(cross-posted from The Onion)

SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.

Gentries, 48, said he had absolutely no interest in exposing himself to further knowledge of Islamic civilization or putting his sweeping opinions into a broader context of any kind, and confirmed he was “perfectly happy” to make a handful of emotionally charged words the basis of his mistrust toward all members of the world’s second-largest religion.

“I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11,” Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam’s approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. “What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?”

“And now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero,” continued Gentries, eliminating any distinction between the 9/11 hijackers and Muslims in general. “No, I won’t examine the accuracy of that statement, but yes, I will allow myself to be outraged by it and use it as evidence of these people’s universal callousness toward Americans who lost loved ones when the Twin Towers fell.”

“Even though I am not one of those people,” he added.

When told that the proposed “Ground Zero mosque” is actually a community center two blocks north of the site that would include, in addition to a public prayer space, a 500-seat auditorium, a restaurant, and athletic facilities, Gentries shook his head and said, “I know all I’m going to let myself know.”

Gentries explained that it “didn’t take long” to find out as much about the tenets of Islam as he needed to. He said he knew Muslims stoned their women for committing adultery, trained for terrorist attacks at fundamentalist madrassas, and believed in jihad, which Gentries described as the thing they used to justify killing infidels.

“All Muslims are at war with America, and I will resist any attempt to challenge that assertion with potentially illuminating facts,” said Gentries, who threatened to leave the room if presented with the number of Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, serve in the country’s armed forces, or were victims themselves of the 9/11 attacks. “Period.”

“If you don’t believe me, wait until they put your wife in a burka,” Gentries continued in reference to the face-and-body-covering worn by a small minority of Muslim women and banned in the universities of Turkey, Tunisia, and Syria. “Or worse, a rape camp. That’s right: For reasons I am content being totally unable to articulate, I am choosing to associate Muslims with rape camps.”

Over the past decade, Gentries said he has taken pains to avoid personal interactions or media that might have the potential to compromise his point of view. He told reporters that the closest he had come to confronting a contrary standpoint was tuning in to the first few seconds of an interview with a moderate Muslim cleric before hastily turning off the television.

“I almost gave in and listened to that guy defend Islam with words I didn’t want to hear,” Gentries said. “But then I remembered how much easier it is to live in a world of black-and-white in which I can assign the label of ‘other’ to someone and use him as a vessel for all my fears and insecurities.”

Added Gentries, “That really put things back into perspective.”

There was a great article on Huffington Post, which linked to our site (my article on taqiyya):

Tea Party Reveals Real Reason Behind Mosque Opposition Frenzy

By Ahmed Rehab

Leaders of astroturf groups opposing the Not-At-Ground-Zero-Muslim-Center can’t seem to decide on an argument. They have thrown everything and the kitchen sink at us in the way of fabricated reasons.

First, they tried the “legal” route. When it became apparent that American Muslims had a constitutionally guaranteed right to religious, cultural, and communal services in lower Manhattan just like everyone else, they invoked the “sensitivity to the 9/11 families” line.

When it was argued that there is nothing insensitive about Muslims with no connection to 9/11 establishing a center two blocks away (unless you assume collective guilt), and that Muslims died in the Twin Towers, too, they tried to smear the center’s imam as a radical.

When it was revealed that imam Feisal’s 37-year track record was so consistently antithetical to radicalism that it earned him the “moderate model imam” accolade from this administration, the Bush administration, the FBI, and the New York interfaith community, they tried the “sacred ground” argument.

When it was revealed that the center was not actually “at” Ground Zero and that there were offices, delis, dollar stores, bars, and a strip club in the same vicinity that no one was taking issue with for being on sacred ground, they tried the foreign funding route.

When it was revealed that the imam has no intention of receiving funding from foreign governments or groups, or even individuals with a less-than-stellar reputation, they tried the sensitivity route again.

It seems that they just can’t decide on the public strategy to keep Park51 from taking its rightful place among Manhattan’s blossoming diversity.

Privately, however, there seems to be little such confusion. The reasons there are given clearly, and it turns out it is precisely what many of us have argued all along: opposition organizers are motivated by an ideological belief that “Islam is evil and must be stopped; America is Judeo-Christian.”

That’s it.

That is the undisguised rallying cry on the private email listservs, the blogs, and the viral youtube videos administered by the right-wing oppositional leadership. On the prime time networks, they openly lie to the American people about harboring an anti-Muslim agenda, perhaps wishing to avoid being exposed for their religious intolerance.

Not for long.

Check out the uber-creepy Tea Party email below, released by no less than teaparty.org.

In it, the Tea Party folks argue that America is exclusively “Judeo-Christian” and that Islam should be “expelled from our shores.”

And that’s just for starters.

The rest of the email displays a fundemental disdain for a pluralistic America and reveals chilling levels of Islamophobia and hatemongering.

It poses the freakish question: “Will ‘blanket tolerance’ be the downfall of the Judaic/Christian basis of the American society?”

It quotes select passages from of the Quran out of context, a game that can just as easily be played with the Torah or the Bible.

It then suggests to its members that Muslims at large — not terrorists, mind you, but Muslims at large — plan for the “complete annihilation of the west,” for “our demise,” for “our destruction,” and that they are “working dilligently” to “celebrate the day America will be no more.” It warns that “the United States Judaic/Christian roots are being ‘God Shocked,’” and wonders if “the courts should hand down a litmus test” for religions before they are “expelled from our shores.”

So let me ask you again? Do you still think that the sudden rise in anti-mosque hysteria is really about sacred ground? Sensitivities to 9/11 victims? Funding sources?

Or is it about the rise of an ideological anti-Islam movement and the desire to curb, if not outlaw, religious freedoms for Muslims?

What would it take to wake the media up, if not this blatant piece of evidence? Will the media now pay attention? Is it remotely interested in the facts that are practically smacking it in the face? Where is the FOX News coverage of everything “Mosque at Ground Zero,” the same FOX News that desperately scrutinizes Imam Feisal’s every utterance in the hope of unearthing a controversial statement? Laura Ingraham, are you listening?

Re: Tea Party – Truth Behind 911 Mosque
From: teaparty@teaparty.org

On: Friday, August 20, 2010 8:46 PM

The American people find articulating their concern over the proposed Mosque near the sight of the 911 attacks problematic. On one hand, many view the First Amendment a shield of protection for religious freedom, on the other hand, some view the First Amendment as providing a haven for religions with a hostile political agenda wrapped in cleric’s robes.

Is it any wonder that there is so much confusion on this matter? Most Citizens of the United States have never experienced the driving and all consuming force of a Theocratic government with its crushing Theo-political tenet.

The American religious experience is the usual Sunday morning ‘hymn singing’; passing the offering plate, an off tempo choir and the occasional neighborhood revival. The ‘Church supper and bake sale mentality’ gives way to a much colder and more formidable view of religious practices, which are not only unfamiliar, but also antithetical to the ‘Sunday Go To Meeting’ crowd.

The United States Judaic/Christian roots are being ‘God Shocked’ by the concept that a religion can and does demand world domination by any means, including violence if necessary.

The Koran states: Sura 61:9 He it is Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islamic monotheism) to make it victorious over all (other) religions even though the Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah and His Messenger Muhammad) hate (it). (Hilali and Khan, The Noble Qur’an, Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996)

Allah’s Messenger said: “By Him (Allah) in Whose Hand my soul is, surely the son of Mary [Isa (Jesus)] will shortly descend amongst you people (Muslims), and will judge mankind justly by the Law of the Quran (as a just ruler) and will break the Cross and kill pigs and abolish the Jizyah [a tax] ….” (Bukhari 3:2222) .

The growing confusion among Ministers and their Congregations over the nature of legitimate Islamic worship and the practice of Taqiyya[1] is causing serious questions regarding the constitutionally protected practice of religion, if that religion is detrimental to the welfare and domestic tranquility of the very nation whose constitution protects it.

The emerging question is: Should the first amendment protect the practice of a religion which has a hostile political agenda wrapped in cleric’s robes? Should the U.S. Constitution protect a religion whose focus is converting the United States from a Democratic Republic into a Theocracy lead by religious cleric’s who are antithetical to what made this nation great and what keeps it great? Is this the change America should have or needs?

How can the Citizenry demarcate a concept which holds the well established fact that millions of the Islamic faith have called for a Holy Jihad and thereby demand the complete annihilation of the west? Yet, this same Citizenry is expected to open their arms to that very same religion, welcoming them as friends, protecting them with the same Constitutional protection Synagogues and Churches have enjoyed for over 234 years.

To make matters worse, this same Citizenry is expected to grant permission to build a Mosque on American hallowed ground, thereby, offering sanctuary and worship for the same religion which was instrumental in the 911 attacks.

Will it become necessary for the courts to hand down a litmus test for religion? If a religion passes the litmus test, then and only then that religion is welcome and protected?

However, if the religion in question fails the litmus test… will that be reason enough to expel the failed theological expression from our shores?

Should ‘We The People” give haven to religions whose main purpose it to install a system of Theo-political colonization? Shall the American people welcome with open arms a religion having untold millions of members demanding the beheading of western infidels? Shall the People of America grant safe haven to those who cheerfully work for the day Israel, the United States and all other non-Islamic states are finally eradicated off the face of the earth?

These bothersome questions are not ones of religious rights, but rather of the will of the people. Will the people tolerate everything?

Will ‘blanket tolerance’ be the downfall of the Judaic/Christian basis of the American society?

Is there nothing which will compel We The People to stand up and say: “It stops here and no further,” shall this be America’s crucifixion?

Or, shall the American people create a feathered bed for all those who plan our demise, who work diligently for our destruction and for those who will celebrate the day America will be no more.

Stephen Eichler J.D.

America’s Legal Analyst

[1] The practice of precautionary dissimulation whereby believers may conceal their faith when under threat, persecution or compulsion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya

Click here for the real skinny on “Taqiyya“

Anti-Muslim rhetoric is feeding jihadis overseas

These two are a match made in heaven – the anti-Muslim bigots in the West and the Muslim extremists in the East. The only problem is that the rest of humanity is stuck between the two of these loony (and dangerous) groups. They both feed each others hysteria, rhetoric and violence.

As many of our readers know, American actions overseas (two wars in the Muslim world along with unconditional support for Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian land) has led to increasing levels of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. This is a direct and obvious repercussion of what the U.S. government decides to do through its foreign policy. But add now the increasing levels of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam activity occurring all over the United States and that is only adding to the problem. The anti-Muslim pundits and their followers claim to be fighting against terrorism and extremism, but all they are doing is putting the country they say they love in harms way.

Protests, Rhetoric Feed Jihadists’ Fire

By Jonathan Weisman

Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan’s Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites.

One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions.

“By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who…enflamed it,” says one such posting. “By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames.”

White House homeland security adviser John Brennan told reporters Friday that he had seen no evidence that the debate over the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, other mosque protests or the planned Koran burning had affected U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

A White House official on Sunday stressed that Mr. Brennan was addressing the narrow question of whether the debates in the U.S. over Islam were having an impact on U.S. counterterrorism efforts, and that Mr. Brennan specifically declined to address whether those debates were energizing the jihadists.

A U.S. official on Sunday said the administration was taking the upswing in anti-U.S. chatter seriously. “Terrorists like al-Qaeda and its violent allies are motivated already to try to attack the United States, but when it comes to propaganda, extremists are pure opportunists. They’ll use whatever they can,” the official said.

Many opponents of the planned Muslim community center say they have no bias against Muslims but that putting the building so close to Ground Zero shows an insensitivity toward the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Controversy over the community center, which will contain a mosque and other facilities, has helped fan anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. far from Lower Manhattan in recent weeks.

Jarret Brachman, director of Cronus Global, a security consulting firm, and author of the book Global Jihadism, said al Qaeda and other groups have long used imagery from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to recruit new members. But the U.S. position has been that those wars are not against Islam and that the U.S. has Muslim allies in the fight.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S is different, since jihadists can use Americans’ words to make the case that the U.S. is indeed at war with Islam. The violent postings are not just on al Qaeda-linked websites but on prominent, mainstream Muslim chat forums, Mr. Brachman said.

“We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup,” with the Islamic-center controversy, said Evan Kohlmann, an independent terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners who monitors jihadist websites.

Critics of the proposed Islamic center said their right to speak out shouldn’t be influenced by the possibility of jihadist threats. “We will never win a war when we are afraid to even name our enemies,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an e-mail Sunday.

The most violent threats stem not from the debate over the Islamic center but more fringe issues, such as a declaration by Terry Jones, pastor at the Dove World Outreach Center, a mega-church in Gainesville, Fla., that Sept. 11 be an “International Burn a Koran Day.”

In an interview Sunday, Mr. Jones said he planned to go ahead with the Koran burning on the evening of Sept. 11, despite the local fire department denying a permit for the event. He said the jihadist threats only confirmed his views of Muslims.

