela Geller has called “freedom fighters.”

Four Arrested in Protest against Mosques

Four people were arrested at an anti-Muslim demonstration amid a strong police presence in Wrexham. Around 40 members of a group calling themselves the Welsh Defence League (WDL) shouted racial abuse and gestured towards locals, saying they were protesting against plans for a new mosque.

Four people were arrested for public order offences, and North Wales’s Temporary Deputy Chief Constable, Ian Shannon said the day passed without “significant incident”. Meanwhile Unite Against Fascism held a counter-protest, near where the WDL gathered on Saturday.

And a Wrexham Communities Against Racism festival attracted around 200 people. Residents were joined by faith groups, the Wales TUC, Searchlight, Unison and members of Wrexham Council. Searchlight Cymru secretary Ian Titherington said none of the WDL protestors were Welsh, and they appeared to be members of the English Defence League (EDL).

He said: “This was the final humiliation for the EDL’s disastrous visits to Wales. The only way they could hold an event was to bus in 30 from Bolton, who on arrival went to the nearest pub, got drunk and bawled out racist chants. The EDL gathering did not exactly sell any local links, by displaying a Bolton Wanderers FC English flag and singing God Save the Queen.”

The WDL was formed in June 2009 as an off-shoot of the EDL, which claims to campaign against Islamic extremism. The group insists it is not fascist. But at a march in Swansea in October, onlookers were confronted by jeering men giving Nazi salutes, and one was arrested for a racially aggravated public order offence.

Daily Post, 23 November 2009

Via the Huffington Post:

Wolf Interstate Leasing in Wheat Ridge, Colorado has put up a billboard insinuating that President Obama is somehow tied to Jihadists and the Fort Hood shootings. The billboard features cartoons that show a caricatured President morphing from a suit-wearing politician into a turban-wearing jihadist. The words, “Remember Ft. Hood” appear at the bottom.

The manager of the store defended the billboard on David Sirota’s morning show on AM 760 this morning by claiming that the words “We are a christian nation” appear in the constitution.

The store owner also provided space for recent billboards that read “Where’s The Birth Certificate?” in reference to conspiracy theories that Obama is not U.S. citizen.

Wafa Sultan

The Ahavath Torah Synagogue in Stoughton, MA has invited anti-Muslim bigot Wafa Sultan who has called Islam and Muslims “backward,” “primitive,” the Qur’an “evil” and who has been exposed to be a fraud, she has also lied about her biography and history, (click here to learn more about Sultan).

Is this the kind of people that Ahavath Torah wants to promote especially in the times we live in? It seems the Synagogue is either unaware of Sultan or is not interested in harmony or critical dialogue and factual knowledge about its Muslim neighbors but instead seeks to plant the seeds of animosity and hate. We hope the Synagogue reconsiders this decision and heeds the words of Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein who warned against Sultan and described her as “Islam’s Anne Coulter.”

Controversial Muslim woman to speak in Stoughton

Sultan is a Syrian-born American psychiatrist who speaks out about what she believes is wrong and hateful about aspects of Muslim culture.

Sultan will speak at Ahavath Torah Congregation Thursday, Dec. 3, at 7:30 p.m.

Sultan is known as “That Muslim Woman on Al Jazeera,” singularly distinguished to speak her mind in a culture that would seek to subjugate her every thought, opinion and emotion. Subsequently, she has been hailed by Time magazine as one of the world’s most influential people and is looked upon as a defiant, passionate force against the misogyny she argues is inherent within Muslim culture itself.

Sultan is a Syrian-born American psychiatrist who, three years ago, caused a firestorm in the Arab world for a series of incendiary interviews on Al-Jazeera TV, in which she challenged the Muslim world to act against the culture of hate and intolerance that she said has defined Islamic thinking for centuries. Growing up in Syria, Sultan said she had seen firsthand the oppression clouding Muslim society, particularly, she said, in its abhorrent treatment of women and its wildly inaccurate view of the West. Now, she is a proponent for women’s rights in the Middle East.

This event is the second in a series of national and international renowned speakers coming to Ahavath Torah Congregation. The synagogue will be celebrating its 90^th anniversary with an education series. Each month, topics such as race, politics, the Middle East, and climate will be discussed by experts.

For reservations, at $15, call 781-344-8733 or e-mail office@atorah.org.

I would recommend all those concerned to email or call Ahavath Torah and express politely why they believe Wafa Sultan is a terrible choice as a speaker and the harm that this will do to Muslim-Jewish relations in Stoughton.

Recently we got some hate mail from someone calling themselves Baruch Goldstein. Obviously a reference to the Extremist Jewish settler who killed 30 Muslim worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. It seems the ghost of Baruch Goldstein haunts us still and he came back from the dead to let us know what he thinks about Islam and our website.

Baruch Goldstein

Nice try at obfuscating the supremacist, genocidal ideology of islam from the actions carried out in its name.

I know Armenians that would rip your f**king head off Abdul.

He ends his polite email with the hallmark of the spirit of Goldstein, a call to violence. Goldstein (none of us are Abdul’s by the way), I know Armenians who would happily have a cup of tea with us here at LoonWatch and would rather not rip our heads off.

Cenk, posing as a Bollywood hero

Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, rips this closet Islamophobe a new one.  I especially like how he made sure to mention George Bush’s intention behind invading Iraq (the Biblical prophecy of Gag and Magog), which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.  (But of course those civilians don’t count, since they are brown Moozlems.)

Cenk could have sealed that argument by mentioning the Christian version of Al-Qaeda, none other than the fundamentalist Evangelical Blackwater group, which has killed scores of civilians.  And he could also have mentioned the thousands of Christians who believe in the Joel’s Army theology and the general surge of Christian fanaticism in the U.S. military.

One other point: the conservative loon mentioned the idea that 90% of mosques in America are owned and operated by Saudi Arabia.  This is a blatant lie commonly peddled by Islamophobes.  “But you can google it!”  Believe it or not: but not everything on the interwebs is true.  *gasp*  In fact, the vast majority of mosques in America run on local donations.

Joy "7 million Muslims in the World?" Tiz

Then in that same breath she says that they are funded by the Muslim Brotherhood, when in fact the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood runs contrary to that of the “Wahhabi” (Salafi) strain of Islam followed in Saudi Arabia.

But anyways, I must say that Cenk did a great job (and I give him a 10 out of 10).  Here is the debate:

Cenk vs Conservative [Loon] on Muslims in the Military

Stephen Colbert

Christopher Caldwell, author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, a book which flirts with the Eurabia conspiracy theory appeared on the Colbert Report to discuss his book. Colbert was in full form and in his usual satirical and humorous way made short shrift of Caldwell.

Greek Orthodox priest guilty of "looking Arabic"

The Islamophobes have been praying to cash in on the Ft. Hood Shootings, hoping that it will result in a backlash against Muslims.  It seems this backlash is right on schedule: Jason D. Bruce, a Marine reservist, physically assaulted a Greek Orthodox priest, mistaking him for an Arab (and thus a terrorist, since we all know that Arab = terrorist); the Tampa Bay Times reports:

Tampa police: Marine reservist attacked Greek priest he mistook for terrorist

By Alexandra Zayas and Demorris A. Lee, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

TAMPA — Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him.

That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.

The “Arabic [sic] looking” victim ended up in the hospital, and Jason D. Bruce “pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery.”  When he learned that the priest was a not an Arab infidel but a God-fearing “Greek Orthodox priest,” Bruce “teared up.” Oopsie doopsie.

Hat tip: ThinkProgress.org

Yaakov Teitel

Yaakov (James) Teitel, a Jewish settler in the West Bank has with glee and happiness reveled in the murders he committed against innocent Palestinians. Showing no remorse for the slayings, he justified the carnage he wrought by declaring, “I know God is pleased.” This deranged attitude and action represents a man who does not represent Judaism, but what if he were a Muslim how swiftly would Islam be blamed and Muslims cast under suspicion?

Alleged Jewish Terrorist: I know God is Pleased

The Jerusalem District Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday charged alleged Jewish terrorist Yaakov (Jack) Teitel with two murders, three attempted murders and other acts of violence.

“It was a pleasure and an honor to serve my God,” said Teitel at the Jerusalem courthouse. “I have no regret and no doubt that God is pleased.”

Teitel also denied recent reports that he had operated as an undercover Shin Bet agent.
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Teitel, 37, born in Florida but a resident of the northern West Bank settlement of Shvut Rahel since 1997, was arrested last month for suspected murder and for his alleged role in a string of attempted murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed after a gag order on the case was lifted.