“I can understand that they would be offended. I think their reactions—violence, threats, murders terrorist attacks—that only reveals the true nature of Islam which needs to be revealed,” he said.

Threats have been posted on Jihadist web sites in response to such planned actions as Mr. Jones’s Koran burning. “Now, I wish to bomb myself in this church as revenge for the sake of Allah’s talk. And here I register my name here that I want to be an intended-martyr,” wrote a poster identifying himself as “Abu Dujanah.”

The mainstream media continues to cover the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”  story (which isn’t a mosque, and isn’t on Ground Zero), and the story has gone truly viral.  At the heart of the controversy is Pamela Geller, who was the first to protest the Islamic cultural center’s location.  Ahmed Rehab wrote an excellent article for the Huffington Post, which gives a very accurate timeline of events leading to this contrived controversy.  Says Rehab:

The “Ground Zero Mosque” fiasco is a fabricated controversy that traces its origins to a couple of long-time anti-Muslim goons from the annals of the hate blogosphere by the names of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller as a flagship campaign of their newly founded organization, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA). SIOA is part of an emerging phenomenon of astroturf anti-Muslim organizations that seek to project any public expression of Muslim life in this country as tantamount to a stealth “Islamization of America.” (Except it’s not so stealth since everyone and their mother is talking about it).

It was SIOA that first coined the misnomer “Mosque at Ground Zero,” purposely twisting the reality that the proposed Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero is neither a Mosque nor at Ground Zero. It was the SIOA that sought to redefine Imam Rauf as a radical Imam even though he was heralded by the Bush administration, the FBI and others as a moderate voice of reason. It was the SIOA and its partners that ruthlessly sought to stoke the fears and suspicions of otherwise good, unsuspecting Americans.

Hate blogger Pamela Geller used the power of her hate blog to bring attention to the cultural center, amping up fears of an “Islamic conquest of Ground Zero”.  She teamed up with “the acclaimed scholar of Islam” Robert Spencer to form the organization known as Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).  You may be wondering why they didn’t pick a catchier name, or one that rolls off the tongue without sounding extremely awkward.  (And why is there an “O” in the acronym from “of” but  not a “t” from “the”?)  Well, if you follow Pamela Geller’s crazy blog you’ll note that she has a tendency to slam every possible stereotype and alarmist mantra into her blog titles, along the lines of: “Stealth Jihadist Taqiyya Artist Pimp Imam Hussein Obama Pledging Loyalty to Mafia Jihad Hamas-Linked CAIR.”

The title of “Stop the Islamization of America” captures the essence of their alarmist paradigm.  It’s not just a name of a group.  It’s their entire conspiracy theory perfectly encapsulated in five words.

Ahmed Rehab did a good job of introducing you to the two founders of SIOA.  But allow me to introduce you to the “spiritual head” of the group.  Her name is Bat Ye’or, an anti-Muslim ideologue and conspiracy theorist.  Like Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or claims to be “a scholar”–not just any scholar, but “the world’s leading scholar of Islamic antisemitism”–even though she, like Spencer, “is not an academic and has never taught at any university” (quote from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz).

Pamela Geller says on her hate blog:

Bat Ye’or, groundbreaking scholar of the Islamization of Europe (author of Eurabia), the pioneering scholar on dhimmitude, the institutionalized mistreatment of non-muslims under Islam law…

Notice the words “Islamization of Europe.”  It’s a conspiracy theory called “Eurabia”, which is the idea that Moozlems are going to take over Europe and reduce non-Muslims to second-class citizenship (or worse)…Geller and Spencer have simply adopted this same idea and applied it to America.  Hence the name “Stop Islamization of America” (SIOA).

In fact, as one reader pointed out, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) is a rip off of Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), whose slogan boasts that “Islamophobia is the height of common sense.”  This organization is linked to fascists, the English Defense League (EDL).  Both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have ties to these hate groups.

But back to the spiritual head of the group…

Here are some of Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theories from which Geller and Spencer take inspiration:

Conspiracy Theory: Europe Will Become a Vassal State to the Arab World

Bat Ye’or is a fringe conspiracy theorist who argues that “Europe will become a vassal [state], a satellite of the Arab world.” Such alarmist drivel that no sane person could take her seriously.  The irony is that the reality is the exact opposite: it is the Arab world that plays second fiddle compared to the West.  Tell us, Bat Ye’or, how will the Arabs make a vassal state out of Europe?  Them and which army?  The combined Arab might pales in front of Israel; how can the Arab world then vanquish all of Europe?  Such senseless fear mongering.

And:

Conspiracy Theory: The Rise of Eurabia

The culmination of Bat Ye’or’s theories is what she coins as “Eurabia,” a (not so) clever combination of the words “Europe” and “Arabia.”  Basically, the theory is that Arab and Muslim immigration (of “stealth jihadists”) will soon overwhelm Europe, destroy Western culture and civilization forever, and replace the democratic governments with Taliban style theocracies.   While that does sound like an interesting plot for a fictional movie, it is pure insanity to take this seriously.  Bat Ye’or is simply delusional.  David Aaronovitch, a journalist for The Times, labels Bat Ye’or as a conspiracy theorist:

Pinch me a third time while we get to grips with “Eurabia”. This is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye’or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, “chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world-and Europe’s willingness to be so subjugated”. This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea.

Aaronovitch would know; he wrote the book entitled Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History.  (Aaronovitch is no “dhimmi” as the Islamophobes would say; he produced a pro-Israeli documentary titled Blaming the Jews.)

Conspiracy Theory: The Churches of Europe are Colluding with Muslims

Bat Ye’or’s lunacy can be ascertained by some of her even more outlandish claims.  For example, she accuses the churches in Europe of being in a state of “collusion with the Muslims,” which she says have of their own volition become “Christian slave militias” that will “spearhead…the Islamic war against Christianity.”  According to her, the churches of Europe “reject…the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding.”  She goes on to say that European Christians “are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus.” Can any sober academic–or even sensible layman–take such drivel seriously?  But perhaps the reader thinks that we have taken her words out of context (after all, who could say something so crazy!), so let us reproduce her entire nonsensical answer verbatim so that her madness can be firmly established in the eyes of the reader:

JW: You’re accusing churches of collusion with the Muslims?

BY [Bat Ye'or]: Yes. Those churches know perfectly well the dire condition of Christians in Muslim lands. But instead of denouncing it, they adopt the militancy of the Janissaries, those Christian slave militias that were the spearhead of the Islamic war against Christianity. They forbid Christians to reveal the iniquities of modern dhimmitude in Arab countries, the enslavement of Christians in Sudan, the abductions and jihadic terror against innocent population. Those churches follow an arcionist theological line which separates the Gospels from the Hebrew Bible. They reject the historical legitimacy of Israel in its own land and, therefore, reject also the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding. They are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus. In my book, I call them the Islamized churches because their rejection of Israel’s history implies their refusal of the Bible and their acceptance of the Koranic version of the Bible that considers Christianity as a deformation of Islam.

This lunacy has been affirmed by another well-known loon–Daniel Pipes–who writes:

The historian Bat Ye’or, the first person to comprehend the gradual process of Europe accepting the dhimmi status, observes that this fundamental shift began with the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, when the continent began moving “into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, thus breaking the traditional trans-Atlantic solidarity.”

Translation: not only has Europe fallen under the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence–and not only has it become a subservient “dhimmi” to the Arab world–it is doing so willingly and of its own volition.  Riiiight, riiiight.  So Pipes is not far behind Bat Ye’or in looniness, which explains his reliance on her work.

The SIOA received “spiritual input” from Bat Ye’or on the issue of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” [video].  In the video, Bat Ye’or likens the Muslims to Nazis, a typical comparison that Geller makes recurrently on her crazy site.  (It’s amazing how a sweet looking granny and a cougar with a botoxed face and fake boobs could be amongst the two biggest hatemongers in the world).

The spiritual idea behind blocking the Islamic cultural center is not just that Ground Zero is “sacred ground” unfit for Muslims, but that the Muslims are going to take over and impose “dhimmitude” upon non-Muslims.  Spencer, Geller, and Bat Ye’or recount the horrors of Islamic rule, conveniently forgetting the even worse Christian rule over Jews and Muslims.  The theological basis of SIOA is that the Muslim-Americans are engaging in “stealth jihad”, a doctrine supposedly based in the Islamic concept of taqiyya.  (I’ve thoroughly debunked this lie here.)  Basically, those pesky Muslim-American spokesmen are trying to sweet talk us silly infidels into believing that their religion is about peace, and then when we’re fast asleep, they’ll take over!  And then we’re in deep trouble, because that’s when they will reimpose “dhimmitude” upon us.  So we need to get them before they get us!  (I’ve obliterated their argument about Muslims wanting to reimpose dhimmitude here.)

This is the alarmist conspiracy theory that buttresses the group known as Stop the Islamization of America, which is behind the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy.  If you think they will stop at just this mosque, you’re horribly uninformed.  There have been protests all over the country over mosques, and the SIOA is swift in coming to their aid.  Muslim-Americans complain that there is virtually no city in the country where they can freely build a mosque without meeting fierce opposition from people in the community.  The SIOA wants to tap into peoples’ fears and translate it into anti-Muslim bigotry.  Every mosque must be opposed, because every mosque teaches Muslims to wage “stealth jihad” (“taqiyya!”) and secretly preaches that Muslim-Americans must lie in wait to impose Sharia and dhimmitude over the infidels.

It’s not just mosques.  It’s also Muslim Congressmen.  They all want to impose Sharia on you and I.  So they must be stopped too.  All two of them.

Now that you understand the ideology behind the SIOA, let me ask you: can you imagine the reaction of the public if Muslim-Americans founded a group called “Stop the Judaization of America” (SJOA)?  Pamela Geller is Jewish. What do you think she’d think of such a group?  She’d yell “anti-Semitism” at the top of her lungs.  And so would you.  And so would I.

Now, can you imagine for a second, if Imam Rauf–the Imam of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”–was part of a group called “Stop the Judaization of America”?  Or what if Ahmed Rehab was a co-founder of this group?  Do you think he’d be invited to make rounds on the cable news networks like Pamela Geller has been?  Do you think he would be called on as an expert to explain his views, like news organizations have called on Geller?  Do you think they would talk to the leader of the SJOA seriously, or do you think they would tear the leader of such a group a new one?

But let’s think about it for a second.  How many Jews are there in the country?  According to one reliable study, about 1.3% of the U.S. population is Jewish, compared to 0.5% for Muslims.  That means there are more than twice as many Jews as Muslims in the country.  So, the SJOA has twice the reason to exist over the SIOA.  If you think it’s ludicrous that 1.3% of the U.S. population is taking over the remaining 98.7% (as I do)–and if you would laugh in someone’s face who would claim such a thing–then how do you take someone seriously who claims that less than half of that is going to take over the remaining 99.5% of us?

It’s beyond absurd!  The entire premise of the organization, and their entire paradigm is ridiculous.  Next time anyone debates Geller, please just ask her very calmly: “Do you really think the Muslims, who constitute 0.5% of the population, are going to take over?”  And then laugh at her.  And make sure to laugh in a conceited and haughty tone. Scoff.  Because that’s what nut jobs who claim such a thing deserve.  They don’t deserve to be treated seriously.

If you think there are too many Muslim Congressman (there are two!) and you think the emergence of Muslim Congressmen is proof of the Islamization of America, then a member of the SJOA would have even more right to fear the Judaization of America, considering that there are over 40 Jewish Congressmen.  In fact, they are way overrepresented in the Congress, so this must be proof of the Judaization of America!  Save yourself!

Let’s compare how many Jewish people are in the media vs Muslims.  It wouldn’t even be a comparison.  What about synagogues vs mosques?  I’m betting there are ten times as many synagogues.  And what about lobbies?  Whose lobby is more powerful?  Can you say AIPAC?

If a person is to be considered an anti-Semite for thinking that the Jews are Judaizing the country, then so too should people be labeled as Islamophobes if they worry about the Islamization of America.

In fact, the idea that Jews are taking over Europe or America is an old one, and was responsible for a lot of Jewish persecution. Today, it’s true that the “Jew” has been replaced by the “Muslim.” For some odd reason though, we just don’t react the same way when we hear the exact same thing against Muslims.

The truth of the matter is as one Muslim-American comedian put it when he imitated a radical Imam, saying: “Today, we are going to establish the religion of Islam!  But first I have a couple announcements to make: we need to raise some money to buy a shampoo machine for the carpet…”  The idea that Muslim-Americans could somehow take over the country is ludicrous.  They barely have enough money to shampoo the carpet…

I’m forming another group: Stop the Loonization of America (SLOA).  I’ll give you a Free Hat if you join.