He was arrested on October 7 and police said he later confessed to most of the allegations against him.

The indictment charges that Teitel smuggled a disassembled firearm into Israel from the United States in 1997 by placing it in a video player, and used that gun to murder taxi driver Samir Akram Balbisi in June of that year.

According to the indictment, in August 2007, Teitel murdered Issa Jabrin, a Palestinian shepherd from Susya, after which he fled Israel for three years.

The indictment also lists Teitel’s efforts for more than a decade to harm Arabs, gays and lesbians, leftists, police officers and messianic Jews.

Teitel had admitted to, among other offences, sending a booby-trapped Purim gift basket to a family of messianic Jews in Ariel, which seriously wounded their teenage son, Ami Ortiz, and planting a pipe bomb at the Jerusalem residence of Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell, who was lightly wounded.

At this stage, however, Teitel will not be charged with the murder of two policemen in the Jordan Valley eight months ago. While police also suspect him of this crime, they do not yet have enough evidence to charge him with it.

Earlier in the week the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court extended his remand for another three days - and, for the first time since his arrest on October 7, Teitel himself appeared in court for the hearing. The Shin Bet security service had barred him from attending previous remand hearings.

During the hearing, Teitel’s lawyer protested the difficult conditions of his imprisonment, saying he was chained to his bed 24 hours a day. The court ordered the Shin Bet to look into this complaint.

P. David Gaubatz

The loony David Gaubatz who co-authored the book “Muslim Mafia,” has gone on record calling for a “backlash against the Muslim community.”

First, he said he found Saddam’s WMD bunkers. Then, he claimed that the U.S. military was zapping animals to death with real-life ray guns. Now, full-time kook and former Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent Dave Gaubatz is calling for a “professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders,” following the Ft. Hood massacre. Which plays right into the hands of America’s opponents.

For years, Gaubatz has warned that Muslims in this country form a kind of Fifth Column — and that President Barack Obama is part of this seditious group. (He’s also called Obama a “self admitted ‘crack-head.’”) Gaubatz’s book detailing these claims recently became an Amazon bestseller, its conclusions endorsed by a handful of Republican Congressmen.

When Maj. Nidal Hasan — a Muslim-American with links to religious radicals — killed 13 at Ft. Hood last week, Gaubatz renewed his call for a purge within the U.S. Islamic community:

Muslims know what materials are being taught in their mosques and they know many of the materials instruct young Muslims to kill innocent people who do not adhere to Sharia law. If Muslims do not want a backlash, then I would recommend a “house cleaning.” Stack every Saudi, al Qaeda, Pakistani, Taliban, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood piece of material from their mosque and have a bonfire. Tell the American, Jewish, and Muslim community this hatred will no longer be allowed in their mosques.

The fevered language shouldn’t a surprise. Gaubatz continued to peddle claims that Saddam’s chemical and biological arms had been shipped to Syria — long after such conspiracy theories were dismissed as bogus. His accusation that the U.S. military has a killer ray gun, disguised as a non-lethal weapon has gone uncorroborated.  And the man has a long-standing and large problem with Muslims on American soil. He’s connected to a group, Society of Americans for National Existence, which calls for the United States “to develop the notion and legal infrastructure to restrict non-Western and non-Christian immigration so that alien cultures and peoples should never come to threaten the national character of this nation.” Other extremists are going even further than Gaubatz, demanding a “stop [to] the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. “

Of course, most U.S. Muslims don’t shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine… You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it’s used, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms.

Ironically, Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, made a similar argument in a 2007 presentation. In order to avoid “adverse events,” like Muslim troops deserting or turning on their fellow serrvicemembers, Hasan recommended giving “Muslim soldiers the option of being released as ‘conscientious objectors.’”

The U.S. military’s failure to understand the cultural and religious landscapes in Iraq and Afghanistan directly contributed to setbacks in those war efforts, top generals say. You can’t conduct a proper counterinsurgency if you don’t understand how the society you’re trying to protect. Purge the American armed forces of its Muslims, and that cultural isolation becomes only more acute. Hard-to-win campaigns become almost impossible. It kind of makes you wonder who the real Fifth Columnists are around here.