A powerful piece by Ahmed Rehab in the Huffington Post laying the bottom line about the swelling controversy surrounding the “mosque at Ground Zero.”  (hat tip: Schmorgus)

The Untold Story of the Mosque at Ground Zero

by Ahmed Rehab | Huffington Post

Americans have a right to assemble and worship freely in this country, period. It’s not only a founding principle of this nation, but a main justification for its founding. It is why many White Christians flooded to this country in the first place.

Those opposed to American Muslims practicing their right to build a religious and cultural center on their private property near Ground Zero and in concordance with all laws and regulations reluctantly concede that they have no legal grounds to challenge it. So they argue instead that they should voluntarily forgo their right out of sensitivity for the sacredness of that site.

This is a particularly disingenuous line.

If it is about sensitivity for the sacred, then why aren’t those same people opposing the deli, bar, coffee shop, and offices, or strip club for that matter, that are open for business in that same sacred vicinity?

What is particularly indecent or insensitive about American Muslims building a house of peace, community, and worship that doesn’t apply to the New York Dolls gentlemen’s club?

Let’s be blunt: it is only indecent and insensitive if you buy into the canard that American Muslims are somehow collectively guilty for 9/11. That is the coded message at the heart of opposition to the center. It is a message we reject on its face.

American Muslims bear no collective guilt or blame for the crime of 9/11. We have nothing to apologize for and everything to be proud of, including our loyalty and hard-earned livelihoods. We are not guest citizens, we are not second-rate citizens; we reject marginalization and require no validation. We are equal citizens living and worshipping in our country.

We are part and parcel of the diversity of America including the diversity of the 3,000 people who died on 9/11. We are part of the diversity of the hundreds who were injured and those who were first responders to Ground Zero. We are part of the diversity of the millions who grieved and still grieve. When “they” attacked “us,” we were attacked. We are part of the “us” not the “they.”

The whole brouhaha about the “Mosque at Ground Zero” is frankly bogus. It has little to do with sacred ground, or sensitive hearts. It does however have everything to do with the exploitation of the sacred and the sensitive for the furtherance of the sacrilegious and the insensitive: the phenomenon of Muslim-bashing that is ravaging our nation today.

The Cordoba House, now Park51, is an old story. In fact, it was reported on in the New York Times and other mainstream media as far back as two years ago. Why the frenzy now?

That’s not all: Muslims have been worshipping at Mosque Manhattan a few blocks away from Ground Zero, long before Ground Zero was Ground Zero; in fact, since 1970, before the twin towers were the twin towers.

So again, why the sudden frenzy?

Failure to ask “why” is a collective indictment of the media establishment (with a few notable exceptions). Just as the media shirked its responsibilities in questioning the Bush administration on the justifications for the war in Iraq, now too it fails to properly investigate, scrutinize, and report the origins of this controversy. Here is what it failed to tell you:

The”Ground Zero Mosque” fiasco is a fabricated controversy that traces its origins to a couple of long-time anti-Muslim goons from the annals of the hate blogosphere by the names of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller as a flagship campaign of their newly founded organization, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA). SIOA is part of an emerging phenomenon of astroturf anti-Muslim organizations that seek to project any public expression of Muslim life in this country as tantamount to a stealth “Islamization of America.” (Except it’s not so stealth since everyone and their mother is talking about it).

It was SIOA that first coined the misnomer “Mosque at Ground Zero,” purposely twisting the reality that the proposed Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero is neither a Mosque nor at Ground Zero. It was the SIOA that sought to redefine Imam Rauf as a radical Imam even though he was heralded by the Bush administration, the FBI and others as a moderate voice of reason. It was the SIOA and its partners that ruthlessly sought to stoke the fears and suspicions of otherwise good, unsuspecting Americans.

The fact that bigots see fit to peddle sensational drivel for a living is not shocking.

The fact that the media is unwilling or incapable of calling it out is disturbing.

The fact that a significant segment of this population stands to be duped by it is disappointing.

And the fact that public officials who should know better are all too content pandering to the bigoted, misguided, and confused in search of votes this election season is outright nauseating.

Here’s another under reported fact:

The battle raging on now is not one that pits Muslims on one side and non-Muslims on the other as critics would have you believe. It is in fact a showdown between Americans of all backgrounds (Muslim and otherwise) who are fighting for the freedom and dignity of what it means to be American, on one side; and those who are willing to throw those values under the bus in exchange for publicity, notoriety, ratings, or votes, on the other.

It is a struggle between those wishing to affirm our pluralism and our equality as color-blind, race-blind, and faith-blind citizens and those wishing to immerse us into identity politics that make some more equal than others.

The Park51 battle is a microcosm of this generation’s struggle for the soul of America.

That’s the untold “Mosque at Ground Zero” story any red-blooded American journalist who still has respect for the integrity of the profession should be telling.

Mosque protests are springing up all over the United States. It seems as though disparate groups are taking up the rallying cry against Islam and Muslims. Is this anti-Muslim sentiment a blip on our screen or is it a reflection of the coalescing of disparate forces into one larger anti-Muslim movement?

Both sides clash over proposed Temecula mosque

JEFF HORSEMAN

Waving signs such as “Muslims Danced with Joy on 9/11,” about 20 protesters gathered outside a Temecula Islamic Center today to protest Islam, calling it a political movement that oppresses women and seeks to place the world under a brutal system of religious law.

A larger group of counter protesters wore white shirts in solidarity with the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley and carried signs such as “Leave These American Citizens Alone.” Police stood between some counter protesters who crossed Rio Nedo to confront the other side.

While both sides exchanged heated words, the midday protest ended peacefully and police reported no arrests.

The protest announced on a local and a national Tea Party website came in response to the Islamic center’s plan to build a 25,000-square-foot mosque on the other end of town. The mosque is scheduled to go before the Temecula Planning Commission in mid-November.

Some opponents said they see the mosque as part of a larger effort by Muslims to silence non-believers and destroy constitutional rights.

“Islam is a political movement and to have a mosque, you have to have Sharia law,” said Diane Seraphin of Murrieta.

“They’re infiltrating as much as they can,” said Lois Cowan of Hemet. “It’s a desire to take over.”

The executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who was at the protest, said the protesters were ignorant fear-mongers.

“We’re living Islam in America. That’s the greatest counter-argument to Al-Qaeda,” said Salam Al-Marayati. “We are Americans. We’ve made a pledge to this country and that is equal to a pledge to God.”

Joelle Budzynowski of Anza, who wore a white headscarf to support the Muslims, said she was welcomed warmly by Muslims while travelling in Egypt and other predominantly Islamic countries.

“I believe God is love and love is God,” she said. “We should tolerate other people.”

A couple protestors brought their dogs. A notice about the protest accused Muslims of killing dogs and encouraged protesters to bring canines. Muslim-American advocates said Muslims don’t hate dogs.

My guess is that the dogs that these “protestors” will be bringing aren’t going to be fluffy poodles but probably Pit Bulls or Bull Dogs.

Temecula mosque proposal targeted in pending protest

Friday, July 23^rd, 2010.
Issue 29, Volume 14.

Plans to build a permanent mosque near two existing Temecula churches are expected to be the target of an organized protest next week.

The development plan that the Islamic Center of Temecula submitted to city planners about 1½ years ago has drawn muted concerns so far and triggered widespread media coverage that has included stories by the Associated Press and newspapers based in Los Angeles and Riverside.

If an announced July 30 protest materializes, it could mark an escalation of questions and criticism surrounding plans to develop a mosque at the city’s northeast corner. The facility that has served the region’s Muslims for about 12 years would move from an industrial park to Nicolas Road if the development plan comes to fruition.

City officials could be snared in a religion-tinged controversy as the project proceeds through the review process. It has been about seven years since a similar controversy began to unfold in the city that is now home to more than 100,000 residents.

“We are limited to looking at land use issues, not religious or political issues,” Patrick Richardson, the city’s director of planning and redevelopment, said in a Monday afternoon telephone interview. “Everybody has the right to practice their religion as they see fit.”

Richardson did not work for Temecula when a similar controversy surfaced over another proposed house of worship. He said he has since learned about the twists and turns that occurred when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints submitted a proposal nearly a decade ago to build a facility along Pauba Road.

The Mormon controversy contains parallels to the mosque proposal.

The Islamic Center has owned its Temecula site – which totals four acres at Nicolas Road and Calle Medusa – for about 10 years, Richardson said. The Islamic Center has operated in Temecula since 1998, and is based in an industrial park on the city’s west side.

The Islamic Center is proposing to build a 24,950-square-foot mosque. Its building size and acreage would roughly mirror that of two nearby churches – Calvary Baptist Church and Grace Presbyterian Church. The number of parking spaces proposed for the mosque exceeds the city’s requirements, Richardson said.

Because of traffic, noise and related concerns raised by a nearby pastor and others, the city has examined a range of issues as it has reviewed the development plan, he said.

Richardson said the review process has unfolded slowly in part because the Islamic Center, like many churches do when they build new facilities, has relied on some of its members to perform various planning- and development-related tasks.

“We’ve pretty much completed our review,” Richardson said. The site’s zoning designation allows the construction of a church at that location, he said.

A May 27 letter from the city to Hadi Nael, an Islamic Center representative, indicated that the mosque proposal might come before Temecula planning commissioners on July 7. On June 22, Richardson wrote a letter to Nael indicating that the hearing would likely be postponed until Aug. 18.

That’s still possible, Richardson said, although he noted in the interview that the hearing date is “somewhat of a moving target.” At the time of the interview, Richardson said he was unaware Advertisement

North County Cosmeticthat a loose-knit coalition of area residents is planning a demonstration at the Islamic Center’s existing facility along Rio Nedo west of Murrieta Creek.

An e-mail alert sent to area newspapers last week announced that a one-hour “singing – praying – patriotic rally” will begin at 12:30 p.m. July 30 at the Islamic Center’s existing facility. The advisory – sent by a leader of a conservative coalition that has been active with Republican and Tea Party functions – recommended participants “bring your Bibles, flags, signs, dogs and singing voices.”

“We will not be submissive,” the notice proclaimed. “Our voices are going to be heard!” The alert went on to question what its authors described as Islamic beliefs. It suggested that participants sing during the rally because Muslim “women are forbidden to sing.” It suggested that rally participants bring dogs because Muslims “hate dogs.”

The advisory asked rally participants to “please bring a pooper scooper” if they are accompanied by a canine companion. The advisory said residents of an unspecified Tennessee community were able to halt the construction of a mosque in that state.

Telephone messages left Monday and Tuesday at the Islamic Center seeking comment on the planned demonstration were not returned.

The center’s Internet site provides information the mosque plan. The center’s April newsletter said: “In the next two years, our new board will focus on the building project. We need a home! It is the dream of our community.”

It went on to say: “We as a Muslim believe that the Murrieta and Temecula Valley will be a better community by having the Islamic Center, place of worship, place of education and a place for interfaith. More than ten years ago, we were welcomed by many good friends in different churches; and for the last five years we were one of the founders of the Murrieta and Temecula Valley Interfaith Council. Thus we are working together with all our community religious groups to bring more understanding, tolerance and respect among people of faith in our valley. We hope that you can help in building our Center.”

An update in the center’s May newsletter asked members to “…pray that Allah Taala open the hearts and the mind of our city officials to help us to bring this project to life.”

The last major controversy to unfold in Temecula over a proposed house of worship centered on plans to open a Mormon church on a 4.7-acre parcel along Pauba Road near Linfield Christian School.

That controversy surfaced in March 2003 when neighbors of the proposed 24,287-square-foot facility began to cite a range of concerns. The residents complained that they were already besieged by traffic going to and from numerous existing churches and public and private schools in the area.

They also raised concerns that night and weekend activities at a Mormon church would harm their neighborhood’s quality of life.

About 130 people jammed a four-hour city Planning Commission hearing a year later, and about 35 of them alternately spoke for or against the development plan. A series of hotly debated hearings on the proposal ended when the City Council approved the 287-seat church in October 2004.

A Mormon church was subsequently built at that location.

Very interesting article from the website HispanicNashville on the parallels between the Murfreesboro Mosque and the first Catholic Church built in Murfreesboro.

St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, like mosque today, was opposed by Murfreesboro residents

The first Catholic person in the Americas to become a saint, Saint Rose of Lima, was born in the capital city of Peru. A church in nearby Murfreesboro bears her name. And like a local mosque that faces vocal opposition for a recently announced building project, the history of Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church of Murfreesboro also reveals local opposition to one of its planned houses of worship, according to the Daily News-Journal:

A New York couple, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hoffman, stopped in Murfreesboro on a train trip in 1925. During the layover, they searched in vain for a Catholic church and mass. “Some months later Bishop A. J. Smith in Nashville received a gift to build a chapel” in Murfreesboro. Mrs. Hoffman requested that the new place of worship be named for her patron saint, Saint Rose of Lima.
…
A lot on the northeast corner of University and Lytle was purchased for the new church from Helen C. Earthman on April 25, 1929, for $2,500.
…
This plan to construct the county’s first Catholic Church was the target of a local KKK protest march.