After TPM originally reported this story, the neo-Conservative Family Security Matters who ran the interview with Gaubatz scrubbed the sentence that said, “it is time for a backlash against the Muslim community” and replaced it with “it is time for a backlash against the Muslim Brotherhood.” TPM reports in a piece titled, Scrubbed: Call For a Backlash Against Muslims Embarrasses even Right-Wing Think-Tank,

Fort Hood, an army base in Texas was the scene of a terrible attack by a gunman that left 13 dead and countless injured. The gunman, Nidal Malik Hasan, is a member of the military, a psychiatrist who worked much of his professional life at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. This despicable crime is a tragedy and we at LoonWatch mourn the victims alongside the rest of the nation and pray that they are given patience and comfort in this dark hour.

While we pause to remember them and question why such a random act of violence happened we also want to state that such aberrant and deranged actions should not provoke an emotional response that leads to or encourages violence. It is easy at this time,(already the anti-Muslim blogosphere is in a frenzy over this,) to project blame and innuendo on the whole American Muslim community. That would be a mistake, as thousands of Muslims serve proudly in the military with honor, and many have died in combat overseas.

We await to assess the motives of the gunman, information that will come out in the next few days, but preliminary reports show that there were signs indicating that the gunman was off his kilter and not in uniformity with his duties as a Major. He didn’t want to be deployed over seas, and told friends and family how he was distressed over what he heard from his patients who had been over seas; that and low marks on his performance charts should have been red flags warning his superiors that something was off base.

Again we first remember those who died in this senseless tragedy and we mourn and pray for them, we also pray that the hate that drove the shooter does not give birth to more hate.

Horror at Fort Hood Inspires Predictable Islamophobia

Thursday’s shootings at Fort Hood army base in Texas — which have left at least 11 people dead and 31 others wounded — were of course the “horrific outburst of violence” that President Obama bemoaned and condemned Thursday.

But, because a soldier identified as the gunman had a name that led to the presumption that he was Muslim, the incident inspired an all-too-predictable outbreak of Islamophobia.

News reports named the man who used two handguns in the assault on his fellow soldiers at a base that is a prime point of departure for troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan as Major Malik Nidal Hasan. The major, who was wounded during the incident, was reportedly a psychiatrist who had served in the Department of Psychology at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda Naval Facility in Bethesda, Maryland, before his transfer to Fort Hood. Hours after the incident, and hours after news anchors and politicians cited his religion as an explanation for the shootings, a family member told reporters Major Hasan was indeed a Muslim.

But that was hardly the only relevant detail about the major.

For instance, according to Texas Senator Bailey Hutchison, preparing to deploy to Iraq. However, the senator said, “I do know that he has been known to have told people that he was upset about going (to Iraq).” Several new reports suggested that the major saw a deployment to Iraq as his “worst nightmare” and recounted how he had treated victims of combat-related stress and was upset about the war.

Military officials at the base and in Washington refused to speculate about motivations or intents. And Paul Sullivan, executive director of the group Veterans for Common Sense, noted that the incident might well be the latest in a series of stress-related homicides and suicides involving soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan or are being dispatched to those occupied lands.

No one knew on Thursday whether stress, fear, anger over mistreatment, mental illness or a warped understanding of his religion might have motivated Major Hasan. The point here is not to defend the soldier or his alleged actions. Rather, it is to question the rush to judgment regarding not just this one Muslim but all Muslims.

It should be understood that to assume a follower of Islam who engages in violence is a jihadist is every bit as absurd to assume that every follower of Christianity who attacks others is a crusader. The calculus makes no sense, and is rooted in a bigotry that everyone from George W. Bush to Pope Benedict XVI has condemned.

But that did not stop right-wing web sites from exploding with incendiary speculation about a “Jihad at Fort Hood?” and a “Terrorist Incident in Texas.”

Fox News host Shepard Smith asked Senator Hutchison on air: “The name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?”

Hutchinson’s response? “It does. It does, Shepard.”

Neither Smith nor Hutchison had any information to suggest that Major Hasan’s name offered even the slightest shred of information regarding the incident at Fort Hood.

What could Hutchinson have said that might have been more responsible response?

She could have emphasized that the investigation of the shooting spree has barely begun.

She might also have noted that thousands of Muslims serve honorably, indeed heroically, in the U.S. military; that American Muslim soldiers have died In Iraq and been buried at Arlington Cemetery; that some of the first condemnations of the slayings at Fort Hood came from Muslim veterans such as Robert Salaam.