The Daily News-Journal article quotes 93-year-old Murfreesboro historian C.B. Arnette, 93, who witnessed the march protesting the new building for the Saint Rose of Lima congregation.  Arnette said you could recognize marchers by their shoes: one marcher was a local physician, and another was a Church of Christ preacher.

What was the reason for the opposition to Catholics?  The Tennessean points out the history of the 20th century KKK as an organization created in opposition to (mostly Catholic) immigration, preaching “racism, anti-Catholicism, nativism (favoring of native inhabitants over immigrants) and anti-Semitism.”  A commenter points out that Catholics were described as national security threats:

In the 1920s, Hiram Evans, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan rose to prominence with a populist, nativistic, and anti-intellectual message to the American public. Klan members identified the Irish and Italian members of Anarchists, IWW, and WFM organizations as national threats that sought to overthrow the government through force. The Klan’s job was to protect Americans from these corrosive elements. They labeled Individuals such as Carlo Tresca, Mother Jones, and Nicola Sacco as “bomb-throwing lunatics.” The Catholics also came under close scrutiny because the pope was a “monarchist” and the Catholics subverted the nation. The Catholic “monarchists” would never assimilate because their religious structure conflicted with the republican ideas of Protestants who had decentralized church hierarchies.

Construction of Saint Rose of Lima’s new building continued anyway, and the building was dedicated just six months after the property was purchased.  The congregation of Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church of Murfreesboro thrives to this day.

Modern parallels to Saint Rose of Lima history

In modern-day Murfreesboro, the announcement of the construction of a new mosque building, where Muslim faith would be practiced, has also faced opposition.  As reported locally and nationally – including by ABC News - much of the opposition to the mosque has come from local Christians and been in general opposition to Islam:

“We have a duty to investigate anyone under the banner of Islam,” Allen Jackson, the pastor of World Outreach Church, said at the meeting.

Others were quoted by the Tennessean with similar remarks:

“Everybody knows they are trying to kill us.” -Karen Harrell

“Islam is a system of government. Islam is a system of justice. … “I’m afraid we’ll have a training facility in Rutherford County.” -George Erdel

“It’s an ideology. It’s not a religion.” -Bob Hayes

But some Christians and others, including Mike Williams of Smyrna (quoted in another Tennessean article), have gathered and spoken out in favor of the mosque’s construction project:

[Mike] Williams, who attends All Saints Episcopal Church in Smyrna, said he believes “very strongly that all of us are the children of a God.

“We are entitled to an equal inheritance. In America, our inheritance is freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the color of skin. In short, the Constitution of the United States belongs to all of us.”

Williams is one of a number of politicians who have sided with the Constitution on this controversy.  Another is Ben Leming:

I made a stand to protect the rights of every American, not just those that form the majority.  … Unfortunately, there are many people that disagree strongly with or don’t understand this basic American principle and how it should protect the rights of others. … Right now they are lining up to deny other Americans their Constitutional rights and discredit our mission to put the people of Middle Tennessee first in Washington.

Words of wisdom for Christians and Muslims alike, as quoted by the Tennessean, came from MTSU professor Rabbi Rami Shapiro:

“I think people should listen very carefully to their clergy and what they teach. If they teach violence and hatred (of other religions), I think it is incumbent upon the parishioner to get up and walk out.”

Newt Gingrich Joins Muslim-Baiting Movement

by Walid Zafar

Early this week, disgraced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich warned that “a commitment to religious freedom and God-given rights is being replaced by a secular oppression…”  Just hours after those words appeared on Human Events, Gingrich issued a statement forcefully opposing the construction of a community center and mosque in downtown Manhattan, two blocks from Ground Zero.

Gingrich’s affinity for religious freedom and his belief in God-given rights it would seem, doesn’t extend to Americans who are Muslim.  Such outright bigotry and blatant hypocrisy from Gingrich, an avid historian and former college professor, is even more repulsive when you consider his reasoning.

“There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York,” he writes, “so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.”  Gingrich, who has been railing against the so-called secular socialist machine for trying to take religion out of the public square, and who, like most conservatives, decries the influence of foreign law, wants the U.S. to apply the same standards on Muslims that Saudi Arabia applies to those who are not Muslim.

That’s rich.

As the Washington Monthly‘s Steve Benen, after noting that conservatives continually justify despicable acts of torture on the premise that other nations and non-state actors employ such tactics, points out, “We’re not supposed to lower ourselves to the levels of those we find offensive.”

Gingrich’s clarion call continues: “Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for ‘religious toleration’ are arrogantly dishonest.”  What makes them Islamists, apologists or even dishonest? Gingrich doesn’t say but if you ask him, he’ll likely tell you about the Katusha rockets that Hamas has fired into Sderot or how Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.  Anything and everything to take the subject away from the “religious freedom and God-given rights” to which American Muslims are entitled.

To understand Gingrich’s paranoia that “America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization,” one must delve deeply into the polarizing, overzealous and paranoid minds of professional Muslim-baiters and the politicians who depend on their support and cater to their illiberal demands.

Many of them are monomaniacs who have made it their life’s mission to defeat Islam and “expose” all Muslims as radical Islamofascists.  If one asks them for evidence to support their claim that no Muslim can be trusted, they will likely mention a purported plot by Muslim Brotherhood operatives to destroy America from within.  The Council on American Islamic Relations and their intern/spies are routinely placed at the epicenter of the evil conspiracy.

Among these folks, any and all Muslims who “refudiate” such insane theories — who denounce violence and terror, profess their loyalty to the American system, take part in the democratic process and who have assimilated into the American landscape — are cleverly employing taqiyya, which, as any Muslim-baiter would tell you, is religiously sanctioned deception.  The same was said about Jews decades ago and anti-Semites once evoked the specter of “Judeo-Bolshevism” the way that Muslim-baiters and politicians like Gingrich today warn of “Islamofascism.” But none of those awful facts really matter, even to a historian such as Gingrich, because facts have long been accused of being part of the secular-socialist machine.

Gingrich’s stand against the mosque project and his attempt to smear its backers as “Islamists” and apologists earns him his anti-Jihad bona fides, and with that, the support of an increasingly mistrustful and hateful electorate which lives off of tying American Muslims to every heinous act that occurs anywhere that remotely sounds Islamic.  In this world, if the media fails to make the connection, they are clearly part of the soft-jihad.

Here is the key: The connection rarely has to be solid.  In fact, the more specious the connection, the more the Muslim-baiter will be seen by others as a patriot and an enterprising investigative reporter.  For instance, the New York Times‘ Robert Wright highlights one smear that has been contrived to defame the man leading the effort to bring the project to fruition.  The imam behind the project is not to be trusted because conservatives say that “[his] wife has an uncle who used to be ‘a leader’ of a mosque that now has a Web site that links to the Web site of an allegedly radical organization.”  If you can’t keep up with all of that nonsense, then you’re complacent about the Jihad.

Any and all statements against violence made by Muslims must always be placed in the right conservative context: scare quotes.  Gingrich does this masterfully.  That simple act in effect says that Muslims who preach peace are actually jihadists.

As Gingrich and his buddies believe, either you are with them or you are, through your dhimmitude, a proto-Jihadist.  No, you’re worse since you probably support a second genocide against Jews.  (Prominent Muslim-baiters have argued that Muslims instigated the Nazi holocaust!)  Now that you’ve learned all of these made up facts, you simply do not have an excuse to not fight! Wake up and oppose the “Ground Zero Mosque” the “Islamization of America” and prove to those who hate the freedom in America that those freedoms, as Newt argues, don’t actually apply to all Americans.

Cross-posted on PoliticalCorrection.org

A good piece from Jillian York in the Huffington Post.

Paranoid Politics: The Denial of Islamophobia

By Jillian York

Imagine a fairly widespread, fairly mainstream ethos in which politicians, pundits, and academics convened to denigrate practitioners of Christianity or Judaism. Imagine that these commentators picked apart the New or Old Testament to find its most heinous contents, then used those phrases to justify their hatred and distrust. Imagine a world in which this was utterly acceptable, even encouraged. Now turn on your television.

The debate over the proposed Muslim community center near Ground Zero and the more recent community mobilization against a Muslim group’s attempted purchase of a vacant convent in Staten Island are indicative of the unhealthy Islamophobia that has taken root in right-wing American politics. Far from being a fact-based movement, its leaders and thinkers propagate falsehoods and myths towards the discriminatory goal of silencing Muslims in America.

This type of race and religion-baiting politics is not at all new. The tactics and orientation of those opposing Muslim-American institutions bring to mind what Richard Hofstadter called “the paranoid style in American politics.” Hofstadter, writing in 1964, described the hallmarks of this style: “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.”

The idea that a vast Muslim conspiracy exists to take over the United States and Europe from within is simply ridiculous. Yet it serves as the grounds for their opposition to the freedom of American Muslims to practice their religion in their own communities, such as Staten Island.

The inherent suspiciousness of the anti-Islam movement is so rich that its participants are unable to reconcile the contradiction between their narrative of secretive Islamic terrorists pursuing “jihad” and the high-profile, publicly conciliatory moves such as the Cordoba Initiative’s efforts to purchase a building near Ground Zero and convert it into a public community center. In opposing both the secretive and the public display of Muslimness, they reveal that their actual goal is simply the silencing of Muslims in America. This is most clearly displayed in the way they claim to only target militant extremists, and then proceed to include the most mainstream and popular Muslim organizations in that category.

Within their narrative of a hateful religion bent on the destruction of the West, opposing any form of Islam in America comes out as justifiable. However, it closes them off to the actual practices and beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims in the United States and the world. They are intentionally ignorant because, as Hofstadter wrote, “The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values.” Though Hofstadter wrote of fears over Masonic and Jesuit conspiracies, his descriptions are easily applied to the anti-Islam movement.

It is ironic that in Staten Island so many Catholic parishioners sought to block the sale of an empty convent to the Muslim American Society (MAS) because they feared the spread of Islamic extremism, or what one group crudely calls “the Islamization of America.” They contend that MAS is the “public face” of the Muslim Brotherhood despite the fact that both organizations deny a link and none has been found by America’s now 900,000-strong intelligence community. Such flimsy evidence is common to the paranoid crowd.

A case about which Hofstadter wrote was the trend of anti-Catholicism in 19th century America, which took the form of heightened suspicion of Jesuits. It was in much the same manner as today’s suspicion of Muslims. Hofstadter cites the example of an 1855 Texas newspaper article, which read, “It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions.”

Such rhetoric is never entirely without evidence. Participants in the anti-Islam movement are often quick to point to the 9/11 attacks, as well as subsequent attacks around the world, as justification for their hatred of Islam. The evidence of linkage is often weak. They may cite these attacks as reasons for denying the sale of the convent without showing that MAS was responsible for any.

The Islamophobe is unable to deal with complexity. They do not mention the fact that numerous Muslims died as victims of the 9/11 attacks, that Muslims have been in the United States for hundreds of years, and that the vast majority of American Muslims condemned the attacks on civilians as contradictory to the tenets of Islam.

They even go to the extent of denying the most clearly formed and documented counter-evidence. For example, in a recent debate over the proposed mosque on Staten Island on Russia Today’s Alyona Show, Pamela Geller–a blogger and self-styled “expert” on Islam and jihad–claimed that backlash against Muslims in the United States following the events of September 11, 2001 has been “non-existent”:

“there is no Muslim backlash…that’s part of this Islamic narrative…you cannot cite any hate crimes…there have been no hate crimes…America has gone out of her way to make sure that there is no backlash.”

In reality, hate crimes perpetrated against Muslims since 2001 and particularly in the years immediately following are well-documented. Just three years after the attacks, a report by the Council on American-Islamic relations found that in 2004, more than 1,500 hundred cases of anti-Muslim harassment and violence occurred, including 141 documented hate crimes, a fifty percent increase from the 2003.

Nine years after the attacks, the attitude toward Muslims in America that allows such attacks to continue, an attitude perpetuated by bloggers like Geller, show no signs of abating. According to a February 2010 report from the The United States Department of Justice, its Civil Rights division, along with the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys offices, have investigated “over 800 incidents since 9/11 involving violence, threats, vandalism and arson against Arab-Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, South-Asian Americans and other individuals perceived to be of Middle Eastern origin.”

Geller is by no means alone in her attempts to deny the existence of Islamophobia. Though Tea Party leader Mark Williams was recently ousted for his racist diatribe directed at the NAACP, comments made months earlier in which he referred to Muslims as worshipping a “monkey god,” went almost unnoticed by the media. Right-wing pundit Pat Robertson has regularly referred to Islam as a “fascist group” on television, and academic Daniel Pipes has denied the existence of Islamophobia entirely, asking:

“What exactly constitutes an “undue fear of Islam” when Muslims acting in the name of Islam today make up the premier source of worldwide aggression, both verbal and physical, versus non-Muslims and Muslims alike? What, one wonders, is the proper amount of fear?”

Even the Wikipedia article for “Islamophobia” contains an entire section on the debate surrounding the term. Of course, Wikipedia is a crowdsourced project, but perhaps that makes it all the more telling, and reflective of popular opinion. The page for “anti-Semitism” contains no debate, nor is it likely that any would be accepted by the public; while anti-Semitism means, rightly, social death, Islamophobia might get you a television spot, a column in a newspaper, or academic tenure.

In the paranoid Islamophobic mind, Islam is the perpetrator. Thus, Muslims cannot be victims. Islam is a monolith, acting in coordination towards the nefarious end of overturning Western civilization, according to their paranoid schema. So how could Muslims be anything but ill-willed? How could they be victims of any backlash when the West equals civilization and Islam so clearly conflicts with that idea? Were these views merely flights of personal fantasy, they would be harmless. The danger is that they have become part of the mainstream and are denying the freedom of Muslims to practice their religion, a freedom enshrined in the Constitution.

Luckily, significant portions of Americans who work or study with, live next to, or otherwise interact with, American Muslims, reject the simplistic hate-mongering of these groups. However, if Islamophobes really believe Muslims are a grave threat, the kind of post-9/11 violent backlash against them will grow.

Hofstadter would even predict that Islamophobes, like other paranoid movements in the past, would become more like the enemy they project. He pointed out that the “Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy.” Also, the John Birch Society emulated “Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through ‘front’ groups, and preache[d] a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy.”

The best hope is that Islamophobia be pushed back into the fringes and local and federal authorities aggressively prosecute anti-Muslim violence and discrimination. Concerned communities should engage in dialogue with Muslims and their organizations, and learn more about them, rather than rely on the types of prejudices and paranoia being hawked by Islamophobes.

European Loonieness on the march. Catalan mayor believes that a mosque is “too popular” and has chosen to shut it down. I guess in Catalan Enlightenment values equal repression of religious freedom.

Catalan mayor closes ‘too popular’ mosque, tells Muslims to ‘pray at home’

(via. Islamophobia-Watch)

A very interesting and unbelievable case from Israel.

Arab jailed for sex with Israeli woman

By Adrian Blomfield, The Daily Telegraph July 20, 2010 1:02 PM

A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after consensual sexual intercourse with an Israeli woman who believed he was Jewish because he introduced himself as “Daniel”. An Israeli court made international legal history by jailing Sabbar Kashur, from East Jerusalem, for 18 months.

The 30 year-old delivery man was convicted of “rape by deception” after a criminal trial that drew criticism from across Israel.

Kashur was accused of misleading the woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, by introducing himself with the traditionally Jewish name when they met on a street in central Jerusalem in 2008. After striking up a conversation, they went into a nearby office block and engaged in a sexual encounter, after which Kashur quickly left.

The woman discovered his true racial background later, lawyers said.

Although conceding that the sexual intercourse was consensual, Tzvi Segal, the district court judge, concluded that the law had a duty to protect women from “smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price”.

She said: “If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated.”

A conviction for rape by deception on the grounds of racial misrepresentation is believed to be internationally unprecedented, according to British legal experts.

The charge is rarely used in the West. In 2007, a Syrian pilot walked free from a court in Swansea after being accused of tricking a woman into intercourse by saying it could cure a sexually transmitted disease. While forced sexual intercourse by deception is an offence under Israeli law, experts say it is a charge used sparingly in cases involving protracted deceit and a promise of marriage.

Adnan Aladdin, Kashur’s lawyer, said he had filed an appeal to ensure the verdict was not considered to be setting a precedent, adding that otherwise “many men would find themselves in jail”.

Israeli legal experts said they found the verdict disquieting. “It puts the law in the position of what could loosely be described as discrimination. I would feel intuitively uncomfortable about prosecuting someone for something like that,” said a former senior justice ministry official.

Gideon Levy, a leading liberal commentator, said: “What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman? Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not.”

The prosecutor was unavailable for comment. District attorney officials declined to discuss the case.

© Copyright (c) The Daily Telegraph

Palin’s Bigoted Twitter Calls on Muslims to “Refudiate”

by Geoffrey Dunn

Echoing the bigoted and right-wing contortions of the National Republican Trust PAC and disgraced Tea Party leader Mark Williams, Sarah Palin has sent the world of Twitter on fire this afternoon, with a series of incendiary Tweets about the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center

She pulled down one of them after concocting the word “refudiate” and then used the word “refute” incorrectly.

Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate

Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.

She then pulled the second attempt down and took a third swipe at it.

Peace-seeking Muslims pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing

“Peaceful,” “peace-seeking”? Why the qualifier? How about “peaceful Christians“? And as if Sarah Palin knows anything about “healing.” Perhaps that’s the biggest joke of all.

Well, not quite. The Thrilla from Wasilla then compared herself to none other than the Immortal Bard himself (and with indirect reference to her primary obsession, Barack Obama).

‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!’

As Billy Boy so wisely noted in The Tempest:

You cram these words into mine ears against
The stomach of my sense.

The proposed Murfreesboro Mosque has become a lightening rod political/legal/social issue in Tennessee. See the courageous supporters of the Mosque who are defending Freedom of Religion versus those who oppose the Mosque on grounds that seem less than sincere.

Also what do Israeli flags have to do with a Mosque in Tennessee? Looks like Christian Zionists acting wacky as usual.

Mosque leads to Square off

BY SCOTT BRODEN

SBRODEN@DNJ.COM

Anti-mosque marchers proudly paraded their opposition for a mile along East Main Street to the Public Square on Murfreesboro Wednesday.

They carried flags of America and Israel, sang, “God Bless America,” and carried many signs, including: “Mosque leaders support killing converts. Tell it!”

While the crowd from both protesters and counter protesters appeared to number 500 to 600 at its peak — police estimated the crowd at 1,000, protest march organizer Kevin Fisher estimated that several hundred marched in his group alone from Central Magnet School to the County Courthouse.

There, they encountered hundreds more of counter protesters carrying signs with messages such as, “All you need is love” and “Freedom for all religion” and “Tolerance.”

“Ignore their hate,” Fisher told his participants as they turned the east corner of the Square on their way to the west side of the County Courthouse.

His grass-roots group plans to next present to the County Commission on Aug. 12 a petition in opposition to the county Regional Planning Commission’s site plan approval last May for a 52,960-square-foot community center and mosque for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro to build on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike southeast of the city.

“We have close to 20,000 petition signers,” Fisher said. “We gathered at least 700 (Wednesday).”

Fisher was one of about 20 speakers to carry his message to the commission last June. Hundreds packed all three floors of the Courthouse for that event.

On Wednesday, two protest groups almost seemed like rival student bodies chanting back and forth about who had the better team.

The marchers attempted to give speeches on the Courthouse steps, but the words offered by 82-year-old Gertrude Phillips and others were drowned out by the counter protesters.

In response, the marchers chanted, “U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!”

and “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” and sang, “Amazing Grace” and “The Star Spangled Banner.”

“When you are yelling during a prayer or when you are yelling when an 82-year-old woman speaks, you are being disrespectful,” Fisher said in an interview after the speeches were over.

March participant Jake Robinson was also offended by the counter protesters.

“They are a bunch of rabble-rousers,” said Robinson, a candidate in the Aug. 5 election running against County Commissioner Will Jordan, who’s also on the Regional Planning Commission. “They were bused in. They’re a rent-a-mob. As (U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy) Pelosi would say, they are Astroturf of the highest order.”

Although Phillips’ words to the mosque opponents were hard to hear, the La Vergne resident was glad to share why she was willing to push her walker for a portion of the march around the Square.

She’s concerned about Muslims not adhering to burial practices in America in particular.

“My husband is buried in a casket in the state of Kentucky,” said Phillips, adding that she’ll be buried by him in the same way. “If they come over here, they need to do our ways and abide by our law. If they can’t, go back to where they came from. God gave us America. We need to uphold America.”

The marchers included other people seeking public office, such as congressional candidates George Erdel, who calls himself ‘a tea party Democrat’, and Lou Ann Zelenik, a Republican. Many Zelenik supporters proudly displayed signs and T-shirts with her name on it.

Erdel also helped organize the march, using a bullhorn to give instructions before the parade began. He also handed the bullhorn to Dusty Ray, the pastor of Heartland Baptist Church at Walter Hill where Erdel attends.

Ray led the large group gathered on the Central Magnet School grounds in prayer about their march in opposition to the plans of local Muslims.

“They are about oppression,” Ray said in his prayer.

“Lord, we’re trying to stop a political movement,” Ray added before concluding his prayer, “In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Others of note in the march included Howard Wall, a local real estate developer and Republican Party supporter; and Dave Beardsley, a candidate challenging County Commissioner Gary Farley, who’s also a member of the Regional Planning Commission.

Beardsley carried a sign near the front of the march: “Commissioner Farley votes yes on Islamic Center.”

Farley in a recent interview said his vote was based on the center meeting all of the rules required by the county’s zoning resolution.

When the march and counter protesters were winding down and mostly left, two Muslim women in hijab outfits to cover their hair and bodies appeared before unfriendly mosque opponents.

Dressed in a black outfit, Tahira Ahmed told the protesters she’s an American of Cherokee and other Indian heritage whose family chose to convert to Islam.

“I have a right to wear a bikini, and I have a right to cover myself,” Ahmed told the crowd.

An obese man wearing tattered blue shorts and a brown T-shirt that expressed his love of barbecue challenged the Muslim women from where he stood about 15 feet away.

“Our Constitution doesn’t apply to you,” the man said.

Qamar Awale, who was wearing a blue hijab, disagreed.

“I have a right to live here,” she said. “And I have a right to worship, and I have a right to build.”

Prior to speaking before the marchers, the women said they came here from their Nashville homes with a goal to communicate with others about being Muslims rather than to have people influenced by propaganda expressed to the news media.

“We’re advocating for communication between neighbors,” said Ahmed, who’d like to see the proposed mosque built. “That’s what religious freedom is. We should respect each other’s rights in this country, and we should respect the rules of America. America doesn’t say if you’re a Muslim you can’t live here and worship.”

Awale agreed.

“If you live here, you have rights to worship anywhere,” she said. “We have right to worship. Freedom is supposed to be like a butterfly.”

We hear often that Muslims object too much to art or cartoons that are offensive to their religious sensibilities. In fact, Islamophobes love to highlight Islam as some unique motivator in passing laws that ban demeaning or offensive remarks or depictions about religion.

In Russia however, two artists have been convicted and fined by authorities for artwork that depicts Jesus Christ with the head of Mickey Mouse. Expect no complaints from Robert Spencer and company.(hat tip: Daniel R. Bartholomew)

Russians convicted and fined over Forbidden Art show

Andrei Yerofeyev and Yuri Samodurov had set up the Forbidden Art exhibition at the Sakharov Museum in Moscow.

The show provoked condemnation from the Russian Orthodox Church, among others, for artworks that included a depiction of Jesus Christ with the head of Mickey Mouse.

Both men were ordered to pay a fine.

The exhibition featured several images of Jesus Christ. In one painting of the crucifixion, the head of Jesus Christ was replaced by the Order of Lenin medal.

There was also a spoof ad for Coca Cola with the slogan “This is my blood” that visitors looked at through peep holes.

Mr Yerofeyev, an art expert, and Mr Samodurov, the former director of the Sakharov Museum, said they organised the exhibition to fight censorship of art in Russia.

But prosecutors opened an investigation after an ultra-nationalist Orthodox group filed a complaint against the show.

Apology

The court fined Mr Samodurov 200,000 rubles (£4,300) and Mr Yerofeyev 150,000 rubles (£3,200).

The trial began in April 2009 and was fiercely criticised by rights activists and artists.

Last week, 13 renowned Russian artists published an open letter to President Dimitry Medvedev, asking him to stop the trial. They said a guilty verdict would be a sentence “for the whole of Russian contemporary art”.

Amnesty International issued a statement last week, saying a guilty verdict against the curators would “further undermine freedom of expression in Russia”.

In letter send to the Russian Orthodox Church last month, Mr Yerofeyev apologised if the show unintentionally offended Christians.

‘Provocation’

But the Council of the People, the group that brought the complaint, defended the legal action.

A representative of the organisation, Oleg Kassin, told the AFP news agency that he had been disgusted by the exhibition which contained “anti-Christian” images.

“If you like expressing yourself freely, do it at home, invite some close friends,” Mr Kassin said.

“But from the moment that such an exhibition takes place in a public space, and especially if it contains insults, it’s no longer art but a provocation,” he added.