“I’m sad for those killed and wounded by a traitor to both God and our country, and I regret that I even feel that I have to write something on the subject. Words cannot express my emotions and the instant headache I received when notified by my dear sister Sheila Musaji over at The American Muslim (TAM) concerning the alleged culprit,” wrote Salaam, who served in the Marine Corps, within minutes after learning the gunman’s name. “They have not yet released further details such as the motive but I will state for the record that no true Muslim could ever commit such a crime against humanity. As Muslims we are reminded that to take one innocent life is as if one killed all of mankind. Muslims are also commanded to keep their oaths when given.”

Salaam is not alone in regretting that, as a Muslim, he feels a need to respond to the incident with an explanation of his religion.

But the conversation between Fox’s Smith and Senator Hutchinson reminds us why it is necessary to respond.

And so Muslim groups have responded quickly and unequivocally.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, issued a statement that read: “We condemn this cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible and ask that the perpetrators be punished to the full extent of the law. No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. The attack was particularly heinous in that it targeted the all-volunteer army that protects our nation. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.”

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, declared that, “Our entire organization extends its heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed as well as to those wounded and their loved ones. We stand in solidarity with law enforcement and the US military to maintain the safety and security of all Americans.”

Those are sentiments that are worth noting, especially by news anchors and senators who are in a position to inform the discussion of a horrific incident — rather than to inflame it.

La Familia

La Familia (The Family), a drug cartel in Mexico is unique to say the least. They stand out because they claim Divine Right for their drug pushing project, regularly passing out Bibles and silencing opponents at the barrel of a gun. This quasi-Christian criminal organization’s US-based distribution network has recently been devastated by a Federal crackdown that has busted their drug ring. Most of the media has properly reported that this group’s religious ideology is an anomaly and not representative of mainstream Christianity, but of course if it were Muslims involved this would be front page news and Islam would be castigated as the root of the menace.

US Strikes at Mexican Cartel

Federal agents have launched a massive assault on the US-based distribution network of a major Mexican drug cartel in an effort to disrupt the flow of drugs into the US and the counter-flow of military-grade firearms to Mexico.

The cartel’s network was heaviest in California and Texas, but it stretched across the nation to Boston, Seattle, even St. Paul, Minn.

The coast-to-coast take-down was aimed at La Familia Michoacana, Mexico’s youngest cartel and one of its most violent.

“The sheer level of depravity of violence that this cartel has exhibited far exceeds what we unfortunately have become accustomed to from other cartels,” said Attorney General Eric Holder in announcing the operation in Washington.

The operation, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, featured raids in 19 states and 49 US cities. It is said to be the largest coordinated effort against a Mexican drug cartel in law-enforcement history.

Agents made 303 arrests and seized $3.4 million in cash, nearly 730 pounds of methamphetamine, 62 kilograms of cocaine, 967 pounds of marijuana, 144 weapons, and two clandestine drug labs.

“This operation has dealt a significant blow to La Familia’s supply chain of illegal drugs, weapons, and cash flowing between Mexico and the United States,” Attorney General Holder said. “The cartels should know that we here in the United States are not going to allow them to operate unfettered in our country.”

The aggressive action is aimed at helping Mexican officials dismantle a growing and increasingly violent group of six criminal cartels.

La Familia Michoacana was organized in the 1980s as a marijuana production and distribution organization, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The group reportedly served as a vigilante force to protect the local population from street crime and police corruption.

By 2006, La Familia emerged as one of the top five drug cartels in Mexico.

The group is lead by an executive council, and members share common and strong religious beliefs. Members are forbidden from using illegal narcotics themselves. According to the DEA, La Familia portrays itself as a kind of Mexican Robin Hood, taking from the rich (North Americans) and giving to the poor.

“They believe they are doing God’s work, and pass out Bibles and money to the poor,” the DEA report says. Local schools and officials also benefit, the report says.

But if law enforcement gets too close, La Familia reacts with extreme violence. When Mexican authorities arrested several key members of La Familia in June and July, the organization retaliated by kidnapping, torturing, and murdering 12 Mexican police officers.

In response, Mexico sent 5,500 soldiers to Michoacan.

“We are fighting an organization whose brutal violence is driven by so-called divine justice,” said Michele Leonhart, acting DEA administrator. “La Familia’s narco-banner declared that they don’t kill for money and they don’t kill innocent people. However, their delivery of that message was accompanied by five sever