Mr Samodurov has been convicted of inciting religious hatred before. He was fined in 2005 for an exhibition called Caution: Religion! at the Sakharov Museum.

NAACP Passes Tea Party Racism Resolution

Brian Montopoli

The NAACP has passed a resolution condemning racism in the Tea Party movement.

The resolution was approved in a vote by more than 2,000 delegates at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Kansas City.

Versions of the resolution condemned “explicitly racist behavior” in the Tea Party movement and called on people to “repudiate” what it described as racist elements of the Tea Party. The final text of the resolution has not yet been made available, however, and that language may have changed.

As the Associated Press notes, NAACP President Ben Jealous has said the Tea Party movement needs to “be responsible members of this democracy and make sure they don’t tolerate bigots or bigotry among their members.”

Members of the Tea Party movement vehemently deny that their movement is racist.

A CBS News poll in April found 52 percent of Tea Party members believe too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Far fewer Americans overall — 28 percent — believe as much. Among non-Tea Party whites, the percentage who say too much attention has been paid to the problems of black people is 23 percent.

The original NAACP resolution, submitted by the group’s Kansas City branch, said the Tea Party movement has “displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically.”

It condemned “racist elements” of the movement as “a threat to progress” and referenced instances in which black congressmen said they were verbally and physically abused by Tea Party activists.

The latest development in the face veil ban legislation in France.

French MPs vote to ban Islamic full veil in public

France’s lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.

There were 335 votes for the bill and only one against in the 557-seat National Assembly.

It must now be ratified by the Senate in September to become law.

The ban has strong public support but critics point out that only a tiny minority of French Muslims wear the full veil.

Many of the opposition Socialists, who originally wanted the ban limited only to public buildings, abstained from voting after coming under pressure from feminist supporters of the bill.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed the ban as part of a wider debate on French identity but critics say the government is pandering to far-right voters.

After the vote, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said it was a victory for democracy and for French values.

“Values of freedom against all the oppressions which try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice.”

The vote is being closely watched in other countries, the BBC’s Christian Fraser reports from the French capital Paris.

Spain and Belgium are debating similar legislation, and with such large-scale immigration in the past 20 or 30 years, identity has become a popular theme across Europe, our correspondent says.

‘Open-faced democracy’

The bill would make it illegal to wear garments such as the niqab or burka, which incorporate a full-face veil, anywhere in public.

It envisages fines of 150 euros (£119) for women who break the law and 30,000 euros and a one-year jail term for men who force their wives to wear the burka.

The niqab and burka are widely seen in France as threats to women’s rights and the secular nature of the state.

“Democracy thrives when it is open-faced,” Ms Alliot-Marie told the National Assembly when she presented the bill last week.

She stressed the bill, which makes no reference to Islam or veils, was not aimed at “stigmatising or singling out a religion”.

Berengere Poletti, an MP from Mr Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP party, said women in full veils wore “a sign of alienation on their faces” and had to be “liberated”.

Andre Gerin of the Communist opposition compared the veil to “a walking coffin, a muzzle”.

‘Fear of foreigners’

The bill is also seen as a touchstone for the Sarkozy administration’s policy of integration. It is grappling with disaffected immigrant communities as it seeks to prevent a repeat of the mass unrest of 2005 on run-down French housing estates.

There are estimated to be only about 2,000 women wearing the full veil in France though the bill is opposed by many of France’s five million Muslims.

Mohammed Moussaoui, the head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, a government advisory body, has supported taking steps to discourage women from wearing the full veil but has said a legal ban would stigmatise a vulnerable group.

Jean Glavany, a Socialist MP, said he opposed the ban on the grounds that it was “nothing more than the fear of those who are different, who come from abroad, who aren’t like us, who don’t share our values”.

The Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, warned in March that the law could be found unconstitutional.

If the bill passes the Senate in September, it will be sent immediately to France’s Constitutional Council watchdog for a ruling.

Another challenge is possible at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where decisions are binding.

In another development, a French businessman, Rachid Nekkaz, said he would set up a 1m-euro fund to help women pay fines imposed under the new law.

A ban in the street would violate constitutional principles, he argued.

United States

Anything with the word “Muslim” in it is bound to whip Conservo-freaks and their associative wingnuts into a frenzy.

This is exactly what happened when Charles Bolden, NASA administrator was visiting the Middle East and appeared on Al-Jazeera. (hat tip: Les)

Conservatives Furious Over NASA Muslim ‘Outreach’

by Max Fisher

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently traveled to the Middle East. That was his first mistake. His second was giving an interview to the Middle Eastern satellite news station Al Jazeera. But his third and fatal mistake came when he suggested that he traveled to the region in part to “reach out to the Muslim world.” Conservatives are apoplectic over this interview. The video, key quotes, and media reaction are all below.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e857ZcuIfnI&feature=player_embedded 350 300]

Bolden: I am here in the region – its sort of the first anniversary of President Barack Obama’s visit to Cairo – and his speech there when he gave what has now become known as Obama’s “Cairo Initiative” where he announced that he wanted this to become a new beginning of the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. When I became the NASA Administrator – before I became the NASA Administrator – he charged me with three things: One was that he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, that he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.Question: Are you in some sort of diplomatic role … to win hearts and minds?

Bolden: No no, not at all. Its not a diplomatic anything. What it is – is that it is trying to expand our outreach so that we get more people who can contribute to the things that we do – the international Space Station is as great as it is because we have a conglomerate of about 15 plus nations who have contributed something to that partnership that has made it what it is today.

• Islam and Science Don’t Mix The Washington Times argues that the U.S. has nothing to gain in scientific discourse with Muslim nations. “What’s unclear is what Mr. Bolden believes the United States has to gain by reaching out to a part of the world that has been technologically stagnant for centuries. The Muslim world has nothing to offer the United States as a space-faring nation. If anything, America should be discouraging Middle East space programs. … Islam’s meager contribution to human technological advancement is no accident.”

• ‘Psychobabble’ and ‘Imperial Condescension’ The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer says on Fox News, “This is a new height in fatuousness. NASA was established to get America into space and to keep us there. This idea of to feel good about their past scientific achievements, it’s the worst combination of group therapy, psychobabble, imperial condescension, and adolescent diplomacy. If I didn’t know that Obama had told this, I’d demand the firing of Charles Bolden the way I would Michael Steele. This is absolutely unbelievable.”

• Proves Muslims Should Love America More Fox News host Sean Hannity professed, “look, I have a hard time with the president’s, quote, ‘outreach’ to the Muslim community in this way. When he spoke to the Muslim world, he didn’t talk about America’s contributions to Kuwait. He didn’t talk about America’s contributions to Kosovo. He didn’t talk about America’s contributions to Indonesia or Iraq. Doesn’t — I don’t hear America being praised enough by the Muslim world. Does the Muslim world give America the credit it’s due?”

• Bush’s NASA Head Condemns Fox News’ Judson Berger reports that Bush-era NASA Administrator Michael Griffin “described as ‘deeply flawed’ the idea that the space exploration agency’s priority should be outreach to Muslim countries. ‘NASA … represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity.’”

• ‘Ravages of Islamism’ Hostile to Science National Review’s Daniel Pipes writes, “Muslims at present do lag in the sciences and the way to fix this is not condescension from NASA but some deep Muslim introspection. Put differently, accomplished scientists of Muslim origin — including NASA’s Farouk El-Baz, who is of Egyptian origins — do exist. The problem lies in societies, and include everything from insufficient resources to poor education to the ravages of Islamism.”

• Waste of Tax Dollars Reason’s Michael Moynihan writes, “Poor dears, feeling bad about their underappreciated contributions to science, math, and engineering. Seems to me an entirely reasonable way to fritter away tax dollars, on the mental health of Yemeni undergraduates.”

• Explains Tolerance of Iran’s Nuclear Program Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey makes the connection, “Hey, maybe that’s why Obama hasn’t taken the Iranian effort to build a nuclear bomb all that seriously until now. He just wanted Iran to make the Muslim world feel good about their achievements in science!”

Jonah Goldberg, hardcore Republican idealogue saw a Nazi hand in the whole event:

Jonah Goldberg Sees Nazism Behind NASA Administrator’s Outreach to Muslims

by Blue Texan

In case you hadn’t heard, wingnuts are freaking out that Charles Bolden, the head of NASA (and a former astronaut and Marine Corps General), said a few nice things about Muslims. And naturally, the Pantload discovers swastikas at the root of the problem.

Gleichschaltung is a German word (in case you couldn’t have guessed) borrowed from electrical engineering. It means “coordination.” The German National Socialists (Nazis) used the concept to get every institution to sing from the same hymnal. If a fraternity or business embraced Nazism, it could stay “independent.” If it rejected Nazism, it was crushed or bent to the state’s ideology. Meanwhile, every branch of government was charged with not merely doing its job but advancing the official state ideology.

Now, contemporary liberalism is not an evil ideology. Its intentions aren’t evil or even fruitfully comparable to Hitlerism. But there is a liberal Gleichschaltung all the same. Every institution must be on the same page. Every agency must advance the liberal agenda.

So true. I mean, what kind of Nazi would impose a political agenda on NASA?

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Or the surgeon general?

Former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona yesterday accused the Bush administration of muzzling him on sensitive public health issues, becoming the most prominent voice among several current and former federal science officials who have complained of political interference.

“Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is often ignored, marginalized or simply buried,” he said.

Or the Justice Department?

The Justice Department advocated in early 2005 removing up to 20 percent of the nation’s U.S. attorneys whom it considered to be “underperforming” but retaining prosecutors who were “loyal Bushies,” according to e-mails released by Justice late yesterday.

There’s a reason Pantload was dubbed, “one of the stupidest people in our public discourse.“

The Sheepshead Bay Mosque is the center of a lot of controversy and the scene of some terrible anti-Muslim demagoguery. If you remember Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have put their weight behind residents who oppose the mosque, is it a coincidence then that the rallies against the mosque are so hate filled?

It is quite revealing, as one resident, a self-proclaimed ex-Israeli soldier has threatened to blow the mosque up and kill Muslims.

Read the excellent expose.

‘What kind of America’? Hate-filled rally to stop mosque

If they build it, they will bomb.

Angry Sheepshead Bay residents came out in a show of force on Sunday to protest a planned mosque and Muslim community center in their neighborhood.

“If they build a mosque there, I’m going to bomb the mosque,” said one outraged resident who lives across the street from the proposed house of worship between East 28th and East 29th streets on Voorhies Avenue. The resident, who refused to give his name, identified himself as a former Israeli soldier who had lived on Voorhies Avenue for eight years.

“I will give them a lot of trouble,” he added. “They’re not going to stay here alive.”

Such comments were certainly the most violent, though intolerance was common at the rally, which was organized by the group Bay People. Political correctness was shoved aside as members of the group put out its agenda: We don’t want a mosque here.

There was plenty of lip service paid to concerns about added traffic and noise, with rally organizers saying that they were not “anti-Arab or anti-Muslim,” but the stench of hate filled the air, sometimes with subtle language.

“We cannot tolerate foreign interests coming into our backyard telling us what we are going to do,” said speaker Bob Giovinazzi. “It’s hot today, but things are going to get a lot hotter for people in this illegal structure.”

One of the organizers claimed that the mosque protest was simply about “this specific location and a specific organization [and its] impact on our quality of life.” The organizer, who only gave his surname, Kleinman, added, “We are not against our Muslim neighbors. This is a residential community and we want to preserve it regardless of race and religion.”

But other organizers claimed that the mosque’s builders, the Muslim American Society, has ties to Hamas and Hezbollah. Though few actual links were revealed at the rally, that didn’t stop the venom.

“New York is not Islamabad,” screamed one protestor. Diana, a nurse who refused to give her full name, told those in attendence, “Do not forget 9-11!”

Voorhies Avenue resident Victor Benari further whipped up the audience by adding, “Each Muslim terrorist is tied to a mosque.”

He also took pot shots at Ahmed Allowey, the longtime Sheepshead Bay resident who is bringing the mosque to Voorhies Avenue, along with local politicians who have remained mum on this divisive issue.

None were present to defend themselves, although Benari’s diatribe infuriated local resident Guseyn Ibragimov.

“What right do you have to deny people a place of worship?” asked Ibragimov, whose father is a Muslim. His mother is half-Jewish, half-Christian. “No one protests a church or a synagogue being built in a Muslim neighborhood.”

Rally attendees booed Ibragimov down, ordering him to get off their street.

“This isn’t right, they’re just showing their hate,” Ibragimov said as he stormed off. “They call themselves Americans, but what kind of America is this?”

©2010 Community Newspaper Group

Marvin Scott with George Bush

The Election season is in full gear and with it comes the anti-Muslim agitators and bigots. We have one more example of a political leader using his opponents Islamness as a means to capitalize in the race.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DGNu6dI_ZE&feature=player_embedded 350 300]

INDIANAPOLIS — Congressman André Carson’s Republican opponent, Marvin Scott, is now calling on Carson (D-7th District), who is Muslim, to “stand up against Muslim extremism.” It’s a tactic that has local Islamic leaders condemning Scott’s actions.

It’s a normal Friday at Al-Fajr, a mosque on the northwest side of town, where Muslims gather for Jumu’a, the Friday prayer service. Before the service we asked the Chairman of the board, Dr. Haroon Qazi and another leader, Tim Palmer, to give us their reaction to the website created this week by GOP Congressional candidate Marvin Scott, drmarvinscottforcongress.com.

On it, Scott lists “fight Muslim extremism” as one of his guiding principles. Click on the words and you will find an image from 9/11 and ten reasons why radical Islam is a threat. They include “Islam commands homosexuals must be executed.” “Islam allows husbands to hit their wives.” And “Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped.”

Dr. Haroon Qazi, Chairman of the Board at the Al-Fajr Mosque says, “You can take anything out of context and make a peaceful religion into something which is demonic.”

Scott is trying to unseat Carson, one of two Muslims in Congress but, at the mosque there is a belief that in the process he is smearing, not just Carson, but all Muslims. Al-Fajr Mosque public relations chair Tim Palmer points to website saying, “The change in word phrase, ‘Muslim extremism’ transitioning into just “Muslims”, is painting all Muslims as extremists.”

Wish TV, 2 July 2010

See also Sheila Musaji at The American Muslim, 2 July 2010

One of the spies

Many in the Islamophobosphere claim that Muslims are secret Taqiyya imposters, seeking to “Islamize” America under the guise of living “ordinary lives.” In his The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), Robert Spencer wrote:

When Shi’ite Muslims were persecuted by Sunnis, they developed the doctrine of taqiyya, or concealment: They could lie about what they believed, denying aspects of their faith that were offensive to Sunnis…Closely related to this is the doctrine of kitman, or mental reservation, which is telling the truth, but not the whole truth, with an intention to mislead…Remember that the next time you see a Muslim spokesman on television professing his friendship with non-Muslim Americans and his loyalty to the United States. Of course, he may be telling the truth–but he may not be telling the whole truth or he may be just lying. (p.79-81)

In fact, last Fall, four actual U.S. Representatives in the House accused the Council on American Islamic Relations of infiltrating Capitol Hill “with undercover spies.” Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia said:

If an organization is connected to or supports terrorists [and] is running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices, I think this needs to be made known. So I join my colleagues here today in calling for action.

Their “evidence” was a book written by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry entitled Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America. The book is based on Chris Gaubatz, the son of David Gaubatz, posing as a Muslim convert to inflitrate and expose CAIR as “part of an organized crime network.”

Yet, last Sunday, 10 people were arrested on charges of being part of a deep-cover Russian spy network. These people lived like “ordinary Americans while secretly reporting to Moscow.” The Washington Post reports:

Details that emerged Tuesday about the alleged spies’ lives added to the mystery of a network that prosecutors say extended from Manhattan to Seattle and the heart of the Washington area. Though utterly unremarkable to their neighbors, the suspects allegedly buried stashes of money and wrote messages in invisible ink as they sought to collect tidbits about U.S. policy and secrets.

Other details about the spies include:

Indeed, the alleged agents lived in the suburbs, went to parties and rooted for American sports teams. Eight men and women, authorities say, were “paired off” by Russian intelligence as married couples, and at least three of those four couples had children in the United States.

Two of those arrested in Arlington, a couple known as Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills, took their young son on walks each evening in Seattle, where they lived until last year, neighbors said. Zottoli worked for an investment firm; Mills was a stay-at-home mom. The family lived in a neat and carefully decorated fifth-floor apartment.

“How would you ever think somebody next door would be involved in something like this?” said John Morrison, a neighbor. “You wouldn’t think a spy would care about what color curtains or about making things look nice.”

Mikhail Semenko, the third Arlington resident, helped neighbors at his apartment complex dig out after last winter’s massive snowstorms. On his Facebook page, he lists a New Jersey Devils hockey player as one of his “likes.”

“He’s warm, not calculating,” said Slava Shirokov, a co-owner of the Virginia travel agency where Semenko worked. “It’s straight from a movie.”

Those familiar with the case say that the details revealed in court documents do indeed read like an old-fashioned spy novel. According to prosecutors, the spies’ real purpose was to:

…infiltrate academic, policymaking and government-connected circles. Semenko, for example, often attended events sponsored by embassies and nongovernmental organizations.

Donald Howard Heathfield, an international business consultant who lived with his “wife,” Tracey Lee Ann Foley, and their two teenage sons in Cambridge, Mass., sought membership in more than 30 professional, academic and business associations — including one linked to the Department of Homeland Security, according to his page on LinkedIn.

More direct hints emerge in court documents. When agents covertly searched Foley’s bank safety deposit box in 2001, they found a series of photographic negatives of her. The name of the company that produced the negatives had been excised on all but one. Authorities identified the producer of the final negative as TACMA, a Soviet film company, court documents said.

Last Fall, we had actual Members of Congress accuse CAIR of implanting “spies” in the U.S. Congress, while there were individuals living as “ordinary Americans” but actually spying for a foreign government. These people were actually doing what many in the Islamophobe sphere accuse ordinary American Muslims of doing: posing as “ordinary Americans” but being something else entirely. Why, that’s Taqiyya!

But, what if these alleged Russian spies were Muslim? Think of the absolute hysteria of the Islamophobes: they would be claiming that they were right all along about Muslims; they would be calling on investigations and racial profiling of all American Muslims; they would be screaming Taqiyya! from the tops of their lungs.

Meanwhile, there were actual spies living in America who were recently caught. And the Islamophobes are silent…because the arrested spies are not Mooslims. Forgive my Canadian: pathetic, eh?

Sharron Angle calls for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and a "return" to Biblical Law.

Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle has made some very interesting statements about what could happen if the ballot box fails:

“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. In fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this, this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? And I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

Source: Washington Post

“The nation is arming. What are they arming for, if it isn’t that they are so distrustful of their government? They’re afraid they’ll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? That’s why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don’t win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”

Speaking to Reno Gazette Journal on May 30, 2010:

“I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry. This is not for someone who’s in the military. This is not for law enforcement. This is for us. And in fact when you read that Constitution and the founding fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny. This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical…Well it’s to defend ourselves. And you know, I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.”

Source: Huffington Post

Just to remind our dear readers, the Second Amendment reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So, is this incitement to armed insurrection? Is this a call to violence if “we don’t win at the ballot box”? What are the “Second Amendment remedies”?

Sharron Angle’s “stealth jihad” campaign against the U.S. government is waged on behalf of the Christian not Islamic flag.  She doesn’t want to replace our secular and liberal form of government with Sharia law, but Biblical Law.  If you think of Sharia as stoning adulterers, guess which book that comes from?  It’s from none other than the Bible.  (Of course, it would be unfair to link stoning–found in the Bible–to Sharron Angle, since her interpretation of Biblical Law may not entail this, but this never stops Christian right-wingers from saying every Muslim who believes in Sharia advocates a return to stoning.)

Anyways, here’s more about Angle’s background:

Sharron Angle, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Nevada was, in the 1990s, a member of the Independent American Party, the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party.  The Constitution Party is not merely a political party that supports the Constitution, but rather a party that promotes a very specific interpretation of the Constitution: based on founder Howard Phillips’ Christian Reconstruction.

The Constitution Party’s platform advocates “returning” American law to its “foundations” in “Biblical Law.” The notion that the First Amendment’s religion clauses provide for a separation of church and state is rejected…They contend that the founders always understood the U.S. to be a Christian nation founded on biblical law.

source: ReligionDispatches.org

Can you imagine the reaction if she had been a Muslim? What if a Muslim candidate for public office – any public office, even if it is Chief Librarian (or the prestigious position of Miss America) – calls for “Second Amendment remedies”? What if a Muslim candidate for public office said, “If we don’t win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”  What if Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison said that, or any of the “army of Muslim spy interns” supposedly trying to topple our government?  And what if these Muslims advocating violent overthrow believed in “returning” American law to Sharia-based law?  Do you think that such a Muslim would have a semblance of a political career left?

I will tell you the answer: people would be saying that such a Muslim candidate should be sent to jail for incitement to murder and terrorism; that Muslim candidate would be demonized to no end.  At minimum, he/she would be forced to resign, amid a fury of calls for his/her head.  And Spencer, Geller, and Co. would be screaming “Stealth Jihad!” “Taqiyya!” “Dhimmitude!” until the cows…no, I’m sorry, the pigs come home.

This incident highlights the fact that right wing extremism–of which extremist Christians comprise a large chunk of–remains a grave threat to this country just as radical Islam does.  Right-wing extremism is certainly more of a threat to our liberal way of life than the imaginary “stealth jihad” that loyal Muslim-American citizens are continually accused of–a fact that holds true even if it doesn’t conform to the narrative imagined by right wing Islamophobes.  We also wonder: why are Muslim-Americans always skeptically cross-examined by Christian right-wingers about their loyalty to this country, but meanwhile these same Christian right-wingers openly call for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government?

UC Irvine, not one of the better UC's anyways.

The LA Times writes:

UC Irvine seeks to suspend Muslim student group

By Raja Abdulrahim
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine should be suspended for one year for its involvement in repeated disruptions of a February speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, according to a disciplinary report released by the university.

The Muslim Student Union has appealed the recommendation.

The speech about U.S.-Israeli relations was interrupted 10 times by students who got up and yelled out things like, “Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech.”

Eleven UC Irvine and UC Riverside students were arrested and cited for disturbing a public event, but none have been charged. The student group maintained that the disruptions were done by individuals and not organized by their group, but the report cited internal Muslim Student Union e-mails and meeting agendas that indicated they planned a disturbance.

The group’s attorney Reem Salahi emphasized that a suspension has not yet been implemented but was still disheartened by the report’s recommendations. “It’s collective punishment,” she said. “You have an entire Muslim student body that’s being punished for the actions of a few.”

Are they really suspending the group for an entire year because they interrupted a speech “10 times” (only???)?  Anyone ever seen how pro-Israeli Jewish students react to Dr. Norman Finkelstein when he gives his lectures on campus?  Of course in that case they would end up banning Finkelstein before they took action against his hecklers.

Anyways, it seems really odd that a group would be banned for such a small infraction.  Am I missing something here?

Glenn Greenwald

Another excellent piece from the anti-loon Glenn Greenwald. He takes on the crazy and zany remarks from Chuck Schumer, a “mainstream Democrat.”

Chuck Schumer: Mainstream Democrat

by Glenn Greenwald

Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate, spoke to an event of Orthodox Jewish leaders on Wednesday and made comments that can only be described as bigoted and disgusting.  Kudos to Zaid Jilani who, despite working for the Democratic Party-serving Center for American Progress, wrote about Schumer’s remarks on CAP’s ThinkProgress blog and explained the reasons they were filled with falsehoods, or — as he put it — “as offensive as they are wrong.”

Schumer told his audience that the ”Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution” and added that “they don’t believe in the Torah, in David.”  As a result,”you have to force them to say Israel is here to stay.”  It’s the Israeli blockade which accomplishes that, he argued.  And Schumer is due some credit for being honest enough (unlike most devoted Israel defenders) to admit that a prime purpose of the blockade has nothing to do with keeping arms away from Hamas, but rather, is to economically strangle the people in Gaza — meaning not Hamas, but the 1.5 million human beings (men, women and children) who live there:

And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense.

So as long as Israel stops just short of starving them all to death, then what Israel is doing is justified — just like John Yoo explained that American torture is perfectly legal and permissible just as long as it stops short of causing major organ failure or death (or, as Juan Cole put it, “anything short of ‘starving to death’, i.e. mass extermination in the camps, is all right as long as it convinces the enemy?”).  I think the most repugnant part of Schumer’s comments is when he spoke about Gazans as though they were dogs needing to be trained to behave properly:  the blockade is justified because it shows the Palestinians living there that “when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement.”  Is that — punish the people of Gaza for the acts of Terrorists — not the very definition of “collective punishment,” which happens to be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions?  The crowd — as the video of Schumer’s speech reflects (below) — erupted in wild cheers at his comments.

Of course, before Israeli propagandists began claiming for the consumption of Americans that the purpose of the blockade was to keep arms away from Terrorists, they freely admitted what Schumer acknowledged; when the blockade was first instituted, Dov Weisglass, adviser to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”  Indeed, Schumer made very similar remarks back in April when — in the middle of condemning Obama for the crime of applying minimal pressure on Israel — he told an interviewer:  ”Israel has blocked off the border and not let anything into Gaza, and I support Israel in doing that, and it may be tough on the Palestinian people, but when they vote for Hamas they are going to have to suffer the consequences.”  If a country doesn’t vote for the leaders Chuck Schumer and Israel want, their children will be malnourished to the point of stunted growth, pervasive anemia, and massive food insecurity.  Aside from how morally repugnant and criminal those actions are, see here for how harmful it is to America’s national interests, something with which Schumer appears completely unconcerned (they hate us for our Freedoms!).

At his personal blog, CAP’s Jilani elaborated on why Schumer’s remarks are so foul, including asking us to imagine what would happen if, say, Rep. Keith Ellison gave a speech urging that all Israelis be denied “fresh meat, basic medical supplies, and a whole host of humanitarian items” as a result of the horrific acts of the government they elected.  Condemnation would pour down on him from all corners.  That’s the same glaring double standard that just ended Helen Thomas’ career even though people as disparate as Mike Huckabee, Dick Armey and Matt Yglesias have said virtually the same exact thing about Palestinians that Thomas said about Israelis without any repercussions whatsoever (indeed, have seen their careers flourish afterward, though Yglesias, who was in college at the time, clearly no longer believes anything like that and now sees his remarks as “terrible”).  Numerous people have written very good posts about why Schumer’s comments are as false as they are repugnant — see Juan Cole, David Dayen, Philip Weiss, and Taylor Marsh (who said, accurately:  ”This is your Democratic Party hierarchy, folks”).

That last point, made by Marsh, is the critical one.  This is why I’ve come to see the Democratic Party (and its apologists and loyalists in the pundit class) much differently now that it’s in power rather than out of it.  Just look at Schumer himself.  He isn’t some obscure Democratic official; he’s one of its leading figures.  He’s not one of those dreaded Blue Dogs or “conservative” Democrats which Party pundit-apparatchiks and reverent Obama loyalists love to exploit to excuse the Party’s flaws (don’t blame the weak and helpless Obama; he is a prisoner to those bad, powerful conservative Democrats); rather, Schumer is considered progressive, or at least mainstream, within the Party, representing one of its largest and bluest states.  If anyone is the face of the mainstream Democratic Party, it’s Chuck Schumer.  That’s why he’s clearly the most likely replacement for Harry Reid to become Senate Majority Leader if Reid loses in November.

But look at what Schumer represents, who he is.  Schumer championed countless, radical Bush appointees (including John Bolton, Michael Mukasey and Michael Hayden), but then sabatoged Obama’s appointment of Chas Freeman due to insufficient devotion to Israel.  As The New York Times documented, he has long served as one of Wall Street’s most loyal and devoted servants, reaping huge benefits for himself and his Party.  As the financial reform package gets negotiated and watered down, Schumer leads the way in doing Wall Street’s bidding.  After spending years sucking up union money, he just congratulated Blanche Lincoln for fighting unions (and, showing how cynical he is, also congratulated her for fighting Wall Street even as business interests almost single-handedly funded her campaign and as he himself continues to serve as the most devoted property of bankers).  So that’s Chuck Schumer:  suffocate Gazans; champion Bush national security appointees; punish those with insufficient devotion to Israel; serve Wall Street.  And that, by definition, is the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

* * * * *

One last, related note:  Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, one of Israel’s most steadfast defenders in Congress, last week demanded, while speaking on a conference call organized by “pro-Israel groups,” that the Justice Department prosecute all American citizens who were on board the flotilla attacked by Israel (for, in essence, providing material support to Terrorists by trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gazans), as well as demanding that Homeland Security permanently ban all the other passengers from entering the U.S.  In this conflict that involved a foreign nation (Israel) against numerous American citizens, one of which ended up being shot four times in the head by the foreign country’s commandos, Sherman sides with the foreign nation and calls for the Americans involved to be imprisoned.  I spent the last week emailing with Sherman’s Communications Director, Matt Farrauto, in an attempt to schedule a podcast interview (or other type of interview) with Sherman about his demands.  Suffice to say, I have some questions to ask Sherman about his ideas.  After repeatedly indicating that he would try to schedule something, Farrauto — who sent me a pro forma statement from Sherman on this matter — emailed last night to say, without explanation:  ”Not sure that I’m going to get him for an interview. Is the statement useful for your purposes?”

I asked Farrauto whether Sherman has agreed to any interviews where he faced skeptical or adversarial questions about his radical call for American citizens to be prosecuted for trying to deliver humanitarian aid in violation of Israel’s wishes.  He hasn’t responded, and I’ll post any response I get.  But that’s Brad Sherman:  cowardly issuing demands like that in front of highly sympathetic Israel activists, but then refusing to answer actual questions about it.

UPDATE:  Earlier in the week, McClatchy obtained internal Israeli documents demonstrating that the purpose of the blockade isn’t about security but, rather, “economic warfare.”  Meanwhile, M.J. Rosenberg writes about the numerous Congressional Democrats lining up to support Israel’s attack on the flotilla.

UPDATE II:  The aforementioned Matt Yglesias, of the aforementioned CAP, has a post condemning what he calls Schumer’s “disgusting” remarks, and he adds some thoughts about Israel and Gaza generally.

Chuck Schumer

Helen Thomas made an indefensible and impulsive comment that she subsequently apologized for, and now is being branded an “anti-Semite” and the “scum of the earth.” Not only has she apologized but she has essentially been forced to retire.

It is sad that her whole career will be overshadowed by one statement made by a questionable guy sticking a camera in her face. She let her emotions get the best of her, something we can all relate to, but I don’t agree with those who are impugning from her comment that she implied Jews should be ethnically cleansed.

However, insert Chuck Schumer into the equation, a life long advocate of the belief, “Israel is right no matter what,” who was speaking at an Orthodox Union dinner in which he said ‘we should strangle the Gazans economically until they moderate.’

Think Progress:

This past Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) delivered a wide-ranging speech at an Orthodox Union event in Washington, D.C. The senator’s lecture touched on areas such as Iran’s nuclear program, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and several domestic policy issues.

During one point of his speech, Schumer turned his attention to the situation in Gaza. He told the audience that the “Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution,” and also that “they don’t believe in the Torah, in David.” He went on to say “you have to force them to say Israel is here to stay.”

New York’s senior senator explained that the current Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip — which is causing a humanitarian crisis there — is not only justified because it keeps weapons out of the Palestinian territory, but also because it shows the Palestinians living there that “when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement.” Summing up his feelings, Schumer emphasized the need to “to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense”

Read the whole story: Think Progress

Outrageous isn’t it? But do you think Chuck Schumer will apologize let alone be forced into retirement? The truth is that anti-Palestinian remarks will not get you into trouble, in fact they might boost your votes depending on where you live.

An interesting aside here is that Schumer got something else wrong as well. He stated that Palestinians don’t believe in “David or the Torah.” This statement was obviously directed at Palestinian Muslims who make up the majority of Palestinians (he can’t be referring to Christian Palestinians who obviously believe in the Old Testament).

Unfortunately the ignorance of our elected officials know no bounds. Schumer doesn’t know much about Islam, and probably hasn’t read the Quran, because if he did he would realize that David, or in Arabic Dawood, is one of the most revered prophets of Islam. The Quran also calls on Muslims to affirm belief in the Torah and all Heavenly revealed books from God, to do otherwise is contrary to basic Islamic creed and puts one outside the pale of Islam.

If he was following recent news he would also have noted that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas quite controversially stated his belief in the legitimacy of Jewish claims to Israel deriving from the Quran,

Reports of Abbas’s remarks were met with seeming disbelief in the Arab media and led an Al Jazeera reporter later that day to ask him if the reports were correct. Abbas replied, “Jews are there, and when you read the Holy Koran you have it there. That’s what I said.”

Cenk Uygur had some excellent commentary on the hypocritical double standards that this situation highlights,

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks#p/u/11/-Vr3zCy8V2U 350 300]

Bill Maher on the other hand seems to think that Israel is besieged in the press. Here he goes toe to toe with Oliver Stone.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdaNCjp1ni0&feature=player_embedded 350 300]

What do you think?

(cross-posted from NYMag)

The uproar over a proposed mosque near ground zero is predicated around the idea that this specific site was inappropriate for a mosque because of its proximity to the place where Islamic terrorists killed thousands of Americans. The logic is still, not even very subtly, anti-Muslim — it only makes sense if you believe that Muslim-American worshipers are sympathetic to Muslim terrorists. Now a community on Staten Island is opposing another proposed mosque, and without the pretense that it’s motivated by anything but outright hostility toward Muslims.

On Wednesday night, a meeting was held by the Midland Beach Civic Association to bring together representatives of the Muslim American Society — who want to turn an empty convent there into a mosque — and the locals who want nothing to do with them. It wasn’t exactly a “civic” dialogue. The men were asked whether they realized that “every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque,” and their organization was falsely accused of being on the FBI’s terrorist watch list. Their answers were drowned out by “catcalls and boos.” At one point a veteran of the war in Afghanistan tried to broker the peace.

Mr. Finnegan said he was a Marine lance corporal, home from Afghanistan, where he had worked as a mediator with warring tribes.

After the sustained standing ovation that followed his introduction, he turned to the Muslims on the panel: “My question to you is, will you work to form a cohesive bond with the people of this community?” The men said yes.

Then he turned to the crowd. “And will you work to form a cohesive bond with these people — your new neighbors?”

The crowd erupted in boos. “No!” someone shouted.

Sad.

Heated Opposition to a Proposed Mosque [NYT]

(cross-posted from Stageleft)

The anti-Muslim movement is a curious blend of old-fashioned racism, naive nativism, fear, and the brute, thuggish rage that infects a diseased minority in every generation and finds its scapegoat in every culture. Because it’s irrational to its core, it shuns reasoned discussion, which it dismisses as weakness or “appeasement”. Instead, it relies on theatre and crude sloganeering (Not All Terrorists Are Muslim, But All Muslims Are Terrorists!!) to make its “points”.

One of the most recent flashpoints for these racist rage-junkies is the “plan” to build a “Mega Mosque” on the site of Ground Zero in Manhattan, as a clear act of aggression and provocation against the Forces of Decency. (Those forces of decency, by the way, apparently don’t include the Borough of Manhattan, the City of New York or its Mayor Michael Bloomberg, all of whom support the project.)

Oh, they’re whippin’ themselves into a fine lather about this. A rally last week at week at Ground Zero drew between 300 (according to CNN) and 10,000 (according to Jihad Watch) people (that’s quite a disparity, isn’t it?) who want to see the site turned into a “War Memorial” instead of a Mega Mosque.

Now, we know these folks have problems with basic facts (I’m thinking lunatic teabagger Mark Williams, who doesn’t know that Hindus and Muslims worship different gods.) But the movement to prevent the building of a Mega Mosque at Ground Zero requires a suspension of reason that’s an order of magnitude above the shield of willful ignorance that usually protects these tiny, fragile minds. That’s because:

a) The “Mega Mosque” is not a “Mosque” – mega, maxi, or mini. It’s a 13-story community center that will include a prayer room, a performing art center, a gym, swimming pool and other public spaces. It will be open to everyone.

b) The community centre will not be situated at Ground Zero. It’s being built on the site of an old factory two blocks away. Organizers of the demonstration wisely opted to stage their drama at a more iconic location, rather than at the site itself. Better rage generation, you see.

So to summarize – a community centre open to the public and supported by the City and the Borough is being built blocks away from Ground Zero.

End of story? Of course not. Like the Flying Imams, or the Syrian Band, or the Flight 93 Memorial Conspiracy, this will enter Hater’s History as yet another imaginary Muzzie offense. They’re already amping up the ersatz rage with the rumour that the centre will be dedicated (or opened, depending on some) on 9/11/11, a notion I can find not a single actual piece of online confirmation for.

But it doesn’t matter. The Not-Mosque will be built at Not-Ground- Zero and opened on not 9/11/11, the world will move on, and the Haters will add this to their catalogue of non-history, and move on to another fantasy.

Coda: The story was most recently highlighted in Canada by our own indefatigable A Drain McNair, who couldn’t understand why a Muslim reader was offended by his misrepresentation of the project. The Drain concludes with superior sniff: “Some people just can’t handle the truth about Islam”. Indeed, Drain. Delete those last two words, and you’ve just about got it.

We did a piece on the statistics of European terrorism quite some time ago, and now more evidence that “terror” from Muslims in Europe is an overblown threat. (hat tip: iSherif)

Terror attacks decrease in Europe

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Fewer than 300 acts of terrorism were registered in Europe last year and only one was an attack from an Islamist group, with most of them committed by separatist organisations in Spain and France, EU’s police agency Europol reports.

A total of 294 terrorist acts were reported in EU member states in 2009, representing a 33 percent drop compared to the previous year and half the number of attacks registered in 2007, Europol said Wednesday (28 April).

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